You were perfectly fine . . .

Back to Cardi Raye

First we had a block party--even cut in half, my foam insulation blocking board holds the entire sweater! The curly bit in the upper left corner is the collar, complete with the (woefully inadequate) two rows of waste yarn. Do yourself a favor and knit at least twice that many rows before you sew this puppy on.

(Is it just me, or are those the weirdest-shaped sleeves you've ever seen, lying flat??)*

Then we did the tiny shoulder seams, and sewed on the collar, in a moving F250. This venue is NOT recommended for sweater finishing, but you takes your knitting time wherever you finds it.

I ended up really liking the way this collar technique turned out, and I'll use it again.

Next, we see Cardi Raye all seamed and collared, complete except for the front hook band thingy. (What is the damned word for that anyway??) I kind of liked it without the band, the stripes matched up nicely, and one of those cool double-ended zippers would be perfect. Just a thought for those who don't like the front hook band thingy.

And the finished Cardi Raye, complete with front hook band thingy:

For those of you who haven't had enough already, here are closeups of the neckband/collar and of the front hook band thingy as applied:

Phew. I'm tired now.

On the current projects, I have run out of the Rowan Handknit DK Cotton I'm using for K's Smiling Jacket, so that's on hold until reinforcements arrive. What's next? Two things: 1) a tunic for K in Phildar's Phil Onde--the new yarn that begins in a color and gradually fades to white as you get closer to the end of the ball; and 2) the Giotto tank from the most recent Vogue Knitting. I know, I know, Wendy just did this one, but she knits so fast you might have missed it. I'm a lot slower, and doing it in a different colorway (Cezanne), so hopefully it won't be like deja vu.

Happy Friday!

*To see an enlarged version of each picture, click on it.

Picture this

Here are a few of the pictures I have been too lazy to post . . . one of these days I really will get a digital camera so I'm not quite so behind.

Baby Charlie's Koigu Jacket:

My gorgeous Donegal-in-progress:

And the beginning of K's dress from the Dale book "Soft Treasures for Little Ones" called Markblomst:

This is an idea of what it will look like when finished:

So now you know what I'm up to. Well, some of it anyway. Have a great Thursday.

Too sad to be witty

I'm sorry to be such a negligent blogger the last few days. My very good work friend, a member of the same work team I'm on, was fired surreptitiously and unexpectedly, with no explanation given and no chance to say goodbye. The rest of us on the team are both sad and afraid for our jobs. I just can't think of anything funny or interesting to say.

I am taking Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice to "knit on" through all manner of crises, and have nearly finished K's Smiley Jacket in Rowan Handknit DK. It's coming out very cute. I promise to post the pictures I've taken tomorrow. Really. I think I'm going to try seaming this one with embroidery floss a la the Yarn Girls--I usually use the same yarn I've knit the sweater with, but I've heard this is a good technique, so we'll see.

Thanks for hanging in with me through the politics and the personal stuff to get to the most important stuff: the knitting!

Miss Thang

OK, so I wasn't quick enough to catch the photo of her actually wearing the shrug before she flung it off in search of chocolate . . . I tried. :)

On the housecleaning front, um, I did my best. No, really. There was identifiable improvement in the clutter situation and I'm on the trail of a recommended cleaning professional.

On a completely different subject, I was a bit shocked tonight to see scores of people on the evening news who had turned out in matching T-shirts for a rally against gay marriage. I just don't get why people would waste a perfectly lovely Sunday outing themselves as bigots. But hey, it's a free country, right? . . . well, unless you're on the "no fly" list . . . or you speak out against the Bush administration . . . or (who knows what's next? Under the Patriot Act, the government can look into what library books you check out, what you put on your credit card, all kinds of things you probably thought were a private matter.)

A good friend recently loaned me a book of essays on civil liberties post-9/11, entitled "The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism." Here's a quote cited in one of the essays:

"[A]s a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government. . . . Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy. . . . If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur."

An interesting counterpoint to the rhetoric we're getting these days from the Bushies trying to prevent comparisons to VietNam by impugning the patriotism of any who draw such parallels. Who is quoted here? Some tree-hugging bleeding-heart commie liberal? Actually, no.

The quote is from Senator Robert A. Taft, a leading Senate Republican of his day, speaking less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor, defending the right of Republicans in Congress to engage in public criticism of FDR's war policies.

Anybody else tired of partisan politics taking precedence over substance? Yeah. Me too.

Many Thanks

Thank you so much for the helpful and commiserating comments. It is good to know that I'm not the only knitter whose husband/significant other rolls his eyes at her efforts. Most of all, I am very grateful to you for taking the time and thought to write. I'm going to take some steps you've suggested, and I'll let you know how it goes.

I'll bet you're wondering if I've stopped knitting during this crisis. Um. Well. No. I tried to be good and not knit in the evening, but it was just too depressing. So I tried to sneak in some knitting while pretending to do other things. This was not terribly satisfying or comfortable, and ended shortly after my daughter walked into bathroom, frowned at me and said, "Mommy, you're not going potty. The bathroom is for going potty."

