One Crazy Fiber Lady

Life goes on

I want to thank everyone for their warm and supportive comments to my last post regarding the passing of my sweet cat.  Your comments meant a great deal to me.  I'm replying to each one individually and I apologize if I haven't gotten back to you.  I wasn't much in the mood to do computery things recently and work has gotten busy.  So I hope a blanket public thank you would do in the short term.  Thank you all.  I've come to grips with the fact that I did what was best for Casanova.  I'm thankful that I could hold him in my arms and pet him his favorite way while he purred to sleep instead of a prolonged illness in a strange cage with strange people doing scary things to him.  Things are slowly returning to normal in my house, however Earl Grey (the silly Russian Blue cat) was a big buddy with Casanova so I'm keeping an eye on him.  He's gone back to his pre-Cassie bonding of sticking to me like a shadow.  I might just have to get him a pet.  Again, I thank you all for your support.  Some folk I know are taking bets as to when I get another cat.   I think the next one will be a long hair.  I'd love a Birman or a Himalayan.   Its too early right now.  I need to see how the others react first, not to mention my own mourning period, before I shake things up and add another.

Surprisingly there has been some knitting going on.  I've been making some decent progress on my pi shawl.  I'm now on row 17 of Chart B, having finished the diamond section.  It is a decent chart and I've learned to read the knitting.  At the beginning of each pattern row I consult the chart for the basics and can then put it away until two rounds later.  That's my favorite kind of knitting.  New enough that I don't have the entire project memorized (like my basic sock recipe) but not hard enough that I have to examine for each stitch (Orenburg shawl I started years ago).  I don't have any pictures to post as it really isn't much different than the last time I posted one and have better things to show.

I finished the back of Ribby Cardi on Saturday I think.  My short term memory is really pathetic and it could have been as early as Friday or as late as Sunday. I'm going with the average of Sat.  Nice quick knit and I'm very happy with how it looks.  I feel strongly that this is going to be a very flattering sweater when its done.  What with the ribbing up the sides that should draw it in and the red sleeves/shoulders to trick the eye elsewhere, it will do nicely.  I have yet to cast on further, been distracted by the pi shawl and the fact we went out to lunch yesterday so I really haven't had a chance to do it. 

I didn't get home from my folks house last night until rather late and was immediately distracted by the two packages that Mr. Postman left me.  One was the new cable for my iPod as I had lost the firewire adapter for the thing and couldn't hook it to the computer for a while now so I had to fidget with that.  I also got my Twinkletoes sock yarn from Over the Rainbow yarns on eBay.  I saw these on Margene's blog and was immediately tempted by what she described as "great sock yarn".  I'm always on the prowl for great sock yarn as socks are my favorite purse project and well you just can never have too much sock yarn.  I fell in love with this colorway - Bluegoose - and just had to have it.  I did have to pass over a couple of gorgeous skeins to get this one.  Somehow I don't think this will be my only skein.  This seller is incidentally the same one I bought the yarn for my Clapotis from as well.

Let's see, what else is there.  Oh yes, I've returned to working on Big Sack sweater, again no pictures of that either.  I'm going to shorten the sleeve about an inch or so.  I'm 5', I really don't need sleeves that are 20" long prior to the decrease for the roomy armpit.  I prefer that my sleeves don't look like I borrowed them from the Jolly Green Giant.  At @18.5, it is now the perfect length so I shall be starting the raglan shaping next.

Warning Kid Pictures

Saturday was hair cutting day.  My father had an appt with the barber shop and asked to bring now shaggy Alexander along for another cut.  His last one was some 15 weeks ago and the boy was looking rather scraggly.  While we were there, Kathryn got a decent bang cut as well. 

Befores:

Alexander sat in his grandpa's lap during his cut and was just a great boy for it.  I was very impressed at how well he sat there through it all.  It might help that Pop-pop is one of his most favorite people in the whole world.  This picture is right before the cut started.  His only objection was towards the end when the barber, who's been cutting Dad's hair for some 30+ years, wanted to trim around the ears.

Kat here is waiting patiently for her Pop-pop to pick her up.  Pop IS her favorite person in the whole world and the only one she calls by name, though Mama is starting to make an appearance.  She goes nowhere without that pink blankie with the very cute lamb attached to it.  She doesn't know this, but there are 3 of these blankies.  My momma didn't raise no dummy.

After:

Here are the two of them later in the day.  They've been out of their cramped quarters for almost 16 months, you think they'd quit sitting on top of each other!  They both look so grown up with their neat haircuts.  Babies no more.  Toddlers they be.  I took them for a walk on Sunday to enjoy the sunshine and the 50+ degree temperature.  It took almost 30 minutes to walk to the corner (one house away mind you) and back, but we all had a great time.

