Art & Books: August 2006 Archives

I've been doing more knitting, while waiting for paint to dry. It's going OK, although I keep noticing where I made mistakes several rows back and wanting to go back and fix it. Not going to do that, though, because I want to get this project over with so I can move on to a self-designed one. As it is, I am making lots of modifications, including eight rows of short-row shaping in the bodice to accommodate my shape. In many ways I think I might as well have just designed my own sweater, which is pretty much my gripe with sweater patterns to begin with.

Anyway, here I am: sleeves are fastened off, to be knitted later (I'm going to add long sleeves to this because I prefer them) and I'm working my way down to the hemline. You can sort of see the short-row shaping in the front here: it's just a little bit more give to avoid the stretching-across-the-boobs look.

Technorati Tags: crafts, knitting

My progress on the Green Gable pullover has been slow, because there's been a lot of other stuff going on. But yesterday we laid around the house recovering from our week and I managed to get fourteen rows completed, and today I decided I should try it on to see how well it fits.

The ability to try things on while you are making them is what got me interested in top-down knitting the first place. I mean, I never minded seaming or finishing things before, but being able to check for fit as you go? Really nice.

I am making something between two sizes in this pattern, so I wondered if I should fasten off the sleeves yet. From this photo, it is clear that the top is not yet done: I'll do another six rows to get to the next size up and see how well it fits then.

I am really enjoying how this bamboo yarn is knitting up. The colouring, I mean, and how it varies. I have not done much knitting with variegated yarns for any number of reasons, but I'm already looking at the other colourways this yarn comes in.

Technorati Tags: crafts, knitting

I raveled the sweater and restarted because I tried it on and while it could possibly be worn in such a way as to not fall immediately off my shoulders, I would never wear such a wide neckline. Started again with a smaller neckline. I was a bit surprised that the size was so far off, because I was dead on gauge, but then I figured that in all likelihood the designers had designed for somebody whose chest is smaller in proportion to their shoulder width, so a sweater sized to fit my chest was going to be far too wide in the shoulders. Not being shaped like a board is why I generally find it easier to design my own sweaters than to use patterns. I know I'm going to need to do some short-row shaping around the chest, already.

In other news, I spent some time today importing old animal-related diary entries and so forth into Movable Type to make an animal blog. No, no good reason for separating it out, but mainly I wanted to get the old Rosie diary entries in here and delete the static pages that I hand-coded. Some day, I may take my old archived static OTFA entries and put them in Movable Type, but actually, I doubt it.

Technorati Tags: crafts, knitting