Slow & Steady as she goes.

Holy smokes! It's been two weeks since I posted last. I can't really say that I've had that much going on, so I'm a little surprised so much time has passed. Anyway, I've made good progress on my Rafters cardigan: I've completed the waist shaping and only have the bottom border to do before I can start on the sleeves and the collar/buttonband. The cardigan doesn't really have any ease right now, but I think that once the button band is on and I can get the whole thing washed and blocked, the cables will loosen up some and I'll end up with about 1.5" of positive ease. I'm still in love with the color and I can't say enough about how soft this yarn is. I just want to pet it all day long. The cat is still in love with it too. Today he was rubbing his face on it and licking the bag I store it in. He's a strange little beastie.

I've also made progress on Dan's Scylla socks. I finally turned the heel this week, and now only have the leg to finish. The great part of that is that the stitch pattern knits up quickly, without a whole lot of thought. Since Dan's so tall, I'm just going to knit until I run out of yarn. We'll see in a hurry whether I divided the hank evenly.

So it's a short post tonight, Friends. Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and there's a chance I'll get to see the Yarn Harlot when I'm home in Fort Wayne for the holiday. I'll probably limit myself to the Saturday night lecture and skip the classes. I'll post pics if it happens. Until next time.

WIP it good.

All my WIPs continue apace. I seem to be a little all over the place lately with my projects, but somehow, bit by bit, they're progressing.

This week I managed to get to the halfway point in the Hanami stole. I'm really happy with how it's coming along. I like that the beads have given it some heft (as hefty as seed beads can be on an alpaca/silk lace stole) and I think it's going to drape beautifully once it's finished. I hope I have some occasion to wear it. Maybe I'll get invited to a wedding. Or maybe we'll go to the ballet. Or something. Of course, I'm not sure I have anything to wear with it, so I'll have to get on that.

Knitting. Tasty, tasty, knitting.

I've also made progress on my Rafters cardigan. Just this morning I completed the front shaping and now I'm ready to get everything all joined up for some progress on the body. It looks a little small right now, but I think that's because so many of the sweaters I've made for myself have turned out too big. Even if it's a bit small now, I'm pretty sure that blocking will relax some of the tightness in the cables. So long as I get gauge on the sweater as a whole, I'll have about an inch of ease.

Since my last couple posts I've frogged the blue socks for my friend, Dan, and started a new pair for him. I'm doing the Scylla pattern again, this time with a skein of Mountain Colors Crazyfoot I've had in my stash for awhile. In the skein, the yarn looked a lot more brown than it's knitting up. In the socks, I'm seeing more jewel tones, but I think it's still masculine. I hope he'll be cool with it. This is my commuting-and-waiting-in-line knitting and it's moving right along. I've probably got another two weeks with it before it's finished.

Of course, with three projects on the needles (four, if you count my unfinished Halloween costume), it looks like I'm not going to be doing any Christmas knitting. There just won't be any time. I have a feeling I'm still going to be baking up a storm, but it's already too late to be in time for Christmas. I will, however, be scouring my house for just the right contribution to our family's Dirty Santa exchange.

On that note, I'll sign off for now. Until next time, Friends.

Knitting keeps me humble.

Seriously. Every time I get even a little bit cocky about my ability to do something knitting-related, knitting puts me right back in my place. Case in point: effing cables.

I've made plenty of things with cables: socks, gloves, hats, sweaters. Lots. Of. Stuff. Then I started on the back of the Rafters cardigan.

It's kind of hard to tell, but the braids on the left have a mistake.

See this picture? Take a good look at the cables on the left side. Notice they're a little different than the ones on the right side? Yeah. I messed them up. I seem to have repeated a row without noticing for like three rows.

Here's a closer look at my lesson in humility.

I didn't want to unknit the cables I'd gotten right, so I decided that I'd just undo the 6 stitches down 'til I got to the mistake and fix each cable individually. It worked pretty well, I think. It only took me 30 minutes or so to fix, which wasn't so bad. I just had to apply myself.

Left braid fixed, center & right braids up next.

