Monday, March 17, 2003
Well, I'm back from my (very) mini-blogging hiatus. A little relaxation over the weekend was all I needed and I'm back and ready for action. And of course, as I've noted before, catching up on blogging when I skip a couple days can be a real bitch! I have so much to write about and so little time before I have to hit the sack! I guess I'll start with the recent, exciting news and work my way back over the next couple of days. So, since today was St. Patrick's Day (when did Catholic Saints' holy days become national holidays?? I'm not even Christian and I still wore green) I decided to celebrate in true knitterly fashion. I've been lusting after Bob from the Spring Knitty since it very first came out and I was waiting to start it until 1) Mom's socks were finished and 2) the yarn went on sale. But I am weak and VERY good at justifying, so I justified myself into buying this:
because it's green, it's St. Patrick's Day and I WANTED TO, DARN IT! Heehee. So, I'm now $25 poorer and one sweater in the making richer. And what did I do the very second (okay not the very second, but after I through some fries in the oven and made the salad for dinner) I got home from the store? I swatched!
I realize this is not the most thrilling picture in the world, but I'm proud of getting it done in an hour or less. So now it will get treated just like the sweater will and be thrown into the washer and dryer with similar colors. Then I'll measure and estimate how many I want to cast on. I now have a couple of possibilities to consider before embarking on this new adventure, my very first sweater.
1. Do I knit in the round or flat?
I swatched flat, so my gauge is only true for flat, but I'd have to buy some new needles to swatch in the round and I don't want to do that. I'd rather knit in the round to avoid side seams and purling, but I want my first sweater to turn out really well without too much ripping back, so I'd like to get the size right the first time around.
2. Do I knit the pattern as intended or take out the shaping?
First of all, I'm bigger than the biggest size she made this pattern, so I'm going to have to do some finagling anyway. My three favorite sweaters all go straight up and down on the sides, so I want to take out the shaping to make things easier on myself and to imitate sweaters that I know look good on me. My biggest fear is that I'll put all this time into a sweater that ends up looking bad on me. I'm well proportioned, except for my waist, which is larger than would be proportionately pleasing, so I think waist shaping would definitely be a bad idea for any sweater that I would wear.
I'm sure there are other concerns that will come along, but these are the two major ones that need to be decided before I start the sweater. Thinking my choices over will give me time to finish Mom's second sock before I start the sweater, which is a good thing because I want those suckers DONE! I'm about two inches into the 2x2 cuff, so not too far to go. I think I'll try to get a few rows in before bed tonight.
And I've made some decisions about blogging/journalling my crafts. What I'm going to do is start a document for each fiber purchase I make and each idea I have. I'll keep four different folders on my desktop: ideas, projects ready to start, in progress, and completed. So, I tried a mock-up of what I'm thinking of doing with Bob and have added what I have so far. There will be additions as I go along, such as more pictures, any problems I encounter, etc. This is a very rough idea, I would refine it, but it's getting late, so maybe it will look better tomorrow. Project Bob.htm But anyway, I'm going to be doing something like this for everything I do and every yarn, roving, etc I purchase and every idea I have. I'll keep a binder as an addition to this idea to hold all my swatches. But this is going to be the new system for now. I'm going to keep the "in progress" pages on the side bar of the blog so you can check them out, but this gives me the organization I desire. So, by the end of the week I'm hoping to have a page for each work in progress and have them up on the blog. So, let me know what you think. Any feedback would be great! Goodnight, my lovelies :-)
# posted by Jenni @ 3/17/2003 10:33:00 PM
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