Sunny Snow Day Knitting

Snow day! No school -- which made sense at 5 this morning when the snow was pretty bad, but now the sun is shining and this is the view from my window:


So a good day to catch up on some knitting and finally photograph some FOs.


First, I finally finished my Daybreak Shawl, and it is just gorgeous! I've been wearing it nonstop since.

It's a pretty great size -- I knit the large, but then I stopped at 18 stripes of each color and 5 garter ridges at the end. This is an easy pattern to knit, but it did take quite a while, especially when those rows got really long at the end!


When I finished the shawl I made myself a matching beret. This was the Purl Bee beret pattern, which I think I added some stitches to because of a gauge difference. A nice simple pattern. I didn't like the way the decreases made the top pucker on the Purl version, so I spaced mine out a little differently. It came out to a nice size, a tiny bit bigger than I'd like perhaps. Sorry not to have a modeled shot -- I'm still in my pj's with no makeup in lazy snow day mode!


I was wrangling two and sometimes three balls of yarn, because I had two colors of orange that were slightly different and I decided to work them kind of like a gradient. Then at the end I was running out of one of the oranges so I did stripes of the two oranges together. It worked relatively well. I like the brighter orange better, though -- "Smaller Yellow Ant," if you are looking for a really gorgeous, rich, slightly brighter than pumpkin color. Fabulous. The other color is "Ruddy Daggerwing," which looked much darker and redder online, and is in fact only slightly darker and browner than the other orange (still a lovely color, but not as rich and bright). I had originally planned to stripe the two oranges, but they weren't different enough in color, so I ordered some more contrast yarn. The green is "Juniper Hairstreak." Again, a gorgeous color with a lot of depth. I had heard a lot about Sanguine Gryphon colors, and it was all true -- such beautiful, rich, sophisticated colors, with a nice variety of tones, but no pooling -- a truly gorgeous yarn. Bugga! is really soft but seems relatively strong. It did lose a little of its elasticity in blocking. This was fine for the shawl, though if I were to do it again I'd use smaller needles (I knit this on size 4). For the beret, it meant that I had to thread some elastic through the ribbing band. No big deal. Anyway, Bugga! is by far my favorite fingering/sock/light sport yarn now. So far it's wearing quite well, though of course it's a scarf, not socks. I don't think I'd use it for socks -- too soft, maybe not elastic enough, probably would wear out quite quickly. It's a tad on the pricey side, but the yardage is really generous. When I win the Megamillions, I am going to buy a skein of every color.

What I'm working on right now (somewhat furiously) is a super-late Christmas present for my bestest friend. She's the only person I've gifted knitting to who really seems to appreciate it. Non-baby knitting, that is -- I've knit a lot for babies and the moms (and grandmas) are always super appreciative. Anyway, I had ordered some pretty blue DK cashmere from Colourmart before Christmas to make her a cowl, but it still hasn't arrived a month later! This is a real fluke for Colourmart -- I have ordered from them a few times in the past and things always come shockingly quickly, considering that they're coming across the Atlantic. [update: it turns out the delay is due to US heightened security measures that were in effect between November and January. So their shipping should be at normal speed now if you order from them.] So I finally gave up on waiting and bought some Madelinetosh Pashmina to make a Honey cowl -- bandwagon knitting again!


It's a really beautiful fabric and a sophisticated final product, but it's kind of a tedious knit, especially because I decided the larger size really looks much nicer, and because I'm using a finer-gauge yarn than the pattern specifies. I am using Fleegle's garter-in-the-round hack, as suggested by Christina (Bowie on Ravelry) -- a brilliant way to avoid purling! But it does leave you working with two different balls of yarn, which is a little less portable, I find, and it also means that you have to keep peeking behind the slipped rows to make sure you're on track, because the wrong side is facing you when you knit these rows instead of purling them. And I find that I am just absent-minded enough that I mess up whether I am knitting or slipping a given stitch with relative frequency. Luckily the fabric is pretty easy to read so it's not a huge deal. The Pashmina yarn was nice and soft in the store, and really beautiful colors. Knitting it now I'm a little underwhelmed -- it doesn't feel quite as soft knit up, and it looks to me like it's going to pill and halo pretty quickly. For yarn that expensive I was expecting higher quality, I have to say.

