Tag Archive | frogging

Frogged Sweater

Way back in April 2104, I started knitting a sweater. It was to be a cardigan for me out of some lovely purple variegated cotton. It went well, if very slowly, but then the miles of stockinette bored me to tears. It got relegated to a project bag, then a drawer where it hibernated for a very long time. I thought maybe someday I’d get back to it. I really do want to be the person who wears hand-knit sweaters; I’m just not sure I’m a person who can *make* hand-knit sweaters.

Recently, if you remember, I discovered I’ve been purling wrong ever since I started knitting. Why is this relevant? Because of those miles of stockinette in that cardigan. ALL of it had been done with the wrong purling. So for me to work on it again, not only would I have to conquer my hatred of miles of stockinette, but I would have to deal with the unusual texture of the stitches. I could either do it with my old purling style, which made the knitting rows harder, or I could switch to the new and have two completely different looks on the sweater. Neither were good alternatives in my mind.

On Saturday at the craft show, I was talking about it to my Knitting SIL and she mentioned I could just frog it and make something else with the yarn. It is, after all, truly lovely and soft yarn. Frog it?? Frog the sweater that I spent so much time on?? Was she crazy?

Nope. It made complete sense. I wasn’t enjoying the knitting of the sweater. I would enjoy it less going back to it now with a different method of purling. There simply was no good reason to keep it.

So yesterday I pulled it out of the drawer where it had been hiding for months and months. The colors aren’t good in this photo but you can see the great expanse of stockinette. I’d even already divided for the sleeves. But there was no going back. I pulled out the cord, attached the end of the skein to my ball winder, and started winding. In a very short time, especially compared to how long it took to KNIT all that, the yarn was wound into pretty cakes, ready to become something completely different.What will it be? I’m not sure yet. I have six skeins of it, so the options are wide and varied. For now it will go back in the stash while I ponder.

Surprisingly, I’m not sad. It felt good to let go of a project. I don’t want to feel compelled to knit things because I feel like I “should”. I’m not a sweater knitter, and I’m not a sock knitter, and that’s okay. That’s the wonderful thing about knitters: we can all do different things and appreciate the differences without judging (at least most of us can).

The craft show is over, so the pressure is off for now, and I’m going to enjoy the selfish knitting time. The goal is to work on some older WIPs; here’s hoping some things can cross over onto the Finished Object list!

“Now What?” Update: Old Favorite WIP

Mar12

Remember that pink and gray Hogan Infinity scarf I was struggling with? I started it a couple of days ago, didn’t have enough pink, and frogged it. This morning I blogged about *why* I was running out of yarn, and a couple of comments supported my instinct to reknit it with a smaller needle.

So I cast on this morning with size 9s (instead of size 10) and made it through 8 of the first 11 rows before weighing my yarn. I’ve used exactly half of the pink yarn. Yep. That means I don’t have enough for the last three rows of the pink section, not if I want to repeat it on the other side. Sighhhh. So now what?

I have a few options: 1) knit it as a single loop cowl. 2) Eliminate two or three rows in the pink section. Not crazy about this, because I love the full pop of pink. 3) Add a third color. I do have another ball of the yarn in a winter white named Snow, so I could do the outermost 5-row edge in Snow, then the Fuchsia, then the Shale. When I bought them, I envisioned using them together. So why am I resisting? I just love the look of the original so much that I’m afraid the white tone will change it too much. What would you do?

My NEW new favorite WIP

Mar11

Yep. Yesterday’s favorite WIP, the pink and gray infinity scarf, has been frogged again. 144 stitches was not long enough to double. And I kept going back to the pattern and the projects and I could not (can not) for the life of me figure out why my project is not working right. Everybody else was able to knit it with 50 grams or less of the accent color, so why not me?? Well, I did figure out part of it: I was using size 10 1/2 needles instead of 10; I just accidentally grabbed the wrong tips from my interchangeable set. Would that be enough to use up that much more yarn? Seriously. I don’t have a clue. Now, the pattern calls for sport weight, and I’m using DK, but other people have used DK with the same stitch counts and same amount of yarn, so I should be able to as well. So here’s my question: should I knit to the pattern with the 10s? Or should I go down a needle size? Will that use less yarn? You’d think I would know these things but I don’t so I’m counting on some of you knitting experts to help me out here.

