June 2008

A few weeks ago, I ripped my top-down Memoirs sweater back to the armhole shaping (this included ripping both nearly-finished sleeves) because the armholes were too deep. Then I knitted the body and sleeves again. Last Monday at knitting group, I ripped back because I didn’t start the waist shaping where I was supposed to. I had gotten into a groove and just knitted round and round without paying attention, thus more ripping.

Since then I worked on the body, this time with the waist shaping, and brought the body down to the point at which I need to start the ribbing.  I tried it on and even Mr. MmmYarn agreed it looked rather, uh, bunchy. So I brought the sweater to knitting group again tonight and the ladies agreed the bunchy look was caused by width. Apparently I was under the delusion of having an ample bust when I made my calculations and the too-low armholes hid that fact because the whole thing was weird. This thing has at least 4 inches too much fabric across my chest. I’ll have to try it on once more to see what the back looks like. I was so worked up about the front bunching up that I didn’t bother to look there.

I realize it’s a bulky yarn which will produce a bulky sweater that’s not supposed to be super form-fitting, but I do want it to look nice on me. And I realize this project is meant to be a challenge as it’s my first go at a Barbara Walker set-in sleeve from the top down.

At some point the challenge ceases to be fun. The bunchiness means I’ll be ripping back yet again. All that body, both sleeves once more, and back probably halfway to three-quarters of the way up the armhole shaping so I can figure in the revised width. Once I get the courage to do so. In the meantime, here it is against a different background than last time, just to prove it isn’t the same photo:

The good news is the yarn appears to be holding up well to all this abuse.

This post’s title warrants its exclamation point. And perhaps some trumpet fanfare! The Lily of the Valley shawl is finally done, photographed, and ready to be shown to the world. According to the instructions, there are over 90,000 stitches in this gossamer web:

Pattern: Lily of the Valley by Galina Khmeleva, as published in Knitter’s magazine, Summer 2004
Yarn: 1.25 1000-yard skeins Just Our Yarn Wool Angora, no percentages of content given, item WA0905C10
Needles: size 5
Blocked size: huge (each edge is about 7 feet long)
Started 3/22/2007, grafted the border 8/19/2007, finally blocked 6/8/2008

I broke in my first pair of Addi Turbo Lace needles on this project. The 5-stitch nupps were easy-peasy with the sharp-tipped Addis, especially at the second repeat by which time I had learned to make the increase fairly loose.

Just Our Yarn no longer carries Wool Angora, at least not according to their website. It is very light and the angora content makes the shawl surprisingly warm. I really like that I picked a blue yarn for this one rather than the traditional natural sheep color, but the dye runs terrifically. When I washed the shawl the water was a very bright blue. The lightness is great, except I live in San Francisco, where it is windy a lot. Don’t know if I can actually wear this except maybe on the 2 days a year it’s still. I’m glad I got a shawl pin at Stitches West this past February to hold it in place.

It’s hard to photograph light shawls on the body in summer, with the wind blasting from the Pacific nearly daily, but here’s the blocking photo from a couple of weeks ago again so you can see the border properly:

So, why so long from start to finish? I started swatching Lily in Febuary 2007 but she didn’t get any blog mention until April 1 when I was finally a few inches into the first border strip. I don’t remember swatching taking that long, but by golly, it must have. By the end of May I was struggling with the weirdness at the end. I didn’t realize going into it that the triangular shape makes approximations necessary. From the pattern, verbatim: “Galina estimates that the diagonal should consist of approximately 30% more rows than the body.” The pattern dictates short rows at regular intervals but apparently Knitter’s went for an exactly mathematical 30%.

What happened is that when I was at the last little bit, the three charts were at different places in the pattern repeat with no hope of meeting up. I ended up ripping out and reknitting that little corner 3 or 4 times, then emailed Knitter’s to get their take on things (unfortunately the quick response was unhelpful, as their knitter ended up on completely different rows than I did on all 3 charts), then got out graph paper and tried to make a graceful exit to the whole thing. Lily sat crumpled for weeks at a time, then I’d get her out and fiddle with that last corner. In August I grafted the border as it was but left in my lifelines before the graft in the hope I could figure out the problem. In October I gave up and she sat in a heap on the corner of my desk until 3 weeks ago, when I felt I really had to get that pile of lace off my desk. I tucked in the dangling ends and put her in the water. I will have to turn a blind eye to that one corner. No one else will notice, of course.

