March progress

So, from the knitting impaired - so far, I have ONE hat out of the hopefull three I was shooting for:



This was done with a simple e loop - which was the only stitch (besides e loop ribbing done on a long loom BUT knit flat). So, it's a twisted stitch stockinette hat.

I'm also working on the baby blanket that is more than half done... also picked up a book for more 'loom' stitches... which taught me a lot. I'm looking forward to trying something a little more involved.

I'm hoping some dedicated time will get the baby blanket finished by Saturday - it's ribbing, but still done with e loops - so still twisted. I did a panel half pink and tried-to-be-half variegated, but the length of the skein was shorter on the variagated. I'm starting the second panel with variagated; and will add from a third skein to try to get it as long as the pink square on the first panel. If when I'm done, my goal is to have two blocks of pink catty-corner to two blocks of variagated. If need be, I can undo the cast off on the first panel and add more length to it. We'll see... definitely an iffy project.

BUT - good news is that the doctor declares that I should be good as new in two to four weeks. So, I'll spend the time working on a project for me using some of the new stitches I've learned - to be determined yet. And can't wait to start truly knitting again!

And it's just in time too, I have a new knitting class starting up middle of April!

Still quite upset with myself

Stooooopid arm.

I did manage to pick up the needles enough last week to prove to myself that my hybrid cottage industry style/continental style could work even with a broken right arm... exceptionally slow. But enough for the demonstrations I needed to do to teach Thursday night.

Not fast enough to even bother trying to make something. However! The knitting loom? I can totally do that left-handed. And my right arm just acts like a dumb weight on the loom.

New March plans are to make 3 hats and a baby blanket on the loom. Wish me luck, because most of my free time right now is more focused on sleeping than anything else.

March plans (or lack thereof)

Finish my heavily cabled sweater.

Make a new sweater from scratch - from some sort of pattern, from some sort of yarn. Originally had planned an Alpaca long-sleeved sweater 'Ramona'. But a) I'm not sure the yarn is right for it and b) I don't think I want to finish a long sleeved sweater in Alpaca by the end of March (too hot to wear). So, then I was looking at a short sleeved cardigan in a different Alpaca yarn. But my allergies are kicking up, and I'm not sure I want to expose myself too much to Alpaca right now when I have experienced some 'slight' itching to it in the past. My wool allergy used to be slight itching, to major itching has now turned into Hives. So, I'm thinking non-animal fiber right now.

So, still looking at my stash and my queue of patterns I want to make. Haven't made a decision yet.

For non-sweater projects:

I would like to make 10 charity hats (since I didn't finish that many last month).
I want to crochet a 2 hour baby blanket.
A 12"x12" block for another baby blanket.
Finish my Kingdom Gloves I started last month.

Non-sweater knitting progress report - February

Day one - one cat blanket about 18" x 18" done


Get to 50% done on Cabled Gloves - about 30% - so a little behind, but am hoping to have finished by third week of March, so we're still in the game


12 jellyfish hats (< 2 hours each) - 3 done of the 12, no new progress to report, if I can get my project bag finished by tomorrow night, I'll come back and work on these again.

Felted Knitted project bag - about 75% done - have one more panel to go, then seaming, then picking up and knitting the top border and handles.


1 Scarf - changed this to a COWL - done


1 12" Blanket Square - not started yet Decided to do a second cowl instead - love, love, love how quick these work up. done


little Gnome House for my son's stuffie done

Sweater #3 of 12

Finished

Please ignore dirty floor...sigh.

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Lia - Sweater Surgery (photo heavy)

There's a little bit of scarring, but honestly? The surgery went pretty darn well!

I promised some photos...

First - here's the bottom of the sleeve (not a great shot, but eh - camera phone on lap while performing surgery - good enough):



The little bit of twist you see at the left edge? That's the cable where it is now. It's supposed to be on the two sections of ribbing on the right edge.

