Mermaid in progress

Ah, it's nice to be back sewing again. I haven't sewn much since I started knitting, but I do always sew around this time of year. It's costume time! E will be a mermaid. She picked out the fabric from my stash. It's a woven blue fabric where some of the threads are metallic blue. The overlay is white and the sequin trim is fuschia. I am using pattern 4043 from Simplicity. I do not like their sewing instructions with this pattern. I made the top in the order that I thought it best to sew. I also didn't like how some sequins were put on during the construction. I saved that to when the whole costume was put together. Speaking of sequins, there must be an easier way to sew them. The only ones that were machine sewn are the ones on the bag. The rest were hand sewn onto the costume. Thankfully, they were already strung together. I still have more embellishment to do. I need to buy ladder/butterfly/novelty yarn! When I started knitting, I told myself that I wasn't going to get sucked into buying that stuff. Now, I need to buy some for the costume.

I started the costume Saturday morning and worked on it all weekend. The basic costume was done during the weekend and I've been hand sewing sequins on it since then. This is how far along I am:


It's a very cute pattern. There is a slit in the tail section on the right side where her legs will stick out. She has tried walking in it and walks just fine. The little loop off of the fin goes around her wrist. There is also a hook sewn on the left side of the waistline to hold the tail if she doesn't want it around her wrist. The shell bag was part of the pattern. That's very cute. I added a magnetic closure at the top. E will be only wearing this indoors. If she had to wear it out, I would probably make her a shawl or shrug to wear over her shoulders and arms.

I'm knitting a sock out of some Fortissima graffiti yarn. I just bought a lot more sock yarn. I've found that I really like self striping/patterning sock yarns bettern than handpaints. Handpaints are pretty to look at, but I like the bold stripes and patterns better.

Finished socks

I've finally taken some pictures of the socks that I finished this past week. I also took a picture of the finished Seasilk stole. It's soooooo nice. Yes, that's me. I didn't feel like putting one of those pictures up where my head is out of the shot. So, you get a no make-up, lazy Saturday morning picture of me.




I finished this first one a while ago, but just took my time taking pictures. It's a plain sock, but I was impressed that I managed to get two pairs of socks out of two skeins of knitpicks sock garden. This is the Zinnia colorway.




I bought a lot of the knitpicks yarn when it first went on sale. This is the Daffodil Parade. It's a sport weight yarn and that makes a very sturdy sock. I've made one pair that has been washed cold and dried hot many times. Those show no signs of wear yet and not much fuzziness either. This one, I made using the welt fantastic pattern from the book Sensational Knitted Socks. I made it without the purl rows.

Mermaids, pirates, socks, and seasilk

I've finished a pair of socks out of Regia cotton surf yarn. I've worked with this before, but in a different color. I like it, but it does come out a bit different than wool/nylon sock yarn. When casting off, I had to cast off tightly or the top would ruffle. It's still ruffling a little. I think I had too many stitches. I'll try my next cotton blend sock yarn with fewer than 64 stitches around.

Seasilk ends have been woven in. I don't trust that they will stay, but it's done. I'm hoping to take some pictures tomorrow.

Halloween costumes have been picked. My daughter wants to be a mermaid. I think that will be a fun costume to make. I found a pattern that we liked and we're off! I've already made a mock-up and it fits pretty good. I'm going to have to make some adjustments with the elastic, but that's pretty much it. Thank goodness. Sewing for my petite daughter usually requires a lot of altering of patterns. And since being a mermaid on Halloween might be a bit chilly, I'm planning on making her a seaweed looking wrap to wear over it too.

My son is going to be a pirate. We wanted to pick something that might go along with mermaids, besides fish and other sea creatures. While looking at piratey patterns, I found one thing that I didn't like. How often do you find a squeaky clean pirate? I think I'm going to distress the costume a little. That should be interesting. One good thing about a dirty, distressed costume, I won't have to worry about my 2.5 year old getting it dirty. If it gets a rip, no problem!

I said that I won't start any big knitting projects, but I am going to start another pair of socks.

Seasilk finished

I finished the Seasilk stole today. It's currently blocking. Pictures to come tomorrow. I was a bit overcome with fumes in while blocking it. Phew! The scent really does come out when it's wet and much more than wool does. It's current measurements are 19 inches wide and 88 inches long. I wasn't sure how far to stretch silk, but I did read on a few blogs that seasilk can open up quite a bit. I can't wait to take the pins out and see how it drapes. My husband said that it looks nice pinned out. I considered that a pretty good compliment coming from him as he doesn't usually like frilly stuff.

