Coneflower Ranch

Chloe and Friends

 

Part of the reason I like Doris Chan's patterns is that they are worked top down in one piece. The first time I saw a knitting/crochet pattern with this type of design it was an epiphany. Most designs are planned out like sewing patterns: a left front, right front, back and sleeves. This concept works when turning two dimensional fabric into a three dimensional garment. Knitting and Crocheting are inherently sculptural and treating them as only a means to make fabric for sewing patterns is to minimize their potential. Top down construction lets the garment grow organically which gives you a freedom and control that you don't have with the sewing pattern scheme. It also eliminates seam sewing so when the Knitting/Crocheting is finished the piece is basically finished. For impatient needleworkers like me, that's a big plus.

There is a flexibility to this type of construction that allows changes and corrections as you work. With Chloe this came in handy. When I got to the portion of the pattern where the front and back were differentiated by joining and creating the underarm, I ran into a problem. No matter what I did my stitch count was off. Up until that point the count was perfect. Spot on! At the join it went wrong. I ripped it back and recrocheted it three or four times and each time I was off. In desperation I went on Ravelry. I assumed that I had screwed up at first but after counting, recounting and still ending up with an error I began to suspect it wasn't me. I posted a plea for help on the Everyday Crochet group and the Interweave Crochet group. No one responded. I was frustrated. The temptation to just power through was intense. I was worried that if I didn't figure out the mistake I would compound it if I just kept going.

 
So I put Chloe down and started on Cinnabar. This is a very nice, simple pattern from Everyday Crochet and I'm making it in Naturally Caron Country in Peacock. But I had plans for Chloe.

I was going to a convention at the end of April and wanted to wear Chloe. It would be the perfect jacket: light enough to wear indoors but heavy enough to keep off the chill of the AC in the conference room and, like most of Doris' patterns, you can dress it up or down. I would only have to pack the one cardigan. 

Having no better idea, I did what any thwarted crocheter would do: I pestered the designer. Isn't Ravelry great? Ms. Chan was wonderfully helpful. After apologizing profusely for bugging her personally I explained where I had gotten lost on Chloe. Neither of us could figure out what had gone wrong. In the time between my posting to the groups about the stitch count issues and hearing back from Ms. Chan I received several Ravelry messages from other crocheters who had the same problem I did. Doris gave me her blessing to just power through. She said that as long as the stitch pattern was lining up properly I could fudge it and have it all still work out. I took a deep breath and drove on.

She was right. After the underarm join I was two ch-3 spaces short of what the pattern called for but I just worked with that. It didn't become an issue until I got to the waistband. Once there I just eliminated two spaces and followed on from there.

Once the body was done I joined the yarn to the underarm and worked the sleeves without a problem.

It's lovely if I say so myself. I'm really happy with the finished product and I was smart enough to make notes on the pattern so I can make this again without bothering Doris. And most importantly: 

 

it fits. 

Let the Games Begin!

Not the most original title, I'll admit, but it does make the point. It's that time again! This time I joined the Ravelympics. I'm the captain of Team Hudson Valley only because I looked and couldn't find a local team so I made one. (I'm not really sure what to do as team captain so I'm sure I'm not doing a few things that perhaps I should.) 

I had joined the original Knitting Olympics and three days in the flu hit our house. My original project is still in a knitting bag, which is really just a bag into which I stuff knitting, and it awaits completion. It was ambitious: a Meg Swansen fairisle sweater in shades of blue with some black and white. One day I will finish it. This time I'm not so ambitious. I'm making mittens. Not just any mittens; what would be the challenge in that? I'm making Fiddlehead Mittens in KnitPicks Telemark and they are lovely.

The challenge for me is the colorwork. Aside from my original Olympic failure project I've never done colorwork. The pattern is lovely but not overwhelming and it's just two colors per row which works out well since I have two hands. Getting those hands to maneuver the yarn into place without pulling too tight has been the challenge. I knit continental and so I started with both yarns in my left hand but they twisted too much and got on my nerves. Letting my right hand find it's own way to hold the yarn and throw it around the needle took most of the first mitten. The result was a bit puckery.

I kept going. A friend on Ravelry gave me a heads up on this yarn/pattern combination and that she had them turn out too large so I started with the smallest size in the pattern and that wasn't small enough. To get gauge I had to go down to a size 2 (2.75mm) needle. When I finished the first one, blocked it, dried it and tried it on it fit just fine. Then I remembered: I have to knit a liner.

