stash, knit, repeat

It’s done! It’s done! The Cleopatra Wrap is done!

Pattern: Cleopatra Wrap from Sensual Knits, pattern by Miriam Felton

Yarn: Sundara Silk Lace, “Copper over Bamboo” (from the first Seasons Club)

Time Elapsed: Almost 4 months, but during most of that time the stole was sitting with just 7 rows done. Early pregnancy brain strikes. This is a fairly quick lace project, definitely under a month of actual knitting.

Notes/Modifications: The only way I really deviated from the pattern was that the Sundara is about 300 yards short of the recommended bamboo yarn. I still got a sizeable stole, about 20 inches x 73 inches, but I definitely could have blocked it wider if I hadn’t run out of yarn. I couldn’t think of a project better suited to this luscious stuff, though.

The stole is gossamer-light, the color is subtle and beautiful. I think words and pictures fail to adequately describe the finished product–you have to feel it. This stuff is toddler-steal-worthy.

He was very upset when I explained to him that the stole needed a bath, and he had to take it off.

The pattern is a nice one, even if it stretches on a little bit in the middle. The construction, which I’ve written about before, is totally groovy. You begin with a border, put the stitches on a spare needle, cast on the other border, and knit until you’re done. Then graft the two pieces together. On the one hand, it does get all of the most fun knitting out of the way first, which might contribute to the sloggy feeling of the middle. On the other hand, you waste no yarn. I think I had all of 2g left. And the borders match!

I think there’s the slightest of errors in the pattern–when you’re knitting the first border, the instructions say to complete the first chart, thus ending with a WS row. You end on a RS row coming from the other direction, and this means two pure knit rows together between the last WS row worked on the first piece and the graft row itself. Especially given the placement of the graft, this isn’t really noticeable, but I think it would look better if both pieces had ended on a RS row.

Obviously, this minor mistake (which I didn’t really think about until the piece was blocked) isn’t enough to hamper my enjoyment of the stole, which I love to pieces. And I finished it just in time for the first installment of the next round of Seasons Club, which just happens to start with more silk lace.

(It’s damn hard, I’ve found, to take decent self-portraits when hugely pregnant, but there are many more shots including more detail in flickr and the FO gallery here.)

I wish! But she does seem to be holding a nice monopoly on my knitting attention, these days.

My yarn is almost gone. After compulsive checking of the scale, I figure I can get through the current repeat and end on the appropriate row with a mere 2 grams left over. Woot! Fast progress (and the realization that I’m about to lose my blocking wires and surface for a few weeks) are spurring me on. I’m trying to complete the stole before leaving for Maine, and pushing off socks until after it’s finished. I think I can even finish the knitting tonight, although I may try the grafting tomorrow during daylight.

We all know that socks make the best travel knitting, and in my blog hiatus/move-in frenzy I’m hoping for a few pairs. Despite extremely tempting temptation,

I decided to stick with my original plan and knit the Rivendell socks in Sundara sock yarn.

The color is “glacier”, and I think it will be a perfect match for Rivendell. Being a huge Tolkein nerd from way back, I associate Rivendell more with the river itself than the autumnal hues that Peter Jackson chose. (Although don’t get me wrong, I love his translation to screen!) After that, I’m hoping to move on to the other Seasons Club sock yarn, mossy in particular. Tiennie’s beautiful Hedgerows really reminded me how much I love this color. The jury is still out on a pattern, though. Wouldn’t want to get too decisive.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I probably could have finished the stole, if I hadn’t spent so much of my time focused on food. It’s an occupational hazard of the whole 7-months-pregnant thing, I suppose.

I love making fresh pasta. (This stuff was destined for my favorite tomato-cream sauce.)

I guess I don’t talk about it much here, but I actually love pretty much every kind of dough out there. Especially pie crust. I love pie crust so much that I can’t bear to throw scraps away, and bake them in the toaster oven sprinkled with cinnamon sugar instead.

The next few weeks will be pretty crazy for me, so in case I don’t make it back here until mid-June, here’s wishing you lots of yummy strawberry-rhubarb tarts!

Let’s just say that I’m not the world’s most patient person, generally.

Then there’s the pregnancy (officially reached: the bloated cranky stage), the upcoming move (omg omg 2.5 weeks omg omg), nervousness about a thousand things big and small that aren’t done yet (eek preschool waiting lists for crying out loud)…

…well, to nobody’s surprise, these things aren’t magically combining into a relaxed, summery, stress-free mood around here. It’s even starting to affect my knitting.

To be fair, it’s not only the stress that’s making me obsessively check my progress on the little kitchen scale. (40% done.) (Not that I’ve checked within the last hour of knitting time.) (Twice.) The stress plays a part, I’m sure, but so does the fabric slowwwly coming from my needles. In a perfect world, lace would not look like fiber vomit right up until the moment it’s pinned out. Since this world isn’t perfect, I occasionally get glimpses of texture that make me long for an FO.

