Is There Such a Thing as Finishitis?

We all know about Startitis.  It’s the desire to start new knitting projects, often several new projects at once.  We all know I’ve suffered from (and succumbed to) Startitis many times in the past.

I think I’ve been going through a bout of Finishitis, and it feels very strange.  It sort of started with the Fireside (or maybe with Husband’s sweater?), and then the Fiddlehead Mittens, but it hit a whole new level last week:

I took the final step for finishing Henry.

Longtime readers will recall that I ran out of yarn for Henry and had to frog the swatch I’d made so I could learn the funky stitch pattern before casting on the four-hundred-some stitches needed to knit the actual scarf.  I frogged the swatch but had to soak the yarn to un-kink it, and that’s where I’d gotten stuck.  “Oh, I’ll get around to it someday” is something of a motto of mine for many things, and I’ve been “meaning to” soak that bit of yarn for what, three years now?

I finally did it.  Soaked, hung to dry, reballed… I’m ready to go.  I think this might actually happen, folks.  Henry will finally be a wearable scarf, instead of tethered to his size-three circulars.  That will be awesome.

I really hope this is the right amount of yarn, because this is all I have.

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.

Mittens for Ben, take two

These are the mittens I made for my neighbor DSB. I used exactly one skein of Cascade 220, with no leftovers!


I improvised the pattern:

CO 60 sts on size 5 dpns, and double-knit in the round (look up double-knitting -- I'm not enough of an expert to explain it here, but it means you have two layers of knitted fabric) for a couple of inches.
Start increasing for thumb gusset -- first on the inside layer, and then on the outside -- and increase every other round (so, once inside, once outside, and then do a plain round once inside and once outside) until you have added 16 stitches to each layer.
Set thumb sts. aside and reconnect hand stitches to continue in the round.
Keep going until the hand is big enough to fit.
Um, decrease a few rows in there somewhere, and on your last round, do a full-on knit-purl-knit-purl to connect the two layers (so the inside layer won't come out when you pull your hand out of the mitten). I think I ended up with about 12 stitches at the end. It makes a pretty star at the top. Then run the end of the yarn through those last 12 stitches and pull tight. Weave in end.
Return thumb stitches to needles, knit the thumb until it's long enough, do a round of p2tog decreases on the inside layer, then a round of k2tog decreases on the outside layer. Do one row of kpkp like for the top of the mitten, then close off the top of the thumb. Weave in ends, and use the beginning-thumb tail to close up the hole between the thumb and the hand.

If desired, use remaining yarn to crochet a chain, and connect the chain to the wrist of each mitten. String through coat sleeves and pretend you are a four-year-old!

Watch out, because these took me a freakin' month to make. Double-knitting is soooooo sloooooowww.

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.

Henry the Scarf

This is Henry. Henry's a scarf that's knit lengthwise, and has a beautiful herringbone slip-stitch pattern that looks complicated and difficult but really isn't. Henry's 450-some stitches long, and that's a lot of stitches to cram onto my little size 3 circulars. One row takes for-ev-er to knit: I got almost two rows done in two hours of knitting group the other day. OY.

The yarn I'm using is special. It's Knit One Crochet Too's now-discontinued Richesse et Soie, a 65/35 cashmere-silk blend that is pretty much too sumptuous for words. I've had it stashed for years -- bought four balls of it one-by-one from a yarn shop near the school where I worked in Georgia. I've been holding on to them, wondering what to do with them, wondering if I'd just keep this gorgeous yarn just to have it, until Knitty posted Henry and I just knew that a herringbone scarf is what this yarn wants to be. Is it for me? Is it for Husband? I haven't decided yet. We'll probably steal it back and forth from one another.

Since it's apparently going to take me forever to make this baby anyway, I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. I've got some plane rides in my near future, and Henry is still perfectly purse-sized, so he'll be my carry-on companion.

In case you're confused by the photo: the scarf itself is gray, the provisional cast-on is with leftover sock yarn, hence the blue. It's not a part of the finished product.

Accidents Happen

So, Husband and I were supposed to go to Boston this past weekend, but Sister called on Sunday after church to say "I'm sick. Nephew's sick. Don't come."

So suddenly we had a free two days that we weren't anticipating. We were bummed, because we really want to see Nephew, but we didn't want to be a burden on Sister and didn't want to risk spreading the germs anyway. So we stayed home.

I'd planned to go to my Sunday afternoon knitting group, but took a nap that went a wee bit too long, and just couldn't motivate myself to get out of the house. Besides, the knitting that was tugging at me was something I've been wanting to learn for a while -- and not something I wanted to learn while sitting in a coffee shop with my 4-12 closest knitting buddies. You know what I mean. I love you gals and all, but learning something new requires a kind of focus I'm just not going to achieve in that space.

