She Knits By The Seashore

Picot Camisole

I never thought I'd see the day. How many times I ripped, and how many times I wanted to quit altogether!!! But it was a stage 17, Tour de France project 2006, and I could not give up.

Pattern: Picot Camisole, Spring 06 Interweave Knits

Needles: Size 2 Addis for everything (pattern suggests 3 & 4 US)

Yarn: Rowan Cotton Glace, 5 balls of Peony

Started: June 2006. Swatch here. Almost gave up here. Working in earnest here. At last, victory.

needs more blocking on the top edge

Mods: My gauge was off because of the yarn substitution, so there are tiny mods for fit throughout. I added extra rows in the midsection per suggestions on Ravelry, and am happy with the length. The main problem I have with this pattern is that it's too low cut in the front for me to wear by itself. I looked at other patterns and worked with a grid, and my ever-patient mentors at the LYS, and asked for suggestions from you, to see if I could re-design it. In the end, there was no way I could see (at least with my current skills) to re-do the top without making the overall design less attractive. So, it's likely to be worn as a vest. (It's a little bunchy over my turtleneck in these photos, but I think it does fit well, considering all the frogging, re-knitting, and trying on I did). If you get the Knitting Daily emails and have been watching those galleries with the sample knits, I think this would be an ideal project for that experiment.

Next up: 2008 goals, and a new project, from the same vintage as the camisole.

P.S. I do have model photos showing my face, but they came out too geeky to post here, so we'll have to make do with the headless shots.

Happy New Year!

It isn't officially New Year's Eve unless I'm finishing a project under deadline. Blocking and other details to come, but first, time to celebrate. Best wishes for a happy, healthy, creative 2008!!

Picot Camisole & Catching Up

This photo was taken at night, so I apologize for the bad lighting. Here is Picot Camisole version 3.0 from IK Spring 06(click to enlarge). I've knit another few inches since then, having added rows to the midsection to make it longer, per the advice of Ravelers who have knitted this top before me. I need to try it on again and see if it's time to start increasing for the upper waist and chest portion.

The ivory angora scarf in the previous post is done, so I've started working on a loopy mohair scarf. This yarn (see photo with Tim) does not seem to be as good quality as the Color Me loopy mohair I used for a previous scarf, and I'm trying to decide if I want to continue with it, or do something else. My yarn for the Louet Caroline sweater is still backordered.

Because of work and home projects, I haven't posted as often as I'd like, and I realize that I'm probably forgetting things I want to share with you. Here are a few random thoughts:

I didn't ride in the Tri-State Seacoast Century (100 mile ride) several weekends ago, as I'd planned. I had hurt my knee on the ride the weekend before, and was hoping that it would heal in time. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep well the night before the ride, and when I woke up, the knee was burning. I knew I couldn't ride 10 miles, much less the 100, so I stayed behind at the hotel to work on Oceane while Chris and his friend Larry did the ride. I am so disappointed, but there's always next year.

Charlie is losing weight again, after a promising start on his chemotherapy. He's pretty weak and wobbles a little when he walks. He goes back to the vet for a checkup on Wednesday. Tim will also go for his yearly checkup, which will be fun. He has "Caution" written in large letters at the top of his chart! The vet is an hour away from our new house, so please wish me luck on the ride in the car.

The Before Pictures

I've started removing wallpaper from an upstairs bathroom. I can't replace the brown tub and sink (see financial reasons #1 & #2, paragraph above) but we've removed the glass shower doors, and a new curtain and coat of paint will make a big difference.

One of the things that amazes me about moving is how your tastes change. Has this happened to you? I used to love Victorian style and haunt the antique stores for vintage accessories and pictures to hang on our walls. When I unpacked the pictures and started to try to place them, nothing seemed right. Instead of floral botanical drawings and women and men in fancy Edwardian dress, I'm wanting prints or paintings of seaside landscapes in France and Tuscany, still lifes of starfish and shells, and I've discovered some prints by Jack Vettriano that I love. Instead of heavy floral prints on the curtains I want lighter fabrics and paint colors and frames. Especially now that autumn has descended on us with a vengeance.

Unwinding

For the last couple of months, Chris and I have been running in circles, between work and the house and cycling events and all the rest of it. Every Monday I'd get on bloglines and read posts about blissful Saturday afternoons where knitters sat on their balconies or decks or porches and knitted for hours. Can I tell you how envious I have been?

