In the Pink

What better way to celebrate finishing a sweater that I didn't like?

This is the start of Grace from Debbie Bliss's Cotton Angora book. I have been wanting to make this sweater for ages. I'm using squishy and soft Karabella Aurora 8 and I'm loving it. I'm cabling without a cable needle which makes knitting very fast. I wonder why I didn't learn to do this sooner. Last night at the SnB, I showed Monkee's mother how to do a cable without an extra needle. She was horrified when she saw the stitches hanging in mid-air. :-)

The Amazing Race started last night--yay! I'm a little disappointed to see that the entire race may take place in the United States for this season. Where's the fun of seeing self-centered Americans make fools of themselves in other countries? I wonder if we will be getting a history lesson and be overwhelmed with patriotism during this race. I would find that annoying.

Rosa aka Rosa Reef aka Rosa Rita

aka The Sweater of Misery


Pattern: Rosa Reef from Rowan #31, size Large
Yarn: Rowan Handknit Cotton DK
Needles: US size 3 and 5
Modifications: I knit the collar in the round instead of flat with a seam. I also made the collar skinnier because I didn't want to bother joining a new ball of yarn (and I thought that joining a new ball would look ugly)
Recipient: Mother in law
General thoughts: I hated knitting this sweater. I hated the yarn. I hated the pattern.
Need a cat photo? Need a modeling photo? The sweater is too big for me and would have been too small for Peter to model. (Not that he would agree to modeling it).

Cat: Scout
(If anyone can read that Chinese scroll in the background, let me know!)

Laura's Rules for Knitting for Other People
If you ever think about offering to knit a sweater for someone, please keep the following rules in mind.

1. Know your "customer." Everyone has his or her own taste in clothing. The person that you want to knit for may not like the kinds of clothes that you like. Look at the clothes that your customer owns. Does he or she have brightly colored and patterned clothing? If so, the customer will probably like a fair-isle or an intarsia sweater. Does the customer like simple, neutral-colored clothing? If so, he or she would probably ask for a beige, stockinette sweater. Consider the customer's taste in clothing before even offering to knit a sweater of his or her choosing. If you don't want to do intarsia, don't ask the person who always wears floral-patterned clothes if she wants a sweater.

2. Do not hand your customer a stack of knitting patterns and say, "Pick which ever one you like." If you do this, your customer will invaribly select the one sweater that you never, ever want to knit. Instead, hand-select patterns that you want to knit and only show those sweaters to your customer. However, be sure to consider the customer's tastes when selecting patterns. If you select a bunch of patterns the customer doesn't like, the customer may suddenly start browsing other patterns and find that one sweater that you never, ever want to knit.

3. After the customer has selected a pattern, do not immediately run the customer to a yarn shop to purchase yarn. If you do this you many end up knitting a sweater with yarn that you hate, and who wants to knit with icky yarn? Instead, study the pattern and research yarns. Identify 1-3 different yarns that you would like to work with and tell your customer that "these are the best yarns to use for your sweater." Your customer probably doesn't know anything about yarns. He or she probably doesn't know that there may be 50 other types of yarns appropriate for the sweater. He or she probably doesn't know what makes one yarn better than another. When a nonknitter is picking yarns, only two things are important: texture and color. Nonknitters don't care about the resiliency, feltability, loft, squishiness, etc of a yarn. Nonknitters just want a soft sweater in a color that they like.

4. Consider making a "gift sweater" instead of making a "made-to-order sweater." Dangerous? Possibly. But at least you will enjoy knitting the sweater!

Hurricanes are good for something

I finished knitting the pieces of Rosa during all the hurricane down time. Maybe I should rename the sweater Rosa Rita in honor of our disappointing storm. Scout wouldn't look up for this photo. She's too exhausted from all the hurricane hype.


Speaking of hurricane hype, I was thinking about writing about how all the annoying news coverage was before, during, and after this nonevent but someone beat me to it. And he summed it up very well. Basically, all the media coverage in Houston caused mass hysteria throughout the city and prompted many people who didn't need to evacuate to rush the gas stations and spend many brutal hours sitting in traffic that barely moved. The state and city officials can declare the evacuation a "success" all they want--in my opinion the evacuation was a disaster. Twenty-three people died for no reason. That's a fact that everyone seems to be overlooking. The nursing home where those people were residing really wasn't in any serious danger, even if a category 5 hurricane had hit Galveston directly.

I should have final photos of Rosa by Tuesday.

Not blown away after all!

I'm ok!

The most exciting things that happened is that the power flickered on an off during the storm and that the cats got nervous. I don't even have any exciting photos of the storm to show you. It's still windy and rainy here, but we have electricity, water, and internet access. And a heck of a lot of nonperishable food. PB and J sandwiches for days!!!

Now I have to wait for the annoying local news to stop with their 24-hour coverage of the storm so I can watch normal TV. (I missed Survivor on Thursday--grr!)

Thanks for all the good wishes! More later.

Rita?

A couple of the neighbors are boarding up:
Should I be scared? I don't know. Peter says that we shouldn't panic because
(1) we're 30 or so miles inland
(2) we're above sea level
(3) so far, it doesn't look like the storm will hit the Houston area directly
(4) we had absolutely no flooding during freak Tropical Storm Allison (the storm that hit Houston on a Tuesday, moved inland, turned around and hit Houston again on Friday, causing massive flooding throughout the city)

We're not evacuating before the storm but we are planning. We have food, we're going to store water (I guess I'd better clean the bathtub tonight!), and we know where we are going if we have to evacuate after the storm.

Having never been through a hurricane before, I'm not sure if I should be panicking or worrying right now. Of course the media is all hyped up, but I think its because the local media desperately wants the "big one" to hit Houston and because of all of the Katrina aftermath. Interestingly, the mayor of Houston is conveniently using the possible Rita hit as an excuse to move all of the Katrina evacuees out of Houston. The ones that were still in the shelters are now being shipped out of state.

