Moth Heaven

Crossing the Continental Divide, and a Meme you need

In my second attempt, I have passed that point in the Celtic Dreams, the point, which you may recall, that I had reached in my first attempt before I knew it was going to be too small.  When you face the music (or in this case the stitches), and rip it out, you need to do it and then put it down, go to bed, or knit something else for awhile to make a little amnesia space for yourself.  Get over it. Forget it. Move on.  And then when you go back, it doesn't feel like such an obstacle.  You start, in the word of cosmetic counter ladies pushing strawberry scrub the country over, anew. You should never rip and begin in the same session because it leaves a bruise, and it takes longer to heal than if you just take the hit and walk away.  But even then, a fresh start doesn't exactly erase the memory of where you've been, so when you pass the point, that point where you were when you had that terrible realization before, there is a moment of celebration, like crossing the Continental Divide.  Yippee, you say, and keep knitting because from here, it's all downhill. Gravity is again your friend.

Still here?  I'm jumping on the Modern Laguage Association meme wagon here that I picked up from Cate.  Wanna play?  Scott Eric Kaufmann, a graduate student presenting a paper on blog memes at the MLA convference, a very big annual deal, and I feel for the guy, having been there and done that and knowing what his butterlies must be like, I want to help. And for my purposes, I think we knitbloggers should participate in his data gathering for our own credibility.  I think we have to join in here, especially since we are so often as knitbloggers left out of any reporting about blogs.  We confound them, being personal, being interested in something like wool, being the big happy virtual 24/7/365 party that we are.  So take this meme and post it, pass it along, and rack up that jolly grad student's numbers and help him out. Here's what to do.

1. Write a post linking to Scott in which you explain the experiment.  (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)
2. Ask your readers to do the same.  Beg them.  Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances.
   
3. Ping Technorati.

Go get 'em.

Do Over

I worked on Celtic Dreams for four days, knit the darling little saddle patches, picked up the perfect number of stitches across the back, and set up the cable rows.  I paused in my knitting only to measure and hold it up against my chest.  It was a compelling few days before I realized that the elaborate cables were pulling the fabric in more and more as I progressed through a few repeats, and as I approached the 10" mark where the pattern says to stop and wait for the front to catch up before joining in the round, I knew that what I was knitting was a too-small sweater. 

This is the part of knitting that makes it a challenge.  The dispiriting moment when you know that four days of knitting is going to be sucked back into the ball winder and you must start again.
Sadly I can't find the ball winder.  It is on the list of things currently AWOL in my house, along with a Hotwheels truck known as Brutus, any gloves that fit the Mister, and the nutmeg. So the proper calculation of where I am on the yarn requirements will have to wait, and in the meantime I knit the same piece again, sizing up both the needles and the stitch count, in faith that there will be enough.

MonoMeme

Borrowed from Kathy.

I really have enjoyed reading others' version of this so I thought perhaps I could post one myself without making the blog impatient with me.

1. Yourself: better
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): Virgo
3. Your hair: trouble
4. Your mother: Republican
5. Your Father: deceased
6. Your Favorite Item: Martin
7. Your dream last night: Mondrian
8. Your Favorite drink: Sauvignon
9. Your Dream Car: hydrogen
10. The room you are in: kitchen
11. Your Ex: musician
12. Your fear: flying
13. What you want to be in 10 years? accomplished
14. Who you hung out with last night? family
15. What You're Not? mousey
16. Muffins: blueberry
17. One of Your Wish List Items: Peace
18. Time: insufficient
19. The Last Thing You Did: C4B
20. What You Are Wearing: jeans
21. Your Favorite Weather: windy
22. Your Favorite Book: Roth
23. The Last Thing You Ate: Shreddies
24. Your Life: full
25. Your Mood: anxious
26. Your best friend: husband
27. What are you thinking about right now? Thanksgiving
28. Your car: anonymous
29. What are you doing at the moment? coffee
30. Your summer: unproductive
31. Your relationship status: devoted
32. What is on your TV? Gallactica
33. What is the weather like? calm
34. When is the last time you laughed? today

Buttons, as Planned

Knitter's Log, Thanksgiving Day, 2006: I did make it out into the world, or at least to the nearest Jo-ann Fabrics, Tuesday.  There weren't many options.  My local Jo-ann's is a half-size store so no matter what it is that I'm looking for, I can be certain that they will have half the number I need, what I need but in a different colour, be fresh out of it, or never heard of it at all.  And yet, I continue to go there, like the lobotomized lab rat crafter that I am. 