I've inserted a cable needle into the stitches I want to save ABOVE the increase/decrease/cabling section I'm going to redo.



Here I've snipped a thread in the middle and started to unravel a single row going both left & right - the snipped ends won't get reknit - instead I'll leave them at the edges of the surgery and weave them in after I finish.



Here I've picked up the stitches above the currently cabled section and placed them on a double point needle to deal with later.



Next, I dropped down several rows (one for each 'ladder' of yarn you see here) for the not cabled section that I wanted to repair first.



Then I took each ladder - bottom rung first - and knit with that yarn the section that needed to be cabled.



Here it is with the right side cabled. I repeated that process for the left side to remove the cabling.



The last row to work is the row that I snipped & unraveled. At this point, I picked up new yarn from the yarn left over from working the sweater and I used a yarn needle to start grafting.



It's K3P2 ribbing - so I needed a little guidance - found my old link to a tutorial that works out pretty well.



It's not 'prefect as there's an occasional loop going the wrong way on a knit stitch. AND I focused so much on not making my grafting too small (which is my norm) that some of the stitches came out a little larger than I had hoped. But with a little blocking and creative weaving in of ends there will only be the slightest of scarring.

I have already picked out and redone the shoulder seams and seamed the left sleeve onto the correct side of the sweater. So, all that's left now is to seam the right sleeve and block it. It was getting late last night or I might have thought about pushing through to finish it then. But hopefully by the end of tonight - I will have sweater three of twelve finished.

Lia Update

I was so sure that I would be posting a Finished Sweater this week.... not so, I have some repairs to make.

I might even have to do a little surgery to fix it. Expect a photo-heavy post(s) next week and I'll try to show the issues and the fixes.

Half-way done with the Cabled Sweater

Want to finish by March - so this is good, steady progress and puts me right on time to finish when I want. Of course, it'll be sad to finish this just as spring hits and I'll have less occasion to wear it. But such is the curse of the person who knits the current season instead of planning ahead better. :-)

I'm hoping to have Lia sweater finished before the end of the week.

February progress on plans

• Day one - finish a WIP - since three of the projects will take far too long to finish tomorrow - I might seam some of those squares for the ARL for their cats
  one cat blanket about 18" x 18" done


• Get to 50% done on Cabled Gloves - about 2% done


• 12 jellyfish hats (< 2 hours each) - 3 done of the 12


• Felted Knitted project bag - not started yet


• 1 Scarf - changed this to a COWL - done


• 1 12" Blanket Square - not started yet


• 2-hr Crocheted Baby Blanket - changed this to a little Gnome House for my son's stuffie and pet rock. He's been begging me to make something and I think I have a fun twist to do to make it worth my while. - 50% done

Sweater progress

Heavily Cabled sweater is about 40% complete:
I've finished both sleeves and have knit the body in the round for about 6 1/2 inches:



It takes me about 15 minutes for every two rows (cabling only on odd rows). I've had a couple of mistakes where I either tinked back a few stitches or where I dropped stitches down on the next row and reknit a small section. But none of the mistakes have been big... mostly just losing track of which row I was on. And all easily fixed. Have to say it's been an extremely enjoyable knit and not nearly as stressful as I thought it might be.


Lia - Bulky sweater: is about 60% complete



As promised by the designer, this is a super-fast knit. Using bulky yarn and size 9 needles. It doesn't look like it will fit in this shot - because the ribs pull in so tight, but it fits my size 12 body quite well with some negative ease. I have to admit to having gotten nervous quite a bit of the time during the knitting thinking this will never fit. So last night, after I seamed the shoulders I put it on, one more time, for the final check. Sure enough, it's got a flattering fit. I added an extra inch to the length before starting the cabled panel at front/center and I added the optional short-row shaping for the bust which adds a little more length as well as brings up the v-neck to a slightly shorter length. Both of which will make it acceptable for work-wear.

