Endings

I devoted the weekend to finishing a few little things. Too many little things were piling up close to finished. Too many things close to being done can become a real burden for me. It isn't that I don't have WIP's of long standing. I can ignore the big things for months and months. These small things, all sitting there just needing a couple of hours of work till they can be put away, used or given can be too heavy a load to bear.

First on the complete me pile, was the little scarf made from the skein of yarn my sister gave me from Sundog Alpacas out of Saskatoon. I've followed the Vicuna Scarf pattern from 101 'Small Indulgences: Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders' It turned out to be the right pattern for the yarn. It holds the ridges beautifully, it shows off great depth and flow and the scarf looks an awful lot like its source. It isn't vicuna, but it is very very nice.

Then I worked on making the edging to the little baby blanket I have been working on. As ever, the internal debate about what to do went on way to long. Waaaaay to long. I'm going to do a nice little hammed edging. I started with the blue, the smallest amount of yarn remaining, and I'm putting yellow on next, and then I'll use the orange to do the rest. The orange should be able to do one row and turn, and then the full backside. It will give the blanket the weight it needs on the edge, and won't be so fussy as some of the other edgings I played around with last week.

And finally, as my dinner was cooking, I finished the first grey Trekking 6 ply sock. The second is well under way, too, and I hope over the next few days to be ready to put heels on the pair. I am impressed with this yarn not just because socks work up so fast in it, but I really really like the colours. I may have to pick up just a little more for Mr. Needles. He could use more socks.

Since half the fun of getting to endings is seeing new beginnings and as busy as my hands have been, my head has been even busier.

Once the blanket and the socks are done, I am going back to play with the lacy bits I showed you last week. I have a plan for a little lacy scarfette.

I also have that fleece. I'm going to pick the first nice day to get to some of that. Been reading up on working with fleece, in particular this very long double coated fleece.

Looking forward, planning out like this might drive some people batty, but it is why I finish a lot of the times. The last bits of a project, where I know what I am doing, where I don't have to wonder is this going to be long enough, will I run out of yarn, will it fit, are a gift in a way. They are free minutes where I can just let my imagination soar. I don't have to do any of these things, but I might. The dreaming about what might be, among these many possible and achievable goals, all these open possibilities are what keep me sane with my feet on the ground.

Well, that and playing with string of course. I'm not the same person when I can't play with string....

Knitting with something different.

I am finding all kinds of little stuff to work on instead of the vest. But the vest requires full brain power, and I don't know, maybe it is spring, maybe it is the time change earlier this week, but I am having a tough time focusing on one task. Or even 2.

As the big department stores seek cheaper goods, their yarn departments are suffering. For decades, a department store was where you went to get good old ordinary crochet cotton. No longer. There is only 1 big store carrying any locally. I don't think they they are carrying much, because everyone who is looking for crochet cotton says the same thing: 'Its so picked over'. I've never met the person who is doing the picking, and never met anyone who says they have such a good selection. I'm thrilled to see that at least one yarn store (River City) around here is carrying it, in a good selection of colours (not vast, but decent) and we are going to see how it sells. If it sells well, who knows, there may be more selection.

Like anything else, people will like to see how it is going to look. Crocheters know, because for far too long, it and acrylic were the only things being crocheted with. Knitters are a tougher crowd. So I am knitting and crocheting and tatting up a few little samples of some of the colours of the fine cotton thread we have.

I decided to start with the knitting, and I hoped to have it done yesterday. The little white edging sample is from the Knitted Lace of Mary Schiffman. It is the sort of thing that was used on the edges of pillowcases, and undergarments, and tea cloths for tables. Most of the lace edgings I am familiar with are crocheted but after working one in knitted lace, I get it. There is the same rhythmic quality that infects (in a very good way) all knitting. I can the understand satisfaction that could be taken from making miles of this braid. I can understand why a person might knit this sort of lace edging rather than crochet.
The green sample is the Little Arrowhead pattern from Barbra Walker's First Treasury (or second. the book is upstairs.) I've already knit a table cloth in the darn stuff - all of it wrong. My frustrations with this knitters inability to count to 2, doesn't dim how nice this sample is going to look when it is finished. This lovely rich moss green dances and glows in the light. I hope this little sample will show some of our younger knitters, that cotton knitting is something to aspire to too.

One of the best parts of my knitting journey has been learning the depth of tradition behind it all. The tradition behind knitting lace is deep and strong. But right there alongside those strong and vibrant traditions of Estonia and The Shetlands, at exactly the same time in history, over the last 150 years, we had our own tradition born out of a desire to have pretty things to wear and born out of what was available. Here in the vast western spaces of North America, the common fibre to knit lace with was cotton. Cotton thread knitting is our tradition, and I urge us not to give short shrift to our own history because few books have been written about it, because it isn't as popular as knitted laces with wool.

Pick up a copy of the Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffman, or get it from your library. Check out some of the fine old crochet doily pattern writers like Elizabeth Hiddleson if you can. Search, see, find out what our fore-mothers were doing.

And then knit a little something with cotton thread. In garter stitch. Seriously rewarding stuff. An unexpected pleasure.

So over Red

I've had a 'thing' for reds for a very long time. I always had something red to wear. I had several lovely dresses in reds all through my life. When I was a kid colouring with my dad, I remember the 'swell' red dresses he made for all the little girls dresses. (I think he did this to tease us) But this past winter, since early last fall in fact, my soul was on a misson for the right red. What set it off was a particular shade of red Cloud Cotton. This red set off a search for the right red, the red that would be perfect.

I looked for a long time, and like most searches for perfection, did not find perfection, but came up with several pretty darn goods. I have a rusty red Donna from Scheepjeswol, colour 612, and the more purple fuschia red 610. I have a garnet red from Elann's Sierra Aran line and, most recently, this lovely Cloud Cotton Red, that I could never quite get out of my head.

Yesterday more of the Cloud Cotton found its way to the store, and I swear that another colour has taken me into its feindish clutches.

Yellow. There is a Cloud Cotton Yellow that is so soft and warm that it is like butter cream. Like the soft Sunday lemon of a lemon merigue pie when you make it yourself from real fresh lemons. It is a yellow you can wrap yourself up in and just feel good about the world.

I already like yellow. My study is yellow, a strong clear, wake me in the morning yellow. If I had a white kitchen, the curtains would be yellow ( these were my colours at the farm kitchen.) My favourite dress of all time, was yellow. My bridesmaid dresses were yellow (but this wasn't a choice, it was kismet. The dresses were on sale, they had sizes for all the bridesmaids. But they were nice dresses.) Yellow just makes me feel good even if it isn't my favourite colour. Really, it isn't. Red is my favourite colour. You'd think I would be immune to the power of yellow yarn.