Anyway, it's a lovely day to be sitting here in my cozy apartment, with a warm dog sleeping on my feet and a warm piece of knitting in my lap! Happy snow day to you all!

Not dead.

Or, as one commenter hopefully speculated, married.

I've just gotten really busy, and also I lost my camera battery charger and was too cheap to buy a new one for $80. I eventually found a cheaper replacement, so now I can photograph these lovelies:


One FO, a Multnomah shawl in Fibre Company Road to China Light. I adore both this yarn and this pattern. The yarn is unbelievably soft and incredibly warm -- alpaca, camel and silk combine to make this like a little heater for my shoulders.

I am calling this my hubris shawl, because I had to rip it out and reknit it like 4 times, because I didn't bother to read the pattern very carefully.


I never thought I was a shawl person, but I love it, so I'm working on another, a Daybreak shawl in Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! Also an unbelievably gorgeous yarn, soft and kettle dyed. I'm not 100% sold on this color combination, but I'm waiting to see once there are more orange stripes.


And it's all orange and green/teal, all the time here, evidently, because I also made myself a pair of Endpaper mitts in two colors of Knitpicks Stroll yarn. They're already pilly after only a few weeks of use, but that's to be expected with this yarn, and it was super cheap.


Okay. I can't promise to blog with much more regularity, but I'll try. And at least now I can post pictures again!

Sweetness

Finishing the Orals and the school year has made me want to do nothing but fall back on sheer relaxing pleasure knitting, which for me, unsurprisingly, is making top-down baby sweaters. I bought this yarn back in April to help sweeten a sort of miserable birthday spent alone and under the crushing stress of last-minute studying, and it actually did help.

The yarn is Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in "Cedar" with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in "Andersonville" as a contrast. They looked great together in the skein because there was a little touch of the cedar color in the Lorna's Laces. I bought them intending to make the mosaic-yoke "Cardigan B" from my "Steps to Stranded" patterns, but when I came to knitting the mosaic part, that stripe of cedar color turned out to muddy the crispness of the pattern, and my pretty squares looked more like smudges. So I improvised something that would work with this yarn.


Instead of six rows of mosaic pattern in alternating sequence, I worked four rows of garter stitch in the Lorna's Laces separated by two rows of stockinette in the Sweet Georgia. The beginning of each garter stitch section is where I worked my yoke increases.

I think it looks very nice, and it's a sweet little variation on the pattern. So if you're looking for a variation on the "Steps to Stranded" pattern, I'd recommend it, especially with yarns that are just a little too close in color to make the most of a stranded or mosaic pattern.


A note on the yarn: in my previous post I had expressed some doubt about the Sweet Georgia yarn, but I rescind that comment: after wet-blocking this yarn is heavenly -- soft and sort of silky feeling with no scratchiness, and it seems to have lost the fuzziness that was making me worry about how well it will hold up. I think if I were knitting socks with it I would still knit them at a pretty tight gauge just to be sure -- and this yarn is a relatively fat sockweight, so knitting on one's normal sock needles would already be knitting it pretty tightly. But at the looser gauge of this baby garment, it drapes beautifully.

Phew!

I passed my Orals, and I am celebrating by knitting another yoked baby sweater. I feel no shame about knitting a baby sweater with no intended recipient -- and I'm not alone; Grumperina just spoke on the subject herself.

This is made with some splurge yarn -- Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in "Andersonville" and Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in "Cedar." Both are just gorgeous, sophisticated colors, and they work really well together. I have some questions about how well the Sweet Georgia will hold up as it seems a little fuzzy from the get-go, but I don't care. Who could resist that glorious, complex shade of blue-green?

As summer approaches I am lining up some more knitting projects and taking a vow that I will actually finish at least two sweaters I've been sitting on. And of course, I've also got to start writing the dissertation!!

Nothing New November

I'm in the process of moving apartments, and when I started to pack the knitting area I was appalled at the size of my stash, and at the pile of unfinished pieces in my work basket. Whence my new motto: Nothing New in November! No new yarn, no starting new projects!