Since that project stalled, I did go out to my LYS yesterday and it was very refreshing. I got to wander on my own for a while, and then the nice lady asked what I was working on. Well. I’ve been wanting a white and black striped cowl for a while now, and my SIL and I both want to make one with chevrons. I want to use a natural fiber. Well, she showed me every yarn she could think of that might work. Some had white but no black, some had black but no white. Some I liked, some I…didn’t. Some I liked but didn’t want to pay $14/skein. I told her I’d ponder for a while and kept browsing. This store is unusual in that it’s in a big warehouse, and it’s actually two yarn stores in one with a tape line dividing the two. I ended up on the other side (because you have to look at *all* the yarn, of course) and happened upon some Cascade Ultra Pima. DK weight, black and white, natural fiber, nice sheen, $10 for 220 yards. It was perfect for the warm weather cowl I’m envisioning. I felt bad buying from the other store when the first lady had spent so much time helping me but it was the right yarn, and that’s the most important thing, right? I did buy some Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande from her because it was on sale. It’s just awkward sometimes, having two stores in one place. We knitters are nice, thoughtful people, which means we are more likely to spend more so nobody feels bad. Maybe that’s their plan?!?

Okay, okay. I got home with my new yarn, and in talking to my SIL, we decided we both wanted a reversible cowl, one knit like a tube so the stockinette was all the way around. I played around with a lot of stitch counts and pattern repeats until I finally FINALLY ended up with something that pleases me. It’s fun, and it’s really cool that I just doing these simple things and out comes this nifty pattern. I mean, it’s just increases and decreases! How easy is that? Plus! Since it’s knit in the round, I don’t have to worry about carrying up the yarn neatly because it’s all inside. I did have to learn the provisional cast on, which was fine since I crochet and have picked up stitches before. And I will have to learn kitchener at the end to graft the two ends together to make a seamless circle. But I’m not thinking about that right now. So yeah, this is my new favorite WIP. It will travel around with me today on all my errands, and maybe tomorrow I’ll have lots of progress to show off.

My new favorite WIP

Mar10

Yesterday was kind of a rough day. I had errands to run and insensitive comments to absorb, and the latter was a bit difficult. It didn’t help that I didn’t get much knitting time, and what time I did get was spent mostly frogging and starting over.

My newest project is the Hogan Infinity Scarf, which is this really striking cowl done in dark pink and gray with a lovely lacy chevron pattern. I happened to have some Rowan DK in my stash in just the right colors, and supposedly the right amounts. I immediately cast on the 198 stitches and set about knitting. It has a border of pink on both sides, and I noticed as I finished the first pink border that my ball of yarn was awfully small. I weighed it and discovered I’d used 35 of the 50 grams on just one border. Clearly I wouldn’t have enough for the second. Well. I had to think about this.

The pattern makes a rather long scarf, and it’s done in multiples of 9. I did some math that made sense at the time (but seems suspicious now) and decided I would start over with 144 stitches. So I frogged the 11 completed rows and now have 5 rows with the new stitch count. The nice thing is that it knits up quickly, so if I get more done and it doesn’t seem long enough, I won’t mind too much starting over again.So yeah, this bit of knitting didn’t do much to improve my state of mind. After dinner I decided to go to Joann for retail therapy. It failed miserably. They didn’t have the handles I want for my blue/pink silk bag. They’d sold out of the clearance yarn I wanted to get more of. And none of the full-price yarn called my name. I tried. I picked up skein after skein and nothing happened. I didn’t want to buy yarn just to buy yarn. I left the store empty-handed…but with the understanding that I would visit my LYS today. Good solution, isn’t it? I’ll let you know tomorrow what comes home with me.

I’ll finish by sharing some beauty shots. Puppies had a photo shoot the other day and they posed wonderfully.

