Twelve and three quarters to go

I’m counting the sold skein of Poison Nr. 5 Wollmeise as my second stash-busting project. It’s gone. I didn’t knit it; but, it’s gone. That’s good for something.

Project number 1 is finished. The socks are ridiculously short in my opinion. I had yarn leftover. I tried to pick up the cast on edge and add a pattern to the top. No matter what I did, it looked stupid. An add on. A mistake. Too tight. Too frilly.

I made them the exact same height as the other pair of Socks that Rock lightweight thinking that I would use every last bit of this lovely yarn. The other pair was either the second or third pair of socks I knit. Was my tension way tighter or something? I have about one third of the total weight of each sock left over in additional yarn. I could have made the legs a full two or three inches longer. Bummer.

With no leg extension idea I liked and the pressure on to get through 15 projects ASAP (so I can buy yarn with abandon once again), short socks it is. If I have to reknit the heels, I’ll have plenty of yarn for that. I did use a pale brown reinforcing yarn on the heels already, so hopefully, it will be a long time before I need to make repairs.

I always reinforce the heels on my socks now. I’m trying short row heels because this style of heel makes reinforcing easier. However, my wraps look like crap. [There's a poem in there somewhere.]

Perhaps it was the top down construction that caused my wraps to look so yucky. Nope. Toe up is no better as far as improving my wraps. I even tried a different wrapping technique on the current, in-progress pair. But, in spite of how crappy they look, knowing how many times I tinked and knitted the wraps on the Socks that Rock pair, I just forged forward. I feel guilty. Such shoddy workpersonship with such a lovely yarn.

Yes, it is Wollmeise.

My photo doesn’t do the color justice. It’s deeper and more purple and much more rich.

The pattern was taken from Barbara Walker and is called, if I’m remembering correctly, Japanese fan. It waves. Back and forth. I had to insert a row of purl ribbing down the sides of the foot to help balance out the waves. Without the ribbing, the waves made my foot look quite disturbingly misshapen.

It will be OK on the leg after I am knitting pattern all the way around. I hope.

I have a ton of yarn. Wollmeise comes in huge skeins. The pattern doesn’t show up too well in this dark color. However, I was thinking the length of this pair could make up for the lack of length in the prior pair. There is a purl row between pattern repeats. I may use that as a shaping spot and go for some really tall socks. After a few more rows, I am going to increase needle size so the pattern expands a bit too.

With my pasty white legs (as the RNK calls them) as a foil, the lace pattern should show up quite a bit more.

Hmmm. With all this prospective length, maybe I can’t quite count this pair as a quarter done. Oh well, close enough.

Show and tell

1. The trade. I definitely came out on the better end of this one! I traded the cardigan for this lovely shawl.

I love shawls. I have tons of shawl patterns and yarn for knitting them. I knit a shawl. Once. But for the last year or so, I just can’t seem to get off my sweater/sock kick to knit another.

This shawl is the perfect size for me. It fits around my shoulders and keeps the chill off my neck when we watch movies and yet it’s not so big as to be overwhelming. Absolutely perfect. It folds down into a very small little bundle which will make it excellent for traveling. The workmanship, Claire’s, is impeccable.

2. The slippers. They felted up OK. I still need to redo the elastic for the button strap on the left slipper. It shows too much from the outside. There’s a fine line between getting the elastic buried enough so that it doesn’t rub on the foot and getting it too close to the outside. I missed that line.

If you look back to a previous post, you can see that they felted down quite a bit. Same ruler. Felting is pretty weird.

3. Socks. We went to Santa Fe for the RNK’s birthday on Saturday. We ate at Cafe Pasqual’s and had a lovely dinner. On the way down, I got to knit in the car!

I took “More Sensational Knitted Socks” with me. In the end, I just winged a pattern, alternating a K6P2 ribbing a bit because I love this yarn and I didn’t want the pattern to detract. I can’t remember the name of the color, but it’s Socks that Rock lightweight. So far, I am pleased. The heel is a bit funky. I have only done one other short row heel with wraps. I hope the other sock turns out a bit nicer.

4. Opal. She’s such a bright spot in our lives. Always entertaining. Today, she had a chipmunk trapped under a flagstone walkway.

