Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Comment Lingers on and another baby blanket

Comment by Norah Gaughin
Comment refuses to be done.  I am sick of it.  If I didn't want to wear it so badly (next summer, of course by now), I would toss it.  (It was frogged out of the uber-expensive Berroco Bonsai because that yarn sucks and is way too heavy for a summer top.)  I reknit using Caron Spa (hey, I was broke after the damn Bonsai) in taupe color.  After a shitload of assembling various smaller pieces, and edging miles of surfaces, I washed it and lightly blocked it (too much acrylic to apply heat to it) and hung it up to finish drying hoping that gravity would make the stupid garter stitch border lay down and play nice.  (It still flips up at the front point despite frogging it and picking up the stitches around the point with a larger needle.)  But a more aggregious problem has reared its head:  the armholes are too long -- the entire side of my bra is showing, you can practically read the label.

Theory:  cheap yarn is stretching from the weight of the long heavy front apron and pulling the whole thing down, or cheap yarn row gauge has bit me in the ass.  Checked the pattern, it is knit by the vertical inch, so I should have gotten my 8" armhole, instead of my 11" armhole.  Also, the armhole was showing a little too much of my armpit roll, so the armhole shaping needed tweaking.

What to do?  This thing took several evenings in front of the television to assemble together and add edging.  I carefully pulled out the neck and armhole edging, then undid the side seams just enough to be able to get to the armhole bindoffs.  Unravelled from the top the front and back separately, and am presently reknitting, adding 3" before binding off for the armhole, and doing the armhole shaping decreases every other row instead of every row in the hopes that it will better hide the aforementioned armpit rolls.  Time will tell.  I'll probably end up with armholes sized to fit a 5-year old.  Sigh.


Diagonal Baby Blanket
While I was cooling off from hating Comment, I dashed off another Diagonal baby blanket for fertile friends.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Laced Leaves



 Finally finished Laced Leaves using the Berroco Bonsai that I originally invested in bought for Comment. It took forever to sew on 8 buttons with backers (clear plastic on the wrong side). It's a little snug, but that also stretches out the lace and it's really pretty. Only drawback is the buttons. I upsized them to 1/2", but that's still not enough, they're popping out. Sigh.  Maybe I'll pretend I want to wear it unbuttoned at the bottom.  Or pin the darn thing closed, lol.