I'd looked it up on Ravelry, this thing I wanted to learn. I've seen a few mittens lately with a beautiful vertical-stripey cuff, and (a) had no idea how to do it, and (b) had no idea what it's called, so didn't really know how to ask. Turns out, it's called the Corrugated Cuff, and someone who claims to be an expert says it's a traditional Norwegian thing -- although, Selbuvotter doesn't mention the Corrugated Cuff or show any pictures of it at all. That kind of has me wondering.

Let me back up a minute here. Selbuvotter is, in the words of author Terri Shea, "a research project that [she] accidentally over-achieved." Really, it's a book about Norwegian mittens, particularly from the region/town of Selbu, and the economy that was built on the backs of the women who knit these particular mittens. And then it has a ton of patterns!

Anyway, I bought this book in the KnitPicks book sale, read the whole thing on the airplane to DC two weeks ago, and decided that a stranded mitten project was just the thing for my personal Lenten Discipline. (The book in the photo above is Mason-Dixon Knitting's second book: really good section/instructions on beginning Fair Isle technique.)

Lent is the six-week period leading up to Easter. Traditionally, it's a time when Christians give up something they like (maybe a bit too much) -- something like chocolate, or red meat -- something that is perhaps a bit of an indulgence anyway. It's a good time to think about what's really important in our lives, why we make the choices we make, etc. It's a time where we focus on self-discipline.

And, in the self-discipline mode, there has been a newer movement in the last, ohhhh, maybe 10-20 years? that suggests we take on a discipline for Lent rather than give up something. In years past, I've carried around a bottle of water and been very intentional about drinking a certain amount every day -- normally, I forget to drink water, and generally tend to ignore my body and its legitimate basic needs (sleep, food, water). For several years, Lent was a time when I'd focus on my physical well-being through simply making sure I wasn't dehydrated.

Well, I'm totally still dehydrated. But I needed something new for Lent this year, and I figured that a knitting goal to learn something new would be just about right. I've known theoretically how to do stranded knitting for several years -- but knowing theoretically how to do something and actually doing it are two different things. This year is the year I actually do a stranded project, dammit!

I like the Corrugated Cuff, I wanted to learn how to do it, and yeah, Lent is still ten days away or so (it begins on Ash Wednesday, which is February 25 this year), but I'm between projects and kind of chomping at the bit on this thing, so I figured I'd just learn how to do the cuff. That would take a while, right? And meanwhile I could think about what other project(s) I'd like to do.

Weeeeell, it turns out that figuring out the cuff was easier than I thought. Looking it up on Ravelry helped, of course, but I thought I might have a harder time than I did. I cast on 54 stitches, knit one solid round, and began a k2, p1 rib (on a corrugated cuff, you knit with the main color and purl with the contrasting color -- a very cool effect). The next thing I knew, I'd made a good 2.5 inches or so, had gotten the hang of it, and was ready to move on. Out comes Selbuvotter!

I figured that, since this is my first stranded project, I'd try one of the simpler, symmetrical patterns -- one I liked enough to wear, but not so much that I'd be heartbroken if my tension was all off and it looked funny. I settled on Annemor #2, figured out how to fudge some of the math (the pattern calls for a ribbed cuff of 40 stitches -- I started with 54!), and found an America's Next Top Model marathon on TV. In other words, I settled in.

Um, the mitten didn't quite take as long as I thought it might. I did modify the thumb-hole a tiny bit, in that I did a tubular cast-on rather than a backwards loop cast-on for the top stitches. (That way I could alternate the colors and carry both strands more evenly.) Husband made dinner, I knit. I got to the decrease-for-fingertip part and went to bed -- at a reasonable hour, even!

Monday, we got up and I finished the fingertip. Then I talked Husband into accompanying me to a local coffee shop, where I proceeded to cast on for the second mitten. Five hours later, I'd finished that fingertip, too. We went home, we ate dinner, I knit a thumb, we went to bed.

Tuesday after work, I finished the second thumb and wove in the ends. I... accidentally made a pair of mittens. And accidentally did my Lenten knitting project before Lent started. Whoops!

So I guess now I have to figure out what my Lenten Discipline is going to be. Hmmm.

(Yarn is Blue Sky's Alpaca Silk; size 4 needles. I used almost a whole skein each of the gray and the white -- I only had one skein of white, but two of the gray, which is why I made gray the main color. Just in case I ran out of that first, you know. I'm kind of amazed at how little yarn these mittens used, really. Or how much yardage comes in a single skein of Alpaca Silk.)


Not perfect, but pretty anyway!