Pregnancy Challenge, Revealed

I am pleased with the way the little pregnant dolly dress turned out. The shiny black and gold fabrics really looked great together. (Shiny fabrics always seem to photograph as extra-shiny for some reason.) I added a little jaunty matching hat, mainly because the doll’s giant head looked extra out-of-proportion with the huge belly. The black and gold collar turns into criss-cross straps in the back. The diagonal slash across the belly allowed me to adjust the black fabric to drape the black fabric in a manner that fit the belly well. A friend said that the slash of color across the belly was similar to the effect of what Ramon (on the show) was trying to go for, but less like a bowling bag. Someone else said it looked like an alien was slashing its way out of the belly. I guess you can’t please everyone. I wonder what the next challenge will be…

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Runway Challenge 2

Spoiler Alert! Don’t read if you don’t want to know what happened on Project Runway!

This week’s challenge will be a real doozy for me! In this episode, the designers have to design a look for a very pregnant celebrity! Now, I always design something that I can wear to the office. I am not very thrilled about either the prospect of pretending to be pregnant for a day or making something I know that I won’t wear more than this once. I considered calling up a friend who happens to be pregnant now, but decided that was way too weird. (“Hey, come on over and let me measure you for fashionable maternity clothes that you don’t even want!”)

It was a real quandry, until someone at the office had a bright idea: why not make a little pregnant doll and dress it up? So I took the crocheted Knit My Stash mascot dolly and crocheted a little pregnant belly onto him (her?). It’s very funny. I have started on the outfit, but am finding it a little difficult to work to such a small scale, and the form is so malleable and not-quite-human that I’m having to make a cartoonish outfit instead of something sleek and fitted. The best part of this design is that I didn’t have to go out and buy fabric — I could just use tiny scraps I already had. Furthermore, even though the hand-stitching is rather atrocious if you look closely, it was much quicker to put together a tiny look than a full-sized dress.

Triangulation

Here’s my answer to the first Project Runway Challenge. I took Ari’s idea of the hexagonal tiling but decided triangles were a little more flattering, and could be made more form-fitting. I already had a vivid green crepe that I had been wanting to do something with but never could find a design that worked. I first made a sample top with mostly equilateral triangles out of muslin to make sure that my plan would work and to get an idea of the right size triangles, then I refined and combined some of the triangles to reduce the number of seams in unwieldy places. After I cut and sewed together the green version, I had to modify the sizing a little to make it fit better in front — which is why the lower edge has the overlapping triangles instead of my original flat triangulation. It also meant that many of the corners don’t meet as precisely as they did when I first sewed it. The back is similar to the front, but flatter, of course. I finished the look with a long brown bias-cut skirt in a silk-like polyester. The bias-cut makes it really flow well. The top still doesn’t quite fit right, but it fit well enough that I wore it all day. I think that even though it was clearly not something you would wear on the red carpet, the design of a similar red-carpet look is fairly clear. (Sorry about the picture quality; the green crepe is both textured and shiny so that it doesn’t photograph well.)

Project Runway Challenge

I enjoy the television show Project Runway. A few seasons ago, I decided to take the challenges myself. I modified the rules to make them practical for me. My time limit was a week: the week between airing of new episodes. I had to make clothes that I could wear to the office. I was allowed to purchase fabric or materials for any of their crazy special sourcing challenges. I was allowed to use patterns I have on hand. I then had to interpret the challenge in terms of these modified rules. I sewed like crazy for three weeks before giving up, exhausted. It’s a lot harder than it looks to come up with a good-looking design every single week, especially when you’re working a full-time job and it’s not as a seamstress or designer. I only took on one other challenge since then: I designed and created a top that would look good as part of the uniform for the US Olympic team.

SPOILER ALERT! Do not continue if you do not want to know what happened on Project Runway!

Now, I’m ready to try it again. The first episode of this season’s Project Runway aired Thursday night. Their challenge: to design a look ready for the red carpet (at the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, or VMAs). There were some beautiful designs and some horrid designs. My challenge is to design an outfit that can be worn to work but for which a red carpet garment’s design is pretty clear. Only small changes in fabric type, length, and styling would be needed to change it from office to evening. A further twist: I plan to take the losing designer’s idea and make it something elegant and wearable. Do you think it’s possible? Check out the losing designer!

