10 Random Things, From Tombs To Tunes

1. I find it rather surreal that I, the non-Christian, spent much of yesterday evening creating a model of Jesus's tomb. It was a prop that I needed for teaching "The Story Of Easter" in the SpiritPlay classroom at our UU. I contemplated making one out of wool (knitted and then fulled? needle felted over a foam shape?) but I did not leave myself enough time and had to resort to Model Magic clay and some gray paint. The bad: I had some traumatic flashbacks to a sixth-grade science project that involved making a volcano. The good: while painting I had time to try to think of how this could be turned into a blog post title: Tomb With A View? Tomb Much To Do? So many possibilities.

What's even funnier is that after being handled by many children, the model needs a small repair; so item number six on my "To Do" list for this week is "Fix Jesus's tomb." Can any of you top that one? (My sister's response to this was, "Hey, don't fix it up too much, he isn't going to stay there long.")

2. Thanks for the interesting comments on my previous post about cars. When I lived in a more rural area, I never questioned having two (or more!) cars for two adults. But it just seems that, in a more urban area, it should be possible to be a one-car family. Clearly I am living in the wrong city (in oh so many ways). That said, I love my new wheels and I think we chose the correct time to purchase a car that gets 30 mpg.

3. A finished project: Coronet hat, in Valley Yarns Sugarloaf (wool/microfiber blend), made as a chemo cap for a friend. It's modeled here by my daughter and now she wants one of her own!


4. Another finished project: Capelet for Grandma, who is 96 and still going strong. Pattern is a capella with some mods, yarn is Lion Brand Homespun.


5. The other night my four year old marched up to me and announced, "Mama, I know a new word!" I braced myself for something interesting, like a good curse word, and asked, "Oh, really? What is it?" My little drama queen spun around with a flourish and sang out, "Exquisite!" She apparently learned this one from a Max and Ruby episode and had no idea what it meant, but she loves to sing it twenty times in a row to the tune of any Disney princess song.

6. Any of you remember my grand plans to create a craft room, to be completed in the fall of 2007? HA HA HA! I'll be lucky if I'm done by the fall of 2009 at the rate I'm going. Here's a current pic of my slow progress.
Isn't is lovely? Those swirly lines are the glue from the fake wood paneling. I have now stripped all of that wallpaper, but I haven't patched and painted the walls yet.

7. If any of you have kids under, oh, nine or ten, you should check out Spare The Rock, which is a local radio show of indie/hipster/fun kids' music that isn't painful for adults. You can stream recent episodes from the blog page, which works perfectly for us now that my wonderful husband has connected the computer to our home audio system. (This also means that I can now enjoy Pandora in a whole new way.)

8. I read in our local newspaper that if housing prices fall another 15-20%, then more than half of American homeowners will owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. More than half! And if the subprime mortgage crisis does not make you anxious enough, then check out this article in the March 2008 Atlantic Monthly: "Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements."

9. I just listened to episode 61 of Cast On, and after listening to the song "Exactly" I hopped on the computer to check out Amy Steinberg's Myspace page. (The song will play as soon as you open the page.) "I am exactly where I need to be, I need to be exactly where I am, I am a blessing manifest...." Amazing.

10. Daylight Savings sucks, and March is about 31 days too long.

Fab or Frog?

I finished this scarf right before the holidays, but I haven't blogged about it because I can't decide if it's sort of ugly or sort of cool. Or maybe both.


The yarn is handspun, from a Grafton Fibers batt purchased at Rhinebeck (2006). I purposely chose a colorway that was a little out of my comfort range.

Maybe too far out of my range. It matches nothing that I own. And when I put it on, the ends are such disparate colors that it looks odd. I haven't bound off yet, because I am wondering if I should take those last few yards of the pink and crochet some funky flowers that I can then sew onto the green end, just to tie them together visually.

What's your verdict?

