Monday, March 31, 2003

Okay, I've calmed down a bit since yesterday, knitting-wise. 

But not until after I broke down and swatched for the cover sweater from the Spring 2003 issue of Interweave Knits (the VIP Cardigan), using a pretty purple K1C2 Frosting that was part of yet ANOTHER long story of dashed knitting hopes -- but that's for another time.  Suffice it to say, the swatch didn't work.  The yarn is too mushy for the well-defined stitch pattern of the cardigan.  So no new project started, which is good, but another bubble burst, so that is bad.

I did come to terms with the Minimum Scarf.  The pattern actually says to use 4 balls of yarn, totaling 180 yards.  I bought 3 balls of yarn totaling 183 yards, but I'll give Sally the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe I should have purchased 4 balls.  At $14.50 for a 61 yard ball, though, I'm going to try to make 3 balls work.  I've torn out what I did so far, and I'm going to use fewer stitches for a narrower scarf and bigger needles for a less-dense fabric, and we'll see how far 3 balls will go.

And I discovered a fourth red scarf that I finished within the past year  -- from a kit I bought on the guild's trip to Toronto a few years back.  It's rayon, and beaded, and lovely.  Why am I collecting so many red scarves?  Haven't a clue.  I must like red more than I thought!  Why don't I have any purple scarves?  I thought that was my favorite color.

Oh, by the way, Rob, if you're reading this, I want one of those Ruby River Mountain Colors Weavers Wool Quarters for mittens or gloves to go with my Ruby River Mountain Colors Merino Ribbon Shape It! scarf.  Add that to my order, please! 

And Matt, I still can't decide between the black and the purple Noro Cash Iroha.  Here's Matt's photo of what my De Colores Jacket would look like if I went with purple instead of black. 

I'm not sure the contrast is great enough since there's also purple in the Noro Silk Garden, but boy, that purple would look great with my new hair color.  Still don't like that green, though.  Anyone have an opinion?  And for those of you who are wondering, my hair is now SILVER, since I stopped coloring it a year ago.  Thanks for making me post THAT for posterity.

Here's what made me happy today:

and don't forget this side:

I hid the unfinished ends from you again, but I'll sew them in during the knit-in at my house tomorrow (you're ALL invited!).  This was a sample for a class I'm teaching, remember, and so in order to teach some meaningful techniques, I put a hemmed border on the inside edge that you can't see, and a corrugated rib on the edge that you can see.  Between the hemmed edge (doubled over a cut steek edge, so that's three layers) and the corrugated rib edge (the ribbing plus the other cut steek edge, so that's two more layers), there are five layers to the overlapped part of the pillow back.  I gave up on buttonholes and buttons, because it would have been way too bulky.  It's lumpy enough as it is, but I can't help being thrilled with my new pillow.  I'm leaning against it as we speak (or as I write and you read).  Son number one likes it so much he's requested one in shades of blue.  Hooray!  I'd change a bunch of things about it, but as a teaching example, I think it's pretty darn good.

Oh, that reminds me!  The lady I finished the Mary Maxim Bubble Blossom cardigan for (see Sunday, March 23 entry) called me today just to tell me that her little granddaughter was getting all kinds of compliments on her sweater.  Wasn't that nice of her to call me and tell me that?  It made my day.

See?  A better day, knitting-wise, than yesterday.

Sarah

Sunday, March 30, 2003

I tore out that icky seam from last night, and sewed it back up.  I'm much happier with it, and now I just need to weave in all the ends and "Sew a button loop onto the right front just below the collar."  Well, they didn't say anything about actually MAKING a button loop, and I'm totally out of the charcoal wool.  I'll have to beg for yet another ball of leftover yarn from the owner of my LYS (see my entry from Monday, March 10 for the whole story).

Rather than weaving those ends in right away (can't break precedent and finish a project too quickly now, can I?), I picked up my Minimum Scarf and knit away on that luscious red Touch Me.  The pattern calls for 180 yards, so I bought three 61 yard balls of yarn (3 x 61 = 183, right?).  Here's my scarf as of this evening, after one complete ball of yarn has been used:

Um, the whole scarf is supposed to be 36" long, but the first ball only brought it to 9 inches.  Last time I checked, 3 x 9 is only 27 inches, which isn't long enough to be a scarf.  Even a "Minimum" one. 

Am I cursed?  Why is it that I can't work through a single project without it coming to a screeching halt for one reason or another?  This is no fun.  No fun at all!!!  (Can you see me pouting and stomping my foot?)

But THIS is fun:

What does this look like to you?  It's a yarn-store-to-be!  In East Lansing!  Called "Woven Art"!  Yippee!  This is the very exciting thing I've been wanting to tell you about, but I was waiting until I had pictures.  And now I do!  Last week I met Nancy McRay (on the right in the photo above), a very talented local weaver who has wanted to own a yarn store since she was a teenager (who hasn't?).  Nancy will be carrying handspun and hand dyed yarns for knitting and weaving, and will be offering classes as well.  That's my buddy LynnH in the green sweater (of ColorJoy fame), who will be teaching sock knitting classes for Woven Art. 

