Leaf T Done!

The Leaf T-shirt is finally done. I think this may very well be the longest I ever worked on a project. Mostly because my schedule was packed, and I couldn't find a way to squeeze in a decent amount of knitting every day. But now it's done and I have a new T-shirt.

The technical stuff:
Pattern: Leaf-T by knitting school dropout
Needles: 3 mm circular
Yarn: Mirabella mercerized cotton in orange, 4 skeins
Time it took: May 13 - May 27 2007

I really liked this pattern, someday I might make another shirt in a different color. I may have to add a crochet border to the bottom, because it curls way more than I thought it would. I also need to fix some glitches, like the extra yo I accidentally added. These things are easy to fix.
The cotton I used is a different story. The whole shirt kinda stretched in width after washing, so it's not a prefect fit, but still not a tragedy. What is a tragedy is that I lost some of the length. Add the rolling bottom and the shirt is exactly 2 cm too short. I don't plan to wear it to the opera or anywhere fancy, but c'mon! It's short! Why did this happen? I swatched! I washed the damn swatch! Nothing indicated that it would shrink.
Now I don't know what to do. Go out and buy more one more skein, and than rip the bottom edge or pick up stitches to add more centimeters. I so don't feel like doing either of it.

YO, I hate you.

I'm still knitting the Leaf T-shirt. Mistakes made so far:

1. Uneven stockinette. Which is amazing, seeing how I'm knitting in the round. Here's to hoping washing will take care of that.
   
2. A YO where there shouldn't be one. I accidentally added a yarn over next to another yo at the sleeve. And when did I notice this humongous mistake? 7, yup, seven rows after. Gah! I just left it there. I hate frogging even more than yarn overs.
   
3. Bound off the sleeves a little too tight. Even though I used larger needles.
   
4. Dropped a stitch. Then went to fix it with a crochet hook. Let's pretend it looks OK.

So what have I learned from all of this? Not to knit while watching TV.
If I ignore all the glitches, the t-shit is coming along relatively OK. I'm almost done with the second ball of cotton, and you could say I'm making progress. Slowly. I don't have all that much time for knitting, I'm supposed to be studying for my June exams, writing papers, reading stuff that are not knitting patterns... Oh, the month of June, I hate you as much as I do frogging. If not more.

Look Ma! Raglan!

I bought some yarn this past weekend. The orange is mercerized cotton, and I bought it with every intention of making the Razor Cami, but then decided not to risk all that knitting and end up with something that doesn't stretch because of the yarn its made of. I'm looking forward to the day when I go into my LYS and actually find the specific yarn I'm looking for. Oh, well, I guess the fact that they don't carry the yarns I want, makes it easier on my wallet.
Moving on. The green colorful stuff is an acrylic/wool blend and I bought it because it was green. And colorful. I have no idea what to make out of it, socks maybe?

I spent half the weekend looking for a pattern for the orange stuff and I stumbled upon this. A T-shirt with a lace panel and raglan increases, done in the round. I never did raglan increases before, or knitted a T-shirt in the round, but I was up for the challenge. I casted on this Sunday, and after some manic knitting here is the progress.

It's going well so far. I didn't skip a YO yet, or messed up the lace. The pattern is great, clear and easy. Plus I conquered my fear of raglan increases. I just hope it will be done before summer is over

Dishcloth. And a dishcloth.

Not all that much knitting has been going on lately. I tried to get rid of this one skein of mercerized cotton I had lying around, and what better way to do that, than do knit some dishcloths. These also came in handy as a lace practice projects.
Both patterns are from smariek's blog.
The horsey came out nice, if I do say so myself. But the heart cloth - well, I messed up the pattern. My own fault, I didn't read the pattern first, totally ignored the notes section in the pattern and ended up with 10 stitches less than I was supposed to have. After that I just winged it, I didn't have the patience nor the skill to rip lace. Besides, it's just a dishcloth.

The Yarn Bag

Well, finally, the promised bag sewing from my blog title. I made myself a bag to hold my modest yarn stash. It's a pretty big bag and could be used as a beach bag in a couple of weeks (when the sea warms up). But! The fabric I made it from is weird. It dyes everything it touches pink. Literally everything. My fingers were all pink while I was sewing. I don't get it, I washed it before working with it, and it did dye the water, but I figured it wouldn't do that when dry. I was wrong. Before the yarn bag, I made a purse. I carried it on my shoulder and it reached to my waist, leaving a pink stain on my jeans. And the damn stain will not come off.

I learned my lesson. I don't plan to carry the yarn bag anywhere, I'll just use it for storage.
The yarn will not complain.
The only current problem with the yarn bag is that it's almost empty. I destashed well. But now it's time to buy more yarn!

Socks!

The sock is finished! It actually only took me maybe 5 hours per sock. Perfect thing for the impatient knitter like me. I all for the instant gratification. Why I chose knitting as my latest hobby is beyond me. But enter socks that knit up very fast, and I'm a happy puppy.
It turned out rather well, in fact, it turned out so well that I wanted another. But I ran out of yarn. Yup, that's what happens when you randomly knit stuff without checking how much yarn you have.

I decided to improvise and get rid of some other scraps that I had in my stash. So I followed my variegated cuff with some orange yarn left over from a Jayne Cobb hat I made last year. And then I ran out of orange too. Enter red, also a leftover from the Jayne hat. So now I have socks that don't match, but I don't care. I have mastered the sock knitting skill, got rid of some yarn from my stash and my feet are warm.