Here is one of the two good corners, taken under my new and wonderful Ott-Lite:

Here’s a scary story for all lace knitters out there: Lily went with me to Sonoma two weeks ago and I slung her over my purse handles as Mr. MmmYarn and I walked to The General’s Daughter for dinner. When we got to the restaurant I noticed my purse handles were bare. Uh-oh. I asked Mr. MmmYarn to let the hostess know we were on time for our reservation as I dashed back out and along West Spain Street, looking for a crumpled heap on the sidewalk or in the street, hoping no one had decided she needed a new home. Two-thirds of the way back to our hotel, there she was, lying forlornly in front of a house. Whew! Mr. MmmYarn wasn’t too far behind me and we went back to our dinner. I wore my shawl pin when we walked back.

I found January One’s blog post today interesting, discussing the changes to blogs in general and to knitblogs especially as Ravelry has gotten more popular. In Mmm… Yarn I try to write mostly about knitting and spinning, leaving most personal stories out of the posts unless they are related to the craft. In this post, I count the paragraph above as knitting-related as Lily of the Valley was a key player. But for the most part, I use this as a tool to chronicle the technique details of projects and so far I don’t find Ravelry to be a substitute for that. I like putting my projects in Ravelry (find me there as mmmyarn1) because it brings together all the yarn and project information for easy reference. I especially like browsing other versions of projects I’m working on. But for sharing the details of my works in progress and finished items, and especially for patterns I made up on my own, I still prefer this blog, and usually a WIP or finished item will end up here before it ends up in Ravelry. I guess I mean to say I intend keep Mmm… Yarn around a while longer.

In other knitting news, no Sunday night desperation tonight as the blue slanting yarn over scarf isn’t done. It will take a few more bus rides to finish that one.

Walking from the bus stop to work this morning, I spied a van with intriguing words printed on its side. “Spinning” caught my eye first. Then “Carding.” Woohoo! Then “Rowing.” Uh, wait a second. “Rowing”? Shouldn’t it be “Rooing” if they’re providing wooly services? Well, yes, maybe — if it had been a mobile fiber arts van. A second glance revealed the second word wasn’t “carding,” it was “cardio,” and the van belonged to a local gym. Sheesh, talk about seeing what you want to see. I giggled at myself for at least a block. But really, whenever I see “spinning,” I think yarn, not bicycles.

The bus scarf grows:

Sunday evening’s stash dive did not bring stellar results. When faced with a very short time to pick a project for Monday morning’s bus ride, I end up with something that’s OK, not great. This week’s project, a super simple slanting yarn over scarf made in a mohair and linen blend:

It turns out I can bang out 4 to 5 inches per ride so it will be finished soon. Then the process will start again: ”It’s Sunday night. What will I knit on the bus tomorrow?” Sunday night is a weekly event, yet it never ceases to surprise me.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I was recently on a mission to make some green hats for a family member who requested a hat. She asked for just the one, but I wanted to be sure she had variety so I made four. I finished the last two this week.

First, the special one she had requested, just like the one I made with a red base for our niece earlier this year. This was a style I swore I’d not make again, simply because carrying along the non-stretchy Squiggle is so hard on my hands. But I can’t deny a family member’s special request, so here is the normal hat side:

And the squiggly side:

It doesn’t look too bad on my head although I feel watch caps don’t flatter me:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 1 skein Wolle Roedel Universal Superwash, 100% merino wool, color 849 + 1 skein Crystal Palace Yarns Squiggle, 50% nylon, 50% polyester, color 9291
Needles: size 5
Size: Adult
Started 6/9 and finished 6/19/2008

Since I figured this might be itchy regardless of which side is on the inside, I made an olive green chemo cap out of Berroco Chinchilla, a yarn that’s highly recommended for this type of project. This week I made a second one, slightly smaller and in light sage green:

