A Silent Stirring of the Blood

The package will be in the mail as of this morning. And having finally finished that bit of weaving and blocking (I can't wait to get a reaction!), I am on a roll.

Still not touching the WIPs at the moment, though since we're currently in the move-out/move-in process of switching apartments, I've had ample opportunity to go through and see what's what. I reacquainted myself with the Fair Isle Sweater, which is still sin-of-pride-inspiringly lovely but tragically overlarge -- steek it into a cardigan? And I found several little projects I could finish quickly. More on that later.

No, I'm still on a lace craze. I have belatedly started the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl. What a mouthful! Here's the idea: a kind pattern designer sets up a group of knit-a-long-ers, and then once excitement is built to a fever pitch (knitters are crazy) the designer begins to release charts for the pattern, section by section. Knitters have no idea what the thing is going to look like. And with this one, neither does the designer: each clue I've seen so far has four charts, and knitters are instructed to choose one.

So, says the mathematician: assuming this trend continues, then with the four non-border clues, there are 4-to-the-sixth possible shawls! Damn!

Anyhow, that project's a-going down in an alpaca-silk laceweight yarn that I bought a cone of from Shuttles. They have a lovely policy of taking back unused portions. I've already used this same yarn to knit a grey Wisp, and I'll tell you: I'm starting to really understand what they mean when they say that alpaca does not have as much memory as wool. This stuff is determined to stay As Straight As Possible! Even after blocking, it does not lie nicely and neatly in its pattern. Not great stitch definition for lace. However, I have great dreams for a fall sweater design!

And I'm racing through this shawl as quickly as possible. Why? The Secret of the Stole begins in September :)

Green Wisp

For those of you who wondered, this is the Wisp I was talking about. Please excuse the slightly blurry and so-typical Lace On Leaves photo, but it is the only photo I have of it from before I blocked it to death, and I am too vain to show it any other way. I highly recommend both the pattern, from Knitty Summer 2007, and the yarn, Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I easily made the scarf in less than one ball by making it just a touch narrower - now what to do with the tiny quarter ball that is left?

!

Just a quick post. Heading out tomorrow for a back country skiing trip - and I'm not packing any knitting! Argh! I might reconsider, we'll be spending a lot of time in the hut at night.

We've been on a Craft Night hiatus, and I've been craving it. I miss knitting with other people! But I've gotten some things done. Finished two Wisps as presents, and actually managed to send one off in a timely fashion. I need to learn to block more gently, b/c I kind of killed both of the with overstretching.. the charm of the pattern is in the fluff and loopiness.

Cast on a pair of Matrix mittens from this season's Knitty, but although the pattern is very simple, I chose poorly for yarn and will probably have to scrap it. Pictures later!

More Christmas Knitting

How much Christmas knitting can a Jewish girl do?

I ended up spending the weekend in Boston, visiting my very best friend, and one of the magical upshots: I learned how to knit moebii! (moebius strips) I'd heard some buzz about them, but imagined that it was just a gimmick - knitting a strip and grafting it or somesuch. But NO! you knit a SURFACE. It has ONE SIDE. It has ONE EDGE. It is AMAZING!

Finished the Wisp scarf in pink wool - on a visit to Windsor Button, a crafty store in Boston, I spotted a ball of green Kidsilk Haze, which is what Wisp originally calls for, and I sprang for it, figuring that I have enough friends in geographically disparate locations that I could get away with knitting the same pattern more than once. Well. The pattern in SO DIFFERENT in the right yarn, and it is so so much better. Scratch the pink. It is now a table-runner. Demoted.

Very excited to knit mittens; bought my first ball of Noro Kureyon and some coordinating Manos del Uraguay to knit Matrix from this season's edition of Knitty. I'm also working up some funny-looking thrummed mittens in leftovers from the fair isle sweater, which is in limbo during the holidays. Pictures soon? I'm too busy learning to SKI!

Holiday Knitting

I'm traveling to New York this week to visit friends. I only brought a single project with me, in hopes (equally) of finishing the project and getting a lot of work done. It is a Christmas gift for my gentleman friend's mother, a lace scarf happenin' in the pink yarn from the previous post. Halfway done! Pictures if my hosts have a camera.

WIPs 'n Things

Finally, here it is. A review of What's Been Happenin' in the knitting world since my dramatic move to Boulder - With Photos! Back to normal. Please enjoy.


The environsI mentioned more than a month ago that it had already started snowing here in the mountains. It hasn't really stopped - not for very long, anyway. It just comes and goes. Here is a view from my window. Waking up this morning, early for the run that never happened, I saw approximately this view - and without my glasses thought that the pond was somehow steaming. But even crazier, the pond has begun to freeze. The hills are still green, what with all of the conifers, but winter is surely approaching.


What's on the needles


Yet another handwarming doll from Knitty. I can't help myself. I have the yarn, I have the passion. . . unfortunately I no longer have the needles! I'm not really sure what I did with my size 10's, but the lack of them has been plaguing me. Anyhow. Bobble nose.

The Cap Shawl is still not done! Here it is. Achingly close. Oh-so-achingly close. Vandyck borders will be the end of me. But it does make the whole thing look delightfully formal. Unfortunately, I just don't think I like knitting lace in and of itself - I have a couple of projects I'd like to try, but I'm clearly a process- and not a product-knitter, and I can't stand repetitive patterns. Sigh. It will be done someday. Maybe for spring, when a lace shawl will actually be wearable. Or are springs as short as falls out here?


