I’m going to make a stocking cap. Don’t know which color scheme to use. Here are a few swatches I made up. Any suggestions? (sorry about the color, I don’t have very good lighting. But the green is “christmas green” and the red “christmas red”)
And because I promised photos, here’s 3 of my santa jacket ornaments. They still need bead buttons. And there’s one more to make.
I finished one of the Squiggles sleeves and it’s too long. This probably wouldn’t be a problem, except that my mother already expressed concern about long sleeves (she has short arms). So I stopped one increase row before I should have and bound off. Then I realized that I needed the last increase row to make the join match perfectly. D’oh! So I started the second sleeve using the instructions for the next size larger. That should make a shorter length ending with the right stitch count. We’ll see. If this works, I’ll frog the other back.
And the body pieces for Marcel’s dried. And I think that the front, albeit the tighter gauge, needs re-doing. The stitch definition improves as the yarn dries, so the back looks fine now, and it laid nicely on me when I held it up. To make sure I’ve washed and blocked the sleeves. They’re also in the looser gauge. Time to pull out some bigger needles and frog, frog, frog.
But to feel like I made some progress, I worked two more santa jacket ornaments. They just need bead buttons and a touch of embroidering (date). And I found some cute brass hangars at Patternworks to complete them. I better go place that order if I want it anytime soon. Pictures later.
Noting that today would mark one year since I started Marcel’s sweater, I pushed hard the last few days to finish principal knitting on the one remaining piece, the front. And I did. Pulling out the back, I noticed two things: 1) due to the stitch pattern, both pieces tend to warp to the left and 2) the back was a slightly larger gauge than the front.
I figured blocking would help, so I pulled out the board and soaked each piece. Well, the quick wash relaxed the yarn quite a bit. The warp is totally gone. The front, which was a little smaller than called for, ended up nearly perfectly sized. The back, however. Well, it grew quite a bit. And the stitch pattern is nice and crisp and well-defined in the front piece, but is looser and less impressive in the back piece.
I’m going to wait for it to dry before I make a decision, but I’m fearing I’ll have to frog the back and redo it. I think I’ll have to block the sleeves before I decide completely. I could probably make it work as is, but I think it would end up sagging wrong and that I’d always be a little disappointed with it. How frustrating this is. I guess it serves me right for not washing my swatch to see what the yarn would do and also for not focusing on one project at a time to preserve my gauge. Useful lessons, but painful and disappointing nevertheless.
I made it back from Paris without any yarn, but with a suitcase full of chocolate. Many Kinder Eggs, super cheap, super yummy Kinder Buenos, and some other assorted items. At the store where we bought the Eggs and Buenos, Scott watched me load up the basket and then remarked “France called, they’re out of Kinder”.
Avoiding yarn was harder than it sounds. I encountered a few more yarn stores, including discovering a Phildar store mere blocks from my hotel. Further, it seems that department stores in France have a floor more than they do in the U.S., and that floor is filled with nothing but crafts. Oil paints, scrapbooking, rubber stamps, embroidery and cross-stitch, beads, ribbon, and oh yes, yarn. After chancing upon this floor at Samaritaine (which also contains books and CDs!), I sought it out at Le Bon Marche, Galleries Lafayette, and Le Printemps. Fascinating. There wasn’t a lot of depth to any of the craft sections (okay, the DMC selection at Galleries Lafayette was mind-blowing), but how convenient would it be to just run out to Macy’s if you had a craft emergency?
I also encountered yarn every time I rode the Metro:
It’s an ad for a clothing store chain. The caption on the left says “Low price”. The caption on the right says “Low price, everything included”. I leave it up to the reader to decide whether it actually is more cost effective to buy the yarn instead of the finished sweater.
While I didn’t buy any yarn, I did knit. And here is my progress.
During evening breaks watching CNN Europe, I finished the body of the Squiggles sweater:
And during my flight home I started the first sleeve. It’s about halfway finished:
For those of you who are interested in the non-knitting portions of my trip, the details can be found in my LiveJournal.
A quick check-in from Paris: I’ve found a couple of yarn stores. I was very good and didn’t go in (Phildar) or didn’t touch (wonderous place that also sold beads, ribbon, and buttons). But I think I’m going to keep my suitcase available for the hundreds of Kinder eggs I’m going to try to bring back. I can always buy yarn at home!
I worked on the Squiggles sweater on the plane and in the airport this week. I’m well, past the 2nd armhole, almost to the last dark green portion and the neck shaping. Only about 50 more rows until bind off. I was hoping to have finished it by now, but as it turned out, I didn’t get any evening knitting time on this trip.
However, it is going to France with me tonight. I fully expect to be into the sleeves by the time I come back. And then I can tell my mom it’s an international sweater.
I’ll be gone for a little over a week, just in case you miss me.
Nothing but sure and steady progress this week. A week that just flew by with no time to sit and write about it.
I realized that it’s now November, so I need to make progress on my holiday ornaments, especially as I will be travelling a lot over the next two months. So I started on #2. Here’s the back and most of the two fronts (I need to do the button bands):
I made a little more progress on Marcel. I thought I might finish it before a year of working on it was up. Not gonna happen. I’m very close. But I’m to the point where I have to pay attention because soon I’m going to have to shape the neck. So it’s no good as a mindless travel project anymore. Here’s where it is now, you can see that I’ve started shaping the armholes:
And I’m really booking on the Squiggles sweater. At this point, it’s all seed stitch and row counting. I’m now working on the 2nd armhole. It’s been nothing but a ball in my lap for so long, that laying it out for the photo was really striking. It’s gonna be a real sweater:
Today I could have gotten a lot more knitting done. Especially some of the things that needed a little more concentration. But a friend was visiting and she needed some sewing help. So we spent the day at my machine. And what did we make? Fleece and flannel hammocks for her pet rats (she has a lot of them). I didn’t get any photos before she left, but she promises to send some once she’s installed them in cages.
Okay, time for bed. I’m off to L.A. in a few hours. I’m bringing Squiggles along.
Mermaid Jacket
Odessa Hat 
ZigZag Sweater
Twisty Baby Set
Miss Dashwood
Clapotis (Mixed Berries)
Tychus
