Annie Knits

November in Pictures...

Since my last post, there have been:  a World Series run; house guests; a foreign exchange student for 3 weeks; Halloween; Thanksgiving; life; and lots of knitting.  Let's do it in pictures.

First up, house guests:  one of my mothers ; ), her husband, Dear Son and Hubster playing Farkle.  This picture was taken on a day when there was still hope that the Cardinals might make a go of the World Series.  Oh well.

Next up, Adrien came from Chartres to stay for 3 weeks.  During which time we had our annual Halloween party.  French kids love Halloween.

American kids love Halloween too.  Here are Dear Godson, Dear Son, and mon fils Francaises.  

Here is more of the crew:  nieces, friends, god children, children... 

Next up?  Thanksgiving.  But first I finished two sweaters:  one for a new nephew; one for me.

Jameson's Jacket is knit from an old King Cole pattern, here on Ravelry.  It's knit in Minnow Knits Merino, a superwash single-ply wool.  It's lovely stuff and stitch patterns just pop in it, don't they?  Of course, there's nothing like a photo to show you a mis-crossed cable, is there?  Jeeez.  

I knit this sweater for this red-headed Chicago baby to wear sometime on or about St. Patrick's day.  

Maybe next year...

And for me?

Not that you can tell from this photo, but this is a pretty successful piece actually.  Here on Ravelry, it's a swingy cardigan based on the set-in sleeve pattern in Ann Budd's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.  I'll blog it more extensively another day.  Suffice to say I like it and I like wearing it.  

Also, in this time period, I did some finishing for the shop.  That's not my favorite thing to do, so I charge an arm and a leg ($20 an hour), but there are folks who want me to do the fiddly end-of-a-sweater work for them, and I do it sometimes.  This time, I finished this cardigan (do you recognize Hannah Fetig's Effortless Cardigan?) in a beautiful tomato red MadTosh --  and the finishing was extensive.  Re-knit both sleeves from the shoulder and pick up and knit all of this facing.  In fingering weight Pashmina.  Yowza.  Like 10 hours.  

What I contemplated while I worked on this sweater was shaping my gray cardigan fronts to look like this schematic.  Do-able I think, if I just cast on the same number as for the back and work nearly to the arm hole shaping, then cast off at a severe angle.  See, I'm not happy with the cardigan fronts as I've knit them so far, and I love this shape.  I'll try it out after I finish my stealth holiday knitting.

Fall UFO Fest

I've got holiday knitting going, and I'm ignoring that using new baby knitting and I'm procrastinating as far as that's concerned using some crochet.  Jeez!

Also, there is some sample knitting in there and a few sweaters for me.  One of which is for a class, so work related...  That's a necessary UFO, I guess.

Look at this cabled sweater in Minnow Knits Merino from Class Elite.  Gosh, this stuff is lovely.  Of course, I've run out of yarn.  Sleeve yarn's on order ... so that's a reasonable reason for this to be a UFO I think.

The Hitchiker in the center of this photo is knit with Rachel's sock yarn in the Cordovan colorway -- it's my baseball game knitting.  It'll get finished now that Kara's given me a blue yarn that coordinates with it.  Hopefully, there will be more games for me to knit to... like (whispering so as not to jinx it) a World Series.

The red, orange, and green fingerless glove in the foreground is knit from the pattern Elphaba and I've made three and a half of them -- the yarn, Zitron Unisono stripes in such a way that two mitts knit from the same ball are not enough alike to give to a non-knitter for Christmas and not have her think that I've made a mistake.  Lucky for me I had two balls so I'll end up with two sets that are nearly matched.  Almost a set of finshed objects.

I've been practicing my crochet on a granny square blanket using my Hello Yarn hand spun yarn.  That's unfinished because I've crocheted up all the handspun!  I've got to spin some more.

(Do you LOVE my current fave knitting project bags?  Left to right:  Hedge Hog large project bag from Jessalu, Knitting on the Brain from Tangerine Designs, and a Kara Michelle original.)

So.  Plenty to work on.  I should probably start a dog sweater.

