Category: Uncategorized

Test Post

Now this is driving me nuts. My post from yesterday is really screwy on both of our ipads. John was playing photographer and took the photos of me wearing Colro Affection holding the camera sideways. I uploaded them, and in my photo software (Lightroom), they automatically rotate. When I upload to the blog using WordPress, I have to flip them manually, since they come in sideways. I posted from my desktop computer, rotated the photos, published the blog post, and everything looks hunky-dory.

Then John tells me they are sideways when he looked at the Knitting Doctor site on his ipad. I rolled my eyes at him, but sure enough, he's right. So I'm going to post one of the photos again, using my ipad and the Blogsy software I use to see if it happens again

Here goes. If this works I'll go back and fix the previous post.

 

Please Send Whiskey!

And the bind off begins. It's close to 600 stitches. For those of you who are actually knitters, I'm using a stretchy “lace” bind off, as follows:
Knit 2, *Insert left hand needle into the front of the 2 stitches on the right hand stitches. Knit these two stitches together through the back loop. Knit 1, knit 2 together through the back loop.* Repeat between the ** until all stitches are bound off.
Close to the finish line!

 

Public Service Announcement

This was a conversation over coffee at my house this morning:

Me (reading email): “I got an email from Peace Fleece that ALL of their yarn is 20% off through the weekend!”

John: “And just how much Peace Fleece do you already have in the stash?”

Me (fires up the database, sorts the yarn by manufacturer): “Um, I have enough different colors for six Peace Fleece sweaters. Seven, if you count the one in the knitting bag that I haven’t finished.”

John: “20% off is a great deal. But it’s 100% off if you don’t buy something you don’t need.”

Me (silent for a few minutes): “Point taken.”

Those of you who are NOT on the Cold Sheep–not buying any yarn plan might want to head over to Peace Fleece and get some of your own.

Want to see what six sweaters worth of Peace Fleece looks like? I thought so.

And the close up shot:

Yes, I tore apart the stash to pull those all out. I’m thinking it’s going to be easier to go buy a new yarn box than to try to get those all back into the correct numbered box.

And as long as I’m at it, here’s the seventh color. This is John’s sweater, or what will be a sweater once I’ve finished the sleeves.

No more Peace Fleece for me. Though it is one of my favorite yarns. I guess I just need to knit faster.

 

Swatch

Sweater knitting requires careful swatching for gauge planning. Every single time that I skimp on this step or skip important parts, I end up ripping out four inches of sweater because it's either going to be too small or huge.

I knit a not-huge swatch, but big enough that I can get a good four inches of width to measure my average gauge. Remember, the gauge gods will lie to you and try to get you to talk yourself into mistakes.

“Oh, sure, I'll just knit for an inch or so, squint sideways, and it will work. If I just scrunch it together a bit, I can make that look like 22 stitches in 4 inches!”

Rip. Rip. Rip.

So here's my gauge swatch for my new sweater, unwashed and unblocked, with four inches marked off by the pins. 24 stitches. Drat.

 

But let's wash it and see what happens. Do this just like you would wash and block the real thing once it's done. Let it dry before you measure again (you're not going to wear it wet, are you?). Here you go.

 

22 stitches per inch. Just what the pattern calls for. Perfect. Even the row gauge matches up on this one.

As a reminder to myself, this swatch was knit with 3.5mm/US 4 needles.