What shall I bring?

I'm getting everything ready and deciding what projects I should bring with me, starting with my purple linen whim, which is still unfinished. In fact, I wonder if I will be able to finish it at all. I had 400 grams of it but apparently that's not enough for a sleeveless top. I've had enough short sleeved projects completed with 300-350 grams when using cotton or acrylic, but linen seems to be a much denser fiber.


I already ripped part of the back to make a keyhole. Not what I originally intended, but such is life. The pattern called for a full back, but what can I do? I just hope to have enough yarn for a decent neckline.


I'm also bringing enough material for two doilies and a pair of socks. I might not finish all of it but I will certainly not get bored. I might even post some pictures while I'm in Mexico. Wish me luck!

Getting ready

I will be traveling once more this Saturday, but this time I will be gone three weeks. I was planning on spending four or five days in Mexico, but being unemployed gives me the opportunity to stay even longer. My husband will be there just for a few days with me. My sister will be there too, so the whole family will be together.



I want to finish my purple whim before I go. I may not have been blogging about it but I have certainly worked on it. If I ever get the computer fixed I promise a slide show. Right now the back is finished and I'm working on the front.



Here's a picture of the original Vogue pattern in 1963 (taken when I was able to upload pictures). Of course, my purple whim is going to look waaaay different. First of all because the pattern was modified for the 2001 book. But on top of that, my gauge was off and I had to make some changes myself.







Looking closely, I notice that the 1963 version has side shaping, but the modern version doesn't. Now that I think of it, shaping was not a bad idea, I should have thought of that myself. Oh well.

Things I want to knit next

Weaving in the ends of the baby cardigan made me go back and look for the "to do" list I wrote in February. Yes, it's been that long. And in all these months I have only managed to finish my husband's socks and the pink raglan. The blue thing lies abandoned, but the purple linen (that's the eight dollar whim) is now being transformed into the sleeveless tank.




Jennifer wanted to know how I had modified the pattern. Basically, I reduced the number of stitches between diamonds and cables. I also reduced the number of stitches for cables (from nine to seven) and diamonds (from thirteen to eleven). Seven inches into the back I notice that the center of my top is going to be a little more crowded than the original design (pictures coming whenever the computer comes back to life). I could rip down and correct that but I'm not that intent on getting the same look.



You'd think finishing the cardigan and making the tank should be enough to keep me busy, but
I'm itching to make doilies for my new furniture. Which means I should probably finish the ongoing doily I have not touched for a while. I promise not to get carried away, like artist Joana Vasconcelos:.






In addition to doilies, I'm also thinking of making another pair of socks, using the ribbing Mel's using for hers.

Still no pictures

I'm still unable to post pictures, so you'll just have to believe me when I say the baby cardigan is finished. Well, at least the knitting part is finished, collar and sleeves included. I still have to work on the seams and weaving in all those ends. But instead of doing that I of course casted on for the short sleeved top, which is more fun. I had to make major changes but I think it will look very similar to the Vogue pattern even if my gauge is off.



My spider is nowhere to be found. My husband says he didn't kill him and I want to believe him. Who knows? Maybe the little spider discovered that there isn't much to eat here anyway and went away on his own.

One sleeve down

And I am already working on the second one. I feel like starting another project, using the purple linen I am supposed to use up before I buy any more yarn. I was also supposed to finish the blue thing too, but let's not talk about that.



I browsed a few books at the library and found the following pattern from Vogue Knitting's Vintage Collection:







My gauge is way off, but I like the look of those cables and diamonds and I'm going to give it a try by reducing the space between them. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep the cables on the shoulders
even after the armhole decreases.



The spider does not want to be trapped and taken outside. Since he's not a brown recluse nor a black widow, and he has stayed away from my cupboards, I'll leave him alone. He's already made himself at home:







If I tell my husband, he'll probably kill him, so I'm not telling.

A temporary solution

My sweet husband loaned me a laptop so I could post pictures as long as I erase the files right after uploading. It seems that the hard drive on the other one might need a replacement. He does have backups of all the important things stored in there (he even makes backups of my knitting pictures, he is that thoughtful), but you know how it is, there's always a few things that get lost.



This little guy is wandering around in my apartment. I usually don't kill spiders, instead I go into a lot of trouble to take them outside. But this one's big enough that I'm afraid of getting stung. On the other hand, I don't feel like killing it. What would you do?






I'm sure that if I leave him alone, he'll never bother me. Perhaps I should adopt him as a pet. Here's the back of the baby cardigan, with shoulder seams completed. I'm making one of the sleeves but I'm not following the pattern. If I were, the sleeves would have beige ribbing, but I'm knitting them all in red.







It saddens me to read about the earthquake last Saturday in India and Pakistan. I cannot recall another year like this, with so many disasters one after the other.

Once more, good and bad news.

The good news is that we started buying a few pieces of furniture, nice and at a reasonable price. The bad news is that the computer is broken and there's no way for me to publish pictures in this blog, though at least I can keep writing from the public library. A pity, because I have just finished the back of the baby cardigan and it truly is much better now than before. I'm glad I ripped the first version.



I don't know when the computer will be ready (if it can be fixed) so it's very likely that there will be no pictures here for a while.



Thanks for the support regarding the buttons, I will use them for this project, of course.

Ripping again

I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to knitting, but sometimes it hits me really bad. Today I ripped the back of the baby Cardigan. The more I looked at it, the less I liked it. I think it will look better knitted in red and with little beige sqares, like the front. Also, I was already worrying about the seams, knowing I would have to do something about having more rows in the front than in the back, and that it would probably result in an ugly seam. I hate seams and I hate worrying about them. So I ripped the back and now I will have to knit it again.


Here's the left front, now completed:





And these are the buttons I found in JoAnn:





I think they're cute but my better half thinks they are not appropriate for a baby. So what type of buttons are you supposed to get for babies?

Where was I?

Thank you for the nice comments about the raglan. I picked up the baby cardigan again, which i had abandoned after being unable to decide how to solve the button band problem. I decided to rip the left front down to the ribbing, flip it and start again from the wrong side. That always leaves the red strand next to the button band, but it also means that I have to knit the garter using purl stitches. It also means that I have to do the squares starting on the wrong side.









I'm not going as fast as I could. I have had tendinitis for over a month now, and even though the doctor said it was all right to knit, I hurt my elbow again yesterday. Blame the spider that almost landed on my face and gave me a good scare. I swapped it away with a magazine without thinking, and I am still sore today.

A finished object!

I was losing my seaming momentum in the end, and having to weave in a lot of ends (there were knots on some of the skeins) made me drag it for a long while. But here it is. It's actually bright pink, but the light in my bathroom makes it look paler:







I have to catch up with the baby cardigan, I abandoned it completely.