February 22, 2010
The knitting part of my Knitting Olympics project is complete, so I’m down to all the fiddly bits of finishing. I don’t plan to block the entire sweater as the size is good as is, and I’m afraid blocking will stretch things out. I do, however, want to steam block the trim along the bottom of the sleeves and the hem as it tends to puff up a bit, and I’d like it to lie nice and smooth, flush with the garter stitch sections. After that, I’ll kitchener the sleeves (a benefit of the sideways design of this pattern: no lumpy sleeve seams) and sew the underarms shut. Then it’s grossgrain for the button bands (my bind-off band is always longer than my cast-on band, and the grossgrain helps them hang evenly, along with preventing stretching our from wearing the piece buttoned), sewing on the buttons, and I’ll be done.
When I started this project I had no idea it was possible to knit an entire sweater in such a short period of time. A big lace project? Maybe. But a sweater? Who knew? Mind you, I’m using aran-weight yarn and biggish needles. Nonetheless, I’m feeling empowered to try other sweater patterns, without experiencing that lurking sense of if-I-cast-on-this-thing-it-will-still-be-on-the-needles-when-archaeologists-from-the-third-millennium-dig-up-my-fossilized-bones. In particular, I’m thinking of Mel Clark’s Swing in some yummy Elesbeth Lavold Baby Llama a college friend bought for me. (BTW, Little Knits has this yummy yarn on sale right now for only $32.99 a bag. It is a miracle of softness with a wonderful shine. I strongly recommend yielding to temptation and buying some.)
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February 19, 2010
I’ve knitted all the way around to the left front of my Vine Yoke Cardigan. Sixty-five rows to go, but I’m losing steam. The yarn is gorgeous, the pattern fun—but I want to do a bit of lace knitting. So in one of those what-is-she-thinking-about? moves, I’ve cast on for Percy, a sweet little knitted shawlette that I’ve been eying for a while.
Is this folly? Is it a brilliant master strategy that will confound the competition? Will it serve as cross-training and improve my speed on the Vine Yoke? I did do some work on the the cardi yesterday, but I’m also up to row fifty-five on Percy now.
So many knits, so little attention span.
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February 17, 2010
I have bug #3 of the winter: the mildest so far, but it feels worse than it is because I am absolutely at the limit of my patience in the health category. The problem with being a teacher is that it pretty much requires being around students, who live in dormitories that are great cesspools of disease, and those students, they do insist on breathing, and, with air circulation and all, you have no chance whatsoever of remaining healthy come winter.
I have, however, persevered, and between opening new boxes of tissues, I have made it about two-thirds of the way around on my Vine Yoke Cardigan. Right front, done. Right, sleeve, done. Back, done. Left sleeve, in progress. I am so delighted that the sewing-up at the end will be minimal.
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February 14, 2010
I’ve signed up for the Knitting Olympics over at the Yarn Harlot’s page. My project: Ysolda Teague’s Vine Yoke Cardigan from a back “issue” of Twist Collective. I’m using two bags of Sierra Aran in a deep, deep heathered purple that I picked up from Elann. I’m a bit nervous about whether the circular yoke will make my shoulders look big, but I’m hoping the dark color will help minimize that possibility.
I’m knitting a size up, hoping that will make the sweater a bit swingier. By my calculations, I’ll need 16 skeins for the project (91-yard skeins), which means I’ll need to knit a bit more than a skein’s worth a day to have time for finishing before the flame is extinguished. I’m almost to the point where I’ll be starting skein 4, so things look good.
I’m enjoying this project immensely. No stockinette! Interesting sideways constructions, with a lace stitch at both ends of the circular needles to keep things interesting, and regular wrap-and-turns to accomplish the shaping. The pattern is very clearly written—and in a huge range of sizes. I can recommend it without reservation. Ysolda Teague is absolutely brilliant—I can imagine working up one of these in one’s own size. But to write it up in 14 different sizes? Wowza!
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February 04, 2010
We had a bit of sun at the end of January, so Chris and I were quick to pull out the pins and blocking mats. 
Going clockwise from upper left:
• My Aestlight knit in Crazy Zauberball, the teal/brown colorway—this picture doesn’t do the color justice. We’ll have to do another photo shoot now that it’s unpinned to share it in its full glory.
• The Saroyan I knit in Outback Wool for my mom as a Christmas gift—which has become a Valentine gift since I’ve been sick all winter.
• A cozy little ruffled moss stitch shawl in a pattern I made up off the top of my head last January, while we were on our road trip delivering Penny to her new home. The yarn is from a small, independent dyer out of Fresno—Barking Dog.
• Chris’s Labyrinth—a magnificent piece of work and an exercise in faith, as she knit the whole thing from written instructions and couldn’t really see whether the pathway was correct until she finished. It was!
None of these count for 10 Shawls in 2010, but I did finish a piece that will count as shawl #2: an Autumn Lace Scarf in Malabrigo Sock.
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February 01, 2010
Ok, I’m jumping on this bandwagon late, but I’m jumping on it. I suspect that ten shawls won’t be all that much more than I usually go for—and if I don’t make the goal I’ll have had fun anyway. (Sorry if that kind of statement is disappointing for all the Type A knitters out there.)
