What I Love About Sarah Palin...

is her hair. Never would I have guessed that a candidate for Vice President of the United States would wear her hair in a messy updo. No longer must I feel guilty for my hair when I go to the grocery store or the park. Now, if only I can get it to look as careless as she does. Unfortunately, I've only recently grown out my bangs and I'm not ready to cut them again. Besides, it's so political.

I found a couple of interesting links about her hair. One compares it to Audrey Hepburn. Another sees Sophia Loren. You know who I see? The woman from the Adam Ant Goody Two Shoes video (okay, the glasses have been updated, but otherwise, they are pretty similar).

Clip Show

here's a shrug I knit last year. I don't think I've posted anything about it on this blog. I was so upset by this shrug last year. Knitting has led to much personal growth for me. Though I look a bit ratty wearing this stuff; I'm just trying to prepare a wardrobe for my upcoming eccentric old lady phase. I plan to be really weird.

Dr. Seamlove

* or how I learned to stop worrying and love the mattress stitch

I finished the sleeves/body of my shrug with attached scarf and have started on the scarf. This feels a lot like knitting the shrug all over again because the shrug is basically the scarf with the ends seamed up to become sleeves.

I was dreading seaming the shrug. Partly because this was begun as a different project and I changed it after I had done 10 inches of knitting. I was worried the ribbing would look really weird when the seamed the sleeves. Also, I haven't done much seaming and what I have done was on simple stockinette and I don't believe I used the mattress stitch but took more of a Swedish Chef approach. Oh, yeah, and there was that unfortunate ribbing seaming incident with another shrug. Believe it or not, I learned from that and took it into account when I began this project - the original project. When I changed patterns mid-stream my whole attempt to avoid the same mistake looked rather foolish. But I laugh in the face of mistakes these days.

I read my books on the mattress seam, picked up my needle and gave it a try. The shrug was knit in 2 by 5 ribbing. I was actually able to keep the 2 by 5 look without making the seam look bulky. I was amazed. The sleeves do get a little wonky at the upper arm where I was like "I think this is going to get a little snug" so I added a couple of stitches per alternating row over 6 rows (6 stitches added). Again, I took a Swedish Chef approach. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. So maybe the pattern changes to more of a 2 x 6 or 7 ribbing at the seam, but that's not bad. And anyone looking that close to my underarms and counting stitches has some real problems. Sicko.

May I say that the mattress stitch is blowing my mind. It really acts as it's described, you sew a few stitches and then gently pull and then -whoop- it's closed up and you can't see a seam. It's supernatural.

I've got more work to do on this shrug. Not only do I need to knit the scarf and then attach it, I want to do something to the bottom of the back of the shrug. It needs something. I'm thinking that something will involve a crochet border of some kind.

And to think this project nearly caused me to bail on knitting. Far out.

Hooked on Crochet

Wow, I haven't written in awhile, eh?

I have previously tried crochet, only to fail or lose interest. Well, I must have finally found a simple enough pattern for something worth crocheting and it all clicked. I made the Little Ditty Bag for my tape recorder (I use it to tape record my voice lessons. Yes, I am finally owning up to taking voice lessons. La la la la -- here that? It's on pitch and I had breath support for it, baby). Anyway, my poor little tape recorder was getting bumped around something fierce, so when I saw this little purse, which strikes me as too little to be much use to me, I thought it was just the thing. Did I mention it was easy? Very easy. Pretty much all single crochet with some increasing. I love it.

I've been pretty much trolling for simple crochet patterns and making stuff. Some are successes



others, less so


There's a weekend I won't get back. It didn't fit and I decided I liked the yarn too much for a hat that didn't fit.

what's wrong with the doll's hat? you ask. Let's just say that it was not supposed to be a doll's hat. And the back looks like Frankenhat.

Anyway, most of my on-line time has been spent on Ravelry.

Flower Hat - success

Pattern: Flower Hat, modified. Yarn: Patons Melody, super bulky, acrylic. Needle size: 13

I figured I did not have enough yarn (85 yards) to complete the hat so I researched patterns for top down hats rather than attempting the gathered top in the pattern. I decided to go with a pattern I'd read for the Jamaica Pouch. Not a hat at all, but one member on Ravelry showed her daughter wearing the bag as a hat and I thought I'd try it. In the course of this research, I also came across a cast on for circular knitting that I thought I'd try. Can't say it worked out great but it wasn't a flop, either.

I followed the JP pattern for 6 rounds (42 stitches) and then did simple knitting until hat measured about 7" inches and then began ruffle instructions for flower hat. For the second increase in the ruffle, I decided to knit front and back of each stitch to increase, I found it to be less holey-looking. I did the bind off with a crochet hook because I didn't have enough yarn to bind off in the usual manner. I read about the crochet hook bind off in Stitch n' Bitch Nation, p. 113.

This is a perfect size for my younger daughter (5 1/2), too bad it was knit for my older daughter (8).

Flower Hat - failed

Pattern: Flower Hat, modified. Yarn: Patons Melody, super bulky, acrylic. Needle size: 13

I figured this would fail because I was using the wrong sized yarn. I was bored with my current project and needed to do something. It's a hat, it's a small commitment. It's acrylic and leftover from a poncho I made. I was not afraid of having to frog this.

