Progress
An email arrived this morning from the nice folks at Secret Pal 9, to confirm my entry for the exchange. I’m kinda giddy about it, to tell you the truth, and really looking forward to it starting next month. I don’t know whether I’m more excited to be a secret pal, or to have one. I have all kinds of gifting plans; I just hope my taste runs along the same lines as my recipient’s.
Rosedale now has two sleeves, and I’m about to cast on for the waistband. I’ve given away the corrugated rib in the original pattern in favour of K3, p2 rib, which seems to suit the subdued (by Noro standards, anyway) colourway better.
If you read the previous entry, you’ll know that I’ve also been at work on Lizard Ridge. Despite my self-imposed yarn moratorium, I went ahead and ordered some sale Kureyon to make some more squares. Because — well, it was on sale, and sales don’t last forever, and really it was saving me money since I was going to be buying the Kureyon anyway at some point… and so on.
And B. left for work this morning, it being dress-down Friday, in the Rowan sweater, looking wonderful. A good knitting week.
Lizard Ridge begun
Originally uploaded by The Ravelled Sleeve.
The first of 24 (yikes!) squares for Knitty’s afghan du jour, Lizard Ridge, in some orphan balls of Kureyon I’d been wondering what to do with. That’s 159 on the left, and 124 on the right, both of them appearing quite a bit darker than they really are.
Despite appearances to the contrary (especially to those of us with limited short row experience), the pattern is simple, quickly memorized and just as quickly knitted, and does make great use of Kureyon’s space-dyeing. I still can’t love the scratchy roughness of this wool, though, which makes it a bit harder to imagine curling up under the finished product — although it will certainly be plenty warm.
And yet more FOs: my first socks
The no-Kitchener socks. I learned a lot from this pair, more from error than trial: that knitting from the toe up is a great idea to prevent shorting yourself in the cuff, as I did with these, and that — however much I may love it in the ball — I don’t really like this kind of variegated sock yarn knitted up. Space-dyed only for me from now on, I think.
Yet another early FO: Rowan man’s sweater
Originally uploaded by The Ravelled Sleeve.
The aforementioned Rowan sweater in Jo Sharp Silk Road DK tweed, bearing the unmistakeable signs of having been stuffed in a drawer. Still feels great, despite much wear and ill treatment. Always remember to swatch, people.
A previously FO: Charlotte’s Web shawl
The (deservedly) ubiquitous and wonderful Charlotte’s Web pattern, courtesy of Koigu, knitted in (what else?) Koigu PPPM. The photo really undersells the brilliant and vibrant shades of green, but it was taken on a rather gloomily grey day. As I mentioned in a previous post, this was knitted for my mom during the last few weeks of her life. It was a great, if very bittersweet, pleasure to make it for her, and to see her wear it. As I was knitting it, the vivid greens and shots of other bright colours reminded me of her lush and beautiful garden, and seemed like an assertion of life in the face of death; and now that she’s gone, they remind me of her vividness, and her pleasure in colour.
Rosedale underway
Not in fact a man’s version of Rosedale, as I’d said, but a Rosedale for me, since B. blenched at the sight of that little purple stripe down by the cuff. Stripes are fine, colour is fine, but keep that purple away from me, thank you very much.
As usual, the colour balance hasn’t been exactly what I expected from looking at the ball, but I think I like it nonetheless. The colours in the photo are a little more muted than the real thing: that teal stripe on the left is actually almost electric in intensity, and the orange stripe to its left should really be a pale peach. It has an early-fall-in-the-woods feeling to it: mossy greens, stone buffs and greys, rust and orange and charcoal sections. And that purple, too, of course…
Meilenweit socks completed!
… and they fit perfectly — on my feet! I’ve been promising them to B. for the past year, and now they’re too small for him. Back to the beginning…
Change of plans
Hold everything I said in the last post: my next project is going to be a man’s version of Rosedale United, in Silk Garden 204. (Why is it that Noro discontinues all the shades I like — or is it the other way around?) This will be a birthday sweater for the longsuffering knit-widower in my household, which gives me about a month to complete it. Eeek!
The Meilenweit socks are nearly done, and looking good, although I’m alarmed to discover that the second sock is quite a bit tighter around the instep than the first. Something, or several somethings, has happened to my tension between now and the time I knitted the first one: possibly the same several somethings responsible for the tension in my back. The sock’s not uncomfortably tight on me — and I’ve been trying to convince myself it feel supportive rather than restrictive — but I haven’t yet summoned the nerve to try it on B.’s foot to see how it fits. Photos to follow.
Knitting, and thinking about knitting
The awkward thing about this knit blog business is that it requires — at least from time to time — that you actually knit something. This isn’t normally a problem, since I knit compulsively while doing anything that leaves my hands free. At the moment, though, I’m home alone with my nearly-three-year-old son, and after cleaning and working and cooking and playing hide-and-seek and driving to and fro and reading The Cat in the Hat for the eighteenth time this afternoon (“Why don’t we read something else?” “NO.”), I’ve been either too busy or too tired from being busy to get much knitting done.
That said, I’ve made some progress on the second of my husband’s Meilenweit socks: the cuff is done, the heel turned, and I’m starting in on the instep decreases. A misplaced stitch marked means I’m going to need to frog a few rows, however, which undoes all last night’s work.So, in the absence of any real progress, here’s a list of my plans.
1. Bianca’s Jacket (Fall 2006 IK) in Debbie Bliss Silk Road DK Tweed (in Magnolia). The wool is left over from a sweater for my husband. When I say left over, I mean that I bought 20 balls of yarn and had 8 left. I did make a leetle meestake with the yardage/gauge calculation — not swatching and not calculating — but mostly I had way too much because I’m Chicken Little. One extra ball could be considered insurance; 8 looks like paranoia.
2. Beauchamp, from Jaeger no. 41, but in a rich emerald green Emu Superwash wool, rather than the high-end yarn the pattern calls for. I think it’ll work; don’t rat me out for being cheap. (But will it make me look like I’ve escaped from a St Patrick’s Day parade?)
3. Seraphim, by Miriam Felton, in double-stranded ruby Alpaca with a Twist Fino laceweight. The pattern is elegant and simple, the yarn is luscious, and I’m longing to get started on this project, but I need to finish my aunt’s Charlotte shawl first.
4. Socks for me in a beautiful but now discontinued shade of Fortissima Socka Colori (no. 2420). These will be either Miriam Felton’s Trekking Socks pattern, or the Rib and Cable Socks from the Fall 2005 IK.
Pardon my html
So I’ve been quietly orbiting the knitblogosphere for some time now — let’s not call it blog stalking, shall we? — and I’ve finally decided to launch my own blog. This is a bit of a departure from type, since I’m an Amish manquée; I’ve never so much as owned a cell phone. But it seems unsporting to keep lurking without offering anything myself. The plan (insofar as there is one) is a mostly knit blog, but we’ll see.
