Needles & hooks

It’s all in the details.

I’m in still in the middle of doing a lot of page proofing at work, but some friends invited me down to NYC for a day. I decided I could go as long as I took the train and worked on my proofs instead of driving. And since it is just the page proofing, I decided I needed a knitting project to bring with me. Since most of the ones I have in my WIP pile were rather large or required me to pay attention, it was time to start something new.

In the new Vogue Knitting, Meg Swansen presents a baby cardigan that she found in her mother’s journals. Called EZ’s Surplice Baby Jacket, it’s a similar idea to the Baby Surprise Jacket. I had some yarn from my recent safaris that I’d chosen for a baby cardigan, so I was all set. However, starting to follow the pattern, I was reminded why I don’t like Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns.

Now, she’s got some innovative construction techniques and creative ideas, but she’s a lousy pattern writer. I realized that the problem is that she wasn’t detail-oriented. I know her philosophy is that you can just sort of go with the flow in knitting, fudge here and there, and it will all work out. Problem is, that’s great if you have a command of your craft and understand how to fudge to get good results. You need to be confident in what you are doing. If you aren’t, if you’re a novice or someone who just isn’t able to read their knitting, it’s a recipe for tears and frustration. You need a lot of set points to tell you if you are doing it right.

Fortunately, I have a good command of knitting techniques and I do pay attention to details. So here I’ll give you a short list of things to know about this pattern. I’m sure it will grow longer and into it’s own small page by the time I’m finished.

• There yarn requirements don’t give you any measure of yardage. Can’t subsitute easily. I’m winging it, I’ll tell you how much it takes when I’m done.
• The pattern is all garter-stitch, so it talks about ridges instead of rows, where a ridge is 2 rows. But the first few times it gives you a ridge count, it puts a row count in parentheses. Couple this with the initial instructions for two sizes with the second stitch count also in parentheses, you’re left potentially making the mistake of knitting fewer rows for the smaller size, thinking the parenthetical row count was for the larger size. Know that you knit the same number of rows for both sizes (so far as I’ve gotten).

I’m also confused about the language used for two increase options. I’ll have to google “running-thread” increase. Because I’ve never heard of it before.

Comments: 6 — Posted under: Uncategorized

Whee!

My Breast Cancer Stash Sale is going incredibly well! So far, I’ve shipped off a bunch of packages and earned $334.00 toward my 3-Day Walk! Thank you all!

At this rate, I might have to increase my fundraising goal.

I updated the page to remove everything that has been paid for and shipped. There are still a number of good things up for grabs, including older magazines and Opal sock yarns. Take a look! If you are interested in something, but would prefer PayPal instead of donating directly to the site, let me know and we’ll work something out.

Comments: 2 — Posted under: Almost Random, Retail Therapy, 3-Day Walk

Stash Sale Now Open!

All money goes to the Breast Cancer 3-Day.

Get your credit card ready and click here!

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Almost Random, Retail Therapy

Living the dream

Today I knit while working.

I working on a very large report. And some of it is at the point where I’m reviewing page proofs. So, I carefully read a bunch of pages and lift a pen occasionally to mark something. I also had a simple stockinette-in-the-round project with me, so I figured, what the hell. I pulled it out and knit while I was proofing. A few people came into my office about other parts of the report while I was doing it. No one said a word. Sadly, tomorrow I’ll have to do a lot more interactive editing, so probably won’t get a chance to knit because I’ll be too busy typing. Oh well, fun while it lasted.

Also, I wanted to let you all know that my stash sale will start tomorrow at 3pm, EST. I’ve got 38 different things that are looking for new homes and all the money goes to benefit my 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk. You don’t pay me, you pay them! So you get fiber goodies and a tax donation all in one! Don’t forget to look early before all the good stuff goes!

Comments: 3 — Posted under: Almost Random

Life gets in the way

This month I had intended to post every day. And I made a good show of it until Friday. When I spent all day and a good chunk of the evening working, and I didn’t have anything stored up I could post about and I didn’t feel it was right to post “Sorry, no knitting here” just to mark off that day in the calendar.

And yesterday was mostly devoted to working on the divorce. The NEH (nearly ex-husband) came over and we worked on practical things. Like taxes, and divorce paperwork, and separating accounts, and all those other 1-becomes-2 things. At some point, he said “so, I get half your yarn”. And I replied with “okay, I’ll trade you for half your beer” (he’s a home brewer). We decided it was a fair trade.

I also spent an hour+ dealing with the cruel joke of a snow storm we got. Last Wednesday it was nearly 60 degrees. And the small pile of snow that lived at the edge of my driveway finally melted and I covered the lawn with lime and fertilizer and new grass seed. Then Friday dumped 6 inches on us followed by rain. While NEH worked on the taxes, me and my tiny little gerbil-powered snowblower pushed our way through all that wet/icy snow (also a fair trade, I think). My driveway goes up a hill (basement garage), and at the very top was the worst where the city plows piled up the ick. As I was attacking that with a shovel, my neighbor flagged down a roaming plow truck and paid the guy $30 to scoop out her car. As he was turning the truck around for another pass at her house, he pulled up next to me. I told him I was okay, I was almost finished. He said he’d clean it up for me “A present for the red-haired girl on St. Patrick’s day”. How could I argue with that?

