Moth Heaven

Mission: Possible, Chapter 4

Oh this finishing thing feels goooooooood.

Zephyr Style Tree Jacket in Dream in Color Classy, in Chinatown Apple.  When I bought the yarn at Yarn and Fiber, I was surprised at how dark this particular batch was, since Chinatown Apple is so pinkish on the company's website.  This bunch was much more copper toned than the other lot Cyndy had, which just goes to show how far dye lots can range.  Buy this yarn in person, if you can.  Or if you can't, call Cyndy.  She'll talk you through it.

No mods to the pattern except that I made 6 rows of rib at the bind-off edges, just because I like the way it looked.  Love the sweater.  Like the slanted lace lines (flattering!) Love the yarn.

Next up, Bird in Hand Mittens and PS 136 (yes Beth!  it's true!).

To Do List: Spa 2009 Version

Next year for Spa, I must remember to

1. Wear brightly coloured hand made socks like Mafia's to spin in, extra points if they are green (that's my roving Joy she's spinning on, by the way):

2. Pack small bits of really fun fiber (and wine) like Carole did:

3. Bring my own favorite and fabulous wheel like Cheryl did hers:

4. Wear  a t-shirt to match my knitting like Kelly did:

or something to set off the knitting like Blogless Sharon did:

5. Spin more!

6. Which I can do for hours on end without ever getting up if only I can get my hands on a cup holder for my wheel like Kelly's:

Spa 2008

Before:

During

More when I've had more sleep.

Tutorial: Intarsia in the Round

As much as you all mock me when I am not around for all of my intarsia love (I know you do, it's okay.  I mock you too), I also happen to know that some people wish they knew how to drop the little flower into the back of Kate's Bird in Hand Mittens.  I have the emails to prove it.  I also got a phone call a few weeks ago from someone in my local yarn store who needed to know how to do it right now!  It was a knitting emergency, and I was there in an instant to help. 

I've had the question asked enough that I thought it should be answered here (I mean what's a blog for?).  Understand, I have no idea if this is the orthodox method.  I just figured this out when I wanted a third colour for the mitten's flowers.  And you should also know that this is fiddly, and some people would be better off just duplicate stitching the thing, but for knitters like me?  Who like fiddly stuff?  This is for you.

First, knit the round as usual, and (leaving a tail of about 6-8 inches for tacking down floats later) knit the new colour in the stitches where you want them: in this case, the flower.

Knit to the end of the desired area, and work the background colour for a stitch or two.  You need this as an anchor for what you are about to do.  Stop.

Turn. Slip those background stitches onto your right needle without knitting them.

Pick up the new colour, and purl back according to the NEXT row of the chart, being careful to slip without working the stitches that are not charted as the new colour.  In this case, the center of the flower on the chart is the background colour.  Leave them unknit.  Just slip them as they are, and let the new colour "carry" across them. Knit the rest of charted stitches that you want in the new colour.  Stop.

Turn.  Here you see that I stopped, leaving one stitch in the new colour on the right needle before I turned my knitting.  That's because in the next row of the flower, that stitch is in the background colour.  I'm leaving it there for later.

You have now knit two rows of the flower. Slip all the flower stitches without knitting them onto the right needle, until you find yourself back to where you left the background yarn waiting.  Pick the background back up and proceed around the row as usual.  In this case, you also have a very long float to pick back up.  Don't worry about it because you can tack it down when you weave in ends.  Remember that longish tail you started with? That's what it's for.

You have now knit two rows of the flower, but you have knit only one row of the rest of the chart.  When you come back around to the flower section (for this row shown, first knit with the background colour that stitch the chart told you to leave be), slip all the stitches you already knit,

and when you get to the flower center where you left stitches waiting for the background colour, knit them with the background colour.

Slip the stitches already knit, knit the stitches you saved, and when you finish the second row of the flower chart, everything lines up nicely.

Repeat.

