Dare I say the C-word?

Haven't been posting lately because I have been taking a real lunch break instead.  I started teaching one of my coworkers how to knit, and next thing you know, we started dragging each other over to the pub to get out of our offices at lunchtime.  It's nice to have a real break instead of eating in front of the computer.  Saves on keyboards, too.

The circle vest is done.  I haven't had so much fun knitting anything in a long time.  Last weekend I blocked it, so it's laying out in the guest room now drying and relaxing into its desired shape.  Okay, it's a circle, duh, but it turned out the center of the circle wanted to pouf out, so some blocking was required to flatten it.  Tonight I'll unpin it and see whether it's ready to be worn to knitting group tomorrow.  Except that the forecast is for temps in the 70's -- hardly the weather to wear a knitted vest of that weight.  Well, we'll see.

Now I'm into -- gasp -- a crotchet project!  My new lunch partner is a long-time crotcheter.  When she learned that I also crotchet, she brought in a book of crotchet patterns she was having some trouble with.  Basically the author of the book has come up with one really good technique -- how to use a crotcheted shell stitch and knit a top down, raglan sleeve, seamless garment by increasing the shells a certain way.  She has developed the basic technique into about 20 different garments in this book.  Because the garments are all variations on each other, though, the instructions go something like "start by following the instructions on pg. x until you have a first row that's 6" long, then follow the directions for garment A through the first 6 rows of the body, then follow the directions for garment C until the body is 10" long, then follow these instructions to shape the bottom" and so on.  Then each garment has about 12 sizes, and some of them have entirely different instruction sets for different sizes, and it's just a lot to keep track of. 

Well, I spent a weekend figuring it all out, and I made a cute little summer cardigan.  It's almost done, just a couple inches left on the sleeves.  It really works, and it looks good on!  Very pleasing.

Clearly it's time to take some more pictures.

Mentally I'm now in that between-project zone which is a nice break sometimes, but I think I'm almost ready to jump into something new.  What to choose?  What to choose?

Going in Circles

Finally went to the Westminster library last weekend and checked out their knitting books.  This was prompted by the recent trip to the knitting shop with my gift certificate.  When we walked into the shop, my eyeballs were positively grabbed by a sample project hanging up there.  If you're on Ravelry, go there and look for the Circle Vest from a book called Silk Knits.  It's a big circle with armholes knit with Noro Silk Garden yarns.  Striking, fun, and relatively easy.  All good things.

Well, I had 3 skeins of Noro at home that were given to me as a going away gift when I left Chicagoland, and with my gift certificate I could buy the other 3 skeins the vest would need, but the pattern was not available online or in the shop.  So, off to the library.

What a nice selection of knitting books our library has!  I may never have to by another pattern.  They had the book I wanted, and I could check it out and take it home.  Ideal!  With the book due back in 3 weeks, I had the perfect excuse to start yet another project. 

I'm now into the third skein, so between 1/3 and 1/2 finished.  I've got the pattern down, so no worries about having to return the book.  Life is good.  I just got past the armholes, so it's about time to move it from the needles to a string and try it on to make sure the size is okay.  It's easy to change if I haven't gotten it quite right.  I am loving this!

I definitely have to bring this out to show off at the upcoming North Shore Knitting Weekend (the follow-on to last spring's Bell/Lambert Knitting Week).  I am soooooooo excited!  Can you tell?

Best Laid Plans

Another yarn shortage.  Another project in UFO limbo.  The green EZ gauge-changing sweater.  Got most of the way up the body and reached the end of the first skein of bulky LanaLoft.  Way too soon.  No way I'm going to have enough of that yarn to do the remaining couple of inches on the body, both sleeves up to the armpit, and the 4" of yoke above the armpit, where the sleeves have joined the body.  I only have one more skein!  I looked up their vendors on their web site, and the closest one they list is the one in Annapolis where I bought this last year.  I'll have to go back and hope they have more.  A different dye lot I can deal with, I can probably work it in in such a way that a change in shade would look okay.  I just hope they have some.