Second Quarter Report

It is very past time for a review of my progress over the second quarter of the year. How am I progressing towards my goal of knitting my entire stash in a year?

Blogging: F

A total of 12 posts over 3 months, and this report is two months late. Total failure.

Knitting: C-

I’ve done some good knitting this quarter. I finished a lovely lace shawl and a cute baby vest. I made good progress on the elegant sweater. But that’s pretty slim results for more than three months of knitting time.

Finishing: A-

I did the blocking and seaming of everything that I finished knitting, plus the beautiful green cabled masterpiece. If I had knit more, this would be lower. (To be fair, I still have a shawl and sweater unfinished from last quarter.)

Yarn Usage: F

My stash has not decreased any this quarter. Lace shawls and baby vests don’t even come close to making a dent in it.

Yarn Acquisition: A+

I purchased a sizeable quantity of lovely yarns at the Sheep & Wool Festival. I haven’t purchased any yarn since, even though the really neat stretchy sock yarn was on sale last week!

Overall: C

I’m not on any kind of schedule at all; my needles and blog have been silent for too long. On the plus side, I have finished what I knit and I haven’t rampantly increased my stash.

Looking forward, I expect to knit more, especially as the weather cools. I also expect to blog more. I expect that the next few weeks will include a good bit of non-knitting blogging, though. I hope it doesn’t offend you! To whet your appetite, here is a close-up of a fire-evacuation banner I made for my office at work:

All Shawl

I finished the lovely Field of Flowers Shawl and finally blocked it. It took over a very large chunk of our spare bedroom! This thing is HUGE once blocked out fully. But it is gorgeous and not too big. I presented it to my Alpcaca-Best-Friend today, and she almost didn’t accept it. She said she gave me the yarn to enjoy, not expecting it back. I guess non-knitters don’t understand that once you’ve knitted something out of the yarn, you’ve used up most of the enjoyment it had in it, and all you have left is a shawl, which while beautiful and warm, is not at all fun. This shawl, in particular, made me sniffle every time I got near it. So finally she agreed to keep it at her desk, but she may not end up taking it home ever. I always figured that when you present someone who doesn’t knit with something pretty that you knit for them, that they would always want it, since they wouldn’t make it for themselves. Yet apparently non-knitters equate very pretty things with very difficult things, and don’t always feel that they are worthy of your attentions. This is a very unexpected situation. I’ll have to think about this in the future and make sure I don’t make something too pretty as a gift for someone when I don’t know they will accept it. (Don’t worry, Mom; I know you’ll accept any shawl I make for you, no matter how beautiful it is!)

Alpaca Lace Shawl

I overheard my alpaca-best-friend at work saying she was going to retire before the end of the year, and I began to panic! I need to finish a project for her with that lovely alpaca yarn before that! You may recall I started a cardigan body, but didn’t like the sizing or the pattern so much, but couldn’t decide whether to rip it out or forge ahead. Well, I haven’t ripped it out yet, but I got this crazy idea in my head that I was going to do an elaborate slip-stitch cardigan for her on size 3 needles. Fortunately, before I actually cast on the umpteen-hundred stitches I’d need in the body, I came to my senses and decided to knit something that I would enjoy knitting and that she would (probably) enjoy actually receiving. (Would anyone enjoy receiving half a cardigan, no matter how exquisite?) So, I dove right in with the cream-colored laceweight and started a shawl full of flowers. The pattern is roughly the “triangle lace shawl” from the Fall/Winter 2008 knit.1 magazine. I’m not using beads and I changed it to garter stitch instead of stockinette. Can you still see the flowers?

I’m not sure which kind of shawl I prefer to knit. In a typical triangular shawl, you begin with just a few stitches and increase 4 stitches every 2 rows to get wider and wider. You get a lot of payoff early on, and less and less as you knit more rows. It also means that when you’ve knit half of the rows, you’ve done a LOT less than half of the shawl. It is very easy to get completely bogged down near the end, when you have so many hundreds of stitches in each row. On the other hand, you’re less likely to give up because it seems like you have an actual shawl that you’re just lengthening a little. The most maddening part (for the triangular shawl I’ve knit in the past) was the edging, which works two (admitedly short) rows for each stitch on your needles at the end. That was maddening!

