Fruition delayed

Things have been crazy enough recently that I have greatly appreciated instant gratification knitting. In other words, anything in bulky wool, on large needles, that knits up in hours rather then days or weeks. It's incredibly satisfying, when you've been pushing through a deadline knit in heavy laceweight to be able to bang out a sweater sleeve in four hours.

But sadly, all good things must come to an end. And so it is with my Automne, by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud.

The knitting is done - hooray! However, the biggest challenge lies ahead: the sewing up. Seamless top down patterns are a godsend for people (like me) who have no trouble finishing the knitted part of a project, but may get waylaid by other sparkly pretties along to the way to sewing up/finishing button bands/piecing together sweaters.

Not only is the knitting done, but all the pieces are blocked - surely a finished glorious cozy sweater can't be too far behind?

Sadly, this one may not be finished until, if you'll pardon the pun, the Autumn. It's sunny and lovely here, the kids are running around in shorts and it's half term. We are trying to figure out where we are going to be living after the end of the July, and what jobs we're going to be working, and mattress stitch is at the bottom of my priority lists. In fact, I really think it's better for my sanity if I cast on something else ASAP so I have something to do with my hands to combat life's stressors. Maybe something else orange...

Check back on Thursday for an introduction to my latest pattern in Knit Now, and a chance to win the materials to create same.

The Other Sweater

There's lots of knitting going on in my world right now, but sadly most of it is not for public consumption (yet). But I do have a project to share that I've been working on in fits and starts for the last few weeks, feeling guilty about it all the time.

This is Automne by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud, from Knit Edge Issue 4, worked in Elann Highland Chunky.The yarn arrived and I cast on for a gauge swatch, I mean sleeve, immediately.

After a fingering weight sweater, working with chunky yarn is instant gratification. I've finsihed both sleeves and made it through the waist shaping, which is done with cable crosses.

This is the Other Sweater because I was cheating on the Unravel sweater with it, and I will continue cheating on my current deadline projects with it whenever I get a chance or can carve out a moment for it. I think the back will get finished this weekend, and then it will be on to the fronts...

My weekend unraveled

So, I spent this past weekend ensconced in the sweetgeorgia booth at Unravel at Farnham Maltings. This is my second experience with this particular show, and I enjoyed it just as much this year as last year, although in a very different way.

I've never worked a show booth before, and as someone much more comfortable talking to people via characters on a screen then in real life, I was a little bit apprehensive. But armed with much caffeine (thank you Woking train station),

I ventured forth to vend. Once again, there was strategic and appropriate yarn bombing of the streets of Farnham,

and when I reached the Maltings, there was Alli, in a gorgeously set up and ridiculously colorful sweetgeorgia booth.


There was yarn, there was (absolutely luscious) fiber, there were kits and samples and gorgeous colors everywhere.

This was how the booth looked first thing Saturday morning, including Alli's gorgeous (and just finished!) version of Bear's Rainbow Blanket, done in all 53 semisolid colorways of sweetgeorgia yarn.

Here we are right before the doors opened, ready for customers!

Saturday was madness - nonstop people, nonstop yarn and absolutely fantastic conversations. Despite my concerns about (gasp) having to talk to strangers ZOMGWTFBBQ!!!!, everyone we chatted with was lovely and friendly and enthusiastic and just having such a good time. It was fabulous.

Sunday started off very busy too, and I was a bit worried about how long our stock was going to last.  But after an initial rush, it calmed down a bit, which was good because that meant that I got to finish my Unravel sweater. Finally...

Here it is in all its unblocked glory (although the ends are woven in). Seconds after this photo was taken (at about 2:30 on Sunday afternoon), I headed over to the Textile Garden booth and came away with buttons for (ehem) four sweaters. Including two sets that might work for this one. Stay tuned for a final post-op as soon as I get some ribbon and sew the damn buttons on.

The other exciting thing that we had were the UK exclusive Soakboxes, including a pattern by Boo Knits - the Mimosa Shawl. Which means that now I can share photos of the sample I knitted for the booth.


This is a lovely, fast, fun and straightforward pattern which works up very quickly in SG Merino Silk Fine, a heavy fingering/sportweight yarn. I did mine in Melon, which is a new color for spring, and it's just glorious.



There are a limited number of these Soakboxes available, so keep an eye out at Unwind Brighton this summer if you'd like to snag one. They may also be available at the Purlescence open house coming up in a couple of weeks on 8th March.

