What to Do While Knitting

Many people do something else while they knit, and I'm no exception. For me, however, I like to think of it as doing other things while I knit (or spin, for that matter). Most of the time, it's watching something on TV or DVD. I'm working on a project I can't show you right now (sorry -- all will be revealed in time), so I thought I'd take this lull in knitting content to share with you some of what I've been watching while I knit.

If there's one thing you should know about my viewing preferences, it's that I'm a sucker for period pieces, especially British period pieces. Obviously at this time last year I was watching Cranford and its sequel, Return to Cranford, which inspired Gaskell. I found the DVD set on sale at Costco and couldn't resist it. Unfortunately, I lent it to my mother several months ago and she hasn't returned it yet, so I haven't watched it recently.



There are number of similar series available either on DVD or streaming on Netflix. First is Wives and Daughters, another Elizabeth Gaskell novel turned into a miniseries. If you watch Masterpiece Classic regularly, you'll recognize some of the actors in this one. The main character is a young woman named Molly, who finds herself in challenging situations when her widowed father remarries a woman with a daughter her age.

Another series I quite enjoyed was Lark Rise to Candleford, which is set in 19th-century England and focuses on the story of a young woman named Laura, who leaves her small hamlet of Lark Rise to serve as an apprentice in her cousin's post office in the larger town of Candleford. There are four seasons of this show, which deals with topics as diverse as young love, marital discord, debt, pride, and the coming of the Industrial Revolution. The story is told by an adult Laura looking back on her youthful experiences. There are some familiar faces in this series as well, and there's also a fair amount of good knitting content!

A show I discovered fairly recently, thanks to Abby of the Knit Knit Cafe podcast, is a sweet little series called Call the Midwife on PBS. Only six episodes have aired (and they're available to watch online for free until December 3, so watch them fast!). The show follows a group of midwives living and working in London's East End during the late 1950s, and the story lines are both lighthearted and serious. I do hope more episodes are aired.

Finally, my favorite thing to watch is probably no surprise: Downton Abbey. I own both of the first two seasons on DVD, but season one is available streaming on Netflix and season two begins re-airing on PBS starting this Sunday (12/3). I'm very much looking forward to the beginning of the third season on January 6!

SPAKALed

It is done!

Pattern: Goodale by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

Yarn: my handspun, 100% superwash merino spun from Crown Mountain Farms fiber

Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) Addi Turbos

Started/Completed: September 11/November 21

Mods: added length to the body and the sleeves and worked several more rows of garter stitch on the neckline

I did manage to finish this in time to wear it to Thanksgiving dinner; I wore it with a very thin t-shirt underneath because it was in the 60s that day! I should add that I wouldn't normally wear it with a green shirt underneath -- this is just what I happened to be wearing when the Mister was able to snap a few photos and we had some good light!

I followed the pattern pretty much as written, but I added a significant amount of length (about four inches) to the body because, as written, the sweater would have hit just about at the bottom of my ribcage. After I finished the body, I realized I had a lot of yarn leftover, so I lengthened the sleeves as well so that they'd hit just above the elbow. My final modification was to add three or four additional rows to the neckline, because I didn't want it to be too floppy.

The closure is something different: a figure eight-shaped loop of I-cord that wraps around two buttons. It works well when the sweater's on, but I have to double check that it didn't fall off when I take the sweater off and put it away.

Overall, I think this was a success. I'm not completely wild about the fit of the sweater (though that may improve with another blocking), but I love that I spun all the yarn for it and love how the fabric looks. It was a great stash-busting project, too, as I'd had that fiber in my stash for at least a couple years with no other real plans for what to do with it. This sweater is going to be a great transition piece for those days when there's just a little chill in the air and I need an extra layer.

I certainly hope the Knitmore Girls do the SPAKAL again next year -- it was a lot of fun!

It's Not a Sprint

The yarn that I finally got off my wheel was truly a marathon of a spin. True, I haven't been spinning that much lately, but this particular yarn seemed like it took an inordinate amount of time to spin. It started out its life as 4 oz. of Crown Mountain Farms Portuguese wool top (July's fiber club shipment):

I wasn't wild about the colors, but I've frequently been surprised in the past by a colorway I didn't like in fiber form that ended up being more likable in yarn form.

I decided to spin it into my default yarn: three-ply fingering weight. I ended up with 395 yards (a pretty high yardage for me for this weight, so that explains at least part of the length of time needed to spin it.

