KnitMe

Ahem

Yes it's me, on the wrong day at the wrong time... Monday I was all tied up in the morning, forgot to email the photos to myself at work - emailed them Tuesday, but Wednesday and Thursday we were shut off from the entire internet while waiting for a critical patch from Microsoft - so life is just back to normal today.

Mamacat will be a mama no more, she was officially trapped on Saturday, spayed on Sunday, and released on Monday. She disappeared for 2 days but turned up again in the front yard on Wednesday, to my great relief. Thursday morning at 6:30am she was sitting beside her bowl looking at me when I turned on the kitchen light.

Of course, THIS morning when I turned on the kitchen light, there was some OTHER CAT in HER chair. So I don't know what's going on in the world of feral cats. I have a feeling this is Papacat, and I am not sure I will be able to catch him. I know I don't want him taking over Mamacat's place on my porch....

In other news, I finished my Grapevine Riverbed socks out of the Tess Baby Bunny sock yarn.

Very pretty, very cozy, fit well... BUT. This is what they looked like after one day in my standard footwear (clogs).

See how the foot area is covered in pure white fuzz? Somehow, not only is the angora being pulled to the surface by shoe friction, but IT IS WHITE. How can the angora be embedded in a yarn, which has been dyed, and yet it fuzzes out WHITE? Don't get it.

So, my verdict is that this is a luxury sock yarn.

I got the zipper for Emmy's hoodie. The pattern called for 6 inch. I measured the opening and decided upon 5 inch, and I am glad I did as it fits perfectly. Zipperstop.com was the only place I found that had zippers that small, and they were only black or white. Luckily white works great with this yarn.

Someone is happy with her hoodie.

I am still knitting away on Sweet Pea. It is going to be lovely. The pockets are incredibly clever. It's hard to describe here how they work.

This is the right front.

See, in the middle sort of, that isolated strip of moss stitch? That is the pocket 'cuff'. The pocket is made by first knitting a little plain square and setting it aside. When you get to where the pocket opening should start, you leave off the outside half of the front, and knit up the center front part while making the pocket edge - you knit back and forth between the pocket edge and the front center edge till it is the right length, then just drop the yarn. Then you take the little pocket square you made and knit across that and the outside half of the front together with a second ball of yarn, and knit that half of the front (side edge to inside of pocket) until it is the same length as the other half. Then you bind off the pocket square and resume knitting the entire front.

This is what it looks like on the outside.

On the inside, everything is loose and flapping and rolling, to be sewed down later.

So, you have a pocket that not only opens vertically, but has a little pouchy part that goes DOWN. Clever pocket construction and probably one that will be fun to put my hands into!

The bad news with this one is that the size I am making calls for 7 balls of Harrisville Heathered Bulky, and I am afraid I am not going to even make it with 8. Buying two more balls of yarn than I planned on is a huge irritation considering that the yarn is about $10 a ball. I am doing the math and hoping I can eke the collar out of 35 grams of the yarn - otherwise I don't know WHAT I will do. Anyone have any oddballs of this in color 18, Aubergine?

Not much spinning as I am busy knitting. I did finish another skein of the CVM, about 3.5 ounces and 180 yards.

This is probably my last post until the end of the month, as we will be away for a few days right after Christmas. Have a good holiday if you celebrate one!

Update, Saturday: Don't know why I didn't think of this before. I frogged the 1 1/2 sleeves I have knit for Sweet Pea, and I'm going to knit a smaller size. The sleeves are plenty wide, I will just give up a little of that ease. It should help.

FOs

OK, as promised, some things are finished.

First, Taconic.

Despite all my fretting, it is a perfect fit. Good thing, too, as I only had one ball left (65 yards) plus a tiny remainder of another ball.

This picture shows it to best advantage I think.

The feel of this yarn (Laines du Nord Cashsilk) is absolutely delicious, I hope it holds up ok and does not pill. I knitted it at a tighter gauge than the label calls for (but, who doesn't do THAT nowadays when all labels seem to say 4 stitches per inch??), but it is a delicate mix of fibers and I know I'll have to treat it gently.

I decided to use ribbing at the neckline despite my misgivings, and although there is no ribbing anywhere else on the sweater, it doesn't look out of place.

I raised the neckline one whole cable pattern repeat, and I'm glad I did, it's just right. Why do so many sweaters start the bottoms of V necks at the same time as they set the armholes? Who wants their necklines down to their underarms??

I made tons of notes on Ravelry about pattern errors and confusions, this pattern was not the best written I've ever seen, but if you can muddle through it you will have a really nice sweater in the end.

Emmy's hoodie is also done, except for the zipper (she decided she wanted a zipper after all, so we have to wait for it to come in the mail).

It is pretty much a perfect fit, too - a little loose and baggy but not too oversized, just how she likes it. She will get more than one winter out of this. Maybe she will wear it... This was a free Lana Grossa pattern I found online - it's now moved here. I used Araucania Naturewool and size 8 needles. This seemed a bit of a loose gauge for the yarn but it made it come out the size I wanted, so I persevered, and I spun it in the dryer for a few minutes when it was nearly dry to fluff up the yarn a little. This seems to have worked.

I finished one of my Tess Baby Bunny socks.

Now that I have learned what my fit numbers are, my Cat Bordhi toe-up socks fit perfectly. This yarn is luscious, too, very light but cushy and warm.

I have become enamored of linen stitch cuffs on my toe-up socks. When I get as high up my leg as the fit will allow, I switch to size 2 needles and make a linen stitch cuff and then end with a lace bindoff. I love how this particular yarn looks in linen stitch - because of the length of the color repeats in the yarn, it almost makes a honeycomb pattern.

I am on my way up the leg of the second sock, it will probably take over a week for me to finish because I am distracted by my new WIP:

This is the beginning of the Sweet Pea jacket from the latest issue of the Twist Collective. The yarn is (gasp) the one called for in the pattern, Harrisville Heathered Bulky, and the needles are (faint) size 13. I get so tired knitting on this size needle, but the yarn is beautiful and the whole thing is shaping up nicely. I am afraid I will need another hank of yarn to complete the size I am making, but I will worry about that when the body is done and I have to take stock of the yarn remaining for the sleeves. I was smitten by this pattern the first time I saw it, it took me a week or two to decide I could handle the gauge. When I was a pre-teenager I had a red wool pea jacket my mother made for me - double breasted, with black buttons I think - I loved that jacket and was sorry when I couldn't wear it anymore, and this pattern brings that back to me a little bit.

In other news, I am now in possession of a borrowed trap for a cat. I hope I can overcome my case of serious nerves and attempt to trap Mamacat sometime between now and early January so she won't have to be a mamacat again. Stay tuned.

Today: Mamacat. Next: FOs.

(Taken with a cell phone so not much quality here...) but she's using her house, and waiting on the mat to get her daily Meow Mix.