Cat Boxing

I didn't touch the needles or the wheel today. The entire kitchen has been reorganized, and my back has gone out for the evening. I hope it doesn't drag itself in around ten tomorrow morning. I've got too much work to do. While I was abusing my back, I discovered this sweet sweater.


This sweater was mine when I was a little girl. My mother passed it on to me when I was pregnant with our son. I think it was knit by my grandmother. She was a wonderful knitter, until her hands became too arthritic. I have many baby sweaters that she made for me, but this is the only one that will work for my little boy. It must have been an early effort on her part. Normally, her sweaters are almost machine like in their perfection. This sweater has a lovely way about it. There's a funny bit of crochet between the sleeves and the body. The sleeves are extra long. The little cat is wearing a sleeveless jumper with mittens. I like to think of it as a boxing cat, but I'm pretty sure those are mittens. Who would wear mittens with a sleeveless jumper? A cat on a sweater, that's who. The kitty is all done in duplicate stitch. It's an impressive amount of embroidery, and she managed to convey a real sense of movement. I think that cat looks ready to take on a dog.





All of these silly little knitterly things combine to create an utterly charming piece of knitting. It makes me think about my own knitting foibles. I love for my finished pieces to have a polished look. They rarely do, but it's what I'm striving for.
The first sweater that I ever made was a gift for my grandmother. It was a very boxy jacket/cardigan thing, with a monstrous looking shawl collar, all in garter stitch. I knit it out of a bulky weight Noro yarn, in a lagoon like palette. The yarn was all wrong for the sweater, it might have been wrong for any sweater. The sweater was huge, with no way of closing the front. I think there must have been miles of fabric in the arm pits. It was the usual first sweater disaster. About a week ago my aunt wrote me to tell me that my grandmother wears that sweater every time she goes out for lunch. What love she must have for me. She's knit dozens of sweaters. She knows a bad sweater when she sees one. She's always been a very stylish woman...and yet she wears my sweater. And now, my son will wear her sweater. It's round two for the boxing kitty.

The Tricky Sweater Has a Trick

I'm sorry I missed posting yesterday. I was going to try to post every day for the first month of my blog, but I had to choose between finishing the tricky sweater, or blogging. I told you that that sweater is tricky. It always wins. 6 rows short of finishing, it dealt me a crushing blow. This is my first crew neck. I followed the pattern carefully. Well, at least as carefully as I am capable of following a pattern. Truth be told, the first go I had at the collar, was a wing job. But lets ignore that, and focus on my second, more earnest attempt. As I was saying, I followed the pattern carefully, but the collar is, how do I put this? The collar is limp. It looks like my husband got into a fourth grade style scrap and the other kid did a lot of collar pulling. Here's a picture of the gaping collar.





Sad, isn't it. I'm still considering my options. I could switch to smaller needles half way through the collar ribbing. I could......well really, that's my only idea. Lets hope that the third time's the charm.

On the UFO front, I'm rallying the troops for a run on "The Vest of Shame". I've knit the front, and the back, to the armpits. I did so much fussing and ripping out during the first couple of inches into the decreases for the arm pits, that I decided to knit the back all the way up to the arm pits, as a way of tricking myself into finishing. It was a very crafty move on my part, but somehow this vest has remained a UFO for (cough, cough) several years. I'm not going to let that get me down. Dad's birthday is just around the corner, and this bad boy is going to feel the sting of my needles.
The other project which may get a little attention is this wrappy vest type thingy, named "Petersburg".



I love this photo. She looks like a sexy Swedish Hippo.



It's only a short day of knitting away from making the UFO to FO transition. I'm going to ignore the differences in yarn/gauge, and press on. I'll wear this around the house, when nobody is home, and it's dark, and I've hidden the mirrors, and the dogs are asleep. It'll be grand. If it weren't for my crazy spinning, I would have breezed through this one. It's a pleasure to knit, because the cables are very intuitive, and the shaping is minimal. The wool is an oatmeal colored Blue Faced Leicester. It's amazingly soft stuff, just the sort of thing I'll want to wear in the dark, alone, with no mirrors, when the dogs are sleeping. I'm only willing to overlook this projects glaring flaws, because it's the first sweater I've knit with my own handspun. It's a little like a first car. I may not want other people to see me wearing it, but I'm darned proud of the thing.

