The Knitting Scotsman

I haven’t had much time for knitting this week.  I had to go back to work, so I’m getting back on schedule.  Not enough sleep = SleepyScotsman = knitting mistakes = NotKnittingScotsman.

 I did notice a huge mistake on my Celtic Cable Cap about 10 rows down, so I frogged it.  I caught back up last night.  I’m too tired this evening to work on a complicated pattern, and I haven’t found a sock pattern for the aran weight yarn I’ve got earmarked for some wearing around the cold house socks.

I still need to order the yarn for my FLAK sweater.  I did chart out an entire single repeat in Excel.  It’s 121 stitches wide, with a 24 row repeat.  I figure I’ll take it easy on my first big sweater project.  Now I just need to get some legal size paper so I can read it when it is printed.  Next step is to swatch a single repeat of my cables, then I can size the sweater, and I’ll be ready to start knitting. (after I get the yarn of course).

You might notice the nifty progress bars off to the left.  Thanks Ravelry, for providing an project API.  If you are a member of Ravelry, and want to incorporate progress bars on your site, take a look HERE.  If you host your own WordPress, look HERE for a plug in that will make adding the progress bars easier.

We were sitting at home last night, daughter in bed, nothing to do.  I didn’t have anything on needles, so I decided to fix my new hat.  It was just too short.  I frogged down to the start of the increases, and added an inch to it.  I was able to get it finished up before bed last night.  I wore it out today, and it’s great.  It probably only needed 3/4 of an inch, but I like a big hat that I can really pull down over my ears.  I’m much happier with it now.

My MIL finished her hat today, just a few minutes ago, while I was casting on the Celtic Cable Cap  I’m quite proud of her.  She spent a lot of time on this hat, and it looks great.  She made a few mistakes.  I frogged it back for her once, I tinked back a row or so twice, then she asked me how to go back herself, so I showed her.  While she was at my sister-in-law’s house, she frogged out about 10 rows on her own.  She did it exactly right, and you can’t tell where any of the issues were.  The entire last part of the hat, she did without any issues.  She even made the transition from circular to DPN without any laddering or other issues.

I completed the crochet border on Reid this evening.  I also finished weaving in the 10,000 yarn ends that I had been fighting with.  It’s crazy how many strands of yarn this project generated.

I’m really happy with the results.  I had originally purchased a pink yarn to use as the border.  However the more I knitted in green the more I disliked the combination with pink.  I went back and got a ball of purple and used it instead.  I think it works much better.

Here is the finished product:

It’s been a few days since I’ve had a chance to post.  My in-laws are in town from their Florida “estate” (it’s a camper trailer on a lot, with a shed).  We’ve been Christmas shopping.  I’m one of those people, who likes to wait until the week before to go shopping.  My mom is already done shopping, for next year.  Not me, I’ve still got at least one stop to make for this year.

Reid is off the blocks, and being assembled.  I’m really happy with how the blocking worked on the lace.  It all laid down nicely and the stitches evened out well.  If I were to make this sweater again, I would add a knit stitch to either end (and do the increases inside this stitch), and add another RS row of all knit stitches to the tops of the sleeves, just to make assembly easier.  The places where there are two knits together are really easy to mattress, but the places with increases, decreases, and YOs make assembly difficult.  It’s going well though, and I’ll have it assembled soon.  I can only work on it after my daughter goes to bed, since it is a surprise for her.

I started, and finished a new hat for myself, I need to try blocking it on a balloon.  It’s a bit too short, just a bit.  I’m hoping I can get a half inch or so out of blocking.  If not, then it will go in the “gift knitting” box, and I’ll make another.

My mother-in-law admitted that she hasn’t been knitting because she’s afraid of patterns.  Well, I’m not having that.  She also said she’s never been to a yarn store, unless you count Walmart (we don’t).  So we went to an LYS yesterday.  Not my favorite in the area, but we were heading that direction anyway for dinner and a look at “The Big Bright Light Display“.  She picked out a hank of Malabrigo worsted.  We balled it up, and she decided on making the Seaman’s cap that I had been working on.  I gave her the pattern, some needles, and I made her do a gauge swatch.  Good thing too, she was a size too small from what I just used to knit the same hat.  She’s now on her third cast on, and going around the headband.  The first cast-on didn’t have a long enough tail to finish, the second was twisted when she joined.  I blame my wife for that, as she helped her join.  For some reason my wife thinks my joining method is too complicated, so I let her show her mother.

While my MIL was knitting her gauge swatch, I picked up some yarn, gauged, and cast-on Pro-Bono, with some Malabrigo I’ve been intending on using as a hat.  This one is destined for the gift box.