Saturday, April 28, 2012

The Sweater

     My dearest friend and knitting accomplice always had me jealous when she knitted up all sorts of super awesome sweaters (thank you Ceci). So what do I decide to do? KNIT A SWEATER! My first real sweater to be precise! It was about time too, since I have been knitting for eight years now and have yet to knit one! I decided to start small and knit a baby sweater to start out with (which worked out well because I had a bunch of baby yarn from my baby shower that never got knit into something for Henry (sorry baby)). I think that this was a good idea considering even the though of knitting something that big to fit a full grown person made me slightly ill :).
    The knitting went well (exceptionally well considering I didn't even read the pattern all the way through before hand) until I assembled all the pieces and was ready to do the ribbed border. The first issue that I had was that I didn't want to bother to find cable needles. BIG mistake! I can't even explain what a stupid thing this is for me to have done! 208 stitches picked up on double pointed needles does not work! I tried that two, maybe three times. Once that failed, I tried to knit the border separately and then sew it on. Again, big mistake because I did not have cable needles. Then I finally broke down and found some cable needles. They were a little too big (I was knitting with size 6 and they were about an 8) but the only thing I had so I had to use them. All went well until I started picking up the stitches. I found that I had dropped a stitch right next the edge. DOPE! Since I was so frustrated by then, I decided to just pick up the stitches on the other side of the run and then secure the loose stitch after I was done. Luckily this worked out well and I finished it! YAY! But judging by that seaming, I need more practice! I think next I'll knit the same pattern for 0-3 months!

Going to market with bags... many many bags.

Spring has sprung and that means it's that time of year again... that's right, it's time for farmer's market season! Last year was fun but I did not have a lot of knitted good to sell then. This year will be different because I've been knitting like crazing so that I can have a table that doesn't look barren! Right now I've been knitting these really neat market bags (the original pattern (The Grrlfriend Market Bag). I knit one test one up (which turned out horribly) and found out that not only is the pattern easy on the eyes, it is also easy on the needles. I can whip one of these puppies out in less than a day, which makes it perfect to make for selling at the farmers markets. So far I've knit five of these all with different variations on the pattern. Hopefully people will like them!