Category: Ravelry Projects

I still need to buy buttons, but it’s pretty much done. Overall, I enjoyed the knitting. It was quite straightforward, with the exception of working out the eyelet row. I probably should’ve gone up a size but I’m pleased with my first sweater!

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Did 2 swatches – one on #8 which was a smidge large, and another on #7, which was just a hair small. Going with slightly small on the assumption that it’ll stretch over time.

4/24 – first “whoops!” – it’s hard to know how big to make a buttonhole if you haven’t picked buttons yet. :\ Also, my first-ever buttonhole, and I don’t think I got it quite right. (4 stitches?)

4/26 – 2nd buttonhole, slightly better than the first one, also found a few buttons of about the right size, might not use them but will make a good model.

4/28 – final buttonhole! Much better construction but not 100% sure it’s the same size. Also did the eyelet increase row with just the right number of YOs. (start w/YO, then one every 6 stitches, except last is 5st, then final YO.

5/1 – first row of lace, discovered I was short exactly 2 stitches. Made up for it by not doing decreases in last repeat.

5/2 – separated sleeves!

5/4 – now that I’m just on the body, it seems to go quite a bit faster.

5/6 – achievement unlocked! mild mangling of lace pattern, followed by getting back on track. Looks like it’s just on the front left panel.

5/13 – this feels like it’s going amazingly fast. Now I’ve got the pattern down enough that I don’t even need my reference card AND I can feel if I’ve gotten off track before it goes too far. 🙂

5/17 – started garter stitch for bottom edge!

Adjustments for two-at-a-time circular

(some of this was copied from notes on paper about two months after I finished the socks. YMMV.)

Heel flap

After the last row of the last leg pattern repeat:

(SL1,K1) across first 32 stitches of sock A
Turn to wrong side, SL1,P31
Continue to sock B, SL1, P31
Turn to right side and (SL1,K1) across same stitches.

Repeat for same number of rows/slipped stitches as in written pattern.

(Also going with (SL1/K1)* instead of SL1/K31 for right side because I like it.)

Heel turn

(something about this didn’t go quite right, but it’s now been two months, so I’m not sure what! here’s what I have written down in my notes, tho)

Turn heel B as per directions
K across
pick up 15

Turn heel A as per directions
K across
pick up 15
Row 1 lace
pick up 15

Sock B row 1 lace
pick up 15

Gusset

not sure where the break is in this

A: K to last 2 – K2TOG – Lace pattern – SSK – K across
B: Lace pattern – SSK – K to last 2 – K2Tog

This is a nice fast little project, and I’m mostly pleased with how it turned out. Grafting seed stitch is a PITA, though.

I also incorporated some code knitting — originally I was going to use the system from http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sydney-carton-cowl but I did not care for the way the worked in this project. It’s a bit of a bear to wrangle, and it makes it more open than you’d want for a bag.

Instead, I did Morse code as per the incorporated pattern, using an online translator and graph paper. Because I was working bottom up, I basically had to do it upside down and backwards, which was less crazy than it sounds. After all, writing it out forwards gave me a chart that’s in the same style as regular charting! (I’m not sure if I’m explaining that at all well.) I tried creating a Morse knitting code JavaScript application, but didn’t finish before finishing this project.

Got in my first name plus two quotes, which makes a nice little pattern in the bottom third of the sides:

• “Nothing that we do is done in vain” – a quote from The Tale of Two Cities.

• “Fortune favors the brave” – from the Aeneid (and a tea bag tag on my office corkboard)

Why code? Why Tale of Two Cities? Someone at work made a joke about Madame Defarge in relation to my meeting-knitting, and so it’s been in my head for a while. 🙂 Plus for this project specifically, I thought it would liven up the stockinette sides.

Once I restarted this near the end of March, it went really fast, so the time-to-finish is not particularly accurate. (I started while still working on the purple socks.) Decided to make this even bigger than the first one, which was itself about the largest size in the pattern.

I used 2 full balls of the “slate” (which is more purple than I expected), a ball of light blue, and about half a ball of silver/grey that was left over from the first shawl.

Still no fringe. Not my thing, I don’t think.

Just really wish I had a proper place to block something this large, TBH. I laid it out over a drying rack, but really only the top half was “blocked.”

Casting on with this particular yarn was kind of annoying — it’s really stretchy & shreddy. Once I got going, it was fine, though, nice colors & texture.

And this is a hella plain/boring pattern, but great for meetings. As it turns out, February had a lot of things I had to go to and just sit and listen. This pattern is perfect for that.

Casting on with this particular yarn was kind of annoying — it’s really stretchy & shreddy. Once I got going, it was fine, though, nice colors & texture.

And this is a hella plain/boring pattern, but great for meetings. As it turns out, February had a lot of things I had to go to and just sit and listen. This pattern is perfect for that.

I hope it’s the correct use of “irony” to be amused at how I fumbled my way through the socks I made out of the yarn I bought while at a content strategy conference.

All I knew starting is that I wanted to use Rachel’s toe-up-top-down heel, and that I was going to want something a bit more complicated than plain stockinette.

So I went with a pattern that used that heel, but it had a slightly different toe: narrower, longer. And too big; I ended up only increasing to 64 stitches, instead of all the way to 72. That would’ve been HUGE.

Unfortunately, about as soon as I started the main pattern, I realized I hated it. 3-stitch cables, bleh. I like the look, but not the way it feels while I knit.

So I went looking for a different pattern; the “Zigzagular” is a nice little twist pattern, and although it’s designed for top down, it works great for toe up, too. Although it took me a few rows to realize that I was doing the twist entirely wrong.

And then I decided it needed some 3×1 ribbing. Thankfully, that ended up being a nice solid pattern all the rest of the way!

The heel itself was not too bad, although it wasn’t until after I did the first one that I realized it could’ve easily been done two-at-a-time. (Strategy!) And if I were to do it again, I’d love to figure out how to start the ribbing in with the gusset.

Final tiny regret: I totally could’ve made these even longer.

On the other hand, the zigzag + ribbing looks fab with this yarn, the socks are super-comfy, and the length is pretty good.

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Finally using the yarn I bought last May! Going to try Rachel’s toe-up-top-down pattern, but a cable variant to do something a bit more interesting.

1/15 – got to the first cable and was like: nope. Way too frustrating. So I’m trying out the Zigzagular design. If that doesn’t work for me, I might frog & start over with a new sock pattern.

1/17 – added some 3/1 ribbing across the top of the sock. AND I figured out that I was doing the twists wrong; now the zigzag is looking much better. If I can get all of these odds & ends to work together, I’ll have my own entirely new pattern. 🙂

1/26 – made it through the heel flap, turn, and gusset pickups on both socks. I think they might be a tiny bit short, but there’s nylon in this yarn, so it might work? Will try on again after I’ve done the gusset reductions just to be sure.

Accidentally did a few rounds of just k1p1 ribbing, instead of every-other round, so I extended that to an inch or so. Otherwise, this is damn simple and great gaming/meeting knitting!

(Also, I realized about half-way through that it’s the same stitch as most of the vest that I made for C with this same yarn. So that’s a thing.)

TBH, I just wanted a project that wasn’t socks that would keep my hands busy in meetings, and I’ve had this yarn for more than a year with no damn idea what to do with it, and I realized last night that I don’t actually have any newish or nice hats that are ok for C to wear too. Thus: striped hat.