i order my yarns
I received the yarn AND the pattern for my Phildar cabled yoke sweater on Thursday! Both orders arrived very quickly. Something told me to swatch at knitting club and Sweet Fancy Moses was I glad I did! There was much figuring and calculating and hand holding and chest measuring and speculation of European measurements and the metric system and high school foreign language courses and gauge and so forth, which culminated in my frustrated exclamation of "How big ARE my boobs in France?!"
Well. Not my most demure public display ever, but I think we got it figured out. Thank goodness for my Chicks. I soon realized that I had definitely NOT ordered enough yarn, and had to e-mail Kaleidoscope Yarns to beg them to send me three more skeins of the same dyelot. Which they were able to do, thankfully. After a couple hours driving over the river and through the woods yesterday, I'm about one skein into the sweater. I will probably be holding my breath throughout the project, hoping that all my calculations are correct. I am knitting several sizes larger in order to make the pattern work with my gauge, and I will also be knitting it in the round. The front and back are mostly the same, so I don't expect that it will give me too many problems. However, looking ahead at the pattern (which is something I rarely do!), it looks like I might run into some translation issues. Browse the English version of the Phildar website for a bit and you'll see what I mean.
I just ordered a used copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, specifically for the baby sweater pattern. See numerous cute examples here. I have (another) pregnant friend and was planning on knitting the Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. But the other day I found out that she's not having just any old baby...she's having a baby girl. So I wanted a pattern that was pretty and girly, but not too over-the-top ruffly frou-frou. The EZ baby sweater seemed like just the thing.
I also knit a hat this week. Actually, I knit it twice. I had high hopes of a post about wearing my jaunty red beret while Christmas tree hunting, peppered throughout with French phrases and maybe a reference to a Prince song. I had high hopes for this hat. This quick little satisfying project, which was to be a nice little pick me up between more daunting projects. I guess it was not meant to be. Ultimately, I knit two variations of some kind of mushroom head shower cap monstrosity. It was...how do you say?...tres dorky. Perhaps I'll try again if Wendy creates her slouchy cap pattern. But forging ahead sans pattern? Non.
(My dad's sweater is pretty much done. Blocked and everything. It just needs one more special touch, and then I can post photos...)
Well. Not my most demure public display ever, but I think we got it figured out. Thank goodness for my Chicks. I soon realized that I had definitely NOT ordered enough yarn, and had to e-mail Kaleidoscope Yarns to beg them to send me three more skeins of the same dyelot. Which they were able to do, thankfully. After a couple hours driving over the river and through the woods yesterday, I'm about one skein into the sweater. I will probably be holding my breath throughout the project, hoping that all my calculations are correct. I am knitting several sizes larger in order to make the pattern work with my gauge, and I will also be knitting it in the round. The front and back are mostly the same, so I don't expect that it will give me too many problems. However, looking ahead at the pattern (which is something I rarely do!), it looks like I might run into some translation issues. Browse the English version of the Phildar website for a bit and you'll see what I mean.I just ordered a used copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, specifically for the baby sweater pattern. See numerous cute examples here. I have (another) pregnant friend and was planning on knitting the Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. But the other day I found out that she's not having just any old baby...she's having a baby girl. So I wanted a pattern that was pretty and girly, but not too over-the-top ruffly frou-frou. The EZ baby sweater seemed like just the thing.I also knit a hat this week. Actually, I knit it twice. I had high hopes of a post about wearing my jaunty red beret while Christmas tree hunting, peppered throughout with French phrases and maybe a reference to a Prince song. I had high hopes for this hat. This quick little satisfying project, which was to be a nice little pick me up between more daunting projects. I guess it was not meant to be. Ultimately, I knit two variations of some kind of mushroom head shower cap monstrosity. It was...how do you say?...tres dorky. Perhaps I'll try again if Wendy creates her slouchy cap pattern. But forging ahead sans pattern? Non.
(My dad's sweater is pretty much done. Blocked and everything. It just needs one more special touch, and then I can post photos...)
posted by jenna at 12:43 PM
4 Comments:
I had a brief look at the English section this morning. After a bit of a laugh, I decided I would stick with the French!
I was looking for a way to e-mail you directly, but can't see it. For now I won't add my e-mail here, but I can perhaps help with translation stuff if you need it. And I used to knit with Phildar all the time. There was a franchise near me. Nice stuff.
Gillian
Sorry about the loss of your "rasberry beret". :(
Now the song is stuck in my head and I can only remember the first line!
I speak French so I stick to the untranslated patterns. I've heard their translations have issues. It's nice that Phildar is finally waking up to the English-speaking audience. For a long time, you could only get English translations of their stuff from one Canadian shop. I love Phildar. Patterns are beautiful and books are cheap. They beat Rowan any day, in my opinion!
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