Intro to Fireside

A couple of friends and I decided this spring to do a cabled sweater as a knit-along.  Not a big deal, nothing formal, just a "hey, let's each knit the same sweater pattern and see how the finished products come out different" experiment.  I'm not quite sure how we settled on the Fireside Sweater (Rav link), because I came late to this game, but I appreciated not having to participate in a lengthy deliberation process.  All I had to do was grab some Lamb's Pride Worsted from my stash and get to work.

Fireside is a gorgeous cabled concoction with a sumptuous collar.  Turns out, though, that the pattern's a bit of a mess.  It's just not very well-written (it's clearly-written, but not well-thought-out in a few places) and I'm very glad that I spent a good bit of time on Ravelry reading about the ways other knitters had modified the pattern.  For one thing, this is the designer's first pattern.  Or first sweater pattern, maybe.  Anyway, there's a hint of not-knowing-what-she's-doing to it.

This not-knowing-what-she's-doing is most clear in the way she has written the upsizing: the designer happens to fit a size XS, and she made the sweater for herself... but her solution to upsizing was to add extra inches of reverse-stockinette between cables and cable-panels.  So for those of us who are not size XS, the extra "empty" space simply makes the cabling look sparse -- so the bigger you are, the farther-apart the panels are... that is, the wider you are, the wider you look.  (And seriously?  I'm knitting a size medium.  I can't imagine how an XL sweater would look, but it seems like there'd be more reverse-stockinette than cables.)  This is particularly an issue for the back of the sweater, which has a giant swath of rev-st that's just supposed to get wider the wider you are.  Not flattering!  It looks like everyone who's bigger than an XS has modified the sweater somehow to deal with this issue.  Most of the good mods I've seen are either additions of cables in the places that called for wide swaths of reverse-stockinette, or an increase in the size of the original cable panels.  I'm doing the former, adding cables in the center back and on the sides.

I added this cable in the center back at the bottom.

There will be a complimentary one at the top, too, when I get that far.

I also decided to knit the sweater in one piece rather than in two front panels and a back.  I'm more likely to finish it that way.  We all know that.  So I added cables on the sides under the arms where a seam would have gone, partly to fill up the reverse-stockinette space, and partly to add some of the structure a seam would have provided.  I've got a little i-cord edging happening on the front panels, too.  It looks a little funny right now, but once I block the whole thing I think it'll work out.

So far I've got a body and two sleeves -- up to the point where I'd join them to knit a yoke and do it all in one piece, but I think I am going to sew the sleeves on as written.  I've got to knit in inch or so more of the body before attaching the sleeves and attempting to, but I wanted to get the sleeves done first so I could figure it all out, and I'm glad I did because it turns out I had to modify the sleeves even more than the body (thanks to the poorly-thought-out upsizing, if I'd knitted the sleeves as written they would have been suuuuuper wide)... and, well, I think these decisions are good fodder for a future post.  Stay tuned to find out what I decide.

Banished to the WIP Pile

Husband's sweater has given me no end of trouble.  A quick reference guide for those not keeping track: I made husband pick a pattern and yarn.  It was a pattern made for somebody's tall skinny bike-messenger husband.  I had to make tons of mods in order to get gauge, and prepared my average-height average-build hasn't-ridden-a-bike-in-25-years Husband for potential fit concerns with this pattern.  I had no problems with knitting the body (well, no problems other than boredom), but had to knit the dang sleeves four times.


Finally, I was able to connect the sleeves to the body while I was at a continuing education thing in January.  I got about 10 inches into the yoke and ...well, that's when it happened.  It was about time to switch to the collar stitches so I was making sure things were squared away, and I made an important and unfortunate discovery.  I'd miscounted the stitches when I first attached the sleeves to the body, and one sleeve had 10 stitches more than the other.

I learned how to draw on pictures just so I could show you this 10-stitch discrepancy.

Y'all, this is so disheartening.  I really do want to make a sweater for Husband, I swear.  And I want it to be good when it's done.  I want him to want to wear it.  Every day.  I want it to be the best sweater he has, and I want him to beg me to make more for him.


I also want the Knitting Fairy to frog the yoke and re attach the sleeves with the right counting, because I just cannot do this on my own.  Husband's Sweater is officially on hold again.

Back from the (Inadvertent) Hiatus

I didn't mean to take a hiatus from blogging.  No, seriously.  It's just that... well, my laptop died.  Or not exactly died, but was in a coma for a few months.  The hard drive decided it was incompatible with the wireless internet device (or maybe it was the other way around) and my Resident Computer Repairman (a.k.a. Husband) was living two states away and attending grad school.  He swapped out my hard drive and set me up with some funky Linux system on the new drive, but... well, all my photos were on my old drive.  And I couldn't put any photos on the new drive.  So I was basically stuck with a laptop that allowed me to go online and to write my sermon once a week, but since it was a temporary solution I couldn't do anything long-term.  Like put pictures on it.  Or upload them to my blog.  Sigh.

