Not the Worst of Times

A word of warning. If your anti-virus company decides to stop supporting your product four months before your subscription expires, and if you then decide to switch services, twice, don't rely on your add/remove programs function, believing it is sufficient to the job at hand. It isn't. Go to the website, download their removal utility, and use it. Very Bad Things happen when different anti-virus programs meet up in the back alleys of your computer.

On the other hand, being locked out of your computer can bring benefits. I have offloaded 6 shopping bags and 1 IKEA blue bag of yarn to a local charity. Boxed up six boxes of the 25 years of stuff we've accumulated, freeing up room for the remaining stash. Conned Inspired The Princess into creating a database of our video/DVD collection. De-fragmented my hard drive. Several times. Built bookcases (did I tell you I'm building bookcases again?). Spent way too much time with tech support but gotten some dandy free anti-malware software out of it. All right, not so free when you consider my computer is no longer under warranty and I had to spend 60.00 and wade through heavily accented English while already stressed out about not being to get into my computer when The Lord Protector had a major research project due for Latin. I will never, ever, ever, again forget how to start my computer in Safe Mode, though.

Knitting? Not so much. I think I have a residue of all the Christmas knitting sticking to me, coating my hands. It's been a scarves/neckwear-all-the-time time here. It's February in Chicago; still cold but not a winter scarf in sight. The Department Stores are all tarted up for Resort Season and Easter (can you tell I spent some formative time in retail?). Little do they know that I, subversive knitter that I am, know how to confound them.

You've already seen mine (9 leaves to go out of 30), so let me show you the Pirate's.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Cranberry and Cookie A's Dark Secret. Pattern is a variation on the infamous Noro Striped Scarf. It is, sadly, due for a frogging. I like the colors and the proportions of the stripes (4 navy to 2 red). Not so pleased with carrying the yarn up the side. I was trying to avoid having to weave in all those ends. I'm reminded, forcibly, of the aphorism, "What , you don't have time to do it right but you have time to do it over?" It would appear that my answer, once again, is, "Yes."

Then there is Their Father's.

Don't tell anyone I popped for this. It's Jade Sapphire's Scarf for Him in Blue Chip. Just say, "Oo-ooh!" and leave it at that. Then I won't feel compelled to tell you just how annoyed I am to find that my suspicions about cashmere were correct. Give me Blue-faced Leicester any day.

Blogging Fly-Over

I promise I'll be back with a real post, probably tomorrow. At the very least I need to vent my frustration over maladaptive anti-virus software that protects one's computer even from one's own self. Not sure how I'll turn it into a knitting story, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Endlessly inventive, that's me.

In the meantime, though, here is something pretty.

That's better, much, much better than before, don't you think? (The link is just to save you from having to scroll down to the bottom of the previous post. So thoughtful of me.)

Where The Week Went

Poor me. I had to buy more yarn. It couldn't be helped. For all the reasons given previously, I have to knit myself a scarf. The scarf turned out to be a shawlette, but let's not quibble.

I will confess to a certain measure of relief when I opened the box and found two skeins that seem rather more nearly related to each other than the previous pair. Siblings rather than cousins. Third cousins twice removed on their stepmother's side at that.

The basic plan remains the same, use the browner of the two for the body of the shawl, the one with more green for the leaves. This time, I 'm hoping that there's enough green in the brown and brown in the green that the edging and the shawl will look like they belong together, rather than have been mistakenly knit together in the dark from two different and antagonistic projects. I feel some little anxiety over this, so this time I wound them both up.

I begin to relax. Wound up, I'm having a hard time determining which is which. I''m going for the yarn on the right for the leaf edging.

I am particularly reassured when I compare the former leaf skein of yarn (there, at the top) with the new.

Ah. You are wondering why I needed two skeins. Why I didn't just buy one, or, if I needed the security net of choice, why I didn't just pick the greener one and start knitting the edging. Why I'm starting over.

There's a saying. Something about being so sharp you cut yourself. Which, one would think, would make one pay attention to the implicit corollary: be careful. Time for a session of "Because I'm Too Clever For My Own Good."

I really liked the yarn over and turn method for working short-rows that Sadie and Oliver introduced me to with the Theory Shawlette. They use it for garter stitch. I tried to adapt it for stockinette.

It didn't work (see the holes?).

I want the shawlette now. I did originally buy two new skeins with the idea that it would increase my chances of knitting a compatible border. Once I faced up to the holes that mark the short-row shaping, though, I knew was going to have to frog nearly the whole thing anyway, since the short rows begin immediately after the garter stitch border. Let me repeat, I want this shawlette Now. As in Promptly. Immediately. Forthwith. So much so that I didn't want to wait to reclaim the yarn. I figured, eh, might as well start over, and if I use the new yarn, I can start right away.

I'll just keep telling myself it's not lost time, it's a chance to knit some more.

Then Again, Maybe Not

Ah, the sad disconnect between theory and practice.

On the Twentieth Day of Christmas

It's all about me. I need a scarf. I've come up with myriad justifications for this. Among them:

1) Knitting all those neck-warmers and shawlettes awoke a strong, one might even say compelling, desire for one of my own.

2) For the first time in years, my winter jacket isn't black. It's sort of rust. Okay, it's dirty orange. I don't know what I was thinking. Bottom line, none of my winter scarves, which are by and large red or red and black, do anything but argue -- violently -- with my coat.