But no. I fell for a bag full of yellow yarn, like a moth to a light in the night, I fell hard.

Its a really nice yellow, and yellow is a good colour to be surrounded with. but I already have a yellow sweater, and I just don't need another.

Maybe I could need a yellow scarf? I'll have to think about that.

Cuteness

We have another sock yarn at the store, new for the store, but one of my most favoured yarns for socks for all seasons. Meilenweit Cotton Fun makes the nicest socks. My favourite socks for camping are Cotton Fun.

For those that dare to step away from knitted socks with sock yarn, Cotton Fun is one of those yarns that just does lovely things in solid fabric crochet. With a griddle stitch (alternating a long stitch like a double crochet with a short stitch like a single crochet, and then in the next round, placing the single in the top of the double and the double on top of the single) or a extended single crochet, the colours make wonderful patterns multi patterns. Too often, the subtleties of multi coloured yarns are lost in crochet, but not this. In a way, crochet takes this yarn to a whole different and superior place. This small sample baby sock shows only the beginning of the effect. It isn't the sometimes unlovely pooling that will happen in knitting. Rather the pooling effect becomes desirable. It blends better, the colour moves between the stitches better. If you don't like a pooling yarn, try using it for crochet. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

It also makes very appleaing wee knitted socks. In a knitted adult version, you will have a stronger presence of blue, larger colour sections, but isn't that just the prettiest little knitted baby sock? This yarn would make lovely knitted or crocheted baby sweaters too. Some of the Holly Yeoh, Bee's Knees patterns would be just a delightful way to use Cotton Fun.

I'm going to stick to socks for now. I'm going to have to work hard on several things before I can get these in the queue, but maybe by the time camping season arrives, I'll be ready to work on these.

I can hardly wait. Another pair of superior camping socks suits me fine. And looking forward to warmer weather doesn't hurt either.

I crawled back to bed

I'm blogging late today because I crawled back to bed, and really, today, it is the only sensible thing to do. Unless you are in Siberia, Finland, any of Canada's 3 territories, or Alaska. Then you would be braver, stronger and better able to cope with these temperatures than I. -40C last night.

Without the wind chill.

It is still -40.1 C

I was up earlier, working on socks, because really, the only sort of knitting to do in this weather is sock knitting. Heavy sock knitting.

These are Chris's socks. I promised Chris a pair of socks last year at Christmas, and then promptly forgot them. One of the boys (I really should call them men. They are all of them, fully growed) reminded me. It only seemed right to get to Chris socks immediately. The yarn is Trekking 6 ply, a nice medium weight sock yarn, and I am really really pleased with the way the colours are softly fading from grey to charcoal, to black, and back. Its not quite a striping pattern, and yet it is a striping sort of yarn. Very pleased.

You know, the two Trekking 6 ply I have worked with have both been impressive. They make socks that still fit inside a regular shoe, but they work up fast. This is a healthy part of a foot, and was done up in about an hour and a half. We have another brand of heavier sock yarn coming in, one of the usual regular brands, but in a 6 ply. I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait to try it out too.

There will always be a place in the world for regular sock weight yarn, but don't discount these slightly heavier weight yarns.

I have been thinking a lot about spring things, and summer weights and cotton, but if this keeps up, the only thing that is going to get knit is big heavy winter socks. It is going to be back to Big Fabel for me.

Miserable

The weather here has been absolutely miserable. Friday there was a snowstorm. Saturday there was another, but by the end of Saturday the sky was blue and the sun was shining. It was beautifully warm. Overnight the temperature dropped and once again, the wind rose and blew all that fresh snow around. Visibility on the roads was almost none, and with the windchill, the temperatures were brutal. You could not be outside for long before even the warmest parka left you with a chill.

So that is why we were out on Sunday afternoon, picking up this. The owner met us midway, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The wind was something more than crisp (freaking crisp), and without Mr. Needles being there, it would have been a tough slug. It was packed in a nice box, but Mr. Needles was afraid that the box would blow out of the truck box, and he left the tie downs at home, so we dumped the fleece into the truck box, and pulled the box cover over and away we went.

That left me with the unappetizing task of having to bag it up midst all the wind. What you see in the photo is about half the truck box still filled. It did not take long, but it by the time I was done, my hands were deeply cold and my fingers were wasted for any serious knitting. I wound balls instead and debated what the heck I am going to do with all this fleece.

There are some people who are going to take some, but I'm hoping to keep a couple fleece's worth to try spinning this coarser sheep fibre, and to see if it will make a reasonable quilt batt. Inside a good sturdy cover, It ought to do just fine. There is a long way to go to get it to anything resembling that stage though.

It needs to be completely picked over. It is very very raw. Then it is going to have to be cleaned deeply. I'm going to stock up on some Dawn to help me get through this. And it is going to have to be a day when its nice enough to open the windows. It is very sheepy smelling . Really really farmy sheepy smelling. Then, I'll need some hand carders to turn this pile of fibre into nice little rolags. I've a feeling there is an awful lot of work involved in preparing a fleece before it is ready to be used.

This is a fairly coarse fibre and it was free, so I won't be too disturbed if I make a mess out of it. I'm fully prepared to fail, but I also know that people have been doing this for centuries. It isn't a sophisticated process, just a hard work one. I'm ready for that.

Oh the bliss of ignorance.

For a day spent on wall paper

I did a surprising amount of knitting. And very little wall papering.

I opened the box and read the instructions to find that this mural needed wallpaper glue applied to it. This wasn't really a problem except that the logistics of the application changed. It needed stuff I did not have and since the day wasn't meant for unnecessary travel, Mr. Needles helped me with it when he got home.

It was a good thing I waited any way. These mural pieces are enormous. The figures on it are gargantuan. We played around with the parts last night to figure out what was going to look the best, and all I have left to do today is make the paste, book the paper, and slap it up. Which is pretty much right where I was yesterday morning, par for the course in renovations.

So I kept knitting. I'm almost ready to put the little stroller blanket together. I'm a little short of blue, and I have a lot of yellow and orange left over. I'm seriously thinking about putting a little edging on it. I'm thinking about little garter stitch points on 3 sides of the blanket alternating the blue, the orange and the yellow point by point.

Its been a bit of a yarny sort of week. UPS brought the two walnut skeins of yarn I needed for Mr. Needles vest, and I brought home a few things from the store fresh from the shipping boxes.

Some new really great colours of Confetti sock yarn. Some of a wonderful forest floor sort of green colourway of Kureyon sock yarn destined for another simple small shawl, and some hand dyed Ella Rae Merino Lace. Ella Rae Merino lace is a little heavier weight and quite springy in comparison to some laces and this blue and green Caribbean water colour is my favourite.

