Blackberry is finished!

I actually finished it almost a week ago, but just haven't had time to write about it.



I finished casting off on the train to a friend's house, and got to wear it on my visit! I looooooooooooooooooooove the sleeves. The sleeves were the reason why I wanted to make it - they are just perfect. I'm already planning other cardies based around the sleeves!

I decided to make the ribbing the same length as the cuff - 16 rows. I knitted it up to 25 rows, but it looked wrong so I frogged it back to 16. It does fit a little strangely around the front, but I think that's mainly due to the pieces being too small. I have had no 'pouch' problem, partly because I used a special stretchy cast off method (knit 2 stiches, then place them back on the left needle and k2g 1 stitch left on right needle. Knit 1 stich (2 stiches now in right needle), put them back on the left needle and k2g; repeat), and also because I used size 15US needles, rather than the 11US I'd knit the rest on.

It is loverly and warm too!



So, some 'stats':
Needles: Denise 11US (Denise 15US for casting off)
Yarn: 'James C. Brett Top Value', 100% acrylic; less than 5 100g balls, holding 2 strands together (I'm so glad I didn't buy 12 balls of it!).

And I like these two pics, even though they came out crappy, as they look kinda Victorian:

First DPN use!

Yesterday I finished my second Blackberry sleeve, and sewed it all together - hoorah! It's nearly finished - it looks good so far, appears to all fit'n'stuff :)

We were then invited to visit some friends to watch 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou'. I wanted to keep on a-knitting of course, but I didn't feel I could continue with Blackberry. All I need to do now with it is knit on the border, but I've never had to pick up stitches before, and also I know that it will take a lot of thinking as to their placement (to avoid the 'pouch' effect).

Instead I decided to finally try out those DPNs I ordered months ago and start the Tempting sleeves! I realised once I'd started that I hadn't checked the gauge, but I've compared what I've done so far with the body and they look the same. The DPNs are the same size, but my Denise needles are resin and the DPNs are bamboo - my gauge changes hugely with plastic and metal, but appears to be pretty constant with resin and bamboo.

Anyway, here's a progress pic on the sleeve. The bamboo DPNs look so beautiful against the wool :) They are a delight to knit with as well - gorgeous to touch. I doubt I'll get any more long bamboo needles due to my RSI, but I'll certainly get more DPNs.



This is the first time I've knit with DPNs, and although it took me a few attempts to get my head round it, I found it pretty simple in the end. I'm using 4 needles rather than 5 as I figure the more stitches I get per needle the quicker I am, given that it takes most time to switch needles.

Anyway, now we're going to watch Underworld, in preparation for going to see Underworld 2, so I'm going to have a go at finishing Blackberry :)

Gah.

You may remember back in December I posted a link to some easy fingerless gloves. Well, I actually wanted to make them for a friend for a Yule present. This friend had a pair of proper fingerless gloves (i.e., with short fingers) when she was a child which were black with a rainbow of stripes in the middle. She really loved these gloves, and they still fit her, but because they were so old they were falling apart and so she stopped wearing them. She always said how she wanted another pair made.

So I wanted to make some black-n-rainbow gloves for her! Of course, if I were following the pattern above they wouldn't be exactly the same (not having any fingers at all), but they'd be similar enough and I thought she'd appreciate the thought :) Plus this friend can be reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally hard to buy presents for.

Except I couldn't knit for Christmas.

No worries. I planned to knit them for her birthday instead, which is in July.

Fast forward to last night: I was at my friend's house, and her housemate was there too. Her housemate is a really good knitter, and was making a sock. My friend watched her knit a while and then cried, "I know what you can get me for my birthday!" and dashed upstairs. She came down with... the black-n-rainbow gloves. She asked her housemate to copy them for her.