So anyway, a day that was long and productive. And mostly non-emotional. And really, all about becoming Me again. But by 8pm, I was more than ready to sit and stitch. So I worked My sister’s geisha wrap with My yarn on his couch (he gets that), watching My Tivo with My cat. And I crawled into My bed around midnight, not having posted to My blog at all. So, this makes up for it some.

Comments: 3 — Posted under: Almost Random

Vogue’s Knitting Book 8th Edition, 1947

This issue starts out with a strong cover:

That’s a ribbed sweater knit sideways, sleeve to sleeve, so that the ribs are actually alternating bands of stockinette and reverse stockinette. Knit in only 2 pieces, it includes shoulder and torso shaping and I think it would still be cute today.

There were a couple of other things that I thought were cute. This is a simple stockinette sweater. I really like the half stripes.

And here are a couple of evening wear items. Both include sequins and beads sewn onto the piece during finishing.

This issue also contained its share of knitted horrors. This dress would have been perfectly nice. But they had to go and sew on those diagonal ruffles.

On the top of this page is a “crocheted bed-jacket with bow and softly ruffled edges”. No comment. At the bottom is a knitted one-piece bathing suit. That no one would ever wear in water.

No close-up of this page, because really, I want to spare you. In the middle, item #30, that’s an outfit with knitted shorts. And item #31? That woman is covering her ears to try to block out the loud intarsia roosters near her neck.

Moving on to the advertising. This is an ad for Lion Brand yarns. “Quality since 1870…At better stores everywhere”. I’ll let the yarn snobs and the big box store reverse-snobs fight this one out in their own heads.

I found this one interesting. “Easy to make beautiful rugs from old clothing”. You know those “knit a purse with fabric strips” kits? This is its predecessor. Use the “texing” needle to weave torn or bias cut strips of material into a “richly thick reversible rug”.

Rug making was also a family activity. At first, I thought this a was a father-daugther project. Then I realized they could be a married couple. Raise your hand if your man would make a rug with you!

This really is a mother-daughter project. Or maybe it’s a woman her Mini-me.

You thought it was bad when your cat or dog got into your stash….

And this one just makes me smile.

Comments: 4 — Posted under: Vintage Magazines

Mermaid Finalized

As I showed you last night, Mermaid is all finished. Today, I polished up and finalized the spreadsheet. If you received the spreadsheet from me in the past and didn’t get an update today, please e-mail me. Some e-mail addresses came back undeliverable, etc. The current version of the spreadsheet is 2.0. If you don’t have that one, you need an update! If you’re just now learning there is a row-by-row spreadsheet for the Hanne Falkenberg Mermaid, click here to learn how to get a copy.

I have about a ball left of each of my yarns, and I saw Hanne’s Stella Hat today. I think I might have to order the kit so I can get the pattern to use with my leftovers. There has to be term for when you buy a kit and don’t want the yarn…

Comments: 1 — Posted under: Uncategorized

Anticlimax

It needs to be blocked. But it needs no more knitting. It took me a year, but it’s done. Now, I’m off to finalize the spreadsheet!

Comments: 11 — Posted under: Knitting, Mermaid

Opinions needed!

I’ve signed up to walk the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. It’s a 60-mile walk over 3 days, and this year I’ll be walking in San Diego in November. This is my 3rd year participating and I have to do a bit of fundraising. There will be a number of ways you can help, including a stash sale that I’ll be launching shortly and a pledge drive with prizes that I’ll announce later on.

But first I need to know what to do with some of the pink novelty yarn in my stash.

I have a variety of balls I got in a pink grab bag once. I intended to do something with them for my 2005 3-Day walk but didn’t get around to it. So I still have them. Think I should offer them up in the stash sale? Think I should make boa-like scarves with them and offer those as incentives somehow? Got any other ideas? I’m all ears. Or eyes as the case might be…

Comments: 3 — Posted under: Almost Random

Where do I claim my yarn expenses?

So, I’ve spent most of tonight going through divorce paperwork. We’re using an online service to complete most of it, and we agree on everything and there’s no support issues, so we thought it would be straightforward. And then it turns out, that our income level puts us in a category where we have to complete the Long Form of the Financial Statement. So instead of just asking how much you each make and what your retirement accounts are and such, it wants me to fill out a freaking weekly budget! How much do I spent per week on “food”, and “toiletries”, and “laundry”, and “lottery tickets”. I’ve flipped through all 7 pages and don’t see a specific entry for yarn. Is that “vacation” or “entertainment”?

Anyway, no time for making new stitches tonight. So I’m showing you the Geisha Wrap:

And a close-up:

I didn’t drag the Ott-Lite downstairs, so the shots are a little muted. There’s 4 repeats there, 1.5 of which I did last night. It’s 20 inches long now, it’s supposed to be about 52″. I might make it a little longer than that. So, I have a few more repeats to go.

Comments: 3 — Posted under: Knitting, Absurd