Closing Ceremony

I meant to write this last week, or the beginning of this at the latest. Except I mistook feeling better for being well and lapsed back into whatever bug it was that made things miserable during the Olympics. Here, then, is the final post on the World's Ugliest Gold Medal Winner.

I came up with some survival techniques. First, a cheat sheet. A sample of each yarn with it's corresponding color code. It meant I didn't have to keep track of which yarn was Fandago or Wigwam or Zanziba (Colinette is not so good at the giving their yarns meaningful names). I didn't have to label the yarn or keep the ball-bands with me wherever I was working. I didn't have to keep flipping the pattern pages over to check against the yarn list. Saved me time and infinite annoyance.

Lantern Moon small taffeta bags. The three mohair yarns lived in these throughout the project, color-coded, thus saving my sanity and themselves from annihilation. Mohair is really, really sticky. It's a parasite and will latch onto anything like a lamprey - all those teeth.

Post-it notes. Worked even better for keeping my place than the highlighting thing I did for the Not-Quite-A-Blessingway Blanket. Since the repeat was 56 rows long, this kept me on the right row until I could read the pattern from the throw.

General Observations -

The pattern just isn't that hard. I could be over-committed the first week and sick the second and still finish in a timely fashion. Granted that Friday and Saturday were intense, but that's two days out of 17.

Mohair is deeply annoying to knit with, and I will probably impale myself on a set of dpn's before I knit with it again, but it's not particularly difficult.

I have knit Art and I don't want to ever again. There is such a thing as too much. Too much texture (although that's the only thing The Princess likes about it). Too much color. Too much novelty yarn.

With all this dissatisfaction, perhaps you can understand why I felt a little queasy about claiming a gold medal.

I earned it for the discipline I didn't know I had before this project. I made very sure to keep track of the pattern so I wouldn't have to rip back. I marked off the repeats with stichmarkers and I devised systems to make the knitting more coherent. If I learned nothing else, I know how to count to 17, which was the number of stitches in the pattern repeat. I counted it so faithfully and with such consistency that I never want to see the number again. The Lord Protector will have to go from 16 to 18, bypassing his 17th year entirely. So will any grandchildren I may have.

I earned it for my persistence. By the time I reached the last repeat, the only thing keeping me going was a kind of grim determination and the knowledge that I wouldn't have to knit with that particular yarn again. By the time I knit the last 12 rows, it was the knowledge that with each row completed, I would only have so many rows left to knit. By the time I reached the last 4 rows, it was a matter of counting down the stitches. By the time I reached the last bind-off stitch, the only yarn I ever wanted to knit with again was the Skye.

I earned it for what I think of myself as a knitter now, as opposed to when the Olympics started. Maybe the knitting was that simple. On the other hand, maybe I am a better knitter than I thought I was. Maybe I am even a good knitter. And maybe the next time someone, with a faintly kindly patronizing smile, tells me that that pattern, that book, that technique is probably a little too hard for me, well, maybe I just won't believe them anymore.

Pattern - Scallops from Colinette's Absolutely Fabulous Throw Kit.

Yarn - also (mostly) from Colinette's Absolutely Fabulous Throw Kit, approximately 4 years old and therefore with some discontinued yarns. One skein each of:
Color A - Mohair in Renaissance.
Color B - Skye in Copperbeech (Substituted for Velvet Bilberry).
Color C - Mohair in Copperbeech (Substituted for Mist).
Color D - Zanziba in Autumn.
Color E - Wigwam in Lichen (Should have been substituted. The yarn that killed the project. I hated knitting with it more than any of the other fibers. And that's saying a lot. And I hate the way it looks in the finished throw. Completely and utterly, color and texture.)
Color F - Fandago in Venezia.
Color G - Mohair in Tapis.
Color H - Zanziba in Jay.

Needles - Addi Turbo's, US 11/8 mm.

Finished size - 42" by 55".

Got There, Except . . .

So, where were we? Ah yes. Friday. When knitting was fun again and I was still in love with the project.

By the time I went to bed Friday, I had actually finished with one color, had only the last 38 rows left to knit, and was beginning to fear that my Olympic Project was destined to be the single ugliest piece of knitting I had ever accomplished. Will I, nil I, I had entered a fourth event - the Relay, a.k.a. How Fast Can I Get Rid Of This. Completion of this event only required me to continue knitting with my eyes closed and I had gotten pretty good at that.

The plan for Saturday was to finish the knitting and start the blocking. If I missed that deadline, I knew there was no way I'd get the tassels made and attached by the time the torch was extinguished. Despite my increasing dislike of the project (and it was increasing exponentially with every row), I abandoned all my other responsibilities, put my head down and doggedly stuck to my needles. I may have gotten to bed a few hours later than I meant to -- and that may not have been the wisest decision I ever made, since I wasn't exactly at peak performance in the first place -- but I finished. I Soaked it and left it rolled in towels, hoping it would look a lot better to me in the morning.

It didn't.