Sigh. So now my really cool surprise has gone out of the window. Her housemate is a much more experienced knitter than me, and has already made one pair of proper fngerless gloves so I'm sure they'd be a lot better than mine (even if I attempted proper ones). I just couldn't believe it when she came down with the gloves. I did mention it and my friend said I could knit them if I wanted, but I said her housemate could do it: after all, I think hers will be better, and I kinda liked the aspect of the surprise more. I had really wanted to see the look on my friend's face when I presented her with these gloves I'd remembered about (she stopped wearing them in about 2000 and hasn't really talked about them since)!

Anyway. In better news I'm about half way into my second Blackberry sleeve. I hope to finish that over the weekend, and hopefully get it sewn up too so I can begin the border. I did baste the first sleeve and try it on - it looks cool! I hope it all fits when it's finished.

Some links

I must make sure I do read over my journal from time to time and follow the links I save here!

Here are some free online knitting videos, to help with any advanced techniques I get stuck on.

Here's a helpful article on downsizing - ie., making a knitted garment smaller without frogging it.

And here's a pattern for a circular shrug from Peony Knits, via Craftster. It looks interesting.

I should be working but I just read through the Blackberry K-a-L. I really want to finish my Blackberry! I hope it fits... lots of people have found that their's didn't :-/ I think I might baste the sleeve together later and check it fits before I get too involved with the next one. I'm not sure blocking would help me given that it's 100% cheapy cheapy acrylic (plus I still don't really get blocking).

Back on the knit!

I've been 'allowed' to knit by my chiropractor for about 2.5 weeks now! I've just been really slow at updating this.

When I first sat down to carry on with my Ws-i-P I just sat with the wool in my lap for ages, I was almost too scared to start again! But start again I did. Just slowly, about an hour max every couple of days, and I'd ice my arm afterwards, to keep any inflammation down. Then after 2 weeks (where I'd probably knitted about 5 times) I saw my chiropractor and she was pleased with my progress (of my injuries, not my knitting ;) ) :D

So, what was I doing? I decided to continue with Blackberry - I'd like to get that finished before it gets too warm to wear it ;) I have now finished my first sleeve!



I've made a start on the second sleeve now. I'd finished the fronts and back before I had to stop, and then after the sleeve is finished I need to sew it all together and then knit on the border.

I found a Blackberry knit-a-long on Craftster, but I'm not sure whether to post as it's not been active since November. But I should certainly read the thread!

I'm taking it a little slowly right now though, as I may have overexerted myself the other day, when I had a need-to-make-something-and-have-it-finished moment ;) See the next post for that...

Knitting hiatus

Well, my RSI was getting pretty bad last week. Not as bad as it was when it first flared up, but it was constant burning pain, and every joint clicked.

So now I have not knitted since Friday (18th November). I picked up my prescription for my anti-inflammatory gel and have been using that, and I've made contact with a chiropractor/physiotherapist. I'm not going to knit for at least a week, or maybe even until I've seen the specialist.

It's very hard not to knit, especially as I really want to make the scarves for my siblings, and I'm dying to finish Blackberry. But my long-term knitting ability is more important.

The other day I looked in a shop window and saw a Blackberry rip-off! It didn't have the cables and the bobbles on the sleeves, but other than that it was exactly the same silhouette, and fastened with a brooch. Blackberry is much nicer though, but I want to finish mine so I can go in that shop wearing it ;)

My parents brought more of my belongings down at the weekend, including the Knitty patterns I had printed out while I was at work (shhhhhhh). I've put them all in 2 lever-arch files (that's a lot of patterns! And I didn't print out the ones I didn't like!), and seperated them into 'general patterns', 'wanna make', 'wanna make soon' and 'wanna make now'!!! It's a shame I may never be able to make them though :( I shall think positive...

But what with Knitty and my Stitch'n'Bitch books, I don't think I'll ever need another knitting pattern again, LOL!

Oops, I accidentally started Blackberry

Gosh, how did that happen? ;)



This is half of the back, and no, I didn't spill my stationery box, those are stitch markers :P

I swatched with the required 13US needles, and got the gauge pretty much dead on. I decided to see what it would look like with 11US (sadly there's no 12), but went with the 13s. I cast on the required stitches, knitted (well, purled) the first row, and suddenly it was about 7 inches too long! Yikes!

