KnitMe

Sailors Rib

I love it when this happens - two major projects that have been going on for months get done at almost the same time. Do you know what that MEANS??? It means I can start two new things at once. Heaven!

Here is the second finished product of the past week.

The pattern is designed by Nancy Bush and can be found in the Best of Knitters Arans and Celtics book. It's a well written pattern and a design that is beautiful without being over-elaborate for a guy to wear. I made the largest size, which measures approximately 46 inches around, and used 9 or 10 balls of Galway (can't tell which until I go back to the stash and see how many are left). The pattern was simple enough to be quickly memorized, so I was able to knit on this at traffic lights, at lunchtime, during Emily's baths, while playing Emily's version of hide-and-seek, anywhere and everywhere.

The main center pattern consists of an OXO cable, with a 3-stitch baby cable and a 6-stitch rope cable on each side.

On either side of the center pattern is a sort of basketweave/rib cross that's quite attractive.

In addition to the nice collar finishing I picked up from Vanessa and wrote about previously, I also decided it was time I learned to do proper seams, so with coaching and moral support from Angela and Vanessa I tried mattress stitch for the side and sleeve seams and for setting in the sleeves. I'm sure it isn't as good as it could be, but it's way better than any other finishing job I ever did.

This is the side seam:

This is the sleeve seam - isn't it cool how the increases match so nicely when you can see your seaming as you do it?

I'm inordinately proud of this because it's probably the closest to perfect of anything I've ever knitted. Not that it doesn't have a couple of small flaws - but there are no out-and-out mistakes (the pattern was simple enough that I could catch them within a couple of rows and correct them without ripping), and the finishing is the best I've ever done. Knitting something for a gift is a real spur to perfectionism!

Vital statistics: Plymouth Galway, size 6 needles, started February 22nd and completed May 24th, for a birthday the first weekend in June...ssh don't tell...

Now, I think I will be casting on for the lace cardigan from Dale 109, and also for Siberian Winter. Both of these are Fibertraditions knit-alongs - people are doing a variety of lace cardigans, and people are doing a variety of shawls in garnet laceweight yarn from Lisa Souza. Both of these will be LONG projects so it's a good thing that I have the Wool Peddlers shawl now as my work knitting and should have some progress to show on that one in short order.

Rosarie Is Done; A Poll

I had a couple of extra hours this week and finished Rosarie.

I found 2 errors in the pattern, which is really unusual for Virtual Yarns. One, I caught in time to do it right. The other, I didn't notice until it was too late. It says to bind off the armhole bands in Kelpie which makes no sense because you've just done two garter check rows with Calluna and Red Rattle; it should say Calluna. Also, it forgot to mention you should purl one round after picking up the armband stitches before beginning the garter checks.

I started this on March 4th and completed it on May 21st. It was not very difficult and I only really made one mistake, which I'll leave to you to figure out....

Now, the poll: I did not make buttonholes, because I knew I would never button this thing in my lifetime. So, the question is - should I leave it as is, or put one clasp on it? Here are photos to help you decide.

No clasp:

Clasp:

In other knitting news, Sailors Rib is almost done seaming and will be seen here soon, same bat time same bat station.... That one was started on Feb 22nd.

In the local good-news-bad-news department, our guests from last weekend's entry have now flown up into the trees and during the daylight hours they drown out the leaf blowers.

In Which Rosarie Has A Neckband; and We Have Guests

The neckband, a cute square mitered garter border:

The whole thing, with neckband:

A closeup of the inside of the neckband, showing the cut steek/facing, with crocheted edges like the ones Lisa does (but not exactly like, as I didn't re-read her directions before I started...):

I'll do the armbands next, then crochet and open the front steek.

And, the guests, not cute at all:

This is just the first real day of emergence in my neighborhood, so there are hundreds and hundreds more where these came from. Our swingset is already an insect drying-rack. I don't know why you would want to know more about this, but if you do, there's lots at the Baltimore Sun's cicada pages.

Postscript

As an epilogue, I thought I would mention that upon completing this posting, I went downstairs to discover that Emily was about to empty 30 pounds of kitty litter onto the living room floor. It's amazing what a nearly-3-year-old can accomplish with a plastic Barbie knife!

Marianne progress

Tonight I cut open Marianne's neck steeks and knitted up the neckband.

This was my first time doing a v-neck, and I'm rather pleased with the result.

I'm already a little tired of it, but will try to keep the momentum going and start a sleeve tomorrow. The pattern is very easy to memorize, so at least it makes good TV knitting, while being just interesting enough not to put me to sleep.

Linette

A Little Red Wine

This is a teeny (58 yard) hank of bluefaced leicester fiber in the 'red wine' colorway, from Dyeing for Fiber, that I spindled over the last couple of weeks. It isn't very consistent yarn, but it's soft and the colors turned out so beautiful. This was spun from a sample Sheila gave me last summer, she pulled off enough to get a complete cycle of colors and it ended up being a little over a yard of roving.

What to do with 58 yards of perhaps light-worsted yarn?? I didn't start out intending to end up with something worth doing something with, but the roving was like a magic purse and kept going and going and going.

This is about all I have to show for the week. I started Wool Peddlers (from Folk Shawls) on Monday but it is a blob of garter stitch at this point and not yet photogenic. I have about 5 inches of sleeves done for Sailors Rib but they're not impressive. Rosarie is above the front neck steek but doesn't look much different than it did last week. Agatha is a little longer but again doesn't look very different. And what's on the wheel right now is black merino that is going to make a TON of yardage so there won't be anything to see there for quite awhile either. So, I hope my little red hank is of passing interest! Happy Mothers' Day!