Unfortunately, I still don't love the color. It's just a little too blah for me. The spinning experience was enjoyable, but I'm at a loss with regard to what to do with this yarn.

After finishing this yarn, though, I did definitely get my spinning mojo back. This afternoon, I finished up the second bobbin of my only other unspun club shipment (long draw, so it only took me about an hour) and then got reacquainted with my miniSpinner. I have a long lingering project that I really want to finish up now!

One More Night

Yep, that's all I need to get finish up my handspun Goodale. I finished up the second sleeve and wove in all the ends on Saturday, then popped it in to soak and block on Sunday. It took a good two days to dry, and now all that's left to do is sew up the pockets, knit a very small neckline, and sew on a couple of buttons. (Oh, and do an I-cord closure for the buttons, but that will take hardly any time at all.) I expect to have this sweater done in time to wear it to Thanksgiving dinner!

While I was waiting for this to dry, I picked up my Breezy Cardigan again. This sweater moves along very slowly, as you'd expect for something that's worked in laceweight yarn. Fortunately, there's no thinking involved. It's just plain old stockinette, which I can do without looking. I've put on at least a couple of inches on the body; when I put it down for the night last night, I had about another inch to do before I start the bottom ribbing. I have no illusions of finishing up this sweater anytime soon, but at least it feels like I'm making forward progress.

The good news is that Rainbow's butterfly hat is done and blocked, though I'll wait to show that to you until I can do a proper photo shoot, which I'm hoping will happen later this week.

As soon as that came off the needles, I got another handspun project on. I had a skein of sock yarn that was all wound and ready to go -- I took it on our anniversary trip last month and never touched it. I'm doing just a plain vanilla sock -- cast on 65 stitches, did about 3.5" of 3x2 ribbing, then switched over to stockinette. I'll do about a 7" leg and a regular-old heel flap and gusset. Nothing special, nothing fancy; I'm letting the yarn do all the talking on these.

The colors are completely off, but you get the idea.

Three Bobbins Full

I finally finished up my last bobbin of CMF Portuguese wool. The most recent one is the one on the right. Quite a difference between the three, isn't there?

I'm letting these rest for a day or two, then it's on to plying!

This Never Happens

One of what I consider to be my failings about being a spinner is that I spin a lot of yarn but rarely knit with it. If you looked in my stash right now, you'd see that about half of my unknit yarn is handspun. To some degree, this phenomenon is due to the fact that some of my handspun feels too precious to knit, as in I feel that I'll never find the perfect pattern to do it justice. There's also the fact that much of my handspun is sock yarn, and I already have a very full sock drawer (two, actually), so there's no rush for more socks right now.

However, right now I find myself in an odd and unprecedented position: All of my current WIPs are being knit out of handspun.

My main project in progress is my SPAKAL sweater, Goodale, which is just nearly complete. I added a good amount of length to the body so that it will actually hit at the hip (cropped sweaters just don't look good on me), and I had enough yarn leftover that I decided to lengthen the sleeves as well. I finished the first one last night; it hits just at the elbow, which I think is a perfect length for this type of garment. I'm hoping to make decent progress on the second sleeve tonight, and I might even have a finished sweater by the weekend!

Poor lighting brought to you by Eastern Standard Time

My lunchtime knitting has been a Slouchy Butterfly Beanie for Rainbow that's being worked in some CMF East Friesian that was a club offering earlier this year. I finished the butterfly chart yesterday, so now it's just a lot of plain purled rounds until it's time to do the crown decreases.

I think this may be a bit on the small side, so I'm going to do some liberal stretching when I block it. I'll also have to futz with it a bit when it's wet to try to fuzz it up a little so it will be softer. I find it a bit rough, though Rainbow didn't seem to mind when I gave her the yarn to feel. I just have a feeling, though, that she'll complain it's scratchy once it's done.

Finally, the last thing on my needles is my long-neglected handspun Breezy Cardigan. It's probably been several months since I last touched it, and I think I was nearly to the ribbing on the body at that point, though I'm not completely sure. This sweater's worked in laceweight, so obviously it moves along at a slow pace. It would be nice to get it done to be able to wear it as a layering piece in the spring, though.

This all-handspun phase is not likely to last long; I've got a baby sweater to knit in MadTosh!

