YOP: post 10

There hasn't been much progress in my YOP-knitting, and as the Chirstmas rush will set in this weekend, I thought I'd run through my list ans have a look at my progress.

Techniques
1. Learn to knit continental properly, so I'll be able to do two-handed stranded knitting;
pattern: Musica mitts (deadline Jan 2013)
-> Will knit these after Christmas, during the holidays.

2. Learn to knit entrelac. I've always found entrelac extremely beautiful and I think this year is the right time to learn how it works.
pattern: Entre deux saisons
-> Started these a few days ago and can't seem to stop working on them. They now look like this:


Charts
1. The 'I Heart You' chart
-> no progress

2. The 'Papyrus' charta
-> no progress
 
Items
1. a top
pattern: either 'Bella Paquita', 'Pioneer', or 'Arbor'
-> Completed during the Ravellenics

2. a cardigan: depending on yarn gauge: 'March Basic', 'Elbow Patch Cardigan', 'Cardigan in Alpaca and Glitter' or another 'Stanton'
->  Completed the 'Cable cardi'

3. Special socks
pattern: either the 'Double heelix' or the 'Skew' socks
-> no progress

4. a pair of fingerless gloves
pattern: 'Knucks'
-> no progress

Themes
1. something geeky
pattern: various possibilities: 'Atomic Blocks', 'Irrationally Constant Mittens', 'Pi socks' (or any other constant socks, for that matter), 'Doppler Effect Socks', 'Space Invaders Socks', ...
-> no progress

2. something stripey
pattern: 'Color Affection Shawl' , another 'More Than a Triangle Shawl' or a a 'Dream Stripes' shawl
-> Base for the shawl is complete, I need to design or find a suitable side-to-side knit border to complete it.

It seems that I have made quite some progress on the larger projects, like the top and jumper, but that the projects that involve more creativity like the chart projects haven't had much attention yet. I'm going to keep my list as it is until after the Christmas holidays, so I can see what I can accomplish during those two weeks, before removing any projects from my list or adding others.
I'll be going to the monthly knitting group tomorrow, where I would like to make a start on one of my Christmas projects: a Revontuli shawl for my grandmother, although I also really need to finish the socks I'm knitting for my mother as her birthday is approaching rapidly...

Mnz

YOP: post 8

 The return to school is really starting to take it's toll on me and on my knitting, so not much has happened since last week...

I didn't manage to do ANY knitting on my jumper during the week, but as there wasn't much left to be done I still managed to finish it before it was time to write this post, even if there were only about five minutes between both actions ;)

I'm quite happy with the result: the fronts and collar look lovely, but it seems I slightly misjudged the height at which to place the buttonholes... They're not as high as they look in the picture because the cardigan comes down over the hips, but they're still a little bit to high for me to be 100% happy with. If -and probably when, because the first thing my mother said when she saw it on me was 'You wouldn't make one of those for me, would you?'- I'll start the fronts with a provisional cast-on so I won't have the big seam at the point where the two fronts join on the back, and the use the kitchener stitch to seam them together at the meeting point in the collar. The sleeve measurements are a bit on the generous side for me, but then I have particularly short arms... 
















The only other thing I managed to do this week is to alter my 'Welsh skies' Safire shrug. The sizing on this one is known to be generous, so I knit a size smaller than I normally do, but it still turned out a bit too big, so I moved the buttons from the middle further to the side to reduce the size. I had always found the neckline a bit deep, so this alteration has turned it into a crossover type shrug, which also reduces the depth of the neckline :) I'm still totally in love with this yarn, so I hope I'll get some more wear out of the shrug now it's a better fit.

I hope next week will be more productive than this one has been.
Mnz

YOP: post 7

Term has started again, which means that my flying progress on my cable cardi has somewhat ground to a halt. I Finished the first front on Sunday, so my jumper looked like this after I'd seamed it on Monday morning, before going to school. (I only had to be there at 11.10 AM)












On Friday afternoon, I cast on for the second front. That means I hadn't been able to knit a single stitch of jumper during the whole week. On Friday evening the front looked like this.


Luckily, I don't have too much homework this weekend, which means that I managed to go to the monthly knitting group at my LYS. The weather is nice for the moment, so we sat outside and KIP'ed. Knitting group is usually quite a productive moment for me, so after about two hours of knitting, my front looked like this.

I finished turning the short-row corner and did the increases. I also bought the buttons that will be used to keep the jumper closed, and then remembered -only just in time- that that meant that I had to make buttonholes. I wouldn't be the first time that I forget and have to frog my project back 10 cm or so. But anyway, as it happens, I remembered. I hope to have this cardi finished for next weekend, I think that's an achievable goal if I concentrate on it.

If you read my last YOP post you might remember I wanted to design a lace edging for my stripey shawl. As I had never made a sideways border, I decided I would knit one first, so I had a look around on Ravelry and I found the Rectangular Crow Waltz Shawl. The edging on this looked rather different to what I have I mind for the Stripey Shawl, but I thought it would be a good start. The pattern is an easy to remember 10 row repeat. The points will need blocking out, but I rather like the YO, P2tog band along the top because it reminds me of crochet.