Here are just a few of the pieces yet to be finished:


Selbu Modern. I have some doubts about this: it's looking very small, and I know that I can stretch it to block, but perhaps not as much as I originally thought. I have to say that I am a fan of colorwork but this has not been super fun to knit, so the thought of ripping it out and adding a pattern repeat to make it the right size is not particularly appealing. So this might be a back-burner project.


Ripping and re-knitting the sleeves of my Shalom cardigan. These just never fit right, and I had been thinking that the whole cardigan was too big to wear when in fact I think it was just the sleeves that were too big. This should be about a two-night project in front of TV, I think; I've already pretty much finished one of the sleeves. I'm also going to thread some elastic into the collar to make it stay tight -- Karabella Aurora 8 is a stretchy, heavy yarn, and the neckline gets pulled way big by the end of a day of wearing it. Re-knitting with it reminds me of what a nice yarn it is, though -- super soft, super bouncy, and not particularly pilly, yet.


Remember this guy? This sweater has been on my needles for more than two years! It's been languishing almost finished because I now hate wrapping my purls the wrong way, as I was doing when I started this. It seems to take twice as long to knit a row this way! One sleeve is about 3 inches from completion, and the other one is still unworked from the armpit join. This project could take me more than just this month to complete. In trying it on to gauge sleeve length, though, I am reminded of how adorable it will be when I finish it!


One new spiral mitt, waiting for thumb ribbing, and then for its partner to be knit. I tried a different design for these and have decided I like the original spiral mitt much better. This pair might be gifted for Christmas.

Then a couple of cheats:


I cast on a few days ago for a featherweight cardigan. I'm counting this as a "nothing new" sweater, though, because I ordered the yarn (Colourmart cashmere 4-ply) more than a year ago. Knitting my mitts and cowl with the gray cashmere made me absolutely burn to work with more cashmere, so I pulled this out of the stash.



This one is really a cheat: This is the ribbing for the left front of a new cardigan design I started only a few days ago. It doesn't really count as "nothing new," if I were being a stickler, but I've got to have something besides sleeves to knit, don't I?

This is only the tip of the iceberg, peeps. Among the other unfinished items I dug out of the knitting cupboard are not one but two baby sweaters awaiting a second arm, the left front and two inches of the back of my birthday BFL sweater, about half of a chevron scarf to match my chevron beret, another patterned-yoke sweater left off about an inch from the armpit division, an adult surprise jacket for my mom, and a cable sweater I've had on the to-finish list since I first learned how to knit five years ago. Oy!

Will it all be finished in November? Definitely not. But will anything new be cast on between now and December 1? Absolutely not!!

You hear that, Jennifer Little? Absolutely not!!

Ful semyly hir wympul pynched was

Whoa. The first few days of the school year hit me like a steamroller this year! Between not being prepared either for the classes I was teaching or for my own reading, dealing with multiple technological issues in the office, assisting with a big medieval conference (at which I discovered that one of my personal medievalist heroes is also a knitter on Ravelry!), putting together loan documentation and board package materials for an apartment I'm buying, and triangulating multiple times a day between the lawyer and the broker, not to mention dealing with a mouse infestation in my current apartment, I am exhausted! And that's after only a two-day week of school!

It's a good thing that this also arrived this week: lovely, unbelievably soft cashmere yarn from Colourmart.


Now I know what everyone's gushing about! This yarn arrived quite quickly considering that it was sent from England. It came on a cone, oiled for spinning, and I skeined it and gave it a hot bath with dish detergent (twice with the detergent, followed each time by about five rinses). It still hasn't bloomed as much as it could, and it also smells really strongly now of Mrs. Meyers' Lemon Verbena dish soap. Even so it is heavenly to knit with -- sooooo soooooft, with a gorgeous fluffiness that is also somehow satiny, just like the most luxurious cashmere sweater you could imagine.

