Like, totally
Recipient: Unknown
Designer: Moi
Pattern: Like, totally
Due: N/A
Colours: Unknown
Yarn: Unknown
Planned status: Swatching with Mystik DK
- 2008-Jun-11
- I have been putting off this project for so long it's not funny. But finally on the weekend I bit the bullet and started swatching with the Mystik DK yarn. So far it's looking rather nice...but I still have to finish the swatch.
- 2007-Oct-7
- I found what I think will work as a substitute yarn! Mystik DK from Estelle. (I tried to take a picture, but it turned out badly.) What I'm actually thinking of doing is swatching this Mystik up to see if I get the same gauge as I did with the (discontinued) Schaffhauser St-Tropez Câblé that I originally wanted to use. If I do, then I'm thinking of using the St-Tropez for the model piece and recommending the Mystic DK as a substitute when I submit the pattern. Hopefully, this plan will work.
- 2007-Sep-18
- I started swatching up the Nobile in the main pattern, and it looks pretty good...although I'm thinking of going up a needle size or two and trying it again to see what I get. Carrie K asked about this yarn - it's from On Line Yarns, and is a synthetic worsted weight with sparkly copper bits. Very flashy and cool. But now that I've knit it up, I'm pondering whether it might be a bit too flashy for what I want. (Augh! The frustration!)
Mercedes at the shop pointed out another yarn for consideration: Lang Emotion. It doesn't have a sparkly ply, but it does have a sort of shiny ply that might accomplish what I'm going for. It's also scented, with a lovely, clean-smelling aroma that would probably make the whole project more cool, especially for teens, who are sort of the target audience for this pattern. It's a ribbon yarn, though, and I don't know how that's going to look. But I'm seriously considering picking up a skein to try it out.
- 2007-Sep-8
- After numerous visits to the yarn shop hunting for a good replacement for the yarn I originally swatched with, I abandoned my attempts at finding something with some natural fibre content, and instead decided to try Nobile, from On Line Yarn.
The top is going to be very teenager-y anyway, and let's face it, teens probably just want to dump their garments in the machine rather than carefully handwashing them, so practically speaking, this is probably the better choice. The gauge looks a bit bigger than what I was using before, but it looks like it's got the kind of drape and sparkle that I'm looking for, so I'm hoping it will work - I just need to swatch it up. Mercedes, who works at the shop, let me take the ball with me without deducting it from my store credit. She said if I can't use it for the top, the shop will just take my swatch to use as a display to show clients how the yarn knits up. Hooray!
The only problem is that the Nobile is $12.95 a ball (50g, 90m), which is a pretty painful price, considering that I'd be asking people to make an entire top out of it. But I just haven't been able to find anything else that looks like what I want. Although...Mercedes did have the brilliant idea of getting a plain, solid yarn that I like and joining it with metallic thread. Unfortunately, although this idea would give me scads more scope for the yarn I can use, it doesn't solve the problem of high cost. I've checked out the cost of metallic thread, and it'd be about $4 for every 100m of yarn I need. Still...now that I think about it...I could get a plain yarn for as much as $7 for a 50g ball and still be $2 per ball ahead of the Nobile price. Hmmm. Well, I'll swatch the Nobile up anyway and see what I get.
- 2007-Aug-5
- June has very kindly offered to do some research with her yarn suppliers to try and find a good substitute for the Schaffhauser I wanted to use for this top. Hopefully she'll be able to find something good.
- 2007-Jul-26
- I bought some St-Tropez câblé from Schaffhauser to swatch with so I could start the designing process. It seemed to be sportweight-ish, with a nice sparkly strand running through it to give it a little jazziness, which was what I was looking for. The fibre combination also seemed very good - 37% cotton, 32% virgin wool, 31% viscose. I took it home, swatched it up (finalising the main pattern in the process), and concluded that it was exactly perfect for this top.
Then I discovered that the yarn was discontinued.
A thousand curses! The yarn in the shop that seems to be the next best substitute is "romanze" from Scholler, which also seems to be discontinued (at least, I can't find any mention of it on the Scholler website).
This SUCKS.
But, according to the Knitty pattern submissions FAQ, you can submit a pattern for a garment that you used a discontinued yarn for, but you need to give an alternate that will produce similar results. So I think that's what I'll do - go with the câblé anyway, and then list a decent substitute when I submit the pattern.
- 2006-Mar-27
- Thursday evening on the bus ride home I sat near an overly-made up teenage girl (attached, as you might expect, to her cellphone). Usually, when on a bus with this kind of fellow passenger, I spend most of the ride being rather annoyed as well as feeling sorry for the friend on the other end of the phone whom she is using as entertainment because she cannot stand the notion of being alone with her thoughts (or, dare I think it, a book? some knitting, even?) for one lousy half-hour bus ride.
However, during this particular ride, I spent most of my time trying to figure out how her sweater worked.
She was wearing quite the interesting construction, I must say. It was all ribbed (2x2 from the looks of it, except for the sleeve cuffs which were probably 1x1) and the ribs ran horizontally across the body. Then, slightly below the waist it all somehow fed into some vertical ribs which were tight against her hips. The sleeves were excruciatingly large - this thing is meant to be worn with a tank or shirt under it, which thankfully, she was doing. The whole thing was very intriguing, and although it certainly wasn't something I would really care to have in my wardrobe, I'm sure there are loads of girls these days who would think it was hip and to-die-for, and would love to own it. The yarn had a bit of sparkle in it to boot.
So Friday morning I dipped back into my memory and figured out how it must have been constructed. I'm thinking of whipping up a prototype to see how it works out - if I like it, I might figure out different sizes and submit it to Knitty or something.
I'm thinking of calling it the "Like, totally" top. :)
Labels: liketotally
