Let's See What Happens

This will never do.  April is almost over.  Not a single post to show for it. I can cheat and call in one of my National Poetry Month poems -- and may yet before the week is out -- but the Woolgathering that goes on here is supposed to include the knitted variety.

Good thing I have a new project. Here's the bare bones.

I considered finally knitting this.  That determination didn't last long. I had so enjoyed knitting an afghan in the round, that I decided to start another one.  This decision had nothing to do with my wish to delay knitting up however many inches of seed stitch at over 160 stitches per side.

Meet Embellished Squares or The Last Gasp of Winter. The pattern is here.

I swore I would knit from stash. That resolve didn't survive the second repeat.

Because no knitting project I choose can ever run smoothly, I picked one where the designer says,"I am a very loose knitter." We all know that I am a very tight knitter.  She knit on US 7's. I'm knitting on US 9's. 

And yet, the proportions still seem off. I contacted the designer via Ravelry. According to Spud Says Hi,  she made the first color change about 2 inches from center, which means I'm pretty close. And frankly, I just don't want to think that hard and relocating the color changes is more work than I want from a project right now. Maybe the thing to do is stick to the pattern. It could be interesting.

Looking for a Happy Ending

The good thing is, once I had the afghan off the needles, I could actually see it, something I hadn't been able to do in its cephalopodic state.  The further good news is that I don't like the eyelash yarn knitted up any more than I did during the knitting process. Theoretically, this should mean that I'm okay with ripping it off and binding off with the previous yarn.

The bad thing is, the afghan is paradoxically bigger than it seemed while I was knitting it, but smaller than I expected it to be. Furthermore, I really, really wish the colors were deeper, like the center square. Since they're mostly not, the center square is an uneasy occupant at best.  It looks like an alien.

This leaves me with choices. I could:

1) Let it go, slip the stitches back on the needle and bind off.  I learned a lot and I can just order up another Big Bundle or plan to pick one up from Rex and Bjorn when they come to Stitches Midwest. This has the advantage of a certain elegant simplicity, not to mention I could chalk one up in the Finished Object column. Furthermore, I would have been true to the project and the pattern.

2) Continue on with the plan A as outlined above, that is, lose the eyelash yarn, bind off and call it done.  This has pretty much the same advantages as Number 1.  I don't have quite the same degree of project integrity, but then again I don't have to look at eyelash yarn for the rest of my life.

Neither option addresses my color and size issues which lead me to:

3) Buy more yarn. Specifically, another skein of the yarn in the Super-wash Merino, the same yarn that now stands out like the proverbial petunia in an onion patch. 

Which means: 

I would have to keep the eyelash yarn. I'm pretty sure I won't want to take advantage of the rolling propensity of stockinette stitch with a smooth yarn.  Ergo, the Super-wash would have to be a seed stitch section and the eyelash yarn would have to stay as the dividing line. 

I wouldn't be able to call the project done for a while.  It takes a lot longer to knit 120 yards worth of yarn when each side is over 150 stitches than it did when the sides were shorter. Plus I'm pretty sure I would want to knit the entire 200+ yard skein.  I mean, what would I do with the less than 100 yard remainder otherwise?

My color and size issues, however, would be addressed.

Is anyone really surprised to learn I've already placed the order?

Glitches

It's very sad. So sad. So very, very sad. You know how things seem to come in waves? Or maybe it's that I get caught up in enthusiasm. I was, well, still am, mostly, so excited about my current knitting. This particular project is large, so there's not a lot to say, even if I had the time to post as often as I want. "I knit another 120 yards and changed skeins again" is not going to grab the reader after the ninth or tenth time you've written it. Bumps in the road, snags in the project, now, those make for blog fodder, so here I am.

First, let me state, unequivocally, irrefutably, categorically, that I despise novelty yarn. It's a pain to knit with. It's near impossible to read. And just try finding a couple or five lost stitches in this -

when your combing through 664 of them. Or maybe it's 665. Or 668.

One might be justified in wondering how I, the queen of stitch markers, tumbled into this pit of despair. Too clever by half, that's how. That, and a complete refusal inability, oh, let's be honest, refusal to heed the tell-tale signs of imminent disaster.

The Princess and I are knitting up semi-matching afghans a la the Lorna of Lorna's Laces Book. When I last posted about this project, I determined to finish it off. I was so close, just that last bit of one and then the eyelash yarn. I figured it wasn't ambition, it wasn't that competitive streak, it was a slam-dunk.

Like all primrose paths, the going seem sweet and easy until I got through several rows of the (now known as) Truly Deeply Annoying Eyelash Yarn and began to consider how irked I would be if I ran out before finishing the bind-off (yes, that's how close I was). Which is when I remembered an old Yarn Harlot post on -- at about the same time HRH proposed -- the no-additional yarn crochet cast-off. Basically, all you do is pass the stitches over each other using a crochet hook.

