Despite my bitching the other day, I still managed to finish the back side of the Stacy top in...well, in a few hours of work done on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. Three freaking days, even with a lot of tedious counting and being busy for most of those days? Sweetness!
So at least when it comes to crochet, the speed so far outranks the part where I take everything out.
I suck, I suck, I suck, I suck, I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THE CLASS WHO SUCKS AT IT. I am not kidding when I say everyone does it perfectly. Some girl started taking the class in week three and IMMEDIATELY did perfect at it as well. Meanwhile, I fuck up constantly, constantly need teacher help, my yarn doesn't even twist or stay twisted or wind onto the bobbin, the tension stuff keeps flying off the wheel, I can't "draft" worth a damn, and my feet refuse to consistently go in the same direction for more than 15 seconds. I keep being told to go in and practice "just treadling," but I have no issues when there isn't yarn going onto the bobbin. I only fuck up when I am trying to actually do something.
I just hate this. This is not fun at all. I feel like there's a big LOSER sign going off above my head in blinky lights.
The teacher DOES NOT LIKE drop spindle. Only did it when she had to (and yet she has like 12 of them- how did that happen?) when traveling. Basically, she is kinda like, "I'll teach it for like, at the very end of class." I somehow suspect that means "not at all," or "in the last five minutes on the last day."
I didn't really want to (or have any desire to) learn the wheel. Even if I fell madly in love with the wheel, wheel was not going to be something I planned on doing later. I was doing it to learn the method she doesn't like.
Bleah.
Adding to the weirdness, now the teacher is all, "oops, I have to go out of town for two weeks." Which means either (a) we get a substitute and an extra week of the class running, or (b) it's on hold for two weeks. I don't know what to root for. If anything.
So, yesterday I was sewing. I put in a partial lining for the Flaming Tote, which was very tricky (hence the partial), fixed the hula skirt, and started in on another dress. This took all day. And of course, the last hour of time I had to sew in was nothing but me making error after error after error and not noticing until it was too late.
The other girl in the room with me (who had seen me do the same thing on the previous day) said, "You should just stop sewing an hour before you have to quit. You just keep screwing up anyway and anything you do has to be taken out, so you get nothing done. So why waste the time?"
She has a point.
This is kind of how crochet goes for me. On the one hand, its REALLY fast to do, which I love. On the other hand, I screw it up and have to take out most or all of the piece just constantly. Every time I learn the hard way that I MUST COUNT EVERY SINGLE STITCH THAT IS IN EVERY ROW, every time, in order for it to come out correct. I don't WANT to do this every time, because it's tedious and a pain in the ass, but I really should count every damn stitch every time if I want to not have to take it out fifteen times.
Which makes me wonder which is faster: knitting, which goes three times slower, but I don't take it out nearly as often, or crochet, which has the speed but constant restarts?
Can you tell I just had to start project #4 (Stacy top) all over again today?
I keep trying to find some other crochet summerish projects that I want to do this summer, but I keep coming up with nothing. I do, however, keep finding cool knitting I have to do. Sadly, in tiny needles to boot. All I want to do lately has DK yarn.
I have a new wish list, from Knitscene Fall 08 and Knit.1 spring/summer 08. Most of which I want to do will be fall stuff, but what could go this summer would be:
I could switch out some of the planned knitting projects to do one of these. Kind of want to. Haven't decided yet. Skirts would probably take more time though.
This chick knit an entire skirt in tiny yarn, with tiny needles, in 30 hours. And here I thought I was the shiznit for crocheting a skirt in 2 weeks of vacation.
Finished in 16 days, total. So that's three projects done this summer. Huzzah! Halfway mark-ish, no less! And I finished it in time to go sew the inner contents/zipper on Saturday.
No photo yet, I finished it around 11 p.m. It is HUGE. I seriously COULD fit a bowling ball (or two) in it! Surprisingly heavy. I am wondering if it will make it too heavy to put a lining in, but I want it to have some support when I start piling stuff into it.
I have started the Stacy top (a couple of days ago), but that will have to go on hold while I finish present-making.
I really wanted to have at least the pieces for the Flaming Tote done by the end of the 15th (halfway through the month!). Yay, I managed it! Even though I had to start one over a whole bunch of times because I kept dropping stitches. I now have the sides sewn together. I still have to make the straps and add on the side trims and sew the fronts to the sides, but I'll have to do that when I have free time at home, I guess. It's a little too big to be portable now. I want the whole thing done (crocheting part, anyway) by Saturday morning so I can sew in the linings.
In other news, I have to drop the competition for a few days to work on the surprise present (due Sunday night). I shall be doing this. Hint: anyone going to the surprise present party and happens to be reading this before then, do not click that link.
Honestly, I went into this class kinda knowing this was going to be one of those crafts where I wasn't likely to get hooked at it and I wasn't likely to be good at it. Plus it's not exactly the most practical craft for my lifestyle. I'm not spending a thousand to get a spinning wheel if I do get hooked. And I make clothing, so I'd have to make a LOT LOT LOT of yarn to make anything I want to do.
