Birthday Gloves are done!

Yep, the Birthday Gloves are finished.  I finished them up, blocking them late tonight.

I even got them done before the Birthday in question, but they were gifted almost immediately to my roommate -- she wants to wear them to the Farmer's Market tomorrow!

It's nice to get something off my needles; especially given an upcoming KAL and more Christmas Knitting, too.

One Glove is done, how fast can I knit the other?

Well, the post title pretty much says it all.

I finished up the thumb of the Birthday Gloves earlier in the week.

I'm actually quite happy with how these are turning out, and I hope my giftee likes them too.

I did the start of the cuff of the second glove over this weekend, and got through a good chunk of the fair-isle work this morning, including putting in the waste yarn for the afterthought thumb (I'm willing to give it one more try!)  If I can get the fair-isle chart done, then I can take these as transit knitting to do the fingers.

I've still got 10 days to finish these, and it shouldn't be a problem.  No knitting three hours before the deadline again, I swear!

A Bad Day with A Good Ending

Long Post Warning:  

So I'm writing this under the influence of a rather unhappy stomach.  It's better then it was last night, but, well, let me tell the tale from the beginning.


I had work this morning, then a whole bunch of errands to downtown in afternoon.  Already, I knew this was going to be a long day.

Lets just say I fell on my behind and ended up in a lot of pain, didn't do half the errands I was planning, the place I wanted to go for lunch/dinner was closed (this involved quite a walk), and the place I did go for food. . . well, it disagreed with me.  Violently.

So by the time I got to Knit Night at the Purple Purl, I was nausious, thirsty, and hurty.   Not the best mindset to be knitting in, but actually, it mostly worked out.  Oh, I didn't feel great, but once I had the chance to sit down, sip a mug of tea, and actually re-compose myself, I felt a lot more human.

Thank you!

Ok, so I was actually going to the Purple Purl in search of yarn.  I've been looking for the right yarn for a friend's Christmas gift.  It has to be grey superwash, fingering-weight, wool.

My first choice was the Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label in Charcoal, which is a colourway that Eat.Sleep.Knit doesn't stock.  Of course, unfortunately, the Purple Purl didn't have it either.

However, they did find me yarn that will suit perfectly.

I now have two skeins of Spud and Chloe Fine that will become a Caffinate! Coffee Press cover. 

The pattern calls for worsted weight, but my giftee has a mini-coffee press, and the idea of a mini-dalek made her giggle with delight over the phone, so I'm planning to just scale down the pattern in stitches per inch, work it with fingering-weight yarn, and call it done. I got dimensions out of her, so I should be good to go.

(Also, happily, I discovered in uploading this this morning, that Ravelry will keep stash entries separate if they have separate dye lots.  Well done!)

After getting my yarn, I then settled into work on my knitting at the knit night. I got the index finger done on the Birthday Gloves, (no new pic yet, I haven't had the energy), and started the thumb.

Holy crap, an afterthought thumb in fair-isle is hard!  A lot of the others there were saying that it wouldn't be easy, and they were right.   The bottom nine stitches came together just fine.  The top stitches. . . well, after a lot of cursing everything's on the needles, but it looks a little deformed.

I don't want to do this again in fair-isle.  I'd be a lot happier casting off and picking up.  I might, however, try it again on the left glove and see, however, if part of my frustration and inability was just simply the day I'd had.

So, after that long day, my stomach still lurching somewhat on the streetcar ride home, yes, I have new yarn, but I'm still not feeling that great. . . 

I come home to two boxes sitting in my living room.  One is small, the other big.  My roommate tells me that the post came for me.  No customs fees, no problem, the boxes just simply got dropped off.

So, another order came in from Eat.Sleep.Knit, for starters, and, as well, my Yarn Swift arrived!

I put it to work as a trial immediately, and I -love- this thing!  I'm actually really impressed by the Hornshaw Wood Works.  Their stuff is awesome, shipping was quick, and it was really well packed.

I needed 1 contrast skein for my plans with the Sweet Georgia Merino Silk Aran, and "Hush" seemed like a good contrast colourway.