Through that doorway at the back is a room filled with looms, but I neglected to take a picture of it.  Being a knitter, I was more interested in the yarns and in this:

A fireplace surrounded by comfy chairs, being modeled by my friend Terri M., who is pretending to work on a scarf she pulled out of my knitting bag -- no, not the Touch Me scarf, but another one I haven't introduced you to yet.  Hmm, that makes three red scarves I've started in the past month.  Strange.  Terri is an accomplished knitter in her own right, but didn't happen to have any knitting with her today (she didn't know we would be visiting the new yarn store!).

ANYWAY, Woven Art is located at 210 Abbott Road, upstairs over P.T. O'Malley's.  The hours will be 11-6 Wednesday through Friday, and 12-4 Saturday and Sunday.  The store is still in the hatchling stage, however, so may not be fully open until May or June.  Nancy welcomes visitors in the interim, and said she will put an OPEN sign in the window whenever she is there.

An interesting side note:  there used to be a yarn store in the very same space, if any of you local people remember.  And I used to work at the typing service just down the hall.  Small world, eh?

Now wasn't that worth waiting for?

Sarah

Saturday, March 29, 2003

Just returned from Knitters' Night Out at my local-est yarn store.  Due to their polite request to bring only projects purchased from them, I had a choice of swatching for a new sweater (the cover sweater from the latest issue of Interweave Knits) or finishing an "old" one (Hanne Falkenberg's Tokyo).  Being a firm believer in self-bribery, I determined that the swatch would be a nice reward if I first completed the side and sleeve seams of Tokyo. 

So naturally, the first thing I did was to wind a hank of K1C2 Frosting into a ball so I would be ready for my swatch. 

After that minor delay, I got serious about seaming Tokyo's slipped garter stitch rows to each other.  Once I figured out my "rhythm", the side seams went quickly.  The sleeve seams, however, slowed me down considerably, thanks to those darned sleeve increases.  I thought I had kept them away from the edges, but apparently they weren't far enough away.  I struggled with those seams, and finally finished just before midnight.  Pausing to admire my hard work, I noticed that I had done a pretty darn good job with the seam for sleeve #1.  Sleeve #2's seam, however, looked kind of sloppy.  Here's a picture (#1 on the left, #2 on the right):

Can you see the difference in the photo?  I can, although it's more glaring in person.  So I came home all depressed, ignoring the fact that I had successfully completed two side seams and one sleeve seam, and instead focusing negatively on the fact that I am going to have to undo and rework the second sleeve seam.

And I didn't even get to cast on for my swatch.  Which is probably fine, because I REALLY don't need to start another project right now. 

But I am a lot closer to finishing Tokyo.  And that's a good thing.

Sarah

Friday, March 28, 2003

Well, I did it.  Or didn't do it, actually.  I skipped a day of blogging.  It had to happen sooner or later.  I fell asleep at the computer last night (woke up to the "bing" of new mail), and decided that was a huge hint that I needed to pack it in for the day.

I slept through a large portion of today, too.  We currently have a very lovely case of pink eye (conjunctivitis) in our family, and I'm wondering if I might be next.  Is fatigue a symptom?  Or maybe I'm just working too hard.  I taught at least seventeen hours of knitting classes this week.  From the perspective of a full time employee, that doesn't sound like much.  But from the perspective of someone who quit her full time job to stay home with the kids, that's a lot.

I've managed to knit three more garter stitch squares, 6" x 6" this time, and I think I'm finally done.  I found two more skeins of leftover wool/cotton, but it's natural white, and I think that would be too stark by itself.  So I'm officially out of the afghan square business for a while.  The completed squares will be given to Wendy tomorrow night at the Knitters' Night Out at Yarn for Ewe. 

And to celebrate, I started a new project (oops!).  The Minimum Scarf from Sally Melville's Knitting Experience:  The Knit Stitch.  It's, umm, garter stitch.  Which I'm sick of right now.  But the fact that I'm knitting it out of the most scrumpdillyicious yarn in the world makes garter stitch my friend again.  If you've never fondled Muench's Touch Me, run right out to the nearest yarn store and do so immediately.  I read that Goldie Hawn was knitting afghans for her friends out of this stuff.  Lucky friends!

I tried taking photos of my dog Keiko (cake-oh) looking cute on the couch with a pillow and blanket (posed by my husband, I presume), but I'm having issues with the camera battery and the dog's expression (she looks annoyed).  So I found this one from a few days ago, which seems presentable enough:

And no, I'm not ready to explain the surprise yet.

Sarah

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

This is the 12" x 12" afghan square for today:

It's Debbie Bliss Wool/Cotton, done in garter stitch.  Leftovers from baby sweaters for the next-door neighbor's new grandbabies.  I decided to be honest today and show you the yarn tails.  I still have enough of these two colors left to make one more 6" x 6" square.  Then I think I'm done with afghan squares for a while.

Here's what the Fair Isle pillow cover looks like right now:

Steamed with an iron to smooth out the stitches, and then sliced wide open.  Didn't do anything to the steeks before surgery.  Getting braver in my old age. 

