It's About Darn Time!

I've been married for four years, this coming August. Before that, we were "together" for about three years. All told, Husband and I have been basically inseparable for nearly seven years. In that time, I've knit him hats and mittens and scarves and who knows what else... but I've never knit him a sweater.

I tried once. I bought some awesome local yarn, and we even went to the farm together and met the sheepies who grew the wool. He picked out a pattern and I cast on... and knit maybe 2 rows? This yarn did not want to be this pattern, and it was just wrong. Wrong! So I stopped. I haven't even bothered to frog those two rows. The yarn and needles are still in the box on a shelf, waiting for me to do something with them. Anything. That shelf is like a big void in that room. I can't even look at it.

But recently, Husband actually started making noises about wanting me to knit him a sweater. How many dang sweaters have I knit for myself? How many babies have I knit for? And then one day, of his own volition, he picked up my copy of Son of Stitch n' Bitch and found two different sweaters he liked. "You could maybe knit me one of these," he said "Which one do you like better?" Because he is subtle like that.

Ohhhhhh that Husband of mine, he is a smooth operator.

So I picked the one I thought would look better on him: Biker Boy (Rav link). This is a basic zippered cardigan. I've never done anything big with a zipper before, so even though it's a pretty simple pattern, there is still a challenge built in to this experience. The pattern has a dumb skull inset and some other silly color detailing, but we're just keeping it solid gray, no frippery. Skulls aren't really Husband's style, but he's excited that the double-layer neck will give him some extra insulation in the winter. We went to Northeast Fiber Arts to choose some yarn together (setting myself up for success this time), and I cast-on on Easter, after I took a looooong nap.

Here's the beginning. Most of the body -- I did some while he was away traveling, so stopped at a point where I thought I should measure it on him but he wasn't around -- and the cuffs of the sleeves, started when the body got too big to carry in my purse. Thanks to the awesome Knitpicks Options needles that Husband gave me for Christmas, I have that... uh, option.

The yarn is Cascade Rustic -- a 79% wool/21% linen single-ply blend. He wanted something tweedy, but NEFAC has trouble getting tweed to sell so they don't stock much. We went with this interesting not-quite-tweed instead. It's soft, and not as splitty as I was afraid it would be (given 220 Superwash's proclivities, I steer clear of most Cascade yarns now), and I've been pretty happy with it. Not a yarn I expect to want to knit with again in the future, but not one I'd turn down if the situation called for it.

Husband is happy with the sweater so far. Occasionally he looks over and says, "Oh, that's really niiiice" when he sees me working on it. Like I said, smooth operator.

And I guess he has to be, if he's ever going to get a handknit sweater from me. Seven years is a long wait.

Shalom Continued

When last we left the Shalom Cardigan, I was in a tight spot because I didn't quite have enough yarn to finish the second sleeve. But I had also knitted the body too big, so I was hopeful that ripping and reknitting would achieve a less lumpy-bumpy body AND garner me yarn enough to finish Sleeve #2 without having to cannibalize Sleeve #1.

I frogged the body all the way up to the armholes/yoke garter-ridge, which enabled me to remove the extra bust-area stitches I'd added on the front panels. Funny, I found a note-to-self that I'd made on Ravelry, and I totally should have seen it coming: "body stitches (after arms bound off) = 32+12+47+12+32=135 stitches --> should be 41.5” around bust." I don't know what I was thinking. I do not have a 41.5" bust even when I'm wearing thick clothing. And I was wanting some negative ease in there! (I always forget about calculating for ease.) Clearly, I was doing the planning in a not-good-for-planning state of mind.

So I ripped out the body. I recalibrated my understanding of how the sweater would actually fit on my body, and knit accordingly. This meant I had 28+12+47+12+28=127 stitches around -- and after four rows, I decreased by two on each front panel. After four more rows, I decreased by two again on each front panel, plus decreased two more in the back (near the underarms). Down to 117 stitches. Then I did a little more decreasing for waist shaping, and then some increasing for hip shaping...

And came up with a much more flattering fit. And a ball of leftover yarn that gave me hope. Perhaps I would be able to finish that second sleeve without needing to frog the first after all!

(This is me on Good Friday, home after the noon service, still dressed for work.)

Holy Saturday ended up being an absolutely gorgeous day. And I had managed to wrangle my Holy Week so that I could actually have some sabbath on Holy Saturday instead of having to get work done. So I got to go to my CSA farm (this is not a noraml CSA thing -- my knitter-friend Mango happens to live there) and knit on the porch with my friends.