Leaf Peeping

Boy, 9 weeks of no rain in June, July, and August and what do you get?  

A spectacular leaf peeping season, that's what!

Everyone enjoys the view, even Bacon and Monte, except I think Bacon gets cold.  I may have to break down and either buy or knit him a sweater.  Look how he'c curled up agains all that lab/husky fur.

The Cardinals are hot and the leaves are beautiful and there are pumpkin muffins in the oven.  It doesn't get any better than that.

Progress

I've gotten the back of the Print o'the Hoof Cardigan finished.  A mistake in the last post -- no one on Ravelry has knit and documented this piece.  Four people have knit the pullover.  

The back measures 18 inches at it's widest point, which is 6 inches up from the cast on, pre-blocking.  But remember, this yarn is a silk blend.  

After a warm bath?  It's 24 inches wide.  Yep.  And a lot less firm.  Luckily, that's just what I was hoping for, because 6 inches is a huge change -- like this thing grew by a third of it's original size.  That's something you've got to plan for, baby.  

How did I plan for this?  I knit a large gauge swatch, like 50 stitches by 6 inches.  I measured it before I washed it and after.  The washed gauge is what I used to choose the size of the sweater.  I learned that this yarn doesn't grow a whole lot lengthwise after washing, so I knit to the pattern as far as length rather than adjusting it for a washed gauge.  Except I added 2 inches in the body of the sweater like I always do because I'm long-waisted.  

Kind of a controlled crap shoot really, but it worked out so far.  

So this month, in the controlled crap shoot category, I'm hitting at about 50%.  (Gisela is still in time out...)

Batted 1000 with these pumpkin muffins this morning though.

Sweetened with sorghum rather than sugar so that the butterscotch chips and turbinado sugar on top don't make for a too-sweet muffin.  Yum.  There are 23 left.  And counting.

My luck extended even to the eggs I opened up to bake with this morning.

I love green eggs.  Don't you?

Because That's How I Roll!

Last week, I finished two kids' sweaters and a scarf.  I also put a sweater for me (Gisela) into hibernation, hoping that the hibernation faeries will make it fit better.  Actually, I've knit a series of short rows onto the front of the thing, giving it kind of a handkerchief front and I need to block it again, since it's all sewn together.  But I just can't face the fact that it might not fit the way I want it to.  So.  Hibernation faeries, please grant me this wish:  when I pull this sweater out again, block it and finish the fronts and the collar, make it fit.  : )

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Dyeabolical Sops I got from Rachel in July have been grumbling at me to knit them up already.  

I looked and looked for a cabled sweater pattern.  I swatched and surfed Ravelry.  Nothing caught me until late Wednesday night.  Pairing this yarn with the wrong pattern would be very sad.  Disastrous really, and I had to get it just right. 

So, what do I choose?  A sweater pattern from an old book with only 4 projects on Ravelry and no pictures of the whole thing knit up, of course.  'Cause that's how I roll.  

Gladys Thompson's book was originally published in 1969, and the title didn't include a reference to Aran sweaters.  When reprinted in the late '70s, the Aran reference was added.  The book explores the knitting of working men's sweaters in the British Isles (Guernseys or ganseys and Jerseys) as well as the later, less utilitarian Aran sweaters made popular in the '20s.  There are pictures and loosely written patterns, mostly in one size.  What's not to like?

I'm knitting the Print o'the Hoof Gansey pattern, and it'll make up into a 40 inch sweater.  Other's have commented that Aran weight yarn knit at this gauge makes for a lovely, waterproof sweater worthy of bike rides and outer wear.  This Polwarth silk blend yarn lets me block that out to more like 42 inches and knits up into a much lighter fabric which will be fine for indoor wear.  Probably perfect.  ; )

The problem with the book, and frankly why I hadn't knit from it before, is the fact that the pattern repeats are written out rather than charted.  I can't knit this way.  I get lost in the verbiage.  That whole page is 16 rows of knitting written out stitch by stitch.  Makes my eyes cross.

