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.

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!

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.

Practice, practice, practice?

I have always been a reluctant purler. My first sweaters were top-down raglans, patterns I hunted down specifically with the intention of avoiding the purl.

No matter how hard I tried, the tension between my knit rows and my purl rows was always wildly different, so I'd get frustrated and toss it in. I knit continental (holding the yarn in my left hand--the legacy of many years of crocheting before I was brave enough to knit), and purling was just damned awkward.

One day at the LYS by my office, I gazed longingly at a knitted garment of some sort (something other than a top-down raglan), and lamented that I was unable to knit this heavenly creation because I couldn't purl. I asked the LYS professional if there were perhaps some secret to purling that I had missed, although to be perfectly honest I was already quite convinced that competent purling was congenitally beyond my grasp. She smiled and said, "Nope, just practice."

So I belted her.

I mean really! Practice?? What kind of cockamamie advice is THAT?

OK, I didn't actually belt her. But I really really wanted to. A few years down the road, however, I must admit that she was right. Continuing to try, to practice, has made an enormous difference.

Which brings us to today. Bored with the endless stockinette of my last Cardi Raye sleeve, I decided on a whim to try knitting backwards. You know, not turning the work at the end of a knit row, and then just working the row from left to right, purling from the right side of the work. In the middle of a row, I stuck the needle into the stitch, wrapped the yarn, and then thought--"I wonder how that knitting backwards thing works?" So I turned my knitting around, looked at the way the stitch and wrapped yarn sat on the needles, and pulled the new stitch through. After a couple of rows "purling" this way, I had the basic hang of it, and these rows looked even with the knitted rows. Who knew?

Knitting backward is kinda fun. Not quicker than purling yet, at least for me, but as we've established, I can be kind of a slow learner. So far, the hardest part has been remembering NOT to turn the work at the end of a row . . . maybe with a little practice, I'll get used to it?

New Cow, um, Goat

Did you read the book "Animal Husbandry" by Laura Zigman? Or see the movie based on it, with Ashley Judd, Greg Kinnear, and Hugh Jackman? I loved it (or them). The main woman reads an article about how bulls will never mate with the same cow twice, because they're always looking for "new cow"--and theorizes from that that men also are unable to commit because of their never-ending search for "new cow."

I'm still working on Cardi Raye (the sleeves are so wide, they seem to take forever!), but I must confess that I'm lusting after "new cow", i.e., a project which I have not yet cast on. Never mind that I have at least 6 projects on the needles right now. (Don't look at the sidebar, because you know I have other projects I'm not listing there . . . ) I just HAD to go out and buy some yarn. Just a little. So here it is:

It is Mountain Colors' Mountain Goat, in Ruby River. My mom loves deep red, and has been having a tough time lately, so I thought I'd make her a lovely soft scarf from this. Now I just have to find a stitch pattern that shows the hand-painted colors nicely, but won't make the scarf busy-looking. Any suggestions will be very much appreciated.

And Chelsea asked the other day if I'd found any nice summer wraps in my trolling of the internet--I did, actually. On the Berroco site, there's a (free) pattern for Michaela, shown here:

I wouldn't knit it in the metallic yarn, though (personal preference)--I'm thinking something softer and less flashy/glittery would work better for me, as long as the yarn is crisp enough to hold the shape/pattern.

I really am still slagging along on my sleeves for Cardi Raye--but the pictures would look just like what you've already seen, so you'll have to trust me. [wink, wink]

I'm the Queen of the Pins!!!

OK, have you ever seen so many pins? Am I a little obsessive do you think? (picture an enigmatic smile here)

And here is a photo of my not-glamorous-but-insanely-cheap blocking board: Or rather, um, not. It doesn't want to upload, so I'll post it tomorrow. Sorry to tease you like that.

If you're thinking of getting one of the 4x8s and cutting it in half like I did, be sure to have a vacuum handy (or better yet, cut it in the garage and then tape the cut side so you won't have that white styrofoam crap all over your house. Just a little tip there from personal experience.

Knitting the sleeves for Cardi Raye, I've run up against a couple of problems with the sparkle stuff. First, knitting 2x2 ribbing with it was really hard on my wrists and hands. Not pleasant. Especially since the pattern calls for 24 rows of said 2x2 ribbing on each sleeve . . . So I only did 6 rows of rib (same as for the bottom hems) for each sleeve, and it's a compromise I'm happy to make. When I'm out wearing it, I won't notice the difference, and you guys won't rat me out, right??

The other problem had to do with ripping. I missed a decrease and had to rip 3 rows to go back and fix it. Unfortunately, after ripping, I had to get a row of Licorne and sparkle back on my needles, and BOTH yarns split and did all kinds of uncooperative things. As I wrote Alison, I was ready to set fire to the bloody thing, but luckily was unable to locate the barbecue lighter at the crucial moment. I am now on a secret mission to find out who Alison's Secret Pal is so I can finagle a bead marker with a frog charm on it, to ward against the need to frog. Is that the best idea for a stitch marker ever, or what?

A.W.O.L.

DH went out of town for the end of last week, so I didn't have much time to post. In the meantime, I've finished and blocked the back and both front sections of Cardi Raye. It blocked completely flat, despite the sparkly stuff, and to my eye at least, looks really good. I'm looking forward to wearing this one. I'll get some pictures up Wednesday, I expect.

Sparkly Back

Here's the unblocked back of Cardi Raye, finished on the train on my commute home last night:

(Sorry for the blurriness; I took this pic with DH's camera phone. You can see the colors a lot better if you look at Kristy's work in progress here.)

Of course, I immediately cast on for the right front--so as not to lose momentum.

My thoughts so far on knitting this sweater:

1. The sparkly stuff does change the fabric slightly in the rows that include it. After the discussion with Alison yesterday, I looked at the finished back carefully to see the overall effect. It creates a sort of raised texture for the stripes that don't have sparkly stuff in them, but the raising is very slight and even if it doesn't completely block out, I think it's fine. YMMV,* of course.

2. Being someone who hates to weave in ends (doesn't everyone?), the slide technique of stripe knitting has been awesome (see entry below re Melinda's great instructions). I have only a handful of ends to weave in for the back section.

3. As I was knitting along, almost every time I added in a new color after the blue, I looked askance at the color combination and was worried that the colors clashed awfully. However, the effect of the whole piece overall is great, and not clashy at all. Again, YMMV, but if you get worried about this issue as you're going along, consider finishing the entire section before you decide.

4. I was a little concerned at first that the Licorne and the Plaisance would be like knitting with string, as some cotton yarns can be. On the contrary, I've found it very pleasant, and like it better than the Rowan Handknit DK I'm using for my daughter's Smiling Jacket. Which, given how much I like Rowan yarns, was a nice surprise.

I'm hoping to have some goodie news to report tomorrow . . . I've sent the DH on an important shopping spree. We'll see.

*YMMV=your mileage may vary

Required Reading

If you're knitting the Cardi Raye, or considering doing so, there is so much information on Melinda Mullins' blog, Purlwise.com. She has an archive specially dedicated to knitting Cardi Raye here.

The two most helpful bits from her so far have been:

1. I read that she'd run out of Turquoise Sunset, so I ordered an extra ball.

2. I used the "slide technique" for knitting irregular stripes in flat stockinette. I can't explain it as well as she does, so you'll have to look here under the heading "Knitting Stripes."

Thanks very much to her for her clear and frank descriptions; they've been very helpful.