Single Chevron swatch and scarf begun...

I did a swatch for my first project ever, which will be a scarf in the Single Chevron pattern.

Here's the swatch:

For the swatch I cast on 24 sts and did 20 pattern rows. It came out to 6.25" x 3.75". The pattern itself is fairly straightforward and relatively easy for me; it didn't take me long to get the hang of it.

A close up of the pattern:

After I finished the swatch, I started right in on my scarf. I cast on 32 stitches, and did 7 rows of garter stitch before starting the pattern repeats.

Here's a picture of it in progress yesterday evening (which is about as far as it is right now, too):

It's about 2" at the moment. As you can perhaps (hopefully?) see, I'm doing 4 stitches of garter stitch on either side of the pattern. 3 stitches sometimes, actually, because I'm also slipping the first stitch of each row purlwise in the hopes of getting a nicer edge. So that's sl1 purlwise, k3, 3 repeats of whatever row of the pattern I'm on, k4. I'm going to do 32 rows of red, then switch to the blue yarn that most of my swatch is in for 20 rows, and then back to red again for another 32, and so on and so forth.

Yaaaaay for finally starting projects! Hopefully between stats class and plane rides I'll have this done or mostly done by the end of the summer.

WOOHOO!

I HAVE FINISHED MY SWATCH!!!!

Here's a picture of the whole, huge, long, ugly thing:

The middle looks icky because I was doing so many increases and decreases in so short a space.

Here are a couple of pictures of the stripes:













...and one picture of the stripes from the purl side (I think that this one looks kinda cool)...

And here's a picture of the ribbing.

So. Where and how did I actually find the time to finish this, you ask?

Statistics class.

The professor lectures right off of the slides that he has printed out and handed to us. I barely have to take any notes, and if I didn't have something to keep my mind a little busy I'd go crazy from boredom. So I knit. And I am going to be fantastically productive in class for the next 8 weeks. *g*

I went to my LYS and bought myself a pair of size 10 Crystal Palace bamboo straights to replace the crappy plastic size 8s I've been working with so far, and I've been working up a swatch for my next (or should I say very first? *squee*) project. It'll be pretty simple; I'm just going to do a striped scarf in this stitch. I cast on 24 sts for the swatch and will probably do 5 reps of the pattern. I'm on row six right now (one rep and a half) and was amazed the first time I really looked at the work and saw the pattern! It was way cool. I think I made a couple of goofs, but they don't really show because it's a dark yarn (the red in the swatch pictures above). Hopefully the swatch will be completed by the end of the week (I have an hour each morning, yes, but I'm kind of slow and I do have to pause to take notes or actually pay full attention on occasion).

Wheeeeee! This is so exciting!

Another week missed...

...this time due to an awesome road trip with teh boyfriend. Sorry about that.

Not much knitting done on said road trip, unfortunately...

I have one row of invisible (purled) increases and one row of p2 tog tbl decreases left. Then on to color switching!

In other news, my summer roomie is apparently a knitter too! She has like six HUGE bags of yarn. It is awesome. She's been knitting for longer than I, but we may be at about the same skill level in a sense because she says she can't make anything that's not rectangular as of yet and I have some confidence that I could make shapes (yay increase/decrease practice!).

AUGH FINALS!

See title of post. Very little knitting done. Even when studying for finals I haven't been able to manage it, as I did when studying for midterms. If I'm anywhere near my computer I just get too distracted.

So. Working on m1p. It left HUGE holes in the fabric sometimes, for some reason that I just can't identify (it seemed to work well other times...). Also working on ssp. Haven't actually tried that yet. Looks fairly straightforward, but I'm finding that the straightforward-looking things end up being complex and the complex things end up being simple, so we'll see.

And yet again, MORE PATTERNS! ...I'm never going to manage to actually do all of these...


Wavy

I just think that this looks really cool... plus people will go wacko when they hear I knitted it. *g*


Saturday Market Bag

Practically everyone on the knitting LJ community has been making this. It always comes out looking good. And heck, I can always use more bags...

Georgia knitting, and another pattern

Missed the weekly update last week because I was in Georgia at my cousin's wedding. My grandma was there and she was so thrilled to see me knitting... it was great. As soon as I brought out the needles she was like, "I want to watch you knit!" I was amused. I'll have to knit something for her now; I'm sure she'd love that.

Did a bit of knitting on the plane and in Georgia, but not much because I also had to try to do schoolwork while traveling and attending a wedding (needless to say, I've been playing catch-up this week). Managed another couple rows at an improv show that I attended with my boyfriend on Friday night. I've just finished the purl bar increase and am about to finish up p2tog. Then on to m1p and ssp.

And, again, I've found a pattern that I just have to make someday...

Circular Shrug/Vest (.pdf)

Still not much to report...

Working on invisible increases and the ssk decrease (which I thought would be horrid but is actually ridiculously easy. I think it looks okay...

And, of course, I found another pattern I want to make: Sound System Snugglers

Chartreuse Knits: Dragon Scale Gauntlet Pattern

Not much to report. Finished M1 and sl1 k1 PSSO; next will be working on invisible increases and SSK. Been rather too busy to do very much. Hopefully I'll be close to done with increase/decrease practice in 2 weeks -- that's when I fly to Georgia for my cousin's wedding, and my mom will be bringing me a yarn needle so that I can start to practice weaving in loose ends.


On another note, found this pattern:

Chartreuse Knits: Dragon Scale Gauntlet Pattern

I so want to make these! I will never have cold arms again!

Not much done, but found some projects for much, much later...

Well, not much to show for this week -- too busy. I finished practicing the (knit) bar increase, though I still don't think I'm doing it qutie correctly, and k2tog. Now working on M1 (not too difficult once I got the hang of picking up the strand between stitches, but it'll take another couple of rows to see whether it looks okay) and slip 1, k1, PSSO (haven't actually tried this yet -- looks annoyingish).

So, to flesh out this update I give you... things I want to knit!

Flower Petal Shawl
PRETTY!!! ...but it'll have to wait until I have enough experience to be willing to brave lace.

Angelina Vintage Jacket
ALSO PRETTY!!! ...but given that it requires actual shaping/consistent gauge, it'll probably be undertaken some long time after I've managed the shawl. ;)