Triumph In Sockland

Version 3.1 of the Spiraling Coriolis Sock is a success. It is admittedly a bit snug going over my heel, but then it fits like a glove. (Or, well, like a sock.) Which is much better than the first few versions, which would not go over my heel at all.



See that little spiral going around? Ingenious! You can't see the top of the sock here because the picot edge isn't hemmed yet and it looks rather silly. And, in fact, I'm not sure I'm keeping the picot edge, which was my own modification; I may do something else with the top of the second sock and then decide which version looks best. Other mods included adding extra wing stitches (this will make sense if you have the pattern) and a few extra instep stitches as well.

Yarn is Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn, received from Renee when I participated in the Yarn Aboard! swap. (Thanks Renee!) This is the first time I've used this brand of yarn, and it knits up nicely. The second sock is already on my needles.

This pattern was a bit of a pain the first time through, as I was learning a new cast-on, a new type of toe construction, a new sock architecture, and a new style of heel; plus the book is set up in a way that using the "master patterns" requires a lot of flipping around to different sections. However, the actual knitting was easy, once I had that "a-ha!" moment where I understood how it all came together. I will barely need the pattern for the second sock, and it will be great "mindless knitting" for meetings and such.

And for my next pair of Coriolis socks, I want to incorporate a cabled design, like these. (You should definitely click if you are a sock knitter--these socks are gorgeous!)

Cat Bordhi Crush? or Crushing Defeat?

I love the way Cat Bordhi's mind works. I'm not so into the socks soaring on circular needle thing, but the moebius cast-on? Brilliant. I've only made one moebius using that technique, but every so often I have to get the book out just to try to wrap more of my brain cells around her ideas. So it was a given that I would buy her new sock book as soon as it was out, and cast on for socks as soon as possible after that.

The book is, indeed, interesting and challenging and mind warping. But, unfortunately, it involves measuring. Measuring your feet, measuring your gauge, measuring your patience while you flip around from section to section to find the instructions for the particular cast on, foot style, heel, and cuff that you like. I am not a measuring kind of gal. I tried, I really did. But I made mistakes.

My first mistake was picking one of the more complicated sock patterns. You see, I only knit socks when I am traveling, or in meetings, or when I need something relatively mindless to work on while watching Meredith mess up her relationship with McDreamy. The new cast on, new toe technique, and new stitch pattern I originally chose required Focus. Way more Focus than I could maintain. So Sock 1.0 was doomed after only a few inches.

Time then, for Sock 2.0: The Master Spiraling Coriolis. I learned another new cast on, learned another new toe technique, increased up to the 64 stitches that my measurements told me to--and the foot section was way too wide. Apparently I had measured around my foot at the wrong spot. So I frogged back to the toe, remeasured my gauge and everything else, and went with 56 stitches (Sock 2.1). I knit happily for five inches, did the easy and mindless arch increase pattern for another couple of inches, turned the heel (another new technique for me) and then--I couldn't get the sock over my foot. So I frogged back several inches and started the arch increase pattern sooner (Sock 2.2) but ended up with a baggy instep AND a sock that was too short.

The sock went into time-out, where it could cavort with the scarf from the previous post.

The book took a trip to Staples, where I had the copy clerk cut off the binding, laminate the front and back covers, and put the whole thing back together with a spiral binding. Well worth the $10--although it seems that the flipping book could have come with a flipping spiral binding to begin with, since the patterns require so much flipping flipping around.


So. I retrieved the sock from time out. I then cut the yarn, leaving Sock 2.2 in its incomplete and sad state (see above); and I started over, rather than frogging, as the yarn was starting to show some wear. (I'll use it for the cuff later, once I get the other parts figured out.)

So far I have a completed toe, and have increased up to 60 stitches. In about 5 inches I'll know if the third fourth time is the charm. If not--well, I will still love Cat Bordhi's mind. I just wish it lived nearby so that it could come do all the damn measuring for me.

p.s. Quote from previous post was indeed from The Grinch, whom I am channeling this week.
p.p.s. Grafting on scarf was successful--more details soon.

