Recalculating

If any of you have a Garmin Nuvi GPS unit, you will immediately know what I am talking about with that title. “Jill” is the woman who is the voice of Garmin on these units, and if you make a mistake or don’t follow her instructions, man, she really gets on your case. Jill says “recalculating” with a really bitchy attitude that makes it sound like you just gave her a dog turd to eat. John says it’s like having two wives in the car telling him how to drive.

I’ve had to do a bit of recalculating of my own with the new sweater. I’ve named it True Blue, as it is indeed pretty blue, and it’s for my true blue husband. I’ve ripped this sucker out and restarted three times now.

I didn’t take a photo of the first version. I wanted to use the pattern for the Father/Son sweater that I used for John’s Big Grey sweater, but completely ignored that fact that the Beaverslide worsted is a lighter weight yarn than the Peace Fleece that I used for that one. I actually did knit a swatch, then squinted sideways and decided that if I just knitted the size one size larger than the previous grey version, that all would be well. Denial is a lovely thing. I got almost two inches of twisted rib done on the back piece before reality hit. Way too small, out it came.

Recalculating.

I then dithered about it for a week, and finally decided to fire up the old PC laptop and make a pattern using Sweater Wizard. It’s the only software package that I use that has no good alternative in a Mac format (yet! she’s designing it as we speak!), and I’m not about to pay for and install Windoze on this Mac just to run one program. Out came the pattern, and I cast on again. This time I got about an inch done of the ribbing before I realized my newest mistake.

Most sweater patterns have the sizes listed as the actual finished measurements. That is, if you want your finished sweater to measure 24 inches across the chest, or 48 inches around, you would pick the size that said “48”. That’s the size I made for John with the Father/Son sweater before. SW does it differently. It has you enter your actual chest measurement, along with other info, including the weight of your fabric and desired ease, and it calculates away.

Do you see where this is going? I forgot this, entered 48 inches in the little box that asked for chest measurement. I had embarked on a sweater that would ultimately be 52 inches around, not quite the look he wants.

Out it came, again.

Recalculating.

Back to the drawing board, now with a new, resized pattern. I’m sure by this time tomorrow I’ll have found something else that I’ve screwed up.

A Good Cause

First, thanks for all the lovely comments on my Not Cobblestone. I still haven’t blocked it, but I have worn it a few times. The way the weather’s been, it might not get washed and blocked till spring.

Kris from Sonny & Shear, and the Knitting Wannabe, is having a blog contest for a very good cause. I know that the economy is horrible, and that many of you don’t have a lot of spare change around. However, whatever you can afford to give will help immensely in helping one family out in their time of need. I’ll let Kris tell you the story, go check out her blog post. And don’t forget to look at the awesome prize that she and Dana are offering as a reward!

I just got done with another seven day stretch of work, and I’m still groggy and in my jammies. I didn’t get much writing done last week, so this week will be all about NaNoWriMo catch up. I’m off to make up more scenes!

Not Cobblestone

Notice anything new in that photo, besides a new blue knitting project?

It’s a finished Not Exactly A Cobblestone Sweater!

I finished it over the weekend, though I haven’t gotten a chance to wash and block it properly. It’s very cozy, and I figured I’d get a post in before I go back to my work week starting tomorrow.

Project Details

Yarn: Classic Elite Skye Tweed, in the color Tapestry. This yarn is now discontinued, and very difficult to find for sale. It’s a little more deep red wine colored than in that photo.

Pattern: Jared Flood’s Cobblestone, from Interweave Knits Fall 2007. Sort of. The bottom up to the armpits is a Cobblestone, the rest is pure Elizabeth Zimmermann (see modification section).

Started: February 2008

Finished: November 6, 2008

For: Me

Needles: Knit Picks Options Circulars, size 7.

Modifications: I did the body as written up to where you attach the sleeves. I really didn’t want all that garter stitch on the top half, and I was pretty certain that the circular garter yoke would not be even remotely flattering on me. So I used the instructions for a raglan sweater from EZ’s Knitting Workshop for the top half and the sleeves. I made the sleeves narrower than the original pattern instructions, as the pattern as written for a man has fairly wide, baggy sleeves.

What I learned: See above. I’m gradually learning as I knit to analyze patterns as to whether they will be even slightly flattering, and to adjust things as I go if they’re not. This one fits well, and I predict will be worn often. This is the first time I’ve knit a sweater in the round like this, other than for a baby. It’s an interesting way to construct sweaters, but makes for a very unwieldy project once you get the sleeves attached.