Husband finally realized how this barely-functional "temporary" solution was cramping my style (for, um, months) and spent a night fixing my old drive and saving all the data and getting me Windows and enabling me to use my computer again.  And so here I am!  Able to blog again!  Photos are not lost!  Some stuff on that drive was lost (some important stuff.  Really important.  Dangit.) but not the photos.  And I also have a place to put the photos I've taken in the computerless interim.  And now I can blog about them.

So here's what you have to look forward to over the next couple of weeks or so ('cause I'm gonna drag out this posting thing for as long as I can get away with it):

• An update on Husband's sweater
• An update on another sweater that I'm doing as a knit-along, but I might be the only person in the group who's still working on it, because the pattern is not well-written.
• SOCKS.  Yes.  Me.  Knitting socks.
• And MORE SOCKS.  That's right, you heard me.
• My thoughts for my participation in the Ravelympics newly-named Ravellenic Games, even though I may have missed the deadline to sign up officially.  Honestly, I don't care about it enough to bother signing up formally and, like, paying attention to rules.  Also I think I'm traveling during the Olympics.
• Hopefully by the time those five get posted, I'll have come up with something else to show for myself, too.

Now you have something to look forward to reading on here!  'Cause I know you've been on the edge of your seats for, like, months.  Me too.

LIZARD RIDGE IS DONE!

It's done, I tell you!

Well, okay, I need to weave in the ends.  Sometime.  I don't really care about that so much.  The knitting is finished, the seaming is finished, the border is finished.  Who really cares about the finishing?  Even working at a very casual pace, I spent a good eleven months working on the Lizard Ridge.  Weaving in the ends is hardly a concern.

It's sooooo warm on my lap.  I'm so happy I knit it.

And since I scored a goodly amount of Kureyon in that giant stash score, I may make another one sometime.  Not for a little while, but y'know.  Sometime.



What do you think of the light gray border?  It was a controversial choice, I know...

The Most Awesomiest Swap Day EVAR

Sometimes things just work out.

Mango, my friend who hosts a monthly Knitting at the Farm, couldn't host on the usual Saturday in January, so rescheduled for the last Saturday instead.  (This worked out well for me, because I was in Florida for the usual weekend and would have missed it.)  It had been a while since we'd done a swap, too, so we decided to throw that in there and make it a day.

A few days before the swap, I was looking on Ravelry (the Vermont forum) and came across a post from a woman who wanted to destash completely.  She's moving to a smaller place, doesn't even want to deal with sorting and packing, who wants it?  $200 takes the lot.  Best part?  She lives really near Mango.  I'd be there anyway, with a bunch of friends.  I sent an email to the group asking if anyone would like to split the stash with me.  Three people responded immediately that they would, so I emailed the woman who'd posted the offer and snapped it up!

Photo courtesy of Jess

Seriously, what a massive score.  I wish I'd thought to take pictures when it was all in my car: three full garbage bags, two big bins, and a couple of smaller bags... it completely filled the back of my station wagon.  We are talking a HAUL here, people.  It was a lot of yarn.  A LOT OF YARN.

Photo courtesy of Jess

The four of us sorted the yarn by size (thank goodness one of them was a librarian!) in Mango's front room.  Even once it was sorted, we are still talking about an overwhelming amount of yarn.  Jess kindly snapped a few pictures, and then we got down to the business of staking claim.  We'd put a pile of, say, fingering weight yarn in the middle of the floor, and then we'd go around in a circle and each take something until we got down to the yarn that none of us wanted.  Then we'd put aside that yarn and move on to the next pile.  We went all the way through to the chunky yarns in complete peace.  Rarely did two people feel equally passionate about how much they wanted the same skein of yarn.  There was never a disagreement or an argument.  There was a great deal of potential for fisticuffs (after all, we are talking about a room filled with yarn, free for the taking), but we all restrained ourselves.

Photo courtesy of Jess

It took about two hours to sort and divide up all that yarn.  Maybe longer.  Honestly, we were having so much fun that I didn't really pay attention to the time.  We each came away with about a garbage bag full of yarn we wanted to keep, and there was still a huge amount of yarn that none of us wanted left over.  We opened the pile to our friends who were patiently waiting (and swapping, and eating, and knitting) in the other room.  Everybody took a look and chose something to take with them.

Me taking an "I need the big picture" break while Erin sorts yarn. Photo courtesy of Jess

There was still a ton of yarn left over, so I brought it home with me and will figure out some place to donate it.  Maybe I'll go through it again and sort out things I think would be appropriate for the nearby elementary school.  Maybe I'll just take it to Goodwill.  We'll see.

After all that sorting and dividing was over, we rejoined the regular swap taking place in Mango's kitchen.  I did trade a few things, but mostly the swapping was done by the time we got in there.  I'm okay with that.

