Reinforcements!

The knitting is mostly done for the Harvest Cardigan.  I've completed one body, two sleeves -- all which traveled with me through Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, AND Texas, then back through Massachusetts, Rhode Island (for the fun of it) and Connecticut, without getting lost -- and all I have left to do is the neck and button bands.  At some point I need to choose buttons, I s'pose.  But still.  The knitting of it is largely done.

I managed to reinforce the steeks while I was in Austin, Texas, at the home of my friend and colleague Abby (which is actually the parsonage of a church she serves) -- also the home-church-parsonage of the lovely Tina, both of whom are pictured here.  They are also fellow knitters and longtime readers of this blog, but that is of very minor relevance.  Mostly they're nice people who have a sewing machine and sat in the same room with me while I nervously sewed my steeks.  Good friends Cathy and Cindy were there, too.

This is me sewing steeks in the parsonage.
When I go to Austin during SXSW, things get craaaaazy. Clearly.

A couple of days later, while at a clergy women's retreat on the banks of the Guadeloupe River, I felt bold enough to cut said steeks.  I think it helped that I'd had a mimosa or two before the cutting (acting on the advice of my sister, also a knitter: have a glass of wine before picking up the scissors).  Surrounded and supported by friends through the process.  It takes a village, people!)

Very brave? or very foolish?  Stay tuned to find out!

What Now?

Sooooooooo I've messed something up with my purse sock.  Specifically, the first one I completed is too short.  Or, rather, I followed the pattern for the second sock and when I got to the part that said I should start the toe, I held them next to each other and...

Do I take out the toe of the finished sock and make it longer, or do I take out the inch-and-a-half of extra length on the sock I haven't finished yet, even though I know it's right?

Of course, I haven't actually bothered to try on the completed sock and see if it's too small (I'm guessing it is), so maybe one of these days I'll get around to doing that and make the decision that way.

Meanwhile, the socks will sit on the living room coffee table and I will stare at them with mild disgust.

The Saddest (Knitting) Story Ever in the Entire Universe

YOU GUYS.  The worst thing ever has happened.  (Well, there are worse things in general, but the worst knitting-thing.)  It's terrible.  Perhaps the worst knitting-thing ever to happen in the whole history of bad knitting-things.  I will burst into tears any minute now.

The Minimalist Cardigan is not nearly as finished as it appears in this picture.
Far from it.



Listen, children, to a long and harrowing tale:

I woke up New Years Day all filled with inspiration to Accomplish Something.  Seems like a good way to start the year, no?  So I dug out the long-marinating Minimalist Cardigan, which I've been threatening to finish for at least six months.

Longtime readers mayyyy recall that the Minimalist  Cardigan was on hold for two reasons: first, that I'd run out of yarn and couldn't find the same dye lot anywhere.  I eventually broke down (February of 2011) and bought a skein of a different dye lot.  The second reason (encountered in March of 2010) was a problem with the neck not matching the shoulders.  I really couldn't decide what to do, so I just waited until I was ready to figure it out.

On January 1, 2013, I woke up with my decision: take out the pleated shoulder seam, undo the Kitchener stitch on the neck, add a few inches and reattach the back.  Did it all in one day.  Just a few hours, really.  It was lovely, and gave me new energy for the whole project.

Now that's some beautiful grafting work,
if I do say so myself.

I was being meticulous.  I even took pictures of my measurements just in case I needed them later.

Also, I got a digital kitchen scale for Christmas, so I had to make sure it was working properly.  (So excited.)


The sleeves were the next problem to tackle.  At some point, I lost track of what needles I'd been using.  The sleeves were held on straight aluminum needles that I stole borrowed appropriated from my mom years and years ago.  But are those the needles I used to make the sweater in the first place?  I have no idea.  After all, it's been at least three years since I *stopped* working on this sweater.  I had one sleeve knitted up, but needed to do the other -- and if I was working on unknown needles 3 years ago, how in the world was I to get the same exact gauge on the second sleeve, no matter what needles I used?  No, both sleeves needed to be knit with the same needles so they'd match each other, even if they didn't exactly match the body of the sweater.  The finished sleeve would have to be re-knit.

So I did re-knit it.  But I neglected to un-kink the yarn properly (or, um, at all) before I did it.  That was dumb, and the sleeve looked bad enough that I wasn't confident it would re-block properly.  I didn't even photograph it.

I had some traveling to do -- a week-long conference of sorts for professional development.  Perfect for knitting and re-knitting sleeves.  Brought the sweater body, plus the finished-but-to-be-re-redone sleeve and the skein for the second sleeve.  First two days of the conference, I knit up the second sleeve using the aluminum straights.  Then I unraveled the first sleeve and properly straightened the yarn in the hotel shower using the wonderfully-heavy ice bucket for weight.  I was fortunate to have a tolerant conference roommate, who happens to take baths.

Then I re-reknit the darn first sleeve.  I finished right at the end of the day Friday (our last day there) and had managed to get most of the side-seaming done here and there.  All that was left to do was sew in the sleeves.