Ma Petite

We had a beautiful weekend here, perfect weather for a photo shoot, but unfortunately I had an unwilling model. I still hope to get some decent shots of this sweater, but for now I hope you'll bear with me and these substandard indoor shots of Rainbow and her new cardigan.

Pattern: Hiro Petite by Julia Farwell-Clay, size 4
Yarn: Berroco Vintage worsted (50% acrylic, 40% wool, 10% nylon) in Pansy (~1.75 skeins), Pool Party (~0.5 skeins), and Banana (~0.25 skeins)
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 7 (4.5 mm) Addi Turbo 32" circs
Started/Completed: October 23/November 4
Mods: added a steek to the yoke; worked collar and button bands in seed stitch

This sweater was entirely planned by Rainbow. She picked the pattern and the yarn (from a couple of choices). I knew going in, of course, that the main color would be purple, as most of her sweaters must be these days, be I think she did an excellent job of selecting the contrast colors.

For the most part, this was a fun knit. I'm so used to working with small needles and skinny yarn that working worsted on size 7s was incredibly fast (even considering I had to frog back several inches on the body when I discovered a mistake made while knitting while overtired). This pattern is knit from the bottom up, starting with the body, which is knit flat. The sleeves are knit in the round up to the underarm, and then the sleeves and body are joined on one needle to work the yoke. The yoke is where I made my one major modification, and that was to add a 10-stitch steek at the front. I have never tried doing stranded colorwork flat, and I didn't want this to be my first attempt at it, so I added the steek in order to knit the whole stranded portion in the round. This worked fairly well, in my opinion, though if you look closely at the last few colorwork rows (where there were lots of decreases), you can see that my tension isn't as even as it could be.

As I detailed in a previous post, I used my sewing machine to secure the steeks and then whipstitched the facings to the inside. Here again, if you look really closely, you can see that one side of the cardigan is a bit lumpy because I didn't do this as neatly as I could, but I'm not sweating it -- and Rainbow certainly isn't, so if she's happy, I'm happy.

She had to try it on before I wove in the ends!

My other major modification was to do the neckband and button bands in seed stitch, rather than garter stitch as called for in the pattern. I found this instruction to be a little odd given that the sleeve cuffs and bottom hem are in seed stitch and the pictures in the pattern show these areas in seed stitch, too; I was in touch with the designer, and she said her tech editor had recommended garter due to something about rate of picking up stitches. I find that my seed stitch lies pretty flat and even, pretty much like garter, and I wanted everything to match. I did not do intarsia for my button bands, though, so they're all in the solid main color. It would have been nice for the bands to match the dominant color in each section, but I didn't want to deal with any more ends to weave in.

Rainbow picked out the buttons from my grab bag collection; they're a plain pale blue that's pretty translucent, so they pick up the purple nicely.

I think if I had knit this for me, I would not be 100% pleased with how it came out, but I didn't knit it for me. Rainbow was so excited to wear it once it was all sewn up and dry from its blocking that her preschool teachers told us she didn't want to take it off all day. I predict it will get a lot of wear this winter, and it's roomy enough that she may be able to get another season's wear out of it as well.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the pattern. It was pretty easy to follow and the charts were easy to read, which is always a plus in my book. If you're going to knit this, you should be aware that there's a typo in the instructions for working seed stitch flat over an even number of stitches; it should read (p1, k1) across for even/wrong side rows. I've been in touch with the designer and I expect she'll fix it and update the pattern at some point.

I think this last photo sums up this project quite well:

A Surprise

The problem with designing is that sometimes I can't share things with you that I'm really excited about. Unless I'm absolutely sure I'm going to be self-publishing a pattern, I have to keep the whole process secret. That's the case with today's surprise, which started much earlier this year. I swatched, submitted a proposal, had it accepted, wrote up the pattern, knit up the sample, and mailed it all back almost six months ago. This week, the pattern finally went live. This is my first non-self-published pattern to be made available, too, so needless to say, I'm pretty excited.

Photo by Brittany Tyler

This is my Ruche and Welt Cowl, an infinity cowl worked entirely in the round and featuring (no surprises here!) ruching and welts. It's worked in a DK-weight yarn, a scrunchable 80% wool/20% silk blend from Sweet Grass Wool called Mountain Silk DK, which has great body and great drape, though you could easily substitute a light worsted. You'll need about 600 yards for the whole thing. The finished cowl is approximately 8" wide and 54" around after blocking, so you can wear it a number of ways -- in a long loop, doubled around your neck, or folded with one end pulled through the other.