I took 40 minutes early Thursday morning -- Bacon still gets up really early, like 4 a.m. early -- and voila.  This is a really simple pattern and the cables and traveling purls and welting line up in easy repeats.  It'd have taken me days to figure this out from those paragraphs in the other picture.  The chart freed me from the pattern completely in a way the written words couldn't have done.  Whew. 

I'm about 10 inches in and I need 19 before doing the set in sleeve decreases.  Piece of cake.  

This picture is a pretty good representation of Rachel's genius.  Remember, this yarn is a mistake.  Yes, Rachel used about 2500 yards of a Polwarth silk blend to wipe up a dye spill in her kitchen and then threw it in a dyepot, so the story goes.  The resulting grays and olives variegate slightly, but not enough to obscure the pattern.  Makes a traditional piece more modern, no?  

Last night, we attended a party in the neighborhood called Martinis at the Mansion in support of a local park.  Notice the plural there?  Martinis?  I had a plural number of basil Mojito martinis.  Lucky for me, all that's on the calendar for me today is knitting on this sweater.  And maybe grilling a chicken later.  

Pairing

I've been thinking lately.  I have a large number of unfinished objects languishing in various bags and cubby holes around the house.  I think a lot of us do.  I wonder why.  It's not economical -- those UFOs are hogging up my needles and my stash space and, most especially my brain space.  I worry about them.  I wonder when I'll get back to them.  I ponder the yarn and pattern, having loved both enough to cast on for a project.

Eureka.  I think I've figured it out.  At least for myself.  Many of my UFOs are destined to be unsuccessful and on some level, my subconscious knows this and isn't letting me waste my time on them.  Most often, I think, it's an ill-conceived pairing of yarn to pattern.

Gisela probably falls into this category and I just haven't admitted this sorry fact to myself yet.

As a point of illustration, I have today's Finished objects.  Yum.

First up is a Wingspan scarf knit out of a new-to-me yarn by HiKoo and distributed by Skacel.  It's Timidity, a highly-textured wool/acrylic/nylon blend.  I used color number 3, a hot red and brown blend.  It knits up nubby and lacy and it's not what I'd call soft.

But pair it with a short-row pattern that lets its long color repeats stack up and swirl around?  Dayum.  I love this thing.  Even hubster, who generally has to be prompted to notice knitting triumphs, commented favorably on this scarf.  It's a statement piece.  

I have to admit that I started the scarf with trepidation.  I didn't particularly like the examples of it knit up in various variegated yarns on Ravelry.  I kept at it primarily because I wanted a garter stitch piece to work on at knit night.  But as the thing grew, I knew I was onto something, albeit unintentionally.  Yay me.

This pairing of my hand-spun yarn with Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket was intentional.  It's almost become what you'd call a traditional pairing.  Yarn spun from dyed roving often has this striping heathered quality and the BSJ is a pattern made to take advantage of the striping.

This roving was, I believe, a Romney wool.  It's a Hello Yarn club colorway, but I don't know which one.  It's luverly.  Once I make a hat from the rest of the yarn, I'll do the finishing (probably i-cord) and gift it to a newly adopted little guy at church.  

What do you think?  Are your unsuccessful (or maybe just uninspiring) projects often a result of bad pairings?  

Time Out!

A knit night friend is adopting a little girl who is 18 months old.  Such exciting times!  The baby shower was Saturday and I thought I'd not be able to attend as I had a sweater class to teach.   I sent in my RSVP as a maybe, hoping I'd be able to go anyway. 

When the class hadn't formed as of Thursday, it was time to start knitting for that baby shower! 

I bought the yarn, Anzula For Better or Worsted with a kid's sweater in mind as there are several in the chute, so to speak.  (Kids and sweaters as a matter of fact.)  It's a superwash merino blended with a little cashmere and nylon, all pulled together in a tight twist.  It's lovely stuff. (Sorry, non-Ravelers.  All the links are Ravelry today.  Just sose ya know.)

This sweater, A Pod of Cetaceans, has been on my favorite list for awhile.  You know when things work?