UFO No Mercy

My favorite knitting podcast is "Stash and Burn". There's a "Stash and Burn Groupies" board on Ravelry. It's a great place to go for a little knitting momentum. Yesterday I noticed a thread titled "March to the Finish 2009". The idea behind this thread is that we all pull out a couple of UFOs to complete during the month of March. I quickly checked to see how many UFO's I have. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 13. That sounds bad, but actually it's only sort of bad.

Three of my UFOs have come to a halt due to some sort of yarn problem.


I spun the yarn for this, and as I spun the yarn got thicker and thicker. Consequently, the gauge is different for each piece of the sweater. Not exactly a good look, but I think I can salvage this one.



I need two more balls to finish this, and when I ordered them, I was sent the wrong color. That sort of killed the poor bear's chances of making it out of the UFO pile. I've got a couple of ideas about how to get this guy finished. I think it might involve some knitted bloomers. Knitted bloomers are always a good idea.



This is waiting for me to find a missing ball of Manos. I need to do this before my boy grows too big for the jacket. I may just throw caution to the wind and finish the sleeve with the brown yarn I have on hand. Babies don't really care about dye lots, do they?

Three of them are more than 70% finished.


Oh, Vest of Shame, why do you taunt me every March when my Father's birthday rolls around? This March I am going to finish you, stuff you in a box and weep.



These Socks are waiting for a quiet afternoon. This will probably never happen. I'm just going to have to finish them to the sounds of my baby destroying my kitchen.




This is so close it's actually been worn twice. I need to undo the cast off, and do a sewn cast off instead, to give the finished edge more elasticity. Then I can wash it, and give it away to someone who doesn't look like a gorilla when she wears it. I think the fact that I'm going ot give this away is actually what's been keeping me from finishing it.

Two are laying about due to pattern mishaps.


Dumb mistake.
Dumber mistake.

Then there are the hangers on.
These projects are the ones I can't seem to shake. These are the UFOs that haunt my stash. They are unfroggable, unforgiving meanies.





There's one more. This one's a hard one.



I started this when my grandfather was first diagnosed with cancer. Everytime I tried to knit it, I cried. Then my grandfather passed away. Then a really dear friend was going through chemo, so I picked it back up. Every time I tried to knit it, I cried. Then, our dear friend died. I think this hat might never be finished. Some things aren't meant to make it out of the UFO bin.

I'm going to pull up my pants, pull out the needles, and attack this pile without mercy. I'm turning 30 this March, and I'm not going to enter my third decade on earth with UFOs in my basket.

The White Linen Lie

I follow several knitting and sewing blogs religiously. Every morning, after I'm done with the baby grooming, I pour myself a cup of tea and sit down with the blogs. I love perusing photos of socks in the snow, and quilts draped over tree branches, with little girls in handmade sundresses prancing in the foreground. I know it's all make believe, but I don't care. If they can make a hand knit that glamorous, then more power to them. I like to think that someone, somewhere is living in a gingham and dahlia dream house, with pavlovas on milk glass cake stands and cold glasses of homemade ginger lemonade always at the ready. Sometimes, I like to make people think that I live in the gingham and dahlia dream house. Most of the time this is not an option, because they either know me too well, or they're dropping off a package, and my child has just smeared peas all over my shoulder.
During the photo shoot of my completed Primrose Cozy, I was sweeping the reality under the rug. I was trying to take a photo that would trick the viewer into believing that my house was a perfect balance of stylish and cozy, a place where the loaves of bread practically bake themselves, and the tablecloths don't need ironing. I don't think I was able to achieve this. I was only able to push the pile of mail so far to the left, and I couldn't seem to avoid the wrinkles/crumbs on the tablecloth. Here are my pictures of the finished Primrose Cozy.









This is what my dining table actually looks like.



Because this is a knitting blog, and I'm on an honestly kick, here's a shot of the inside of the cozy. Don't expect this level of transparency from me in the future. I'm not sure I can bare the inside of my knitting, on the internet, more than once.

Intermission with an Incomplete Boar

Right now, I'm deep in translation. I've been pouring over the sock section in my new/old book of needle work. It's pretty thick stuff. I'm not sure how long it's going to take me, but I'm pretty determined to translate the whole section. This is going to mean a bit of a break from the usual posting. In the interim, I'll post a picture of Yo-yo the three legged boar, and her cute little babies. Why am I posting this? Because, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen a picture of a three legged boar and her babies. And.... I'm hoping to distract you from the fact that I haven't finished the translations or done any knitting.



Distraction complete.