So, I'm trying to ignore the local media and I'm just tracking the storm through NOAA. I love the NOAA website. I use it all the time for research for my job. You can find lots of interesting tidbits of information on that website. Did you know that hurricane names are recycled? I'll have to wait until 2008 for a hurricane Laura.

Knitting Content?
Proof that I am a process knitter: When I was mentally listing the things I wanted to take if we did evacuate, tops on my list were my cello and my yarn. I didn't even think about taking my finished objects until I started thinking about clothes to take. Tops on my clothes to take list? Underwear, jeans, shorts, t-shirts. No knitware.

Somewhere in My Youth or Childhood . . .

. . . I must have done something good.

My name is listed as a contact on the main Houston SnB webpage. So, I occasionally get knitting related emails from people who I don't know. But the email I received on Thursday was a bit different (with some edits):

Hi Laura,
...I'm not interested in joining [your] knitting group, since unfortunately, after knitting for 50 years I'm unable to do so anymore I'm contacting you, because I have "tons" of german yarn that I've accumulated over the years and I would like to give it to someone that is capable of using it the way it should be. There is not cost involved (other than you having to pick it up at my house). Please let me know if you're interested.
(signed) Complete Stranger

Hello! Am I interested? You betcha! I emailed Mrs. Stranger to set up a pick up time. In her return email she mentioned that she also had a "ton" of knitting books, some in German. Did I know any knitter who could read German? she asked. Well, because I am an American-born Chinese-Filipino, naturally the only other language that I know is German. Weee!

Peter and I drove over to Mrs. Stranger's house the morning and came home with this:


And this:

(The biggest prize: Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns)
And this:

Straights, DPN, circulars including some Addis and Inox needles.

Most of the yarn are full balls, complete with ball bands. A lot of cotton blends, lots of mohair blends, acrylic stuff, stuff with lurex, and a some novelty yarns. I found ten balls of a lovely 55%cotton/45% tussah silk yarn, a heck of a lot of orange Regia sock yarn, some delicious 55% cotton/45% wool yarn, interesting looking novelty yarn, bags of cotton/linen yarn still in its original packaging, and some gigantic balls of fuzzy blue mystery yarn (Scout used for scale):


I have no idea what I'm going to do with it all. I'll probably trade or give a lot of it away. Maybe I will get it organized and invite the people in my SnB to paw through it and take what they want. Maybe I will send boxes of random yarn to people I know. Right now I'm just completely overwhelmed!

Stripes!

I'm not too sure about these sleeves . . .



This is the start of Rosa's sleeves. I just started the blue stripe. After that stripe, the colors repeat in the same order. The sleeves (being knit at the same time) look a little garish to me. The colors look nice together in the flower pattern but are a little to stark in this wide stripe pattern. I guess that must be why the designer choose drab colors in the original design. I hope my MIL likes it. I don't have enough yarn to make the sleeves a solid color--unless I made one sleeve one color and the other sleeve a different color :-)

Sisterly love
I took this photo of Cleo and Scout this afternoon.


I think that it's the closest that Scout has ever slept with one of her sisters. Believe it or not, Cleo and Elly are not big fans of Scout. I think Elly actually hates Scout but has taken a "if I ignore it, it will go away" attitude toward Scout. But if Scout gets to close to Elly, Elly will growl and hiss. At least Scout has learned that playing with Elly's tail is a bad thing. Incidentally, my girls are not actually related in anyway. They were each adopted separately.

Thanks for all your advice and support about my job situation. I'm still struggling with what to do with myself, but I'll try not to bore you with all of my anxieties too often.

How do you know what you want . . .

. . . 'til you get what you want and you see if you like it?
I haven't done anything thing with the Rebecca sleeves yet. I can't decide what I want because I don't know how other sleeves will look. I guess at some point, I will just have to close my eyes and take a leap of faith. And hopefully, I will like it when it's finished.

Right now, I'm facing a similar tough decision in my nonknitting life. I used to think that my job was perfect for me. I loved nearly everything about it. I even cheerfully worked overtime because I felt that it was a small price to pay for such a wonderful job. But now, for various reasons, I think that it is time for me to leave. Unfortunately, I don't know what sort of career I want to pursue next.

Jobs that I am qualified for and that I have done in the past:
1. High school or middle school science teacher. I have a lifetime teaching certificate in chemistry, physics, and physical science. But I was miserable when I was teaching.
2. Research Associate in a molecular biology lab. Same low pay as teaching with much less stress. Also much more boredom.
3. Freelance writer for educational publishers. Uneven work and uneven pay. May be difficult to make freelancing a full-time job that pays well.

Jobs that I think I would like to do but have drawbacks associated with them:
1. Professional knitter. I have never seen such a job advertised. Plus, I wonder if I would start to dislike knitting if I depended on it for money and if spent all my time knitting for other people.
2. Pastry chef. I'd want to work in a froo-froo bakery, not a restaurant. I'd have to go to culinary school and I've heard that the work is quite grueling.
3. Adoption counselor in an animal shelter. When these jobs exist, they tend to be volunteer jobs.
4. Patent agent. I'd need to take the patent bar exam (not a big deal) and I'm not sure I'd like working in an office again.
5. Food scientist. I'm not sure exactly what a food scientist does, but it sounds interesting. I'd have to go back to school for a third Master's degree.

You want to hear about knitting now?
I started a secret project. You will not see photos on this blog. All I will say is that I'm using RYC Cashsoft and that I'm making cables without a cable needle.

Also, I finished the back of Rosa and started the front. The front is identical to the back except for the neck shaping. This sweater (for my MIL) seems enormous to me. I'm am making the right size for her, but she's larger than I am and the sweater has quite a bit of ease.

