Yarn Crawl

Bikini Top Progress

I finished the first half of the bikini top yesterday (cup and strap) - here it is. I modified the top 2/3 to do the k3togs first instead of the SSSKs because I was getting a hole down the middle (just what you want in a bikini top! NOT) but didn't do this on the bottom 1/3 (k2tog/SSK section) as I didn't feel like frogging back.

If I made this again, I would reverse the bottom K2togs and SSKs too to make it match. But I have to make the other cup match this one (half done already - quarter end earnings webcast at work, during which I watch and knit in my office) so this time it will be a little misaligned on both sides.

The bottom of it has a casing (accomplished through the "3 needle knitting" trick I learned when I made Silken Scabbard) which I think is cool. You make a separate i-cord and thread it through the casing on both bra cups. For someone like me that's not too chesty, this is all the support I really need in my bikini tops, so it works. But the pattern goes up to a D cup! Not sure how well that would work support wise (unless they're store bought, LOL.) Probably going to be flamed now by someone!

New Inspirations

You know how animal species hibernate for the winter? Well, I decided today that my current knitting projects are going to hibernate for the summer - Mirepoix (ugh), the Afghan Sampler, and even the long-sleeved Rose Gable. I put them all on hibernation status over on Ravelry just now.

Now sometimes, something weird happens when I relieve myself of the "pressure" to work on a project - I get interested in it again. That may happen here, with any of these, but I am absolving myself of the requirement to work on them.

Want to know what I started yesterday? The Just Beachy Bikini, with some charcoal gray Elann Esprit I had in stash. I had contacted someone on Ravelry to buy her Elann Esprit print to make a variegated bikini, but in the meantime, I swatched, then cast on with the color I had in stash, and decided just to use stash yarn instead. If I like it, I can always buy some different yarn then if I want to make another. It's really an experiment anyway.

The whole knit bikini thing started over on the SKC group I help moderate - some people wanted to do a KAL/CAL for knitted/crocheted bikinis, and as we realized that the overall membership of the SKC would probably not vote on one as our project for the official KAL, we decided to just do the KAL/CAL over on a separate thread within our group. I'm not knitting any of the patterns we officially "picked" this time, so I figured I'd play along with the bikini group, especially as I have owned a few (crocheted) bikinis, had elastic-blend yarn in stash, and it's a small project that can hold my attention.

Yeah, you heard that right - a small project that will hold my attention. I've had a major case of knitting ADD lately, have been interested in lighter weight yarns, and I just LOST both projects I had recently started and brought with me to Atlanta (Miss Dashwood shrug and Isabella.) I only lost one skein of each yarn I was using, and I have enough extra of each yarn so that I could restart each project and still have enough, but I just don't have the heart to restart both projects now, especially with my knitting ADD. I am really annoyed that I lost two good pairs of Addi turbos though (my 2s, which I don't have another pair of, and my 5s) and a measuring tape. Oh well. I think I left it on the plane.

I'm also getting interested in hairpin lace again, and am newly interested in broomstick lace, as I saw Ann at the Dreamweaver Yarns booth working on a great broomstick lace project and she showed us her gorgeous hairpin lace dress. I might just buy myself another loom (recall that I had bought one before but gave it to my MIL, who loves it and makes afghans with it.) Hmmm. So many possibilities!!

In other news, not surprisingly, the Vogue pattern won the poll last week, and I will be making that next. I didn't get any good sewing time in on Sunday as I was too wiped out. I need mental and physical energy to sew, and I just didn't have it. But soon!

The Latest Addition to My Personal Sweatshop

Isn't it cute? Well, really, I'd classify it more as "industrial" and "hard core" than cute, but you know what I mean. For the uninitiated, this is a blind hemmer - it has curved needles in order to do blind hems on sleeves, dresses, skirts and pants (as well as drapes, if I were so inclined.)

The reason for my quasi-impulse* buy? I am getting interested in wovens, but blind hems using the blind hem foot on the machine are cumbersome and less than professional. This will be the jump start I need to get involved with wovens now. If I don't like it, I'll stick it back on Ebay or on PR. I know, I'm nutty.

