the rest is still unwritten

would you like fries with that?

sarahpurls — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:30:43 +0000

That’s right. One skirt, made to order. I’m pretty much ecstatic. This is only my second self-designed FO, and the first was…well, learning curves are nothing to be ashamed of, right? I’m very happy that this came out the way i wanted it to, and it’s a right-this-minute trend to wear high-waisted skirts. (links chosen to show how universal this trend is: if urban outfitters, j-crew and banana republic are all doing it, it’s pretty much everywhere). Normally I’d shy away from knitting something so trendy that it might not stay useful, but I caught this trend pretty early on. It’s going to be cute for a while yet. So without further ado, I give you…the skirt. (note: yes, it does look ridiculously like the corset. I know this. But the yarn was on sale and it was so lovely and when the pattern jumped into my head I knew it was meant to be…the next project will not be pale pink though. So there.)

I’m calling it Pixie, because it’s cute and fun and a bit edgy, just like the haircut.

For the record, I can’t explain why my arm makes me look like I’m dancing to country music. Go figure.

In this one I’m holding the wee ball of yarn that was the ONLY yarn I had left over at the end of this project. Designing the pattern myself meant I could use all the yarn, although i wimped out at the last minute. I could probably have managed another row or so and finished with a scant inch of yarn left over, but it was midnight last night and I wanted to finish the darn thing already.

and here’s my favorite picture (sorry about the blurriness):

If you had finished your second-ever self-designed project with that little yarn left over, you’d put it on your head, too.

The yarn I used to make this was Needful Yarns Bambini Soft. I bought it on sale at a lovely little shop, but I forget where exactly. The yarn is a wool/nylon/cotton blend and, as the name suggests, is very soft and fuzzy. It was a bit difficult to rip out, but i didn’t have any major problems with it. Overall I liked it and would probably use it again.

PATTERN:

yarn: Needful Yarns Bambini Soft, color # 4670 (baby pink). 2 skeins / 50 grams / 2624 yards. But you can substitute literally any yarn.

needles: US size 6 (or whatever fits your yarn). Also have a pair of smaller needles for the ribbing at the end. Use circulars.

gauge: for regular needles, 10 sts and 20 rows to 4 inches in stockinette stitch when stretched. For small needles, 12 sts to 4 inches in stretched k1 p1 ribbing.

The pattern for this skirt was ridiculously simple. All I did was knit a swatch in ribbing on US size 6 needles in k1 p1 ribbing, then use my tried-and-true system to find out how many stitches to cast on. I take the swatch in one hand and the yarn in the other. Then I loop the yarn around myself like a tape measure. Although this skirt was knitted from the bottom up, it turns out that to get the right number of stitches to cast on, you need to measure yourself around the waist. Loop the yarn around your waist exactly as if you were measuring with a tape measure, and pinch the yarn where it meets the swatch. Holding onto this spot in the yarn, loop the swatch back around your waist so you’re holding all your yarn in front of you. (Basically, these complicated instructions are just so you can see how much yarn it takes to go around your waist.) Now give your swatch a good stretch horizontally, and see how many times you can fold the yarn over your swatch widthwise. (Here, what you’re doing is seeing how many pieces the size of your swatch are necessary to go around your waist). If your swatch doesn’t divide evenly into your yarn length, approximate the remaining number of stitches. Just make it an even number.

You really don’t have to use the same yarn, needles, gauge etc. as I did. These instructions will work for any yarn and any yarn weight; just make sure that the gauge is pretty tight so you don’t show your undies later.

Now multiply the number of times the swatch goes into the waist measurement by the number of stitches in the swatch. If I have a swatch that goes into my waist measurement 7 times and the swatch has 12 stitches, I now have 60 stitches. Now add the remainder of stitches that you found earlier, if there was one. You now have the number of stitches you need to cast on. (I cast on 88 because I had a remainder of 4).

