The Crabby Creative

Late last week, I turned into a little black cloud. For no apparent reason, it started to feel like the weight of the world was sitting on my shoulders. Once I realized I'd been eating gluten, it made sense but even now, after eliminating it again, it's taking work to shake off this feeling. Maybe, it's the weather. Wet and grey. Apparently, I'm hiding my mood well. That part is good at least. It's really not nice to take little dark clouds out on your family and friends.

Saturday, I uttered those fateful words - what's the point. LOL - it only took me seven weeks to get to them even though I defined the point of my sewing and knitting (in advance of closing the business) as pure entertainment with a bonus wardrobe. Those reasons are good. I still like them. However...

... I'm rather the crabby creative right now because I seem to have found all the poorly written knitting patterns. I knit and knit and turn out things that don't have a hope of working well and then I'm fudging and fudging and nothing is really quite right. I have enough knitting experience, combined with what I know about garment construction, to wonder at some of the instructions but not always enough to know for sure so I try it and see and usually I'm right. What I thought was a rather ridiculous way of doing something turns out to be a really ridiculous way of doing it. Obviously, I need to trust myself more because knit, unravel, and fudge are NOT fun even if they are good learning. Take this capelet for instance.





It's up on the design wall. At this point, I'd already unravelled from 8 stitches across the top to 40 stitches. See that orange marker? I kept unravelling to there, 64 stitches. The pattern says to decrease to eight stitches - which creates even more of a point to the triangle - and then those eight stitches are supposed to sit at the back of the neck with the left and right edges wrapped around to hang down at center front. A button band and collar are added by picking up stitches along one side, across the neck, and down the other side. You can see this in the image below.




When I did that, it didn't fit smoothly across my back. It bunched right up. My friend placed that marker at the point where it crawled up and sat smoothly against the back of my neck so I'm guessing that there is a lot of fabric pinned at this model's back or that capelet was not knit according to the instructions because my gauge was correct, my inches were correct, and it sure wasn't sitting that nicely on me.

To fix it, I decreased to the orange marker, picked up along one edge, and started knitting a center front band. I was going to knit a left and a right band and then pick up for the collar but I realized as I was working through it that I'd be fudging all the way. The neck edge would need to pull in more and the collar curved and shaped and... NOT

To me - and what do I know really since I'm a "baby" knitter - it seems that a capelet would be better knit from the top down using a raglan formation where increases are added systematically to each side of the "armhole". That way the neck edge and the center front edge would be clearly defined, lay smoothly around the neck, and hang straight at center front. OH - that's the other thing about this pattern. It is knit from the bottom up decreasing from 160 to 8 stitches only the decreases aren't evenly spaced. They are skewed to one side. I bet you know what I did with this project - LOL - it's unravelled and back in balls.

Last night, I worked with some purple yarn to get gauge on a sweater that I have been wanting to knit for a while. Annoyingly, it is also written in rows. I don't get that. Even if you're using the recommended yarn, all knitters knit with different tension. It is rarely possible to get both the stitch and the row gauge entirely correct BUT... if the stitch gauge is correct and the pattern is written in inches, it is possible to be successful. When the pattern is written in rows, It's a lot more work.

This morning, I'm skipping Arts & Crafts Club to clean house because I'm getting company tomorrow and on Thursday. This afternoon, I'll try to work out the gauge so that I can start on the sweater at Knit Night. IF I figure it out, I'll show you the pattern otherwise, I'll pick something else and show you that - VBG.

AND THEN... there's sewing. It was wonderful to fit into that skirt that I showed you yesterday. It's a pretty small number that I haven't seen in a long time BUT... it meant that the skirt I sewed in early September doesn't fit me anymore. It's too big. In fact, since I made the Chanel-ish jacket a few weeks back, I've lost another 1" on both my bust and hips and 2" on my waist. So far, I've lost 4-10-4 which does make it a bit tricky to decide on what and how to sew. That's why those fateful words - what's the point - slipped out.