Except I'm a tight knitter. A very tight knitter. I doubt I was more than twenty stitches into it before I noticed a complete lack of elasticity. No give whatsoever. Another twenty or so and I noticed the afghan seemed to be puckering. At either of these points, I could have easily reversed direction, but no. I had to decide to finish an edge. Then I had to decide to round a corner. Then I had to hide from myself for a bit before I could acknowledge that I had to go back and undo.

I found it a lot harder to reverse that bind-off than seems reasonable. It was so simple to perform it in the first place (I'm blaming the yarn here). In a flurry of dramatic activity - truly, it took forever, but in retrospect it's all a blur - I ended up with between one-third and one-half of the stitches live. With what I thought was exquisite care and patience, I replaced them on the needle and then I counted.

Well, there we are, back to the start of the story, with possibly 664 stitches, but more likely 663, or maybe 667. I sat down with it again this morning and all I know for sure is that I do not have the same number of stitches on each side. Really, I don't think I have any option now but to frog all that eyelash yarn and re-knit.

Or I could frog it and just use it for the bind-off.

Into Trouble

Ha! Hahahaha! What, you may wonder, is the excuse for this excessive glee? It doesn't take much. My teleconference for today got cancelled, so here I am.

If I see a yarn I love, I tend to but large quantities of it. I hate the idea of the yarn speaking to me of afghans and sweaters and finding I have only enough for a scarf and hat. This acquisitive disposition of mine gets me into trouble sometimes often usually.

My greatest downfall is hand-painted yarn. I'm a repeat member of the 10K club at Eat.Sleep.Knit.'s Yarn Marathon. I get a visceral sense of satisfaction when I've made the half-marathon and thus achieved free shipping for the rest of the year.

This is all a lead up to Yarn Pr0n disguised as epiphany.

I bought this yarn, Sweet Georgia Knits Superwash Worsted in Cypress from the aforementioned Eat.Sleep.Knit.

I want to knit it up. Into something. I just don't know what. I set out to do a gauge swatch, a simple little 6 inch square. Then I started thinking. I hate when I do that. Thinking about how this is superwash yarn and can be expected to expand under the influence of blocking. Thinking about the nature of hand-dyed yarn, where even the same dye-lot can mean variations between skeins so great you wouldn't even call them the same colorway. Thought about the lines of demarcation that can result between such skeins in long stretches of stockinette. Thought about circumstances where I could live with that and where I couldn't. Realised I wanted to turn this yarn into a sweater, which behooved me to take my swatch a little further.

Did I say a little?

A tour seems called for.

Bottom section - done before thinking started. Straight-forward stockinette stitch from a single skein of yarn, really just testing out needle size. This marked the moment when I strove to get the recommended gauge, but not the moment when I thought about the superwash aspects of the yarn.

Next section - ribbing. Ribbing makes me think, perhaps because I get so little satisfaction out of knitting it. It made me think I probably ought to try to mix up the skeins if I wanted something resembling a homogeneous product (yes, you can use "homogeneous" for something other than dairy products; I looked it up).

Which brings us to the next section and this is all mixed up. Toward the bottom, I'm alternating two skeins of yarn, knitting two rows from each. Too stripy. Then I added a third skein and knit one row from each skein, just like the Island Embrace Blanket. This left me with an almost overwhelming desire to stab myself with my knitting needles and I still didn't like the look of the fabric. I went back to knitting from one skein on larger needles, taking refuge in trying to get gauge.

Shortly after which I put the swatch away and tried to pretend I didn't want to knit with this yarn anyway. See Aesop and the Fox and the Grapes.

I was going to stop the story there, but I won't. Time passed and I kept ignoring the yarn and the swatch, until this week. This week I remembered the lost Scribble Scarf and how Kay and Ann set up the pattern to produce stockinette stitch, even if you only use one row of a contrast yarn. It all hinges on circular needles. With circular needles, you knit across, slide the row back, and knit the next row.

Okay, this is the epiphany part, the top section of the swatch. On circular needles, I can knit from two different skeins of yarn and get a fabric that preserves the subtle variations in color without getting all stripy about it and without engendering a death-by-knitting-needle-wish. I knit one row from the first skein. Slide it back. Knit a row from the other skein. Turn the work. Purl one row from the first skein. Slide it back. Purl one row from the other skein. Ta-da and repeat Ad infinitum.

Not Here

I think I might be playing hooky. I could be wrong, but I sat down at the computer this morning and realized I didn't have any deadlines until Saturday, no meetings until tomorrow, and that my prep work for both is pretty much done. I sat here and stared at the monitor for a bit, completely at a loss; if I'm not scheduled, I don't seem to know what to do with myself.

That said, it shouldn't be a surprise that knitting has been pretty thin on the ground. The latest afghan grows apace, but since it's knit in the round, it's not exactly photogenic. Observe.

Then again, it's not every knitting project that can serve as it's own knitting bag.