I'm using it to knit a spiral cowl. I am not usually a cowl kind of girl, preferring not even hand-knit scarves but big thin pashmina-type wraps, but when I saw all the cute pictures on Ravelry of this, I was convinced to try it. I certainly now appreciate the pleasures of knitting a cowl -- just round and round and round, no shaping, a nice size for subway lap knitting. I tried out a prototype with some leftover Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly it knit up. It's been a while since I knit anything in a gauge larger than 7 stitches per inch, I guess. Off the neck, it's pretty, but rather unimpressive:


But on and buttoned, I think it's really quite nice, sort of floppily structural. Pardon both the double chin and the visible bra straps:


There are many nice things about this pattern. The picot hems give it a polished, feminine look and maximum stretchiness; the eyelet spiral keeps it interesting and looks much more complicated than it actually is; it uses only about 200 yards of yarn, so you can buy something luxurious; and it's a great way to showcase one awesome button. For this red one, I used a metal "pelican in her piety" button that was a present from the ex-boyfriend -- it's a long and nerdy medieval/choir inside joke.

Baby Cashmerino was not really the best yarn for this pattern, and I'd warn people against using any bouncy, multi-ply superwash yarn like it for their cowls: it's just too stretchy and heavy and floppy really to hold the great structure that makes this pattern so cool. You definitely want something luxuriously soft and with some drape, but not perhaps stretchy -- lots of these cowls on Ravelry are knit with Malabrigo merino silk dk or Manos Silk Blend, and those both seem like a perfect choice. I have high hopes for this cashmere. I've also picked out the perfect button from my collection of antique buttons -- I have so many singleton beauties I've been dying to use!

Now for a nice, slow afternoon of luxurious knitting therapy!

long weekend knitting and Easter bread

It may be April, and the weather may be getting warmer, but it's still winter here Chez Looking Glass -- at least as far as the knitting's concerned. It seems always to be my M.O. to get the knitting bug and finally have time time to make something substantial just as the weather is getting too warm to wear it. Hence my lovely Shalom, which I have been able to wear thrice since knitting it. Now I'm deep into another totally unseasonal and impractical knit -- an Adult Surprise Jacket for my mom in Dream in Color Classy ("Dusky Aurora") and some stripes of leftover black Karabella Aurora 8.


It's been a hoot to knit. Originally, I had thought that the color variation in the Classy would be enough to accentuate the mitered corners and cool construction of this sweater, but you can see that the variegation was just too subtle -- a fact which really is a strong point of this yarn, because, really, who wants really noticeable striping and pooling? So I had to build in some stripes with a contrast color. I'm keeping it subtle with this one -- Paula is a pretty conservative dresser, and I'm planning to keep the striping to a minimum and to finish this short and boxy, like a little jacket.


Next up in the wintry yarn/knitting docket: an order of Jo Sharp DK wool in "Venice" that I got on the cheap in a supersale at Webs. This is probably also going to be a sweater for my mom, with a more conservative projected finishing time of this fall. I'm thinking simple, stockinette body with a cable at the button band and cables on the yoke -- kind of like a variation on the Radcliffe Cardigan. Of which, I realize, I still have two on the needles -- one for my mom and one for me. The one for my mom turned out dishearteningly small, and I just don't have the heart to rip it out and reknit the body bigger. So of course the solution is just to knit something else and let it keep languishing...

But all of those projects are temporarily on hold while I knit something for myself.


This is the beginnings of a hybrid circular shrug and shawl-collared vest for me, to wear over this dress at a May wedding:


I'm hoping the vintage-style look of that dramatic shrug shape (with added 3/4 sleeves) will both keep me warm and match the look of the dress. I'm making this out of Knitpicks Gloss held doubled. Definitely not my ideal choice for yarn -- Knitpicks yarns have always disappointed me with their tendency to pill immediately, and this yarn is a little scratchier and cheaper looking than I had hoped (the name "gloss" led me to imagine smooth, glossy yarn and not wooly, acrylic-shiny yarn) but I didn't want to break the bank on something I expect I will only wear a few times at most. I do have an awesome shiny faceted antique button I plan to use for the closing. More on that when I finish -- it has to be done by May 16th, at least!

