Sleeve Island

Typically, this means you have only the sleeves left on a sweater, and it's taking forever because, well, sleeves are just long and painful. They have about as many stitches as 1/2 the body or more sometimes, and you have to make two of them. Two! You're usually already done emotionally with the sweater, and just want to put the stupid thing on already, so why are you still knitting?

For me, right now, this means that I have the sleeves from two sweaters done. But nothing else. I've knit both sleeves for the Telemark ski sweater, and they match perfectly, so I'm quite pleased about that. I've also knit both sleeves for my Mother In Law's cardigan, and blocked them both, as I really don't have enough blocking surfaces to block all of the pieces at the same time. Raglan pieces are huge.

I did the sleeves first because they are more like swatches, and if I was dead wrong for some reason or other, I wouldn't have knit quite as far before realizing and ripping it all out wouldn't be as painful. For the Telemark cardigan, I figured I should finish the second sleeve ASAP so it matched the first as closely as possible. I didn't want my gauge changing between sleeves, so doing them one right after the other seemed the best route. I should be continuing on with the body for consistent gauge throughout, but I've jumped projects a few times in between.


For the MIL cardigan, I'm making this up as I go based on desired dimensions and a picture of a sweater that is pretty nice. I'm really hoping that it turns out well. I took the dimensions before moving to Japan, and won't be able to re-measure/see her try it on until the summer of 2010. I'm worried the sleeves are long, but I knit them to the desired length. I'm just worried that the join between the underarm and body will be lower than anticipated, and therefore make the arm length even longer, resulting in gorilla arms. I'm doing the calculations and it just worries me that it won't turn out, mostly because I've never knit something this fitted completely from scratch before.


The sleeves were the easiest to calculate, so I started with them first. That and I wanted to be sure my gauge swatch wasn't lying to me. I was going to knit one sleeve first, then the body pieces, then the other sleeve, so that the sleeves didn't bore me, but then realized it would be better to just get the second one done in case I didn't write down some crucial bit of instructions and therefore had two completely different arms. As you can see, my blocking surface is a bit small, so I pinned one to the front of the board, sliding the pins in sideways so they lie flat along the foam instead of pushing straight through, and one on the back, for double the blocking area. I allowed it to dry leaning up against the wall, and then put it into the closet, knit a sock and worked on some other things.


As of this writing, am blocking the back and about to start the front pieces. I think I may do these two at a time, so that I mirror them correctly. It would be very much like me to make two rights, or two lefts, especially as my list of instructions says to mirror pieces instead of spelling out what to mirror. However, I'm not bothering to wind the hanks into balls, so maybe two hanks going at a time won't be the easiest thing to do. Or, the back took just over one, so maybe I could just use both ends of one...? No, that's definitely a tangle waiting to happen!

More Ikebana!

I have made a couple more Ikebana arrangements, and I will now show them to you! I know you are as excited as I am!


This was my second arrangement. It has Calla Lilies and Kangaroo Ears Paws (thanks MildlyCrafty!). There's also some cute pink flowers and a branch with some leaves on it, but I don't remember the names of those. The teacher showed me what to do for the main branches, but I placed the Calla Lilies and leafy branch myself, and she said it was good. Yay!


Because the Freesias and one Carnation weren't done yet, and the branches were growing leaves, I rearranged those pieces of the first arrangement into a new arrangement. I only had the one kenzan, so couldn't have two at once. This is my unofficial but still very much pleasing to me arrangement.


For this arrangement, the flowers were not quite in sync with the blooming, so it was not as pretty as it could have been at any one point in time. The roses were best the day or two after I got the flowers, and the lilies didn't bloom until 3 and 4 days after, when the roses were wilting. I liked this arrangement a lot, and just wish I had a more appropriate bowl. We make these at school using their supplies, then bring the flowers home and rearrange them in our own. I got three interesting bowls from the secondhand store for my arrangements. The only problem with them is that they're about 2/3 the size of the school's bowls, and in arranging Ikebana you tend to base the lengths of your flowers off the size of the container. I didn't want to re-cut everything after it looks so perfect the way it was, especially as the leaf would just be too big if everything else were smaller, so I left it even though it definitely overpowers the bowl.