My illustrious student Daphne practiced on half of mine, then bravely cut through her own knitting, with nary a whimper.  Way to go Daphne!  We both agreed that the hourglass chart is a loser, but we still love our pillow covers!  And freshly steamed wool is so scrumptious -- we couldn't stop fondling our knitting!

Next step:  practicing two different borders (hemmed edge and corrugated rib).

And here's a teaser for all my local friends:  Something very exciting is about to happen in East Lansing.  Stay tuned...

Sarah

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Here's what I ended up doing at the knit-in tonight:

Does it look familiar?  It's the rest of the yarn from the afghan square I posted last Tuesday, and no, I haven't woven the ends in yet, so yes, they're tucked underneath, which is why it looks so uneven on the right-hand side.  I'll weave them in tomorrow, I promise.  The 12" x 12" square will be given to Wendy, our guild's Service Project Coordinator, later this week.  I hope to get a couple of 6" x 6" squares done with some other leftover yarn, too.  Cleaning out the stash, to make room for the new leftover yarn from the Intro to Fair Isle project, which should be finished tomorrow or the next day.  Or the day after that.

Introducing Mica, the most beautiful kitty in the world:

She's taking a bath, so I could only show her from the neck up.  And it's sunny, so I guess that means she's sunbathing.

Sarah

Monday, March 24, 2003

I was busy all day with knitting classes, but managed to finish the edging on the cabled baby blanket, so that's ready for delivery.

Tomorrow I need to figure out what's happening with the pillow cover for the Introduction to Fair Isle class that is scheduled for Wednesday night.  I'll add the half-stripes of grey at each end, then work out a plan for the steek, the "seams", and the picked up bands, then write up some notes.  Easy cheesy!

And then what should I work on?  I need something fairly easy for the Tuesday night knit-in.  I could:

A)  finish sewing Hanne Falkenberg's Tokyo together

B)  figure out what I need to do to finish Sally Melville's Knit Down, Made to Measure Jumper (are the sleeves too narrow?)

C)  pull Sicily out from under the pile and work a few inches on it

D)  re-start a stalled project (other than A, B, or C above!)

E)  start a new project!!

F)  I signed up for a pair of Melissa Leapman classes in Livonia on the first Saturday in April, and have homework swatches to work on.  I also signed up for two Irene York classes in Oak Park in May, but haven't found out if there's any homework yet.  I also signed up for the Level 1 Master Knitting Program through TKGA, and have a bunch of swatches to make for that.  So maybe I should do a little swatching? 

Who knows.  What do you think?

Sarah

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Ta-da!

It's a little blurry, and there's my toe in the corner (dressed in Regia), but hey, it's late (just finished watching the Oscars).  Isn't it cute?  The Mary Maxim Bubble Blossom cardigan, finished and ready for pick-up tomorrow morning. 

And here's another finishing project I snuck in without telling you about:

I'm adding the 2x2 rib border to this baby blanket knit by a customer.  The yarn knits up very nicely.  It's Euro Yarns Cuddly Classic DK -- white with tiny blips of blue, green and yellow.  The pattern is from Sirdar, but I don't have the name.

I have a full day of lessons tomorrow, but will try to get some knitting done.  I'm neglecting Mary Tudor, Tokyo, my Sally Melville, and all the other WIPs I've got listed, as well as all the others I haven't yet had the courage to post.

Perhaps I'll introduce another one to you tomorrow.

But hey, that's a bona fide finished project up there in the top photo, and that's something, isn't it?  Maybe it's time to start something new? 

Sarah

Saturday, March 22, 2003

I found the Jo Sharp yarn I wanted at Yarn for Ewe this morning, but ended up with a skein of Dale Free Style in a similar color instead.  The Dale is worsted weight, the Jo Sharp is DK, and the rest of my project is done in worsted weight, so it was a fairly easy decision. 

BUT, when I knit the first two-color round with the two reddish-orangey colors, that new Dale yarn stood out like a sore thumb.  Too bright in relation to the background. 

So back to Yarn for Ewe I went, because on my first trip of the day I had noticed a skein of Plymouth Galway in a kind of a salmony color, which I had dismissed as being too pink.  It did look much better with the background color, so into my shopping bag it went.

Here's the result:

There are things I'd change if I did this pillow cover again (and I certainly have enough yarn to do so!), but I'm very pleased with it overall.  It was originally intended to be for a rectangular pillow form (12" x 16").  In my effort to use all of my chosen colors and charts, I surpassed the 12" in height.  Today, I dug up an old 16" x 16" throw pillow that could use a facelift, so that will certainly work, but I'm still an inch or two short of 16".  I could add one more grey stripe, but then my symmetry would be shot.  But wait...

Since I started with a provisional cast on, I can add to both the bottom and the top.  I'll add half of a narrow grey stripe at both ends, which, when seamed, will each become a whole grey stripe.  Cool!  If you can't picture it, just wait, and I'll hopefully be able to show you tomorrow.

My husband said:  "You don't expect anyone to actually put their face on that, do you?"  I think he was referring to the fact that it's made out of wool, not that it's kind of loud.  He has a wool "sensitivity" ("It's picky!").

Oh, the brown thingie at the bottom is a book weight I got at Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp two summers ago.  I mostly use it to hold my cookbooks open, but it comes in pretty handy for all kinds of things!