3) I've lost my Scribble Scarf.

4) If I'm replacing a lost scarf, it's necessary knitting, not self-indulgent knitting. Chicago is cold in January.

5) I've knit and ripped cables out of Their Father's sweater and now have to rethink the whole thing. I want to avoid this let this ferment in my back-brain for a while.

6) I got this awesome yarn from the Magi on the 12th day of Christmas. I was so eager to start knitting that I forgot to take a yarn pr0n photo while it was all still skeined up.

Handmaiden Lady Godiva in Woodland from Eat.Sleep.Knit.

I know what your thinking, because I thought it, too. That looks like some serious variation between skeins, even for a hand-dyed. I posit, though, that it will be perfect for the pattern I've picked out. The Cedar Leaf Shawlette from Never Not Knitting. Reading through the pattern, it says to knit the shawl body using one skein, then knit on the leaf border using a new skein. I'm using the predominantly brown for the body and plan to use the predominantly green/blue for the leaves.

You know, I'm beginning to think I can keep this Christmas thing going for as long after Christmas as the retail establishment does before.

Still Christmas Here

Back before Christmas was determined by retail, the season ran until February 2, the feast of Candlemas. In years when all my Christmas decorations aren't blocked by the construction required to repair collateral damage after broken pipes are replaced, the lights stay up in our windows until then. Under the circumstances -- that is, lacking the lights -- I feel perfectly justified in gloating posting about the presents I received, extending the season here, even this far into January.

All my knitting presents came from The Princess* this year. The best first. I have hand-knit socks. This is actually the perfect gift for someone who hates sock-knitting. I will never, ever make a pair for myself. Ever.

Now I trot over ice-cold floors in the morning or sit in draughts on purpose. Sometimes I prop my feet up on a hassock and stop knitting just to admire them. The socks. I stop to admire the socks.

We have a system for Christmas shopping at Stitches Midwest. After we linger over yarns and books, or admire clever gadgets, or ooh and aah and laugh, one of us will send the other away. We are to assiduously avoid whatever vendor's space the other occupies, no matter how exhaustively we had inventoried their wares. We rendezvous elsewhere in The Market, delivering firm instructions to "Act surprised." The delay between Stitches and Christmas, coupled with my aging brain, means I, at least, don't have to act.

Highlighter tape, because I so often knit from charts these days. A shawl pin, because she is firmly convinced I will finish those two shawls I haven't been knitting posting about. And stitch markers. She calls the set on the card "Dinner Time" and the set on the knitting "Revenge" (or maybe "Payback").

The knitting there? You're wondering about the knitting? Other than the fact that it provided an excuse to use most of my gifts, that's another post. Or two.

I can't help it. I have to post another picture of The Socks.

So fabulous.

*It's been pointed out to me that I probably should be using nick-names. While I can't completely undo what's been done, the three (in order of age) will hereinafter be referred to as The Princess, the Pirate and the Lord Protector; titles bestowed by their Father in their youth.

Some Projects Are Like That

They haunt your sleep. Creep into the unguarded corners of your consciousness. Hang over your head like Damocles' Sword and weigh down your neck like the Ancient Mariner's Albatross. Suck the joy right out of the project your working on, since you're not working on them. They are the knitting promises. The ones you made when you were full of hope and enthusiasm. Specifically, the ones I promised to someone else (I can always get out of promises I make to myself).

The winner of the longest runner? The pink Victoria Fingerless Mitts from Louisa Harding's Knitting Little Luxuries. Debuting here on 12/10/08, they disappeared on 12/26/08, not to reappear until almost a year later. Not a happy day Chez WoolGathering.

Curiously, the same day the mitts disappeared, these made their first appearance. These are the Golightly Gloves from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines.

I managed to take a bit of humorous, one might even say quirky, knitting and turn it into possibly the single-most obnoxious gift I've ever given. I'm not sure this is something to be proud of. It was adding that fuchsia stripe there that did it. Factor in that the gloves themselves are significantly longer than the (no longer available) Williams Sonoma gloves Kay used in The Book and I'm not even convinced I created a usable bit of quirky knitting.

It's some type of irony that the two most long-outstanding Christmas projects have no finished item photograph. That doesn't change the fact that now they're done. Bestowed. Out of the house and off my mind. All subsequent knitting can be done with a clear and untroubled conscience. I am free. Almost, I feel like Scrooge on Christmas morning after the ghosts are gone.

"Why were you beating your head against that wall?"

"It felt so good when I stopped."

(Is it just me, or did anyone else notice that both projects were pink and both involved hands. In more than the making, I mean. I may need to eschew all projects that intersect those two categories from now on.)

If Only

I decided it's a Foolery Friday.


Because we haven't had one in so-o-o-o-o long.

The Last Gift of Christmas

This is the last one. Really. Completely out of sync with all the other knitting I did this past Christmas, but so much fun. I saw these - a long time ago. Possible in Vogue Knitting. Maybe in Knit Simple. Either way, I felt an immediate and over-powering need to possess them. All four of them. I had no idea why. No one in mind to gift them to. Not the kind of toy I'd risk hanging in my house, not with a cat to endanger it.

