A long time for such a little sweater

Finally. I've finished my Soldier's Sweater from "Runway Knits." I bought the yarn in August and probably started it in October. For me, it was incredibly tedious to knit. Just lots and lots of ribbing. I would get bored with it and set it aside. In the end, it came out so tiny. My local yarn store thought my test swatch was OK because it was ribbed and the wool could be blocked stretched out. I did that, but then it just scrunched back up later. So I've got this itty-bitty sweater that barely fits -- but at least I can squeeze into it.





(Boy, you don't notice that you really don't look good from the back till you take a photo like this. My butt, my hair, everything was W-E-I-R-D. Thank goodness for cropability!)



I used Cascade 220, a nice, economical wool. I bought the buttons at Village Wools. I wanted the buttons to be special, and these are really pretty.

My biggest problem was in picking up stitches to do the front band. I didn't pick up nearly enough, and I thought it wouldn't really matter. But the band was so tight that the sweater puckered up, like this:


So I had to undo it and pick up way, way more stitches. Initially I did one per row, so this time I did two per row through much of it. I can see that it still could have used some more. The pattern urges you to pick up a lot of stitches around the curve of the front/bottom, and that is why.

Original pattern:

When you lose your self-esteem

Two projects not going so well.

1. My Soldier's Sweater from "Runway Knits." Yes, the one I've been working on since October. I am minutes from finishing it, but it's apparent I have to undo some of it. I had finished the whole sweater (nevermind that it's incredibly small and will barely fit, or that spring weather is here so I can't wear it) and all I had to do was pick up stitches around the front and neck and knit a 2" band. Part of the band is then cast off, and the part that isn't is knitted across the front of the sweater and attached to the other side.
The instructions said to pick up 124 stitches along the sides, but my sides are only 64 rows long. So I don't even have enough stitches to pick up. I guess I'll have to go into the fronts and backs of stitches or something. What happened was that I didn't pick up enough and thought it wouldn't matter much. It does matter because the band is too tight and is puckering up the sweater in a nasty way.
Undoing the band isn't a huge deal, since the band is added after the fact and it won't mean worrying about unraveling too far. But I am terribly sick of this sweater and don't feel like touching it for a while.



Original pattern photo:





2. I'm ready to freehand quilt the baby quilt, but decided to practice on my class project place mat. It's much harder than I expected. My curlicues look bad, and sometimes out of control. My hands hurt from trying to control the fabric. My tension is screwy. It's all just not good.

Oh, dear.

For the last four months, I've been working on my Soldier's Sweater from "Runway Knits." It's over there in the column to the right. It's not that it should really take four months, but I was just so incredibly tired of it. I'm now done with all the parts and sewing it together. But I fear that it might better fit a 6-year-old.

When I started the first piece, I was sort of worried that it was too tight of a gauge. I went in to Village Wools and asked what they thought. They pointed out that it's a) wool, and therefore can be wet blocked to any shape, and b) ribbed, so it's stretchy. They concluded that I'd be fine.

So, months later, I am nearly finished. I just have to sew the sleeves in and sew up the side seams. Then I pick up stitches along the front and neckline and knit a 2 inch border. But as I took all my pieces out, which had been previously blocked, I have found that they all shrunk back to their smaller size. Even the sleeve I just blocked a few days ago is small again.

I'm not sure if it will fit when all is said and done. I'm not sure if I'll have to give my precious sweater to somebody's kid. Four months of work, possibly thrown in a washing machine to felt by a busy mom who doesn't know anything about knitting.

Pray for me.

Back is blocked

I finally finished the back of my "Soldier Sweater" from "Runway Knits." I thought it would never end. It's not that big, but it's just lots of dull ribbing. I had to stretch it a lot when I blocked it, and the before and after is shown below. I know you can't read the rulers in the photos.




Eventual finished product:


I'm on my way to the grocery store. I am still trying to focus on preparing food at home, though this week has been hectic and I have grabbed food on the go a few times when I was unprepared. I also oinked out on burger, fries, onion rings and a malt today, so I'm feeling awfully good about myself!

I'm all ready for Christmas. We kept gift-giving small and since my MIL and SIL will be out of town, we are just going to stay home -- for the first time! -- and prepare a turkey dinner, since we missed Thanksgiving.

Well, cat is vomiting as I speak, so I'm off to tend to that.

A-Line Jacket

I posted a while back that I finished my A-Line Jacket from "Runway Knits." But the picture I had Mark take was at night, blurry, with no flash.

Here are some better pictures. It's a bulky wool jacket, and even though it's still summer, it was not enough to keep me warm in the office today. At least, if we were milk, we'd stay really fresh.

Simple Sweater Drives Knitter to the Brink of Insanity

I've been working on the A-Line Sweater from "Runway Knits":




It's a simple sweater, but I've made many sloppy mistakes, and therefore I've spent as much time fixing mistakes as I have making the sweater. One thing I would consider if I were doing it over is buying a longer pair of circular needles for the body of the sweater. Trying to work with nearly 100 stitches of super bulky yarn on 14" needles is aggravating. They were packed on. But I had to buy some short circulars for the sleeves, and those ran $25 for Addi Turbos (my cheap ones broke immediately). I didn't want to buy more needles, so I just suffered instead.

I've made some mistakes, such as forgetting to purl the second stitch of each knit row, which probably means my fronts will curl up. I think for the most part, though, it will be very nice. Here is what I have so far, though it's nothing to look at. I've been working with a lot of gray yarns lately and I'm tired of the gray, but I wanted versatile colors for my sweater and recent handbag.

It's being knit with a superbulky wool yarn, Brown Sheep Burly Spun.

Upcoming projects

In terms of making things, I've really been focusing on myself lately. To be honest, I'm a little burned out on the business. Sales are slow, and that makes me unmotivated to promote, which is so time consuming. This, in turn, makes sales even slower.

For a while, I took a break from making things just for me. Lately, I've been focusing only on personal stuff, like items for me or gifts for others. I have been doing custom orders only for my business. Obviously, lots of items are for sale, but I haven't been adding to my stock lately. I have had a handful of custom requests lately, and that's nice.

The Brea Bag that I reported on below is coming along nicely. I'm excited for the end results. It's amazing how you look at all the detail and think it will be so hard, but it's really not at all. I guess it might be hard to invent the pattern, but it's not hard to follow it. I think there's a part that's going to confuse me coming up on the gusset, though.
Here's the bag I'm talking about, but it's not the actual one I'm doing. Mine's gray.



I plan to line it and make a fabric strap for it.

Onto the next thing:
I was looking for fashionable knit patterns and found this book called "Runway Knits" by Berta Karapetyan.



It's full of great patterns, some of which are so finely knit that it seems they'd take a decade. For my first one, I chose this A-Line Jacket, knit from a very bulky yarn on large needles. This should go fairly quickly.



I love the huge buttons. I chose Burly Spun in light gray, and had to up my needles from a 13 to a 17 to get 2 sts./inch. They recommend Karabella Puffy, but that would run me $130, where this will run me around $60. My yarn isn't as variegated, but I'll have to live with that.

More as I get going!