Dissatisfied

I finished two sweaters this weekend.  Yup two.  It isn't quite so amazing as it sounds as each had so little left to do. I would show you both but they are having a pre blocking bath.

And I feel weird.  This is different than when I usually finish a big thing.  That feels like just an emptiness, a missing of what is done and over.  This is different.  This is dissatisfaction.

Both of these are shorter than usual though the rust Ursina sweater is not as cropped as it started out to be.  The other is the Threipmuir I have been working on for a while and much as I love it, I am not quite sure there won't be more knitting to be done.

The problem is this. They are wide.  I knit them both as I would usually to give myself ease at the hips so the sweater did not cling but would move naturally as I moved.    It means that there is more than the usual fit width at my waist so that I do not end up with a skirty bit at my hips.  On these shorter cropped style sweaters means it is wide where it sits at the front.  

There is no way to really tell if these will work well till after the stiffness of the yarn has been washed out of them and blocked away.  If they drape nicely, it will be fine.  If not, I have some thinking to do.  

And that leaves me sort of dissatissfied.  I have a few days till blocking and drying is done, so for now, I am just going to knit something fun, something different, something unusual.

Dealing with the restless.

When I feel restless, it is usually because something is nagging at me that  I either do not yet recognize or want to avoid.  I didn't recognize it till this morning.

This is yesterday's photo and I spent all day today trying to sort out what to do instead, because that hem treatment?  I hate it.  It is all wrong for this sweater.  

So I thought about it as I printed out some sewing patterns.  I thought about it as I knit sleeve two.  I thought and thought and looked at the pictures and at my project and my yarn and made a nice clear decision.  

It needs some proper ribbing which I could add but if I am doing that, I may as well keep with the spirit of it all and do some half brioche rows to finish it all off.  I have a pretty strong feeling that this will look better than anything else I can come up with for the neckline and I already know that it will make a much nicer ribbing than my first try on the sleeves.  Where the brioche already forms the hem, it looks amazing.

It does mean that I will be brioching all around the bottom of the sweater and the sweater will be the smallest bit longer but it will be what it will be.  I know that with the finish I tried on the sleeve, I wouldn't be wearing it that much because it would bug me.  It will be longer and briochier (is that a word) but I will love it more.

So, it does add a wee bit, probably two days to the finishing but that isn't so bad.  It's a nice yarn and there isn't any more of it.  Not at the mill and not in my stash.  Sigh.  Oh well.

Oddly enough, I do not feel restless any more.  I am rather energized! Go me.

Restless

I am feeling unsettled these last few days.  I have no idea why but I am.  There are a hundred thousand reasons not to be but there it is.

I have been working on sleeves.  Sleeve1 is complete.  

Sleeve 2 is well under way.

But I am still restlesss.  

Body done

After taking careful measurements, and knowing full well my row gauge was crap, I knew that I would have to knit another six inches before the V brioche detail was worked to meet the sides.  It was a tiny bit sad because I knew that I did not want another six inches on this sweater.  That six inches would have taken it well past cropped and the goal here was mid long crop.  I was pretty sure I didn't but there is nothing like a try on to let you know where you stand.

So I did and it was pretty much perfect right where it was.  Perfection on the detail was not going to be mine.  Oh well.  What I have, I like exactly as is.  The only real problem with this is that there is going to have to be a tiny bit of fancy footwork to finish the bottom.  Had the broiche gone all the way around I could have just bound off and it would have sat beautifully.  This way , there are panels of stockinette that curl a bit at the cast off.  I know what I will do, though, so it isn't a problem, just a bit more finishing than I thought.

I started the sleeves and made pretty good progress of the first few hours.

Sleeve one is almost to the elbow and I am not yet certain how long I want them.  My favourite is a 3/4 length, but that too, would be away from the patterns meticulous plans.  

We shall see where it goes.  No rush other than me really looking forward to wearing this one.

It just keeps going

A friend of mine, my oldest and first best friend, posted a thing that really struck home with me today.

"To all my female friends of "age''...