*I've actually been thinking about getting a blind hemmer for months, and had it on my list of things to re-evaluate. Today I decided to re-evaluate it and that led to an Ebay search, which led to this jumping into my cart.

Stitches South Recap Part 2

Here's two pictures Adrienne sent me from Saturday at Stitches:

me and Adrienne in front of the Stitches sign (which was cleverly cut off in the picture):

and me surrounded by my woolly purchases,sitting in a sunny spot like a cat:

Stitches South Recap!

I just lost the first version of my post so this version is going to be more to the point - LOVED IT!!!

Adrienne and I got along fabulously and had an excellent time shopping and eating lunch. We also got to meet Kim, Melanie, Turtlegirl and Knitterboy76 in the flesh, and that was extremely exciting!!! I love meeting my online friends in person. I didn't bring my camera as I knew I wouldn't be able to take pictures in the market, but I wish I would have been able to get pictures of everyone.

The plan for lunch at The Real Chow Baby ended up being a bust as I stupidly hadn't noticed that they were open for lunch only on weekdays - only dinner on weekends - but I got to try Chick-Fil-A, which we don't have in Chicago and that chicken sandwich ROCKED. Probably too fattening to eat routinely, but it was extremely tasty.

Here are my purchases - this time you will be surprised to know that I didn't buy anything at Brooks Farm or WEBS! Usually I hit them for at least one bag of yarn.

I didn't go toooo crazy (for myself) but I hit the Tess booth pretty hard!

Two 560 yard skeins of Tess Superwash Merino (like I used for the Cable Down Raglan, except in a beautiful blue-green this time)

Four 200 yard skeins of Tess Cultivated Silk & Wool - I had told myself I wouldn't buy anymore of this, but you can see how effective that was in the face of this lovely yarn. It's a difficult color to photograph accurately, especially on this somewhat dreary day in Chicago, but it's the exact color of the Caribbean Sea and is really beautiful. I would have gotten five skeins if they had them, but they only had four. That's OK, I only needed three for Vienne so I'm sure I can find something perfect for it.

One 665 yard skein of Tess Cascade Silk (the DK version)

One 665 yard skein of Tess Silk & Ivory (like I used for Habanero)

Two skeins of Tess Microfiber Ribbon - I know, I already have some of this in copper in my stash and haven't used it, but I could NOT pass up this peacock colorway (that's what I call it, anyway)

and finally, my only non-Tess purchase, three skeins of Suri Alpaca and this pattern from Windy Valley Muskox (or as Jim calls it to be funny, "lummox"). I fell in love with the sample garment:

The picture really doesn't do it justice, but it is gorgeous in person. It only needs three of these laceweight skeins, and the gauge needle is a 9 - I'm starting to really love the look of lightweight yarn knit on large needles. I also bought a fingerless glove pattern from Windy Valley so maybe I will finally use that skein of Qiviut I bought from them a few years ago!

All in all, a wonderful day!!

Which Pattern To Sew Next??

I have a bunch of patterns I am thinking about sewing next, and I'm curious to hear which one you all think I should tackle next. Here are the patterns - after I show them I'll have a poll, and whichever one wins is the one I'll sew up next. Hopefully I can start and finish it on Sunday as I won't have any sewing time tonight (picking up the new bike!) or tomorrow (going to Stitches South - leaving the house at 4 am!)

Here are the choices - click into any of them to see them closer up - a few of them I had to use the small size clip on as they were too wide:

Vogue 8489 - the shorter version with 3/4 length sleeves:

Butterick 4789 - the dress

Butterick 5243 - the short sleeve version

McCall's 5752 - not sure which version - if you pick this, please comment on which one you like

Simplicity 2580 - I like more than one of these - but I would go for the short sleeve flowered version first:

or an old standby - Simplicity 3678 - short sleeve or 3/4 sleeve V-neck

Here's the poll - I'll make whichever one you guys pick on Sunday!

