Purposeful Ramblings Through My Mind

I'm using my Peru 4 Less Mystic Alpaca, that has been sitting in my stash for about three years now, in a sweater that will use up most of it, I think. I've got one sleeve within an inch of done, but there was a problem. On this pattern, row gauge needs to be correct, and mine wasn't - I had an inch and a half more fabric than I should have had for the number of rows I'd knit. So I decided to leave the first sleeve on the cord and knit the second sleeve before doing the body. I love Knit Picks Options needles - I just unscrewed the needles from the cord and attached the needles to a second cord, and off I went, knitting the second sleeve on the same needles.

So I've now got the second sleeve almost to the same point as I left off on the first sleeve. When it's at the same row count, I'll block it and measure it and decide where to go from there. If my gauge is the same, I'll knit the remaining inch I need for each sleeve and then switch to the next size needle down for the body. The gauge is loose enough (lace weight yarn on needles normally used for worsted weight = VERY airy fabric) that it probably won't pucker, and if it does, it's at a spot where many patterns would insert a couple of puckers for effect - the top of the shoulder.

I'm still not sure what I'll do if the gauge isn't the same, though.

Some pics, ( Right through here! )

Calling all my knitty and mathematically-inclined friends: this website is absolutely fabulous. I want to make all of them but I'd never have enough time.

Pascal's Triangle is in there. They didn't do anywhere near as ambitious a project as I was planning.

It makes me want to go back to school and learn more math. I gotta tell ya, I don't think I've ever said that before.

Knit theory, only it's really crochet

Yoinked from wyldraven

Edit: I just read the rest of the article, and I'm amazed at how a journalist who appears to have a working knowledge of high-level math can't seem to grasp the difference between knitting and crocheting. She's not knitting; indeed, knitting wouldn't work at all for this project. She's crocheting, and doing something that anyone who has ever worked a ruffle knows how to do: she increasing the number of stitches exponentially each row, so she starts with a straight line of, say, eight chain stitches, and four rows later has 64 stitches that ruffle. This is the basis for any lacework pattern that doesn't need to lay flat, and I've done it dozens of times.

I've crocheted the hyperbolic plane! Cool!

I've been making a latch-hook Eeyore pillow for Elizabeth. She's been helping by counting out the pieces I needed. I was not too pleased with the kit, though. It appeared the yarn company had put two very different dye lots of the same colour in the package.

It turns out they're actually two very slightly different colours, and I just hadn't read the pattern thoroughly enough before I started. Oops.

So I went through on the back, picked out enough of the darker colour so that I'd have enough to do the pattern, and just left the rest. Then I repaired the holes I'd left. Half an hour wasted, because a month and a half ago, I couldn't be bothered to compare the colour chart to the yarn samples.

I take back the nasty things I said about the yarn company while I was working on it.