Did I get anything at Unravel? Well, I lusted after the SG fiber, but managed to restrain myself. However, we were next to Rachel Coopey's booth and she had a crate full of baa ram ewe Titus on her booth. I finally broke down after the umpteenth time I saw someone pick up the last skein of the Bramley Baths colorway and had a mini-panic attack, thinking to myself "How dare she touch my yarn???!!!" And of course, it needed a friend..

I think these two are going to become Catkin at some point before next winter. But in the immediate future, my two color knitting time is going to be consumed by the Porpoise Fur two color Shawl SAL/KAL - if you're feeling bereft that the Ravellenic Games are over, you should come join us!

The Unravel Sweater

So there's this lovely yarny weekend coming up - Unravel in Farnham Maltings. Last year was my first visit, and this year I'm going back to help Allison with the SweetGeorgia booth. I'm really looking forward to going back to the festival, and since I just happen to have some SweetGeorgia Merino Silk Fine yarn, I've decided to jump in and knit myself an Unravel sweater.

Here it is, in all it's purpley glory: 4 skeins in "Mist". It is so my color.

You may recall a few weeks ago I posted a lovely collage of potential sweaters to knit with this yarn, and you'll be pleased to know I picked...none of them. Instead, I ended up choosing a pattern that I think will perfectly showcase the variegations in this yarn without obscuring any of the design. This is what I'm knitting - Georgia by Jane Richmond.

Photo (c) Jane Richmond

This sweater is perfect for the yarn - mostly stockinette, with some fab little details, like a purl ridge with a few gathers just above the bust.

I'm loving how it's coming out. I'm not sure how well the yarn will wear (and I suspect I will be wearing this all the time), but I think it's going to be great. A good basic. And hopefully it will be a) done by the third weekend in February and b) I won't run out of yarn. Here's hoping!

I'm really glad I didn't wait until the Opening Ceremonies to cast this on - maybe I'll be done by then and can start something else...

Building momentum and the next project

Usually I end up doing a series of posts that recap the Christmas knitting, but this year I'm feeling fairly blergh about that, so I'm going to move onward. Maybe I'll use them as filler over the next few weeks, but I'm much more excited about some other ongoing things.

I've been working alot recently on a shawl of my own design that grew out of the P3 retreat in October 2012. I first did a version in some lovely DK weight purple yarn that was in my goody bag, but after finishing that off I decided it needed to be a) bigger, and b) in laceweight. That particular bout of madness led me to a skein of Gleem Lace from Fyberspates, purchased at Unravel last February, and has landed me here, approximately ten months later, finally at the edging of this particular piece.

Some design projects fly off the needles. Some move in fits and starts, but make steady progress. This is/was a project that has been like pulling teeth without the benefit of anesthetic. I feel like I've been working on the body of this shawl forever, without any end in sight. It's more then a little demoralizing.

But today, o today! Today I finished the body of the shawl, and started the edging. And all of a sudden the inertia has shifted from molasses trying to flow uphill in the Northeastern United States right now (with some ridiculous polar vortex freezing the bejeebers out of everyone) to water flowing down the Thames at ebb tide. The 500+ stitches are flying along, and I'm optimistic that it's going to be off the needles very, very soon. I'm beyond thrilled. I can't show you any pictures yet, but it's going to be glorious.

*********************************************************************

I'm also at a very dangerous point for any knitter - the end of a project is a weak spot, an opportunity for the knitter to suddenly resemble a frantic magpie, bobbing and weaving and investigating every shiny thing that comes along. I've been distracted by four skeins of Sweet Georgia Yarns Merino Silk Fine in "Mist". I've got enough for a sweater for ME!!!!!, and a deadline of this year's Unravel to finish it. But I'm having a lot of trouble deciding on what sweater to make, and here's where you come in.

Here are the current candidates (left to right, top to bottom): Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier, Smaragd by Svetlana Volkova, Myrtle Cardigan by Snowden Becker, Mendel by Carol Fellers, Leaving by Anne Hanson, Juno by yellowcosmo, Honeybee Cardigan by Laura Chau (I'd do the full length version, not cropped), Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnston, Afterlight by Amy Herzog, Abigail by Cecily Glowik MacDonald, Brigitte by Jennifer Wood, Cushman by Amy Herzog, Isabelle by Jennifer Wood, Atelier by Heidi Kirrmaier, Vitamin D again.