Then came this Christmas and I was stumped for a gift. I remembered being roughly the same age as the giftee and finding a similar toy in the gift store of the Museum of Contemporary Art. It travelled with me to college, hanging in an easily accessible place in all my dorm rooms. I brought it along to California and hung it in married student housing at Stanford. It came back to Chicago and hung in our first real apartment and then in the condo. It was done in by our first cat (surprise), who loved to swipe at anything that dangled. I brought similar toys home for the boys when Clare and I went to London. I argued that this proved, not that I am odd, but that the toy had longevity of appeal. It was a classic, just like Jacob's Ladder and Pecking Hen's.

Besides it was quick to knit and I figured I could include an iTunes gift card. She's a teenager, after all.

I'm not sure that it made much of a hit. I'm pretty certain she didn't realize that she had a haute couture toy, what with the hand knit dress and hand-crocheted beret. Note to self, even in sock yarn at small widths, stripes mean lots of ends to weave in.

Details: Les Enfants - Sabine. Kit from Bagsmith (hit the link above).
Yarn - Sock yarn included in kit.
Needles - US 2/2.75 dpns. Not because it's knit in the round. It isn't. I have no circulars or straights that small.

Modifications. Just one. The instructions for the beret tell you to turn the work (which means it's crocheted flat). They also recommend a hook too small for the yarn (US 0/2 mm). I'm sure it would have been a sturdy fabric, but the hat is decorative, not functional. It is truly annoying to do minute crochet when the hook can't hold the yarn. To then have to try to sew the tiny thing up is just not worth it. After the first attempt, where I learned all these lessons, I used a US 2/2.75 hook, crocheted in the round and stopped when the hat looked big enough.

Oh. She's a climber. You hang them from a hook (or have someone slip their thumb through the top loop), pull the strings alternately, and she climbs to the top bar. All the pieces you need are included. The assembly was simple. Most importantly, it worked. Clare and I tested it. Several times.

Addiction

First, the definition: "The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something." Which describes Christmas gift knitting to a T.

The Fourth Gift was supposed to be the end of it. A do-able series of small knitting projects that would gratify the recipients and give me something to feel productive about. All that accomplishment. All that anticipated praise. All about me.

For the next gift of Christmas I let myself play. I started with the Seaman's Scarf.

Well, no. Actually, Clare started with the Seaman's Scarf. That started me thinking, though. Why limit myself to knitting for females. Why limit myself to knitting for in-laws? I have plenty of other family members who A) don't have anyone to knit for them and B) for whom I haven't promised a sweater. (What I was really doing was looking for an excuse to knit a Seaman's Scarf.)

I didn't really want to knit it in garter stitch, though. I went to Myrna Stahman, she of Fenna shawl fame. She includes a wide selection of seaman's scarves. None of the patterns there quite did it for me, but she also includes a lovely section on how to modify the scarf. I did not, however, knit the scarf "Stahman style," which is from the middle down, graft the center stitches. After a fair bit of playing around, I ended up with a 5 by 1 rib surrounded by a moss stitch border.

I love it.

Details. Yarn: Madelintosh Worsted in Port. This is lovely stuff. So dark a wine it's almost black. About a skein and a half.
Needles: Addi turbos, US 8/5 mm.

Pattern: My own invention (I'm so proud). Simple, because the closer Christmas looms, the less I can keep in my head. As near as I can remember, I cast on 37 stitches. Starting with the moss/seed stitch border: Slip the first stitch purlwise, [K1, p1] across row to the last 2 stitches, k2, repeat for 8 rows.

Tail 1. Row 1 (RS): Slip first stitch purlwise, knit moss stitch border (k1,p1,k1,p1,k1) place marker, [purl 1, knit 5], repeat across to last 6 stitches, purl 1, place marker, 5 stitch moss stitch border beginning with a k1 and ending with k2.
Row 2 (WS) Slip first stitch purlwise, knit moss stitch border, slip marker, Knit the knit stitches, purl the purl stitches across, slip marker, knit moss stitch border ending with a K2. Repeat these two rows for about 15 - 18 inches (depending on how long you want your scarf.

Switch to ribbing for neck. Row 1(RS): Slip the first stitch purlwise, K4, p4, k4, p4, k3, p4, k4, p4, k5. Row 2 (WS): Slip the first stitch purlwise, purl the purl stitches, knit the knit stitches. (Note that it's not quite 4 by 4 ribbing, two of the 37 stitches are selvage stitches, leaving you with 35 pattern stitches, hence the K/P 3 in the center). Continue for 18 inches.

Tail 2. Resume tail pattern. Knit for 15 to 18 inches (so it matches the first tail). End with 8 rows of moss stitch. Bind off knit-wise.

At least, I think that's how it went. Maybe I'll try it again someday to make sure.

Ta-da.

It wasn't the last gift either.

The Fourth Gift of Christmas

Tudora is a pattern I've been wanting to knit since it first showed up on Knitty. I just didn't want to knit it for me. It certainly would have been a more sensible introduction to cabling than the eternal Not-Quite-A-Blessingway blanket. Back then, though, I was entirely too easily intimidated. Now, well, knitting intimidation is not an issue. With the plan to knit for the female "out"-laws I had the perfect excuse.