My family tried to be tactful. This involved a lot of silent head-nodding because they couldn't think of anything actually pleasant to say. The Princess broke first. Silent head nodding gave way to silent head-shaking followed by a quietly apologetic, "No." The Lord Protector, with all the brutal honesty of a 15 year old, observed that "You know, it hurts your eyes if you look at it too long." The Pirate looks at it only to look away very, very quickly; I don't think he actually winces. Their Father has maintained his silence, in itself a very bad sign indeed.

My only consolation is that I dislike the Ab-Fab's in the Versace colorway on Ravelry (which kept to the all the original colors) even more than I dislike mine.

Getting There

It would be untrue on a massive scale to say I'm not glad to win my personal Knitting Olympics. It's just not what I expected. Not the winning part. I was pretty determined. The knitting part.


Let's go back to where we left off. When I was looking at 6 days to finish an afghan that had haunted me for 4 years. When I had decided I had had enough of regretting that I hadn't signed on for the first Olympics. When I decided that I wasn't going to make excuses and, even if I had serious doubts about the project, that I was going to commit.

Up to that point, I had been hedging my bets. Making alternate plans. Telling myself I didn't need to finish before the Olympic Torch went out. I know I was, because I didn't cut the yarn at the color changes. I was planning on giving up, ripping out, and salvaging the yarn. To prove my new-found determination to myself I used my scissors for something other than holding down the pattern.

That was before I got sick. In retrospect -- and more accurately -- that was before I realized I was sick. I just thought I was tired. Okay, tired and cranky. Fine, I was tired, cranky and achy and looking back the part about not being able to get warm was probably chills. I make this diagnosis because, when the possibly that all was not well in a not-normal sense finally flitted across my brain I dug out a thermometer and discovered I was had a temperature.

I found this hard to believe. I wasn't sick enough to run a fever. I didn't think I felt nearly awful enough. Except my knitting needles were way too heavy, and I don't think it was just because the pattern called for US 11/8mm. Except I slept through Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Except that night I let The Boys talk me into a DVD even though it was a school night. Except that over two days I knit a total of 8 rows, tops. Running in the Viral Dash lifted my Olympic challenge to a whole new level.

For the record, the difference between 101.2 and 99.7 is more than 1.5 degrees. 99.7 means you can knit more in two hours than you have knit the previous 3 days. 99.7 means you remember that the way to deal with that ache in your throwing arm (English-style knitter, here, remember?) is to stretch it out and rest it periodically. 99.7 meant that by Friday night, I had one 56 row repeat left to knit, instead of only one repeat done.

99.7 meant I was back in the running.

Cue the Star-Spangled Banner

Canada won the gold in hockey (well done, Canada!); I've qualified for a gold medal for the United States.

Knit. Blocked. Tasseled. And every blasted end sewn in.

Details, and I hope a picture in better light, later this week.

Briefly

Briefly because I have only completed a little over a third of the afghan.

Briefly because, in order to achieve Olympic Gold I had planned to be past the half-way point by now.

Briefly because I have only 6 days until the Closing Ceremony and extinguishing of the Olympic Torch.

Briefly because I have discovered the true definition of eternity. It is not "a ham and two people."

It's knitting 984 stitches with mohair.

Dichotomy*

*Noun: A division into two mutually exclusive or contradictory parts or opinions.

I alternate between loving it and hating it.

A New Event

Copperbeech Mohair/Copperbeech Skye/Copperbeech Mohair was too much brown. Or much too brown. Don't tell me I should have known. I know I should have known. It looked like a good idea when I held the skeins together; it just didn't knit up the way I thought it looked.

After much debate, (and I would like to pause here to thank heaven for artistic, patient children) we settled on the so-labeled Renaissance ("so-labeled" because it sure looks like Neptune to me) Mohair/Copperbeech Skye/Renaissance Mohair.

That took me through Monday when the Fandango in Venezia arrived. As often happens to me when dealing with Colinette yarns, my first reaction was, "Oh no. Too much." Too much color. Too much texture. With the Copperbeech overdose still fresh in my memory, I took refuge in one of my favorite knitting coping mechanisms. I knit with my metaphorical eyes closed.

This usually works.

Note the "usually."

Tuesday's knitting ended when I switched from the Fandango to Mohair in Morocco .

No amount of knitting - eyes closed or otherwise -- could change the result: too pretty. Now I have to decide whether to re-enter the Copperbeech Mohair or switch to the Tapis Mohair.

I though I was only entered for the Mohair Marathon. Now look at me. I'm competing in the Color Challenge, too.

Late-Breaking News:

Your correspondent confesses to her desire to switch out one more skein. I had substituted Tagliatelli, a merino tape, in the Madras colorway for Fandago in Cezanne.

This was due in part to my pursuit of anything-but-pink, and in part to my aversion to knitting with something that looked like eyelash yarn. I have since reconsidered the eyelash part; it's really more of a chenille. Further, my concern now is that the Tagliatelli (onthe left) is too much like the Wigwam (on the right), both in color and texture.