Sarah

Friday, March 21, 2003

I found the perfect reddish-orangey color at The Yarn Garden this morning.  Look!

Plymouth Galway again, of course.  The smaller ball is Jo Sharp 8 ply DK, left over from a pumpkin hat I made a year or so ago.  I will need more than this little ball, so it's off to Yarn for Ewe tomorrow to see if they have any more (cross your fingers for me).

This was supposed to be a stash-reduction project, but it's actually turned into a stash-enlarging project.  I started with the left over green and purple skeins from my Beginning Knitting project (yes, I'm in a pillow rut), decided to buy a darker purple and the two greys, then had to get the two blues, and now the two red/oranges. 

This is definitely NOT how you go about reducing your stash.

But THIS will put a stop to my yarn purchases for a while:

We bought a Volkswagen (Folksvahgen!) Passat today, so we're a two car family again.  Hooray!

And we have absolutely nothing on the schedule for tomorrow (except for the hunting expedition for the orange Jo Sharp), so I'm hoping to make a lot of progress in the knitting department.

Sarah

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Second try:  Here's a photo of today's version of the sample pillow cover for the class I ran on and on about yesterday:

There will be seven stripes altogether.  The first stripe consists of two shades of a soft green, and is currently curled over, allowing you to see the lovely floats.  The second stripe is made up of two shades of grey (the fourth and sixth stripes will be worked using the same colors).  The third stripe uses two purples.  I have two blues waiting for stripe #5, and Stripe #7 will be an as yet undetermined color combo.  I'm hoping I can find some reddish-orangey-goldish colors tomorrow morning when I'm at The Yarn Garden in Charlotte (that's shar-LOT, for all you non-Michiganders). 

You can also see the enormous steek (this is done in worsted weight yarn -- Plymouth Galway, my absolute all-time favorite -- so everything is giant-sized.  I have historically done a checkerboard pattern across my steeks (I call it salt and pepper), but thought I'd try stripes this time.  I like to try different variations to see which ones I like best.  The stripes sure are purdy!

I'm excited about my color combinations now.  Yippee!  The Knitter's Review Poll this week asks:  "What's your favorite phase of a project?"  My answer wasn't among their choices.  My favorite phase is when I realize my project is finally going to turn out the way I want it to, and it's all downhill from there (wheeee!!).

Tracy A. e-mailed me today, saying: 

"I always like when you talk about ripping, because your
projects always turn out so well, but part of the process is knowing when
to rip!"

First of all, thanks for thinking that all of my projects turn out well, Tracy, but I can't think of one project I've ever completed that I didn't wish I could go back and fix.

I make it a point to draw my students' attention to the "imperfections" in my samples, which make excellent teaching aides.  For one thing, they let my students know that it's okay to make mistakes.  One of my Beginning Knitting students told me just today, as she walked in my front door, that she was flunking knitting because she had to keep tearing out and starting over.  "Good!" I said, "you're getting a lot of practice!"  She looked at me in surprise, smiled, and relaxed.

As far as knowing when to rip is concerned, if you're not happy with what you're making, it's time to rip.  If you're thinking you maybe should have ripped but are too far past the trouble area by now, you should definitely rip, or you'll forever be looking back at whatever it was that you didn't like.  If the unintentional deviation is something you decide you can live with (embrace!), then congratulations! -- you're a designer!

Okay, let's see if I can publish this post without screwing up my blog.  Last night's update resulted in a visually exciting cascade effect -- kind of like one of those mirrors you look into that has infinitely repeating images.  I'm crossing my fingers!

Sarah

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

No pictures today.  Camera battery is low.  Nothing to take a picture of, anyway. 

I finally started the sample for my Introduction to Fair Isle class.  It took me all afternoon to plan the charts and colors (I'm not very confident in the color-selection department).  It took all of five minutes before I realized that the first color combination I had chosen wasn't going to work.  Not enough contrast for the pattern to stand out from the background.  Poop!  But, being an optimist (and too lazy to start over), I decided to "embrace" the color combination (a term borrowed from one of my Philosopher's Wool students) and hope it would look better the farther along I got.  So I slogged on for seven 193-stitch rounds before I had to admit defeat.  I'll try again tomorrow with a different color combination.  See?  Nothing to photograph, except a pile of yarn, an empty needle, and a naked pillow.

I'm trying to provide opportunities for practicing a bunch of Fair Isle sweater techniques without actually making a sweater (that's another class).  The project is a pillow cover.

I've chosen a series of charts with twelve stitch repeats, from Ann Feitelson's book The Art of Fair Isle Knitting and from John Allen's Fabulous Fair Isle.  So, the selection and use of charts is a topic, as is the use of traditional peerie and OXO patterns.

We're starting with a provisional cast on (crocheted).  As a practical application, starting a sweater with a provisional cast on would allow you to delay any decisions about a hem or ribbing until the sweater was complete.  For class purposes, the live stitches from the cast on will be seamed together using one technique, and the live stitches at the other end (that would have been bound off) will be seamed together using another technique, thereby practicing two methods of closure for shoulder seams.