I used some yellow-orange-gold yarn of which I had most of a ball in my stash for the border, so I had to knit both edges first in order to make the most of the yarn I had. Because I knew I'd have way too much of the brown yarn from my jumper (I bought two 400 gr balls and only started the second ball when I started the second front, which is the last piece of the cardi), I started the main body of the scarf/shawl. (This is all last week's work BTW, if I'd have had the time this week I'd have worked on the jumper). I've still got a fair way to go, but I'm quite enjoying the pattern: it's not too simple, but it's not that complicated that you can't do it while catching up with season 8 of HOUSE M.D. , which, in my case, was rather much essential during the last week of the holidays ;)

The one project that has benefited from the start of term are my socks, because they get to come to school with me to occupy my hands during break time. I had already put the left sock on hold until I reached the same point on the right one and I am now, slowly but surely, progressing in that direction. I had to frog this sock back partially because I had forgotten to start the stripes, but now I've finished the increases, so I hope to be able to start turning the heel somewhere next week, as I'll be spending a few hours on the train to Ghent and back. I could have made more progress, because when I went to Sint-Nilkaas last week not only did the train get stuck in Puurs for an hour and a half (on top of the hour it takes to get there from Leuven), but I had also forgotten to transfer my knitting into the bag I was taking, so I had nothing to do! Luckily, I was in good company, so the wait wasn't too boring. I hope it doesn't happen again this week! Anyway, that's all for now.

Mnz

YOP: Post 5

I'm really enjoying this group. Although I only seem to be posting YOP updates, at least I'm posting something! 
In the last few weeks I've started my next listed project: the cardigan for myself.
In the end it isn't one of the patterns I had listed, but who cares.
The pattern I've chosen is 'Chocolate Passion', a jacket-cardigan kind of thing with cables.


















I made the first sleeve while watching the last two days of the Olympics and made the second one while travelling back from the UK ten days ago. On that same trip I started the back, but I had to leave that aside for a while because it has been too hot to knit that kind of thing for the last week or so. But the weather has taken a turn for the cooler end of the spectrum and made some more progress on it yesterday. The colour of the yarn is just gorgeous, but sadly it doesn't show very well on photos...

Although I didn't work on my cable cardigan, the heat didn't stop me knitting. I cast on a shawl(ette) to take me through the hot spell and it is blocking as I'm typing. This one really needed to be blocked! The pattern is 'Lunatis Folium'. It's my second bottom-up construction and I still haven't decided whether I like the idea or not. I think that it's main advantage is that it's a better idea is your yardage is just slightly under what is required: you can just play around a little with the short rows, whereas in an top-down shawl you can't just not knit the last row of lace, you have to rip it all back. I don't really mind monster cast-ons either. The thing that keeps me from loving this construction is that I like to see the shawl's basic shape grow, something that just doesn't happen in bottom up.
Anyway, this particular one is not your traditional shawl shape. It's very long, but also very shallow, so I can't really decide whether it's a shawl or a shawlette...

As you can see, blocking really does miracles for this thing. Without it, it's just a sausage with points on one side. When I blocked the Ginko Shawlette, I used some improvised blocking wires for the first time and when I did some more research into them, I read that some people use cotton thread as a blocking wire, so I thought I'd give that a go.
The verdict: not as good as real wire, but miles better than pins on their own. I didn't really look for any techniques, I just gave it a try, so I think that I might just do some surfing around later to see whether I can find anything...

The other project I've make a little bit of progress on is my green granny blanket.
I'm now working on the final part, the long rounds. My lime green is practically finished and I've got one more skein of the other green left, so I'm looking for one last skein of dark green to do the final stripes and bring the whole thing together. After that, there'll be a few ends to weave in (but not too many) and that should be it!

Mnz

YOP: post 4

I didn't post last week because I was on holiday in the Peak District and the Internet there didn't approve of Blogger. So that means that I have quite a lot of catching up to do! But before I left, I had to install my yarnbomb. I didn't reach my goal of completely covering in crochet flowers, but I figured that it was 'now or never' to get it out there, otherwise I'd just keep postponing it...
So, since no medals were awarded in the yarnbombing exhibition parade, I entered the WIP's event.

As you can see by the shine of the street stones , it was raining when I put it out. The Great Belgian Weather proved totally uncooperative. Again. You'd think it would learn from its previous errors, wouldn't you?

My next project was one I only entered in the Ravellenics half way through because I was totally convinced that I would never ever finish it in time. I finished my Pioneer top! I have absolutely no idea how I managed to do that. Knitting anything vaguely resembling a sweater usually takes me between one and three months...

So, in the end I got three medals for this project: the sweater triathlon for obvious reasons, the cable steeplechase for the twisted stitch columns (those line you can see on the back) and the synchronized stash busting because my yarn was more than one year old. Plus my first real point I can tick off my YOP list! Only nine to go :)

The last project I entered for the Ravellenics were my Spain in Summer socks. If you compare the FO with the map, you can see where these socks got their name.

 

 

But things didn't go as smoothly as expected with these. You see, for once I had decided that I would try to make two more or less identical socks. And as you can see, I've failed. I'm not sure if it's my fault, because I started the socks at the same point in the colour repeat scheme and they have the same gauge. Is it me or does the yellow bit on the top sock look quite a lot longer than the yellow part in the bottom sock? I did have to frog that part back completely because I had gone down to 42 stitched instead of 48 and therefore they didn't fit any more, but still, that seems quite a bit longer, doesn't it? Anyway, they got finished before the end of the games, and that's the important part.

I've done quite a lot of knitting since the end of the games, but that'll be for the next post, otherwise I won't have anything to write about!

Mnz