Just for comparison's sake, here's a picture of everything I brought to the swap (pre-giant-haul):

And here's a picture of what came home with me:

Imagine three *more* garbage bags full of yarn, and that'll give you an idea of how much we scored in the first place.  Seriously, we each spent $50, and we each came home with $500+ worth of yarn.  Every time I think about what was in that stash, I cannot believe the amazing deal we got.


So here's the thing: that stash was up for grabs because the woman selling it was getting a divorce.  She was moving out of the house she'd shared with her husband, and needed to make some big lifestyle changes, including shedding a lot of her possessions.  It wasn't a sad thing that they were getting a divorce: "my husband and I are actually much better friends now that we're not married to each other," she told me, standing in the driveway.  She just wanted to start over and move on, and part of that was starting over with her stash.  We found a few half-finished sweaters in the pile, and I'm guessing there could have been some painful memories wrapped up in some of that yarn.  But for the most part, she was getting a new life, and so was the yarn.  Because of her divorce, my friends and I had a wonderful afternoon of fun and reconnection and building new memories.  And she was getting a new kind of freedom in releasing the baggage (in this case, literally the garbage bags!) of that former life.  We will always have the blessing of that connection, those few minutes spent chatting outside her old house, with her dogs bounding around us, that final handshake and smile.  New life abounds, even in the midst of change and loss.  Maybe especially in the midst of change and loss.

That, my friends, is a kind of Resurrection.  Thanks be to God.

Sock It to Me!

I forgot to tell you: I had to get a Kindle because of that continuing education thing I went to in Florida last month.  One of the books was out of print but available as an e-book, so the people running the program offered to reimburse us if we needed to buy a Kindle.

What do you do when you get a Kindle?  Well, you should probably get some kind of case for it, because it's an expensive-but-breakable item that's a pain in the neck to replace.

Or, if you're me, you knit it a sock.



Kindle Sock Pattern:
Yarn -- leftover Fuzzy Bunny worsted weight two-ply (leftover from this gorgeous shawl)
Needles -- size 6, as that's all I had with me at the time.
CO 40 sts -- I did not join in the round, but only because I didn't have the right needle with me.
Row 1: k1fb, k to last st, k1fb
Row 2 and following: knit in stockinette.  It's that simple!
Cast off when you've knit about an inch longer than the Kindle itself.  Fold in half and seam together side and bottom (I did mattress stitch for the side, and just a whip stitch on the bottom).
Put your Kindle in there and don't worry about it getting scratched or smooshed in your purse!  Kindle Sock won't protect your expensive-but-breakable item from getting damaged if you step on it, though, so ... well, just don't do that.  Refrain from putting your Kindle on the floor or whatever.

Husband Sweater Update

I have made some pretty good progress on Husband's sweater lately.  Conference knitting.  Windowless room in a Tampa hotel for a week.  Attached sleeves to body.

Husband tried on the sweater when I was visiting him last weekend.  It's tight, but it does fit properly.  And he says to keep going.  At this point, I figure I'll just wear the darn thing if he decides it's no good on him when it's done.  And now he can never say I haven't made him a sweater.  Whether he wears it or not is up to him. 

Sheepie is for scale.  Also for the fun of it.

Gratification

Christmas and the first few weeks of January have taken a lot out of me.  I've already had two trips down to Connecticut and one to Florida -- and a good bit of travel knitting to show for it.  But that's for another post.

First I want to give you all a bit of gratification: I know you've been on the edge of your seats to find out what the sneak peek project was.  It's SOCKS!  Specifically, it's By the Fjords (Rav link), from Stephanie Van Der Linden's Around the World in Knitted Socks.

StrungUp and I were in Nido about a month before Christmas, and she picked up the book (she's a sucker for sock patterns; you know how *I* feel about knitting socks -- or, used to feel) and started leafing through it.  I looked over her shoulder and... well, we both oohed and ahhed for a good half-hour.  Almost every pattern in the book is something one or both of us want to knit.  We especially remarked about By the Fjords, and I came back a couple of days later and bought two copies of the book: one for StrungUp, one for me.  And then I bought the yarn.

The brown is Claudia Handpaints.  Knowing that StrungUp's frustration with Claudia is that it's 100% wool (no nylon, no longevity!  Who makes a sock yarn that's going to make holey sock? Claudia, apparently).  I held double with a 100% Rayon thread for the heel.

The red and the green stripe are both Happy Feet.  I needed two skeins of the brown, and one skein of the red (and one of the green, technically, but it's such a negligible amount that I barely think it's worth counting).

I really liked knitting with both of these, and have already bought more brown Claudia and more Happy Feet so I can do more patterns from this amazing book.  You hear that?  I WANT TO KNIT MORE SOCKS.  I think it had something to do with the stranded knitting.

Seriously, isn't this so cool?  So gorgeous?  It was a tricky pattern.  I had to think.  I may have had to fudge things.  I may have had to get creative to make the awesome swirly toe work.  And I loved every minute of it.

I'm totally knitting these for myself sometime, too.  LOVE.  I cannot wait to knit about 2/3 of the patterns in this book.

Merry Christmas, StrungUp!  And everyone else!