The pillow cover will be knit (knitted?) in the round, with ample opportunity for practicing the two-handed Fair Isle technique, catching stranded yarns at the back, bringing new colors in and taking old colors out, and keeping an even tension.

There will be one traditional twelve stitch steek.  Multiple steek treatments will be presented, ranging from doing nothing to machine sewing, so students can select one (or two) based on their confidence level when it's time for the "c" word.

The resulting shape will be closed on all four sides, but with that overlapped opening in the center of the back that allows the pillow to be removed.  From the edges of that opening (the cut steek), stitches will be picked up for some kind of edge treatment -- a facing? a corrugated rib? -- again providing opportunities to sample different techniques.

Barring shaping or sewing sleeves to a body, I think that covers most everything a fledgling Fair Isle sweater knitter might run across.

Did I mention that this class started tonight?  Watch Daphne's blog for progress reports.  She's a fairly new knitter (how long have you been knitting, Daphne, a whole week now?) who is just itching to start an Alice Starmore Fair Isle.  I'm thinking she'll be ready when this class is over.

I'll probably still be figuring out which colors go together.

Sarah

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Knitting!

Square #3 turned into Rectangle #3 (or Rectangle #2, technically), and the whole mess became a 12 inch square.  Whew!  And the tails are even woven in already (I didn't hide them underneath like I did in last Tuesday's photo).  I meant for this charity-knitting project to use up leftover yarn from a baby blanket, but I seem to still have enough remaining to knit yet another 12 inch square.  That's what my brand spankin' new digital scale tells me, anyhow.  The next one will be garter stitch, garter stitch, and nothin' but garter stitch.  Which means it will use more yarn, and I probably won't have enough.  I'll have to think about that.  Incidentally, the white and medium-purple yarns are the creamiest yarns I've ever worked with.  They're both Dreambaby DK yarn by Plymouth.  Scrumptious.

Look what was hand-delivered to me tonight!

Gorgeous color courtesy of my buddy LynnH!  Didn't she do a fantastic job (the room breaks into applause)?  It's from the bottom of page 2, called "FuschiaBerry".  The one that says SOLD.  'Cause I bought it. 

That photo represents a milestone for me.  I made my happy-to-be-alive, but very sleepy husband take the top photo before he went off to bed.  I, Sarah Jean Peasley, not only took the bottom photo myself, but also loaded it to the computer, saved it to the proper folder, pulled it into my blog, and then figured out how to re-size it from gargantuan to standard blog-size.  ALL BY MYSELF.  Aren't I a big girl?  Watch out, world (waits for standing ovation to die down).

I think that's enough excitement for one evening.

Sarah

Monday, March 17, 2003

I was looking forward to getting a lot of knitting and knitting-related paperwork done today. 

At 7:45 this morning, however, as I was about to send son number two out the door to the bus stop, I got a scary phone call from my husband who had just been in an accident on his way to work (he commutes an hour and fifteen minutes each way, three days a week, on a very busy expressway).  No one was hurt, thank goodness.  Our car is probably totalled.  Not my beloved Volvo, amazingly enough (the body shop should have sent us a fruit basket at Christmas last year for being their best customer). 

You see, traffic on the very busy expressway occasionally comes to a complete stop for no apparent reason.  This somehow slipped my husband's mind this morning, and now we're minus a car (I still love you, honey!).

So I got dressed, grabbed some bottled water and a spare pair of jeans (I was panicking) and drove an hour to rescue my husband from the Dunkin' Donuts where the cops had left him (that was funny later). 

We're laughing about it now (MANY hours later).  We wanted to get a new car, anyway. 

But get this:  on our way home, a car had stopped in the middle lane of the very busy expressway.  A police car was parked behind it with lights flashing.  All three lanes of traffic came to a complete stop.  As did we.  And the blue van behind us.  But not the two cars behind the van.  We heard a huge bang, looked up, and saw immediately behind us, reflected in the mirrors, a three car pile-up, with the blue van now rolling toward us.  Fortunately, we were able to get out of the way.  Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.  The middle car was definitely totalled.  But not my beloved Volvo.  Not yet, anyway.

Figure the odds of all that happening on the same day.

So, no knitting again today, although I did sew in some of those ends last night.  Only 110 left to go (yeah, I counted them).

Thank goodness for air bags.

Sarah

Sunday, March 16, 2003

Happy St. Urho's Day! 

Being of Scottish descent, I was encouraged to wear orange on St. Patrick's Day rather than green (don't ask me why -- one of my high school teachers asked once, and I responded with a lengthy essay explaining something about William of Orange, but I can't remember any of it -- except the William of Orange part).  I was born in Minnesota, where the St. Urho legend originated, and at some time or other my family began to celebrate this holiday.  By "celebrate", I mean we send each other cards that say "Happy St. Urho's Day!".  We don't hop around like grasshoppers.  Not that we'd admit to, anyway.

So every March 16, I'm supposed to wear purple and green, and on March 17, I'm supposed to wear orange.

And it was kind of a nice coincidence that son number one was born on March 16.  Happy birthday, sweetie!

I'm going to go find something purple or green or orange to work on.  Oh, look!  That sweater-of-the-gazillion-ends has both green and orange stripes -- perfect! 