Once I finish the last 120 yard skein and bind off, I expect a transformation not unlike straw into gold, but for now to me it looks like an octopus minus the tentacles. A colorful octopus, but an octopus nonetheless. (Now go back and click that link. I had no idea how cool octopi are.)

I'd be done now (that sounds so Firesign Theater, "Antelope Freeway, if you lived here you'd be home by now"), except that I'm opting for a slightly different finish than the pattern calls for. At one point I thought to use my Giant Skein for an AB-Fab afghan and ordered extra yarn (lots of extra yarn) to accommodate the plan. I'm using a small part of it (the rule, set by the contents of the Giant Skein, is 120 yards of any given yarn) to expand this afghan by one more section. Yes, I know that means I'll end with a stockinette section instead of a seed stitch section and that stockinette stitch will curl. That's the idea. By ending with stockinette in the feathery yarn, I (hope) I'll get a narrower edging, while knitting the last seed stitch section in worsted weight yarn will keep the afghan flat.

In fact, maybe I will try to use some of this loose-ends time effecting that transformation. That will give me a good excuse to browse the website looking for a new colorway so I can knit this again.

Aberrations

1) A deviation from the proper or expected course. 2) A departure from the normal or typical.

I am never ahead of the game. Never. I am always a day late or a dollar short. I get a lot done when a deadline looms but all too often that "lot" is not enough. I sometimes feel I live in a chronic state of too little, too late.

Not today ace, not today. I'm still feeling a bit smug and astounded by what we sent off, Priority Mail (as opposed to the ghastly expensive Next-Day Air), to AFSC in San Francisco. Well in advance of the Valentine's Day deadline for this year's Campaign for Youth.

Three sweaters, one pair of socks (that last courtesy of the Princess; I don't do socks).

I find I am enjoying my self-satisfied virtuousness. These are really rather nifty knits, even the Purple Sweater which has haunted this blog and my home since the 2008 a4A Youth Campaign. That's three campaigns ago. Details of the struggle are here, here and here ( among other places). I am deeply, deeply happy that it's gone.

Sock details will have to await the Princess uploading them to Ravelry. Sorry, not my knitting.

The other two sweaters, now, for those I have details.

Pattern - Green Mountain Spinnery's Rosemary's Little Sweater from The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book.
Yarn -Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair in Balsam.
Needles - US 8/5 mm Addi turbos for the body and sleeves, US 7/4.5 mm for the cuffs and bottom ribbing, 24-inch for the body and three 16-inch for the sleeves (now my most favorite way ever to knit small tubes. I may never go back to standard DPNs).

Pattern - Green Mountain Spinnery's Puntas Sweater, also from The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book.
Yarn - Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair in Blue Gentian with touches of Moss and (I think) Rhubarb (lost the label).
Needles -Again, US 8/5 mm Addi turbos for the body and sleeves, US 7/4.5 mm for the cuffs and bottom ribbing, 24-inch for the body and three 16-inch for the sleeves.

Maybe if I do something three times it's not an aberration anymore?

Christmas Again or Mostly English

We, like a wide swath of the country, have gone all white and buried, like a Currier & Ives print. It seems then particularly appropriate to tell you about our second Christmas. Third, if you count Epiphany (which, when I was growing up, we sometimes referred to as Little Christmas). Fourth if you count the Feast of St. Nicholas.

Ever since The Princess spent her junior year abroad, she has gotten a box from the other side of the Atlantic in time to open Christmas morning. This year, we knew it might be close. We knew there had been knitting ( I have to get the Princess' permission to take a picture and post it. For now you'll just have to take my word that it's nifty). We (like the rest of the world) just hadn't considered that weather like I saw outside my window two days ago would intervene. Not just the storms that struck the east coast with such ferocity, but the storms that stopped ground transportation and closed airports in Europe. Christmas came and Christmas went - no box. New Year came and New Year went - No box. Little Christmas - well you get the idea. This past week,though, it was Christmas again. This year I know the giver. It felt like a bit of Norfolk in the dining room.

"So. Nice story. But what about knitting?" you say.

Diane H sent me this a couple of weeks ago and it occurred to me, I did sort of duck the whole Christmas post thing. Once upon a time, the Christmas season lasted until Candlemas day, so I could argue I'm only a few days late instead of weeks and weeks. Besides, this references so many of my favorite things (Christmas trees, helping people with disabilities live independently, East Anglia, knitting), how could I go wrong? When the Christmas box arrived, I decided I could share and give you all a nice multi-faceted knitting/Christmas/Norfolk experience to cheer the post-blizzard, snow-bound experience.



Happy Christmas, again.

Not a Drop to Drink

It's astonishing how difficult it is to concentrate when you know water is dripping from your kitchen ceiling and has been since Monday evening. That said, in lieu of a proper post, here is what I'm working on.

It's this yarn. The pattern is from this book.
Plumber is due in an hour.

