I'll just never blog. I sometimes come up with blog posts in my head, but just never write them down. I guess thinking about it feels 'done' to me. I've also just been slacking, doing some boring stockinette knitting that I'll show later, sneaking in a trip to nyc for a couple of days, and dreading the upcoming warm weather. what I haven't had a chance to do is get a proper photo of my finished 28thirty.

pattern: 28thirty
yarn: debbie bliss pure cashmere, duck egg (04, sometimes "light blue")
needles: 5 mm, 24" and dpn's
buttons: seven from albert zoll
date started: 2.14.08
date finished: 3.12.08

sorry for the lousy pic, but I've been too busy wearing the sweater to bother blocking it (gasp!!). oh and yesterday was about 75 degrees and I started sweating as soon as I put the damn thing on.

let's see what I can remember a month later! I obviously love the finished sweater since it's been a wardrobe staple since binding off, but this doesn't mean it was an error free knit. first things first, I changed the side the button band to match the pattern image instead of the written pattern, changed the buttonholes to k1, ssk, double yo, k2tog, k1, and used mirrored decreases for the shaping. no biggies really. I got into trouble when I started on the sleeves, when I somehow I entered a math black hole.

I worked on one sleeve three different ways. the first time the sleeve was huge even though the body seemed to fit perfectly. so I frogged back and started the sleeve decreases earlier. by the time I got to the elbow I could see that the sleeve was still huge and now had a lovely pouch from the underarm to the elbow. the third time around I frogged the sleeves and part of the body; I had already done less raglan increases than the pattern suggests but I had to remove quite a few more to get both the body and sleeves to fit. I still don't think it's perfect but it works (and I was tired of trying to figure out why I wasn't getting the right measurements even with spot on stitch and row gauge) . once I figured that out, I knit the sleeves on the car ride up to boston and noticed that my little yarn stash was quickly diminishing and I still had the body to finish! thankfully I found two more hanks (their last two!) at knit & needlepoint on newberry st. that matched exactly. I ended up using the second hank to bind off. : (

I think I shed a tear or two when weaving in alllllll those ends. housekeeping was wondering why I wasn't leaving the room (they even called!) while I was sewing the buttons and wondering how many hanks I actually used. I'm going to say at least 18 but probably 20 or 21. want to know a little secret? I didn't weave in the ends in the sleeves. yeah, at that point I just wanted to wear it already! the yarn is super warm and it's soft (as cashmere should be) but I still love the laines du nord I used before more. I found the lnd to be lighter in feel (it has a different type of plying) and a bit softer. I also thought the db cashmere had more guard hairs in it that should've been cleaned out. but, obviously, this hasn't stopped me from constantly wearing this for the last month.

Posted by bitter purl at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

I should be posting about the finished garter st baby sweater I mentioned before. actually, I should have finished the garter st baby sweater I mentioned before. instead of doing the little seaming I have left, I've totally ignored the vintage cardi for 28thirty. carrie's right, there is something about all those purl ridges that is hypnotizing. I wish she would hurry up and post her finished sweater (hint!hint!) so I can finally see what it looks like. in the meantime, I'll just have to carry on with mine.

I've separated the sleeves and have knit a few inches on the body and I'm now in that weird part of a project where I have to decide on the length. do I follow the pattern or mess around and try it on a bunch of times? I haven't decided yet since this cardigan knits up so quickly. is it weird that 4spi is starting to feel really chunky? the knitting itself has been pretty uneventful, except for when I got to the first buttonhole. I had to email carrie to make sure I wasn't crazy. in the pattern photos, the buttonhole band is on the right but as written its on the left. I kept staring at the photos, then at my knitting thinking I wasn't reversing something right in my brain. finally, after checking my coats and tom's shirts, I talked myself into some semblance of sanity. the buttonholes 'should' be on the right, so there. then I noticed another small prob, the buttonhole is the double yo but there's only one decrease written in. easy enough to spot, but still the buttonhole should be k1, ssk, double yo, k2tog, k1. on the next row k1 p1 when you get to the double yo.

now I have a question for you. this is something that's irked me for a while and no one has ever been able to give me a proper answer. in top down raglans, when it comes time to work on the sleeves, if you simply join it in the round you are left with a gap and some loose stitches (as seen above). how do you keep this from happening or how do you hide the gap? I think it's even worse when you knit a raglan bottom up, since you have gaps on both sides of the grafted underarm stitches. thoughts?

Posted by bitter purl at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

have you ever had the spark just come back for something? was that feeling amazing or what?
for a while there I wasn't doing much knitting or blogging. I would still read blogs here and there, but more as a lurker and less as a commenter. lately though, I can't seem to stop knitting. maybe I just needed a break to remember what it felt like, let that void get a little too wide for comfort. or maybe I just needed to step away from the blog for a while and just let the crafting go its course.

I've been knitting a lot of little things, so the instant gratification high is helping me along. a couple of days ago I started yet another tiny project for mazie, the vintage baby cardigan from shibuiknits. I had some extra sock yarn that I had dyed ages ago and I wasn't sure what to do with. I figured this would be the perfect way to use it up.

it's mindless garter, but something about it feels so good. isn't that a sign that I just want to knit? I've been plugging away at it since monday night and all I have left now is the left front/sleeve and a little bit of seaming. for some reason I thought it would have gone faster than that. the suggested needles are 3.25mm but I had to go down to 2.5mm and I'm still not getting gauge. I've been following the newborn size st counts, but aiming for the 6mo measurements. I really, really don't want to knit another project on 2.5mm unless it is a sock. maybe that's why I cheated a little.

just a wee bit really. carrie mentioned starting a 28thirty and something about it just stuck in my mind. it wasn't exactly love at first sight, it took a couple of weeks for me to finally break down and buy it. I'm guessing it's the collar that slowly creeped into my subconscious. that, or I just want to dress like carrie. I only knit the first six rows, just to get a little variety, and then I hid it away so I can finish mazie's sweater.

that's the knitting, but what about the blogging? I'm still working on that, but baby steps right?

I'm woefully behind on passing this along. it's just so hard to pick a couple of blogs when there are so many that I read. i love teyani, leah, and tiennie, but for the list I decide to grab a few oldies and some new-to-me ones from my bloglines and share them with you here. how apropos to do it on valentine's. almost reminds me of elementary school when you bring cards for everyone in the class.

some knitting ones:
a friend to knit with
coloursknits
flint knits
hello yarn
sixoneseven

some cooking ones:
cookthink
mattbites
smitten kitchen

and one that I wish would come back:
streets and yos

Posted by bitter purl at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)