I also got two skiens of Sweet Georgia Superwash Worsted.  This is me planning ahead -- this is for my Father's Birthday next year (no knitting 3 hours before the deadline again, I hope!)  I usually wouldn't have bothered, except the Superwash Worsted is a Power Boost Yarn, so I might as well buy it now while I get a bonus for it.

So coming home to yarn and a swift really helped perk up my day.

I crawled into bed somewhat soon after that. 

I'm feeling somewhat better now, though breakfast is still a question mark.  But I'll distract myself with knitting, for the moment.

Project Updates -- September 2nd

Well, the knitting continues. 

Things have slowed down for the moment, and I've gotten some more things worked on.

First, I'm almost done the first glove of the Birthday Gloves. I just need to finish the index finger on the right glove, and I'll be half-way there. 

I'm not super-worried about my deadline.  I can get the cuff and the fingers done on transit, if I need to, and the Fair-Isle in the centre goes reasonably quick.

My other major progress has been on my Shorts.  I've gotten through the base stripes, and I'm currently doing the crotch shaping.

I realized after I'd gotten the yarn for these that they are close (though not exactly the same) in colour to the shorts pictured in the pattern book:

I didn't plan that, I swear!

Well, it's a quiet holiday Monday (no work today!) and since it's cooling down, now, I'm going to pull out the Spring Coat and do a few rows on that.  I've got to put another buttonhole in on this row.

Goodnight, all! 

First finger done! (And more math)

Ok, so I've gotten the pinky finger done on the Birthday Gloves.

I'm generally happy with how it turned out, but I've learned two things.

1) This pattern requires -a lot- of math to make it work.  Not necessarily hard math, but it's just making sure that things line up right and work right.

The pattern expected that I would do the pinky finger on 4 needles, 18 stitches on the needles.  That just seemed too finicky, so I went down to 3 needles.  Unfortunately, all of the pattern dicrections for the decreases at the top of the needle are written as "k2tog, k to end of needle, ssk."  So I had to do the math to figure out where the decreases were supposed to go on my 3 needles.

To make matter worse, you do the decrease round twice, with the same description.  But on the second decrease round, it doesn't make sense.  After the first decrease round you have 8 stitches decreased, (and 10 on the needles).  Ok, fine.  But 10 stitches won't give you 4 stitches per needle on 4 needles, so you can't do both k2tog and ssk on the same needle.  Three needles would have three stitches, and one needle would have 4 stitches.

I just ended up doing it as (k2tog, ssk) repeat to end, and it seems to have turned out ok.

2) I think I'm going to do the thumb next.  Because it's an afterthought thumb (which I've never done before but it doesn't look too hard)  I can do it whenever I want.   The reason for this is simply that it should make it a lot easier to try them on for rough sizing or to get pictures (my giftee's hands are only a little bit bigger then mine.)

Despite all the trouble, I am -really- liking the pattern, and I do plan to make a second pair (for myself!)

Project Update -- August 19th

Ok, so a few new photos and general progress:

First, progress on the Birthday Gloves:

I've finished the chart, and ended up doing a few extra rows to get to the right measurement to divide for the fingers.

But they're a reasonably fast knit; and I'm not worried about making my deadline here.

Second, I went back to the mini-skeins from my EatSleepKnit order; and started working them into the Sock Yarn Blanket.  I haven't gotten to the Arroyo yet, but the Shibui Linen knits up quite nicely; though it's not a yarn I'm likely to get for myself.

 The square in progress there is actually leftover yarn from the Birthday Gloves -- like I said, I'm going to have lots of leftovers.

Finally, although there's no picture, I'm about half-way up the legs of the second of the  Birthday Socks.

That's it for updates for now, there will be more coming soon, as usual!

Birthday Knitting -- More Progress!

I've been productive over the last few days!

First, I finished sock number one on the Birthday Socks.

One more sock to go.  I might just get these done in time!  (Assuming I knit nothing else, which with my attention span isn't that likely. . . ) 

I took these to my cousin's birthday party.  Since I had a train ride to get there, that helped.   And, two of my aunts knit, so they and I sat in the living room later and chattered and knit. :)

Secondly, I got a good chunk done on the the Birthday Gloves.