The Owling

Ravelry has been hit hard with a case of owl fever. Awhile back, I knit a pair of "Give a Hoot" mittens. It's a free pattern, and I loved the mirrored decreases on the palm of each mitten.




These were the first owl cables I'd ever knit. Not long after I'd finished the mittens, I came across an owl sweater. This sweater stopped me in my tracks. It's wearable. It's a quick knit. It's feminine. It's knit in the round with no seaming, and best of all it's reminiscent of childhood, without being childish. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had a knit at first sight moment. "Owls" is currently topping the "most popular pattern" chart with 344 projects. I'm not usually one to grab a torch and jump in with the mob, but this sweater is calling to me. I'm fantasizing about all of the yarns I could use. I've got two hanks of Eco wool in my stash that would work perfectly. Although, I'm not totally convinced about the color.



There's another reason that this owl cable mania has such a hold on me. When I was pregnant with our baby, we had a family of owls nesting near by. Every night for several weeks, we would turn off our lights so that we could watch two adult owls teaching their baby owl how to hunt. It was beautiful and comforting. Every time I see an owl, I think of those evenings we spent holding hands, peering into the night sky, thinking of our baby. I think I must knit this sweater. I really don't have a choice.

Treasure

Today my husband wanted to go to an antiques show in a neighboring town, so we packed up the wee one and headed out early. I wasn't really in the mood to buy anything, until I saw a box of mother of pearl buttons. There was already one lady pawing through it, and I had to do that polite, pretending to be interested in ye olde baby bonnet, antiques show dance while I waited. There were no prices, and I was a little wary. Nice buttons aren't cheap. I've spent enough hours scrubbing barn dirt off of old buttons to know this. Once in a while, you get lucky. Today was my day. She was practically giving them away.


I really had a hard time being practical in the face of so many beautiful buttons. There are these beauties.


I have a whole card of these little guys. They look like miniature planets, and are much more colorful in person ( I've got to get this color thing straightened out ).



The button lady also had a copy of this book, "Encyclopedie des Ouvrages de Dames".



This book is a treasure. If the world suddenly became a crochetless, fancy napkinless wasteland, I would be more than prepared. There is, of course, a section on knitting. Brace yourself, this book is about to blow your mind.



This woman is casting on with FOUR strands, say what? I need to know why she's doing this. But wait, there's more.




This is another crazy cast on, and this next one...... well I've got no idea what this is for, but you can bet your socks I'm going to try it.



Speaking of socks, there's even a section just for the sock knitters, but that will have to wait for another post. I'll leave you with a photo of the almost vanquished posie cozy. The fight isn't over yet, but I'm feeling confident.



I win you, posie cozy.

When the Knit Hits the Fan

Today was one of those days. I should not have been knitting. Once in a while it happens, and when it does it's like knitting backwards into negative space. I think my mistakes today were due to a nasty combination of hubris and multitasking. This is always disastrous. It started out innocently enough. I went to the potting shed to find a plastic pot that could serve as a frame for my posie cozy. Check. Then I started some chicken stock. No problem. Then I went stash diving for a bit of Cash Iroha I knew I had kicking around. Check again. Then I did a bit of tidying. Then I heard my husband shouting. Oh no, the stock....Oops. Thanks to his quick reflexes, the veggies I was browning didn't go black, but that was a close one. After that, the day sort of collapsed like a building demolition in slow motion. I ended up ripping back as much, or more, than I knit. It's a silly little side project that's supposed to be for fun, but that of course, is the problem. I have a hard time taking it seriously. I was translating a stitch pattern written flat to a pattern in the round, and I just sort of breezed through the directions. Yep, yep, yep, O.K. I got it. Well, the posie cozy is not to be trifled with. It got its sweet revenge. I think I ripped out the same four rows, four times. Sometimes, when I have a day like this, that plain brown stockinette seems like a big mug of knitting hot chocolate. What I should have done, was put the knitting down, and take care of the million other things around the house. That's what I should have done. That would have been the mature thing to do. Unfortunately for me, and for my house, that's not what happened. It became an epic battle between the posie cozy and the knitter.

Just to give you an idea of what it looks like to knit into negative territory. This is a swatch in a "Flecked Tweed" slipped stitch pattern,




that I abandoned in favor of this "Simulated Basketweave" pattern.





This four inches of knitting took four hours, yep, four. It also took a good number of four letter words. Tonight I'm going to snuggle up with the brown stockinette, and savor the mindless knitting.

