December 23, 2012

The Importance of Dye Lots

This is why you buy enough yarn of the same dye lot (or at least visibly match it when you buy more than one dye lot):


Now, for this project I both knew this was going to happen (you don't buy yarn two years later expecting to match dye lots) and don't really care that it did (it's a couch wrap small blanket that will live in my apartment).  However, I still wasn't expecting the color to be that off.  This isn't just slightly different, this is whole 'nother color of blue different.

In other news, I finished the couch wrap I was making up the pattern for.  Which isn't a wrap.  It's not even a big shawl.  It's as big as the fleece blanket I was trying to replace.  Somewhere, I had a math fail when I calculated how many chains to do.  So when I get around to writing up this pattern, I have to re-do all my calculations so it is a couch wrap.  Since you got two patterns last week, I'm not in a rush now.  Especially since I now get to work on a sweater for myself:


The pattern is the Professoressa Cardigan by Connie Chang Chinchino.  This will replace a store bought work cardigan I always wear (the temperature in my office is not consistent no matter what time of year it is).  It's been my plan to replace it for awhile, or just add some variety, but now it has to be done since the current one has a small hole in the sleeve.  Oye.

I'm using Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Woobu in, believe it or not, the Smoke on the Water colorway (look it up on their site.  It shows a dark purple color.  Mine is gray).  I just started this last week and I'm in love with this yarn already.  By far one of the best yarns I've work with, and hopefully it wears the same way.  Being that I found this yarn randomly at Rhinebeck, it was a good pick.

One point about the yarn though: I'm lucky I read up on it on Ravelry before starting this project.  All the comments were along the lines of 'this yarn rocks but my sweater grew'.  So I did a proper swatch and, yes, it grows and your gauge will change.  I'm using that to my advantage, actually.  Plan for it and you'll be fine.

I know it's pretty late for half the holidays now, but happy holidays everyone! 

December 16, 2012

Reject the X Cowl

The odder cousin to the Twisted X Neck Warmer, this cowl is first worked in the round, and then back and forth to provide a tighter fit around the neck.

It's called Reject the X because when I first blocked it, I though I had ruined it and came up with Twisted X instead.  Obviously, it ended up fine once it dried.

The highlights of this pattern are listed below. To get the actual pattern (pdf), please click here to download it (the pattern's free, don't worry).

Reject the X Cowl


Craft Type

Knitting

Skill Level

Easy+

Finished Size

15” circumference at cowl top when snapped closed, 3.5” tall

Gauge

3.5 stitches and 5 rows = 1” in stockinette stitch with larger needle

Yarn and Yardage

1 skein Cascade Yarns 128 Superwash (Bulky, 128 yards), or ~70 yards of any compatible bulky yarn.

Needles

US 11 (8mm) 16” circular needle

US 10 (6mm), any type

Other Notions

3 snaps sized 1/0 (or around there)

Thread to sew on snaps


Happy knitting!

* * *
If you find any errors in this project, please e-mail CompileYarn[at]gmail[dot]com, or leave a comment  here or on Ravelry.  Copyright (c) CompileYarn(), 2012.


Twisted X Neck Warmer

Need a quick gift?  Cold and need something to warm your neck right now?  This cowl can be made in a day and is sure to delight.

The highlights of this pattern are listed below. To get the actual pattern (pdf), please click here to download it (the pattern's free, don't worry).

Twisted X Neck Warmer

Craft Type

Knitting

Skill Level

Easy+ (only trick here is cabling. Everything else is straightforward)

Finished Size

About 14.5" x 3.5" after steam blocking

Gauge

4.5 stitches and 7 rows = 1" in stockinette stitch

Yarn and Yardage

1 skein Cascade Yarns 128 Superwash (Bulky, 128 yards), or ~70 yards of any compatible bulky yarn.

Needles

US 9 (5.5mm), any type as this is worked flat.

Other Notions

2 buttons sized 7/8" (or somewhere around that)

Button or embroidery thread in a coordinating color to both sew in the buttons and make the buttonhole loops (you'll need the instructions found here to make the buttonhole loops) (note: link fixed if you found it broken before)




Happy knitting!

* * *
If you find any errors in this project, please e-mail CompileYarn[at]gmail[dot]com, or leave a comment  here or on Ravelry.  Copyright (c) CompileYarn(), 2012.

December 13, 2012

Rush Jobs

I hate rushing through projects.

Unfortunately, when one starts socks for Hanukkah less than a month before the holiday starts, it will end up being a rush job.  Well, at least for me.  I'm not the fastest knitter out there, so it takes me about a month to complete a pair of socks.  Especially ribbed socks with cables.

