Thursday, July 22, 2010

Third time's a charm

It fits! It fits! I want to knit 100 sweaters in exactly the same gauge with exactly the same bust shaping.


Of course I didn't finish in time for the Colourmart contest, but I am happy anyway because the contest forced me to figure it out.

My wraps at the end of the short rows were (as usual) a little wonky, but I found that with a little patience and a slightly smaller needle I could tease the stitches into looking more even and less noticeable.  The photo below is the left side, which wasn't so bad to begin with and the second photo is the ride side short rows, which looked awful before I finessed them.


I did a bit more waist shaping than the pattern called for, and I am at the point now that I need to do some calculations to make sure my shirt isn't going to hit the knees.  I am skipping the eyelets in the pattern but am almost to the lace section at the bottom.

I took copious notes because I have to set this project aside for a few weeks - tonight I am leaving to go home to Cincinnati, Ohio!  I haven't been home since January so I am really looking forward to it.  For so many reasons, but among those reasons are a couple yarny surprises that got shipped to my mom's house recently. ;)

I did finish the other item I entered in the Colourmart contest, my bf's reversible cable scarf:


In the background are my newest acquisitions, both Colourmart fingering weight.  I'm saving them for the fall-winter contest/KAL in the colourmart group, but they'll probably end up being lacy gifts for some people here in SG.

Time to finish up my work so I can finish packing, eat some delicious Indian food, and start my 26 hour journey home.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Boobs are irritating.

In general, you might say that I'm pro-bust. I'm the kind of girl who refuses to buy any bra labelled "minimizer" because I feel that the clothing industry should make clothes to fit my body and I shouldn't make my body fit their clothes. I'm a curvy person, and even living in Asia surrounded by Chinese and people of Chinese descent at work all day, I still prefer my body shape to something slimmer. One of the reasons I got interested in knitting after being a crochet freak for a couple years was the possibility of making flattering clothes for myself that actually fit properly. (I know there are many beautiful tops that can be made with crochet, and I'm not trying to dis a craft dear to my heart, but let's face it crochet doesn't have the stretch of knit fabric and it's hard to get full coverage without stiffness.)

HOWEVER, all that boob love has gone out the window as I have been working on the bust portion of this silk sweater. I had ripped out all the short rows and re-knit them, adding in vertical bust darts, as found here. The problem, as I found at knit group yesterday, was that the bust shaping is now too much and too low. Observe:


 
Anyway, I'm glad I brought something else to work on at knit group because once I tried the sweater on I didn't have the heart to even look at it. I hunkered down with that blue sock I've been working on for an age.

I want to speak my mind about knit groups, and I hope if anyone from any of the knit groups I have attended ever reads this they don't get offended. I've experienced knit-outs with three different groups. Two of the knitting circles were awful for me and one was great.

I think the one knit group was awesome because I was friends with the core members outside of knitting and nobody in the group considered themself to be a knitting expert.  So it was just a bunch of girls gossiping and doing our best to tackle whatever pattern we were working on.

The other groups just didn't work. One, which I attended a couple times a couple years ago, was more like an expensive-knitting-stuff fan group than anything else. When I went, I felt like I was not sufficiently in awe of whatever new yarn or book was being raved about on ravelry and blogs. Furthermore I felt like I was completely not cool enough to be in the group - my clothes matched and were clean, I don't have piercings and tattoos and I'm missing that hipster factor so highly prized around college campuses. I kinda got the feeling that the core members of the group didn't appreciate strangers coming to their knit group, and I wondered why the hell they posted about it on ravelry if they didn't want people to come.  I think I went twice and never went back.

The third group group is here in Singapore. I must admit that the main problem for me is quite personal, my hearing is bad and I absolutely cannot hear what anyone else is saying because the meeting place is always a coffee shop near an MRT station - cramped, full, and LOUD. (There is no such thing as a quiet cozy coffee shop in Singapore.) So it's really hard for me to follow any conversations that are going on. But the other thing is that most of the people I've met there seem convinced that they are expert knitters. For me it doesn't matter if one is a master knitter or not, it's just the attitude that comes along with judging oneself to be an expert. Also, it usually feels like there are two knit groups happening simultaneously - the Singaporean one and the expat one with very little interaction between the two.  Knit group is the only place that I've seen another American here, and I really wanted to make friends but I just can't find any common ground with the ladies I've met there.

I left the knit-out yesterday feeling down and wondering why I bother to go to those things. It's really hard for me to understand how I can be so anti-social and unable to make friends here when I have never had these problems before. I used to be painfully shy, but people actually enjoyed my company; here the problem is that people don't seem to like having me around. After six months of trying to make friends at work and through my hobbies, I gave up a while ago.  It's been great for getting reading done but not so great for my well-being.

Perhaps this is just a clue that it's time for a trip home to bring my spirits up.

Anyway I am almost ready to rip the sweater - I plan to rip back about half of the bust shaping, since the apex of my boob is just over halfway down the line of the vertical dart - but for some moral support I went out and got my new favorite coffee:

It's the best local-style coffee I've found. The branch by my bf's house is at the Pasir Ris MRT station, and I love going there because the staff is actually friendly. The man who is usually making the coffee there just brightens my day. It's not that he chats with me or does anything beyond his job description, but he somehow manages to be friendly just by saying "Kopi take-away, ah?" with a smile.

Time to start ripping.  Come hell or high water I WILL get to the waist shaping this week!