Welcome to Sleeve Island! *

Four front panels done and four sleeves to go! Lucky for me, all sleeves involved are short sleeves. However, the anticipation of finishing both Moni and Elspeth is giving me anxiety attacks. Why? Because I'm venturing into uncharted territory and I have perfectionist tendencies. I'm not sure how well I can do the finishing of each sweater and I'm afraid that these sweaters won't turn out perfect as nicely as I want them to be.

I mostly finished the front of Moni over the weekend.

I say "mostly finished" because I haven't knitted the sewn-on button bands yet. The button bands are the anxiety-inducers on this sweater. The instructions say to press (i.e. block) the sweater and sew the shoulder seams before knitting and sewing on the button bands. That just seems so wrong to me. I think that the button bands should be blocked at the same time as the rest of the sweater. But should I knit and sew the bands before I block the whole thing, or should I knit the bands and then block and then sew? Oh decisions, decisions! The fact that I have never made sewn-on button bands makes this decision harder.

Elspeth's front panels were finished last night.

Two anxiety-inducers for this little sweater. First, the trim around all the edges is crochet. When it comes to crochet, I don't know a slip stitch from a half-double crochet. (Remember, my first attempt at crochet was not very long ago.) Second, after several searches through the blogosphere, I have yet to see a completed, well-fitting Elspeth. I'm worried that I will have to stand with my arms akimbo the entire time I'm wearing this sweater. (Furthermore, It disturbs me to no end that the lace is not symmetrical. But I will do my best to ignore that.)

* I always thought the term sleeve island was rather weird. But this title reminded me of Mr. Roark saying, "Welcome to Fantasy Island!" And once that thought crossed my mind, it stuck.

A Lacy Back

I guess I spoke too soon when I said that I was having no problems with the Elspeth pattern. As soon as I got to the raglan shaping, I knew I didn't understand what the pattern was saying. Luckily, Jen translated the British English description of the decreases into words that I could understand. Thanks to her help, I now have the back of Elspeth finished!



That's Elly with Elspeth. I decided that Scout was getting a little too big-headed because she was displayed so prominently on this blog. A better photo of the back can be seen here.

As soon as I finished the back, I sat down to read the directions for the front. Talk about unclear! I ended up writing row-by-row directions for the increases and decreases. So, if anyone out there working on this sweater is flummoxed by the the directions for the front, send me an email (or leave a comment) and I will be happy to email a copy of my notes to you. I wrote the directions for the 2nd size, but will include notes so that you can easily alter the row-by-row directions to fit any of the sizes.

Small Diversion

One of the women that attends my SnB is getting married next month. As a gift, the rest of us are making her an afghan. Each knitter is responsible for making a 12 x 12 inch square for the project. Last night, I sat down and made my contribution.



Moni is continuing at a good pace, but the miles and miles of stockinette is starting to wear me down. Part of the reason why I started on Elspeth was to give my hands a break from all that small-needle stockinette. I do like using small needles, but after hours of knitting with them, my hands start to hurt. So, now I switch between the two projects so that my hands don't get tired. However, I find that I have to restrain myself from just working on Elspeth exclusively. The simple lace pattern is much more interesting to knit.

Speaking of Elspeth, I am not having the problems with the pattern or chart that other knitters seem to be having. The chart makes sense to me. I don't have problems with stitch counts. Everything is fine. So if anyone out there is having problems with this pattern, remember that stitch markers are your friends.

Random cat photo:



Elly is at the top, Cleo is on the right, and Scout (the star of this blog) is on the left.

Slowing Down

After my speedy work on Moni's back, my knitting pace has slowed. Not because I'm tired of knitting, but because I had a lot of non-knitting obligations and activities this week. Sigh!

Where am I now? I started the front panels of Moni. I knit them both separately until I finished the fair isle part and now I'm going to work them together so that I can match the shaping. On the advice of Wendy from Richesse, I decided not to duplicate stitch the yellow and blue stitches. I purchased the yarn for Moni from Wendy. Her store is small, but the service is excellent. I was a little worried about picking colors online, so Wendy emailed me more detailed descriptions of the yarn colors and helped me pick colors that went well together.



I was trying to take a good photo of front panels, but Scout decided that she needed to "help" me again. As you can see, Scout likes Addi Turbo's, too!

Meanwhile, I picked up some soft and fluffy cashcotton for making Elspeth. I'm making a white version (not pink! not red! horrors!) and I'm continually paranoid that I am going to mess up the yarn before I even finish the jacket/bolero/shrug/whatever it is. The yarn stays in a ziplock bag. The only part of the yarn that is ever taken out of the bag is the part that has been knit up or is in the process of being knit up. The working ball stays in the bag.



