A Few Small Things

I said I'd been fighting gauge and entrelac, didn't I? Or at least alluded to it.

The problem was that I wanted medium-to-small entrelac squares, preferably seven or eight stitches by twice that number of rows, and in order to make a garment that conforms to a body shape, more or less, one makes a back and a front which are generally the same width, which means the same number of entrelac units for each, which means an even number.

Herein the problem.

Each pair of entrelac units has its own measurement, which for seven, eight or nine stitches per unit yielded a garment either too big or too small. I tried a different needle size but it looked ugly, and so finally I have settled on ten stitches per unit which is bigger than I'dwanted, but will at least yield a garment that will fit me well enough. Not perfectly, mind you, but well enough.

To measure entrelac gauge, you need at least four units across, and three up, which ends up being way more knitting than I usually do in the swatching department (except for the sweater I kept on undoing at SOAR one year), but it was either that or give up, and I wasn't quite ready for that.

There was no intense beading this weekend, not really, not in the way of completing a large project over the course of many hours. I miss that I didn't, even though I did get plenty of knitting done.

I experimented with funny odd-shaped beaded beads.

I should have taken a picture from above or below, as they have this triangular structure which is more intriguing than the side view above.

In the course of searching for beads (which I never found), I came across some rose quartz ovals I'd forgotten about, and wondered how they would work for this:

Looks like they work, doesn't it?

Yeah but not really. I had wondered how a rounder oval would work, and it turns out the not-so-slim waistline gets in the way.

See the large pale bead at the top that's recessed compared to its siblings?

There isn't enough room around for their generous curves unfortunately.