Chimpmunk lovers, don’t fret. No chipmunks were actually harmed in the making of this blog post.

The sweater found

a new home yesterday. I wore it and as I was sitting in a meeting I could almost feel it “grow.” By the time I finished petting the horses and feeding them treats, the cuffs were getting hard to keep out of the way.

I drove to town, thinking about the sweater and the talented knitter, Claire, I was going to have lunch with. Hmmm. She knits gorgeous shawls (that sold like hotcakes at the Taos Wool Festival in early October). She’s taller than me. This would be a good color for her. Perhaps she would consider a trade?

Yes! Well, tentatively yes. I am giving her some time with the sweater to decide if she really likes it enough to trade. I know I love her shawls because I look at them every time she’s out and about offering them for sale. I just can’t justify buying one of them because, well, I’m a knitter. How can a knitter with an unmentionable amount of lace yarn and shawl patterns justify buying a shawl? Somehow though, as much as I love shawls and lace yarn, I just never seem to get around to knitting one. I would feel guilty buying a shawl. But, a trade. That’s another story!

Besides, the sweater looks really nice on her! See:

Don’t you agree it looks great?

It’s done!

Well, almost. It still has to dry and I have to sew the buttons on. And perhaps, tack down that ribbon strip.

After I washed it, it grew and grew and grew. I couldn’t believe how huge it was. The arms were over 24 inches long! I tried patting it all into place and squishing it in and shortening it up.

I messed with it for quite a while yesterday and again this morning. At least I have a nice view from the sunroom where it’s drying.

It looked kind of OK on the fronts, but the back was all scrunched weird and it just wasn’t right. So I threw the sweater and the towels it was drying on into the dryer for about 15 minutes. Maybe even a little longer.

Much, much better!

Stitches evened up and the texture smoothed out. The texture isn’t as overwhelming as I feared it might be. Of course, I won’t really be able to tell until it’s bone dry and I try it on.

I positioned the buttons over the buttonholes to get the “effect” of when they are sewn on. I like the buttons.

I still have to decide if that ribbon (see previous post) is useful inside the bind-off around the bands and collar. It did not get weird in the washing. It’s just fine. But is it a benefit? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be a detriment. Maybe I should leave it because if I pull it out, It would be a bear to put it back in later if I decided I really did need some stabilization along the button bands.

The collar seems to lay just fine with it in. Probably would lay just fine without it too.

Do I like the sweater? Am I pleased with the result? Would I recommend the pattern?

As far as the first two questions go, I always have this love/hate relationship with my knitting. I love the yarn; I love the pattern. I hate the finished product. However, I just pulled out two of my last season’s projects out last week (Refined Raglan and Textured Raglan) and was totally delighted and surprised at how well they fit and how nice they felt on. I’m not saying they are fantastic sweaters or anything like that. But, I’m not ashamed to be seen in public wearing either one. I even got a complement on Refined Raglan when I wore it to town.

As far as this one? Well, right now, I do not want to burn it. That’s a good sign.

Would I recommend the pattern? Yes. It is well-written. I found the knitting to be entertaining with all the do this every 8 rows and this every 16 and this every 4th or 5th or whatevers. Yet, it was repetitious enough to be able to learn the stitch pattern. I would describe it as a moderately challenging knit.

It is a very clever design (designed by Deborah Newton for Classic Elite). If you think that someday, you would like to try your hand at sweater design, I highly recommend knitting this one to see how it was shaped. The shaping is very well-done in this pattern. It is hidden, yet at the same time, not at all hidden. The shaping becomes part of the design. Nice. Kudos to Newton on this one.

Laughing Kookaburra

I haven’t been posting. I have been knitting and touring. On Monday, I drove past this guy and did a quick reverse to get this shot:

I also went to a Tasmanian Devil Park and got this shot right before feeding time:

Tons (or, I reckon, as would be said here in Tasmania — Heaps) of other photos to share (182 on Monday alone!); but, it’s a hassle working on the laptop instead of the “real” computer. That’s why I haven’t been posting much. It will have to wait until I get home. Meanwhile, there have been a significant number of finished objects in addition to the Neon socks:

The Tam kit was a gift from Kimberly at Cat Mountain. She thought I would need something to keep me occupied while traveling. I had heaps of yarn left over so I did the beanie version of the same pattern. Midnight Sun Tam. A very cool knit indeed. She’s at Sock Summit now and if you are there, be sure to stop by to check out her lovely hand-dyed yarn.