What I didn't bring home was the new Footloose, which is the most amazing shades and tones of reds and the other really nice ball of Confetti I was eyeing up. I thought I controlled myself remarkably well.

Now if I can just live through the opening of rest of the 8 or 10 boxes waiting in the back of the store, my budget might just survive the month.

What I am up today

This is going to be one of those things days. It doesn't happen often as there are so many string things to discuss, but well there you are.

I don't know how it is for other people, but around here if there is room with out a purpose, it quickly becomes what can only be called a 'junk room'. Just like junk drawers in the kitchen, a 'junk room' quickly takes over your life and you will never find anything. Construction tools, empty paint cans, ladders, boxes we might need, Christmas decorations that are too large to fit in the closet, camping gear, junk mail, newspapers. All have resided at one time or another in one junk room or another. In order to stop random formation junk rooms, any spare rooms, are given a dedicated purpose, and are decorated to ensure that no more junk accumulation will happen. It doesn't always work, but we do try.

About 5 years ago we dedicated one room as Mr. Needles study. Loosely translated it means that the computer is in here, along with Mr. Needles strictly personal types of junk that guys have. Mr. Needles collection of guy junk is actually fairly contained and well defined. It's all related to wildlife and fishing and hunting. The only problem with Mr. Needles study was that it was never finished.

The original plan was to build in cabinets so we didn't paint with the very expensive sand paint along one wall. A year or two after the fact (right when the sand paint colour we used was no longer produced) we decided to buy book cases which left us with a wall that did not match and a big problem. It took the wind right out of our sails. Renovation stopped, and the study was left hanging midway between elegant but manly space and junk room.

We solved the unpainted wall with a wall mural. It suits the character of the man, and his passions. For the last 3 years, the mural sat in a box on top of the book cases. Today it goes onto the wall.

Wish me luck.

Yarn Harlot coming to Saskatchewan

Not just to Saskatchewan, but to Muenster Saskatchewan, to the Saskatchewan Stitches Conference.

Muenster is not my home town but my home town is just 20 minutes from there, my roots in Canada go right back to there, my dad went to the monastery sponsored high school there, the dearest priest that ever there was on the face of the earth rests in the graveyard there and so gosh darn it all, it's my roots.

I've sent in my paperwork, and hope I get in her Saturday class. Be still my beating heart.

I know that the Harlot has been to some small places, but this is Saskatchewan. Its a different kind of small. Its a different kind of big.
The town is like all small prairie towns, once dominated by the line of elevators, they are now gone the way of the Crow Rate and history. You could tell the size of a town by the number of elevators. But it isn't a prairie town that is the prairies, its the sense of space, the endless open skies. Its the green and the golden, and the way you can see what weather is coming from a hundred miles away. (in truth, IIRC, 12 miles)

The picture above is my cousins farm (he lives on my grandfather's home place) and the farm I grew up on is on the far side of the curve in the small copse of trees. The lake is where I wet my footsies when I was a wee one.

The picture is pretty representative of the way that part of Saskatchewan looks. It might seem to be flat from the air, but it is a rolling parkland. It isn't the grand beauty of the mountains, it isn't the vast lakes and rocky beauty of the shield, it is its own small and quiet beauty, there for those who look, a very Saskatchewan kind of beauty.

No matter how small a place it might be, the Harlot will enjoy her time there. The hearts of the people there dwarf that endless seeming sky.

The other thing about Saskatchewan...no matter where you go, they understand a good beer in the evening, and a good sturdy cup of coffee in the morning.

Just fooling around

This is the time of year when the new spring yarns are coming in, when the new colours of existing yarns come in, and often when new combinations of fibre come in. There is a surfeit of really great yarns.

The store has stocked the chosen new Berroco lines, we've put out all the Rowan summer yarns, and that is only the surface of the depth of this springs great yarns. They may be heavily cotton, bamboo, linens, but oh my, oh my, oh my. These are not your momma's cottons.

Yesterday, one of the things we were working with was Carezza, a very well priced 100% cotton. Each 50 gram ball is , well, small. The balls claimed to have 85 metres on them. How could that tiny ball have so much yarn on it? Even more so, how could that fairly small yarn knit up to 18 stitches over 4 inches on a 5 mm needle. It just wasn't that big.

Ever the skeptic, I picked out some colours I liked, for a small baby blanket, a summery stroller blanket or car seat blanket: a soft golden yellow, a rich creamy orange and a warm toasty brown . They looked marvelous...

right up till when my boss came along and said 'oh how cute, the A & W Rootbear baby.' Back to the drawing board. I picked out a dusty blue instead of the toast and took them home and played.
And here you go, a baby stroller blanket, about a third done. I'll need 3 of the blue, 2 and possibly 3 of the yellow, and only 1 orange. I ought to be able to get a pretty fair sized blanket from 6 little balls of yarn, total cost of the blanket is going to be about 25 dollars. Not too shabby.

I know some people don't like to knit with cotton, and non animal fibres. Not me. My first working with yarn was done with cotton and in a lot of ways, I never considered worsted weight anything to be nearly as nice to work with as a good clean cotton. Yes, that was back before my knitting days, and back before I came to find that there were yarn shops with warm and friendly people selling delicious yarns, and yes it was before I discovered seriously fine wool and alpaca, but working with good cotton is a warm and comforting pleasure.

Working with cotton takes me back to places and things from the beginning of my fascination with string things. It takes me back to hot dog roasts in the back yard and quick dips in the lake after dinner. It is like the smell of fresh cut hay and orange Koolaid on a hot summer day. Its popscicles and summer cherries. Cotton is sun and warm and the scent of honeysuckle on a hot afternoon.

Its nice to think of all these things sitting here in -10 C temperatures, recovering from a week of -20 C. There is a foot of snow and the spring melt is a good month off.

If I can't have it outside right now, I'll gladly take my little pile of memories of summer and carry them in my head. But only till April. Come April, I'd better see some green.

The Good, the Bad and the Pretty Knitting

I used to do a lot of counted thread work, not just cross stitch, but hardanger and drawn thread work too. In all the years of those intricate embroideries and many many colours, I have never been so irritated by counting as I am by knitting counting. Knitting really ought to come with a warning label.

I counted and marked every 50 stitches as I cast on, before I placed the marker, I counted those 50 stitches again. I counted each section again before I began working the first row of knitting. Yet somehow I am 8 stitches short of what my count should be. Mr. Needles just lost a bit of ease to his vest, and the button bands just got wider.

