Maybe Baby Kimono Coat

It has been blocked and seamed: 

I have added button loops and sewn on buttons:

I have even added a picot cast off to its bottom edge:

Believe it or not, it is ready to dispatch to my gift recipient in the south of France.  

It really did only take five months to get my cast off knit to this point too - yes, I know. I present yet another clear piece of evidence that I am not a completer-finisher.  I am not proud of this fact but it seems to be confirmed that I am the kind of knitter who thinks that a garment is complete the moment that it is cast off.

I am not sure why it happens but I seem to lose motivation as soon as I reach this point.  It is very strange and completely incomprehensible to me that my actions seem to tell me that I am happy to risk the waste of a lot of hard work and good intent by not finishing and dispatching something that I have made, on time.

Do you suffer from this and how do you deal with it?

In this case, my gift recipient is a little girl in France, who should have had this top for Christmas or for her first birthday in February.  I have finally managed to nail this knit as I feel embarrassed to have missed both deadlines.  In addition, I am worried that it is running very late for both her size and for the weather in the south of France... 

...so really, I just hope that her parents like it, that it fits and that she gets some wear from it before the weather becomes too warm?

Pattern Notes

Yarn

Alpaca-DK 'Raspberries', Rabbitworks Fibre Studio, British Columbia

Pattern

Kimono Coat, #606 The Second Little Sublime Hand Knits Book

Buttons

Hearts, Three Bags Full, Vancouver

Worked

5 return rail commutes per week between 22/08 and 29/09 2008 (26 commutes).  Then, occasional knit nights in Vancouver and a good sit down (after telling myself off) on Saturday 4th April.

Pattern Modifications 

I chose this pattern as it was a sideways knit and I was working with variegated yarn - I wanted any striping, flashing or pooling to be vertical, rather than horizontal.  Like so:

 

I swatched for this knit as I wanted to check gauge and see how my yarn worked with the rib pattern.  My swatch was encouraging but when I started to work the sleeve, I did not like how the rib and my yarn were turning out.  So I ripped back and reworked the pattern in plain sticking stitch (stockinette). 

 

My false start indicated that I was going to end up with significant pooling, rather than the striping that I had in my original swatch, so I worked with two skeins of yarn from that point onwards.  Just to try to keep the stripes going that I had seen in my original swatch.  In truth, I think that my final result is a bit mixed on that front! 

I used a picot cast on, cast off and as already indicated, I added a picot cast off to the bottom edge after I had seamed the top.

In terms of gauge and size - my gauge was off (as usual).  So, to obtain the correct garment dimensions for a 1-2 year old, I used the 9-12 month size number of stitches and followed the row instructions for the 1-2 year size.

With the exception of the back section - here, I added another inch of width as I was worried that the garment would be a bit narrow.  The impact of this change is that the front panels did not overlap fully.  

However, I like the effect this created - the buttons now sit inside the line of the neck edge, rather than over on one side towards the sleeve.

According to my measurements, my blocked garment has turned out correctly for the 1-2 size.  However, a lot of people have told me that my top looks like it will fit a 3-5 year old.

As I have no access to a child of the correct age to test this on, I will dispatch it to my gift recipient, keep my fingers crossed and hope for a photograph.  If everyone is right though, I can relax a bit as there may be hope that this top will still fit - even though it is very late?!

Finishing Fairies

Okay - just what are my chances (if I just leave it here, neatly pinned out with the excess yarn and some appropriate sewing needles on hand) that the Finishing Fairies might stop by the studio (the over-the-top posh reference for my amateur crafting space) and do the seaming honours on my behalf?!

After all, I still believe in the tooth fairy you know.

Amid the packing madness...

...there is one constant that is providing me with a singular sense of relief:

Albeit that on some commutes in recent weeks, my tired fingers seem unable to achieve much more than 3 rows of 183 stitches in 35 minutes.

Don't ask. Even last night, during the very small amount of sleep that I managed to achieve (head is buzzing with things I need to do for my move)...

...I (my stash?) was being stalked by slow moving, variagated carpet beetles the size of large armadillos - where on earth does the brain drag this stuff out from?!

Well in terms of a knit, it isn't much to look right now but I am quietly hopeful. It's worked in one piece. I am all the way across its back, I have done both fronts and I am about to proceed down the second sleeve . I am even encouraged that there looks to be enough yarn left for me to complete it comfortably. Famous last words!