The cowl was a pattern I just winged. Turned out lovely I think. I like it quite a bit, if I do say so. Love, love, love the Alchemy Haiku yarn. The color is more true in the first picture.

I’m working on a sweater now, which oddly enough, no one has posted pictures of yet on Ravelry. Does that mean I have weird taste? It’s highly textured. That was what attracted me to the pattern, A Morn in May, available from Classic Elite. I grabbed it from Patternfish. Now that I’ve got the back almost finished, I don’t like it anymore. Why? The pattern is so textured. I guess there is no pleasing some folks. I’ll carry on because I know by now, that I go through this love, hate, like thing with all my knitting. I’m hoping I can get to the “like” stage again when it’s finished. It is a fun pattern to knit and it is doing a great job of keeping me amused. So, whether I like it or not isn’t really relevant anyway.

Process baby, it’s all about the process.

I haven’t been posting because

I was getting ready for a major trip, and then I left for that trip, and now I am away on that trip. Now that I am here — here being close to Carlton River, Tasmania, Australia — I have time to do things like work, knit and perhaps post on the blog again.

I am house sitting for a woman who owns 80 acres out in the country. She has a very nice home with a wood stove (an important item because it is winter here) and lovely ocean views off in the distance. I am caring for her dog, her pet mouse and her two horses. There is a nearby neighbor who I see occasionally, but, she’s working nights now.

Here’s my view:

And the mouse, and the dog and the horses:

He's a sweet little fellow

Also a very nice guy to be around

They thought they could push me around, but I've had none of it from them, especially the little mare. She's so mare-like.

And here’s the nearby beach, where the neighbor took me the other day. Lovely.

The weather has been fantastic, especially for winter!

The resident non-knitter is back in Colorado caring for our two horses, two dogs and our cat. He’s handling all the lawn care, house upkeep and the like. Thank goodness it’s him on that end! I got my fill of those duties when I was there and he was here. It’s the only way we could do the house sit, swap turns as it were. It was a lot more work on that end, and not only because I was preparing for the trip. There it’s summer and there is grass to be mowed, weeds to pull and all my work right there.

It has been a nice respite so far. I’ve been asked a number of times what I do with myself to occupy my time. Well, this morning, I talked to the RNK on the phone three times. Granted, this was a bit unusual, but he was setting up Skype to make unlimited phone calls to the land line here. Normally I only talk to him twice.

I called one of the Tasmanian knitters I met on Ravlery, and who I did a magic yarn ball swap which I will post pictures of someday. Haven’t quite gotten them off the phone and onto the computer yet. I spoke to the sister of the woman who owns the house. I talked to my mom.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying like the dickens to get this post finished so I can get on to work. Several projects in the running right now and I just realized, I need to have the RNK check my cell phone messages for me too. I’ve got two web pages to build, two to update, a feature article to write and a newsletter to layout. Hopefully, I’ll get much of this out of the way before I have to start on the newsletter for my gorilla client right after 6 July.

When I’m not working or caring for animals or myself, I’ve been knitting. I’m working on a very subversive project. A pair of socks that were confiscated by not one, not two, not three, but four Qantas flight attendants. I pointed out when they challenged me over this terrorist act of knitting on the plane, that I was in fact using size 0, bamboo needles and a toothpick would be more deadly. With a straight face, the lead attendant, a man, replied, “yes, it is the very size of the needles that is so worrisome.”

I’m still pondering that one. I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out what is worrisome about a set of bamboo needles that are so fragile that I was in fear of breaking them as I worked. Stick them in a flight attendant’s hand as she passed me my beverage? Hold a fellow passenger hostage with a knitting needle at their neck? In either case, a sharp brush of the hand would have rendered the implement useless and I would have been disarmed. Oh yeah, there are five needles. It would take five swats to completely disarm me. Maybe six if they missed once. And it could be muscle under all my fat. I could be a deadly assassin, hidden by the demeanor of a slightly overweight, flabby, middle-aged woman who looks out of breath even while engaged in the strenuous act of sitting in an airplane seat.

