What I Want for Christmas*

Ordinarily, it's impossible for me to post on a Saturday, since the Resident Adolescent Male, a.k.a. the Lord Protector, confiscates the computer, ostensibly for homework and long-term projects, although I sure notice a lot of YouTube and Hulu in the history.  Since, however, I didn't manage to post all week, I'm asserting my parental right to boot him off for a while.  I figure he can go do something low-tech, like read a book. You know, with pages.

So, about Christmas.

I want a red cardigan.  I know I do because I've been accruing a substantial cache of red yarn for quite a while now. We're talking serious yarn accumulation here.  A hoard of red worsted that would make the most acquisitive knitter blush. Stockpiles of it. When the aliens invade, if you want red yarn, here is where you want to be. I have Madeltinetosh Tosh Worsted (superwash merino) in Tart (from when there was no such thing as with Tosh Vintage), Velvet in Squoosh Fiberarts Ultra Worsted (merino, cashmere, and nylon) and Sweet Georgia Yarns Superwash Worsted (another superwash merino) in Rage, all in generous quantities. 

Strangely, the mountain of yarn those three skeins represent hasn't stopped me from periods of Internet self-indulgence. I really have no business hunting high and low for Fiberphile Super Squish Worsted in Rosegold (thank heavens Eat.Sleep.Knit. only has it in Super Squish Sock).  Nor to be haunting Miss Babs, frustrated that there are no skeins of Yowza in Vlads. 

Despite the yarn lust, I know I'd be cranking along if only I knew which red to pick.

Maybe what I really want for Christmas is a green cardigan? 

Oh wait, I forgot. I have almost as many greens as I have reds.

*This is really just an exercise to remind myself why I do not need to buy more yarn. 

Historical Post #2

Originally Titled "Steal Away."

August 30. 2011

Before I tell you about Stitches, I have to tell you about Galena, which is where a fair bit of the sweater knitting I hadn't told you about before happened.

We snuck away for a long weekend right before the Lord Protector had to start school for the year.  It was wonderful. We went back to the Galena Historical Museum and saw their new high-tech presentation on Galena's most famous citizens (that would be Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia).  Visited the American Old Fashion Ice Cream Parlor for home-made ice cream (twice). Walked all over the town and even made it to the Blacksmith Shop.  Yes, Virginia, Galena has an actual working blacksmith.  It was wonderful.

Most importantly, Fiberwild is still there. 

 Does souvenir yarn count toward stash?

What if I'm already knitting it?

"Days, Weeks, Months, Who Knows?"

So says Eeyore in Disney's Winnie the Pooh. Although I can no longer remember the context, it seems an appropriate title.  I took a look at my blogger "Drafts" folder.  Lo and behold, I have not completely neglected the blog all this time.  In fact, I have a number of posts that I started and never released.  Over the next while, as I get my blogging life back in order, I propose to add the pictures and post them in the order I wrote them.  It won't get me anywhere near the NaBlPoMo that November is supposed to be all about, but it just may get me back into the land of the blogging. They are brief, but they were meant to be shared. 

Herewith, Historical Post Number 1:

Originally titled "Ambition."

August 23, 2011

What is it about a finished object that makes me want another? Shouldn't I be resting on my laurels? Nibbling bon-bons while I marvel at the wonder that is she who created something out of sticks and string?  Instead I've added three new patterns to my queue, downloaded four more to my pattern collection, and am seriously eying another one.  Or maybe six.

The most astonishing thing, though?  The latest finished object is a sweater for me.

That's not the best part.  I finished in time for Stitches Midwest, with a full three days to spare.  All right, all right. Strictly speaking, I admit there are some ends still to be woven in, and mind you, I may yet change the buttons, but by my definition it is finished in time for Stitches.  Do you  realize this will be the first time I'll have a handknit to wear there? You would think I was a real knitter or something.

Pattern: Neck Down Scoop Neck Cardigan from Knitting Pure and Simple, by Diane Souci (available at Patternfish).

Yarn: Mountain Colors, Mountain Goat in Dusty Blue.

Needles: The ever faithful Addi Turbos, US 8/5 MM.

Modifications - My shoulders are more vertical than horizontal.  I added short-rows -- about 2 inches worth -- to the back below the armholes.  For the first time, I have a sweater that doesn't look like the sides are longer than the back.