I sewed in Sleeve A (because once they're both off the needles, who knows which is the first sleeve, which I knit three times, and which is the second sleeve, which I knit only once?) on the first plane home this morning.  The flight was the exact right length to get it done.  The most beautiful seaming I've ever done, frankly.  I really should take a picture of the underarm seam, 'cause it's a thing of beauty.

AND THEN I LEFT SLEEVE B ON THE FIRST PLANE.  I think it must have fallen down between my seat and the window-wall, or maybe even slipped off the armrest to the row behind mine when I stood up.  I'd even looked back in my row to make sure I didn't leave anything as I was getting off the plane.  I didn't discover the loss until I was on plane #2 an hour later, when I'd settled into my new seat so I could start sewing in Sleeve B while waiting for takeoff.

That's right.  Sleeve B is gone.

Fortunately my flight had a minor problem and was delayed just enough for me to report the loss.  I filled out a lost article form online and called the airline to talk with an actual person, who was very helpful.  Unfortunately, plane#1 was already on its way to Los Angeles.  I was in Washington DC.  That's incredibly not helpful.  Just a few minutes after I learned this information, my plane departed for Connecticut.  The official story from the airline is that the flight crew reports all lost articles at the end of the day.  Tomorrow the computer system will kick in and match the crew's lost article report with my lost article form--if the crew did indeed find Sleeve B and didn't throw it away.

Photo taken in Hartford.  The sweater looks really good,
except for the missing sleeve.
The blue sweater makes my outfit look silly, though.
I swear it looked great when I was
doing the monochromatic thing.

I'll get a phone call tomorrow if Sleeve B has been found.  If it hasn't... well, that's that.

Relatively quickly, I came up with a back-up plan.  I'd flown in to Hartford and was driving back to Burlington right away, and the route goes right past WEBS, pretty much the biggest yarn store in the country.  That's where I bought the extra skein back in 2011 in the first place.  They're open till 5:30 on Saturdays, and I had plenty of time to get there.  I called them to ask them to set aside a skein of Bulldog Blue for me.  The helpful woman on the phone looked in the computer... no Bulldog Blue on hand.  Would I like them to order it for me?  It'll come in in a few weeks.

No problem, I said, a few weeks will be fine.  (And if the airline does find Sleeve B, I will cancel the order.)  She checked the Brown Sheep website to be sure...

And the color is discontinued.  They can't order it for me.  Nobody can order it for me.  There is no more Bulldog Blue available for purchase.  

There is one person on Ravelry who has this colorway in their stash and is willing to sell it.  If I don't get a phone call from the airline tomorrow, you better believe I am contacting this Raveler.

Please, send as many prayers and vibes and whatnot into the universe as you possibly can.  So far mine kind of look like this:

Please, God, let the airline find Sleeve B and mail it back to me.  I can't promise You that I will never again take four years to finish a sweater, but I can promise you that I have learned some sort of lesson from this experience and when I figure out what it is I will remember it forever. Love, Holyknitter.  Amen.

I feel confident that God understands what I mean here.

Ravellenic Round-Up

I'm participating in the Ravellenic Games this year.  (For those of you, Mom, who don't know what that is: basically, you knit while watching the Olympics, and you set some goal to achieve by the time the Olympics is over.  Stuff you knit while not watching the Olympics doesn't count, I think.)  I've never done it before, but I figure it's a good way to motivate myself to tackle some WIPs that have been languishing for a while.  My plan is to tackle several of the sweaters that I've almost-finished and then found some excuse to abandon.

First-up will be Husband's sweater, which has given me no end of trouble and at this point I kind of just want to be done with it dangit!  I've got to frog the yoke, reattach the sleeves (counting correctly this time--this might involve math? or at least finding my calculation notes, which may or may not be in the actual project bag), reknit the yoke correctly, and knit the collar.  Getting the knitting done is all I'm worried about for the moment.  I will not pressure myself into sewing on a zipper during the actual event, as I've never done it before and will probably need to make several attempts before I get it right.

Then I will finish the Minimalist Cardigan, which I apparently started three years ago and stopped working on at least two years ago, due to the need for one more skein of yarn.  I acquired the necessary skein during or before February 2011, so I have no excuse, and should probably get on this one.  If this fall is anything like the last two falls, I will find myself walking from the car in to my church thinking "I really wish I were wearing that Minimalist Cardigan right now.  I should finish it so I can wear it."  Except this time I want to be thinking "I'm really glad I finished this Minimalist Cardigan.  It's perfect for today and makes my whole outfit (and life, really) feel complete."  Or something like that.

At some point in there, I'd also like to work on Henry, who has been patiently waiting for me to finish casting him off since about mid-2009.  Yes, I said finish casting off.  I started the cast-off (which is this complicated hand-sewn dance, not a regular two-knitting-needle cast-off) and ran out of yarn.  So I took apart the swatch I'd made to salvage the yarn from that, but it's badly in need of straightening out because it's so kinky -- even though I frogged the swatch probably 3 years ago.  I've just never gotten it wet and let it hang to dry.  So there sits Henry, hanging out of my "current knitting projects" basket next to the couch, and I feel a mild pang of guilt (very mild--I'm pretty inured to it now) every time I see him, which is about 10 times a day.  There is no excuse for this nonsense.  He's a very very nice cashmere scarf.  Someone I love would really like to wear him.

