Completed Projects 2009

Last post...

...of the noughties decade, that is!

Hoping your christmas went ok. The Cog's folks have chipped in to get me a special light for putting over the knitting machine - alas, it hasn't arrived yet. The Cog himself got me a lovely BHS tunic with waterfall collar (ok so I chose it personally, but he wouldn't let me have it early!), and Parallels Desktop so that I can run PC programs on my Mac. Only got that working yesterday, as I had to order a copy of Windows XP to go with it (I don't do no steenking Vista! Too crashy crashy!). Also bought all three copies of Knitware - if you haven't tried this software yet, what are you waiting for? It calculates a range of garments from a simple tension swatch, and it works for hand-knitting and crochet too!

Other top presents? A bottle of Malibu (cheers sis!), some M&S vouchers, some Lush bath bombs, and an Eddie Izzard DVD. And some damson wine (thanks Mum!) which did not make it past the 27th, haha!

Xmas day was spent with the Cog's folks - I came second in the game of Life, which was a surprise as I was last throughout. Boxing day we were at my sister's, eating way too much naughty food. The rest of the week I've been knitting on and off, and getting my entire music collection onto Itunes and organised properly. The Cog and I are having a private rock disco tonight (complete with disco lights!) to see the new year in. Oh, and there'll be some pink fizz, too, haha! I think we're down to the last mince pie, and all of the naughty food has been dispatched - the spirits take longer to dispose of - quite looking forward to getting back to a normal diet now.

So I guess it's traditional to make some resolutions this time of year. I'm terrible at remembering them, let alone achieving them! :)

I want to continue the weight loss I started in September (ok, so this week doesn't count, 'kay?!) so that I don't keep having to make large jumpers to fit my bazookas. I want to have a go at making a round-yoked sweater, either on the machine or by hand, possibly using the EZ formula. I want to do more on the Passap machine, I want to get my knitting room redecorated and properly organised, so that it stops looking like an explosion in a yarn factory, and I want to get cracking with more dressmaking/designing/weaving/CSM-ing.

Enough, already, ya think?! I also want to get back into music, either with the violin or the guitar, because it's rather fallen by the wayside this year, even though the acoustic guitar's been hanging around the living room for forever.

Right, well, I'm off. The Cog is making home-made pizza tonight (using up the last of the cheese!) and it's just started to snow. Best wishes to you and yours, and here's to an excellent New Year!


Current mood: happy

Black lurex top

Black lurex top
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Shoulders too wide. May take the serger to it if I can get it to do it neatly with some woolly nylon to wrap the cut.

Earflap hat

Earflap hat
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

Made for yours truly. Needs some straps and possibly a pompom. Undecided. A bit on the big size - I overestimated my head diameter! haha!

Baby cardigan

Baby cardigan
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

One of two I am making for a friend with handknitting baby acrylic. Complete nightmare, tension stripes, static problems. Never again!

WIP: CSM sock in progress

CSM sock in progress
Originally uploaded by steel breeze

First attempt at a sock, made on the since-returned Cymbal CSM. Afterthought heel in progress, ribbing created by latching down. Will probably frog it, as I don't have enough yarn for a decent sock and this is way too wide.

End of the year round up

Have had a few days off work as I had holiday to use up. I'd already got most of my xmas shopping done, and the last few things were wrapped today, plus a large food order from Sainsers came (and I promptly ran out of space to put everything).

Have had a frustrating few days on the knittng machines, making my usual daft mistakes and with the usual Aries idiocy.

Firstly, I've been asked to make two toddler cardigans for a friend. I don't usually knit for other people - people rarely want to pay for both my time AND the yarn - but she is a good friend. She supplied me with six balls of baby DK - yes, balls, so handknitting yarn. The first lesson I ever learnt in machine knitting (apart from, replace the spongebar) was that handknitting yarn is a pain to work with and is often slightly thicker than the machine knitter's coned alternative. Plus it is not treated with wax or oil to ease its passage through the carriage. So it was a simple raglan cardigan, but it caused the machine to choke and scream with static at the amount of fluff it produced. The first cardigan is made, but I'm not terribly happy with it. I made the back and fronts in one piece, to save time, but that left lines where pieces were held. I failed to knit some waste yarn over the held parts to protect them. There are also various lines in the knitting, caused by tension and static problems, and one point where I foolishly oiled the carriage (hoping it will wash out).

