Couch Crafts

There is a phenomenon I’ve discovered while knitting clothes for myself that I simply do not understand.

I am a small person. I’m 5′0″ and usually wear petite clothes. Yet somehow when I measure a shirt while knitting, I realize that I have to make it longer than the pattern calls for, which is odd because you’d think they need to be shorter. And even after lengthening said shirt, it still ends up shorter than it’s supposed to.

Case in point: the Honeymoon Cami.

I’m using Lion Cotton-Ease, which knits at a much larger gauge than the recommended yarn. So my one repeat of the ribbing at the bottom is longer than what the pattern calls for. When it said to knit for 1.5″ before decreasing, I did 2″. When it said 3″ was a good ballpark figure for the strap (which just sounds wrong) I did something more like 7″. I tried it on, and noticed 2 things: 1) My boobs were out to play, and 2) the top was a good 2-3″ too short.

How does this happen?? I just don’t get it. I believe that if I knit a top to the pattern specifications, it should be longer on me than on anyone else, because I’m short. The only other explanation is that I should listen to what Victoria’s Secret has been trying to tell me and accept that my chest is in fact larger than I’ve been lead to believe all these years.

My plan of attack is to finish as planned (one more strap to go) and then attempt to pick up the ribbing at the bottom and do another pattern repeat. I don’t mind layering another tank underneath to keep the girls in check, but there’s just no good way to deal with a belly shirt. Other than…make sure it’s not a belly shirt anymore.

Finally I finished the Mariah hoodie from Knitty that I started I-won’t-even-tell-you-how-long ago. I took out the cables, because all I wanted was a simple cotton hoodie, and surprisingly I couldn’t find any basic hoodie patterns (at least not in a worsted weight). Anyway, here it is! 4ish skeins of Charcoal Lion Brand Cotton-Ease.

Considering that I first learned how to knit correctly while making this project, I think it turned out pretty well. I really like it. There are a few character [read: messed up] parts of it, and somehow the hood came out a bit short, but I spent the last two evenings sewing up the hood and sewing the zipper on, and all in all, I really like it. I’m thinking of knitting pockets for it at some point, but I’ll admit that it’s a long way off and I’m happy to be done with the thing.

Now some of you may be thinking “Marie, you live in North Carolina, and it is roughly 9,000 degrees outside. Even though your hoodie is made of cotton, you probably still will not actually wear it for some time!” Well, my friends, it may be at least 9,001 degrees outside, but inside my office, I’d say it’s more like 65–in general. More like 60 at my desk, because I have the unfortunate luck of sitting in a cube right under the air vent. (A discovery I only recently made.) I’m so proud of this item, I may even wear it to work tomorrow. (Yes, I have a casual office unless clients are in town.)

Right now, I am working on a few crochet projects. I like that I’ve become bicraftual. Especially since I have way too much yarn, and my stash needs to be stopped. I have more options now than I did before.

After having my progress impeded for a week due to a kitchen knife to the index finger, I’m pretty sure I’m back.  I was luckily able to get some crocheting done, but knitting was definitely out.  I’m still a bit hesitant to knit, but I’m relatively sure I could seam stuff together now.

Unfortunately, everything I’m working on is a gift, and I’m pretty sure those involved will read this, so I will refrain from details regarding my current projects, so

But since it’s the beginning of the month and I’m supposedly attempting to stashbust, I shall post my May totals:

3 skeins of cotton-ease for my hoodie
And 3 skeins of Red Heart Sport for *surprise project #1*
TOTAL: 1070 yards

My stashbusting group on Ravelry has posted their next few challenges for the rest of the summer..and pretty much none of them apply to me, (though the Christmas in July sounds good) so I guess I’ll be doing my own thing, which is fine, because I have plenty of things to do.  But I’m going to take it one month at a time to try to give myself deadlines.  So, June goals:

• Stitch up my Mariah hoodie (hopefully today and/or tomorrow)
• Super-secret projects #1, #2, #3.  So numbered for when I started them, and not when I need to have them done by.  (That order is actually #2, #3, #1)
• Finish the second Broadripple Sock
• Do one project from my Ravelry queue.  Anything really, cause there’s a buttload of stuff up there. I’d be happy with finishing one thing.

I also have a pair of pants that I need to hem, but that doesn’t really count.  I’d like to get that done this week as well.

…and now I should get back to work.

The goddess of needlework is not on my side today.

I finally finished knitting my Mariah today. All that’s left is seaming the hood, and sewing on the zipper…I think “Ooh, great! I’m finally going to finish this thing.”

