fumblingwithneedles.com

There has been a lot of knitting going on lately, and I wish I had an actual FINISHED OBJECT to show here, but all I seem to enjoy are works in progress, and ripping those WIP right out and starting something else that will probably never get finished. But I am determined, people! Because I am going to Virginia in November, where it will be cool, so I am forcing myself to finish my CPH before then.

So far I have the ribbing on the back piece, and I’m about fifteen rows into the pattern.

I don’t know if my hacky purling skills, or this yarn, but my stitches aren’t always consistent.

I am enjoying the cabling pattern, and it’s moving along nicely (I don’t have any pictures of the cables yet).

I’ve also been attempting to make my mom’s little dog Mackenzie a hooded sweater, but mostly it just looks like I’m making a pair of panties.

I’ve discovered that I’ve been knitting the size for a smaller dog (that, and Mackenzie has grown since I started this thing), so it’s likely going to be ripped out and I’ll save the yarn for something else. It’s KnitPicks Swish Superwash, and I like it. I think the color is called “bubblegum” or something.

My friend’s birthday is coming up soon, so I thought it would be fun to try a SIMPLE lace shawl pattern for her. She and her husband are mystified by knitting. They watched me knit a hat one night, and I thought they were going to lose their minds. Her husband, DB, is fascinated by circular needles, and the difference between them and straights. We had a strange and lengthy conversation about them, and wood vs. metal the other night. I’m hoping that means a set of either the KnitPicks Options needles or the new Harmony set will be gifted to me for my birthday (especially since he ASKED me how to spell “knitpicks”). That would be nice.

Anyway. Back to the lace. I was reading one of my knitting blogs, and saw that the Forest Canopy Shawl was good for beginners, so I thought I’d give it a try. I bought the pattern, and then I bought some laceweight yarn. Well, I don’t think I have to tell you that this didn’t go well. It’t not the pattern was too hard, but the lace was a much finer weight than I’m used to with size eight needles. I can do tiny yarn with tiny needles, but not tiny yarn with bigger needles.

So I was telling my dilemma to La, and she suggested that I try a heavier yarn, and directed me to Elann’s Baby Cashmere. I ordered it, and after I stopped petting it and rubbing it on my face, I started knitting it.

And, while my lace didn’t look perfect, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for not being completely clueless.

Then as I tried to flatten out the yarn for the picture, I saw this:

I dropped like, three stitches many rows below where I was. I was not happy. So I started ripping. And before I knew it, all of it was gone. I really should learn to just put the yarn aside for a while until my frustration goes away instead of just instantly ripping. Anyhoo, I realized that there was no way I’d get the shawl done in time anyway, so I started looking around at smaller projects, and thought of a scarf with the feather and fan pattern. Using the same yarn, I started knitting it with size seven needles, and what I got doesn’t look anything like the pictures I’ve seen on Ravelry.

The patterns between the yarn-overs aren’t showing, and I don’t know if it’s the needle size or what. I don’t know if I should abandon this or keep knitting, hoping that a miracle will occur during blocking and it will magically be beautiful, and you can see the pattern. I’m not too worried about ripping this one out, because it’s an easy pattern, and it’s pretty quick, so I have time to start it over. I just need to know how to make it look like it’s supposed to.

Any and all advice is welcomed.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 8:30 pm and is filed under What was I thinking?, Works in progress - or things that confuse me.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.