Knitting – Page 11 – Hopefully Creative

Update

I’m still knitting, I’ve just turned the heel of the first white sock, and have ‘basted’ together my sweater and am thinking of how to best knit the collar, such that I don’t feel overly exposed and it still looks nice. It fits well, although the sleeves are made for a monkey, and I’m not a monkey. However, if I turn back the ribbing it fits fine (the lazy (wo)man’s solution).

Next to that I’ve been tracing two of my shirts, in order to make them again. Tracing is a cheap way to make a pattern and since you already know how the things fit, it’s easy to change what you want style wise. I’ve even started to figure out how to place the pattern on the bit of stretchy fabric I got a while ago. So I am trying to be productive ‘creatively’, but I find it difficult, to muster up the energy to work after being at school for 8 hours.

For the larp event I am part of I made a pair of enormous pants. I could fit in the one leg, and my friend could fit in the other (it was quite funny). So while I feel fairly useless, I may actually be doing more than I think. Let’s hope I can keep up with doing some work!

SockS!

Look at that!

I finished the second sock! And only .. one week after 1 finished the first! Oh I ‘m so proud of myself. I’m currently wearing both of my new makes and am very happy with them. They have only been on my feet for 2 hours, but they haven’t sagged terribly yet, nor have bits come out. They also haven’t been hideously unpleasant to wear. At present I call this a success! Also, it has got me in the mood for more of this easy knitting. It’s a simple project I can easily take with me on the train, 20 minutes still lets me do a couple of rounds and in no time a project is finished.

So here they are in full form. Beware, my legs aren’t really whiter than milk, something with flash and bad for overall colours. Also, it’s really strange to take photos of your feet when you are standing up and bending over (second picture), they have a really weird shape there..

Oh I’m so proud of my achievement, on to the next.. now with some visual interest please!

Sock

I made a sock. It was my second attempt, since with the first attempt I failed to get the gauge correctly. It did fit over my foot, but it was about twice as long when it was not on my foot and therefore I figured that turning the heel might not work very well. So I took some other yarn (the stuff I also used for the cuffs) and created attempt number two. It didn’t take very long to knit it, only 28 stitches in the round so that goes very fast. It’s again blue and very simple, this is the pattern I used (Ravelry).

Now comes the daunting bit, knitting the other one..

Coat cuffs

Although I am supposed to be very busy with school, I have decided that I should not do any work after say 11 or 11:30 at night. It’s just too late and it won’t work. Therefore, I started making the cuffs for my coat yesterday. I knitted some inner cuffs that won’t show on the outside, but should keep my wrists warm and covered, and prevent the wind from flying up my sleeve. They are very simple, just 34 stitches on 20 or so rows, knitted flat and attached together. I used a ‘drunken German cast on’ (using this site) to keep them stretchy, and another stretchy bind off (from this movie) to keep them stretchy on the other side. Not very interesting, but there is progress!

I also unpicked my pockets because I decided I want them somewhere else, since it didn’t feel right before. I also want zippers in them (don’t know how I’m going to do that, but I’ll figure that out later). Hopefully, I will have my coat done by Monday and I can wear it for the remainder of the winter. Hopefully!

Wish me luck on that one (and the mass of homework still to do). Good luck crafting too!

Fish!

I made a fish today!

I had a friend over for a chat and I was trying to re-familiarise her with knitting again. So we both cast on some stitches, some with more difficulty than others and started stitching. I think my needles were to small, because it’s really tight. I started with some rows of stockinette and then decreased on both sides of the row for a couple of rows. I then started increasing again, now only on the knit rows on both sides. Then I did 1 or 2 were I increased every 3rd row. Some rows no in or decreases and then started decreasing again in about the same order. The last 3 stitches were cast of, and I had myself a fish!

It curls up like crazy, I guess I have to do some of the blocking business with it, but my no experience is preventing me from doing that, also I’m too lazy for such a simple fish. Maybe I’ll do it at some time.

Fishy!!!

Fronts Fronts Fronts Fronts Fronts!

Sing the title and you’ll know what I mean. I have finally finished the fronts of my cardigan! Yay!

I know it’s the start of the new year and people tend to make ‘achievement’ lists of the past 366 days, but I refuse to do that. After all, nothing really changed between the 20th of December and now. The passing from the 3rd of January to the 4th is equally special as from the 31st of December to the 1st of January. Maybe I’m wrong. If you want to see what I did this year you can look in Finished projects, it should all be sorted there.

Back to the cardigan. I still need to make the collar thing, which involves picking up and knitting, something I’ve never done before, but youtube is very helpful in this. However, I think I should first iron or press or something, the side on which I need to pick up those stitches, because right now it’s impossible. It doesn’t help that the yarn is black, and I barely see the v’s that I should pick up. I tried and frogged (?) it about 4 times before I gave up and went to sleep. However, in theory I could now put it together and wear it. It should look something like this:

Although it should then be attached together, buttons added, with a collar and without all the loose threads. Still it’s starting to come together and I’m quite happy with it, it seems to fit without being overly enormous on me.

So now onto the collar, I can possibly wear this thing during this winter!

Cardigan 2

I’ve also started working on my cardigan again, the black with white stripes one. I’ve finished to sleeves a while ago although they are not sewn yet. (I tried them on by tying all the ends of the white bits together in little bows)

See, those are my sleeves, I still need to futz with getting them sewn up and stuff, and getting rid of all the loose ends, but I’m happy with them so far.

I have also started the fronts now, I’m knitting them in tandem so I know for sure that they’ll be symmetrical. I’ve also knitted my first buttonholes, ever! Ok, it may have taken several viewing and reviewings of youtube clips and ripping out (frogging I think it’s called?) and starting over but I did it. Admittedly, the bottom one is crap, but the two others I have finished so far actually are not too shabby, if you ask me. So now I just need to finish it, preferably in time for like.. January or February, you know, Winter.

Anyways, here are the buttonholes and fronts. The green thing is my monsterbag in which I currently store the whole knitting business.

Projects; always nice to see some progress!

New Project

I’ve got holiday right now, a break from school, which means that until I find a summer job, I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands. So I decided, it’s time for a new project! I was looking around the internets and found this. Another vintage, uploaded, free knitting pattern by the wonderful Liz of zilredloh.com. I decided that, taking into account the time it took me to finish the last one, I should start another cardigan now so I could possibly wear it this winter.

So on to the window pane cardigan, although I’ve made some changes. I fail to knit at the correct gauge thingy so I’m just knitting at my normal gauge and hope it fits, the last one I made was with more stitches and way to big, so I hope that this one with less stitches but the same yarn will fit better. Also, I’ve omitted the vertical lines and made the contrast colour two rows instead of one. I’m not sure what to do with the collar, I might omit it or modify it, but I don’t particularly like the one on the picture.

I have finished the complete back panel and the ribbing and one pattern on the sleeves since I started 2 or 3 weeks ago. I found during my last cardigan that I hate knitting sleeves last because I think that the thing is already almost wearable. This time I opted to do the back and then the sleeves and wait with the fronts, because they are the most exiting (I think). Anyway, this is my progress:

What you see is the yarn in the left top and bottom corner (a white and a black one); to the right in the middle, the sleeves to be, at the top the printed pattern and the second black yarn and to the right the completed back panel. I know it’s long enough, I’ll have to wait to find out if it is wide enough too.

So the only thing to do now is finish it. I think I should set a deadline .. eh .. what would be reasonable. October. I think I’ll try to finish this thing before October, that should be attainable, right? Right?

Well I’m off to knit me some more sleeve!

Tag: Knitting