Never Did Run Smooth

No Christmas post?

No day after Christmas/Boxing Day/St. Stephen's Day (gloating) post?

No anniversary (33 years and counting) post?

I'll just have to write a last day of the year post. Closure and all that.

The variously named Grey/Gray/Eldest Nephew/Oldest Nephew Sweater did indeed get finished in time for the Great Gift Exchange on Christmas Eve. I even remembered to work in the phony seams.

The home stretch was not, however, without trauma.

Trauma #1. You'll just have to take my word for it. The trauma was so great I didn't photograph it. Despite all the careful measuring both with ruler and yardstick (because tape measures stretch and are therefore unreliable) and against the original sweater, despite having the Lord Protector stand in for fittings, despite previous experience with this yarn, when compared to the original sweater the finished object came out about 1/2 to 1 inch short in the body -- which I could have lived with (knitting stretches) -- and a good 3 inches (!) short in the sleeves. (I know. That was a dreadful sentence, both in form and content. Imagine the horror that must have engendered it.) A fitting on the Lord Protector -- forced into mannequin service as the only available young male -- was not reassuring. It didn't matter that my brain knew he is taller and stockier than the Eldest Nephew. I foresaw Christmas Sweater Disaster looming and wished I had heeded The Panopticon's video and bought the Eldest Nephew a new pair of roller skates.

At this point the Princess was sent off to Brooks Brothers for a gift card. Desperation, however, will drive one to any and all things; I went ahead and blocked the sweater.

Trauma #2. It blocked huge. Even huger than I had been expecting, given previous blocking experience.

Standing and staring in horror at the blocking board, I was irresistibly reminded of the "Useful presents" in "A Child's Christmas in Wales" where Dylan Thomas writes about "engulfing mufflers of the old coach days" and "zebra scarfs of a substance like sticky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes." The gift card was looking better all the time.

Trauma #3. No photograph here either, but The Cat, apparently compulsively drawn to a sweater so near to her own coloring, and at that time desperately in need of having her claws trimmed (see where this is going, do you?), not only nested on the sweater over-night, but managed to catch a single stitch on her claw. I cannot begin to express the panic. I was clearly not nearly as wedded to the idea of the gift card as I thought I had become.

Factor in my apparent complete inability to make a square into a circle (neckline) and the resulting gaping stitches where the corners had been. These had only been exacerbated when the Lord Protector did the fitting thing. The incredible stretching properties of the wet yarn had done nothing to improve matters.

There I was on December 23rd, I think I can safely say, not rejoicing. This does not mean, however, that my ability to deny reality was in any way diminished. In a mind-boggling episode of "wishing will make it so," I threaded up my Chibi and started weaving in ends. Which led to my final burst of creativity and decision to reinforce the stress points (the grafting under the arms, the corners of the neckline) and, while I was at it, to duplicate stitch over the Cat Disaster and several stitches beyond.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Otherwise there is no way that all of this should have resulted in a wearable sweater. The weaving in and reinforcing worked. The sweater pulled in some while it dried. I handed it over on Christmas Eve, along with the original and a sweater shaver (because the yarn is so soft, it pills if you look at it cross-eyed). It is a little big. I'll say I made it that way on purpose in case he ever wants to wear it over a button-down shirt.

Oh, and those 3-inches-too-short sleeves?

The sweater didn't pull in that much.

A Day at the Races

I am prey to two mutually exclusive but nonetheless compelling convictions.

The first is that the eight decreases every other row necessary for raglan sleeves are way too many decreases in much too short a space and will result in a sweater fit only for the victims of head-shrinking tribes.

The other is that there is no way that that there are enough decreases close enough together to get to the 10 shoulder stitches Elizabeth Zimmermann says will mark the point where I can begin to shape the neck without knitting the most enormous sweater known to man.

Furthermore, (because things weren't interesting enough), I have to knit really fast, otherwise I fear I will run out of the remaining new, unused, pristine yarn (I have 3 full skeins of 136 yards each and some random bits) and therefore have to unravel and reclaim the vast quantities used up to knit the deliberate and accidental swatches.

Today, I'm going for the win. I'm jut not sure which one.

Elucidation

Also procrastination. More on that later in the post.

While the truism states that one picture is worth a thousand words, the picture of the gray sweater clearly did not convey the right thousand. Joining the sleeves to the body on Friday was the goal, not the reality. In point of fact, the goal didn't have a more than a nodding acquaintance with reality. As of the last post I had 2 to 3 inches of knitting left on the body and a good 5 to 6 inches on each sleeve (the Eldest Nephew is strappy, not stunted).

Back on Tuesday, when I started this post (which means I had figured out another good word for the title), I had achieved the necessary for the sleeves, but still had a good 10 to 12 rows to slog through for the body (my theory is that it's a lot harder to knit big tubes than it is to knit small ones).

