Oh, yeah - THIS is why

I hate knitting things that don't fit.

I have now frogged the sweater body of my test knit 1.75 times. The first time, my gauge lied and the sweater was huge. I frogged the whole thing and restarted with smaller needles. I just frogged to the ribbing yesterday because I hadn't read the directions carefully, and only did 6 repeats of the waistline ribbing... instead of 12.

Sigh.

I've knit one sleeve 2.5 times, because I had one done when I went down a needle size on the body of the sweater, but after restarting with the smaller needles, my colorwork looked too tight after so I frogged to the cuff and started again.

I'm hoping this is the last knit of each part of the sweater. I know there are yoke issues ahead, but at least I will have something sweaterish when I get there!

In happier news, Northampton is awesome yarn. Despite the frogging, there is no pilling or untwisting or other bad behavior. It's still sproingy and luscious.

Is it wrong of me to hope that the 30 degree weather hangs on a bit longer here, so I can wear this (potentially) beautiful sweater?

Completely unrelated, here are pictures of Jayne, who doesn't care if her sweaters fit or not.

Jayne loves knitted things. Unfortunately, she does not limit her love to wearing knitting things. She also eats them. She nibbled both of the Sandman's beer mitts; I was able to darn one but the other one is beyond my skills - she ate right through the wishbone cable on the back of the hand.

This weekend, she completely destroyed one of my colorwork mitts. Completely destroyed it. I can't blame her - she is a puppy, and I knew she liked those mitts. My fault. I bought her a new hard plastic chewy thing to distract her.

Back to the body of my sweater. 14" of stockinette... again.

Sigh.

Test Knitting

I signed up a couple weeks ago to test knit a sweater, which is crazy. I have only completed two adult sweaters in my 13 years of knitting. I have completed a handful of baby and toddler sweaters, almost as many dog sweaters, but I don't really do people sweaters. At this moment, I think I have 3 unfinished sweaters stashed in various closets in my house.

It's not that I can't knit big projects. I have several monster shawls under my belt, and I jump into those with abandon.

I'm not afraid of making mistakes. I frogged 1200 yards of laceweight because I ran out of yarn with fewer than 5 rows to go; I reknit an entire sock because my gauge was better on the second sock. I'm ok with starting over, I'm fine with lots of knitting.

I have tons of sweater patterns in my pattern stash, so it's not that I find sweaters unappealing, and since I live in Minnesota, so it's not like I don't need sweaters.

So why no sweaters? Maybe it's the cost. I am cheapcheapcheap. While I have lots of single skeins for quickie projects, I don't buy yarn in quantities. I can't go to my stash and find several choices for a sweater.

I ordered yarn for this sweater, even got an extra ball just to be safe. It's lovely smooshy yarn in a color that makes my mouth water and will look great on me.

I've had gauge problems, and had to start over after knitting 6" of body and one sleeve. I could probably go down one more needle size (gauge swatches lie), but I'm afraid if I frog again I will ruin the yarn.

When I signed up to test knit, I knew I would have to actually finish the sweater. It's like a little trick I pulled on myself.

I hope it works.

Um... yeah.

I stopped posting for a bit. Quite a bit. As in, I forget how many things I've knit and how many dogs I've fostered. Lots of the former, a few of the latter.

The big news? I'm knitting baby things for my niece, due July 5. Knitting baby things is awesome. And addictive. A whole sweater is just a few hours! I even did a blanket, but that was a bit of a chore, even in my favorite Little Arrowhead pattern. It's fun adding little details to projects, such as the Wee Leaf set, pictured here. I added wee leaves to the straps of Mary Jane booties instead of knitting socks. Ack, the cuteness!

The next big news? Foster failure! We (a term I must use loosely, as my boys didn't have a lot of choice) adopted Jayne, a chihuahua-terrier mix. She's a dainty little devil, who cleverly hid her Jack Russell-ness until I had completely fallen for her. (No, there is nothing wrong with Jack Russells, I just prefer to believe I am smarter than my dog, and Russells really challenge that belief.)

Anyway, Jaynie is a sweet girl. We've had to put up with teenage puppy tricks that we had forgotten - the interminable chewing, for example. She has devoured more rolls of toilet paper than all of the pups who've ever lived in our bathroom. I praised her last week because she only shredded a roll halfway, instead of making confetti out of the whole roll. She may be growing up!

Jayne is the happy recipient of two sweaters. She is such a girl, she loves 'em! At only ten pounds, she's a good size to knit for, too. Poor Harley, at 30 pounds, never gets sweaters!

I've spent a lot of time updating my Ravelry page with photos, so instead of going into details about the past, I'm going to start fresh!

My current project is a test knit, the Corona Sweater. It's a basic knit from the bottom up, in the round, close-fitting sweater with just a titch of color work and some cabled ribbing. So far, so good. I'm using Valley Yarns Northampton, and really loving this yarn. It's super cushy and the color has lots of depth.

September Sockdown socks!

Before the weekend: New pups and new projects

This weekend we are headed up north to hang out with the Clan, my husband's mom's family. I would never call my family a clan - we are more of a loose tribe at best - but the Clan like to gather and do stuff together. I'm not sure who will be at the cabin this weekend, but it will probably three or four times the relatives that I could muster from my side of the family! I will be packing knitting projects shortly.

I started the Equinox lace t-shirt earlier this week. It is proceeding well and although the yarn is splitty as heck, drapes nicely and feels good to knit. I've decided I need to pack a more portable, basic knit, too. I have a couple balls of pink Maizy that could be something. Footies or socks? The corn fiber is combined with 18% elastic, so socks could work, but I would have to swatch tonight. I'd be better off with a scarf or simple shawl. Another Dandy Neckerchief? I do lurve that pattern! I have a couple skeins of a lilac sage cotton/wool that would look could be a Springtime Bandit or maybe a Friday scarflet... OK, I will have to swatch tonight!

