What’s old is new again

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Vicki

Back in 2010 I made a laceweight sweater that I adored. Then I wrecked it when I was trying to block it. I was so sad that I put it away for months.

When I took it back out last summer, intending to unpick the bind-off and repair the parts I’d ripped, it became a disaster. My collar became a tangled mess, and in a fit of knitterly rage, I went at it with scissors. It… wasn’t pretty.

I nicked the body of the sweater while angrily trying to cut off the collar, which necessitated reknitting the bottom several inches and ribbing. By that point, I just couldn’t look at it anymore. I relegated it to the depths of my WIP basket, periodically taking it out to admire it, but I dreaded reknitting the collar.

Finally this week, I worked up a head of steam and reknit the whole collar. Now that it’s over, I’m actually relieved that the first bind-off was so inflexible because it gave me time to rethink the length of the collar/bands.

Now I don’t want to jinx it, but the ends are woven in, it’s soaking in lavender-scented Eucalan, and I’m pretty confident that I will soon have my favorite sweater I’ve ever knit.

Then again, I’ve been here before with this sweater. Let’s hope it sticks this time!

New look, new resolve

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Vicki

I hope you will find the new blog design and layout cleaner and more inviting to read. I certainly feel encouraged to come over here and write more.

I’ve noticed, as I’m sure you have, a large number of year-end summary posts detailing the various accomplishments and industry of other knitters and crafters. “I should make one of those,” I thought briefly, before I was discouraged by a sorry lack of productivity to show for myself.

The funny thing is that, while I have excuses aplenty (full-time school, overwhelming personal life stuff, busying myself with NYC) it’s not that I haven’t been knitting. I actually knit quite often, but I am not finishing anything. Or if I do, I’ll leave out some tiny but super-important step, like weaving ends in a scarf or hat, or sewing buttons on a sweater.

I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s lazy and silly of me, and I’d like to finish these projects and put them to use. So the good news is, very soon I’ll have a pile of imminent FOs to show you. The bad news is, you’ll probably have to wait until 2012. But since that’s right around the corner, I’m calling it all good.

Coincident with turning over a new crafting leaf (since really, you would not believe how important crafts are to maintaining my sanity), I’m drumming up a new set of Crafting Resolutions. (You’ll note I said Crafting, not just Knitting, wink wink.)

2012 Crafting Resolutions

Gather together all nearly-finished projects and block, sew on buttons, weave in ends, or perform any finishing tasks to transform them to FOs.
Finish at least one project each month (including photographing it and posting it here).
Make long overdue gifts for my family: Cobblestone Pullover for my father, Cable-Down Raglan for my mother, Oiled Wool Hat and matching gloves for my brother.
Knit a sweater using the yarn I bought in Iceland (related: tell the internet all about my trip to Iceland).
Make at least one pillow from the number of pillow kits I obsessively accumulate.
Learn to use my sewing machine, and sew at least four projects.
Branch out with needlepoint, cross-stitch, crewel work, etc.
Do not buy any more yarn or crafting supplies until marked progress has been made on finishing some major projects.

These resolutions probably look pretty familiar to those of years past, and alas, they may be my perpetual crafting goals. This year, however, I have a plan, and I hope you will enjoy watching it unfold.

Could it possibly be… I’m sewing on buttons??

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Vicki

For as much as I love knitting (and wow, yeah, I do really love knitting), I sure hate finishing. I don’t mean “finishing” in the sense of completing a project (because that part is splendid) but the fiddly little tasks that stand in the way between binding off and having a garment, namely blocking, seaming, and perhaps most loathed of all, sewing on buttons or closures.

This isn’t a new topic – I have an embarrassing amount of projects that are completely knit, blocked, ends woven in, and ready to wear, save for, say, a hook and eye closure, or in an instance I haven’t mentioned, threading a ribbon through casings and tying a bow. Geez, that’s embarrassing to admit.

When the inspiration struck to finally sew buttons on a cropped cardigan that has (I must sheepishly admit) been living next to my sofa since I washed and blocked it months ago, I ran with it. The whole time, I wondered why I had put it off so long, seeing as it wasn’t exactly my favorite task in the world, but it was certainly far from the drudgery I’d worked it up to be in my mind.

Smokey, of course, has other thoughts about sewing on buttons. What is it with cats??

As I updated my Ravelry project page, I saw that it had been exactly a year to the day since I’d put this sweater aside with the intention to shrink it up a bit before weaving in the ends and sewing on the buttons. Let’s hope that I can now start wearing it and get it properly photographed before another year passes!

The C-Word

Posted on April 20, 2008 by Vicki

My mom always says that you achieve greatest personal growth outside of your comfort zone.

I expect I should be growing quite a bit then.

Look Ma, Seams!

Posted on March 26, 2008 by Vicki

Today was a huge day for me as a knitter.

I hunkered down with The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancie Wiseman and resolved not to stand up until I had set in the sleeves for my Bella Paquita.

I stared at the diagrams and read the text over and over until I understood the weaving stitch (which I gather is the same as mattress stitch?).

I did everything she told me to: I pressed the pieces, I worked on a flat surface, I carefully pinned it together…

And it worked!!!

I finally, properly LEARNED HOW TO SEAM!