Clearly I'm leaning towards a cardigan, but a good friend of mine made Mendel and it is absolutely gorgeous in real life. The twisted stitches in Isabelle make me weak in the knees, but I'm a bit concerned about how long they might take. I have the pattern for the Honeybee Cardigan and Leaving already, but I am completely incapable of making a decision. Help? Please?...

Finished Objects

A number of things were finished over the last week or so. The biggest and best of those was Yarn in the City: The Great London Yarn Crawl (V1.0). It was a fantastic day, with ample stash enhancement of all sorts and loads of yarny goodness displayed at the pub afterwards. Our amazing volunteers shepherded their teams around London, despite the vagaries of London transport (I'm looking at you Central Line...), and kept everyone together and happy throughout what was a very long day. And Alli and I are pretty sure that we will be doing this craziness again next year, so if you didn't manage to come this time around, keep an eye out for V2.0 next autumn!

In the final run-up to the Crawl, I spent what precious little free time I had frantically finishing up my Christmassy-cowl, out of Romney Ridge Farm yarn I purchased on my Downeast Yarn Crawl over the summer.

I tend to find entrelac too fiddley for my taste/patience level, but it was just the right thing for me to knit last week - mindless but requiring a bit of focus. I kept going until I was almost out of yarn, and then did a 3-needle bind off using the last scraps and then a bit of leftover yarn from a different project when I ran out.

After the crawl, I spent most of Sunday morning spinning, but then turned to my wee baby cardigan - I finished the knitting on this more then a week ago, but (as always happens) I stalled out putting on the buttons. Not because I didn't have buttons, but just because I couldn't be arsed to pull them out and sit down and sew them on.

Now the buttons are all sewn on, and it's ready to go. Sadly, there won't be FO photos on the blog for quite a while because it's a Christmas present*. Here are the pertinent details:

Pattern: Right as Rainbow Baby Cardigan by Stephanie Lotven
Yarn: Spud & Chloe Sweater, very small amounts for the stripes and edging (Firecracker, Grass, Aqua, Lake and Grape Jelly), Brown Sheep Cotton Top (discontinued) in Natural for body and Brown for last stripe.
Needles: US 6/4.0 mm
Start/finish: 4 September - 14 September for the knitting, 22 September for actual sewing on of buttons.
Comments: This was a lovely, straightforward pattern, with the only complicated bit coming in the decreases in the yoke to make the nine points. Otherwise the perfect TV-watching, stressed-out event organizer knitting. I may or may not have piles of worsted/aran weight yarns decorating my office, waiting for me to cast on the next one.

Sticks and carrots

With the start of school, Mother Nature decided that it was time to get back to normal weather patterns - so long glorious English summer of 2013 (truly glorious!), hello stereotypical grey damp autumn. The mornings have had that lovely bite to the air that means true woolen season is just around the corner. This is absolutely my favorite time of year (although I could do with a bit less rain...).

With the newly autumnal temperatures comes the ever predictable bout of startitis - I find myself wanting to cast on ALL THE THINGS! And to be fair, there are quite a number of things I should be casting on - two sample knits for patterns to be released next month first off, not to mention finishing off a shawl that's been on the needles for a couple of months now. But I find myself obsessed with the idea of casting on the perfect fall sweater - roomy, cozy, with long sleeves that come down over my hands and fronts that can wrap around. More specifially, I want the perfect fall sweater knit out of this.

My combo sweater spin from last winter when I was putting the miniSpinner through it's paces. So this week, I succumbed to the overwhelming desire to cast on, and knit...a swatch.

I think I've got the right needle size worked out, and I know the borders and cuffs are going to be in moss stitch.

Now it's just a question of using this project as a carrot to get the other stuff done. But if I play my cards right (and am a good designer do-bee), I can have a new sweater soon. I. Can't. Wait.

In which I bite off more then I can chew

aka: porpoise is easily distracted and prone to startitis, which is not necessarily a good thing.

So. I mentioned a few posts back that I had decided to join a knitalong for Stephanie Lotven's Right as Rainbow baby cardigan. This is a super cute little baby sweater, with the opportunity for loads of bright colors, and it just so happens that I have a super cute Wee Nephew who lives in an appropriate climate for a wool-cotton blend sweater. So I shanghied Allison's Spud and Chloe sweater scraps, and started off.

After a disastrous (at least from my perspective) last-day-of-summer-vacation trip to the cinema with Boo (note to NPH: you are dead to me now. DEAD!!!! I am still weeping from the inhumanity of it all..), I had one sleeve done.