So I compromised. I did enough chores/picking up that I felt like I'd "earned" my knitting time, and then I parked myself and worked on this:

You can't see it very well from this picture, but it's a cute little zippy cardigan for K in Rowan Handknit DK Cotton. The pattern is from Miss Bea's Rainy Day (also Rowan). It's coming along nicely. I'll show you some pictures as soon as I get this roll of film developed. I actually started the back section before Cardi Raye, in a weird starting frenzy wherein I cast on about 4 projects. So I'm trying to finish or frog all of those starts so that I'm not overwhelmed by UFOs.

I'm off to find a cleaning lady--Have a great Friday!

My Husband Wants Me to Clean House.

Can you imagine?

Here I am, celebrating completion of a lovely project, and he looks over and says, "All finished? Great! Now you can do something around here besides sit and knit." He mentioned several areas of the house that could use my attention. He mentioned being unable to enter our daughter's room without risking injury. I interjected that I had not realized his hands were broken, and pointed out that some husbands would be proud of their wives' accomplishments (I have no idea if this is true, but it sounded good). He regaled me with a long list of his sacrifices and contributions to our household, ending said list with a sneering reference to my "craft projects" and an exasperated suggestion that I "just buy" sweaters and socks, etc., and stop "wasting time."

Now. I should say that he has a point. The house is a clutter disaster. And it would help if I would stop knitting and use that time to straighten things up. For about a week.

Why a week? Well, because after getting up and going to work before DH and DD even wake up, commuting 1.5 hours into San Francisco, working all day, commuting 1.5 hours home, and facing whatever bills are waiting, there are only two things I look forward to each night: hugs from my DH and DD, and being able to sit down and knit quietly for a little while. Take that away, and I'm going to be insane by the end of a week.

I want to have a happy DH and a neat organized house (not necessarily in that order). But I also need to have the quiet meditative time knitting gives me, and the satisfied and somewhat prideful thrill of admiring each FO. Imagining and planning each new project in my head is the fuel that propels me forward over even the slogging-est workday.

How do you all strike the balance between what you need to do and what you love to do? Can this marriage be saved?

Cardi Raye, she is finished!

This is from dh's camera phone; I took pictures with the regular camera, but haven't developed them yet. But I was so excited to finish last night that I couldn't wait to share.

We drove up to Lake Tahoe for the weekend in dh's Ford F250 pickup, which is sort of like being in an earthquake continuously for about 3 hours. During the journey, I pinned and sewed on the collar, and then pinned and mattress-stitched the other seams. And I poked myself about sixteen million times. My husband kept looking over at me and laughing, because he couldn't believe I was pinning and sewing in the bumpy truck. I didn't hurt him, but I considered it.

After we got home last night, I sewed on the front placket thingy (I'm not a complete glutton for punishment!). Overall, I'm very pleased with the results. I still need practice on finishing techniques, though. I think the next Virtual Conference for KBTH is going to focus on finishing techniques, and I'm really looking forward to that. It doesn't sound as sexy as the Fair Isle or Aran VCs, but probably will be much more useful as finishing affects everything I knit, one way or the other.

Oh yeah, and I found out why the instructions say to knit "a few" rows with waste yarn before backstitching the collar. (If only I'd read Emma's comment before I started!!!). I knit TWO rows with waste yarn. As soon as I took the collar off the needles, I lost a couple of stitches. Then I marked the collar into eighths and the neckline of the sweater into eighths, and started to match them up . . . and since the collar was about 2/3 as long as the neckline of the sweater, I had to stretch it to skoodge* it around the neckline and make it fit. Which meant I lost a few more stitches . . . the cotton just slips to easily out of its loops, that you really need more than a row or 2 to keep the collar stable long enough to attach it neatly to the rest of the garment.

So now I know. :)

Thanks very much to Nathania for the lovely $5 coupon to the Cafe Press stores--I have my eye on something from Rachael's "Knitting is Sexy" line, so I'll definitely make good use of this treat. That was a very nice surprise for my Monday morning.

*"skoodge" is a technical knitting term which means "to make it fit at all costs because you're NOT going to redo it, no matter what!"

Does karma work?

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you have to run out to the dryer in the garage with no underwear on, because your only clean underwear is in the dryer, and then you're not quite awake, so you hit the garage door opener instead of the light switch . . . ? Good mornin', neighbor!

This got me thinking about karma. Is there really such a thing? Was my, um, challenging morning attributable to perhaps some bad karma I acquired by expressing unflattering observations of the current Knitter's? Would I be required to knit the Trendy Pullover to restore good karma?

Nah.

After some coffee this morning, I remembered that if karma really did work, George W. Bush would be covered in pestilent boils, and have hemorrhoids too. OK, that's gross. Sorry.