'Tis The Season To Be Frogging

Fa la la la la, la la la CRAP.

My WIP's are on Santa's Naughty List this month. I've warned them, over and over, that they better behave or I will write nasty things about them on my blog; and clearly they are testing me, waiting to see if I will follow through with my threats.

They will soon learn that while I have many shortcomings as a parent, lack of follow through on threats is not one of them.

So take this, you little snots.

First up: Morning Surf Scarf
This is a Christmas present for my mother (who does not read this blog). It is knit from merino/tencel handspun, and many months ago it had a brief mention on the blog when it looked like this:

I originally posted that photo so you all could play "spot the problem", the problem being that the first half of the scarf was clearly darker than the second half. This was a result of using two skeins of Navajo-plied yarn, spun from two different batches of a hand-painted colorway. (Lesson learned? Pull sections from all the bumps of roving when hoping to use all the finished yarn in one project.) I really did not want to frog the whole thing and start over, so I puzzled over it for a while.

While I was puzzling ("until my puzzler was sore")*, one of you very helpfully spotted a second problem, which was that I had messed up the repeats at one point in the scarf. Unfortunately, I did not see this problem until I had already cut the scarf so that I could do some creative grafting. And I hadn't cut it in the right place to fix the repeats. There was much cursing, and the scarf went into time-out for a lengthy period. I have now pulled it out so that I can finish it, and it looks like this:


Now it's time to have a drink and do some grafting--keeping in mind that one end of the scarf has 15 stitches and one end has 16, due to the nature of knitting blah blah blah mathematical madness.

Coming Up Next: My crush on Cat Bordhi that makes me persevere despite all knitting challenges.

*Anyone get the reference?

Bibbidy-Bauble-dy-Boo

I have been meaning to knit a Bauble for quite a while now, but I wasn't pushed into action until a recent personal crisis--go on, pick any one of them--coincided with close proximity to a bead store. Picking out beads took a l.o.n.g time, and stringing them all took even longer (although listening to the audio version of Deathly Hallows kept things interesting during the process). Then I knit up my long string of beads--which took only a few minutes; looked at my finished bracelet and--I hated it. It was way too big and clunky for my tiny wrist, and the bead sequence I used resulted in uneven clumping of the larger beads.

I frogged the whole thing, which was quite an interesting process given the stretchy string, and began to experiment with other ways to knit it up. Three stitch I-cord? Too bulky. Two stitch I-cord? Looked weird. I finally just cast on about 16 stitches using the backward loop method, and then cast them all off again. The resulting bracelet looks like this, when worn on my very hairy arm:
I'm feeling so-so about it. But I'm still experimenting. My version of the bracelet took far less than the three-plus yards of beaded cord, so I tried doing a simple crochet chain stitch with my leftovers. So far I like the results better than those from the "cast on, cast off" method, and I'm thinking this might make a good necklace. (Please excuse the blurry pic.)

I hope I find something that works, because I purchased a ton of beads in an entirely different colorway to make something for my mother for Christmas. Ack!

Unrelated note: I have extended the deadline for entering my Craft Room Contest--click on the link for more info.

I Was Expecting Locusts Instead

Thank you so much for all the kind comments following the death of my father. It really does help to know that others are thinking of you during difficult times, and I appreciated each and every note.

Although the past few weeks have been sad and draining, they also included many moments where I laughed through my tears. My father was a renowned smartass and I heard several new stories about him from friends and family members. His funeral was standing room only, and our many gatherings after his death were truly celebrations of his life. He was not a saint, but he was a wonderful husband, brother, and father. And I am lucky in that my grief is uncomplicated by bitterness, regrets, or unfinished business.
Now it's back to the minutiae of daily life. Everything is different, and yet everything is the same. I seem to be operating in a bit of a fog, but it's not unlike the months of sleep deprivation following the birth of a baby, and I have a track record for surviving that with only a minimum of psychosis.