After some much-needed brainless knitting over the end of last week, I had two sleeves.

Now I have much of the body up to the armpits done - I'm going to keep going until I run out of yarn on this one.

I needed a couple more colors, so yesterday I fell down in Mrs. Moon, and got two more skeins of S&C Sweater to finish off the stripes on the yoke:

So, so, so soft and squishy. I love it. I wish it weren't quite so pricey, but for Wee H, no expense will be spared. I got Grape Jelly and Lake to go with Firecracker, Grass and Splash from Allison, and Brown Sheep Cotton Top (long discontinued!) in Natural and a darkish Brown. There will, thankfully, be enough Grape Jelly and Lake to make another sweater or two, although probably at a smaller size. Then I'll just need to find babies to give them too...

My inner Yankee is curled up in a ball in the corner of a dark room, whimpering

As the days hurtle by towards 21 September, Allison and I have been spending a lot of time trying to pull together some cool schwag for those brave folks who will be joining us on the Great London Yarn Crawl. And as she is currently on the North American continent, much of the recent outreach for donations over the past week has fallen to me.

This is, quite possibly, my worst nightmare. Ask people for things? People I don't know? You mean, send them an email completely out of the blue asking them to give me, some faceless Internet stranger, something for free? It gives me heart palpitations just thinking about it. This is so far outside my comfort zone, that I have managed to procrastinate for a surprising amount of time on some of these emails, only to be goaded on by Alli sending messages saying "Have you heard back from So-and-so yet?"

But here's the very cool thing I'm finding: for the most part, people are happy to help out, and very often quite pleased to be asked. It's such a lovely surprise to email one of my super-dooper fan-girl knitware designer crushes and have her agree to send us a signed book for a door prize. It's fantastic to email a local designer and have her offer to give us pattern coupons for the goody bags AND donate a pattern for a door prize. It's a serious thrill to see people getting excited about the event.

All of this is balm to my wounded knitter/dyer psyche because I've had a bit of a set back on that front of late. I've been working on a sweater, using some lovely Green Mountain Spinnery sock yarn I dyed a while back. At the time, I was paranoid about dyelots, so I did all the skeins at the same time, and felt pretty confident that I'd managed to get them close enough.

Except, well, no:


And in case it isn't glaringly obvious from that shot:


Excuse my French, but fuck me. And having slogged though the entire stockinette back of this project, my enthusiasm for ripping out and alternating rows to blend the yarns, or trying one of the other skeins to see if it works better is non-existent. This puppy is going on the naughty step for the forseeable future, and I'm starting something new. Something reasonable. Like a lace shawl...

It's not brain surgery

In the past few weeks, I've had to come to terms with the fact that a couple of the sweaters I've finished recently have been unsatisfactory. Most of the time, I'm able to get past any perceived errors and be happy with the finished product, but this time it just wasn't going to happen.

First up: the sweater I made for a friend's Dad:

While this sweater was a perfect fit around the chest, it was also sadly a bit short in the body. Since I didn't want to start over from the beginning (it was knit in the round from the bottom up), I decided a bit of cut and paste was the most efficient solution.

Step 1: gather the materials.

I took the remaining yarn, cast on a new sweater body, and knit the ribbing and approximately 3 extra inches of sweater body before moving on to Step 2.

Step 2: prep the patient

I took a small needle (something like a US 3 I think) and picked up all the stitches in one row.


Step 3: the incision/excision

I then cut the yarn a few rows below the row where I'd picked up all the stitches on one needle, and picked out everything, leaving a body with live stitches and a cast-off, abandoned ribbing.

Step 4: suturing

I then lined up the new ribbing section and the old sweater body, took a needle, collected several adult beverages and gathered my courage before grafting the 200 stitches together. This took approximately four days (many adult beverages!), and Kate Atherley's excellent post about grafting stockinette, reverse stockinette and cables.




Step 5: off to recovery

Sweater was reblocked and is now back with its owner, several inches longer then the original.

The only real scarring is in the cables - I didn't manage to line up the stitches perfectly, so there is a half-stitch disjointedness on each side. However...I'm pretty sure he will never notice, and it's not such a big deal that I'm willing to go back and redo the whole thing.