So I started again, with the 11s, and also decided to start with an extra knit row, to keep the stitches together. This time it measured the correct distance, so I carried on. However, by the time I was up to shaping the armholes, my work was both too short and too narrow. I decided to repeat the increasing section again, thereby adding another 8 rows, but I had to add an extra 4 stitches, rather than 2.

So at the moment I have made the lower half of the back, but had to add an extra 9 rows and 4 stitches in total. Hopefully this won't cause too much of a problem later :-/

And in case I need them here are some links:

http://www.knittyboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=16877&highlight=blackberry
http://www.knittyboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=15485&highlight=blackberry
http://www.knittyboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=15058&highlight=blackberry
http://www.knittyboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=14979&highlight=blackberry

Some progress pictures

Well, I've finished the body of Tempting! I finished it a week ago, but can't start the sleeves yet. But here is a progress picture!



Apologies for the rather bright flash. It's quite hard to accurately capture the colour of the wool - not as turquoise as it is in this pic with the flash, but without a flash is far too dark. And in some lights it really looks sea-green!

Talking of green, I bought a few balls of green yarn today:



On Wednesday I saw an advert in the paper, that House of Fraser were opening a haberdashery department in Birmingham on Thursday 10th, and there would be 25% off for the first 100 customers with a copy of the advert. And guess where I was going to be on the morning of the 10th? That's right! So when I arrived in Brum I went to HoF, wandered round trying to find the haberdashery for ages. When I finally discovered it it wasn't really that impressive, so I just left. Then later I was talking to a friend and discovered that there are two House of Frasers on the very same road! Doh! So today I was able to go to the other one (even though the discount was no longer valid), because I wanted to look for frogs for poor old Sonnet... I still can't find any, not even black ones. I've now bought some giant press-studs so that I can do it up and maybe start wearing it, but ideally I want the frogs as well.

Anyway, this haberdashery department took me even longer to find than the last. I went up and down the lifts and escalators about 4 times, asked 3 different people... When I finally found it it wasn't that special. But I decided to have a good look anyway. I had taken a couple of notes from patterns I'd like to make up, one is Blackberry from this month's Knitty. It uses 6-7 balls of Rowan Chunky Print, and while they did have this wool in the shop, they didn't have any nice colours, and it was over £7 a ball! So I looked for substitutions... there was some Jaegar Fleece, but that was even more expensive, and less yardage per ball! Yikes. There was some nice, soft yarn which was cheaper, but it was a patterning yarn, and what with Sonnet I don't want another multi-coloured cardigan. I was beginning to feel I'd have to leave empty-handed, when I noticed this beautiful moss green double knitting yarn. I realised that if I hold 2 strands together I should get the right gauge, and it's only £1.29 per ball - hoorah! Of course, it's cheapy acrylic, but there's no way I can afford £30-£50 for the wool to make a cardigan with. I got 9 balls (all they had), and spent £11.61. I think this should be enough. Irritatingly the ball doesn't state the yardage, but a similar sized ball from a different company said it had over 200yds/m, so I should be OK.

This green should look awesome with my hair, I've been wanting to make a green top for a while:



I have to say I don't think I'll be visiting that department store again though, if I'm going to buy full-price yarn I may as well go to a local independent shop. Plus, while the women working there were very helpful and nice to me, they were bitching really loudly about a customer! The customer had left, and does sound like an awkward case, but they were completely unprofessional to talk like that with me in the shop.

Anyway, I probably won't start Blackberry for a while, but it's there if I get bored. I need to learn how to do cables though!

Before I start Blackberry I thought I could knit scarves for my siblings for Yule, and have decided to try the Alien Illusion Scarf in Stitch'n'Bitch. I just grabbed whatever wool (yeah yeah yarn) I had, and started following the chart. I like it, so I think I'll continue with this, and maybe get some other illusion designs for the other scarves.

Now you don't see it...
Now you do!


Cool, huh?!