Zebra Striper: May 2008 Archives
Well, that's it. At this point I have pretty much done most of the interesting knitting on the Zebra Striper jumper project (except for a bit of duplicate stitch and some detailing around the arms and neck. Now that the colorwork is done I have an ocean of yellow stockinette to knit through, punctuated by the occasional decrease row as the dress slims from bottom to top. Believe it or not, I am happy about this. I enjoyed the color work a great deal, but I wanted to have at least one project that required no thinking in my current batch. This one has now become perfect for apres-nursing TV watching and for any other time I need something to just relax with. Lace knitting may provide me with a mantra to meditate on, but simple stockinette lets my hands stay busy while my is free to wander.
But I couldn't let this post go by with just a small picture of the overall project. After all, this is the project that helped me get my two handed two color knitting mojo going. With simple motifs and a long long way around, it was perfect for that task. My stitches are hardly perfect, but I suspect with a little blocking most of the most egregious problems will be eased away. Though the fabric puckers now, it's easily pulled into a better shape.
The zebra stripes are an excellent demonstration of the importance of choosing carefully which hand you carry your yarn in. Since I am still only moderately proficient carrying the yarn in my right hand, I always carried the yarn that was going to get used the most in my left hand. In the case of the zebra stripes, this was the black yarn. However, I think it would have been better if I had been more patient and carried the black in my right hand since the white seems to get lost under some of the black stitches and the black is a little more dominant than I think it should be in the design. A good lesson for the future, I think.
I'm enjoying knitting with the Baby Ull. Even though the gauge is tiny, it moves easily through my fingers and isn't as splitty as I might have expected a superwash yarn to be -- something that makes knitting in the dark more do-able since I don't have to stop all the time and be worried about whether I missed a ply or whether I'll have little slubby areas in the fabric that I don't want to have there.
It's a long haul project -- but when Ms. Z comes up to touch it and then gives me one of her megawatt smiles I know it's going to be more than worth the effort.
The zebra stripes are an excellent demonstration of the importance of choosing carefully which hand you carry your yarn in. Since I am still only moderately proficient carrying the yarn in my right hand, I always carried the yarn that was going to get used the most in my left hand. In the case of the zebra stripes, this was the black yarn. However, I think it would have been better if I had been more patient and carried the black in my right hand since the white seems to get lost under some of the black stitches and the black is a little more dominant than I think it should be in the design. A good lesson for the future, I think.
I'm enjoying knitting with the Baby Ull. Even though the gauge is tiny, it moves easily through my fingers and isn't as splitty as I might have expected a superwash yarn to be -- something that makes knitting in the dark more do-able since I don't have to stop all the time and be worried about whether I missed a ply or whether I'll have little slubby areas in the fabric that I don't want to have there.
It's a long haul project -- but when Ms. Z comes up to touch it and then gives me one of her megawatt smiles I know it's going to be more than worth the effort.