Cast on your stitches and work 1 1/2 inches of k1 p1 ribbing in the round. Now switch to stockinette and knit 13 1/2 inches. (NOTE: I have a nonexistent very small butt. If unlike me you are lucky enough to be endowed with an arse, you might want to work in some increases. Don’t say I didn’t warn you).

Now switch to your smaller needles and work 2 inches in ribbing. Cast off.

see? It’s easy as pie.

xoxo, sarah

randoms

sarahpurls — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:00:29 +0000

It’s been a while and I’m sorry. I’ve been working very hard (model UN position paper was just due and the academic quarter just ended, which means we all had to ace a few tests to get our averages where they should be). But i feel better about my slacking relaxed blog-writing policy since I heard Stephanie say she spent 4 hours writing the blog every day. I am so $&%&*^ jealous! Still, now I don’t have to feel like an awful blogger because I have to go to school. If I worked at home I’d blog more, and I can say that without a doubt because today I don’t have school and am blogging for the first time in…well…a while. The other benefit to knowing that Stephanie works from home is that her regular blogging style tends to make me expect a new entry every day. Sometimes I feel guilty for sitting at my computer, whacking “refresh” and muttering “she should have posted by now. Come on Stephanie!” Only her available time for the blog makes that okay. Well, there’s a teensy-weensy problem with that idea; it’s why you heard that spitting noise, because our beloved Yarn Harlot just sprayed the desk with coffee when I foolishly said that she had “time”. That was a silly blunder because the coffee must have hit either Joe or one of her girls and they were definitely taking knitting, blogging, writing and thinking time asking for something.

Well, now that I’ve attempted to make excuses for slacking but gotten sidetracked, I’ll distract you all with a FO description. Ahem, let me just put on my pre-election pundit voice.

“And now we have the…red tanklet. This garment took quite a short time on the needles, so clearly its meteoric rise represents its troubling lack of experience. Now the hats this yearn was meant for, those were something. They used up a good quarter ball of yarn, rather than the very small two balls commanded by the tanklet, and from their position in the stash drawer they could see the sewing basket, clearly representing their experience in foreign policy other craft mediums.”

well, those pundits will just have to deal because Sarah Palin the hats lost to were frogged to make Barack Obama a lovely tanklet! Clearly I’m not a democrat at all…=P

In all seriousness, I am beyond thrilled to have Barack Obama as our president and I just know he’ll do a lovely job.

Our next project is a skirt (yes, a knitted skirt). This one will be described normally, because that political rant was long-winded and confusing. I must admit I’ve had my doubts about a knitted skirt for quite a long time. How to not make it frumpy? Skirts are easily frumpy as is when they’re too long, let alone when you’re knitting them. (I don’t think knitting is inherently frumpy, I just have doubts about my own skill as a knitter enabling me to overcome genral frumpiness, and especially here I don’t like my odds). There’s also the problem of unintentionally showing underwear. Now, for me this is especially difficult. On the days when I wear my thin white dress, for example, do I remember to wear the cute undies? Nope, I wear the ridiculous ones that are as rainbowed as a gay pride parade. (Do not judge me. I had a coupon and was with a very silly friend). So I’m probably going to circumvent this whole issue with leggings. I love leggings. I may also try tights, but that depends if my parents make That Face when they see me and try to work out how to tell me to cover my arse.

So with all these skirt conundrums, I was very surprised when the idea for a skirt just leaped into my head. It was during math class. For me, there’s nothing like a good math class for time that you can easily use to design knitting instead of paying attention. So I’m sitting in class and thinking about the new yarn I just picked up on sale, and all of a sudden I get The Skirt Idea. It will be high-waisted and fitted (you can’t catch me knitting a ruffle, no sir) and look like this minus the African-esque print. It’s going well and I’m excited.

Apart from that I have a vest that I’m currently mad at. It’s self-designed and I believe I have frogged various parts of it over ten times. It would be best for all parties concerned if the vest and I took a little break from one another. I’ve also got a pair of socks that consist of a cast-on edge (magic loop tutorials are still driving me batty) as well as two skeins of yarn (baby ull. It is lovely. Be still my beating heart) and some birch dpns. They will eventually be mittens. Finally, there are vague plans for a sweater made from handspun. Since I don’t have a wheel and this is my first handspun, preceedings will be slow and careful. Stay tuned.

