Since I haven’t been knitting much this summer (haven’t finished a single thing since May!), and the knitting I have done recently hasn’t exactly been going as well or as quickly as I’d like (see: SKB, Estonian Garden Stole), it’s been hard for me to keep up my motivation to knit.

Whenever I get into a rut like this, whether it is at work, or at home, the easiest way for to snap out of it is to actually finish something. Anything. A quick, easy, fun project is just the answer for my current knitting woes. And the yarn I bought at Webster’s was the inspiration I needed.

Thus, I present Fuzzy - a simple roll-brimmed hat of my own design (and I use the term “design” very loosely).

Specs:

Yarn - 1 skein Diakeito Diadomina, color 305. [I’m in love with this yarn. It is worsted weight, 50% wool, 21% mohair, and 29% nylon, with ~122 yds/skein. It is extremely soft and the colors are gorgeous. It would make a beautiful knit-in-the–round raglan sweater.]

Needles - Size 7 Crystal Palace dpns. I tried using magic loop, but for me dpns are a lot faster.

Pattern - My own very basic pattern, inspired by a store sample at Websters, and sized to fit my head (21″).

Important lesson learned - When knitting a hat like this, you MUST calculate approximately 2″ of negative ease when determining how many stitches to cast on. If the hat is exactly the same size as your head, it will be way too big! (I actually knit 2 hats today, because I figured this out a bit too late!)

Now, back to knitting already in progress.

The sweater I once loved is turning out to be a real pain. I’m not a big fan of ripping, but it’s looking like round two of SKB ripping is about to commence.

Here’s the lace, sans beads. I like it a lot better this way!

Per the pattern, I’m about 20 rows from finishing the bodice of the sweater.

But, here’s what it looks like on me…

I love the fit, up to the bottom of the lace. But, when I switched back to the larger needles and started the increases, something went terribly wrong. This is supposed to be a fitted sweater, and it is not even close to fitting me around the waist! There are about 6 extra inches of ease that make the sweater balloon out around my stomach - not good. Also, I’m going to need to add a bit of length… 20 rows isn’t going to do it if I want the bottom of the sweater in the right place.

So, here’s my plan:

1. Rip back to the bottom of the purl ridges.

2. Re-knit using one needle size smaller.

3. No increasing for a few inches, then add just a few increases spaced farther apart than called for by the pattern.

4. Add enough length so the bottom of the sweater hits my “shirt length sweet spot”.

Also, I should note that my stitch and row gauge are right on. I think the reason that my sweater is turning out differently than the modeled sweaters is the difference between the drape and structure of 100% silk yarn (Tilli Tomas) and 100% merino wool (Malabrigo). The Malabrigo doesn’t “grow” lengthwise like the silk would… its stitches stay right where they are knit. The moral of the story is that when substituting yarn, there are other things to consider besides row and stitch gauge.

On Saturday, Ruth, Lynette, and I went to a lovely brunch hosted by Caitlyn. The food was yummy, and it is always fun to knit with friends.

Of course, when four knit bloggers get together, everyone should take lots of pictures, right? Ha! We are truly the worst bloggers ever. Even though several of us had cameras, no one even thought to take any pictures until Lynette mentioned she was going to stop to look at cameras on her way home. Cameras! Of course! So, out came the cameras, and we managed to get a few pictures to document the event.

Here’s the tasty spread - a fruit salad made by Caitlyn, quiche from Ruth, scones & muffins from Lynette, and my cinnamon rolls. It was very yummy, as you can tell by our empty plates!

And, our knitting…

Finally, a picture of the whole gang…

We’ll definitely be doing this again - it was fun trying everyone’s recipes (all of which were wonderful), and great to see everyone.

Tomorrow I’m off uber-early for a camping trip to Yosemite. Back next weekend with pictures, and hopefully some finished knitting! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the bears don’t think my merino wool yarn is food. Apparently the bear situation is pretty bad there, and they go after anything with an odor… toothpaste, hand sanitizer, deodorant. Yikes!

Have a great (and bear-free) week!

Yesterday, I spent my lunch hour at various bead stores trying to pick out beads that would work well with the Malabrigo yarn that I bought for the Simple Knitted Bodice sweater. [an aside - love the pattern, but what kind of a name is that? Isn’t that what all sweaters are… simple knitted bodices?]

