It's official.
I'm putting this project to rest, mostly because I'm just that mad at it. I frogged the offending panel, but that wasn't enough to abate my fury. I still want to knit only top-down raglan cardigans. I'm crazy enough to take an oath only to knit raglan constructed cardigans. I'm open minded enough to consider bottom up, knit-in-one piece cardigan. They're teaching a class on it at TNNA's summer show. I'm planning on taking it, and I have EZ's book on knitting in the round.
I'm just not pleased with what happens when I knit pieces that require seaming. You'd think I wouldn't mind seaming, because I learned to sew before I learned how to knit, but no. At least with sewing, I can just re-cut a piece if it doesn't fit well. The idea of cutting my knit fabric just makes me sick! Reshaping a knit piece takes 15 hours not 15 minutes, like it does with sewing. Bleh!
So, I'm officially putting the ocean waves cardigan to rest. Rest assured however, the argosy yarn is going into another project that's staying under wraps for now. For those of you that know me, I've got some designing ambitions, and there's some deadlines that I want to meet. That's right, it made me so mad that I said screw it, and I'm coming up with my own design. I've been taking meticulous line-by-line notes, and it's going pretty well. Here's hoping it works!
And no, I'm not just working on 2 projects. The wings of a dream shawl has a whopping.. uh, 3 rows on it? Heheheh. I don't really count projects as started until they hit several inches long. 3 rows just looks like ... well... not much at all. On the upside, I'm only one lace repeat away from finishing the front panel on the graduation dress! Speaking of that, I should be working on graduating! Aka studying. Rest in peace, ocean waves cardi.
Showing posts with label argosy yarn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label argosy yarn. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Misadventures in Knitting: Frogging Fun
By fun I mean (insert your favorite expletive here).
This is what has happened to the ocean cardigan after I blocked it and loosely pieced it together to check the fit. Apparently, I could not get away with the extra stitches like I thought I could. If you'll notice, one side is 2 inches longer than the other. No, it's not supposed to be like that. No, I do not like asymmetrical cardigans.
How did this happen, did you ask? Somehow, I added extra yarn overs near the front right button hole strip. I haven't a clue how I added them in. Instead of having three little lacy legs, I had four. And then, I had five. How I added that next one, I don't have any idea. Anyways, I thought I could get away with it. I thought quite wrong. I decreased back down to three lace legs, and thought I was okay to block. All those extra legs translated into two extra inches of length as you can see. I was absolutely stumped as to how I could fix it.
The most reasonable suggestion made was to frog the right front piece, which was much better than my idea to frog the whole thing. I'm still tempted to frog the whole thing and write a new pattern. However, reason ruled and the cardigan is cooling while I ponder what to do next with it. Which brings us to the whole reason for this post.
Frogging.
Every knitter I know lives to avoid this most dire of fates for their finished objects, but sometimes it's just inevitable. If, like me, you can't possibly figure out any other way to save your project, start by picking out your bound off edge. I like to use a thin but not sharp yarn needle to pull the loose end through the loops until I've gotten back to a row where it's purely knit stitches and not bound off stitches. Then I can pull on that sad, kinked end to unravel my stitches until I've reached a desired point - in this case, the other end of the front right bodice.
However, that sounds like a much smoother process than it really is. Some yarns, like cashmere and alpaca develop a halo either as you work with it or after it's been washed and blocked. True to form, the argosy yarn developed a lovely soft halo with form fitting drape. While I want that in the finished garment, it makes frogging difficult because some of that halo wraps around the yarn as you frog it. It forms something like a fabric bead that can almost knot one strand of yarn to another. As you might imagine, this is not a desirable thing for a piece you are frogging. When that happens, the smooth pull of the frogged yarn stops, and you'll probably have a long piece of yarn dangling from a loop with something that looks like a knot.
Stop pulling the yarn at this point, it will just make it worse. Remember that thin but dull yarn needle I used earlier? Bring that back out again, and use it to pull part the "bead" formed by the halo wrapping around the yarn. Sometimes, you can hold both sides of the frogged yarn in the front and back of the bead and pull it apart from the loop. Hold onto the loop while you pull apart the bead of halo, otherwise, you'll continue frogging the yarn below the loop and that makes for a tangled mess. Sometimes you may have to pick apart the fiber bead quite a bit to pull it apart before you can continue frogging.