Frustrated in that but unwilling to start another big project, I pulled out my overflowing drawer full of partial skein leftovers.  Back when I was knitting with k1frog2, she had the idea of making an afghan or blanket out of knitted squares made from leftovers.  If you knit them corner to corner like a dishcloth, you don't have to worry about gauge, you just start knitting and increasing, and when the sides get as long as you want the square to be, you start decreasing.  Brilliant!  And you can make squares from different size yarns, since they're joined together later.  So I started knitting squares.  Since some of the leftovers have a lot of yarn and some only a little, I decided to knit different sized squares, some 2", some 4", 6", and 8".  I can join the smaller ones to make 8" blocks, then join all the blocks together to make whatever I have enough to make.  A knitted blanket would be nice, that's what I'm hoping for.  It's fun to be able to change from the "big" project of an 8" square to the small project of a 2" square depending on how I'm feeling at the time.  A 2" square is quite quick to knit, even in sock yarn, and it's just as satisfying to finish.

Thanks for the idea, o froggy one!

A Good Weekend

It was a good knitting weekend.  First, here are some photos Peter took of my alpaca lace shawl:

I love how it turned out!  The thing I liked most in the picture in the magazine was the tranlucent quality of the shawl, and it really did turn out that way!  It's very lightweight, but the alpaca is much warmer than you'd think.

I also got to go to the yarn shop this weekend.  A nice little place in Eldersburg called the Knitter's Nest, which K1Frog2 will recognize as the place with the good sushi restaurant next door.  Do you remember that when we were there, a woman I know who is a spinner showed up?  Well, last week I helped her husband, who works at the College, with a computer problem which had really stumped him and made him a little desperate.  Being a nice guy and knowing the weaknesses of fiber addicts as he does, he bought me a gift certificate from the yarn shop.  It made my day to get that in my mail at work.

In preparation for my visit to the yarn shop, I spent Saturday morning organizing the stash, balling up what needed to be balled up, and figuring out what I already have and what just needed a little more to go with it to make a complete project.  You know, trying to buy things I actually "need" rather than just more random odds and ends that catch my eye at the moment.  The startling revelation was that I have 10 projects for which I have all the materials waiting in the stash!  I alternate between being stressed out that I really need to be knitting more, and being happy knowing that I will be well supplied with projects for quite some time to come.  The only real dilemma is what to pick first.

But really, I've already made that decision.  It's the green EZ sweater with the gauge-change decreases with which I have already regaled my faithful readers.  I worked on that over the weekend and have already made my first modifications to the plan.  It starts at the bottom, and a few inches into it I realized that the somewhat tight knit (to get the gauge I want) of the stockinette in the bulky yarn causes it to curl up pretty badly.  I tried putting a row or two of garter stitch at the bottom edge, but wasn't happy with it until I broke down and started with a couple inches of ribbing.  I don't usually make sweaters with ribbing at the bottom edge because I don't like the way it pinches in and makes it look balloon-like (not a flattering shape for some of us), so then I decided to just rib it all the way up.  Normally I also don't think the clinginess of a completely ribbed sweater is flattering on me, but I think the bulky will counteract the clinginess and it'll look okay.  That's the theory I'm sticking with for now.  So I have a few inches of the body done.

But then in working with the stash I also unearthed a couple of UFO's which are so close to done I couldn't resist.  One is the blue EZ sweater I made last year.  Photos were posted.  All that was left was to weave in the thread ends.  And it's just the right weight for this early fall weather we are having.  How could I not do it?  See how much I hate finishing work?  It took about 10 minutes.  The other UFO is the brown Moonlight Mohair shawl made with EZ's pi are square pattern, also described previously in this blog.  It was about halfway around the last row.  Unfortunately, the last row has upwards of 350 stitches, I'm making a picot edging which means I'm knitting 8 stitches for every two that are bound off, and I'm pretty sure I don't have quite enough yarn to finish it.  Now you see why I put it down.  My one hope is that my sister-in-law, who was with me when we found the mohair for $2 a ball and bought about 3 times as much as I did, still has a ball of the brown in her stash.  If she doesn't, I'll have to figure out how to fake that last 8" or so of the edging.  Dang, it's going to be close.

