Knitting gone wrong...horribly wrong.

Yesterday I saw what I consider to be the prime example of knitting being used for evil instead of good. It was being worn by a customer that I was expected to serve without reaction or comment. Below is a very crude artists' impression of what I saw:

(Imagine it being worn over a red, long-sleeved shirt, by someone who I swear was channelling Saffron from AbFab.)

I remember every detail, because I couldn't keep my eyes off it! I was astounded. I could barely function. I thought, this jumper has to be handmade, you just can't buy anything like this! But why would anyone make something like this, and then go and wear it out in public??

And you know what the most amazing thing was?

It was made in exactly the same wool, in exactly the same shade, as my very own Jumper from Hell that I recently exorcised from my past!! I'd recognise it anywhere. It was like a middle-finger-up from the goddess of knitting, frightening me into submission, reminding me not to get too cocky. Hmm!

Slowly but surely.

The cardigan is begun! I started on the back, and I've done 20 rows.

I have a very short attention span, and I'm obsessed with the Olympics at the moment, so Im usually only doing 2 or 3 rows per session. It's going soooooooo slowly! I'm also starting to think I'm going to run out of wool before the end. The first ball was gone in only 12 rows. By my count that means I'll be 1 to 2 balls short. I was planning to make a border in a separate colour anyway, so hopefully I can make that longer without it looking too stupid. The suspense is killing me.

Also, I'm having second thoughts about all ponchos being evil. This one is all right:

You just have to remember to wear something that matches.
(It's actually crocheted, not knitted, so perhaps that's the difference?)

This is it! Cardigan Time

Okay! I'm doing it! I'm going to make a garment!

I'd begun to despair, because I'd found the perfect wool on the internet, Panda Airwool, but
I couldn't find the colour I wanted anywhere. On Saturday I went to Spotlight (I could rant
for some time about how much I hate that place) to get some other things, and found
something even better!:

It's Panda Funky Chunky. It must be discontinued, because it's not mentioned on their website, and it was only $1.29 a ball (Which is the right price for me!). And it's a wonderful, light green colour. Not quite the 'mint green' I'd envisaged, but fantastic nonetheless.

Now I'm going to bore you with the details of design. Being a more voluptuous build, I have to adapt any pattern I come across, so I may as well do it in a way that makes sense and is efficient, and I tend to mix and match patterns. What I normally do is start out by choosing the wool, and deciding what sort of pattern I'm going to use, then deciding what size needles I'm going to use to get the desired effect. Then I measure myself, and work out how many stitches/rows I'll need to get it the right size.

Most traditional knitting patterns do it the other way round, i.e. they tell you what size it's going to be, what wool to use and how many stitches/rows to knit. All you have to do is work out what size needles to use to conform to it. This is fine if you fit the narrow idea of what a 'Size 10' or 'Size 12' "should" be. Or a 'large' or 'small' hand, for that matter.

I find the whole idea of knitting this way constricting and superficial. I know a lot of people can't/don't want to go into design, which is fair enough. Honestly, I'm not really doing much more than cutting and pasting. Plagiarising, you could even say. But the whole point of handmade garments is that they should fit perfectly, so why not make them that way?

For this cardigan, I want to take the one-piece pattern from the Specialty Knitting Book, the booklet from the 1930s I saw at the State Library, and then chop the arms off. :) This is for practical reasons, because I'd have to use circular needles for the longer parts with the arms, to accommodate the large number of stitches on the needles. I bought some and tried using them, and I hated them! So I'm chopping the arms off, and just doing the front and back in one piece. Then I'm going to pick up stitches on the shoulders and knit the arms from the top down. That way I'll have just as little sewing to do at the end, plus I'll have more control over how long the arms are to be.

I think I'll underestimate the measurements, especially the length. The number of times I've read on other blogs that other people's finished pieces are longer than they're supposed to be, in addition to my own experience with the erstwhile Jumper From Hell, makes me think that pieces often come out larger than expected. Which makes sense when you think about it - the greatest property of knitted fabric is that it stretches. Even it if ends up a little too small, I can always stretch it. How can it go wrong?

Wish me luck!

No news is good news.

All things knitting have been going along very slowly these last few weeks: basically, the spirit is willing, but the fingers can't be arsed.