Jack

Grace

Farewell, Seed Stitch Hat

Feb2

Recently I posted about a seed stitch hat I was making with some HiKoo Simpliworsted in turquoise. I had a few issues with it from the beginning, but by the time I was ready for the decreases, I thought I’d worked them all out. I’d run out of yarn, though, so I ordered another skein and set it aside to wait. Well, the yarn came, and I immediately started the decreases. I had too many stitches. What? I kept going, thinking I could do more decreases per row than the pattern instructed. After I did that twice, it occurred to me to wonder WHY I had too many stitches. I went back and counted the stitches in the ribbed brim. I was supposed to have 94. Guess how many I had? 100! ARGH. Sure enough, I tried it on and it immediately slipped down my forehead. Stupid hat. I frogged it and couldn’t bring myself to start over. Now I have two lovely skeins of turquoise SimpliWorsted waiting for the right project.

Last night, I started a pink lacy slouchy hat. The yarn was bulky and the needles were big so it went fast, like halfway done in an hour. But I kept thinking it looked a little small. Finally, I decided I needed to check myself. I pulled it on. Yep. Too tight on my head, and I have a slightly small head. I’ve made this hat before so I went back and looked at my project notes on Ravelry, and realized I’d made the larger size last time. Oops. I could have kept going and made a large child size, since it’s just for sale and not for anyone in particular. But that’s not what I wanted so I frogged it this morning.

I guess the good news is that I finished two headbands this weekend and have one more halfway done, so my time wasn’t completely wasted. Today I’m going to make some more Wonder Woman tiara headbands, and maybe even do a set of her wristbands too. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have some yarn pictures to share. But today you just get a funny puppy picture.

I’m not a fan of frogs

Jan11

Oh sure, the animals are okay. Noisy at times and kind of moist, right, but they’re fine. No, my problem is when frogs are a part of my knitting. Several months ago, I got a request for a lovely spring infinity scarf. It’s lightweight and lacy, and I found the perfect yarn for it, and cast on. But since it’s a lace pattern (a bit complicated) with fingering weight yarn (that’s really thin for you non-knitters) on tiny needles (size 4. That’s small for me.) it was a slow start. I thought I got around 5 rows done before I had to set it aside to focus on Christmas knitting. My friend was fine waiting, so it hibernated for over four months. Yesterday I pulled it out, got comfy on the couch, and starting knitting at row six.Two rows later, I had a problem: an extra stitch. Eh, okay. I knit two together and moved on. By the end of the next row, my pattern was way off. I counted and somehow had lost SEVEN stitches. SEVEN. What the actual heck. I looked back at all the teeny tiny stitches and counted my rows and realized I hadn’t stopped at row five, like I’d thought. I might have been at seven, maybe eight. This project was not off to a good start, so I decided I’d do well to learn from my mistakes and start over.

This morning I frogged it all. Then I printed out the pattern so I could actually keep track of where I am. I’m more experienced with lace now, so I think it’ll go a little faster this time around. Not crazy fast, because it’s still lace with itty bitty yarn, but a little faster. Or at least smoother, and I’m okay with that. I might even look into that whole lifeline thing. Plus I’m going to knit with the pretty new needles I got at a late Christmas exchange yesterday!I love them. I also love the handmade buttons I got. They’re made from walnuts. Cool, huh? I think they’re going to look awesome on some hats…which I can make with my pretty new needles too!I got to give some gifts yesterday too, which was fun. My niece got a crochet Hello Kitty hat, which would have been a big hit…if she weren’t currently obsessed with all things Elsa. But I’m content knowing that it’ll fit her for a while and a time will come when she will wear it with pleasure. And my nephew got a Yoda hat, and it actually fit and it looked adorable on him. So I’m calling that a win.And last night I got to go on an actual date with my husband where we ate a meal neither of us had to cook and talked to each other, and then we went to a bookstore (or two) and ended up at Starbucks drinking hot drinks and talking some more. It was delightful. I think I’d like to do it again sometime. But for now I have an empty day ahead of me and yarn calling my name.