Except for darning in the ends. And overdyeing the bodice. And putting on the bodice collar. And sewing it all together.
Oy.
For those who aren't on Ravelry, here's a photo of the original sweater, from Vogue's last holiday edition:
As you can see, I've tweaked the colors a tad, but otherwise I'm knitting it as-is. The original is knit in some kind of Berroco gods-know-what, and I did mine with hand spun (the color sequenced part) and hand-dyed Bare from Knitpicks (for the semi-solid blue part, including most of the skirt, above). I confess. I'm a Berroco snob.
Now it's back to the cableknit for my father-in-law's Christmas present. I'll be posting, probably tomorrow, about armholes.
Q&A: There've been some questions in the comments.
Someone asked how I darn in ends. I didn't answer because I don't want to admit I really suck at it. I just shove 'em in anywhere they don't show on the right side of the fabric; seams and edges and joins between colors are good places to hide them. The bodice of the hex jacket has, uh, knots. I tie the ends together if it's somewhere it won't show, like an edge that will be seamed. Someties I darn in the ends after the knot, sometimes I just clip and ignore.
There is also the eternal question I get, of how I do so much knitting with a kid in the house. Well. I don't do a lot of cleaning. The husbeast and I have been married about sixteen years, and quite a while back, I noticed he was going along behind me and re-cleaning everything. So I quit cleaning (in terms of dusting and like that). Then, when I broke my hand, he had to take over ALL the chores for about a year. After that I gradually went back to doing some things, but others have remained his domain. For instance, I have offered several times to make the laundry my job again, but according to him, I do it wrong. (Marry an OCD neat-nick. You'll never clean again, but you will regularly contemplate homicide.) So these days, my chores consist of cooking (and related kitchen cleaning-up, but even there the husbeast takes over a lot 'cause I do it wrong), picking up Goober toys (ugh), and attempting to keep horizontal surfaces like the kitchen table uncluttered. So I've got a good bit of knitting time, when I choose to apply myself. Lately I've been on fire, knitting-wise, and have run with it.
SPINNING:
Yes, I've been doing that, too. I finished up the tail end of a couple balls of roving and plyed (plied?) it all together, more as practice than anything else. It turned out to be quite possibly the ugliest thing I've ever spun.
It may get turned into another skinny scarf and foisted off on someone for Christmas, but it is very, very, VERY low on the priority list.
Then I started working with the Black Diamond/Carbon Fiber for the husbeast's Christmas sweater:
I THINK I'm going to love this stuff. 90% of my spinning has been with merino wool, and so my technique needs some major adjustment to spin this stuff. As we all know, most adjustment periods are a royal pain in the keester. But I love the color and texture (yeah, yeah, it's gray; I don't intend to do an entire magazine in the color), and I already know I'll love knitting it up. So I hope I'll be able to tweak the spinning technique to make that enjoyable, too. Anyone got any advice to share on worsted-spinning long fibers? I'm about to try a distaff, used the same way as flax is spun.
Otherwise, nothing much going on. My utterly brilliant child just announced "red and blue make purple" which has made my jaw drop, because we haven't even BEGUN on painting and color mixing. For the Goober hair fans, she's finally letting me put barrettes in her hair.
And Sekhmet is still tired.
7 comments:
Your husbeast and mine are twins! Any cleaning/organising/filing/packing I do is always wrong! The last time we moved, I had to quit my job early (because he was away), and pack something every week, while he'd come over the weekends and direct me. And then finally when he returned, he unpacked everything I'd packed and repacked it. Boo.
And then there's my MIL, who is also a cleanfreak (after returning from a while away, she cleaned the kitchen one day, cobwebs and dusting second, reorganised kitchen third, scrubbed guest bathroom fourth, fifth and sixth days.) Oh, and once after getting in from an international flight at 3am, at 7am she was setting her bedroom to rights.
Funniest part? Despite organising the kitchen so much, she still doesn't know everything there is in it and buys duplicates unknowing.
Nope, I don't clean. Sometimes I create clutter just for the heck of it. Thoughts of homicide? Very much so.
I must laugh...for me, the deal is, WE'RE BOTH SLOBS...total slobs. A bomb has to go off under our asses to get us to clean. The only reason the house is passably not totally flies-in-the-dirty-dishes disgusting, is because our spawn have become old enough to trick into do doing the dishes and picking up after our junior spawn....
I get most of my knitting done because I get stressed with work, and the whole family knows that when I'm in the corner, 'knitting angry' they had best just leave me the fuck alone, or I can't be held responsible for who I maim.
And I'm a little relieved...I thought I was the worst finisher in the history of knitting...perhaps we just think we suck at it because we know where all the ends are tucked?
The jacket will be lovely when it is all put together. Thank you for your info on weaving in ends. I thought I was the only one who completely sucks at it.
that's going to look fantastic. I'm sure of it.
And her hair! I am, as you know, a big fan of her hair and it just looks so pretty like that.
I think we all neglect the necessities of life a bit to get through our knitting, don't we? Thta's partly why we got a cleaner!
I don't care if it is gray. That new yarn you're spinning is lovely. I can just feel it slipping through my fingers.
I still do the cleaning but gave up on the ironing. We wear a lot of cotton in the summer and I hate to iron. Hate it with a hot hate. So, I pay the dry cleaners to iron for me. Yes, it costs a few dollars but it feels like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I'll dust, vacuum and clean the kitchen but face the pile of wrinkled clothes? No.
I had hair like the Goober's when I was little. It hung in ringlets and my mother hated it. I got scarlet fever and my hair went straight. Now it's slightly wavy if I let it get long enough. I just keep it short.
I was one of those wondering what the heck you were knitting. Considering that I have that issue of VK, and I'm just too lazy to go find it, that's a bit of a sad statement. The finished one on Ravelry is quite striking. Very cool.
Goober has great curls. I'm partial, of course.
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