Now, however, the pieces really are ready to be joined and instead of brewing a fresh cup of coffee, grabbing my copy of EZ's Knitting Workshop and getting on with it, I'm over here at the computer, delaying.

Admittedly, it's a new computer -- very nice, with none of the odd behaviors the old one had developed after the poor thing's recovery from viral onslaught. Further, I could argue that posting to the blog is at least related to knitting (as opposed to playing multiple games of Mahjong Titan). Christmas, however, is not going to hold itself back until I finish the Gray Sweater.

And knitting hats for the Pirate and the Lord Protector won't do much to delay it, either.

Hoary

Don't you just love a good word? My online dictionary and thesaurus tell me that hoary can mean "ancient" or "antediluvian," "belonging to, existing, or occurring in times long past," "gray or white with age." Dust-covered, in fact. It can also mean just plain gray. So appropriate to everything I have to write about.

To clear the air, let me state that the red scarf is languishing (read: dead in the water), the green sweater in all knit up (and has been for a couple weeks now), and I seem to have lost the blue sweater. Neither sweater has its (their?) ends sewn in. I suppose it goes without saying that they're not blocked, either, but I'll say it anyway: They're not blocked, either. Just in case you were wondering. That's all old news, though. Hoary with age, in fact.

Since the a4A deadline isn't until after Christmas, and I haven't a prayer of finishing the Red Scarf, I'm not going to worry about them for now. (Thank heavens for a knitting daughter who sent her red scarf off last week -- I think she posted a picture on Ravelry, though I'm not sure -- the OFA hasn't been completely frozen out.) Now I'm all about Christmas. Which might not strike you as a hoary topic until you are informed that new Christmas knitting is on a determined hold until old Christmas knitting, a.k.a, the Gray Sweater, is finished. And there you have hoary on multiple levels.

I am supposed to be inspired to knit feverishly so I can move on to other projects. So what if two of those projects are another sweater and an afghan? Once the gray sweater is done, I plan to allow myself to intersperse small knitting projects with the large. So many rounds of a sweater done? Maybe I'll knit a hat to match one of the scarves I gave last year. A nice swathe cut through the afghan knitting? Perhaps I'll cast on for that neck gaiter for the brother who was so taken with the one I knit for his wife. Serious progress on a sleeve? Well, there is that other brother who was supposed to get a scarf last year but didn't. Let's not forget to factor in a serious cold snap here in the Midwest and my sons' need for hats.

I'm noticing a pattern here. I think I can safely say that all of my knitting plans have their origins in events occurring in times long past. None of them are going to happen, though, if I don't get cracking on that sweater for the Oldest Nephew. I've set today as the day I join the sleeves to the body. Once I shake the dust of neglect off and do that, perhaps then it will again only be hoary because of the color.

Don't you just love a good word?

Raising the Bar

Or at least we're going to make the attempt.

I'm not as far along on Rosemary's Little Sweater (that would be the green one) as I had hoped to be. That is to say, I'm not finished yesterday. I'm not even as far as I was on the Puntas Sweater (a.k.a., the blue one) as I was when I set my eminently attainable goal of finishing it in five days. Still, while not abandoning my newly declared rule of not setting my goals high, let's see what happens by next Friday.

I may have stacked the deck a bit in my favor. I don't know why I've made such heavy work of picking up the stitches for both these little sweaters, but I have. I noticed how close I was to attaining the finish line on sleeve 1 and it occurred to me that, once I had bound off the cuff, I might just put the sweater down for another year (or more) rather than face picking up another 60 stitches. I've only got four rows left on the first sleeve and have cleverly already hacked and slashed my way through picking up the stitches for the second sleeve.

I may have raised the bar, but I've set a ladder up against the pole.

Done

Well. That was surprisingly successful. Don't even think about pointing out that a project isn't finished finished until the ends are woven in and its been blocked.

I'd try the method on green sweater, except I haven't even started the sleeves.

So, is the lesson here set your goal low; if you don't shoot yourself in the foot first, you may achieve it?

Resolved

Despite the intense -- one might say, nearly overmastering -- distaste I have conceived for knitting sleeves,

I will finish this sweater this week.

Channeling Auntie M.

My Father had this aunt. Well, he had a couple. This one was his mother's youngest sister. Auntie M. After a fairly severe heart episode, Auntie M. came to live with us. This was not entirely a bad thing, you understand --she had a sense of humor and so did we (I vividly recall channelling Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz; you know, "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!") -- but, let's just say it was not always stress-free.

One of Auntie M.'s convictions was that our family unit maintained a certain not always acceptable to her level of arrogance. "You McCauleys," she would say, "you think you know everything." She had a point. We had our ways of doing things, and we were convinced they were the best. We would make allowances for the uninitiated, but only so far. This family-wide quirk, not unnaturally, eventually got on her nerves. After one too many times when someone redid or improved on something she had done, she took a deep, theatrically mournful breath, the quintessential heavy sigh, and on the exhalation said,

" Failed again."