I've found that the more halo a yarn develops, the more likely it is to form that fiber bead that makes frogging so different. That's why frogging yarns like mohair and angora is so difficult - they have halo in the skein, and the halo just gets fuzzier with knitting, washing, or frogging. These are the least forgiving yarns for mistakes that have to be ripped out. It's a lucky day if you can tink back a few rows in mohair, much less frogging more than that.
Other yarns that I've found difficult to frog include alpaca and cashmere. Both yarns knit up well, but their halo really comes out when you block or wash the knitted fabric. If possible, frogging is best done before you get them wet. Sometimes, that's unavoidable, especially if you're doing lace, where the pattern really doesn't appear until after it's blocked. Lace yarns are delicate to begin with, and frogging them must be done carefully. Sometimes knitting is enough to bring out a halo and that seems to make the yarn a little weaker and more prone to breaking when you pull the yarn out for frogging.
Wool tends to forgive frogging, at least the first time around. Depending on how tightly its spun, wool can be knitted and frogged several times before the fiber beads appear to make frogging difficult. However, single ply wool does NOT frog well at all. Cotton, even thread weight cotton, almost always forgives every frogging attempt. Silk, particularly the smooth silks, present a different sort of challenge. The slipperiness of silk practically allows the stitches to fall out from one row to the next, making it prime knotting territory. Bamboo can be prone to this problem as well, because it makes a notoriously slippery yarn. Acrylic forgives frogging almost as often as cotton does, and that sums up my review of different fibers and how well they frog.
A quick note on how to get rid of the kinkyness of yarn after it's been frogged, wind it up into a skein. Tie lots of figure 8 loops around it to keep the strands from getting tangled. Let the skein soak in a sink or bowl full of cool water, before gently squeezing out the excess water. You can roll it up in a towel and hop up and down on the towel to get rid of the water. Then, hang up the skein on a plastic hanger to dry. You can weight it down with more hangers hanging off the loop to pull the yarn straight if you so desire. Dyers and spinners will be completely familiar with this process. Give the skein at least a day to dry before you wind it up into a ball, and this should take most of the kink out.
In other news, I should have some exciting updates and news about the shop tomorrow. If people want, I can do a frogging tutorial with pictures to illustrate the process of frogging.
This is what has happened to the ocean cardigan after I blocked it and loosely pieced it together to check the fit. Apparently, I could not get away with the extra stitches like I thought I could. If you'll notice, one side is 2 inches longer than the other. No, it's not supposed to be like that. No, I do not like asymmetrical cardigans.
How did this happen, did you ask? Somehow, I added extra yarn overs near the front right button hole strip. I haven't a clue how I added them in. Instead of having three little lacy legs, I had four. And then, I had five. How I added that next one, I don't have any idea. Anyways, I thought I could get away with it. I thought quite wrong. I decreased back down to three lace legs, and thought I was okay to block. All those extra legs translated into two extra inches of length as you can see. I was absolutely stumped as to how I could fix it.
The most reasonable suggestion made was to frog the right front piece, which was much better than my idea to frog the whole thing. I'm still tempted to frog the whole thing and write a new pattern. However, reason ruled and the cardigan is cooling while I ponder what to do next with it. Which brings us to the whole reason for this post.
Frogging.
Every knitter I know lives to avoid this most dire of fates for their finished objects, but sometimes it's just inevitable. If, like me, you can't possibly figure out any other way to save your project, start by picking out your bound off edge. I like to use a thin but not sharp yarn needle to pull the loose end through the loops until I've gotten back to a row where it's purely knit stitches and not bound off stitches. Then I can pull on that sad, kinked end to unravel my stitches until I've reached a desired point - in this case, the other end of the front right bodice.
However, that sounds like a much smoother process than it really is. Some yarns, like cashmere and alpaca develop a halo either as you work with it or after it's been washed and blocked. True to form, the argosy yarn developed a lovely soft halo with form fitting drape. While I want that in the finished garment, it makes frogging difficult because some of that halo wraps around the yarn as you frog it. It forms something like a fabric bead that can almost knot one strand of yarn to another. As you might imagine, this is not a desirable thing for a piece you are frogging. When that happens, the smooth pull of the frogged yarn stops, and you'll probably have a long piece of yarn dangling from a loop with something that looks like a knot.
