Thursday 28 January 2016

Glory

Yesterday I finished sewing the second sleeve of Caleb's sweater and tried it on him, it fits.  Now I just need to do some math for the hood.

I also worked on Ada's dress pattern that I'm sizing and made a significant amount of progress without feeling like I should throw something then set the papers on fire.

I also got a good amount of cleaning done, so now my house looks less messy (I have a toddler so "clean" is a relative term, I've given up on tidy and generally aim for acceptably hygienic).

Then I drank tea and ate chocolate.  It was wonderful and the feeling that I actually made progress on stuff during nap time was so unbelievably wonderful.

Monday 25 January 2016

And it came crashing down

There are a couple things I'm working on at the moment.  Ada's dress pattern is finally typed and I've been working on the math for sizing it so I can sell it.  Caleb's sweater had the sleeve picked up so I was knitting that and I was really enjoying my new slippers that I made.

Then on Friday I hit some sort of math-wall with the dress pattern and nothing was working, I realized as I tried the sweater on Caleb to see about the sleeve's length (it was almost done) that it was an inch and a half too narrow, and one of my slippers had a hole in the bottom.  It was one of those days where it felt like everything I'd touched had broken and it was beyond frustrating.

Saturday morning I sorted out the math for the dress, ripped out the sleeve and started it again, and darned my slippers. Basically I spent the morning re-doing things.  I had wanted to get a couple things done by the end of the month, this dress pattern and the sleeve for the sweater included and several things aren't going to happen on time but I seem to be back to making progress which is a good feeling.

Thursday 21 January 2016

Moving forward

Caleb's sweater has the front and back done, the crochet detailing done, the shoulders joined, and the stitches for one arm picked up and that sleeve started.  The two sleeves will be quick and then it's just the hood (and the small amount of math that requires), which is so lovely to have made progress on.  For a really long time I thought the project was just going to be a disaster.  I briefly thought it was going to be too short but I plopped it on him today and there's room to spare, which is such a lovely thing to know.  I'm actually enjoying working on it.

The variegated yarn is doing something rather interesting, it goes between grey, blue, and white and it just happens that the number of stitches divides evenly and it looks like Neapolitan ice cream.  I'll just have to make sure I start the second sleeve at a similar point in the yarn so they match.  

Monday 18 January 2016

Yarn Shopping

My slippers broke, and so I have had cold feet for about a week now.  One of the free patterns Tin can Knits was giving away before Christmas happened to be a slipper pattern so I decided to make that to keep my feet warm, on Saturday I printed off the pattern and Caleb and I went to the yarn store while Ada napped.  I explained about the slippers and that we needed two colours of yarn.  Caleb immediately informed me that one of the colours should be brown.

We went into the shop and found the yarn (Cascade Eco Plus, if you're wondering) and picked up some nice brown.  I wasn't sure if the contrasting colour should be green or blue so I picked up both of those to hold up beside the brown, so I could see how they looked.

Immediately Caleb said, "No Mommy!  Only need two!  Put that one back!"  I kept the blue.  Apparently he's going to help me keep the stash under control.

Thursday 14 January 2016

Progress

Blocking Caleb's sweater made the pattern considerably more visible.  Now, if you look at it closely you see an airplane and clouds whereas before you would see that some of the sweater was seemingly in reverse stockinette.  I've started outlining the shapes in applied slip stitch and it's looking awesome!  It's slow going, the crochet hook just feels awkward in my hand but I'm getting a bit more adept at it.  Right now I've done most of the plane, and none of the clouds.  I'm really happy that it's going to work out, for a while I thought I might have to scrap the project.

I've been working on the pattern for Ada's dress, which is also coming along nicely.  I'm hoping to have the first draft with all the different sizes done by the end of the month, and it seems like that might actually happen.

All in all, nothing ground breaking but things are moving steadily in the right direction.

Monday 11 January 2016

I have got to take better notes

I've been typing up the pattern for a dress I made Ada last year.  I have my notes and they are a mess. I know what I did and all the information is there but I really should write in full, it would make this part of the process so much easier.  I should also type it up immediately and not leave everything messy.  It's totally a pain.

I've been working on it since yesterday and it's taking shape but it feels silly that I have to spend so much time sorting this out when it would be less of a headache if I had done it immediately.  (Lesson learned, I will type up the details to the airplane sweater as soon as I've got this one on paper).

Thursday 7 January 2016

Blocking

I've been frustrated with an airplane sweater I've been making Caleb, and although I have a plan for how to rescue it, I haven't been actually working on that.  The next step was to block the front and back (the parts I have done) and add embroidery  to emphasize the airplane and clouds, since they're lost in the variegated yarn.  (I wanted it to be subtle, but it's hard to see).

I absolutely loath blocking.  Not the results, blocking makes knit fabric more even, does wonders with lace, and evens edges out nicely.  I just think threading the blocking wires through the fabric is boring and I'd rather be knitting.  But last night I got it together and blocked them and the two pieces are happily drying in my basement now.

Blocking wires are awesome, though.  They make getting the edges straight a lot easier.  I'm looking forward to the next part, both the embroidery and actually getting to see the design better.  I'm really hoping it works.

Monday 4 January 2016

Lost track

One of my goals for this year was to sent in 5-10 pattern submissions to magazines.  I had a list of a few publications that I wanted to submit to in particular, and I thought I'd looked at the dates.  Somehow I missed the fact that one of them had a deadline of January 11, also the application had to be mailed (I did know about that), which further reduced the amount of time I had.

I worked and I got one submission ready, it's for a hat and I really like it.  If no one publishes it in a magazine I'll sell it myself.  I'm quite pleased with Craftsy, which I've started using in addition to Ravelry and Etsy.  I need to make a chart with the submission info for publications I'm applying to so this doesn't happen again.