Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

The Most Complicated Project, Days 9-14

Continued from here.

4/9: I had thought I was doing well. Hahahahah.

I thought I was done with "page 1," then I could not get the counts right. Thought I had it correct, but one side has more than the other and both are short on a total of 109 stitches. Oops.

I also finished my "mindless" project today (see skirt I'll post later) and right after that, a friend called wanting me to come over. So I grabbed the Papillon, went over to her house, figured out it was screwed up, had to count and recount a lot, she kept talking and talking while I was doing it.... (and then sent me this as an apology). I think I just can't do that project around other people, really :( I'm going to have to find a new "mindless project to haul over to people's houses.

4/10: Spent most of lunch undoing everything I'd done back to the finishing of the "orange square." By the end of lunch, I *think* I am back on track, but I still found extra stitches on one side that I had to fudge, i.e k2tog.

There is a page in the instructions marked "COUNTS and marker placement." Given its location in the booklet, I wasn't clear as to what the heck it was, but apparently it lines up exactly how many stitches you're supposed to have on each side, in sections. I put in stitch markers when it told me to originally, but didn't notice that I'm supposed to be putting in more every 10 stitches or so--or not exactly if I'm going on the "counts" page?

I photocopied the pattern a few times. I'm going to have to have both the current page of instructions and the page of the counts out in front of me every time, clearly. Hell, maybe an Excel spreadsheet.

I note I did all this while on Zoom with another friend, who kept making various comments along the lines of "knitting without tears is not the case" and how surprisingly stressful knitting can be. Ain't it just.

4/11: I thought I was doing well....I brought the project to the first friend's house again and I still think I'm somehow confused. I can't figure out if it's learning disability of some kind (note: I suspect I have ADHD, but doctors refused to confirm it) or just that I'm dumb, or it's confusing, or what.

4/12: Took the day off.

4/13: Feels like I just can't keep track. I keep pulling stuff out, and finally I just fudged the count when it was off by one by adding (and then decreasing) one. Sigh. Whatever. Anyway, I have finally finished page 1 of 7.

Tarot card crafter vest

Continued from here.

It looks so good without sleeves--and also, the weather is now finally warming up--that i may leave it without sleeves. Or make up removable ones, to be determined there. 

The Most Complicated Project, Days Two through Four

Continued from here.

Day 2: I tackled the "Red Square" first section of the project. And then finished that, and then started the "Orange Square" section. And then realized that I'm off on the count and have to pull it out.

Day 3: Pulled back to where I started and redid the "Red Square" again....twice. 

Day 4 (4/3/25):
I'm still having a problem. I'm doing the "square*" section as written and then it seems like I don't have it lined up with whatever it's supposed to be by the time I finish the "square." I took out what I had for the red square for a third time, and then went looking for helpful videos online. I found this one for doing the "red square" and it really helped to point out exactly where the stitches were supposed to be positioned, because that's where I was lost. I did the red square again by the end of lunch. On to watching the orange square video to figure out the placement of THAT!

* Note: not really a "square" so much as what the designer called this section, more like, a bulge.

Later: I watched the orange square video and that also clarified nicely as to where everything is supposed to be located. I have now completed both the first red and orange squares! Hooray!

Tarot card crafter sweater

I'm making the Tarot Card Sweater. I got the extra "Crafter" card and one's on the front and one's on the back.

Color Stripe Tunic

Pattern here.

(Added the old scarf because it goes. Very Shakespeare ruffle.)

The Most Complicated Project, Day One

So I'm about to embark on the world's hardest project in knitting, as far as I have ever seen. 

 

That is the butterfly/papillon shawl that I have seen all over the place IRL and 4,427 people have done this project on Ravelry

(seriously, 3 people have been added since I started writing this post), so apparently other people have managed to successfully do it. I admire the pattern a lot, but I never would have done it myself had I not been gifted the money to buy it for Christmas this year (thank you, cousin Linda!) and I'm nervous about it It is a pattern where it's made in fingering yarn, that's not my strongest skill. I'm not getting the gauge on it, but I've decided I don't care because it's a shawl and it doesn't matter what size it is. But when the pattern notes start out with "pre-reading of this pattern can cause confusion, if it does not make sense when doing this try casting on and only reading a bit ahead to see if it starts to make sense as you work," that's nerve-wracking. There's a giant amount of charts and things when you start looking at it, it takes several pages just to get to page one, so it's an intimidating and confusing.

 

I am starting this today (3/31/25) because I don't have to work today and so I can just spend like some time going "what the hell is this?" 

 

Casting on: it appears to be one of those shawls where that you add one on the each end and then you add two in the middle, a la this one. It appears you do that for at least some time now. That's kind of typical shawl, standard so we'll see how that goes.

 

On the good news side, I think I figured out what I'm doing, at least on the very first section anyway. There's a lot of wrap and tucks, which I like, albeit I have to keep remembering what row I'm on. On the bad news side, I apparently mixed up main color and contrast color and had to start over.

 

I got one section done in a day!

Flower wreath

I took the yarn advent calendar flowers and made a wreath. I had this kind of battered/falling apart a bit twig wreath that I knitted a cover for and then sewed the flowers to the cover, then sewed the cover to cover the wreath.

Doom advent calendar

So Ask A Manager introduced the concept of a "doom advent calendar," for the months of January and February when everything is awful and you still need a daily chocolate pick-me-up. 

I haaaaaaaaaaaate January (especially this year) and this sounded like a perfect idea to me. Create a 31-day advent calendar. Make it up from scratch. What could go wrong?

Well....it came out kinda to VERY crooked, I redid the pocket sizes like 4x and it just looks awkward. But I care not. It's DOOMUARY. 

I will be filling them with chocolate/other candy and fortunes I printed out off the Internet. 

The Oprah

So, back in the halcyon days when we had hope for the future (RIP future) I saw the custom Christian Siriano jacket Oprah had on at the Democratic National Convention and fell in love. I don't like blazers on big-boobed women--blazers were just not intended for those--but this nipped in at the waist, it fit the boobs and it fit them well. Alas, one can not get a custom Christian Siriano, so I had to make my own and well, convert it to a sweater. I suspect the original is a blazer with a back-fastening belt, but that's impractical. So I made a wide ribbed waist, cast on extra stitches around the bottom of the waist to create a peplum and did garter stitch on the hem and then sewed it folded over.

I cast on stitches around the top and gave it about 6 stitches/1 inch of extra cast on on each side, then decreased by 1 stich on each front side and later sewed the pointy ends onto the sweater. The collar was picked up and knit in reverse stockinette and decreased on each side. I even managed to figure out how to do sleeves, which I haven't done before. It was surprisingly easy to design and a lot of people like it! 

Halloween costume #2

Here's the original costume idea I had going on before the job switch. Previous reference here.

Captain Marvel in her Princess of Aladna dress.

Ravelry only links: Skirt pattern is this one again, with two hidden pockets and I had to make up the arm fabrics. They are pinned on so I can wear the skirt the rest of the year. Sun motif at the bottom is this.

I had to make up the top entirely because nothing existed akin to what I wanted. I cast on 124 stitches and did them in 3x1 rib up to the bust, then increased to 5x1 rib at that point, made up the sleeves and rest of the star, used fabric stiffener on the star. 

Photo refuses to rotate, sigh.