Live and Let Knit

Well, Durham Fair weekend has come and gone…

It was a fun time eating all the food as always even if I did completely burn the inside of my mouth on the fried mushrooms.

This year I entered 8 items with mixed success. In total I got 2 specials, 4 blues, 1 red, 2 yellows, and 1 honorable mention. I’m on a roll for socks – 3 for 3 on blues for socks and 2 years going for a premium ribbon.

The Ribby Cardi got a first place/premium -and the note on the back said great job with the zipper. I was worried about how the zipper part since I’ve never seen anyone else’s finished zippers. To date I think the Ribby has been the best fitting, best finished, best overall non-sock item I have ever made. I’m very happy with it.

I’m slowly starting to figure out some of the judging criteria. One thing I know for sure this time is that if the pattern has quirks in it, they can easily think it’s a mistake I made and deduct for that. My red sweater has some short row shoulder shaping on the back side, and even to me it looks like dropped stitches so that one didn’t do so well.

Here are the photos:

Ribby Cardi (1P)		Pillow (1)		Socks (1P)
Hat (1)		Red Sweater (3)		3 Penny (HM)
Scarf (3)		Scarf (2)

The biggest disappointment (and by this I mean personal disappointment) was the 3-penny pullover. I re-seamed the sleeves on that thing a total of 8 times and no matter what I did they puckered. It’s a mismatch in the shaping of the sleeve caps and the front-back pieces – I’m guessing due to my choice in yarn. I was running out of time on the 8th try so I gave up and seamed it so it would lay flat. That means there are these flaps on the inside of unused fabric. I can’t blame them for thinking my finishing technique stinks, but I just didn’t feel like ripping out both sleeves to correct it. Sleep was more important. This sweater on a whole is a big disappointment. It was a blast to knit, but it just fits awkward. I went down a garment size to make the medium AND I went down a needle size and it is still too big. That and the yarn doesn’t have a lot of weight to it so the bottom ends curl up. Maybe I’ll revisit it in a few years.

Yes, it has been a long long time since my last post. Things were quite hectic for me for a while there. I’ve been looking for a new job, announcing good news to my family, and knitting feverishly for the Durham Fair.

I’ll have plenty to post over the next few days with all of that so come back and see what I’ve been up to

One thing I do have to post about today is Sock Wars. I’m signed up and I see my target is in New Zealand so she’ll be getting more than just the plain ole socks in her package. Leave me a comment if you can think of any good American treats to send along to her. I’m not going to spoil any surprises so a progress report will have to come much later!