One thing I did try was to create a "cheat sheet" of decreases, as the V neck and raglan decreases are spaced differently - and it meant I could get on with the knitting without forgetting my place. I did it on a spreadsheet, but someone used to market a table that went up to about 500, that had been laminated - that would work, too! Definitely will do the cheat sheet again, I tend to drift off over large swatches of stocking stitch.

I made my skein of "trophy yarn" into an earflap hat, but had to make it larger to fit my big head - finally finished it, but it's actually a trifle too big now. Feh!

Yesterday, I decided to make myself a sparkly top out of some black courtelle which has a silver lurex thread through it. There was only 300g, so not enough for much. I finished it up today, but picked a dropped sleeve design. There's too much material around the sleeves, which sit strangely, so I suspect I might have to take the overlocker to it. The prpblem with having a generous bust is that dropped shoulder designs seem to assume you're the same diameter at the shoulders (ie an American footballer!) :) Next time I'll do a raglan - serves me right for trying to save time.

Back in January, I cam up with some challenges I wanted to tackle. Out of 9 things, I managed probably 5 things, and the only technique that became a garment was the two-coloured slip stitch jumper. I still want to make some garments incorporating double-bed jacquard, pile stitch, the garter carriage and intarsia. Maybe next year. In my defence, I wasn't actually home for a good few weeks this year, and when I was, I was at college, sewing!

So, a busy year, but not necessarily as much mk output as I'd've liked. Ah well, did a few swatches when I did the black lurex, so I have plenty to think on over the xmas break.

Best wishes to all my readers for the Christmas break, and I hope you have a peaceful and restful New Year. I'll post some photos soon, I promise!

Not paying attention...

... so I've got to rip back 6 or so rounds on the earflap hat, because my decreases are all over the shop. I was too busy yakking on Wednesday night methinks. Plus, being an idiot, when I rescaled the pattern to fit my (big) head, I failed to make it divide by 9. It was supposed to be 81 stitches and I made it 112. I'm determined I shan't start from scratch, so it will have to stand as is. It'll be near enough, anyway.

Hoping to start work on a new machine knitting project on Sunday, if I can just locate the original swatch and figure out if I have enough yarn for what I want to do. Let's ignore the fact I have quite a few UFOs that I should really tackle first, eh?!

Dressmaking class has now finished for the year, and I've decided not to re-enroll on any community courses next year. I'm going to try a local sewing shop instead, because it's less of a time commitment. It's still gonna screw up Wednesday nights, though, but not as much.

At class, I made a toile of a top I'm going to make, and added 2" to the bust line. Had my first go at gathering - looks great, I want to add frills to everything now - and the modified top looked ok but screamed "BOOBS!" to anyone who looked at it. Pinned one half up to where it would have been if I'd not modified it, and I actually prefer the original cut - the pattern is quite a loose fit anyway. But it was a useful exercise. Going to start the real thing tonight. Also picked up a copy of Betty Foster's "Fashion Maker", an interesting explanation of how to make lots of different tops and other things from a basic T shape. Bit 80s (think batwings!) but I'm still tempted to try it out.

Picked up the latest (5th) edition of "Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear" by Winifred Aldrich (was supposed to be xmas shopping, oops!). Anybody want my older edition - think it's the 3rd one, it has a dark turquoise cover? Added the menswear and children's wear versions to my Amazon wishlist. If they don't turn up for Christmas they'll be in my trolley come the 27th, I'm sure! :o)

Onwards into the breech...

Well, we're now descending into the crazytime that is Christmas, and despite my looking longingly at the machines, very little is getting done on them. The only machine-knitting related thing I did last week was craft a box for the new garter carriage out of a cut-down office supplies box, and buy some reinforced rails from a local friend who sells MK stuff.

Last weekend was taken up with errands and xmas/food shopping. It's not that I mind Christmas, but part of me finds it disruptive. Can't find anything in the supermarket because it's been moved to accommodate vats of goosefat (yuck!) and massive queues in any shop that might sell something that could conceivably be given as a present to someone. Felt quite sorry for the chaps in Specsavers last week, they looked so bored - glasses is one of those things you have to buy yourself, really! Might treat myself to a new pair soon, as the ones I currently wear got sat on by the other half after only three weeks. Yes, I guess I shouldn't have left them on the car seat, but equally, he should watch where he puts his butt!