…and then I promptly slice my finger open with a kitchen knife.  Le sigh.

But, I must say…it looks good!  I thought it was going to be too big, but it’s definitely not.  The hood itself doesn’t go very high…but who actually wears the hood on their hoodie anyway?  I’m excited to have it finished….eventually.

Incidentally, the sweet and sour chicken was also very good.

Didn’t think I’d write again today, but I have to share this accomplishment.
I finally learned how to not twist my knit stitches!

I was taught to knit through the back of the loop, which I’ve known for a while was wrong (but fine in the round).  Depending on what I’m doing, I didn’t really mind the twisting, but for this hoodie I wanted no twisting because it looked messy.  Well, I started knitting in the front of the loop, and you know what I found? Every other row was twisted.  What the crap?

Making a long story short, I tried several different techniques and found that, not only was I knitting into the loop the wrong way, I was also wrapping the yarn wrong.   Go me.

According to some of the WordPress information, when you post an entry, you’re supposed to be able to add things like “Mood” or “Music”…and the only place I saw that was when I was editing the “About Me” page. Strike 2 for WordPress’s so-called “usability.”

Anyway, I recently posted my total yarn usage for the month of April in the Stash Knitdown group on Ravelry, so I thought I’d share

2 skeins of Noro for a bag: 220 yds
Some Patons for the straps: ~100 yds
2 skeins of CottonEase for the beginnings of a hoodie: 414 yds
TOTAL: 734 yds

The Noro and Patons are waiting to be felted sometime soon and then sewn together for what will most likely be a knitting bag. I thought that crocheting the bag would make it sturdy enough, but I think if anything with any weight is ever going to be put in there, it should probably be felted.

I’m growing frustrated with the hoodie because I accidentally messed up on one of the sleeves really early on (I started knitting at 12 rows when I should have started at 36 rows, so one sleeve was 24 rows shorter than the other) and didn’t notice until I was done, so I had to rip out the whole thing and start over again. And I’m frustrated with the rest because it’s just going to take a long time. That’s the problem with sweaters. They’re so big. The body’s about 3″ long right now. The pattern doesn’t call for any waist shaping, so I’m improvising by adding some in myself…who knows how it will turn out?

I’m also frustrated with WEBS. They messed up my order and sent me 6 skeins instead of 9. I called last Friday and they said they’d ship it that day…instead, they shipped it on Monday and I still don’t have it yet. Not that I’m crocheting it anytime soon, but they don’t know that! And my apartment is not the best for getting packages, (they once called me to say that I “still” had a package that I was never told about sitting in the office) so I wish they’d give me a tracking # or something. Hopefully it will get here today.

And hopefully I’ll find somewhere to put it… :-/

I must say that, as a graduate student studying usability, for a site that advertises that they specialize in usability, I have absolutely no idea how to use WordPress. I do not find this blog site easy at all, and I’ve been on many blog sites in the past.

Anyway, this it my forray into the world of craft blogging. I knit mostly, but I also crochet, and occasionally sew together strange monstrosities (sewing machines and I do not get along at all). And I even cook, though lately I’ve been too tired and poor to do much with that.

I’m too poor to do a lot of things, and I don’t apologize for that. I see a lot of people on Ravelry who let others make them feel inadequate for using OMG acrylic, or for shopping at craft stores, and it drives me crazy. You can make just as nice things out of acrylic, and if it works for them, then who cares what other people do?

Anyway, I guess as this is the obligatory intro post, I should provide the obligatory intro:

I was taught to knit by a friend–technically wrongly, but I make it work. When I started grad school, I had no friends, no thesis topic and hardly any work to do, so I started knitting more seriously, and there aren’t enough containers in my house to hold the yarn I’ve purchased since then. I spent a lot of time alone on the couch knitting, and now that my boyfriend has moved away, I’m back again! I adopted crocheting this past semester as part of a skill acquisition class. (For my other class, I conducted a study on Ravelry. How sweet was that?)

I’m currently in the process of trying to knit/crochet down my stash to some reasonable amount of yarn…but I just bought a bunch at the webs anniversary sale. Small setback. But I at least know what I’m going to do with all the yarn that I bought….or at least I thought I did. I bought some Cascade 220 superwash that looked olive on the site, a nice neutral. Five days later, I have three skeins of St. Patrick’s Day, Luck of the Irish, Erin go Bragh, Kelley green. Pretty color; not the neutral I was looking for.
…In the process of writing this post, WordPress has sent me an e-mail with all sorts of potentially helpful information. Methinks some user friendly salient links to said information on the site might be a tiny bit more efficient than an e-mail.