Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Sweater and I are back!

After that nasty sinus infection stole about two weeks my life, I'm finally crocheting (and posting) again! I have a new smallish project, a padded sleeve for my beloved Kindle:




This is the pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/padded-kindle-sleeve
The colors are kinda dull in the picture, sorry...
I'm still thinking about embellishments, but I want it to keep a simple look, so... maybe nothing at all.


Also, I have made made some progress on my blue sweater! I crocheted one long sleeve, even though I new I didn't have enough yarn to make long sleeves. But the sleeves are crocheted from the bottom up because of the pattern. So I kinda had to make the whole thing to find out how to alter it. Finished it, put it together with safety pins and "put it on". And I was thrilled to see how well it fit! It would have been too long for me to wear that way anyway, but I decided to go with short short sleeves, I don't do 3/4 length on anything, I think it makes me look fat! So the yarn needle marks where I would have my new starting chain:



And then I spent an evening ripping the whole thing and turning it into neat new balls of yarn... Using those, I learned something: The yarn unwinds much better from a handmade ball than from the store bought skein! Makes my awesome yarn bowl much easier to use, too. Still, I think I'm just lazy enough not to wind my own balls... 

Oh, well, so I made the short sleeves and wet blocked (100% cotton) all the pieces on my super fancy blocking board, also known as our mattress for overnight guests...


This is my first blocking experience and I'm so excited to find out how it'll turn out! I was impressed with how much you can shape the wet fabric (and how tight my crocheting had become by the time I made the sleeves...) Can't wait to sew it together! I don't sew well, so I'm kind of nervous about that, too.


So far from my end of the world, visit Kristine's blog and check out what everyone else is up to:



4 comments:

  1. Love the sweater!!! Love the kitty (I know that was last week), and the kindle cover. You amaze me that you picked up altering, and more advanced stitches, so quickly.!

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  2. My goodness your sweater is going to be very pretty! Nice Work!

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  3. Hi Imke,

    I'm starting on this sweater and am confused by some of the instructions, could I pick your brain?

    For the back piece it says "when piece measures 10 and 20 cm/ 4" and 8" Why are there two numbers? Is this referring to something other than length?

    Also, when you got to the neckline on the back piece and it says to work only the outermost repetitions and skip a few in the middle, how did you approach that? Did you cut the yarn and start again on the other side, or did you do slip stitches to get across the middle?

    Thanks very much! Can't wait to see your finished piece!

    Julia

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    1. Hi!
      Yes, the two numbers do refer to length. You increase when the piece measures 10cm and you increase again when it measures 20cm.
      And I think I broke off the yarn for the neck on the back piece. I only had to do one row in the smallest size anyway. I suppose you can slip stitch across but you'll be crocheting an edging around it, so that might turn out tricky if you only have slip stitches to work into.
      I actually finished the cardigan a while ago
      http://andalittleme.blogspot.de/2012/04/finished-my-cardigan.html
      and I think it turned out quite nice. It's a little on the loose side and my choice of yarn wasn't really appropriate.
      Hope I could help and have fun with the pattern!
      Imke

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