You wouldn't think it, but this required a lot of swatching. The pattern called for a "firm fabric." The recommended yarn was an aran weight tweed, gauge 18 stitches/4 inches, but knit for the pattern at a gauge of 22 stitches/4 inches. The Malabrigo Silky Merino wasn't going to work single stranded, not without some major pattern modifications and a lot more knitting. Having only achieved pattern modification success 50% of the time, and with Christmas doing that thing where it only gets closer, I chickened out opted to consider other methods. Double stranded on the recommended needle size still left me with too many stitches per inch, although with a fabric that was - firm. Not wanting to turn over a gift made of the knitting equivalent of cardboard, however, meant more playing with the yarn and pattern than I had allowed time for.

It was time well spent. Undeniably.

It was not the most interesting piece I've ever knit. Up until the last inch and a half or so it's basically a 4 by 4 rib rectangle with a cable twist every other rib. The fun started with the binding off of lots of stitches at a go to shape the piece. I especially liked the clever bit where you don't knit the last stitch in the row and then use it to slip over for the first bind-off of the next group. It made the shaped edge much smoother, with subtler changes in depth. Less like a flight of stairs.

Details. Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Topaz, double-stranded.
Needles: Addi turbos, US 7/4.5 mm.
Modifications: None.
Way cool button found at a new, improved, humongously expanded JoAnn Fabrics.

Go Back

I knew I had a picture with the buttons. Compare this with the version pictured here.

This is better. Much, much better.

Welcome 2010 and the Third Gift

The Quilted Cowl fiasco put the fear of the knitting gods into me. With one more gift committed to and two left-overs from last year's Christmas knitting, I decided it might be prudent to get started on the largest project: The Theory Shawlette. That of the 482 stitches worth of backwards loop cast-on. It was indeed the longest to knit in actual time. In relative time? Well, it was time-consuming, but in a good way. It sucked up time like a football player doing double sessions in August sucks up Gatorade. It didn't feel like it took a long time, the time it took was just kind of - intense.

Lots of paying attention. Lots of stitch markers. Lots of counting, re-counting and re-re-counting. Lifelines (note the plural). I remembered lifelines (I so didn't want to re-do that border. Do you have any idea what a pain it is to cast-off a backwards loop cast-on when you haven't actually knit any stitches into it?) And an almost obsessive checking for mistakes. All of which paid off. I didn't carry a single mistake into a subsequent row. For me? Or, more specifically, for me knitting lace? This was nothing short of miraculous.

Once I got rid of the lace part, I got to do the short-row part. Short rows can be gratifying, because you don't have to work the whole length of the piece. Further, the designer devised this ingenious method to avoid those gaps in the pattern that short rows sometimes leave you with. It wasn't wrap-and-turn/knit-the-wrap-together-on-the-next-row (which is the part about short rows that I am less than fond of), but it had the same effect. More like a yarn-over done at the end of one row with the k2tog on the next. It was worth buying the pattern just for that little innovation.

Finally, fairness compels me to admit that, while you could probably get a reasonably attractive border using a different cast-on, the backwards-loop created an elegant corded look to the border loops that couldn't be re-created with any other method. Sigh, another justification for its existence.

Details. Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Burgundy (for Marc's side of the family, so she'll never know I used the same yarn for a sister-in-law from my side).
Needles: Addi Turbo US 8/5mm (Throughout this Christmas knitting I had an astonishing ability to get gauge with the recommended needles. What was that about?)
Modifications: None.

You cannot conceive of my surprise when, with the last stitch bound off, I realized I, just maybe, just possibly, just might be willing to knit this again.

Happy New Year. Happy New Decade. Happy so much possibility.

Tipsy

"Auntie Hannah, who liked port. . . ."

"Auntie Hannah laced her tea with rum, because it was only once a year."

"Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine. . . ."

Guess what we named our Christmas tree this year?


All quotes from Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas in Wales," 1955.

The Second Gift of Christmas

This is (was?) the second thing I worked on (on which I worked?) (tenses and prepositions are clearly not my friends today). I know I didn't tell you about it. I was supposed to, last week, which we are all pretending is this week. You know, when I was supposed to be blogging every day.

This is the Quilted Cowl by Sarah Anthony. Once you knit the center section, you pick up stitches all around for the stockinette border, yo k2tog for a picot row, knit some more stockinette and then, using At Least a Six Foot Tail (!) sew down the live stitches. This makes for a lovely understated border, but I have to use Six Feet of yarn to Sew Down almost 200 Live Stitches.

Suffering from an acute case of Swelledheaditis Flushed with the success of the Leaf Lace Scarf, I just couldn't leave this one alone either.

This change, though, was just plain laziness and cheating, (and it showed, but I'm getting ahead of the story). I did a few rows of garter stitch and added the picot bind-off from Louisa Harding's Knitting Little Luxuries (the bind-off for the fingerless mitts I screwed up, see earlier post) to three of the sides, thinking to keep a cleaner look down the front of the cowl (or so I told myslef). Except I didn't like that end. So I went ahead and did the picot bind-off. The picots were too close together. They also looked huge.

There was another issue. Garter stitch is wider than stockinette and, because I didn't adjust the number of stitches I picked up, the edges were distorted. I tired to rationalize. It's really only the buttonhole end I need to worry about. I muttered. The other end will be hidden. I justified. The long edges don't look that bad. I whined. Maybe if I just frog the bind-off on that one end and space the picots out farther.

