Finished!

Nov. 21st, 2005 10:57 am
carynb: (Knitting)
As I noted on Saturday, I managed to finish my Rogue, finally! I'd forgotten what a rush it was to finish off something I really like, and will wear. I'm not generally very creative or crafty, so managing to finish something like this just felt really, really good.

I also really liked the fact that I had to learn a lot in order to finish the pattern. Some things I'd never done before are:
  • Some simple different stitching patterns like slip-slip-knit and knitting/purling through back loops. I learned to knit from my mother and my grandmother, and they were, apparently, pretty straightforward when it came to knitting. Changing the direction of the stitch decreases does make a difference in the look of the finished product, though.

  • Another relatively simple trick I'd never done before: Making the increases and decreases one in from the edge, instead of the last stitch in the row. It makes for much smoother edging.

  • Double cable increases and decreases - specific to Celtic knotwork-type cabling, these look pretty cool.

  • Blocking. I'd never even heard of blocking before, and I was amazed at the difference it makes in the end product. Who thought that wetting and pinning down the wool before putting it all together would actually do anything? *g*

  • The biggest of them all, though, had to be the grafting. I'm incredibly proud of how well the grafting of the cable pattern on the hood turned out, considering I'd never done any before.

And now, on to the pictures! )

Success!

Oct. 3rd, 2005 01:03 pm
carynb: (Knitting)
After almost throwing the damn thing out Friday night, I got back to the grafting yesterday, and actually made it work.

How bad was Friday night? Well, I spent about an hour on Saturday at Lettuce Knit looking over wool and patterns, and actually bought the wool to make a make myself a Clapotis. I don't like just dropping things, but I could see me knitting up the sleeves on the Rogue and sewing them in and still having live stitches at the top of the hood that didn't get finished until 2 years from now. I thought taking a break now might be the better solution.

Fortunately for me (I guess), I didn't take the abbreviations list from Knitty.com out to M's with me. Well, and I took both projects with me. I sat down to start the Clapotis and had no idea what they meant by "kfb", so I couldn't actually start it. (As a side note: M's modem is currently very, very dead. It's brand new, to replace one that got blown in a thunderstorm a week ago, and I think he shorted it out as he was trying to place it. No internet all weekend! And so, I couldn't go out to the site and get the abbreviations list. Bother!).

So, I went back to the Rogue. I had fairly detailed instructions on which way to graft each stitch, thanks to PumpkinMama on the Rogue_Along newsgroup (on Yahoogroups), and I think I figured out what I was doing wrong last time - I was wrapping the wool around the needles extra times, knotting the wool. This made snugging up incredible difficult, and twisted some of the stitches so that they looked like purl stitches when then should have been knits. I had to undo 5 of my hard-won 16 stitches, but it only took me about an hour to complete it. (28 stitches in an hour isn't horribly bad, right?)

In the end, I think it turned out okay.

See the hood! )

I still have to graft the stitches joining the hood up to the cable border, but that can be cast-off and sewn together if necessary. It may not look as smooth, but having it seamless is not as crucial as it is in the middle of the cable pattern. And besides that, I only have the nice, straightforward sleeves left to do. Almost there!
carynb: (Knitting)
Rows knit on my sweater this week: 28.
Rows currently done: 8

Twice this week I've had to unravel what I've done and start again. I just started on the front of the collar, where flaws will show horribly. So, when I find something wrong, taking it out is pretty much the only option. The first time was a flaw in the cabling; the second, I was so concerned about the cabling I missed an armhole decrease.

Oh well, third time's the charm, right?

Undoing work is horribly frustrating, though. *sigh*

My Rogue

Aug. 31st, 2005 06:47 am
carynb: (Default)
So, I started knitting my Rogue sweater about 10 days ago, and I thought I'd post some work-in-progress pics. I'm knitting it in the Biggs & Little Heritage wool, in red heather.
10 days in )
I think I'll be taking pictures about once a week and posting them, just so that I can have a journal of how it knit up. I'll probably lock them away (I don't really want to span my friendslist with pictures of a work-in-progress), unless people would like to see them. So, if you would, comment below and I'll include you in the friendsgroup.

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