Kitty interlude

This delicate lady is Miss Kitty. Please excuse the action shot. She's actually something like 17 years old (so my roommate tells me), but you wouldn't believe it to look at her. I adore cats, but this one has developed a determination to inhabit my room. Now, anytime I leave my door even slightly cracked, I turn around, see her there, and we promptly engage in a game of Keep Kitty Away from the Bed. I'm starting to fear for my. . .

Yarn

Hello there!

Thrift store snag. The colors are a little prettier and warmer than they look - two cones deep black lace-weight, three cones assorted DK or sport blue, and one glorious soft pink in lace-weight. They all come from various mills in the UK, and in total they set me back - wait for it - $6. That's right. Lovely wool, 1000's of yards, a dollar a piece. I was saintly and actually didn't buy out the store's entire supply.

And finally..


It will eat you!


The Fair Isle Sweater progresses. The decision I mentioned? Not to do the pattern over the entire body. I can't really explain the entirety of the reasoning behind this, only that it really felt like the right thing to do.

So that is why the bottom border is so abrupt. The change I'm going to have to make is to take off the ribbing at the bottom, add 5 or 6 rows in the striping pattern below it as a frame for the band, and put on a wider band of ribbing. But it will be worth it - so worth it.

I have to say again, I love this yarn. I love this project in general. But the yarn - New England Shetland - is just so beautiful! The colors are amazing, and the photos don't do them justice. And though the yarn, unwashed, it is a real pleasure to knit, and I can console myself with the fact that it will soften after it's washed and blocked.

I have to say, one of the reasons that I'm enjoying this project so much is that I adore the colors. Because of the tight money situation, I've never really indulged in a large quantity of yarn in colors that I love - my selection has always been more determined by what's available on sale. It just gives me such a feeling of pleasure to see these colors unfold as I go, the beautiful punchy blues set against the stripes of green and teak and brown and lovely reds that blend together like guache.. I'm digging it.


One mild complaint: Elizabeth Zimmerman ruined my gauge! Ever since I read Knitting Without Tears, in which she advocates knitting loosely, my gauge has been out of control. I think about it too much - I get worried - I let it change mid-project. Look closely at the borders of the Cap Shawl and you might be able to see what I'm talking about. I had to frog two inches of the Fair Isle Sweater last night for just that reason. Sigh. I suppose it will settle down eventually.

So that's what's been happening in this girl's knitting world - other than a few designs in the works for the coming months. I have dreams of Knitty submissions. I'll try to post photos more regularly from now on.

Taking So Long

I finally finished the body of the shawl, and I've been working on the Vandyke edging. It is slow going. But there is one thing that's really cool about working the edging -- I'm starting to be able to see what the shawl will actually look like. See above! Formerly, the whole circle (and it turns out it's a big honkin' circle) was held on my rather small circular needles. Well, because the knitted-on border also finishes the raw edges of the body, each time I finish a set of rows another body stitch slips off the needles. What you stretched out above is pictured from a distance of about six feet and is less than a third of the whole thing.

I'm starting to think that this may actually end up being very beautiful. I've been feeling some anxiety about it, because this is my first large lace project; maybe me gauge was too loose? Maybe I made some visible mistakes? Maybe I should have made it in the yarn the pattern called for? Well, phew. I like. I may actually be done with it someday. I can't WAIT to block it.

A Word on Devotion

The lace shawl is coming along nicely. I'm about 25 rows from the end of the body. The farther out from the center you go, the longer it takes, but the work progresses nicely; we are simply not acclimated enough to the high altitude to spend all day hiking the mountains, so I spend a fair amount of time knitting!

I wanted to touch on one of those almost-mysteries of knitting: that is, how/why do we devote SO much time to this process?

Let me elaborate. I said in my last post about this project that I was over half-way done. That wasn't a guess. I was curious a while back to know exactly what the half-way point of the shawl was, for consider: the littlest row has only 9 stitches, the largest has something over 730. As you work out from the center, the rows increase. So by the midway row, something around 80, you certainly haven't done half the work! So I decided to use my math degree a little and determine the total number of stitches in the thing, minus the border for simplicity, and then determine at what row you reach the halfway point. The reasoning is below.

Number of stitches in increase row (IR) number:
(1) 9 stitches
(2) 9 + 9 stitches
(3) 9 + 9 + 9 stitches
...
(n) 9n stitches

There is one plain row (PR) for every increase row, so 82 IR's and 82 PR's. To count the total number of stitches after the nth IR is completed, add up all of the stitch counts of the IR's and double that number. The formula for that is:

tot # stitches = Σ2(9i) (from 1 to n)
tot # stitches = 18Σi (from 1 to n)
tot # stitches = 18(n)(n+1)/2

So with 82 IR's,

tot # stitches = 9(82)(83) = 61,254 stitches


That's right. The body of this shawl contains approximately sixty-one thousand stitches. Sixty-one thousand.

So what's the answer to the mystery? I don't know about for everyone. For me, I feel I get to spend hours at something I enjoy for about the price of going to two movies (one skein of the lace yarn cost me $14). What's more, I can watch TV, listen to music, or talk to company while I do it. But still.. sixty-one thousand? Damn.

Vacation Knitting

This is the circular "cap shawl" from Jane Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today. I'm knitting it in a lovely extrafine merino; the label says "Fa Re Baruffa" by "Zegna Baruffa." It's a bit washed out in the bright light, but the color is nearly right.

For all that I yell about structure, this pattern is very fun to knit. The pattern has a nine-pointed star or flower in the center, set on a background of (I think) Print o' the Waves. I am about halfway through it, by my calculations - that is, I'm at row 130 of 171. It stays interesting. The sample I knit in this yarn just blossomed most beautifully, so I can't wait to get this finished and block it! I'll update if anything interesting happens.