(The picture keeps uploading sideways.  It's annoying, but I don't know how to fix it.  In the mean time, just tilt your head and you'll get the idea! :D)

Well, tonight was an evening meeting at work, and now I've ordered in some sushi.  I just intend to knit as fast as possible over the next little while.

So How Fast can I knit. . .?

Ok. 

So I've gotten work done on a bunch of projects. I got past the thumb on the Birthday Gloves (no new picture there yet, sorry!), and I got 6 more squares done on Christmas Scarf. . . .

The Birthday Socks that I now have 10 days to finish?

No,  I haven't worked on them at all over this marathon until today, and the only reason I worked on them today was because I was out and about, and my work meeting takes place about two blocks from The Purple Purl.  So, I went in and just sat and knit (and chattered to the owners) and got a few inches into the foot.  But I still have another whole sock to do. 

This is going to be interesting. . .   can I knit fast enough to finish these socks in ten days?

Knitting and Math -- an Example and a Really Helpful Resource

Ok, hello folks!

So, I'm just getting to the cuff of my Birthday Gloves, and, as to be expected, the pattern calls for an 18 stitch increase on the last row of ribbing.

. . . except that it doesn't. It notes that depending on what Fair-Isle chart you use (the pattern presents two different chart sets) you might need more or less stitches.

That sounds scary, I know, but I'm going to show you how to do stuff like this, and make it less scary.

So, onto the specifics of my example:
 
Pattern says cast on 42 stitches. 42 stitches + an 18 stitch increase = 60 stitches.

Not so hard so far, right?

For the Traditional Star variation, which is the one I'm doing,  Chart A, which is the back of the hand, is 27 stitches across.

60-27=33

Good so far, right?

 Charts B through D, which are for the palm, are all 4 stitch repeats.

 This gets a bit more complicated, but bear with me.

33 isn’t divisible by four. If you punch that into the calculator, you get 8.25.  Since you can't have .25 of a stitch, we need to make this something that's divisible by four.   32 divided by 4 is 8, and 36 divided by 4 is 9.  (This is the most complicated part, I promise. )

Since I’d rather these be a touch too big then a touch too small, (and I know I knit really tight in Fair Isle), lets go to 36 stitches for the palm (that means 9 pattern repeats).

Now, 27 (the back of the hand), + 36 (the number of stitches I need for the palm) = 63.

There's my total stitch count for around the hand.

I will have to remember this, because I'm going to have 3 extra stitches for the hand that I'll have to work in somewhere when I split the glove to do the fingers. I can easily add 1 stitch to the last three fingers of the glove, but it is something I'm going to have to remember. 

Now, to figure out the increase row:

We're going from 42 stitches to 63 stitches.

63-42 is 21.  So it's a 21 stitch increase.

Now, here's where I cheat a little.  I could do all the math to figure out balanced increases all the way around the cuff . . . or I could just use KnittingFiend's tools.  She's put up a calculator that does things like increases, decreases, and other useful things.

Since we've already done enough math for one day, I'll go with option number two.  Plugging the numbers into her increase calculator, gives me my increase row.

(k1 m1 k1) repeat 21 times.

I can do that, and it saved the rest of my brainpower, and took a lot less time, too!

Hope this helps, and that calculator has saved me a lot of trouble, so I'm glad to be passing it on. 

More Birthday Knitting

So, not only do I have the Birthday Socks, I also have Birthday Gloves.  I started them just tonight for a September Birthday.  Unlike the socks, I intend to give myself lots of time.

I just started the cast-on with 2.25 mm needles.

It's my first major project using Knit Picks Palette, and I have to say, I'm liking it so far.   Shipping to Canada was really quick, (about a week, by my memory) and they actually do Canadian customs/taxes for you so you don't get surprised at the door by customs fees.

I do still prefer local yarns when I can get them.  But, for the cash-conscious, like most of the Knit Picks line, it's not expensive, and if you can make a 75 dollar order, shipping to Canada is 7 dollars.  (In the US shipping is free over 75 dollars!)

So, yes.  I just added to the pile of gifts for knitting.   But these should go together pretty quick, I hope.   They're seamless and knit entirely in the round, so there's no seaming to take up my time, and the ribbing can happen basically on automatic.   The slowest part will be the Fair-Isle, I suspect.