V-Neck Vest for Dad

Done!

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Cable V-Neck Pullover Pattern pattern from freevintageknitting.com.

Beginning in the round mistakes are so, so easy to correct and yes, the sooner the better. Don't get mad. Get glad.

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Tip#1 When you didn't cast on enough

I was short stitches. So I reknit the missing stitches (9 or something) with a different length, stuck them next to each other, and sew!

After a while, if you carefully examine the way the "ribs" of knitting cross horizontally, I sort of wedge the tail I am sewing to imitate the natural horizontal ribbing.

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Tip#2 They're wrong. Don't join the loop right away

Using the above method, nowadays, I rarely close the loop before moving on. Basically I never join first for anything I'm doing with a circular larger than 16" or on DPN that's got a really awkward amount (like hella small. Like 12 or 6). I knit as a flat piece, then to close the loop, I stick them next to each other and sewed those ends together, too!

When you DO join, just make sure all the stitches are either pointing out of the circle or towards the circle. It doesn't matter which way. They just have to not cross over each other. You can see in the picture below my preference of having the work pointing inwards, so the needle faces you and the work faces away.

After: Ends sewn together. Will weave in tails.

Before: Ends placed next to each other, long tails for sewing

Tip #3 Do not hesitate to rewrite patterns so that you can understand them.

This is the pattern as is, an absolute nightmare.

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This is the pattern as I rewrote it. Might still be a nightmare for anyone not me.

I could not imagine working this pattern while reading the original chart. Nobody does that. Nobody. At least not me.

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That Must Be Merino in Hobby Lobby's proprietary Yarn Bee line is actually pretty ok. Lighter, can't debate the wool-ness. Really will not felt well at all, but eh whatever. They usually have the 30% off on yarn.

I got the 7 skeins that were on the shelf. I somehow always time it to NOT get the 30% off.

Cooking

 

Yoke Sweater For Brother

My brother got it in the mail

Done!

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Look at this shriveled up orange lol or a buddha's hand. Somehow, for the first time in my life, I have exactly the right amount of yarn. I used my last gold (was that 4? 5? Hate how i can never keep track), used 1 grey, and using the other grey.

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I carefully pivoted to grey top. Had just enough and then a bunch of failed cast ons I kept for sewing ends.

Comin together! One decrease with pattern on yoke. Classic northern style. Fair isle has that nice element of really easy to see the row you're on and make mistakes but the fact that it's one complete wrap tallest row to bottom row all around makes it so much easier to keep height of design repeat since you're not trying to pay attention to a 4 row pattern, or a 8 row pattern, etc. It's a complete collar design. 

I do not remember when but I did use up the last chunk of yarn. I am on Ball/Skein #4.

I will just have to weigh it after. Since the colors are from the same line, just different dyes.

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Join was very interesting. Matching up inner corner of sleeve/body was interesting. Just was too loose. But I didn't expect k2tog, k1psso to look like this. I guess I'll go back and resew the arm joint.

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Magic loop arm!

Ball/Skein #3 started! This picture was surprisingly hard to take. 

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After Ball/Skein #2

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Ball/Skein #1

Using 50% merino. Didn't realize until later it was part spandex or something. :( Yarn bee must be merino. Was on clearance and I got like 15 skeins for $1.07 to $2.00 each. SCORE. Got mostly this gold and the two grey there were.

Made this Lasse Yoke Sweater on garnstudio, but only with two colors to keep it easy.

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Tip#1 no frog fo u

I personally hate calling tearing out rows "frogging" and I also think it's a terrible technique. Cut the thread neatly. Set aside. Directly pick up and attach to the work you've just done/done over and knit with slack directly from the messed up piece as it was when it was set aside. Yarn goes directly from a worked state into another worked state and if it's part of a project, you will already be using the same tension, needle, gauge, everything. Ripping it up in between worked state is a terrible use of emotions, time, money, everything. Be nice to yourself and your things. It is normal to paint over when painting, etc.

Tip #2 separate the loop

When you are using magic loop you still have to separate a few chunks of stitches as if they were on separate DPNs. The only difference is you are working with fewer pointy objects. A bit weird not having something to push outward from my stomach since I have an infamous "one long crunch" when I sit down on the couch and knit over an evening.

Cheetoh Shawl for MIL

Finished!

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Going in to widen the triangle.

I really don't like the bikini line. It was too tall for how slim it was, so I had to go in and do a border. I had some very thin yarn in the same exact orange by coincidence so I used it. Now that I see it I really wish I had used white, which I also had in that same very thin yarn. Hindsight and all.

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I've gotten through --- Two?? Four?? --- Color changes! But they're the very short inside bit. The cake is not as distributed in length of each color as I wanted. It's a self striping cake tho so that's nice but zero blending on this one. Maybe the ombre will look less crunched to one side when it's done.

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These eyelets are the same ones in the third mug tree cover beanie. As always looks different on different weights. The mug hat was more worsted and this is more DK. Not quite sock.

I was originally gonna gradually lengthen the pattern panel basically every other row but I quickly discovered aint nobody got time fo dat so it became every 18 increase (the repeat is over 8 stchs) so incorporating pattern vs stockinette panel by stair steps. I actually really like the way it looks.

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Tip#1 On Books

I have never really liked the idea of buying one but I put some on the list and my husbands mom got some for me a few christmases ago (i honestly dont remember the year)

I was wrong. Hella wrong. I didn't want to sort through good and bad stitch bibles at random on the internet but this bad baby is definitely worth it.

This is where I found the "cogwheel eyelets"

This book has really been useful and coincidentally is also orange on the cover lol

It was like $30 on amazon or something.

Tip#2 Design is all Math

The amount of times I'll ask my husband to calculate something and it spirals into a 30 minute conversation because I didn't say all of the details beyond the confines of my head.