Unfortunately, daily life lacks no excitement around here. A week after my father's funeral, at 10pm on a quiet Friday evening, my enjoyment of the audio version of Book Seven was interrupted by a loud popping noise followed by some rustling and a huge thud. I looked out my front window to see what was going on but my vision was obscured by a rather large oak limb.

Rather impressive, wouldn't you say? We are incredibly lucky because it did not damage the house at all, and no one was hurt. The arborist who came a few days later told us that the tree itself was healthy, but that this particular branch had developed a rotten spot that no one could have seen prior to its break. Just a random, scary thing. Since we already had to pay for the tree removal, we did choose to have that same arborist come and remove dead limbs from three of our oaks.

So. You would think that after a cancelled vacation, a volunteer commitment from hell, the illness and death of a family member, crashing tree limbs, and the as-of-yet-unmentioned-here death of our second car, the rest of my summer would be smooth sailing. But that would be a lot to ask. I joked with my sister that I was expecting locusts or plague next.

We got a bat instead.

He (or she?) showed up on Wednesday evening. DH and I spent several hours trying to direct the damn thing out of one of a multitude of open windows and doors. To no avail. At 1:30 a.m. he finally disappeared into a hiding place behind a built-in cabinet that even the "bat guy" could not access on Thursday (exorbitant fee notwithstanding). On Thursday evening Mr. Bat made another grand entrance and we THINK that he did fly out the door around 9pm. There were no witnesses but he has not been seen since.

Let me just note that I can handle many things, but bats are not on that list. There was much freaking out and anxiety, and possibly the beginnings of a nervous breakdown. I am on the edge, I'm telling you, and the rest of August better be kind or who knows where I will end up.

On a final note--and one that is actually knitting related--there are socks and a scarf in progress. This photo is several weeks old; I have now turned the heels on these "tiger socks" for my seven-year-old (in colors to match her favorite Webkinz).

I have also mostly finished the scarf below, which is knit from two skeins of my handspun. This picture was taken partway through when I discovered a small problem with my yarn; can you see what it is? More info and the details on my correction in a later post!

I'm Too Sexy Lazy For My Blog

Blog? What blog?

For those who have inquired: I'm still here, and I'm fine. There has been knitting and traveling and working and family madness. There was a personal health scare--now resolved--that means I will be having a baseline mammogram in the near future (ugh). I am feeling a bit like Liz these days. There are various blog posts in process. But just in case I never get to them, here are a couple of pictures to tide you over.
An actual completed sock! Pattern is a toe-up, short-row heel, plain old travel-knitting sock. The fabulous yarn is from the fabulous Jessie at A Piece of Vermont and it knit up beautifully on size 1 (American) Addis, using the magic loop method. The sock is lying on some gorgeous roving, also from Jessie, that I forgot to blog about a while back. Oops!


In April I had the pleasure of meeting Gryphon--of The Sanguine Gryphon--while on a trip to visit family in Maryland (because every vacation should have a fiber component). Somehow, while we were chatting, this Dragon Fly Designs roving and these skeins of handpainted silk just fell into my bag. I know that I'll be buying more of Gryphon's yarns in the future...especially as these particular skeins have already been gifted to a friend. Gryphon was lovely, and she has a cute baby, and a walking wheel in her living room, and she carries consignment handspun from Kelly--what more could you want?

More soon, as I transcribe the virtual posts in my head into actual text on the computer. It's time to chat about MA Sheep & Wool, among other things!

Random Wednesday, In 5 Parts

1. Knitting Content: the lovely waist shaping on Eris
This partially done sweater has been hibernating for many months. I am in a groove right now, but as warmer weather hits it might be relegated to the WIP pile again. Yes, I am that fickle.

2. I Love Me Some Baked Goods
And I also love this fabulous new website: Bake and Shake
Be warned: this site is not for those who disapprove of fattening food or salty language. The pictures are so decadent that you will gain weight just by looking at them; and the text just might make cupcake crumbs come out of your nose. (Found via BoogaJ--thanks!)