Little Progress

As I haven't progressed very much on anything, I don't have any pictures of goodness to offer up.  I did cast on the first sleeve for Big Sack yesterday at lunch and managed to get through the first two increases, but I have a great deal left to do.  I haven't been knitting on the train as I've finally hit the really exciting part of the book I'm reading. 

I'll have this done tonight on the way home so I can return to my knitting and actually post progress on that.  I've become a big Dan Brown fan this year having read 4 of his books in the last 6 months.  I know folk either really like him or really dislike him.  I have yet to hear anyone taking the middle ground.  Personally, I really like a good action book.  I love a techno thriller and adore Tom Clancy novels.  Ah shades of my nerdism shining through once again.

I lost knitting time last night.  As soon as I finished my chores and plunked down in the glider rocker, His Highness was up crying.  The twins are coming down with something as are all sniffly/coughing.  The night before I had the princess up, so it was his turn.  I do admit that I enjoyed sitting in the dim room with this warm little body molded to me, rocking gently and listening to him breath.  Sigh.  I guess he lulled me sufficiently that after I put him back in the crib at 9:30, I went to bed.  I still had trouble getting up this morning and couldn't manage to quit hitting the snooze alarm until 7am so I had a goodly amount of sleep for a change.  Lots of sleep, not much knitting and no spinning.  I'll make up for it.  I promise.

I'm going to put Big Sack on quick hold and try and whip out a pair of Fuzzy Feet, now that I've seen Stephanie's pair and recall my ground level/concrete slab abode.  I have a pretty decent stash of Lamb's Pride in various colors though the largest portion is in white.  I've read in various places that white yarn won't full the way other colors will so I'm kind of hesitant to use it.  I seem to remember a whole skein left over from the booga bags.  I can probably whip these out pretty quickly.  This morning's very frigid temperature educated me in the fact that my glovens, while pretty, ain't all that warm.  I'll be digging out that Morehouse Merino mitten kit that I bought at Union Square before the holidays and seeing how quickly I can get me some warm mittens.  I'm secretly hoping that the area thaws out before I can finish them though.

I fondled the Aurora Bulky that I bought at Majestic Yarns for a sweater for Alex.  I need to get a swatch sample of that, though it might have to wait as the 10.5 needles are being used by the Big Sack sweater.  Geez I hope the Denise Needles arrive shortly.  Though their absence is indeed keeping a lid on the number of projects I can work on at once.  I guess I could use {shudder} straight needles and have a lovely set of bamboo 10.5's but ick.  I don't like straight needles. 

I got in on a group order to Elann yesterday.  Bought more of the peruvian highland.  For another Ribby Cardi.  Yeah, I know, I haven't started the first one yet.  So what?  This one is going to have the black body and ruby sleeves.   Must be the geeky trekker in me, but I've thought of nothing else but a black sweater with red sleeves since I saw the colors earlier this week.  It pushed aside the two tone grey one that I had been thinking about for over a week.  I'm willing to go out on a limb and predict that the black/red sweater is going to be the next big project for me after the BS sweater, leapfrogging the Dusty Rose version.  Bad Risa.  Very bad.  I toyed with buying the yarn for both color combinations, but thankfully Amy talked me off that cliff.  Thanks Amy. 

I've got to find the right yarn in stash (I doubt the newest ebay win of Skacel Merino Lace is enough) for a the EZasPi knitalong.  I have a cone of some very nice kid mohair that I got a couple of years ago at Silk City that might work, not to mention some more of the angora that I knit Amy's Kris Kringle gift out of.  I'm just not sure what weight yarn and how much I need.  I guess I need to open the book and take a look ;)

I need to change groups at work.  I found out yesterday, while over asking a question, that there's a group around here that knits openly, during the day, at their desks as a mental break!  Whoa!  How very cool is that?  I know I used to get up, go outside and smoke for a bit, especially when some puzzler was eluding me.  Every now and again, I'd tuck my knitting in my pocket and knit during those cig breaks.  Since I quit, geez 4 years ago, I haven't had those kinds of breaks.  I would LOVE to knit.  I'll have to try it.  Though I don't have those kinds of puzzlers right now.  Work is pretty routine and more like a code version of babysitting.  At least I have things to do these days.  Makes the day go a little quicker at best.  Now if I could knit??!?!?  Work would be less like work ;)

Forging ahead

As I posted yesterday, I was having issues with the neck shaping for the smallest size of the Big Sack Sweater.   At lunch, I tinked the first row and instead of following the directions verbatim, I worked it the way I thought it should be.  Instead of just knitting 9 stitches I knit the knits and purled the purls.  By the end of lunch, the front was finished.  Here it is.  I'm happy with the way it came out and I tend to believe that this is the way the designer intended it.