My seams are nowhere near perfect, but they’re also not the glaringly awful results I got with my previous haphazard stabby sutures technique. As in, I would wear these sleeves in public.

I have only a few more days to finish this sweater for the knitalong, but I am just thrilled to have overcome what has thus far been my greatest knitting obstacle!

The Finish Line

Posted on January 12, 2008 by Vicki

I finished knitting my grandmother’s Sun Ray Shawl!

It is blocking this very moment, and I will have it dry and packaged to come with me to Hawaii on Monday.

I thought the picot bind-off would kill me, but I did it. This is the largest project I’ve ever undertaken, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out after blocking.

Finishing woes

Posted on November 26, 2007 by Vicki

I was foolish in choosing the Tilted Duster for NaKniSweMo, considering it cannot be even halfway completed until I do major amounts of seaming. I chose it knowing this, hoping this would be the sweater that broke me of my seam phobia, and yet, I remain paralyzed.

I’ve knit the back, both fronts, and both sleeves, and now I am at the point where I just cannot avoid sewing. I tried one seam with embroidery floss, which worked out better than any seam I’ve ever made… but it was only a few inches long and I’m still terrified of the rest.

The trouble is, this is a pattern with me. I get caught up on some small detail and let it hold a project up indefinitely. To wit:

Things I Am Avoiding Like the Plague:

sewing buttons on the baby cardigan (which has been otherwise finished since August)
threading a ribbon through my finished Tempting
undoing two bind-offs and sewing down facings on the Summertime Tunic, then threading ribbon
sewing the body of the Tilted Duster so I can pick up the skirt and finish the silly thing

For good measure, I’m also wearing my winter coat open because I am avoiding sewing two buttons back on it.

I realize that if I committed just an hour or two to finishing, I could have quite a few FO’s and a functional winter coat. Yet here I am obsessing over hats. And socks.

Must sew. No matter what, I must get over my fear of sewing.

Color Decisions

Posted on September 16, 2007 by Vicki

I’ve been thinking about color lately, which is an interesting reprise from painting in only black and white. Chinese scholars felt that within a black and white image, the receptive viewer could see all colors, and that a black ink painting would allow a person to dwell in the realm of the imagination.

When faced with color decisions in knitting, I expect it to be easy. In mass manufactured supplies, there are certain standard dyes and pigments regularly used – it should be easy to match them and find ones that go together. Ha.

A few weeks ago, I bought these three ribbons as possibilities for my Summertime Tunic. Each had their merits, but I couldn’t decide. At the time I favored the blue and white polka dot grosgrain, thinking the color match was nearly spot-on. My mother favored the sheer turquoise, thinking it would lend delicacy and elegance and that the color was actually closer. As a last resort, I also grabbed the navy satin, just in case.

So now I’m peering and squinting at all three, and I just can’t decide. They all have such different characters and would subtly affect the style of the tunic. I am leaning in a certain direction, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask: which do you prefer?

In a totally different color scenario, I got yarn for two other projects recently. At right, a juicy raspberry for a (now out-of-season) Coachella. This is completely uncharacteristic for me, as I usually prefer shades of greens, blues, and brown, but something about this top and my restless need to prolong summer called out for a saturated, decadent hue.

The left is called plum wine, which is really off the deep end as far as my color choices typically go, but for some reason it spoke to me. I bought it with the intention of knitting a Lelah top (seriously in denial about the season over here), but this was before it occurred to me that I may not be able to block acrylic into a nice lace pattern. I will definitely have to test that out.

Whipstitchin’ with a Kitty

Posted on September 15, 2007 by Vicki

Though I have so very many other things I should be doing, I spent some time last night knitting up the back of my Summertime Tunic. I got to the turning row, admired the way it folded itself down so neatly, and finished the knitting, only to wonder “now what?”

It was with some trepidation that I tried to sort out this whole “whipstitch the live stitches” situation, but I made a few trips around the internet and came up with some good advice, along with a clue of how to do it.

One post suggested moving the live stitches onto waste yarn to facilitate sewing. I used a spare circular needle. Another explained that you simply cut a long length of yarn to do the whipstitching. Check. I made mine at least twice as long as I needed it, since, well, I’m pretty neurotic.

At this point Smokey hopped into my lap, evidently thinking I was in need of assistance.

I slipped the stitches from the circular needle onto my tapestry needle, pulled a mile of yarn through the stitch, then kind of tacked that through the back of a stitch below.

Smokey thought we were terribly clever.

I worried that it would slant left or right, so I took great pains to pull the facing straight, and I think it came out mostly alright. On hindsight, it might have behooved me to pin it in place.

Smokey had wandered off, but he came back when I had about five stitches left to sew down (he’s clearly dedicated to the cause here). He helped inspect the inside of my facing, and we agreed it was not perfect, but it was tolerable.

(I like to think if he were an LOLcat, the photo on the right would be captioned “Dis knittings good!” or “I like dis!” or similar.)

He snuggled up with the backside, I gather by way of approval.

I could see some problems on the front side, but nothing terrible. In fact by the time it’s all gathered on the ribbon, I think this method of attachment really will be virtually invisible.

My buddy’s all, “We did well.”

Now I am feeling a lot more comfortable about going on to the front, and I’m happy this tunic will be done fairly soon!

Vickilicious Knits

Art and science intersect with crafty obsession.

Category Archives: Finishing