Friday, September 17, 2010

Things I have learned....

...that I really shouldn't sew something up in a hurry (and hope I can steam it out later) - the Nina Miklin wrap is a case in point, and I'm wondering whether I dare wash it very gently to see if that helps. It's an alpaca mix. My (or rather the Cog's) steam iron is not great. Has to be on maximum to generate steam, and it runs dry really quickly.

...that I really shouldn't sew something up when it's completely obvious there's something a bit wrong with one (or more) of the parts (there's a preemie baby cardigan got thrown because of it).

Remember the Sirdar Crofter ballet wrap I converted to machine knitting? I added the garter stitch bands by hand, originally - using the needle sizes recommended in the pattern. And, guess what? The bands were waaay too tight. I had knitted the garment on T2 on my Brother chunky machine - and had lots of yarn left over - and yes, it would've been better on a midgauge machine (or even on the standard machine at T10 - didn't think to try it). So, having added tight bands, and a press stud (snap fastener) and a loop/tie fastener - it fitted ok but looked terrible. When I sew things up, I sew them up really, really well. As in, can't figure out how I did it later, when I need to unpick it.

So anyroad, I unpicked the neck and the bottom bands, and knitted them at T1 on the machine, and tediously reformed every other row for garter stitch. I left the sleeve bands, as they are acceptable as-is, and the neck band is so long I would never have been able to do it in less than three pieces on the machine. The yarn being a colour-change one, it wouldn't have looked great, so I did one row of double crochet and one row of trebles instead.

So, now that the bands are half decent? The cardigan is too big. I'm guessing it's all dropped/stretched somewhat, owing to the tension not being tight enough. So, I can either put the ties and press-stud around the back, where at least it sits correctly, or I can skip the fastenings and just tie the fronts. It looks quite good the latter way, so I've left it as is, for now.

Picovoli is on the final straight, and I have learnt what M1R and M1L are. Kind of. I cast on for Galena with the yellow bamboo I snapped up from Hobbycraft, and took it on Dream Week, but it was at a too-complicated stage to be able to work on it. I hope I have enough yarn, because it was on sale and it's all gone. Haven't really had much time/energy for handicrafts lately. I'm (trying) to write up a Passap workshop for the MK Guild's Yahoo group. The house has become a bit chaotic lately, and the return of the Cog with six day's laundry hasn't helped. Monday night is housework night, but seeing as for the last two Mondays one of us has been away, not much has been done!

Saturday I have to go pick up my car, it had to have some work done on the brakes (which were fine, but squeaked like there was a trapped rodent somewhere). Then I am teaching in Northamptonshire. Sunday we'll be busy getting the house back into some sort of order.

I have a long to-do list, and yet I can't get inspired to go DO any of it. But at least the ballet wrap cardigan thingy is pretty much done.

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