2 posts tagged “knitpicks”
This is the "A Good Stripe Dress" from the spring 2008 Interweave Knits. I've been planning on making this since last spring when the issue came out. I wanted to make it then, but felt like I would finish it too late for M. to get much good out of it last summer. The yarn called for in the pattern is linen, but I hate knitting with linen, so I made it with Knitpicks Shine Sport which is a cotton/modal mix. I ended up really liking the yarn. It's nice and soft and washes well. The yarn is sport weight, but the dress is knitted on size 2 needles, which makes a really dense fabric which is good for a dress, but it took for-freaking-ever to knit.
I let M. pick the colors that she wanted for the dress. I tried to push M. towards a khaki color, the pale pink, and a deep burgandy for the accent, but she wanted the yellow, pink, and bright cherry colors. I was really skeptical about the choices when she picked them out, but I think they turned out awesome. My friend C. says they remind her of Starburst. I think she has a point.
The construction of this dress is really neat. You do a provisional cast-on across the top, knit the back down to the bottom of the armpits, pick up the provisional stitches at the top and knit the front down to the bottom of the armpits, and then connect the peices and knit in the round to the bottom of the skirt. The only thing that bothers me is that you put 6 rounds of garter stitch at the bottom of the skirt and it flips up at the bottom. I only made one modification. You are supposed to increase a bunch of stitches (I never could get the increases to work out right) on the third row of each color stripe on the skirt. By the time I got to the second to last stripe, I decided the skirt was flared enough, especially given how willowy M. is, so I didn't do any decreases on the last couple of color stripes. The skirt is still big enough to flare out when she spins around, so that is all M. needs to be happy.
When I first started knitting, I purchased a Boye interchangable needle set. I have never been very happy with it. The cables are really stiff and I don't think I could magic loop with them. The needles are cold alunimum and the finish is rubbing off of the tips and sides of the sizes that I use the most. Soon after I bought the Boye set, I started eyeing the Harmony interchangable set from Knit Picks. This set is always highly rated on reviews of needles sets. They are made out of Birch and are both sturdy and beautiful. The cables are nice and flexible. I finally gave in and ordered myself a set. It came on Friday.
Last night I started a pair of mittens that I'm knitting magic loop style and so far, I'm pleased. I also bought some fixed circular sock needles because the set doesn't come with tips small enough to knit socks on. I haven't tried out the sock needles yet, but I have the yarn and pattern laying out to do so.
I also bought a fixed size 8, 16" circular to make a hat that I've been wanting to make. Knit Picks doesn't make interchangable cables short enough to knit hats in the round, but that's ok because I'm now pretty close to having a 16" circular needle in every needle size. I think I only lack two or three sizes. I cast on for the hat Friday night when I got the needles and finished it up last night. I really like knitting with the Harmony needles. Here's a couple of in-progress pictures of the hat that really show off the needles.
I've finished a few knitting projects over the last couple of weeks. Two of which are part of a bigger set, so I'm going to wait until the entire set is done to blog about it. And one that I'm not very happy with. I made M. a pair of socks out of scrap yarn given to me by a friend and I ran out of yarn just a few rows before I was done with the second sock.
What I should have done was rip back to the start of the toe decreases on both socks and remake both the toes in some coordinating yarn. What I did instead was grab some yarn out of my scrap bag and finish up the second sock. These were made for the purpose of trying out the specific type of yarn and figuring out how big to make socks for M. Now that I know what size to make her socks, I think I'll just let her pick out some sock yarn that she likes and make her another pair. It only takes me about a week to knit a pair of kid's socks.