As of Saturday morning, I had gotten this far.  I'd have finished the darned thing if I hadn't had to rip back the body and reknit from the ribbing to the armpits due to fussiness over mixing the two balls of yarn.  Darned kettle dyed stuff -- even within dyelots, mix your balls of yarn.  How many times have I told customers this?  Every time I sell them kettle dyed yarn .. probably hundreds of times.  At least.  Did I do it myself?  No.  Did I pay for it?  Yes. 

Anyhoo... I took the sweater to the shower like this and then brought it home again.  Classy.

Come Sunday morning?  Time to cut this bad boy.

I used Eunny Jang's crocheted steek method, where you crochet a stabilizing chain up the sweater on either side of the stitch you plan to cut.  By the way, I learned, at Vogue Knitting Live, that Alice Starmore coined the word 'steek', which is Gaelic for 'gate', in an article she wrote about Fair Isle knitting in the '80's.  Like the 1980's.  I always thought it was some old Norwegian name for the process.  The stitches were always called 'cutting up stitches' before.  Now we've kind of verbed the noun, but the way to refer to the process is apparently to talk about cutting a steek or gate, rather than steeking (or gating).  A little aside there.

I turned the sweater inside out, so the bars I want to cut would be more prominent and I snipped away.  This is a pretty good view of the steek stitches, which were a knit, a purl, 8 knits, a purl and a knit.  Plenty to fold over for the placket.

All done.

This steek was a little dicier than usual for two reasons:  not so much colorwork where you kind of end up weaving the yarn together on the back of the sweater so it really holds together;  and superwash wool is slippery and doesn't want to hold together anyway.  All that stockinette in the body tends to want to unravel at the steek.  It's all fine now that the placket is tacked down good and tight.

All that was left to do was pick up and knit button bands and weave in the ends.  When the light's better later this morning, I'll snap a few finished product pictures.  

This is a sweater I'd knit again.  Quick and fun and very cute.

Which is a good thing, because there are three more little ones who need sweaters before the end of October.  

Gisela is practically done.  All but side seams and front plackets.  I'm afraid to try her on...  You knew that was going to happen.  I'm sure if she sits in a bag while I knit sweaters for these little ones, she'll be ready to behave when I take her out to work on her again.  

Next up, a BSJ out of handspun for another newly-adopted 18 month old.  Rachel inspired me.

More About the Sweater I Shouldn't Be Making

You know, Gisela.  I should be working on birthday presents, baby knitting, and the sweater for the class I'm teaching in September.  Instead, I'm working on a sweater that might or might not fit and that is knit on size 8 needles out of lace weight fiddly yarn.  Seriously.  

First, though a gratuitous dog picture.

Bacon is growing -- nearly 35 pounds from the 11 when we got him Memorial Day.  He's nearly 5 months old today.  He can ring the bell to go out, mind his invisible fence, sit, come, leave it, and lie down.  He loves smooshy beds and cow hoofs.  He barks not all all (yet), but growls when there is any kind of music outside in the neighborhood -- concerts, loud cars, etc.  

He's almost broken of his propensity to jump and "box" you with both of his front paws when he wants something.  I've caught myself using the old saw, "Use your words, Bacon!"  Toddler behavior apparently initiates that response in me regardless of species.

He won't be big like Sophie -- remember Sophie? -- and he likely won't get close even to Monte's 70 pounds.  

The vet thinks between 40 and 50 pounds in the end.  Not a lap dog.  Sorry, buddy.

Gisela's fronts, back, and one sleeve have been blocked to the size indicated in the pattern.  Not even aggressively.  But -- she doesn't drape to those numbers.  She stretches to them.

Hmm...  

I'm soldiering on with the second sleeve and thinking about how to get this sweater to fit as it's supposed to:  as a kind of light jacket.  It doesn't have buttons to hold it closed but what I think I have knit is a fitted cardigan with little or no ease which would need buttons to hold it closed.  Hanging open it would look too small.  