This was clearly a case where the original design was way better than the modification. At the time (late November/early December) I decided I wasn't going to re-do it unless by some miracle I finished all my knitting by the week before Christmas. No such miracle occurred, but I still ripped out the bind-off. All of it. In fact, I frogged the whole modification, reclaimed the yarn and knit the border according to pattern, sewing down the live stitches as called for before reblocking.

Details. Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Burgundy, almost exactly 1 skein. Just a few feet left.
Needles: Addi Turbos US 6/4 mm.
Buttons: Darn. I forgot to take a picture wth the real buttons. They were pewter with a circle of tiny ivy leaves. I really wanted to gloat about the buttons. Double darn.
Modifications: Not a one.

Sometimes the designer is right.

The First Gift of Christmas

We'll start with this one, because I have the most pictures of it.

At the time, the plan was No Modifications. Knit the thing as written. And I meant to. I really did. I knew the whole less-than-3-skeins-per-gift thing would work a lot better if I didn't keep changing things. I fell off that particular wagon almost immediately.

It all started Thanksgiving afternoon when I thought I had just about finished Gift Number 1, the Teva Durham Leaf Lace Scarf. According to the pattern, you're supposed to knit 1 leaf, pick up 9 stitches (even though you've only got 7 to work with), knit [12 rows stockinette, 6 rows garter] 5 times and finally knit the other leaf. Just because I didn't like the way the whole 7 into 9 thing on the pick-up row looked -- especially when compared to the leaf that just flowed out of the neckband knitting -- was that any reason to decide to knit two halves from the center out?

And just because 5 repeats didn't give me a scarf long enough to wrap twice around, was that a good excuse to knit a longer neckband? Okay, maybe that was a good excuse. This is Chicago and a 3-inch wide scarf isn't enough to keep anybody's neck warm. I got gauge, but the scarf wasn't going to make it around twice. I still can't figure out how she managed it in the one photo. That, and I really didn't care for the dangling dead-leaf look that resulted from just tying the ends (see other pattern photo).

Details. Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Teal Feather, double-stranded.
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 13/9 mm needles.
Modifications: Provisional cast-on, worked from the center out, two additional repeats of the neckband pattern (one on each end), 9 stitches to Kitchener. (Why does Kitchener stitch make no sense to me when I try to do it with the yarn on the needles, but is a piece of cake when the work is off?)

One of the fastest knits I've ever come across. Even after completely reworking it, it only took a day. Sometimes the designer is wrong. Sometimes you have to jump off a wagon before it gets up too much momentum.

Time Consumed

Um. Well. Hi there. Remember me? I used to post faithfully to this site. With pictures and everything.

I know, I know. I was supposed to spend these weeks telling you about my less than 3 skeins projects. Sorry, sorry. You know what, though? I kept taking pictures. See (just to whet your appetite) (and to give you an idea of my astonishing gift for chaos)?

The less than 3 skeins plan worked so well, I added a project.

Then I added another.

I had plans for a fourth, but wiser heads (Clare's and Marc's) prevailed. I suspect they tied my hands together while I slept, just in case I decided to try sleep-knitting.

So. I move we wind the calendar back, pretend this is the week before Christmas, and I'll try to get caught up before New Year (or maybe a little after it, you know, on those days when you still write 2009 instead of 2010).

Before I bend the space-time continuum to my will though, let me say, I hope your Hanukkah/Solstice/Christmas/Kwanzaa celebration was/is smashing. And I'll tell you all about the fun I had with project number 1 tomorrow.

Or maybe the next day.

For Everything There is a Reason*

or Eternity in 482 Stitches. Or, Why I Hate the Backward Loop Cast-on.

I've started my procrastination project. It's the largest of the Christmas knitting, requiring 3 skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino. It's the Theory Shawlette by Sadie and Oliver. According to the designer, it is "sweetly simple" and (all evidence to the contrary) (here's the part I fell for) "a quick project with a delightful result."

I ask you, how could any project requiring a 482 stitch cast-on be considered quick? I don't really care that you bind off 320 stitches at the get-go. You have to bind them off of a backwards loop cast-on edge. Backwards loop cast-on, where if a cast-on stitch slips off your needle, you're left with nothing but a length of yarn to tell you if you've lost one. Or six. Backwards loop cast-on, the one where you have to keep your needles close together and your stitches near the tips, practically guaranteeing popped stitches, or you end up with an ever increasing float that you then need to try to work back into the piece. Requiring 480 stitches of backwards loop cast-on is an invitation to disaster.

The backwards loop cast-on, however, is so important to the design that there's actually a link to knittinghelp.com demonstrating it included in the pattern. I figured this was one time when I probably shouldn't exercise creative license.

Which brings us to the first row of knitting. The part where I discover that I apparently interpret BO stitches to count from the first stitch you slip over, and the pattern counts the stitch that does the slipping. Bottom line, I'm supposed to end up with 2 knitted stitches between every swoop of 4 bound off stitches, except unless I was paying really close attention, I kept counting "knit 1, bo 4" and using the K1 to bind off with. Every now and then I'd look back a few scallops and see a lone lorn knit stitch where there should have been two. Do you have any idea how unpleasant it is to un-bind-off a backwards loop cast-on? The only thing worse, I figured, was having to rip it out and start over.

