The Elvish Cami Project

During July I ended up working on the Inamorata Camisole. I began it three times, with the third time seeming to be the one that was charmed. I'm not sure why, but although I got gauge with a #6 needle when I tested it, I had to go way down and use a #2 and #4 when I was knitting it. This is why I ended up re-starting it because the first time I knit it, it was about 6 inches too large.

I used my 'Prince of the Wood Elves' colorway (this is a colorway that's named after Legolas from Lord of the Rings) and thus began my Elvish Cami. I held it double during the entire project and it created a very nice, and dense fabric. It's quite cool and comfortable to wear as well. So after all of my work, I needed to find the perfect buttons. A local Portland clay artisan was the answer. BeadFreaky makes these lovely clay buttons, beads and pendants. I absolutely love the tree buttons with the yarn, all coming together to make my Elvish Cami be what I pictured in my mind.

The best part is that the yarn is a superwash and I decided to try washing it inside a pillowcase the other day. I also tossed said pillowcase into the dryer on medium and then pulled it out after a regular cycle and hung it up to finish up drying since it was just the slightest bit damp. It looked just as fabulous as when I'd soaked it by hand and blocked it! I have to love that "wash and wear" aspect. Superwash yarns are beginning to really get on my good side, I'm telling you...

Video ~ knitting cables without a cable needle

For most cable projects, I've found it's easier to not have to use a cable needle in addition to your regular knitting needles. For a project like my Elvish Cami I'm knitting (aka Inamorata), this is especially true as the cables are 2 sts total.

During the course of my knitting this, I filled in the chart and ended up converting it from chart-form, to written out instructions. Since I normally do charts in the round, the whole back & forth charting, with purls and knits being both grey squares and white squares depending on which row I was on, I just found it faster for my brain to not have to go through that step each row. You can find my blog with the written pattern here.


And, now onto the video.......

Inamorata Chart - converted to written

Wow, life's been busy again...I've been working on Inamorata with some gorgeous Tinsel Toes merino/tencel blend yarn from The Unique Sheep. Painty had a Lord of the Rings sock club (now she's onto #3) a while back, and I could not resist her lovely yarns. This was back before I started dying my own yarns, and when I saw Inamorata needed a sock yarn held double, I dug through my stash, and there it was.... Prince of the Wood Elves staring at me, shining silvery with little flecks of brown and green. One of my favorite things is to wind up yarn just before a project so I get to see the light play across it's colors and help me envision the finished project. It's a different type of yarn for me, since it has 50% tencel in it, it has more of a feel like a cotton will, and I predominately knit with wools or alpaca/llama yarns... but it is nice, and is a perfect yarn for such a Summery camisole. Just the right color to show off the cabling, and just the right fibers for a light Summer cami. Now... if only I can get the right sizing. That is another blog post though, and this one I'm going to have the cable chart conversion on, so I'll get to the subject. I will also add in another blog later with a short video with cabling without a cable needle. This is a great project to learn it on too since these are tiny cables and quite simple to cable without a separate needle.


Note: I didn't think it would be necessary, but I found this pattern to be much easier with using stitch markers to mark each pattern repeat on my work. I had my two end stitch markers to separate the 3 (or 2 depending on the size you're making) stitches at each end of the work that are not worked in the pattern repeat, and then I used plain ring stitch markers to separate each 8 st pattern repeat. This way, if I made any errors, my brain found them faster and could identify the pattern much more easily as I went along. It saved much time down the road rather than counting out each section all together to see where the mistake was etc.

Inamorata Chart Conversion


Queue this on Ravelry
Inamorata pattern on Knitty

*keep in mind that you are knitting back and forth in this chart, not in the round. You can easily knit this in the round, by not joining it but knitting as though it were. If you do this, on every even numbered row, you'll need to reverse the directions & stitches (i.e. row 2 would become: p2, k2, p4).


(Begin and end each row with the 3 (or 2 if your size requires) each reverse stockinette stitches as pattern states)

Row 1:  p2, kfb, p4
Row 2:  k4, p2, k2
Row 3:  p1, c2b, c2f, p3
Row 4:  k3, p1, k2, p1, k1
Row 5:  c2b, k2, c2f, p2
Row 6:  k2, p1, k4, p1
Row 7:  k1 tbl, k4, k1 tbl, p2
Row 8:  k2, p1, k4, p1
Row 9:  c2fp, k2, c2bp, p2
Row 10: k3, p1, k2, p1, k1
Row 11: p1, c2fp, c2bp, p3
Row 12: k4, p2, k2
Row 13: p2, c2f, p4
Row 14: k3, c2f, c2b, k1
Row 15: c2b, k2, c2f, p2
Row 16: k2, p1, k4, p1
Row 17: k4, c2f, c2b
Row 18: k1, p2, k5
Row 19: k5, c2b, k1
Row 20: k1, p2, k5
Row 21: k4, c2b, c2f
Row 22: k2, p1, k4, p1
Row 23: c2fp, k2, c2bp, p2
Row 24: k3, c2bp, c2fp, k1
Row 25: p2, c2f, p4
Row 26: k4, p2, k2
Row 27: p1, c2b, c2f, p3
Row 28: k3, p1, k2, p1, k1
Row 29: c2b, k2, c2f, p2
Row 30: k2, p1, k4, p1
Row 31: k1 tbl, k4, k1 tbl, p2
Row 32: k2, p1, k4, p1
Row 33: c2fp, k2, c2bp, p2
Row 34: k3, p1, k2, p1, k1
Row 35: p1, c2fp, c2bp, p3
Row 36: k4, p2tog, k2

Like the pattern states, you will have 7 stitches for the pattern repeat, increased to 8 sts for the repeat beginning on Row 1. Row 36 decreases you back down to your original number of stitches.