I've got a couple of other things I might work on as Ravellenic projects, but I don't want to be overly ambitious.  I'll also be traveling for a good chunk of the time that the Olympics are happening, so while there will be some significant airplane time (I'm flying from Boston to SFO and back, but knitting-while-on-a-plane-not-watching-the-Olympics might not count anyhow), I will be relatively limited in the space-and-weight-while-flying factor, as well as the doing-stuff-while-I'm-in-California factor.  There's a wedding in there, and I don't think I will earn any friendship points if I dash out early to go watch TV and knit.

Still, if I accomplish much on the two sweaters and get Henry done, I will then tackle the Labyrinth Rug and see if I can't finish that off, too, as it's tremendously close to the end and Husband was just commenting the other day on how he'd really like it, you know, not tangled-up in an awkward spot in the living room anymore.  My first post on it is from way back in 2008, and even then I felt like I'd been working on it for a long time.  Enough is enough.

More babies on the way!

I'm at that stage in life where freakin' everyone I know is having a baby. Everyone. It's a baby-splosion up in here. Most recently, Meowkat has been the lucky mom-to-be. I offered to throw the Burlington-area knitters shower way back in the summer when I didn't know that this fall was going to be craaaaazy-busy, and we finally made it happen at the beginning of November.

The fall has been so busy, though, that I didn't quite have my gift for her finished for the shower. Eh, it happens. At some point, I just realized that I could either throw a baby shower or finish the baby sweater I was knitting her, but not both. So I threw the shower and gave her an unfinished sweater (which I immediately took back so I could finish it, of course). Well now it's done! I did the final seam at a conference in Boston the week after the shower. I think I was also knitting this sweater in Cleveland. And in New Haven, CT. So it's a well-traveled baby sweater, and there's not even a baby yet! He's due this week.

I figure as long as I got the sweater done before he's born, I'm still okay.

I'd been having a hankering to knit an aran sweater as fall came upon us and the pull toward cozy knits grew strong. I even went out and bought some beautiful and perfect yarn for just such a sweater. But seeing as how I'm still plugging away on Husband's monotonous stockinette sweater and it's taking me FOREVER (I've started the sleeves four times now! Argh!), and I've also got multiple almost-but-not-quite finished sweaters for myself, I just didn't feel right starting yet another sweater for myself yet. But given the baby-splosion...

I promptly went out and bought some gorgeous Malabrigo Rios (okay, okay, I was checking out The Knitting Studio's new location and gave in to temptation), and flipped through StrungUp's pattern library (mine doesn't have much baby stuff) until I found the Heirloom Aran Sweater (Rav link). Perfect! I cast on pretty much right away, and knit whenever I had a chance. It made for good travel-knitting on my Cleveland trip, but all my other trips this fall have been driving trips, so I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked.

A couple of nights before the shower, this is where I was, progress-wise:

The sleeves on this sweater are loooooong. Too long. But most baby sweater patterns have sleeves that are too short, so whatever. It just took a while to knit the sleeves. But it's a baby sweater, so that's totally relative.

Anyway, I plugged away and had the sleeves done for the shower, and finished the neckband during the shower itself. I got to the seams eventually and finished them during a conference-slash-visit with my sister in Boston.

And here's the finished product!

See, the sleeves were so long that I ended up folding up the cuffs. If I knit this sweater again, and I may very well some day, despite other Ravellers' complaints that it's a poorly-written pattern (I didn't think it was great, but it wasn't so bad I would bother to complain about it), I will shorten the sleeves about 3 inches.

Now I just have to find a time to get it to Meowkat, who's supposed to be having this baby...today. So, um. Yeah.

I cannot wait to see this on Baby Whatshisname someday. He'll be adorable! Congratulations, Meowkat and Meow-husband.




The obligatory Jared Flood-inspired artsy knitting photo. Although I'm not so sure my light is as nice as his.



Also, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's my favorite day of the year. I'm going to go hang out with the Most Awesome Nephew in the World now.

Adventures in Blocking on the Road

My friend LiturgyGeek had a baby. A daughter. BabyLG, we can call her. She was born a few months ago now, but I didn't rush to make her something because I knew I wanted to make a baby sweater for her -- and, well, she was born at Easter. She lives in Iowa and won't need a baby sweater until the fall. A six-month size sweater will be perfect for her. And I knew I would see her Mama in July. Sooooo I didn't rush to get anything done and in the mail.

Anyway, July is here. Seeing LiturgyGeek (and meeting BabyLG) involved a trip to Tampa, Florida (not because they live there, but because the United Church of Christ national meeting was there, and LG and I both had to attend). About a week before take-off, I put down the sweater I'm making for Husband, found a pattern I liked, and bought some yarn.

Side note: can I just take a moment to say how excited I am that Malabrigo is making a superwash worsted now? I'm surely the last person on the planet to have discovered this, but DUDE. Rios is an amazing yarn. I am totally smitten. I would use it for non-baby projects! I would make big-person-sized sweaters out of it! Hooray for gorgeous kettle-dyed superwash wool!

