My knitting project just can't seem to take off!

I've been wanting to knit an AG sweater forever. Sometime last year I bought this adorable cardigan pattern. It suited my purposes for a cardigan that my 30's/40's dolls could wear. Time moved on, and this project got pushed so far down on my priority list that I actually forgot about it. This year, as soon as October hit, I got bit by the knitting bug again. (I get in a knitting mood when the weather gets cooler every year, whether I actually do any knitting or not!) This hit during my laptopless stretch of time, and the only way I could access anything online was via my phone. I don't have the Etsy app, therefor, I could not pull up any purchases I made on there before this year. :/ So, I couldn't access this pattern. (I could have down loaded the app, but my phone does not have a lot of storage, and I am constantly micro managing cached data and unneeded photos to keep it working properly. Its not fancy, but its a great phone for me.)

Still being eaten alive by the knitting bug, I looked for another sweater pattern to get. I had this vision of making a pale pink sweater with a floofy skirt of some sort. Maybe a yarn with a tinsel affect. I found the perfect sweater pattern and got it.

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/618154903/pdf-knitting-pattern-ss2016-k16-sea?ref=related-4
 (Link is to the WW size, not the AG one that I bought.)

Strangely enough, I had a hard time finding  pale pink yarn. I guess it isn't in vogue this year? That actually happens to pale pink? I finally found a color I liked in the appropriate weight at Hobby Lobby. It's a fuzzy yarn (but no tinsel), so I think it will make an adorable sweater. :D

When  I got my lap top fixed, I was all set to pull up both my cardigan since I can find it on a computer unlike my Etsy app-less phone and the latest sweater pattern, burn them to a disk and print them up. But, strangely enough the patterns tried to open on Windows Word, my subscription  of which has expired, so I wasn't able to get to them. It's really weird as in the past any down loaded patterns from Etsy have never opened with Word. They wouldn't as I only got the program with my new laptop last year. Maybe I am missing something. Not unlikely since I am just so darn computer smart and tech savvy. So, back to having to pull up my latest purchase on my phone to be able to use it! I'll email it to myself and print it up at the library if I can.

Since I had an afternoon today to just relax, I figured, no time like the present! I pulled up the pattern and carefully wrote it down on paper. (The first 12 rows, that is.) I don't have the right size needles in circular, so I just went with my double pointed needles, figuring that they would work almost as well. I know multiple needles can be a pain, but they've always been my preference. Well with this project, I think I need the circular kind! I was so busy trying to hold onto all my needles, I am not sure what I was doing, but the double ribbing the pattern was telling me to create was not what was forming on my needles! I took it out after the third row, admitted momentary defeat, and will just pick it back up when I get the circular needles.

I know this sweater will be fun to make. The instructions, as far as I read at least, are easy to follow. That is not always the case! I hope when I get into the project that mine comes out looking as good as it looks on the cover of the pattern. :P

WIP American Girl Victorian Dress

After having been laptop-less for quite awhile, its nice to be able to blog again! This post's subject is the WIP Victorian I started some weeks ago. Between my ribbon conundrum and life happening, its just been sitting there for weeks.

This is my inspiration pic.

The salmon color is quite hideous. I didn't want to make an exact copy, so I went through my fabric hoard to pick out what I thought would be a good fit both for the pattern and also for the intended doll, which happened to be my beautiful Nicki I got as a gift on Halloween. I went with a floral pattern on white. Since white lace would just be lost on the white fabric, I decided to go with a pink ribbon and do some sort of fancy ribbon work for the trim. Ribbon work isn't something I really do, so I had to decide exactly how I wanted the trim to look, and then find a good tutorial that explained how to accomplish it.

First I went with a darker pink - not dark dark, but more I guess of a medium rose pink - ribbon an inch wide. I really had a hard time trying to find any decent tutorials searching on my phone. Now on a laptop, I can find quite a few of them! What I originally tried to do did not work. Not only was I not pleased with the affect of my sad attempt at a fancy trim, I wasn't really liking the pink color of the ribbon. So, back to the store I went and got this time a paler 1/2 pink. The simplest thing to do, I decided next, was to simply pleat the ribbon. I love the affect combined with the fabric of the dress. :D

So far I have the ribbon on one cuff and the bodice. I started adding it last night to one of the top curved collar  pieces that surround the pin tucked yoke. Its a bit of a challenge to neatly curve it while keeping the pleats steady. I have a feeling that I am doing this the hard way. There's probably a technique to this that I am not using. I'll have to do more research to see what I can learn on the proper way of doing ribbon work. Here's all the pieces I have left to trim:

I went ahead and sewed the pin tucked yoke to the bodice piece before I actually needed to, but I wanted to see how it looked. I will take it back off, and add the other pieces to it, then sew it all back together.

In a true confession, I think I rushed the drafting/testing process with this dress. I'm seeing a couple of issues where I didn't think it through as carefully as I should have, where I should have been more cognizant of bulk, etc. Hopefully though, everything will go together neatly, and I'll be happy with the finished process. If it all comes together right, my Nicki is going to look absolutely gorgeous in it!