While we are out of town, J&J will be house and dog and puppy sitting. Yep, they agreed to sleep over and watch Harley and Machi, and since I agreed to foster without really thinking about our calendar, they also get to hang with Drew and Simon, a combined 6lbs of terrier-chihuahua pup. Yes, they are kinda ugly. I am hoping they are just a little worse for wear from the shelter, and that some generous helpings of love and kibble will help that fill out. Drew (below right) is a sweetheart, spunky and cuddly.


Simon, who outweighs his brother by almost a pound, has obviously been the watchful older brother. He's a little anxious and needs to mellow out. He's learning his name, and learning to jump around less, and relaxes more quickly on my lap after just a few days. I'm sure he'll be fine!

I hope J&J also be fine with a household of pups - they currently own one cat. I have written two full pages of doggy instructions, though, so hopefully all will go well. Pinch sitter Shamrock will be bringing former fosters Cal and Finn to hang out Saturday afternoon, as J&J have an all-day commitment. That will a full house: only 60 lbs of dog, but 24 legs! I wonder if Cal and Finn will remember their puppy days here, when they weighed only 1.5 lbs each and lived in my bathtub with their sister Erie? I'm sure Harley will remember them. Harley loves his puppies.

So, what have I been knitting? I knit two more bibs for my cousin's twin boys, but couldn't get them in the mail in time for her shower last weekend. I will knit a few more bibs and send out a half dozen.

I finished a Sweet Lily shawl with my leftover Harmony. This is a great shawl, knit in wedges. IK gives directions to design your own wedge shawl; I plan to experiment with some of my favorite lace patterns and do another shawl. I'm on a lace jag, what can I say!?

I completely frogged my huge Fiddlesticks "Peacock Feathers" shawl, that I knit to about row 250 of the edging chart before determining that no, I didn't have enough yarn. I was knitting on US4s, I'll drop to US2s and restart, because it's a lovely pattern and I really want to finish it. It's not vacation knitting, however. I have another Fiddlesticks kit that might do the trick.

So many options, so little time to plan! Hopefully I will find a good project and be able to post it next week. Happy Fourth of July weekend!

Not knitting baby things

I should be knitting baby things. There are babies due all over the place, and I enjoy knitting baby things, generally, but I am not knitting baby things.

Instead I have been knitting lace. First I decided to knit two divinely blue balls of mystery yarn, which is probably cotton of some sort but since the labels are no where to be found, I can't be sure. It's very soft and splitty, and wanted to be a simple but interesting narrow scarf for summer wear.

I browsed through my scarf patterns, and found Meandering Vines, which is very pretty and surprisingly simple. I edited it, removing some stitches and adding a 3-stitch i-cord edging from the leafy scarf in Scarf Style. I also used an i-cord for the edging, and ended up doing a wacky purled i-cord for the cast off to match. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough yarn, but I ended up using only 1.5 balls of my mystery yarn.

When this was done, I looked through my baby patterns, and tried to get excited about doing a baby-sized Lackadaisical cap, but I couldn't work up any enthusiasm. I went to my stash and pulled out a huge ball of red laceweight, and decided to knit Annis, the Knitty bonus pattern that came out last week.

The thought of casting on 363 stitches was daunting, because I didn't think a long-tail would work, nor would a backward-loop cast on. A knitted-on cast on seemed the way to go. I did a couple swatches to confirm, because I really hate the knitted-on cast on. The swatches confirmed my gauge and that my other cast-on options weren't stretchy enough. Drats.

After the beastly cast on, however, the pattern was quite slick. The nupps weren't too painful, and even an error in row 13 only slowed me down a little (I used the photos and stitch count to figure out that  the YO symbols on either side of the s2kp decrease were missing).

I'm down to the last 3 rows of the chart, then the short rows start. It's very pretty!

Who is the patron saint of yarn stashing!?

I want to thank the proper saint for my miraculous yarn find on Saturday.

I have had Percy all but finished - 10 rows left - and had been planning on going back to Depth of Field to look for a similar ball of Harmony. I bought the first ball last fall or summer, but wasn't too worried about a perfect match - I figured I only had an inch to go, and with the wide gradations of color, a close relation was all I needed.

Saturday I tossed my almost-finished shawl, along with the color and dye lot info, into the back seat of my car Knatasha, thinking I might have time to swing by Borealis Yarns.

I didn't, really. I pulled up to Borealis at 5:10pm, could see the lights were on, and saw someone go in. I hopped out and crossed the street to read the "Hours" sign. Closed at 5. I stood for a moment, uncertain, and unwilling to be one of those customers who ignores a closed sign. A woman came out, and said "They said I could go in if I knew exactly what I needed." Aha! I knew exactly what I needed. I went in.

"I heard I could come in if I knew exactly what I needed," I announced as I came in. A nice young woman asked, "What do you need?" I told her, and she walked over to the cube of Harmony and plucked a ball of the top. "That looks like it..." I murmured, because again, I did not really expect to find a matching ball a year later and city away from where I bought the first.  I read off my color and dye lot, and patron-saint-of-stashing be praised, the ball was indeed Color 1, Dye lot AC01!

How crazy is that?!

I finished Percy on Sunday afternoon. I knit to the end of the first ball, which ended in a cool green, and started the new ball, which started with a warm green - although I can't really see the difference in the shawl.

I started blocking, and was very happy with how it looks and how big it will be, but had to stop and watch Lost. I will block it tonight if time allows!