Once I got the cables uncrossed I was able to fly right along on the back of the sweater. I'm about to start the increases for the underarms and then I think I'll get to start the fronts of the sweater pretty soon thereafter. It's really starting to cool off here, so another lovely, soft wool sweater will be great to put into rotation.

That's all the yarn, & the heels aren't even turned.

Another lesson in humility was this pair of simple vanilla socks that I'm making for a friend. Who happens to wear size 15 shoes. When I looked at the yarn in the ball, I thought I had plenty. If I'd looked at the project page for my husband's aran-weight socks, I'd have seen that I used two balls of this yarn to make his, and he only wears a size 11.5. So I've contacted my friend to see if he'd rather have the thick socks, for which I'll need to order more yarn; or thinner socks, the yarn for which I already have in a quantity to make a pair. I guess I can start winding the yarn for the thinner socks. I have a long work-related meeting tomorrow, so I'll need something to work on that won't require too much attention for a little while.

Well, that's all I have for now. Until next time, Friends.

The House Cup!

Well, it's Day One of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, and the fine lady behind Eskimimimakes who has kindly organized the whole thing has also provided prompts for everyone this week. Today's prompt, The House Cup, has asked us to identify which of four houses (a la Harry Potter) we expect we'd be sorted into.

The four houses are Bee, Manatee, Monkey, and Peacock whose descriptions you can find here. Once I had a good think about it, I decided that the Sorting Hat would place me with the Monkeys, as the most important requirement of any project I undertake is that it has to challenge me. I also think that I'm intelligent and fun-loving, but that's kind of a tacky thing to admit about oneself. Anyway, yes, I like to be challenged in my knitting and I like unusual construction and learning new skills.

Just looking at my sock knitting projects, it's pretty clear that I have to have an interesting pattern. Even when I've knit a stockinette sock, the technique was a challenge (Anne Berk's intarsia in the round). There are multiple examples of lace knitting in my sock projects, most of which I think look more challenging than they actually were. I've also done plenty of cabled socks, including Bex, which I've done twice. (I can't even say how many green u-cable needles I've lost over the years - since they only come in a set of three sizes, I must have a gross of the pink ones and white ones scattered throughout the house!) I think the challenge factor gets upped on all these projects because I always knit my socks two at a time. It's not always the easiest way to do it, but I'm pretty sure that I'd be one of those people who suffer from Second Sock Syndrome, were I ever to let myself do one sock at a time.

So, there it is: I'm a Monkey. I think if we were talking about Hogwarts, this Monkey would end up in Ravenclaw House, mostly for the degree of difficulty of the projects I take on. I suspect that Manatees would end up in Hufflepuff House, since they're so easygoing and gentle. Peacocks, I think, would likely be Slytherins, not because they're evil, but because I would expect that cunning Slytherins would value the embellishments and sparkle that characterize the Peacock. I guess that leaves Gryffindor for the Bees, but I would say that Monkeys could be in that house too, since lace knitting without a lifeline requires a degree of bravery that I don't think Bees have.

Anyway, that's it for Day One. For Day Two, I'll see which of my projects is most appropriate as a Mascot Project. Until then, Friends!

Sick knitting

It's what I did when I had to stay home from work for a couple days last week. I had a pretty vicious cold, which is mostly gone now, having taken my voice with it. Right now I sound a little like a cross between Lauren Hutton and Joe Cocker.

Anyway, when I wasn't sleeping off the fever or coughing my head off, I was working on a fast, fun infinity scarf that I saw in the current Amirisu magazine. The Walnut Snood seemed like an ideal project because I had a natural-colored bulky-weight yarn in my stash, so all I had to do was buy the pattern and I'd be off.

After the provisional cast-on, I got started on the cable chart, which knits up fast, especially since it's bulky yarn and size 10 needles. So different from my usual sock knitting! Once I got going, it was easy to keep going, although I started getting bored after about the seventh chart repeat. I eventually completed all 11 repeats and was able to wash and block the scarf this weekend. It ended up being a little longer than the pattern's 67-inch length, but I think it will be fine for winding around my neck once it gets cold again. (It's 48 degrees F today.)