I think I'll have to knit a different shaped placket onto the fronts of the sweater.  Like a short row trapezoid type shape.  Or something.  Maybe just oblong stockinette triangles that will roll, but taper down beneath the bottom of the sweater, like ties.  I'll know better how the thing fits when I seam it.

It's the Luna that's holding the knit shape rather than conforming to the blocked shape, I think.  The pattern calls for a cottony linen yarn that holds no shape at all.  And I knit it in lace weight wool and silk held with a poly/paillette thread.  The wool/silk alone would hold a block I think.  So, in the end, what makes this sweater excellent is also making it maybe not fit.  

I say maybe because I haven't sewn the thing together yet, have I.  It could still fit the way I want it to in the end.  Magical thinking isn't just for politicians, now, is it?

Bacon sees what I did there.

Gisela and Flowers

I'm working on a sweater that I'd like to wear over the holidays.  I'm working on this sweater because this yarn from Trendsetter (you know, the 2000's called, they want their scarf yarn back) came in the backdoor at the shop last Friday:

It's Luna.  It's bronzey gold.  It has paillettes.  The paillettes are iridescent.  I may have made a girly sound as I unpacked it.  

I put all of it on the shelf.  And powered through my work day while it called me.  While it enticed me.  

"I need more yarn like I need a hole in the head!" I growled through gritted teeth.  I may have startled a customer.  "I have a stash that would fill the back room, and I need to knit with that, thankyouverymuch!"

"But I'm not yarn," it whispered, using it's Smeagol voice, all sibilant s's and whine, "I'm thread.  With paillettes.  You can use me with your yarrrnnn to make something fabulous."

I'm weak.  And paillettes are powerful.

So, I give you Gisela by Coco Knits.  I'm getting gauge with Luna and Perchance to Knit silk and wool lace weight yarn in the Midnight Rainbow colorway.  I've got the back and the left front of the cardigan finished.

 Halfway through a lace weight cardigan in 6 days.

Those are some powerful paillettes.

They are so powerful that they are keeping me from blogging about the Missouri meth-heads  politicians making the national news of late.  And I have opinions, believe me!

Oh here.  Flowers.

  

Specifically, flowers in my anniversary bouquet -- 27 years!  Yay us.

If I can keep thinking flowers and knitting and watch only True Blood, The Newsroom, and the Borgias, I think I can make it until November.

Back to School!

Usually this time of year is kind of hard on everybody.

We'd have been sleeping in a little during the summer months.  We'd have been out of the routine of rising early to get going and get our business done in the morning.

Other school years, the 6:15 a.m. teenager car-pool wake up would have been full of grump and grind.

Cue Monty Python:  Always look on the bright side of life (whistle, whistle, whistle.)

Someone in this household never sleeps past 4:30 or 5:00.  Not on school days, not on Sundays, never.  Someone in this household has been raring to go before dawn, before the birds even start twittering, all summer long.  

As a result, I have not gotten in the habit of sleeping 'til 7 or 8 a.m.  Not even close.

In fact, this morning, the restlessness in the kennel by my bedside started around 4:45, a full hour and a half before any of the teenagers in the house needed to be up and at 'em!  Yay me.  Time for coffee and Facebook and Ravelry.  

And even better, come 6:15, puppy is a much more effective alarm clock than clocky ever was (remember the alarm clock we found for Dear Son that hops off your nightstand and wails if you don't shut it off?).  Clocky you can turn off.  Bacon?  Not so much...  Rather than stand at his door or bellow from the basement that it's time to get out of bed and if he doesn't get moving I'm coming in there myself to roust him out, I simply shut the puppy in his room with him.  

You know he's out of bed when the door opens and closes and a puppy scrabbles down the hall.  Works like a charm.

And with two teens to get going again as Dear Daughter's attending a local college this year, this puppy is proving more valuable that I though possible.  Not just a pretty face, this one.  He's useful.

I'm trying not to begrudge him the nap he's taking now at (checking my wristwatch), oh, 7:47 IN THE MORNING!  

He's been up awhile.  And he's gotten in his whole day's work.  Good pup pup.