Okay. So I bought the Malabrigo Rios -- two skeins, just in case, but it turns out that I only needed one -- and cast on and had the body, like, a third of the way done by that evening. I knitted on the plane to Florida, I knitted in meetings whenever I could... At one point, LG said to me, "by the way, I haven't seen you knitting here! Are you working on anything? What are you making?" And I got a little cagey. I think I said something like, "Yeah, I'm working on something. I'll, uh, show you later." She got it, and did not push. This is the sign of a good friend-of-a-knitter.

Anyway, I finally finished the sweater about 3 or 4 days in to the meeting. And it totally needed to be blocked. Fortunately, I was staying in a fabulous Embassy Suites suite, and was therefore well-supplied with both space and tools. I pulled out the ironing board and iron, grabbed a washcloth, and went to town with a bit of washcloth-steam blocking. It's a sweet little sweater, but those leaves on the front don't stay flat on their own! (LG, now that the sweater is blocked, you shouldn't have to worry about this again.)

Also, I accidentally dyed the washcloth purple. Sorry, Embassy Suites!

It all worked out in the end. The blocking part, that is. I honestly have no idea if the hotel got the dye out of the washcloth, but I would assume they did. Hotels are generally pros at bleaching the towels.

And the finished product came out nicely. The Cascade pattern is really cute, and very simple to make. I didn't make any modifications this time, but if I were to do it again (and I might some day) I'd make a sixth leaf at the bottom of the placket instead of cutting it off at 5 for the seed-stitch band. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to add, although I understand why the author wrote the pattern the way she did.

I added on the buttons during the business meetings on the next-to-last day of the event. We introduced electronic voting this year, and it took a bit of experimentation to get the hang of sewing on a button and pressing the clicker-thingy at the same time (in the past we just had cards to hold up, which isn't as hard because it doesn't involve the same set of fine motor skills that sewing on buttons requires). It all worked fine, and the buttons looked good AND I voted for important stuff like LGBT human rights.

Most importantly, LG and her husband Backbencher loved the sweater. And I'm sure that BabyLG will look adorable in it this fall, when it actually fits her. LG has promised to send a photo of BabyLG in the finished product when it does fit. For now, just enjoy this Jared-Flood-esque photo of the button band.

Lizard Ridge Update #2

Another plane ride, another Lizard Ridge strip begun.

I worked pretty furiously to get the second strip finished before I went on my Great Midwestern Tour 2011 (Des Moines, Grinnell, Iowa City, Madison, AND Milwaukee! With a drive through Dubuque for good measure! Wooo! Again with the exciting life!), but it just didn't happen. And I wasn't going to cart around that whole strip for just those final rows.

So I started a new strip on the plane leaving Burlington (cast on during take-off!), and knitted my way through the Midwest. (I did not knit while driving through the Iowa or Wisconsin countrysides, Mom. I was too busy looking out the window.) And after a week in the Midwest and another week home (where I mostly worked, and did very little knitting except when I saw some knitting gals one evening), I'm about 2/3 of the way through the third strip.

I am really digging how this is turning out. It doesn't look nearly as garish in person as it does on the computer, for one thing. But also, I am totally fascinated with the way the colors are changing in the Noro as it progresses. So cool! It's like every row is a new discovery. I know I've said that before, but it still feels true. I am starting to itch to work on something else (don't know what, but just to be done with the darn short-rows for a while), but I fear that if I take a break I won't pick it up again for a long time, and then I'll have 3/4 of a Lizard Ridge blanket sitting on the UFO pile. Dumb dumb dumb. Gotta push on. My fascination with the ever-changing colors will have to carry me through.

Doc really seems to think this blanket is for him. He's certainly making himself comfortable.




(Please tell me I'm not turning into that lady who posts a picture of her cat at the end of every freakin' post. I don't want to be that lady. I stopped reading her blog altogether because the cat pictures were that annoying. Nobody cares about your fancy-pants purebred whatsit cat as much as you do. This will have to be the last Doc picture for a while, because OMG you don't care about the upside-down kitty, and I should be able to keep it to myself.)

Lizard Ridge is SO COOL!

Okay, seriously? I knew that the Lizard Ridge blanket was going to be cool. But I had no way to conceive of how it was all going to come together. It's way awesome.

This progress shot is at about 40%, I'd say. There are five skeins of Kureyon per strip, and the ones shown in this photo are #3 and #4 on the second strip. Instead of knitting blocks of a single skein and then seaming them together (hello, I hate seaming, we know this about me), I'm just knitting with two skeins at a time and seeing what happens, until skein #5. That one gets doubled onto itself.

Anyway, it's super-cool, and constant discovery of the "what's the next stripe going to look like?" has me totally engaged and knitting like a madwoman. So much fun!

Also, there's been more travel lately, and it was very easy to throw the two starter skeins in my carry-on and cast on in the plane. Who knew a blanket could be good travel knitting? But it was. For a 3-day jaunt to Cleveland last week, it was just right.