Pattern: Knit Chemo Cap and Scarf by Berroco, Inc.
Yarn: nearly 1 skein Berroco Chinchilla, 100% rayon, color 5571 (Note: the pattern states 2 skeins, but you need only 1 for the hat. The other skein is for the scarf in the pattern.)
Needles: size 9
Size: about 18″ around and 7.5″ tall
Started 6/18 and finished 6/20/2008

I sent the package off to the recipient on Saturday. Here is a group shot of what she got:

Since my post about the Swirl Cap, my smaller-headed co-worker (uh, a smaller head than mine, I mean) tried it on and it actually stays on her head and fits like a skullcap. On my head it pops right back off again.  I hope the recipient has a smaller head than mine.

I must have been in a bit of a hat groove because I picked up some leftover sock yarn and made a baby hat in what to me looks like camouflage, really “rebel baby” colors.

Pattern: own
Yarn: Regia Stretch Color; 70% wool, 23% nylon, 7% polyester; color 88 (this was leftovers, so probably about half a skein total)
Needles: size 3, working with two strands held together
Size: infant
Started 6/20 and finished 6/21/2008

Why rebel baby? Someone I know gave me that phrase. One time I made some black-based booties and my mom said I was nuts, that no one would want colors like that for a baby, but I had a taker nearly immediately. She had bought a black onesie and wanted booties to go with it for a friend whose baby had a rebel baby wardrobe, no pastels to be seen.

And now? Now I have nothing to knit for tomorrow, so off I go on a stash dive. Wish me luck.

I had made a promise to myself, that even though I could not attend the WWKIP Day event in Union Square in San Francisco, that I’d at least KIP a little on my own. Well, I did not. Mr. MmmYarn and I went away to Sonoma for the weekend and I did not knit once on the trip. We were just too busy. First getting there, then the wine tasting (Mr. MmmYarn volunteered to be chauffeur, which means I had prime conditions for tasting but after we visited two wineries conditions were no longer ideal for maintaining gauge, if you know what I mean, so I didn’t even try), then walking to dinner and a bit more wine, and finally collapsing, exhausted, at 9:45pm in my case. Sunday began at 3:40am. We had to be at the Santa Rosa Airport by 5:00am to meet the hot air ballooning people. Sunrise found us out in a field, with Mr. MmmYarn helping set up the balloon and me watching. The balloon pilot did not welcome extra objects on board the teensy basket so the hat in progress was right out; no knitting in the air photos for me. So, between this, that, and the other thing, there was no knitting.

Tiny basket with no room for knitting:

When we got home yesterday I worked on my green Memoirs sweater and sleeve #2 is just about done, and the green Squiggle hat is nearing completion. A day off was good. No WIP photos as the weather is very grey and windy.

Well, what did you expect? The Squiggle in a green variegated finally arrived and I found a skein of dark green superwash in the stash, so I cast on for another hat for B, who needs some hats. The shade of green is yet another variable (besides head circumference and general style preference as I have mentioned in previous posts), so I thought putting a darker green in the box I will send to her soon was a good idea. Here it is after bus knitting yesterday:

She requested a Squiggle hat, having really liked the red-based one I made for my niece a few months ago, so ordering the yarn was not breaking my current “knit from your stash as much as possible” rule. It is a loose rule… I bought a single skein of pink Kid Merino yesterday (hey, it was on sale) for another frothy scarf with holes.

I found green Fixation, another yarn that’s recommended for chemo caps, in the stash and made an interior-of-an-avocado-colored Swirl Cap:

Pattern: Swirl Cap by Norah Gaughan, published in Vogue Knitting on the Go: Caps & Hats
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Fixation, 98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic, color 5606
Needles: size 5
Size: small
Started June 5 and finished June 8, 2008

Pattern modifications: I left off the i-cord top, simply drawing the tail through the remaining 10 stitches at the end of the knit 2 together round. Also, there is one typo in the pattern: at the end of the “Rnd 43″ instructions, it should be “rnds 44-55,” not “rnds 44-50.”  