The yarn is a bit weird, which might be why it was discontinued. The color is lovely, and it actually feels great once you wash it, but it has an odd stringy feel while you are knitting, like yarn that is treated for machine knitting.

Verdict: A successful sweater!

And what is up with that blue yarn, you ask? That is from a pile of very lovely Beaverslide wool/mohair blend, in the color Lake Josephine. It looks like a solid blue in that photo and on their website, but actually has very subtle tweedy bits in it. This will be a sweater for my sweetheart. After some dithering around, he decided on blue, and I narrowed down all the blue yarns from their website and let him choose. After another period of dithering, he’s decided that he wants it to look just like the Father/Son Pullover I made him previously out of grey Peace Fleece. Fortunately I’m completely happy knitting exactly the same sweater for him twice. What you see in that photo above is the beginning of a swatch, and I hope to start the actual knitting in a day or two.

In NaNoWriMo news, I’m up to 10,699 words, which puts me a little behind, but not far. So far I’ve killed off two drunk twin brothers, and started a world war. Not bad for only two chapters!

Some Actual Knitting Content

I know, I know. I bet you thought I forgot that this is a knitting blog. You can always tell when bloggers are behind on their knitting; they start posting the results of internet quizzes.

I have been working steadily on that Not-Quite-A-Cobblestone sweater, though. I finally have finished the neck shaping and am nearly done with the collar.

Here’s the sweater with the collar nearly finished.

Here’s what I ended up doing for the top half of this. This sweater started out as Jared Flood’s Cobblestone sweater, and I knit it as written up to where you attach the sleeves at the armholes. The top half is a simple raglan style, using Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Workshop instructions. I decided to just follow her instructions for the neck shaping without questioning her wisdom, and it worked out perfectly. The collar is more plain garter stitch. I can’t begin to tell you how much I despise knitting collars in the round on stubby little 16″ circulars. I tried double points, but it was even more awkward. Fortunately, a collar is only a few rows. Now it’s on to the cast off.


I’m using June Hiatt’s instructions for a Half Hitch sewn cast off, which works well for a collar, where you don’t want the bind off to be too tight. EZ describes this in the Knitting Workshop, but she does it in the other direction, from left to right, in the opposite direction of the knitting. I tried that, and it seemed much more awkward than June’s way. Basically, you take your needle and yarn through the second stitch on the left needle as if to knit, snug it up, then through the first needle as if to purl, tighten and drop the first stitch off the needle. It matches a long tail cast on nearly perfectly.

I’m off to forage for lunch, then more novel writing. I’m only at a pitiful 6110 words, which is half what I should have at this point. I work much better with a deadline, though, and when I get closer to the end of November, I can predict a few 8000 word writing days. I have a couple of really annoying drunken twin brothers that I plan to kill off in the next chapter. That’s always fun, and good for a thousand words.

The Mutts Are Winning

Go vote. Yes, I know the election is over. This is a different one. Go give your opinion as to what dog the Obamas should take with them to the White House in January.

Riley is voting for the Mutt category. Lewey is really disappointed that his breed is not even in the running.

Also, I forgot to show a photo of our Halloween pumpkin this year. John’s kids brought this when they came to visit the week before the election.

Well, There You Go


You Should Be a Doctor


You are practical, sharp, and very intuitive.
Optimistic and energetic, you are a problem solver who doesn't get discouraged easily.
You are also quite compassionate and caring. You make people feel hopeful.
You're highly adaptable and capable. You do well with almost any curve ball life throws at you.

You do best when you:

– Are always learning new subjects
– Use your knowledge to solve problems

You would also be a good therapist or detective.

I'm off to write. I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and I'm only 2215 words into the thing. At least this time I have a plot.

The Great Stash Knit-Down

I have a new item over there on the sidebar. Now that the economy is in the toilet, I’m very excited that I have boxes and boxes of stash to knit from. My sister-in-law Ena is visiting, as I mentioned in my last post. After she got settled in to our guest room, she came upstairs laughing. First she had to move a bunch of stash boxes around in the closet so she could have room to hang up clothes. Then she noticed Lewey talking to something he imagined was under the bed, so she got down to look. Yup, more yarn. I didn’t take her upstairs to see the 2 huge boxes of sock yarn, and the huge box of lace yarn in my office.

Anyway, I’m not committing to not buying any more yarn. You all know me better than that, and that plan has never gone well. I am simply committing to publicly keeping track of all the forward (or backward!) movement in my stash yardage. If I use a skein of yarn, the yards get added. If I buy a skein of yarn, the yards get subtracted from the total. Let’s hope it stays out of the minus numbers. I’m starting out with adding all the yarn I’ve used so far for the not-Cobblestone sweater. After this I’ll update it as each ball of yarn is used/added. My blog, my rules.