(photos will happen eventually, but my hair is not cooperating and I’m still recovering from my camera’s cruel trick of erasing the ones from the triumphant photo shoot when I finished the tanklet. I’ll take some modeled pictures when the skirt’s done. For now, you just get OTN shots.)

Paparazzi glimpsed the skirt gossiping with the sewing machine (the skirt must be very good at foreign policy, to continue my political metaphor…it’s like a knitted Joe Biden)

and has even been spotted watching TV

and practicing its wii-playing skills (it is a widely held hypothesis that the skirt and the wii bond over their shared affinity for string, whether it be cords or yarn).

The promised photos will be up soon. (That sounds very sci-fi ish…like I’d said “the promised warrior shall soon be here to restore rightful order to Bdkjskdk and allow for peace in the galaxy.” It’s not like I’ve seen way too much Star Wars or anything.)

xoxo, Sarah

the Harlot comes to Boston!

sarahpurls — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:30:28 +0000

Yes, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee came to Boston on Wednesday. It was wondeful to finally hear her speak. I’ve been an obsessive stalker huge fan of the blog for years now, and due to an unlucky combo of circumstances I’ve never heard her speak…but that all changed on Wednesday. I brought my mom along and kept asking her, “Do you see all the knitters? Do you see how diverse we are?” because I secretly think she believes that the vast majority of knitters are towards the McCain end of the age spectrum. To that she replied “How many men do you see, sweetie?” and I muttered something about “when knitters take over the world…”. Absence of men excepted (well, Guido was there, and I’m sure there were others), it was a wonderful time. Stephanie read to us from her new book, and I agreed completely with what she said. I also read the book, at the further expense of my growing pile of homework, and it’s my favorite that Stephanie has written. The only issue that I sometimes have with her books is that she “recycles” blog material, sometimes almost word-for-word. As someone who’s read the blog in its entirety (yes, even the archives…move along and don’t look at me like that), this habit gets a little old.

The other thing that disappointed me actually had nothing to do with the book. I don’t know how this works, but Stephanie usually takes pictures of young knitters and posts them to the blog. I would have thought I’d qualify, as well as a few other people I saw in the book-signing line, but there weren’t any featured young knitters except for one. It seemed like she was on the blog not for age but for her first circular project, so can someone tell me what the rules are for this? I know it’s a bit vain to want to be on the blog but I just sort of took it for granted that I would be as a young knitter…ah well. Instead you get my picture! It’s a crappy one because I forgot my camera and took it with my cellphone, then used my camera to take a pic of the phone.

The astute among you may note that I’m wearing some new knitwear that you haven’t seen yet. (Actually, scratch that–it’s hidden by my hair and almost totally invisible). I wrote a pattern for it, but since I finished it at the unholy time of 1:30 in the morning, the pattern gets a little…what’s the phrase? Inconsistent? Meandering? Downright bizzarre? Well, you’ll be the judge when I post it.

Anyway, Stephanie was wonderful and the other knitters were lovely. I worked on this (excuse the bad photo again; I’m too lazy to get up and find some natural light, so the photography is about as good as Sarah Palin’s answers to the media, and I guess I’ll have to find some good photos and bring ‘em to ya. (I’m sure it’s clear at this point that I’m a democrat. Obama ’08!)

I don’t know what that is, by the way. It began as a cowl and now I think it will be…what does it say about my kntting that I can’t define my pieces by the categories of normal clothing? Eesh. Well, I’ll sew it into something and see if I can’t categorize it…eventually. For now, I have a pile of homework the size of elina’s made-over hair and it’s calling my name. hasta luego!

