Annoyances

A couple things are annoying me right now. Yes, it's almost 2 A.M. which might explain most, if not all, of my menial complains, but I will share them with you anyways:

Cadence Socks:

Almost done. Yeah, almost. Because I ran out of yarn. At the toe of the second sock. That means I'll have to go buy another skein of this (expensive) yarn just to finish the toe! Then what am I going to do with the rest??? UGH. Look at it! It's just screaming "finish me! finish me!"

So, facing this tragedy, I started on socks for sister #2. I spotted this pattern a while back, the unoriginally titled "short socks." It almost sounds too good to be true. Socks on size 7's? Who has heard of such a thing? After doing the Cadence Socks on size 2's, I was so shocked to have to re-acclimate myself to the 7's.

What a monstrosity! You could whack someone over the head with these giant pillars of wood and kill them instantly.

The execution is easy enough, except for the pattern is complete gibberish. It's like one painfully long run-on sentence with random, unnecessary punctuation AND CAPS LOCK. "REMEMBER THE GUAGE!" it screams at you in the middle of a paragraph. Why? Shouldn't I have theoretically checked the gauge before starting? Even if I didn't, (I hardly ever do) why on earth would I check it now? You don't give the gauge for ribbing!
"NOTE: This pattern is written in American English. All measurements in charts are in cm."
Really? Does that make sense? It doesn't to me, but that might be the result of a lack of sleep on my part. 
In a more realistic sense of complaints: thrown in here and there are vague terms like "rib" which is supposed to imply 3x3 ribbing. The charts are also not the best. 


</whining>


It's decided: everyone is getting socks this year. I have sock fever! Except for Dad, who is getting this hat.

Socks!

The never-ending sweater project is once again on hold as I make Christmas presents for my family and friends. First up: my sister who specifically requested socks. I've honestly never made adult-sized socks before, so I was very intimidated. I was expecting to spend a fair amount of time on them, which is why I started in October. But I got on a roll and finished one in a matter of a couple of days! They are the Cadence Socks and here's one done:

Boy, that's not a very good picture... but you get the idea.

It's a very fun project. I originally bought two skeins of Classic Elite Fresco, but to finish off the toe of the first sock I had to tap into the second skein. But it was just the end of the toe, I hope I don't run out!

I started making the socks on size 1 DPNs but they came out way too small, so I restarted on 2's. The socks are a little big for me, but I think they'll fit my sister perfectly. (I hope she doesn't read this...)

Next, I'm starting more socks for my sister's room mates, the Circle Socks and Java Socks. Socks socks socks! Turns out, I'm pretty good at them!

Madison Knitters' Guild

Last Monday I went to my first Madison Knitters' Guild meeting. I can't believe I haven't gone before! It was tons of fun. They brought in Susan Anderson and the makers of Spud & Chloe yarn. I LOVE Spud & Chloe yarn! It's what I made my ducky socks out of. It was a great point to jump in, Susan is wonderful to listen to. And we got some gifts! We got this adorable heart shaped tape measure:

And a little canvas bag with two patterns!

Amazing! I also loved the show and tell, there are some seriously talented knitters and spinners in Madison. At the next meeting I'm totally showing off my deer hat and hopefully my sweater will be done by then too! And maybe even my Aidez as well! We'll see. I've got this silly math midterm the day after tomorrow that I'm getting really annoyed with.

Sweater Take 2

I ripped up the sweater pretty far. It was hard to do. Here's what it looks like now:

But one advantage of moving is being forced to go through all your stuff, so I recently found my bamboo size 6 DPN's so I don't have to deal with these clunky metal ones:

Lighter and shorter.

After ripping I started with the sleeves first. I also decreased the stitches in the arm by 6. The shorter needles and the fewer stitches means this is going a lot faster now.

