Friday, October 24, 2008

Finishing CPH; Beginning TYC






I see the finishing line! Last night after knit night, I came home and got as far as sewing in half the zipper for my Central Park Hoodie. I just need to backstitch the other zipper half and decide whether or not I want to knit some facings to cover the zipper tape. After that, I have the sleeves to sew in followed by a nice softening soak.

Since I'm getting so close to finishing my hoodie, I decided to change things up, like I always do, and CO for Tangled Yoke Cardigan (TYC). I love the excitement of beginning one project while finishing another! Both the CPH and TYC are made from stiffer and scratchier wool (Peruvian Highland wool) than I'm used to. But, I think I'm beginning to not mind it so much. WOTA and Telemark might not be the softest wool, but it's nice to knit with something that feels substantial for a change. Telemark is especially dense.

The Ravelry button is from Knitters Connection 2008 back in June. I thought I'd add it here since I just added it to my profile pics on Ravelry. It was so nice to see Casey, Jess, and Mary-Heather in person! It was their first Ravelry presentation, and they were admittedly nervous, but felt at home when they saw how excited and welcoming the crowd was in Columbus for them. So cool!!!!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

CPH Update

OK, before I dive into the knitting news, let me show some kid pics. My youngest had his first birthday about a month ago! Check out how he's holding his cupcake. In the other pic, my daughter is playing with her new V-tech laptop. It's the best $14 I've spent lately. She loves it. I can't believe all the stuff on it!

I'm almost done with Central Park Hoodie. 'Bought the zipper last night and read up on how to sew it in by hand using these instructions. I might do an I-cord edge to help hide the zipper. That would take forever, but it would look nice. After installing the zipper, I'll do some type of facing or possibly whipstitch or blanket stitch on the zipper tape. I've been looking at store-bought clothes to see how the facings and zipper tape are treated to get ideas...

Grafting the CPH hood wasn't too hard because 1) I didn't have a difficult stitch pattern (the graft came between cable crossings, so I only had to deal with the purl stitches on either side of the cable panel); and 2) I used the waste yarn method that makes grafting a no-brainer (learned this in a finishing techniques book). Even though I didn't have to think about it when grafting by using the waste yarn method, here's an awesome link that shows closeup how to graft stockinette, reverse stockinette, and garter stitch. Though she doesn't mention grafting seed stitch, you'll be confident enough to try it after reading her educational blog post.

Here are some pics I took while grafting the hood of CPH:
I used a contrasting blue cotton waste yarn to continue the stitch pattern for 4 rows. In one picture I tried to show how I was following the path of the contrast yarn, but it's not that clear of a shot. The bottom two pics are the finished graft. The closeup is supposed to show how the two ends meeting are a half stitch off. In looking at the final pic, I think the graft looks just as good as a 3-needle BO, but without the seamline and added bulk.

Speaking of educational blogs, I found a link to one on Ravelry that shows exactly how to do short row sleeve caps (top down sleeves). Instead of the usual, "oh, I just picked up stitches around the armhole and did short rows from there" explanation that goes no further, this blogger goes into full detail on how she did her Gatsby Girl Pullover sleeves. Love it!

Another helpful blog post I found was this one on traveling jogless garter stitch ITR. I came across this person's post when checking out Thorpe (here's the non-Ravelry link). I've been wanting to make Thorpe (an earflap hat) for my son since it's gotten cold here. I might make one for my daughter, too!

Well, the kiddos are pulling me off the computer -- gotta go!

ETA: I need to figure out why my pics aren't aligned the way they look before publishing my posts. They always turn out wonky! :-/