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So, as I mentioned last post, I am taking a break from the endless Manly Aran Socks to knit a vest. It’s a super quick project that I’m designing mostly on the fly, and even though I started three days ago, this is what it looks like so far:
Plus about two inches of the back. So I have left to finish the rest of the back, plus some ribbing or something around the edges. My original sketch of this design looked like this:
I think I’m going to work up a shorter version of the sketch (the tails would be right under the bust) so I can fiddle with the neck/arm shaping so the pattern doesn’t suck. I do love the princess lines on the fronts, which came out pretty much how I wanted. The neckline is a little funny, but I think that’ll look better when I work some ribbing there.
I can’t wait for this vest to be finished–I’m thinking it’ll look super cute over a flowey blouse or dress.
So this post is a little less than thrilling. Sorry about that.
I am knitting socks. Manly Aran socks, to be specific (from Wendy Johnson’s second book). This is what they look like so far:
(I futzed around with the image a little but it’s dreary and grey today so not much light)
They are the second pair to the first I finished last week for a WWFY swap on Ravelry. I am quite ready for them to be done, though they are progressing pretty smoothly. I am a couple of rows into the gusset.
I think I’m going to start another project this evening though so I don’t get so bored knitting the second pair of gigantic socks I flings them across the room. It’s going to be a vest of my own design knit in a cotton/linen blend yarn I frogged from a thrift store sweater.
Warning: If you are FiberAlchemist, my partner on the Craftster Whedonverse swap, DO NOT READ THIS POST. It contains swap spoilers.
Sooo I held a contest recently, which means we need to have a winner! For the contest, I asked you to look at this picture:
and try to guess what I was making. There weren’t many entries, but there was one that was correct! Mimi of Eskimimi Knits said “Is it a doll or toy with red hair?” And that is the correct answer, so she will be winning a kit to knit some spats! Look for my email so I can send it to you!
But who is this red-headed doll specifically?
Why, it’s Willow Rosenburg!
I am currently participating in a Whedonverse swap on Craftster.org (because such is my love of Joss Whedon and Buffy/Firefly/Dollhouse), and I made this doll as one of the items to include in the package. Specifically, it is Willow from the episode “Doppelgangland” in which Willow’s vamp alter ego from “The Wish” comes to Sunnydale and tries to eat everyone. At one point, Willow and vampire!Willow switch clothes, which means….
I also made vampire!Willow’s clothes for her to wear!
The little leather clothes were kind of a huge pain in the ass to sew and they’re rather difficult to get on (so I’m sending Willow already in them). They did come out more or less exactly how I envisioned them though, so that’s awesome.
The doll itself is knit in acrylic yarn (from some estate sale or something) and the red hair is acrylic too, latch hooked in individual strands (which was also a huge PITA, but it came out looking really good).
Willow’s pink sweater is plainer than the one she wears in the episode, but I’m lacking in tiny butterfly appliques and anyway, the fuzzy pinkness is exactly as envisioned, so a score on that one. I used the machine on the leather outfit, but I sewed the skirt by hand (I wasn’t at my machine and I wanted to work on it).
I really hope my partner likes her! I’m really proud of how she came out, and I am sad to send her away. Maybe I’ll make myself another Willow doll with a different outfit from a different episode. : ) I have to finish up another item that’s almost done and then make one more thing, and my swap package will be ready to send. My partner says she should be sending this weekend too. I can’t wait to see what she made me!
Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to craft – alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys. What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorette’s baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords. Do you always have snacks to hand, or are you a strictly ‘no crumbs near my yarn!’ kind of knitter.
So I’m pretty sure I discussed this last year, but I knit damn near all the time. In class. While walking. In the car. Hanging out with friends. At a party (though less there as my stitches go a little wonky after a drink or two…). I don’t really have “knitting time” cause to me, every time is knitting time.
Recently, I’ve been knitting here:
This is a blanket fort some friends and Joe and I built in our living room. It’s highly awesome. There are twinkle lights inside.
It’s perfect for curling up with some pillows, my laptop, my boyfriend, and my knitting. Yay. : )
This is the last entry for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, so I hope you guys had fun (and that new readers will stick around!). Don’t forget about the contest. You should totally enter even if you think someone has already guessed it–if your answer includes a more specific detail, you could still win! You have until tomorrow sometime or until I get around to choosing a winner. : )
Whatever happened to your __________?
Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.
There are a lot of different aspects to look at when looking back at a knitting project and it can make for interesting blogging, as much of the time we blog about items recently completed, new and freshly completed. It is not so often that we look back at what has happened to these items after they have been around for a while.