The rest of the time, this gorgeous yarn looks like total crap. Seriously. I don’t know how it’s possible, either.

The knitting is going well, though. Now that I’m past the edging, the lace is so easy I can do it anywhere: Next to Jacob while he builds yet another train track, in front of the tv at night, talking with other knitters. It’s really nice to know that I can just knit and knit and knit, basically until I run out of yarn, without a care. Like toe-up socks on a larger scale. As a reminder, this is the construction allowing that:

Knit edging 1, knit edging 2 and then the body of the stole, graft. Also, remember what I said about the pinning giving the lace grace and fluidity? This is what I meant by that–the bottom edging isn’t pinned out at all–it’s what the stole looks like hanging from the needles. (More or less, anyway.) Oh, and the size difference there is lying more than a bit–the spare needle I have the first edging on is quite a bit longer and gives the stole more space to spread out.

Relaxing knitting though it is, and as impatient as I am to get the shawl done, I still feel like I need something else on the needles. Preferably socks.

I might make faster progress if I could make up my mind about the pattern. Or the yarn. At least I’ve narrowed the latter down to a particular brand?

Well, the party was this weekend, so now I can share!

Pattern: Nicky Epstein’s “Animal Pullovers (Elephant)”, from back issue of Knit It!

Yarn: Karabella Aurora 8, colors 14 and 201 (6 and 1 balls for the 4-year size)

Time Elapsed: 6 days, booyah

Notes/Modifications: The biggest change (other than skipping the Wool-Ease) was to make the edges seed stitch instead of rolled stockinette. I made most of the length measurements slightly shorter to accommodate this.

I also made the neckline a crewneck, since A. doesn’t like anything snug around his neck. I like the changes, and will probably do the same thing again when I make the duck version for Jacob. I’m not the biggest fan of intarsia, but sometimes the result is cute enough to be worth it.

I loved, loved, loved working with the Aurora and am already planning a sweater for myself in the stuff. It’s the softest merino ever, even softer than the Zara I used for my Jo Sharp cardi. Also, machine-washable! I put my swatch in the washer with a bunch of Jacob’s clothes on the “normal/fast” agitation setting (cold water), and it only showed a minimal difference from the sweater (which I’d soaked in Eucalan). I’m sure one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the gentle cycle and hand-washing.

But the best part about knitting this sweater was seeing A.’s reaction when he opened it. He got this huge grin, and immediately wanted to put it on despite rather warm temperatures. He refused to take it off for dinner yesterday, and when his mom (who generously took all of the modeled FO shots today) suggested he take it off after the photo-shoot was done, he refused again. Such obvious enjoyment is definitely the best part of knitting gifts, for me.

Final details round-up is in ravelry and the FO gallery here. And that’s it for secret knitting in these parts! Happy mother’s day to all who celebrate–I’m off to snuggle with my own munchkin.

One of my favorite things about this knitblogging community is reading running commentary about works-in-progress–seeing how projects take shape, getting fresh impressions of how a particular knit goes rather than the sum-up feelings at the end, the vicarious thrill of others’ triumphs and the keen empathy when I read about a stumbling block. The creative process fascinates me, and I love to think that I might be able to offer others the same glimpses they grant me.

I was looking through past entries on a shawl I knit, the other day, and noticed two things I don’t like about my own blogging: When I do take notes, they’re never as detailed or useful a year down the road as they seemed when I wrote them, and my WIP posts are much less frequent than they used to be. Part of the latter, of course, is that I’m doing a lot of baby stuff lately. Most of the knitting is done within a week, so there’s only an opportunity for one or two posts at most for this stuff. But I think some of it is laziness on my part, too–it’s tough to get good pictures of WIPs, particularly something like lace or colorwork that looks (let’s be honest) less than appetizing pre-blocking.

Still, to increase my own satisfaction and reward from what I’m doing here, I’m really going to try to make an effort to (a) better catalog my thoughts and impressions and problems and solutions while I’m actually knitting a piece, and (b) post more WIP shots. So here we go!

I’m mostly focusing on gift knitting this week, but while I waited for the yarn to arrive in the mail I picked up the Cleopatra Wrap (ravelry link here) I started ages ago. I’m knitting it in the Sundara silk lace I received as part of the Seasons Club that just ended, and I put it aside after only 7 rows back in January because I couldn’t for the life of me follow the simple chart. While preggo brain is still definitely in evidence, I’ve come to my knitting senses again and found the lace both engaging and easy this time around. The pattern uses what I think is a really neat construction: You cast on, do the edging chart, place the live stitches on a spare needle, and then repeat for the second edging (followed immediately by the body). At the end, graft the stitches together.

This technique has three big advantages that I see at the moment: First, the edges of the rectangular stole match. Second, I get to use up all of that precious silk with no guesswork. Third, once you’re done with the first edging, a progress shot is really easy!