I'm already planning my next project and it's not a knitting project. It's Halloween costumes for my kids! The patterns are all picked out. Fabric has been picked too, but not finalized. I'll have to see if I like the fabric first. I need a few little trims and things like that and then I should be able to start. It will be nice to get back into sewing. My sewing machine probably needs oiling. I've been away from it ever since knitting came into my life. I do still have a pair of socks that I'm working on, but I don't plan on starting any big knitting projects for a while.

One skein math

How far will one skein of seasilk go? I can now answer that. My math was really off. You can see the little golfball sized ball of yarn leftover yesterday. Well, it was enough for another repeat and then 11 more rows after that. I need to get better at figuring out how much further a ball of yarn can go. I usually end up stopping a project early for fear of running out of yarn. Here is today's math.

1 skein of seasilk(400m or 437 yards per 100g)--can knit as far as 243 rows of 88 stitches for a total of 21384 stitches. When laid out on the floor flat, it measures around 19 inches wide and 34 inches long. This will definitely be a good length stole.

Details:

Using size 5 knitpicks options needles
CO 88 stitches
8 rows garter and 235 rows of pattern so far

What seasilk math?

I used to be really good at math. Calculus type math mostly. That's very different stuff from the math I was using to calculate how far a skein of seasilk will go. I predicted that one skein would get me somewhere around 11.8 repeats of a 16 row stitch pattern. I was wrong. I have 13 repeats finished and I have a golf ball sized ball of yarn still left. It's probably not enough to get me another full repeat. It looks like this stole will be a decent length after all.

I braved the bugs and the heat. I went outside with my completed projects and took pictures. (Those can be seen with all of my other pics at Flickr.) For reference, each board is approximately 6" wide. Here is how far along the seasilk stole is since this morning:

And this is what the color looks like up close and in bright sunlight. I must mention that the smell of the yarn was more intense in the heat out there. I could smell it just having it a few feet away. Indoors, I have to get really close to it.

Crankiness and crickets

Bah! I was making such good progress on the seasilk stole yesterday morning. In the afternoon, I discovered an error. I somehow missed a row and my open diamond areas didn't get narrow like they should. I tried dropping down and fixing it, but that just made things worse. I ended up tinking back around 6 rows. While tinking, I dropped a stitch and had to tink back 6 more rows. I think I lost all of the progress that I made that morning. Oh well... Things got a lot better Tuesday evening. We had the windows open and it was around 70 degrees outside. There was a very nice breeze. The crickets and other bugs were making their usual nightly sounds. I even heard what sounded like a howl(dog I hope!). It was very relaxing after all of the earlier tinking and fixing of mistakes.

I have around 9 repeats done and it's around 19 inches long so far. That is what it measures without stretching. I've stretched it a bit by hand, just to see what it looks like. I like it! Seasilk is a dream to knit with. It's so soft and so slippery. I love how it drapes off of the circular needle. This is part of it:



I chose this pattern because I wanted something open to stretch the yardage, but with closed areas to show off the colors. I did try this is garter, but that stockinette shows off the colors much better. I have a garter border going all around, but it doesn't seem like it needs it that much. I know all stockinette curls, but this isn't curling. Due to the drapiness of the silk? I don't know, but it's nice not having it try to curl up while I'm working on it.

Rethinking beads

I was around 50 rows into the beaded stole and frogged it. It would have turned out too heavy with the amount of beads that I was placing in it. I'll have to change that around and try again. In the meantime, I couldn't resist making something with the Seasilk that I bought recently. It's so soft and shiny. I'm making a basic stole out of it using a stitch pattern out of my Walker book. I figured out how wide to make it by looking at the Stormwater stole. That stitch pattern is in the Walker book too. I figured out about how many repeats the Stormwater Stole is to help me figure out how many to cast on for my stole. I cast on 88. We'll see how far my two skeins will go with the pattern that I'm using.

Some Seasilk math...

I have done 8 rows of garter stitch and then 4 repeats of a 16 row pattern. I'll just call that 4.5 rows for calculations. I've used around 38 grams of yarn out of the 100 gram ball. That will give me 11.8 repeats per ball of Seasilk.

