Avail (plus giveaway)
Do you ever get a mental block about something...you tell yourself it's going to be hard, or fiddly, or you're going to feel like an idiot while you try it? Well I had that mental block about short rows...but then I had a hat in my head that just flat out required short rows...and then I decided to get over it. Avail is the result! Now if you're where I was and thinking short rows are hard, here's the part where I say that they're not. All you do (for this hat at least) is stop knitting in the round [...]
Two at a time
Cuff the second is well underway. And it's actually gotten seasonably cold around here, so I'm eager to have them done (and photographed...around here 'done' also includes 'has had proper pattern photos taken') so I can wear them. I'm totally holding the green yarn (it's Silk Cloud by Shibui) double as I work it. That's both to make it a bit more substantial (though really, it's pretty darn sturdy even with just one layer, I love how these cuffs worked with just one strand came out) and to give me a bit more of that delightful halo you get with [...]
Faith
No really...I totally know it looks funny. I do. But I've been trying it on and I have faith in the powers of blocking, and I am pretty darn confident it will work out. I sort of love the way it sits on my hand. I'm finding myself fond of asymmetry these days. And I'm also sort of loving putting it on inside out and folding the top part back and giving it a bracelet feel. And yes, it will look much better after I weave in the ends and block it properly. But I totally think it's going to [...]
Chicken
So the hat needed some cuffs to go with it (this pretty much always feels like the go to move in my world...I love having matching head and hand things more than I can possibly explain). But I knew I was rather short on yarn. So I carefully carefully divided the yarn in half (if you don't have a scale, do yourself a favor and get one, I have and love this one). Then I cast on and distracted myself as I slogged through a tube of ribbing. Then came the ever so much more entertaining swoopy bits. And the [...]
So worth it
Done! And all the ripping (yes, even of lace weight mohair) was totally worth it. The wobbly lines wobble in an ever so much more pleasingly rounded way. The whole thing has retained its endearing rocket ship vibe. I expect it all to mellow out a fair bit with blocking. And even the crown (admittedly less energetic than most of mine, but still satisfying) is amusing me. Now, of course, I think we need some cuffs to match, don't you? [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]
Version 2
So the good news is that last time's mistakes mean I knew just what I wanted for this iteration. The green was too pretty to use such narrow stripes, so those are wider. And the curve wanted to be much more evenly rounded. Decreases are underway, and the rest won't take long at all. [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]
All’s well…until it’s not
Things had been going along swimmingly. The green yarn came (Shibui Silk Cloud in Apple, and yummy stuff it is), wobbly bits continued to wobble, and all was well. Until I took it off the needles and laid it down to really look at the shape of the curve. At which point I decided the bottom was too flat and the top too pointy and had a bit of a sulk. And then had a bit of a rip (anybody else think it looks like ramen when it's ripped?). And then shortly after that had a bit of a reknit, [...]
Take me to your leader
So the hat is looking something like a space ship. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing...but it is a bit unexpected. Now that's mostly because I've got a short row panel jammed onto a long, straight needle, so the fabric is all bent around. But if we put it on more accommodating needles, it doesn't look too much more normal. It will round out once I knit a few more straight rows, I promise. It's almost time to add in some green fluff! [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]
Sequels
You know the cool thing about sequels? Scratch that, there are lots of cool things about sequels (not least of which is that the list of decisions you have to make in producing them is way, way, way shorter than for first books in a series). You know a cool thing about sequels? You don't have to be all secretive about them. You all know I'm working on Curls 2 (gray, gray, all glorious gray). So instead of being alarmingly coy and discreet and saying 'a project for a new book came in' I can just 'holy yarn fairies, the [...]
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