Category: Knit Page 75 of 88

Martin and the furniture arrived last weekend. I am no longer living on the floor and minimal anything. The cottage looks so different with our stuff in it. It no longer feels like an empty barn (a small barn). I now just have to deal with all those boxes. Martin made a big dent in it this past week, but he’s back in Seattle trying to get the house painted before putting it on the market. Soon, my sweetie and I will be cohabitating again. Thank goodness.

I finally finished my purple top down raglan that I started last summer. It sat there in my basket, sans sleeves for over 9 months. I did not like having the entire sweater in my lap and twisting it over and over again as I worked the sleeves. Last week, I decided enough was enough. I was going to finish it. I got into a rhythm, were I knitted one round, then twisted the sleeve back around, instead of the sweater. It worked much easier and went by must faster.

Unfortunately, the sleeves are a little too short (1″). I thought I could live with it, but wearing it today, I decided that I can’t. I’ll be ripping out the cuff and adding on the extra inch or inch and a half this weekend.

Other than that, I do love the sweater though. It’s made with a Berroco yarn, Connoisseur Collection, Bluefaced Leicester. It light and super soft. Yum. I have 3 full skeins left (a little less once I finish the sleeves). I’m toying with either a pair of matching (short) socks or a hat. Martin’s voting for a matching hat.

I made it, with days to spare. Yup. I’m talking about the California Recall Election. I finally finished all the paperwork with DMV on Saturday, including my voter registration. The deadline to register and still vote in the primary, now that it’s on again, was Monday. Whew.

I’m not telling you how I’m going to vote. That’s between me and the pregnant chads. Yup. I’m in one of the handful of counties that supposedly still use those ballots that made Florida famous for something other than the large retirement population. I’ll see when I get to the voting booth.

Knitting Cotton

Yuck. Now I know why I don’t do a lot of cotton knitting. I am finally on the home stretch of the second “T”, using Cascade Sierra. Although it has 20% wool, it seems to behave more like cotton. The knitted fabric shows every little bit of unevenness in my tension.

And during this project, I de-bunked a personal myth. I thought that switching to continental method evened out my tension. Wrong! I sprained my left thumb last week, and have changed back. And would you believe it? The tension is much more even this way! But it is much slower for me because I drop the right needle when I throw the yarn. I need to learn to hang on to that darn needle. Deborah made it look so easy, smooth, and more importantly, FAST!

I might put a picture up on the throwing vs. picking. The tension picking isn’t that bad, but the cotton shows every single flaw in the stockinette stitch. Perhaps it will even out more after washing it.

And because I’m doing something that’s no longer natural to me, and trying to keep an even tension, my other thumb is now aching.

Next project — wool. A lot more forgiveness to my uneven tension.

Ann’s progress and my lack of progress is a source of embarassment. I just managed to clean up my sewing room when the piles started to reemerge.

I lined up a bunch of balls of Cotton-Ease and told Iris mommy would make her a new sweater. Of course, she picked the only singleton ball, a medium lavender. I told her to pick a second color to combine with the first and she picked a light green.

In a fit of ambition, I decided to knit a sweater from the top down, with set-in sleeves knit as I went along (see Barbara Walker’s book), in a lace and cable pattern on the body. I then decided to make a semi-funnel neck, also knit in pattern. I left a yarn tail to continue the neck (no extra joins here).

Trying to figure out a good width to make the neck that goes over Iris’ head and continues the pattern from the body is no small feat. It ended up as a 1×1 rib. The yarn tail was too short so I had to join yarn in the neck after all. I used the green for 1 row and then bound off using a picot stitch. The front of the funnel neck is a bit droopy-looking, but maybe it will look better on Iris. That is, if she ever sits still long enough for me to get it on her.

Barbara Walker says knitting from the top down allows you to try the sweater on and check the fit as you go along. She didn’t mention that toddlers do not let you do that.

Anyway, I got to the bottom of the armpit, knit 4 rows more, then switched to the green using a 5×1 rib. Note to self, don’t even bother because you can’t see the 1 P stitch at all. The body is done and I have been stalled ever since I realized I miscalculated the # of sts required for the sleeves. It will have very
wide bat sleeves. I used the total armhole measurement instead of the arm measurement. The diagonal is always longer than the side. I will tell Iris to pretend she is a bat rather than rip it out. Remember, ripping the sleeves out means ripping the whole body out when knitting from the top down.

Anyway, I still have to update everyone on the domino sweater I made for Iris last spring which almost didn’t fit over her head because it started life as a potholder that grew and grew. Did I bother to measure her head and the neck opening? Of course not. That would mean stopping in the heat of creativity. Photos will be uploaded someday.

Did you know that the airlines do not allow even bamboo knitting needles on planes? I flew RT to Sapporo, then Berlin and am about to fly to Adelaide, and I can’t knit during the flights! Worse yet, because knitting needles need to be checked through to the final destination, I can’t knit during layovers either!

The next impossible challenge I set for myself is to find some possum fur fiber during my Australia trip for Ann to spin up.