how about some socks?

Having three big projects on the needles is sometimes a little boring. I want to knit socks ...

Project 250 is going slow, but ok so far. After figuring out the armscye problem (and I finally remembered that the "skirt" is called a "peplum"), I wondered whether a diamond shape wouldn't solve the problem, giving me space and yet smaller armholes. So I completely unraveled the top and went to work. As you can see below, instead of a giant v, there's a somewhat diamond- or leaf-shaped section now. But!

But when I tried it on after knitting a good bit, I noticed that there was another problem. Instead of right below my armpit, the diamonds were placed further to the front. No wonder, since I don't have boobs on my back! But undoing all that knitting again? Instead, I chose to drop down the diamond section and reknit it 10 stitches further back.

The herringbone pattern is a bit complicated to knit back up, though, because the increases are unusual. Every row needs undivided attention, the only thing I could do was listen to a little music while reknitting. Still, the second section is almost done.

 To the right, you can see how far back I put the diamond section now - it's well into the back of the garment. I'm curious to see how it will all work out. But once the reknitting is done, I'll have to figure out a new problem: the new neckline. In accordance with the new look, my 250 cardi needs a new neckline to make it more Jane Austen than Jane Eyre. So I'll have to look at different patterns with the sort of neckline that I want and incorporate that into the cardi.

 
Sounds like a lot of work, no? Well, when I'm not working on 250, I'm working on my entrelac stole, called Quittez vos habits roses. When I can't think of a good enough name for a project (Why do they have to have such great names, anyway? Maybe I should start numbering them all.) I use snippets from folk songs (because I'm crazy about folk) and since I recently discovered a good channel for French folk songs, the titles of my projects are getting more and more incomprehensible. Quittez vos habits roses is from the song below, called "Marlborough s'en va t'en Guerre" from the beginning of the 18th century. 

If that song reminds you of "For he's a jolly good fellow", that's because the Brits stole the melody of this song and added their own text, a common and fun occurrence in folk. Most tunes for folksongs were actually dance tunes before they became song tunes. It's rare for melodies to cross borders, though, so this was a great find for me.

Anyway, back to knitting. On the left you can see my Quittez, it's made of Lana Grossa Qui and is soft and gorgeous, but due to my tendency to tighten my gauge once I'm comfortable with a pattern, the beginning of the stole is much looser than the section I'm currently knitting. Maybe in the future I should switch needles when this happens. But I'm hoping that it will even out in the blocking. Sadly, I've always found that the great texture of entrelac gets lost in the blocking, but maybe scrunching it up a little will help.

The other thing about Quittez is that I need daylight to knit it. Once one row of squares is done, I need to go back to every square and adjust the stitches. I still haven't managed to neaten up my edge stitches, not even with tugging and knitting some stitches tighter and some looser and whatever else - they remain uneven. So adjusting is required and for that I need daylight or at least good light in my room and ... anyway.


 
Third project on the needles is the Malagash Square Shawl that I'm calling Rose-colored Edges (because I didn't want to name it after yet another French folk song, frickin' a). It starts in the middle and is knit in the round and the pattern wants it to be garter stitch. But no way am I purling so much in a shawl that is knit in the round! And I also only have 600 meters of the main color, so I have to make it last.

So the main section has garter ridges every third row and three garter ridges every 7th ridge. I also wanted to do something with twisted stitches but decided against it. Maybe in a future project. But as this shawl gets bigger, it needs needles with a longer cable. Unfortunately, my best 3,5mm needles are occupied with the 250 cardigan, so I need to finish 250 first before I knit much more on this.

I want to knit socks ... I only have about 74 sock patterns in my queue ...

project 250

Before I flit off to Styria for a few days, let me tell you a little about my 250th project and let's ignore the trip to Bonn and the knitting I did there and the yarn I bought today until next week.


250 is supposed to be the first garment knit by and for myself that I can wear without thinking: "But I could have done this much better and this doesn't fit well and this isn't good and this and that is wrong". I picked a pattern that I have been wanting and waiting to knit since 2008. It's called Stormsvale (not a Ravelry link) and attracted me instantly with its pretty, understated herringbone stitch and attractive fairisle bands. Yes ... I can wait years until I start a pattern. Capricorns are patient like that.


However, I decided to go in a completely different direction with the construction. The yarn that I'm using is vintage yarn that was given to me by my father quite some time ago. It's probably between 35 and 40 years old or maybe older. I only have 10 balls of dark blue, a bit of grey, a bit of green and a bit of white - and the green is much moth-eaten. After some deliberation, I replaced the green and the white yarn with purple and a variegated turquoise-grey-brown yarn to make the fairisle band stand out more.

So making the most of my yarn gave me the idea of knitting this cardigan in a new way. Instead of starting at the bottom, I used a provisional cast-on and knit the color band that should sit just below the bust first - and I knit it with a steek, because that's easier.



Then I switched to smaller needles and used the instructions from the pattern for what would happen after the fairisle band, i.e., bust shaping, armhole shaping, back and shoulder shaping and so on. The shoulders were knit using shortrow shaping, so I could do a three-needle bind-off (so worth it!).

After that, I knit the two sleeves. They were also started from a provisional cast-off and with the color band. Instead of putting the band at the wrist I moved it up to the upper arm and decided that short sleeves were the way to go. My first try at an edging was a reverse stockinette edging that would curl inwards and give it a sort of i-cord bind-off look without the actual i-cord (I hate i-cord), but now I'm afraid that actual i-cord is called for to make it look good. Man, do I ever hate i-cord. And this jacket will need a lot of i-cord bind-off.


The next step in the plan was to pick up the stitches from the provisional cast-on of the main fairisle band and just knit down from there for the "skirt", increasing steadily to give the whole cardigan a sort of Jane Austen vibe. I started doing that and after a while, I felt the need to see how the whole jacket would look. So I used some small hair clasps to hold the pieces together and put in one sleeve.

And of course a problem immediately revealed itself. There is a lot of extra fabric under my arms that should not be there. It looks weird when I lift my arm and there are weird welts and bulk when my arm is down.

What was to blame? As per the instructions,
I increased stitches at both sides under the arms and that is where the extra fabric came from, since my gauge is a bit bigger than the pattern specified. The only solution to this is ripping out the whole top (curses and swearwords) and not increasing that many stitches. Or maybe still increasing the stitches, but making the armhole smaller.

Of course, if I do this, the question is whether the sleeves will still fit. Maybe I'll have to reknit the sleeves, too. I do have to reknit one, anyway, since I knit it far too loosely. Reknitting the whole top really doesn't thrill me at all very much, but since I am determined to make this jacket fit and look good, I'll do it.

It will be a good chance to fix the neckline, too. I went with the original neck instructions, intending to maybe do some ribbing instead of the fairisle stand-up collar, but that just looks too uptight. So, a far lower neckline is required and it will probably also be finished with the all-powerful i-cord bind-off (grumble). Then more i-cord for the skirt bind-off. Then sewing the steek! And then the endless button bands! Two of those! To say nothing of sewing the button loops and sewing on the buttons!

Why did I start knitting this again?

Well, look at that last picture. It will be a seriously nice jacket once it's done, so I'll put in the effort to make sure it will turn out that way. My new lace shawl will just have to wait ... and maybe I should block all the lace shawls I have knit up to now before I start a new one. Or not.