I anticipate getting the Lia sweater finished by next weekend. The Cabled sweater to 50% by the weekend after that. I'll probably set aside the cabled sweater until March so as to work on some of my smaller projects for a little while.

-- January end results; plans for February

This is what I finished:

2 Sweaters (one was 99% done before January)
1 pair of gloves
5 hats
1 12" square for a baby blanket
1 scarf
1 small toy Lion

WIPs:

1 Sweater - Cabled Sweater at 33% done
1 Baby Blanket - about 33% done
1 Hat - about 75% done
1 pair of Gloves - about 5% done

Hibernating Projects:

1 overly large toy Alligator (reserving the right to call it a crocodile if the mouth/teeth don't work out)
Lots of Blanket squares to seam together for something
Master Knitter's Program Level 1 swatches

February Plans:
Day one - finish a WIP - since three of the projects will take far too long to finish tomorrow - I might seam some of those squares for the ARL for their cats


Get to 66% done on Cabled Sweater
Get to 50% done on Cabled Gloves
Lia sweater
12 jellyfish hats (< 2 hours each)
Felted Knitted project bag
1 Scarf
1 12" Blanket Square
2-hr Crocheted Baby Blanket

February Sweater Plans

This will be the fourth sweater in the plans -- a photo from the Ravelry project page:



Lia (Rav link) is a bulky weight sweater with mild cabling and a super quick knit. I'm going to use Berroco Weekend Chunky yarn in Starry Night color way (a very pretty dark blue, not quite navy color).

I'm waiting until the first to cast on; am loving it!

---

On the cabled sweater news front? The ribbing is fun to knit and even though I haven't had a ton of time to work on it, going quite quickly. Last night though, sadly I hit upon a circular needle join failure. It's the first time I've ever had an addi turbo circular needle fail. I was a little shocked because I've had so much success with their needles and it took a few seconds for it to sink in. Thankfully, it's a size 4 which is my most common size to need and I happen to have a second one that was even a) long enough and b) with nothing on the needles... so I quickly picked up the fallen stitches with it; knit off the back end of the needle that had failed and then was able to finish knitting around... so I didn't lose hardly any time.

For the rest of the evening, I kept picking up the broken addi and giving it a dirty look. When I got ready for bed I threw it away in the trashcan; but felt I was missing something... should I have done a ceremonial disposal, I thought? My addi's are my favorite knitting tools. Somehow tossing them into the bin seems inadequate. That needle has worked on so many of my favorite projects.

My original plans were to save up to purchase a set of addi clicks this spring/summer... still debating on buying lace tips or not; now that they are coming out with longer needle lace tips, I was debating those... but now, I'm a little concerned. Are they really worth the extra money like I think they are? Folks say they really like the Knit Picks Options set. I'm not sure I trust them when they say the cables are as flexible as Addi's cables are.... so much to figure out.

-- All Knitting Status

4) As soon as OWL is approved cast on for Cabled Sweater by Bernat - get it to the 40% finished mark and go back and keep working on Pick, Pick, Pick it up Pattern until it's done.Cast-on; sleeves done, cast-on and knit all but a couple of rows of the body... will finish ribbing and set aside until Feb 1.

6) Second portable/simple project - pair of simple, worsted weight gloves - DONE

7) a half-dozen more Brioche Stitch hats (as time permits) - Going to work on this weekend

8) Would also like to find time to do a 12" square for a contribution to a friend's baby blanket. DONE

NEW) Since I finished everything in my target, with the exception of my hats... I've also picked up an old WIP - a baby blanket that is going QUITE SLOW (hence the putting aside). I figure when I get tired of working on hats, I'll work on the blanket. When I get tired of working on the blanket, I'll pick up the hats.

I'm heading to a local Knitting Retreat this weekend, so I should have a TON of knitting/chatting time and both the blanket and the hats are good for chatty knitting time as I can practically do both in my sleep.