Boing! Thump!

Did you hear that? That was me jumping on the bandwagon. What prompted this fit of unoriginality in me? Well my friend M and his wife H surprised me by having a baby. Now I say “surprised” in the most tongue-in-cheek way. M and H have produced kids like clockwork: every two years in June or July a new addition to their family. The first four kids are a girl, a boy, a girl, and a boy. Last fall, I was talking to M on the phone (they live in Austin) and I jokingly asked if H was pregnant. He said yes. Then I teased that baby #5 would most certainly be a girl. (M and H never find out the gender of their children in utero.)

Well, M and H had baby #5, a girl, in mid-July. From their track record, I knew that this would happen even before H got pregnant—it wasn’t a surprise at all. But for some reason, I chose to ignore the impending arrival. When I heard the news about the new baby, I realized that I needed to knit something. Fast.

So for M and H’s newest bundle of joy, a February Baby Sweater and a Vine Lace Baby Hat.

Pattern: Baby Sweater on Two Needles (actually, I used only one circular) by Elizabeth Zimmermann and Vine Lace Baby Hat by Sandi Wiseheart
Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK, color 520, 3 balls
Needles: 3.75 mm (US 5) for the sweater and 3.5 mm (US 4) DPNs for the hat

Comments:
In complete lemming form, I paired the hat with this sweater after seeing it on Guro’s blog. It just reinforces the fact that I could not think for myself on this project.

The sweater pattern is not difficult. It should have been knit in a few hours with no problems. However, this is me. I made an easy sweater hard:

* After knitting four or five rows, I decided that the front edges would looks so much better if I used a slip-stitch selvedge. So I ripped and started over.

* After knitting a few rows past the first increase row, I decided that the increases looked better on the wrong side of the work. So I ripped back to two rows before the increase row and increased on a wrong-side row instead of a right-side row.

* Apparently, my mind decided to take a vacation when I started the second sleeve. The sleeves start by casting on 7 stitches on each side of each sleeve. I managed to do this properly on the first sleeve. But I cast on stitches only on one side on the second sleeve. That’s right: I followed the directions correctly THREE TIMES and then screwed up on the fourth time. Rip, rip, rip.

But all in all, I’m happy with the project. Despite all my foibles, I still managed to finish the two items in three days. Cute, fast, and PINK! Thanks for having a girl, M and H!

Finished Object: Scout Sweater

What can I say? Knitting blog readers have discriminating tastes. With so many blogs out there to read, it’s easy for one to ignore boring blogs. So I’ve noticed.

So, as a desperate attempt at lighting a fire under my blog readership and as a pathetic plea for new readers, I present the following:

Pattern: Doggie’s Kitty’s Soy Silk Sweater from Men Who Knit & the Dogs Who Love Them, size XS
Yarn: SWTC Karaoke, 50% Soy Silk, 50% wool, 1 ball, color 281 Bloom
Needles: US size 8 (5mm) and size 9 (5.5mm)
Modifications: Obviously, I used only one color of Karaoke instead of the three specified in the pattern. The mod that I should have done was to shorten the length of the collar. The collar doesn’t lay flat on Scout. I’ll keep that in mind for the next sweater that I make for Scout.

Pattern Errata: In this back view photo you can see that there are four distinct sections in the sweater: ribbing around the neck, an eyelet section, a reverse stockinette section, and a long ribbed section. This is identical to the sweater shown in the book. However, the instructions do not include the reverse stockinette section. Instead, it has a panel of stockinette set off by purl ridges. I could have made the sweater either way, but I thought the reverse stockinette added more visual interest.

The chest area of the sweater has some lovely shaping between the legs. If you follow the shaping instructions in the book for the X-Small size, you will end up with a front that is much too long. To correct for this, I omitted six of the eight plain rows that are knit before the shaping starts.

Comments:

Before any of you start accusing me of drugging Scout or having a stuffed cat, look! She moves! Here she is playing with a purple bunny toy. Not the greatest photo, but it proves that Scout is alive and alert. I would never hurt my baby Scout. Scout loves me. She loves the sweater that I made for her. She is more than happy to wear it and have her photo taken.

