Hypotenuse finished!

I told you in my last post, that this skirt was über easy to knit. It was almost too easy. So easy that I made two mistakes.

1. I didn't pay really close attention to the stitch count. Oops! When I got to the end, I ended up with one more "ridge" than I had on the beginning row. I didn't even notice it until I started to block it. The one corner was a little loose and floppy. When I got it off the blocking wires it looked pretty good, then I started to sew up the seam and I found that I was off by one ridge.

2, The skirt also ended up about 2 inches longer than what I was aiming to get. I had thought about raveling back a few rows and re-knitting the corner, but that was not going to fix the length -- that would only be fixed by raveling back about 75% of the knitting. And that was NOT going to happen.

So instead of picking up and knitting on a waistband, which would have given it even more length, I decided to fold over the top and form a pocket for the elastic. This basically solved both problems! The skirt is a little bulky around the waist, but I wore it with a blouse that covered that up.

I wore the skirt to work yesterday. It is light weight, comfortable giving easily when bending over or stooping. On my mile walk from the office to the train it was about 78 degrees yesterday afternoon and I was not too warm. I received several compliments which is always nice!

I am already thinking about knitting another Lanesplitter. But I have another couple of projects to finish first and then there is another skirt that I saw and might like to try: The Paint Chip Skirt. Yum!

Happy Knitting.

The Hypotenuse of a Triangle. . .

I have suddenly become enamored of wearing dresses and skirts. A work colleague of mine wears the loveliest dresses and skirts. She is a young attorney who doesn’t let her need for professionalism inhibit the way she dresses. I used to think that if I wanted to be taken seriously at work, I had to dress less feminine. I am sure that part of the reason I have not had a dress in my wardrobe in several years coincided with our move from Tampa, Florida to Chicago, Illinois – but I have to think that at least subconsciously, I stopped wearing dresses to compete at work. Last weekend, this part of my life collided with my knitting life!

I started looking at dress and skirt patterns on Ravelry. I wanted something easy, fast and colorful. I found it in a pattern called Lanesplitter by Tina Whitmore. This free pattern is all of that and fun to knit. It is designed to be knit with one colorway of Noro Kureyon -- a yarn I've used before. I paged through several finished examples by Ravelry members and saw several that were done with two different yarns. Using a light/bright yarn on the row that pops the purl side to the front and a dark/dull color to pull the other row to the back. So what I did was get two colorways of Noro Kureyon -- one dark/dull and the other one light/bright. There is some cross over colors in both of the yarns. There is a lavender and a mix of blue and red in both of the yarns and they came up at the same time in one place, but I think that it gives the skirt interest.

The pattern is über easy! Three rows of knitting and one row of purling. The hardest part of the pattern is the  increases and/or decreases at each end of the rows. Although the pattern has "sizes", because the pattern is basically a rectangle, you stop increasing both sides when you hit the desired length, continue increasing on one side while decreasing on the other side until the other directions hits the desired diameter at which time you begin decreasing on both sides. (It's easier than you think -- read the pattern.) I have the skirt about 60% of the way knit and I have only been working on it a few days. Can't wait to finish it!

Happy Knitting!