And I did a lousy job with the buttonhole-side buttonband.  A row of half-double crochet across the top, though, and you'd almost never know it. 

Maybe I should knit another one.

The Obvious Question

What else would you do once you've finished one shawl?

Has an obvious answer.

I Gotta Feelin' Called the Blues

Observant knitters that you are, I imagine you noticed that the only real knitting that has happened here at Chez WoolGathering since May is the Melody Shawl. That real knitting, however, has produced that astounding, amazing thing, that Holy Grail of the Knitting World, a finished object in time for Stitches Midwest.  At least, it will be once I cut it open, knot the fringe and block it.

I have to admit, this was fun.  It shouldn't have been.  It was 800 yards of light fingering weight yarn in stockinette stitch in the round with two fiddly twisted stitches to over-look darn near every  round. It should have been onerous.  It should have been mind-numbingly boring. It should have been, at least by the second skein, a tedious exercise in discipline and determination.

I blame the yarn.  

July in a Nutshell

So that was June. I'd like to be able to say that it all slowed down in July, except it didn't. There was the parade (not a single picture this year, even though we combined the Pirate's graduation party with the picnic). There was getting the Pirate set up with his sheltered workshop, some of which involved him making his displeasure over my Phoenix trip known. Then it got just too hot (not 115 degrees F hot, but then, here in the Midwest it's not a dry heat). Too hot knit on big woolly projects.

Of course, that didn't keep me from trying.

I tried to knit on the Original Afghan in the Round and made the interesting discovery that seed stitch is hotter to knit that stockinette stitch.

I tried to knit on the Last Gasp of Winter.  That one needs to marinate while I reflect on what to use for the next solid yarn.  Decisions, decisions.

I tried to knit on The Sweater.  Did you know that contemplating 1x1 rib is just as hot as knitting seed stitch? Came as a shocker to me, too.

Which is how I came to ascertain that the Melody Shawl is the perfect July-in-Chicago-when-you're-hideously-over-scheduled knitting. 

Soft. Lightweight. And it spreads nicely when you're trapped in over-air-conditioned spaces

but scrunches up small once you've been released.

It Was a Dark and Stormy . . .*

. . . Spring.  And early summer.  So I left it all behind to go to Arizona, where dark and stormy are so far removed from reality that the words may as well not be in the  dictionary.

Arizona is interesting.  Did you know that in late June in Arizona, if you want to let your host's dog out into the (astro-turf) yard for a morning run, you need to wear shoes because the pavement and fake grass are too hot to walk on without risking injury?

Did you know that in Arizona, Saguaro cacti substitute for trees for bird's nests?

Did you know there is a cactus called Grandfather's Hair?

Did you know there is an awesome yarn shop called Knit Happens?

I got souvenirs.

The yarn is not local (it's Malabrigo sock in Arbol to feed my shawl obsession) (I thought it looked desert-y) but the stitch markers are.  Somewhere there's a little white organdy drawstring bag with the rest of them.

I tried to blog about all this while I was out there.  I just couldn't figure out how to get any pictures off my camera and onto the dinky notebook thing I'd brought along on the trip - no cord and I couldn't find a port for the camera's memory card.

Finally, let me just say in words of (mostly) one syllable,  I don't care how dry the heat is, once the temperature is over 115 degrees F, it's too damn hot.

*Second in what I hope will be a series of getting you all caught up on the last 2 months.

Celebrate!

It was a big day.

And he did a really good job holding on to his dignity.

Until the end.

Eh. dignity is over-rated.

The More I Stay the Same

I suspect a little indirect Harlot influence.  I should probably explain, apologetically, that as a general rule, if a pattern is written about on the Yarn Harlot, it's not something I would ever want to knit. In all the years I've been reading, I don't think I've ever looked at one of her projects and thought, "Eureka! That's it!"   My response is more likely to be, "Well.  Isn't that - interesting."  All those socks.

This is not as heretical as it seems. What she does for me (besides delight, entertain and make me really, really happy that there are bloggers out there capable of writing good prose) is inspire me.  I may be underwhelmed by the particular project, but will look with new eyes at the type of project. This is what I think happened with her latest foray into lace.  I may have refused the to succumb to the herd instinct and knit Damask, but I found myself queuing up or downloading an awful lot of lace shawl and shawlette patterns.  Like Rosalynde.  And the Annis Shawl from Knitty. And the Weekend Shawl. And Seven Small Shawls by Designs by Romi. I may, perhaps, have been getting a little obsessive.

