Tag Archives: knitting design

Math… After Dark

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When I start a project, I like to finish it.

And sometimes, when I’m working on something particularly tricky, I want to finish it right now.  Which can lead to mistakes.  Especially when I get stuck on a bit of particularly tricky math.

Which has led me to make a rule for myself:

No math after dark.

I’ve burned myself too many times with this.  I start working on a particularly tricky part of a pattern, or find a mistake, then next thing I know, I’ve deleted and re-jiggered a weeks’ work in an evening.

And invariably, there ends up being some massive mistake in my “fix” that takes three days to re-fix.

(When I worked in an office, I had a similar rule- no mass emails after 4:00, especially on Fridays.  The few really big email mistakes I made always happened when I tried to send out emails right before leaving work.  Like when I accidentally sent invitations to a group of about 50 “no” applicants to interview with our company.  Whoops!)

I’ve been working on a fairly complicated design lately, and I’m 90% of the way there- I just have a few more tweaks (and a little ripping out and re-knitting) before I’m finished.  I almost finished yesterday, but felt myself starting to get carried away last night (and the growing urge to delete big swaths of data that I was sure were wrong).

But, this morning the sun’s shining (as much as it ever does in Seattle at this time of year), I’ve got my fully-caffeinated coffee and I’m ready to tackle some more math.

Wish me luck!

Project Tea Cozy: The Spout

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It’s spout time!

My original idea was to make a gusset for the spout, in the same way that I would make a thumb on a mitten.  But then I cast on, started knitting, and promptly forgot about that.

Oops.

So, I had a big rectangle of knitting that wrapped nicely around my teapot.  I knit it until it reached the split between the spout and the ‘body’ of the pot, in between two stripes (so I wouldn’t have to worry about making a hole and maintaining the colorwork pattern at the same time).  First I thought I would make a simple 8-stitch button hole, but that didn’t seem right.  I thought it would make the tea cozy pull funnily, and I want a little cuff around the spout of my tea cozy.  So, I decided to do a slight variation.

I knit to where I wanted the hole to be, then transferred 12 sts to a stitch holder, then I cast on 4 sts using a backwards-loop cast on, and knit the rest of the row.

img_3357The way I made the hole reduced my total stitch count by 8, so now I was working with 112 sts instead of 120, but that felt right to me. After all, I was going to decrease for the top of the cozy in a few inches.  I continued knitting, following the established pattern without any more shaping until I got to the top of the 10 colorwork repeats I had planned.img_3366And, when i put the unfinished cozy on my tea pot, it fit surprisingly well!  I still have to seam it on the bottom and the top needs to be knit.  The spout hole fit really well, sure the safety pin is pulling a bit, but the when I knit up those stitches into a little cuff around the spout, I’m sure it’ll fit like a glove!

 

Project Tea Cozy: The Swatch

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Woo! It’s tea cozy time!  (Almost.)

I know no one likes swatching, me included.  (And, if I’m being honest, I rarely make a swatch if I’m following someone else’s pattern.)  But, when you’re designing a pattern making a swatch is an absolute necessity.

So I pulled out my favorite colors and made one great big swatch with three different patterns, to see which I liked best.

The first pattern was a wide stripe-and-polka dot combo.  I like it, but I think it’s a bit big for a tea cozy- after all my teapot is a little on the small side.img_3299Then, I thought, “Maybe something fancier-something more Fair Isle-y.”  I like this diamond pattern quite a bit.img_3312But, again, I think it might be too big.  So I worked up a scaled-down version of the first pattern.  Narrow stripes with teeny polka dots.  Sure, I’ll have to deal with a million little ends, but I think I like the result best.img_3304So, I’ve got my swatch and decided on my pattern.  I measured the gauge, and made sure to write it down in my book.

img_3344I’ve taken my measurements and have a plan in my head.  Next time, we’ll get down into the nitty-gritty of math.

Don’t forget!  I’ve got 2 (count ’em!) giveaways going on as we speak.  Comment here for a chance to win a copy of On the Go Knits, or here for a chance to win Knits for Everybody!