Finally, this Saturday, I had NO plans. The first thing I wanted to do was sit out on my own deck, gaze at the garden, and knit. Though I'm no Jane, here are some of my flowers:

  Festiva Maxima peonies

Reine Victoria rose (bourbon)

Nelly Moser clematis

Seeing Robin's and Kristin's camisoles inspired me to get out my own and work out the complications. When we last left it, I had been knitting it inside out because yours truly picked up the stitches from the hem backwards, from the left instead of the right. In a happy accident, the new pie wedge shawl I am knitting uses short rows and there is a lot of "turn work." I got an idea...rather than suffer through all that purling on the camisole, I would turn the work now, and hide the little glitch on what would be the side seam under the arm. Unfortunately, after a few rows, I realized that the decreases were not lined up. So I'll need to rip those rows out, and start again. There has been good progress on the pie wedge shawl too, and I'll try to post a photo of that soon.

House update: The offer for the house we like was finally accepted, but the sellers' agent continues to play games with us. She seems to tell lies about the house, either because she's deliberately deceitful, or not motivated enough to double check her facts; I'm not sure. They are easily refuted by, for example, pulling the plot plan of the house at the local town hall (no, the yard does not back up to conservation land!). We had the inspection yesterday, and it will be interesting to see what her response is to our requests.

To cheer myself up, I bought these:

Pink Jelly Shoes. I know they are kinda tacky, and I doubt I'll wear them outside the house. But when I saw them in the store, for whatever reason, they made me incomprehensibly happy. I had a pair a long time ago, and it was like seeing an old friend again who knows you at your least graceful moments, and loves you all the same. Yes, I read a lot into a pair of funky plastic shoes. Yes, I know "incomprehensibly" doesn't sound like a real word, but it is, according to dictionary.com. Now please tell me what secret funky things you keep that make you incomprehensibly happy. :)

Picot Camisole 2.0

The groundhog lied.

One consolation is the extra knitting time. Picot camisole version 2.0 is on the needles. Should I mention having picked up the stitches backwards this time, leaving me to purl the back instead of knit the front, to make the stockinette stitch? Do you think this will work out OK? I've picked up 204 stitches this time, instead of the original 220. The upcoming waist decreases take the stitch count to 180 in the middle of the camisole, so by doing less decreasing now and less increasing at the top, I'm hopeful the gauge evens out and there will be no more rippling of the knitting at the border. I'll be trying this on as I complete the sections in case further adjustments are needed.

My last issue of Knit Simple arrived this week. There is a lacy shawl, knit in bamboo yarn on size 10 needles, that looks like a great first lace pattern if you want to try lace. Other than the shawl, the patterns seem plain, or in some cases a little odd, which sadly confirms letting my subscription run out. I think I will subscribe to IK instead.

Charlie went for his monthly checkup on Wednesday, and we're overjoyed that he's gained 1/3 of a pound. He's now just a bit under 8 lbs. Hopefully this will continue!

All Pink, All of the Time

Project Spectrum's colors for February/March are blue, gray, and white. My Mrs. Belli's lace is blue, and I am occasionally adding more length to what will be the top sheet edging. However, it seems that I am all about the pink knitting lately, which isn't a PS color until April/May. I'm not the only one: Knitting in Pink, Pink Knitting Adventures, Pink Purls, and my comrade-in-sock-apathy Stream of Consciousness all knit pink. In a Blogger search, I found three more pink knitters whom I am going to visit after I get this posted: Bichons in Berry Sauce, Stitches In Pink, and Pink Lemon Twist. Is there any other color in knitting blogland as popular? I wonder what it is about pink?!

I received this in the mail, a prize from The Beekeeper's Granddaughter for voting on her fringe/no fringe scarf issue:

Yarntini in Hope. I love that name: it represents hope for the new year, hope for spring (or autumn, if you are currently baking in the sun of the southern hemisphere), hope for all good things to come, especially those struggling with diseases like cancer. I'm not sure what project I want to make using this yarn, but right now, I enjoy just looking at it! Thank you, Nancy!

Here is a photo of the kitty blanket I'm making for HollYarns' & Cyrano's Creature Comforts drive. I've frogged and re-knit twice until I found a pattern I liked. The yarn, Caron's (left over from my previous kitty project), is amazingly soft for acrylic, and will hopefully wash well.  Holly has just put up some of her amazing hand-dyed yarn as a prize, so go on over and check it out!