My goal is to knit like crazy on this, to try to finish in 10 more days. (I don’t think I’ll make it for her birthday next week, but I aim to be not far off.) That seems achievable now, when I’m on the 7th repeat of flowers. How likely will it seem when the 14th set of flowers takes me days?

Long Time No Blog

My Mom complained about seeing dead flowers on my blog page for far too long, so here’s a fresh sparkly new blog post, and it’s about knitting! I decided to rip out the body of the elegant sweater (even though I was at the arm-join), and redo it. I knitted it back to almost the arm-join again, only this time the edging is a little longer and flows into the stockinette more smoothly. The body is knit in the round, so I added faux purl-stitch side seams. As an added bonus, the sweater is now the same size around as I am! Here’s a pic which shows off the edging. Because the yarn was ripped out and re-knit, the stockinette of the body is not as smooth as it was the first time, but I think it’ll be fine after I block it. The yarn is a silk-wool blend, which means I can spit-splice it instead of trying to weave in ends! I am a little nervous about washing it. I didn’t try washing a swatch to see what happens, mainly because I barely have enough yarn to begin with. I really hope that I a) have enough yarn and b) it doesn’t felt in the wash.

Unfortunately, I’ve put this project aside for a time because I have a few more pressing projects to finish. Come back tomorrow for more details on what else I’ve been up to!

Sunshine and Roses

Here’s some more sunshine and roses for you, dear reader. Things are just lovely here. The weather is warm and breezy. Birds are chirping. Baby geese are waddling. Flowers are blooming. Can you tell which of these three is in front of my house?

 

I’m the one in the middle. My rightward neighbors work so hard on their yard; it is always lovely. There’s not even anyone living in the leftward house at the moment, yet their roses bushes are drooping with blossoms. I have faith in my little plants, though. They’re not dead yet — unlike our fridge, which made a horrible noise for several days and then stopped.

I don’t have very much knitting to report on. I’m about 2 inches into the body of the elegant sweater do-over. I’m trying to decide whether to continue the lace pattern throughout the entire body or whether to switch to stockinette, and if so, how best to transition.

Finished Objects, Part IV

I feel much better. And the day is very sunny, and the roses are blooming in our yard. I almost did a yarnventory today, but it occurred to me that touching every skein of yarn I own while I’m sick is not a great idea. So instead, I ripped out the body of the elegant sweater whose sleeves I just finished. I also enjoyed napping and watching last night’s hockey games. (I thought the Caps/Penguins game was exciting with the overtime, until I watched the 12-goal Chicago/Vancouver game. I don’t care how good the “goal” song is, after 7 times, you are sick of it. I was also struck by how many players for Chicago have names that are spelled nothing like they’re pronounced — Toews, Byfuglien, Huet, and to a lesser extent Hjalmarsson and Khabibulin.)

Anyway, I promised that today would not only feature sunshine and roses, but also a happy ending. My very first knitting magazine was the Winter 2003 issue of Interweave Knits.  Not only does it contain a guide to gloves and thumb gussets that is easy and succinct, but it also contains a beautiful pattern called the “Bed & Breakfast Pullover”. Designed by Kathy Zimmerman, who is truly a cabling master, it was the first sweater I started that I would eventually finish. (My first two attempts were way too small, then way too large, and eventually turned into other things.) I cast on in 2004 with three giant balls of green acrylic and tons of optimism. I had never worked a cable before starting this sweater. I had to cast on the back four times before I finally figured out how the cable chart corresponded to the knitting. I dropped a stitch part way up the front (and dropped the project for years because of it). I suffered from second-sleeve syndrome. Somehow, five years later, I gritted my teeth and finished! Now I have a beautiful sweater! I know that an acrylic sweater is not quite as nice as a wool sweater, but after the felting incident, I’m especially glad that this sweater that fits today is going to keep fitting tomorrow. Here’s a picture after it has been washed once: