Minimalist Update

No word from the airline about the missing Sleeve B.  They said they'd call me "tomorrow" (which would have been Sunday) when I spoke to a real human being on the phone, and I gave it an extra day just in case the helpline person forgot that "tomorrow" was Sunday and they didn't make these calls on Sunday after all.  But today is Monday, a full 50 hours after I made the lost article report.  I'm pretty confident that Sleeve B is gone.

Commence Plan C: contact the one person on Ravelry who has some Bulldog Blue in her stash and is willing to sell it.  Let's all cross our fingers that she's willing to sell me just one skein, rather than demanding that I buy all 5 skeins she has.  Sigh.

I definitely bought an entire sweater's worth of yarn at The Knitting Studio today.  Retail therapy.

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.

Banal Post

Seems like it's time for a purse-sock update.  One sock done, one sock still in process--I turned the heel the other night while I was sitting in a master class given by a Tony-winning Broadway performer.  Husband's school offers us some pretty interesting opportunities, like heel-turning while watching an expert change the lives of a bunch of undergrads who think they might want to, like, I dunno, sing or something.

I'm not loving these socks.  The best part is the cast-on.  The rest is just... meh.  I haven't had a ton of opportunity to work on them lately.  Then again, I also haven't made those opportunities.  I've been too busy finishing projects I actually like making.

Sigh.  Back to not liking socks?  Time will tell.

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.

Fiddlehead Mittens Are Done!

Sooooo pretty.  And warm!  Seriously, these are the warmest mittens ever.  If you want warm hands, you want these mittens.  They’re essentially three layers of yarn.  And they’re alpaca.  And they’re matting together quite nicely and becoming basically windproof.  My hands have never been this warm.

Plus, I enjoyed knitting these so much, I immediately cast on for another pair.  And I want to make a matching hat, too.

It’s love, I tell you.  True love.

Finished Fireside

So here it is, the Fireside Cardigan.  Done!  I’m thrilled with the end result.  It did grow a bit when I blocked it – the arms needed some coaxing not to be eleventy-zillion feet long when I put it on after it had dried – but the fit is still quite good in spite of the growth.  I’ve also lost some weight since I started the knitting back in January.  If I’d known I was going to do that, I’d maybe have knit the small instead of the medium.  But still.  I’m quite pleased with it.  I looooove the color, and I swear this one is even better than the original model that Cameron Diaz wore in The Holiday.  (Many thanks to Portcat for finding a still I could use!)

I wasn’t sure I would like the double-breasted look on me, but it turns out I love the cozy wrappy-ness of this sweater (would it be crazy to knit a cable-y belt??).  My one regret is that I only made five buttonholes.  I should have done seven so I could close it higher up the neck.  Maybe I’ll add a few loops instead.

Mods:

It must be said that I modified the pattern quite heavily.

• First, I knit the body in one piece instead of in three.
• Then, I added cables on the sides where the side-seams would have been.  I just wasn’t interested in looking at that much reverse stockinette.
• In the interest of avoiding giant panels of reverse stockinette, I also added cables in the center back, at both the bottom and the top.  So much prettier.
• I knit a sort of fake i-cord thingy on the front edges – a slip-stitch selvedge, three stitches wide.  I think.
• The above changes mean that I didn’t use the original stitch count the pattern wanted.  But I think I ended up with the required number of stitches after I split for the arm holes.
• I may or may not have followed the pattern’s waist shaping instructions.  But, y’know, I made it to fit my body, not the author’s.
• Same sleeve modification that everyone else did, so I didn’t get a too-short sleeve cap.
• I kitchenered the shoulder seams and neck, rather than do the 3-needle bind-off.  Less bulky, more elegant.  (Pic to the right, above)
• There was something else with the sleeves – I don’t remember what the pattern said to do, but I held twelve underarm stitches on the sleeves (and twelve on the body) and kitchenered them together.  Turns out, I kind of like kitchenering.  And I’m pretty good at it now!
• I did five buttonholes, including one at the bottom.  Seriously, what is up with making sweaters that don’t close at the bottom?  I don’t always button the bottom button on my sweaters, but I want the option.  Anyway, my sweater has a button at the bottom – and like I said, I wish I’d added a couple more buttonholes higher up the chest so I could have seven buttons instead of five.
• Oh, the rope cables that are supposed to stop cabling at the sleeves?  I kept cabling them, and left a selvedge stitch for seaming.  Also I kept the front rope cables (the ones that are supposed to disappear) going longer than the pattern says.  Why decrease on the cable itself when you can decrease around the cable instead?

I…think that’s it for mods.

I’m going to go be cozy in my new sweater now.  I think that might involve hot chocolate.

(This photo was taken pre-blocking, and held closed with yarn ties through the buttonholes.  This is the basement of Husband's school.  The outside of the building does not look institutional or basementy at all.  But...yeah, the basement sure does.)

From the Archives, sort of

About a year ago, I made a lovely yellow Aran sweater for my friend Meowkat's imminently-arriving baby.  She did send me pictures of the sweater in action (better than that -- she brought him over to my house wearing the sweater once!) but I never got around to posting them.  Consider that an oversight, and consider it corrected.

The sleeves are crazy-long and she has them rolled up so they're more manageable.  But the body of the sweater fit him!

These pictures are actually from April or May.  He probably doesn't fit the sweater anymore.  Well, maybe the sleeves, but not the rest of it.

Ohhhhh Fiddleheads!

I needed to take a break from sweater-knitting.  Sometimes it's just not practical to haul around an entire nearly-finished sweater on the off-chance you might have a couple of minutes to knit a row, you know?  And although I've got a purse-sock going, sometimes I just need a little variety.  That sock is not really doing it for me, I must admit.  But I had a hankering to knit something small and quick, on relatively small needles...

The Fiddlehead Mittens have actually been in my queue for a long time.  I've got two pairs in mind, even, with the yarn all laid out in special kit bags in my stash and everything.  When Hurricane Sandy was slated to hit the east coast on a Monday and there was nothing I wanted to do more than hole up and watch the Weather Channel, I decided it was time to start the blue pair.

Bam!  Outer shell of mitten #1 finished in a day!

Let me just say, I looooooove the i-cord cast-on.  I may cast everything on as an i-cord from now on.  That's a neat little trick to have in my bag... of tricks.

As of this writing, I have one full mitten complete (shell and lining), and the outer shell of the second one complete, and I've got about an inch of the second lining done.  By the time you read this, I'll probably be done and have some way-warm hands. Which would be good, because I still haven't turned the heat on in my house.


Yarn info:
Main color (cobalt blue): Frog Tree Alpaca sportweight.  About 2/3 of a skein for both mittens
Contrast Color #1 (dark green): Blue Sky Alpacas sportweight (about 1/3 of a skein)
CCs 2-5: Anonymous handspun llama yarn that I bought at Vermont Sheep and Wool about 3 years ago.  I bought them in little mini-skeins that said "about 30 yards" and had plenty left over when both mittens were done. So either the pattern's claim that I'd need "about 40 yards" of each contrast color was a gross overestimate, or the spinner's label on the mini-skeins was a gross underestimate.  I've got plenty left.
Lining (not shown, but it's green): Cascade Tweed Lana d'Oro.  This is a 100% superfine alpaca yarn.  Given that it's Cascade and a not-halo-y alpaca (confusing!), I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying knitting with it.  So far I'm on lining #2 and am still on the first skein.

Will post finished product when they're done, of course.