I started knitting this on Thursday night and finished it on Friday afternoon. While I was knitting it several people questioned my sanity and doubted that I could ever successfully put Scout in a sweater. And when I say several, I mean several.

Knittyheads Valerie, Barbie, Theresa, Miko, Sarah, Karen, and Bean* all called me crazy and gave me strange looks. (As much as one can give strange looks over the internet.) Of course, some of them started by encouraging me to make the sweater, but as soon as I actually started it, they began saying that I was insane. I think they wanted me to make a fool out of myself. I showed them!

Houston SnBers Meredith, Kelly, Amy, S t a c i, and Drew* all doubted that Scout would stay in the sweater for very long. But as you can see, Scout wore the sweater for THREE different photo shoots. (The first photo shoot was before I weaved the ends in. I asked Scout to try on the sweater before I cut the yarn. She was so obliging.) And in fact, after the second photo shoot, she wore the sweater for 45 minutes before starting to try to squirm out of it.

Getting Scout into the sweater is not very difficult. Getting her out of it is much more of a challenge. The difference may have something to do with the fact that I put the sweater on her when she’s sleepy, and by the time I take it off, she’s wide awake and a little bit annoyed. Or perhaps she just doesn’t want me to take off the sweater. Maybe she really likes wearing it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

*Note another ploy for getting people to pay attention to my blog: linking to lots of other blogs.

Baby Aran and Ruffles: Two FOs for the Price of One

I finished two projects last week but never got around to blogging about them. I guess I was distracted by the bobblectomy. Without further ado, I present a sweater and a scarf:

Baby Aran


Pattern: Heirloom Aran Baby Set (but just the sweater, not the hat) from Interweave Knits Spring 2004, size 12 months
Yarn: Rowan 4-Ply Soft in color 370 “Whisper,” 100% merino wool, 191 yards per ball, 3 balls used
Needles: US size 3
Recipient: Nephew Loganberry
Comments:
1) I didn’t do any modifications to this sweater. I didn’t even use a 3-needle bind-off for the shoulder seams because the sweater has saddle shoulders.

2) You’ll notice that Scout is not modeling this sweater. Putting a cat into a pullover and getting her to pose for photos is much harder than draping a cardigan over her back. Unfortunately for Scout, I still tried to get a torture modeling photo anyway. Yes, that is the only photo that I managed to take before she started trashing around. I had to get the sweater off her FAST.

3) I still need to find some good buttons to put on the button placket. However, I find the button placket position to be a bit weird.

See button placket.


See saddle strap covering up entire button placket.


Uh, aren’t you supposed to sew buttons onto the button placket? If I did that, the saddle strap wouldn’t sit straight. I’m confused. Should I sew the buttons right where the placket meets the front of the sweater? Is the placket there just so that one doesn’t have to sew the buttons right on the top edge of the front?

Ruffles

Pattern: Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Handmaiden Silk Maiden in Berry, 50% silk, 50% wool, 300 yards, 1 hank
Needles: US size 7
Finished length: 56 inches, a decent length for a “decorative” scarf
Cat: Scout (I love it when she cocks her head like that)
Peter’s Sarcastic Comment: “Wow, it looks so warm!”
My Comment: I washed the scarf and now I wish I hadn’t. The yarn became much more drape-y and my nice tight fusilli spiral is now floppy. *sigh* But I still love it because it’s soft and curly and red.

An Announcement and a Reid FO Report

Recently, my old former college roomie took up knitting. I have been watching her progress with great interest and have been quite pleased that she never stooped to knitting a garter stitch fun-fur scarf. Anyway, she just produced her first ever sock. See it here and tell her what a wonderful job she's done. She even grafted the toe closed!

Reid

Pattern: Reid from Knitty, 2 year size
Yarn: Patons Grace in pink (4 balls) and blue (part of a ball)
Needles: US size 5 and 6, crochet hook of an appropriate size (Size gray in my own personal crochet-hook sizing system. I can never remember the real sizes.)
Recipient: Niece Eva
Cat: Scout

Modifications: I started working the picot edging as specified in the pattern: work a round of single crochet then work a round of single-crochet picots. But when I finished, I thought that the edging looked too clunky—it needed something more delicate. So I ripped the picot round and tried a slip-stitch picot round. The combo of single crochet then slip-stitch picots looked nice, but alas, I found doing the slip-stitch picots very awkward. So I ripped out all the single crochets and did a single-crochet picot round directly onto the sweater. I think it looks good now—and it’s a lot faster.