Stop pulling the yarn at this point, it will just make it worse. Remember that thin but dull yarn needle I used earlier? Bring that back out again, and use it to pull part the "bead" formed by the halo wrapping around the yarn. Sometimes, you can hold both sides of the frogged yarn in the front and back of the bead and pull it apart from the loop. Hold onto the loop while you pull apart the bead of halo, otherwise, you'll continue frogging the yarn below the loop and that makes for a tangled mess. Sometimes you may have to pick apart the fiber bead quite a bit to pull it apart before you can continue frogging.
I've found that the more halo a yarn develops, the more likely it is to form that fiber bead that makes frogging so different. That's why frogging yarns like mohair and angora is so difficult - they have halo in the skein, and the halo just gets fuzzier with knitting, washing, or frogging. These are the least forgiving yarns for mistakes that have to be ripped out. It's a lucky day if you can tink back a few rows in mohair, much less frogging more than that.
Other yarns that I've found difficult to frog include alpaca and cashmere. Both yarns knit up well, but their halo really comes out when you block or wash the knitted fabric. If possible, frogging is best done before you get them wet. Sometimes, that's unavoidable, especially if you're doing lace, where the pattern really doesn't appear until after it's blocked. Lace yarns are delicate to begin with, and frogging them must be done carefully. Sometimes knitting is enough to bring out a halo and that seems to make the yarn a little weaker and more prone to breaking when you pull the yarn out for frogging.
Wool tends to forgive frogging, at least the first time around. Depending on how tightly its spun, wool can be knitted and frogged several times before the fiber beads appear to make frogging difficult. However, single ply wool does NOT frog well at all. Cotton, even thread weight cotton, almost always forgives every frogging attempt. Silk, particularly the smooth silks, present a different sort of challenge. The slipperiness of silk practically allows the stitches to fall out from one row to the next, making it prime knotting territory. Bamboo can be prone to this problem as well, because it makes a notoriously slippery yarn. Acrylic forgives frogging almost as often as cotton does, and that sums up my review of different fibers and how well they frog.
A quick note on how to get rid of the kinkyness of yarn after it's been frogged, wind it up into a skein. Tie lots of figure 8 loops around it to keep the strands from getting tangled. Let the skein soak in a sink or bowl full of cool water, before gently squeezing out the excess water. You can roll it up in a towel and hop up and down on the towel to get rid of the water. Then, hang up the skein on a plastic hanger to dry. You can weight it down with more hangers hanging off the loop to pull the yarn straight if you so desire. Dyers and spinners will be completely familiar with this process. Give the skein at least a day to dry before you wind it up into a ball, and this should take most of the kink out.
In other news, I should have some exciting updates and news about the shop tomorrow. If people want, I can do a frogging tutorial with pictures to illustrate the process of frogging.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Blue Blood
Or why you should wet block your lace.
I should have known this from the start, really. The haiku yarn is so saturated with color that I should have known it would bleed blue dye like it was stabbed through the heart and bleeding out the last of its royal blue arterial blood down to the last bleeding blue cell it had to give. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It's sitting in my bathroom, bleeding out the last of the dye. (I hope.) The needles on which I knit the sweater are noticeably darker than the rest of the set. I thought it just might be the bamboo wood darkening with use. Oh, no. I took a picture so you could see. Check out the needles, the stain was strong enough my camera could see it.
Once upon a time, those tiny little US 1.5 needles were the same color as the larger size 7's in the picture. The changing colors of my needles should have told me that this was going to bleed. Being a high end yarn, I had the vague notion that the yarn wouldn't bleed, that the dye was well fixed into the fiber. I should have seen from the vibrant, saturated colors of the haiku yarn that it would. Anyways, I'm glad I decided to soak it for wet blocking. It's on bath number 3, and I will take more pictures so you can see just how much dye comes out of this yarn.
Why block?
Well, blocking is a process which quite literally transforms lace knitting from something the cat chewed up to a breathtaking heirloom. I don't have any stellar examples of unblocked versus blocked lace, but I do have some photos of before and after for the lace shrug that I made. This is what the lace looked like before I blocked it. It was also maybe 10 inches in width. The final width of that section, before I sewed it together, became 12 inches in blocking. But I get ahead of myself. Here's what happens after you block it. The lace opens up, the garment takes on larger dimensions than the size it was when it came off the needle. The size to which a piece of lace will grow depends on how hard you block it.
How do you block?
