Know yourself

I have been reading Sweater Design in Plain English by Maggie Righetti because I am determined to make my own patterns if it kills me. She spends at least a chapter or two discussing knowing body shapes of different people, and knowing what shapes do and do not flatter each type. Another chapter she spends talking about knowing what colors do and do not flatter the person you are knitting for according to their skin color. I am going to be honest and tell you that I skimmed through these chapters. I know my shape! I know what colors flatter me! I don't need no Maggie telling me nothing (yes I do - but I was rebelious).

When I saw this jacket, I just fell in love with it. The style was current, the shape was so fashionable, the model looked so adorable in the pic, that I knew that if I made the jacket, I would look adorable in it too! right?!

I dunno. I think if I was not so curvy this would fall better, or maybe the sleeves are too short? I have no idea what it is - it is just missing something for me.

I love this jacket. I am proud of the work I did on it, I am proud of my nice even stitches, and the fact that I lined it, and the fact that I bribed Olga with Guacamole and Coronas to do the piping - whatever works :). Now, I am not fishing for compliments, (although- please, feel free) but I just don't know if it flatters me.

Usually I cannot wait to wear a new garment to work and show it off and have people tell me that I did a marvelous job with it. I LOVE the attention.(In fact I do love the fact that one coworker thought I had sewn the fabric together - she thought my nice even stitches was store bought fabric - gasp!) But with this one, I just feel ..ehhh. I tried it with all three buttons and I looked like a clown - not cute like the model in the pic, so I decided to do one button and then snaps, but when I close it, it gathers at the top. I do not know if I want to remove the snaps all togehter and leave just one at the top, or just add mroe snaps so it closes better. Maybe it should have been longer, maybe the color combo is just too hard to match with other clothes in my closet. I dunno. What do you guys think? Check out my flickr account for more pics. There are ALOT because I was not happy with any of them, and I wanted to play with my new camera.

My new approach to Phildar projects

Basically, proceed with caution because who knows what is going to happen. I have such bad luck with these. You all remember the craziness that was my Asymmetrical Sweater pattern. It turned out great, I love it, but deciphering the literally translated pattern gave me (and Olga) headaches. Well, I gave Olga the headaches with my quadrillion questions.

So when I started the Swing Jacket - which I now know won't be used until next season * sigh * - I approached the pattern cautiously. Thankfully, it seemed pretty straight forward, and so I went on my Mexican vacation and left the back to marinate for a week.

When I came back I picked up about 20 cm into the 56 cm back, and knitted along in the pretty pattern. I thought something looked odd, but I chucked it up to vacationitis. My gauge was the same, the measurements were still okay, so I knitted on.

Then one Friday I had to work late, and Tony went out and I could not wait to come home and knit away with some tivod shows and som wine. Then, maybe it was the clarity brought by the wine, the oddity became clearer.
I stared and stared, and sure enough noticed - two different colors.
Don't lie and say you can't see it, because I know you can. Trust me, I lied to myself and told myself I could not tell the difference for a long time. As soon as I saw it, I ran up to our office, took pictures and said a little prayer that Olga was online. I hope she never starts charging me for he knitting classes, because I will be broke. B-R-O-K-E. We both agreed that we never thought Paton's dye lots would be so different! Anyways, after hysterical google messaging for 15 minutes we decided that I was not going to undo anything, that I was going to wash the completed project, and then dye it all.

So I continued on, and knitted the left and right front sides, and once in a while, I would take out the bi-colored back and just stare at it hoping that it would change colors. I was so nervous that after finishing everything, the dye would come out splotchy, or not change anything at all. So I fnished the front, and decided to just frog the back. So this is where I am in this project:












That is the back, that I just restarted yesterday, and a close up of my hem. I LOVE my hem. I want to put hems on everything now.
Do you think the two sides are each a different color, or am I just being paranoid?