Doc likes the blanket, too. He can't wait to see how it turns out.


(And yes, I'm doing the garter ridges modification. I knew you would ask.)

Done with Mittens (for now)

I finished NHM #13. It was fine for travel knitting, but maaaaaan I am done with mittens for a while, and finishing this pair was like pulling teeth. I vaguely intend to knit all -- or almost all -- the Selbuvotter patterns eventually, but... I'm going to take a break for a while. Ugh.

Anyway, they're done. After a serious Mad Men marathon, I finally got enough done on the second mitten that it really wasn't okay for me to put off doing the thumbs any longer. Progress shot:













And Finished Object Photo:

Back after a Long Absence

It's been far too long since I've updated. Since you last heard from me, I went to Scotland. Also Chicago. Also... probably other places, too. I've accomplished relatively little in the way of actual knitting in the last couple of months. But I've tried.

See?

That's NHM #13, from Selbuvotter. Random mitten for travel knitting. And that's a Trossach in the background -- part of the mountain range just north of Loch Lomond. Really, really in Scotland. Picture taken out the bus window. Why on a bus? Because the train I was supposed to take from Glasgow to Oban had derailed the day before I got there. Oops. Bus it was!

More on the trip later. For now... mitten in progress!


Yarn: same as usual, MC is Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca&Silk in Lavender, and CC is Frog Tree Alpacas Alpaca sportweight in Forest Green. Lovely combo, but the lavender gets washed out and looks like a slightly off-gray.

NHM #7

Or: this post is for my Mom, who calls me and says things like "I've been checking your blog every other day, and you haven't updated!" She also emails me when I misspell things or have poor grammar on Facebook. Thanks, Mom.

NHM #7 is done! Huzzah! This is my sixth pair of Selbuvotter mittens -- and my last for a while, but I will probably pick up more this summer, because there are still a ton of patterns from this book that I want to knit.

I've definitely fallen in to the habit of using Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca and Silk for the Main Color (strength and shine in the silk, fuzzyness and warmth in the alpaca), and Frog Tree Alpaca Sportweight for the Contrast Color (yet more fuzzyness and warmth, plus the soft alpaca is right next to the skin!). I think it's a good combo -- the two yarns aren't exactly the same weight, but close enough. (And I don't like the full-on Alpaca and Silk pair that I wear as much as the pairs that are the combo. And all-alpaca, all-the-time, would be a big fuzzy mess with unsatisfactory stitch definition.) If either of these were publicly-traded companies, I would definitely buy stock.

I finished them a month or so ago (they took me a month, but I worked on other things at the same time and they were really only travel knitting -- one trip to Atlanta/Savannah for meetings, and two jaunts over to Boston to see the nephew), and have been kind of lazy about photographing and posting them. Sorry, Mom. In my defense, it's Lent, and things have been kind of busy.

Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival 2009

A few weeks ago, StrungUp, Meowkat, Mango, and I piled into Sweetea's environmentally-friendly hybrid car and drove down to Tunbridge, VT, for the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.

The day was gray, chilly, and sometimes rainy (boy am I glad I wore my raincoat!), but I enjoyed the trip regardless of the weather. For one thing, it was the first weekend in October, and the trees were amazing. I felt like my mother: "Children! Look out the window! The trees are orange, children! Look at the trees, they look like they're on fire! LOOK AT THE ORANGE TREES, CHILDREN!!!" Mom, I totally get it now, and although I still reserve the right to make fun of you, it comes from a place of love and truth and self-mocking, and not just from a place of rolling-my-eyes-at-my-mother.

Also, when you fill a car with knitters, we're all very quiet -- until the sun goes down and we can't see to knit anymore. Then we get talkative!

The festival itself was very different from last year. It felt a bit lackluster, although I think I do like the Tunbridge fairgrounds (facility/layout/setup) better than the Essex fairgrounds. There were quite a few shops that were missing, and the selection of wares just wasn't as good as I remember last year's being. There was a LOT of sock yarn. Most of it was more than $25 a skein. And since I (a) don't knit many socks, and (b) don't have much money these days, I really didn't find a lot of options that excited me.

I still made out like a bandit compared with my road companions, though. I found a kit for the Tulip Cardigan, which I'd been wanting for about two years. It was reasonably-priced and everything. (I wouldn't have bought it if it had cost way too much, but the price was exactly what I would have expected to pay, which meant I didn't have to spend five minutes agonizing over whether or not to spend $5 more than I thought it was really worth.) I also found some beautiful handspun-and-died llama yarn -- a bunch of mini-skeins, 30-40 yards apiece, in about a DK weight. Perfect for the Fiddlehead Mittens, which I've also been wanting to make for a while but have agonized about buying all that yarn just to use a tiny bit of each color (and the designer's kits, while gorgeous, are expensive; plus, I'm just not that much of an internet buyer).

Also, there was one lonely farmer there, selling delicious sheepsmilk cheese! Soooooo yummy.