But they did have six of each of these toggle-y things, in natural and ebony.  And I dug the venetian tile buttons out of a forgotten drawer in the stash. I thought a lot about it, consulted Terry and Sue and Alpaca Kathy, and decided to use the ebony ones. I know, I didn't even ask you, did I?  My bad.  And furthermore, I liked how the buttons looked paired together like that on the cards I thought they'd look cute on the sweater the same way, paired together in three spots around the opening.  I could be sewing them on right now if I wasn't posting to the blog. 

I have a house full of kids and relatives and room for others showing up later, but now everyone is still asleep, gathering their energies for a day of sitting in front of the television set while the Mister and I cook Thanksgiving Dinner. I could be sewing.   I could be putting in a few rows on Celtic Dreams.  I could be polishing my Great Grandmother's silver.  I could be doing a lot of things besides writing this..  Maybe I should.  If today's a day for feasting at your house, have a grand one, and if it's just any other day of the week, be grateful for the mess you won't have made of your kitchen by this evening.

That Ditch the Stitch Makes

I had quite a weekend furiously seaming away on the Sunrise Circle Jacket.  It takes a lot of time and eyesight to mattress stitch raglan edges together perfectly, because you know this isn't any old seam, and when you're six feet tall like I used to be am, that seam is right at eye-level with any potentially gap-happy seam fascists you might find yourself sharing the sidewalk with.  So I daren't skimp on the stitches.  And speaking of the skimp, I discovered  that the facing, which is so clever and gives even a worsted version of this design some structure, that the facing can quickly create what is to my eye a ditch around the outer edge if you use too many stitches to hold it together.  I know I may be among the last blogger to make this, but in case anyone is asking, I highly recommend for an invisible line to use as few stitches as possible in the sewing down, maybe every second or third stitch, and don't pull the sewing yarn too tightly.  Otherwise you end up with a fat tube around the curve instead of a nice flat and elegant edge.  I kept having to un-sew (what is the sewing equivalent of frogging, pray tell?) six inches at a time because I thought the line was too obvious.  You can still see it a bit where the seam line becomes the break line up around the collar.  It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but I am content with the results. Other knitters have made versions that celebrate the line, and I mean to affront to their decision to do so.  I just wanted mine to be this way. Oh, and Tahki Donegal Tweed colour 880 is the yarn for those of you who care to know.

As of two o'clock Monday afternoon I had it all lashed together and sewn down and buttoned . . .  no wait.  Buttons?  Damn.  Knew I forgot something.  Ah, you think, as intimate with my boastings of the button stash as you are, that should be a matter of opening up the box. But no.  This sweater defies the stash, so shopping it will have to be.  It's a temptation, but I shall be strong. Only one set of buttons.  Maybe two, in case there's choice.  But definitely no more than three.

So now it's time for casting on!  As promised to Risa and Cheryl, who claim to want to knit this along with me,  I cast on Monday for Celtic Dreams. Is there anyone else out there who wants to play along in our very unofficial KAL?   And for the record, I'm using Blackwater Abbey worsted in the colour Chestnut, a rich brown with a touch of red in it. Red.  Hm.  I think there's a theme emerging here.  Maybe the year of pink and orange is over.

Good Things the Mailman Brings

The mail brought me goodies this week.

A yarn swap with Sam for more of the Stash Ghost yarn so that now I have enough yarn (and courage) to cast on for the sweater idea I have for it.  I'll show the blog what I'm thinking soon. So generous was Sam in her offer to send me her yarn, she even took what she was knitting off the needles to send it my way.  And when I opened the package and took out the yarn, there was also one of her little critters to put a huge smile on my face.  I have to hide him from the boy because a mom does need to have some sweet little guys of her own.  And The Boy would only make it some cross country cargo on his Lionel express.  I must protest: handmade softies do not hop trains.

And then I got the colour cards from the yarn company responsible for the yarn that made Cassie's Celtic Dreams so very, uh, dreamy.  I'm not wild about the colours myself, but the yarn.. the yarn!  I think I may order the natural and embark on a dye odyssey.

And then came this, a loan from a friend who read right here in the blog of my desire to lay eyes on the Grail.  At once began the palpitations when I beheld the design named Golden Gate.

And then The Mister came home from the North Fork of Long Island and made me two rainbow dinners out of the CSA bounty he found there.   I heart roast purple cauliflower. And a man who cooks.

Knitting? you say. I'm so glad you ask, and with a genuine interest, unlike the tone my husband's friends have adopted lately when they inquire after me. There is a creeping suspition among them I think, that the knitting and me, we may be a little, well, not quite normal.  But you understand, so with you I share the details.  I have raced through as quickly as my stockinette-weary hands can manage and I'm now impatiently grindiing through the raglan decreases  With any luck timewise and a little diligence, I'll have a new sweater to wear this weekend. The darts?  They are fun. From now on, all the sweaters?  They get darts.