Here's another wrinkle. I couldn't read the decreases. I don't know why I couldn't, but there it was. I couldn't figure out if what I had done balanced with what I had started with. I had no idea what I was supposed to end up with, only that given the pattern was one of those "repeat to end" kind, the work should have ended even.

Do you see the catastrophe looming here? Are you shuddering in anticipated dread?

Twenty-four stitch markers and several cups of coffee later, is anyone surprised to learn that I had extra stitches left? Or that I had no idea whether I had over-cast-on for stitches that had popped off my needle, or bound off a stitch too many a couple of times, or cast-on too few corrective stitches?

In needlepoint and counted thread work there are these things called "comp stitches." "Comp" for "compensating." You use them when the pattern doesn't fit the allotted space. I looked at those odd stitches. I contemplated the morning's worth of knitting that had resulted in one pathetic row. I considered the other household projects that had not even been approached. I decided comp stitches were the way to go.

After meditating on the instructions for the next two rows, at the end of which I am supposed to have 322 stitches, I figured out I should have had 80 swoops with two stitches between each swoop and two more stitches at the start of the row. I had 79 swoops. A lesser woman would have laid her head on the table and howled. I may have whimpered a bit.

Then I discovered the reason for the existence of the backward loop cast-on. Using the tail from the original cast-on, I cast on the additional stitches I needed, bound off 4 and knit 1. Just to make sure, I knit the next two rows exactly according to instruction.


Bingo, 322 stitches, and (insert heavy sigh) I'll never be allowed to malign the backwards loop again.

*Apologies to Ecclesiastes.

Regress

That's the opposite of progress, right?

I have been composing a smug and snappy post in my head all week about how, despite the head-cold brought on (I am convinced ) by the longest period of sleep deprivation I have endured since dealing with newborns, I was just whizzing through the Christmas knitting.

Instead I have this.

"This" is what happens when you get to the bind-off stage and realize you have knit a pair of fingerless gloves for a mutant. Specifically one with two right hands.

I do have progress to share (later) (much later), but thought I'd make a flying visit tonight and get the-opposite-of-knitting post out of the way.

Number 1

Marco backslid a bit. When I took him in Saturday, the x-ray showed an "infiltration" in his left lung over his heart, indicating an "infection." He's been on the Enola Gay of antibiotics, an inhaler and nuclear cough syrup for 5 days now. I think he's feeling better. The doctor Saturday said "pneumonia;" when the primary care called, he studiously avoided the term, hence the description above (which sure sounds like pneumonia to me)(I think he thinks I'm an alarmist.).

This whole show has been going on for 13 days now. I've reached the point where a distraction is called for. Besides I've finished the second sleeve on Marc's sweater and need to avoid the whole cable thing for a bit.

Teva Durham's Leaf scarf (which seems to have vanished from the web) to be knit double stranded on US 13/9 mm needles. The yarn is Malabrigo Silky Merino in Teal Feather.

And I quote" The intermediate knitter can complete the project in 2 - 4 hours."

We shall see.

Good News and Bad News

I know, I know. Trite. The problem with trite is that it so often describes reality. I really do have all sorts of good news and bad news.

I thought I had gotten back into the swing of blogging, especially after last week. It's not my fault, though. The first bad news in Marco's got the 'flu. The good news is, he only has the 'flu.

One of the constants with Down Syndrome is a less efficient immune system. With Marco, this manifests itself not so much in the frequency with which he gets sick as in the severity of the symptoms that manifest on the rare occasion when he does catch something. Four days of mounting fever -- and it was pretty high to start with -- a complete loss of appetite and a cough that could drown out the seal chorus at Lincoln Park Zoo at feeding time had me spinning pneumonia, hospitals and antibiotics delivered via I-V scenarios. I blame some of my over the top response on sleep deprivation. The cough is a 24 hour thing that nothing works on, leaving me fantasizing about the good old days when cough syrup meant codeine.

Let me also mention my bemusement that anyone exhibiting those symptoms could belt out The Proclaimers cover of Wreckless Eric's "Whole Wide World" at the top of his lungs while simultaneously performing the percussion on the way to the doctor's office or conduct Walt Disney's Fantasia with an energy and verve that would put Leonard Bernstein to shame later that evening. Going by his behavior, he was healthy as a horse.

The doctor's visit was reassuring - no other, underlying infection (good news), too late for Tamiflu (bad news). He's on the mend now, obviously or I wouldn't be writing. Still running a temp, but it's been dropping for the last two days. All I have to do now is manage to remain vigilant enough to notice if he backslides.

All of that has reduced all knitting to the plain vanilla variety. All those little projects with which I hope to entertain you until Christmas are back-burner-ed. I have absolutely no progress to report. The tricky thing about little projects is that, while quick to knit, they take concentration. There's no long stretch of mindless knitting to occupy your hands and soothe your soul when your attention must be focused somewhere else. That's the second bad news.

The corresponding good news is that what's bad for the little Christmas projects is good for the big one. I've been just churning out rows and rows on Marc's sweater. The sleeves are almost finished. The whole knit two at once thing worked really well. I switched over to one at a time once I'd knit to the end of the respective skeins. With only the shaping for the sleeve caps left it didn't make much sense to use 2 balls of yarn. I doubt there's more than a few hours knitting left and these are done.