Which should I sew first?
	Vogue 8489
	Butterick 4789
	Butterick 5243
	McCall's 5752
	Simplicity 2580
	Simplicity 3678
pollcode.com free polls

Stitches South

So excited that I will be at Stitches South in Atlanta in two days!! Can't believe Saturday's almost here.

I am meeting up with Adrienne (go check out her gorgeous Green Gable she posted today!!) when I get to the convention center to do some shopping together before lunch, but we will be at Chow Baby in the Cobb Galleria (connected to the convention center, from what I understand) for lunch at noon. We'd love to meet anyone who wants to come out and have lunch with us!

Unfortunately, my flight was unilaterally changed by the airlines to be earlier in the day than I planned, so I will have to leave around 2-2:30 to catch a flight back home. The good thing is that I'll be home by 7 pm - the bad thing is I won't have that much time there. Oh well, maybe next year I will fly in the day before and have the full day on Saturday.

Hope to see you there!

Miscellany

I started a new knitting project a few days ago - Miss Dashwood, a lacy shrug designed by Chicago's very own Bonne Marie Burns of Chic Knits fame. I have only a few repeats of the lace pattern done at this point so I'll take pictures after I have more done. I'm using some lime green Tahki Cotton Classic from stash. For some reason, 100% cotton yarn doesn't bother me that much to knit with if I'm doing lace, especially if it involves knitting a yarn on larger needles than normal to get a more flexible, open fabric. Regular stockinette- forget it!

I also found a great video online today for understitching in sewing. For the uninitiated, it's basically a way to get the facing (the part underneath a neckline, for example) to lie flat and not flip to the outside. I knew I should be doing it, but truthfully I haven't been, because I forgot how, was too lazy to look it up, and mainly because I was getting decent results just by folding the facing to the inside and pressing. Well, that Vogue 8379 pattern (DVF wrap dress) was the first one where I really can't get away with that shortcut methodology as the facing likes to turn toward the outside. So...I found this video very helpful as a refresher to me in "getting religion" and actually understitching when I'm supposed to.

Vogue 8379 - a/k/a the DVF Wrap Dress

I woke up early this morning and instead of doing my workout, I finished the Vogue 8379 wrap dress I worked on over the weekend. I did all of the hems and set in the sleeves in about an hour. I like how it turned out, but I like my other princess-seamed mock wrap dress better on me. It just feels like a LOT of fabric in the skirt (because it is.)

I couldn't believe I didn't have to shorten the waist on this - that never happens. Just had to cut off about 4" of length from the bottom hem, really.

Vienne - Modeled!

Well, true to my word, I decided to do my own photo shoot with Vienne just now, as I'm going to wear it out for dinner. I hadn't realized how much I like the low V-back until I took pictures of it! Not a work top, clearly, but a nice thing to wear out! I have to keep pulling on the bottom of it to keep it on my shoulders, which I don't love, but other than that, I really like it! I also liked the top-down simultaneous set in sleeve knitting technique - this was fun.

Pattern: Vienne - by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes (a/k/a The French Girl) - free pattern on Knitting Daily

Size: smallest -32.5"

Yarn: Tess Cultivated Silk & Wool

Needles: size 5 Harmony to get 5 stitches to the inch gauge (I like this yarn knit at this gauge and no looser - I didn't get much growing or stretching at this gauge.)

Mods: Joined neck when sleeves were separated to make it higher (!) - it would have been even lower. Picked up less stitches under the arms than indicated, but still could have done even less as it is roomy there. Did not do the puffy sleeves - decreased every eight rounds instead of increasing to create standard shaped fitted sleeve. Customized waist/hip shaping to match my figure.

Feeling good! My friend Patti and I hiked 5 miles earlier today and I'm ready to eat dinner (weird fact about Jim and I - we eat early - we joke around that we get the "blue plate special" like senior citizens - probably the latest we EVER eat is like 6:30, and that's late for us. It kills us when we go out with other people who want to eat at a more "normal" time like 7-8 pm.) I also cut out half of the pattern pieces for Vogue 8379 (the traditional true wrap dress that everyone seems to have made) and plan to work on that later on and/or tomorrow.