Tuesday, December 23, 2003
you'll have to excuse me, i'm not at my best (points if you can name the song that line comes from). i've been battling what i like to call the 'dread UTI', which has made me a miserable person to be around. this means it was impossible to take a decent photo of the now complete sweater o' mine. so please please, excuse the messy hair/sickgirl/pajama shot in the mirror and focus on my victory: the first sweater i have ever knit!
here it is all laid out pretty on the floor:
the armpit problem is less of a problem, given that i added a bit to the length (about two more inches). it has a nice, comfortable, not too tight fit and the armpit problem is basically hidden in the comfort. so there you go. sweater by rachel. i haven't really knit at all, since i completed the baby on saturday night. but, i need to get moving on the skull mittens. i have a job interview in a few hours (eek), and after that, i'll be a knitting fool til friday. worst case scenario, i'll have to finish them over the weekend (i'll be up at adam's family's cottage near haliburton, on- and i can't wait), but i'd like to try to bust through before i leave.
and in the words of krusty the klown: have a merry christmas, a happy chanukah, a crazy kwanzaa, a tip top tet- and a solemn and dignified ramadan.
11:23 AM /
Thursday, December 18, 2003
the photos i have for you today are less than stellar. the light in my apartment is so bad. also, my sweater is so bad.
the first problem lies in the length. i knit to the length specified in the pattern and came up with a glorified 'belly shirt'. and i didn't fully realize the horror of this until i had cast off and tried on. so now i have to undo the cast off and ribbing and knit down another three inches or so. the REAL problem, however, lies in the pits (the armpits). because i followed the largest size offering (because i am a largest size kinda gal), the amount of stitches needed to reach around my ample bosom sent the armpits down to just above my freaking elbows. i know how to fix the length of the sweater problem. i don't know how to fix the armpit problem short of ripping the whole sweater, and doing math. so please, if ANYONE has advice- share. i'm not afraid to do scary things to my knitting, i just don't know what to do! other than that? i love my sweater.
for about 4$ total, i picked up some acrylic sock yarn a few days ago. so i am now knitting my first pair of socks since august (i was burnt out and needed a break).
.
i love toe up socks. i don't think i could go back to a cuffdown if tried. anyway, these are my new carry around project. i have to get cooking on adam's mittens too. i better get on that.
thanks, everyone, for your awesome feedback on my last two entries. you've all given me some insight and/or something to think about. plus, it feels good to know that i'm not alone in how i feel. xoxo.
7:57 PM /
Thursday, December 11, 2003
i finished coronet!! i am in LOVE with this hat, it totally covers my ears and hugs my head and i think it will bring me much much warmth in the coming coldness. and it is cold out. thank you alexandra! also, thank you everyone who has commented on the last entry, you've all really made my day and i appreciate your words more than you know.
4:49 PM /
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
i've been a bit quiet this week, but i have gotten a fair amount of knitting completed. first off, i'm making good progress on the tshirt sweater. i've got about 5 or six body inches to go, before i move on to the sleeves.
i'm still liking it, though i am starting to wish i was using something other than wool-ease, but one day, one day.
i also cast on for the coronet hat from the new knitty. i thought it would be a good jumping off point in getting over my fear of cables- and so far so good. i really enjoyed the cabled band. i did not, however, enjoy picking up the stitches evenly. ah well.
so anyway, knitting progress aside, i've been thinking about this knitting community we have online. i've noticed that it gets downright clique-ish at times. lately, i've also noticed that some of the more popular among us have removed links to my website. maybe it is because i don't whip out a sweater a week or something, but it does kind of bother me. sometimes, it reminds me a touch of highschool, and i was wondering if anyone else ever sees it like this.
off of my soapbox, which i'm sure will make me even less popular, but what can you do? if you stuck around, i'll leave you with a photo of how i amused myself during the snowstorm:
anyway, i'm still under the weather and headed to bed shortly. goodnight, dear readers (all seven of you! i love you all.)
8:44 PM /
Thursday, December 04, 2003
welcome to the sickhouse! i went and got myself one heck of a head cold AND a throat infection. big ball of misery, over here in ohio. this doesn't include all the life stuff going on. oy vey- that is all i am capable of saying. so on to the knit stuffs (including the long hidden super secret baby blankie!).
first off, i finally finished the novelty nightmare!
when casting on for this monster, both my mom and i made giant errors in our math. after casting off about 1/3 of the scarf i realized it was going to end up about... oh, 15 feet long (just a guess). so then i had to figure out how to cut length off of the thing- off of the sideways garter stitch scarf. what a headache. but in the end, it is all done.
next up- i finally let myself begin the merino tshirt from the winter 2003 interweave knits. i'm, of course, not doing mine in a merino wool. instead i'm using the same cranberry coloured wool-ease i was using for the long gone lo-tech.
so far, the pattern is incredibly simple, perfect for my first sweater project, and the wool ease is surprisingly soft. i plan to edit the sleeves a bit- i don't wear short sleeve anything, so i'm going to try to fake some 3/4 length sleeves.
last, and certainly NOT least: the super secret baby blankie!
here is a glamour shot of the whole blanket, but not much detail. i can finally tell you that it is based off of the 'building blocks' pattern from 100 afghan squares to knit. i used size 7 needles, and lionbrand baby soft yarn. i attempted to do the 'H' in intarsia and failed miserably- and instead stitched it in duplicate stitch. the mom received the blanket just a couple days before the baby arrived, and she loved it. so yay. here are a couple more detail shots:
and that is about it for now. i also bought my first two skeins of koigu yarn today (HUGE splurge for me), but i won't let myself even ball them until the shaping on the tshirt is complete. and that is what i am off to work on now. happy thursday!
5:41 PM /
i'm rachel m, i'm 26 and i live in cleveland, ohio. i knit, spin, and read. i have a steady sweetie, two chubby cats, a full time job
and a messy apartment.
