socks!!!!

Thanks to everyone who commented on the crooked shrug. I am going to try it open and see how it feels. Right now we are in the middle of humid weather though so I'm not sure when I'll feel like having a shrug on.

Also I'm not sure when I'll feel like wearing socks again, but when I do I'll have these:

I just finished the second sock--after having the first one done for a few months.

Pattern is wandia from Sock innovation
Yarn is a handdyed from Threadbear Fiber studio which seems to have closed.

It wasn't really the sit by the pool and chat kind of pattern, though, so for summer I want to have something easy going. Just some nice plain vanilla toe up socks. Something I can pull out and knit on and chat with people while my kids play. I have just the thing of course. Sock blank!

A while ago (maybe 2 years!) I dyed a sock blank from knit picks

The idea is that you then knit two socks at the same time from it, unraveling as you go. I haven't mastered the whole two at a time thing, and while I may someday, that's not quite the summer thing I had in mind. so I unraveled mine and wound two balls. I did discover I didn't get the dye all the way through so it is whiter than I want, but ahhh well....

I'm shrugging about this....

So, the shrug. I finished it. I had to russian join on the buttonhole band to get it to cast off. And I could not pick up the 83 stitched I had on the left front. I got as for as 60 and was out of room.

And my friends there is a good reason for this, because of course the shrug that I have had to repeatedly rip and reknit has not gone gentle into the night. Oh not, it has a major flaw. One that if I want to really fix, will require a HUGE chunk of ripping. And frankly, given that I think I might have 10 yards of yarn left may not be even feasible.

Anyway, when I wear it open it looks like this:



Looks good doesn't it. And that is the dress I bought it for and as you can see the purples, while not totally true in the picture, do actually match! And it looks really good until....

You think about buttoning it. And that's when you'll realize that somehow someway I managed to knit one side almost two inches longer than the other.
TWO INCHES!!



I think the two inches is in the sleeve cap. I have no idea what to do with it. And at this point, it might be easier to walk lopsided. Although truthfully it doesn't show if it is unbuttoned, but it doesn't hang quite right.

There is a reason that I called this blog Disasters with yarn......

shrug again

I thought by now I'd be showing you a picture of a finished purple shrug. And I would be too if it weren't for you pesky kids. No wait, I would be if it weren't for one little tiny problem.
I think I'm running out of yarn.

I have all the major pieces knit. I have them all sewn together. I have the collar and the button band done. And I have little tiny balls of yarn left. And so I also have a major hangup.

Last night I took a deep breath and started in on the buttonhole band. I finished it! I had yarn to spare! I tried it on and whoops. See, on the button band I had picked up 83 stitches and on the buttonhole band it came out to like 56 and I thought "well I am just spacing them farther out and that's not a bad thing." In reality I was... let's just say not in reality. I don't know why but for some reason I didn't pick up stitches all along the front, I missed about an inch at the top and about 2 on the bottom.

So I ripped it out. Actually I'm thinking of renaming this shrug on ravelry to the frog shrug. I think I have had to rip back on almost every piece of this. I can't remember about the back and I think the first sleeve was pretty uneventful.

So now I have a little less yarn (because yes I wove in my ends and trimmed) and more buttonhole band to knit. I'd buy another skein but I bought this yarn OVER a year ago and I really don't want to pay another 9.50 to use such a small amount. Also--this yarn doesn't russian join very well.

Alas, I think I just need to take a deep breath and knit. I am SO close.

shrug

I have not been sewing lately, so I have no new blocks to show off. But I am making progress with my purple shrug:



Plus, I have one sleeve done. I hit a snag with sleeve two and need to rip back 3 rows and am being all wah wah wah about it.

One thing that really saved me on this project was this blog. When I picked it back up I couldn't remember all the modifications I had made to the pattern. See I'm starting with a henley pattern and converting it into a shrug. So i lopped off the entire bottom half. But then I couldn't remember what size I had been making (39--thanks Ravelry) or which needles I was using (3 and 4--thanks again ravlery). And then on the hem, when I started the new side (right I think) I looked back at my old blog posts and I mentioned, I'm making a bigger hem than the pattern calls for because it curled as written. So then I counted and the pattern calls for a 5 row hem and I had made a 10 row hem. I'm so terrible at writing out details that frankly I am amazed I was able to pick this up a year later and have it not look so mismatched.

Other mods I have made: I am making short sleeves for this, and debated heavily if the sleeves should have the hemmed border or start directly with lace. I decided on hemmed in case the lace curled. I went ahead and did the three needle bind offs instead of blocking each piece separately on stitch holders. And I need to figure out the collar and button bands since I went for a provisional cast on hem instead of a sew it together hem (seriously IK--whipstich?).

I think if I were going to do another one of these I would probably not do the garter selvedge and instead do a stockinette selvedge, because generally I am good at sewing up, but I really hate sewing up garter stitch.

I was hoping to get this finished by yesterday so I could wear it out for a fancy lunch. But I have a fancy dinner and another fancy lunch coming up soon. However, I don't think that it will be done in time for those either.