 

Red Things

It's been a dismal several days here, with the Mister gone and the boy on the couch.  I played catch with The Boy's stomach contents for most of Saturday, and I had a perfect score. All gone by Sunday, so I can say such things out loud and not incur a gotcha from Murphy's Law Goblin.

The leaves are off the maples now; the beeches hold on, and the oaks, well, they always are the last to go.  But vivid colour on the grand scae has officially left the landscape, and we have only the sapphire blue of deep winter skies to look forward to.  It is now the season of red sweaters and orange socks. 

I have several colour intensive projects ready to go, and there will be dyeing. A bucket of poke berries picked in the bird field waits on the back porch for a day of heedless energy to turn something from the stash a not necessarily light-fast purple.  The colour they stained my fingers would make a lovely yarn.  And I have an Earthues sampler I bought from Botanical Shades at Rhinebeck for other winter afternoon experiments.

A skein of fearlessly red sock yarn arrived in the mail from Deb as a prize from the Red Sweater KAL.  I had forgotten it was on its way, so it was a charming surprise.  It's a little less orange-a-red in person, exactly the colour red my Clover  kacha kacha row clicker is, and I love the way the yarn feels.  I think I want more of  Deb's sock yarn given how springy and soft is this skein.

Which is all to say that I'm ready for a red sweater, aren't you?  The fronts are done on Sunrise Circle.  Given the season and how Pagan the early darkness and the turn of the Autumn weather makes me feel, I love the name of this sweater.  It makes me feel like greeting the Four Directions every time I say it out loud.

Cables on the Brain

I can't stop wanting to be knitting cables. Irish Moss was such a success that I want more.

I am dutifully sticking to the Sunrise Circle which is -- granted -- terrifically amusing.  I realize that I actually get things finished if I stay with them, and really, this one will probably take me only a couple of weeks.  I can wait that long while I plot a cable project. And plotting I am.

I own a few Starmore books: Aran Knitting, Stillwater, Fisherman's Sweaters, Children's Collection, and Fair Isle Knitting.  I would really like to have Pacific Coast Highway but it's inaccessible price wise, currently trading on ebay for $250 or -- get a load of this one. Why does she not have these books reissued? She is so diligent about copyright, I don't understand why she sits by while other people trade her books at such high prices.  I don't suggest that she let loose a litigious volley in the direction of ebay, I think fresh copies on the market would solve a lot of the problems and make, rather than cost, her some money. But the cabels.  Ah, I love the cables. I am pouring over the Starmores.  I believe I can actually knit them now.  Amazing what having finished one does for a knitter's confidence. 

I am also in possession of some Black Water Abbey yarn and Beth Brown Reinsel's Celtic Dreams, which I have had in the queue for about a year now.  I think it may be time. I was considering jumping the BWA ship and making it instead in the yarn Cassie made hers in (no picture yet, Cass?  What's up with that?), but Cassie's, as much as I covet it, weighs two pounds, and I am twice her size.  The prospect of a four pound sweater is a bit daunting.  And I have been reassured by knitters more experienced than me that that the BWA yarn washes up nicely.  I am fence sitting right now.  Starmore or Reinsel.  Leaning towards the Celtic Dreams.  Anyone out there have that one in their queue and want a knitting buddy? How about a little unofficial KAL?

Alice will wait.

Hold the Sominex

Those sleeping pill commercials are beginning to appeal to me.  I keep thinking that they must be talking about me, because, after all, I do wake up sometimes and can't get back to sleep.  Other times I have a hard time falling asleep in the first place.  And yes, I do some nights have both problems.  And come to think of it, I own a bed, and yes,  pillows too.  Wow.  I must need sleeping pills just like they say.

Or maybe not.  Maybe I'll just use the time to get some knitting done.

I've been making time on my new sweater, the Sunrise Circle.  It's cheery and seasonally coloured, and the increases make me giggle.  I keep thinking as I knit across, counting under my breath the whole way, how on earth did Kate figure this one out?  It's so damned clever I feel smart just knitting it.

Who needs sleep anyway?

Finished Irish Moss

I can now say that I have knit a St*rmore.

And that I have finally knit a sweater for the Mister that he will actually wear.  He put it on, and Holda love him, he started trying on all his coats and his moleskin vest and the Harris Tweed jacket with it to see how it went.  And it was good.
Not a word about the neck, except that he likes it. 
ah.  Happiness.

Next up: Kate Gilbert's Sunrise Circle Jacket in  tomato soup red Donegal Tweed for the Red Sweater KAL.

I can't tell you how delighted I am to be knitting something new.