Pondering Sleeves

As I said before, I'm not sure the puffy sleeves on Rebecca are working for me. I asked for the opinions of the fine (and opinionated) people in the Knitty Coffeeshop and the reaction was mixed. However, Gretchen suggested that I wear the sweater a few times as it before deciding on what to do. And that's exactly what I am going to do.

But of course, I have been thinking about how to fix the sleeves if I decide to do so. The easiest solution that I see would be to frog the sleeves from the bottom up until I undo all of the cabling part. Then, I would cast off and add the picot edging as before. I think and hope that this process will result in cute little flutter sleeves. Sorta like this:

I think shorter sleeves will help immensely and I think the fullness of the flutter sleeves will compliment the fullness of the bottom "peplum." Creating flutter sleeves will also allow me to avoid undoing all the seams and undoing the bottom crocheted edging. (ugh!) If the flutter sleeve idea doesn't fly, I guess I will design and knit new straight sleeves. But I have to wear the sweater a few times before I do anything rash!

Additional Rebecca Error Alert
Yesterday, I was studying the photo of the sweater in the Rebecca magazine and I realized that the pattern had the wrong cable chart for the sleeves as well. One row of cable crossings is missing. So, Rebecca is 0 for 2 as far as charts go. However, if that additional cable row was incorporated, the sleeves would be another 0.5 to 0.75 inches longer! eep! I think they are too long as they current are.

Two sweater in two days: Rebecca is finished, too.

Rebecca is not X-rated, but it may be rated PG.

Pattern: Sweater with Honeycomb Pattern from Rebecca 29, size small
Yarn: ggh Bali, 7 balls (see note below)
Needles: US size 6 and my smaller crochet hook (I only own two crochet hooks)
Modifications: For modesty's sake, I slightly closed up the bottom of the V-neck. I also added a row of single crochet to the neckline before doing the picot edging to close the neckline up some more. I also omitted the crocheted sash. It looked silly to me.
Pattern Error: The chart for the diamond motif that was published in the magazine is incorrect. The chart produces a diamond that is smaller than the diamond shown in the magazine photo. I corrected this error by simply continuing the established pattern. Only after I made my corrections did I discover that Rebecca has a corrected chart available on their website.
Yarn Warning: The pattern says that the size small of the sweater can be made with 6 balls of Bali. I finished the 6th ball when I finished knitting the pieces. If I had only purchased 6 balls, I would not have had any yarn to do the edgings. Luckily, I always buy an extra ball of yarn. But if you plan on making this sweater--I'd suggest buying extra.
Random Thoughts: Is it a winner or a loser? I can't decide. I'm not sure the puffy sleeves are doing anything for me. I do like how the cable pattern from the front is repeated on the sleeves--but that's what makes the sleeves puffy. (The cable pattern gathers the fabric.)

Maybe the sweater is too fussy for my tastes. Compare it to Tivoli from yesterday. Tivoli is simple and clean, Rebecca is . . . I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a pirate shirt? Thank goodness for the plunging neckline--if the neckline were too high the sweater would look horribly prudish.

Tivoli!!!

Yes, I know you all were expecting the Rebecca sweater. But it's not here yet. Wednesday afternoon, at the same moment that I discovered that the latest issue of Magknits was up, I was stricken by a very unusual case of knitting ADHD. I put down my nearly finished Rebecca sweater to cast on for Tivoli.


Pattern: Picovoli (Tivoli) by Grumperina, 32 inch size
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cathay in pink (color 12009) and ivory (color 12002)
Needles: US size 5
Time to knit: 4 days
My personal touch: Single crochet "piping" on all edges in a contrasting color.
Cat: Elly (see photo below)
Other thoughts: I really love the picot edging that Kathy added to this pattern for Magknits. However, I had been planning the contrasting edging for some time now that I wanted to do it my way first. If I make the sweater again, I will do the picots.
Less squinty, indoor photo:

By the way, the Rebecca sweater is finished, too. However, the crochet edging needed a bit of taming so the sweater is now pinned to my blocking board with soaking wet edgings.

The Longest Meme Ever

Knitting content first:
I finished seaming the Rebecca sweater and tried it on. Can I just say, "Va va va voom!" Yup. Major cleavage. But at least it's not X-rated. I'm going to put a row of single crochet around the neckline, then do the picot edging and see how that looks. I hope I don't have to resort to adding rows of garter stitching like Ms. Cooknknit did. That would involve picking up A LOT of stitches. I'm still considering the "modesty triangle" idea. I just don't know how I would do it....yet.

Meme time!
This meme has been floating around everywhere! I've seen longer versions of it, but thank goodness Helen tagged me with a shortened version.

ten years ago:
I was living in Chicago, fresh from chemistry grad school, and working as a lab manager in a molecular biology lab (despite the fact that I had never taken any course work in molecular biology or biochemistry). I was also plotting my next career move as I planned on applying to science education grad schools. Peter and I were dating at that time.

five years ago:
I was living in Sugar Land, Texas, teaching high school chemistry, and suffering. Elly and Cleo (the two older cats) had been living with us for a couple of years. "Us" being Peter and me--we were married by this time.

one year ago:
I was living in Pearland, Texas, and working as an editor on middle school science textbooks. My precious baby cat Scout had entered our lives a year earlier. Peter found her under a car in a parking lot. And yes, I was still married to Peter.

five snacks: cookies, ice cream, chocolate, cake, cheese

five songs I know all the words to: So many to choose from! Lots of songs from musicals. Here's a random sampling:
1) Tonight from West Side Story
2) The Mountains by W. Gladden
3) Kokomo by the Beach Boys
4) Silent Night in German and in English
5) You Are my Sunshine by ???

five things I would do with $100 million: pay off mortgage, travel everywhere, buy a working goat farm, give some to charity, invest the rest so that Peter and I never have to work again.
five places to run away to: Iowa, London, the Berkshires, Australia, the Swiss Alps
five things I would never wear: a poncho, pointy shoes, anything orange, a mohawk, leather pants
five favorite TV shows: Lost, The Amazing Race, The Muppet Show, The Brady Bunch, MASH
five biggest joys: Peter, Elly, Cleo, Scout, being healthy
five favorite toys: Knitting needles, digital camera, bicycle, my cats, my Mini Cooper
five people to pass this on to: no one. Haven't we all done this already?

