more woes

Last night was one step forward two steps back in knitting terms. I picked up all the stitches I'd ripped out and started knitting the rib border again. I had the exact same problem (big holes at the point of the V) and was ready to rip it out again when I realised the problem and was able to fix it. Where the V splits you have to start a new ball of yarn for one side. I hadn't secured the end of this yarn as I wanted to make the whole thing as easy to frog as possible in case it doesn't fit its recipient. Once I had tightened this up the hole mostly went.

Then came the next problem. The ribbing is k1p1 with a decrease either side of the central stitch on each row. So on one side the decreases are knit decreases, on the next purl decreases.

Somehow (goodness knows how, I counted many times) I had ended up with an odd number of stitches on one side. So when I got the the decrease section the ribbing was out of sync. At this point I had managed 2 rows.

ARGH!

so

riiiiiip!

I managed to pick up the stiches without having to go back to the crochet hook (which is the only way I can actually pick up new stitches) but then the first row took me ages because I managed to pick up all the stitches backwards so had to untwist each one as I went.

So there is one row of ribbing done. 2 more to go, the ribbing for both sleeves and the sewing up to do. Ideally by the end of today. I'm pretty sure thats not possible. Its certainly making it very hard to concentrate at work today.

*cries*

Last night I did the dreaded picking up of stitches along the V-neck. Today I sat here and started the ribbing. Which looked awful to begin with last time. This time however it was a disaster. I had to rip out the whole thing :-( I want to get it finished by Thursday, but I just can' tface it at the moment. *sigh*

I hate picking up stitches.

Decreasing

So, I'm knitting Forever Green (Ravelry link) again for my sister, and thought I'd post about somthing that bugged me the last I did it, and is bugging me even more now I'm knitting it for someone else.

Its the decreases. The first photo -->

shows the GOOD side, where I have used K2tog along the V-neck line. This looks fine.

The problem is shown in the 2nd picture below. I followed the advice in SnB and mirrored the decreases, so on the other side I used SSK.

As you can see it looks crap. Not a nice neat change in direction as in picture one.

What am I doing wrong?

Zak & Sara

Zak1
Originally uploaded by cob_web

told you I'd be sad enough to bring it in to work today :-)

I am in love.

What a wonderful surprise!

Isn't Ravelry great? Just before christmas I got a message from someone in the US who had seen yarn in my stash and wondered if it matched her dylot so she could finish knitting a cardigan. Well, by some fluke it DID, BUT I had mostly used it up on some christmas knitting and had forgotten to update the fact. I found 2 small left-overs. I think it came to just over 30g in total, which I was more than happy to send to a knitter in need!

Well today, guess what was waiting for me when I got home? Some of the gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn I was eyeing up before christmas!! How lovely was that? I felt a bit overwhelmed by the generosity of a complete stranger, not only that but I can only assume she did a bit of Rav/Blog stalking to discover that I was coveting it :-) What a lovely, lovely thing to do. Kind of restores your faith in humanity!

Its dark now so I can't take a photo (I may take it to work tomorrow to do so as I can't wait to get it on Ravelry and show you lot). I can't seem to see any yarn on the shop's webpage any more, but I posted about it here

*big cheesy grin*

Thank you rincaro.

Oh, and apparently it was dyed up especially for me! How cool is that?!

Ravelry Friends

I have my "friends activity" as an RSS-feed into Google Reader.

I think I'm going to have to take it off, my queue is growing exponentially as a result.

If people could just start finding fugly knits instead of fantastic ones that would be lovely, thanks! :p

Long time no post

Sorry I haven't posted recently. Things are a bit dull on teh knitting front. I've had a bit of a nightmare witha Get Knitted order. I'm not really sure if things are fixed or not, but I have yarn at any rate. The jaywalkers progressed a bit on my train journey to Derby and back last week, and I've cast on another chunky V-neck just like the last one. This time its an order from my sister. She wants it longer, but its even in the same colour, so there isn't much need for photos.

So, dull.

Does anyone have any digital camera recommendations? We don't want to spend more than £200 if possible. We've never owned one before. We want something that I can take knitting photos with, but mainly to take to Japan.