Corsets

sarahpurls — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:24:01 +0000

In many eras before this one, women were forced to wear corsets: tight tubelike garments which, when laced tight, trimmed their waists to supposedly make them look attractive. Of course, the corset is now outdated and modern-day women wouldnt lace themselves into one (except where Victoria’s Secret is involved). But if you ignore the fact that they squeezed waists to barbie-like proportions, corsets are actually attractive. I’ve always secretly liked the look of the lacings in the back, and so a while ago, I tried to knit one.

Now, I’m not the most patient knitter and I don’t have any sort of talent for planning, so this yarn was meant for a scarf. I got sick with a bug, probably almost a year ago, and decided to try and make (of all things) a corset. Since it’s made of a lovely bulky yarn, thanks to my relatively short attention span for sweaters and my relatively high doses of cold meds, it’s probably the only corset ever that actually makes the wearer look fatter. When I finished it and came out of the hae of sickness enough to try it on, I realized this and shoved it into the bottom of my knitting drawer.

Now, it just so happens that yesterday I saw a play called How Shakespeare Won the West, and whenever I go to the theater I always get some sort of wardrobe envy. This time, one of the actresses wore a loose long-sleeved shirt and over it a beautiful red corset. I found myself remembering the wad of pink wool that was my “corset”, in the “can-I-please-forget-this-happened” part of my yarn drawer.

Five minutes after digging it out today, I now have a “corset” with a decidedly nontraditional feel. I’ll post the pattern, such as it is. Please excuse the blurriness of the pictures–I took them myself in the mirror. =]

Corset:

On Ravelry here

yarn: brown sheep lamb’s pride bulky

needles: no frickin’ idea. sorry! whatever gets you gauge/makes your happy is fine. i would say about 10 1/2.

gauge: 7 sts to 4 inches (that’s knit and purl…this is my first “published” pattern so I don’t know what the conventions are).

sizes: again, this is my first pattern so I would say I’m usually an extra small…we’ll get around sizing in a minute though

stitch pattern: k1 p1 to end of row

CO 52 sts

knit merrily along for 5 1/2 inches

inc 1 st each edge

knit 4 rows (meaning k1 p1 for 3 rows)

inc 1 st each edge

inc 2 sts each edge for 1 1/2 inches

cast off

I made this pattern up from scratch, so if you want to knit it, what I’d suggest doing is a little math. I know, math is bad. I’ll make it easy for you, though.

First off, measure yourself just above the bustline where the top of a spaghetti-strap tank top sits. (the link is for a random store. i tried to find a Ravelry one but, sadly, they don’t sell tank tops (yet).We’ll call this number Measurement.

Now, knit a swatch (sorry, it’s unavoidable) with your chosen yarn and needles. Make it 8 stitches of k1 p1 ribbing. Then measure the swatch (not lengthwise, widthwise. this means parallel with your knitting needles, or your cast-off if you made one). Let’s call this value Swatch.

Here’s the math part. Take your Measurement value and divide that by your Swatch value. If, say, your Measurement value is 31inches and your Swatch is 4 1/2 inches, you get 6.88888. This number is how many Swatches you will need to fit around your body. Round the number up or down (up if the decimal is 5 or more) and in this case you get 7.

Remember, you had 8 stitches in your original swatch. That means you need to multiply this new number by 8 and get 56 stitches, or whatever yor numbers come out to. Congratulations! You now know how many to cast on.

As for the increases later, I would recommend that you decide early on how much space you want in your back lacings. That will tell you how far you have to increase to make the sides of your corset meet. I played it by ear and that’s what I’d recommend. Just do what feels right and looks good. Also, keep in mind that if you increase twice per row your knits and purls stack up in the same way, but if you increase only once they line up differently. This could be a cool design feature if you alternated the way your knits and purls stacked up (as you can see, I only did so once.)

Happy kntting, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have!