(Don't let all this fancy-schmancy crochet talk make you think that I know something about crochet. Everything I know comes from the big fat Vogue Knitting book.)

Oh and I did a 3-needle bind off for the shoulder seams. Do I really need to say that again? Maybe I should just tell you when I DON’T do a 3-needle bind off.

Oopsie(?): I knit the sleeves as directed (“work all rows of upper sleeve chart, etc.”) and I probably shouldn’t have. Or I should have dry-blocked the sleeves to see how long they were after working the sleeve increase chart. But I didn’t dry block and when I actually blocked the sleeves to the size specified in the pattern after binding off, I didn’t think that the lace pattern was open enough. So I made another one of my brilliant snap decisions: “I’ll just make the sleeves longer! That way Miss Eva can wear the sweater for a longer time.” Um, yeah. Perhaps if Eva is part Neanderthal she could wear it. (No, I’m not saying that my brother or my SIL are Neanderthals. It’s a joke about having long arms. It must be a bad joke if I think I have to explain it.)

General thoughts: Overall it was a nice, quick knit. The lace pattern is easy to memorize and the results are cute. Just dry-block those sleeves to check the length, okay?

Call me a loser

Hi! Remember me? I'm back from reclusing myself away from the knitblogging world. (I know reclusing isn’t a word. I’m following the great American tradition of creating verbs from nouns by adding “-ing”.) I'm touched by the concern that some of you expressed over my recent lack of blogging. Nothing is seriously wrong over here--just a case of the blahs and a bit of a writer's block.

I had a cold a couple weeks ago and, as usual, I sat around and felt sorry for myself. I'm such a baby when it comes to being ill. As a kid, I didn't get ill very often (perfect school attendance from 5th grade until high school graduation!) so I got the short-end of the stick when it came to the attentions of Dr. Mom. In fact, my parents didn't believe me the few times that I actually was very ill. And yes I vividly remember being dismissed as "lazy" and "bratty" when I complained about not feeling well.* So now that I'm an adult and don’t have to wait for a parental unit to declare me sick, I milk it for all it's worth. "Pity me, I'm sick!"

Knitting-wise I've also been a loser. I started working on my Christmas gifts: Reid for niece Eva and Heirloom Aran for nephew Logan. Now you can see that Reid is basically finished. Seamed together, pink yarn ends weaved, picot edging worked. But notice that the ball of yarn for the edging is STILL ATTACHED to the dang sweater. It's been in that state for a week now. Pathetic. I'm just pathetic.

While the nearly finished Reid languishes in my knitting bag, the Heirloom Aran is clicking along nicely. What is it about working cables in fingering-weight yarn that I find so attractive? I was mighty disappointed to discover that I had to go up to a gigantic size 3 needle (3.25 mm for you metric types) to get gauge. There was much grousing when I put away the size 1 needle (2.25 mm). Suddenly the entire pattern was less interesting, but I cast on anyway. What else was I going to do with the yarn?

The back and the front of the aran are finished and I just started the sleeves. But now I don’t want to work on it simply because the sleeves have increases on the wrong side of the work. That’s right, I’m being crabby about having to increase on the wrong side. Why? Because not only am I a pathetic loser, I’m a whiner too. whine

So now you’ve gotten a dose of me in a foul mood and you can see why I didn’t feel like blogging. I’ll keep working on hauling myself out of this slump. A visit this weekend from Monkee and MonkeeMom should help with that.

