Thursday, March 22, 2007

Looking for a new hobby...

I have not had a good run lately of projects turning out well. As a matter of fact, apart from Matt's Because I Love You Sweater, nothing has really worked well this year.

I was happily plugging away on the Lasso Gansey (remember, dk weight yarn/size 3 needles) and held it up to see how it was looking.

It's not looking good. It's coming out too small. Now I did swatch, as I was trying to use a yarn not even remotely like the one used in the pattern, so I'm not sure what happened. The gauge swatch is given in st. st, and looking at the pattern, the basketweave stitch should be the same gauge. Mine isn't on the sweater. So I'm going to do a st. st. swatch and a basketweave swatch and block both of them. Hopefully the basketweave will block out to the size I need.

I've already put a lot of time into this sweater and I really do love the color and the look, so I'm really disappointed that it's not coming out to size. Fingers crossed that I can salvage it. If not, I'm going to only knit for Matt...

Comments:
Nicole: I think the holes are part of the design. It's actually a lace type pattern. The yarn over on the first row might be the most noticable, but they do extend all the way up the bag. I expect to line my finished bag to compensate. You can make the hole less large (especially on that first row) by doing an untwisted M1 instead of a yarn over (just pick the thread up between the stitches and knit it normally... don't twist it when like when you do a M1). Or even if you don't want the eyelets all the way up, you could do a M1 instead of the yarn over thru the whole pattern.

Debby: I find pure cotton a little hard to work with, unless it's straight st. st. (which we all know I'm not a big fan of). To work cables, I much prefer a blend. I've used cotton/acrylic and cotton/wool blends. Both are preferable than pure cotton for cables, but I'm a lazy sort, and I like the ease of the acrylic.

I have been meaning to join the cycling webring, but I've been lazy (do you see a trend here?) about my website (notice the WIP list is way out of date... as is the finished project list). When I do buttons, I use Photoshop (since I don't own Illustrator anymore). All the buttons on my sidebar (that I made) were done in Photoshop. The problem is that photoshop is pixel based and Illustrator is vector based. Illustrator is much better for type and smooth edge graphics, while photoshop really is a photo program.

Lauren: uh. huh.

So today will be "let's try to salvage an other project" day... or at least I'll cast on something new.

Keep on Swatchin'!

2 comments:

  1. I am so sorry to hear the projects aren't going well lately. I hope the swatching will work out right!! In a way, it's comforting to know that someone with your experience still has trouble with gauge...it gives me comfort when I'm grumbling over my projects.

    Vector-based? I have no idea what that means. But thank you for explaining about how you make the buttons, etc, in Photoshop. It seems that many of my computer questions end with the Photoshop answer these days, so I think I had better put that on the list of things to learn. After how to do a century on a road bike, how to switch to a Mac, how to felt (next project is going to be a felted purse)...no pressure. :)

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  2. By the way, how is your dog doing these days? I'm sorry I can't think of his name at the moment, but I hope he is feeling better.

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