I'm not sure how the other family members reacted the first time they heard her, but I know I had to laugh. Honestly, did it really matter which rags were used on the floor or the windows. Or whether you wiped the kitchen table before you swept? (Okay, I totally get the rags thing - old t-shirts for windows, old towels for floors. Trust me. It really is better. Missing a few crumbs because you swept first? Maybe not so much.)

"Failed again." It became something of a mantra. It was certainly quickly picked up by Their Father and I still get to hear it anytime I go off on a rant about doors let slam and tissues not making it to the wastepaper basket. (You don't want to know about the time there were four tubes of toothpaste going simultaneously.) (Well, really. Four? At once? There are only five people in this household. If the toothpaste went on a road trip, how hard would it have been to return it to the medicine cabinet? Four open tubes of toothpaste. At the same time. Sheesh.)

All of which goes to explain what happened here with my excellent intention to NaBloPoMo. "Failed again."

November is also National Knit a Sweater Month. And no, I'm not even tempted. I have three sweaters on my needles as it is. I don't need to cast on another one while I ruthlessly abandon them.


It's just a swatch. (She said with all the conviction of one perilously close to jumping over the edge and sliding, gleefully, down the slippery slope)

'Nuff Said

It matters.

You Say Potato

Red Scarf ? Zero.

Other Knitting? Well - more than zero.

Puntas Sweater from The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book, for afghans for Afghans Youth Campaign. That would be last year's campaign for youth. Last seen here.

Rosemary's Little Sweater, also for a4A, same source, same vintage. Last seen in the same place as the Puntas Sweater.

Eldest Nephew's Sweater.

Last seen here (the picture at the bottom of the post, not the top).

Some might say it's avoidance; I'll say it's a new twist on incentives and rewards.

Po-tah-to.

Deja Vu All Over Again*

Truth be told, I don't much like knitting scarves. I usually need a good reward system set up to get anywhere. Failing that, a really compelling incentive, like guilt, can work.

I'm trying to get a good head of steam up over my Red Scarf. With neither a reward or an incentive in place, the going is about as slow as the proverbial molasses in January. We're talking snail's pace here. Actually, no. Even that would be faster than my knitting. Maybe a dead snail.

I thought maybe if I could mark progress in something other than inches, that could be it's own reward. I started measuring by getting the first full stripe from the left side to the right (see the green markers). Once I'd done that, I thought, I could set the starting point for the next stripe and follow that up (that would be the orange marker).

It's not working well. I've only got two such stripes done so far. While gazing down at it in mild despair this morning, I noticed something else about it. It looked familiar. This -- given how infrequently I knit scarves -- made no sense. I knit scarves so infrequently that I can count them without taking my shoes off. I couldn't figure out where I had seen this before. For that matter, I couldn't figure out why it almost felt like I had knit this before.

The penny dropped when I looked at the wrong side.

I've knit a whole blanket like it. I just didn't recognize it until I turned the scarf over. Surely, then, I can pull off a scarf's worth.

Maybe, just maybe though, it's time to investigate rewards.

*Attributed to Yogi Berra.

Opportunities Abounding

It's been one of those weeks where my life decides to impose on my knitting. I hate when that happens. Still, some things are important, so here's a PSA (two, actually). My favorite (all right all right, my only) charity knitting groups are in need. It's time to hop back on the charity knitting bandwagon.

Red Scarf, 2010. Made famous by Now Norma Knits, it's taken on a life of its own. Details at OFA. The request is out for red (or other unisex color) scarves for Valentine's Day care packages for college students who grew up in the foster care system but were never adopted. That still astounds and amazes me. Never made part of a family, but they've gotten themselves together enough to tackle college. Scarves are being accepted now through December 5. The princess has started an Island Embrace scarf. I've gotten the ScWiNoNa going in Lorna's Laces Brick.

The Princess assures me it's not pink, it's orange. I may have used Red Scarf as an excuse to order something from Brooklyn Tweed. I'll be making it in Long Johns.

Afghans for Afghans Campaign for Youth. Details here. Knit-and-Crochet-along is here. Pretty much anything and everything to keep 7 through 16 year olds warm (except, I think, scarves). Due date is December 2010/January 2011. Time for me to finish those Green Mountain Spinnery sweaters.

And even if I don't? Once Her Highness gets her latest pair of a4A socks done, I'm getting rid of that purple sweater.

Charity knitting: the perfect opportunity to rid my knitting bags of those unsightly half-finished projects and my stash baskets of that pesky yarn.

Counterparts

Needles and pins. Pepper and Salt. Pen and Ink.

I wallowed in some heavy yarn therapy early this week. The first installment (yes, things were that bad) arrived yesterday. I want to use this yarn. I should mention that this is not the greatest picture. The yarn is darker, the colors richer, but I can't get my camera to cooperate. You'll have to trust me.