Photo by Brittany Tyler

There are really only a few rounds in this pattern where you have to pay attention; the rest of the time it's just knit, knit, knit around and around, which makes for a quick and relatively mindless knit. Best of all, it's a free download! I hope you'll go take a look and make one for yourself or a gift! Queue it here; download it here. Happy knitting!

Eek! A Steek!

As you know, I've been working on a sweater for Rainbow that has a colorwork yoke. Although the pattern is seamless (except for underarm stitches that are grafted), the yoke is written to be worked flat. I've never really tried to do colorwork purled, and I knew if I tried my gauge would be way off, so I decided to add a steek to the sweater so that I could knit the yoke in the round and thus not have to worry about purling.

A steek is essentially a strip of knit fabric that bridges the patterned parts. Once the knitting is done, you cut down the middle of the steek and fold the cut edges under. It can be a little disconcerting to take scissors to your knitting, but if you do everything correctly, your sweater won't unravel.

In my case, when I got to the end of the first row of the colorwork yoke, I used the two strands then attached to my knitting to cast on 10 stitches at the center front (where my button bands would later be). I placed a marker on either end of these stitches to help me keep track of where the patterned stitches ended and the steek stitches started. For every round involving two colors, I simply alternated the two over the 10 steek stitches. Once the colorwork section was complete, I bound off the steek stitches and finished the rest of the neckline working back and forth.

Then the fun began. Because my yarn (Berroco Vintage) is mostly synthetic, the strands of yarn were not going to hold together on their own and wouldn't be able to felt over time (which is what happens in many steeked garments). This meant I needed a strong way to secure the steek stitches -- my sewing machine.

First, I got my steek ready by weaving in a piece of contrast yarn to show me where the center of the steek was (this would be where I would cut after I'd done by sewing):

Then I got the knitting set up in my sewing machine:

The lighting is bad here, so the colors are off, but if you look closely you can see that I have two lines of stitching on either side of the pink yarn marking the center. You really only need one line of stitching on either side, but as it was easy enough to do two more, I thought I'd be extra careful. You'll also notice that the stitching isn't pretty, and it doesn't have to be. The key is to get the thread to pierce the yarn strands, thereby locking them together.

Once the steek was secured, I removed the contrast yarn and started cutting down the middle.

After just a few cuts, I had a cardigan!

The last step was to fold the cut edges under and secure them to the inside. This isn't as necessary with an all-wool yarn, as eventually (with wear) the facings will felt to the inside of the sweater, but I needed to do it on this sweater to keep the front looking neat (and to keep it from toddler fingers!).

Ta da! The scary part is done! All that's left after this is to pick up the stitches for the button bands. Now, that wasn't so scary, was it?

Slowpoke

My poor wheel has been sadly neglected of late. While all the activity has been great for my sweater knitting, I've gotten very little spinning done. I'm still working on the CMF Portuguese wool that I started several weeks ago, but now at least I'm on the second of three bobbins:

This fiber seems to want to take a long time to spin, for some reason, but at least it's an enjoyable spin. The fiber drafts easily and there isn't much VM to pick out. I'm hoping to make some decent progress on this bobbin today and maybe finish up the third over the course of the next week.

Simultaneous

Don't forget about the pattern sale!

Since finishing up my Calligraphy Cardigan, I've been working on two other sweaters in tandem. The first is my SPAKAL sweater, Cecily Glowik MacDonald's Goodale, which I'm knitting in my Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino handspun. I neglected this for quite a while in an effort to get the other sweater done, but I'm moving again. I'm primarily putting in time on it during my lunch break at work, so I'm really only getting in a handful of rows at a time. Even so, I'm working my way down the body pretty quickly. The sleeves have nothing left to do but some ribbing, so I should be able to make fast work of them once the body is done. At this point, I'm only into my second skein of yarn, so it looks like the sweater will take far less than I thought once all is said and done.

My evening knitting has been focused on Rainbow's Hiro Petite. Last night I reached the critical point where the sleeves are joined to the body and the yoke colorwork begins. I did decide to add a steek to the front to make the colorwork portion easier, because I knew my gauge would go all wonky if I tried to purl in stranded colorwork. This yarn (Berroco Vintage) isn't ideal for steeking, so I'll likely have to break out the sewing machine when it's time to cut.

