welcome to last year's party (+ swatiching in the round)

i've been ogling kate's razor cami since last summer, and now i've gotten my hands on some bubblegum pink suss fishnet. it's so soft, you really can't stand it. i'll admit the lace pattern holds its own better with a less fuzzy yarn, but it's still mega cute. like kate, i think i will make the boob half stockinette. i think i will also knit it as a straight tube, as per her suggestion. i really just want to be kate when i grow up. lots of people seem to have trouble with the straps- and here's why i think that is: because the designer is an xs, her straps sit properly on her shoulders. as some of us are not 30 inches around (me), the pattern must get wider. however wide we get, our shoulders are still roughly 13" - 17" across. some people have solved this by dividing the front and back unevenly, or crossing the straps at the back in a racer-back bra fashion (my first thought). i do like kate's tube idea though- much easier.

oh swatching. i must be growing up (with great hesitation), because last night i didn't just swatch, but i swatched the pattern stitch. i learned the tubular cast-on as well- and although it takes much longer, i think it's well worth the effort. (i've also decided that i'm making every one of this woman's patterns.)

this next bit is old news to some of you, i'm sure- but i found myself trying to explain it at the lys, and at knit club. i thought this might be helpful.

now, if i hadn't learned the way to cheat at the same time i learned of the concept "swatching in the round," i never would have bothered. erin showed me over coffee one morning, and then i promptly forgot. i didn't think about it until my design class sweater somehow ended up being 40 stitches off. i couldn't understand it- all my math added up, yet here i was with a mile of extra fabric. eventually i realized that i'd written the pattern to be flat, and was now knitting in the round. why should this make such a difference? because you're NOT PURLING. your tension and stitch size change when you purl. now this may not be as drastic a difference for some knitters as it is for me, but i was a stitch off per inch.

as i said- my first thought would have been "i am NOT casting on a million stitches just for a swatch." enter cheating:

on a circular, or dpn, cast on however many stitches, and knit as per usual.


when you are done with your row, DO NOT TURN.
+slide the stitches to the other end of the needle
+pull out a long tail (should be about 3x the length of your swatch- or at least enough to stretch out your swatch without pulling)
+begin knitting from the end of the tail, about where the circle is:


you will end up with a mess of odd tails in the back, but your gauge will represent round knitting due to the lack of purls.

take another little piece of my heart...

i never understood the true meaning of "lys" until wild wools. i'm still not sure there are any out there as welcoming, comfortable, and fun as that little shop. although i've only known it a year, i feel like i'm losing my yarny home. it was a great year though- i met great people, and we took knitting to wild new places (at wild times of day).

i said it on kate's blog, but i'll say it here too: here's to giant stockings, giant dogs, and giant yarny love. many thanks, lucinda.

i win!

i'd like for you to meet the bane of my existence. le fern:




i used this pattern, and enlarged it by roughly 20% by adding one repeat (27 stitches), and 5 ferns (50 rows). i used 12 skeins of knitpicks wool of the andes in hollyberry on us size 8. the yarn had its ups and downs- it is reasonably soft, quite economical and felts very well. i know it felts well, because i lost count of the number of spit joins i had to do- it was riddled with knots. it destroyed my wooden needles (they are bright pink now), and i could not get it to stop bleeding when i washed it. i washed it in wool-wash about 5 times before soaking it in a vinegar/salt/water solution. i then washed it twice more, and the water never stopped rinsing red.

all in all though, i think it came out beautifully. it was an easy, but engaging pattern. i'm glad i did it in the recipient's favorite color, otherwise it would be awfully hard to part with.

now that i've got the shawl and then blanket out of the way, i can start knitting for fun again. what's that like?

6,762

if only it weren't red, maybe it would go faster.