I received a 72 cylinder with matching ribber this morning, courtesy of Dennis, who sold me my original refurbished CSM (I'm drawing up some transfers for him). Not sure I'm brave enough to swap cylinders out yet, something for the future methinks.

Continuing apace on the earflap hat and the Rowan Kimi. I think the hat might be a longish one (judging by various comments on Ravelry) as it's 17 cm from brim to start of decreases. We shall see. Plenty of yarn, either way. Think I blew a co-worker's mind when I mentioned that the hand-dyed, hand-spun merino I was using, cost me £20 for the 135g skein. Hey, I wouldn't knit a hat that expensive for anyone else unless it was my beloved! She clearly thought it was a ridiculous price. Well, some folks know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. You can blame slave labour for that.

I might even get some wrist-warmers out of the yarn yet, you never know!

Forwards and back...

I had one of those weekends again. Lots of enthusiasm and inspiration, and a lovely empty house with no distractions - but precious little to show for it.

Saturday I had plans to try out a tuck lace pattern on my 965i, the real lace not being very successful (and I don't have the ribber attached at the moment, Leslie, so it's not a problem caused by the tilt angle). The pattern I wanted to try was a variation on no3 from the Stitchworld book. Tried to make it with a rather thick 4ply and got nowhere, so swapped to some thin cotton. Got quite a good swatch going. As per usual, just when I thought it was going swimmingly, calamity ensued. The left edge was coming out kinda screwed up. Damaged a needle or two, and got a snarl up on the machine. Figured I'd swap out the damaged needles, and refill some from the ends of the bed at the same time. Horrors - I dug out 100 needles bought from BSK ages ago, and it turns out they are ribber needles, not main bed needles. Oops! I don't think I've ever had to replace a ribber needle. Well, maybe once. So my plans to make some cast-on rags were rather scuppered - I wanted to make a 200 stitch one - and also my plans to make a sideways knitted skirt and some xmas present scarves.

Decided to make a cast-on bonnet for the CSM. For the uninitiated, it's the equivalent of a cast-on rag for a knitting machine - a circular tube with a picot hem, which can quickly be hung on every other needle on the CSM, and is long enough to attach the buckle and weights. So it will save my having to find waste yarn and knit a 10" tube every time I want to make socks. That went rather well, using up a 50g ball of sock yarn that was bought so long ago I'd never find another in the right shade to actually make some socks with it.

Sunday I decided I'd finally do something with the blue Patons Parade I won on Ebay some time ago. Calculated a basic scoop-necked pattern and went merrily on my way - until I realized that the yarn was running out at an alarming rate, and I was going to have enough for a cropped top with no sleeves. Argh! So that kind of stalled. Can't decide whether to frog it now (I have a front, back and rolled neckline) and do something simpler, or to make it into a back for the stalled waistcoat I started a year ago which is in the pink colourway of the same yarn. To be honest, it's quite a thick yarn (T8 on the Bro 260) so I'm not entirely sure I could wear a jumper in it, it's too thick.

Had a bit of a de-stash - haven't yet tackled the big box of cones in the corner, but they are next - because there's a woman in Coventry collecting yarn for pensioners to knit blanket squares, and I promised her I'd have a sort out. It's a weird thing, but sometimes it's quite hard to let go of yarn, even when it's nasty, bright, squeaky, neon acrylic. The child in me screams "ooh, pretty, want!" :) It bears no relation to the fact that there's not enough to make anything out of it, nor the fact that the yarn in question might well be awful. It's all about the colours and textures with me. Apparently, I have no taste when faced with something colourful, or texturally interesting!

Whilst having a sort-out, I came upon some "trophy yarn" I picked up from Krafty Koala on Ravelry day in June. £20 of hand-spun merino, in beautiful variegated pastel colours. Seemed such a shame to let it sit there, forever trapped in a plastic bag, so I duly cast on a hat pattern with ear flaps (it's a free pattern on the ballband of Colinette's Iona). Despite getting very close to gauge, it became apparent that there was no way it'd fit my head - it's supposedly an adult size. Do the Welsh have smaller heads, then?! After much futzing with a calculator, I figured out how many stitches I really needed, and then tried to cast on again. Took 4-5 attempts (earflaps on inside-out, knit when I should have purled, joined in the round with a nice twist in it).