How to Puff Sleeves

I'm happily and busily seaming the Rebecca sweater right now. Yes, I'm happy about it. Unlike so many other knitters out there, I love finishing sweaters. Finishing is not as exciting as knitting the pieces, but finishing is thrilling to me. It's the point when an object stops being yarn and starts being a garment. Just as I love watching pieces take shape as I knit them, I love watching a garment take shape as I sew it together and do the final finishing.

Last night, however, finishing started slowly. After doing a three-needle bind-off for the shoulder seams, I started to pin the sleeves into place. While pinning, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what I was doing. If you hadn't noticed, this sweater has puffy sleeves. So, the sleeve caps are much too big for the armholes. Obviously, I needed to find a way to gather the sleeves so that they are properly puffed and so that the sleeves would fit into the armholes!

I looked at the directions. "Join shoulder seams and sew sleeves into place." Great! Dear Editor, could you please at least acknowledge that sewing these sleeves might be a little more tricky than normal? Maybe say something like, "This sweater has puffy sleeves. Good luck with that!"

After futzing with the sleeves for several minutes trying to figure out how to evenly gather the sleeves, I tried putting an inverted pleat in the sleeve. It worked perfectly. I'm so darn proud of myself.



Coming up next time: The world's longest meme

Stop to Smell the Flowers

The intarsia is done! At least it is for now. Yes, it took me some time, but that's mostly because I didn't want to work on it. Knitting it put me in a bad mood. At one point I had 24 bobbins and two balls of yarn attached to my work. 24 bobbins!!! No wonder I was in a bad mood. The sad news is that I have to do it all over again on the front of the sweater. Ugh. I just have to tell myself that it's only 27 rows of work... Here is Scout sniffing the flowers:


Rebecca progress:
All pieces have been knitted and the back has been corrected. Blocking will occur today, seaming will occur ??? The most alarming news about the Rebecca sweater is that I used up the "required" amount of yarn just knitting the pieces. That's without doing the crochet edging on all the pieces. Lucky for me I'm a paranoid knitter and I always buy an extra ball of yarn. No worries here!

Tivoli looms:
I'm happy to be finished knitting the Rebecca sweater because Grumperina is releasing the standardized pattern for Tivoli this week. I have been wanting to knit one of these since Ms. Grumpy first posted her pattern. Humm...maybe I should swatch now so that I can cast on the moment the pattern is posted.

Rebecca progress

Hummm....

Perhaps it will be a little revealing? We will see if adjustments need to be made once the sweater is assembled. I'm thinking that I will need to knit a little triangle to fill in a the lower part of the V.

After finishing the front, I realized that the back was too short. Apparently, I don't know how to use a tape measure correctly because I was off my two entire centimeters. Now I have to decide if I should knit the entire back longer by undoing the bound off stitches for the back of the neck or if I should just knit the shoulders longer (taller?) and have a more scoopy back. Just working the shoulders would be easy because I didn't bind of the stitches there.

I'm now considering how to block this sweater. It's 50% cotton and 50% acrylic. Normally, I would steam-block cotton, but I don't think that's a good idea for acrylic. The instructions say to lay a wet towel over the pieces. That doesn't seem to be forceful enough for me. (Isn't blocking all about forcing your will onto knitted pieces?) Anybody have ideas, thoughts or suggestions?

For those interested, the cat in this photo is Scout. I tried to get Elly to pose because she hasn't appeared in my blog much recently. But Elly's idea of posing with knitting is to lay on top of the knitting to cover up any interesting details that other knitters may wish to see.

Cat news
Scout is on a kitty diet right now, which means that she, Elly, and Cleo are no longer free-fed. Instead, they get two carefully measured meals a day. I feel like a horrible cat mom for subjecting Elly and Cleo to a feeding change even though the two of them don't have weight problems. Elly and Cleo do their own things to make me feel even more guilty. Elly sits in front of the cabinet that contains the cat food and looks sad or mews pitifully. If nothing happens, she starts to open the cabinet. Cleo sometimes completely refuses to eat during meal times and then walks around the house howling at 2 am. (Incidentally, Peter sleeps like a log during these howling sessions.) Scout, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be particularly disturbed by the feeding change.

Bobbin Invasion!

EEKK! Run away!

I ripped out my intarsia and started over. Now, I have a bazillion bobbins hanging from my work. But surprisingly, I'm finding it easier to deal with than having seven balls of yarn and half a bazillion bobbins hanging from the work. However, I can only do this intarsia work at a table. I can't handle checking the chart and managing all the bobbins while sitting on the couch and fighting off the cats. I'm much happier with the results:


Thanks for the confirmation...
The comments on the last entry helped me realize that I am an insane perfectionist who scrutinizes her work too closely. Some people didn't realize that I had corrected the mistake in the photo of the Rebecca sweater with stripy-cat Scout. I thought it was glaringly obvious that the diamond motif in the two photos were different. Now, I could take the two photos and label the differences using photoshop. But I'm not going to do that. That would just reinforce my crazy tendencies.

Extra! Extra!
I scanned part of the article from The Facts. Click here to read it. The 17-year-old that is mentioned in regards to the SnB is none other than our dear Monkee!

What's wrong with this picture?

On the left, a photo of the Rebecca sweater from the magazine. On the right, a photo of my partially completed front. Can you spot the difference?