The trick is to keep track of where you are, the first or second round of this method.  I mark stitches off my chart as I knit them so I know if I'm in the first round or second round of the pairing.  The Bird In Hands are beautifully suited for this method because you never find your new yarn hanging way out in West Jersey.  It's all very civil after all the fiddling.

I hope this gives you ideas.  And keeps you from mocking me quite so much.

And Then, They Were Done

I understand the limitations of space/time.  I understand that as of this month in 2008, only a lucky few of us knitters are allowed access to the quantum closet where knitting gets done and is returned to this universe completed as if by magic.  I am not one of them.  Did I need to say that?

Exhibit #1: The Arrrgyle Socks

Begun as a lark on a sunny day in June 2006 when I though it would take me a month of part time application to their knitting before I would be able to ask of an unsuspecting Muggle:

"What's a pirate's favorite socks?"
and then deliver the punchline while pointing to my feet, clad in these.

It's been a very long wait for the payoff.  But there they are.  18 months later.

So a time maven I may not, nor ever be (although I understand the quantum knitting closet may be in Beta version and Wendy has been testing it for years)

Actor Most Likely to Wear a Hand Knit Sweater:

Thanks for the support, chums.  I'm really glad you liked the Movie Sweater ditty on the back page of the spring issue of Interweave Knits.  I only regret that there's only room for so much (750 words, give or take a sentence before the wiggle runs out).  It's a fave topic of mine, and I've been sitting on it for awhile because it was one of those ideas that wake you up in the middle of the night because you think, having thought of it, that by the mere thinking of it ("I know!  An article about all the great sweaters in movies lately") other people would suddenly think of it too and Eunny was going to be getting hundreds of similar submissions: thoughts of movie sweaters passing around the world among the knitters who write, spreading like the common cold, a virus straight out of a Borges story, landing in a pile on her desk in unsolicited manuscript form and crying "Mama! "

But the ditty made it there alone and she liked it, thank the heavens. I had to keep it short, and my friends know how I can go on about that topic.  It gets me all worked up, especially as it regards the representation thing (remember: representation=visibility, and visibility=power).  If there had been more room, I would have railed against the movies that danced up to the edge of the hand knit precipice, and yet never made the leap.  Like Practical Magic which made me crazy with the missed opportunity.  The set designer knew it: they had the right kind of house, filled with looms and skein winders.  I think the costume designer must have missed those clues.  How do you show lots of abundant (and slightly intimidating) female creative energy in the clothes? D'uh people.  But for one schlumpy stitch sampler of an oatmeal-coloured frump cardigan that Nicole Kidman mopes around in when her heart is broken (which is a Hollywood motif up there with bathrobes and slouchy socks), every other one of the cardigans (and there are many) were the vitamin-deficient store-bought kind. And the movie even had Sandra Bullock!  She never does a movie without a cardigan she can wrap herself dejectedly in.  I think it must be a standard clause in her contract because she needs it for her method, or something.  But the moment passed, and was gone.

As it did in Dan in Real Life.  I had heard from a reliable source that it was full of wool.  I heard argyles and cables and lace and all manner of stitchery.  It was rumoured to be some kind of regular hand knit orgy. Set in Rhode Island, Block Island maybe (even), a rattle bones of a weekend house on a bluff owned by a waspy greater New York family full of characters? And kids. Only On Golden Pond could boast a better setting for a knitter like me.  I hired a babysitter for the afternoon and ran to the theatre.   And oh, there were sweaters: lots of sweaters.  It was like a shooting gallery of cardigans and pullovers, so rapidly did they enter stage left and exit the right.  I got a kink in my neck like I had been at Wimbledon I was trying so hard to keep my eyes on the wool.  The adorable hippy sister wore a different one in every scene I could spot her in, even one whose construction I recognized as knit cuff to cuff, but were any of them made by hand?

alas.  No.  Not a one.  There was possibility in the pink lacy cardi that Juliette Binoche (oh lord I love her) had on in one scene on the porch, but it was just a little too machine made to pass.  I was disappointed.  Dejected.  And then I slipped into Anger.  I felt like writing someone a letter to declare myself a sweater consultant to all of Hollywood, a public relations officer for the hand knit.  Somebody has to!  Jobs on-screen for the hand knits are being taken by pale machine made imitations! It's time we stood up for their rights! It's too bad my name ain't Chavez.