There are any number of ways you can block lace. If, like me, you have a love for supersaturated and vibrant colors, then you should let the lace item soak in cool water before you attempt blocking. Trust me. If you attempt to get the lace wet, and then spread it out on a blanket, carpet, or fabric surface, you will have a unique (read - stained) dye job left behind by the lace made from your vibrant yarn. A good rule of thumb is to let it sit in cold water for 15 minutes or more, before rinsing it out. If the water comes out clear after the rinse, then it might be okay to continue on with the process of blocking. If you're not sure, then let it sit for 5 minutes. Toss out the water after that time, and see how clear it comes out. If it's reasonably clear, you probably got most of the excess dye out.
A just-so-you- know moment - this will change the color of your yarn. It won't be quite as vibrant as it was before. However, with the excess dye gone, it will no longer stain your skin smurfette blue, like my sweater would have if I did not let soak away the excess dye. Returning to my out of order process!
Perhaps the easiest way to block is to simply spread out your lace as flat as possible on a large surface. A bed, table, or even the basement floor work well. I've used all three and then some. Ironing boards work well too. Then, with a water bottle or misting spray, spray water until it evenly coats the surface of your project. The surface of the yarn should be damp to the touch, not soaked through. Then, you can gently push and pull at the yarn until it lays almost flat on the surface of the bed or table. Like a fibrous form of clay, you can push and pull the yarn gently into the shape you desire. The weight of the water will sort of weight the yarn down, preventing it from snapping back to the crinkled shape. This is soft blocking, and it's just like what you'd do when you lay a sweater out to dry. You create a shape, but you aren't forcing it into one.
Hard blocking is when you pin that sucker down to dry, and it's not moving from that shape until you pry thosenails pins out from the surface. Beds, foam board, ironing boards, soft, flat surfaces are required for this part. And a plethora of pins! Or, if you wish, you can buy a blocking set which includes rust-proof pins and blocking wires. Other people use string and pull it tight, so it acts just like a blocking wire. The point of all these tools and the pins is to pull the yarn into the desired shape, a triangle, rectangle, circle, a mobius strip - it's really all about the shape you want.
You can start out with a gently dampened lace, or you can soak the sucker, it's all about personal preference at this point. The more wet your project is when you start hard blocking, the longer it will take to dry. If you fear mold or something like that getting into your yarn, run a circulating fan in the same room where the project is drying. Some people fear the project shrinking because of the air circulating around the project, but I have never had that problem. Things dry faster when you have a fan. For me, that's a lesser likelihood of the cats eating my project while it dries.
Anyways, if you've opted to do what I've done so far - aka soak the sucker until there's no more dye to bleed - you have to get it to a not-sopping-wet state for blocking. I prefer to roll my projects in a towel and then stomp all over like I was reinacting the broadway musical. This may not be the preferred method for some. Other people like to put their project in a delicates bag - that zippered mesh thing that I should use more often - and run it through the spin cycle of their empty washing machine. However you get to this point, it doesn't matter. The point is that the project is throughly and evenly dampened. Then you can lay it out on the surface and pin it into the desired shape.
A clever trick for circular shawls is to cut a piece of yarn a few inches or so longer than the desired radius of your shawl. Pin one end of the yarn down in the center of your surface. Use the other end of the yarn to "draw out" a circle - stretch it out, pin the edge of shawl in one place. Move the end of the yarn a few inches along the edge of your circle, pin another point of the circle down there. Rinse, repeat, until you've gone 360 degrees and traced out your shawl's circle with the free end of the yarn. I've never used this trick, as I have yet to make a circular shawl, but I thought it was pretty cool.
As for me, the point of all this rambling was to occupy my time as I waited for my cardigan to bleed out dyes. I want to block it, sew the front and back together, and try it on before I throw sleeves on it. I'm sort of afraid the sleeve caps won't fit, but we'll see. I'll be doing a soft block on this lace, because the pattern was written with positive ease, and I want negative ease. And yet, I didn't decrease the pattern repeats! Go figure!
Yes, this will be a launching point for lace designs in the future. More pictures of the bleeding blue monster to come, once I have wrung out the last of its blue life blood.
I should have known this from the start, really. The haiku yarn is so saturated with color that I should have known it would bleed blue dye like it was stabbed through the heart and bleeding out the last of its royal blue arterial blood down to the last bleeding blue cell it had to give. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It's sitting in my bathroom, bleeding out the last of the dye. (I hope.) The needles on which I knit the sweater are noticeably darker than the rest of the set. I thought it just might be the bamboo wood darkening with use. Oh, no. I took a picture so you could see. Check out the needles, the stain was strong enough my camera could see it.