Other crafty doings of late include baking a pair of perfect loaves of nisu, a Finnish bread my grandmother always made. This sweet, eggy, cardamom-flavored bread is sometimes spelled "nissu" and is more often called "pulla," which I believe is also the Swedish word for coffeebread. I got the itch to make it as Easter approached -- it's not necessarily an Easter bread or even a special-occasion bread, but I only got to eat it on holidays and special occasions when I was a kid, because that's when we tended to see my grandma.


Why, you ask, did I speak of loaves of nisu but only show you a paltry butt end and slice? Uh, because I've already eaten the rest of that loaf and shoved the other in the freezer to avoid further temptation.

I thought I'd share the recipe with you. In my opinion, I've gotten it totally perfected -- my mom attests that it is better than my grandmother's, which is saying a lot. So bake this and feel like a true Finn. Or at least a true Finno-American.

Nisu: Finnish coffee bread
Recipe adapted from Carmel Mackey's family recipe

Ingredients (makes two loaves):

1 cup 2% milk
1/4 pound (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 heaping teaspoon ground cardamom (grinding whole seeds in a coffee or spice mill recommended)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 package rapid-rise yeast
1/8 cup lukewarm water
2 eggs, beaten
3-4 cups flour
1 tablespoon 2% milk and 1 beaten egg to brush tops of loaves
fancy Swedish pearl sugar or fancy casting sugar to sprinkle on loaves


Equipment that might come in handy but is not necessary:

cooking thermometer
stand mixer
pastry brush
bread loaf pans

Scald the milk. I don't really remember what scalding actually involves, but I heated the milk on medium-high until bubbles started to form around the edges. Remove from heat and add butter, sugar, cardamom and salt. Don't stir at all. Just after you add these ingredients, dissolve the yeast in the water and let sit while the milk mixture cools.

When milk mixture cools to between 105 and 115 degrees, scoop 2 cups of the flour into a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer. Make a well in the flour and add eggs, milk mixture and yeast mixture to this. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth. Then begin adding the remaining flour 1/4 cup at a time until dough holds together and doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl, but is not too dry. If you are mixing this with the dough hook in your stand mixer, you might find that it's easiest to gauge the dough's consistency by stopping when it is still a little wet and kneading the remaining flour in during the kneading stage. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead until smooth and satiny, about 10 minutes. It's okay if you find you have to add some more flour as you knead to keep dough from sticking to your hands. Shape dough into a ball and place in a clean, lightly oiled bowl. Turn dough around a few times in the bowl to grease the top of dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Turn dough out onto a clean, oiled surface (no flour) and knead lightly and briefly to release air. Divide in half, and divide each half into three equal balls. Roll each ball into a snake about a foot long. Arrange 3 snakes vertically on the counter. Pinch together at the top and braid (as you would braid hair), stretching snakes ever so slightly as you braid them. Pinch together bottom and turn top and bottom pinched areas under to make braid look neat. Place braid into a lightly oiled bread pan or onto an oiled cookie sheet (making it in a bread pan will make the loaf rise taller, but it has to be a pretty long bread pan, not a little banana bread pan). Repeat with second loaf. Cover loaves with clean dishtowels and let rise until doubled, as long as 4 hours depending on how warm your kitchen is.

When loaves are the right size, heat oven to 375 degrees. Beat together egg and milk for brushing. Brush tops of loaves with this mixture, then sprinkle liberally with sugar. Bake 15-25 minutes, until tops of loaves are lightly browned. Let cool.

Even tastier the second day. Also good toasted and spread with butter when it starts to get a little stale.

Correction.

Silly me. I forgot that a big change in stitch gauge would entail a similarly big change in row gauge. There was no way this puppy was going to reach under my armpits at the bottom of the yoke ribbing. Luckily, I was planning all along to make it a sweater with sleeves, so it's all good. I incorporated a few raglan increases to cut down on the number of stitches cast on under the armpit, and viola: a Shalom-esque sweater rather than a Shalom.

I think it's still cute, though I liked the nice, neat way that the real Shalom's yoke ended just as the body/sleeves divided. Alas. Next time I won't be such a smart-aleck and will just knit something in the right gauge of yarn.