As further evidence of how I've completely lost my edge, I didn't realize until today that the same lady designed both Banff and Big Sack.  No wonder I was feeling similarities between the two.  Duh.  Not only am I a nerd, I'm a dork.

I'm glad I did the right thing and frog the sweater front.  I really do like this color and I didn't want it black.  Plus leaving it as it was, I wouldn't have enough of the second yarn to actually make anything useful so I would have had to mix the yarns again and dye that black.  Ironically, the Ribby Cardi gallery has a link to suggested color combos and these two colors appear there.  Personally, I don't think they look that good together, but hey, I don't like purple either. 

Denise needles still not here, but then again, not done with the Big Sack sweater.  I'm trying to keep a lid on the number of active projects and almost daily fight the urge to cast on something new.  Last night the urge to start one of Vicki's Merino/Mohair socks, the ribby cardi is always in my mind (not to mention more yarn to make another one  - black body with ruby sleeves and/or charcoal heather body / light grey sleeves [elann's peruvian highland]) and now I need to add the sweater for Alex in the Aurora bulky that I bought at Majestic Yarn's opening this past fall.  Thanks Nanc for the idea of putting the kids on my knitting for their next portrait.  Oh and I want a pair of fuzzy feet!  Is there something about winter that brings on this flitting from project to project?  I know I haven't touched my mom's glovens since the night I cast them on.  Poor Irish Hiking Scarf is languishing untouched for weeks now.  Heck it isn't even in my tote bag anymore, it is tucked on the baker's rack in the kitchen (don't ask, this is a wool house too).  And yet even though I joined the Ribby Cardi KAL, the Sock it to me KAL, I've now also joined the EZasPi Shawl KAL.  Multiple Project Disorder anyone?

Resolutions

I know everyone is curious as to what I actually did with my Big Sack sweater screw up.  I know that at least one person was partially convinced that I'd take the 'good enough for government work' approach and just dye it.  If I hadn't of started the front with the right color and then moved on to the other, I could have just kept them both and done corresponding pieces.  Sadly though, I don't think It have enough of the second color (Spiced Wine) to complete the whole thing.  That color is incidentally the original one I chose back on New Years to knit this and futzed up the yardage calculation.  Once I ordered the color (Redwood), I found another project for the Spiced Wine in an issue of IK. 

Anyway, Sunday morning after posting and pondering, I ripped.  I ripped the two tone cabled front back down to the point where it was one color.  I also made sure that I wouldn't do this again.  Well the wrong color bag of yarn now had a hand wound center pull ball in it.  As added insurance, considering I am turning out to be a bit of a dope recently, I taped the bag shut.  As further insurance, I pulled the right bag out of that cubby and stuffed it in my project bag next to the couch.  This is that circular bag I bought from Joanns, hoping for a good knitting/commuter bag.  It sucked for that purpose, but works wonderfully for me to keep the project in and let me knit with the yarn supply away from sticky little fingers.  Sunday night after the twins went to bed, I went back to work on the front.  By 10pm, I had made the same point as I had ripped from.  I feel much better about the whole thing and can chuckle at my dopiness. 

As of last night, I was up to the neck shaping, though the whole thing seems a bit cobbled to me.  I have to do a search for errata on it. The bind off section is written terribly and some of the patterning seems to be a little inconsistent:

k2, k2tog, k9, p1 for one shoulder, than the screwy confusing bind off for the center front, followed by the p1, k to last 4, ssk, k2.

Except for the middle part, the rest seems straight forward.  Except that my head keeps telling me that the p1 should line up with at least one p from the patterning section, but it doesn't.  Two knits are over purls and the purl is over a knit.  I know this becomes less of a problem in a few rows as those neck edge stitches are bound off, but all the pictures I've seen of this sweater do not show knits above purls until the actual neck is done.  I googled the sweater/errata and turned up this from the designer.  She nicely explains that her pattern was mucked with by the technical editor of the book and as a result, errors were generated, especially around the neck edge for the small size, which is the one I'm making.  Hell I wear a size 6, I like ease as much as the next person, but 42" is plenty on me.  I followed the directions as written and did the row.  I think I'm going to tink it and do it as I feel it should be done, spacing the bind offs in the center as originally intended by the designer and lining up the knits and purls on the shoulders.  I don't have any pictures to show as it looks much the same as the one I posted on Sunday, except there is color agreement all around :)  I know the Stitch 'n Bitch book was done for new knitters.  I can only imagine how frustrated they would be by the errors here.  I'm frustrated, but I've been knitting for almost 30 years so I can generally fix the problem without too much bother and I know how to tell if it was me or the pattern.  This case, it was definitely the pattern (finally!).