I didn't buy anything that didn't have a designated purpose, which is unusual for me. I tend to be a buy-now-because-it's-pretty-and-figure-out-a-project-later kind of gal. Last year, I came home with all kinds of random items. This year, I was much more focused.

All in all, I did enjoy the Festival. I was bummed for my friends, a couple of whom didn't find anything they really loved enough to purchase, but we had a great time together. I also enjoyed running into the blogless VTHuskies and reconnecting with her. I even enjoyed standing in the rain, waiting for the very slow catering people to make me a lambburger. Mmmm...delicious lambburger. And I got to look at the beautiful Vermont countryside, all aflame with the reds, yellows, and oranges of Autumn in New England. LOOK AT THE TREES, CHILDREN! THEY ARE BRIGHT RED! CHILDREN, LOOK AT THEM! LOOK!!!

Annemor #16

I had another trip at the end of August, a couple of days at my denomination's headquarters for a meeting. I boarded Plane #1 with Selbuvotter mitten makings in my bag: needles, pattern, unknown-brand variegated CC yarn (from the stash swap: I think it was Sweetea's?), and a skein of Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca & Silk, still in hank form. Fortunately, I had an empty seat next to me...

The flight attendant was completely fascinated by my yarn-balling activity mid-flight. She stopped and asked me what in the world I was doing. "Making a mitten," I responded. Of course! What else could I possibly be doing?

Anyway, by the end of Flight #1, I was almost satisfied with the length of the cuff. On Flight #2, I ended up sitting next to a colleague going to the same meeting, and he was thoroughly impressed with what I was doing ("You're using two different colors at once? Wow, you've got mad skillz. I don't think I know anyone who can do that." Um, you'd be surprised, friend.) and even brought it up two days later during the business meeting.

Once I got into the actual knitting of the pattern, I couldn't decide if I like the two yarns together or not. I'll keep going, I've only done about 8 rows of the pattern anyway, haven't even gotten to the thumb. But... the main color is kind of a weird wheat-yellow/celery-green, depending on the light (it looked really weird in the airplane light, above the clouds), and I'm not sure it's a pretty combination. We'll see. Since I've got so many projects in progress right now, it will probably be a while before I do any more significant work on this one.

Three BSJs in One Week...

...AAAA-hahahahahaha! Yeah, that didn't work so much.

Husband and I took a long road trip the first two weeks of August. And when I say "long road trip," I don't mean New-England-long, wherein driving for three hours is "SOOO FAAAARRRRR!" No, when we take road trips, we take road trips. 2,800+ miles in thirteen days. VT-NYC-DC-ATL-DC-VT. A real road trip.

We stopped in DC twice, on the way down for several days to visit Knitting Queen and several college friends who live in the DC area, and then again on the way up because some of those same friends were having a housewarming party and it was a good chance to see even more people I haven't seen since college. And, of course, since we're all at that almost-thirty time in life, everybody's having babies. Three different couples in DC are currently pregnant or have just given birth. In fact, one of those three couples had their baby during the week of our trip.

Three babies = three Baby Surprise Jackets.

I thought it was an ambitious-but-possibly-reasonable goal to work towards making all three BSJs during the first week of our trip. And, y'know, if I didn't get one of them done in the first week, I could definitely work on it while we were in Atlanta, and then do the gifting on our way back home. Right? Right.

Right.

First BSJ (the red one) took three separate cast-on attempts, which was most of our drive through the Adirondacks. That's almost six hours right there. Of just casting on. I didn't knit in NYC nearly as much as I thought I would, and the ball of 220 Superwash got really tangled in my purse and took nearly a day to untangle and re-roll.

(I did have an enjoyable subway moment, when the two young women sitting across from me in the subway car eyed me with envy as I was knitting, and then turned their conversation to dreams of what they'd like to knit someday -- if they ever actually bothered to pick up the needles. It was quite a hilarious situation, but contributed significantly to a need-t0-unknit-a-few-rows moment, which then started the oh-crap-what-a-tangled-mess phenomenon. That's what I get for gloating.)

I finally made some good progress on the red BSJ as we drove down the Garden State Parkway to DC/Baltimore. Finished it in DC, except for the sewing-the-shoulder-seams, and promptly lost it under stuff in the back seat of the car.

The second (blue) BSJ, I cast on somewhere between DC and Durham, NC, where we spent the night with some other college friends. I did much of the casting-on and knitting-up so much better the second time around... except that I accidentally cast on 155 stitches rather than 160, and didn't realize it until I was halfway through. I was NOT frogging several days worth of my work at this point (there was still one more BSJ to go, remember!), so I just reworked the math and kept going. But the extra math meant extra thinking for every row (wait, do I increase here, or do I increase there? How many stitches am I supposed to have on each side of the marker? How big should I make that middle section whose stitches I pick up later? ARGH).

I did not finish the blue BSJ by the time we got back up to DC on the homeward stretch of our journey. I didn't even finish it by the time we got back to Vermont, because I insisted on driving the whole way from Philadelphia to Burlington (at some point, my need to be in control of the car trumped my desire to finish the darn sweater). I finished the blue BSJ about ten days after we got home, because I wanted the needles so I could get started on the sleeve of the Minimalist Cardigan -- the night before I was taking off on my next trip. I finished the knitting, but not the shoulder seams, about 1 a.m. With a 6 a.m. flight the next day. Sigh.