Something like "I did XXX stitches on sock but now I need to convert it to aran. Then I need to decrease from XXX stchs to XX over a series of X rows. How many stitches go between each decrease?"

And then the thought of doing it around mfin shoulders? UGH although speaking of which I have found raglan shoulders with a squishy yarn to be the easiest.

Stockinette gauge is really straight forward tho so there's that at least.

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Three Baby Animals for friend

Custom Order:Three Baby Animals

Done!

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Almost there! So I'll do different accessories, same color. Decided with friend on bright baby yellow.

I left the finishing for last so that those at least can match since I picked different patterns. The bear is supposed to have a bow tie and the fox a scarf and the deer didnt have a neck stabilizer so that was a real problem last time.

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The Bear

The Jen Hayes Classic Crocheted Bear is the most perfect, classic, wonderful choice. Very, very happy with how it turned out. Sewing is really not my strong suit so it's arms and legs are doing the splits (jumping jacks?) but ah well. The child will not know.

I still have to do the bow tie and eyes, misc. But I'm tired of it for now.

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The Deer

Using the same graceandyarn deer pattern I've used before. 

I picked it back up today to work on it and the magic circle had just kind of loosened. Tie your magic circles right!

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The Fox

I'm thinking about Fausto the Fox from @handcraftingalife

Hubby helped me pose it with more than my own hands lol.

I couldn't find the right orange in the right weight. So just did this.

I was thinking about doing a white stripe down the ears and mimic more red fox features since I couldn't find the right fur color period.

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I have a friend who requested these. I still can't believe both of her sisters and one cousin got pregnant and gave birth pretty close to the same time. Bonus cousin-siblings for the little ones LOL. She's asked for a bear, a red fox, and a deer. She was the one those two baby blankets were for. One of them was twins. Surprise, mom!

Coffee Cup Stand Covers For Hubby's Office

Complete!!!!!!

The eyelet one, tension sq(uanches? squoshes?).

The striped one still looks way too fat.

The twisted one still tapers too weirdly.

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Hat #3

Looks sad flopped on its side. The fabric shell was too short but I was like I am NOT doing that again. So that makes block stripe, twisted cable, and lace. Three different colors. Three different skills. I was a little uuuuugh tho bc husband said he couldn't see the eyelets unless he got real close, just stipples and some self-striping.

Ended up making my own stitch reference grid of close-up cropped photos

Cameo I wool always love you yarn bowl and hubby's feet. Doing a nice eyelet.

I picked the yarn (ombre) before I picked the pattern and I knew I was probably gonna do lace so was initially concerned about the self striping obscuring the hexagonal pattern and it's even worse than I thought.

I didn't expect the yarn to self stripe in this watercolor paint way. I even looked up knit works with this yarn before starting with it but I felt like it wouldn't stripe the same way since this isn't the same size OR shape (or even flat) as a full length shawl.

I really was disappointed at how non exponential the ombre was tho. Very nice just not for what I was doing. I don't usually use colorways but I'll be able to judge a little better.

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Hat #2

I messed up the crown tho. Got really pointy and unattractive. Oh well, pom pom hides a lot.

Hat #2 almost done. Decided one of them would be cabled twists. It looked quite handsome in person. Only broke pattern a few times. Looks more homemade lol. It's super easy to see denser eyelet mistakes but I am so bad at eyeballing rows between cables since they...you know.....twist....

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Hat #1

After all that heart ache I went with oversized and inner fabric shell. I actually knew I would have to....didn't wanna....sewing is hard :( Ugh. Uuuuuuuuuugh. I got to the point where I was like can I just buy a canvas lampshade but they would have the lightbulb fixture and shade top so I was like dagnabit.

I am kinda pissed tho that hat #1 is so fat and unshaped. Poorly shaped. Misshapen. Also dropped the senior prank numbers plan bc the hats got bigger and the numbers would just be too much/awkward

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Failed attempt #2:

flax worsted

This visually came out ok but it seriously wasn't when it came to actual use. The really big fail about it was experimenting with structural integrity. The wire kept catching on different spokes and mugs. The knit piece kept getting distorted and the wire was just too poke-through-able against the flimsy acrylic.

I also was really, really not impressed with the flax bc it didn't add to felting or ANYTHING. Just a little extra scratchy and LITTLE PIECES OF TWIG KEPT FLYING INTO MY MOUTH. I was ALSO dismayed that the yarn was a really impressive, true sage at the store and this was one of the ones that are especially good at not showing good color in different lighting. I don't usually fall for it this hard. Maybe bc the unfamiliar fiber? Like how mohair can be? But this is worsted....whatever done and over. Maybe I'll burn it.

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Failed attempt #1

Self striping sock weight

No lining

Used sock and it was too squishy and too stretchy at the same time.

Hubby took a pic of it on one of the trees and it was utterly hideous. Told him to take it off immediately.

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Exposed mug trees

We thought we would do the classic senior class prank and have three tree hats labeled 1, 2, and 4.

Decided to make them as different from each other as possible and have one skill for each hat. Solid color, cables, and maybe lace. Don't want to do lace bc it'll be sheer and need backing but we'll see.

Cacti Series

Ugly little cactus flower!

I used some of the wire I couldn't use in the mug hats to make spoke/limb things and then used it with stuffing as "bones" for the attached cactus body-sphere things. I didn't think to take a picture hubby was like wtf is growing out 

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Two WIPs

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#2 Tall Cactus

Cute mini cactus with flowers.

Man I had to remember how to do flowers and that was a pain until I gave in and looked it up.

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#1 Succulent

I made the red line on this first succulent too curly and it looks more like red leaf lettuce than anything

:(

cameo fanf mug

I'm planning maybe 5 very different ones. However many it takes to get bored.