Even though I'm making the sweater smaller this time around, I'll probably still need more yarn. I made this Aidez sweater out of recycled yarn a while ago, but towards the end I ran out (story of my life, I know) so I used this sweater's brown yarn for the last bit. But since I need it now, I unraveled the brown bit from the Aidez sweater. I assembled it really poorly in the first place, so it's not like I could wear it around anyways. Eventually though, I'll finish and re-assemble the Aidez. Here's pictures of it before the ripping:

Notice the big holes...

So here's to getting it right! Hooray for ripping!

Sweater Update

No, I'm not done yet. And it looks like I wont be for a while...
Here's where I'm at:

I have one sleeve completely done, and one mostly done. I have the body done to the pattern specs (except the hem, which I can't figure out) but I think it looks bad. It in no way fits my body, which I admit is pretty unusually-sized.

 The body needs to be a lot narrower and longer.

 The sleeves could be narrower, too.

I was thinking that maybe I could give it away to someone else, but now I'm completely sure I will not have enough yarn. Plus, I hate trying to give things away that I spent so much time on, because then if the receiver doesn't like it, they'll feel bad that I put so much effort into it and wear it sometimes out of pity. It's a lose-lose. I think it will eventually be a pretty sweater, but it isn't going to be finished for a long time. And that means I'll probably get distracted by other projects, and maybe occasionally school work.

Racoon Hat

This is the very first pattern that I've come up with and shared with everyone. Please don't laugh!

It's a striped hat that's squared off to give the impression of ears. At least I think so!

Needles: US Size 9 (5.5mm) 16" and DPN's, or do the whole thing on DPN's.

Gauge: 4 stitches per inch

Yarn: Cascade Yarn Ecological Wool of any two colors, or any yarn that works with the gauge.

Other supplies: Stitch markers, yarn needle

Abbreviations:
     CO = cast on
     pm = place marker
     sm = slip marker

Directions:
CO 72 stitches using long-tail cast on. Place marker at the beginning of the row and...

Knit!

Now I made my stripes 9 rows each, or somewhere between 1.75" and 2". You can make yours as long as you want!

Keep knitting in stockinette until the piece is 7" long. This happened to be the beginning of my 5th and last stripe.

Decreases:
Row 1: K 16, pm, K 4, pm, K 32, pm, K 4, pm, K to end of row
Row 2: *K to 2nd to last stitch before marker, K2tog, sm, K4, sm, ssk* repeat once more and K to the end of the row
Row 3: Knit
Repeat Row 2 and Row 3 three more times. You can switch to DPN's at any time if you like.

Slip the first 14 stitches and the last 14 stitches of the piece onto one DPN, and slip the other 28 stitches onto another DPN. Sew stitches together using kitchener stitch. (I found this video very helpful)

Weave in the ends.

There you go!

Catching Up

As of a few hours ago, I officially unpacked the last box from my move. Yes, it took me a few weeks but it's better late than never. I have completed a few smaller projects, having put my sweater project on hold. First is this buttoned scarf/cowl/thing:

I deviated from the pattern in that instead of doing a knit row for the second pattern row, I did a purl row to keep it in stockinette. I did this to make it look neater, because the garter stitch-style pattern looked way too messy with this yarn.

Second project: the deer with antlers hat. I used yarn that I had on hand, so I don't think it looks ideal, but it's cute! The antlers, when I felted them as directed, really didn't shrink that much.

Second project PART 2: the deer with antlers hat done a little better. I bought some yarn specifically for the project and I like this one better. (You can check out the specific yarns I used on my project pages on Ravelry.) For this hat's antlers, I felted them as directed and THEN stuck them in the dryer on high with some other laundry for about 30 minutes. This shrunk them a little more and made them significantly stiffer.

Third project: I will create a new post for this because it's a pattern that I came up with myself, so I want to share the pattern with everyone!

Now that I'm all done being distracted, I'm going to finish that sweater. I REALLY AM!!! I might have to steal back some yarn from my recycled Aidez sweater, but I can always redo that one. I will finish this sweater.