Tag Archives: knit-along

Agatha Sweater: FINAL COUNTDOWN

9 Apr

Ladies (and gentlemen?), we have two sleeves!

Yeah sleeves!
I am so pleased with myself, you have no idea.

Agatha sleeves

Agatha - Second sleeve!
I had to crop my head out of this one because I was making a total derp face, but check out those neat decreases at the bust!

Agatha sleeves
What do we think? Excited?

Agatha sleeves
Excited.

Now all that’s left is the ribbing around the neckline & the button bands. Also, I need to find some buttons… I want wooden buttons, but that would involve driving to the fabric store. We’ll see.

The second sleeves went in a LOT faster than the first one! I guess I had plenty of practice 🙂 It is still a little tight, so my next sweater will probably need to go up a needle size with those DPNs. In the meantime, I plan to block this thing very aggressively & hopefully that’ll help!

In the meantime, I’ve been working on the muslin for my Bombshell/birthday dress… an experience which totally sucks, by the way.

Bombshell muslin
The cup on the right is the pattern with no modifications… the cup on the left is the size it should be – and that’s still a little skimpy, as it barely covers my bra. I don’t plan on wearing a bra with this dress but I wanted to at least get demi-bra-coverage, you know?
Anyway, the muslin totally sucks and I will need to work on it some more… the coverage is great, but as you can see the center bust line skews up & the top piece is way too high. Also, my grainlines are off. Oh, boobs. Anyone else have full bust modifications they have made to this pattern that they would like to share?

In other news, I seem to have lost my voice over the weekend. I am currently alternating between sounding like a man & just sounding straight-up pathetic. If anyone finds where I may have misplaced it, do let me know.

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Well I’ll Be Damned – It’s A Sleeve!

28 Mar

so proud of my sleeve
Well, what ya look at that?

Argh, sleeve!
My sweater has a sleeve!

yeah, sleeve!
Sleeves are awesome!

I think it’s safe to say I’ve got a pretty good handle on knitting in the round. I still have some areas I would like to improve – namely, pulling the yarn between the needles (I’m still getting little gaps occasionally), but I feel pretty good about my progress. And hey, a sleeve came out of it! Short rows, knitting in the round, lacework… and all!

sleeve

It is a little tight, but not uncomfortably tight (I can still easily fit my hand between my arm & the sleeve). I’m not one to wear long sleeves (other than sweaters and hoodies), so I’m not too concerned about layers. And I haven’t blocked it yet, obviously, so I may be able to squeeze a little more room out of it.

back

lace!

decreasing at the elbow

I love the lacework & the decreasing at the elbow.

There are some boo-boos, though 😦

:(

:(

But you know what? I think it’s pretty good for a first try! I’m trying not to think about the fact that now I have to knit the OTHER sleeve lol. At least I can get more practice out of it, I guess 😉

sleeve
SLEEVE.

As a side note, here is my next sewing project:
Next project - shirtwaist dress!
It doesn’t look like much, but there are actually 10 darts in that thing… and I haven’t even started the skirt yet. Eep.

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Agatha Sweater – Finally, Progress!

2 Feb

For a couple hours a day (mostly on my lunch break and while unwinding before bed), I’ve been knitting up the back of my Agatha sweater. We had a very very rough start – for some reason, I kept mixing up the rows and having to rip my work. It always happened at row 10, too. I frogged the entire thing 6 times (maybe 7 – I stopped counting because I started getting mad!). It was very frustrating, especially since this particular section casts on 69 stitches. 69 stitches + 10 rows – that’s a LOT of re-knitting! UUGHHHGHHHHHH!!

Anyway, we made peace on Tuesday and I was able to jump over the hurdle of 10 and start exploring new knitting territory. And by “exploring new knitting territory,” I mean I repeated rows 10 & 11 seventeen times each. Ha! But you know – the back looks gorgeous and I’m really excited to be almost finished with it!

Agatha - back
Here is my progress as of, oh, about 10 minutes ago. This sweater is knit top-down, so you are looking at the back right-side up.

Agatha - lace pattern
Despite how much I wanted to destroy things every time I gave up & frogged, I actually think it was good that I worked the lace pattern over and over – my stitches are pretty even!

Agatha - lace pattern & ribbing
Once you get past the first 3 or 4 rows and the pattern actually starts to show in your knitting (lol I just started to type “shitting” right there GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, LAUREN), it is much much much easier because you can follow the pattern based on what you already knitted, instead of getting to the end of the row and realizing you missed a bunch of stitches and have to unknit all 69 of the little buggers… not that I know anything about that.

Agatha - Back
Following the pattern can be a little difficult, since you are following lace panel rows in addition to the regular ol’ rows that make up the rest of the sweater. I found it very helpful to stick post-it notes under the row I was following, so I wouldn’t accidentally follow row 6 when I was supposed to be on row 7 (this is where the majority of those first mistakes happened. Ouch!). Once you start knitting short rows, the lace panel rows don’t match up with the rest of the rows, so the post-it notes were VERY helpful with keeping me on track with everything.

Anyway, I feel really good about my sweater & the progress I’ve made. It is REALLY fun to knit – just complicated enough to keep it interesting, but not so complicated that I feel like I can’t do it. Hopefully I will be starting the front panels within the next day or so – and once I get farther into those, I can actually try it on!

For those of you knitting along (Agatha or not!) – how are you coming along with your sweaters? 🙂

Oh! One more thing –
Buttons!
I got the buttons to my coat last night 🙂 I had to have them made since those kits you buy at the fabric store at totally shitty. These are really nice – the lady uses a machine, and I don’t think I could pull them apart if I tried! I had an extra made just in case 🙂

Coat pictures to come soon – Monday, perhaps? 🙂

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Join Us For A Knit-Along!

24 Jan

Remember when I said I was going to knit me up an Agatha sweater as my first big project? Turns out Mika is also knitting the same sweater, and suggested we do a lil’ knit-along for anyone else who wants to join! You don’t have to knit the Agatha sweater if you aren’t feelin’ it (although the pattern is only $6.50 on Ravelry!) – first sweaters are welcome too! I don’t know about y’all but I am needing a lot of hand-holding during this process 🙂 And here’s the fun part – unlike me, Mika is not a knitting n00b, and she has graciously offered to answer any questions you may have about knitting your first sweater.

If you want to join us, we’d love your company! Join the Flickr Group and stick the badge on your blog! If you just want to watch this ’round, that’s ok too 🙂 This is a pretty informal/flexible knit-along – I personally don’t plan to be completed for at least a couple of months.

Speaking of sweaters – I have more swatches! Ahh I am so sick of swatching! I think I finally got gauge, though 🙂
knit swatch, finally got gauge!
Lace swatch

another swatch
Ribbing swatch

So yay! Thanks again for all your help with my first batch of swatches – I had to go down to a 5 to get gauge. Now I’m ready to knit 🙂

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In coat news – I finished the lining last night, yay! Started to sew the buttons on and every single one of them broke, boo! Cheap ass covered buttons, guh. I did, however, find a local source that will cover my buttons for me with a machine… the only drawback is there is at least a week processing time. So we are pushing back the coat unveiling and I would say I’m sorry but I’m really not because I demand perfect buttons.

In the meantime, Amelia seems to think my coat is a suitable cat bed:
Amelia
She knows what she is doing is wrong. You can see the guilt in her eyes.

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