I am still learning to use my camera indoors. All my outdoor shots always come out really fantastic but my indoor, lets just say florescent and incandescent lighting bite the big one in aesthetics. So without further ado, here is the Fan Shawl...
6 modules done so far and the seventh on the needle. My DH kindly went to the redbox this evening to aquire a copy of
District 9 ( at his suggestion) despite the fact he refused to take me to see it in the theater because it's '
just not his kind of movie'. Hopefully I will be able to multi task and work some more on the shawl tonight. Also I am thinking of starting up a scarf/hat combo from him despite his adamant refusal to even considering wearing anything other then his barely fitting black store bought beanie hat. Hmph.
I thought I would also add a pic and discription of one of the most frustrating projects I have ever accomplished in my knitting career. But first a little background.....
When my Aunt J found out that I am a knitter she asked if I would take some yarn of her mother's and knit up a sweater. While the story of that sweater is a gas in itself, sadly I have no pics as of yet so it will have to be for another time. Once said sweater was done however she asked that I take an old poncho pattern grandma had used back in the day to knit up ponchos for her girls and make one for my cousin, J's daughter. The pattern called for 5 skiens of Icelandic Lopi for all sizes and once we settled on a size I took my aunt to a local yarn shop to find something that suited her tastes. She found this skein of 50% wool 50% camel hair with variegated colors that was absolutely beautiful. I got home and cast on immediately. Day and a half later I had the front and a back for the poncho done and ready to make up but when I held them up to measure on myself I was distraught.
Now I have been told by SEVERAL people that I am a 'tight' knitter but I always assumed that it meant my stitches always came out even and precise and I used less yarn that way. OH NO! Was I wrong. I had been deluding myself that my tight knitting was just a style and would have no effect on the actual pattern I was working other then to give uniformity and a distinct beauty to the stitching. My cousin is 32 about 5' 9", I would say she is a size 8. The poncho I held up would have fit an 8 year old. I had knit it so tightly no amount of blocking would have stretched it to the proper size without warping the whole construct. On the advice of both my mother and my brother, I frogged the whole thing. Needless to say I found out that tight knitting also uses more yarn which would explain why I had to buy a second 540yd skein of yarn to finish the 'tiny' poncho when I should have only needed the one. Hmm. That was round one.
Round 2: I cast on again using one size bigger needles and a MUCH looser hand, too loose even. 2 days and a night of blocking later I had a poncho to fit a giant. I know! What
was I thinking!?! As you can guess, I frogged again.
Round 3: I cast on using size needles pattern calls for, I still knit loosely but not overly so, 2 days later I have a front and back that when pinned together before blocking fits me. I sigh in relief and proceed to block, something I really have no experience at and am flying blind on in the advice department. SO I take the poncho (front and back) loving to the tub and gently place it in luke warm water, saturating it throughly and then pinned it down on the flat sheet now dubbed the blocking sheet. Next day it is dry and I sew it together, try it on and have a minor panic attack at how much bigger it got. Here comes the fun part...
My bright idea is to wet it gently and pop it in the dryer for a few minutes (I can almost hear the collective gasp from the knitting community at large as I am typing this). I go to the dryer to pull it out and can you guess what I found? A perfectly sized poncho!!! That is half way to being felted! Yep that's right I felted the damn thing. Ruined the beautiful stitching, the wonderful color variations, it is completely fuzzed together! I called my mom and had a break down. She offered to come over and in the time it took her to drive over I threw the damn poncho back in the tub again to try and salvage, at this point I have no idea what I was trying to do. My mother, being the wonderfully supportive person that she is said it was still beautiful if a little different then what I had intended. She helped me to repin it down and then told me forcefully to leave it alone until it dried. Which I did. The next morning I pulled it off the blocking sheet and lo and behold the poncho from hell was the softest fuzziest lovelyest thing I have ever created. It really looked as though I had meant for the poor abused yarn to felt itself into a fit. The neckline was right the length was perfect and it fit just right. I couldn't beleive my luck. I sewed the fringe on, Thanking the knitting gods with every tassle and folded it away in it's gift bag. When my cousin opened it her eyes gleamed and she said it was absolutley the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Now whether this was genuine appreciation or cousinly love, I will never no but it made me grin ear to ear none the less. I will let you decide...
I cropped out her face since I don't have her permission to plaster pics of her all over the web, but you get the idea :)
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