I showed these to my daughter.  She looked at me like I had two heads. I didn't let that stop me.

Then I saw an ad on Ravelry for the Soleil Shawlette by Phydeaux Designs, it can only be had as a kit with one skein of the appropriate yarn from Sunshine Yarns (scroll down about halfway, there's one posted with a dark blue yarn). I think perhaps it was that Siren Song, the one about the rare and not so easy to obtain, the one with the chorus about color and hand (silk and cashmere), the one with the harmony of greed and acquisitiveness, that did me in.  Not only did I buy the kit, I bought the only other available skein of their Cashmere Silk 2-Ply  in Night Walk.

If you thought the Princess was a little bemused before, you should have seen her face when my package arrived. I believe her comment was slightly less blunt than, "But you don't knit lace," or "Have you completely lost your mind?"  but not by much.

Truth be told, once I looked at the twisted drop stitches --they look like rays from a rising sun (hence, no doubt, Soleil) -- I found my ardor for that particular pattern cooling.  One might say it plummeted to temperatures not unlike Antarctica in July. I know I had all those other patterns, but I remembered one I hadn't acquired.  "Cladonia," I thought, "Cladonia could work."  All that nice stockinette. The demi-lune rather than the triangular shape.  Just a lace border.  That could work. That could be worth it.

Except, of course, I had the second skein of yarn.  Why this should be a deal breaker for Cladonia when I obviously had no issues with Soleil, I can't explain. We'll just go all Oscar Wilde-ean Oliver Wendall Holmesian* and say I refused to allow a foolish consistency to be the hob-goblin of my little mind.

I kept rifling my Ravelry queue. I pulled the shawl and stole books off my shelves. I flipped through pattern leaflets and stitch dictionaries. I cruised the Internet. Most of this done while my family was not around to stage an intervention. I started knitting yesterday.

It's Melody's Shawl from Morehouse Merino (kit, which I did not buy, here, pattern, which I did, here - scroll down.)  It's thousands and thousands (880 yards worth to be precise) of stockinette stitches in the round.  While it is lace-weight, the pattern has no need for a chart. No row-by-row knitting instructions. Nary a yarn-over or K2tog in sight. 

The more I think I'm capable of change, the more my daughter has the opportunity to laugh out loud. It's good to have a purpose in life.

*Edited to  add: Diane H is right.  I only know two quotes on the subject. That one is from the great Supreme Court Justice.  Wilde's quote on consistency is that it "is the last refuge of the unimaginative." 

Non-Standard

One of the things I love about knitting is its infinite variety.  Like Shakespeare's Cleopatra, age cannot wither nor custom stale it.  No matter how tired I am, how stressed, how sometimes overwhelmed with all the littleness-es it sometimes takes to make life work, knitting is a refuge. Even if I can't get to it, I find comfort in knowing it's there and hope in that knowledge.

Enough of philosophy, because that infinite variety can also come back to bite you if what you (a tight knitter) are trying to replicate is the work of another (self-described "very loose") knitter.  The present object of my ire is the Embellished Squares Afghan.  That bit where I ran out of yarn is the first repeat of the final pattern section.  Now I only have two more repeats in the main color, then about 12 ridges worth of garter stitch border. According to the pattern, I will then have something that will measure 44" unblocked, 50" if when I block it. 

Now, I freely admit, this pattern is stretchy.  Further, neither Spudsayshi nor I have any idea of how our gauges compare - except for that assumption I'm making about her loose and my tight knitting.  I've taken steps. I've upped two needle sizes to, I hope, bring my gauge up to a reasonable facsimile of hers.  I like the look of the fabric - it suits the yarn, the needles and the pattern. Yet I cannot see how what I've got is comparable in size to what is pictured on the pattern page.  I think I'm going to end up with a very heavy, very dark knitted doily.  Too big for a wash cloth, too holey for a trivet, and much, much too small for a blanket.

Yes, I am aware that the nature of a square blanket knit in the round is that it increases by 8 stitches every other row.  I'm further aware that, for this particular blanket, each section is 12 rows wider (3 repeats, additional 4 rows per repeat). That means it's increasing at merely an arithmetical rate, though, not at a geometric one.  The deep, dark question looming ever larger in my mind is: will it grow enough? Or will I have to get clever and gerry-rig the pattern to accommodate my inability to meet the standard?