Briar Rose Abundance, 1500 yards of 100% corriedale wool in color 8232.

I've been casting about for an afghan for the front room for some time now. I think I've found it. I want to do Totally Autumn from Knitty's First Fall 2010 issue, but not in all those hot reds and oranges. Oh, I get the maple leaf analogy, but I think the lace pattern could pass for elm leaves, too.

I'm enamored of the dusky blue, the grayish green, the gold, and the rusty overtones of the brown in this yarn. They say "Autumn" much more eloquently to me than all those heated colors.

Warming a New Home

I Ab-Fabbed in secret for a friend. I finished months ago; the Absolutely Fabulous Afghan by Colinette does knit up quickly. My friend has been over for coffee a couple times since the knitting was finished but I had about a dozen ends to weave in and the Ab-Fab afghan really needed a good blocking before I could hand it over. I finally delivered it yesterday, so now I can post about it.

Not only did I Ab-Fab in secret, I Ab-Fabbed in purple (the things I'll do in friendship's name).

Details.

Absolutely Fabulous Afghan by Colinette in Amethyst, which originally contained:

Mohair - Heather

Mohair - Cinnamon

Mohair - Lilac

Wigwam (cotton tape) - Lilac

Fandango (chenille/eyelash) - Lilac (?) (might have been Heather)

Zanziba (thick and thin rayon) - Heather

Zanziba - Lilac

Skye - Damson (although despite its plum-like name, Damson is Not Purple. Which makes me wonder if it was a substitution on the seller's end).

Knit on US 11/8 mm Addi Turbos.

Substitutions (Of course I did, I couldn't help myself). I'm a little vague about the details. This really did all happen about 6 months ago and I don't seem to have kept the labels of anything. Something purple and curly by, I think, Louisa Harding for the much-too-pinkish Lilac Fandango. Malabrigo Twist (?) also in something purple (Velvet Grape?) for the very pink Lilac Wigwam.

I'll knit purple, but I draw the line at Barbie.

The Closure Post

Just for the record. I did finish Their Father's sweater on Friday.

Details.
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Mallard/2448.
Needles: Addi Turbos US 7/4.5 mm.
Pattern: Based on the Set-In Sleeve Cardigan from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.
Modified: According to Their Father's Specifications.
Buttons: Leather-covered 3/4" shank buttons from JoAnn Fabrics.

Things to remember.

With a little patience and planning, it is possible to grow 2x2 cables out of 1x1 rib. Witness the knitting on the left. I admit, I had to chart it out before I could see it, but it was as simple as moving the stockinette columns over by 1 row.

Cables make knitting go faster. I'm convinced I knit both the front pieces in half the time it took to knit the back.

Things to reconsider.

As mentioned in the previous post, use short-row shaping and three-needle bind-off for the shoulders, move the armhole decreases in another stitch (I still can't help wondering if this is why the seams look so wonky to me).

Pay closer attention to ending the cables. There's still a part of me that wonders if I didn't do something at the bind-off that unbalanced the two sides.

Rethink the whole set-in sleeve thing. After all, would the sky really have crashed or the heavens tumbled had I opted for the modified-drop sleeve instead?

All things considered, I begin to see the advantages to knitting in the round and steeking.

Was it worth it? The jury's still out. Their Father's initial reaction seemed, to me, to lack whelm. In fact, I would go so far as to say he seemed distinctly underwhelmed.

On the other hand, it was seen in the wild. He put it on last night to read the paper without any whingeing prompting from me.

Enough

I bet you've all been glued to your terminals waiting to hear if I finished the sweater in time.

Define "finished" and then define "in time."

Does finished mean all the knitting is done? Then it's finished. Does finished mean all the pieces are blocked and sewn up? Then it's finished.

Does finished mean the ends are woven in and the buttons sewn on? Does finished mean I'm happy with it? Then it's not.

I need to remember that a cardigan can be knit in almost one piece. I need to remember short row shaping for the shoulders so I can join the shoulder seams with a three-needle bind-off. Should I forget about short-row shaping again, as I surely will, I need to remember to slip the first stitch of the bind-offs. I need to remember to place my decreases farther in, maybe two stitches instead of only one.

Most of all, I need to remember that set in sleeves are just not worth it. I actually kind of enjoy sewing side seams. For that matter, I don't even mind the stitches to rows at the sleeve cap or the stitches to stitches under the arm. I think it's the whole setting the sleeves that gets me. All that pinning. all those transitions, from cap to sides, from the sides to the underarm. What with the pinning, stitching, ripping back, re-pinning, ripping out, I probably spent three times as long attaching the sleeves to the body as I did on all the other seams combined. The worst part? Even with all the checking of techniques from my various knitting books, even with knittinghelp.com and Berroco how-to videos on YouTube, even with all that evidence that I have sewn the sleeves in exactly how they should be, I'm not happy.They don't look as bad as they did before I steamed the seam allowances toward the sleeve,

but I'm still not thrilled.

