March 2010

I took today off work to try to regroup a bit mentally and found it’s actually warm outside. So I went for a short walk in the park and it felt so strange to not need a sweater or jacket. While I was out, I noticed a lot of green on the other folks out and about. All the kids in a large school group outside the Conservatory of Flowers were wearing shamrocks. Aha, mystery solved. I had completely forgotten today is St. Patrick’s Day. I did not wear green but last night’s and this morning’s knitting were a swatch for the Colette Cardigan [Ravelry link] with the Brooks Farm Four Play:

Dark and horrible photo despite the sunshine streaming in. Yarn is quite lovely in real life.

See, you don’t need to pinch me, it’s green! It’s also a nice, big swatch. I optimistically cast on the entire width of the back and worked the first 6 inches so I could see what the yarn does. It goes so quickly on size 8 needles; my other current projects are on sizes 1 and 4. Since it’s warm inside, too, (75 degrees!) I washed the swatch and am letting it dry to see what the blocked gauge is. It will probably actually dry today instead of in 4 or 5 days. While I wait for that, I set up my Excel worksheet that will recalculate all the numbers in the pattern. All I have to do once it’s dry is to re-measure, then stick my stitch gauge in cell C12 and my row gauge in cell D12 and I’ll have my calculations all the way through. I just hope I have enough yarn for this one.

Speaking of enough yarn, I most certainly do NOT have enough to magic a baby blanket out of the Creatively Dyed Yarn Fatima. This is what I have:

It’s 36″ wide, about standard width for a baby blanket. But only 5″ tall with the current tier unfinished and I stuck the remaining yarn on the scale and learned I have used over a third of it already. Unless someone near and dear delivers a baby snake (unlikely, right?), this isn’t going to work. I also don’t want to buy 4 more balls of this yarn because I don’t want to make a $200 blanket. Back to the drawing board. The yarn is wonderful, so perhaps a little kimono-style cardigan.

Socks are coming along slowly, with lots of cursing as I re-knit the heel of sock one 3 times trying to get it the right width to fit me:

I stuck my name in an online anagram generator a long time ago and learned my first name rearranges to spell REKNITS. Fitting, isn’t it? I guess I was destined to be a perfectionist knitter.

I went to Stitches West last weekend after all. For a few weeks I wasn’t sure whether I would actually go. This was my first big non-family social event since Mr. MmmYarn died and I was oddly nervous, so nervous that I had lots of trouble sleeping for nearly 3 weeks and sometimes even had panic attacks at the thought of going. I did, however, pre-pay for my Friday class and saved up the cash to go and filled out a pink form for using a vacation day, all well in advance, providing great incentive. So I packed up my suitcase Thursday night and told myself no backing out.

For as much shopping time as I had, I didn’t get much loot. Friday I was in class all day except for the lunch break, during which I dropped off my donation for Afghans for Afghans and met up with a few friends in the Market and ate lunch with another friend. There wasn’t time for buying yarn.

Class was good. I took Lapland Hand Garments with Susanna Hansson. Here is a preview of what I made in class, one worsted-weight practice wristlet in the traditional colors for Rovaniemi mittens that I will probably use as a tea glass cozy and the actual wristlet on size US 00 needles, still in progress:

Friday evening after the Market closed I headed to my friend’s house in San Jose. Other friends of ours came up from San Luis Obispo and we all went out to dinner, then had an evening of knitting before hitting the hay.

Saturday we spent all day in the Market. And I was so very good with all that temptation. I go with the cash-in-an-envelope method, to avoid the late March shock of a big Visa bill. Saturday night was wild and crazy: giant salad for dinner plus red wine and chocolate, followed by knitting. Sunday I went for the 1pm drawing (didn’t win) and bought a little more yarn.

So this is it, the 2010 pile of loot:

Click for big.

You’ll notice the complete absence of spinning fiber. While I saw lots that was simply gorgeous, I don’t spin much right now. Instead, I went at little nuts at the Creatively Dyed Yarns booth and bought 6 skeins (pictured top center and bottom right) with the intent of making 2 baby blankets. The first is underway, pictured here on top of a washer at the Laundromat Monday night:

And I also got some great shawl pins that I want to use after I make White Lies Designs’ Colette Cardigan with the green Brooks Farm yarn pictured in the upper left corner.

All in all, a good time.

Today I went to the California Academy of Sciences to admire the butterflies, fish, various sea creatures, albino alligator (who yawned — what a big mouth he has!), and penguins. Then I went out to lunch alone for the first time. I brought a book and went to Jannah, a Middle Eastern restaurant. It’s very good — if you live here, I recommend it highly. I had dolmas and a pizza with little hunks of sausage on it. My one quibble is the music. I suppose if you’re dining with at least one other person and therefore conversing you don’t notice it’s the same song played on a 45-second loop. Dining alone, it’s annoying. And I’m not kidding about the loop: I timed it.

Last week, before I went to Stitches West (more on that in a later post), I sent a small cardboard box off to our 3-year-old niece. I initially was going to send only the sweater but decided to put Gwendolyn in there as well. Remember Gwendolyn?

Here she is, waving good-bye:

She apparently transformed during her travels and is now Mr. Hippopotamus Guy. I heard from our niece’s mother Tuesday who said our niece loved the hippo but did immediately take off the tutu and say it’s a boy. Darn, and I thought I had that one right. How embarrassing, both for me and for the now male hippo. The sofa is lonely without its purple adornment (s/he has been watching TV with me for months).

Same niece also finally got her sweater. This should have been her birthday sweater, and I was right on track with getting it done by the end of October… or maybe a week later. Then I watched as I came close to running out of yarn. True to form, I slowed down; my brain always thinks knitting more slowly will make the problem not happen. What happens is it’s a problem less quickly. How that’s supposed to be better, I don’t know. There really is nothing like delaying the inevitable, right? In December, I admitted defeat. Here’s what I had right before frogging:

So I went yarn shopping: found lots of not-quite-right colors and one fantastic Baby Ull match that was about half the thickness I needed. I left the sleeves as they were, unraveled the body back down to the hem, changed my body pattern to plain stockinette, and knitted 4 rounds with the Tess’ yarn and 1 round with the Baby Ull held doubled for the body and the yoke. It blended well.

Pattern: own
Yarn: Tess’ Designer Yarns Superwash Merino, 100% superwash wool; Dale of Norway Baby Ull, 100% superwash wool, color 4536 (fuchsia), held doubled
Needles: US size 3 and 4
Size: made for a 4-year-old; currently fits a 3-year-old
Started 10/12/2009 and finished 2/20/2010

Her mom posted modeled photos to Flickr on Thursday and I’m so happy to say the sweater fits her. In my opinion, the neckline is a little too high in the photos so next time I’ll make it lower. No need to give a kid what’s practically a stand-up Victorian collar. However, she looks good in it with the placket buttons opened.