That said, I love, love, love this yarn (Karabella Aurora 8) -- the color and the feel. I worry, though, both that it will grow out of control and that it will become pilly. Those two problems have plagued me as long as I've been hard-headedly knitting things with soft yarn even though everyone says that soft yarn pills and that superwash grows...

four blobs

As schoolwork and other obligations piled up over the last few weeks, all I've been able to think about has been knitting. But spring break is here, baby, and I can finally do all that knitting I've been jonesing for!


Today, officially the first day of break, a package arrived from Webs with two lovely blobs in it: Dream in Color Classy in Dusky Aurora and Chinatown Apple. The Dusky Aurora is destined to be an Adult Surprise Jacket for my mom, with some modifications to make it look a little more like a boxy Chanel jacket than a lab coat. The Chinatown Apple, I don't know. Something for myself, I believe. I'd say a February Lady Sweater, but in fact I already have one of those blobs on the needles:


The periwinkle bed jacket for grandma was so successful that I've started my own in Jo Sharp Classic DK -- the gauge is different from the original though (5.5 stitches per inch), which means that I am using the medium measurements to knit an XXS. That's on hold for a bit, though, for two reasons: the first is that I accidentally pulled out the needle from about 30 stitches and am going to have to steel myself before I look at the damage to the lace pattern; the second is that I have to concentrate on the lace, so I am saving it for mindless TV knitting. (I mean, knitting in front of mindless TV, not mindless knitting in front of the TV.)

But spring break also means fun reading, and the book I checked out of the library -- Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex -- is so interesting that I want to read it all the time. So I've cast on a Shalom Cardigan, which has a yoke that needs concentration, but a totally mindless body. Once the yoke is done, I'll have nothing but stockinette in front of me, and I can read and knit to my heart's content. That will be in exactly 3 rows. The fourth blob:


Of course, this is also not the same gauge as the original (5 stitches per inch instead of 3.25), being knit in Karabella Aurora 8, so I've had to make some modifications. In case you're interested, they are to cast on 101 stitches, have 7 stitches in garter for the button band, and to do the increases as written. At the end of the third increase row, it works out to 253 stitches. Doing the math on Ishi's modifications (Ravelry link), I need to add 7 more stitches somewhere in the last garter ridge for a total of 260 stitches, and I'll be able to do the following:

Right front 43 stitches, sleeve 51 stitches, back 72 stitches, sleeve 51 stitches, left front 43 stitches. I'm going to put all but the back stitches on holders and work 8 rows of stockinette along the back to hike up the collar a bit, then I'll cast on 15 stitches for the underarms and work the body (total of 188 body stitches), then for the arms, pick up 15 stitches along the cast-on edge and 6 more along the side edge of those 8 rows, for a total of 72 arm stitches. Here's hoping it works out! Of course, Aurora 8 has a reputation for stretching, so I am hoping that my worries about this sweater's being too small will be resolved in blocking. I am, this time, using a blocked swatch, having been burned with growing, multi-ply superwash yarn in the past.

By the way, I am pleased as punch with both the Jo Sharp Classic DK and the Karabella Aurora 8. I've knit with the Karabella before, but not the Jo Sharp. Both are hardy, well-made yarns, but totally different from one another. The Aurora 8 is heavy, bouncy, super springy, and absolutely not itchy at all. That's why I'm hoping it will knit up into a nice, close-fitting, stretchy sweater that I can wear even in the summer. It would have been a terrible choice, however, for the February Lady Sweater, whose lace pattern would have gotten all stretched out of shape with that much weight pulling it down. The Jo Sharp yarn is much lighter and more rustic, and wooly enough that I don't think this will work up into a seasonless sweater. However, I have high hopes for its being a perfect, mulitpurpose, super-warm and hard-wearing winter sweater, and I know its lighter weight won't pull the lace out of proportion.

Hooray for spring knitting! Even if it does result in sweaters I can't wear for months!

100th post!

That's right, today's post is a mini-milestone. And to celebrate, here's a lovely rainbow of yarn that just came in the mail. I've had so much fun arranging it all to take photos!