Sarah

Saturday, March 15, 2003

Do you want the bad news or the good news first?

The bad news is that I worked for forty-five minutes on the Mary Maxim Bubble Blossom cardigan that I'm finishing for a customer, and in all that time I got the ends woven in on exactly one sleeve.  That included untying the knots (that I didn't tie).  The good news is that I used the duplicate-stitch-weaving-in-of-ends technique that I mentioned on Thursday, and it seemed to work quite nicely.  The yarn is cotton, and it looks like those little ends are going to stay put.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

The good news is that I finished knitting the last piece to my Hanne Falkenberg sweater last night.  The bad news is that after I sewed the first sleeve to the body this evening, the sewing-up yarn broke as I snugged up the seam.  I think I'll use a double strand when I try again tomorrow.

I believe this qualifies as "two steps forward, one step back". 

Sarah

Friday, March 14, 2003

Not much knitting again, but tonight I hope to finish the last sleeve of Tokyo (by Hanne Falkenberg).  It's been a busy teaching week, though, with four new classes starting (Philosopher's Wool on Monday, Seamless Sweater Design on Wednesday, Beginning Knitting on Thursday, and Continental Knitting today).  Next week I start two MORE classes (another Continental Knitting, and Introduction to Fair Isle).  Oh!  Excuse me, that was my bank account belching.

It dawned on me today that I have another basket hidden away in my basement that is full of almost-finished projects.  I guess I'll have to have another little tail-weaving session soon. 

I wore my Shape It! Scarf today, even though the temperature made it up into the forties (°F).  Hooray for my new scarf!  Hooray for warmer weather!

No pictures today, but lots of links, most of which have photos for your enjoyment.

Until next time,

Sarah

Thursday, March 13, 2003

I strongly dislike weaving in ends.  Hate to, actually.  It's not uncommon for me to leave ends dangling on an otherwise finished project for months before I deign to apply the darning needle.  Ooh, I just looked up "deign" in the dictionary to see if that was really the word I meant to use.  Webster's says that deign means "to condescend reluctantly and with a strong sense of the affront to one's superiority that is involved".  That's exactly what I was hoping it meant!

I thought I had this tail business under control.  The secret is to leave as few ends as possible. 

Let's address the issue of bringing in a new strand of the same color of yarn.  There are those who believe new yarn should only be brought in at the edge of your knitting.  I firmly believe that those edges need to remain strong for whatever is going to happen there -- seams, picked up stitches, or whatever.  I bring my new yarn in wherever I run out of my old yarn, but NOT at the edge.  I'll concede that it would be less noticeable if it occurred CLOSE to the edge, but I've run short of yarn enough times to want to milk everything I can out of those skeins.

I learned the spit splice ("Mom!  Did you just spit on your yarn?") to avoid ends when bringing in a new strand of the same color (only works on wool, unfortunately).  I read on the Socknitters list about the Russian join, wonderfully described here, and have started to use that when bringing in a new strand of the same color on some non-wool yarns.  When neither spit splicing nor the Russian join will do the trick, like for the Tahki Chelsea Silk I'm using for my Sally Melville sweater, I work one stitch with old and new yarns held together, tails going in opposite directions.  That works great, but then I have those pesky ends to weave in.  I was satisfied weaving the ends diagonally under the purl bumps on the wrong side of the fabric, then doing a hairpin turn and weaving diagonally back in the opposite direction. 

But THEN, I read the article in the latest issue (Spring 2003) of Cast On called "On Your Way to the Masters:  Those Pesky Yarn Tails".  The method described within involves weaving in the ends using duplicate stitch on the wrong side, thereby maintaining the flexibility of the fabric.  The author cites June Hemmons Hiatt's The Principles of Knitting, which I don't own, and Janet Szabo's The "I Hate to Finish Sweaters" Guide to Finishing Sweaters, which I own but apparently haven't read thoroughly enough.  Why haven't I ever heard of this before?  Why isn't it mentioned in any of the other twenty-seven knitting reference books I have?  Why didn't I ever figure it out for myself? 

Yesterday, during a visit from one of my knitting friends (Hi, Lois!), it was pointed out to me that if I would just weave in a few tails here and there, I would be able to get some of those projects with the dangly ends out of my in-basket.  Today I sat down for half an hour and wove "those pesky yarn tails" in.  I now have a completed pair of Meida's Socks from the Spring 1997 issue of Interweave Knits, knit with Cleckheaton Nature Cotton/Wool 8 Ply.   I also have a gorgeous new Shape It! Scarf from Sally Melville's The Knitting Experience:  The Knit Stitch, made from one hank of Mountain Colors Merino Ribbon.  AND, I wove in the ends to Square #1 and Square #2 (betcha didn't see all those ends tucked underneath the squares in Tuesday's photos, did ya?), AND sewed them together in anticipation of being one big 12 inch square.  

And then there are these...

They appear to be different sizes, but that's what I get for knitting them three weeks apart.  I'm hoping the felting process takes care of that little discrepancy.  Tracy, are you out there?  I guess I'm ready to felt my Fuzzy Feet!