Then I painstakingly worked out the tree designs, and knew exactly how the design stitches would work on the vest, but I had forgotten that the vest fronts only had 63 stitches and the full design had 70. These two things combined, meant a fair bit of re-knitting and number fiddling. I am finally content with the layout of the design, adding one place and taking away on another. And except for one irritating stitch, my count works and is perfect. Or so it seems right now.

If all of the knitting I did this weekend would still be on the needles, the vest would be almost done.

And that is not even counting the second colour change. I wasn't pleased with the way the cream stood out harsh against the charcoal heather. I took out all the first batch of knitting and re-did, placing much more emphasis on the walnut brown heather, and much less on the cream. I did end up finding a supplier for 2 more skeins of the walnut, though now that I am knitting, I'll probably only need one.

No matter, I'd rather waste my worrying on what to do with too much than end up running short a couple of rows. I'll make mittens.

I would be very irritated with this entire vest project if I weren't having so darn much fun. But I am having fun. A lot of fun. It's challenging, and frustrating and all together consuming,

but am under the spell of stranded knitting. I love the rhythm. Hands working together, weaving and waving, conducting the yarns into one fabric.

Look at the colours! And I am thrilled with the ways the colours are coming together. Their earthiness and muted woodsy tones are the perfect backdrop for that rich Irish sort of green and the warm rust. (I did have the lichen in the mix, but it was invisible on the background.)

I feel pretty good about my knitting right now. Darn good. A few more rows and Mr. Needles can try it on. Then I can get rid of this nagging worry about that missing inch of ease.

I'm not going to even think about that right now. I'm going to go to my happy place. La la la laaaaa...

The funny thing about colour

So there I was, yesterday, working on a colour swatch, and feeling good and yet not quite confident about where I was going, when all of a sudden the road map became very very clear.

I had my head wrapped in the green, when I should have had my head wrapped in the brown. The brown was wrong. I've replaced the brown with a heathered grey. The whole project just popped to life in those very neutral background shades. All my foreground colours work, and work without incident and without needing to debate or decide. They all just work. It all just works.

Of course the ribbing I worked up in the brown is now toast, but oh well, it was just a few hours work. No biggie. I guess there will be a brown felted bag in my future. Or brown felted slippers. I think I have that fibre trends felted clog pattern round here somewhere.

I'll be using far more of the cream than in my original plan, and I am going to have to find another skein of walnut (I am prepared for walnut to be very hard to find) but this is the right way to move, the right combination.

I don't mind not knowing exactly where I am going. I don't need to know every step along the way to feel comfortable with the journey. I kind of enjoy changing with the challenges I face but some things, you really have to know before you start. In order to be sure that you are going on the trip you mean to be on, you really ought to know the direction you intend to go. The colour problem, was a trip I needed to take. Too many options were like too many directions to travel. I did a little survey down each path, and all of a sudden I knew which map of colours was right for where I hoped to go.

I may not have all the area charted out before me, but just like the old map of North America, I don't have to have everything charted. And incomplete map doesn't change that something is out there waiting for me to discover it for my very own.

Tha'ts the plan.

I think I have the plan for the Fair Isle vest all worked out. I have found shades and tones I am comfortable with and darn it, I'm not going to change it now. Maybe....

So this is the pattern part of the plan. The repeating lines of trees separated by two rows of small perrie patterns are from Sheila McGregor's "Traditional Fair Isle Knitting". All the yarn is Cascade 220, a completely non-traditional yarn. The most used colour of the vest will be 8686 brown. The second brown is, I think, called Walnut, but I can't read the number on the band. Sorry. I have only 1 skein of walnut, so I will be using two rows only between the brown background shade and the cream. The cream is the last background shade, colour 8010, IIRC.

The rust seen in the diagram is colour 2435 and is the only rust used for an accent.

The current plan for greens is to use 2429 Ireland green for all the trees and green parts of the perrie patterns as you can see. I do have some 9338 Lichen that I might use to provide the pattern a little more depth. I'm not completely sure. If I do that, the brighter green Ireland will be used in the 8686 brown areas, but I'd switch to the more subtle 9338 Lichen on the second line of the walnut, and use it through the cream yarn. Hmmm...(picture the little wheels of my brain whirling dervishly)

This is the most true picture of the colours of the yarns, so you can see what I mean. Looking at this picture is almost making my mind up for me. I really like the way the lichen looks against the cream and the walnut and in combination with the brown too.

I'm almost less sure of using the Ireland at all. From this picture you might think the Ireland is a little too much, a little jarring, but in front of me, the softer lichen gets lost in the solidity of the brown. (That was my experience with the Christmas hats) Maybe I'll do a little wee swatch just to confirm these colour meanderings...

Which is exactly what my colour work mentor keeps advising me to do.

Onward I go.

Worst Jobs in History

One of the programs I try to catch whenever it airs is Worst Jobs in History airing on the History Channel. Host Tony Robinson learns and teaches us about worst jobs through the ages.

I get a big kick out of Tony Robinson and his reaction to some of these jobs. He can't hide his revulsion to some of the things he is doing and he has an imitable way with words. That is what caught my ear this morning. His way with words.

This morning they were talking about Elizabethan jobs. They discussed being a pin maker, and showed how those fanciful Elizabethan ruffs were held together by a myriad of straight pins. (The ancient Mycenaean version of the safety pin had long been forgotten by Europe.) He talked about being an actor who played female roles in Elizabethan times (it was illegal for a female to act on stage). And they showed how a woad dyer dyed with woad.

What caught my ear was Tony's description of woad dying being incredibly smelly. He said (loosely quoted) it smelled like rotten cabbages and fermenting sewage and noted that there were laws in place to make dyeing happen outside the city.

It occurred to me this morning just how much I learn from this show about dyeing and fulling and how to handle wool. Without even thinking about it, I could picture the episode he featured the purple makers, and the absolutely unforgettable episode he demonstrated fulling. I know there are more bits and pieces of dyers lore.

If you are looking for a fun show, and wouldn't mind the side benefit of learning some things about our fibery world, look for 'Worst Jobs in History' For more of the inimitable Tony Robinson, look for 'Tony's Law', a look at the evolution of law through 2000 years of British history.

This guy makes the dullest stuff interesting.

PS. The new bed is lovely. So lovely that all night I kept waking up thinking, 'man this is nice.' I'll sleep better tonite.

The things I do for sanity

A couple weeks ago some online buddies and I were having a conversation about household space and how people come by their concept of what size home we need to have to feel comfortable. It was an interesting discussion. It seems our comfort adapts to whatever space we have.

I agree with this. I also disagree with this. Sort of. I have found that no matter how much space we have, it fills to capacity, and then spills over just a little. It has happened with kitchen cupboards, with bookcases, with drawer space in my bedroom.

