WIP Wednesday: Losing at Yarn Chicken

Had all gone well, tonight's post wouldn't be about WIPs because I would have a finished object by now. But...

The Daenerys shawl is still on the needles (and looks like it will be for a little while longer). I followed the suggested number of pattern repeats, trying to judge how much I needed for the end, and I guessed incorrectly so now I'm in what feels like a seemingly endless cycle of tinking back about 32 super long rows of lace knitting. I hear you all telling me to just put in a lifeline and rip it back, and I will answer your cries with a resounding I attempted to do this, but I'm not good enough at reading lace knitting so I can't figure out exactly which stitches/row to get the lifeline worked in. So. Instead of risking dropping stitches or putting the lifeline in crooked, I have resigned myself to a lifetime of tinking back.

Here is the shawl at the point I realised I was going to run out of yarn.

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Because the edging requires you to be at the end of a pattern repeat, I actually have to rip out the 12 rows of edging and then the 21 rows of my final pattern repeat, which means in this photo I have to essentially rip back to just before I start the dark purple stripe on this Kauni. It's a lot of rows (and stitches), but hopefully it will go quickly and knitting the edging won't take too long. I remain optimistic that you all at least won't see it in the WIPs post next Wednesday.

In an added bonus, I STILL love this colourway. This shawl is going to make me really happy when it's done, so all the tinking is TOTALLY worth it!

Pattern: Daenerys by Valerie Johnson

Yarn: Kauni wool 8/2 Effektgarn in the colourway EI

WIP Wednesday: More Kauni, More Shawl

I joked about it earlier in the year, but it really is starting to look like 2016 is the year of the shawl. Better yet, it's looking like the year of the Kauni shawl. I'm very okay with this.

As my regular readers will know I'm working hard at completing as many challenges as I can in the Knerd Girl Knits Bad-Ass Women Craft-Along. This round is focusing on women in literature, and one of the challenges was to knit something inspired by a woman in literature. The first thought in my head when I read the challenge was "where do I start?!" I have so many amazing, bad-ass female book characters that I've loved throughout my life that I found it hard to pick just one. Admittedly, my current favourite is Blue Sargent from Maggie Stiefvater's A-MAZ-ING series The Raven Cycle, but I don't have a good handle on how I could knit something inspired by her since her style isn't hugely similar to mine. I thought about dyeing her a colourway (that's almost certainly going to happen anyway) and just knitting something with it, but if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it right. I'll still honour Blue some way, but this wasn't the project for it.

The next place my mind went was to Daenerys Targaryen from A Song of Ice and Fire. Although I admit that I've lost my enfranchisement with the TV show, Dany was one of my favourite book characters from the start (and still is at what is currently serving for the end). So I thought, I'll look for dragon-themed patterns to honour her as "Mother of Dragons". I have a whole bunch of red Kauni solid and thought, red could be good for a dragon shawl. Then I got word of Gynx yarns doing a Dye-Along, Knit-Along and briefly entertained the idea of trying to dye red and black yarn and knit it into something. This led me down the Ravelry rabbit hole of Daenerys-inspired patterns and I found one simply called "Daenerys" by Valerie Johnson. It wanted 650yds of fingering weight. So then I was back to the "can I dye the yarn AND knit this in a month?" which didn't seem likely. But then it occurred to me...I had to readjust my thinking! Daenerys is most known for her dragons, BUT!, a year ago I had purchased the perfect Targaryen-coloured skein of Kauni. Which, while it isn't fingering weight, is 650yds and is fairly light for a sport weight. Plus it's a shawl, so there's not really a gauge to it. Now, this yarn isn't what you're thinking. Targaryen house colours are red and black. This yarn is not. No! It transitions from a tan colour to dark purple to light purple to silver grey. If you've read the books you know that a mark of the Targaryen family is that they all have white hair, tan skin, and purple eyes. Daenerys shawl, meet Daenerys yarn! A perfect match made out of perfection and fortuity.

The shawl is a pretty simple (though not yet easy to remember!) dragon scale pattern. I haven't gotten through a full colour repeat of the yarn yet, but I think I might be in love.

It's been going fast, but I'm sure progress will start slowing now that the rows are getting longer.

WIP Wednesday: After a Brief Pseudo-Patriotic Diversion...

Apologies for one more week of showing you all the same thing, but at least this week it comes with some additional content that serves as my excuse for one more week of the same thing.

That's right, the Berocco sweater is still on the needles, although if I can put in some quality time over the next few days you might not see it again until next Friday (possibly this Friday if for some reason I manage to get ahead of myself). The below (admittedly poor quality) photo is of the back, the front, and one sleeve done and another sleeve just about to start the shaping for the sleeve cap. Following that, I have to seam the shoulders then pick up and knit the collar, then finish seaming, then wash and block.

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Regarding sleeve caps--I hope they fit. The fact that my stitch gauge was DRASTICALLY different than the pattern stitch gauge was never a problem at all until it came time to shaping the sleeve caps. The pattern, as it should, calls for some gradual shaping for 36 rows and then more rapid shaping for the rest of the shoulder. However, because I had fewer stitches, I ended up just decreasing 1 stitch on each side of each right side row to end up with the requisite number of stitches after knitting the requisite number of rows. I'm really worried that the shoulders won't fit into the openings right and are going to fit oddly, but there's not much I can do about it right now (well, there is, I can pull it back and try to do even more complicated math, but since math and I are sworn enemies, I'm not sure that's the best strategy). For now, I plan to seam the whole thing together, block, see how it goes, and rip back the sleeves from there if I need to. Might not be the plan with the least knitting, but also it might be, so I'm willing to risk it.

And now for something completely different!

Two years ago I dyed some yarn to match the US Men's National Soccer Team's super cool jerseys, affectionately known as the "Bomb Pop" kit after the novelty Popsicle treats that used to be popular in the 1990s (maybe they still are, I don't know). Fast forward to last summer when I started actually knitting it into socks (which, it turns out were too big). I managed to finish one, but then the magic of the World Cup and the Gold Cup (the big international soccer tournaments the US was in) ended and I put it down, saying I'd re-measure and make the next sock later. So...that brings us to now when the USA was hosting the Copa America Centenario and I decided to cast on the correct number of stitches and knit sock 2 whenever I was watching the tournament. I took measurements (spoiler alert, incorrectly) and used Lara Neel's book "Sock Architecture" to cast on toe up and get working.

Which is where adventures and shenanigans begin.

As we began this weekend (since it was a patriotic holiday here in the US I figured I'd just knit the sock all weekend and see about getting it done since I was already past the heel turn), I got about 13cm into the leg (they're tall socks because (a) I like tall socks, (b) that's how the yarn dyeing worked out the easiest, and (c) that's soccer style socks) and then held it up and thought "the foot looks really short". I'd tried it on before and convinced myself that it fit, but I compared it to the too big sock (which actually fits fairly well in the foot, it's just too wide) and it was about 4cm too short for my foot (because for some reason I'd measured the length of my foot as 20cm instead of 24cm. So, I ripped it all the way back to where I'd started the gusset, re-did the math and blissfully began the foot. Where, instead of remembering that I needed to knit to 78 rows (I was already at 66), I had in my head that I needed to knit to 98 rows and then start the gusset. I realised this at around row 102, counted back to 78, ripped out again, and finished the weekend merrily at 19cm of cuff.

 

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Which is where it will stay until the US Women's National Team's Olympic matches. Maybe I'll get this one done. And then I'll be right back where I started the year with one sock completed.