Notice I didn't say, "Can you spot the mistake?" I didn't make a mistake. I followed the pattern correctly and my diamond pattern is smaller than the diamond pattern in the magazine. (If you didn't notice, there is one fewer lattice thingies on my sweater.) So, now I'm irritated because the sweater in the photo is very obviously NOT knitted from the same pattern that was published. This is the second time that I've discovered such a discrepancy.

I don't know how designers write up patterns based on their designs, but I assume that the published patterns are fixed up or altered from original designs to standardize the pattern or make it easier to knit. So maybe a published pattern may not produce a sweater exactly like the original design and the original sample sweater. That's fine with me. But the sweaters in the photos SHOULD be knitted from the pattern published! I pick my projects based on the photos. Doesn't every knitter? I don't want surprises.

So, I ripped back and made my diamond bigger. Now the printed chart is useless to me. But who cares, the cable pattern is simple and I can just read my work and figure out what I have to do next.


I AM famous!
Today I received an email from a reporter from the Pearland Journal. She wants to do a story on knitting and on the SnB that I started. I wonder how many little local papers I can get into. Maybe I should contact the Pearland Reporter News and see if they want to do a story, too. The good news about getting into the Pearland Journal is that the Houston Chronicle picks up stories from the Journal to put in the Chronicle's regional sections. Maybe I will hit the big time. A girl can only dream.

What about those gifts?
I just realized that I never described how the Peacock shawl and the lavender hearts were received. Mom loved the shawl and was very surprised. She had some friends over a few days after she received the shawl and showed it off to them. She said her friends were amazed and a bit jealous, too. My friends were also quite happy with their heart sachets and are proudly displaying them in their cubicles. The one friend who can knit was highly fascinated by its construction.

Edit to add:
The Facts article was published on Wednesday. It is available online if you register at the website. (Free registration) The link for the article is here, but I'm not sure if that will work for everyone. You can just go to The Facts website, and search for "knitting" in the past week. The article is titled "Freeport Knitter Gets to the Point." I'm not the Freeport knitter but I am mentioned and quoted in the article.

Step Away from the Intarsia

I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of intarsia. Intarsia and I get along if the pattern involves only one or two large blobs of color or if the pattern involves widely-spaced small blobs of color. But many medium-sized, closely spaced blobs of color...grrr!



As you can see, I've entered the evil intarsia section of Rosa. In an effort to reduce the number of ends hanging off of the piece, I thought that I would carry the flower colors behind the main color from one petal to the next. That way (I reasoned to myself) I could just use one piece of yarn for each of the flowers! Genius, yes? Well, maybe in theory. Or even in wool yarn. But this is stiff, unyielding, unsquishy cotton yarn. The result? A little show-through and a little unslightly puckering. I'm going to set this project aside and let it simmer before I finally conclude that I have to rip back and start over doing proper, dangly-ended intarsia.

(Meanwhile, I have to continue to tell myself that this intarsia bit will never look as good as it would look in wool. I can't set high expectations for it. If my expectations are too high, I will never finish the sweater because I will be continually redoing the intarsia bits!)

In happier news...
The back of the Rebecca sweater is done. The back was rather boring stockinette, but now the fun will begin!

Finally, thanks to all who told me about the spirally-shrug-sweater kits on sale at Threadbear! I appreciate the thought, however, I'm very interested in eyeballing the various Lorna's Laces colorways in person before selecting any yarn. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to see some of this lovely yarn once my LYS starts carrying it!

Unrequited Love

I'm in love with this:



Not the girl, the sweater. What's not to love? It has everything I could ask for: interesting construction, interesting stitch pattern, and interesting yarn. From the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to make it.

Unfortunately, the sweater does not love me. Or rather, the yarn does not love me. The yarn used is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted. A quick search on the Internet shows that it retails for around $17 per hank. (Insert bug-eyed look here.) After the rush on Lorna's Laces yarn for a certain over-hyped scarf, you'd think that Lorna's yarn would be a little more afforable. I could substitute a different yarn, but the gorgeous colors and patterning of the sweater come from the hand-painted yarn. If I searched for other hand-painted yarns, I'm sure I wouldn't find much difference in price. I suppose I could dye my own yarn, but that's a little scary for me.

Sigh. I wonder if when I will give into temptation. If you're very, very quiet, you can hear the sweater calling my name.

Am I Famous Yet?

I was just interviewed by a reporter from The Facts newspaper for an article about knitting. Not quite the Houston Chronicle, but I'll take it! Now, I just have to find a place where I can actually BUY this newspaper as I have never seen it sold around here.

Bad Little Blogger!

Yes, I've been a bit delinquent and now I'm going to make up for it with an extra long post!

First, answering some questions about Peacock Feathers:
AndreaR asked if I used the cone that Monkee had "leftover." I guess technically, the answer is yes, but considering that the cone was still enormous (see photo) when I finished the shawl, I'd hardly call it leftover yarn. I guess we now know that a pound of Zephyr can produce not one, but two large shawls and still look like a large amount of yarn.
Corisa asked how long I took to knit the shawl. I started on July 1st. I ripped back charts 1, 1a, and 2 on July 3rd. I started a second time on July 4th. I finished July 31st. But it was pretty much the only thing I knit during that time period. I was in my "I gotta finish" mood almost the entire time I was knitting the shawl. For some reason, I really wanted to be done.
And I'm sure everyone is wondering what my mom had to say...well, she hasn't gotten it yet. I sent it on Wednesday and the UPS people say that it's supposed to arrive tomorrow.

Second, a problem solved:
I asked for advice on how to stuff my heart sachets. Tabbytuxedo and Cordelia both suggested making an inner pouch out of fabric and Yarnhappy told me to try stuffing with dried lavender seed heads. So, I wandered into a craft store looking for dried lavender and found not only the lavender but little organza drawstring bags! How perfect!



