Aeolian Knitting

I've been taking far too many breaks to other knitting projects away from the Aeolian Shawl so finally the past two days (with minor break to attend to the Candy Cardigan) I've finally buckled down to on Aeolian's Transition Chart. I finished the Yucca Chart repeats a while ago but was rather intimidated by starting the Transition Chart quite so soon so I figured I could take a break in between to tide myself with smaller projects.

I'm knitting the Aeolian in a really rich red with the my stash of Jade Sapphire Lacey Lamb that my sister got for my birthday a year ago. She got me two skeins of it which amounts roughly to 1650 yards of it. Some of it I tried to use for a Muir shawl but decided against it and the line snapped when I was trying to frog the yarn back. So there is probably a 100 yards less in the final stash but I can still use the rest of this hefty amount to make a formidable shawl.

The Aeolian Shawl pattern comes in three sizes. One is a dainty 27 arm-length by 64 back-bone long shouderette, another is a 23 by 48 shoulderette, and the final is the 38 by 90 inch shawl. I'm using the large shawl pattern but the original needle size was for a size 2 needle with 1100 yards and I bumped it up to a size 4 needle and will pray that the extra 500 yards that I have will be enough. This shouldn't be too much of a problem though because I've seen plenty of Ravelry users who've worked the shawl size in the larger needles and finished in under the yardage that I have with plenty of leg room.

Still, as an added precaution, I'm going to make a life-line at a specific point before the final edging because the designer of the pattern released a special modified edging for the design that just so happens to use up 12 rows less yarn which will mean a world of difference given that the shawl's rows can grow to 983 stitches before the bind-off.

I've only two rows left in the Transition Chart before the Agave Chart. I'd finish it now but at 3 in the morning but realizing that each row just takes longer and longer to finish than the last...perhaps it's best to get a little shut-eye for the morning.

Candy Cardigan Remains Unsweetened

I blocked or at least attempted to block it and tried sewing in button snap tape today and it refuses to yield to my attempts at making it better. After a good soak in Eucalan, I had that Candy clunker pinned out to size on the floor over some towels. A day passed and I unpinned it and realized it stretched to mammoth mammary proportions. The bustline could fit Dolly Parton. I was most sad so I let it dry unpinned in the hopes that it would shrink back a bit before the rest of the moisture left the garment.

It shrank back to a more manageable size after some tweaking that I thought it would be wearable. Today I went to go get snap tape and sewed them by hand. It looked great when I was done so I went to try it on and...well, I should have figured that a snug cardigan will not behave with snap tape. The cardigan is meant to hug curves by its design but snap tape isn't built for that. I don't know why the designer thought snap tape was a good idea to recommend as an alternative to buttons. It stretched and warped along the snap tape edging. Worst idea ever. I hastily removed the snap tape. *long sigh* Well, at least the cardigan fits me well enough now but doesn't have any closures for it. If I ever find the stray white ball of Karabella Aurora 8 then I may think about doing a button band instead but from the looks of most of the results on Ravelry, I have small hopes for this cardigan. The ultra-sad part though is that the yarn for the cardigan actually got softer with the blocking! It feels just too good for words to wear. It just sucks about the fit and finishing. :/

Candy Cardigan Catastrophies...

You ever have those horrible knitting accidents when you first started out knitting and figured you would try moving up from scarves and stuffed animals to suddenly full tops? Mine was dubbed as the innocuously innocent Candy Cardigan from knitty.com's 2004 winter edition. I saw that delicious little cardigan in all its lusciously sweet light pink and fuchsia combo and candied striping as a must-have for my first cardigan years ago. That dream became a reality when I was at my local yarn shop in my hometown one weekend and found black and white yarn on sale and figured that now was as good as any to divulge in good yarn so off I went with that yarn back to my college apartment and begun work on it in between watching episodes of Firefly courtesy of my summer roommate.

Early on I made sure that I had the right gauge, picked out the right size, had just the right amount of yarn, and certainly enough patience to try to make something fitted for myself. I thought that this would be so cute to wear over a skirt or paired up with jeans and in mainly white with a black and white striped corset middle it would look classic enough to wear out on a date. I was highly optimistic given how cute the cardigan looked on the model. I forgot, however, that the designer/model in the pictures had a perfectly petite hourglass figure and I, unfortunately, have just a wee bit more curve around the middle. Still, at the time, I remained optimistic.

Weeks of knitting later I was finished and before figuring out if I wanted to do buttons, clasps, or a zipper to tie the piece together, I clipped it around my body to see how it would fit. My gauge was perfect, the yarn was super-soft, and the coloring worked well....the size around my middle....significantly less so. What I saw in the mirror not only didn't look deliciously cute but wasn't even the least bit flattering and so off to the back of my closet did the piece disappear for years to come.

I hadn't the heart to frog it since it was my first cardigan and on top of that, because the yarn was just so awesome, I couldn't bear to gift it to someone smaller than me. I already had to do THAT with the first sweater I ever knitted and giving my mom two knit garments in one summer because it didn't work with me seemed less than desirable. After all, she just might get a wee bit suspicious to the fact that the only reason she got knitted goods was because of my knitting failures.