And think of how much help handknits in Hollywood could be for the rest of us?  No more would we be seen to be like quirky spinster Rose in The Accidental Tourist whose sublimated maternal knitting mania has clothed all of her siblings in ill fitting Bartlett (not that there's anything wrong with Bartlett: it's the ill fitting I have a quibble with).  Think of how some nice sweaters in a genuine blockbuster or a popular chick flick could improve our image in the world  (more Cameron Diaz in The Holiday, please).  No one ever again would ask you in disbelief "What are you doing?" like you were invoking the dead right there in the waiting room, two chairs away from them.  Instead, you'd have to blush because someone had finally recognized you as the genius cultural harbinger that you are.

So I think we need a spokesperson.  An Actor with presence and charm, someone who looks good in a fashionable hand knit man sweater (because that is most most elusive of beasts), and it has to be someone for whom the hand knit would not seem all that far out of character, who can elevate knitting's visibility and carry the banner for knitters everywhere.  And I nominate:

Greg Kinnear.

Never mind that he's already the Kevin Bacon of the knit blog world, famous among us for having inspired Stephanie to explore new angles in her photography and the newest verb in the English language (if you believe the New York Times).  I think the man is right friendly, handsome in a neighborly way (although if this guy lived in your neighborhood you'd probably take the kids to the playground more often. Wouldn'tcha?), and by all accounts, a real mensch.  So I think we should get in touch with his representation and ask him if he'd like a sweater or two.  For a good cause.  How about a letter writing campaign?  I know now you want to send him socks, but please. We don't want to scare him.  Just cards and letters and singing telegrams to start.  But careful, please: we don't want any lawsuits, just sweaters.

Even I'd knit him one. Y'know: if he'd wear it.

Mommy, Where do Notorious Felons Come From?

I've been housebound for a few days, fretting about children's futures and fancypants summer programs and whether or not I am raising either the most notorious arsonist in the history of this country, or the next Bruce Lee. The phone rings from the school several times a day because we are all in a trying phase in the behavior impulse control department.  I keep reminding myself that they love my kid and want what's best for him. Or at least as much as the school budget allows.

Thank heavens that things are not so nerve-wracking with the knitting.  And it gives me something to do while I sit up at night, having imagined conversations with people who always fall down in the end to my superior patience and reasoning.

Next up on the Mission Possible roster are the Arrrgyles, finally past the flat and fiddly parts of the leg and heel, and now clear sailing to the toe.  I've given myself permission to cast on something when these are off the needles, and as much as I want to start Ysolda's charming Gretel beret (for which I have Classic Elite Waterlily in burgundy waiting.  And waiting) I have one reader who is struggling with the Riihivilla mittens I made inspired her to buy (I know they are hard to resist, aren't they?), so I am thinking I may cast on for them so I know what I am doing while I explain how to turn Leena's graph into a mitten. Hm, maybe the knitting isn't so simple after all.  How about the spinning?

Oh yeah.  Spinning.  Well, I am the one who mentioned it, so I'll tell you the truth.  I am a little ashamed to show you this because of all the spin-backs, like my single is sticking its tongue out at me.

Raspberries from the wool.

This is Blue Moon Superfine Merino, in the Rooster colourway.  I bought it at SOAR, thinking about socks, naturally.  I'm trying to spin a respectable three-ply, so there's a bit more twist per inch on this that I have tried before.  I'm trying to become a better spinner, to gain more in control of the final yarn from the beginning, and yet I feel more at sea than ever.  I trust the ply will work out just fine (after all, my favorite reason for plying is that it does hide the imperfections).  But for now, it looks like a nappy hedgehog.