Relaxed, it is around 21 inches wide and one repeat is around 2 inches tall. That will give me a finished stole of 21 inches wide and 47.2 inches long. I pinned out what I have so far and the measurements became 24 inches wide with a repeat of 3 inches tall. That finished stole would be 24 inches wide and 70.8 inches long. Hmmmmm... I might be happy with that. I might block it emphasizing length over width, but that length sounds okay.

Mystery Stole complete!!!!!

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Originally uploaded by Fanihi.

It's finished. It's currently blocking on the floor. Don't look too closely at my blocking. It's not perfectly straight, but it's straight enough for me.

Details:

Yarn: Knitpicks Shimmer in Maple Leaf overdyed with black cherry and grape kool aid (2.5 skeins)

Needles: Knitpicks classic circular in size 3

I used the crochet cast on method where you cast on around a knitting needle. When it came time to undo it and pick up the stitches, I didn't have to compensate for a jog. That baffled me because quite a few on the yahoo group mentioned needing to fix it so things would line up. I followed the pattern as is and didn't change a thing. I'll take better pictures of the border when I unpin it from the floor. My little clover/flower things look strange to me. One section is a lot smaller than the rest and one is a lot larger. I guess that's what I get for not doing a swatch. *blush*

Edited to add more information:
The finished size was 22 inches wide and nearly 90 inches long while being blocked! It will definitely be the kind of stole that you drape around your shoulders and not just over them. ;-) I have worn it already and it isn't too long. Okay, I just measured it again. After wearing it once, it's now 20 inches wide and 92 inches long.

Home stretch of Mystery Stole 2

I've been knitting as fast as I can and as much as I can. I really want to finish the Mystery Stole and get back to my beading project. It is coming along great. I've completely finished one side with the border. I like the knitted on border. I also like how there is no sewing, kitchnering, picking up stitches, etc with this shawl. I'm now working on chart 6 of the second side. I like how it's turning out. I can't wait to block it to see how the pattern shows up all together.

I've knitted around 25 rows of my beaded project in it's official yarn. No more ugly bright yellow test yarn. I'm using the new Gloss yarn from Knitpicks in the dusk color. Can you tell that I like that place? It's evil whenever they come out with new yarn. (I would be in trouble if they ever get 100% silk yarn.) I like the effect of the pattern I picked and the beads. The bead placement with a crochet hook is slow, but I'm getting into a rhythm and getting faster.

Experimenting with beading

I finished the chart 5 on both sides of Mystery Stole 2. I just need to get the new and final clue tomorrow to be able to finish it! In the meantime, I want to make something with beads in it. My Mom saw my Seaweed Stole and liked it. I want to make her something similar. I did start out doing Tendrils again or even doing the Seaweed Stole again. But I just can't. I want to do something different and new. I pulled out my two Barbara Walker stitch dictionaries and flipped through those. I came up with a few that I like and tried to figure out how I wanted to add beads to them. Then, I'm trying to combine a few different stitches to see how they would look together. I think this will be a stole, but I haven't decided if I'm going to use fingering weight yarn or lace weight yet. I did decided that I want to put the beads one with a crochet hook. I like how the beads stay where you place them.

Then Snuggle Cardigan has been put away indefinitely. I tried working on it again yesterday and I just don't like that yarn. I want to take it out completely and make that cardigan out of a better yarn. That leaves me many skeins of wool/hemp yarn without a purpose. What to do with it? I think that yarn is better suited for plain knitting and not something with cables.

Testing new waters

I'm trying to find a place that I want to use. I have posted some of my completed items at another journal type thing, but haven't been completely happy with it. I'm hoping that I like the way this is organized better.

What am I working on? I'm working on Mystery Stole 2 over on the yahoo group. I should get the final clue this Friday and be finished with it sometime this weekend or early next week. I'm eager to finish it and see what it looks like. Plus, I want to dive in and try out the new silk yarn that I just bought. I'm also working on a Snuggle Cardigan from the book And So To Bed. It's coming along slowly because the yarn is torture on my hands. It's a wool/hemp mixture. And of course, I have a sock going. It's just a plain sock that I can work on anywhere without needing a pattern. It easily fits into my purse too.

I'm off to see if I can customize this place further...