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Fiber arts: 11 months
It has been about 11 months since I learned how to crochet!
The number of meetings I have to go to has gone way down (mostly because the projects that had All The Meetings and which led to my learning crocheting in the first place came to an end or are on hiatus) so I have been churning out things at a much lower rate, but in fact I have been crocheting and, um, also doing more and more knitting.
Knitting: Knitting is becoming more and more fun for me, due to now having done enough knitting (mittens and a shawl) that everything isn't just slog, and the motions are kind of hypnotic, and also I've gotten faster. It's still a lot slower than crochet, but it's sort of the difference between not being able to see past the endless miles of knitting to the end of a project, and knowing that it's miles but it will end someday. Also I really like the way knitted fabric feels and drapes, more than crochet. *ducks* I stiiiiiill hate fixing knitting mistakes (THE WORST), although the kids have gotten used to knitting needles scattered about the house and know to leave them alone. I am at the stage where I really enjoy just doing knit stitch over and over so I feel like I should embrace that before my short-attention-span self decides I need to learn lace or something.
Here, have a pic of some mittens! You can see one of them is noticeably larger than the other, that was the one I did second and had more thoughts on how to make it fit properly (and it does for the most part, except for the top where I got impatient and should have knit a couple more rows, and didn't -- doesn't show in the picture, but I added them on at the end and it looks a little funny).
I have a problem, though:
Things I need and should knit, and would go well with my short attention span, and which I could use to learn more techniques: Dishcloths. (Several of our dishtowels have recently self-destructed -- a once-in-ten-years opportunity!) Fingerless gloves in wool. (I adore the acrylic crocheted fingerless gloves I made last year, but why have one when one could have two, of different materials :D ) More Socks!
Things I actually want to knit: Shawls. (I don't even wear shawls! But... so many pretty patterns... and many of them easy enough that I could actually do them... I guess I'll have to start wearing them. :P ) Sweaters. Well, okay, I do actually need sweaters... but they take forever, self, and you have to swatch and stuff, what are you thinking?!
Crochet: Since I last posted on this subject, I have finished Baby Blanket #2 (and don't want to make another one anytime soon -- baby blankets take foreeeeever, even crocheted, and tbh this one was kind of monotonous after a while -- but which I think came out pretty nice, and the recip really liked, so yay!);
and most of a cardigan which I am in the process of dismantling and erm, knitting into a shawl; and I finished all the tiles for the hexagon blanket which has been just sitting there for a couple of months now, waiting for me to put it together; and I just started square 37 of A.'s crochet Hue Shift blanket. Out of 100 squares. and not counting the border. I started it about a year ago. And yes, I took a lot of breaks, and yes, it's going faster than before, and I seem finally to have figured out how not to make mistakes, but right now it's at about 1 square/week, so at this rate I'll be done, uh, sometime next year.
...To be fair, at this precise moment I'm rewinding a lot of yarn (turns out that some yarns SAY they're center pull but in practice they collapse into hideous tangles if you actually DO center pull them, ahem) so I think I can go faster than 1 square/week after that, especially if this next work project starts up and I have more meetings again. And if no one else I really like has a baby! :)
Yarn: For![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mildred_of_midgard's wife: I have bought some Malabrigo (I used Mecha to make the mittens, and I've got some Rios now too) and it is so squishy and soft, I love it, thank you both for the rec and for the advice to treat it as one weight down, which has saved me a lot of grief :D
The number of meetings I have to go to has gone way down (mostly because the projects that had All The Meetings and which led to my learning crocheting in the first place came to an end or are on hiatus) so I have been churning out things at a much lower rate, but in fact I have been crocheting and, um, also doing more and more knitting.
Knitting: Knitting is becoming more and more fun for me, due to now having done enough knitting (mittens and a shawl) that everything isn't just slog, and the motions are kind of hypnotic, and also I've gotten faster. It's still a lot slower than crochet, but it's sort of the difference between not being able to see past the endless miles of knitting to the end of a project, and knowing that it's miles but it will end someday. Also I really like the way knitted fabric feels and drapes, more than crochet. *ducks* I stiiiiiill hate fixing knitting mistakes (THE WORST), although the kids have gotten used to knitting needles scattered about the house and know to leave them alone. I am at the stage where I really enjoy just doing knit stitch over and over so I feel like I should embrace that before my short-attention-span self decides I need to learn lace or something.
