The procrastinating Mici

February 19, 2022Leave a comment

Before I forget, let me begin with a friendly reminder that my new pattern, the Tyche Hoodie is still available at a 20% discounted price on Ravelry and Etsy today and tomorrow! The discount is not working in my Payhip store and on LoveCrafts. Sale ends February 20, 2022. Midnight CET.

(I hope you notice my new child size mannequin, which my husband bought me after I was cracking up because we have children who are useless for knitwear photography… I am joking, of course 😀 … I love them more than anything. The problem is with my skills of taking good photos, obviously. But my children are useless for knitwear photography, too.)

All that being said, let’s jump onto what happened this week on GK. If I want to put it out there as shortly as I can, it would be one word: NOTHING.

It all happened because I got frustrated by a huge bucket of yarn under my desk (I keep my WIPs there, and they usually take up a space of the size of 2 boxes packed on top of each other, which is fine. I like it that way, because I can always grab one of the projects to work on while I watch a YouTube video on my computer or wait for something to load – oh, how I loooove Windows updates every week or so… – But I also had this bucket full of super bulky yarn there. – You may remember when I wrote about my new year’s resolutions for 2022 in a previous post, I have mentioned a raglan pullover that I knitted from the leftover yarns from a previous project knitted in Phildar Phil Alaska, which was a complete failure and had to be unraveled. Now this was the one), and I just couldn’t sit at my desk without my legs colliding with the bucket all the time. One day I got so annoyed with it that I could throw the whole thing out the window. I thought this is high time it disappeared. I had so many other – more important – things to do…. I should have left it… Now I wish I threw that bucket out the window instead…

First of all, I spent half a day finding a suitable sweater pattern. Soon I have realized that I don’t have the required amount of yarn for that one, so I thought I should be OK with some modification to the original pattern. Of course I ended up with a LOT of modification to the pattern…

Here is what I did:

I used a 6mm/US10 size needle all over. This gave me a completely different gauge but I liked the final fabric that it produced more.
I am usually a size S but cast on and started to knit according to size M/L.
I left out the pockets because of the shortage of yarn. Therefore I knitted the fronts in all stockinette after the hem.
Since my gauge was different, I knew that the fit/ease will be different from the original, too, so I cut the length of the sweater by around X cm.
Point 4. meant that I had to re-calculate the position of decreases at the front necks.
I used 3-needle bind off at the shoulder seams, and seamed the the sides with mattress stitch.
I originally thought it will end up as a vest, since I wouldn’t have enough yarn for the sleeves, but after I got to this point, I still had about 7 balls (which I didn’t want to put back under the table…), so I thought I should give a try to sleeves of some kind.
Instead of knitting the sleeves bottom-up, I knitted them top down. I picked up stitches around the armholes, because I was not sure if I had the right amount of yarn to finish both sleeves.
I picked up 58 stitches around the armholes, and calculated the number and frequency of decreases like it was long-sleeved. Fortunately I could manage to finish both sleeves and I was left with a tiny bit of leftover (as seen on the photos below).
I changed the stripes of color to random here, since I had to use what I got (When I knitted the fronts and the back, I was sparing the white yarn for the collar, but when I finished, I realized, maybe the dark grey will be enough, too, and it would be a better choice. So I used up all dark grey for the collars and I was left with a bunch of white… Anyway, it is not that bad this way…

It turned out like this:

I must admit that I quite like the result, but then I turned the sweater inside out and saw this:

*I immediately knew that the rest of the week was busted…*

So that is how a week went by and I managed to do absolutely nothing GK-wise or knitwear designer course-wise (though I really wanted to at least finish my fiber report this week…). Bummer.

I really should stop procrastinating. It is sooo unproductive. But at least now I have space for my legs under my desk and a cardigan to keep me warm as I am sitting there typing up the rest of my fiber report and the short row shaping of the hem of my newest design, the Pomona sweater…

I would really love to read about your experiences about procrastinating. Do you procrastinate? If not, how do you avoid it???

I hope to see you next week! Until then…

Happy Knitting!

Mici

Tyche is out!

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022Leave a comment

I am really excited to announce that Tyche is finally live! This is a big moment in my life, since this is the first complex garment that I am releasing (well, there was Aurora, but that was my very first design, written in only one size, since I knew nothing about grading at that time, and it is a free pattern, so I don’t count that one…).

I have to admit, writing this pattern was adventurous and really tough. When the design of this hoodie emerged in my mind back in 2017, I didn’t have a chart editor software. I was drawing all charts in MS Excel from cell to cell for each size and then writing everything from row to row in my editing app (it took me a whole month of work). I guess I don’t have to tell you how much room there is for errors this way. No surprise, all tech editors rejected to edit it then.