Now, after a little more knitting, a little sewing, and a little stuffing, I have three heart sachets ready to give to my friends!



Third, new projects!
I've cast on for Rosa (MIL sweater) and the Rebecca sweater. Here's the start of them, Rebecca on top, Rosa on bottom.



I took that photo yesterday morning and both are now much larger. But I'm too lazy to take another photo right now. Rosa is being made out of Rowan Handknit Cotton DK--a 100% cotton yarn. After working with this yarn for just a few days, I can understand why people complain so much about knitting with 100% cotton. The ball of yarn and the fabric made feel soft to the touch, but when you handle a strand of the yarn, the strand feels stiff. It doesn't have any stretch or give. (I guess one would say that it has no loft.) I don't think intarsia will look very nice with this yarn and I'm wishing that I had tried harder to convince my mother-in-law to let me make the sweater out of wool--or at least a wool blend. Oh well--it's what she wanted.

On the other hand, the Rebecca sweater is being made out of ggh Bali--a 50% cotton/50% acrylic yarn. What a difference! This yarn feels spongy and the fabric is nice and drapy. I'm happy that I have this project to work on when my hands get tired working with the Handknit Cotton. If I can find a reliable supplier of Bali, I think I will use it for other worsted weight projects.

Lastly, I'm off!
I'm going out of town on business next week. It looks like I'll be stuck in so many meeting that I won't be able to take a trip to the yarn stores there. To make matters worse, I'll be attending these meeting in person, not on the phone like I normally would. So, no knitting for me during the endless meetings--sigh!

Knock me over with a Peacock Feather

Seems like only a week ago that I was complaining about knitting a gigantic lace shawl....I take it ALL back. The work was totally worth it.



Pattern: Peacock Feathers Shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr in peacock green, courtesy of Monkee
Needles: US size 3
Final Dimensions: 81" wide, 41" tall
What I learned: Blocking lace is magic!
Lots More Photos: See my finished object gallery!

The bad part about finishing this shawl is that I had to lie to my mother. I don't want her to know that I finished the shawl because she will expect to see photos. I don't want to send her photos because I just want to send her the shawl! So when she asked if I was done, I flat out lied and said that I wasn't and that it wouldn't be finished for a week. I'm so bad.

Blocking Photos:

It's the End of the Lace as We Know It...

...and I feel fine tired! I stayed up too late knitting. But after 10 charts, 250 rows, and 62,500+ stitches later, I have this!



Now all I need to do is the crochet cast-off and then block the shawl until it's gorgeous. Who knows how long those two steps will take. By the end, as the number of stitches in each row grew closer and closer to 495, I was spending nearly 30 minutes knitting each row. So, I'm thinking the crochet cast-off will take me at least an hour to do. Probably more because I'm not very speedy with a crochet hook.

As for blocking--I'm not sure when that will be done. Wendy said that she spent an hour pinning out her Peacock Feathers. I'm sure that I will need more time because I'm not using blocking wires and I have never blocked a lace shawl before! To make matters worse, life (namely work) will probably prevent me from blocking it over the weekend. Grrr.

Other stuff:
I'm giddy about this. "It's time to put on make up! It's time to light the lights! ..."

Call me Weird

Amy sent me a meme. Apparently she wants to find out how strange I really am.

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy
n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies
A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.

Write down five of your own idiosyncrasies. Then, if you wish, tag five people from your live gerbil or friendslist to do the same.

1. I sing all the time. Occasionally, I actually sing the words to an existing song. Sometimes, I sing new words to an existing melody. However, most of the time I make up entirely new melodies and lyrics. These songs are usually about what's I'm doing at the time or about my cats.

2. (Structural characteristic) The hair on the left side of my head flips inward--toward my face. The hair on the right side of my head flips outward--away from my face. It drives my hairdresser batty. She just can't leave it as it is. She always works so hard to make the right side flip inward.

3. I won't eat some vegetables when they are cooked, but will eat them raw. Carrots and spinach are examples. I won't eat other vegetables raw, but will eat them cooked. Broccoli and celery are examples.

4. I keep my fingernails extremely short. I used to play the cello and had to keep my nails short to play it. Although I rarely play now, a get very annoyed if my fingernails extend past the tips of my fingers.

5. I find clowns disturbing. As I child, I was afraid of clowns. (Even the toy clown in Poltergeist scared me.) I used to think that I was the only person who disliked clowns, but then I read an article in the newspaper about how dislike and even hatred of clowns was quite common.

I'll tag my fellow Eph knitter Llyr's Daughter. I'll also tag CarrieScribe because she's a chemistry teacher.

Confessions of a Shawl Knitter
I picked the Peacock Feathers pattern because I wanted to do a lace pattern that didn't repeat throughout. I think Kiri, Birch, and the Flower Basket Shawl are lovely, but the thought of doing the same thing over and over again didn't appeal to me. I also picked this pattern because I didn't want to knit something that everyone, their mothers, their best friends, and their dogs were knitting--i.e. Kiri, Birch, and FBS. (But soon after I ordered the pattern, I found out that Wendy was knitting Peacock Feathers and now everyone wants to do it, too! So much for bucking the trend.)

My feelings about this project have been quite mixed. I generally like to try new things and enjoy learning new things. But I'm not feeling any excitement with this shawl. I know that the shawl will look quite nice when I'm finished and I find the lace pattern quite easy to do. But I'm not having fun. I think the problem is that I derive much of my knitting enjoyment from watching things develop and grow. Most of the time, the shawl just looks like a green blob, so I'm not able to enjoy its development. And the green blob seems to grow quite slowly, so I'm not able to enjoy watching it grow.

I'm a bit sad to learn that lace-shawl knitting is unexciting for me. I've always admired the shawls churned out by other knitters. I guess I will just continue admiring them from afar and stick to sweaters. Maybe I will try some socks in the future.