On the other hand, perhaps it was the color of the yarn they found offensive. I picked up this Opal Neon on sale a while back for $10.50 a ball. The colors are brighter in person than they were on the web site. I was a bit shocked when I opened the package. It will be a garish pair of socks. Not for the squeamish. Dangerous stuff.

Perhaps the enforcer steward feared I was going to flash the completed socks at the pilot and blind him. No worries. Wasn’t there a flight en route to the UK just the other day on which the pilot died of a heart attack mid route? I think the co-pilots carried on and the flight attendants continued to serve beverages and meals and not one of the passengers was any wiser until they saw the ambulance greeting the plane. Garish as these socks are, I think the co-pilots would have had the good sense to avert their eyes and carry on with the flight.

Ah well. I will carry on with my subversive activities. Hope to finish them soon and them move on to a tamer project. Cromarty* anyone?

* From Alice Starmore, “Fisherman Knits” or some such title. Ravel it. There are some lovely examples out there.

Apparently I have no sense of humor

according to the Resident Non-Knitter. I finished his sweater and the first thing he told me was, “I think the collar is really nice.” This, he said, as he was fondling, touching and admiring said sweater.

“That’s not what you said before,” I retorted.

“When? I’ve always told you it was beautiful and I really liked it.”

“Don’t you remember a few Sunday’s ago when you made a number of disparaging comments?”

“Oh that. Can’t you take a joke?”

Apparently not.

Then he proceeded to explain to me that he loves the sweater, he has always loved the sweater and he will continue to love the sweater all the while continuing with the fondling, touching and admiring of said sweater. However, he did not try it on.

I laid the “measurement shirt” (a machine-knit pullover) on the bed and the sweater over it. Everything matched up perfectly except for the circumference which we had intentionally made slightly smaller. The “measurement shirt” has a very boxy cut. The RNK looked at the shirt with the sweater over it and figured everything looked good enough for him to see that it would fit. “Perfect,” he said as he walked out of the room.

“Aren’t you going to try it on?”

“No, I can see that it’ll fit perfect.”

That was it. The end of the three months of sweater knitting. It does leave a question in my mind — does he know how to put a sweater on? I did witness him put the cashmere sweater on once. It came off again a few minutes later; but, he did put it on. I retain a small shred of hope that the sweater will actually be worn once, maybe twice (let’s not get greedy here).

I asked if he would consider allowing me to take a photo of him modeling the sweater for the blog. NOT!

So here, without further ado:

I also finished my first fair isle project, a project I have christened as “The Dork Mitts.”

And finally, just to prove that they are actually “hand-sized”

I’m learning to live with it

The internet connection goes up and down. I have come to think of it as a person, an older person, who likes to take naps — every day, all day. Sometimes, cat naps. Sometimes, siestas. Sometimes, just a good long sleep.

Apparently, this is just how it is and waiting for it to get better will be a very long wait indeed. Perhaps the universe is teaching me patience. I have resigned myself to living with it. Life goes on. I am back to posting.

While I have not braved the blog, I have braved the needles (and quite a bit of shopping!). See:

Bird's Nest Smoke Ring from Elann

Birds Nest Smoke Ring

I discovered elann.com thanks to the Claire, the enabler. I purchased several lovely yarns and found several lovely patterns including the Bird’s Nest Smoke Ring which was a fun and quick knit. It took only a week or two and viola, a pretty little neck warmer that’s soft and drapey. I used the Peruvian Baby Silk.

Then I started on the sweater (see previous post) for the resident non-knitter. This was against my better judgement as I have previously mentioned. None-the-less, I measured and swatched and commenced to knit. He said, “That won’t fit me.” I said, “Oh yes, it’s just jammed onto this 24-inch needle; but, it is your size.”

Then he said, “Is that the neck?” I assured him no, it was the ribbing that goes around the bottom. “It won’t fit,” he said. I replied again, a little more forcefully, “Oh yes, it’s just jammed onto this 24-inch needle; but, it is your size.”