3. I Love Me Some Veggie Sushi, Too
So I made some! This was my first attempt, so it's not too pretty; but it tasted darn good. (The reason it is on an ugly plastic plate is because it was en route to a friend's house. I had lots to give away because DH and the kids wouldn't even try a taste!)

4. Admiration.
I am lusting after this Celtic Dreams sweater. Sigh.

5. WTF
Overheard by DH on the bus yesterday:
Man #1, on seeing Man #2: "Hey! You got out of jail!"
Man #2: "Yeah! It seems like everyone is getting out of jail these days!"

Perfect Match: A Geek And Her Gloves

click for bigger pic

Hobo Gloves--Details:
Pattern is my own, with guidance from Interweave Knits Winter 2003. I chose to use a 24-stitch palm gusset for the thumb. I would probably reduce it to a 20-stitch gusset if I was to make another pair.
The cuffs are K2P2 ribbing, 60 stitches on size US2 needles, with a twist of the knit stitches every fourth row. I used the magic loop technique, which made it fairly easy to knit the fingers (no long double points to juggle on tiny tubes). Each finger is 17 stitches around and about 12 stitches long, and they are fairly snug on my small fingers, so those of you with bigger hands might want to size them up a bit. I offset the pinkie finger a bit, taking those stitches off and doing three more rounds on the rest of the hand before knitting the other fingers.
Yarn is Koigu (yum!).

Ukulele--Details:
This is a Flea ukulele that I ordered (as my holiday gift from DH) after being inspired by Dan Zanes' hopes for a musical revolution. It finally arrived a few days ago. The kids and I were singing silly songs within a half hour of taking it out of the box. The fingerings for the basic chords are very simple; they are different from the guitar, but having some guitar experience probably helped me to get up and running so quickly. (And hey! I can finally play an F chord!). So far it is a big hit, and my six year old is already trying to learn to play. I highly recommend it for any of you who are looking for a way to make music with kids and/or friends.

The Prodigal Sock

Back in August 2006, a sad thing happened. It was so sad that I couldn't even blog about it at the time. I had just finished a pair of socks --only the second pair I had ever made for myself--and I had happily packed them up for a trip to the Adirondacks. I was looking forward to wearing them on my nice, warm toesies while curled up in front of the fireplace on a cool summer evening in the mountains.

And then I lost one. Before I ever even wore them! I retraced my steps along the paths between cabins, and I looked high and low in all the buildings. I checked the fireplaces, I looked under the rugs, and I shook out all the blankets, but there was no sign of it. I begged our friends to keep a lookout for my sock. But it was no use. After my return home, I put the lone remaining sock in my drawer, where it called to me every day: "I'm so sad! I'm so lonely!"

And I stopped knitting socks. The thought of losing another one--well. It was too much.

But tonight, my friends, I arrived home from work to find a package waiting for me. And in the package was--of course--the missing sock. Our friends had eventually come across it along the side of a path, stuck in a bush. I'm not sure if this happened a few weeks after we saw them, or if it was in the fall when the leaves that had once camouflaged it were gone; or if it was over the winter holidays--although it seems in much too pristine a condition to have weathered the elements that long.

Clearly our friends are not knitters, or they would have called me the second they found it. But no matter. Today is a good day.

And I'm off to raid the stash for some sock yarn.

Anyone else have knits that returned to them when all hope was lost?

The Good, The Bad, And The WTF

The Good: I'm still here! And I'm fine!

The Bad: I've been a pretty sucky blogger this year.
I hope that Santa will still bring me some knitting stuff.

The Good: During my blog absence, there has been some knitting and felting and crafting. Woo-hoo!

There are cotton chenille washcloths to be gifted.

There are snowmen to share with friends.

There are ferocious mittens that ate my daughter's arms. (Hopefully they will soon be felted into docile mittens that will fit my coworker's hands.)