With that under my belt, I gaily sallied forth to treat Patient #2: my Whisper cardigan

The construction of the Whisper cardigan is pretty interesting. You first knit a shrug, then pick up stitches to knit a wide band of ribbing. A bunch of the ribbing stitches are cast off for the neckline, and the rest of the stitches become the back and sides of the finished sweater.

Sadly, somehow in my zealous fervor to get to the body, I managed to end up with a cast off neckline that was waaaay too tight. In steps my handy internal surgeon, yet again. This time, since there was no adding of length to be done, we started straight off with Step 2: prepping the patient:

Tiny needle, picking up all the ribbing stitches along the neckline.

Step 3: Incision, or in this case, the ripping/picking out of the cast off stitches.



Step 4: Suturing, aka binding off again, this time with Jeny's SSBO.

Step 5: all better!

Collar lays flat, no riding up or binding, looks much better.


And I desperately need a haircut. Better get that done before Saturday!

One step forward, two steps back

Fresh off the high of finishing my Whisper Cardigan last week (pictures and post to follow as soon as I get some photos taken), I decided to tackle another UFO lurking next to my couch. This time: my  handspun Stasis Pullover, aka my P3 Today's (not)Sweater.

When last discussed on the blog, I had just come to terms with the fact that my swatch lied to me I didn't swatch properly, and had ripped out the four inches of sweater that I had to start over again with my new gauge and numbers from a smaller size. I managed to get most of the way through the waist decreases on the new version, which then sat in a crumpled pile for about 6 months. Last night I picked it up again, determined to get some good progress made. Then I realised (after referencing my spreadsheet that I was supposed to follow for both stitch AND row counts) that I had completely f-d up the waist decreases. Given my much-larger-then-called for row gauge, I was supposed to decrease every 8 rows. I had managed to ignore that directive entirely and go with the every 18 row decrease spacing called for in the pattern. Fabulous.

So I pulled the body off the needles to rip back to 8 rows about the first set of decreases so I could get them sorted out. And as it was lying in my lap, I had a sudden, terrifying thought: "You know, this looks kind of big..."

So I pulled out my trusty tape measure and checked. Several times. And discovered, in fact, not only was it "kind of big", my spreadsheet-calculated with-my-gauge measurement of 42 inches was actually...(wait for it)...46 inches. W.T.everloving.F!!!????!!!

Now here's the kicker - my gauge is still 6 sts/inch, but the sweater is coming out 4 inches too big. Either I cast on some bastardized number of stitches, or gremlins are coming and stretching my sweater out when I sleep. After much wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair, I ripped out again, cast on the number of stitches for the size 37, and got most of the way through the ribbing.

This morning, on the train, I realized that I cast on the number of the stitches for the body (240) not the number of stitches required for the ribbing (228).

I am beginning to think that this sweater is cursed. Truly, truly cursed. And I'm not sure it will be finished by October and the next installation of P3/Today's sweater.

But it will make a good story...;-)

Overcoming neglect

I am, in the best of times, a more-then-indifferent gardener*. I may start off with good intentions (let's plant some tomato seedlings and maybe some strawberries in containers!), but within a few weeks, my horticultural aspirations get forgotten/ignored/shoved aside in favor of other things. And to be perfectly honest, the same thing happens with my knitting projects more often that I care to admit...

Last week I was seized by some deranged enthusiasm for weeding, and I spent a couple of days yanking out piles and piles of one particular plant that was covering all the beautiful bluebells that have come up in the back garden. As I collapsed on the couch one evening after the girls went to bed, nursing my sore back and blistered palms, I was inspired to dig up another neglected item: my Whisper cardigan, knit in Malabrigo Lace in Paris Night.


Now, I'm not sure that this colorway has much to do with Paris at nighttime, but it's a lovely navy blue with some subtle variegation. I had stalled out on the body, but my spurt of good intentions meant that I managed to get it to the called-for length before a vicious yarn barf episode resulted in broken laceweight.

That made it a good time to start working on the sleeves (you probably don't recall, but I have modified the ever-living Bejeesus out of this pattern). As of today, I'm more then halfway through sleeve 1, and have every intention of finishing sleeve 2 by the end of the week. And if things go according to plan**, I should be able to finish the body in the next week. Which should be perfect timing, as we are heading off to the Norfolk coast for half-term, and we all know that going to the beach for a holiday means I'll need a sweater.

* And in the worst of times, positively Darwinian (i.e. oh, it's supposed to frost tonight? Oh well, we'll see what's still alive come morning...)
** Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah! I'll just sit here and wait for the lightening strike to come.