There's Hope!

I've started shaping the knit tank top and I'm beginning to believe my crazy scheme just might work!

I started from the bottom by casting on 65 stitches. I worked 7/8" knit 1, purl 1 ribbing then in stockinette stitch until the piece measured 9-1/8". It is progressing much faster that I had expected but even so, it's much slower project than anything I've ever knitted in the past.

It's a little hard to see since it hasn't been blocked, but I've started shaping the arm scyes on either side of the piece using McCall's 5573 as a guide. You can see in the photo where I've drawn in seam allowances and other guidelines.

I'm not sure, yet, about the best way to finish off the arm scyes and neckline. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has an idea.

Just Call Me Crazy

A while back I purchased a cute piece of turquoise twill fabric embroidered with bumble bees, thinking it would make a cute skirt for my soon to be seven-year-old granddaughter. Her birthday is coming up in April so I've started thinking about digging the fabric out and making the skirt.

Since the fabric will be the focus, my intention is to make a simple a-line, no-pattern-necessary skirt. Orginally I had thought to purchase a yellow t-shirt to go with the skirt, but out of the blue I was hit with the crazy idea to knit a sweater to go with the skirt.

I wanted a short-sleeved cardigan sweater but while searching for a pattern, I noticed a disturbing trend; most all the patterns I could find were knit with chunky yarns on large needles...instant gratification knitting, whereas I wanted to use Lily's Sugar 'n Cream cotton and #3 knitting needles (this is the first crazy part).

Faced with the prospect of trying to produce a sweater without a pattern, I opted to scale back my design and knit a tank top using a sewing pattern as a guide (this is the second crazy part). Shaping will be limited to just the armholes and neck, as I'm planning for the tank to have straight side seams.

The photo represents my progress so far; it measures just about 6 inches long. I won't say it's a breeze, but it does go a little faster than I expected. Right now I'm just waiting on a measurement from my daughter before I proceed.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

...Today focusing on The Ugly.

One promise I'll make to my readers is to share my crafting failures as well as my successes. Over the weekend, I tried my hand at entrelac knitting. As I mentioned before, I'm not an expert - or even an advanced - knitter. Advanced beginner, maybe so entrelac represents a rather significant challenge.

As you can see from this photo, which is surely not the product of my efforts over the weekend, entrelac is a very beautiful technique. I started out using instructions I found at About.com, which, although very detailed, weren't quite detailed enough and I was soon hunting for instructions on how to purl into the front and back of a stitch (PFB), which sounded simple but for some reason wasn't simple at all.

I searched a bit more and soon found this video which led me to Criminy Jickets and the garterlac dishcloth pattern. (And doesn't it just figure that I would discover that excellent blog just as it goes into a possibly permanent hiatus?) Since the dishcloth was knit all in garter stitch, I decided to give it a try, figuring at the very least it would give me a chance to pick up the feel for the pattern without having to struggle with those pesky PFB stitches.

I did manage to produce a serviceable dishcloth but, like I said at the beginning of this post, it's not pretty. Do you remember your first attempts at knitting? When you were nine years old? My dishcloth resembles it.

All in all, I wouldn't call this a failure, but it is something other than a resounding success. I'm going to keep trying until I perfect this technique because it's just too cool to pass by.