I'm so glad I'm doing Ikebana. It's really cool to learn a beautiful flower arranging technique that I'll be able to use for the rest of my life, and it's nice to have the fresh flowers in the apartment on a weekly basis. Even Lee likes the flowers, and says they brighten the place up. Plus, I get a certificate for each year I complete, and the textbook is in English so I actually am learning the technical aspects and not just trying to piece together what I can from pictures and the other students.

Ca Ri Ga Pi

Yay! My first pie crust, for real! I made a Vietnamese curry chicken (Ca Ri Ga) pot pie for dinner, and boy was it delicious! This was my first pot pie, my second ever pie, and my first pie crust. It came out surprisingly well. I used the filling recipe from Wandering Chopsticks, after having tried the non-pie version of the curry and enjoying it greatly, and the crust recipe from the same. Lee was aghast - I was making pie crust and not using his family recipe? Sacrilege!

He agreed that the crust I used was perfect for this particular use though. It is very rich and pastry-like, so excellent if you're looking for a thicker tart-like crust, but I think I'd still go with his family's recipe for most fruit pies. I used this recipe for a chocolate pie as well (no pictures, it went too quickly!) and wow, was it amazing. My family typically gets boxed pumpkin and chocolate pies for Thanksgiving - never again on my watch! This pie was so amazing, and actually really easy to make. I hadn't ever made my own pudding before, and it worked out so well. I shall have to make it again sometime and blog about it then.


We made some rice to go with it, because as filling as the pie was, we wanted to have leftovers for the next night! Ca Ri Ga pie a la mode.

Ikebana!

I have just joined the Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) club! Every Wednesday, I will be getting new flowers to arrange, so we will have fresh flowers in the house weekly. It's a very good deal, and is a really cool skill to have, so I'm very excited about it. As I am a first year student, I get the first year student flowers, and have to arrange them in a very, very systematic way, which is good for me. Technically oriented flower arranging based on set angles, where each piece is some fraction of the next, based off of the size of the vase you're using? I can do that. This week, we had a couple of pink carnations, some yellow fresias, two branches, and a fern, very festive in a spring and Easter way. It's looking a little beat up at this point, from carrying it home and resetting it here after arranging it at school, but the flowers are more open:


I'm inordinately proud of myself for this. I keep telling Lee to go look at the flowers, another one has bloomed, or another leaf has popped out on the branches, but he's not as awestruck by them. Arranging flowers is just one of those things that I tend to put in the "I can't do it" category because it's just too artistic and not structured enough - but I did it! I tend to put painting, drawing, calligraphy, sculpting, and quilting in this category. I will be trying calligraphy, I start that on Monday! I'm trying to continuously challenge myself, learning how to do things I never thought I could do on my own. What better places to learn the arts of calligraphy and flower arranging than in Japan? And it ain't half bad, if I do say so myself.

My First Moebius

It's a test knit. I got to use some stash that has been marinating without a project for far too long, and was in fact some of the first lace I'd ever purchased. I learned how to make a Moebius, and did my first I-cord bindoff. That's the part I like best - it's a cabled I-cord, and I love it to death!

I also learned that the Boye Interchangeables set that I have is not good for making a Moebius. If I make another, I will be springing for either a super long cord for the Boye set (do they make those?) or a whole brand new for reals circular needle. First off, to get the cast on loose enough to go over the join, you have to cast on onto the needle and join, instead of needle and cable. This makes the beginning row a bit too loose. It's also a pain in the butt. I had to do it five times to get it right.

Once you finally have the (^&*% thing cast on correctly, you have to fight with it while you're knitting, constantly forcing the stitches over the join to get them around the cord. Not fun. As this was just a little 7" cowl, I stuck it out and got the job done.

I thought I'd be hating I-cord by the time I finished this thing, but surprisingly, it was finished before I was ready to be done! Amazing! Usually doesn't happen for me. I'm seriously considering diving into the lace stash to make a bunch more for Christmas for people. I can get about 2, I think, from a skein, and I have two colors where I used a good portion of a skein for something and have leftovers from that project and at least one more skein. I'm thinking one in the brown I used for my Wide Triangle, as that didn't even take up the whole skein, one in Knit Picks Shimmer, colorway Galaxy, as I've used about 3/4 of one skein for Betty's Scarf and will use 3/4 of the other for one for me, leaving about enough for a cowl, and then I have the other half of the skein I used for this one, and multiple other skeins of laceweight lying around...

