Category Archives: knit

It’s never easy

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So.

 The armholes on the Lace Hem Topping shell are too big.  My bra shows.  Once a woman reaches a certain age, a little peek at the bra isn’t as titillating as it used to be.  Not good.  I took in a couple of stitches at the underarm to tighten it up.  Then I decided to undo the shoulder seams and rip back a few rows to shorten the offending armhole before I attempt the crochet edge.

Remember when I said the mattress stitch was slow going?  That’s because I evidently ROCK at the mattress stitch and weaving in ends.  I’m so darn (not the first word that popped into my head) good at it that I couldn’t find the end to rip it out!

It took over an hour to find and undo the mattress stitching for one of the shoulder seams.  19 stitches.  The other side was about 15 minutes.

So now I need to rip back seven rows and start the neck/shoulder shaping all over again.  This time I will do short row shaping and the three needle bind off at the shoulders since I’ll be knitting both the front and back at the same time.

Word to the wise.  Don’t weave in the ends until you are 10,000% sure you are completely done.  Fin.  Fini.  The end.

Dilemma

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I finished all the seams last night on the Lace Hem Topping and when I tried it on, the armholes seemed a bit too big.  I don’t have the crocheted edge on yet. 

I think I will shorten the armholes by 1/2 inch and see if it fits better.  Or will blocking it again work?  The lighting isn’t good and the color is way off.  And my arms look huge! 

Seamed before edging

Yarn, fiber content, stitch count

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I was reading Benjamin Krudwig’s  post this morning and decided to use his idea for my post today.  He discussed how many stitches we knit (or crochet) in an item and I thought it was a bit of information necessary on the tag I include with all my knitted items along with the yarn used, fiber content, and washing instructions.

I keep track of each row I knit and it wouldn’t be hard to figure out how many stitches are in the finished piece…not counting the seams.  I think this information would be interesting to include when gifting or even selling a hand-knitted item.

What do you think?

Chinese Auction and Lace Hem Top

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We went to covered dish get-together this weekend and were to take a White Elephant gift.  As it turned out the White Elephant gift was really a Chinese Auction.  There are various versions of a Chinese Auction.  For this version those who participated drew a number from a hat.  When that number was called, the person chose and unwrapped a gift.  If they didn’t like it, they could swap with someone else.  Obviously the first few people didn’t have much of a chance of swapping for a “better” gift.  

The gift we took was destined for our yard sale.  

Mr. Aitch was third to select a gift.  It was a crystal candy dish with a lid and resembled a Hershey Kiss.  I suggested he swap that for a canvas bag filled with gardening tools.  Pretty and useful.  Too pretty and too useful as it turned out.  That gift was THE gift and exchanged hands many, many more times.  After the last gift was unwrapped and swapped,  the first person got an opportunity to swap since she didn’t have a choice at the beginning.  BTW she was the one that opened the canvas bag with the gardening tools in the first place.  And that’s what she ended up with after all.   

What did Mr. Aitch get?   

The gift we took.  It’s going back to the yard sale box.  

On the knitting side of the weekend I got about half way done on the back of the Lace Hem Top.  I’m hoping I can make great progress on this today and perhaps even finish the back!  Mr. Aitch doesn’t understand the concept of a “sweater” for the summer.  I tried to explain that it isn’t a sweater, it’s a knitted garment.  Not all knits are sweaters.  Whatever.  

Lace Hem Topping 7/11/2010

Cascade Ultra Pima in Heathered Pansy.  

This has a lace border and I’ve not really done much with lace.  In fact the only “lace” I’ve done is/are the eyelet sweaters.  I wet the sweaters when I was finished with them and blocked.  I used acrylic yarn.   

How do I block this cotton?  Steam block?  Wet block?