Most of us are going through it. We are at that age where we see the wrinkles, grey hair, extra pounds. We see the pretty 25 year olds and sigh. But, we were once 25, too, just like they will one day be our age. What they bring to the table with their youth and zest for life, we bring with our wisdom, experience and good hearts. For all we've been through earning each grey hair... raising kids, bills and ills and whatever else life brought us over our 60+ years, we are survivors... we are warriors... we are women. Like a classic car or fine wine. While our exterior may not be what it once was, it is traded for our spirit, our courage and our strength to enter this chapter of our lives with grace and pride for all we've been through and accomplished.

Never feel bad about aging. It is a privilege denied to many." Gail Medernach, lovely woman of a certain age.

And then she asked us to post a picture of ourselves and our age.  Many did.  it was lovely.  

I am not so sure that I have any grace at all and wisdom is only occasional, but I have a wonderful life and I treasure it.  My photo today, posted before coffee (proof of a lack of wisdom) , before even combing my hair.

 

And if I was a classic car, I would be like the beat up old farm truck, that keeps on going out to the field because, well, because that is what it does.

As I was sipping my coffee, just after this, I decided to put away a couple needles that were kicking around.  There were some dpns, some long circulars and some from various interchangeable sets.  As I was doing this, I decided to take a few photos of my needle case.  Goodness, it must be at least ten years old by now.  I would have to go through the blog to find out exactly when I made it but it has stood the test of time.

Fixed needles storage is freezer ziplocs with a strip of card stock down at the bottom where the holes are pucnched

Each size tip and all of the various lengths are in one pouch, with a few exceptions.  I don't have many needles above a 5 mm so all of the big ones are in one bag, and all of the small circulars are in another.  And anything below a 2.5 mm is in the bag of little ones.

I have a pack of accessories that divides fixed circs and interchangables.  The cables are in three smaller bags, small, medium and large lengths, and each size tips in another. 

A few weeks ago, I put all the dpns into this case too so it is nice and full.  When I look for something it is there and that is how I like it.  I still have to buy needles once in a blue moon, but when I do it is for something special, like lace where I really need a certain bamboo tip or if I am away from home and forgot the right needles for what I want to knit.

When I made this all those years ago, I never though it would work so well, or last so long.  I thought the closings would wear out.  I thought the holes would pull out of the bottoms.  I thought I would find it all just a bit too cumbersome, but it isn't.  It just keeps going.  

Like me.   

Ursina

Blogging in the Evening is going well except for Sunday night.  I just never seem to get there on Sunday night.  

It was a great knitting weekend.  The F1 races were in North America which means afternoon racing so I could knit like crazy in the morning, give my hands a break during the races, and then knit like a mad woman till I was done for the day.  

Clearly, Ursina is a magical knit.

This is a substantial sweater.  It will be slightly cropped but it otherwise a casual fit.  It isn't  oversized like my Big Easy One, where the sleeves are only 6 inches long and the rest of the full sleeve is the width of the sweater. It has a much more average sweater fit, but casual.  Comfortable.  More ease than a regular raglan, but not over much.  I am about half done the body section.  This is right where a regular knit makes me feel like it will never be done.  But not this.

There is very little plain stockinette.  In between sections of stockinette, there are panels of half brioche trim.  Honestly, for me this feels like knitting stripes.  Only better.  

Each row the half brioche gets one stitch wider and this keeps on for the rest of the sweater.  When the  brioche meets you are done.  

Makes me wonder what a full sweater in briochecwould be like. I may have to take the trouble to find that out.

Delicious

Yesterday was mail day and we finally picked up the delicious stuff I ordered.

Isn't that wonderful?

The marvelous skein of Handmaiden Superkid Silk in a giant skein matching RCY's Bird of Paradise colors, with the jelly green Kidsilk Haze and the Killer Candy red colour, also Kidsilk Haze have now been mated with the final colour for this brilliantly delicate take on a log cabin knit, the Sommerfeld Shawl.

 

I can't wait ti knit it.  Fills me with excitement.

NOTE:  The blue isn't  quite so blue in real life. It is a very rich marine green but it is scrumptious. 

A sweater I love and a neckline I hate, day 2

So it us day 2 and I almost forgot about this one.

I have a long post to write but all the pictures are out on the tablet.  And without the tablet, the post is impossible to write.

So this shall have to suffice till I can insert and explain.  If you see Pictures the post is ready!

It has to do with a sweater I love and a neckline I hate.  I set out to change that..  