Pattern: May Flowers Moebius, not available outside of the spinning club for which it was written as of yet
Yarn: KnitPicks Shimmer in Sweet Pea, less than 1/2 skein
Timeframe: March 9 - 18, of course 2-3 days of just waiting for me to graft the ends of the edging and block.
Mods: None!
Problems: Only with my materials; see above.

I don't think I'd be wearing cowls much, even though I love this one, because I tend to wear my hair up in a clip and/or wear glasses. It's not terribly easy getting cowls on over either, and I like my neck to be snugly warm, which you just don't quite get with a cowl. Fast and easy, so definitely present worthy! This pleases me greatly, because I hate scarves but want to be able to give interesting things to people. I think this Christmas, it may just be cowls!

More Issues!

I've been knitting along on the sleeve. Getting fairly far, nothing to brag about but not too shabby either. I realized that I have a whole heck of a lot more increasing to do, and not all that much space left to increase in. I realized that I only just barely got the last increase in on the last sleeve, which was at a tighter gauge and therefore had more room to make those increases in.

Crap.

I calculated it, and there is no way possible that increasing every 6 rows would work for the assumed row gauge and the example numbers. This time around, with my looser gauge, I've ended up using the example numbers as my numbers. No way to increase 28 sts in approximately 6.5 inches at 6 rows/inch. No way using the stated increases. You're supposed to increase 2 sts every 6th row, so you'd need 84 total rows for this (6 rows/inch x 14 increase rows = 84 total rows). 6.5 inches is only 39 rows. Even at 7 rows/inch, it's only about 53. So, I'm increasing every 3 rows, needing 42 total rows, just perfect at 6.5 rows/inch, a little less than the whole way at 7.

Perfect!

This means I need to rip back and start increasing every three rows, starting at row 3 of the section I am in. I don't want to rip out all my lovely stranding! It's going so well...

Crap.

I carefully run the 4th needle through one leg of every stitch of the third row of the section. I pull out the needle holding those sts and run that one through every stitch of the same row underneath another needle, and do the same with that one, until I can pull out the last needle and then take a picture to show you:


Next came the frogging, which luckily worked out correctly and got me exactly where I wanted to be. I then added a stitch at the beginning and the end of the sleeve, and went along my merry way.

Mom's Cardigan

I've posted about this one before. I think I finally got it figured out and am going to go with it. There's so many errors in this pattern. I'm listing them on my Ravelry project page and will post them here when I do a finished object post.

First, I calculated, using the numbers on the charts and my row gauge, how much of the lice pattern I should knit before the main Snowflake motifs. There's a lot more lice in my sleeve than in the model's. They never list row gauge, just give a 7 sts/in, which I assumed to be stitch gauge unless they mean 7 sts/inch both row and stitch-wise. I've said it before, but it amazes me that the pattern writer was so helpful in explaining how to figure out your size based on your actual measurements and gauge, but doesn't once mention your row gauge.

According to my calculations, at 48 rows, you'd need to have a gauge of 6 rows/inch to make your sweater come out correctly. I swatched (amazing, I know) and got 6.5 sts/inch and 6.5 rows/inch. Close enough, I can live with 1/2" less of main motif. The 2" less of an 8" motif was just not going to fly, which is why I stopped, put it down for a few months, and swatched before starting over. I also found other mistakes that I didn't find the first time through, and now my sleeve looks a bit nicer. One mistake I just found was in the pattern row count on the Sleeve Pattern. Row 25 is the final row in the main motif. It's the exact same size as the 27 row Body Pattern. Hmm...instead of Row 13, it says Row 12 on the pattern, decreasing the total count to 25 instead of the actual 27. So that messed up my counting a bit. There's also 2 knit in MC rows between motifs I didn't count before. This makes it 52 rows over 8 inches, giving a perfect 6.5 rows/inch. My gauge is now wonderful.

New gauge on the top, as you can see, it's bigger than the old.

I'm going to try to get this and my MIL sweater done by Mother's Day this year. I haven't officially started that cardigan yet, and need to re-swatch and re-figure all the numbers. It's just a raglan cardigan with generous ribbing on the bottom, an applied I-cord edging at the opening, and a ribbed neck of the mock turtle variety. Should be fairly simple, once I get going!