*(The incident most deeply burned in my memory happened during a family vacation to San Francisco. We were in Chinatown shopping. At that time, Chinatown was very exciting and important to my father because Chinese Anything was impossible to find in Iowa. I started feeling bad. I told my parents. I could barely stand and couldn't bear to be inside the stuffy stores. My dad yelled at me. Called me selfish. After an hour or so of moping and yelling, he dragged me and the rest of the family halfway across the city to eat at a non-Chinatown restaurant because he thought I was complaining about being in Chinatown. But I just wanted to sit and do nothing. I couldn't eat the sandwich that he bought for me. More yelling. Finally, they took me back to our relatives’ house where I promptly began showing the less-pleasant symptoms of the stomach flu. Of course, my brother came down with the same illness the next day and my parents had to spend the rest of the vacation tag-teaming over who took care of the kids and who got to go sightseeing. Thankfully, I was nearly well by the time we had to fly home. Big brother was not so lucky.)

Loganberry Sweater #1

(hee hee, you can see that I'm planning on making more than one sweater for Loganberry)


Pattern: Basic Baby Sweater by Elizabeth, smallest size
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Twist in white (2 hanks) and royal blue (1.5 hanks), also from Elizabeth. I think this is a discontinued yarn because I can't find any information about it. It is a worsted-weight 100% cotton yarn.
Needles: US sizes 4 and 6
Cat: Scout refusing to look cute for the photo. (Scout was very cute in one photo, but it wasn't a good photo of the sweater. Hopefully, Scout's vanity will not be hurt by posting this less than ideal photo of her.)

Comments: Quick and easy, down and dirty knit. I came up with the color-block pattern myself. I thought I was being so clever until I steam-blocked it. The blue ran a little bit into the white. Before I knit the yarn, I tested for colorfastness and thought that I was good to go. But apparently my test was not very accurate.

I need to wash this sweater before sending it off to Loganberry. Can anyone give me some hints on how to wash it without changing all the white to blue? How can I set the dye? (I hear vinegar in the wash water works, does it?)

Peter's Comment: Babies are small.

Answering Questions

Ingrid asked if there was a trick to getting the gauge right on my x-back tank. Yes there was, but getting the gauge correct was not the only trick needed to obtain the proper fit. For the x-back to fit properly, it must be made with negative ease. That is, the finish product has to be smaller in circumference than I am! In this case, the tank has about 3 inches of negative ease. So, trick #1 is to pick a size smaller than you would expect.

Getting the proper gauge was more problematic for me. I'm not sure if my swatching/gauge problems were a result of the ribbon yarn, the seed stitch pattern, or both. Whatever contributed, the results were clear--it was impossible for me to judge the gauge of the final product by using a small swatch. The resulting fabric has quite a bit of stretch to it, and a small swatch cannot demontrate just how much a larger piece of fabric will stretch. For example, with size 15 needles, my swatch had a gauge of 3 sts/inch (the required gauge), but the final product had a gauge closer to 2.5 sts/inch. With size 11 needles, the swatch had a gauge of 4 sts/inch, and the final product had a gauge of around 3 sts/inch. So, for me at least, trick #2 was trial and error until I found a combination of needle size and pattern size that gave me the correct fit.

Monkee asked how I manage to get Scout to look up when I'm taking pictures. Her cat, Fritty, will not mug for the camera like Scout does. There is no trick to getting Scout to look at the camera. Scout knows her name and responds to it like a puppy dog. All I have to do is call her name and she looks at me (or comes running if she's in another room). I call her my little puppy cat.

Other Stuff
I found cute buttons for the stripe-y sweater:


I blocked the blanket for my co-worker's baby of unknown gender. Sorry, that I didn't take an attractive photo. After washing and de-cat-hairing the blanket, I wanted to wrap it up as soon as possible so I didn't haul it around the house looking for good, natural light. The blanket is now in an appropriately gender-neutral package with some gender-neutral onesies and will be shipped off today.

Stripes!

I finished Candace--the second sweater for my baby niece. (It still needs buttons--Walmart, here I come!)



Pattern: Candace Baby Cardigan from Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar, size 1-2 years
Yarn: Regia 4-ply in colors 5271 (jacquard) and 1991 (gray heather)
Needles: US size 2 and 4
Cat: Scout, again (she's such a camera hog!)

I even added a *ahem* design feature. I didn't seam the sleeves all the way to the cuffs and then did a single-crochet around the selvage edge. (My first attempt at crocheting!) I did this because I cast on the wrong number of stitches when I started the sleeves, but didn't discover my oops until I was nearly finished with the increases. I adjusted the increases so that the sleeve cap would be the proper width, but I worried that the cuff openings would be too small. My design feature provides a larger opening for baby hands. I think it looks good. Shhh! Don't tell my niece that her auntie made a mistake.



