The Yarn Fairy
Hey look! The Yarn Fairy came to my house. And she brought her label maker too.
I see felted purses, scarves, and sweaters in my future.
Today’s the last day of the Webs Anniversary Sale. I resisted buying more yarn. I’ve got a lot of yarn for a lot of projects. I’m sure this will keep me busy through the summer and on our various driving trips.
Soleil Roadblock
I think it may be time to frog a bit of my Soleil.
I’ve been moving along on my Soleil quite well. Then it was time to finally divide for the neckline. Now I was no longer knitting in the round, but back and forth on the circulars. A few rows later I discovered that the rows I purled were really loose compared to my knit rows. There’s a terrible bump that runs across my whole first purl row. I did a few more rows to see if I could tighten up my purling. They’re better. But now I have to decide if I’m going to rip back to the beginning of the neckline.
There was no knitting drop-in at Webs yesterday so I’m putting away Soleil until next week. Now I’m working on a swatch for my next project, Nothing But a T-Shirt found at MagKnits.com. I’ll be using Jo Sharp Desert Garden (another Webs closeout yarn) in Cinnamon for the main color and Solstice for the accent color. The pattern actually calls for Rowan Calmer which Webs doesn’t carry. I went over to Northampton Wools yesterday to check out the Calmer, and it is sooo nice, but a good chunk more money too. Maybe if this T turns out well and I like the pattern, I get some of the Calmer and make another sweater.
Peek-a-boob
I’m so excited about the new nursing tank at Knitty. Why couldn’t it have come out before my son weaned?
If only one of my nursing friends would wear a tank like this. I’d consider making it for her. But I would change the hem. And I can’t imagine wearing this top without a bra if I was a DD.
Vacuuming an Enormous Potato
I can’t believe I would ever say this, but I hate vacuuming enormous potatoes.
Ella’s kindergarten class is putting on a production of The Enormous Potato this Thursday and Friday. They needed some help making the Enormous Potato. I volunteered to make the potato even though I’m not a good sewer and I really don’t like sewing. (Despite all the years of patient teaching from my mother.) You know the saying, “Measure twice, cut once?” Well I should have measured twice, bought once. When I sat down on Sunday to start the potato, I didn’t even have close to the amount of fabric I needed. What was I thinking? Back to the fabric store on Monday where I bought too much fabric this time, better than not enough.
Well it turns out the sewing was not the hardest part of this project, sewing actually went well. The time consuming part was the stuffing and vacuuming of the potato. I was given five bags of shredded poly foam. But this wasn’t enough for an “enormous” potato. So I supplemented with balloons and newspaper. But the really annoying part was that the evil shredded poly foam stuck to the fleece fabric like really strong Velcro. Tape worked a little and vacuuming worked all right. But the foam was stubborn and I probably spent over an hour trying to get it off of the fabric so that the potato didn’t look like it came from a snow hill, rather than a potato hill.
The potato does look enormous and mostly brown now. Off to school to drop off the potato
Soleil-Along Has the Answers
I’ve found answers to my troubling questions from the Soleil-Along. Now I can sleep at night.
I’m approaching the divide for the neckline on my Soleil. So I read ahead in the pattern to see if I understand what’s coming up. I’ve just spent an hour in the car reading the pattern over and over trying to make sense of it. I just could not figure out how to get the numbers to work for dividing the neckline. As soon as I got home I checked out the Soleil-Along for answers. Thank goodness I found them. I was reading the pattern wrong, making incorrect assumptions. One of the responses to a person’s entry mentioned imagining working the divide for the neckline like a “C.” That was my ah-ha moment.
Now I have the crazy idea of trying to finish the top by next weekend instead of June 15th. Next week is very busy and my husband is out of town a few days too. But I can put in some late nights maybe. I think I can do it if I don’t run into any hurdles.
Too Much Knitting?
I woke up Monday morning with a terrible pain in my neck and right shoulder. Could it be too much knitting?
I did a lot of knitting on my Soleil top over the weekend. I got past the lace and I am now almost done with my decreases to the waist. But I woke up with this terrible pain Monday where I could barely turn my neck. I did notice it starting Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t stop me from knitting. I hadn’t boxed at the gym since Thursday, so I don’t think that was the cause. It must have been the knitting, right? I took all of Monday and most of Tuesday off of knitting. I did do a little knitting last night when I went to see Sin City and when I got home. I’m feeling so much better today. I think I need to pay a little more attention to my posture while knitting. Being hunched over for two hours straight is not good for my body.
Goodbye Socks, Hello Soleil
I’ve finished my Broadripple socks plus a pair of baby socks. Now I’m ready to make my tank top!
I finished my second Broadripple sock last week and it went much more smoothly than the first one. As I had mentioned before, I started knitting the first sock quite tightly. This was evident when I finished the second sock since I had fewer rows with the same size sock. It turns out that I don’t love the look of these socks. I picked this pattern since I thought it would be interesting to knit. But they are the perfect socks to wear to bed in the spring or fall. Since Cascade Fixation is such a stretchy yarn, these socks fit like a glove, but are not too tight anywhere including the cuff. I think the cuff looks a little weird with the scalloped edge. So I’ve been turning the cuff over and I like how it looks much more now.
Our neighbors had a new baby last week and I thought that was the perfect opportunity to use my leftover Fixation yarn. I typed in “Baby Socks” and “Fixation” into Google and came up with a simple and FREE sock pattern. I love the Web. The pattern used two sets of circular needles instead of double point needles, another opportunity to learn a new skill. Two days later, I had these lovely baby socks. I made the shorter version. Hopefully by using this yarn the socks will stay on the baby’s feet but not be too tight. I even have enough yarn left over to make a second pair of baby socks.
Now with the socks done, I could finally get to my Soleil tank top that I’ve been so excited to start. Webs didn’t have the recommended yarn, so I went with a different mercerized cotton, Classic Elite Yarns Provence in the Portland Teal color. And I love that the yarn is on sale now at Webs. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the lace pattern and haven’t made any big mistakes yet. But I’ve been so compulsive with placing the stitch markers and counting my stitches after every lace section to make sure I haven’t messed up. Tedious, but I haven’t had to back up more than 10 or 20 stitches.
Since this is my first big garment, I’ve been so anxious about getting the size right. My expectations are probably too high. I’m going to put all of this time into knitting the top, I want to be able to wear it and have it look good. So in hopes to stop my freaking out, I’ve been reading two knit-a-longs, Knitty.com’s message board and Soleil-Along. From these resources, I know the pattern is a little short for most so I’ll be adding some extra rows before I start the decreases. And I’ve discovered the top is supposed to be pretty low cut. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s going to be a problem or not. But I really hope I can finish this before our road trip mid-June.