Ena is also a beginning knitter. She is knitting dishcloths as practice, and brought her knitting with her. Here is her first fine effort, and a photo of her knitting. Will you all please welcome the newest member of our fold, and encourage her on her progress?


She finished the first dishcloth in less than two evenings, so I’m pretty sure she’s hooked. I actually heard her say “just let me finish one more row” a couple of times. We went to the LYS today so she could stock up on her very own needles and more yarn (and stitch markers, tapestry needles, etc!).

Last but not least, here’s my hippie car, just to let you know who I’m voting for this fall.**

We vote by absentee ballot every year, and finished our voting this morning over coffee.

Whoever you are planning on voting for this year, get out there and get it done!

**Yes, I have a license plate, I’m blocking it out for safety reasons!

And The Fun Begins…

…As EZ says in her book, Knitting Workshop. As you all may recall, I’m knitting a not-Cobblestone sweater, and have been for months now. I did the body as written up to the underarms, then tossed out the pattern. For the rest of it I’m using EZ’s directions in the above-mentioned book, though I plan on modifying the neck shaping when I get there, using Jacqueline Fee’s Sweater Workshop. I finally finished the body and sleeves.

I now have the whole thing knitted together, with about 2 inches done on the yoke.

I’m enjoying the challenge of knitting a sweater in the round, but I’m not sure I’d do this often. The whole thing is pretty unwieldy once it’s knitted together, and makes it entirely a non-portable project at this point. The only advantage that I can see is not having to sew things together at the end, but I really don’t mind sewing knitting together. (Don’t send me all your sewing to do for you!)

John’s sister Ena is here visiting for the week, and we’ve been cooking up a storm. Here’s part of last night’s dinner. We had fresh steelhead salmon from the market, grilled, along with braised kale and risotto. The risotto was made using fresh chanterelle mushrooms we found at the farmers market, and was delicious. Unfortunately we didn’t get any photos of the whole meal on the plate, but here’s the in-progress shots of the risotto:

Yes, it was yummy. I’m off to enjoy the sunshine!

Not Dead Yet!

Well, that wasn’t really an intentional month-long blog break. I’ve had some ugly-icky stuff going on at work over the past several weeks that I really couldn’t blog about (still can’t), for confidentiality reasons, but just really didn’t feel like blogging about anyway. Most of the posts would have been:

Nothing new at work that I can talk about.
Nothing new in my personal life, because work sucks and also sucks out my life-blood.
No new knitting.
Haven’t taken a photo of anything in weeks.
The End.

Ok, things are better, work doesn’t suck anymore, and I actually knit a row or two yesterday. When I got an email today from a reader asking if I was OK, I figured I better post something to let you all know that I’m not dead. I’ve finally had some good news at work, and after all, I have a secure job that pays well, not any small thing in the current economy. I’ve also had a birthday in the past two weeks, relatively obscured by the work-suckyness, but a birthday none-the-less. I’ve had champagne in the past week, and got some lovely birthday flowers and cards, as well as a set of quite perfect Bose noise-cancelling headphones from my sweetiepie. And chocolate. Let’s not forget the non-suckyness of chocolate.

Knitting? Look at the last few posts, I’ve not made much progress. The Not-Quite-A-Cobblestone is half a sleeve and a yoke short of a full sweater. My Arctic Circle Monkey socks are one sock short of a pair. I haven’t knit a single stitch on that Peacock shawl, and the orange Morse code socks are in time-out. I’ve decided that I can only deal mentally with 1 pair of socks at a time.

And let’s not forget, while we’re talking about good things, that I’m writing a blog post while my husband is down cooking me dinner. I’m off to join him for a post-work glass of wine. I’ll be back soon, hopefully with a knitting update!

Project Roundup, Part 3

I just realized that I’ve been talking about my latest lace project for the past couple of weeks and have never posted a photo. I’ve updated my Ravelry project page as I’ve gone along, but never here. That’s what comes of trying to keep up with both, and doing a half-assed job of it at that.

The lace on the needles is the Peacock Feathers Shawl, a Fiddlesticks Knitting pattern by Dorothy Siemens. (Ravelry link here.) The yarn I’m using is Blue Heron Egyptian Mercerized Cotton, in the color Bluegrass. I bought the yarn from Kris at Sonny & Shear, and as soon as I got it I knew it needed to be a Peacock.

