Knit Sisters

Time out of mind is a growing boy (dog is included for scale):

Hey, this smells vaguely like…sheep…

A more sober photograph:

Still life with Time, wine glasses, and the golden egg. The allegorical significance of all this is completely obscure.

I’m a mere 3.5 inches away from separating it into front and back for the sleeves. Which is a damn good thing too because in spite of the bright sunshine, the temperature here has suddenly become miserably cold. I think we’re all especially miserable because the remarkable and unseasonable run of warm weather we’ve had up to now makes it seem even more cold. And unjust. And possibly life-threatening!

I hereby take back every ill-considered thing I said before about the 60-70 degree weather in January being weird, or possibly an ominous bellwether of global warming, or unsettling and wrong, or “too much like April,” or a sure sign of the apocalypse.

That weather wasn’t wrong. I was wrong. And now I’m paying for my mistake, one frozen toe at a time.

Anyway, I need this sweater. To complement the wool hat that I am now wearing both indoors and out.

I have taken all of your suggestions about the neckline under advisement, by the way, but I reserve the right to make an executive decision when the time comes. You’ve given me plenty to think about, though, and I appreciate it. I will endeavor to choose a style that does not make my head look like a stump.

Huh. Now that you mention it, I do see the resemblance.

I don’t know what I would do without Shelley. She keeps me young.

I have good news and I have bad news. Bad news first: you’re stuck with me this week because Sarah is taking a little well-earned vacation from the blog. What? Yes, you can be excused to go mix yourself a cocktail. Even if it is 9 a.m. where you are.

The good news is that I’ve planned an exciting week for us, full of fun and hi-jinks! Or some reasonable facsimile thereof. Hold onto your proverbial hats! Or pull up your socks. (Hmm. A particular set of thematic resonances has caused the phrase, “It’s too late to save your shoes,” to pop to mind, but I feel almost certain that it has no place here. Ahem.)

Time out of mind is progressing nicely:

Yessir, that’s my baby!

He’s even pretty when you get really close to him, which is more than can be said for most people:

No sir, don’t mean maybe!

While Icarus was my irrepressible bad boy, Time is turning out to be meditative and laid back and mellow. I found him hanging out with my Om necklace the other day, in fact.

Om shanti shanti shanti…

While Time is off in the other room chanting in Sanskrit, let’s talk. I would like to solicit your opinions, if I may. Certain design decisions regarding Time have…how to put this delicately?…not been made. Yes, it’s true. I swatched, I made a few calculations, I cast on, and I cast off! For unknown realms!

Here be dragons: I have not made any final decision about Time’s neckline. And although it may be somewhat ethically questionable to make such a momentous decision behind his back, especially given that it will have such a huge impact on his life and his sense of style and, possibly, his yoga practice, I’m afraid Time’s failure to speak out on the subject has left the matter entirely in my hands.

And now yours. I initially thought a turtleneck would be nice, until I realized that I was working with Malabrigo. You make a turtleneck outta Malabrigo, you make a sweater that—given the current pace of global warming—will be literally unwearable anywhere on this planet within eight years. An inconvenient truth.

The current thinking (and I should add here that this reflects the collected wit and wisdom of a quartet of Woolcott employees: me, the remarkable Kat, the delightful Kerry, and the incomparable Sean) favors a modification of my original, sweltering, nightmarish vision: a funnel-neck (or mock turtleneck) with cable continuity.

But there are other possibilities, of course. And admittedly, we were all hopped up on Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and chocolate chip muffins when we last discussed this, and knitters will say anything after you get a couple of chocolate chip muffins in them. In fact, some attorneys consider knitters no longer capable of giving informed consent under extreme conditions of “muffin inebriation.” Coffee does not ameliorate the impairment, contrary to popular belief.

So about that neckline. What say you all?

In a concerted effort to keep Resolution No. Seven, I have gotten a start on my self-designed sweater.