Maybe today, we'll just play with crayons and keep the fire going.  It will be a nice memory someday when I am (or someone else is) in prison.

My Kindgom for a Dino-sized Darning Egg

My next Mission Possible challenge has been the Stained Glass Bag. I've had trouble keeping at it.  If this project were a shark, a fish who must swim forward to breathe, it would have drowned a hundred times by now.  It wasn't the knitting that did me in so much (although I must remember that modular structures are not my favorite process, and just walk away from the entrelac), but the finishing has taken me ages.  Something that could have, should have taken me all the hours of a Saturday lasted for months.

The lashing of the lining was a big obstacle because I couldn't get it to behave without tacking the whole thing together.  I eventually thought to use the blocking waste basket to hold everything stable while I whip-stitched the lining to the bag, kind of like a giant darning egg.  It really helped.

But when I attached the handles to the bag, I felt a little underwhelmed.  I think the handles look wimpy.  The bag is great, and needs something more modern looking, more substantial in scale.  So I'm off to the Salvation Army, some time in the near future, to buy a bag I can poach the handles from.

Two Mission Possible projects down, ten to go.

Dispatches

The spring preview of Interweave is up, so I finally know that they are putting my back page piece in this issue.  My name is there, all the way at the bottom of the page, in "Departments," under Ravelings.  I had to fill out the paperwork; I approved the changes that Eunny sent me; and nothing catastrophic befell Colorado since, so I had no reason to believe that they wouldn't publish it, but still.  It is always exciting to see your writing on the page, but it's never really believable until the magazine arrives in the mail.  But there it is, on the web page, so it must be true.  That's two for two with Interweave.  It feels pretty good.

Meanwhile, I've accepted the responsibility of editor Spindles and Rovings, the quarterly newsletter for the Northeast Handspinner's Association.  I've been a member for a few years now, because they have some pretty terrific annual events.  If you're a spinner and live in New England or New York, you should check them out.  That, plus The Gathering is this year, and it's a members only weekend. 

And as if that weren't enough to blow my skirt up, Allison of Knitography nominated me for Make My Day.  Considering what a spotty blogger I've been lately, she is very generous to include me.  I am supposed to pass the favour along, but it's really really difficult to winnow the 70 odd blogs I read regularly, and the 50 others I check in irregularly, into a desert island few.  So with apologies to those who've already been tagged, and to those who haven't, my personal Make My Day blogs are the following:

1. Abby's Yarns

2. Ysolda

3. Yarn Harlot

4. Bag n' Trash

5. Mustaa Villa

6. Mason Dixon

7. Elliephantom Knits

8. Seedstitch

9. Hello Yarn

10. Needles on Fire

I shall notify them accordingly. 

The End of the End for Arwen

You know those things that almost end, but then don't?

Like cliffhanger episodes of your favorite television drama?
Beethoven symphonies?
and Arwen?

I seamed it up, knit the hood to the 13 inches the pattern called for, corroborated by my head measurement, as Kate suggested (just in case that would have saved me an inch or two because, you know, I was whining), and put it on.  Lovely.  Except that the hood didn't drape nicely.  It just laid butt up against my neck and didn't fall open nicely like it's supposed to.  So I tinked it out, knit three additional inches, and re-grafted it, which I promise you is no mean feat.

There haven't been too many pictures of that graft, in all the Arwens I've seen made, and now I think I know the reason. It's tough to get perfect, both because of the stitches having to match both front and back, and also because it's an easy thing to shrug off as good enough.

The cable does hide a little wonkiness, so if you're not the fussy knitter that I am, you can let it go.  I ended up knitting only half of the sixth chart row, knitting a dummy row in waste yarn, only crossing the stitches for one of the charts, and then grafting the stitches as the waste yarn went.   It turned out pretty well, I think.  Blocking will make it even better. Click the photos for bigger versions.

And speaking of blocking, I can't wait to wear it, so the winter days and days of waiting for the thing to dry will happen later.  Technically, the end is yet to come.