Tale of Two Titles

I couldn't decide on "OMG, Actual Knitting Content" or "Enough is Enough Already!" So, rest assured, there is an actual photograph of knitting in this post. First, however, a pretty winter tree picture and the "Enough" title. We got another four inches or so of snow last night. This is in addition to the couple of inches we had the other day. And we're expecting another foot or so this weekend! That's too much snow for Virginia! I am officially sick of snow. Darn groundhog!

So, now for the actual knitting content. I told you I actually had some. This is the back part of the purse. (Click on either picture to "embiggen.")

Yes, the colors look a little washed out, but it's grey here. I promise to try and get a better picture when the purse is finally finished, but you can see it for now. I'm working on the intarsia now and it's not my favorite, that's for sure. Anyway, I hope to have it finished soon.

More East Meets West

I've actually made a bit of progress on the strap. I'm nearly done with the short row section. I'll be glad of that because my tension still isn't as good as in the round. I think it's okay enough though to work itself mostly out in the blocking process. Only about three more short rows though and I can go back to working in the round.


I'm also hoping to get some sewing done this week. I got a really cool new book on pattern-drafting and I've already drafted a basic skirt pattern. (I hope to review the book after I make a few things out of it, but as of right now, I think it's going to get a glowing review.)

Do Not Adjust Your Monitor

The color change for the center short-row section of the strap seems rather, um, abrupt, don't you think?

The pictures of the finished bag on Knitpicks seem to bring all the colors together though, so I'm going to continue on.

As you can see I'm a bit past where I was when I had to frog and now getting spot-on gauge (yay!), so I made the right decision, and it's moving right along. Colorwork in short rows is interesting. For those of you not familiar with the bag, the strap is a circle and the bottom of the circle becomes the bottom of the bag. It is a bit bigger at the bottom due to the insertion of a short-row section. Now this means that you have to turn the colorwork and purl across the row. Since I'm a continental knitter and sometimes have trouble with purl row tension anyway, I'm not about to attempt purling two strands. I taught myself how to knit backwards several years ago for an entrelac bag I did (see my tutorial here), and that's what I'm doing for the purl row of the colorwork. Though it goes a little slower than the regular knit rows, I think my tension is staying fairly consistent and I hope to get the hang of it as I progress.

Someday I'll Learn

Someday, I'll learn to make a darn swatch, especially when 450 stitches are involved! I'm a tight knitter, so I knew I should have moved up a needle size or two to begin with, but I decided to go with the called-for size 1. It's a purse, if it's a little off, it won't matter much. If it's significantly off, however...

Well, last night, after I'd shown everyone what I was working on at my guild meeting, I decided to take a closer look at the gauge. Yep, it was significantly off. Whereas the recommended gauge is 32 stitches per 4 inches, I was getting 40 inches per 4 inches. Now, two stitches per inch difference doesn't seem like much on paper, but over the course of 450 stitches, let's do the math. Eight stitches per inch over 450 is 56 and a quarter inches; ten stitches per inch is 45 inches. I'd say a difference of eleven inches qualifies as significantly off.

So, I frogged and started casting on again (after doing a small gauge swatch). Ugh. Well, it was going to be too small, so I'm casting on again. I'll be happier with the finished product.

Actual Knitting Progress.

I'm really enjoying the East Meets West Bag so far. I think I may have FINALLY figured out how to keep a fairly even tension in Fair Isle. I've always used two hands to hold the yarns, but it's never really given me results I'm overly happy with. So, I tried to hold both yarns in one hand and I'm much happier with the results. Here's a little bit of the first five rounds (keeping in mind that each round is 450 stitches, I think I'm doing pretty well).

It's quite apropos that the beginning colors were orange and black since I was working that part on Halloween.

So, how am I holding the yarn? Well, I'm a continental knitter and I usually wrap yarn around my pinky twice and then over all the fingers and control tension by the index finger and the pinky curled in. So, at first I tried wrapping both yarns together around the pinky and separating them with the index, but they seemed to keep getting pretty twisted and I couldn't seem to maintain an even tension on both yarns, especially when I did five stitches of one color before doing a stitch of the other. So, I then tried wrapping the secondary color around my pinky, putting it over the fingers and under the index finger. Then I wrapped the primary color separately around the pinky and put it over all the fingers.

It seems to be working out pretty well. I can use the index finger to tension the yarns appropriately and I think I like how the floats are on the back, not too tight, not too loose.

MIA ... again.

I keep meaning to blog, but there's really been nothing to blog about since there hasn't been much knitting going on here. October's always a low-knitting month due to the whole Halloween costume thing. I make the kids' costumes most years (basically, the years I can't convince them to wear last years'). So, anyway, they're finally done and I've finally cast on for a new project.

No, really, there's nothing in the unfinished object basket waiting. Okay, maybe a couple of things, but I treated myself to something anyway. Knitpicks has these cool new bag kits using their Palette yarns - East Meets West. Guess which colorway I chose. Yes, of course, the purple. You didn't really have to think all that hard about that one, did you? (Although, honestly, I do like all of the colorways.) Look at all the yarn that came yesterday:


In case anyone is bored enough to actually count, there are only 20 balls in the picture because I've cast on with the other one:

450 stitches I had to cast on! Here's hoping I didn't twist them when I joined. Do you know how hard it is to not twist 450 stitches?

I understand from people on Ravelry that there is a LOT of yarn leftover from this project. I'm looking forward to playing with the leftovers to make some Fair Isle gloves and such.