It is absolutely no surprise that it happens with yarn. I go through my yarn stash on a regular basis, just for the fun of it, so the yarn gets shifted and moved and tidied. Sometimes I find just a little more room to store a yarn that was just hanging around with no particular place to be. Going through the stash is not just fun, it keeps the stash reasonably well managed and semi tidy.

This is not the case for other spaces in my house. They are a whole lot less fun to go through and tidy. Going through my pantry cabinets in the kitchen and finding a single can of something I haven't used since 1992 does not give me the same sort of joy that finding a yarn I haven't worked with since 1992 does. Reorganizing the deep freeze just never turned me on.

Today, my task will be deeper and darker. We are getting a new mattress and it ought to be delivered today. I'm looking forward to that part, but all the stuff I have to do before it arrives, is the part that fills me with horror.

Its a unhealthy year since the bedroom had a good really deep deep clean. It is much much longer since our closets have had a good go through. Dressers too have become spaces filled with 'stuff' rather than clothing and somehow, even though we turn worn things to rags on a regular basis, there isn't room in the closets for everything we own. There always seems to be spillage when all the laundry is done.

When that horror is done, I have to look under the bed.

The only thing that is keeping me cheerful is that I have a new mattress to look forward to and I take comfort in knowing when it is tidied, folded organized and cleaned, everything will fit and there will be space to spare.

I'm putting on the coffee, I'm girding my loins. Let's get this show on the road. There might be space to spare.

Space to spare. Wonder what I can do with it?

Busy as a Busy Bee

When I travel to Saskatchewan, to stay alert while driving, I sing along to whatever CD I am playing. Its not pretty but I get there safe. I played a lot of Bette Midler the last trip, and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy popped into my head this morning when I thought over my work of the last few days. I have been busy, and no I did not do any housework. I was too sick for housework, just not too sick to knit!

I finished the socks on Friday with plenty of time to spare. After messing up a couple of rows on my Socks That Rock shawl project,I decided to knit something simpler. But not a sock.

When I was in Saskatoon, my youngest sister gave me a skein of yarn from a friend of hers. Or a friend of a friend. I forget. No matter. Its a lovely artisanal alpaca, mohair and silk blend from Sundog Alpacas. And it feels just like it looks, soft and shiny. It glistens as it runs through your fingers. Quite impressive. They don't seem to have the yarn on their website though it may be available at the Saskatoon farmers market. If you ever come across a local Alpaca grower's yarn, give it a try. There are some delightful artisanal yarns out there.The pattern is the Vicuna Scarf from 101 Luxury One Skein Wonders (Did I mention how much I like this book?). Its a nice little pattern for a small skein of something so special. I am going to rip it out and redo though. I'm working on a 4 mm needle and the fabric is stiffer than this yarn deserves. I'm going to rip it back and move up to at least a 5.5 mm needle to give it a softer drape, something much more suited to this yarn.

By By Sunday, I was feeling so much better, that I decided to start on Mr. Needles vest. I worked up to the ribbing, knit the first two rows and now I am at the point where the patterning can start. I'm not going to start that till I have a day off and plenty of time to work through whatever little problems pop up.

It has just occurred to me that but for the socks starting things off, this a distressingly brown bunch of things to work on. Here let me fix that for you. These are some socks that I cast on. No point having empty needles. The yarn is Arequippa Sock yarn, a really nice alpaca blend. Oh dear, I see some brown blended in. Let me fix that.

There. A shot of red and white Cloud Cotton, for the next big thing. I plan to zoom through Mr. Needles vest, just to get to work with this dense rich red.

Socks Are a Good Thing

I'm not about to tell you how much I love socks, but once again socks saved my day. About 3 I started to feel like a sickly human instead of a lump of clay, so I got up and knit for a while. I put heels to a pair of socks I had on the needles for a while. (Excuse the chapped hairy legs. It's winter and it's Canada. It's cold up here.) I did the toe of another pair, and then I stopped to look around to see what to do next.

I could have tried another on-going project, but everything I have on my other needles needs brain power. I had some brain power, but I couldn't vouch for it's quality or its ability to catch errors. I decided to stay with socks.

I also needed to do something that would make me feel really good, like completing a project sort of good. With those two restrictions, I headed right for Bit Fabel. During a restocking of sock yarn a couple of weeks ago, some turquoise Big Fabel happened to fall into my hands. I had looked at its warm rich colours, a blend of turquoise, black, denim and a shot of green before and though it was nice, it had never really become something I just had to have.

Big Fabel, I am heartily sorry for not loving you sooner, for not picking up on your magic colours before. Right there before my eyes, right there in my hands, magic happened and kept on happening. The biggest magic is that this sock is not just turquoise. Its hardly turqoise at all. The tiny bit of denim I saw, is only an accent to a soft lavender. And the shot of green? The bright shot of green is only an addendum to the rich forest teal green. How is it that all I could see was the turquoise which, though strong, is an accent colour? How could I catch the green accent and the blue accent and miss the whole heart of the yarn?

But I did. Big Fabel made a lovely pair of lavender socks with warm greens and shots of turquoise to accent. Magic happened on my needles but all I did was knit. If finding something completely different than what I expected isn't magic, I don't know what is.

There is a parable for life in this yarn. What you see first is flash and show. Under the flash and show is the heart of the matter, and within that heart lies beauty.

Days of not knitting content

I'm late this morning, but it's because I only just got up. Since my usual rising time is early, and this is not so early, you guessed it, I am sick. Sicker than a dog actually, and I'm feeling whiny and feeble and I want my mummy.

If the headache goes away, I'll try to knit, but it's going to be simple. I'll probably work on a sock, maybe do a heel or two but there will be no steeking, no felting, no working on the bag, or planning the sweater. If I feel better later, I'll try plain forgiving knitting.

Maybe I'll set up my dvd player, crawl back to bed and watch Mr. Bean all day. It ought to be a good day for that.

Then again, I might just crawl back to bed and think about knitting. This thinking thing is taking a lot of effort.

Onwards to yet another new thing

I've finished knitting my practise Fair Isle piece this morning. The dimensions currently are 14 inches tall by 11.5 inches wide, which, when felted, ought to be just about right. Unless it only shrinks in width. If I lose too much width, there may yet be some minor surgery.

I've one more step before I do the felting though. I wanted to use this piece to practise steeking. I'm going to work on that this evening. Any good bag needs some pockets for keys, phones, and the little things you need access to fast and frequently. I plan to make a steek along one side to insert a pocket. I'm not going to make it straight along the rows, though. I want to see what happens if I do the steek at an angle. I'd like to see how sturdy it is compared to an afterthought pocket, which is usually inserted along the straight line of stitches. If it produces a sturdy enough edging, it may be something I'll use on the upcoming vest.