How has one of your past knits lived up to wear. Maybe an item has become lost. Maybe you spent weeks knitting your giant-footed dad a pair of socks in bright pink and green stripes which the then ‘lost’. If you have knit items to donate to a good cause, you could reflect on the was in which you hope that item is still doing good for it’s owner or the cause it was made to support.
Let me tell you a story. It’s a story about a sock. These socks in particular:
They are my only pair of woolen, hand-knit mid-calf high socks. I ADORE THEM. I’m still not crazy about the colors, but they are delightfully warm. Except there was a problem. If you recall the original FO post for these socks, I mentioned one of the legs was too small because I accidentally decreased too many after the heel. I wore the socks a few times; I really had to work to get that one on.
And then disaster struck.
Where I pulled the leg of the sock over my heel stressed the stitches so much that they popped! This was in December, right at the beginning of winter.
I put them in a basket and ignored them for a couple of months.
A couple days ago, when the weather was lovely and I was sick of knitting gigantic man socks, I pulled them out and thought, “Y’know, I might like to wear these socks. I think I’ll reknit the leg.” And so I did.
They fit much better now and I’m very glad I fixed them.
Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?
So over the last couple of weeks, I knit these socks:
(sorry this pictures is so bad, IDEK)
Pattern: Manly Aran Socks by Wendy Johnson from Knitted Socks for Everybody
Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints
Needles: US 1s
Mods: None
Recipient: WWFY swap, presumably to go to a gigantic man. I knit the large size upon request and these are BIG SOCKS. And they TOOK FOREVER. And I have to KNIT ANOTHER PAIR.
So I knit these socks. And they were possibly the most complicated cabling thing I’ve done to date. Lots of twisting, lots of chart-following, lots of complicated little cables. But here’s the thing: I understand how cables work. I know how to get them to turn left and right and over and under. After I figured out how to do a basic open cable, I suddenly got cables. Which means once I’d finished a whole repeat of the cable pattern for these socks (I knit them two at a time like a boss), I pretty much had the pattern memorized. YES.
WHICH MEANS that the socks I mentioned during last years Blog Week (The Viper Pilots of complication and DOOM? TOTALLY DOABLE NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. Cable patterns, top down, heel flap, and all.
LIKE A BOSS.
Followers of the blog for at least a year may remember last year, when I participated in the Knitting and Crochet blog week, set up by Eskimimi Knits and the Blog Hub group on Ravelry. Well, it’s happening again this year, starting a week from today! The topics this year are super interesting, and if you like, you can see them here on Eskimimi’s blog.
During that week, I’ll be posting every day on a variety of topics related to knitting and yarn and the like. If you have a blog, I encourage you to participate too! It’s lots of fun and the tag system and group mean you can meet some new people, bloggers and knitters and increase traffic to your blog. I know I added a couple new blogs to my rss reader thanks to the event last year.
And as for knitting news: I am still working on the enormous Manly Aran socks. I’ve finally finished turning the heel. Yay.
I love this picture. The words are from a poem by TS Eliot called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I think it’s pretty apropos of my life right now. Worrying about one day at a time.
Sorry there’s no knitting or crafting in this post. I’m still working on those socks from last time (I’m up to the gussets; they’re very large). Things (my life, crafting, everything) should pick up soon and things will get back to normal. I’ll finish these damn socks and then knit another pair. So knitting is happening.
This is going to be something of a short point as I’m currently dealing with some things (someone close to me in in the hospital). I can’t really get into it, but suffice it to say I don’t really have the brain space for anything except sleeping.
I am knitting a little though. I started these socks last week before all of this sort of exploded (before Thursday) and had/have been making pretty good progress. They’re not hard, which is good cause I can’t really do hard right now.
More on the socks later when everything has gotten back to normal.
As promised, this post is about knitting. I finished a thing!
(The recipient has larger feet and calves than me so that’s why they look funny on)
Pattern: Wicked Witch Stockings from the Sanguine Gryphon
Yarn: Sanguine Gryphon Bugga!
Needles: US 1/sock needle, long circular for magic loop.
Recipient: WWFY person
Mods: I worked the socks top down cause that seems to make socks go by faster. It has to be a set length when I get past the heel and there’s no, “FUCK IT they are TALL ENOUGH” when I get bored.
Despite the Ravelry page for these socks saying they took me just shy of a month, they really felt like they flew by–I knit the second sock in about a week and seeing as one knee-high sock is similar to a pair of regular socks in knitting amount, that’s an accomplishment.
The stripes and calf decreases really made these socks fly–that and the fact that they’re in stockinette so I could knit them while internetting and whatnot. I’m really pleased I have them off the needles now though. I have two more pairs of socks to knit for another WWFY swap (one that I thought had been cancelled until the yarn–shipped in August–arrived with my parents when they came up to visit over winter break) and then I am FREE FREE FREE to knit for myself.
Seriously, I can’t wait.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 