The problem with the neckline was that when I knit the sweater, I did not leave enough of a front neck dip for my neck.  When I wore it, the collar band would pouch the fabric below out and away making this awful bubble of fabric.  It bugged me when I wore it and it was time to change it. 

First things first, remove the neck band.  This already was a second neckband that I had hoped would fix the problem.  It took forever to pull out the band with all its tiny woven in ends.

Once that was done, it was time to make the cut before I chickened out.

Somewhere between pulling off the neckband and the next morning, I realized the sensible way to deal with the edge here, was to felt it.  I have no idea why I didn't think of it when I fixed it last time.  It would have made my work now much easier.

When things seemed to be sturdy enough to hold the fabric edge, it was time to sort out the edge and see if the new v shape was large enough to do what I wanted.  I took a really long needles and picked up prospective stitches to hold everything till I was ready to knit.  I am leaving the edge as is but might go back after I wash it and felt it a wee bit more.  Over time, it will take care of itself though, just from normal wear.

I took out my cream sweater that I knit just after I knit this one.  It had a v neck and I love, love love it.  I measured the edge of the knitting to see if it was about the same.  A wee bit deeper but that was okay.  Good to go, I thought.

So I blindly cast on, hoping that it wouldn't be too many stitches. I could have done maybe three less on the long sides of the v, but it really is good enough.  

It needs to be washed to relax the new knitting before I can judge it fairly and for now, this is great.  The sweater itself is newly washed so it will be well worn before I wash it again in a few weeks.

This sweater, along with the cream one, are my basic sturdy sweaters.  The yarn is sturdy and soft and oh so wonderfully warm.  I just love wearing them and now, I am going to love this particular one even more.

A pair

Sp today, after putting the sewing room/guest room to rights, I sat down and just knit.  I knit with a clear conscience that there was nothing more urgent that I needed to do.

I knit till I was past the first set of instructions, and am now just about finished those and am very close to section three.  I think I am supposed to join in the round here but I am not 100 percent certain.  There isn't really any place where it say join in the round.  Or maybe I read over it and missed it.  It does refer to knitting the half brioche stitch for knitting in the round so it must be joined.  Section three is really short, 7 rows if I recall, and then there is one last gasp before dropping all the sleeve stitches and knitting the body of the sweater.   

It's a good thing that I am close to dropping the sleeve stitches.  I am not entirely sure how many more stitches can fit on this needle.  It is on the longest cable that was free from my addi set, so I have two choices, live with it or go looking through all the other things for a longer cable.  It isn't many rows but it is a fair number of additional stitches in these next rows.

But the knitting is good and it feels like it going fast..  I told her I would rather have some smiley faces but

When Cassie was here on the weekend, I asked her to model my giant shawl for me. She wanted to know if she could make faces 

I wasn't fast enough with the camera.  Oh well.  My beautiful shawl, which even Carter really liked. He is a guy who knows his special blankets and he understood immediately how I feel about this one.  Blankets, shawls, he got it and so did I.  

New and fresh

That was just the best weekend.  Carter had a two night sleepover and then Marcus and Cassie came to visit so they could show Carter all the fun stuff about my little town.  And the kids next door met Carter too and they were playing tag and red light green light and a couple other old kids games.  It was just the perfect balance of people and fun.  Because I will never forget it.  It was just the best weekend.  Even Keith said it was the best weekend ever and he never says that when I have company. 

Today, I had to go and stay with Cassie and Marcus.  School had a teacher day of some sort so I just went and hung out there till Dad got home from work.  Not a stitch of knitting happened and this is pretty much all the writing I have for today.  But tomorrow.  Tomorrow is all new, and fresh and there is just nothing better than that.

Just silly!

Very desultory knitting the last few days.  

I have about 8 rounds on my restarted Ursina sweater to show for it and that is all.  I am in full getting ready for company mode.  I can't wait to have Carter come to visit me.  I just can't wait.  

I was so excited that I could hardly sleep last night, which just goes to show you.  I had to talk myself down from it.  It is just the silliest thing.  

There will be much more on knitting next week.  Much more on sewing too.  But for today, what is special and important is a visist from one of my special boys.

Voila

And there it is.  Carter will be warm this winter!

Cutest little hat that you ever did see!

