A unique accomplishment in the history of my knitting: I started a cardigan on Nov. 27, 2012 and finished it the first week of January 2013. It proved a number of aspects of knitting that I know but tend to ignore:
- Sticking to one project at a time -- known as project monogamy in the knitting world -- leads to finished projects. So why doesn't that happen more often? The next project is always so interesting.
- Projects knit in heavier yarns get finished faster. Of course. But I live in San Antonio, so there are going to be a limited number of projects in heavier wool yarns. This one was lovely to work with though.
- Projects with luscious heavier yarn knit in stockinette get done very quickly.
So of course my current project is in lighter yarn and involves charts and cables. That is, I have gone back to the Ribs and Bobbles vest and at the moment it is kicking my butt. But first, the Finished Object:
This is Elizabeth by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. The original was done in a wildly brightly colored striping yarn. This yarn also stripes but more gently and in the same color family. It is not, however, gray. As usual, the digital attempt at color is driving me nuts. The yarn I used, which is called Riana Color, looks like this:
It shades into lighter and grayer and darker shades of violet. It is very pretty and very soft. It has this cool detail at the waist:
The problem is that while I tell people that the key to fitting a sweater you are knitting is to make sure the shoulders fit... a sweater that is knit sideways like this one does not really have any shoulder shaping. So when someone took a picture of me wearing the sweater, it looked pretty droopy.
Diagnosis:
- No shoulder shaping
- The very soft yarn might be drooping.
Solution:
- The sweater is designed to be worn open, but I am going to close it with a shawl pin at various points, and have friends take pictures, and I might add a button loop and buttons at the point that looks best. I like the sweater and like wearing it, but this might make it even better.
So what was this about Row 15?
Row 15 on the Ribs and Bobbles vest is kicking my butt. After two sections of very different ribs -- the first so broad it is really stockinette with a few vertical lines, the other a tight twisted rib -- row 15 starts the cabling. I keep doing stupid things. This time, after working out a system that made the cabling much easier, I discovered that I miscounted in the very first stitches in the row, and so for the third time I took out that row. I did make it easier this last time though by NOT using a cable needle. Instead, I reordered the stitches on the regular needle and knit them that way. It is much easier to get into the stitches with the needle that way. So maybe tomorrow night I will actually be able to complete this row correctly.
Yarn and Reality
I met up with a Stitch n Bitch group that meets Sunday afternoons. Very nice folks who often get together to knit their own versions starting with the same pattern. But, having finished Elizabeth, I didn't have a good meet-up project. I couldn't deal with a troublesome row, or just start a chart, or something like that. So, I decided tonight that while I will work monogamously on Ribs and Bobbles, I will in fact have small meet-up projects, and the most likely ones will be socks. The Great Moth Infestation of 2012 did some serious damage to my collection of hand knit socks. And it has been raining for days here, great weather for wool socks, and they have gotten scarce around here. So I had this moment of panic: what if I didn't have the right yarn?
This is an ideal illustration of a twisted view of reality. Hanging on the inside of the yarn closet door is one of those hanging shoe storage bags, with 24 clear plastic pockets. I use it to store sock yarn, with enough yarn for a pair of socks in each pocket.
It is full. That means I have enough sock yarn for 24 pairs of socks. Oh, and there is more sock yarn in plastic bags elsewhere in the yarn closet. I have sock yarn that stripes, I have handpainted sock yarn, I have solid sock yarn. I have sock yarn with cotton in it, I have sock yarn that is all merino wool, I have sock yarn with a blend of mohair. I have enough sock yarn to support myself in a post-apocalyptic world by making socks.
So I created two sock project bags. One, in a small pretty teal project bags, has the right needles and this yarn:
This is Four Seasons Gründl Hot Socks Sockenwolle. ??? I have no memory whatsoever of buying this yarn. It should knit up as a very cool black, gray and white stripe. It is very fine, though, and so it will require probably a size 1 needle. But I will do a simple plain sock, letting all the fun come from the yarn itself, and it will be a knit-up project and there will be no rush in getting it done.
The other sock project bag is a fabric-and-plastic drawstring bag with a flat bottom: very useful for carrying small projects around. I think I found it at Michaels or Hobby Lobby or Joanns. Inside I have the right needle and this yarn:
This is Froehlich Wolle Special Blauband. (Yes, the Germans are pretty dominant in the sock yarn market.) I do know more or less when I bought this yarn, since the owner of the yarn store in Centre Hall PA was the US distributor of this yarn. I have a lot of Froelich yarn for that reason. As you can see, this yarn, hanging out in its pocket in the shoe hanger, also stripes. The project bag I grab on my way out of the house to go to the Thursday knitting meet up will be the first meet-up project. I am tending toward the black and white.
I of course did not get done everything I wanted to get done over my break. Obviously I got a lot done on Elizabeth. I chose a design and got a warp on one of the tapestry looms. I chose a color for the living room and got the trim taped, but have not yet painted. I am hoping to do it this weekend. I got additional electrical outlets installed in the living room. Not bad. Oh, and I chose a color for the bedroom walls. The color of the living room is a sort of celery green, a bit sharper than I am usuallly brave enough to use. Sherwin Williams calls it Wheatgrass. The color of the bedroom will be somewhere between a yellow and an orange in a color Sherwin Williams calls Flan. Very cheerful. And my new glasses are purple and tortoise shell, and I wore red shoes to work today. And to accompany all this color, a working bibliography on the side of this page of the books on color I have been reading for the past year.
Happy New Year to you all.
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