(This is me and Aubrey diligently knitting away. I must be sewing on a button? Aubrey is working on a BSJ. What a gorgeous afternoon! And yes, Mom, I was wearing sunscreen.)(Thanks Jess for the photo!)

My goal was to finish the sleeve and sew on the buttons, and mayyyyybe even weave in the ends.

... I accomplished my goal. And got my first soft-serve ice cream of the year, too.

The buttons may be a smiiiidge small -- I might go back to NEFAC to get new ones, or I might just see if I can fiddle with the buttonholes themselves to ensmallinate them.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the Shalom Cardigan pattern, and with my modifications to it. The sleeves are great, the fit is great, the whole thing is great great great! I've never really thought that mustard yellow was a good color for me, but I think I'm changing my mind. I expect to wear this baby a lot!

I would totally knit this pattern again, and use this Debbie Bliss yarn again (too bad it's discontinued). Five stars, all around!

Look at me being all modelly, swinging my hair in the breeze! I repeat: it was a gorgeous day.

Everything Works out for the Best

Sometimes, the knitting gods work to make everything come together for you. Sometimes, you have to help them out a bit.

I picked up six skeins of a lovely mustard-y Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed Chunky on super-sale at Northeast Fiber Arts Center at the end of February. I would have bought more, but six skeins was all they had -- and the point of the sale was to get rid of the discontinued stuff, so six skeins was all there was.

Poking around on Ravelry, I decided that the Shalom Cardigan was the sweater that this yarn wanted to be. And a-ha! I had a conference coming up and, even though I was bringing my Confirmation class with me and therefore would be attending to them the whole time, I would still need something to knit on while sitting in the plenaries and workshops. I got myself all ready: wound up a couple of skeins, went to the store to buy the needles... and then all kinds of chaos and drama hit at work, and I stalled on the preparation a bit.

Friday, I went to the conference by myself (fortunately, this conference happened to be in Burlington, at a conference center a mile or so from my house), and I ended up arriving late, straight from the office, and didn't have my knitting with me. That was something of a bummer. Friday night, I went home, printed out the pattern, figured out which modifications I wanted to make and did all the math to make the sweater fit my body a bit better (it's made for a tall skinny gal, and... well, I have curves), dug out the needles I'd bought that week... and realized they were too short. I'd bought the 16" length, and there's just no way I was going to fit all 169 chunky stitches on only 16" of circular needle. But it was 11:30 at night. And I had to pick up the girls at church at 7:30 the next morning, and because I had ducklings to lead around all day, there was no chance of slipping out and hitting the yarn store when it was open.

Cell phones to the rescue. I texted Aubrey: "Are you still up? Do you have size 10.5 circular? Mine is too short -- 16" -- do you have longer?" She texted back: "I only have 40", is that too long?" "Perfect! Can I come pick up now?" And I did. 11:30 at night, Aubrey meets me in her driveway. She's wearing a very long coat and probably not much else. I'm wearing pajama pants, sweater, no bra. I'm trying to make some kind of "needle exchange" joke here, but it's not working. But picture it. (Needle exchange: get it?) What an awesome friend. Thank you, Aubrey.

I finally got to bed about 1:30. Got up at 6:45, made coffee, got dressed, and hit the road. Spent the day at the conference with the girls -- we all had an *awesome* time, and they were so inspired and excited. It was a long day (14 hours!) but an excellent one. And I knitted exactly one skein -- about 2/3 of the whole yoke. At the beginning of the day, one of the girls (the one who isn't the daughter of a heavy knitter) looked at the pattern and said "how much of that are you going to make today?" and I told her I thought I could get the yoke done in a day. Turns out, I was about right: if I hadn't had to rip out half my work at lunchtime because I'd knitted a row I should have purled, I would have had the whole yoke done by the end of the day. As it is, I was pretty happy with 2/3 of it. I worked up exactly one skein of yarn: a football field in length. Nothing to be ashamed of, for sure. When's the last time YOU knit a whole football field in a day?

The next day, I knit up a whole 'nother football field after church AND took a long nap in the afternoon. Yoke done, plus a smidge of the body. A third of the sweater completed (I'm adding sleeves) in only two days. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty decent work. The knitting gods and me, we make a good team.


(more about the mods I made in another post.)