Need a photo? How about a flower?

Channeling Grumperina

During the Pearland SnB on Tuesday, Monkee (aka giver of the Zephyr) asked me if I had enough yarn to finished my shawl. At the time, I thought I did. But after knitting for a few more days and watching the ball of yarn begin to shrink drastically with each row, I started getting nervous. Was I going to make it? And more importantly, how could I find out? Luckily for me, Grumperina has taken obsessive-compulsive knitting to a whole new level and I have learned from the best.

Step 1: Determine how much of the shawl is finished. I thought about doing this early on, but I didn't want to do it because I knew the numbers would make me unhappy. I knew that I would discover that I wasn't as far along as I thought I was. But I finally reached a point when I had to do the calculations. My first attempt was to do lots of mental math to try to derive a single elegant algebraic expression that calculated the percentage of shawl finished. Feel free to laugh out loud.

So, taking a cue from the Grumpster, off to the excel spreadsheet I went. Using my slowly decaying spreadsheet skills, I created at table that calculated the number of stitches in each row, the total number of stitches completed after each row, and the percentage of the shawl finished.


Now, the spreadsheet calculations aren't perfect because some rows have double or triple yarn overs which are counted as one stitch instead of two or three. However, the "extra" stitches created by the double/triple yarn overs are decreased away on the following right side rows, so they didn't mess up the overall stitch count equation. But, I know my total stitch count is short. However, I'm not going to take the time to add in those extra stitches.

Result of step 1: I have 62.82% of the shawl finished. As predicted, the number made me very, very sad. I thought I was closer to 75% finished.

Step 2: Find weight of yarn not yet used. Easy to do (again following Grumperina's lead), just throw that baby on my digital food scale! Result: 1.125 oz


Step 3: Find weight of yarn knitted. Much more challenging because the shawl is still on a needle and has lots of stitch markers in place. Therefore, I need to weigh the entire shawl and subtract the weight of the needle and the stitch markers. But how do I weigh the needle alone when it is still in the shawl?

Hypothesis 1: The weight of a 40" US size 2 Addi Turbo is "close enough" to the weight of a 40" US size 3 Addi Turbo. (Size 3 being the needle in use.)

Corollary to Hypothesis 1: The weight of a 40" US size 1 Addi Turbo is "close enough" to the weight of a 40" US size 2 Addi Turbo.

If the corollary is true, then by a great leap of faith, the hypothesis is true.

Tests of the corollary prove the corollary to be false. (size 1 = 0.125 oz, size 2 = 0.25 oz)
Hummm....what to do? Obviously, I must propose a currently untestable Hypothesis 2 and pretend that it is true.

Hypothesis 2: The combined weight of a 40" US size 1 Addi Turbo and a US size 2 Addi Turbo is "close enough" to the weight of a 40" US size 3 Addi Turbo. (1 + 2 = 3, right?)

Now, weigh the shawl (2.625 oz)


Weigh an equivalent number of stitch makers and the size 1 and 2 needles (0.50 oz)


Result of step 3: 2.125 oz of yarn has been knitted.

Step 4: find percentage of yarn knitted. 2.125 / (2.125 + 1.125) = 65.38%

Step 5: Scream!

Step 6: Start planning bribes to get more yarn from Monkee.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

My vacation from work, blogging, and "real life" will end in about an hour. (Ok, technically, my vacation from blogging is ending right now.)

When Mom and I were at a local yarn store, I picked up some Koigu with which to make sachets. Mom was so intrigued with the yarn and the pattern that she insisted that I make a sachet while she was here so that she could see how it fit together. Like a good daughter, I obliged.



Pattern: Heart Sachet from Interweave Knits (clicking on link opens a PDF)
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM dye code P211, 100% Merino wool
Needles: US size 1
Cat: Cleo (one of the rare pictures in which she wasn't grabbing the heart)
Filling: Nothing yet--I'd like some advice on how to stuff this thing. I'm afraid that if I just put dried flowers in it, little bits of dried flowers will leak out over time. Should I put the flowers in some pantyhose before putting it in? Should I supplement the dried flower stuffing with polyfil stuffing? Do I need to worry about oils from the flowers damaging the yarn? Help!
Notes: This yarn is perfect for the project! The variegation helps highlight the mitered squares. Weaving in ends as you go is essential--unless you want to have 28 strands of yarn hanging out of your project.
Additional photos: Close up with less dramatic lighting: one side and the other. The top of the heart isn't sewn up completely and you can see a stitch marker/holder peeking out in these photos.

I also worked on Peacock Feathers. I'm now nearing the middle of chart 7, which means that I'm on the big feathers at bottom third of the shawl. Most of the time, the shawl just looks like a green blob. I attempted to stretch out a portion of the shawl to show off.

Another Trip Down Memory Lane

This sweater was my third finished object. The first two were also sweaters. I made this sweater for Peter when we were still in chemistry grad school--several years before we were married. Lucky for me the silly boyfriend curse did not hold true for this sweater. The pattern came from one of my mother's books, but I don't know which one. It's knitted in Brown Sheep Nature Spun. I know that because I still have lots of leftover yarn from that sweater.

I'm not going to show any close ups of this sweater because, frankly, I was quite horrified when I pulled the sweater out to take a photo of it. First of all, it's way too big for Peter. I didn't know anything about sizing back then. Peter always buys x-large clothes because he needs the length in the sleeves. So, I made him an x-large sweater even though I could have made him a medium and just increased the length of the sleeves. Secondly, my finishing techniques were not so good back then. I didn't know how to mattress stitch, so I crocheted the seams. And the collar! I can't bear to look at it. Yet, Peter still wears this sweater when he has a chance. Now, that's love for you. Just looking at this pathetic excuse for a sweater inspires me to fix that other sweater that I made for him.

