Knitting, or is the camera on drugs?

Well, the good camera is still AWOL, so I used the bad one. They're photos, and they might even look like photos of knitting projects. If you squint. Hard.

Here's my little blob of baby blanket. I'll show pictures first and then tell the story.

When it's stretched out, you can see that there really is a pattern in there. Right?! Click for the whole thing.

I'm not 100% thrilled with how this is going. I adapted a diamond pattern from one of the Treasury of Stitches books, but the pattern doesn't show up very well. I think the main reasons are that it's garter stitch, it's on big needles, and the microfiber yarn is slightly fuzzy and maybe takes away from the design. I could have gone down in needle size, but I think I'll like the size of the blanket this produces. The texture is still interesting, so even if all of my lovely diamonds don't come through, it should be ok. I'm hoping that blocking will help, but that might just be a dream.

A Tale of a Baby Blanket

When I was in Germany this fall I tried to find yarn in Berlin, with little success. I finally found the Kaufhaus (department store) and their yarn department. They had a mix of yarn, some I liked and some I didn't, and I fell for this microfiber. Not head-over-heels, but a strong attraction. I thought it would make a nice baby blanket, but I didn't know how much to get and I wasn't excited about most of the colors. I wanted to use multiple colors, though, and the three that matched best were light blue, light purple, and white. I took 100g of each and went merrily on my way.

When I got home and told my mom about the spoils of my trip, she told me that equal ammounts of three colors is always wrong. Hardly ever works. Oops. But it was too late to go even out my purchase, so I had to figure out what to do. I did some thinking.

The most basic three-color designs would be equal stripes or checks. They're ok, but not very exciting. And they'd require a swatch and calculations to figure out how big to make each piece, and who wants to do that?

I realized that if I wanted to make a square, I could knit on the bias in garter stitch, and maybe there was a way to not have to make area calculations. My next idea was to knit pieces of equal area, starting from the corner. When I ran out of color A, I'd move to color B. When I finished half of B (one ball), it would be time to decrease. When I finished B, on to C, and when I run out of C, I'm done! I wasn't sure how this would look, though, so I did the math (hi, I'm a geek!) and it came out like this. The lines wouldn't be as blocky, but the areas are about right. I decided that this wasn't going to work either.

Then I had another idea. What if I did checks in two of the colors and made a border with the third? Then it would go like this: Knit with A until half of one ball is gone, then decrease A and add the balls of B on the sides and increase with them. When that ball of A is gone, decrease the Bs and start the second ball of A. When the Bs are gone, decrease A. Then I'd get a square and could knit the border in C until I run out of yarn. No gauge swatch, just weighing the yarn until I'm halfway through the first (and lightest) skein. I had a good scale to use when I started at home, but now the finest thing I have is a postage scale with 1/10th oz precision, so I'll do my best with finding the midpoint.

So this is how I'm working it now. I chose a garter stitch lace pattern to add some interest (both for my knitting and the finished product). I feel like I should do a different stitch in the white portion, but I'm discouraged by this one and think occasional rows of yo k2tog would be too boring. Any suggestions?

Rrrrrrrrrrrip-it

I'm participating in Alison's Rip-Along. I was feelin' good, feelin' fine, until I brought the project to Knitsmiths on Sunday. This is the Poetry in Stitches Camisol that my mom made for me. The piece of $#@! camera doesn't do it any justice, but I promise you that it's divine. (My mom also picked out the cutest buttons. Button photo heavily doctored.)

I love this camisol, but it doesn't fit right -- never did. The pattern goes up to a 35" bust, and, well, I've got a little more than that. Mom added some short rows, but it just didn't work out. It was bulgy in the wrong places, too wide around the top, and too flary in the hips. And while I fully appreciate all of the effort that went into it, Mom told me to rip it out. Now that I knit, I can do it over again for myself! I'm actually quite excited about knitting it again. The yarn is fantasic, the pattern is cute, I'll get to learn more about short rows, and I'll get to do a ton of math to hope that it will all work out this time. This will be an adventure, not a tragedy!

I started unseaming on the T this morning. Maybe I'll make progress by morning.