As it is November 1, I'm really tempted to cast on something new for NaKniSweMo (like perhaps Vitamin D in the Imperial Yarn Tracie Too I bought several weeks ago), but I really think I should be good and finish the two other sweaters I'm knitting for myself that are already on the needles. What do you think?

A Do-over and an Announcement

Shortly after I published my last post, I sat down to work on Rainbow's sweater. I was almost done with the waist decreases when I realized that somehow, no doubt in a haze of exhaustion, I'd thrown in an extra random decrease way back near the beginning. There was no way to fix it except to rip back. Fortunately, it was just stockinette, so while it took some time to get back to where I was, there was no patterning to keep track of or chart to refer to. As of last night, the body (up to the underarms) is done and the first sleeve has been started.

I have a feeling the sleeves will go very quickly, so I should be able to get to the fun part of this sweater -- the colorwork yoke -- later this week. That section is going to take some thought, though, because it's stranded colorwork that's worked flat, something I have not done before. I suppose I could add a steek, which I might end up doing just to keep my tension even.

In an unrelated note, this Wednesday is Halloween, which means it's been seven years since I started this blog. Can you believe it? I started it on a whim, when I was between jobs and was spending way too much time on the Internet reading other blogs (which I'd only recently discovered), but I'm so glad that I've kept it up all these years. Were it not for the blog, I wouldn't have met some great friends and probably wouldn't have developed as much as I have as a knitter.

In honor of the occasion, I'm having a little pattern sale. Starting at midnight on Wednesday (12 a.m. eastern), all of my patterns will be 25% off for the following week (until 11:59 p.m. eastern on Tuesday, November 6). Simply enter the code BLOGGING7 when you check out on Ravelry or by clicking here. This code is good for all my patterns and can be used more than once. This is just a little way of saying thank you to all of you who have been reading and commenting during these last seven years!

Smaller Scale

I'm still on my sweater kick, but I thought that, seeing as I already have two sweaters for myself on the needles, I'd make my next one a slightly smaller size -- specifically, a size to fit Rainbow.

About a month ago, when she was sick with a virus that left her feeling pretty rotten, I thought I'd distract her by plopping her in front of the computer and showing her ideas for a sweater. She gave me some specifics (namely that she wanted a cardigan rather than a pullover and something with multiple colors) and we looked at search results. Her pick was Hiro Petite, a pattern I'd favorited when it was released. A week later, we took a trip to the LYS to select yarn. I gave her two choices based on what was the right gauge and washable, and she picked Berroco Vintage, which I'd worked with once before. It should come as no surprise that she picked a shade of purple as the main color!

I finally cast on for the sweater on Tuesday night, having swatched over the weekend, and it's moving along at a pretty good clip. I'm in the almost-mindless point now, working in stockinette with a few decreases here and there, though I'm sure once I get to the colorwork yoke I'll really start flying through it. It's such a nice change to be working on a sweater for her (much as I love knitting them for myself) and especially rewarding knowing that she's emotionally invested in it. I'm very much looking forward to the day when she's old enough to learn how to knit so we can knit sweaters together.

For her part, Rainbow's very excited about it and keeps asking me if it's done yet. Knit faster, Mommy, knit faster!

Officially Ready for Fall

Though we're having a bit of a heat wave this week, I can now say that I'm ready for the chilly fall weather. Why? Because I have a new sweater that's roomy and cozy. What's more, in spite of the fact that I ignored it for about a week, I still managed to finish it before the end of the knitalong. Woohoo!

Pattern: Calligraphy Cardigan by Hannah Fettig
Yarn: madelinetosh tosh dk (100% superwash merino wool) in Silver Fox, six full skeins and just a smidge of a seventh
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) Chiao Goo Red Lace needles and US 4 (3.5 mm) Knit Picks Options (for buttonbands)
Started/Completed: September 22/October 21
Mods: eliminated about 2" of length in the body and made adjustments on sleeves to account for errors (see below)

Although this sweater turned out well in the end, it was plagued by some counting issues from the start. I cast on for it on a day when I was woken up by a sick child at 4:30 a.m. and spent several hours in the ER, so by the time I sat down at my LYS that afternoon to begin, I was having trouble counting. I had to have a friend double check that I'd cast on the correct number of stitches before I could start knitting. The next evening, as I was placing markers for my raglan increases, I was obviously distracted by the same sick child and placed my markers incorrectly -- a fact I only discovered about a week later when I was finished with all the increases. At that point, I decided that I didn't want to rip back and determined to fudge the numbers when I knit the sleeves, which I did. The result is that one shoulder is two stitches wider than the other, but I really can't remember now which one it is, so clearly it is not a major issue.

