Day: May 24, 2010

Froggin’

/ shellssells / Leave a comment

And I am not talking about my frankensleeve. I frogged that last week. Now I am talking spinning, as I’ve finally finished all 8 oz. of the BMFA merino, in colorway Froggin’.  I got about 900 yards out of this yarn, in a 3 ply light fingeringweight yarn.  I am convinced this is some of my best spinning yet, I suppose there is something to be said for both practice and the thought that someone else will be looking at this skein. I traded half of this batch for half of some crown mountain farms that Carin from Round the Twist spun. It is really nice to be able to trade half of such a large batch!

I’ll get a picture of that crown mountain farms handspun up tomorrow!

Frankensleeve

/ shellssells / 3 Comments

Exactly one week ago I created a monster. At the time, I didn’t realize what I was creating, but once it was done, it became abundantly clear. I am not saying there weren’t a few red flags along the way….I just chose to ignore them, as is typical for me.

You see, I was working on the sleeves for the sweater I am making out of yarn that I am desperate to use up. To say I am trying to speed through it would be an understatement.  So I finished up the front and the back with no issues (strangely enough) and started the sleeves. The sleeves are worked in a rib pattern and all was going well until about midpoint in the sleeve, when I had to put it down over the weekend. When I finally picked it up again, I kept having these strange conversations with myself.  Such as:

“I thought I was supposed to increase to 46 stitches, why does it now tell me 50?”  “Oh, I must have misread.”

“45 cm just doesn’t seem long enough for this sleeve!”

“I didn’t realize that this sleeve was a raglan sleeve…I wonder how this is all going to go together?”

“Why would it ask me to begin the raglan decreases without rib? It seems strange to end a rib here. I think I am just going to continue in ribbing.”

“OK ok, I just don’t GET how this sweater goes together.  Maybe I should read the directions (yes, yes, this has been a problem before.)  Hm, why does it talk about knitting a collar? I don’t want to make a collar. It doesn’t LOOK like this sweater has a collar. I just don’t understand this sweater!”

By this time I had completed my sleeve. Only to realize that I had somehow managed to turn the booklet over and begin working on a sleeve for a different sweater about halfway through.

Frankensleeve!