Plans are moving along on the vest. I'm playing with a traditional palette but a nontraditional yarn. I'm doing this partly because of what is available, and partly because I managed to find an acceptable range of colours. I've got 3 soft almost natural colours for the background and 2 or 3 for the foreground. The 'or 3' part is in case I need a little more pop in the colours. I don't think I will know that until I am actively working it up.

So, I have the gauge figured out, I know the colour progressions to aim for, and I know what size I need to knit to fit the man. All I need to do is sit down and do a little math, to make sure that the designs are going to fit reasonably well onto the stitch count I need, and away I go.

Sounds easy, but I am expecting some challenging knitting ahead. It's just what happens when a thing sounds easy.

Baby Showers

It's a long time since I was at a baby shower. Things have changed and they haven't changed at all. Grandmothers still end up doing silly things. Baby still ends up with loot.There are irregular sitings of a lone male guest who is way more interested in hockey than babies, and the guest of honour, Baby Finley. She slept through all but the very beginning and very end of the shower, completely ignoring the proceedings, as babies most often do. This is the only shot I have where she was awake. Just after this she passed out on her paternal grandma's shoulder, and slept despite being passed round to all and sundry.

Finley is the luckiest of little girls. She is a first. She is the first grandchild on both sides, she is the first great grandchild on all sides.

These, from right to left, are Baby Finley's Grandmothers, and Great Grandmothers. Her other Great Grandmother could not attend, but scored the biggest squeals of joy from Finley's mum with her gift.

Along with these, there were great aunts and cousins and cousins once or twice removed galore. Lucky little Finley is surrounded by many strong and delightful women. It bodes very, very well for her future.

As for me, it was a grand weekend. I walked a sister in law through how to knit socks, knit a little on several projects for an accumulated amount of knitting that looks like bupkus but isn't, talked a lot, slept hardly at all. Today I am going to rest a little, go to knit with friends later, and cook a nice homey meal. Some soup, or stew, something hardy and restorative that won't take my full attention, so I can knit and contemplate just why I was compelled to start a new project this morning, when I have 832 on my needles already.

Yup, for no reason at all, except I love the yarn, I started a new project this morning, a Clapotis scarf, out of one of the new Berrocco yarns, Bonsai Colors. If heaven was a yarn, this yarn might just be it.

Traveling this weekend

I'm traveling this weekend to get to the baby shower where the Baby Surprise sweater will be revealed. I hope Finley's mum likes it.

I'm planning to leave around lunch time, but I don't know. A lot of decisions need to happen before I get there. I'll be gone for 4 days visiting with my mom and dad and sisters, so I'll need a lot of knitting. And it is going to have to be simple knitting. A LOT of simple knitting. Simple knitting while talking to sisters is just about as good as it gets.

I will be questioning mum about washing fleeces. There must be something she recalls about fleece washing seeing as how grandma knit and spun, even though I did not know this till very recently.

So socks present themselves as ever, but what about when I am a little tired of socks? I know, I know, but it might happen. It would be wonderful to take along the Fair Isle vest colours to swatch those up to see if I am thinking right about the colour changes, but it's a lot of yarn to carry. I could take along the bag swatch project but again, that's a lot of skeins of yarn.

I looked into the workbag and found something else. I started this before Christmas, worked out the pattern of Purposeful HolesTM and then put a few stitches on my needles only to leave it sit since the holidays. In a lot of ways, this little shawl project is as simple as it gets. Its all stockinette (it shows off the marvelous colours), there are stitches added every second row (the knit side rows) at the outer edges and at the centre spine. That is it. Or it will be, till I start on the border edging. The edging is going to be a little more open, but airier to complement the simplicity of the body of the shawl. A simple garter lace edging, or perhaps a cobweb frill from Barbra Walker's second treasury. I won't decide till I get near the end of the shawl and know my stitch count. There might be something in Knitted Lace of Estonia or in Victorian Lace that will suit. Perhaps Mary Schiffman has the answer. I'll go where the breeze takes me.

There are the Mille Colori wristwarmers and cowl to do up too. I shan't be short for want of knitting without even thinking about something new, yet all I can seem to think about is starting something new. I'm going to resist the urge, and am going to be good to myself and take along one of these WIP's, before I start to feel like they are whipping me.

But you can darn well be sure, that before I leave today, I'll be checking out the addresses of the yarn stores in Saskatoon. I hate to have a knitting emergency and be unprepared.

Scottish Blackface Sheep

I'm about to learn a lot about Scottish Blackface Sheep. You know how it is with connections since Ravelry came along, and one thing led to another and I along with a couple of other Ravelers, will shortly come into a quantity of Blackface Sheep fibre.

This is the real thing, raw, straight off the sheep's back so to speak. It was on offer, it was free. I thought about it and decided against asking for some at first but you know how it is. I caved and figured if I want to try it at all, now is as good a time as any. I and my Raveler buddies are going to take it and see what we can do with it.

Its great and I am really looking forward to it, except for one thing.

He said bring a truck.

What does a truck of fleece look like and should I be concerned?

It Surely Must Be Music

In a corner of my heart, I have always known that if I ever really learned to knit, knitting would take over my life. I think that is why all those years ago, before I gave up trying to figure out knitting, I spent 30 dollars I could ill afford on an entire set of needles in a really nice case (Which I don't use. They aren't very good needles at all. Rounded tips.).

I think it's why I vowed that I wasn't going to knit or try to knit ever again, if I couldn't understand. My decreases did not do what the pattern showed. My sweaters did not look like the pictures. It sounds rather silly when I write it out now, after I understand it all, but it broke my heart.

Since I have come to understand the differences, between my style of knitting and pattern writers, knitting has indeed taken up a good lot of my time and everything about it is utterly compelling. It is beyond need. It is as air and water.

In the few weeks since my first colourwork mittens, funny as it seems, I had forgotten what colourwork felt like. Not forgotten perhaps, but until you have it in your hands again, till you are playing its particular music, the memory of its rhythm, its song is just an echo across a misty valley.

But oh, when you have it in your hands, what symphonies you can play. Its sings as it moves along your needles, as the threads wrap through your fingers.
I love these brilliant tones set off against the depth of the black. I love the feeling of light they put into the dark. It would be a little much for me to wear but for a bag, it's perfect.

Mr. Needles knows the next project will be his vest, and he wandered into the kitchen last night while I was knitting and looked a bit worried for a minute. I assured him that the colours for his vest are much softer, more earthy and muted than this bag. AT the top you can see one of the patterns I think I will use. Trees, punctuated by peerie patterns and each band shaded to suit the man and his passions.

I'm learning some vitally important things on this practise work. Know the patterns before you start to knit, understand how the design is going to flow where the edges meet. Graph it out and colour it up. Then decide how many stitches you need to cast on.