This year, I’ve already knit Justify, a cozy mobius wrap, out of Noro Kochoran (a sort of aran-weight version of silk garden) that is doing me all sorts of good as I try to recover from this whatever-the-hell-it-is-mucus-and-cough-of-doom thing. I worked the main body of mine in garter stitch to make the seaming less noticeable. Going through the various versions of this piece posted on Ravelry is fun. My personal favorite has the main section worked in reversible cables, a la Palindrome.
Chris and I have started working on Spanish Armada as a private KAL. We’re hoping to work together on some projects that can be learning tools for us both. This shawl is designed by Mmario, who is one of the great, unsung (or not sufficiently sung) geniuses of shawl design. He publishes all his patterns free of charge via a Yahoo group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MMarioKKnits/). We’ve both just made it past round 100, with another 50+ rounds to go.
Even Melissa has gotten the shawl bug, albeit a minor case. Last night as I looked through all the finished projects from the participants in this Ravelry group, she mentioned that, really, she might like a shawl herself, so long as it wasn’t too fussy. At the moment I’m thinking maybe Victorine.
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January 24, 2010
I want to apologize for not posting more regularly. I been quite sick with flu variants since early December and have been cutting a lot of activities in favor of more naps.
The other reason I haven’t been posting as much is that I’m at a transitional period with this blog. What I’d like to do more of is writing about my own designs as they’re in progress, but that requires two things—
1. Getting better at the photo end of blogging, so I don’t have to pester Melissa to do it for me.
2. Getting going on a real attempt to try selling some of my patterns via Ravelry or a similar source, so that I don’t need to worry about the hush-hush rules that most venues (on-line and magazines) have.
It may take a while for me to make this transition, but I think the blog will be interesting once I do. Whether or not readers have any interest in purchasing my designs, I’m hoping they’ll enjoy learning more about the design process—all the swatching, playing, fogging, and fine-tuning that it involves.
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December 27, 2009
Most of you will remember Bobitha Grace Stubbins—the latest stray to throw herself on our mercy. Melissa and I were utterly smitten by her, but knew deep in our hearts of hearts that we were pretty much at our limit, feline-wise. So, hard as it was to do, we began to look for a home for the sweet girl, hoping we could find one near enough that we could go for visits.
One of my coworkers fell for my wouldn’t-an-extra-cat-make-the-holiday-season-extra-bright? appeal. It also helped that Bobitha has her charming little stump of a tail, as their current cat is a shortie as well, which would allow them to develop a theme of sorts. They came over for a visit with Bobitha, and quickly agreed with us that she is an absolute charmer.
So off they went for their holiday, and off went Bobitha to the vet—because we wanted to make sure we would be giving them a healthy cat with all necessary vaccinations. It wouldn’t do if Bobitha brought in some nasty bug to infect the current resident.
That’s when the surprises started. To start with, Bobitha is not Bobitha—she’s plain old Bob. We really had looked, and the lack of anything noticeably bumpy or lumpy under her nether fur had led us to certain conclusions. The vet had a time of it herself, figuring out Bob’s status: she poked a bit (gently, mind you) and pulled her glasses down off of her forehead for a proper look, before announcing that Bob is definitely male.
Then, the vet ran the microchip scanner over her… er, him. Beep! Bob was no orphan of the storms. Bob was AWOL. A call to the pet tracking company, a few more phone calls, and we’d connected with Bob’s—actually his name is Henry—mom, who came to pick him up the next morning. She used to live in our neighborhood and has had trouble with Bob going walkabout since they relocated to an apartment eight blocks away. Bob/Henry behaves like a perfect little gent until he wins her trust, then convinces her he’s responsible enough to go outside—and he’s off!
Case in point: two days after she’d picked up Bob/Henry, he was back in our yard, and we had to call her to fetch him all over again.
I have to admit that the whole process has left me feeling slightly less enamoured of Bobitha (we’ve decided to keep the original name and the female pronoun, after all, that’s the cat we knew). It’s as if I’ve been seduced under false pretenses. She won my heart, and played on my sympathies, when really she didn’t need me at all.
So that’s our latest feline adventure—sort of a Crying Game meets Prodigal Son thing. I expect we haven’t seen the last of Bobitha, but now we’ll know she’s feeding us a line when she claims to be a helpless waif.
Bobitha/Bob/Henry: one very cute kitty—and a bit of a flim-flam artist.
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December 04, 2009
From December fifth through the thirteenth, Amnesty International is holding a write-a-thon. They’re asking participants to write one letter a day for these nine days on behalf of prisoners of conscience. I’ll be participating, and I hope you can make the time to join me. You can learn more here.
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December 01, 2009
Or, at any rate, the little cat feet (with the rest of the cat attached) come in in winter. We’ve had our first few genuinely cold nights in the last two weeks and suddenly my generally indifferent cats are becoming marginally affectionate.
I know that Sparky and Bea love me, but their usual way of showing it is by sitting 10 or 15 feet away from me with their backs politely turned purring contentedly.
Now that winter’s here, Bea’s spending a bit more time on the bed and Sparky is actually cuddling. He radiates an unbelievable amount of heat, so I often wind up tossing upper covers aside in an attempt to achieve a happy average of too hot/too cold. Surprisingly enough, it works.
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