Once upon a time, those tiny little US 1.5 needles were the same color as the larger size 7's in the picture. The changing colors of my needles should have told me that this was going to bleed. Being a high end yarn, I had the vague notion that the yarn wouldn't bleed, that the dye was well fixed into the fiber. I should have seen from the vibrant, saturated colors of the haiku yarn that it would. Anyways, I'm glad I decided to soak it for wet blocking. It's on bath number 3, and I will take more pictures so you can see just how much dye comes out of this yarn.
Why block?
Well, blocking is a process which quite literally transforms lace knitting from something the cat chewed up to a breathtaking heirloom. I don't have any stellar examples of unblocked versus blocked lace, but I do have some photos of before and after for the lace shrug that I made. This is what the lace looked like before I blocked it. It was also maybe 10 inches in width. The final width of that section, before I sewed it together, became 12 inches in blocking. But I get ahead of myself. Here's what happens after you block it. The lace opens up, the garment takes on larger dimensions than the size it was when it came off the needle. The size to which a piece of lace will grow depends on how hard you block it.
How do you block?
There are any number of ways you can block lace. If, like me, you have a love for supersaturated and vibrant colors, then you should let the lace item soak in cool water before you attempt blocking. Trust me. If you attempt to get the lace wet, and then spread it out on a blanket, carpet, or fabric surface, you will have a unique (read - stained) dye job left behind by the lace made from your vibrant yarn. A good rule of thumb is to let it sit in cold water for 15 minutes or more, before rinsing it out. If the water comes out clear after the rinse, then it might be okay to continue on with the process of blocking. If you're not sure, then let it sit for 5 minutes. Toss out the water after that time, and see how clear it comes out. If it's reasonably clear, you probably got most of the excess dye out.
A just-so-you- know moment - this will change the color of your yarn. It won't be quite as vibrant as it was before. However, with the excess dye gone, it will no longer stain your skin smurfette blue, like my sweater would have if I did not let soak away the excess dye. Returning to my out of order process!
Perhaps the easiest way to block is to simply spread out your lace as flat as possible on a large surface. A bed, table, or even the basement floor work well. I've used all three and then some. Ironing boards work well too. Then, with a water bottle or misting spray, spray water until it evenly coats the surface of your project. The surface of the yarn should be damp to the touch, not soaked through. Then, you can gently push and pull at the yarn until it lays almost flat on the surface of the bed or table. Like a fibrous form of clay, you can push and pull the yarn gently into the shape you desire. The weight of the water will sort of weight the yarn down, preventing it from snapping back to the crinkled shape. This is soft blocking, and it's just like what you'd do when you lay a sweater out to dry. You create a shape, but you aren't forcing it into one.
Hard blocking is when you pin that sucker down to dry, and it's not moving from that shape until you pry those
You can start out with a gently dampened lace, or you can soak the sucker, it's all about personal preference at this point. The more wet your project is when you start hard blocking, the longer it will take to dry. If you fear mold or something like that getting into your yarn, run a circulating fan in the same room where the project is drying. Some people fear the project shrinking because of the air circulating around the project, but I have never had that problem. Things dry faster when you have a fan. For me, that's a lesser likelihood of the cats eating my project while it dries.
Anyways, if you've opted to do what I've done so far - aka soak the sucker until there's no more dye to bleed - you have to get it to a not-sopping-wet state for blocking. I prefer to roll my projects in a towel and then stomp all over like I was reinacting the broadway musical. This may not be the preferred method for some. Other people like to put their project in a delicates bag - that zippered mesh thing that I should use more often - and run it through the spin cycle of their empty washing machine. However you get to this point, it doesn't matter. The point is that the project is throughly and evenly dampened. Then you can lay it out on the surface and pin it into the desired shape.
A clever trick for circular shawls is to cut a piece of yarn a few inches or so longer than the desired radius of your shawl. Pin one end of the yarn down in the center of your surface. Use the other end of the yarn to "draw out" a circle - stretch it out, pin the edge of shawl in one place. Move the end of the yarn a few inches along the edge of your circle, pin another point of the circle down there. Rinse, repeat, until you've gone 360 degrees and traced out your shawl's circle with the free end of the yarn. I've never used this trick, as I have yet to make a circular shawl, but I thought it was pretty cool.
