Craft, Knitting

New Project: Sunday Swing Socks

I haven’t shared any knit projects in so long because I keep ripping them to shreds.

Finally the curse is broken.

It took me three tries and about three hours but I finally got into the swing of things with the Sunday Swing socks. The pattern is from Knitty and is a little spicier than your usual stockinette stitch socks but easy enough to keep up once you establish the pattern. The yarn is Jitterbug, a present to myself from a million years ago.

I fucking love this stitch definition! Look at that sock! Hot!

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Knitting

Knit, Rip, Repeat

For some reason non-knitters think knitters are zenlike grandmas, peaceful and shit all the time. This is true sometimes, as knitting is a form of meditation, but sometimes knitters can get real crazy. Just like grandmas. Because sometimes knitting sucks real real hard. Like set the house on fire with a boxed wine molotov cocktail and jump out the window screaming hard.

Tonight was one of those times. While watching Clinton’s DNC speech on YouTube I frogged not one but two projects that I’ve been working on for weeks. Scorched earth, people.

Read on and feel my perfectionist pain. Or stop now if you don’t knit, because you will be bored to tears.

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Little rip:::

**So I was so dissatisfied with my first Hill Country Hat that I decided to try again, in another yarn. Something in me said that I had to get it right, damn it. I picked up a bulky merlot colored alpaca blend that Jill had given me at least four years ago and had at it. Things went swiftly since this time I knew what I was doing, but I got too confident.

About 2-3 hours into the hat I noticed that I’d knit an extra row several inches back, making a dent in the hat’s surface and ruining the pattern. Ugh. I was about an hour or two away from finishing the hat so it was painful, but there’s no way that I could go through life with another janky Hill Country hat. I demand perfection.

 

Big rip:::

**I’ve been trying to step up my knit game and the Betty Minisweater seemed like a good choice to get me out of my funk. Also at only two balls of Cascade 220, it was super affordable at about $18 for the whole project. So, with few reservations I cast on, got gauge, then  committed to the whole shebang, starting the back of the sweater.

Forty four rows in, I realized that something looked funny with my lace. I’d knit an extra row and gone off pattern. Hrm. This seems to be a recurring problem for me. I tinked for a few rows, then got impatient and decided to rip back. I looked up a few pictures of other people’s projects on Ravelry for an idea of where to stop. Suddenly I realized that my sweater looked nothing like the pictures. Even if I blocked the fabric, it was never going to look like that pattern. I had royally messed up the Roman Stripe pattern and it was beyond repair. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. I tore it out in a huff.

Part of me wants to give up and move on to this pattern (by the same designer as the Betty pattern), but I just don’t know.

Yarniad’s Cloudy Sunday

Knitting. Sometimes it sucks.

Knitting

FO: Hill Country Hat

First FO (finished object) in knitting land in a loooooooong loooooooong time. Here’s to a healthy knitting season because August in San Francisco has turned cruel. Everyone I know is sniffling and I’m running for pho.

Pattern: Hill Country Hat

Yarn: Rowan Cocoon (80% Merino, 20% Kid Mohair) (Good bounce, hand and warmth, questionable stitch definition)

Gauge: BULKY

This one knit up super fast. It took me one craft night and maybe 2 or 3 sittings here and there, a few hours in total. It’s knit from the top down on double-pointed needles, and the pattern is simple without being boring.

Gotta say, Rowan yarns are always exquisite, but I’m really disappointed with the stitch definition of the Cocoon . Normally merino is awesome for that, but the mohair obscures all the hard work I did. Also it would have been more striking if I’d used a lighter color, but oh well. I knew what I was getting into.

Other issues: I added an extra repeat to the pattern and extra rows of ribbing at the end, but I really should have switched that- done maybe 2-3 extra pattern repeats and maybe a half inch less ribbing. But this is just my personal preference for proportion. Once you throw the hat on you forget it all, but in my head it drives me nuts.

I think someone’s going to be very happy with it!

 

Knitting

Progress, of Sorts

So I’ve got about  three weeks left to finish Thomas’s socks. What do I do? Do I buckle down and get busy? No! Of course not! Instead I started a new project :).

I stopped by Imagiknit today with Ryan to audition yarns for his hat. The bulky and soft Merino based Rowan Cocoon was the winner, and the Hill Country Hat easily filled my needs (although honestly I feel like seed stitch on hats is pretty hit or miss). It’s going F-A-S-T. I finished about a third of the hat in 45 minutes, but that’s what happens when you use size 10 1/2 needles.

It’s a pretty fun pattern. Unfortunately so far the cool texture of the stitch isn’t really showing due to the darkness of the yarn. I’m hoping that it will show a little better when it’s actually on the head.

Given time constraints, I gave up on the Java Socks today and started over, with a simple 2×2 ribbed sock. Here’s 30 minutes on size 1 needles. Oy. It’s gonna be a while!

My crappy night shots really don’t do the yarns any justice. They are both quite lovely yarns.

Knitting

Back into the Knitting Fold

So way back in the day (oh about 4 years ago), my friend Thomas asked for some socks. We dropped by the very wonderful Imagiknit and picked out a handsome bamboo/wool sock yarn. Four years later, he’s still waiting for the socks. It’s a running gag that the socks aren’t done, but this week when we met for dinner we shook hands on it- the socks will be done by Christmas! Yikes! This is pressure four years in the making! What pattern? What gauge? I’m nervous! At least the yarn is picked out.

With that project in mind, I went ahead and spent about an hour today cleaning up my yarn stash (100 balls or so), and then unwinding abandoned projects, putting my needles away, and generally taking stock of the whole mess. I also took some time to bind off and sew up a flame colored cowl in a nubby rib stitch (which I’m currently wearing). Cowls are great for those one-off balls of really great yarn.

As if on cue my procrastination nature kicked in, and I started daydreaming of several other projects that are NOT sock patterns:

-I have about 12 balls of an ancient white wooly yarn that I received from a friend months ago. I’m not really sure what to do with it. Maybe a blanket? Charity hats? An ugly sweater???

-Ryan thinks that he might want a hat. This hat on Knitty might be a fun exercise.

-Astor’s sweater… To tell you the truth, I bought her an argyle fleece hoodie months ago, and she hates it.

See? So unhappy to be wearing clothes. So I don’t really know if it’s worth it to go through with her dog sweater, which is done to about the front armholes. :/ I might frog it and use the yarn for something else.

This hat from Hello Yarn could be fun.

But the SOCKS. THE SOCKS PEOPLE. :/ I am thinking about a simple rib, with maybe a mini cable…

I did a little googling, and Knitty delivers again- the Java socks look like a lot of fun, but holy shit, they’re on size 1’s!

The original pattern photo from Knitty. Sock designers are so passionate.

Beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll be casting on tonight. It feels good to be creative again. I’ve been all work and no play for too long.