all aboard!

You guys are getting the first ever Shetland Triangle LiveBlogging update feed, or something ☺





a bonus shot of my craft room - TOTALLY not decorated yet, but functional. I told a friend I had a print of a Kiwi there but it isn’t, it’s an NZ sheep, the Kiwi print is actually in my bedroom at the moment.



and most of the stash:

off the needles!

Currently soaking in a tub of cool water with some Soak wool wash in it.

A couple of pre-blocking shots:

one row to go

That’s right. ONE ROW.

K2, SM, YO, K9, YO, [K1, YO, K9, YO] x 10; SM, K1, SM, [YO, K9, YO, K1] x 10; YO, K9, YO, SM, K2

Bind off “very loosely.” Um, ok, yeah, that’s a trick I haven’t mastered but I’ll do my best. Actually I have a method of doing that but it will take a while. Actually the whole row is likely to take a while, I think I’m up to 267 stitches or thereabouts.

The last row I did took me 24 minutes to do, and this is a bit longer -- but, the purl rows seem to take me slightly longer than the pattern rows (the last pattern row I did took me only 21 minutes, and there were not 3 minutes more stitches on the subsequent row!). In any case this row will probably take me in the vicinity of a half hour and then I will bind off which will probably take me another half an hour and then I will be done and have to block this thing.

I HOPE I can get it blocked tonight but probably won’t be able to. But I really am getting finishitis.

this is scary

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/05/29/tb.flight/index.html

screw bird flu. this is scarier to me! way more immediate. I totally see this happening again.

another boring post

I have four rows left on my shetland triangle. FOUR ROWS! I thought I made a mistake on the third row of edging, but either I didn’t, or I made another mistake in one of the two subsequent rows which evened it out ;). So, the thing is almost done. I’m kind of nervous once again. I have project-finishing anxiety, it seems like! I am really not sure why, just, I guess, a lack of faith that it will block out and look like it is supposed to. Right now it is so lumpy and disheveled looking. I showed it to someone I ran into at B&N today (I was KIP there, which I find amusing because until a year ago I would have been NIP there. Never been K&NIP, though) and she was like “um, ok, gee, gosh, that’s lovely...” with this “that is so hideous” look on her face. Ptui on her. This is the triangle I’m making out of that wonderful alpaca tweed I raved about a while back, btw. So hang on, I expect that it shouldn’t take me more than a week to do these four rows (bear in mind that with >220 st/row a row is no small matter) and then who knows how long to BO and then block the sucker... but then there will be pictures!

stealth knitting

I know I haven’t mentioned it, but I have been sneaking a row here and there on my shetland triangle that I’m making out of my tweedy alpaca yarn. Guess what? I’m 7/8 of the way done with the body! I just have 10 rows of the body to do, and then the edging. This is my first lace shawl, and it’s been fun. I really can’t wait to photograph and block and photograph and look at before and after shots. The sad thing is that I know I made one weird mistake that is going to be practically dead in the center, but I’m hoping it won’t make me hate it. It looks as if I will be able to disguise it.

zipper insertion

Geeksbewithyou has asked me “how did the zipper go?”

Well, it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, and I feel reasonably comfortable with doing it again one day. First, I measured the sweater about eleventy-billion times, and decided I needed a 22-inch zipper. As it happens, I probably really needed a 21 3/4“ zipper, but it is what it is and I can deal with this. I just think it would have been better not reaching EXACTLY to the edges the way it is.

Then, I chose a zipper from zipperstop.com and ordered it and waited for it to get here. It was VERY hard for me to choose a color, but I realized that a color card costs as much as two or three zippers, so I figured pick a zipper and if it’s wrong, pick another zipper! I chose a dark green separating zipper and it arrived pretty quickly really and I decided it would be fine.

So, then I read some tutorials on zippers. I read Grumperina’s, and Claudia’s, and Bonne Marie’s! I actually printed out Claudia’s, but I never even took it off the printer, ha ha ha.

So then I took the sweater and my supplies (supplies: the zipper, a small pair of scissors, the matching thread I’d bought at Joann’s, some cream-colored thread for basting, some bright yellow yarn, a tapestry needle, a tape measure, and a xanax) and sat down in front of the television. I turned on ”Friends with Money“ (thank you On Demand but I still hate Comcast with a passion that is unwavering and true) and laid the sweater out on the floor. I laid the zipper on the sweater - right side of zipper facing wrong side of sweater - and then I started pinning it on there. Basically I just pinned using straight pins (quilting pins with little yellow daisy tops) placed parallel to the zipper itself. Then I tried it on with the pins in place and thought it looked pretty good. Then I basted it in place with the cream colored thread and tried it on again. I realized that the basting stitches were a little too far away from the zipper itself, because i was getting some unsightly gapping. So I went ahead and sewed the sucker in using smaller stitches, closer to the zipper. Amazingly, it worked. I just had to fold the backing tape weirdly at the top, but it’s fine. I don’t know what I was so terribly afraid of. I could always rip it off and do it again. But I might have to kill someone first.

the verdict is in

The sweater is comfortable and warm. The girls in my Hebrew class said it’s really cute. I’m too shy to face the camera today but I put a few snapshots of the finished product online:

ribby cardi

!!!!!!

I finished the ribby cardi!!!
Sorry, no pictures right now. Too busy. But it is DONE.

relief

My ribby cardi is totally off the needles and is now resting on my blocking board in a relaxed way. I wove in all the ends, soaked it in some Soak, and laid it out flat and we’ll see how it looks after that. I still need to buy a zipper. I still fear the zipper. I am afraid I will order the wrong length. I’m such a dweeb.