I finished the first skein of Cascade 220 in all of it’s glorious yardage, and realized I had made a slight mistake in the cable pattern. Opps. Left out two rows of plain knitting for each pattern repeat. This in and of itself is not a big deal, I thought. It just makes the cable twist a bit tighter. I could add in a few repeats with one more row added back in, then do the same again with the other row added back in and it might actually be one of those fortuitous mistakes that gives the sweater a bit of nice shaping suitable to a man’s physique.

Or perhaps, if the loss of the two rows didn’t make the sweater less stretchy, I would just continue with my slightly revised pattern. I thought, I better have him try this on to make sure the pattern didn’t get too tight with this mistake modification.

I switched to a 100 cm cable and had him step into the sweater. It fit great! Plenty of stretch. In fact, I could pull the ribbing out about 8-inches from his body with no problems. Either solution, leave as is or gradually change over the next few rows, would work just fine.

“It doesn’t fit,” he said.
“What? Of course it fits.”
“Nope. It doesn’t fit around me.”
“Clearly it fits around you. It is around you. Look how much extra stretch there is.”
“It doesn’t fit around me.”
“I’ll block it, it won’t feel as tight.”
“I can’t possibly wear it. I can’t put it on.”
“IT IS ON!”
Glaring look that is not possible to capture in words from resident non-knitter.
Evil eye look that is not possible to capture in words from resident knitter.
Stalemate.

I frogged the entire thing and started over (not that evening mind you!) with an additional 30 something stitches in the ribbing.

Actually, although I hate to say it, it’s much nicer. I ended up with a K3P1 rib with extra stitches added in for the body only on the cable pattern itself. It turned out lovely and best of all, the resident non-knitter adores it.

Hamefarin Raglan Pullover

Hamefarin Raglan

Meanwhile, I’ve fallen in love with Cascade 220 and the newest knit store in Colorado! The Yarn Gallery is in Alamosa and is run by Kim of Cat Mountain Fiber Arts fame.

This has enabled continued yarn shopping in spite of a lousy internet connection! SQUEEEE!

Why not dance? I've got yarn!

She has a nice selection of her hand-dyed yarn, Jamieson’s, Cascade, some Noro, and bunches of other things. You can even buy needles, some books and other knitterly delights. What a nice treat to be able to shop for yarn locally!

It works!

After a few rough patches this morning, it appears that the internet connection has stabilized for now. You would think — well I would think — that a company that provides internet service in Colorado would understand the importance of installing systems that work even when it snows or when the wind blows. Not so. Not so here in the San Luis Valley anyway.

First, they decided my wireless radio antenna had gone bad. I told the technician who came out to repair it that I was concerned that the exceptional high winds we had could have blown the antenna out of position. This was my diagnosis.

“Nope,” he said. “Bad antenna.” He replaced it and weirdly enough, failed to tighten it down properly. The moderately high winds we had over the next few days easily blew the antenna out of position. Of course, I didn’t realize this at the time. I had to wait until they could fit me back into the repair schedule.

Finally, the same technician who installed the new antenna came back to make the repair. He admitted the newest problem was due to his failure to secure the antenna properly. He wasn’t even gone an hour when I realized the connection no longer worked, AGAIN!! This time, they just turned him around and he returned within the hour. He repointed the antenna to a tower on top of San Antone Mountain.

Snow causes this tower to fail. It’s on top of a mountain for pete’s sake! Of course it snows up there in winter. They had me pointed this direction last winter until I threw a fit and asked them to come out and change it because I was down at least one day a week every week all winter.

We’ll see how it goes. Typically spring brings our most severe storms.

Meanwhile, knitting and life progress. Unlike many knitters, I didn’t make stash busting resolutions, completing UFO resolutions, etc. For one, I am building stash like crazy in preparation for a yarn drought in my future. For another, I don’t have UFO’s. If I start it, I try to finish it. If I don’t finish it, I frog it. I like my knitting to be under control, in contrast to my work which seems to be perpetually out of control.