The Fixation causes the length to draw in considerably, so this hat is only about 6″ tall, much shorter than I usually make them. The circumference is very flexible and can stretch and narrow to any adult size. My idea is to send a box of 3 or 4 hats in various sizes to the recipient so she can pick what works for her. Her head is smaller than mine, and without hair, she may need a hat this small. Or perhaps she prefers not to cover her ears and this will fit the bill.

I don’t know whether hat #1 fits because I was given the wrong address and the package came back. I have the right address now but I’m going to hold this package another week to give myself time to make two more hats before I send it on its way again.

I also did a little something else today:

“Hey, remember me?”

The bright blue socks are done. After all the unraveling and reknitting, and I really and truly did not have enough yarn to finish the toes the first time around, I have a bit of JitterBug left over:

Go figure. Anyway, I like these a lot. JitterBug’s color variegation obscures the Railway Stitch pattern a little, but I enjoyed making them and found they were worth the effort.

They fit Mr. MmmYarn perfectly:

Pattern: Gentleman’s Sock in Railway Stitch by Nancy Bush, published in Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: 1 skein Colinette JitterBug, 100% superwash wool, color 16
Needles: size 1
Started May 16, 2008 and finished June 4, 2008

This is the first pattern I have used in Knitting Vintage Socks. I like how the pattern is written. Some sock patterns use the numbered needle system, giving all instructions in relation to needle #1, #2, and #3 (and sometimes #4). I don’t number my needles so I find those kinds of instructions bewildering. This pattern uses the “work x number of stitches” approach which is what makes sense to me.

The instructions call for 81 stitches for the cuff and some leg decreases. After three starts, I reduced the enormously huge cuff to only 63 stitches, then decreased down to 60 for the leg. I had initially worked the pattern’s leg shaping in the first sock but that made the leg way too tight, so I ripped back to the cuff and made the leg without the shaping. I used my usual knit 1, slip 1 heel and ended up working the foot on 60 stitches. Hey, whatever it takes to make the socks fit the recipient properly.

This week’s spinning fiber was one ounce of merino sliver. I generically refer to all my fiber as “roving,” but since this fiber was specifically labeled “sliver” I thought I’d try to pay attention to its preparation back when I first picked it up. I found an article in the Winter 2007 issue of Spin-Off magazine that discusses the differences between different fiber preparations.

The article says sliver is thinner than roving and, unlike roving, has no twist to it. Yes, I can confirm both of those with this merino, but I thought it was thinner simply because it’s only 1 ounce of fiber and I usually work with 2 ounces or more. This was far thicker in sliver form than the 1-ounce bits of pygora I spun up a few months ago. The fiber was very soft and easy to draft but I found it harder to spin evenly than the merino-silk blend and English Wensleydale Longwool I spun recently. In this case, it may have needed some pre-drafting (I very rarely do that, preferring instead to simply treadle and go). So I went for a more rustic-looking 2-ply yarn:

Fiber: Merino sliver
Colorway: none (undyed)
Supplier: friend of a friend
Quantity: 1 ounce
Finished yarn: 1 skein, 2-ply, 121 yards, 12 wpi (= double knitting)
Spun at 15:1 and plied at 17:1

I had been having no end of problems with Ravelry lately. It caused my computer to run out of resources very quickly and slowed everything else down considerably. I was also unable to link to old blog posts. Then Mr. MmmYarn suggested I try another browser. So, fellow Ravelers, if you, too, are using Internet Explorer 7 on a Windows XP computer that’s 4 to 5 years old, I recommend you try Ravelry in Firefox. What a world of difference!

In knitting news, Mr. MmmYarn’s socks are finished but not photographed so you’ll need to wait to see those. Perhaps I can get him to foot model up on the roof tomorrow after work. I am also working on a second hat for the family member who needs some hats. And Lily of the Valley (remember her?) sits in a crumpled blue heap in a corner of my desk, looking at me reproachfully for having done everything but tuck in 2 tail ends and block her after all these months. My hope is that by mentioning it here I will be guilted into taking action this weekend. Wait and see.