If you see any mistakes, please email me so I can update it :)

Here's a pic of what my chart looked like after all my notes on it

Yarnie Yarnie - Pics - Massive Yarn Score!

I'm trying to catch up with all my yarnie goodness, so here's my package from Biscotte & Cie that I received on Feb. 6th. I have made little progress with Jim's socks, but I'm centered on making longies for Peregrin right now. This yarn, however, will be socks. Socks for me, socks for Peregrin, and socks for who knows who!

The Harry Potter Yarns....

This is the Watermelon self-striping yarn. I wish I had an example of how it knits up. Well, I will when I get to some socks for Miss M with it.



And, finally this is my Sgt. Pepper's yarn from her Yarn Club for February. I just love hand-dyed self-striping yarn!





Now here's my February yarn for The Unique Sheeps Lord of the Rings sock club. The package has a pin, some dreamy tea, the Hobbiton sock pattern, and the Hobbiton colorway.




Here's my Three Irish Girls yummy BFL yarn that we picked out for Peregrin's soakers.


Aiden


Nolan



And finally, if you've made it to the end of this post, then I'm going to reward you with some chubby cutie-pie goodness!

The Saartje Booties,Bellatrix socks, & LOTR sock club!

Here are my finished Saartje booties. I tried to use a colorway that was neither feminine nor masculine, but had great color since it's knit in garter and that always showcases the color bumps. I can't get a good picture of the color, but they're blue, purple and green. They ended up being 3" in length, so they are totally newborn.

I did them the Bockstark way, so I could knit them in the round, but I did them two-at-a-time, so I changed a few things on them and ended up doing the straps completely seamless instead of the original way. I'll post the pattern of how I did them later on. I'm too....pregnant and tired to do it now :)

"One of the Black Sisters, her evilness grates on you like 1000 runs in your stockings"
Here are the toes and start of my Bellatrix socks. I'm actually up to the gusset right now, but I've had a few mishaps. First, my #1 bamboo circular broke (the cable where it connects). So...it was New Years Eve and I had to wait until yesterday to pick up a new needle. I got an Addi Turbo Lace for it. Then, I was just sitting down to knit last night after a long day of crazy kiddo-ness, and my #0 broke. It just broke off at the wooded part where the cable connects. OK. I get it. No more bamboo for socks. I'll use the damn Addi's for now. I'm also going to order the KnitPicks Harmony since they have metal connections and I think they will work with the tiny sizes just fine.

So, I'll be heading out to my LYS again today to pick up some Addi Turbos in #0. My Bellatrix socks are totally cursed, but I don't care. They are awesome and I'm going to finish them. I also had a casuality in the manner of my Brittany birch DPN's last night. Morgana was holding two of them pretending to knit and went to sit up off the couch and snapped one right in half. Luckily I had 6 in the set, so there's still 5 should I need them. I'm having a hell of a time with needles the past few days. I don't know what's up.


And to end this posting, I was clicking on my groups on Ravelry and I saw a new group "LOTR sock club". I clicked on it and found a cool yarn company called The Unique Sheep that was hosting a LOTR sock club. I was all excited about it as LOTR stuff is harder to find now as everyone in the mainstream is "over" it now. And I think there's only one sock pattern on Ravelry for it (Rivendell). And now, here is a whole club, 6 months long for 2009, with a monthly payment option (affordable!), and exclusive colorways and patterns that make sock clubs so much fun! All LOTR! Jim even seems to think this is a cool idea. Knitting is so much fun because of the entire Ravelry thing, I swear.

So, it looks like it's going to be a busy Spring for me with two sock clubs going on for the first part of 2009. And a new baby. Anyday now. 37 weeks and counting. This pregnancy is not bouncy and spritely like my others...it's wiping me out. I'm ready for the baby to come, I'm ready to have five children and be done with pregnancy in the future. I never knew when I'd hit this point, but I kept telling everyone that I would *know* when it hit. I would *know* when my family was complete (this is in response to the multitude of times I've been asked how many children I'm going to have). I wish I had more time to just sit and ponder over the baby, and enjoy this last little bit of time before they arrive.

P.S. Did I mention that I happened to find the LOTR sock club on the very last day of sign-ups? And signed up for it at nearly 9pm without even knowing it was the last day. I would've kicked myself if I had waited until the next day or pondered it a bit more.

Well, Jim is home from work, I'd like to snuggle him up a little bit, and then I have to head over and get my needle and a tiny hank of sock yarn for baby.