For the first time, I was a really good knitter and alternated skeins every two rows/rounds because I was working with a hand-dyed yarn with some variation from skein to skein. I figured that any variation would be more obvious in a light-colored yarn, and I was right. I didn't alternate skeins as much in the button bands, and I can definitely see a difference. It was a pain to be constantly untwisting and untangling, but I prefer that to the alternative of distinctive blocks of every-so-slightly different colors in the finished sweater.

The only intentional modification I made was to make the sweater a little shorter than called for in the pattern. As written, the sweater is more of a coat-like garment; if I knit it to the specified dimensions, it would have hit well below my butt. I decided that I didn't need a sweater to be quite that long, so I started the bottom ribbing about 2" higher, working the last set of waist increases into the first round of ribbing. As I suspected (because my yarn is a superwash), the sweater did grow some in length when I blocked it, so I think if I'd knit it as written, the sweater might be hanging close to my knees.

Despite eliminating some length, I still needed more yarn than called for in the pattern (just a little bit of an extra skein to do about four or five rows of the second button band) even after using every last bit of the six skeins I started off with. I suspect this is mainly because my row gauge was a little off, meaning I needed more rows per inch than the specified row gauge. I wasn't off a huge amount, but obviously it was enough to need to break in to that seventh skein. The good news is that I still have most of that skein left and it's enough to make a hat or cowl or something with.

My only disappointment in this sweater is the buttons. I picked them out on Saturday at my LYS after much deliberation, and I do like how they look. But as I was sewing them on on Sunday evening, I noticed a funny smell. It took several minutes before I realized the smell was coming from the buttons, and it got increasingly stronger as I kept sewing. I had hoped that the smell would go away after a nice bath with some Soak, but it's still there (albeit not as strong as it once was). It's kind of a chemical smell, so I'm assuming it's from something used to manufacture the buttons, but it is rather foul and might deter me from wearing the sweater if it doesn't go away. I'm hoping that it's just a matter of airing out (the buttons are kept in closed plastic cylinders at the LYS, so there's not much of a chance for a smell to dissipate), but if anyone has suggestions for getting the stink out of stinky buttons, I'm all ears.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this sweater. It was an easy knit (that I still managed to screw up, ha!), and the resulting garment is very much like a favorite boyfriend sweater -- roomy, comfortable, easy to curl up in. I suspect that, assuming I can get rid of the button smell, this will be a favorite sweater for the chilly days of fall and winter ahead.

Absence and the Heart

It's true what they say. I haven't spun in quite a long time because I've been so focused on finishing up my Fall for Tosh sweater, and I've been missing my wheel. The sweater in question is very nearly finished (about four rows on the second button band, eight buttons to sew on, and a handful of ends to weave in), so I sat down at my Lendrum this afternoon for a bit to get reacquainted. It needed some oil, not surprisingly, but was most obliging to me while I worked on a CMF club shipment (July's, in Portuguese wool top). I didn't love the colors in the fiber, but they're growing on me as I spin.

Technically, this is a regional merino, though it's not supersoft. It's spinning up quite nicely, though, and should have a bit of loft when it's plied. I'm suddenly feeling a bit of urgency to get it done because the next shipment arrived while we were on vacation:

This is Clun Forest, and for a nice change it's in roving form rather than top, so I can use it to practice my woolen spinning. This may be my last shipment for quite a while; I believe the club will be continuing for the rest of the year, but I may opt out because I still have so much fiber stashed to spin. I'll wait and see what the fiber choices are first, but I'd be perfectly happy to spin through what I've already got for a while, particularly as I've been hoarding some of it.

As for knitting this week, as soon as I finish up my Calligraphy Cardigan, which should be this evening, I'll be casting on for a Hiro Petite for Rainbow. I swatched last night in the car going to and from a friend's chili cook-off -- don't you just love big needles and thicker yarn?

My stitch gauge is spot on with size 7s (my row gauge is close enough). I have a feeling that this will be a very quick and fun knit!