So, going in I already had lowered expectations for myself. And sure enough, the first week we actually spun on the wheel, I didn't do terribly great at it. I had issue after issue after issue. However, I was astonished that even those who had never done it before were doing a lot better at it than I was on the first day ever. I felt like I was doing Ukrainian egg dyeing all over again and I was The Biggest Loser in the room.
I hate that feeling. It's not like I expected to be good on the first day, but I didn't expect to be drastically the worst on the first day compared to everyone else who all somehow managed to have smoothly done yarn skeins. How the fuck did they do that?!
*sigh* It's going to be a long four more weeks.
I am glad I didn't order the roving last week. Going to class helped because somebody ordered from Woodland Woolworks and told me she got her stuff within days. And it's cheap. I am all for that and placed an order with them yesterday. Also, a lady in the class has a husband who raises alpacas and I got some alpaca roving off her. Even if I don't get my order in time, I'll have SOMETHING to work with come next Monday, even though I'd rather wait on the alpaca until I stink less. I restrained myself from getting colored wool- I'd rather have a color, but obviously I'm going to "waste" anything I work on here, so I shouldn't do that just so I can get a color high.
The workshop is half full after 2 days.
I have been rounding up various outfits I made for the show and tell portion of the class. That'll be fun.
So I had the meeting to set up the class today. It went pretty well. The first set of workshops is being set up for the last Saturday in July and the first Saturday in August. We'll see how that goes. (The e-mail just went out. Eek.)
For those who don't live in this area, but are interested in T-shirt reconstruction, here's information from the printout I designed for the class.
What kinds of supplies do I need to do this?
Where do I find patterns/ideas of what to make?
The best places are either in books or online. Many people put free tutorials they’ve come up with online that you can work with, if you don’t want to buy a book. Other websites at least have pictures of other people’s work. I haven’t read every book there is out there, but here’s a list of all the ones I’ve seen online, I’ll indicate which ones I’ve seen in person that look good.
Books:
Other titles out there that I haven't looked at in person:
Online tutorial
collections:
Other sources to look
at shirt designs/possible tutorials:
Articles online about
t-shirt reconstruction:
So, I'm taking spinning. I have to buy roving (online, and preferably soon so I can make sure to have it for two Mondays from now) and I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I AM SUPPOSED TO GET.
I assume wool. I have been told that sampler packs are good. Anyone have any suggestions? I've been looking at these, but I am kind of stumped as to what exactly I am supposed to want.
http://www.mielkesfarm.com/samplers.htm
http://www.woolworks.com/Shop/Fiber/Wool/Sample-Packs?start=1
http://www.woolery.com/Pages/fibers.html#wool
http://www.twistoffatespinnery.com/roving.htm
http://www.halcyonyarn.com/fibers.html
Another odd thing: one chick in class is another old-timer, and though she is interested in spinning...she does not like knitting, and isn't terribly fond of crochet ("it's not stretchy and crocheted hats are awful."). I can't help but wonder, what the heck IS this chick going to do with the yarn? Is there some other kind of yarncraft out there she can do?
Progress report:
So, no sooner do I decide to do this Speed Yarnin' idea than...I run into trouble.
Last night, I finished sewing up Stargazer. It is just plain huge on me. I don't have the photo uploaded to show you, but it's big big big. Like, either I rebuild this, burn it, or give it away big.
Apparently I just can't read instructions at all, because not only did I not understand that the knit-it-flat instructions and the knit-in-round instructions were mixed in together (I can't help but wish the designer had separated the two in the typing now), despite the note from her SAYING TO CIRCLE THE VERSION YOU ARE DOING, I ALSO can't read the part where she said pick your size off your ribcage rather than your tit size. Considering that the two on me are drastically different from each other, I have learned from making other items NOT to pick the smaller size when making anything.
*sigh* On the one hand, yeah, it's fun to be able to customize stuff when you make it. On the other hand, you can't tell until you're done sometimes if you fucked up the size.
So. I was not going to count Stargazer in the "try to make six outfits" total. But if I start it over...that moves stuff down and out of the queue.
I'm not sure what I am going to do. I can't really tell if it's going to look better if I rebuild it or not.
So I seem to average about 3-4 items a summer, approximately.
This summer...y'know what I want to do? I want to do something ambitious. (Or as my friend put it, do a bunch of small goals rather than one big one so I feel like I actually did something with my life.) I want to make...at least SIX things between now and August 31. Call it the Summer of Speed Yarning. (Guess that'll be my calendar for the month...)
Rules:
- The crochet projects on the roster will be Flaming Tote (done to match the skirt), Singular Tee and Stacy. Singular is done in DK and the rest are in worsted, so that one should go a little slower than the rest.
- The knitting projects, long shots all, will be Universal Tunic, Scarlet Woman, and Saturday in the Park dress. All are on pretty small needles- 6, 5, and 7, so they will be major long shots. I'll try the tunic first, then the tank. Actually having STARTED on Saturday in the Park by September will be the goal, rather than having it done, because that thing would probably take all summer if I let it.
We'll see how it goes.