My parents finally made it home from their Caribbean cruise, only a day late.  They were supposed to fly home on Sunday, but got stuck in San Juan.  Poor them.  They were lucky and managed to get a room in the airport hotel, got their larger bags stored for $3 each and generally had a nice extra day in the snow free warmth.  After they quickly unpacked, they came to retrieve their cat, but more so for a twin fix.  The little monkeys were quite happy to see their Mema and Pop-pop again.  They got to stay up a bit late so the deprived pairs of folks caught up with each other.  Mom and Dad picked me up a nice bottle of perfume:

This is my new favorite perfume, Jean Paul Gaultier's Classique.  I started wearing this last spring.  When they go to the Caribbean I usually ask for perfume as it is so much cheaper.  But jewelry is always good!

Tonight is spinning night so I'll probably get another bobbin of the corrie done on Tina II.

Stupid is...

..as stupid does.

I'm pretty stupid sometimes.  Last night, I popped in The Return of the King (thanks Amy) and sat down to work on the front of the Big Sack sweater.  As the movie neared the end, I neared the armpit cast-off.  I was already mentally composing an excited posting for today where I extolled the nature of the sweater and what a wonderful movie and evening I had while trying to ignore the blizzard outside my window.  I did get the plastic wrap up on the window so I wasn't sitting in a breeze while I knitted and watched the movie.  i must have angered the knitting goddess.  When I finally hit the desired row count, I pulled the back out of the bag to compare lengths and then I noticed a HUGE mistake.  Regular readers might remember my yarn goof of New Years when I totally blew the skein count necessary for this sweater and didn't order enough of the Peruvian Highland Chunky from Elann.  You'll also remember that my first splurge of the yarn diet was more yarn from Elann, in another color as the first color was sold out.  Some of you might have already guessed what I did.  Well the two colors were pretty similar, but not identical.  One is more brown to the other's wine feel.  Sadly, they were both in the same cubby in the cabinet and yesterday while doing a little cleaning, I think I changed places for the two different bags.  Sigh.  So when I got up during the movie to get more yarn, I grabbed the wrong one. 

This picture clearly shows the problem.  My initial reaction, well after I quit cursing a blue streak, was to keep going and hope no one noticed it.  Then began a debate between ripping it and doing it again in the right yarn, or just finishing it in whatever yarn I happen to grap and just dyeing the whole damn sweater when it was finished black.  I'll wind up doing the right thing and ripping out all of last night's work.  Or will I. 

This sweater has really been the bane of my existence.  All recent screwups have revolved around this thing.  I'm beginning to think I shouldn't be making it and that I've been ignoring the signs from above!  I'm about a heartbeat away from saying screw it, giving up on waiting for the denise needles, putting the sorry Big Sack in the closet and starting Ribby.

The twins are napping and I'm debating taking advantage of this time to going out and dealing with this:

Are you a knitter?

Haven't had a quiz in a while and found this while doing my ring checker job:

You may not be a granny, but you've got the
mentality.  Hard work and artistic vision lead
to your beautiful knitted results.

Are you a knitter?
brought to you by Quizilla

In other news, I've finished the back of the Big Sack sweater last night while watching Star Trek:Enterprise.  Blech.  It wasn't a bad episode, but its not a great series and suffers from the same problem inherent with all prequels.  There's little suspense as it is an established history unless of course you just blow away 30+ years of back story.  Now that I've outed myself as a trekker, I'll move on.  I also spun up one more bobbin on Tina and skeined up the plied yarn from Thursday night.    This added another 170 yards to the collection and brings the total to over 500 yds.  I have a bobbin and a half full now and probably a pound of raw material left to spin.  I'll wash the skeins when done and remeasure.  Then I can plan for an item to knit!

I've been very silent about the tragedy caused by the earthquake and tsunami.  That doesn't mean I haven't done anything.  I've made donations to both the Red Cross International Relief Fund and Doctors Without Borders.  I've now made donated Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop to the Knitters Without Frontiers  being organized by the much loved Yarn Harlot.  I think its a great book for a great cause.  I'm proud to call myself a knitter thanks to the stupendous outpouring of support that is coming from our community.  Knit on everyone.

And now, I'm going to play with the kids, prepare to cast on for the front of Big Sack and basically hide from the incoming blizzard about to hit New Jersey.  I hate snow.  I hate winter.  I could get to like to knitting with cotton.  Really.  Well maybe not.  I hate knitting cotton.  I still hate snow.