I really love this hat from a Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns from Ann Budd.  It's such a great basic recipe book for so many little things.  It allows you to sit in the drivers seat and do your own colours, your own colour work, your own stripes, whatever it is that you want and gives you the spiffiest way to cast off the top of a hat ever.  Great hats for great kids.

Or there will be great hats mitts and sweaters for the kids, as soon as grandma weaves in all the ends, fixes one pocket and puts buttons on things.

All the small things

So, as I thought, I am going to have to pull back my Ursina and restart. 

I tried it on and it fits closely and that is not what I wanted.  I was looking for a fit more like the pattern.  Somewhere between too little ease and too much is is where I am aiming so...

That meant I needed to put it aside and to pay attention and knit on what is more urgent.  So I did.

I finished up my wee Gramps.  If you need a sweater for every person (12 sizes included) kids and up, do consider this.  It is just a great pattern.

Just ends to sew in and buttons, but that is all sorted and ready to go.  And then I did start a hat for Carter from the leftovers from the sweaters, but I just couldn't force myself to knit with the acrylic.  It is so much harder on my hands.  I just end up feeling cramped and sore after a couple hours particularly on things with small dimensions like hats and mitts. 

I set the hat aside to rest my hands and started the little fingerless mittens just like I made for Marcus.

I kind of enjoyed that.  I definitely enjoyed the wool.  Just ends to sew in here. 

There was all this wool left and I was still struggling with the acrylic yarn.  I wondered how to make a sort of matching hat.  I didn't have much gray left though, but there was lots of the other colours.

I don't want to make it too fancy.  It's for a male and guys, even boys usually like things that are not too fancy.  I opted for a plain 1 x 1 rib.  That way, no matter what size his head is, it will fit well.  And stripes are the thing, wide 12 row coloured stripes with 4 rows of the gray between.  After the first break of gray, I knew that I was not going to have enough gray for 4 rows between each other colour so I put the second set back to 2 rows.  Oh well.  

I'm going to knit to that perfect length, where you can fold back the brim to get double warm on your ears and long enough to hold in your warm on top.  And that ought to take just about all of the yarn.  

Which is always the nicest thing of all.  Well, besides cozy warm grandchildren in warm handmade hats.    

It was a weekend of all the small things and now this week, I will be busy getting ready for my special visit from Carter.  I am excited, silly goofy excited!

All the things!

If you follow patterns to a t, this sweater, Ursina is written for you.  There is a lot of text and all kinds of charts with numbers but they make it possible that you can knit a completely customised sweater without any need for math or hard thinking.  Just follow the numbers and you will have an amazing sweater.

It's a little harder for people who wing it.  I have never knit a pattern by this designer before and each designer has their own way of presenting things, their own way of writing, and their own way of talking about ease.  I read all the notes and I have a feeling I am knitting just the smallest bit too little ease.  It will still fit but the question is, will it have the shaping I am looking for.  I have a wee bit more to go till it is ready for a try on.  We shall see.  Still, I made decent progress today.  

  

The stitch markers you can see here mark the newly established center front design detail.  There are a few rounds to get to the underam split and once that is knit, I can stop and try it on and see what we have.  

I am really enjoying this knit.  Really enjoying it.  But I keep looking to the side of the footstool and feel like bad gramma.  I need to finish my wee Emmetts sweater, or should i say my big boy Emmett's sweater.  

One thing at a time? Oh heck no.  All the things, all the time. 

Not the Big Bear, but the Little One.

I would have to go back to my blog to see what I was going to knit with this yarn back on my Epic Adventure.  I do not remember, but I am so very very glad that it did not get knit at that time.  

I started this morning, doing a swatch to see what kind of gauge I got in a fabric I liked.  this is an odd yarn, odd in that inside my head, it is a bulky yarn, but it really just a heavy worsted.  It is Harrisville Flax and Wool which I have had in the deep stash for some time.  (but haven't they all been there for a long time).  I found my gauge and it just did not work for the first Ursa**or in my world, the Big Bear.  I was sad, but,  I had a vague memory that there was more.

I searched through all of Jacqueline Cieslak's patterns and there it was!  Ursina.    Ursa for bulky yarns and Ursina, little bear, for worsted and sportweight yarns.  You can knit this sweater in almost anything.  

I cast on and within a very few rows, I completely understood why everyone talks about this sweater and why everyone enjoys knitting it.  There is something to do on each row, but it it is all repeats of the same thing to make for some really simple knitting.