The Well-Intentioned But...
My final gift from my Secret Snowflake at work. (AKA "What happens when nice Muggles buy yarn--and random needles--instead of gift cards.") The stitch markers and the double points will be useful, but the yarn may continue on to a new home.

The Good: The bathroom renovation continues, and now includes running water!
The Bad: But no shower.
More Bad: Or, um, tile.
DH really planned to get the tiling done before now.
But then the dryer broke and he had to take it apart.
And the bunkbed ladder fell apart and had to be repaired and glued.
And--oh right--he had to take care of the kids so that I could go to spinning guild. (Which is WAY more important than finishing the bathroom, right?)

Maybe Santa's elves know how to install tile?

The WTF: My 6-year-old came home from school today and proceeded to tell me all that she learned about alcohol and drugs today in her health class.
I guess I should be glad she learned about them from the gym teacher and not from her peers, but since when do they talk about drugs to first graders?
She now plans to count every drink I have over the holidays.
Sigh.

Happiness is Koigu

I am in love.

Prior to last week, I was a Koigu virgin. But now there is no going back. There will definitely be more of this in my future!

This hobo glove may be the "fiddliest" project I have made yet. I am making up the pattern as I go--with the help of the Interweave Knits Winter 2003 magazine--and there has been some frogging and reworking. It's still not perfect, but I think it will work. I am considering adding a flip-off mitten cover, a la Colleen's Urban Necessity pattern, but I'm still not fully decided. More details to come once it's finished.

I have not blogged recently due to all the usual reasons but also because my bathroom looks like this:

If you look closely you'll see the remnants of the lovely turquoise tile that I have passionately hated for the past seven years. So long, farewell!

This means that we are in the throes of a major do-it-yourself project that is eating our brains and our time and our bank account. It is far from over. And did I mention that we have company arriving on Friday to celebrate an early Thanksgiving? And that there are mattresses in the middle of the upstairs hallway? And that this is our only bathing area?

Sigh. I'm off to the neighbor's house to take a shower.

Seam Me Up, Scotty

Remember the Sunrise Circle Jacket? The one that was almost done?

Yeah, well. It is currently spending some time in the Naughty Chair. With a needle stuck in it.

It's pouting, can you tell?

The pattern is very clever and well written, but seaming up the finished pieces is a bit like putting together a puzzle. And I happened to choose a lumpy bumpy yarn that is uncooperative, and that makes seaming evenly a bit of a challenge. You know how red yarns just refuse to be photographed correctly? Well, this yarn refuses to be seamed OR measured correctly.

When I was seaming up the LAST few inches of the second side--and victory was so close I could taste it-- I happened to lay out the whole sweater on the floor, and something looked just a little bit...wonky. So I measured, and I pinned, and I measured again (coming up with completely different results than the first time); and I cursed, and I finally realized that I had totally messed up one of the seams. Not the seam that I had worked on carelessly, confidently, in poor lighting, in front of the TV, while it lay in my lap; but the seam that I had done methodically, slowly, in good light, spread out on the kitchen table. Figures.

One side was clearly longer than the other, from armpit to waist.

I spent a few minutes thinking about ways to lower one of my armpits.

And then--R-r-r-ipppp.

It was a long seam.

The new seam is about halfway done. But I thought I'd leave it a bit while I worked on something else.

That'll teach it.

What The Cool Toddlers Wear

I'm sure you had all despaired at ever seeing another FO on this blog, but today we have not one, but TWO! (One of them is sort of cheating. But as Crazy Aunt Purl says, y'all understand.)

The colors of the sweater on the left are true in this picture, but the one on the right is a darker green color, as you can see in the picture below.

The first one is the toddler jacket that I started in September. It fits Just Right, which is much better than being Too Small; but a little disappointing as I was hoping that the little one could wear this through the early spring. We'll see. It's very very thick and warm, definitely not for inside wear.

