Pullover Sweater Pattern

So Bex from Subversive Femme has posted several entire knitting magazines on Flickr. Just in case it disappears, here's a pattern that I'm considering.



I'm trying to plan a yellow, bobbled sweater. Just deciding a pattern.

Knitting Woes

I've been working on this sweater for a few days. Right after I finished the lumbar pillow, I wanted to keep knitting. And for once in my life, I wanted to work on a vintage fingering-weight sweater. I already had the gigantic cone of wool fingering. So I started working on a gorgeous pattern.

And I'm blithely following the directions:

Commence at lower edge with 123 sts. on No. 12 needles. Work in rib of k. 3, p. 3, for 3 ins.

Change to No. ll needles and continue in stocking-web until work measures 12 inches on underarm, keeping centre 3 sts. in purl on right side (reverse stocking-web) to continue the purl rib from welt.

Sounds great right? It wasn't until I'm 7.5" inches along my journey (4.5 of that in plain stockinette aka 36 rows or so) that I read the next line.

At the same time increase one stitch both ends of every 8th row until there are 143 sts., after which work straight for about 22 rows.

Well. Here's to frogging 4 inches.

Lumbar Pillow

So earlier this week, my partner mused aloud that our couch pillows are really too large for a lumbar pillow, and that we don't actually have anything that'd work. He wound up bunching up a shirt behind his back.

Flash forward to I was itching to knit a few days ago. While browsing the Homegoods section of my favorited patterns on Ravelry, I found this Fair Isle stranding knitting chart. Since I had no experience in stranded knitting, a rectangle seemed like a good way to ease into the process. It was a lot of fun to knit up (it was a 3 day process), and the chart was well written. My one problem with the chart was it had no numbers on it (row numbers, etc.) and I have traditionally done poorly with counting charts. So I wrote out 119 rows worth of numbers. They look like such horrible things as:
23) 4 / 3 / 1 / 1 / 10 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3

Since the pattern was fully mirrored, I went to the middle number and would work backwards for the second half. I knit this flat, in stockinette. So every other row is purled. I also had at least one row where I had a mistake that I did not correct, and in the second chart, I either doubled a row or skipped a row as my right side of the fabric changed from odds to evens.

Finished measurements are 8"x19" (if flat), and I backed the knitting in fabric (so that my floats didn't get stuck in the stuffing and so stuffing didn't leak) and added a fabric back for the pillow. I then stuffed it with more reused stuffing from the giant duck of "oh gods why is it in my house". Some of my floats weren't long enough, so that while un-pillowed, the knitting bubbled a little. But it's evened out and is apparently quite functional as is.

I like quick projects!

Because I No Longer Trust Websites to Remain Active

Here is a pdf of a pattern, entitled Bobble Stitch Jumper. Source here.

Project ADD

So while being bored of the knitted underwear project, I thought "hey! I have all the supplies for my Alexander McQueen beaded stockings!" And so I attempted to start it. For one, both of the patterns bookmarked have left the internet. For two, beading takes forever, and 27 of the 500 beads I threaded either didn't fit through the needle or broke. For three, crochet eats yarn so my toe cap work means I have to keep shoving 473 beads farther down the line, over and over again. For four, the new pattern I'm trying for the toe cap (after attempt 1 was a failure) is horrible horrible to work with and with my black, lace-weight yarn, I can't see shit. So it is on pause a mere 2 rows into the attempt.

I wanted happiness and more project ADD, so I started a completely NEW project: a "novelty" crocheted turban from 1915. Posted here. This one is going much better, although the stitch pattern is hilariously time-consuming and yarn-consuming, and the pattern is poorly edited. We shall see how it goes!

Knitting Project Update

Finished the first half of the shorts!



Lookit how pretty it is. :-P



Above the point is the torso tube seam, below the point is the leg tube seam.



The elastic for the waistband gets threaded through the YOs here.

Project Updates

So I've been picking away at working on the suit for my partner. Just cut out a wearable muslin for the pants -- hopefully this is the LAST pants pattern that I'll need to draft. But we wanted to have a pair that he'd wear around and get a better test for fit than a simple muslin. (*sigh) Sometimes he's frustrating to sew for, as he gets cranky about fittings and doesn't seem to care that I put the effort in. Part of that is he's much more indifferent to clothing than I am.

Also threw together the first stage of mockups for the jacket pattern. I only used the basic pattern, there's no collar, no button overlap, etc. But I don't want to go through the trouble of drafting all that if the basic shape doesn't fit. I finished it before he left for work, but he was running late and so we will check the fit this evening. Here's hoping it fits!

In other news, the knitting project I've been working on is going swimmingly. Mysteriously, when one watches all three seasons of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries in less than a week, the amount of time that can be devoted to knitting goes up. Project page on ravelry here. I have finished the vest, and am halfway done with one of the knickers legs. A knicker? I had to swap to cream yarn midway through the pattern on the knickers as I will run out of pink. Hopefully I changed in the right place to make it even on the other leg. What's amusing is I have no idea how this will get put together. I hope it'll be obvious once it's complete. I do so like completed projects, and this project sat in my WIP box for several years. I'm looking forward to actually WEARING this this winter.

Knitting Pattern

Of course, a pattern that I was going to use that isn't on Ravelry, had the blog removed. So via the wayback machine, here is a pattern!