I've ordered Fandago in Venezia from Flying Fingers. It shipped yesterday. Except this is the weekend, and even with expedited shipping it won't get here until Monday. I have 11 rows before I have to decide if I can wait and still go for the gold.

Official Olympian

I did it. I'm in. I've just registered for the Knitting Olympics. The Yarn Harlot posted the link in this post.

After reading her comments, I went with the afghan. Something about the image of threatening those near and dear with pointy sticks because I haven't slept in 5 days struck home.

That, and I really want the medal.

Really, really.

Excavated

I have other options. I need to remind myself of this as the days tick down. The Green Sweater has 4 (Count'em. Four!) steeks. That seems like a lot of steeks to someone who has never cut her knitting. It has that knit-the-neckline-in-the-round EZ un-vention known as the "kangaroo pouch neck." I still can't get my mind around that one. The yarn is . . . different. The Princess (for whom this would be made) (to replace her felted Perfect Sweater) is not enamoured of the 3/4 sleeves. I would have to face all the above and adjust the pattern.

I begin to feel more than just challenged. I'm not sure that terrified is the right mind set for Olympic endeavor. It's my first real Olympics after all; do I really want to participate in the decathlon?

I could confront a different knitting nemesis. Colorwork. This is, admittedly, a smaller project. Fine. It's a much, much smaller project. Then again, so was my first attempt at colorwork and they still languish somewhere at the bottom of a knitting basket. Though it be small it could be called challenging. Ask any sprinter how easy their event is.

Of course, nobody in this household would wear such an object. Even a4A isn't looking for hats anymore. Once knit, what would I do with it?

Which brings us to Door Number 3. I could finally knit up my Absolutely Fabulous Afghan.

I can justify this on several levels. The knitting itself, that is, the pattern, is nothing I can't handle. It's your basic feather and fan. And while I was unhappy enough with my first attempts, I've since knit Jo Sharp's Misty Garden scarf enough times (this one, and this one) to feel comfortable with the yarn-overs and P2togs. The challenge would come from:

1) The yarn itself. A dizzying array of 8 yarns in 6 different types and weights including three colors of mohair. I have studiously avoided mohair. I don't even knit with mohair blends. One might think I was phobic about mohair and one would have good cause for such suspicion.

2) The size. It's an afghan, for pete's sake. It's an afghan with endless changes in yarn and color. The weaving in of the ends alone could take me a week. It's a finishing marathon. I could arguably qualify for two different events.

3) The monogamy. With a smaller project I would have more options. Like breathing. Or sleeping. This one would take a level of commitment, single-mindedness and discipline that I rarely display on any project.

4) It's the knitted object I lusted after enough to lurk in the first Knitting Olympics and produce my first piece of non-trapezoidal knitting, the kit I rewarded myself with when I was too intimidated to claim a medal. It's the undisputed sentimental favorite.

That and I unearthed the pattern during today's "Adventures in Stuff Removal."

Olympian

So. What are you going to knit?

I don't know either, but we've got a week and I've already let my brain start dancing around the edges of this.

Elizabeth Zimmermann's recently discovered/recovered Green Sweater (see full article here, pattern and supplies here, commentary by Meg Swansen here).

I just can't decide if it's a challenge or if I'm out of my mind.

What To Do, What To Do?

Would you like to know the real reason I'm knitting scarves right now? It's His Sweater. I can't figure out how I want the cables to start. It would be easier if Their Father liked the 2 by 2 ribbing, but he didn't. Now I need to figure out an aesthetically pleasing way to get 4 stitch cables to rise out of 1 by 1 rib. I didn't take pictures of the first pass, sorry. All I did was knit the foundation stitches for the cable stacked right on top of the ribbing, purled back, then twisted the cable on the next right side row. It made the the ribbing pucker. Not a good thing.

I'm mulling on take-two right now. I didn't frog the whole piece, just the 2 or 3 inches of body stitches. When I thought about knitting all that K1P1 ribbing I got sort of dizzy and weak in the knees, so I caved and dropped the stitches for the cables all the way down to the cast on, then changed the ribbing to match the cable pattern, effectively starting the cables at the bottom of the sweater. I'm sot so sure about this one either. I"m trying to envision this as the center of the cardigan. My imagination is stuttering.

I begin to feel uneasy. I have something niggling at the back of my mind. An itch to try Take-three and/or Take-four. Take-three is easy. Start twisting the cables sooner rather than leaving those long legs.

I'm having a harder time with Take-four. I can't seem to plot it out in my head, so I may be spending the weekend with graph paper as, in between building bookcases, I try to figure out how many rows it would take to rearrange 1 by 1 ribbing into 2 by 2 ribbing and then move those ribs into the two 4-stitch cable patterns I need.

It's going to be a busy weekend.

(NB: I know most of you are comment-phobic, but this is one of those cases where I'll take all the advice I can wring out of you people.)

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.