And here’s what it looks like now, at row 95 of the pattern.

I can’t say enough good things about this pattern. It does require a bit of attention, as the stitch counts change on a few of the rows, and the repeat markers shift back and forth frequently. However, the whole thing is clearly charted, and the pattern notes are quite explicit. Though the charts look quite complicated, they really aren’t. It’s one of those patterns that you just want to keep knitting, as it’s not just the same old thing on every row.

I also love this yarn. I’ve never used mercerized cotton for lace work, so we’ll see how it blocks, but the shine is just spectacular, and it takes color marvelously. It also looks like Jello. Here’s proof. John had a little procedure this week that required a clear liquid diet for 36 hours, and we made him some blue and yellow Jello. When the dishes were partly emptied, we just tossed them in together.

Proof that I’m easily amused.

And speaking of John, here’s a photo of several of my housemates out on the deck yesterday, enjoying an early fall nap.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

Project Roundup, Part 2.1

Or, Over The Edge

I’ve finally done it. I’ve been making plain stocking stitch socks for almost as long as I’ve been knitting, straying into pattern stitches only a couple of times. Now I have not one, but two pairs of patterned socks on the needles. I feel like a lemming who has jumped off the cliff.

Here’s the first pair. That Irish Girl Arctic Circle yarn from a few posts ago just didn’t want to be a plain sock. The stripes were just a bit too weird even for me, so I fired up the computer* and printed out Cookie A’s Monkey sock pattern. I’m likely the only knitter on the planet that has not made a pair of these. I originally started the plain sock on 68 stitches, and because this yarn is what I would call a heavy fingering weight, needed to rip back and restart on 64 stitches. I still didn’t like the striping so ripped to the cuff and I’m now Monkeying around.

Irish Arctic Monkeys!

The second pair isn’t really my fault. I joined Sock Knitters Anonymous over on Ravelry, and the Sockdown challenge for September/October is to knit orange socks.** Well, boy howdy, do I have some orange yarn in my stash, so I couldn’t resist. I started this one as a plain sock too, but it was entirely too boring, so plugged in a stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch.

You can’t really tell from that photo, but there really is a pattern stitch. It’s Stansfield #10 from that book, which I think is a really dumb name. I’m not about to call these my Stansfield #10 socks for the next 2 months. I think it looks like Morse code, so they are forever hereafter my Orange Morse Code socks. This is lovely Trekking XXL sock yarn, in the color 145. Otherwise known as Orange. Just go ask Debi, the Queen of Orange.

Actually both of these qualify for the current Sockdown challenge. You could either knit orange socks, or knit a pattern by Cookie A. So there you have it. When I go lemming, I go all the way.

Next time in the Roundup, the Peacock lace!

*That’s of course not really true. My Mac is always fired up. It behaves very well even when I leave it turned on indefinitely, so I only shut it down completely when we go on vacation.

**If you want to get on the good side of Debi, the moderator over there, post a photo of some yarn and ask her if it’s ORANGE ENOUGH?? Just don’t tell her I sent you.

Project Roundup, Part 2

Or, Not Cobblestone

Whatever did happen to that Cobblestone sweater, after all? I started this eons ago (January, actually), and it’s been in time out for awhile. You all know what it’s supposed to look like, right? Here’s a link, in case you’ve been living under a rock. Many fine knitters have made this sweater, and I think it looks great on nearly every one of them.

Here’s the rub, though. Most of those fine knitters have made this sweater for men, as the pattern designer planned it. Here’s another great example, by Tiennie, for her husband. Now for women? Not so many great ones. Hardly any, in fact, and I didn’t really think much about this when I started the pattern. Here’s one, by Lynda, that proves me wrong, though hers is modified as well, and quite lovely. Anyway, I just wanted to knit it, and it was time for a nice wooly sweater for me, and that was that. I didn’t take into consideration that this might not be so flattering on a woman, especially a woman with, shall we say, voluptuous curves in the top half.

This thing is knitted all in the round, in plain stockinette up to the underarms, with a wide garter strip for the side “seams”, then in garter stitch for a round yoke. That garter edge falls right at the “boobage” line, not such a great idea for those of us with a generous front porch. I got all the way to that point, decided that this wouldn’t be a good idea, and decided to drop that garter line down to where my waist would be, if I had a waist. Rip rip rip. Reknit, reknit, reknit.

I kept looking at this and looking at this. All those miles of garter stitch in a round yoke, even with the line of demarcation dropped lower, are going to do nothing but accentuate that front porch even more. This is a nice idea if you’re selling your house, not so much if you want a flattering sweater. It was time for some rethinking.