Well, that's all I have for today. Until next time, Friends.

Zori Cardigan

For the last few posts, I've said that I'd talk about my Zori cardigan in my next post, so I'm finally getting around to it. According to my Ravelry project page, I started this cardigan a little more than three weeks ago. I'm using Stonehedge Fiber Mill's Shepherd's Wool dk yarn, which I first got to use on the Dome hat sample for CookieA. The color is called Frosty Blue, and it's a medium-darkish blue that almost looks heathered, but isn't quite.

Anyway, I started off worried that I wouldn't have enough yarn, as I'd only bought about 1700 yards, while the pattern said I'd need need about 200 yards more. I decided to take my chances and see how I was doing with the sleeves before I ordered more. I was feeling lucky since I got gauge with my first swatch, but then I quickly felt like an idiot because I couldn't figure out how to make the stitch count work with the chart. But (luckily) the designer responded quickly to a message sent on Ravelry, spelling out how the chart worked. You'd think I'd know how to read a chart by now, but I cast on for this project pretty late at night, so I have to account for my tired brain.

Once I got the hang of the chart, I zipped right along with the back and both front yokes and was able to get them blocked about a week after I cast on. I had to block pretty aggressively to achieve the measurements on the pattern, but the nice thing about these pieces is that they had straight sides so that I could use my blocking wires rather than trying to pin it out. Once everything was dry, the only seaming I had to do was for the two shoulders (which was hardly anything at all) and then pick up stitches for the stockinette bodice. By the end of another week, I'd knit the bodice to the prescribed length, but found that it was much too long, even with my long torso. I ripped out four inches and bound off again, ready to start the pretty, twisted trim edging. After a couple false starts with the trim, I eventually found my groove, and the edging practically flew off my needles.

Now I'm working on the sleeves, which I'm doing two at a time, magic loop style. It feels a little bulky when I have to turn the knitting, but I've never been the kind of knitter to do things one at a time if I can help it. Socks, gloves, mittens, sleeves: if there are two to be made, I'll do them at the same time, dammit. As of this afternoon, I've gotten about 3 inches of each sleeve completed and I hope that I'll be binding them off by next weekend. I don't expect it will be cool enough to wear this for at least another month, but it'll be nice to have a new cardigan to wear when it is.

Well, that's all for now. Until next time, Friends.

Never-Ending Ends

During the week I finished knitting all the flowers for my Hydrangea bag, so this weekend I began weaving in all the ends. Each flower has eight ends to weave in, and there are 41 flowers (but I made a few extra, just in case) so that means there are officially 328 ends to deal with. Thank goodness there was a Harry Potter marathon on television, so I could kind of zone out while I was working on them. I've woven in all the ends at the tips of all the flowers and I only have half a dozen or so flowers that I have to do the base of each petal. Once I've done all those, then I'll get started on the felting. Luckily, there isn't a real deadline for this project - I'll probably submit it for next year's State Fair, so it doesn't have to be done until the end of July or so.

I also made some progress on the Glacier gloves, getting about an inch or so of each hand chart done. The pattern is a lot less difficult than I expected it to be. I think that having done this kind of complex cable work before is serving me well this time around. I'm still in love with the yarn - it has a lovely sheen to it and its softness impressive. I'm still not sure how warm they'll be, but I think I might have a few more weeks before it gets cold enough for me to find out. I wish I had some good photos of them for you, but I have to wait for daylight to get some good shots.

Of course, now that I've finished the actual knitting for the felted bag, I don't have anything to work on during my commute to the office. I've considered starting on a few more baby sweaters, since they're small and they go fast. I've also thought about starting another pair of socks, but I haven't finished the intarsia-in-the-round socks, so my size 1 circulars are tied up in that project. Another project I've considered is a moebius or some sort of cowl/shawlette pattern that has an easily memorize-able stitch pattern that will travel well. I'm completely undecided.  I think I'll take another look through my stash and see what looks good.

Anyway, that's all I have for tonight. Until next time, Friends.