Needles & hooks

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Nothing but swatches

I sat at Art Fibers and swatched for about 2 hours yesterday. Nothing came out a way I was happy with. I think I’ll definitely try Debbie Bliss Cashmerino when I get back home. And maybe the Karabella Aurora 8, a ball of which I already have in my stash and have been hoping to find a project to do with it. But I’m burned out on Zig Zag right now, so if I get some knitting time in the next few days, I’ll try to finish the Matinee Coat, which I brought with me.

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More Zigging and Zagging

First, a point of order: Out of respect for the designer’s copyright, I’ve been asked to remove the Zig Zag chart PDF that I created. So I have. I have e-mailed the designer and offered her the charts so that she may make them available to everyone. Hopefully you will see them soon.

Yesterday I visited Art Fibers and ImagiKnit. The ImagiKnit visit was planned so that I could acquire a ball of Lana Gatto Feeling which they carry. The Art Fibers visit was insisted upon by my friend who was guiding my yarn tour.

Art Fibers is a unique store. They only carry yarns that they commission. But they commission a lot of neat stuff. And they have some lovely policies: they’ll let you use any of their yarns in the store to swatch for free or you can order some sample lengths from their website to swatch with.

ImagiKnit was mindblowing. They had a far bigger selection than any yarn store I’ve ever visited. And it was pretty roomy, so I didn’t get the far too busy, overstuffed store feeling I’ve gotten other places. They have one wall of magazines, nicely organized, with all the back issues you can imagine. Only the memory of trying to lug my suitcases around the Boston subway stopped me from buying all the back issues of Interweave Knits. But in the end, sensory overload got the better of me, and I stumbled out with only one ball of Feeling and a size 6 Addi Turbo (who knew I only had one size 6 at home?).

I swatched up 34 stitches and about 10 rows yesterday. My gauge looks to be pretty good, and I adore the beautiful bright denim color of the ball I bought, but I won’t be using this yarn for the Zig Zag sweater. It is very soft, but not so different from your average cashmerino.

And I can’t stand the doubling. You know what’s worse than finding out you’ve dropped a stitch? Finding out you’ve only dropped one strand of a stitch. Because I don’t see that the doubling enhances the design all that much (the cable stitches may be a little more interesting, but most people won’t get close enough to me to notice), I think I’ll be searching out a worsted weight for this. Art Fibers had a nice cashmere/merino blend that I’ll be trying today. I’ll keep you posted.

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Zigs and Zags

I’m in San Francisco right now, getting ready for a wedding this weekend. But while I’m here, I’m going to visit a couple of yarn stores. Partly to think about materials to make the Zig Zag Sweater from the new Knitty. More on all of that later.

But I wanted to mention that I noticed that the Zig Zag pattern charts tend to fall over page breaks when I printed it, so I created a PDF document containing the charts. (I was asked to remove the link to these charts out of concern for the designer’s copyright. I’ve asked her to make them available and I will keep you posted).

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Too much stress, too little knitting

Things have been so hectic what with a sick cat and trying to get ready to leave for San Francisco on Friday night for a week of weddings that I haven’t done any knitting. Tonight doesn’t look any better. And I’m so due for some quality ass-sitting time (that’s what my husband calls it).

Fortunately, once I actually leave, I think things calm down. At least anything I’ve forgotten will be beyond my control. Can’t wait for it to all be over.

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Knit Out!

Today I went to the Boston Knit Out with my friend Jen. I got a bunch of coupons and a hand massage. I also showed a novice knitter that you can knit flat on circular needles. I competed in the crochet speed contest but I had pull skein issues came in somewhere around 3rd or 4th. And I remembered how much crochet hurts my hands!

I also got some knitting done. I finished one front on the Matinee Coat, having finished the other one on plane rides for my recent business trip to L.A. Here’s the fronts:

And here is the back (which I’d finished already but hadn’t shown you):

I also did well with my rotation and started the Dianna sweater (as I told you in recent posts concerning my yarn order error). Here’s what that looks like now:

And I got a few rows done on Marcel’s sweater, but not enough to show any progress.

I also got the Fall Patternworks catalog which has a Santa’s wardrobe ornament kit that will be the source of this year’s ornament. I think I’ll get a Spaceboard while I’m ordering from them. And in case anyone was wondering whatever happened to Zora Andrich, the woman who won the first season of Joe Millionaire, she’s modelling an unfortunate sweater on page 32.

But enough typing, I’m going to go start the Matinee sleeves while there’s still a few hours left in it’s day.

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I love the Internet!

A couple stores that I e-mailed about the Vittadini yarn got back to me, and one had 2 balls in the necessary dye lot. So now I can continue my sweater with confidence.

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A different kind of needle

This weekend I spent some quality time with my sewing machine. My best friend is getting married in a few weeks. She chose a color (dark green) for bridesmaid dresses that is not “in” at the moment. So we decided to buy some fabric and have skirts made and wear them with black tops. Of course, I procrastinated so long in finding a seamstress that the only solution was to dig out my sewing machine.

In addition to the semi-full floor-length skirt, I also hemmed 4 rectangles of chiffon to be used as wraps. The bride is making us matching necklaces, and I plan to use some of the extra beads to put a little fringe on them. It all would have been smooth going, but my sewing machine decided to jam up every foot or so, so I spent a lot of time pulling out knots and starting over. Next time I need to do a sewing project, the machine is spending some quality time getting professionally tuned up first.

I got a little bit of knitting done. The next item in my rotation was the Dianna sweater. And I pulled out the yarn to finally get started, only to find that I had the wrong quantities! When I special ordered the blues, someone got mixed up and I ended up with inverse amounts of them. I started knitting anyway, hoping that I’ll be able to locate a couple more balls of the dark one in the right dye lot. I’ve already googled the yarn and e-mailed several stores to ask if they have it. Please cross your fingers for me.

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At 98 we all Rotate

Earlier this year I had many WIPs and I’d rotate nightly. That made every project seem to take forever and I abandoned the rotation when I came up against some gift deadlines (aka births). So recently I’ve been working on one project at a time, but you can see my Active Projects list — there’s plenty I want to do. And my stash is growing with yarn for these projects. I actually broke down and bought a couple of new bins to hold it recently. Ack!

I know some people have firm rotation schedules with monthly goals and work their way through them. I think that’s a little too rigid for me, because I can’t plan how much knitting time I’ll have in a month. Nor do I have a good sense for how long a project will take me. But I want to get started on some new projects and make some progress on those that have stagnated. So my new plan is to alternate nights with a primary project and a rotation through my other projects. Of course, this rotation will be flexible to accomodate travel (I’m only bringing one project on a plane!).

Last night, I worked on the Matinee Coat, my current primary project. I finished the back and started on one of the fronts. I’d show you pictures, but I need to resolve some lighting issues in my apartment. When I finish for the night and want to take photos, my apartment is not well-lit enough to do without the flash. And to get close enough to show detail, the flash washes out the knitting (see the photo of the Matinee Coat in my last post). If I leave early enough today, I’ll take some pics before it gets dark.

10 points to whoever names the song I quoted in the title.

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