Now to the present...after many years of that cardigan sitting in my closets, hidden away at the bottom of bins and moved around every year, I found it again last night in my hamper basket. I retried it on to see if maybe I lost weight to make it look good and realized that no matter how you cut it...a 30 inch just won't look good on my 38 inch hips. Just before I was about to banish it back to the knitting depths of my stash...I realized I never, ever blocked it. Huh...so today I dunked it in a Eucalan bath and stretched it out. The 30 inch waistline bloomed to a 39.5 inch waistline and I managed to stretch out the length to go at a very comfortable level to cover my hips. For realz? For realz.

So tomorrow I'm going to unpin the cardigan and take it to Joann Fabrics to see about getting a closure for it. Me thinks clasps or snap tape, after all, I've got a 50% off coupon for Joann Fabrics that I can use.

Nausea replaced by Complete Squee

Two hours of trial and error later and using less than three dollars worth of beads and clasps...I've made the most awesome bracelet I could ever imagine and it actually looks professional. It reminds me of one of those bracelets you get at Francesca's Boutique or Anthropologie for thirty or forty dollars. After I finished the final crimp, I showed my mom and sister and now they want me to make ones for them too.

Before I strung and tweaked all those beads together...












And after...





I'm certainly no longer feeling bad about how much I spent. I think before the night's through I'll have another bracelet strung up and ready to wear for tomorrow.

Oh, how I feel nauseous...

Dear gawd, I feel utterly nauseous and want to throw up...why pray tell do I feel this way, you may wonder? I'll tell you. Today I've decided after my recent paycheck for subbing for a tutor, to go into beading and jewelry making. I never knew how to bead and have no idea how to make jewelry but after slapping down a little less than sixty bucks on materials and tools since my local Joann Fabrics was having a weekend sale. Sixty bucks on the whole set-up and it makes me want to throw up rather than jump immediately into the joy of beading and jewelry making!

I wondered to myself why I would do this to myself and all I could think was the set of gorgeous jewelry that a friend of mine made for me a while back in exchange for my knitting goods. It was a mutual craft exchange that allowed her the indulgence to make extravagant jewelry with freshwater pearls while for me it meant I could knit with the softest, most buttery wool imaginable in this utterly gorgeously cabled Marquis gauntlets. We both felt less guilty by our gift exchange because we had the intentions that it was for another rather than for ourselves so we couldn't feel too bad about spoiling our crafting selves if we thought it would compliment another. I didn't realize at the time how expensive beading was but because I didn't know how to bead and make jewelry then the exchange was mutually good for me regardless of how long it took for me to make arm-length gloves.

After buying the whole setup for these things, I realize exactly how horribly expensive and pricey jewelry making can be. This is rather funny to me because I feel utterly excited and giddy to slap down eighty bucks at a yarn shop and I realize that the Aeolian shawl that I'm making costs almost about fifty bucks worth of lace yarn and materials for what would take me months to make. The concept of spending sixty on a new hobby seems ghastly to me though since I've no idea if I'll be good at it. I've resigned that if this turns out to be a horrible undertaking then I will call up my crafting buddy and see if she'll buy the beads off me for half of what I paid for or if she would like to engage in another craft exchange and make me something out of the beads since I've got it all purchased in advance for her.

Currently I'm experimenting with how my body reacts to the materials that I've purchased. Beads I've no worry but it's the metals that have my skin irked. I ended up buying a set of sterling plate ear wires and a set of sterling silver that was 40% off to see how my ears react. If they react poorly then at least I know in the future what to spend my money on for myself and leave the bad earrings for people with less sensitive ears. My first lesson with the experimental two dollar earring clasps that were sterling plate is that my ears are too sensitive to it and are itching like crazy. The silver is surprisingly good and I at least know what to do with it.

I also picked up some cool snake clasps, a variety of inexpensive beads, beading needle, stringing wire, head pins, toggles, crimps, a plastic compartment box, a set of tools, a really cheap instructional booklet, and a cheap jewelry bead kit with instructions to practice on without having to use my experimental beads. *long sigh* Having to start a hobby from scratch just seems so dauntingly expensive even though I've spent less on this hobby than my knitting.

At least the kit that I got has three little projects to practice with from a set of of necklace, a bracelet, and two types of earrings. I'm looking at the bracelet and necklace set that I got from my craft exchange just to see how it's made and I can recognize some of the techniques in regards to what the booklet lists. I realize that it uses up significantly less beads than I thought it did because of how expertly spaced everything is with hoop rings and metal doo-hickeys and teeny beads. Trying to figure out how my current jewelry is made has certainly taken the edge off my initial nausea of how expensive the hobby is. Well, I'll certainly update on the progress of this craft.

The Unthinkable Has Happened...

I've picked up another lace shawl project now that I've grown out of the month long rest from extreme adventures in lace shawl knitting. Digging through my stash of lace yarn got me into considering doing something with the 1600 yards of red Lacey Lamb yarn that my sister bought me two years ago for a birthday present. I've opted for the super delicious Aeolian Shawl on knitty.com for once again another lace sensation after I finished my Fountain Pen Shawl a month ago.

By the way, the Fountain Pen Shawl, when blocked, ended up gorgeous! I've been wearing it out to dinner and on sunny days feeling like a Victorian lady regardless if I'm in a sundress or in a tank top. Lace shawls end up making anyone feel like a real lady. I should get a picture of me wearing it one of these days. It's so light and fine that when I wear it wrapped up tight around my shoulders, the lace looks so delicate that it almost appears like tribal tattoos down my arms. I adore this shawl! I found the pattern in the Spring 2009 Interweave Magazine.