Peacock Feathers is still continuing. I'm just starting chart 5. It's now too big to stretch out on the needle and I haven't gotten to the point where the pattern changes again. So, no new pictures. It's just a green blob for now.

My mother is coming to town for a week starting today. I won't even try to hide the shawl from her as it's the only thing I'm working on now. But I'm not certain that I'm going to tell her that I'm going to give it to her. In any case, I probably won't be blogging much while she's here.

Why?

Science magazine is celebrating it's 125th anniversary. As part of that celebration, the editors have posted the 125 big unanswered scientific questions. The top 25 questions have essays about them. I haven't had a chance to read through them, but many of the top 25 seem to relate to biological sciences--not exactly my area of expertise. (Not that I'm an expert at any science.) However, I did read this wonderful essay about questions and the nature of science. As it says up there^^^--science IS the belief in the ignorance of experts. Science is more about what we don't know rather than what we do know.

What about knitting?
Peacock Feathers should be called Snail Feathers. Yesterday, I knit a row. Yes, one single row. I'm on row 130 out of 249. Don't you dare say that I'm more than 1/2 there because I'm not. The thing grows by 4 sts every other row!

Ah well, life and work are busy right now. Peacock feathers isn't very good for conference call knitting so the 4-6 hours/week that I normally spend on the knitting on the phone is not happening. Plus, my mother is coming for a visit. So, I'm frantically cleaning the house.

Perhaps later in the week I will entertain you with a photo of a past finished object. For now, silly cat pictures will have to do!


When Scout was three months old, she climbed our (fake) Christmas tree. (Note that Peter is 6'4", so Scout climbed pretty high up.)

Now, she's so fat that she would probably cause the tree to collapse.

And the Yarn Kept Rolling in from Every Side...

The reason why I put myself on a yarn diet was because I bought three sweaters worth of yarn in a week. (Then, I bought another sweater worth the following week, but with good reason!) So far, three of the four batches of yarn have arrived. I'm not one to keep a large stash of yarn, so I'm a little embarrassed to show you just how many balls of yarn are sitting around. Therefore, this yarn p0rn will be a tasteful--just one ball of each type/color.

First, the Rosa yarn--Rowan Handknit Cotton DK.



The light blue on the top will be the main color. The red and the darker blue will be the flowers and the green will be the little spots between the flowers. The colors are actually much more muted than they appear here. They aren't colors I'd pick for myself, but my MIL loved them.

Next, the yarn for my two winter sweaters.



The pink is Karabella Aurora 8 with which I am going to make Grace from Debbie Bliss's Cotton Angora book. The blue is Berroco Pleasure. I *think* it is going to become Rogue. I can't believe that I bought this yarn. It's one of the few times that I bought yarn without a specific project in mind. But it's bunny yarn! It was super cheap!

Pokey little Peacock
I'm trudging along with the Peacock shawl. I'm into the third chart out of seven. (Then there are two edging charts--why didn't the designer number the last two charts 8 and 9?) Full view below, close up here.

The best laid plans...

Look what I did!


My Peacock Feathers pattern showed up and I knit like a fiend on it.

Yes, I know I said that I was going to make a Tivoli tee. I swatched, washed my swatch, measured my swatch, and was a mere two hours away from casting on when I decided to take a peek at Grumperina's blog. Good thing that I did! Kathy had just posted an entry announcing that she was going to provide a standardized pattern which is to include a 32" size. Instant dilemma. Should I wait for the standardized pattern or do the maths* myself to convert the currently available 31" size to 32-33"? Well, laziness won out. I'm waiting for the pattern.

* I said maths because this is Kathy's pattern and she always says maths. When I lived in England, I said maths all the time, but reverted to using the singular when I moved back to the United States. Don't you think maths makes much more sense? It is short for mathematics which is plural.

More plans out the window
I said that I was on a self-imposed yarn diet. I already broke my diet--but with good reason. A reason that Peter cannot argue with. I bought yarn to make Rosa Reef (to be referred to as Rosa from here on) for my mother-in-law. For the last month, I have been asking Peter if his mom would like a shawl or something else knitted. He suggested that I ask her to pick out a pattern, so I did. When she was visiting this last weekend, she picked out Rosa. (So much for avoiding color work for awhile.) I showed MIL the color options on the computer and she became stressed out. She couldn't pick colors from a monitor. So off to the yarn store we went! She and I sat on the floor with many balls of yarn trying different color combinations until she found one that she liked. We did end up having to buy some of the yarn online because the yarn store didn't have enough of the main color yarn in stock.

Once all the yarn arrives, I have to decide which to make first: Rosa for MIL or Rebecca sweater for me??

Oopsie!
You can't see the life line in the Peacock feathers shawl in the photo above. It's not there because I think the pattern is tricky. It is there because I had a major disaster this weekend. If I ever have a similar disaster, the life line should allow me to avoid starting completely over. I move the life line every few rows. As much as I like charts 1, 1a, and 2, I do not wish to knit them a third time. Note to self: Do not sit on part of circular needle while picking up work.

Coral Tank

Pattern: Coral from Rowan 31, size small
Yarn: Euroflax Linen, Athens, shade: purple, blue, white
Needles: US 7 for main body, US 9 for edges, US 13 for cast on and bind off
Alterations: Converted pattern to be worked in the round, changed shoulder shaping to use short rows and three-needle bind off
Overall thoughts: The pattern was insanely easy and quick to knit. The tank is very comfortable, but I'm not certain that it is very flattering on me. It's very see-through, but a nude-colored camisole takes care of that. I see this more as beachwear or something to wear when it is extremely hot outside. Peter doesn't care for it at all. But I think the pattern and the yarn were well suited for each other. What I like most about this tank is that I can (and have) thrown it in the washer and dryer.