Here’s the yarn I ordered. This is my first experience with Malabrigo, and from what I can tell, it really is as fabulous as everyone says. It’s softer than Manos, and about 2/3 the price. I haven’t seen the Tilli Tomas yarn that the pattern calls for in person, but I’m guessing this is as close as I’ll get in a wool yarn.

I picked out 9 different beads to swatch with the yarn. Unfortunately, my two favorite beads didn’t have big enough holes to work with the yarn. I suspected as much when I bought them, but thought I’d try anyway. So, I ended up swatching with 7 different beads:

Note that the bottom 2/3 of my swatch looks really pretty awful. I didn’t exactly think about what I was doing before I started swatching. I just took a look at the lace pattern, thought to myself, “easy, peasy!”, and cast on. Well, if I had thought about it a little bit, I would have realized that this sweater is worked in the round. So, every other row of the lace pattern is a knit row. Since I was knitting the swatch flat, I should have made those rows into purl rows to keep a stockinette pattern on the front side. Oops! I realized my mistake after I had already knit in 2/3 of the beads, and didn’t want to rip out all the beadwork, so the last 1/3 of the swatch is right. Hopefully you can still get a good feel for how the beads look in the incorrectly knit section.

Here’s my opinion on the beads (top to bottom):

Coffee colored glass - I like these quite a bit. They are warm and add a bit of contrast. They also look similar to the amber beads in the TT Rockstar Burnt Olive yarn.

Large green glass - I like these too, but worry they might be too big. These are similar to the green beads in the TT Rockstar Olive yarn.

Gold colored glass - Eh, not bad. I’m undecided.

Small green with brown swirls - These are kind of cool, but they blend in to the yarn and are barely visible. If I’m going to go to the trouble of using beads, I’d like to be able to see them!

Silver colored glass - The cool color of these beads doesn’t really go with the yarn.

Bronze beads - Similar to the coffee colored glass, but I think I like the transparency of the glass beads better.

Irridescent multi-color - My least favorite. I thought the mix of colors would be cool. It’s not.

Overall, I’d have to say the top three beads are my favorite, but I’m completely undecided. Please leave a comment and let me know which beads I should use for the sweater. Thanks!

Don’t get all excited.� I didn’t actually finish anything or make any notable progress.� I did pick up the stole and work on it for about an hour last night.� When I started working on it, I remembered the reason I put it down several weeks ago… I found a minor mistake that I had to fix.� Of course, I could have fixed the mistake quickly and easily by adding a M1 to a right side row to get the stitch count back on track.� But nooooo.� I couldn’t let myself do that.� So, I dropped three stitches down ten rows.� Three stitches dropped for ten rows in laceweight yarn being knit on size 5 needles makes a huge, scary mess.� I should have taken a picture, but by the time I thought about it I was already wishing I had a third hand to hold the slippery stitches in place.� Anything involving a camera was not going to happen.
First try, no luck.� I ended up with odd looking lace.� Holes where they shouldn’t be.� Not good.� Fortunately the second shot was a success.� Turns out the order in which you pick up the ladders makes a huge difference.� Who’d have thought?� ;)

Thankfully fixing the mistake went quickly, and I didn’t have to rip and re-knit.� I’m so glad that I’ve learned how to drop and re-knit stitches.� It’s always scary to have to do though!

If all goes well, I should have the main part of the stole completed within a week, then it’s on to the borders.

Slowly, but surely, the Estonian Garden Wrap is coming along…

While the pattern is not terribly exciting to knit, the yarn I’m using makes it so very worthwhile.� There’s really nothing like knitting with 100% pure silk.� One reason this is taking me so long is that I am compelled to�stop after every few rows and fondle my knitting.��

I’m curious what’s going to happen when it comes time to block this piece.� The lace is already fairly open, and it isn’t all bunchy like lace knit with animal fiber (wool, alpaca, etc).� I don’t plan to block it to within an inch of its life, like I did with the alpaca�paisley lace shawl.� A gentle steam blocking and pinning should do the trick, I think.��

On a completely different subject - have any of you seen Glampyre’s latest pattern yet?� This is the first must-knit pattern that I’ve come across in a long time.� Unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately) the pattern isn’t available yet.� Soon, though, I hope!