And what about the X-back tank? Don't ask.

Other Stuff
I want a Richard Feynman stamp. Though the Buckminster Fuller stamp is much more amusing.

Alligators in the Sewer

Peter and I went to Brazos Bend State Park this weekend. The park has several wetland areas and is home to many wild alligators. Before entering the trails around the lakes, we read the alligator warning signs and practiced running away from the alligators. After just being on the trail for a few minutes we spotted our first alligator. It was just a baby and less than 2 feet long. We then saw several more babies.

At this point, we were very excited because we weren’t sure that we were going to see any alligators at all! So we were quite surprised when we saw the GIANT alligator. That big boy had to be at least 12 feet long. I was quite happy that it was on the other bank of the marshy area.

Next, we had an opportunity to get up close and personal with a 6-8 footer. He (or she) was sunning on the bank next to the trail. Close enough to touch.



Impressive, huh? What was even more impressive were the parents of the little kids that allowed their children to stand less than 5 feet from the snout of that reptile. At least Peter and I felt comfortable getting close to the alligator knowing that we were both capable of out running a 5-year-old girl. More pics of this camera ham here and here.

In knitting news, I finished knitting baby blanket for my coworker’s child-to-be. I still need to block it and place it in an appropriately frilly package, so no new photo for now. I also finished knitting the pieces of Candace. Seaming is currently in progress:



I also ripped out my humongous X-back tank and started re-knitting. But that’s another gory story to be told at a later time.

Baby Time!

No, I'm not expecting a baby. I've just moved on to knitting more baby things. I've decided that baby things are good to knit. Babies don't care what they look like and baby clothes are small. Unfortunately, one of the baby things I'm knitting isn't small. I'm making a baby blanket for a coworker whose baby is due in June. I'm a little more than 1/3 of the way finished. (Warning: the following photos were taken in an extremely bright patch of sun to show off the objects' true colors.)



A closeup of the pattern:



I'm also working on Candace--a baby sweater for my little niece. Like Devan from Knitty, it is made from self-striping sock yarn. I've never used self-striping yarn before so knitting it up is very fascinating for me. The small gauge doesn't bother me as it bothered PumpkinMama, but she made the 2-3-year-old size and I'm making the 1-year-old size. Also, I haven't started the extremely boring, plain backside of the sweater. Here are the front panels just before the armhole shaping:



Meanwhile...the Spring edition of Knitty was published yesterday. Lots of cute stuff. I think I'm going to start with the Ribbon Xback. I want to do this pattern because (1) I have never made a tank top, (2) I have never used ribbon yarn, and (3) it's made with bulky yarn on fat needles so it should knit up quickly. But what about poor Moni? I can't start her until Candace is done and the size 4 needles are free again.

No Time!

This past week has just been awful! I've made very little knitting progress and I keep thinking of more things that I need to knit.

Part of my lack of knitting progress can be attributed to my trip to Austin this past weekend. Peter (my DH) ran the Freescale Half Marathon. As usual, he ran fast and did very well--he finished 6th in his age group and 29th overall. That's out of 3798 runners. Sometimes I'm so jealous that he is such a great runner. But most of the time I'm just proud of him.

While in Austin, I visited Hill Country Weavers and was very impressed and a little claustrophobic. It's a little house crammed with yarn from the floorboards to the rafters. And there were so many kinds of luxury yarns! I just stood there petting the yarn and dreaming. Good thing I'm not a stasher. I might have bought a few skeins just to have them!

However, I did by some sock yarn to make a baby sweater. The sweater I'm planning to make is very similar to Devan from Knitty, but it's a crew neck cardi rather than a v-neck. I'm going to make the sweater for my little niece, Eva. Prior to her birth, Eva was the inspiration that caused me to start knitting again after several nonknitting years. When my brother and SIL announced that they were going to have a baby, I decided to knit a baby blanket. I haven't stopped knitting since. Here's a photo of little Eva wearing a sweater that I made for her.