It’s a yardage tally post today. I know, so much excitement for a single post! 2010 is off to a good start and I’m hoping to keep up with this pace. (Moar knitting! Less internet.)
Monthly Archives: January 2010
WIP it
Factoid….
Friday? Err, Saturday in this case.
Because many of my fellow bloggers do it, I thought it might be fun to occasionally make posts that have nothing to do with what I’m working on or finished objects. I’m trying very hard to keep this blog craft oriented, so anything I do that veers off my normal course will be craft related just the same. I got to thinking–thanks to LSG–that it might be fun to post random facts about knitting, patterns, etc, in regards to what I like or conversely, what I dislike and turns me off. I suspect that due to my nature, these will often be rants, for good or bad.
My first post is going to be about something that greatly annoys me when I’m surfing patterns on Ravelry. It annoys me so much that I will hiss at my computer scream and start yelling at it if I’m not careful. What annoys me so much?
FOs that are not worn on human bodies. Like…NONE, or the majority of the FOs are. They’re just laying there in the picture. Sad little pandas.
Dear women of the world,
I realize that you have been socialized to hate your bodies and being photographed. Really, I get it. When I put up my one FO picture with my mother in it, she about shit a brick when she found out I posted up a picture of her and her face on the internet. Because a few random strangers may see her and judge what she looks like. Which is perfectly lovely if what I think counts for anything.
I’m scared of the camera too. I was even more scared when I found out my weight was ballooning again and that was the only way I knew it was happening. However, I tend to buck up and take pictures in my sweaters; this is not only to continue my work on loving me for me.
This is important.
But.
I also do this because there is nothing more frustrating then not being able to see a handknit on a body at all, or only on a small selection of bodies, none of them seeming to be similar to yours. The one thing that frustrates me as much as not being able to find FOs on real bodies is having to read all of the kvetching about how none of these knits were made for REAL people, blah blah blah, actual complaint will vary depending on if person writing it is older, younger, thinner, heavier, busty, no breasts at all, pear shaped, this list could go on. This is why I make it a point to photograph my FOs on me and post them up. And interestingly enough, everytime I post up a new worn FO, I get at least 3 new friends’ requests on Ravelry and lots of positive feedback.
For those that fear the teal deer I’ll sum up: wear your FOs in your pictures, damn it. I want to see what it looks like on a person.
FO Catch Up
Thankfully, only one of these FOs is really old. The other two are from this month. I still need to sew the buttons on The Husband’s sweater so I can photograph it and blog it.
Up first:
Needles: US size 5
Yarn: MadelineTosh Sock-William Morris (Lt. edition artist series)
Now, the reason why this took so long to blog, despite being finished in the first 11 days of December, is that this shawl will not photograph nicely. I’ve tried. The husband tried. This picture, is as good as it got. I’ve never had to fight this hard with a photograph before. It makes me want to cry, because the colorway is gorgeous in person and it knit up so nicely in this pattern, but the world will never know because of poopy pictures. Many, many poopy pictures. EESH.
Anywho!
I waited way too long to work on this shawl. I saw it the day it came out, picked out my yarn, printed the pattern and then waited 4 months to actually knit it. It had gone viral by that point and took away the speshulness of being able to knit it first. Oh well, lovely pattern, well written, easy to follow. I tried to figure out a way to more easily transition between the lace sections. If I remember correctly, as soon as I’d have enough stitches for the next pattern repeat, I’d switch over from garter to lace rather then waiting until the end. Other then that, no mods.
This is my first pair of replacement socks after the culling of my sock collection in December. These were already on needles when it happened, but after, I was a bit more focused to get them done. The original plan for 2010 had been to have a leisurely, almost lazy, sock knitting year with 2-3 pair being slowly produced during Sunday knit meet ups. Now, the plan has been upped to five, which will almost cover all the pairs that were lost. So this would be 1 of 5. Ooh, sounds like a Borg name. Excuse me, I think my geek may be showing. Ahem.
Super easy peasy pattern. Easy to memorize, rather easy to do. The “sl1, k1 YO, psso”s could be a bit fiddly, but I got the hang of them quickly. The toe on these was a bit different then I’ve done in the past. Rather then have the decreases 1 stitch in from the end of the needles, they were 3 stitches in, giving the toe of these socks a rather unique look. (Mine are on the boxy side because I waited a bit too long to start the decreases. They fit great, just look a little funny.) This would be an easy pattern to convert to toe-up and I may do that in the future, because I’ll be knitting these again.
For these, I decided to try doing socks 2 at a time on 2 circulars. It worked out great and I’ll keep using this method. It could be a bit frustrating because of the perceived speed of the knit, but in the end, I was so glad that for once, I was not going to have differing gauges on both of my socks and issues getting them exactly the same.
Needles: US size 4
Yarn: Squoosh Fiberarts Merino Cashmere Sport-Passionfruit
Meet 2 of 5. Heh heh.
I already addressed some of the issues with this pattern in an earlier entry. DIY took it down and it’s not clearly written out as it was meant as a supplemental to an episode of Knitty Gritty. Not an issue for me, but for a newer sock knitter, or a knitter who needs more direction, it could be.
On Ravelry, I had seen mention in several FOs of the ankle portion of this sock being tight. This was also my experience and I altered the pattern to have 8 extra stitches for the leg. It’s snug in the ankle but I can get them on and off. If I were to knit these again, I’d stick with the size 4 needles for the foot of the sock, and then switch to 5s for turning the heel and the leg. Now, if you have thin legs, the pattern as written is probably just fine. The only other mod I made was increasing the number of stitches in the toe for cast on, and I think I probably would have gone just a smidge larger.
To date, these are my FOs (minus one sweater finished in the last days of December). January is already looking pretty good with 2 pair of socks and one sweater. My yardage tally isn’t too bad either.
WIP it Good
Yeah, that FO post? It can wait another day, right? I’m much too tired to blog tonight, so I will leave you with my one WIP photo for this week.
Yes, kittens, it’s crochet. Fabulous, snobby crochet in Dream in Color and MadelineTosh. NOM.
WIP it Wednesday
Come on, how could I resist that? It’s such a nice set up. I’m a Devo fan; I had to.
Keep on Truckin’…
That’s what I’m hoping to do. I decided to take today to do some finishing as well as some knitting. I made it through 2 of the 3 projects I wanted to get fully done. I’m hoping to keep up on them much better this year.
Still catching up
What can I say? I am an eternal procrastinator. I may never fully catch up on my FOs and always be a few behind. But I’m going to work on that this year, on top of everything else.