The good news is they did get done, even if it was at 2am last Sunday when I cast off the last toe, and I did have to cut out certain things I was planning to do.  Mainly, I'm very lucky the sock top was stretchy enough even with the provisional long-tail cast.  And that the yarn I used for the cast-on matched the sock.  It let me just weave in the ends and call it a day without having to go back and pick up at the top.

It did leave me with left over yarn, though.  Boo.

Since it was a rush job, I didn't get any pictures of the finished socks before I gave them to my mom.  Hell, hey were still damp from the steam blocking job I did when I handed them over.  I just didn't have any more time before I left the house.

(Speaking of blocking, I did re-block Crazy Cable Blanket.  Though it turns out that my iron at my parents' house also had hard water dust in it...however, it wasn't as bad as mine.  Oh well.  Hopefully it stays blocked this time, but most likely I'll never know.) 

Anyway, you would think I'd be smart and let that be the end of it, but no.  I had to decide to knit something for a gift swap. And not only that, I was designing it as well.

Let me go back to the beginning here.  I suck at buying presents, unless it's certain people in my family who I just get what they like. Despite this, I signed up for a gift swap where the recipient of said gifts didn't know who was giving it to them, I had a price limit, and all I had to go by was a set of answers to four questions. Hoo boy.

When thinking about what to get, I started settling on the idea of knitting something cheap and quick.  I had the favorite color of the recipient, and I had other ways of feeling out what they liked, knitting-wise.  What else was I going to do?  So I did a half-prototype where I took yarn out of my stash, found a pattern (which I had no intention using to make as the gift.  I don't know what I was thinking)...and ended up a day later with something else.  I basically went from this to this:


Yeah...my creative side took over there big time.  I was pretty much going on the fly; deciding what to do by row.  Oye.  The only thing that little exercise that took over when I was supposed to be knitting a pair of socks did was prove that I could knit a bulky yarn, small-sized cowl in a day.  Well, that and it gave me something to hand to my mom the first night of Hanukkah. 

After that, I decided that I was going to take a trip to Purl Soho (which I'd never been to) on a day I took off for unrelated reasons and see if I could find a skein of yarn that worked.  I was then going to find a store in the Fashion District and get buttons (which...holy shit why didn't I figure this out earlier?  The first store I walked into had tons and tons of buttons!  They had the perfect buttons for both cowls!  I need to go to the Fashion District more often).  After I got materials, I was going to sit down, change the pattern a bit on the cowl I did on the fly, and have four days to get it done.  Except that I was still working on the socks 'til Sunday, which left me with two days instead.

Not deterred and with a cable pattern I came up with Friday night,  I calculated how many stitches I needed to cast on and started in the car on the way to a relative's house.  I promptly screwed up on said math and had to re-start during the same ride.  No matter; at said relative's house, I was able to get half-way through the cowl while watching the Jets game (yeah, yeah, I know, 'Jets suck' and all of that.  Still a fan, though).  Got close to done on the way back to my apartment, and finished the knitting Sunday night (and managed to write the pattern down, even though I wasn't 100% happy with the design.  Not bad, but not amazing). 

'Yes!' I thought, 'I'll just block it, sew on the buttons Monday night, and it'll be done by Tuesday!'

Except one little thing I didn't do. I never saved and blocked the swatches I had done Friday night...no time and needed the yarn, you see.  So when I wet the yarn, I wasn't expecting it to go all limp and crappy-looking like it did.  It looked horrible.  You could see through the thing, that's how loose the stitches were.  Where I had joined in the initial round looked like it was going to come apart any second.  It had no structure at all.  There was no way I could give that away.

Now, I'm thinking: 'Crap, I screwed.  I have to knit another one!'  So I did.  Except I changed several things, including the cable (which I again designed partly on the fly).  I knit on the subway, on my lunch break, at home Monday night.  At 10pm, I was done (and had documented it as well).  I steamed blocked it this time, created the buttonhole loops and sewed on the buttons , and got this:


Its a small cowl.  A neck warmer, if you will.  But I like it,  and I had my gift and enough notes to write up a new pattern (though said pattern isn't done yet because I managed to get a cold yesterday and didn't feel like it.  I'll do it this weekend).

Oh, and the recipient?  Loved it.  I guess I can get it right sometimes.

As for the crappy cowl...well, that has a happy ending as well.  See, Tuesday night I looked at it again after it had dried a bit and it was now just fine.  It was a tad looser than I planned, but it was not too floppy or crappy looking anymore. So I sewed some snaps in it to shut it (as I didn't have buttons anymore) and here it is:


Another usable cowl.  Which I'll never use, so I have to figure out who to pawn it off on.  This pattern will also be written up and posted this weekend.  I figured that maybe someone else would like it more than I do.

Not bad for series of rush jobs.  I still don't like to do things this way, though.