I started following the pattern. Casting on 60 made the hat way too big (even for me) and this was for a child. I also learned that I would run out of yarn and wouldn't be able to make the ruffle.

The hat is knit top down, so what you see as the brim is supposed to be the top. The holes are for a cord to be used to gather it together. See the pattern picture, it's really cute. I thought I could salvage the hat by turning it upside down and doing a simple finish for the crown. I figured I would weave a ribbon through the eyelet holes and make a bow. It would be lovely and help tighten up the large hat. Since this hat was for my daughter, I asked her whether she would like me to do that, or to rip it and make the Flower Hat with the ruffle. She went for the Flower hat, so you can read about that here.

My First Sweater

I find myself pondering the question of why knit sweaters. You can buy perfect, machine-knit sweaters in a variety of styles, colors, and sizes. Why bother knitting one yourself? If you think I have an answer, you're wrong. The reason I knit this sweater is my mom de-stashed something like 12 balls of this yarn. I think the sweater took about 6. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I'm not a variegated yarn kind of gal, but I love turquoise so I gave it a shot. What did I have to lose? A whole bunch of free yarn. And time.

After doing extensive research for an appropriate pattern and reading all about yarn and knitting, I found a pattern that worked. I needed a simple stitch since the variegated yarn creates enough interest on it's own. No lace, no cables, just plain stockinette. The yarn is half cotton, half acrylic and I was worried about it stretching out from the weight of the cotton and it's inelastic nature (I don't know whether being half acrylic tempers this much, one would think it would, but I'm not experienced enough to know.) I found a pattern on the Drops site for a bolero jacket, perfect, it has room the stretch without swallowing me up. Plus, as I'm comfortably situated in my late 30s, I'd like to show off my waist as long as I have one.

This was a pretty easy knit. I've now accepted that in knitting (and perhaps in all things), I must be willing to rip back when I make a mistake. No more "damn the torpedos, full speed ahead" (my usual m.o.). Mistakes are little signs that something is wrong and it doesn't take all that long to fix. It's just demoralizing, but before you know it you've ripped back and are moving forward once again.

The knitty gritty (there is more on Ravelry):

Pattern: Drops Design Bolero with raglan sleeves

Needles: size 9, I use Denise Circulars

Yarn: Sirdar Spree Chunky - what's the weight, bulky? worsted? I don't know but I got gauge, which is how I found this pattern. Drops allows you to pattern search on gauge.

This was my first sweater and I've only been knitting 6 months, so I didn't bring a whole lot of information with me. It took me a few tries to understand the pattern. Based on the measurements in the pattern, I choose to make a size Large. After the first few rows, I realized it would be too big, so I ripped back and made a size Small. Even though I got gauge (and my knitting showed I continued to be dead on), this sweater was knitting out 2 inches larger than the measurements in the pattern. I don't know why, maybe it's the yarn I used, I did not use the recommended yarn. Who knows. When I finished, I felt the sweater was a little tight across the upper arms and back on the first wearing. On the second, it felt completely comfortable. Who knows what is going to happen to this thing with wear and washing.

Modifications

Sleeves: Since I have so much yarn and this sweater is intended for wearing in the cool early spring, I did not want short sleeves. Because of concern for the stretching of the yarn, I did not want long sleeves. I shot for 3/4 sleeves and that's pretty much what I got. Being a newbie, I wasn't quite sure about increasing and decreasing and didn't want to bother. I had fallen in love with some bell sleeves I saw in other patterns and dreamed of doing that. But I thought I should keep is simple. So I took the widest measurement of the sleeve (where the pattern joins it to the body) and knit that the full length of the sleeve. I'm happy with how it came out. It was a lot of knitting in the round, but it was easy and I used the two circular needle method of knitting small diameter tubes. Not that the sleeve was all that small, but small enough that using a singular circular would have been difficult, if not impossible. When I first joined the sleeves to the body, I needed to work with a second circular again as I approached the arm because it was so tight in that area. After a few rows, though, there was enough room to knit on just one circular.

Neckline/Buttonband: I ignored the pattern directions to hold the 5 stitches of button band on each side while knitting the rest of the sweater. I continued to knit the first and last 5 stitches in garter. It made the top of the sweater a little funky, but I've got no problem wearing a sweater that looks handknit and has imperfections in it. It strikes me as very human. When I came to the last rows of the sweater, I changed to garter stitch so that the back collar would match the waistbands and side. I tried decreasing within the first 5 stitches of each side every other row to taper it off -- I only did this for 5 rows. It looks okay, but I could have done better. But I was not about to attempt knitting out the collar seperately and attaching it. I'm pretty sure that would have looked worse.

Buttons: I made the yarn-over button-holes but though the bolero was a little snug to button in front. Plus, yarn-over button-holes are sloppy looking (so the knitting books tell me). I decided to chain stitch some ties from the yarn. I inserted one chain through the 2 button-holes on one side and then took the other chain and inserted that through 2 places to correspond. One each side, I tied the two ends together so I can't accidentally pull the chain out. However, neither tie is sewn in so I can remove them and replace them with ribbon or some other fixture. To close the bolero, I simply tie the ties in a bow -- it creates a double-bow look because each tie is doubled.