One more BSJ to go. I kind of can't handle it right now, though, and want to finish my Minimalist Cardigan first. Looks like I'll need to knit the third (green) one on size 8s rather than on7s, and send that one to the biggest baby of the three.

BTW, on size 7s, one BSJ takes about a ball and a half of Cascade 220 Superwash. At some point, I'll likely make a stripey fourth BSJ out of the remainders. In spite of all the pressure I put on myself to do a bunch of the same sweater again and again (which could easily lead to me hating the pattern), I still adore the BSJ and will probably make a zillion more over the course of my lifetime.

End-of-Summer Update

I have been knitting a ton this summer. I have not been blogging equally as much. The real obstacle to blogging has been putting down the needles long enough to take pictures! Um, that and all the actual working I have done. My job really cuts into my blogging time. Funny how that works.

It has seriously been a "Startitis Summer." And I'm okay with that. Now that I have a moment to breathe (and to blog), here's a bit of an update:

Minimalist Cardigan is 70% done. The back and both fronts are done. First sleeve is started, just barely. I only have one skein left of the Lamb's Pride. Will I have enough to finish two sleeves? Stay tuned.

I have not worked on the Kiki Mariko Rug at all. It's huge and heavy, and I needed something lighter that I could carry with me in my gadding-about.

I really did quite a bit of traveling this summer, more than I have in the past, and it looks like the trend is likely to continue and I will become a prolific airplane knitter when I'm not using that time to do some undisturbed church-calendar planning.

Started on another pair of stranded mittens -- that's another post for another day. We also went on a two-week road trip, wherein I attempted to make three BSJs in one week, and failed miserably. That's also for another post. The point of this post, really, is to let you know that I am alive and well and knitting away... I'm just not writing much about it, but will pick that piece up again soon.

Taking Stock

Two years ago, I went to my denomination's big national meeting. And I got a job and a sweater out of the deal.

This year, I went back (it only happens every two years) as a delegate from Vermont, which sounds very important. (And it is very important, but it mostly means that I have a 6:30 a.m. meeting every day, and a voting card.) And I was extremely busy. So busy, I didn't have time to go check out City Knitting, the yarn shop in Grand Rapids that I wanted to visit. But JerseyKnitter went!

Thankfully, I'd brought yarn. Stash yarn, in fact. A very deep navy "Bulldog Blue" from Brown Sheep (Lamb's Pride Worsted). I'm working on the Minimalist Cardigan (Rav link). I got the whole back done while I was sitting in meetings, but then discovered on the airplane home that I'd missed some decreases for the underarms -- so I had to frog 7 inches and pick up the stitches to do the decreases. Argh.

Anyway, here's me blissfully knitting away in a business meeting. More pics of the sweater later. I've now got one half of the right front panel finished, as well.

Elephant!

While I was in Texas this past March, my sister was in...India. With husband and baby. That's right, she took a four-month-old baby to India. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I didn't set foot on an airplane until I was fifteen years old. Can I be jealous of my nephew for being more well-traveled than I am? Is that okay?

They went to an elephant sanctuary and had a great time. I assume that Nephew slept through it all; he certainly won't remember any of it later. So I knitted him an elephant (Rav link), another one of the patterns in Zoe Mellor's Knitted Toys.

I love the projects in this book so much, but the patterns are so badly written. So much unnecessary seaming! It's infuriating! Not that I plan to knit another elephant, but I've been trying to figure out how to improve the process of this pattern -- what can be done in the round, etc. So dumb. But I digress...

I used Colinette Cadenza again, the same yarn I used for both toy bears I made last year. A great yarn for baby toys, soft and washable, and also good quality. I used the "Jewel" colorway for the elephant, because the colors made me think of the flash and color and beauty of India (not that I've seen them myself). And although I looked at this colorway on the shelf a zillion times and thought, "goodness, that's some ugly yarn! Who in the world would want those colors together?" when I decided to make this pattern, I knew that was the exact right colorway for this particular elephant.

I did manage to do a three-needle bind-off for the two gusset pieces (can I just say, how unhelpful is it to call the belly of the elephant a "gusset?" Legs, body, trunk...gusset? That is not a body part! Dumb!!! It's the underside of the elephant, the belly!!! GRRR!!!), so didn't have to get out the tapestry needle for that one. Then I blocked all the pieces -- and I must admit, I didn't know the Hot-Iron-On-Wet-Washcloth Blocking Trick before doing this pattern, and I love it and will forever be grateful to Zoe Mellor and her terrible pattern-writing for teaching me this technique -- and set about the stupidly time-consuming task of sewing them all together.

Seriously, it took me as much time to do the sewing as it took to do the knitting. Eye roll. The entire car ride to their house, then two nights on the couch... I had to give Nephew the not-quite-finished elephant before bed in order to get pictures of him playing with it (he liked it, I'm glad to say!), and then had to stay up until the wee hours of the morning before our departure to get all the seaming and stuffing done. Hence the terribly-lit late-night photo above.Still, I'm happy with the finished product, even if the process left something to be desired. Also, my nephew is so beautiful! He's slightly over six months in this picture (and today is his 7-month birthday).