Here, have a pic of some mittens! You can see one of them is noticeably larger than the other, that was the one I did second and had more thoughts on how to make it fit properly (and it does for the most part, except for the top where I got impatient and should have knit a couple more rows, and didn't -- doesn't show in the picture, but I added them on at the end and it looks a little funny).
I have a problem, though:
Things I need and should knit, and would go well with my short attention span, and which I could use to learn more techniques: Dishcloths. (Several of our dishtowels have recently self-destructed -- a once-in-ten-years opportunity!) Fingerless gloves in wool. (I adore the acrylic crocheted fingerless gloves I made last year, but why have one when one could have two, of different materials :D ) More Socks!
Things I actually want to knit: Shawls. (I don't even wear shawls! But... so many pretty patterns... and many of them easy enough that I could actually do them... I guess I'll have to start wearing them. :P ) Sweaters. Well, okay, I do actually need sweaters... but they take forever, self, and you have to swatch and stuff, what are you thinking?!
Crochet: Since I last posted on this subject, I have finished Baby Blanket #2 (and don't want to make another one anytime soon -- baby blankets take foreeeeever, even crocheted, and tbh this one was kind of monotonous after a while -- but which I think came out pretty nice, and the recip really liked, so yay!);
and most of a cardigan which I am in the process of dismantling and erm, knitting into a shawl; and I finished all the tiles for the hexagon blanket which has been just sitting there for a couple of months now, waiting for me to put it together; and I just started square 37 of A.'s crochet Hue Shift blanket. Out of 100 squares. and not counting the border. I started it about a year ago. And yes, I took a lot of breaks, and yes, it's going faster than before, and I seem finally to have figured out how not to make mistakes, but right now it's at about 1 square/week, so at this rate I'll be done, uh, sometime next year.
...To be fair, at this precise moment I'm rewinding a lot of yarn (turns out that some yarns SAY they're center pull but in practice they collapse into hideous tangles if you actually DO center pull them, ahem) so I think I can go faster than 1 square/week after that, especially if this next work project starts up and I have more meetings again. And if no one else I really like has a baby! :)
Yarn: For
mildred_of_midgard's wife: I have bought some Malabrigo (I used Mecha to make the mittens, and I've got some Rios now too) and it is so squishy and soft, I love it, thank you both for the rec and for the advice to treat it as one weight down, which has saved me a lot of grief :D
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The weight. :) Mostly I make things at my desk (and I vacuum the external keyboard periodically *whistles innocently*), which means it helps for things to fit on the little strip of desk between keyboard and me or fully on my lap. An adult-sized sweater is slightly too big already and tends to slide off. But I might try making a blanket in strips--tried once, decided I didn't like pattern-plus-yarn well enough, but I'd like to try again at some point as a stashbusting endeavor.
Some people have commented that some fine, fuzzy wools and some part-silk skeins benefit from it, but I agree with you that color shifts are really the only factor. The abrasion/friction thing can be counterbalanced by how one handles the working skein (not letting it bang around a large project bag, etc.--at home I use a small cardboard box).
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Yes, I'm probably being too optimistic about my own prospect of seaming, but I don't mind it if my fingers cooperate. Adding stitch markers (the little pins) at intervals usually helps me avoid redoing half the seam several times.
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Mattress stitch, slip-stitch seaming, knitted three-needle bindoff, single-stitch crochet seaming are in one bucket in my head. :) That's in order from least to most visible, since the knitted bindoff is usually done wrong side and I've seen sg-st crochet done right side decoratively.
Hm, if you've made the hexagons already, then I think it may not be join-as-you go. Usually the latter means building the next stitch onto an existing one without adding a buffer zone--next hexagon uses the edge of a prior hexagon. Doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it looks the way you'd like it to and is tolerable to implement!
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