Not Horseshoes

So close.  I was so close. All I had to do was get to that last stitch-marker.

I swear, I knit faster and faster.

But the yarn won.

So close.

Waiting for Blue Skies

If you've ever read the Betsy-Tacy stories by Maud Hart Lovelace, you know that the Ray family was dedicated to their traditions. Sunday Night Lunch, where Mr. Ray does the cooking, comes to mind, as does scrambling around in the dark to fill each other's Christmas stockings.  When any member of the Ray family travelled, they brought home souvenirs to the poor benighted souls left behind (remember how Betsy meets Joe at the Willard's store? Good things come from souvenir buying.).

The Princess went to San Diego in March.  The the Pirate, the Lord Protector and Their Father got t-shirts.  I got yarn.

This is Crystal Palace Mochi Plus in 554/Fern Rainbow.  I note that Crystal Palace is based in California, so my souvenir also adheres to the buy-local-products-for-souvenirs-otherwise-what's-the-point rule.

Something happens to me in late winter.  I need to herald Spring.  I need to know that someday, April will come "like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers,"*  In a word (or six) I need to knit something green.   The need was exacerbated this year by the eternal, cold, wet, greyness. The Princess, apparently mindful of this odd seasonal mindset of mine, provided. 

The object is the Scalloped Soft Coral Scarf (it's free!) from the Crystal Palace website. It was fast.  It was fun. It's not very big. A clear case of the pay-off that can be had by using a pattern designed for the yarn.

Let's admit right here that I did not swatch.  This is an extremely soft, slightly fuzzy, single ply merino-nylon mix.  I didn't think it would take well to frogging and I only had three skeins. I just decided to go up a needle size (how many times do I have to admit I'm a tight knitter?).  This may or may not have been the cause of the one glitch I ran into. I ran out of yarn.  At step 11, the pattern says to knit 6 rows of garter stitch.  The yarn was running short so I stopped at 5 and still didn't have enough to bind-off.  This was during that whole looking for a happy ending period, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. All in all, I decided it was fortuitous, though, since the scarf starts with 4 rows of garter stitch and this way the two sides match.

I now have one skein left, and am thinking of revisiting the fingerless mitts from Weekend Knitting. That, and buying more Mochi Plus and knitting another scarf or several.  I could see this in 557/Autumn Rainbow.  Or maybe 566/Feldspar.  And maybe 607/Storm Clouds.

I don't know if knitting something green in March actually helped bring Spring to the Midwest.  It's been unseasonably warm the past few days, but still intermittently grey, and the forecast calls for falling temperatures while the greyness stays. Maybe I won't knit the next scarf in 607/Storm Clouds, after all.  Maybe 572/Jenny Lake would be a better choice.

* "Spring," by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Actually a quite terribly sad poem, but I love the line.

Whereof Reason Knows Nothing*

Well, while others try to track down the poem from last post (yeah, good luck with that), I'll  take you all back in time to the Green Shawl.  When I last posted about it, I was debating which yarn/s to use for the border.

I made a decision. I went with the pale green and a narrow inner border in black.

I didn't like it pretty much from the get-go, but apparently had an out-of body experience.  Or maybe I was posessed by aliens.  Whichever it was, it was enough to make me knit on beyond sense, common or otherwise.  I fell victim to  one  a series a whole slew an onslaught of  knitterly delusion, where you think if you just keep knitting it will all come out all right. It didn't.

Rather than face the music, I buried the whole thing deep deep.  Maybe I thought marinating it would improve things. It hasn't. I regret the green.  Even more, I regret the black. I wish I had gone with the brown.

The problem right now is I just can't bear to frog it.  Which is another example of the completely illogical workings of my mind.  I have the brown yarn. If I rip back the green and black borders, I'll still have the main body of the shawl done.  Ripping and reknitting would be a much quicker route to a finished object than starting something new.

I need to stage an intervention, but until then here I am, knitting away with red.

*Blaise Pascal.

About to Change

I who so love scarlet
Wear a gown of black.
Quaintly fitted tunic
Buttoned up the back.