If only every weekend could be so full of knitting!

A New (School) Year

As Kate says, summer is over. Time to get back to blogging! And what a summer it has been. Vacation was had, company descended, living rooms were renovated (at least mine). I felt shell shocked by the end of it. Now, work is picking up, home life is settling down, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief.

On the knitting front, I am about 90% done with two different pairs of socks. Ooh, that's bad, more unfinished projects. The weekly knitting group at work will be starting up again next week, so I'm hoping that will take care of them. When I knit at home in the evening, I sometimes tackle ambitious projects, but at knitting group there's too much fun. If I work on anything complicated there, I'll mess it up for sure. So I almost always fall back on a good sock project.

The ambitious project for the summer was my first piece of lace knitting. A simple one, but still, it's lace. It's a half circle shawl made from lace weight alpaca in a variegated purple color which I bought at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival just before I moved East. It was knit from the edges in, so it started with almost 700 stitches on size 10.5 needles and 14 rows of garter stitch. Then the stitches were decreased by half -- the garter stitch is a slightly "gathered" border at the bottom edge of the shawl. The rest is mainly stockinette stitch, with a little bit of YO/k2tog fancy work to give a little pattern, and decreases to make the half circle shape. The lace effect comes mainly from the large amount of stretching out you're supposed to do in the blocking. In the end, though, the shawl is very translucent, it's almost gossamer in the magazine photo. So pretty. It's pinned out on my cutting table right for the blocking. With luck I'll finish that this weekend.

Now I'm starting on the EZ sweater that the blue Cotton-Ease sweater (pictures posted last year on this blog) was a trial run for. For this sweater I wanted to see if I could do the decreases in the EZ pattern using differences in gauge instead of actually decreasing the number of stitches. I have a bulky LanaLoft in a spring green which is working out to about 3 stitches per inch, a worsted weight called Shannon in variegated green and brown tones at 4 stitches per inch, and some medium brown Noro wool/silk in a DK or fingering weight at 7 stitches per inch. My plan is to start at the bottom with the LanaLoft and knit the body and sleeves. At the first decrease, instead of decreasing, I'll switch to the Shannon, which should decrease the size of the work by the right amount. At the second decrease I'll do an actual decrease, since I only have the three yarns, but then at the last decrease I'll switch to the Noro, which should take it down by the right amount again. I don't know, for some reason it tickles me to do this. Wish me luck!

A Project Completed

The green and purple baby blankets went out in the mail today. Such a nice feeling to complete a project!

Now the main yarn-based project is the variegated red shawl, which is progressing nicely. The more I get done, the more I like it, although all that openwork is going to take some blocking. Crotchet projects are so quick and satisfying, I like to do one now and then. At the end of the day, though, I like the knitted product better, so I always go back.

The big push this week is a shirt for Peter to wear at Blacksmith Days this weekend. He has been learning blacksmithing, and he joined a local group. This weekend they are putting on their big, annual festival with people coming from all over. They all try to dress up in mid to late 1800's style, so Peter wanted an appropriate shirt. I found a piece of fairly coarse weave linen in my stash, he says it's just what he wants, and I have an old Burda pattern that's a bit old-timey looking. With a few changes I think it'll look pretty good. The most time consuming part is that I don't want any machine stitching to show on the outside, so I've been spending my evenings doing the topstitching on the front placket, back yoke, and soon the cuffs by hand. I don't mind it, I actually love the rhythm of hand sewing. It's very soothing, much like a good knitting session. I hope I have it done by Saturday!

hot wool

Last weekend was the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Two days of petting wool. In 90 degree heat and blazing sun. You have to be pretty crazy about wool to do that, and apparently lots of people are. We made the mistake of not going early, and we spent an hour and a half in the line to get into the parking lot. There were a lot of people there.

