And now, a picture of sheep.

Since I'm between projects, I thought I'd just show you all a picture of sheep and be done with it for a little while. These sheep are being herded by a team of dogs during the Scottish Festival in Stone Mountain, GA. Must be 2007? Something like that. It looks like they are running straight towards me -- and, well, they are -- but they will soon turn because the dogs will make them. I did not get trampled by sheep.

Spotted!

My friend Samantha managed to take pictures of me wearing multiple Finished Objects at once: Tangled Yoke Cardigan, and Flurries Hat and Mittens. Perhaps she should win a prize. How's "undying love and affection" for you, Sam? Or maybe continued invitations to Friday Night at My House? I'm hoping that will be acceptable, 'cause I ain't got much else to give right now.

Yes, the Flurries Hat is done. The 126 stitches of the lining was exactly right, and my original math of 98 stitches for the Flurries was right-on despite the earlier math difficulties with the Cashsoft, so I have no idea what I was thinking. I love that it's a little bit cloche-like, and also that the pink of the lining peeks out next to my face. It peeks out from the cuffs of the mittens, too.
I knit the lining all the way up to where I'd need to start decreasing, so the hat is super-thick and -warm. Hooray! You can kind of see the "ridge" where the lining ends in this photo that Samantha took -->


After she left, I tried to take more pictures of the hat myself. Most of these attempts were rather unsuccessful, like this one:

(who am I kidding? That's one of the good unsuccessful attempts!) But eventually I did get it right.







Anyway, I'm officially "between projects" right now... which actually means that I am only working on the Ugliest Socks Ever and the Labyrinth Rug, neither of which are seeing much progress at the moment.

Taking a Mulligan

I'm trying to make the lining for the hat that will match these mittens.

I went to DC last week to visit some friends and take a little mini-break. Through a perfectly normal series of plane-delay happenings -- which seemed rather surreal due to a significant lack of sleep the night before -- I managed to get stuck in Kennedy airport during the first half of the Superbowl. And what else can you do when you're stuck in an airport during the Superbowl but sidle up to the bar, order dinner and a large Cosmo, and watch the game and halftime show?

Oh, yeah. You can cast on for a hat, too.

Now, I did my math well. I did my math sober and after a good night of sleep, even. And I double-checked that-there gauge. I was supposed to cast on 140 stitches of this Cashsoft for this hat, and that's what I did. Twice, in fact. The first time, during the Superbowl, I managed to twist my stitches, and only discovered the mobius-strip quality of my knitting the next day. So I frogged it, and made extra-sure (no Cosmo this time) not to twist my stitches when I cast on my 140 again. Two days of travel-knitting: in the car, in the DC Metro, in Jennie's living room while watching movies... came to the end of the ball... aaaannd the darn thing is huge. The above photo is me, wearing the hat lining over my glasses. It fit quite comfortably that way, thank you. A little hard to see, though.

I did attempt to salvage the work by trying out my friend Tara's serger -- not on the Cashsoft, thank goodness, but on some spare knitting scraps that Tara had lying around her apartment. (And forgot to take photos, of course.) The serger idea didn't so much work, so...

Into the Frogpile with you!
There goes all the travel knitting from my time in DC.

Ah, well, frogging builds character.

Then again, I forgot to recheck my gauge before I frogged, so I just had to guess. I cast on 126 stitches last night, and hopefully that'll be a better fit.

Good Cable, Bad Cable

See this cable here? The one my finger is pointing to?

You wouldn't know it unless I told you, but that is a mis-crossed cable. The cable that's crossed over the top is supposed to be underneath, and vice versa.

Oh, and it's two rows down.

I mis-crossed this cable on all 20 pattern repeats. Because I'm awesome. Sigh.

Rather than rip out several rows of cabling, thereby risking untold numbers of dropped stitches and losing my place in the chart (there were 400-some stitches per row at this point!), I decided that it would be better to do a micro-fix of each mis-crossed cable. First I took out the four stitches above the mis-cross, and dropped down to where the cable-crossing actually happened.


Using an extra DPN of the same size as my main needles, I picked up the four offending stitches and crossed them correctly, then (using a second extra DPN) re-knit the next stitches up one-by-one, very carefully.




Then I continued knitting along until I got to the next spot where I needed to drop stitches and start over. I did this on all 20 mis-crossed cables, so my Tangled Yoke came out perfectly. (The misadventures along the way are half the fun of the knitting, right?)


Et voilà! A correctly crossed cable!

My Tangled Yoke Cardigan has now made public appearances in both DC and Vermont. If by "public" you mean "a friend's living room." I have yet to get someone to take an actual picture of me wearing the darn thing, though. Still, it has been OOHed and AAHed over appropriately, so I ain't complainin'. I have a nasty head cold right now, so it's not like I'm really out and about anyway.

BLOGIVERSARY!

I cannot believe I've been knitblogging for three years. I missed my 2nd blogiversary altogether, and celebrated the first a couple of months after the fact. But now I've done year three, and, frankly, I'm amazed that I've stuck with it this long.

I think that knitting is a bigger part of my life now than it was when I started the blog. Thanks for reading, and sharing this journey with me.

The Tangled Yoke Cardigan Is Officially Done

For now, I'm just posting a couple of Finished Object photos. Tales of my escapades with this project will have to wait for another day.

Wet-blocking. There was so much lanolin in the yarn, the FO needed to be washed pretty thoroughly anyway. I will have to go back and steam-block the buttonhole band, because it's curling as it dries.



A close-up of the yoke. When I did a search as I first started the project and needed getting-over-it help, I couldn't find any close-ups on the internets. So here's mine. Pay it forward.

Flurries Mittens -- Felted!

Dear Laundromat Washing Machine Repair Guy,

Okay, so I know it's not really all that nice of me to felt my knitted items in a machine that is not my own. That's why I put the mittens in the pillowcase. I checked faithfully, but the pillowcase kept opening and the mittens kept swishing themselves out as the machine agitated. I am terribly sorry. Next time, I promise I will use safety pins to keep the pillowcase closed. This is the way it's going to have to be until we are able to get our own washing machine. Monday was laundry day.

Please forgive me,
HolyKnitter

p.s. but aren't these mittens so wonderful?!!?!? love love love!

The Knitting Queen

Now that she's done with graduate school (CONGRATULATIONS!!!!), my friend Jennie has resurrected her knitting blog, which was the original inspiration for my blog. She's even given it a facelift, with new pretty colors and a cleaner general aesthetic. So you should all go visit her blog and leave lots of encouraging "glad you're back!" comments.

I, for one, am going to visit her. In person. Right now.

In fact, I wrote this entry ahead of time and scheduled it to post while I'm in-flight. Jennie, please remember to pick me up at the airport!