Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

Tiny damn yarn

So.....I have an enormous amount of fancy tiny yarn I've been acquiring at fancy yarn festivals and the occasional shop trip for several years now, most of which I haven't done anything with. I have colorway COLLECTIONS of this stuff.

Neon

I'm not sure what to label this collection, but it's .... pale rainbow-ish shimmery, I guess? Possibly not everything that qualifies in this is even in this shot.

More rainbow rainbow (this isn't even ALL of the stash of that)

And pink/purple/blue (rainbow and pink/purple/blue are my life's colorways).

This is because I want to make more dresses out of fingering yarn, and the tank/tube-style dress I want to make I have (a) not been able to design myself, and (b) the closest pattern I've got doesn't get gauge even remotely with the fingering yarn it supposedly uses, forcing me to recalculate or substitute something else or god knows what. (Other people have agreed with me that the gauge is insane.) i just took a class in recalculating this for another gauge because I come out at about 28 sts/4 inches with size 5's in fingering, or 28 sts/4 inches if I really wank it and use size 8 needles. The pattern's gauge is at 22, which is worsted weight, FFS.

Meanwhile right now I'm knitting with the 28/4 gauge with fingering on the Isabela top. I did the collar and I finished (most of) one sleeve and am on to the next. And you know what? That shit's STILL flimsy AF really. Like, I wanted to make a lightweight summer dress out of these things because it gets to be like 116 here, but if I knit it at that gauge I'll probably still need to wear some other dress under it or else embarrass myself. If you hold it up to the light, it's a bit peekaboo still. The crochet dress is definitely peekaboo, which is why I have clothes under it and have mostly worn it in midseason temps here and there.

Maybe I should just give up and knit 2 yarns together and do it in DK gauge? That uses more yarn (but has awesome color combos that could harmonize, particularly on the neon) and knitting with two seems like a pain, but that might be less of a pain than working in one strand of tiny. I did also find a way to knit with 3 fingerings at once (folding them up and weaving a third strand through...it worked) to come out around worsted/bulky gauge. Works a treat, albeit it was quite heavy fabric and not what I was going for in a "summer" dress.

Argh, I dunno. I still have Halloween costume I'm plugging away on and a portable project and a pain-in-the-ass-I-may-never-finish-it double knitting to work on, plus the vest that is on hold because I got sick of the fiddly lacy hem. So...yeah.

THIS IS MAH HAUL

Here's the pictures of what I got at Stitches 2023.

Yes, that's something like....17 skeins, technically? (A bunch of minis on the end). I have been collecting (a) rainbow skeins, (b) pastel mix skeins, (c) purple/blue skeins, and (d) neon skeins, for possible future projects. I shopped like there may be no Stitches in the future, basically. I took a class in alterations, so hopefully I can someday come up with the dress pattern I want for these things.

Other things: shawl pin, knitting board, landscape pendant embroidery kit, Knitters Oracle. And a bunch of stickers.

And the socks on the right.

This is the sample NEWS sweater I made in class.

Oh, and I made the embroidered pendant. (I note that the kit seems to have slightly different color instructions than the picture, so one part of the mountain is light gray.)

Stitches West 2023, day two

Continued from here, also behind the spoiler cut:

The collar on the Isabela outfit is done

Continued from here.

Stitches West 2023, day one

Enormous amount of pictures below the spoiler cut.

Learning double knitting

Taking a class on how to do double knitting the next few weekends: Here is my sample:

And she taught us a bind off that alternates the colors on the end:

 

The third tier of the Encanto skirt is done

Continued from here.

The tier by itself was taken at work where I finished it and boy, did that color come out inaccurate (it's really the mauve shade on the left). I am going to have to pin the second tier down further so it looks more layered.

Now the question is, do I sew on the panels to the skirt first or the flowers first?!

Isabela top in progress

Continuing from here. I'll probably finish the third layer of skirt over the weekend, but in the meantime, here's this:

I'm doing the Shapely Tank for the basis for this. Here's the front piece, blocking, and I just finished the back piece. Entire tank done in less than 2 weeks. Then I sew it together and try to figure out how to put the neck and sleeves on...

A book review

Just finished Unraveling, which some of you might be into reading. 

Second layer of the Isabela skirt is done.

Continued from here.

Only took about a month to do this one during show downtimes in the dark. 

Looks great, I think.