I went with my sister-in-law Nel. She spent the night with us, which was fun. Her husband and sons go to a church "men's retreat" that weekend every year, so we have our own retreat to the Festival. On Saturday, my mom came with us, but the sudden heat was hard on her, so she stayed home Sunday. (The week before, we had frost two nights, so this was a sudden hot spell.) On Sunday, Peter came with us. He actually wanted to. How great is that?

In addition to eating some really good lamb for lunch (grilled kabobs Saturday, BBQ pulled lamb Sunday), I got some great yarn. The prices seemed a little better this year, probably in deference to the stinky economy. For those of you who are also really into yarn, I am now going to review the purchases. Non-yarn-geeks, feel free to link to somewhere else now.

The first purchase was at our favorite loopy yarn booth, which happens to be right inside the entrance to the grounds. We have bought from them every year, and they have the best loopy yarn I've ever seen. It's the softest, and the colors are great. This year Nel and I split a big hank of a yellow/red variegated yarn with little bits of pink in it. I wasn't sure at all about the pink, but I worked up a little bit yesterday, and by golly, it works. This will make a fantastic winter scarf to go with the red wool coat I'll be making later this summer.

The thing I went in search of was some yarn for a crotchet shawl. I'm sewing a summer dress which has a multi-tiered gathered skirt, in a dark charcoal washed silk. The style always makes me think Mexican, but summer dresses always make me think over-air-conditioned indoor spaces, so I decided I needed a shawl to go with it. Thinking Mexican, I thought a red to go with the almost-black would be cool. I had almost despaired, when finally I found it -- a variegated red superwash fingering weight merino with colors ranging from dark brick red to a bright reddish orange. Just enough brightness to make it pop. I love it. The pattern I had at home, it's a very open crotchet shawl, triangular, a big late '70's style, with sort of deep fringe around the edge.

After thinking overnight about the idea of a shawl with serious wool fringe in the summer, I thought maybe something else for the fringe. One of the stands had some interesting rayon ribbon yarn, so on Sunday I went back there and got the closest red I could find. I wasn't sure it was right, so I made sure I could order more if I wanted, and I only bought one skein. Turns out it isn't really a good shade, so I'll do something else with it. What I have in mind is another idea I got at the Festival. At one of the booths, I saw a knitted shawl, rectangular, that was mostly a variegated wool in a leafy pattern, then both ends of the shawl were borders about 8" wide knitted in a ribbon yarn that exactly matched the wool. It looked fantastic. The ribbon borders gave it a very interesting visual texture. I might try that with my red.

So once I decided I was not going to find my shawl fringe at the Festival, it was on to impulse buying. Woo hoo! Not much money left by then, but enough to get the real prize of the weekend. It's about a 4 oz. skein of variegated blue worsted weight llama with little silver strands in it. Just enough sparkle to catch the eye, and so soft, it's unbelievable. Everyone at my knitting group this week had trouble letting go of it. The blue is a warm tone, not a cool blue, ranging from a midnight blue shade to a late evening summer sky. I can't wait to work it up. I'm thinking sweater, and while it's not enough for a whole sweater, I think if I make a top-down yoke sweater, like the EZ sweater knit in reverse, I can make the yoke in this stuff until it runs out and the rest in a matching wool. I think it'll work, if I can match the color.

The final purchase was a skein Peter fell in love with. It's a 3 or 4 ply heavy worsted wool, with each ply being a different shade of beige or brown. I think it will work up into one of those nice heathery sweaters. Again, only a single skein, but this is from a farm that's only about an hour's drive away, and they have store hours on Saturdays at the farm. So I thought I'd get one, play with it until I find a pattern and gauge I like, then figure out how much a whole sweater will take and go get more. The farm had a whole big booth, and all their yarns were very pretty and exceptionally soft. I am looking forward to visiting their farm store.

It was a great weekend. Should keep me knitting until next year.