Too Ambitious

We got back from out trip last night, and it appears that I was a bit overambitious in my selection of knitting projects to take. I ditched the hat project the night before we left after I had gauge problems, so it was just my Peckish sample for Knit Picks and a skein of handspun to become socks. The latter went into my checked bag and was untouched for the entire course of the trip. Though I spent much of the two four-hour flights working on the shawl, I actually spent very little time knitting while we were there. We spent most of the trip walking around and exploring or by the pool -- neither of which was very conducive to knitting. I finished up the last of the border on the shawl today, so tonight is all about weaving in ends and blocking. I'm hoping to take photos and get this in the mail this weekend.

We've officially entered bad lighting season

Tomorrow I plan to spend the day at my LYS, finishing (or getting close to finishing) my Calligraphy Cardigan. I have half a sleeve and button bands left, so I should be able to wrap things up by the time I have to go back to work!

The Checklist

I've got about a day and a half until we leave for our trip and still quite a bit to do. I have to pack up Rainbow's stuff tonight (she'll be staying with the grandparents tomorrow night to facilitate a quick exit by us on Saturday morning) and then pack my stuff tomorrow. The weather looks like it's going to be good, so that will make my packing job easier. The hard part is selecting what knitting to take.

I already know that my Peckish shawl for Knit Picks is coming with me on the plane, where I hope it will get finished. Then I'm planning to take a skein of handspun to knit Rainbow that butterfly hat, but I'm also thinking that perhaps I should take a skein of sock yarn just in case I finish the other projects or need a change of pace. A simple vanilla pair of socks would be easy because I wouldn't have to drag another pattern around with me, and I could do them in a skein of handspun for some extra fun. That's not overkill, right? It's a five-day trip, but there are two long plane rides in there -- and it is vacation, after all.

Handspun for Rainbow's hat

Tonight's task, after packing for the toddler, is to wind all the yarn I'll be taking. And as long as I have the swift and ball winder out, I might as well make good use of them, right? (Remind me to tell you sometime why it's such a big deal to get them out in the first place.) I might as well wind the additional skein of tosh dk that I bought last weekend to finish my Calligraphy Cardigan, and then there are the skeins of handspun that are waiting to go into my Goodale, which will be picked up again once my Calligraphy is finished.

There's still all the usual stuff to do before a trip -- clean out my purse and wallet, go to the bank, make sure I have all the important documents and personal stuff -- but I think I'll feel a lot better once the knitting situation is squared away.

I'll be taking my computer with us to check e-mail but likely not blogging until we get back, so see you on the flip side!

Sleeve the First

It should come as no surprise that I'm still working on my Calligraphy Cardigan, though I am getting closer to completion. Over the weekend, I did finish the body, so I at least met that goal, and started in on the first sleeve. When it put it down for the night last night, I had it done about to the elbow and had only three sets of decreases left to do.

The sleeve is not going as fast as it could because I'm still alternating skeins every two rounds, which means at least a little untwisting and repositioning of yarn sources every round. Still, the rounds get shorter as I go, so I'm reasonably optimistic that I'll have the first sleeve done by tomorrow and make a good start on the second sleeve by the end of the week.

In the meantime, I'm still working on my Peckish sample for Knit Picks and am about two-thirds of the way through the stripes. Unlike my sweater sleeves, the further I go on this project, the longer the rows get. The Mister and I are leaving for a little anniversary trip (our fifth was last month) on Saturday and we'll have a fairly long plane ride, so I'm hoping all that uninterrupted time -- Rainbow is not coming with us! -- will mean a finished shawl. Ideally, I'd like to have this done, blocked, photographed, and shipped back by next weekend at the absolute latest.

Of course I will be taking a back-up project with me just in case I finish a lot faster than expected. We're experiencing unseasonably chilly weather here this week, so I'm thinking that a handspun hat for Rainbow might be a good thing to take. I've already selected a pattern and have a skein of handspun that just needs to be wound, so that's one more thing to add to my to-do list before we leave.

In Which I Visit My LYS

Although it's Sunday, I haven't touched my wheel all week, so this isn't your run-of-the-mill Sunday post. Instead, this post is all about how I've enhanced my stash this weekend. If you can believe it, I visited my LYS a total of three times in the last two days -- and made a purchase at each and every visit. Lest you think I'm blowing my paycheck and going crazy due to wool fumes, I can tell you that two of the three purchases were for very specific things.