The Postman cometh

Once again the beloved letter carrier left a box by my front door.  This time it was my order from KnitPicks.com.  I've been very excited to compare their Peruvian brand yarn, Wool of the Andes (WOA) , to the Peruvian Highland from Elann (PH).  I went jogging to the yarn cabinet after getting the box open and pulled out a skein of PH.  On the visual level, they appear to be very different yarns.  This, I believe, is caused by put up.

The WOA is wound in pretty tight skeins that remind me of Luster Sheen.  The yarn is under tension so that the skein doesn't squoosh the same way as the PH does, which is in fluffy skeins.  The yardage/weight is equivalent, so I knew they were more similar than they appeared.  I pulled out a yard or so length from both skeins and held them together.  Without the tension, the WOA, fluffed on up and became indistinguishable from the PH.  I held them side by side on my finger and other than color, there was little difference between the two.  I'd have to say that the WOA is a cheaper ($1.79/skein) alternative to Elann's PH ($2.25/skein). The added bonus to the WOA is KnitPicks free shipping for orders over $30.  I'm happy with their delivery time from the other side of the country too.  I placed the order on Friday last week.  They shipped it out the same day and it was waiting for me when I got home tonight.  I'll be using that pretty blue to make the cover item, Mia, from Debbie Bliss' Junior Knits.  The largest size is for a 38" finished chest and that would be my preferred size anyway.   I'll probably work on this after the Ribby Cardi.

Monday night I started "swatching" for the Big Sack sweater.  Actually I cast on for it hoping that my gauge was on.  No such luck.  Instead of 14st to 4", I was coming in at 16.  Not good.  Would make a big sack sweater into a form fitting tight sweater.  Not what I had in mind.  To the computer and the calculator I went.  Initially I thought about ripping it out and going for a larger size where the numbers would have worked, other than the fact I didn't buy enough yarn for a larger size.  No I don't want to go there.  Yes I remember that I'm using a splurge yarn to correct my original yarn purchase mistake.  So I really didn't want to revisit that ugly place.  I decided to pack it in and think about it in the morning.  As I was getting ready for bed, some little light popped on in my head, hey try a larger needle.  Bright light, eh?   The pattern was calling for a 10US, as was the ball band.  That's what I had used and came up off on both counts.  I hit my circular needle storage notebook (3" ring binder with separate pencil zipper pouches labelled for each size) and got my 10 1/2".  I switched needles on the train into work on Tues and by lunch was ready to measure.  Woo.  This did the trick.  I'm now spot on on gauge and have a far more delicious texture to the fabric as well.  The 16st/4" was nice, but not as drapey as the desired gauge.  This is going to be one nice sweater. 

As for last night, well Tuesday is spinning day.  I did fight some after dinner interia problems.  After getting the twins down, I plopped down on the couch and instinctively grabbed my knitting.  I saw the wheel across the room (Tina sits on the trunk next to the TV so the kids can't get to all her doodads) and hemmed and hawed over the whole Tuesday is spinning.  I toyed with making Wednesday or even Saturday the new spinning day.  But no, I had a good thing going and I really shouldn't mess with it.  I put away my knitting, pulled out my basket of corriedale roving and retreived Tina.  I then spent the next two hours watching I Love the 90's on VH1 and spinning.  I filled one whole bobbin and a 1/4 of the other.  I'll be ready to ply again the next time the wheel comes out.  I happy to note that I'm actually close to finishing off all the roving.  This will mark the very first time since I learned to spin in June of '99 that I've spun and entire fleece I bought.  Okay so it was a small lamb fleece (3lbs), but that makes no difference.  I've never completely used a single fleece.  Doesn't explain why I buy more so many darn fleeces each year.  Judging by the amount of fiber around here, I think I need to add another spinning day!

Well I have a vacation day tomorrow as I have no other daycare for the monkeys.  Its nice to have a break in the week.  I have to admit that I'm really enjoying picking them up from school and making dinner.  I've parked them in the living room with a Baby Einstein dvd, and a room full of their toys, while I've made dinner.  After dinner, they play while I clean up the kitchen.  I get to play with them for about 45 minutes before its time to get ready for bed.  I find they really recharge me. 

Amie commented on my last post regarding how surprised she was to see their picture with the cat after seeing them in my sidebar.  That picture was their 6 month portrait.  I was very impressed with the photographer that took the pictures and this one is the best of the bunch that included quite a number of really good pictures.  The one year shot wasn't quite as good, but it was a different studio.  I'll scan it soon and slip it in the family album.  I'll probably take them back to Sears studio at 18 months and get more done.