P.S. The last photo is the most accurate, in terms of color.

Late Snow

I'm plugging away on the tricksy sweater today, and haven't yet cast on for the posie cozy. To avoid more photos of endless brown stockinette, I'm going to turn to my spinning for help. I made several batts a couple of days ago, after reading Yarn Harlot's post about feeding fiber into a drum carder sideways. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one, who put down her tea and made a mad dash for the drum carder. After a few experiments, I've discovered that this works for carding, but not so well for blending. While I was up in the spinning hole, I discovered some other experimental batts I'd made out of tussah silk. I thought, in a mad scientist sort of way, "What would happen if I threw all of these experiments together?"....



I'm naming them April Snow. I loathe a late frost, but a little bit of late snow is rarely as damaging. I think these look just like a new lawn with a layer of popcorn snow. The photo is not doing them justice. That green is a two tone electric kelly green. I would show you a photo of what they look like spun up, but frankly it's in an ugly duckling sort of phase. I'm planning on a two ply, one ply solid dark green, the other April Snow. So instead of the prepubescent yarn, I'll show you another photo of a series of batts that I blended for long subtle color transitions.



I used four shades of green merino top, and a little angora. Again, the photo is way off. They're much less yellow in person. I was thinking of this hat. I'm not sure if I'll actually use it for a hat. More than likely, I'll make some mitts out of it. It's almost spring, but I'm not giving up on my winter knits just yet.
I'm noticing a huge difference between the color of my pictures, and the color of them after they've been compressed for the blog. I'm going to see if I can fix this, or if maybe my tech support husband can fix it for me.

Primrose Cozy

Last night that tricksy sweater made me knit a third of a sleeve while watching "A Fish Called Wanda". About half way through the movie I realized that both "The Vest of Shame" and the tricksy birthday sweater, are about the same color of paper bag brown. All of this brown knitting, coupled with the weather, is putting a crimp in my happiness. I found the perfect remedy at the market this morning. I'm going to cheat a bit on the gift knitting. I'm going to knit these peachy primroses a flower pot cozy,



with the leftovers from this sweater.



I know, I know, that sounds like a totally asinine sort of thing to do. It is. I'm not going to try and convince anybody that knitting a cozy for a flower pot is anything other than a completely frivolous use of their of time. Although there's no real defense for knitting a flower pot cozy, I want you to note that I'm knitting the cozy to fit over a plastic pot which will hold the original terracotta pot. This will keep the water away from the knitting. So, while I may be wasting my precious knitting time on a useless piece of bric-a-brac, at least the bric-a-brac will last for years. Lest you think I'm the only person silly enough to do something like this, check out Rowan 42 and you will find "malt pots". Just thinking about knitting a posie cosy makes me unreasonably happy. I think February is beginning to get to me.

Waiting in the Wings

Just a couple of days before President Obama was sworn in, my husband and I received invitations to a big fancy party at the Hotel de Ville in Paris. Not being ones to ignore an embossed invitation, we packed our fanciest pants, and bought some train tickets. I was down with a terrible cold, my husband was showing signs, but denied any knowledge of said cold. Despite the bad weather, and the worse colds, we had a wonderful time. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a bit of yarn shopping, so the cold and I made a trip out to La Droguerie. I'd heard a lot of good things, and wasn't disappointed. They carry their own yarns and patterns, but they also have a fantastic collection of beads, buttons, fabric flowers, feathers, bag handles etc. After fondling half of the shop ( the yarn, not the people ), I chose some fingering weight alpaca. One of the nicest things about La Droguerie, is that you can buy yarn by weight. I ended up with this collection of colors.


The small balls are for the yoke, and possibly the cuffs.



The cone is for the body. I think the color is most accurate in this photo.




It's my favorite kind of secret tweedy color. If you look closely it's a sort of soft off white/grey made out of all sorts of brilliant blues, reds, greens and yellows.
I haven't chosen a pattern. Most likely, I'll end up charting a pattern for the yoke, and using Elizabeth Zimmerman's magical formula, Ravelry link here. I'd like the yoke to have a bold design motif....maybe something a little modern. There are a couple of stranded yoke sweaters in my queue, but this yarn deserves it's own design. I don't have the time to start it now. The husband's birthday sweater beckons, and my father's "vest of shame" needs to be done and in the mail by...let's just skip the lie I'm about to tell, and move on. So, I don't have time for this sweater yet, but a little charting never hurt anyone, and a swatch is never a bad idea.