The first trip was yesterday morning, right as the shop opened, and I had Rainbow with me. In return for her accompanying me to get a flu shot (she had hers last week), I took her to the shop to pick out yarn and colors for the sweater I promised I'd knit her this fall, Hiro Petite. She'd picked out the pattern herself two weekends ago when she was sick and I was trying to cheer her up a bit, but she'd been coming up with different color combinations all week, ever since I'd told her I was going to take her to the yarn store to pick out colors. In the end, this is what she chose:

The colors are not quite accurate here, but the two skeins in the back are a gorgeous deep royal purple (the colorway is Pansy). The two skeins in the front -- Pool Party and Banana -- will be the contrast colors. All four skeins are Berroco Vintage, a wool/acrylic/nylon blend. Normally I'd choose a regular wool, but given all the messes she gets into these days, I needed it to be washable, and obviously I had to give her a lot of color choices. This really fit the bill. I've used the yarn in the past and really enjoyed it, so I'm sure this'll be another pleasurable knit.

I was back at the shop in the afternoon for my usual Saturday afternoon knitting time (working diligently on my Calligraphy Cardigan) and decided that I would treat myself to another sweater's worth because the store's pre-inventory store was in full swing. I've had Heidi Kirrmaier's Vitamin D pattern in my queue for quite some time but have almost no sportweight yarn in my stash. I'd also had my eye on a yarn line at the shop for a while and decided this was time to give it a try.

This is Imperial Yarn Tracie Too in a colorway called Rain. The color in the photo is pretty accurate -- it's a slightly blue-tinged gray. I'm really looking forward to knitting with this.

The third LYS trip was this afternoon and was necessitated by the fact that I had just about finished the bottom ribbing on my Calligraphy Cardigan before going to bed last night. Despite the fact that I'd cut about two inches of length from the body, it was pretty apparent when I put it down last night that the two untouched skeins left for this sweater were probably not going to be enough to finish both sleeves and the (pretty wide) button bands. So today I ran over to pick up one extra skein, which, thankfully, they still had. Then I came home and finished off the ribbing. This isn't the best picture, but you can see just how much yarn has gone into this sweater so far:

I've got just a small amount left in the third and fourth skeins (probably less than 10 yards in each), so I'm glad I picked up the extra one!

Sweater Growing

Still here, still working on the same old sweater. I'm spending time working on my Calligraphy Cardigan just about every day; in a good evening, I can add about two inches to the body, which is not too shabby. After a productive evening at knit night last night, I'm now through three (of five) sets of increases and the body is now measuring about 12" below the underarm.

Last night I took a closer look at the schematic and pulled out the measuring tape to realize that if I knit this sweater as specified, it's going to end up covering my tush. Now, I often add length to my sweaters so that they don't ride up when I sit or bend over, but this might be a bit too long for me, so I may remove a couple of inches worth of length.

This is all related to the fact that I've reached that inevitable stage in the process of knitting a sweater: the moment when I begin to panic that I will not have enough yarn to finish. At the moment, I have two untouched skeins of yarn, and I believe that finishing the body will use the better part of the two skeins that are attached at the moment (I'm alternating skeins every two rows). Once I finish the body, I'll still have two sleeves and a total of 6 inches of 2x2 ribbing to do on the button bands. I keep reminding myself that I'm using the yarn specified in the pattern, I bought the specified number of skeins, and my gauge is off just enough to work in my favor (I'm getting just slightly fewer stitches to the inch than I should). I also had way more than enough yarn when I knit my Effortless Cardigan, which was by the same designer and in the same yarn, so chances are I'll be okay this time around, too. It's still not stopping me from knitting faster (because knitting faster makes the yarn last longer, right?).

If there's a bright side to all of this it's that it's looking very good that I'll finish this sweater by the end of the knitalong, which is the end of the month. We have a fairly uneventful weekend ahead of us, and I'd like to finish the body by the end of it.

Meanwhile, on other needles, I'm working on yet another Peckish, this time in Knit Picks Stroll (or, as I like to call it, the Yarn Formerly Known as Essential), for the KP IDP program. I haven't used the yarn in quite a while, and it's a lot softer and fluffier than I remember (though it's quite possible that it didn't used to be merino). I've been working on this primarily during my lunch breaks during the week but will have to step it up a bit soon because I've promised to get the sample back before the end of the month. I will likely take this with me when the Mister and I go on an anniversary trip the week after next; I think it will make for great airplane and waiting around knitting because I won't need to refer to a pattern.