I'm planning to use this Knitpicks Telemark yarn to make Floral Fair Isle Gloves for my... sister? Mom? Aunt? ... unclear... for Christmas. Which purchase puts me in a bit of a gray area as far as my newly pledged membership to Ravelry's Selfish Knitters group is concerned. Because while I am knitting for others, I bought yarn that I know will pill (as Knitpicks yarn always does), because it was cheap, and if I were to knit myself fair isle gloves I'd pick something pricier and better quality.

Man, it sure is pretty, though...


And at least when the gloves are actually given, they will not be pilly. A selfish gift indeed! I will get all the glory of beautiful handmade gloves, then not be around when they stop looking as nice after a few wears.

Meanwhile, here are not one but two Radcliffe Cardigan yokes in progress -- one for my mom and one for me (selfish knitting again!). Both in a color that is impossible to photograph accurately:
I'm glad that I'm knitting them both at the same time, because it's been a real lesson in yarn qualities and gauge. The big one is in Reynolds Candide, a hairy, hard-finished, two-ply (?) woolen-spun wool that's knitting on size 7 needles at a gauge of 4.125 stitches an inch (after a bad sweater-growth episode I have been gauge swatching and measuring assiduously); and the little one is in Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000, a soft, springy multi-ply merino that's knitting on size 3 needles at a gauge of 5.8 stitches per inch. I am finding myself preferring the way the Candide looks in this particular pattern, though, as I said in the last post, it's been rough on my wrists. This is a kind of vintagey sweater style, and the fuzzy finish and larger gauge of the Candide are a nice compliment. The seed stitch, however, in the Cool Wool is just so crisp and nubbly and neat. I hate working seed stitch, as it takes twice as long as stockinette, but I do so love the look of it. And while my mom doesn't mind itchy wool, I do, and like to wear camisoles under my sweaters instead of turtlenecks, so Cool Wool it is for me. I'm just hoping it holds up better than the last Radcliffe Cardigan I knit for myself!

Projects completed and imagined

After learning that a college friend just had a baby girl, I finally got it together and finished what I'm calling my Faux-bruary Baby Sweater, because I didn't have the pattern and made it up as I went along, therefore not realizing that I was supposed to majorly increase in the armpits for both body and arms. However, I think that the sweater looks pretty much like the original:


Sorry about those dark window sash shadows. I didn't bother putting in buttonholes, and instead used snaps, reinforced on the inside with cheap buttons and concealed on the outside by some vintage buttons I bought last summer at an antique show. To complete the whole vintage-y ensemble, I made a really easy bonnet.


When I say easy, I mean easy. I just did a square of nine repeats of the gull stitch pattern framed by 4 garter stitches on the sides and 4 garter ridges on the bottom, putting an eyelet 2 stitches in from the edges after the first 2 garter ridges and every second lace repeat thereafter. After 4 inches, I did some unnecessarily fancy decreasing in something approximating the lace pattern (but next time I think I'll just switch to garter at that point, then switched to garter and decreased 7 stitches every other row until the thing was like 8 stitches, then ran the yarn through the stitches and knotted it. I wove a ribbon through the eyelets to make a tie. As usual, I have no idea how big a baby's head is, so I eyeballed it -- the kid might be wearing the two parts of this outfit at two totally different times in her life ...


Meanwhile, a shipment from Knitpicks just came in, with four colors of their new "Imagination" sock yarn. I really have enough projects in the hopper already, but I just had to get some of this yarn when I saw that one of the colorways was named Looking Glass! And then, of course, I had to get a few more colorways while I was at it...


From left to right, these are Wicked Stepmother, Seven Dwarves, Frog Prince, and Looking Glass. As usual with Knitpicks, the colors look significantly different in person and on the website. The worst offenders in this instance are Wicked Stepmother and Seven Dwarves, which looked sort of muted and sweet on the computer screen but are in fact quite bright and blaring. The other two look pretty much the same as on the website. In fact, though I was worried that Looking Glass would not actually be a color I'd like, it turns out to be the nicest in the bunch, I think. I'm planning to pair these babies up and make some more chevron berets for Christmas presents, since I so enjoyed making the first one. I'm banking on the mixing of the colors doing wonders for the brightness of the two bright ones -- after my first beret I was surprised how different the yarn looked in the skein and knitted up.