Wool is stretchy, right?

Two bucks worth of inspiration

 
While wandering through Michaels, on a craft supply fondling expedition in late 2008, I came across this Christmas ornament. It's plastic, styrofoam, wire, some acrylic and cost all of two bucks. The colors thrilled me.

I had picked the paint for my room based on the comforter I had on the bed but by the time the paint was on the wall two months the comforter had fallen apart. Without the original inspiration piece I wasn't sure what to do next with the room. I share the room with a rather manly man so I didn't want it to be too girly. The old comforter was replaced with a plain black one which seemed like the manly way to go but I kept the throw pillows because we both like them. It looked kind of boring. The walls, bedcover and the curtains are all solid colors. This would make Dennis happy but was just too dull for me. The cheapy Christmas ornament came to my rescue.

The colors worked so well with the wall that I smiled everytime I looked at it. I hung my two dollar inspiration from the switch on the floor lamp and there it dangled for months.

Fast forward through most of 2009 and we arrived at Autumn. It started to get cold here in the Hudson Valley and as I piled a bunch of fleece throws on my bed to stay warm the thought crossed my mind that I really ought to get myself a nice wool blanket. I got ready for bed, crossed the floor to turn out the lamp and I saw those colors again. "Why not crochet myself an afghan?" You'd think that would be a no-brainer but it actually required an Aha! moment.

I thumbed through many crochet books and magazines. I scoped out what other people have done on Ravelry and decided that I wanted some sort of granny square variation. I really like the look of the Hexagon Blanket and what others have done with it but the uneven edge would drive me nuts. Even if I create an even edge with half hexagons it would bug me. Don't ask. 

Jane Brocket's use of color in her knitting and crochet always gooses my muse as does Lucy's. After days of soaking in the creativity of others I started collecting yarn for my project. I hit a sale at Yarn Country and stocked up on Cascade 220. 

There is no blue yarn in this photo by the way. The purple is just refusing to photograph properly. She's a bit of a diva.

I like granny square afghans. I just made one for my niece. This one is going to be a bit different. The center of each motif is circular and the last row squares it up. In between there is a round that is mostly chains to accomodate the change from round to square. I'm quite pleased with the way it came out. I think it's an original design of mine but I know it was heavily influenced by the many delightful and beautiful interpretations of granny squares I've seen on Ravelry and other sites.

 
 
This is the test strip. Pretty isn't it?

 
The motifs measure five inches across so I'm planning to make the afghan sixteen motifs by sixteen motifs. We'll see if that's what I actually do.

It's curtains for me

As I mentioned in an earlier post, our house was in a rather neglected condition when we bought it. The previous owners were an older, retired brother and sister and the house was really too much for them. I can only speculate but I strongly suspect that they were following some realtor's advice when they had everything painted white. Everything that wasn't wood paneling or hideous wallpaper that is. Whoever did the painting for them painted around whatever furniture was up against the walls. When we moved in and all of their furniture was gone we had walls with some odd colored rectangles on them. We also had enough hardware attached around the windows in each room for three or four different types of window treatments.

I had put off painting our room because it wasn't urgent and it was going to be time consuming. Dennis worked nights so I'd get out of bed in the morning and within a few hours he'd crawl in. There wasn't really an opportunity to take the room apart and really go to town on it. Fast forward nine years and he went to Afghanistan leaving me a big block of time when I could totally trash my room in the hopes of bringing new life to it. I hung shelves and repaired and painted the walls then ran out of steam. He came home on leave and broke my stride. I'm not complaining mind you, but I still haven't painted the door frames.

With my goals for this year in mind I'm starting in my room. Yes, that probably is cheating but I don't care. I figured I'll do the few remaining things for my room and that will give me the oomph to go on to the next room. I started the new year by making curtains. Nothing exciting and heaven help me I can't get them to photograph well.

I painted the room Arizona Tan. The color on the website looks nothing like the color on my walls which bears little resemblance to the color in this photo. Well, maybe a little resemblance. It's a golden tan sort of color. I like it. Dennis likes it. Win/win. I was strolling through JoAnn's Fabrics checking out the remnant table when I came across a bolt of fabric that was nearly the exact color of the walls. I couldn't believe it. Better yet it was on sale for $7/yard. Score! Some pressing, a hem and a rod pocket later and voila! Curtains! I'm quite pleased with myself. I've been looking for the right fabric for over a year.

Next time I'll tell you about the Christmas ornament that inspired an afghan.