Lesson learned today: It is not easy to take photos of a white lacy thing. Here is a back lit photo attempt.

Happy Star Wars Day

At 12:01 AM tomorrow morning the final installment of Star Wars will open to the general public. Trust me, I won't be there. I'm not interested in dressing up like an Ewok. (Though, I'm embarrassed to admit that I did dress up as Princess Leia for a very bad spoof-skit in graduate school. I even put my hair in buns over my ears.) I'm not a rabid Star Wars fan, but I do like the movies and I will probably see Revenge of the Sith this weekend. There is something about these movies that compels me to see them. Maybe I want to see them because the original trilogy was such a big deal when I was growing up.

I honor of the movie opening, I'm sharing this photo:



That's an over-exposed me with the REAL Yoda--i.e. the Muppet Yoda that was used in The Empire Strikes Back, not the computer-generated Yoda of The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. The photo was taken a few years ago at an exhibit of Star Wars props that was in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Thankfully, George Lucas allowed people to take photos at the exhibit.

I say, "HA!"

So many people think that I'm just nuts for knitting an adult-sized sweater on size 2 needles. "It will take forever!" they said. I'm here to prove that I'm not crazy and that "they" are wrong! Lookie!



Yes, I finished the back of Moni today. I started on May 7th or 8th, so knitting it didn't require much more time than knitting the back any other sweater. I haven't blocked it yet (I just pinned it out for the photo shoot) so the fair-isle part isn't completely flat on the blocking board. I may have overdone it in my attempt to knit loosely through the fair-isle bit. Oh well, I'll just hope that blocking solves the problem.

I'm thinking about changing how I knit the fair-isle bits on the front panels and the sleeves. Look at the photo below. I'm thinking about duplicate stitching the circled yellow and blue stitches rather than stranding two yarns. I'll have to experiment to see how duplicate stitching looks. I think it will look better in the end. Hopefully, no one will notice that I used two different techniques to knit the same thing...I won't tell anyone.



Other News
We paid off my cute and cuddly Mini Cooper last week. Now it's all MINE!!!

Starting Moni

I'm finally starting Moni. I bought the yarn for it in March and it has just been taunting me while I worked on Candace, the baby blanket, and the X-back tank. I decided to do Moni because I wanted to practice my fair-isle technique and I wanted to make a summer sweater. The fact that it is done on size 2 needles is just an added annoyance bonus.

The yarn for Moni is 100% cotton. And as anyone who has knit with cotton knows, it doesn't behave in the same way that wool does. For example, ribbing in cotton yarn doesn't pull in nicely as ribbing in wool yarn does. Cotton ribbing just hangs there like stockinette with texture. To counteract this cotton-yarn problem, I bought this:



It is invisible elastic thread and it is suppose to give ribbing more pull/stretch. To use it, you carry it along with your yarn, knitting as you would do when you are knitting with two strands of yarn held together. Using the invisible elastic thread is a bit of a challenge. For one thing, it is difficult to see (you might even call it invisible). Secondly, it is very thin (similar to a thread). So, I had to be careful and watch what I was doing because I often missed the thread while I was poking my needle through stitches.

So, here's the back of Moni in progress. Don't you think the ribbing looks nice and tight? Just as nice as wool ribbing. I'm so pleased with how well the elastic thread worked. The fair-isle part looks good, too (at least that's what I keep telling myself so that I don't rip it out and redo it).

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.

Wahoo! X-back success

After only four attempts (one of which was spectacularly bad), I finally have a Ribbon X-back tank that fits me! True, versions 2 and 3 never made past the 4-inch mark, but they still involved casting on, knitting furiously, frogging, and rewinding yarn. So, here is x-back version 4 in all its glory:



Pattern: Ribbon X-back from Knitty.com Spring 2005, size x-small
Yarn: Crystal Palace Deco Ribbon in color 9237, strawberry soda
Needles: US size 11
Please ignore my squinty face and the hair that's sticking up. I thought about cropping my head off, but I have decided that I don't like headless photos. Photos look better with heads and I don't need to conceal my identity. Cyber-creep Monkee already knows what I look like.

Here's the back:



I could go on and on about my trials with this tank top, but what's the point? I finished it and I'm happy. It's comfortable, cute, and perfect for this summer!

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.