It didn't help that the sweater still looked like an amoeba when Their Father got home. So, dinner and cake and pie and other presents and cards later, I picked up the sweater and finished the side and sleeve seams. Ends still hanging all over. No buttons. But at least it looked like a sweater. And it was before midnight, so I say it counts (my blog, my knitting, my rules).

Consider "enough." "Enough" means wanting for nothing, "I have enough." Enough can mean having too much, "I have had enough of this [fill in the blank]." Enough is adequate, sufficient, satisfactory, decent.

So, was it done? No. Not really. But it was done enough.

I Ask You

What kind of man invites people to dinner when his wife needs to go off on a button quest?

All I can say is, it's a good thing he needs to be around to wear this sweater. Dire things could happen to such a man otherwise.

Not Much

That's all I have to show for days and days of knitting. Remind me next time that I don't want to use cables for a sweater. I don't have pictures of the failures. Sorry. The fact is, I'm not even fully satisfied with the "success." I've knit the neckband four times in four different ways now. I think it was four times. It might be more. In between completely reknitting it, I've dropped stitches down and tried in situ modifications.

I've finally realized that the crux of the matter isn't the neckband it self. It's the way the cables feed into the neckband. I want the left and right fronts to match, allowing for the fact that I mirror imaged the cables.

They don't. Match, that is. It looks to me like the left front has an additional row of knitting. I'm wondering if it has to do with the way you have to bind off on a right-side row for the left front and a wrong side row for the right front. That's the comforting fiction I'm going with. I've run out of ideas and I don't think I can bear to frog the neckband again.

All of the above means that I am drastically behind on my time table. I've got the sleeves blotting in towels now and will pin them out and hide them in the Princess' room this morning. The only reassuring thing is that I checked stitch and row gauge over 8 inches of knitting and came up with 39 stitches and 52 rows, which worked out to a ratio of 3 to 4, which is the ratio the stitches to rows is supposed to come out to for the button-band. Thank the knitting gods, because I have to finish the knitting today.

Now, will someone please explain why I have only 6 buttons?

Not much. My worry is that, like the buttons, it will be not enough.

Impossible Dreams

If, when I first contemplated this madness, you had told me that by 9:30 this morning I would have bound off both front pieces, I would have laughed myself into a stupor. Truly, looking over this past year or so, with the notable exception of the Christmas gifts, knitting here has been more about dwelling in the realm of possibility (sounds so much nicer than slacking) than actual production. (Remind me that at some point I have to blog about the Cedar Leaf Shawlette, finished lo these many months, in the last flush of energy from all that holiday knitting.)

I have one week to block, assemble and (here' s what's got me a little panicky) knit my first button and buttonhole bands.

I can do this. I 'm pretty sure. There's at least a chance. Doing it in secret had me stymied for a bit,(I can hardly use the dining room table or our bed; it's supposed to be a surprise, remember?) but the Princess and I have conspired. I'll do it in stages to accommodate that lack of large flat surface areas. I'll do it with her blocking board, which is twice the size of mine. And I'll do it in her room (their Father having a praiseworthy respect for his children's privacy, i.e. he just about never pokes his head in there).

On the theory that the next steps are the shoulder seams, the neck band and the button and buttonhole bands -- all which require the the back and fronts -- I've got the body pieces prepping now. I've gone for wet-blocking at this stage, rather than spray and pin or hit the steam button on my iron. If I'm going to have to pick up some number plus infinity stitches, I don't want to find that I've used a skewed ratio of rows to stitches. The schedule is pretty tight. Having to do the math is bad enough. Doing it with inaccurate data is not in the cards.

The plan is that tomorrow I can finish the neckband while the sleeves are blocking. In an ideal world I'll get the stitches picked up for the front bands, too. The weekend is not an ideal time for secret knitting, but I'll see what I get through - he will take off for a run at some point. And then there's all that nap time. If he comes down with my cold that could prove extensive. With a combination of chance and careful planning (and depending on how many times I have to redo the button bands), I can finish the seaming by Wednesday and do a final blocking in time to astonish him Thursday night.

Hey. It could happen.

Single-minded

I have a dreadful head cold.

I find misery focuses one's attention wonderfully.

You Know You've Been Missing It

The return of Foolishness on Friday.

I've been an awfully good blogger ltely. I think I've earned some foolery, and this appeals to the failed Psych Major in me.

You are Energetic and Bright

You view people with optimism. You have many meaningful relationships in your life. You had more conflict with your mother than your father. Your relationship with her was healthy but challenging. You deal with stress in an effective and competent matter. You are able to remain calm. You are a natural multitasker. You enjoy being busy, even if the amount of things you need to do is overwhelming.

The Inkblot Test

Blogthings: 100's of Fun, Free Quizzes and 3 Stupid Ones