Ask me how I know. Its a good thing the practise project is only a bag.

And Almost End and a Beginning

I've been playing this morning. This is the bag that I am using as gauge, and practise for the vest which will follow immediately. I'll use it to practise patterns and get gauge between the stranded areas and unstranded parts of the bag, and well, just for fun.

I can already see that a change of colour is in order. If I want to provide some pop to the black, I'll have to change the grey at the centre of the blue blue squares, for something much more brilliant, much more in tune with the power of the lovely blue. It looks OK, but with a brilliant poppy orange yellow it might just look stunning. My trip around town today is going to have to include more yarn.

While I am there I might just see if I can find a soft grey so I can alternate the background colour. I have the light grey and if I have a shade between the strong black and the light, I should be able to use them for the soft traditional variations of many Fair Isle designs. That might mean I ought to vary the blue as well, but we shall see what I can come up with.

And joy of joys, I have finished the black socks but for the heels. I'll be working on black socks heels this evening, and plan to have the blessed things complete before this day is done.

It could be said I cheated but I prefer to think of it as being thrifty with my time. I had a good toe section, well mid foot and toe actually, and I had a good top section. I reknit from the top down long enough so that when I grafted the toe section to the sock, it matched the length of the completed black sock perfectly.

Yup, I grafted an entire foot. It turned out well enough I think, though not perfectly. If the wearer feels the imperfections too much, then I will undo the graft and simply knit the darn toe. It would take at least a day, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping.

And were it any other colour than black, I would have pictures. Many pictures. A plethora of pictures, cause I am really really proud of all this grafting.

And I am never ever knitting plain black socks again. Kettle dyed black perhaps, overdyed black, surely, multi black and grey tones, certainly, but never plain black again.

It's a promise I mean to keep.

A Baby Surprise Complete

The Baby Surprise is complete and I am very pleased with it. Here it is in all its unblocked glory.
It is entirely charming and did not take nearly the yarn I had set aside for the sweater. I might do some single crochet in bright pink along the edges, and it still needs buttons but it is substantially complete. I know Finley's mom loves pink, and I hope this brilliant shade will please her.

I have one more to do in the next few weeks for Kylie, my friends new granddaughter, and I can honestly say, I'm looking forward to it. There are a few things I will do differently on this second one, though. I think I'm going to cast off another stitch, maybe two at the neck line to allow some colour to happen on the finishing along that area. This neck opening seems just too tiny when I try to add any on this first sweater. Another thing I think I will do, is put the second major colour segment on the 10 rows after all the decreasing is done. It will better mirror what I did for the sleeves.

Usually I put something new on the needles immediately after I finish a project but I confess yesterday, I just sat and admired this cute little thing and all its spongy warmth. The yarns are so bouncy, my favourite thing in a yarn, that it was nice just to sit and pet it for a while.

I have a black sock to finish, and I have the practise colour stranding project on needles and the vest still to knit. I have some wrist warmers and a cowl on the go for myself, and deep in the bowels of the work bag is an attempt at a rib warmer almost half done. That is enough on the needles projects for now.

But while I admired and petted the sweater, I planned and dreamed of the next big thing. For the first time in a while, I don't have something long planned for ahead of me, waiting in the queue. Its really really nice to be faced with possibilities instead of certainties for a change.

Where the wind blows. I think that is where I'm going next.

This might as well be the week of the Baby Surprise

These colours are driving me just a little bit batty. Its not as if I wasn't that way in the first place but honestly, had I known that I would be going through this, I have picked a nice crisp, easy on the eyes white to mix with the glorious Sherbet colourway from Socks That Rock. The brilliant fuchsia pink is a lot of colour to work with even though I absolutely love the way it looks. I can't wait for the sweater to be finished to see it in its entirety.

The Baby Surprise and I are getting along much better now. The evil 6 rows were replaced by 6 nicely behaved rows, and things went along smoothly till I needed to start the increases. Between knitting and chores, I am reading through the various Newsletters in the Opinionated Knitter, and caught the little ditty that EZ wanted us to do increases by casting on one stitch using the backward loop cast on.

She asks us to do this because it is almost invisible. She is right. It is almost invisible. And she is right. Can you see the increases here?

In the upper right hand corner of this second picture, you can see the tip of the green pin. Use that for a reference if you need too. The white pin is marking an increase. The increases have 5 stitches between them. See if you can locate some others. Tough, isn't it. These stitches are at the diaper line increases along the back of the sweater, where I don't really want to see an increase.

Not everything went smoothly using EZ's increase. I tried them on the corner increases, and lovely as they were, I could not see them easily. Pretty soon, I was having trouble knowing what row I was on. Should I be increasing, should it be plain, and where the heck did that corner stitch go? The markers had gone by the wayside but I figured I could do it without markers. It would be easy, right?

In the cold light of morning, before the cold light of morning in fact, I decided to rip back to the knit 3 rows straight, and do a more visible increase on the corners.

And yes, I have gone back to religiously marking my center of the corner stitch. The increase I'm using is a bar increase on either side of the corners centre stitch. Once the increase is made, I'm knitting the increase stitch. I don't know if this is how everyone else is doing this kind of increase, but when you knit that increase stitch, the pull on the bar almost disappears, and the increase becomes a good looking match for the previous decreases. I'm in my comfort zone with holes in the corners it seems.

I hope to get this little sweater complete today, but I do have some errands to run this afternoon. I'm going to stop by the Friday knitters for a quick cup of coffee too. Coffee, knitting and the company of good friends is a great way to spend an hour on a Friday afternoon.

Its no Surprise at all.

Let me say first that a Baby Surprise Jacket is a simple knit, not complex at all. It is elegant in its simplicity. You have to keep just two things in mind, and you have to do them right every time to make it work.

There in lies its complexity, its wonder, its marvel. Therein lies the reason why, some 50 years after it was first conceived, the Baby Surprise Jacket is still being knit, still being discussed and still being obsessed over by first timers like me.

It is also further proof that in knitting, within the simplest and most basic stitch, there lurks a humbling for those who need humbling, a lesson for those who would learn. Smarter more observant knitters would have no problem taking this project out to knitting group, but I am not one of those smarter more observant knitters.

I am marking the corner stitch each and every row. I have the decrease side marked at the beginning of the decrease row just to twig my memory that yes, this is the decrease side. I have made myself become familiar with what the decrease looks like on either side and I check it regularly to confirm that I am on the side I think I am.

A knitter will understand what I feel when I am knitting along, nice and peaceable like, and how, just when I am feeling strong, confident and in charge of this knitting, the thought suddenly crosses my mind, "Gee whiz, it feels like a long time since I did a decrease"

A knitter will completely understand how I feel when I realize that I have done this not just once, but 3 times. Knitting the same 6 rows.