(Edit: I was wondering about losing ten inches on the waist. That seemed like an awful lot so I pulled up my largest chart and measured my current waist and on the most bloated of bloated days, it's ten inches and on average, it's probably closer to eight. Still a significant amount - mostly caused by the gluten and dairy.)

Giving it some thought, I think I'll sew a few blouses and perhaps an elastic waist skirt. For the blouses, the shoulders will be correct no matter what and if I chose close-fitting with minimal ease, the blouse will look good now and still look good if I lose a bit more weight. The same is true with the skirt. The waist to hip to hem proportions won't change so if I make it close-fitting with an elastic waist then it could be taken in slightly if needed. I'll give this more thought. I want to sew but I also want that bonus wardrobe because...

... last week I was reading through some previous and current postings with wardrobe advice at Already Pretty. Sal does a great job of presenting options as well as her personality in styling and opinions on the world. It's a fun blog and posted daily which I really appreciate. She gives a list of thirteen basic items that a wardrobe should have and another list of the top fifty things in her personal wardrobe. I had six of them and that included jewelry and shoes. Hmm... no wonder I think I have nothing to wear. LOL - I need to work on that.

Question - how many pairs of jeans do you own that fit and that you wear regularly? What would wear regularly mean to you? How many times a week/month?

In yesterday's posting, Sal said she's not really a jeans girl and yet she still had five or six pairs. I am a jeans girl and right now, I have two pairs. Partly that's my changing weight but I don't think I've ever owned six pairs that fit at one time. Hmm... that could be because it's hard to find a pair of jeans that fit my body shape but...

SO... that made me wonder how much clothing do people really have. I'm always trying to find that balance point between too much and not enough and too much of what I don't wear and not enough what I do wear like too much dressy and not enough casual. That's something I'm working on too though. Perky up my party so that my everyday clothing is not quite so plain. I don't want it to be dressy dressy but I do want it to be a lot more interesting. I've been spending quite a bit of time looking at the tops at Anthropologie mainly for the detailing - VERY fun.

AND THEN... there's my hair. When I posted those pictures yesterday, I took a good look at my hair and I really don't think it's flattering my face shape. Yesterday, I was pondering do I hang in there, grow it longer, get it all to one length, and then decide or do I cut it off into something more fun and perky right now? Considering I feel like a little black cloud, fun and perky now has great appeal - LOL.

Whenever I grow my hair out, it's because it's less expensive to maintain a long, blunt style and because I imagine putting it up and then I never put it up because long hair up is like short hair and... as you can see in this image below... short hair really doesn't look that good on me. It's wonderful from the side but NOT from the front.

Here it has basically the same shape as the short cut above but is longer and softer around the face. I think that's a huge improvement but still not my best look.

And here it is same style but even longer, closer to the way it is now. Those straight pieces around the face seem to drag me down partly because there is too much hair on the back neck. The head isn't framed and shaped on all sides.

This picture was taken for my oldest son's grad. Even though I'm twenty-five pounds heavier than I am now, I think that style is a whole lot more fun and flattering.

And this one was taken a few weeks before my daughter's wedding two and a half years ago. I like the shape through the back and the softness around the face. That's what I mean by shaping and framing. However, I think it should be a bit longer and not end at the chin level as it does. I was growing out a (awful) short hair cut.




Here it is a couple weeks later from the front. Looking at these photos, I think I'll get my hair cut like this tapering from the back like above but longer in the front so it tucks under the chin and flatters my neck more since my neck is aging. How annoying - LOL. Thoughts? Less twenty-five pounds, I think it's going to look even better than it did then. Isn't my daughter gorgeous?

Okay. I'm off to read blogs, get dressed, clean house, swatch fabric, start the sweater, and head off to Knit Night. There's a tiny bit of sun peaking out. Hopefully, that's the start of a beautiful day AND a shifting in my own personal storm cloud. Today, a light grey cloud. Tomorrow, even better - VBG.

Have a great day - Myrna

Grateful - a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at myself