I don’t make many resolutions in life either. Usually only one per year. Let me give you some examples. About 10 years ago, my standing resolution for several years running: work less, earn more. This suggestion came out of my company’s employee suggestion box. I promptly adopted it as the best employee suggestion ever, without question, praised the wonders of an employee who could come up with such a brilliant idea and immediately adopted it for all future resolution purposes. [To clarify for those who don't know my work situation, I work for myself, by myself.]

About five years ago, my resolution for a two years running was “drink more beer.” The first year I went from one or two six packs a year to about ten or 15. The next year, this resolution blossomed. I no longer need to keep this on my list. [interject coughing noise]

Three years ago, I made a resolution to “have more fun.” I did pretty good on this one. It’s still kind of on the list, although it has transmogrified into “enjoy life more.” This includes eating lots of chocolate, drinking better wine, taking more vacations and other similar challenging tasks. I’m working on it. I think I may keep this one for another year.

Last year, I had a resolution to write in a journal every day. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Quit that one — quite consciously, I might add — after about four months. I tried the “morning pages” approach recommended by Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg and other writers. The idea is to write in a journal first thing in the morning, every morning.

For me, this is a doomed proposition. I don’t properly wake up for about an hour. Crawling out of a perfectly comfortable, warm bed is so deplorable to me that I am normally in a horrible mood until I’ve gotten at least one giant cup of tea in my system. So, my journal consisted of grumbling, bitching, complaining, and being irritated with life in general. I do not recommend starting a day with this focus. And, I certainly do not recommend starting every day with this focus.

I’ve kicked around the idea of adding “knit more” to this year’s list. I may just have to ponder that one to see how it feels before I add it. Might be next year’s resolution.

Meanwhile, I did finish the Shibui Knits sweater. Blocking transformed it from an object fit only for the burn pile to a sweater worth wearing.

I’m still not wild about the color pooling. I do like the color however:

Shibui Knits Textured Raglan

I actually like the way the neck turned out:

It has a nice drape to it:

We had a lovely moonrise this month. I ran as fast as I could to snap a shot. I couldn’t get the red-tipped peaks without the pivot:

It’s just a little further and in the few extra seconds, I missed it. Amazing how fast the color changes.

Note: Pattern row will be worked on the WS

The Textured Raglan looked like a nice easy knit from the picture on the Shibui site. Heck, I had just finished the Refined Raglan (about halfway down the page) and how different could they be? Ahh, gentle readers. One little line in the pattern says it all:

Note: Pattern row will be worked on the WS except for this left side portion.

I pondered this. I even asked fellow knitters what it meant. Of course, they scoffed. Anyone who has followed a knitting pattern knows that more often than not, something has little or no meaning until you are actually doing it. In the doing, it comes together. In the reading, it does not.

I was doing and suddenly, this boring little 2 row repeat with the raglan decreases all happening every other row on a K row, and the pattern, a KKKPKP just going round and round and round . . . got turned on it’s ear.

Perhaps, there those of you with more knitting experience are having a little chuckle right now. You grasped the implications of that little “Note:” in the pattern right off.

For the rest of us, let me illustrate. The “different” stitch marker shows the start of the round. You can see the neck stitches bound off, creating that cute little scoop neckline that looks oh, so comfortable:

A schematic explains how the knitting shifts from round and round to back and forth:

Oh, delight is mine!

The pattern has become new again. With a two-row pattern and the start of the round in the “middle” of the back and forth, not at an edge, this turns the pattern partially backwards, and partially in side out. For me, the decrease row on the left side of the sweater is now most easily accomplished by knitting backwards. On the right side of the sweater, the pattern KKKPKP becomes PPPKPK.

No big changes. It simply requires the knitter to start thinking. Try doing what you’ve been doing backwards for a while, then try it inside out. Too much fun!! I am easily amused.

None-the-less, this is especially exciting because the sweater has long been in Stage 4 (see prior post), the hating phase where I believe the most appropriate finishing touch will occur when I light the match. At least the knitting is fun.

All of this “new” stuff at the very last part of the pattern. It makes me want to look at other patterns designed by Kirsten Christianson.

In fact, I did. Isn’t this a cute little sweater? I think I might like it better in a longer length. Can you imagine the fun of taking a cable pattern, and then looking at it inside out and backwards? Do you suppose this happens at the start of that V-neck?

Such simple pleasures knitting brings.