CARDI RAYE YARN REPORT:
I have now finished all but the collar on Cardi Raye, and am planning to block the sleeves this evening (after duct-taping the rest of the family to the living room couch so they don't interfere). As I said earlier, I've knitted the middle size 42/44, which called for 1 ball each of each color except for the Kiwi Licorne, Vitamine Plaisance, and Turquoise Licorne; for those three yarns, 2 balls of each were specified.

1. Plaisance in Vitamine (the orange stuff)--this is what I'll need for the collar (cast on 164 and knit 5 rows, plus a few more in "waste yarn"). I'm hoping I have enough to finish the collar; it's going to be close. Cross your fingers for me (except while you're knitting, of course). I haven't done a collar this way before, backstitching live stitches and removing the so-called waste yarn. I don't really get why I should knit more than one row in the waste yarn, because I'm going to pull it out anyway, so why knit more? If anyone knows and would be willing to share, please do. Finally, in my world there's no such thing as "waste yarn." To quote Monty Python, (singing) "ev'ry yarn is sacred, ev'ry yarn is great, if some yarn is wasted, God gets quite irate!"

2. Plaisance in Groseille (the pink stuff)--I came pretty close to running out of this, about 6 yards left.

3. Licorne in Turquoise, Rouge, Pacifique--I had enough of these left that I didn't have to sweat it, but not enough to do much with except tie up plants or make a Barbie sweater. (Yeah, like I'd do THAT.)

4. Licorne in Anemone (the plummy stuff)--I had about 2 yards of this left. I'm pretty conservative with my yarn, I don't leave long ends and I didn't break the yarn for each separate stripe; if I'd been more liberal about the long ends, or had broken the yarn for each stripe, I'm sure I'd have run out.

5. Licorne in Kiwi (the lime green stuff)--I had an entire ball of this left, plus about 25 yards from the first ball. Very weird.

6. Sunset in Turquoise--RAN OUT on the second sleeve. See discussion below. If you're making any of the three largest sizes, be sure to order an extra ball of this stuff.

7. Sunset in Rouge and in Indien--Plenty left for another project . . . Isn't Barbie lucky?

So there it is. This has been a fun project to work on, and I'm looking forward to finishing it. I'm a little concerned about setting in the sleeves, so I'll probably re-read Melinda's blog for any tips to help me.

Happy Friday!

And another thing . . .

Am I a little slow on the uptake, or does this design:

look an awful lot like this design:

One is the Magic Grid from the Spring 2004 issue of Knitter's (the same issue with the scary "peasant blouse" from yesterday's entry). The magazine states that it was designed by "the Knitter's Design Team."

The other is Perugia, from the Colinette Giotto book supporting the yarn of the same name and published in ____ (I'm looking this up).

What do you think? Shall I knit up a pullover of one of Alice Starmore's cardigans and publish it as my own design?

Honk If This Scares You!

This, my friends, is a design from the Spring 2004 issue of Knitter's:

I'm not kidding. It's really in there. It is called the Trendy Pullover, apparently without the intention of being ironic. And here's how this lovely creation is described on the KU website:

"Ruffles top this linen-and-denim peasant top. Ruffles trim its flirty, peek-a-boo sleeve openings. The generous mesh triangle adds drama."

"[F]lirty peek-a-boo sleeve openings" means that there are two large ruffled holes in the elbow area of each sleeve. I couldn't make this stuff up. Before last night, I would not have believed anyone could make this stuff up.

This is the first time I have purchased a copy of Knitter's. I did it because (a) I have a new and insufferable boss at work and needed to buy myself a treat yesterday to keep from strangling him with leftover Licorne, and (b) I HAD to have the Evening Breeze tank, which is also in that issue. Click here and you'll want it too.

I am certain that Maggie Jackson (the designer of the aforementioned Trendy Pullover) is a lovely and interesting woman. But, um, I'm willing to bet cash money no one is going to knit that thing. It's just scary. Is that mean?

On a completely unrelated note: I'll be finishing the second Cardi Raye sleeve by this evening, I expect. I'll have a yarn report then to let you know how close I've come to running out of each yarn.

I can tell you now that I am making the middle size (the third of the five sizes shown on the pattern), and I ran out of the Turquoise Sunset 3 or 4 rows before I was finished with the Turquoise stripes on the second sleeve. I had ordered an extra ball, so I was ok on this, but very disturbed because the yarn requirements on the pattern call for ONE ball of Turq Sunset for all five sizes.

So anyone who is making one of the three largest sizes can expect to run out of Turq Sunset on the second sleeve. Since knitting 24 rows of sleeve ribbing with the Sunset/Licorne combo is kind of unpleasant anyway, it might be a good idea to knit the sleeve ribbing with the Turq Licorne alone, then add the Sunset for the Turquoise rows above the ribbing. That way you'd probably have enough no matter what size you're knitting.