However, last night I got my fluffy dice up to the stage where they can be stuffed. I can't wait to buy the stuffing and finish them off! I guess that's why I mostly do small projects - you get more things finished more quickly.

Plus, I discovered something I'd made years ago that I'd forgotten about - a pair of legwarmers! I've added them to my Finished Projects page.

More news when there is some...

Decisions, decisions...

*sighs*

All the authors of the American blogs I read (even the Swedish one!) seem to be away on holiday at the moment. I'm so jealous! Anyway, I've decided that the Knitting Goddess is right: ponchos are ugly. According to The Mighty Boosh, "It's impossible to be unhappy in a poncho", but I don't think they've ever tried knitting one! (I love that show!)

So I'm going to rip mine. Not the finished one that I never wear, but the half-made one that I haven't touched since last winter. The one I've never mentioned because I've become so disillusioned with it. It seems I don't learn from my mistakes. Just because you design something and you are really proud of the design and you think it would look great on somebody, doesn't mean you have to go ahead and spend six months of your life making it. Besides, it was getting way out of hand. I had to put half of it on holders because there were just too many stitches to fit on the needles, even when I squished them up cruelly. After doing a few rows that way and realising how much longer it would take, that was the point where I decided to give it a rest for a while and see how I felt about it in a few weeks. A few months later I looked at it again and didn't even complete one stitch. Six months later (!) I've been spurred into action. Well, not actual action, but deciding to do something, which for those of you who know me, is a momentous event. I'm almost even excited about it, because I'll have more than enough wool to make a natty vest. Won't that be great?

Speaking of ripping, remember the Jumper From Hell? Well, here is the finished result:

Before Dying*: Yes, that is the amount of wool used to make a (crazily large) jumper. So much work, and so little to show for it. O, the humanity!

After Dying*: Much prettier. Not all of the skeins would fit in the pot, so two of them are still pink. You never know when I might need them. Dyeing the wool had a really interesting effect on it. It's thinner, and the texture is now much more harsh and cottony. I've used it to make a test piece for designing some Hand Covers. (More on those at a later date.)

* By the way, I know how to spell 'dyeing.' I'm just easily amused. :)

Scaring other people...

I know it's been a while since I posted on anything, let alone knitting. My obsessive need to knit has slowed down a bit over the last few weeks, but not enough to resist pressing my hands together and begging a poor girl at work to "pleeeeze, let me have a go!" She gave me a funny look, clasped her knitting reflexively to her bosom, and said very politely that it was her baby and she was a bit reluctant to let anyone else work on it. Fair enough. The manic gleam in my eye probably put her off, and the idea of letting someone else "have a go" at your knitting is probably a bit weird.

I'm very excited because I finished the first piece of my Brontosaurus Toy! Yay! I only have to knit another piece just as long and excruciating as the first, and then I'll be about 1/8 of the way through it! Bronto is posing here with a few of his little friends.

I've also nearly finished my Fluffy Dice. I will have to buy some stuffing soon! It'll be a bugger to store, but it'll come in handy for when I finish the dinosaur.

See their guts, spilled out all over my window sill! Grisly.


Some random stuff follows.
This is a really good article, the link to which I stole shamelessly from another blog: Fashion on a Shoestring.

I love this quote. It could apply to anything, not just knitting.

"If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style."
-- Quentin Crisp.

Update

I have started a pair of knitted "fluffy" dice (they are actually just "slightly fuzzy"!). It's my first try at stranded or picture knitting, and it will be my first try at I-cord when it gets to the stage where I make a cord to join them together. At first, the stranded knitting was driving me stark, raving bonkers! but I'm starting to get the hang of it now and it's not taking as long to do each square. The only bit I'm still having trouble with is, when changing colour, winding the two strands around each other so as not to leave any holes. I seem to end up winding them around twice - and still having a hole!

Oh, and according to Stich 'n' Bitch, "you should know that the edges of your colour blocks are probably going to look crappy." Great!!

I will probably have to block the pieces at the end because they're turning out rectangular, not square, but that's not too hard. I think they might turn out pretty cool. If I do say so myself!

I've also done about 30 more rows on my Brontosaurus Toy. I did it while I was watching The Magnificent Seven :) So I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first piece now. I'll never get the bloody thing finished!!