Finally, it went in my desk drawer and later in a box in a storage room because life had happened and our family moved to a new home (that was quite an adventure, too, you can read it here…). But as I was unboxing all my knitting stuff at the new place, I found my notes about Tyche, and thought I should give this design a second try… So I took a deep breath, rewrote the whole pattern, drew all charts again (this time in the chart editor software), created a few tutorial videos, searched for test knitters and boom… 3 months later we are here… 🙂

Now that it is released, I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing… I put a tremendous amount of work in this pattern and I am really relieved that is finally over, so I can move on. On the other hand I am extremely nervous about the welcome of this design. Not about the financial side, because I know my sales will probably never cover my expenses (none of us is designing for the money, I think… I have just seen a report of Ravelry’s January sales from 2019 and 70% of the designers earned less than 200 USD – and 80% still under 250 USD – in that month, which is the busiest month of Ravelry…). My fear is the critics. What if it is not good enough? What if I am not good enough? What if all of us missed an error (…or more…)? I always try to shift my thoughts toward the “we are human, so we all make mistakes” mentality but it is really hard right now, that there is so much effort put into this pattern. And it is not only my hard work any more but the 5 incredible ladies’, who test knitted Tyche for me (and I can’t be thankful enough for their help on this)…

I really feel that Tyche is a huge milestone in my life. A part of GK is closing down with it forever (which I don’t mind at all, to be honest…) and something new begins. I just don’t know what 🙂 …

Now that I have sufficiently scared you with my second thoughts about it, here is Tyche with all its glory, available on Payhip, Ravelry, Etsy and LoveCrafts 🙂 (if not now, these last two should be available in a few hours… I will link them in here, too, as soon as their links are live):

Enjoy 20% off this pattern from now until the end of next week! No coupon codes needed. This sale only applies on Ravelry and Etsy, the discount will not work on Payhip and on LoveCrafts. Sale ends at midnight Sunday, February 20th CET, 2022.

You can find more info on this pattern and about the upcoming ones here.

Do not forget, if you need help with this project, you can find links in the pattern to my tutorials, which you can also find by clicking here, in my knitting help library. I also created a playlist on YouTube just for the tutorial videos for Tyche, you can watch the whole series by clicking here. I really do hope you will like this pattern!

Happy Knitting!

Mici

A week of studying, searching for resources and some knitting

February 5, 2022February 5, 2022Leave a comment

Since we are still waiting for the last test knitter to finish Tyche Hoodie, I finally had some time to catch up with my studies this week. I was working on my fiber research for a few days and I have made quite a lot of progress. I find it such an interesting topic, I would really love to dive in a bit more, so I started to look for resources I could use. Previously I always ordered books from the US through Ebay and Amazon but I seem to be unlucky with those. The worst case was about five years ago when I ordered The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt 3 times: once on Amazon – which has never arrived and I haven’t got my money back either – and twice on Ebay, from which the first time they returned my money without a word, and for the second time I finally got the book (so that was quite an expensive book for me, paying for the book with shipping from the US 2 times… but it still worth it). Having learnt from these previous “affairs”, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t order any books neither through Amazon, nor through Ebay any more. I had to find a reliable source for American books in Europe, so that shipping won’t take ages and cost a fortune at the same time and also the books have less possibility to get lost on the way.

About a year ago I was searching for a reference book for indoor plants (my other hobby) and I found Wob (a.k.a. World of Books. And by the way, this is not a paid promotion, so you will read my honest opinion about them if you continue). They have millions of books in their stock and a fair price for shipping, so I made a try and ordered a book from there. And voila, my book was here in Hungary in a week, safe and sound. So this time I tried to find resources for my fiber research there. And I found the treasure chest of knitting resources… As of today, there are over 26.000 books in the topic of “Crafts”, 2.000 in knitting only, so it is almost impossible to go through their library. Since I didn’t have a particular book in mind but had some spare time, I went through the 2000 books… and end up ordering 11 and putting another 18 on my wishlist for next time. I don’t know how many books can someone read on a topic in a lifetime but I think I will challenge that… I may highlight my favorite ones here once I have read them. Anyway, if you need any place for resources of books in English and you live in Europe, I highly recommend Wob.

Researching for my fiber report meant watching a lot of video content, too, and like all the other knitters, I can’t just sit and watch anything without something in my hands to knit… so I continued my neglected Dohne by Oceaan. This is my third one, actually, I am knitting it for my husband’s cousin, who is kindly doing accounting for our family. Accounting is a nightmare here in Hungary, without her help we would be nowhere here so I am really grateful for her and I wanted to knit her something in return for her hard work. She chose Dohne, and also the yarn to go with it, which is Drops Puna from Garnstudio, in my favourite colourway, grey green (which is unfortunately discontinued but I had some balls left from previous projects). I really love this, and I am sure she will, too.

As to my new design, the Pomona Sweater, I was so pleased with the short row shaping of the hem that I made last week, I decided to include these short row modifications in every child size, so I am currently working on the instructions and charts for those.