Unknown. (At least by me.  I could have sworn this was by Emily Dickinson. Then thought it might be Christina Rossetti.  Fell back to Edna St. Vincent Millay. Nope, nope and nope. I can't find the reference anywhere.)

Happy last day of National Poetry Month.

WIDTY [the day before] Y: The Yarn, Part 2

I first came across Carol Sunday of  Sunday Knits at Stitches Midwest 2010.  The Princess and I spent a fair bit of time in lust-inspired awe of the patterns and the yarn, but ultimately couldn't decide and sadly came away Sunday-Knits-less.  What really stuck in my memory, though, was one of the sweaters.  You can see it here, but I have to tell you,  that washed out blue doesn't do it justice.  At Stitches she had a sample knit in a deep brown - so much better suited to a pattern called Acorns.

 Anyway.  Fast-forward six months. I bought the pattern from Twist Collective's Fall 2010 issue and gave myself the yarn kit for The Princess' birthday (in brown - Angelic 5-ply  in Clove to be precise) to knit for her (someday).  It will be a long-term project, one that will probably take years until completion because I am actually still a little intimidated by the memory of the beauty of the sample.

Meanwhile, back at Embellished Squares.

The more I looked at the pattern photos, the more I realized I wanted to mimic the stripes the designer had incorporated. Since I had chosen a variegated yarn for the main color, it made sense (to me at least and it's my blanket) to use a solid or semi-solid for the contrast. I really did mean to knit from stash, but the blues made the yarn too green, greens made the yarn too monochromatic, the browns made the yarn too gray, the reds were too harsh or too purple.

Then I remembered the email from Knitche announcing the addition of Sunday Knits yarn to their inventory.  I decided that if I wasn't going to knit from stash, I could at least knit local (Sunday Knits is an Illinois concern).  The Pirate had a day off, which meant I didn't have to watch the clock for his bus, and off we went.

That's Eden (merino and cashmere) in Wren (the lighter) and Twig and Nirvana (merino) in Raisin.  Knitche only had the colors in the 3-ply, and only one of each color at that.   The original plan was to take them home, compare them with the main color, choose one and then order that color directly from Sunday Knits.

Two problems.  I really liked all three colors and the 3-ply is pretty much sock yarn - way too thin. Okay, three problems. Carol Sunday doesn't carry nearly as many colors in the 5-ply versions. 

I decided to use all three colors, ordered one more of each in the 3-ply and am double stranding.  These are only 50g skeins.  I'm a little concerned I may run out. Then again, maybe that will be my signal to start the massive garter stitch border.  There's clearly plenty of the Wistful.

What I Didn't Tell You Yesterday: The Yarn, Part 1

I really needed to get back on the blog-wagon.  I never would have left all this out in the Olden Days.

Back when I decided to knit Knitty's Totally Autumn I didn't tell the full story of my yarn indulgence.  Not only had I ordered the requisite amount of Abundance yarn, I ordered a comparable amount of Wistful, an alpaca, merino, silk blend that comes in 500 yard skeins. Buying the entire dye lot?  Of both yarns? Well, that was greed, pure and simple.

This was rather over the top yarn-buying, even for me, but I had been bitten hard by the afghan bug.  At the same time as, and as a feeble excuse for, the Yarn Binge of the Decade, I also purchased the pattern for the Rosebud Blanket. At the time it seemed ample reason for the whole descent into the woolly maelstrom thing.  That, and the fact the Briar Rose Fibers produces any given colorway in limited lots.  If I wanted a particular combination, I had to buy it then or risk it being gone forever.  Never mind that the clever and creative people at BRF were guaranteed to come up with many, many other combinations to which I would lose my heart. (The ability of the human mind to come up with rationalizations and justifications is truly a wonder to behold, isn't it?)

With all this on my conscience, the decision to knit from stash yarn was not simply understandable, it was almost a mandate.

Having ditched (for the time being) the Rosebud Afghan, or indeed any lace pattern involving charts, while and at the same time having found Embellished Squares, I should have been ready to knit my merry way along for weeks and weeks. Except (are you ready for a further foray into rationalization and justification?), Embellished Squares, as designed, is knit with two yarns, one solid and one self-striping. I tried, I really did try, to persuade myself that knitting with variegated hand-dyed yarn obviated the need for a contrast color.

I failed.

Three times.

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.