Denim Cables and Lace update

I just put on my new sweater to go out and plant tomatoes, and Deb took photos for you. Everything came out OK in the wash, and it sewed up just fine.

This was a really fun project to do, and I recommend it as a very easy first lace project. The pattern is very memorizable and looks very impressive for being so simple to execute.

Anne

Denim Cables and Lace

I just finished the knitting of this project. It is a pattern from Elann.com, and was a really fun and relaxing pattern to knit. The body is knit in one piece, and the sleeves are knit separately and sewn on after shrinking. Yes, everything gets tossed into the HOT water and shrinks 10-15 percent. They swear to me that this is going to work out. Here, in the "before" picture, is my daughter Deborah modeling the unsewn, unshrunk pieces.
Actually, for a long, skinny sweater, I don't think it looks half bad! The swatch that I already washed (hey, you didn't think I was going to go into this blind, did you?) faded nicely and has a very nice look to it. I will try to get this into the laundry in the next few days. Stay tuned!

Anne

Marianne

I'm knitting again after a long hiatus. I decided to do a pullover from a fair-isle swatch that I posted here a while ago. The yarn is Rowan's Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply. Even having done a swatch, the knitted-up version is a bit of a surprise to me, but I like it enough to continue. I plan to do a v-neck, maybe with a shawl collar. I'm calling her Marianne.

Linette

Fiber Daze

We've worn ourselves out again at America's largest sheepy festival, and a good time was had by all. I tried to write this posting last night, but I was half done when a humongous thunderstorm swept through, the lights went out, and they just now came back on. So, I hope it's better late than never.

For us the event began Friday when we fetched Sam and Angela from the airport. Sam and Emily became instant buddies.

The traffic trying to get onto the fairgrounds Saturday morning was many times worse than I remember it being - I guess a tribute to the unexpectedly fair and hot weather. We waited in such long lines that we barely made it on time to the FT and Friends meeting place at the Barefoot Spinner's booth. So much meeting and greeting of old friends was going on that the camera didn't even come out at that point. The wallet did, as you'll see...

It was a thrill to see that one of our own knitters won some blue ribbons in the garment competitions. This is Tina-from-Houston's rendition of Morning Glory, by That Scottish Designer:

Her Inishmore also was prominently displayed and sporting a ribbon.

We all marvelled at the oddities in the judges' comments - despite their really GREAT taste in knitted garments (heehee), they seemed to be rewarding entrants partly on the spiffiness of the designs, and not recognizing that they were from published patterns. Comments like "it's especially nice how the ribbing flows into the cables" provoked great laughter from us.

Like all of us I came home with beautiful things, mostly what I had gone looking for.

On the upper left, just about 820 yards of navy blue laceweight 100% cashmere from Hunt Valley Cashmere, to make some triangular shawl to be named later. I lingered over the same forest green that Laura bought, but decided I'd be more likely to use the navy.

On the upper right, 8 ounces of silk and merino top in a blend of teal and emerald shot through with white. The vendor of this was Pleasant Home Woolen Company.

On the lower left, a pound of Cormo pencil roving purchased at the American Cormo Association booth, I believe it was from Running Wild Yarns. A test of this stuff on a spindle showed that it will be a delightful spin in a very fine weight - the fibers have a slightly spongy grippy-ness that makes them hang together nicely, and they are very soft.

In the center, a Tsunami spindle from Golding, in the smallest size, for spinning laceweight. This photo just doesn't do it justice, I'm sure the photos on Golding's site will show how beautiful it is with the metal ring around the openwork whorl.

On the bottom right, a pound of wool/alpaca roving from the Barefoot Spinner. This photo is too dark - it's a blend of silver and varying shades of lavender and light purple.

Angela and Sam shopped on about the same scale, including Angela's surprise purchase of a bag of Corriedale prepared fleece. We stuffed ourselves, and Emily, back into the car and came home to get ready for Round Two: The Soiree.

It started off small and quiet on the sunporch, with Sam spinning black merino on my Kromski Symphony, Tina looking on anxiously in anticipation of a spinning lesson, Angela working away on her Peacock Feathers shawl, and Laura (represented by some toes here) saving herself for later.

Later on, food arrived, followed closely by more guests, and we fit ourselves around the dining room table.

Sheila spindled some creamy wool and silk, observed closely by Georgia (Tina's mom) and Laura.

Angela, Sam, Marcia, and Tina contemplated second helpings.

Later, more guests arrived and we assembled in the living room. This picture is a little dim but the company certainly wasn't! You can make out Sam, Georgia, Morgen, Liz, Marcia, Elka, Sheila, and Laura.

Vanessa unfortunately could not make the party, having either gotten too hot during the day or eaten something questionable. We were very sorry she missed all the showing off of the Legends of the Shetland Seas bounty. Here are Sam's and mine getting acquainted.

And here is the promised lots and lots of LOTSS chorus line. Sam's was done in the 'seaglass' color and Laura's was done in the 'wild thing' color, both from Lisa Souza's line of laceweight wool yarn. Mine was white Skacel Merino Lace.

Sunday was spent recuperating and making an airport run. The weather that swept through last night dropped the temperature down below 50 for today and brought chilly drizzle, so we were very fortunate in the weekend's weather.

Last but not least, my hat boxes. Angela started this trend last summer, and Sam had a tidy hatbox with her this weekend for her fiber carryon - Emmy and I went to Target Sunday to buy Dora the Explorer bubblebath, and lo and behold there was a Linens N Things next door, so these came home with me:

Now if only we all had nothing else to do but sit home and play with our new toys....