Knitting has been sparse in these early days of summer. I’m about half done with the “little flowers” section of the Estonian Garden Wrap. No pictures today though, because it looks an awful lot like the last picture I posted, plus just about 50% longer. The repetitiveness of the pattern is driving me crazy. At this point, I think I could probably knit it with my eyes closed, as long as I knew what row I was on. Which is good, I suppose - when I actually sit down to knit, I can really make good progress. But, it is boring, and I don’t do well with boring. I need some excitement. Patterning on both sides, nupps, variations in the pattern! I am really looking forward to finishing the middle section and moving on to the borders.

But, it’s going to be a while. We’re off to ND on Thursday for my sister’s wedding, and I’ve been so busy at work lately that my flight time and any spare time while we’re there is likely to be taken up with work, rather than knitting. I’ll bring the knitting just in case, but don’t anticipate I’ll get much done.

The next few weekends don’t look any more promising - 4th of July will be spent on the lake, then another out of town wedding, and a boating/camping trip. All good and fun, but I think my couch is getting a bit lonely!

There has been some progress on the Estonian Garden Wrap, but very little. I just have not been knitting much lately. Right now, I’m a little over 1/4 done with the center “little flowers” section of the wrap.

Here’s a close-up of the “little flowers”… does anyone see how these look like little flowers? Maybe little diamonds, but I swear I do not see a little flower in the pattern.

I’m just itching to knit the borders, with their P6Tog nupps. Perhaps if I spend more time knitting, I will get to the borders sometime this year.

And, just because, here’s a picture of one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve seen in California. Taken Friday night, as we were heading into the harbor. So pretty!

I should know better. Really, I should.

Went to SnB tonight. Brought the lace wrap to work on. BIG mistake! I cannot, under any circumstance, knit anything that involves a yarnover while talking. (is this a common problem among knitters?)

About 10 minutes after I arrived, I found my first mistake. No big deal, right? I can fix it - no problem! And, after about a half hour, I did get it fixed. (Thanks to Caitlyn & her teeny tiny crochet hook!) So, I kept right on knitting. And talking.

Right before I was about to leave, I spread out my work, and realized that I missed a YO on my last row. Again, no big deal. I grabbed a stitch marker pin, and marked the mistake to fix when I got home.

When I got home, I figured I’d document my silly mistake, so I took out the camera, laid out my knitting, and saw this:

Do you see where I missed the YO? Right above the green pin? Probably not, because of the BIG HOLE to the right of the pin. Holy crap! Where did that come from? I think that one of my stitches must have completely slipped off my needles while I was yapping away. Dang. I’m not even going to attempt to fix that one by dropping stitches!

Next thing you know, I’ve got this mess to contend with -

It’s a blurry picture (dark living room), but all that’s important is the lack of a needle in the general proximity of the yarn. Yikes. None of this stitch-by-stitch frogging stuff for me. I’m a ripper!

8 rows of ripping, 4 rows of knitting, and about an hour later, I’m back to about the same point I was before SnB.

Ah, progress! But, I’ve learned my lesson - from now on, lace projects are banned from SnB. That will be my stockinette night instead!

Well, there’s not much to show of the lace wrap yet… here it is, in its present state. A whopping 1.5 repeats completed, out of 42 repeats just for the center section! I grabbed the yarn & needles on my way out the door on Friday when we headed off to Santa Clara, but I neglected to bring waste yarn for the provisional cast on. Oops! Thankfully, we stopped in Fairfield, found a Michael’s (eeew), and bought some waste yarn. From now on, I’m carrying a few yards of worsted weight yarn in my knitting bag!

I have to say that I adore knitting with this silk. It is SO soft.
There’s been other knitting in the past week too… mostly done while driving around Northern California touring with the family. In one week, we drove about 1000 miles total, and I managed to finish the front of Salina and start on sleeve #1. That project should be done by fall.

And, a completely random picture:

This is a guy I saw on my drive home from work last night. A very manly man at first glance (had facial hair, driving a Harley), but take a closer look… Do you see what I saw? His shoes! Oh. My. Gosh. What does he have on his feet? Are those sparkly green flats I see? They are! Sparkly green flats! On a man riding a Harley! (And would those not look so cute with my lace wrap?)