I have completely fallen in love with the Half Brioche detail that trims the raglan increase lines as well as down the back and a panel on the front bottom.  I tried to get a good picture, but it just hides away.  Look for the longer looking stitches.  It really is just one of those perfect little details.

And I love the yarn.  It has a sort of dry feel, like silk often does, but it is so soft and airy.  I just cannot wait to wear it, and honestly, I even now, I can see myself knitting another after this one is done.

So not the big bear, but the little one.  It's a good thing.

A Big Dig

Because I had the house mostly in order, and have no large tasks needing doing. I decided to do the big dig today.  The big dig is a task that was put off all summer and because it is very much part of my anti moth strategy, it was the most urgent thing on my calendar.  So dig!

My stash is mostly ordinary wool yarns, the kinds of things that I could get in any yarn store even now.  Oh the names change and colours shift through time, but a good wool yarn is a good wool yarn.  As plain and as ordinary as much of my stash is, I feel each and every regular yarn is just the best thing in my world outside of my family.  

Each time I dig, I am a tiny bit overwhelmed at just how much I am emotionally connected to my yarn.  It isn't just stuff.   It is past, and future and the worst of times and the best of times.  Then I dig in it and play in it and shift it around looking for different things, I am awash in memories and I can put myself in the place and time that I bought it.  I almost always recall what sweater I bought it for too, not always but often enough to surprise myself.

This is just a bit of my dig, going into each box to check that everything is stable that there is no bug frass in the bottoms of the containers, that all the bags are fresh and sealed.   

This is my one shallow box remaining. The rest are all the big deep tubs.  It is filled with Kauni and Dt. Denis Boreale that didn't fit with the rest of either of those yarns.

My bag of mohair yarns.  I had a couple things to pull out from here.

I need the cream to use with a very pretty lacewieght from London and my neice's stash for the lace part of a love note sweater.  I am so looking forward to this knit.  And these beauties, 

because the whole point of getting this very large skein of Bird of Paradise Silken Mohair was to knit a Sommerfeld Shawl , using the very strong colours of Kid Silk Haze I already had in my stash.  I need a brilliant deep blue green something and I will be ready to knit.

And then this.  Sigh.  

There was a time when I forgot how much of this marine and acid green Einband I had. I was going to knit with it last winter but I just couldn't find it all.  I located the other two balls of each colour a few weeks ago, and I want to get them all back to gether so that when I want to knit my Courant shawl, I have the materials.

My Tove.  And not even the precious box of Tove.  This is the other Tove that I hope will net me a sweater using the gorgeous patterns from this sweater  (yes the stunning patterning from the cover garment, just not the shape)  A dark gray and the blue will, I hope show off the beautiful design.

My other and most precious box of Tove, some of which will be used with some Kauni this coming winter.

Some yarn for a hat I fell in love with, bought the pattern, went out and bought some yarn to knit it and got home to find I had the exact yarn and exact colour selection it was originally knit in!  I would love to have a hat of these pretty colours.

A big box of singles or small quantities, otherwise known as scarf yarns.

A large cone of sportweight BFL to use with some of the ever so gorgeous Mid Knit Cravings yarn I bought earlier this summer.

A little Rowan Felted Tweed, a little Mini Duett from Sandnesgarn, a little Knit Picks in plain colours.

I meant to knit this on my Epic Adventure, but it did not happen.  I think I want to knit an Ursa sweater with it.  

Odds and ends of Silky Wool that magically make a surprisingly lovely fall combination.  I think a shawl if I can find a design that works with my colours.

Coned joy.

More coned joy.

Sedate Mission Falls

I see a shawl.  What do you see?

Some Three Irish Girls to be used with a stash of navy Cascade 220 for a nice winter cardigan.

All the dark gray Regals put together, awaiting  a plan.

That little bit of dark Custom Woollen Mills Mule Spinner two ply to rework the neck on one of my sweaters from last winter.

And yet another bit of Tove!   

Which just makes me laugh.  This was the very start of my big dig.  The photos loaded opposite of how they were taken.  

A few things pulled out to knit, a few things tucked away more efficiently, everything drooled over and given a bit of love.

And not a single bit of bugginess anywhere.  It was a great day.