Which in turn brings us to the third set of good news/bad news. The good news is that I can cast on for the cardigan fronts.

The bad news is I can't put off figuring out where to place the cable pattern for much longer.

False Start

If a marathon is distance and endurance, and a sprint is speed, what would a long distance speed race be? A Mint? A Sprarathon? Whatever you want to call it, the fact remains that I'm looking at a big project and short time-frame, at least if I want to deliver it in person.

The yarn arrived Saturday. Just because we somehow forgot to check the mail doesn't change that. Come Sunday morning there it was, leaning against the door-frame. It's for a housewarming gift and the housewarming aspect looms large (and soon) in my mind. A day or two earlier and, while a not a walk in the park, it would have been excitingly do-able. As of yesterday, I would have said it was fraught but do-able.

One day's knitting left me with three results.

Ten inches of blanket, the realization that "deep blue" isn't always the same as "dark blue" and the conclusion that, however much I liked it, it wasn't right for the person I was making it for. Which, I thought, puts the project right over into the impossible. The extended sprint. The high speed marathon.

Time to regroup. Do I really need to be there when she receives it? No. No, actually, I don't. In fact, all things considered, I'd rather not be around when someone opens something I've made for them.

I think I may have just bought some time. If I change the deadline, doesn't that work out the same as getting a better starting position? On your mark. Get set.

Three Skeins or Less

I need to finish some things. Anythings. My success rate for larger projects has been nothing short of abysmal lately. I long for afghans and sweaters, but my frustration level is rising. Even when, like today (and the rest of this week for that matter ) circumstances (broken storm drain and resultant plumbers) conspire to entrap me at home, I still feel too pulled in too many directions. The Knitter as salt-water taffy. And while I remain determined to finish Marc's sweater for Christmas, I think the a4A debacle was trying to tell me something.

Smaller projects. Much smaller projects. Many much smaller projects. A veritable raft of reward knitting to save a drowning knitter. So I have devised a plan. No snickering.

Over the past few days -- in between providing keys, observing broken pipe, talking to local small-job moving companies, organizing the emptying of one of our storage lockers (thank God for older children with strong backs and legs) (I don't want to even look at my dining room right now), cancelling local small-job moving companies, viewing new pipe -- I have searched for, downloaded, and planned out a series of small scarves, cowls, shawlettes, smoke-rings and neckwarmers for some of the female family members on my Christmas list. Not those who read the blog from time to time, because I don't want to raise hopes (or dread, "Oh no, Aunt Julie's knitting again! Can't we go to Paraguay for Christmas? Please?")

The operative word here is "small." Most take one skein of yarn; the largest calls for three. Of course, none of them involve simple rows of stockinette in the round, so I may still be deluding myself. In my favor, I have no plans to alter, improve or personalize these pieces beyond yarn choice. I've even limited myself there. All will be made from Malabrigo Silky Merino, thus saving myself from the endless knitting it take to get an inch of anything in sock yarn.

The last of the yarn came yesterday.

I can't deny that the lure of the big project is still there. Besides all the ongoing stockinette there are those other two sweaters lurking, the ones for my brother and nephew. They both have winter birthdays, which, as the result of some convoluted thinking on my part, is an added reason to knit for them for Christmas. I'm not letting myself even consider casting on, but honesty compels me to disclose that they're there in my mental peripheral vision while I'm trying to keep focused on more attainable goals.

Three skeins or less. It's kind of like the old "Shoe" cartoon from back before Jeff MacNelly died, about the way to get lawyers under control: "Shorten their pads." Except knitterly.

Stocking Stitch Tales

Okay, so the title is a flagrant rip-off of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking tales, none of which I have read. Not only that, I haven't even seen any of the movies, not even the one with Daniel Day Lewis. How can you take seriously a series of stories where the hero is named Natty Bumpo? Sometimes the search for a good title takes strange paths.

It does reflect what's going on around here, though. Stockinette stitch is the sum of my current knitting.

Actual stockinette in progress:

Marc's sweater (I've finished and bound off the back) (is that redundant?)?

And the eternal purple sweater for the next a4A Youth Campaign. The latest lame excuse for its still unfinished state is that I have to wind another skein and splice it on.

The promise of more stockinette to come:

Swatch for the afghan I have to finish in two weeks and for which the yarn has not yet arrived but over which I am refusing to panic. Because of course the USPS will ignore that fact that yesterday was a federal holiday and will still deliver the yarn -- which was shipped Tuesday priority mail from Maine -- today (hey, if we can put a man on the moon . . .).

Woefully neglected, but the exception:

The Fenna Shawl (remember when all I was knitting was shawls?). What does it say when your reward knitting is garter stitch?

I am reminded of the knock-knock joke that ends "Orange you glad I'm not a banana?"

Gadget

"Noun : A small specialized mechanical device. Synonyms: concern, contraption, contrivance, gimmick, jigger, thing. Informal: doodad, doohickey, widget. Slang: gizmo."*

I was all set to follow Diane's advice on the stitch marker system for knitting two sleeves on one circular when I remembered a clever little thing I got for Christmas last year. I've used this portable abacus on any number of projects, but just as a straightforward row/round counter. Once I started thinking about the complications that could arise out of color-coding stitch-markers with tallies -- locating a pen or pencil in the appropriate color, losing one of said pens or pencils, losing the tally -- it occurred to me I could use this thingumabob a little more creatively. I could make it do double duty.

