WIP Wednesday: Third Time's the Charm (Hyperion Pullover)

There are times when knitting can be frustrating.  Mistakes happen, it is inevitable. Some mistake you fix, some you just go on and learn to live with them, and some force you to scrap everything and start over.

And that has been the story with the Hyperion Pullover, twice. The first time, after about five inches in, there was an error in the lace. At first, I thought I could live with the error, but then I noticed the sleeves was going to end up being wider than I hoped. So, I decided to rip it out and start over.

The second time, I was moving along quite nicely, when it happened again. I noticed the lace pattern on the row I was working didn't look quite right. I powered through to the end of the row and did a stitch count. Sure enough, six stitches mysteriously disappeared.

Blocking can hide a myriad of sins, but six stitched in this lace pattern isn't one of them. So it was back to the beginning for me.

Third time's the charm, right?

WIP Wednesday: Clearview Cowl

Progress has been very slow and very uneventful on the Hyperion Pullover. The yolk is a honeycomb lace pattern, which looks very nice and will be delightful for a summer sweater, but is also rather time consuming to knit. It is also one of those stitch patterns where I actually have to pay attention when I'm knitting. That works great when Kiddo is sleeping and Husband lays claim to the remote, but on nights I'm watching something I want to watch, or when I'm taking my knitting somewhere, or for the hundreds of other times when I'm knitting while doing something, I need an easier project.


So I decided to cast on for the Clearview Cowl. It came in a kit that I picked up on a girls' weekend in Stillwater, Minnesota a couple of years back. I didn't really have immediate plans to knit it, the colors were wrong to go with my winter coat, so it sat in the closet for a couple of years.


However, this year, I got a new winter coat. It is a lovely shade of gunmetal grey, which is lovely and doesn't show stains, but is rather drab. However, handknit accessories are a lovely way to perk up anything.


I am only a couple rows into this project, but I'm all ready a big fan. It is a rather mindless knit, a row of knits, a row of purls, with a color change at the start of each row.

All 250 stitches are scrunched on the needle, it will be much bigger when it is finished.

The yarn, though, THE YARN is what makes this project. I'm knitting it in the recommended Road to China Lace by the Fibre Co. It is an exquisite blend of alpaca (65%), silk (15%), cashmere (10%), and camel (10%). I really cannot overstate how delightfully soft this yarn is. The colors are gorgeous, too. I'm using rhodolite, a beautiful pinky-purple color, and grey pearl, a lovely soft grey.

The camera did a terrible job capturing the colors of this yarn.

I seriously love this yarn. It is super light (partially because it is a lace weight yarn), but I have no doubt that it will be super warm. I was so excited about this yarn that I went out and bought the sport weight version, Road to China Light, in the same colors to make some matching mittens.

Progress is going slow on this, mainly because it is lace weight yarn on tiny needles, but I am loving every single minute of it.

This shot captures the colors a little bit better.

WIP Wednesday: Hyperion Pullover

At this moment, I don't have much on the needles for Work In Progress (WIP) Wednesday. I have several projects in the hopper that I'm getting ready to cast on, but the only active project is the Hyperion Pullover. However, I haven't progressed beyond the first sleeve. As of last night, I had about 3 inches done, but then decided that it looked too big and ripped it out to start over.

I am excited to make this sweater, I haven't made one in a long time. The construction is different from a lot of knitted sweater, you cast on for the cuff of one sleeve and work the yolk across to the other sleeve. After that is done, you pick up stitches around the bottom to finish the body of the sweater. As much as I hate picking up stitches, it will be an interesting challenge.

I'm knitting it in Comfy Fingering weight yarn from Knit Picks. It is a Pima cotton and acrylic blend, perfect for warm weather. The color is blackberry, a lovely dark purple.

Because this project is barely started, I only have pictures of cast on stitches and some yarn.

The mess of yarn is from frogging the last attempt at this sweater.

Hopefully, my lack of other projects will allow me to focus my energy on this project to get it completed fairly quickly.

WIP Wednesday: Doomsday Mitts

First and foremost:

a very Happy 8th Birthday to my niece, Sophie!

And now back to the regularly scheduled post:

One of the projects I’m working on right now is a dk weight fingerless mittens, that I’ve dubbed the Zombie Doomsday Mitts. The pattern, Rose Tyler Wrist Warmers (Ravelry link), were inspired by a pair of fingerless gloves worn by the Doctor’s Companion in the episode Doomsday. I’m working on them as a knit a long (KAL) for the Walking Dead fan group I belong to on Ravelry. Put those things together and Zombie Doomsday seemed a great name for them.


The mitts have a beautiful cable pattern that creates several large diamonds, filled in with seed stitch down the middle. The diamonds are flanked by a single cable on either side. I’m making them out of Silky Merino yarn from Malabrigo in a greenish-yellow color.

Knitting these as a KAL project has helped immensely, I’m pretty sure that they would have ended up frogged by now if not for the support of the group. I don’t know why exactly these have been so troublesome, I’ve done projects that were considerably more complicated before, but for some reason I have ran into problem after problem with them. Extra stitches have appeared on my needles, cables have been mistwisted, I started the pattern on the wrong row. The most current problem I have encountered has been large holes at the thumb gusset increases. I changed to the very nearly Invisible increase from the TechKnitting Blog, which seems to have solved the problem.

Now that I’ve gotten the hang of the pattern, things seem to be going a bit more smoothly. I’ve completely finished one mitt and have just finished the thumb gusset increases on the second.

 

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WIP Wednesday: Bigger on the Inside

By now it is no secret, I love my iPad. For day to day use, it has replaced my laptop (though I still need the laptop for a couple of things, including printing). When I first got my iPad, I purchased a couple of accessories to ensure that it was protected (especially after the nasty screen-cracking-even-when-in-a-case incident with my Kindle…I’m still pissed about that). I bought one of those bendy magnetic covers that also props it up in a couple of different positions and a back rubber shell. I went all out and got the back piece that is designed to absorb shock when dropped (something I’m very likely to do) and holds the iPad on the hood of a car when driving 45 mph (something I’m not really likely to do, but good to know just the same). I figured that eventually, I would also get a sleeve for it, something I could pull over the two covers for that added layer of protection, especially when tossing it into a bag. But I wanted to take my time and be sure I found the prefect sleeve for my iPad.


Because I’m me, my first thought was to knit a sleeve, an idea I took and ran with. While browsing Ravelry, it hit me, a TARDIS themed cover would be absolutely perfect.

For those of you not in the know, TARDIS stands for time and relative dimension in space, and is the time machine/spaceship of a certain time traveling alien known as The Doctor. And if you are still unsure what I’m talking about, watch Dr. Who. Anyways, the TARDIS, because of a problem with the Chameleon Circuit (seriously, just watch the show) looks like a blue police box, the kind that were common in England once upon a time. And the TARDIS is bigger on the inside.

Now, my iPad is not very big, but inside it contains games, videos, documents, apps, music, photos, knitting patterns, and the entire internet. Clearly, it too is bigger on the inside. a TARDIS sleeve would be the perfect companion to my iPad.

I found a pattern through Ravelry, and made a few modifications to make it work for me. I’m making it out of Comfy yarn from Knit Picks. I’m up to the windows on it now, which is pretty good, considering I cast on Saturday and had to rip it out once.

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