I 'm going back in there now, girding my loins, brandishing needles. I am going to get past these 6 rows. If the fates are kind, the 6 rows after that are going to be a lot simpler.

The Baby Surprise jacket certainly is a surprise, it just isn't the surprise I thought I was going to get.

Did you ever google 'knitting'?

Did you ever google knitting? Did you do it lately? 24,100,000 results.

24 million, 24.1 million to be more correct. Wow.

Did you ever wish you had time to go through all those hits? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to work through each of the pages that a quick search like that brought up. Sure there would be a bunch of sales pitches and a lot of flotsam, but still, if only 25% of the hits were things that would inspire you...

It is hard to imagine the volume of knitting on the net.

Which brings me to Ravelry. Almost 300,000 strong and still, many many of the knitters I meet each day don't go there. So many say its not their sort of thing, but I keep telling them, its your thing. Really.

Ravelry has brought so much richness into my life. Through Ravelry I found a community of knitters locally, a community of fibre persons, a community of vibrant, interesting people who are as compelled by this subject of yarn in the oddest of ways, as am I. I feel very at home among its citizens.

Quite unfairly, I find it odd when people aren't interested in knowing about Ravelry. I mean it is up to them, and it isn't going to be every body's cup of tea, but as a resource for patterns, it is the best of all possible sources. I mean how can even the most uninterested of knitters and crocheters not be interested in that vast reserve of patterns just sitting there waiting for you to look them over, decide between them, and then knit them.

Which gets me to Knitty. For many of us, Knitty is one of the first really interesting things we find on the Internet. It comes up near the top of the knitting search. It has been around 6 years and these days, 6 years is a lifetime for a publication, particularly an Internet publication. Still as huge a resource as Knitty is, as wonderful as it is, a lot of people don't know about it.

I talk about Knitty and Ravelry all the time at work. They are such inspiring places to visit, and such valuable tools and no matter who or what you are, your knitting and crocheting life will be better for visiting there. Even if you never use a single pattern from either, even if you never find Twist Collective, or Knotions or any of the hundreds of wonderful online places, not going, not looking at Knitty and Ravelry is a disservice to knitting and to yourself.

I preach to the unconverted, and all I can do is tell them to visit, tell them to look at patterns, and hope that they might find these places even a 100th as interesting as I think they are.

So if you never googled knitting, or crochet, or needlework, try it. Who knows what delights await.

Surprise Surprise Surprise

I'm just about to switch from knitting to digging in my stash, but I wanted to show you what I have been playing with this morning. Purdy, ain't it.

As I am moving along, I am playing with stripes. I'm debating if this is going to be simply a striped pink sweater or striped pink sweater. If I use more of the plain pink, I get one look, and if I try to go evenly through the sweater with both colours, but for the plain colour emphasis on the cuffs and ends areas, I get a distinctly different look. I'm not sure where I am going yet, but the journey is interesting.

One of the things I have found (new to absolutely no one but me) is that you get two very different looks of striping depending on which side you are going to call the right side.

I looked at the instructor sample at the store, and noted that they had finished the sweater as if the decrease stitch was done on the wrong side (the side you wear against your skin) I have no idea if this is what is called for, no idea if it matters at all, but I think they did it because when they used that side, they get neat, clear divisions of the start of the garter stitch ridges and a neater looking corner.This is the look from the decrease and colour change row side, the side where all the action happens. You see how the first garter ridge shows one stitch side of the ridge in one colour and one stitch side of the ridge in the other? The change of colours looks as if there is no stop and no start, it just happens. If your goal is seamlessly blended colours, this is what the look you want. You can see the active side of the slip one, k2, psso corners. But how does the other side look?

This is what the same row of garter ridges looks like from the other side, the knit only row side. See the clear defined ridge? This is the look I am after. I want the ridge on the outside to look sharp, well defined, to have a whole ridge appear in one colour, crisp and clear as a summer day (a very, very pink summer day)The decrease corners will look like this. Its shows less of the bulk of the two stitch decrease and hides it. All you see on this side is the magical change of direction.

This second side is what I will be using as my outside, my 'people will see me' side. Think about that as you debate which rows you want to start a second colour on. Do you want crisp colour changes on the side showing the bulk of the decrease, or do you want crisp colour changes on the side showing only a change of direction?

No matter how you do it, it will look great but like many things in knitting, attention to detail can really change the finished look of your project.

Let the Trumpets Sound...

If I had a trumpet, you'd all hear a royal fanfare because the sweater is complete. Drops design 103-16 became this.

Back view showing off the snazzy little hood SS asked for and the lovely ribbed construction and
the front, showing off the small change we made to the stitch used.

On the original design, the fronts are largely made up of reverse stockinette stitch. They still are, but as we were assembling this sweater, we decided to go inside out and use the stockinette side. It just looked nicer. The longer than called for sleeves were done using stockinette rather than the reverse too.

I'm very, very pleased. So pleased at the yarn choice, so pleased at the construction details, so pleased at the way it hangs, so pleased at the way it falls just right at the hood. I'm less pleased that I forgot buttons on Saturday, but I'll fix that first thing this morning. The buttons and the closers are the only part of this still to be done, and that won't take but a minute.

While the model is not the very slender SS, it does show how very very versatile this sweater would be. The knitted size is a medium and yet that medium still looks decent on my much, much larger dress form. The patterns top finished size is 58 inches, plenty for many many of us big girls. The ribbed back will keep the fit stylish, the front, with its not quite ribbed look, will keep that which we don't want emphasised, un-emphasised.

So while I am riding the success of this sweater, and finishing only a day shy of my resolve to finish it in January, I can go forward with a pretty clear conscience. Tonight I'm going hunting for the wool for Mr. Needles vest.

I have to finish choosing the patterns and colours. There did not seem to be a rush, and yet here I am ready to begin, with nothing picked or completely planned.

In the mean time, I am knitting feverishly on the baby surprise jacket. The first draft was ripped back, and I'm going forward at the larger gauge by doubling the sock yarns. It's a great way to get the second and larger gauge EZ gives in her pattern. The big benefit of this is how lovely and bouncy the fabric is. Its a joyous thing to work with and I feel a very quick knit coming on.

So onward to stash diving, stash digging, stash playing (and maybe even stash tidying) onward to fresh knitting, and a lot of fun.

Update:

In my final dash to finish the sweater, I did not quite get the third book read for NaJuReMoNoMo. It is so close, but it's a contest and I did not make the finish line. close doesn't count. That said, I doubled my book count from last year. Two whole books. Wowsers, I have a long way to go.