The pattern is a variation on the Rumplestiltskin Toddler Jacket from Knitter's Stash. Iinstead of the recommended chenille, I used the super bulky thick-and-thin wool from handpaintedyarn.com, which I expect to get nicely fuzzy and felted from wear. The gauge was different so I made some adaptations along the way. I really enjoyed knitting with this yarn as it's very soft and squooshy, and the colors are gorgeous, and who doesn't occasionally enjoy a gauge of 2.5 spi?

(By the way, my child is actually not cross eyed, but she appears that way at times due to pseudo strabismus.)




The second one is a bit of a cheat. This is actually a cardigan that I knit for my nephew in 1997 using Lamb's Pride worsted yarn. When I look at this one I can see how far my knitting and finishing skills have come since then; the seams are awful!

This sweater was knit from a Minnowknits pattern which called for a hood, but the hood was too shallow and never really wearable. I'm not sure if this was a problem with my knitting or with the pattern. Also, there is no button band in the design; the front edges are stockinette (done in intarsia, no less) with two rows of single crochet that are theoretically supposed to keep the edges from curling. Then the pattern directed the knitter to crochet some button loops on the edges. Yeah, it all sounded great in theory (to an inexperienced knitter), but it was not so fab in practice. The edges, of course, DID curl, and the button loops never stayed on the buttons, and all in all this was not such a functional little sweater. But it was cute.

My sister sent this one back to me about a year ago, after the last of her kids outgrew it. I examined it with my now-more-experienced knitter's eye and I immediately ripped out the hood and created a different neck line as best as I could. This was a bit tricky as I did not have much of the original yarn left, and I also did not want to take out the shoulder seams and deal with changing the intarsia around the edges. As it was I still had to recreate some intarsia in the back and redo the crocheted edge in places. Then I lost interest and the sweater sat in my work basket until last week, when I finally sewed grograin ribbon inside the front edges to keep them from curling, and I took off the buttons and sewed on a single metal clasp. Voila! A cute sweater for my cutie-pie, and just in time, as the fit is great and it's the perfect weight for fall.

I admit that I feel a bit sad that Rebecca will outgrow these in mere months, and that there is no younger sibling who will grow into them. (Although let's be clear that I am not sad about the lack of a younger sibling except as it pertains to handknits.) Thankfully, my very good friend, who is also an avid knitter, just gave birth to her second daughter. I have assured her that little Mary will be very well (wool?) dressed in the coming years.

*Addendum: Since Sam so nicely pointed out my funny spelling error in my last post, I decided to try using the Blogger spellchecker this time around. Can you believe that it did not recognize the word "knitter"? I mean, how many zillions of knitblogs are hosted by blogger, and the word knitter isn't in the default dictionary? Please! And I must admit that I found it amusing that it wanted me to replace "Minnowknits" with "Mincemeat." 'Nuff said.

Except--Sam? The spellchecker ate my post so I had to retype it. So I may just keep amusing you with spelling errors in the weeks to come. ;)

Slow And Steady Wins The Race?

So. Over the past two weeks there has been knitting, but no blogging. My new work schedule is kicking my butt and frying my brain, and the children have brought home many new germs to entertain us. On Monday I would have given almost anything to have someone watch my children for three hours so that I could curl up in bed with my down comforter and my trusty box of Kleenex. Alas, it was not to be, and we all survived.

On the knitting front, there is slow but steady progress on several projects.
(1) Eris
With 300 stitches currently on the needle, each row is taking me a while. I am particularly slow at purling. And my row gauge is a bit smaller than called for, so I am making a few adjustments. I reached the point where you take off stitches for the sleeves, but after doing so--and then doing some more measuring--I realized that I needed to do a few more rows. I was not anticipating this being a skin-tight sweater, and an inch of ease on a cardigan is just not going to cut it! But at least I can try this one on and make adjustments as I go.