As for me, the point of all this rambling was to occupy my time as I waited for my cardigan to bleed out dyes. I want to block it, sew the front and back together, and try it on before I throw sleeves on it. I'm sort of afraid the sleeve caps won't fit, but we'll see. I'll be doing a soft block on this lace, because the pattern was written with positive ease, and I want negative ease. And yet, I didn't decrease the pattern repeats! Go figure!
Yes, this will be a launching point for lace designs in the future. More pictures of the bleeding blue monster to come, once I have wrung out the last of its blue life blood.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Busy as a bee
Well, sort of. After the insanity of finals week, we went to visit the boyfriend's parents. This resulted in lots of knitting time, luckily for me. I needed it. Thanks to the help of a fellow raveller, I was able to pick up the graduation dress without a math induced headache. She's challenged me to a friendly competition, and holy crap, she's already kicking my ass. She started the dress 2 weeks ago, and she's got more done than me already! She has everything but the lower half of the sleeves done on the upper half of the dress. She's already 3 inches into the skirt of the dress. Have I mentioned she's knitting it in the round?
It's a great challenge, because I started a new project out of anger against the dress. I've started the shaker cardigan from Rowan 25 and the Treasury of Rowan Knits book. I really should look through my own pattern books more often, I'd forgotten that I'd wanted to make the cardigan in the first place. I'd gotten some gorgeous silk/cashmere yarn (55/45) in a trade from a friend. It's argosy yarns, haiku 2 ply in their La Haina colorway. It's this gorgeous varigated blue that looks good on both sides of the fabric. Let me show you.
Can't tell which one is the right side or wrong side without having to look for the purl bumps. The first one is the right side. I'm debating making the cardigan reversible, it's just so darn pretty. I started it because I wanted to make something where I wasn't doing drastic changes to the pattern. Okay, okay, I made some changes to the pattern. I added the ribbing, and I'm doing it all in one needle size, 2.5mm. But those are all the changes I'm making, I swear! Except, I might make it 3/4th sleeve if I don't have enough yarn. If my usual lace yarn karma holds out, though, I'll have leftovers.
As you can see, the cardigan has distracted me from my graduation dress. So far, I have the front done.
I've made it so that I don't have as many ends to weave in, by incorporating the ends into the knitting. I like it, because there's less seams to sew and less ends to deal with later. I've started on panel 2 of the back.
I'm nearly at the 8 inches length required, so I pinned the back of the dress to the shoulder of my shirt to test the length. 8 inches barely covers my ass, so it looks like I'll be adding a bit of length. I know there's a second ruffle, but I don't trust ruffles. One good breeze and you're flashing the world.
As for other goodies, my goal this week is to get the etsy shop up and running. Expect to see more links because of it.
It's a great challenge, because I started a new project out of anger against the dress. I've started the shaker cardigan from Rowan 25 and the Treasury of Rowan Knits book. I really should look through my own pattern books more often, I'd forgotten that I'd wanted to make the cardigan in the first place. I'd gotten some gorgeous silk/cashmere yarn (55/45) in a trade from a friend. It's argosy yarns, haiku 2 ply in their La Haina colorway. It's this gorgeous varigated blue that looks good on both sides of the fabric. Let me show you.
Can't tell which one is the right side or wrong side without having to look for the purl bumps. The first one is the right side. I'm debating making the cardigan reversible, it's just so darn pretty. I started it because I wanted to make something where I wasn't doing drastic changes to the pattern. Okay, okay, I made some changes to the pattern. I added the ribbing, and I'm doing it all in one needle size, 2.5mm. But those are all the changes I'm making, I swear! Except, I might make it 3/4th sleeve if I don't have enough yarn. If my usual lace yarn karma holds out, though, I'll have leftovers.
As you can see, the cardigan has distracted me from my graduation dress. So far, I have the front done.
I've made it so that I don't have as many ends to weave in, by incorporating the ends into the knitting. I like it, because there's less seams to sew and less ends to deal with later. I've started on panel 2 of the back.
I'm nearly at the 8 inches length required, so I pinned the back of the dress to the shoulder of my shirt to test the length. 8 inches barely covers my ass, so it looks like I'll be adding a bit of length. I know there's a second ruffle, but I don't trust ruffles. One good breeze and you're flashing the world.
As for other goodies, my goal this week is to get the etsy shop up and running. Expect to see more links because of it.
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