Perhaps I should mention first off (and it's so obvious I hate to admit it) but I was surprised to notice that just placing a marker at the start of the knitting helped me keep track of whether I'd knit across both sleeves. If the marker is in the middle, I haven't. If it's at either end, I have. That was one frustration eliminated right there.

Here's where it gets really ingenious, though. Almost convoluted, but in a good way. I have devised A System.

The pattern calls for increases at each end every four rows. At the gauge and for the size I'm knitting, these four rows get repeated 18 times, so I'm counting by 5's instead of 10's. No really. This makes sense. This way, since there are nine beads on each strand, I can track different things. I'm using some of the beads to keep track of where I am within a given set of a 4-row segment and some to keep track of just how many segments I've done. Beads moved toward the top count rows; the larger beads count the left piece, the smaller beads count the right. Beads moved toward the bottom count sets of rows, that is, how many increase rows I've done. Small beads count single rows, large beads mark sets of 5. Once I have 4 beads at the top of each strand, I move them back to the middle and move a small bead to the bottom. Once I have 5 small beads on the bottom, I move them up to the center group and move one large bead down.

My head knows that I could do this by moving fewer beads. For example, while I would probably still want to move the 4th bead up on the first sleeve, instead of moving one up for the second I could just move one down to mark a completed set of 4 rows. I could do the same thing for the increases. My head knows, but the rest of me just doesn't trust me. Maybe after a few more repeats I will. Of course, looking at the beads, I'm half-way through the 13th out of 18 sets of increases, so in a few more repeats I'll be done with this part anyway.

I can't help but notice I've gone far and beyond "knit a few more rows before I give it up as a bad lot and return to a more conventional way of knitting sleeves." Admittedly with so many increases done, two sleeves on one needle knit an awful lot like the entire back of a sweater. I suspect the knitting equivalent of the Theory of Relativity is to blame here. I would have to knit two sleeves one way or another and knitting them on two needles would not, in fact, reduce the actual time spent knitting them. I anticipate the moment -- probably not until I actually bind them off-- when reality hits me over the head and I discover (no doubt to my astonishment) that the sleeves are done.

All thanks to the contraption, contrivance, jigger, doohickey, clever little device.

*American Heritage Dictionary.

Friendly Reminder

String Theory Yarn Company will sell hand-knit (by you ) scarves to benefit DuPage PADS starting the Friday after Thanksgiving. Clare and I went out to drop ours off on Saturday (as if we need an excuse to go yarn shopping). I'm parting with my least favorite learn-a-skill project: Branching Out.

Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, on I forget what size needles and can't remember what colorway. I blocked it and, while it truly blossomed, I still have too many bad memories of how much I disliked knitting it to want to keep it.

Clare knit specially for the cause.

The pattern is from (I think) One Skein Wonders, although it might be from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders or even Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders. She rid the house of one of the too many odd skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Melange that I acquired when I thought I would be making Huckleberry Ascots for the entire city of Chicago.

While we were browsing (really, within 5 minutes of handing over our scarves) two separate groups of customers came in looking to buy shop models for Christmas gifts. I think String Theory will be able to sell all 50+ of what they have so far and then some, so send yours along to :

String Theory
477 North Main Street
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137

Theory vs. Practice

As I approach the bind-off for the back of Marc's sweater, and as I continue to avoid the commitment to cable placement that casting on the fronts for the cardigan entails, I'm thinking about sleeves.

I find sleeves are kind of like what other people tell me about socks. The first one is all gratifying and quick. The second one is just work. My standard method for dealing with this, and I regularly offer up thanks to Elizabeth Zimmermann for the idea, is to cast on both sleeves and knit on whichever one comes to hand. It works reasonably well. There are, however, always some issues. Separating sleeves for one thing. It's uncanny how often they end up at opposite ends of the condo. Keeping track of where I am on which sleeve is another. I believe I have already indicted myself on the whole failure to keep adequate notes, or to keep track of the notes if when I do make them. I want some clever and efficient trick for sleeves.

Clare is a sock knitter. Last year, her Christmas book was Antje Gillingham's Knitting Circles Around Socks. She churns out socks by the pair on a regular basis these days. I doubt she will ever have to pair up two one-of-a-kind socks as some kind of unholy odd couple again.

That is not the non sequitur it would seem to be.

Inspired by Clare and her two-at-a-time socks, I looked at the two sleeve cuffs I recently knit. Might it not be easier to knit them both on the same circular? Each sleeve would then always be knit at the same tension as the other. Both sleeves would always be at the same point of completion. They would always be in the same place. One set of tallies to track increases would suffice. I would never again confuse which tally went with which sleeve, thus ending up with one sleeve an inch or so longer than the other, depending on how long it took me to notice that I had over-knit one and under-knit its companion.

This sounded like such a good idea. You know what, though? It's, not to put too fine a point on it, not. I still seem to forget whether I've knit across both sleeves or one and now I have to juggle two balls of yarn. I've only knit four rows or so. I'll give it a few more before I admit defeat. Maybe I can figure out something clever with stitch markers. Meantime, I'm open to suggestions.

Honestly though, wouldn't you think reality, just this once, could run congruently with the ideal?