(2) Sweater for older daughter:
Fronts and backs are done, shoulders are seamed, first sleeve is halfway done. I hope to finish this one within the next couple of weeks. (Yarn is wool-ease sportweight, 2 strands held together. Pattern loosely based on a chenille cardigan pattern from "Knitters Stash.") There is a slight--but solvable--problem with this one, which I will address in a later post so that you can all laugh at me.

(3) Jacket for younger daughter.
Completed except for weaving in ends, seaming, and buttons. (Yarn is thick-and-thin bulky from handpaintedyarn.com. Pattern loosely based on the Rumplestiltskin jacket from "Knitters Stash.")

(4) Flora scarf.
This is my "travel" knitting, which I can work on during meetings and conferences. I am using some yummy alpaca that I dug out of the stash. I think I bought the yarn when I still lived in Vermont, which means probably 1997. It has aged well. I will probably add a strand of the mohair boucle when it is time to make the flower.

There are other projects languishing, just to provide proof of my descent into full-fledged knitting ADD.

I must confess that I am somewhat disappointed that I will not have a new handknit sweater to wear at Rhinebeck. However--I might have an interesting new bag.

Wish me luck.

Cable Lust

I fell in love with Eris the moment I saw her: the swell of her cables, the curve of her neck.

I had been looking for "the perfect cardigan" pattern for a long time, and I knew that this was Ms. Right. My girl-crush of a cardigan.

The only question: which yarn to use? While I have a decent stash, I don't have many sweater-size lots of matching yarn. But I rummaged around to get some ideas, and I found two skeins of Cascade 220 in a lovely, heathery green. I had picked them up over a year ago at my LYS, planning to use them for a felting project, but now they were whispering "cables...cables..." in my ear. I carried them around for a while, wore them around my neck (to check out the itch factor, of course) and waited for them to entice me further. I didn't have long to wait. When I checked out the Cascade color cards online, and I found the name of color #9410, my decision was made: it is called "Celtic Green."

Of course, once I decided on the yarn, I couldn't find any more of it at a price I was willing to pay. My LYS no longer carries that color. The guys at Threadbear do carry that color--and their computer system told them that they had twenty-four skeins--but they could only put their hands on five of them. I finally found the yarn at Yarn Country, but I was a bit worried as I had never ordered from them, and their site is a bit, shall we say, bland. I also could not find any online reviews, on blogs or other sites. Was this a sham site, set up to steal the credit card numbers from desperate knitters? I didn't know, but the offer of free shipping put me over the edge. I decided to live dangerously. I ordered on Monday night, and my yarn arrived today.

In the meantime, I couldn't just sit around and wait for the yarn to arrive. I mean, four whole days? Let's get real. When the moment is right, you must cast on. So I crossed my fingers and cast on for the collar with one of the skeins I already had. I prayed that the new yarn would match the old yarn closely enough so that the collar would not stand out in a freakish manner. I think that my prayers were answered, although time will tell on that.

I love me some cables.

I want to knit cables all the time. I have forsaken the cooking, the laundry, the grimy children crying for attention. The house is falling down around me, and I don't care. These early days of passion are crazy sweet, and I am enjoying every minute. The design is ingenious, and the pattern is so detailed that I'm surprised Jenna didn't add notes such as: "Take a break here and get something to eat." Or "Now would be a good time to run to the bathroom." Because otherwise, you know, you might forget, being so caught up in the joys of new love.

The picture above does not show the color very accurately, but it was the only one where you could see the cables well. The true color is more like the picture below, which also includes the partially-done-and-currently-boring sweaters for my daughters. I have been trudging along on those as well, and they should provide me some good vacation knitting when I travel to visit the in-laws soon.

But oh! Eris is calling.
Must.Knit.Cables.

Actual Knitting. (No, I Mean It!)

Ta-dah! The finished back and the in-process fronts of a toddler jacket.

I'm not usually a fan of superbulky yarn, but this stuff is yummy. And there's something to be said for quick knits when life is feeling crazy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My Scrabble© Score is: 19. What is your score? Get it here.

~courtesy of Enchanting Juno~