Trish Knits.com – sweater

Daily Affirmations

August 13, 2008 by Trish Leave a Comment

When you knit something as small as a baby sweater on size 2.5 mm needles, progress can seem slower than slow, and very ungratifying. Especially for a sometimes hyper ADD knitter such as myself, who wants it all, and wants it all, NOW. Some time ago I read on Kelley Petkun’s blog that she uses a row marker to help her track her daily progress. She was particularly impatient with the progress of her plain black socks for Socks for Soldiers, and this little row marker thing seemed to help.

So I got myself some row markers, and I’m giving it a try. What you see here is my progress since this morning, which doesn’t seem like a lot, until you remember that I work full time and so I only have had some commute knitting and a wee bit of time after dinner so far today. And, need I say it again? This sweater has more stitches per row than my giant brown ripple afghan (sadly, still in progress). Big blankets are a challenge to do because of the size of the project. But, I’m discovering, so are tiny baby clothes in sock yarn with small needles. These itty bitty miracles of knitting are actually, quite deceptively, enormous.

Did I mention that the shower is on the 24th? That’s right folks, 11 days to go. Yikes.

And, for the record, here is today’s shot of the whole sweater. See? I am really getting there:

But alas, this is my own personal Olympics. Finishing this would be as good as gold to me.

Rain and Knitting

August 10, 2008 by Trish Leave a Comment

We had a sudden downpour this afternoon that included tiny, marble-sized balls of hail. (Haildrops? Whatever.) I tried to catch a photo of the action:

Meanwhile, not a whole lot of action on the inside today, either:

Does it look any bigger than it did the other day? The stitches are so tiny that sometimes it’s hard to tell, even after what feels like a lot of work. The kids will be away at Mom’s for most of the week though, so I imagine that there will be much knitting. Wish me luck!

Back to the Swimming… er, watching the swimming. While knitting. Come on, you knew what I meant.

Can’t Talk Now… Busy Knitting.

August 9, 2008 by Trish 3 Comments

Ack! Just found out yesterday that the baby shower for the recipient of this baby sweater is in two weeks! I don’t think I’m gonna make it, but I’m gonna try!

So here’s today’s update:

closeup of the cable section of the sweater

This is the cable I twisted at the pool this evening just before coming home. No dropped stitches, yay! I was having my doubts about this cable in the beginning but now I think it’s starting to look nice.

I did take a break away from the knitting today to get a totally new “do”:

I’ve been wanting wash-and-go hair for quite a while now. Mostly because I wear lots of hats in the winter and my hair always gets so smashed up in my hats because it’s so fine. But now, all I need is a little pomade and water, and instant hairdo! Not bad, eh? Can’t wait to give it the hat test this fall.

All for now… back to the knitting!

I’m Getting a Little Too Good at This

August 7, 2008 by Trish 4 Comments

This morning before work I fixed some dropped stitches in my baby sweater.

baby sweater with dropped stitches again

I’m getting tired of this routine! It seems every few rows or so lately I’m having to do some major repair work. I’m pretty sure it has to do with my fatigue level, so I need to fix that, too. But for now, I’m focusing on the sweater. In the photo above you can see the extent of the damage. Not too bad, I guess, compared to some other stuff, but I do detest picking up yarnovers and trying to make them look right again.

picking up stitches from the back with a crochet hook

The job called for using my favorite go-to metal crochet hook, a red, dime store variety that used to belong to John’s great aunt Honey. (I never remember whether Honey was Mary or Frances, but she was Honey to family, and her sister was Duddie. Mary or Frances, Frances or Mary? Wait, I’m digressing…)

Anyway, I figured the easiest thing to do first would be to pick up the column of knit stitches on the purl side, the stitches that offset the cable. This wasn’t too hard. I find that when I have lots of columns of stitches to pick up, I’m constantly flipping the work back and forth, because it’s always easiest for me to pick up stitches from wherever the knit side is. I’ve never quite been able to wrap my brain about pulling the loop the other way ’round the yarn to make a purl stitch, so it’s easier to for me to just flip the work over and over, so I’m always creating knit stitches. Hey, it’s slow, but it works.

And here is the sweater fixed once again, ready to continue with the regular knitting routine. Please wish me luck that the streak of dropping stitches is over for a while–I’d really rather be getting this project done soon.

More later!

Knitting Day in Bowie

August 2, 2008 by Trish 2 Comments

baby sweater with sleeve stitches on holders

Well, I was successful in getting the sleeve stitches onto holders today before knitting group, so here is the latest photo of the baby sweater in progress. It finally looks like a sweater, no? I’m finally seeing a light at the end of this tunnel.

Now some scenes from today’s knitting group:

Rhoda knitting on the BYOB bag from Knitty.com

(Dina is our new group member. She didn’t want her picture taken, but here she is!)

Marie was knitting and sharing her book stash--thanks!

Lola saw that I posted on Ravelry to Jo the other day, asking if she had a drop spindle that I could play with at group today. Jo said no, she didn’t, but then Lola surprised me with this:

drop spindle with fleece and first attempt at spinning yarn

A drop spindle to play with and a bit of roving! I tried for quite a while to make yarn tonight and it was interesting to say the least. It looks so easy when I see others doing it! Maybe I’ll have to ask Lola to give me a lesson or two. I’m thrilled that she’s letting me borrow this spindle before I buy my own, though… it’s good to figure out whether I can even do it first. So far I’ve had yarn falling apart and lots of spindle crashing to the floor stuff, and very little yarn stuff, but I think I’ll get there. Wish me luck, and what a great afternoon it was. Thanks again, ladies! I had a great time.

Fixing a cable

July 31, 2008 by Trish 4 Comments

cable stitches transferred to cable needle

The cable needles I was waiting for arrived yesterday so this morning before work I set out to try to fix the dropped stitches in my baby sweater. I tried to video the process but wouldn’t you know, the batteries died in the camera before I could get it all down. So, I got a few photos, but not too many. Sorry! I’ll try to do better at documenting my next major knitting F-up. K? So in this first shot here is the cable needle, holding the stitches of the dropped cable.

Next, I’m showing you the ladders created when I unraveled the cable stitches. I’m going to pretend that each strand is like a little ball of yarn and knit from it. I will use the strands from bottom to top. Picking up the bottom strand, knitting the cable stitches onto a second cable needle, then sliding the second needle so that the stitches are ready to be knit again on the next strand, etc. until all of the stitches are knit back up. I did have to do a cable cross on the third strand up from the bottom, but it was pretty ok.

here are the strands I\'m going to knit from — here are the strands I'm going to knit from

In the photo below, the cable is all re-knit and looking almost good as new. My eyelets on either side of the cable look a little wonky but I am going to try to not worry about it so much because I can’t quite figure out how to smooth it all over. Sigh. It’s not perfect but better than it was, for sure.

And here I am, happily knitting after having fixed the cable. Soon, I really will be able to put the sleeve stitches on holders and knit the rest of the body. I’m looking forward to being done with this sweater so I can move on to the matching hat and socks.

me, happily knitting on baby sweater after cable stitches are fixed

Until next time…