Don't even tell me....
...how many knitting days until Christmas there are. I have plenty of time. Do you hear me? Plenty. Of. Time!
So, the Hermione hat for a friend is not done. Is not anywhere near done. Maybe I can get it done by the time I see her next week. If not, looks like it'll be a Christmas gift.
Am thinking I might, one of these days, spring for a #5 circ of some nice hat-ish size. I've got my Denise set, which is generally really great, but the #5s can be a bit of a hassle, as the needle and the cable are about the same width. Which still, is not really an issue when knitting 30 rows of 2x2 ribbing (for example) or something else nice and basic like that. But when doing a bunch of cables? I spent more time fighting to get the stitches to move around the circ than I did actually knitting.
Transferred to my #5 dpns, and things are progressing much more smoothly now, though it's still an extremely fussy pattern. Like, I'd been thinking I might make another of these for someone else, but now I'm not so sure. The travelling cable is not so bad, but the rope cables are very "tight" - the crossovers happen about a row more frequently than I think I would generally do. I'm sure they'll look great in the end, but they're a serious pain in the ass now.
The first of the Christmas stockings is going pretty well. I'm past the widest part of the first set of diamonds, and things are really starting to click along for me, so that's really nice. I feel like this is going to work out. I've been pausing every so often to weave in ends as I go. Not only because it makes the whole thing less of a fiasco to work with, but also because otherwise I'm going to finish these things and the kids will be eight years old before I ever get around to weaving in all those ends. And in the meantime, we'll be losing stocking stuffers to the riotous ends inside. Like vicious woolly seaweed or something.
I'm also in the home stretch on the second of the Sockotta #1 socks. (Yeah yeah, this might have something to do with why the Hermione hat is languishing...) The socks have gotten a lot of attention lately primarily because the rest of the knitting I have on the needles is a lot more complicated than I can do with two toddlers running amok. Which means I only do the more complicated projects during naptimes and after the kids are in bed.
Also, my sister keeps calling me. I owe at least two inches of these socks to her, I swear - last night she called and yammered at me for an hour, and I got a good 8-9 rows on the socks done. And it was good I had my knitting - I was able to handily resist the temptation to get really snarky with her when she oh-so-coyly suggested that my eldest nephew would "love" a Harry Potter hat to go with the Harry Potter scarf I made him this past spring.
Now see, I'd already done this math. I have the leftover yarn, there's a chance it's enough for a hat, so... why not, yes? But I sure don't need my sister, of all people, telling me what projects I should do next. It's all I can do not to refuse to do it just to spite her. But I do think my nephew would like a Gryffindor hat, so... sigh. Damn her.
I did, however, take the opportunity to explain to her just how much time knitting takes, and so no, her friend who wants HP scarves for her kids? She can learn to knit herself. I'd be glad to teach her, in fact (if it weren't for us being 100 miles away), but I'm not going to knit scarves for somebody I don't even know. Even for pay, considering just how much it would cost to make even minimum wage by knitting a double-layered scarf. sigh.
One of us must have gotten switched at the hospital, I swear.
So, the Hermione hat for a friend is not done. Is not anywhere near done. Maybe I can get it done by the time I see her next week. If not, looks like it'll be a Christmas gift.
Am thinking I might, one of these days, spring for a #5 circ of some nice hat-ish size. I've got my Denise set, which is generally really great, but the #5s can be a bit of a hassle, as the needle and the cable are about the same width. Which still, is not really an issue when knitting 30 rows of 2x2 ribbing (for example) or something else nice and basic like that. But when doing a bunch of cables? I spent more time fighting to get the stitches to move around the circ than I did actually knitting.
Transferred to my #5 dpns, and things are progressing much more smoothly now, though it's still an extremely fussy pattern. Like, I'd been thinking I might make another of these for someone else, but now I'm not so sure. The travelling cable is not so bad, but the rope cables are very "tight" - the crossovers happen about a row more frequently than I think I would generally do. I'm sure they'll look great in the end, but they're a serious pain in the ass now.
The first of the Christmas stockings is going pretty well. I'm past the widest part of the first set of diamonds, and things are really starting to click along for me, so that's really nice. I feel like this is going to work out. I've been pausing every so often to weave in ends as I go. Not only because it makes the whole thing less of a fiasco to work with, but also because otherwise I'm going to finish these things and the kids will be eight years old before I ever get around to weaving in all those ends. And in the meantime, we'll be losing stocking stuffers to the riotous ends inside. Like vicious woolly seaweed or something.
I'm also in the home stretch on the second of the Sockotta #1 socks. (Yeah yeah, this might have something to do with why the Hermione hat is languishing...) The socks have gotten a lot of attention lately primarily because the rest of the knitting I have on the needles is a lot more complicated than I can do with two toddlers running amok. Which means I only do the more complicated projects during naptimes and after the kids are in bed.
Also, my sister keeps calling me. I owe at least two inches of these socks to her, I swear - last night she called and yammered at me for an hour, and I got a good 8-9 rows on the socks done. And it was good I had my knitting - I was able to handily resist the temptation to get really snarky with her when she oh-so-coyly suggested that my eldest nephew would "love" a Harry Potter hat to go with the Harry Potter scarf I made him this past spring.
Now see, I'd already done this math. I have the leftover yarn, there's a chance it's enough for a hat, so... why not, yes? But I sure don't need my sister, of all people, telling me what projects I should do next. It's all I can do not to refuse to do it just to spite her. But I do think my nephew would like a Gryffindor hat, so... sigh. Damn her.
I did, however, take the opportunity to explain to her just how much time knitting takes, and so no, her friend who wants HP scarves for her kids? She can learn to knit herself. I'd be glad to teach her, in fact (if it weren't for us being 100 miles away), but I'm not going to knit scarves for somebody I don't even know. Even for pay, considering just how much it would cost to make even minimum wage by knitting a double-layered scarf. sigh.
One of us must have gotten switched at the hospital, I swear.
posted by Thorny @ 11/18/2005 08:20:00 PM
1 Comments:
At Mon Nov 21, 09:52:00 AM CST,
the fiddlin' fool said…
It sounds like your #5 circ is too long. The length of the stiff part shouldn't really have much to do with how well the stitches go around the needles. Now, if the stitches are getting caught up at the join, that's a different problem, but it doesn't sound like that's the issue. You should probably be using a 16" needle, and the stitches should practically be melting off the needles. I originally tried a hat on a 24" and subsequently wrecked my hands in about 15 minutes. Glad that the dpns are working out, though.
And thank goodness for relatives sometimes. Even if the conversation is way too long, they give us more time to sit and knit. :)
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