I’m a little stunned at how much more I like the lace when the points are pinned out vs. when it’s straight across the bottom. The points add such a grace to the piece that’s not evident when it’s just hanging from the needle. One thing this picture doesn’t show, though, is the way the yarn is knitting up. I was a little unsure about this first installment of Sundara’s club–the color (“copper over bamboo”) seemed too bright, too pink, not subtle enough. Something was off about it, wound into a ball.

It knits up much more nicely than the ball might indicate. The sheen is incredible, and when the yarn has a little bit of room around it in the lace, I see less fuschia and more of the subtle bits of “bamboo” peeking through. There’s depth without streaking, delicacy, shine. I just can’t wait to wear it. I can’t wait to pick it up again after my current deadline wip is finished.

So what’s the secret knitting, then? A birthday sweater for one of our most special friends who is turning 2. I’ll talk about it more next week after the reveal, but details are in ravelry and here’s a sneak peek:

And finally, here’s a knits-in-action shot for you. You’ll have to excuse the glazed, slack-jawed, post-nap expression! I woke up from my nap with Jacob the other day and NEEDED POPCORN. So I threw on my new favorite maternity sweater and stumbled downstairs like a zombie.

As it turns out, the shaped v-neck sweater I knit myself a little over a year ago can accommodate a belly, too.

Since neither of these projects took a full week to complete, it feels a little strange to do two separate FO posts. Thus!

Pattern: “Beret and Socks” from Debbie Bliss’ Baby Cashmerino 3 booklet

Yarn: Baby Cashmerino, in the recommended colors.

Time Elapsed: Something like 5 days? Ridiculously little.

Notes/Modifications: I wrote about the completely bizarre construction of these socks here, so I won’t repeat the whole saga for you. The conclusion is that unless you’re deathly afraid of dpns, I’d strongly recommend just knitting these socks in the usual way. Either way, the end product is likely to be darling.

I think I would recommend knitting the beret flat as written, just because the whole darn thing is garter stitch, which I find easier flat, and if you knit it flat you get to choose which side to make the RS. I preferred the subtler stripes of the “WS” of the work, but others may like their color changes more bold. Any way you do it, this is a super-quick, super-cute gift set. Four thumbs up!

*****

Of course, the entire time I was knitting the baby socks, Jacob asked if they were for him. It’s not like the kid has been shy about his love for hand-knit socks–he always gets a day or two with any pair I knit myself. What kind of a bad mother am I, not to have realized he wanted his own?

Pattern: Generic sock construction over 48 stitches.

Yarn: Leftover Lorna’s Laces from some socks I knit one of my mother-in-laws. I think the color was called Ravens-something-or-other?

Time Elapsed: Far too little for this to be my first pair for him

Notes/Modifications: Not much to say, here, since I wasn’t exactly following a pattern. I did 1×1 rib at the top, then 3×1 rib for most of the body of the sock.

I knit the heel until it looked right, and decreased the toe until it looked right, too. They’re a smidge long for him, maybe 1/8″, but since his feet are growing at such a crazy pace I decided to just leave it instead of ripping out and re-doing the toe shorter. Not that I’d be able to get them off his feet anyway–he’s worn them non-stop since I finished them. He even demanded that he wear them again today, to show his pre-school teacher. “With sandals, Mommy, so Miss Auburn can see them.”

You’d think, with all of that wearing, I’d have some good FO shots. Sadly, a toddler in motion remains in motion, so most of them are a variation on this:

(At least his feet are warm?)

Concluding the short parade of sweet little girl knits, I finished the baby beret/socks set for my colorist’s new little girl recently. I’ll do a separate FO post to keep my notes in one place, but I had to tell you about the way these little socks are constructed. Strangest. Things. Ever.

When finished, they look like normal socks. But they’re knit flat. (Recommendation to anyone doing these in the future? Just do them in the round. But my visualization skills are poor enough that I couldn’t get that from the pattern.)

After knitting down to where one would usually begin the heel flap, you begin half of the heel flap, and then turn half of the heel.

Knit back, and do the other half of the heel.

Pick up the gusset stitches as you usually would, except, you know, not in the round.

Knit flat, decreasing those gusset stitches, until you get to the toe decreases.

Weave the yarn through the remaining stitches and then seam up the back.

Now, these are for a 3-month old, so the seam inside isn’t as huge a deal, I guess, but I had to wonder while I was going through this little puzzle: Why on earth wouldn’t one just knit the sock in the round? It’s not like size 3 dpns are that unweidly. It’s a mystery, like picking up the picot cast-off stitches on the matinee coat. Next time, though, I’d just knit the socks in the usual way and save the seaming.

Of course, the whole 2 days I was knitting these socks Jacob was constantly asking if they were for him. I realized that while I’ve done sweaters and that one scarf for him and some booties when he was totally wee, I’ve never knit the kid a pair of socks. How terrible is that?!

Well, needless to say we went right up to the sock yarn leftovers bag and he picked something out that he really liked. Hence, April’s installment in the year of socks will be a much-overdue pair for a very impatient 2-year-old.