WIP Wednesday: Re-Learning Machine Knitting & Balancing Me Makes

This week has been quite busy for me! I had a few vacation days left from work that I had no plans to use before the end of the year PLUS I lost my voice and it still has not come back yet for weeks, so I took some days off so that I could literally not speak at all, lol. I used the time to clean out my horrifying garage and let me tell you - it was a full 2 day event. It's become so bad because I never have multiple entire days that I can just pull everything out and get it done, so even though my body is questioning my life choices, I'm so happy to have it in a better state.

Knitting-wise, I finished my Chuck sweater on Sunday, so I have picked up the Belladonna again. I find I just really don't enjoy the actual knitting of this cardigan only because of the amount of focus the multiple lace patterns that are so similar require. I keep messing up and having to tink back and that's annoying to me. I like to just have something be straight forward and easy to tell where I am - it doesn't have to be "simple" because I love lace and cables and whatnot, but these charts for some reason are just giving me a hard time. Anyway, I haven't really had much time to knit that because of my Christmas knits. 

I tried using my Sentro to make baby hats, but I just don't have the right sized machine to make it work right. I decided to knit a panel instead of a tube on the 48 pin machine and then I would just seam it to the size I needed, but even that kept messing up and I just decided heck with it. I will use the Sentro to knit the bigger kids hats, but I will knit the baby and toddler one by hand. They're so small, it's no big deal, you know? So I cast on my first one Sunday night.

For the scarves, I want to try making one on my Babylock knitting machine. This machine is made for larger yarns like worsted and aran, so I plan to do the same style as the Sentro one I made last week and compare them. If this one comes out better then I will redo the yellow scarf on this machine. I don't mind some imperfections, but the yellow one has a bunch all in the most prominent area when it's worn (of course) and it just bugs me. It's been a really long time since I used the machine though, so I'm having to watch the Meet Your Bond videos by Cheryl Brunette on YouTube to learn how to use the machine again. I'm going to do the scarf 50 stitches across and then seam it up into a tube, which will make my duplicate stitch plans easier too because I can do that before I seam it up. Hopefully this is quick and easy and I can slap these out without so much frustration as I had from the Sentro.

And in sewing, I made 2 mock ups of the New England dress and cut out my official fabric! It's a good thing I toiled this though because I had to add 2.5 inches to the bodice pieces. I know I'm long waisted (it's one of the reasons I wanted to sew my clothes because store bought dresses always hit me way above my waist), but this was a bit excessive even for me. I'm blending from a size 40 at the above the bust to a 42 at the waist and down. I could have even lengthened it by another 1/2" but I forgot when cutting. Hopefully the top still can blouse out a bit. I cut this out of some medium weight black linen and I'm very excited to get sewing on it. I've just been so tired at night after all my manual labor that I haven't quite felt up to the task. I also have quite a few things I want to get made - like a brown skirt of some kind so I can wear it with my recently finished sweaters. Will this happen this month? I'm honestly not sure, but it would be really nice to have more bottoms to meld things together better in my wardrobe.

So that's my craziness this week! This was all while still doing Thanksgiving and making broth and canning it, lol. Never a dull moment around here. What things are you working on this week?