WIP Wednesday: Practice swatch

It's been over a week since I've knit on anything. When nothing's going right, it's good to take a step back for a while. I feel like my first project getting back into the swing of things should be one of my favorite things to knit. I love knitting color work, and it's about that time for me to start thinking about my annual Christmas sweater. I've planned out the color pattern and even picked out the yarn. But there are a couple things I plan on doing that I've never done.

I’ve said it before, but I am a big fan of practicing a technique before coming to it in my project. There's nothing more stressful than attempting something I'm not too sure about on a project I've already put a lot of time and effort into. Plus, if I know I'm coming to something I hadn't planned for, I put it off then a year later wonder what happened to that one sweater I was knitting that one time.

For my Christmas sweater there are two things that are semi new to me. Small diameter stranded color work and steeking with superwash yarn.

In the past when I've done small circumference stranded knitting, the areas where the joins were had awful tension issues. Apparently, there's a technique to fix that. And it's so easy, but did take some getting used to.

I've done steeks before, my very first garment I knit had steeks. Cutting my knitting is no big deal to me. BUT I've never secured my steek with a sewing machine and it’s a must when you're using superwash, non-sticky yarn. Can you imagine me cutting into my knitting, probably on Christmas Eve, and having my sweater starting to fall apart? It makes me sick just thinking about it.

What do you guys do when you're unfamiliar with a technique in a project. Do you dive right in and worry about it when you get to it, or do you plan ahead and practice it first?

Don't for get to follow me on  Instagram to keep up with all my swatch knitting.

WIP Wednesday: We were on a break!

This past weekend has been the weekend from knitting hell. If it could go wrong, it did go wrong.

First of all, my current sweater project just isn't doing it for me right now. I'm not hating it enough to rip it out, but not loving it enough to continue on. So, there it sits in the same spot I left it on Friday night, mocking me. Okay, not THAT bad, right?

If you've been following me on Instagram, you'll know I've been having a lot of feelings about The Flash and have been wanting to knit something inspired by the comic books. Well, after several charts and swatches later… I'll just let my Instagram Story to speak for itself.

Honestly, I applaud all knitwear designers for having the patience and perseverance to actually get just a prototype done. Maybe this is my own fault for taking on something like this after my sweater issue.

After my designing reality check, I decided I needed to cleanse my palate with a simple vanilla sock. How could I go wrong with that? I was knitting along when I decided I should try it on. Even though it’s for my sister, I figured I'd get a good guess if the cuff would be long enough. I put it on and it was too small… My sister has bigger feet than me.

For whatever reason, in my delirium, I started trying on and measuring all the socks I've knit so far. I'm not sure what I was trying to prove, but I stayed up well past two in the morning trying to prove it.

That was pretty much my last straw. And I have to say, I think it's time I take a short break from knitting. Not a long one. Maybe just a couple more days, I think that's best so I don't try to force it and then get myself a case of the yips.

What do you guys do when your knitting just isn't going your way?

If you want to stay up to date on all this knitting drama follow me on Instagram.

Blog relaunch + free printable

Earlier in the summer, I made the decision to revamp my blog. That included, coming up with a precise plan on what I'll be posting, and how often. It also meant getting serious and buying my own domain name. Welcome to thisgalknows.com! I'm super excited!

Here at the new and improved This Gal Knows, I'll be sharing current works in progresses and recent finished objects for both knitting and sewing. You'll even get to follow along on this new baking thing I've gotten myself into. Some of my other craftiness will shine through, too. And don't be surprised if I come at you guys crying over some comic book.

My main goal for This Gal Knows has always been for it to be a place where knitters and sewists can go to get their questions answered. But I feel like the internet is already full of great knitting resources and tutorials. Do we really need yet another site with the same information? BUT what I do think we all need is an index of these resources. That's why I've started creating masterlists of some of my favorite resources. This is going to be an ongoing project for me because, yikes, there are A LOT of great resources out there.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this new relaunch. To celebrate I'm giving you guys a free notepad printable. I have so many of these things designed, so keep your eyes peeled for more of these over the coming weeks...months...maybe years. You can never have enough notepads, right?

To make the notepad, I printed about 15 full pages on the back side of some scratch paper I had laying around. Then I followed Sea Lemon's How To Make Your Own Notepad tutorial. It's really straight forward, and feels like a great way to ease into bookbinding, if you're into that sort of thing. One thing I do have to say is use just the one coat of glue. I did two coats of glue and it's really difficult to pull the pages off.

I would also recommend using a straight edge to cut the sheets, I used scissors, and as you can see, things got a little wobbly near the edges.

One thing I like to do, is keep a stick of restickable glue on hand, then I can turn these into quick little sticky notes. Just a warning though, the glue leaves a sticky residue behind, so I wouldn't use these homemade sticky notes to put inside any important books.

What's included
[3] 7.5" x 5.5" notepads/sticky notes
[1] 3"x 3" notepads/sticky notes

Printing tips

• Print on high quality for best results
• To print just one page, use the page range functions in the print dialog and choose the page number of the style you want.

If you have any questions please comment here. And as always, to keep up to date with me and my crafts follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.