Mother's Day -- on my schedule, not the world's

I've inherited many things from my mother: her laugh (which my brother and I used to make fun of when I was little, so there's a little poetic justice for you!), her eyebrows (tho' I groom mine more heavily than she does hers), her ability to spend an entire day sitting in front of the computer without actually accomplishing anything but thoroughly enjoying herself in the process, her tendency towards optimism -- which leads to a tendency to bite off more than we can chew (witness: our choice of houses, with accompanying "projects" and "yardwork" that will never be completed) -- which leads to a wonderfully cheerful attitude toward accepting one's own limits and imperfections. I think she's great, and I am so honored every time someone says I am like her.

One of the other things I inherited from my mother was her inability to get anything in the mail in a timely manner. For example, her birthday was two months ago, and although I have knitted several items to send her AND I fully intended to give back that book she lent me in October so we could discuss it when I read it (which I did: I'm not a complete reprobate!) AND I wrote her a card that I know is really sweet but it's been so long that I've forgotten what I said in it... all the items I've been meaning to mail her are sitting in a box in my living room totally ready to walk with me the two blocks to the post office. It's a walk I make nearly every day, because the post office is on the way to everywhere else I could possibly want to go in this town. And yet, there's the box, still at my house. And postage rates went up today. I'm so organized (another thing I inherited from her.)

So here you go, Mom: a picture of me wearing the scarf I made you (and didn't tell you about! I was trying to surprise you!) when I was in Texas in March. I post silly-looking pictures of myself on the internet, just for you. Happy Mother's Day, a day late.



The progress shots and specs:
Tilli Tomas "Milan" silk/wool yarn, one full skein, Napoleon Lace Scarf by Kaleidoscope Yarns (a freebie yarn and pattern from a giveaway/sale thingy last year).

Also, many thanks to Sweetea, whose blocking wires I have been holding hostage for a shamefully long time. Again with the organization.

Henry II

I'm 75% done with Henry.

I know that because I have four skeins of this cashmere, and I've used three of them. I keep hoping to find a fifth skein hiding somewhere, but I've been through my entire stash in the last week doing some It's-the-End-of-Lent-and-I-Will-Do-Anything-but-Prepare-for-Holy-Week procrastination (ahem! like this post), and I didn't find any more, so that must be it.

Still, I'm quite happy with what I've got so far. I think the scarf is a good width -- I have no idea about the length, since it's scrunched up on the needles and won't be un-scrunched until it's bound off -- and I'll be happy with the final product.

I have really enjoyed working on this pattern. It's a bit tricky to get the hang of it, and for the first 5 or so rows I was really trusting that the instructions were well-written, because I didn't get it at all.

But then it clicked. And I've been speeding along. This was another case where the comments on Ravelry had me a little bit psyched out -- everyone talked about how it was so hard, and I couldn't find anything positive at all! -- but they also all agreed that it was worth it in the end. And really, this yarn was screaming out to be the Henry scarf, so I couldn't ignore that.

The texture shows up nicely on both sides of the fabric, which I really like. In the picture at right, you can see both sides -- the underside is on the left half of the picture, and the "right side" is in the right half. I like that the herringbone "weave" is so subtle, you really have to step back and let your eyes kind of blur to see it. Nice.

I got brave and started taking out the provisional cast-on a week ago or so. It takes time to remove, so I'm doing little bits at a time (that takes self-control! I really just want to spend two hours picking it out!) The cast-on really doesn't unravel, just like the designer promised! I, like everyone else who's made Henry, was nervous about that... but it's fine. And such a cool fringe on the edge.

As I've been working on this scarf, I keep thinking it might be cool to take up weaving. I know some women here who are big in the Weaver's Guild, so it'd be easy to get connected and take some lessons... but do I really need another hobby? One with, um, actual machinery? No. No, I do not. And I don't think I could love weaving like I love knitting -- not for the same reasons, anyway. I can see myself stressing far more about weaving, which is also something I do not need.

I think it's the spell of Henry. Maybe I just need to knit more things that look woven. That is, after all, what I like about this piece.

Doc just likes it as a pillow for his window seat.

And LOOK! Henry grew a tail!!!

Happy Easter, everybody.

Quick Sock Update

I finished the Ugliest Socks Ever! And I'm trying to convince myself that they're really not so ugly after all. I hope the recipient of these socks (who isn't Husband) won't think they're ugly, or at least won't tell me if he/she does.

But they are too big for my foot, that's for sure. You can't really see it in this photo (and I'm not going to take another one!), but there's at least an inch more sock-toe than actual toe in there. Whoops!

Yes, this was one of my travel knitting projects. More travel knitting updates to come... but no photos, because what happens in Texas stays in Texas (or, at least, doesn't get posted on the internets.)(You put nine women in a beach house on a rainy weekend, and there's not much to take photos of anyway. We mostly just sat around.)