One of these things is not like the others

My favorite Houston yarn store had a sale last week. All Debbie Bliss cashmerino was on sale for 25% off. I went on the last day of the sale, hoping that the selection would be limited and I wouldn't buy anything. (I don't really need another project right now.) But alas, the best laid plans...well, you know. I left the store with this:



Enough to make Tempting. I have been toying with the idea of knitting Tempting for quite some time, but just never had a strong enough urge to hunt down appropriate yarn. How can I resist now that I found the yarn just sitting around waiting for me to pick it up?

However, the purchase of this yarn just confirms that I am in a rut. Let's see if you can figure out the trend in my wardrobe. It's time to play that old Sesame Street game! Which one of these things just doesn't belong?* (1) Tempting yarn above; (2) Reversible Rib Shawl; (3) Arrowhead sweater; (4) Moni (next on the needles); (5) Ribbon X-back (in progress again); (6) Debbie Bliss's Grace (to be knit in later this summer) or (7) a bunch of store-bought clothes. Pondering, pondering...

Time to confess. Hi, my name is Laura and I'm addicted to red and pink clothes. At least I'm not the only one.

* The answer is Moni--as if you couldn't tell!

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.

I don't act my age...

You Are 18 Years Old

18 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

What Age Do You Act?

What can I say? I like cake, ice cream, and toys too much. I suppose acting 18 is better than looking 18. I'm rather happy that I haven't been mistaken for a teenager in several years. It's pretty annoying to be reprimanded for being in the school hallway without a pass when you are a 30-year-old high school teacher. I was even used as a model for high school textbooks when I was in my late 20's. And yes, I always had to pose as a high school student:

In Other News...

Peter won his age group in a race this past weekend. I'm proud of him no matter how he does in races, but it is much more exciting when he places. However, I did put a lot of pressure on him to do well in this race because I wanted him to win a trophy. This race gives great trophies.

That is a huge marble block with a bobble-head Toro doll mounted on it. Toro is the mascot of the Houston Texans football team. Not that I'm a fan of the Texans--I could care less about the team. I just think a trophy with a bobble-head doll on it is pretty nifty and unusual.

Oh yeah, knitting!

The baby blanket is in the home stretch--about 7-10 inches left to go. I should finish it this week.

I finished the front and sleeves of the Candace baby sweater. I'm now working on the back--SNORE. Thank goodness it's straight stockinette. Because I don't have to look at my hands, I can knit while reading and doing work.

I also re-swatched for the X-Back tank. I'm going to go down a needle size because I want a tighter fabric. But now I'm not sure which sweater size I should make. I'll think about it and measure my swatch and my soon-to-be-frogged X-Back version 1 multiple times before I decide.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

As noted earlier, I redesigned my blog so that it would be cleaner. The previous format was just to fussy and I'm not really a fussy kind of person. I also played around with my pathetic Paint software and attempted to make a button. It did NOT look good. I'm not an artist. I can tell you what looks good, but I can't make things look good.

Anyway, here's a photo to celebrate the new look--fresh flowers for a fresh template.


I realized that the last two finished objects that I displayed had fit issues of one type or another. I hope you don't think I normally have problems with fit. To prove it, you can gaze at the happy summer sweater that I made last year (just in time for fall...)



Pattern: Arrowhead from Knitter's Magazine Summer 2004 (I think)
Yarn: Rowan Cotton Glace in Poppy
(please ignore the unmade bed in the background)

Ribbon X-back Update
I decided that I will frog my baggy x-back tank top and reknit it. But for now, I want to work with normal yarns. When I do reknit, I'm going to use a much tighter gauge. The holes in the sweater were just too big for my taste. They were large enough to prevent me from wearing the tank without anything underneath. Anyway, once I decide on a suitable gauge, I'll choose whatever size will give me at least three inches of negative ease. The whole negative-ease concept is new to me. It never occurred to me that I should make anything smaller than me.

The X-back debacle has taught me several lessons. In addition to negative ease, I've learned:
1) I hate ribbon yarn.
2) Try on stuff as soon as you can.
3) Don't rush into trying new patterns. Let other people knit things first and learn from their mistakes. (Personally, I blame Peat for starting the KAL and getting me excited about knitting quickly. And she hasn't even started yet!)

One more thing:
I love Monkee with or without chicken pictures.

A new look

It's still me. I wanted I cleaner looking blog. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Grr! Ribbon X-back

My first foray into ribbon knitting did not go well. I'm pretty much finished with the ribbon x-back from Knitty and it's awful. I'm not tiny (34-inch chest), so I made the size medium, which is supposed to have a finished measurement of 35 inches. Well, it is WAY TOO BIG. Huge. And I'm pretty certain that my gauge is correct (I swatched before starting and re-measured my gauge after finishing the tank). Is it because the fabric/yarn is too stretchy? I don't know. But look at these pics as evidence.