Sarah

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

No photos today, as it was pretty much a no-knitting day, although I did turn the heel on my second Fuzzy Foot while waiting for my turn on the computer.  Turned it twice, actually.  I like to get my money's worth out of my yarn.

We added the photos to yesterday's post.  The colors didn't come out very true.  Maybe because we were in a different room this time?  Look how different the carpet looks between yesterday's photos and the earlier ones.  They should all be a silvery gray.  Is grey spelled with an "a" or an "e"? 

Boy, oh boy, the sleeve on that Sally Melville sweater still looks kinda narrow.  Maybe I'd better sew that one up and try it on before I continue with the other side. 

Hey!  Looky over there →→   Matt made me a groovy new button!  Thanks, sweetie!  My husband couldn't figure out where the background came from, even after I showed him the sweater photo (see Monday's post).  Weird.

So, not much knitting today, but lots of knitting related activities.  I started a new Seamless Sweater class this morning, and had visits from three other students for various questions/help/deliveries, so I still got my knitting fix in for the day.  I think I'll go work a few rows on something before bed.

Sarah

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

I'm a late night blogger, so technically it's March 12th now, but I'm still calling it the 11th.  My webmaster/photographer/husband (WPH?) is sound asleep, so there won't be any pictures until tomorrow.  Yesterday, he taught me how to post all by myself (aren't I special?), but I'm still ignorant of the ways of the digital camera.

I finished Square #2 for the guild's service project.  The requirements were for either a 6 inch or 12 inch square, but since I dove in without swatching, Square #1 came out to 6 1/2 x 6 inches.  To make things easier for the lucky person who will be sewing all the donated squares together, I decided to make another 6 1/2 x 6 inch square and two 5 1/2 x 6 inch squares, then sew them all together into one off-balance 12 inch square.  Strange, I know, when it would have been quicker to re-knit the silly square.  Sometimes I can't figure myself out.  Okay, lots of times.

The yarn is leftovers from a baby sized Rambling Rows (from Cottage Creations) blanket I made for my neighbor's daughter's baby last autumn. 

At the weekly Tuesday night knit-in tonight, I worked on Sleeve #2 (#3, actually) of the Knit-Down, Made-to-Measure Jumper from Sally Melville's book, The Knitting Experience:  The Knit Stitch.  I didn't have the pattern or my notes with me, so I stopped when I got to the first decrease row.  I had to come up with my own decrease numbers because when I finished decreasing using Sally's numbers, the sleeve still needed about six more inches, which would have made for a long, narrow cuff.  Tonight, I was too tired to look at Sleeve #1 to see what to do next.  That's why you always need to have an easy project on the needles, for just such an occasion.  Unfortunately, that sweater IS my easy project right now. 

The yarn is Tahki Chelsea Silk, that in a former life was a partially completed Aran Pocket Shawl from Cheryl Oberle's book Folk Shawls.  The shawl-to-be was gorgeous, and felt very cuddly, but I realized that it's pointless to make shawls when I never wear them.  I took this one

to a dinner last Friday, in case the room was cold, but it wasn't.  That's the closest I've come to wearing a shawl in public.  This one is the Sampler Shawl, also from Folk Shawls, using my favorite color of DOMY wool from Old Mill Yarn in Eaton Rapids, Michigan.  I would like to make all the shawls in that book, but I need to learn how to wear them. 

So, tonight at the knit-in, I dug around in my knitting bag and found one completed Fuzzy Foot (unfelted).  I found the yarn and figured out what needle I had used, and cast on for Fuzzy Foot #2.  I worked on the cuff until my host started yawning, and then I packed up and came home, where WPH was asleep on the couch.  I'll post a photo of the Feet when they're both ready for felting (fulling, actually, if you're a fulling-snob -- and I mean that in a nice way!).

Yawn! 

Sarah

Monday, March 10, 2003

Sleeves are not my favorite thing to knit.  Why, then, am I currently working on the sleeves of five (count 'em) different sweaters?  There's Mary Tudor (see yesterday's post), Tokyo (Hanne Falkenberg), the Knit-Down, Made-to-Measure Jumper (Sally Melville), the Circus Sweater (Philosopher's Wool), my Cabled Raglan (Sarah Peasley), and Sicily (Jamie and Jessi Seaton).  Oh, geez, that's six, not five.  I'm on the second sleeve of the first three sweaters, and the bodies of those sweaters are done, so that's a happy thing.  Well, technically, I'm on the third sleeve of the Sally Melville sweater, because on the first go-round, the shaping was done too quickly, so I started again with my own numbers.  The Philosopher's Wool sweater started with the sleeve, so I have a long way to go on that one.  The Cabled Raglan is a circular, um, raglan, and I'm up to the underarm on the body, waiting to attach the sleeves.  The Seaton sweater is a for-hire job, done on U.S. size 0's (and 00's for the twisted rib) in INTARSIA, another personal favorite of mine.  I decided to start on the sleeves of that one because I'm just plain nuts. 

