Skrilla Knits

Knitting has long been considered antiquated, something for grandmas and whipped little housewives. That just isn't true. Knitting is one of those minute to learn, lifetime to master deals, and I'm in it for the long haul.

9.27.2007

UGH.

FIRST of all, thank you so much for the lovely comments on the Gallery Jacket! Sheffield has arrived and it is quite beautiful. I can't wait to see how the pattern works out for people. The garment has been cat-nap tested and approved:




Unfortunately my next sweater project wasn't as successful. In fact, I have a sweater disaster on my hands. The squeamish should avert their eyes, and maybe not read any further.


This is my Minimalist Cardigan, knit with the ridiculously hard to photograph Terra in Madder. This sweater should have been done weeks ago. I loved knitting the easy pieces, I didn't even mind the moss stitch since I knit Continental. After all that twisted ribbing for the Gallery Jacket, allover moss stitch was like a vacation! I'd heard that moss stitch is a pain to seam so I'd decided to back stitch a lot of them. It's bulky, yes, but it's quick and I just wanted to wear this thing. I made a small mistake sewing the sleeve in and while I was undoing my seams I...may have used scissors. I know, I know, I should have slowly unpicked it but come on! I was already rushing...and drinking...and tired.

Can you guess what happens next? I snipped my knitting. And this isn't yarn you would want to steek. It is partially alpaca, partially silk, very slippery. I tried to patch my holes and build them up with crochet. This worked reasonably well and stayed the slippage, but as expected it had a much different texture than the knitting--thick, inflexible and of course, right up front. I started to seam this but it was sort of hopeless. There is no way to make it look neat at this point. I'm all out of yarn. The only solution I can think of is to remove the sleeves, rip out the sleeve caps and some of the sleeve and then re-knit the caps with whatever yarn is available.

To be honest, this wouldn't be terrible. A lot of the finished sweaters have sleeves that are the same length as the body--it yields a sort of boxy, square shape. Shortening the sleeves would circumvent that, right? Right? I MEANT to do that...yeah...that's the ticket...

Congrats to Melissa who expertly, patiently, soberly finished a Minimalist Cardigan last weekend. We were both in our element knitting at a brewfest in Greenfield [thanks again for the excellent pictures, Melissa!]:






Speaking of old SNL, I recently "discovered" the music of Loudon Wainwright watching the Season 1 DVDs. This isn't from SNL, but it's a pretty excellent song. Enjoy!


CR

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12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's a painful sweater issue, but you aren't alone. I've done that once, and only once, before, I learned very quickly to avoid it! I love the cat photos, you can see the sleepiness progress! Reminds me of the stuff over at cuteoverload.com....
Susannah

9:09 PM  
Blogger amylovie said...

Ouch!

The yarn is beautiful. I was looking at it for the store, but it seems pricey for the yardage.

Amy

4:45 AM  
Blogger Kirsten said...

Ohhh BURN! You snipped the Terra. That's gotta smart. Well, if all patching fails, you can rip it back to the hole and join it like a new skein. Sucktastic, but not hopeless.

And I can't believe I missed this "brewfest" thing! I've resolved to go next year.

Heh, and yeah, that jacket is so cat tested, Freddy approved. What a little lover boy.

4:58 AM  
Blogger Melissa Morgan-Oakes said...

Um.
Who said I was sober?
And when you see it in person words like "expert" and "patient" would be obtuse...but it works. It brought class to That Concert I attended. Silk and cashmere, shit-kickers and cowboy hats...
I am very, very sad about yours. But I love Freddie crashing on Gallery!

5:00 AM  
Blogger Melissa Morgan-Oakes said...

HEY! DIRTYMelissa? I just stole that pic...how is that dirty? just a simple girl in a t-shirt with a small sip of beer and a cowboy hat...how is that dirty??

5:03 AM  
Blogger Melissa Morgan-Oakes said...

it's not my slogan just so you know...it's KATHY'S!!!

6:39 AM  
Blogger Gudrun Johnston said...

Well I know that knitting and a beer festival wouldn't be a good combo for me! Oh well! What a cute cat you have!
PS I'm really bad with abbreviations what's SNL?

7:04 AM  
Blogger loopylulu said...

Lesson to be learned here by me: Beware of the scissors. I always un-seam things with small scissors. Guess I got to stop that.

Brewfest looks like a lot of fun. An afternoon of beer and knitting sounds like a good time for anyone

9:05 AM  
Blogger Stella said...

Oh dear. That really does almost HURT. Sending you good reknitting vibes! (And yeah, I think it would look great with slightly shorter sleeves.)

9:45 AM  
Blogger Miss Scarlett said...

What a nightmare! The frogging back and rejoining sounds like it could work...let us know how it goes.

10:52 PM  
Blogger Miss Scarlett said...

What a nightmare! The frogging back and rejoining sounds like it could work...let us know how it goes.

10:52 PM  
Blogger Huelo said...

Isn't Loudon Wainwright the shit?? My dad and I saw him live a long time ago. Portland is a "very special town" for him because that's approximately where Tonya Harding is from.

7:33 PM  

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