Albeit that I cannot imagine what the tension will be like. I am worried that it will have started out fairly relaxed and that it will get tighter, tighter and tighter as I have become more stressed by my impending move?!

Well, that will make the seaming interesting. I also think that I will need to investigate some sort of stablising measure at its edges to stop it curling. So, what's the best, invisible method to achieve this? I was thinking a stablising crochet chain on the reverse edge of the knit?

Okay. Time to do more paperwork sorting, then take a Nytol and do my utmost to get a full, uninterrupted night's sleep. Please, please, please.

I need to tell you, I feel a lot of sympathy for insomniacs, right now . After a week of very little sleep, finding myself awake, putting on laundry and wandering around the house like a dispossessed soul at 3am because I am a member of the Wide Awake Club, is no fun at all.

Just how do people manage to cope with their daily lives without regular sleep over prolonged periods of time?

A long way from the line...

...is the Kimono Coat which did not make it anywhere close to a finishing line in the Ravelympics.

That said, I am plugging away diligently and I am happy with progress so far. Yet, as you may be able to see from the fact that the yarn is resting on some kitchen scales in this photo? I am a bit worried that I may not have enough yarn to make it to any sort of finishing line at all.

I hope I do, as my ideas to extend the life of this yarn did not quite work out. So there may be some shallow breathing as I inch my way slowly across this garment!

P.s. there are still no photos of my phyllo as I hope that I have found it a very deserving home. It is headed to a good friend who I managed to persuade to try it on this evening. So I am going to sew in its ends, do some stablising crochet around its neck and then? I will see if I can persuade her to pose in it for me either next weekend or the weekend after that - watch this space!

Rave-limp-ics

Well perhaps, only in my case - I really feel like I am limping slowly out of the starting blocks!

As you may already know, Ravelry has organised the 2008 Ravelympics. An enormous number of people have signed up to try to complete an astonishing number of projects during the summer Olympics in Beijing.

That folks - is 17 days. Now, when have I ever managed to finish anything within 17 days?!

Let alone three things. Shuddup, yes, you did read that correctly: three things.

Okay, let me be honest here - I only signed up for three events because I wasn't sure what to work on. Then, as it turned out, I did not notice that one of my projects had not registered correctly, so actually I am down to a choice of two things to work on over the next two weeks.

It's a shame, as I thought that I had entered the Vomituous Lake of Plastic Nastiness into WIP Wrestling. It's 80% done, so it's completion is achievable and I thought that you might get a giggle out of seeing it finished, as I have been so rude about its plasticity!

So, what am I doing instead?

Choice 1 - Baby Dressage: a sideways knit kimono for a 1-2 year old.

Pretty, eh? It's Rabbitworks Fibre Studio DK Merino-Alpaca in the Raspberries colourway.

Except that I have not got correct gauge. I have gone down a needle size but I am still out. So I am going down a garment size, in the hope that it will give me the correct sized outcome. I just hope that I have enough yardage, as the 1-2 year old size needs about 89yds more yarn than I have. Fingers crossed.

I have noticed a problem with my rib. I seem to have a consistent loose column of stitches that form on the left hand side of each repeat. Where I bring the yarn forwards to purl. Can you see? It doesn't happen on the leading column of knit stitches. I've tried to pull the yarn tight, like I would on dpns, but it is still happening - how do I eradicate it?

Mind you, this project is only Choice 1 because I am about to rip out the second start on the sleeve.

This is my first attempt, which shows some pooling. Which I quite like. However, this is going to a non knitting, French-Italian couple. So I am nervous, in case they do not like it.

The second attempt (not pictured) seems to have resolved the pooling but I am finding that the yarn tangles hopelessly when I try to work with the inside and outside of the same yarncake. So I think that I need to rip back and work from two different yarn cakes.

So two false starts and nothing more to show for it yet than a tension square and a picot cast on.

Choice Two - Scarfstroke: a test knit for Robynn

I do not pick up the pattern and the yarn for this until after work tomorrow - so that has not yet been started. From the pictures that I have seen of the scarf, some of the stitches look like they will be interesting to work (read super-slow to work in my case).

So, if you are keeping an eye on the Ravelympics over the next two weeks...

...look in one direction for the enthusiastic leaders, racing over the finishing line with finished objects.

Then turn, look back at the direction that they came from, and there, way behind the stragglers in the slow lane, yes - that little, very slow moving speck on the horizon?

Yup, that's me, with my two projects.