I only have about five inches left on the last Tokyo sleeve, but ran out of the charcoal colored wool.  This is at least the second time this has happened to me.  I have to stop buying kits.  I'm making the length of the largest size, but the width of the smallest size, so I should have had plenty.  And I'm on gauge.  But get this:  My LYS owner called Swedish Yarn Imports, the U.S. distributor of Hanne Falkenberg kits, to see about getting an extra skein of wool.  They informed her that it was MY fault that I ran out of yarn -- that there had been plenty in the kit, so "the knitter" (me!) must have lost a skein.  End of story.  EXCUSE ME?  What happened to "the customer is always right?"  All I want is one lousy skein of yarn.  Fortunately, my LYS owner came up with a small ball of the charcoal wool out of her own stash.  We're hoping it will be enough to finish the sleeve: 

What I'd really like is to start another sweater.  I'm more than ready to start the Fair Isle Cardigan from the cover of Meg Swansen's Knitting.  Here's my yarn:

It's Jamieson & Smith 100% Shetland Wool, from Meg herself at Schoolhouse Press.  I changed the colors, because what I thought was black in the cover photograph is actually a NATURAL black, which is actually a dark brown, which I don't do.  So, I substituted navy for the "black", and then tweaked a few other colors.  I wanted to be knitting this sweater along with my Fair Isle Sweater class, but I can't justify starting it until I get a few of those aforementioned sleeves out of the way.

But what did I actually work on today?  I put the front bands on a Bubble Blossom Cardigan for a customer.  It's a Mary Maxim kit, and quite cute.  I still have to sew everything together and add the neckband.  And sew all those little ends in. 

I'm also finishing up a second afghan square for my guild's current service project.  What on earth possessed me to use teeny tiny baby yarn, and to come up with an intarsia design?  It's just vertical stripes, but it's still intarsia, for crying out loud.  I truly am nuts.

Not a terribly productive knitting day, but I did spend the morning printing out class notes for the week, spent the afternoon setting up the elementary school's book fair, and spent the evening starting a new Philosopher's Wool Sweater class.  And three loads of laundry, and a load of dishes...

And so it goes.

Sarah

Sunday, March 9, 2003

My first blog entry.

My thinking is that by airing my dirty laundry, I'll be held accountable for all the unfinished (and unstarted) projects lurking around the house.  I start more projects than I finish.  I refer to this as my "knitting deficit", and I am always on the lookout for ways to reduce said deficit.  The ultimate goal, I suppose, is "balanced" knitting, whereby I can walk into a yarn shop, buy some yarn, go home, and begin working with it immediately, without any feelings of guilt.  That, of course, is not only unattainable but undesirable as well.  I'll settle for a happy medium. 

So for starters, I think I'll introduce a WIP or a "should" or a "wish I could" with each entry.  I originally wanted to do all three each time, but I tend to be kind of wordy and I think there's probably a limit on how much anyone will want to read in one day.  I've got enough of each to keep me blogging for about a year, and by then maybe I'll actually have some finished projects, too.  Of course, by then, I'll certainly have gone shopping again, too. 

WIP

Mary Tudor, designed by Alice Starmore, from her book Tudor Roses.  I'm using Scottish Campion in all the original colors.  I bought this as a kit at either the TKGA National Convention in Pittsburgh, PA (whenever that was), or at Stitches East in King of Prussia, PA (more recently, but still a number of years ago).  Or I suppose it could have been at the TKGA Midwest Regional Convention in Lansing, MI about three years ago.  Who knows.  I distinctly remember walking through the market, totally overwhelmed as usual, and doing a double take when I saw a woman wearing this sweater (Mary Tudor, in case you've forgotten already -- the sweater, not the woman).  I made a bee-line for her, and told her I had to have that sweater.  Since she worked in a booth that sold the kit, it quickly became a done deal.  At the time, I hadn't seen Tudor Roses, and if I hadn't seen the actual sweater, I never would have wanted to knit it.  I think the colors in the photographs in the book come across as quite garish, but in person they're more muted and very lovely. 

ANYWAY, I've been working on it off and on (mostly off) for however many years it's been, and my knitting has improved since then so there are things I wish I had done differently, but I still love the sweater.  I'm just finishing the second sleeve, which leaves the collar and front bands yet to do.  Could be done in a matter of a day or two, except I have a gazillion other things I'm supposed to be doing, so it will probably be more like a week or two.  And I'm considering waiting until the Fair Isle Sweater class I'm teaching is ready for neckbands so I can use this as an example, but that won't be until May or June, and I'm sure I can't wait that long.

Old news

Here's Rosemarkie, designed by Alice Starmore, from her book The Celtic Collection.  I used DOMY from Old Mill Yarn in Eaton Rapids, MI, which is an incredible wool but comes in a limited range of colors.  I made this in a two-week period when I was "nesting", waiting for our attempt at in vitro fertilization to take (it didn't).  It was my first attempt at steeking.  As is always the case, I would do this differently if I ever did it again.  I don't wear brown, so I don't know what I was thinking to begin with.  I machine-sewed the steek with white thread because I was really nervous about cutting it open.  It's a little snug, because I knit it so fast that I didn't stop to re-check my gauge (although I have a lovely swatch to prove that I hit gauge at least once), and therefore has no closures.  It looks wonderful, though, and is full of memories (good ones, actually), and provides a myriad of examples to show to my class.

Enough for now.  More tomorrow...

Sarah