In this photo, you can sort of see that there is so much extra fabric that the straps in the back do not form an X. Instead they just pull in and create a big fold in the back of the garment. (I haven't done the three-needle bind off yet--so all the yarn bits are still hanging off.


This photo shows just how much it's hanging off my body. And you can see the fold in the back better. I'm wearing a pink halter top in these photos to keep the photos from revealing too much. I'm pretty irritated. I hated working with the ribbon yarn and the fat needles and I'm so unhappy that this is unwearable. I'm not sure if I will reknit it or not. If I do, I will try a smaller needle and perhaps a smaller size. Right now I just don't want to deal with it.

(entry cross-posted on Ribbon Xback KAL)

Knitting or Objects d'art?

My brother and his sister-in-law have recently taken up knitting. Neither of them seem interested in making anything of substance, but they both are intent on gaining a basic proficiency at the craft. Their creations so far have been limited to small rectangles. (Or rather small trapezoids because they tend to add extra stitches while knitting.) However, I'm proud to say that both of them can cast on, knit, purl, and bind off. And they are experts at frogging (hee hee).

Unfortunately, I don't live near my brother, so I can only give him knitting advice over the phone or via email. Just for fun, my brother sent me photos of his knitting. He calls this photo Persistence of Vision.



So what do you think? Is it art?

A Bunch of Firsts for Me

I'm starting to break out of my shell and doing new things. It's frightening.

My First Swap
Earlier this month, I flashed my tiny yarn stash. I included a photo of an old unfinished sweater that I knew I would never finish. I mentioned that I had plans for some of the yarn, but not all of it. Well, Helen saw this comment and said that she would be interested in swapping for the brightly colored lace-weight yarn. So we arranged a swap!

My First Trip to the Frog Pond
I've never frogged anything substantial before. In the past, I have only ripped out a few rows to correct a mistake. Well, I had gotten up to the armholes on the back of my poor unfinished sweater so I had some major ripping to do.

I learned this: Frogging is fun. Frogging and untangling FOUR strands of yarns knitted together is very un-fun. It took me 4-5 hours to frog the dang thing.

My First KAL
I joined the Ribbon Xback Knit Along. Now I'm waiting for my yarn to arrive so I can get started!

My First Encounter with Rowan Classic Yarns
I went to Yarns 2 Ewe over the weekend and had the pleasure to pet and drool over the new Rowan Classic Yarns. I can't believe how soft they are. I must make something from this yarn! I'm not a big fan of the patterns Rowan has put out for these yarns, but I'm sure I can find something!

My First Nutria Sighting
Well this is not a knitting related First, but it made me excited in a strange way. I had heard that nutria are common around here, but I never saw one until this past weekend. It looked like a cross between a beaver and a rat.

No new knitting photos to entertain you with. But here's a great photo of Scout after she learned what a bathtub is.

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.

The Most Perfect Disaster Ever

I finally finished Peter's sweater. It is easily the most perfect sweater I have ever produced because I really went out of my way to use the best knitting and finishing techniques. I made complete swatches and washed the swatches. I tested cast-on edges to find the perfect edge. I measured while knitting to make sure that my gauge was consistent. I knitted both sleeves at the same time to ensure that I use the exact same increases and decreases. I blocked everything perfectly to the correct dimensions. I seamed using a mattress stitch to make nearly invisible seams. I carefully counted the stitches I was picking up for the neck and planned out exactly which to pick up and which to skip.

When all was one and I presented my piece of perfection to Peter, he put it on and said, "It's too long." *CRY!* But actually, the sweater is NOT too long. It's the right dimensions according to the pattern. However, the sweater is too long for Peter's taste. Peter is too dang skinny. The bottom ribbing doesn't touch his body so it doesn't "grab on" to keep the hem of the sweater up where he would like it to be.

I will not frog this sweater just to make it the correct length. I'm thinking about adding elastic to the ribbing to see if I can get it to pull in. If worse comes to worse--I may cut out one of the diamond-patterned repeats and graft the ribbing to the sweater body. But I'm so very bad at grafting and the cabling will make grafting harder than ever. I'm not sure that I can undo the cast on edge and knit back down because the ribbing uses twisted stitches that continue up through the body.

Full length:


Neck detail:


Saddle strap detail: