tara gets crafty!

FO: Quigley

2009-08-11T04:01:33Z

I haven't updated this journal in 31 weeks! But I've caught the knitting bug & bought a journal filled with graph paper (at 5am this morning, I bolted out of bed to sketch an idea). I've been practicing fair isle, borrowing back issues of Vogue Knitting from the library, & annoying all of my Twitter friends with frequent updates about what I want to knit next & how I would really love some malagbrigo lace yarn & how much happier I would be if I just knit for the rest of my life & drop all other activities.

This is Quigley, named after Quigley Quagmire from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I know it's a rather feminine sweater to be named after a boy, but I was reading the last few books of the series as I completed knitting, & Quigley stuck out to me the most.

It's a little wonky. The buttonholes made my stripes crooked, my decreases at the bottom are not as smooth as they could be, & the seed stitch edges just ... don't look that great. (I'm a bad knitter & have not yet blocked it, though it was knit with acrylic so my hopes are not high.) I hope to knit a second sweater & write up instructions as I go, & then I'd like to make another without the curved bottom, & possibly with inside pockets.

working on a new pattern!

2009-01-04T12:27:58Z

on christmas day i started knitting a hat of my own design. i finished it just a few days later, but the brim was freakin' gigantic, so i've since ripped that part out. because of the increases in my pattern, i got all messed up when trying to knit a new brim onto the hat (yo's RUIN MY LIFE when fixing mistakes), so it's been lying in a little heap on my bedroom floor ever since.

it's almost 7:30am & my sleep schedule is backwards (oh, unemployment!), so i'm sitting here trying to fix the stupid thing once & for all. i've knit a new brim, & will now attempt to put it all together with the kitchener stitch. man, i hope this works.

i know the top needs some work, & you can't tell at all what the stitch pattern is, but i like it anyway. it's my first time ever working with variegated yarn, which i usually don't like much! TLC essentials in oasis. very pretty, especially for acrylic. i'm planning on knitting another version of the hat in very thin yarn (perhaps even sock yarn), as i'm hoping the stitch will show & hang better that way.

craftytara @ 2008-12-19T01:39:00

2008-12-19T07:14:29Z

i just wanted to make a list of my favourite stitch patterns found at the walker treasury project, so i can't forget! the place is amazing. now i know which books to buy, when i want stitch dictionaries!

a treasury of knitting patterns:
- feathered lace ladders
- plaited basket weave
- ripple stitch
- seeded chevron

a second treasury of knitting patterns:
- swedish weave
- twilled stripe
- tiny check
- rickrack stripe
- checked rose fabric
- woven plaid
- brocade chevron

a fourth treasury of knitting patterns:
- traveling rib
- new wave
- framed diamond lace

i'm still dying to know where i found the instructions for this lily lace pattern; i know i knit up a swatch of it once, but now i can't find anything. maybe i just made it up based on the photos? i should try again, i have an idea i want to try out.

completed unrelated to the rest of this entry, i found a mary maxim catalogue of my grandmother's from 1960, & i am extremely tempted to knit myself a silly cardigan with an intarsia animal on the front. i'll be the envy of the city, i just know it.

hermione's cable & eyelet hat

2008-12-17T03:18:57Z

completed hermione's cable & eyelet hat (pattern / ravelry) from half-blood prince! gave me a few troubles -- had to add another cable repeat than what my gauge actually called for (which took me an embarrassingly long time to realize); i dropped a stitch on the second-to-last cable row & had to secure it in the back (luckily it can't be seen); & also it's a little longer than it needs to be. could've done with a few less rows of ribbing, i think. my eyelets aren't very nice-looking at all (& it looks like there's a mistake in the photo?! i never saw that before!!). but, what can you do.

other than that, it was really fun to knit & i've finally got myself a potter knit!

my ravelry project link can be found here. add me if you haven't already!

version one, YIKES. so glad i started over.

lucky 18!

2008-12-13T22:06:48Z

i finished jenn's hat! it's her birthday on monday, so we're having a celebratory dinner-and-a-movie night tonight. i can't wait to give it to her! it was knit using knittywhipped's lucky 7 pattern (ravelry / pattern).

the pattern was super easy. the only thing i noticed is that it wasn't quite long enough -- i began decreasing, then put a piece of yarn through the stitches & tried it on. it was so tiny! jenn, her twin sister amanda, & myself took some interesting photos with the little hat, hahaha. i think i had to another one or two cables, so now it fits perfectly. i'm very happy with it, i hope jenn likes it! she picked the most perfect button for it, too. i think i'll ask amanda if she'd like a hat too, they're just so much fun to make. i've got an idea for the boyfriend's hat too, i found a pattern at the knit café for a reversible stockinette hat i think he might like.

craftytara @ 2008-12-11T16:24:00

2008-12-11T21:31:05Z

i'm baaaaaack!

- knit the cabled hat you see below for my bff jenn!
- will be starting matching mittens!
- am now working on hermione's HBP cable & eyelet hat ... which does not look right.
- will also be starting another hat for the boyfriend.

i never really liked hats much before, but they're so fun & quick!

i had to pick up some smaller needles for the mittens & for hermione's hat, so i went to the knit café on queen west for the first time in over a year. oh my gosh, they were SO wonderful there. the two employees kept telling me how beautiful the practice mittens i'd started were, & they were so much help, even picked out a few hat patterns for me. they told me to come back & sit with them to knit one day, which hopefully i'll do soon!

craftytara @ 2007-10-22T16:19:00

2007-10-22T20:24:29Z

me: i've been knitting for about 12 hours now.
mom: you're crazy.
me: my fingers hurt.
mom: then stop.
me: I CAN'T STOP I NEED TO FINISH I ALREADY KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO NEXT!

that 12 hours turned into around 15, before i gave up and went to sleep. unfortunately, i'm no faster than i was a year ago, so the sweater still isn't finished. two days past my deadline. even so, for me, it's coming along pretty well:

it's roomy, but not as huge as i feared it would be. hopefully i'll actually wear it. i've been endlessly searching websites for clothing stores, saving images to my computer for knitting inspiration. i've saved some really nice things! i already have my next project lined up; something small and quick that will allow me to get some more practice knitting cables. i'm excited!

craftytara @ 2007-10-17T09:26:00

2007-10-17T13:27:27Z

i'm back! i haven't done much lately (i painted my shoes in august and i knit another hat in september), but now i've finally got a new project.

i ditched the idea of my cream-coloured lacy hoodie. it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. on saturday, i woke up, started a new sweater, and knit for hours. i've had the idea in my head for a very long time: a simple purple and black, v-neck striped raglan. i had some black leftover from the hat, and happened to have a couple gigantic skeins of this weird, tweedy, purple-with-white-and-blue acrylic. it's rougher and a little thicker than the black, but i'm not the kind of knitter who sticks to gauge rules. oooh, rebellion.

progress:

it looks rather big but i'm hoping that's just the circs stretching the fabric. but even if so, my last sweater came out much tighter than i wanted it to, so i'll be glad for one that doesn't cling to my skin. and speaking of the last sweater, i think i made that two summers ago and it took me the entire month of august!! i'm going to try to finish this one by the end of the weekend. thank god for TV and train rides.

craftytara @ 2007-08-25T05:34:00

2007-08-25T10:13:27Z

it is very, very hard to take a picture of the back of your head.
also, it's five in the morning. what can you do!

after a lot of guesswork & having to pull out many, many rows -- too big, too small, just right -- the hat is finished! i made a pompom for it, but the only yarn i had left had been knitted. so it's a very curly pompom, and i haven't decided if i want it on yet.

view from the front, & the only good picture i had with the pompom.

THE PATTERN

MATERIALS:
- less than a skein of bernat satin, i believe it is!
(it's cheapo acrylic stuff, but it's amazingly soft & warm.)
- 1 set of 3mm circular needles
- 1 set of 4.5mm circular needles
- 1 set (4) 4.5mm double-pointed needles
- tapestry needle
- scissors

TERMS:
ssk = slip two stitches knit-wise, and knit them together

GAUGE:
5 rows/7 sts = 1 inch (4.5mm needles)

CO 96 sts with the smaller circulars.

rows 1-6: (k1, p1) to end of row.
row 7: place all sts on the larger circulars. (k1, m1, p1) until end of row. you should now have 144 sts.
rows 8-22: (k2, p1) until end of row.
row 23: (k2, p1) the first 17 sts, ssk. *(k2, p1) the next 16 sts, ssk. repeat from * until end of row.

keep knitting around and around, making regular decreases. when you see that you made a decrease in the previous row, you know it's time to make another. (note: if this or any other part of the pattern is terribly unclear, please let me know!) when your stitches become so few that it's hard to knit using the circular needle, transfer to your DPNs.

FINISHING:
keep decreasing until you get to the very tip of the hat, and there's no hole left. bind off any extra stitches, and slip the tail of the yarn onto a tapestry needle. thread the yarn through to the inside of the hat, and sew the yarn into it as you would any other finished garment. if you would like a pompom, i followed these instructions to make mine!

feel free to ask any questions about the project or the pattern (it's the first i've written!). i would also love to hear any opinions for or against using the pompom. ;D

craftytara @ 2007-08-21T12:44:00

2007-08-21T16:50:41Z

so i was right about my sweater: the knitting didn't meet underneath my arms, so the sleeves were too small. i had frogged & restarted, but then i asked the folks at knitting about zippers, and learned about selvage stitches! (why don't websites teach you that in the beginning?) so i'm going to restart a third time, and hopefully it will turn out.

casting on & frogging & casting on again gets annoying pretty quickly, so i'm making myself a hat. a finished object will motivate me! it's a SUPER fast knit and i think it's really cute, too. i need to do a bit of backtracking, because i began decreasing too late and i don't want it that big, so i'll do that tonight.

some better pictures & a pattern once it's finished! it's the easiest thing ever made, and i love it already. :D

work in progress!

2007-08-11T05:10:24Z

i started my sweater a couple days ago! i drew a much better sketch as well (see design on the left). i bought some cascade superwash 220, and after some trouble casting on (i can never figure out how many stitches i need for each section of a raglan ...), i think i'm doing alright! i'm a slow knitter. i only knit on the train on the way to work, and sometimes a bit before bed, so this is pretty good in my opinion. :D

i've already discovered some mistakes. i had thought of making a chart for the lace, to remind myself where to stick some k2tog's (to make up for the increases necessary for raglans), but i didn't. so the pretty holes that edge the sleeves are a little uneven. and i'm still unsure as to the sizing of the sleeves; i don't know if they're wide enough to attach underneath my arm when the knitting reaches that point! but we'll see. i may not be an expert but i should still learn to trust myself.

it's so exciting to be working on something again!

july sweater design

2007-07-28T05:08:37Z

i'm finally designing a new sweater. hopefully this time i'll actually write a pattern, rather than just throwing it all together and forgetting exactly what i did, like last time! i'm really, really excited for this one.

it's going to be a zip-up hoodie, with razor shell lace (a thinner version of katie's) for the lower body, and all down the sleeves (which will probably be 3/4-length, but i haven't decided on that 100%). i want to knit it in a cream or off-white colour, with a brightly-coloured zipper and hood lining. but let's see how it goes! i'm heading to toronto's knit café sometime next week.