So tired of this frigging collar. I looked up how to properly pick up stitches on a cardigan neck, and it's looking sort of lacework now. Which is...not how it's supposed to look at all. So I'm just going to say "fuck it" to how many stitches the pattern wants me to pick up, and go with the number that lets me have something that doesn't look like it's hanging on by threads. (Which is going to be at least twice as many as the number the pattern wants picked up.)
I love knitting, but HOT damn do I never have the right sized circular needles for a project. Like, literally the few sets I do have are never the right gauge or length for ANYTHING. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with them because they're apparently useless except as regular needles that happen to be hooked together. I have slightly better luck with DPNs, but I only have like... two sets, and one is very large and stubby and the other one is only good for gloves. Or socks. And I am through knitting gloves for the moment.
SAME HAT SARO I ended up trying to buy a pair and made the Huge Mistake of going with a...less quality brand it's fine for dishcloths but absolutely useless for the cowl I'd wanted to make :(
I feel that. I'm gauge-swatching right now and I've had to change needles three times now. If this set doesn't work, I'm going to have to go "fuck it" and go with having the gauge be a bit too big because this is supposed to be a birthday present for my mom. (One day. One day I will have projects started in a timely fashion, so that I'm not under the gun to get them completed in time to send them for the appropriate holiday or event. Today is not that day, and the rest of 2017 isn't looking much better, but I have hope for 2018! ...once I get my ADHD meds refilled, anyways.)
still working on that wings shawl but I'm thinking I might've fucked up the middle feather??? the instructions got Weird and Off-Center, and it's a little frustrating :/
fixed the heckie shawl mostly, but I have a weird question: what would be a good fiber to make a tea cozy out of? Like, do I need to use wool, or would cotton be better, or some other obscure one?
I'd probably go with cotton? Just because it seems sturdier and like it'd hold up better, plus 'tea cozy' gets filed in the same category as 'kitchen fabrics' for me, which apparently means cotton's what's visually appropriate. Probably googling some tea cozy patterns and seeing what fiber the pattern's using would help? (Unless you've already done that and are getting a wide variety of options.)
that was exactly the problem @_@ and some of them were acrylic I have nothing against acrylic, but I don't trust it in my kitchens, and this is actually a gift for my future mother-in-law, so I really want to make a good impression
If you do wool you could maybe felt it? That's supposed to be sturdy. I would also second cotton, though. A good choice for kitcheny stuff.
Hm. I've generally had good luck with acrylic, but I've used it for stuff that specifically needs to be easy to wash - a baby blanket, a blanket for my cat, and a coat for my uncle-in-law's dog; I'm working on a beekeeper's quilt out of acrylic, since the person it's intended for doesn't have the space or spoons for something of that size that'd need careful hand-washing and air-drying. I haven't used it for anything that'd be in the kitchen, and I can definitely see the concerns about stains or heat there. I think, but cannot be sure because my memory tends to be kind of crap, that small skeins of cotton tend to be pretty inexpensive. I know I got eight smol skeins of Bernat Handicrafter in the colourway I needed to finish the Damned Cardigan plus have extra for pockets (I'm working on crocheting those now, just because I kinda noped on using knitting needles after having to frog the pocket a few times), for really cheap - but they were on sale at the time. So it might be possible to get a couple skeins and do a trial run of the cozy, to see how it'd hold up for use on a teapot? Depends on how much time you've got to work with for the gift, really. Googling "what are tea cozies traditionally made of" led me to a Wikipedia article that states "traditionally made from cloth, was probably popularized by the Duchess of Bedford in 1840 when she made afternoon tea a thing, newspapers at the time had a lot of advice columns on how to make one and cited a preference for linen since it was washable". Which would more incline me towards cotton, since it's Close Enough to linen and doesn't require you to go out and buy super-expensive yarn.
@Saro PHEW THANK YOU :D @turtleDove I get Worried about acrylic around hot surfaces, on account of melting points and whatnot @_@ but you're right!! the walmart brand is SUPER soft and sturdy and I can get a 12-dishcloth-worth skein for maybe seven dollars there! I ddddo have until christmas, so I should be fine ^ ^ thank you so much!!! and good luck on the cardigan goddamn
@keltka the Damned Cardigan is basically done, except for the pockets; it's in a wearable state, but I should look up how to block it. It's also a bit bigger on me than I expected, and I'm mildly regretting my choice to work the largest version of the pattern; I have hopes that it'll shrink when washed and blocked, though.
It's not as difficult as it feels like it would be when you haven't done it before. You let the thing soak in warm water and a bit of shampoo or conditioner for a few hours, then you roll it in a towel and press the water out until it's just damp and not soaked. Then you pin it to something - I like using those foam playmats that link together - and make sure it's pinned in a way where it'll dry how you want it to. This means making sure any lacework effects are spread out so that the stitchwork will show well, and pulling the edges so they'll look right. It's mostly just incredibly tedious and takes a lot of space. There are blocking wires, which are recommended if you've got lace to block out (they're probably good for other things too, but the lacework bit is what I'm remembering rn). And once you've got it blocked, you should check on it regularly to see how it's drying and adjust the pins to keep the stitches from getting pulled out of shape as the yarn shrinks; how often you should check it is going to depend on how fast things dry in your environment. In a really damp place, I'd say every half hour to an hour at most. If things dry super fast, maybe just camp out next to it and check the pins every five minutes or so.
Okay so I've never knit a raglan sweater before, as the one I'm making for my daughter is also the first thing I've ever knitted, and while I've pieced together how the sleeves work, I want to make a raglan baseball tee kind of thing, where the sleeves and collar are a different color than the body? And i... dont know how to switch colors. I also don't know how the sleeves COULD be stitched in a different color and still be attached to the body pieces, because if you're just using different balls of yarn for different sections there's no overlap, right? So there wouldn't be a raglan seam, because they'd just be separate on the same cable... and that's the opposite of what I want. I don't know, and I'm honestly surprised that I haven't been able to find a pattern for what I'm picturing when it's a very popular style in shirts! Am I just going to have to sew the sleeves and body together?
if you do make a raglan kind of thing then yes you'd knit the sleeves seperately from the body I... would not recommend doing raglan as your first ever project. the seam thing is immensely complicated (because you have to reduce the amount of stitches you have symmetrically on both sides/increase the stitches on both sides depending on which direction you knit) and honestly I've never attempted it, but every time my mom does the cursing does literally not end.
You could try just twisting the two yarns together once at the colour change on every row. I think that's an intarsia technique for minimising gaping between block colours.
I'm gonna punch this shawl I got to row 69 and I can't??? find the overlap??? like the pattern just...stops WORKING, what the FUCK. it's like it's missing a whole section of what to do from this one part??? http://prayershawlministries.blogspot.com/2009/04/anna-baltzer-wings-of-peace-shawl.html this shit in case anyone was wondering I'm just ??????? what did I do wrong
): ): ): I'm sorry. really sucks to have that happen, I have one project that's just kind of constantly half-done because I keep fucking up reading the pattern