Note: My lacing was a leather string that I happened to have, but you could use ribbon, string, yarn, i-cord…be creative!

ps. I’m done with the tank top…it should go up very soon =]

pps. the source for the first photo is:

http://www.rsf.org/IMG/jpg/Corset.jpg

update

sarahpurls — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:14:29 +0000

hey everyone, it’s been a while! I have an excuse though: I was volunteering in mexico for 6 weeks. Since I could only bring a backpack with no space for any knitting (any at all…for 6 weeks!), I envisioned projects a lot. I had been planning to make the anne elliot spencer with some really lovely rowan 4 ply soft, but when I got home with three skeins of beautiful delicate yarn and swatched, I realized how freakin’ ridiculously thin fingering weight is and never got very far. While in mexico I came up with the idea for the tank that I’m now working on…photos may appear soon. I love the softness of the yarn and, as always with knitting, the feeling of fabric growing slowly between my hands. The thinness of the yarn is actually a positive attribute now, since the fabric that falls from my needles has a lovely delicate feel. The tank is going well. I put it on a big circ to try it on today and it’s looking like something you might find in Urban Outfitters. If I really like the finished product I’ll most likely add it as a free pattern on ravelry.

Well, I should get to bed, since I have a 6 am flight tomorrow (!)

buenas noches, my dear readers!

xoxo, sarah

busy busy

sarahpurls — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:01:55 +0000

I haven’t been able to update yet because I’ve been working so hard in school lately…but yesterday I was cleaning out my closet and I took out some of the stuff that I’ve knitted ages ago, so I’ll show it to you. This is the first hat I ever made. I made it quite a few years ago, during 2001, because I went to a lovely little ultra-liberal middle school where we all made hats in the fourth grade. That’s how I explain the ridiculousness of the color scheme.

see what I mean?

Here it is with me wearing it, although my fourth-grade head size is different from my current size, which explains why it’s too small.

I don’t know why I put the only messed up part directly in front where the camera could see it =)

Here’s a pair of mittens that I made during a class at the same school:

Sorry it’s blurry. We shall, of course, be ignoring the misshapen thumb of the one on the left. If you knew how many times I frogged and redid it before I got too lazy to do it again finally embraced that this was how it would look, you would know why I’m saying that.

I have two more hats, one of them which I made for an unidentified toddler (I just needed some cuteness and hadn’t yet discovered the joy of baby bootees) with a pattern I made up

I call it my strawberry hat.

The final hat is a little big and, like with the strawberry, I was too lazy to block it. I made it for myself, and although i wish I’d staggered the hearts a little more, overall I’m happy with it.

sorry about the blur…my camera was acting a little funky.

okay, that’s all for old FOs…my main WIP right now is a sweater that’s going to have to undergo heavy mods. I’ll post pictures soon!

xoxo, sarah

My first post!

sarahpurls — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:55:34 +0000

Hi, I’m Sarah, or sarahpurls on ravelry. I’ve been a knitter for quite some time now, but all of my forays into blogging have been unsuccessful so far. This is largely because my school assigns so much work that I don’t have enough time for blogging. In spite of this, since I want to take some time for myself I’ll blog and my teachers can deal with it =].

some facts about me:

I have knitted since I was very young, when my mom’s good friend taught me. I started to make a “scarf”, which gained so many stitches during its first twenty or so rows that its width practically doubled. I cast it off and made it into an art project. Although my skills as a knitter have evolved, I’m not any more restrained now that I was then and my projects are often bizarre organic.
I’m a raving Harry Potter fan who will gladly discuss the series. At length. With reckless abandon enthusiasm.
I have a turtle, but no cat. This is a little troubling because cat ownership among knitters is so common that I wonder if I can be a true knitblogger without one, but my aunt has ten cats so I have no shortage of association with them. Unfortunately, any one of them (even the one that lives in the closet) is better for knitting pictures than my turtle…so I’ll have to be a creative photographer.
I want my knitting to reflect modern styles and trends. I love clothes and fashion, and if I’m going to knit something, I want it to be cute.

all right, that’s enough about me. Pictures and descriptions of my WIPs will be posted soon. thanks for reading!

–sarah