Last but not least, the pink camisole. Thank you so much for your suggestions and advice on this. Several people suggested finding a similar pattern that I could use as a model. As it turns out, the pink camisole on the cover of Vintage Knits (a recent Christmas gift), has the same number of stitches for the body (220) and uses the same yarn, Rowan Cotton Glace, that I'm substituting for the Alchemy bamboo.

I'm marking it with a post-it, and have printed out a grid according to my gauge which I found here. As I get closer, I'll chart out the directions onto the blank grid, and adapt the front as needed. I'm not quite 1" from the border, and will begin the waist shaping soon. Rachel's reminder to use a lifeline and rip out as needed was also a brilliant idea; don't ask me why, but I only ever think "lifeline" for lace knitting, and yet, it makes perfect sense to use one here.

Chris, Charlie, and I thank you so much for your supportive comments and emails regarding our GYGIG ride. There are a couple of housekeeping-type things that I do want to pass along to you. First, Judy, our ride director, assures me that the most anyone who donates will ever receive from them is a thank you note. Names, emails, and addresses are never rented/sold or even stored, and you will not be put on a mailing list and bothered for further donations for eternity. Whew! Secondly, GYGIG is a young organization, and run mostly by volunteers, so there will be a bit of a delay in our notification of funds raised. It takes about a week for us to get a report of donations; I think some charities like the MS150 supply real-time updates to riders, but we will not have that available to us. So...as soon as Chris and I receive the weekly reports, we'll put a note under the GYGIG button in the sidebar to update you on our progress. We're excited about our first prize drawing, which will be the last weekend in March.

There has been a lot of frustration in blogland lately with the Blogger upgrading. While my blog is in the Typepad template, I've been frustrated with trying to leave comments on Blogger sites, among other things. Bloglines, too, has been difficult, and I'm considering switching over to a new newsreader. What do you like to use to subscribe to blogs? Is there one service that stands out from the others? Please let me know!

The Picot Camisole Challenge

For about two weeks now, I've been contemplating the fate of the pink picot camisole, one of the last of my unfinished-for-too-long objects. I started it last summer, and due to numerous gauge problems, have only completed the shell border at the bottom. With spring coming, it's time to finish or frog.

(IK Spring 06)

One of my concerns is that the camisole is low-cut and looks like it would be a poor fit, despite the pattern shaping. In many of the FO photos I have seen so far, the midsection is kind of saggy, instead of crisp like the IK photo above. Also, the models wear or should wear the camisole over something else, because otherwise they are, shall we say, sharing more of themselves with the world than I personally feel comfortable. Everyone has their own ideas of style, of course, but I have a thing about multiple straps. They look messy to me. I could not leave my house like this:

(from Alchemy website)

So, what to do? I talked it over last week with my friend, uber-craftster C, who is visiting the pyramids in Egypt as we type (lucky girl). I briefly considered frogging the whole thing. But, the camisole is pink and girly and I really do want to make it. I knit the border while watching Floyd Landis in his legendary Stage 17 ride up to Morzine during the Tour de France, and frogging it now would just be letting him down. Perhaps I put too much symbolism on my knitting?

I emailed Lauren at Almost Felted [click here to see her version of the pattern, and scroll down], who had knit this camisole as a sample. As it was not a garment for her to wear, she wasn't worried so much about fit, but suggested wider straps as a possibility. This got me to thinking that maybe I could just knit this to fit. Put it on as I go and adjust as necessary. I would want to redo the entire front above the I-cord trim. Maybe with some graph paper and a ruler I could figure it out? I have never altered a pattern so much as adding stitches to the width or length, forget changing sleeves and necklines. This might seem like no big deal if you have lots of experience altering designs, but to me, it seems like a huge task.

I do not need another Project. Grace the pink bike and I are on week 3 of the 7-week cycling training program, and I have some other chores that are going to require a good part of my free time in the next few months. I was hoping that my knitting would be simple, mindless, and comforting, but this is not meant to be. Once I pick up stitches and knit the mid-section, I'll be sitting on the floor of the library-office, scattered with papers and yarn and sketches, muttering once again (as I did with the knitted kitties) something about how it seemed like a good idea at the time. Husband C and friend C, Charlie and Tim, consider yourself warned.