I’ve decided to keep the bottom half of the sweater as it’s written, up to the armpits. I’m dumping the round garter stitch yoke, and going with a raglan style knit all in stockinette, a la Elizabeth Zimmerman. This has required some serious consulting of a couple of her books, and a little math work with paper and pencil to rewrite the rest of the pattern. I’m also re-doing the sleeves. As they are written, the cuffs are very wide, with a circumference of twelve inches. My wrists
are six inches around (the only skinny part of me, and I’m damned proud of them, thank you). So while I had the EZ books out, I used her method of calculating sleeve stitches.

Rip rip rip. Out came all that garter stuff in the round that I had reknit. I’m now back up to the armpits, and I’ve started the first sleeve. I might just have this done for winter!

I will tell you that I love this yarn completely. It’s Classic Elite’s Skye Tweed, and I have no flipping idea why they discontinued it. Even after ripping and reknitting, ripping and reknitting, the stuff looks brand new. This sweater should wear like a champ, if I ever finish it. I just wish I’d bought a couple more sweaters worth of it while I was shopping.

Next time, Project Roundup Part 3, the latest lace project.

Project Roundup, Part 1

But first, here’s what’s going on at our house this week. My sweetie, John, had surgery on both of his feet earlier this week. We planned this for a week that I had off, so I could wait on him hand and foot, or foot and foot, in this case. Here’s what he looked like the evening after surgery.

Those are icepacks on his feet, and would you just look at those fashionable shoes! He’s doing pretty well, all things considered. Here’s Lewey, consoling him.

In between running errands and fetching things, I have gotten some knitting done. I have three projects actively going right at the moment. First up is the new sock.

The yarn is from Three Irish Girls, from their Sock Yarnista monthly sock club. This is my first club shipment, and I am more than pleased. It’s very squishy, lovely yarn, and Sharon sent a coordinating contrast color for heels and toes if you’re one of those people, like me, who won’t use the included pattern. The club is a monthly offering, and has either a variegated colorway or a semi-solid, and you can choose on a monthly basis which one you want. The pattern this month is a lovely cabled sock that will look much better in the semisolid yarn, so I’m substituting, you guessed it, my favorite sock pattern over there to your right in the menu bar. I’ve decided to use the darker yarn for the tops, heels, and toes, just for a change.

And the needles, you ask? Those are my latest acquisition, sterling double points from Celtic Swan Forge. It’s hard to get a decent photo of them, but here’s an attempt.

These are just fabulous. They are not for everyone, I’d guess, though. They have a rather blunt tip, for one thing, which doesn’t bother me in the least, but some people might hate them. If you insist on a sharply pointed dpn, these are not your needles. They are also substantially heavier than any other double points I’ve used. They are also very expensive, so you have to really want them. And I really wanted them, so I got them. If you have a special occasion coming up, and need to give your significant other a gift idea for you, this might be it.

Next time: Whatever happened to that Cobblestone thing? Stay tuned to find out!

Hundertwassers!

OK. This is very embarrassing. I joined the Summer of Socks over on Ravelry at the beginning of summer. The whole point was to see how many pairs of socks you can knit during the summer. While I knew I wouldn’t win by a long shot, I had high hopes of at least not humiliating myself publicly. Oh well. Here they are, my first, and likely only, completed socks of the summer.

Project Details:

Yarn: Opal Hundertwasser sock yarn, color number 637A. The name is Wartende Häuser, or “Waiting House”.

Needles: Knit Picks Harmony dpns, size 2.25mm.

Pattern: Um, the same old sock pattern. Look over there to the right in the menu bar, you’ll find it.

Started: June 24th, 2008

Finished: August 26th, 2008

For: Me

What I learned: Opal is still one of my favorite sock yarns. It’s not as soft and squishy as some of the new kids on the block, but it is just a fabulous yarn. I also learned to let my matchy-matchy tendencies go on this one. The color repeat is really a long one for this colorway, so I’d have had to pull out close to a quarter of a sock’s worth of yarn in order to start the second sock at exactly the same place. I just decided to make them different. I like ’em!

Oh, and those socks are actually the same length, they just don’t look like it.

I also learned about the German artist, Friedensreich Regentag Dunkebunt Hundertwasser, who was the inspiration for this line of yarn. Check out my previous post for details. Here’s that photo again that inspired this color:

Next time, a Project Roundup! And while you’re at it, go vote in today’s Hunk contest. Rickman is having a hard time of it, again. These young whippersnappers seem to think they are going to take the title away from him.