But that will all have to wait until I clear out some of my other unfinished objects...

Tweed Heaven

The best thing about my graduate school (or perhaps the most dangerous thing, from the point of view of my bank account) is its proximity to School Products, one of the best yarn stores in New York City, and a great place to score a sweet deal on mill ends or cones in addition to the vast selection of Karabella products -- Berta Karapetyan, the store's owner, is also the founder of Karabella Yarns.

Recently, after taking a French test, I decided I had reason enough to visit School Products -- after all, taking the test had been stressful, right? And after that stress, I deserved a calm yarn shopping trip, right?

So I ended up walking out of there with this cone of yarn, a little less than 4 pounds of aran/bulky weight wool blend tweed for a little more than $75:


I'm not sure of the fiber content; after a little research on the School Products site, I think that it is a wool/silk/cotton blend, with about 66% wool. It was oiled for spinning, so after finding it just a little too tough to manipulate unwashed, I wound off a big skein and washed it pretty thoroughly with dish soap. Here's the ball of washed yarn:


Looks pretty normal, right? But here's my coffee cup for comparison:


The difference between the washed and unwashed yarn is pretty significant:


I think I'll have enough to make a gift for a friend and a sweater for myself, and perhaps I'll even have some left over for mittens or a hat or something. I've already swatched up for a vest using the cables from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Saddle-Shoulder Aran sweater:

Sigh...

Harry Potter, sunshine, and new Swish DK in the perfect shade of red. What could possibly be better?

Except, of course, Harry Potter, sunshine, knitting and swedish fish:

So far, I am really enjoying Book 7 and am about halfway through. I am finding it a little weird that Hogwarts has not factored in the story much at all, but I guess I kind of expected as much. But there's been good and surprising character development and certainly a compelling story line. It's bittersweet, of course -- I think that's why I'm knitting and reading, to draw it out and make it last longer.

As for the Swish DK, I love love love the color, and am pretty pleased with the feel -- it certainly is not as smooth and tightly wound as some more expensive superwashes I have tried, like Karabella Aurora 8 or Filatura di Crosa Zara. But for the price, this seems like a great yarn. I am particularly excited about this red, because a lot of the other colors I ordered came out much brighter and louder than they appeared on the computer, which is a fact I often forget about Knitpicks yarn. But this one is true -- a deep, lovely adult cranberry, I'd say about two shades darker and perhaps further into the browns than the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino I used for the Peach Blossom jacket.

And the design, you ask? I am REALLY excited about this one. I thought long and hard about how to get all of the aspects of this sweater just right and came up with an ingenious scheme, if I do say so myself [laughs sinisterly and rubs hands together]. I'm excited enough that I think I'm going to keep this one under wraps, because it might be good enough to submit for publication.

I had a conversation with my mom last weekend about my knitting and my knitting blog (which she agrees is lovely but sees as somewhat of a waste of time and a possible reason I am not married and reproducing at this very moment). My take on it is that it gives me a goal and a place to show off my work and feel like there is a community I belong to that values what I do as much as I do. As for the designs, I have been really excited to get so much more traffic lately on the blog, and I chalk that up to some of my patterns' popping up on free pattern link sites. I'm proud of the things I design and it excites me that some other people like them too. My mom also suggested I try selling patterns like some other people do on their blogs, and she might be right that I could be making some money to support my yarn habit. But so far I've been pleased to be posting free patterns -- I turn to knitting blogs and free sites for inspiration a lot, and I like being part of this free community. So I've been working on some stuff to submit to Knitty, which is also gloriously free, but I don't think I'll be making up pdf's to sell, at least at the moment.

And as for the marriage and reproducing thing? Who knows. She might be right that the time I spent knitting (and blogging) I could have spent speed-dating or something. But after a month of speed dating I might rack up 3 or 4 awkward first dates, whereas after a month of knitting, I'm left with a sweater...