Wednesday, November 12, 2008

project updates



right now i do have a few projects going on at the same time. the most urgent *and therefore the one that gets worked on most* is of course my mitered mittens. then i have gigi, which has been put to the side for a while since it's already too cold to wear it. and then i have a new project *the one i eluded to in the last post*.

my mittens have taken a lot longer than i anticipated *and hoped for*. i knew i wanted to make the cuff a little longer to go down over my wrists and that's been the cause of all of the frogging sessions. i'll think i have a good length but once i get to the thumb gusset and try them on, they're too long. and it doesn't help that i have severe knitting denial- i always ignore that first pang of trouble. instead i knit on, wasting tons more time when i finally decide to frog back to the problem area and start again! so if you're reading this: you should always believe in your intuition!!!

once i thought i finally had a good length, i discovered a slipped stitch about 20 rows down!! usually i would just fix that, no problem, but with the miters in this patterns it makes it much more difficult. and the stitch in question was right next to the miter- had it been half way in between one, i may have been able to fix it. so the easiest/fastest/least frustrating thing to do was to frog it... again..... all the way past the thumb gusset. that mitten better hope that's the last time i have to frog it!! i'm almost done with it now- i've knit the thumb gusset again and am working my way back up the palm. please pray for me!!!

poor little gigi has been hibernating since the mitered mittens were cast on! i feel so bad and i WANT to knit on it, but the mittens are priority #1. and i'd be lieing if i said that 5 inches of knit 2 purl 2 ribbing and 11.5 inches of stockinette was particularly thrilling. but i'm up to the shoulder shaping on the back piece and after that it won't be too long until that piece is finished and i can start on one of the two fronts. it's not a hard pattern to knit and i really enjoy it, sometimes i wish the pattern was written a little more clearly, but besides that gigi has been a really chill knit.

here's gigi in her current state: 5 inches of ribbing and half way up the back. more stockinette to follow and then shaping and binding off!


the next project on the waiting list is one that i've been wanting to do for a long time- a bathroom rug. something functional! we threw our cheap wal-mart bathroom rug away a long time ago, it was one of those with the plastic non-skid stuff on the back and once it got really dirty, i couldn't throw it in the washer. so i chucked it. i've had the idea for a long time, but couldn't decide on any specifics: yarn, pattern, etc. but a couple of months ago i saw a project on craftster that i LOVED. a girl made a bathroom rug out of an old bed sheet using a rag-knitting technique. it's totally awesome! to keep this post short, i'm directing you to the original post for details and i'll be posting more as i go. the girl added some details on the third page about needle size and stuff and you can see my original comment on page 3.... i think.

so as pure coincidence, my mother-in-law has been buying us a bunch of sheet shets *i have no idea WHY... she's a thrift store junkie and always picks up little odds and ends and especially knitting/spinning stuff for me, so i don't complain, i just thank her for what she brings me!* the problem is, we don't use the flat sheet that goes on top of you- i feel like my feet are imprisoned and it irritates me to no end- so what is to become of the divorced sheet sets??? a bathroom rug, that's what.

i had pale sage/mint green or faded pepto bismol pink sheets to choose from. the pink sheets *however ugly* were a very soft, good quality muslin fabric, so i thought that would feel great under our feet. but, they are still too ugly for words, so i went out and bought some purple rit. the color on the box was a very saturated purple, but one box is only enough dye for 3 yards of fabric and i'm sure a full sheet is more than that- so i got two boxes. i dyed the sheet using only one box of dye, knowing that i could repeat the process if i didn't like the outcome. the purple i got is very bright, which i love, so i decided to stop there. this was my first time using rit and i'm really happy with the results- i'll definately use it again under the same circumstances. it's not what i would choose for any high-end projects or for anything that you want spectacular results on, but for something like this it's perfect! on to the cutting!!


new pretty purple sheet on the left and old faded pepto on the right!

i used the rag knitting tutorial on cocoknits *like the girl from craftster* but i had to modify it a little bit for my needs. i looked through my knitting needles and i don't have a size 35 or 19. my largest is a 15, so i decided to cut my strips to be an inch long. i think that will work well.

oh, and i almost forgot! the crochet name doily! i must admit i have been avoiding it.... crochet is just not my favorite medium! i've been working on a gauge swatch *well, not in a measuring sort of way, just to see what hook i like with the crochet cotton of an unknown size* but i haven't gotten too far.

hopefully i'll have alot more free time in the near future to work on these aforementioned projects.

most of my time lately has been taken up with the custom spinning for the local weaver *which i can't believe i forgot to mention!!!* i'm actually already done with all the spinning and she loved the yarns! i was really nervous but was super pleased! i hope she would like to work with me in the future!

she sent me some interesting and fun fibers to spin for her and gave me total control of what the finished outcome was to be. lots of what i'm 99% sure was merino in ROY G. BIV colors, a reallly pretty blue merino/silk blend *which i'm antsy to try* and an assortment of blue, black and white fiber which i couldn't identify! i've certainly never had anything like it before, but i LOVED how it spun up and i want MORE MORE MORE!!! hopefully she will email me back with some answers very soon!