Actually, it’s less an act of “design” than it is of “bricolage.” In other words, much though I LOVE the way this sweater is turning out (so far), I never had a great creative vision that came to me from Her Kind and Merciful Highness, the Knitting Goddess. I decided that kind of inspiration was, in fact, not forthcoming. I understand my limits, people.

Truly I say unto you, this understanding is a portion of wisdom.

At the same time, it is a portion of wisdom to give new things the old “college try!” Rah, rah, go state! So ever the classic bricoleur, I took some stuff that was ready-to-hand and rejiggered those things. Heavy, heavy assists are coming from Ann Budd, Fiona Ellis, and “my people” at Malabrigo:

In the beginning, there was the Malabrigo. The ten skeins of Malabrigo in scarlet, crying out to be a sweater.

Yarn in hand, my tinkerer’s imagination was fired by Fiona Ellis’s baby sweater in Inspired Cable Knits:

The wonderful “Ripples in time.”

I adore this miniature sweater and the cables it combines, but clearly if I was going to make a similar one for myself, certain scale issues would have to be tackled. Ahem.

Enter Ann Budd. Honestly, I think The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns is an excessively modest title for a book like this. I’d say a book that allows the design-and-mathematically-challenged knitter (Moi? Oui, moi.) to make her dream sweater is way beyond “handy.”

Miraculous, more like. Here’s what I have so far:

Close-up of cables:

In honor of Fiona Ellis and her original sweater’s homage to time, I have decided to call my sweater “Time out of mind,” yet another act of bricolage since this phrase was shamelessly and blatantly robbed from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Dirge without Music”:

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground./So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind…

So it is, so it will be.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

I’ve been spinning something new the last week or so.  I started combing the naturally-colored grey Romney, and started spinning it on my wheel’s highest ratio, creating a soft-spun single with just enough twist to ply back on itself.

 

I was able to spin two full bobbins fairly quickly, with frequent breaks for combing more wool.  Then I plied the two soft singles together.

 

 

It’s hard to see in photos just how lovely this yarn is.  Soft and spun with just enough twist to really let the fiber breathe.  Sometimes I have a tendency to spin fibers with a bit too much twist, and the finished yarn ends up feeling a little “hard.”  Not so with this wool.  It also retains some lanolin, so the yarn has just a bit of that wonderful “sheepy” smell.  I know there are those who don’t enjoy that smell, but I for one really love it.  I don’t even mind the smell of raw wool, come to that.

The fleece itself has a range of grey color in it, and I decided early on not to obsess about keeping the color consistent.  You can see in the second photo how the color varies throughout the skein.  I’m operating on the assumption that it will all even out in the end.  And anyway, I am liking the way it looks.

I have approximately 4 pounds of this wool, so I’ll be spinning on this project for a while.

I’ve also been working on Blue Bamboo.  Here’s the finished leaf motif on the upper back.

 

And I’ve started the first sleeve, from the top down, naturally.

 

My new mantra:  Must finish Blue Bamboo.  Must finish Blue Bamboo.

I have been working away on Blue Bamboo and on her leaf motif on the upper back.  My progress thus far:

 

This would make me feel pretty good except for the fact that I’ve already decided to rip back the entire leaf motif once I get to the top of the chart, shown here:

 

I made a couple of mistakes, you see, which will forever haunt me unless I correct them.  Plus, this motif has been such a raving bitch an extraordinary challenge to chart that I’m still not sure if the chart is correct.  Therefore, I feel I must knit the thing at least once more to make certain of my charting.  Sigh.  Things would be sooo much simpler if I didn’t feel I had to follow my vision for this garment.

I’ve also had a renewal of interest in spinning, and have been working diligently away on the angora blend.

Can you see the progress?  Can you, can you?  Well, say that you can even if you can’t, OK?

I have a couple (har, har–yes, I know I can’t fool you) of fleeces upstairs that are calling my name now that the cold weather is arriving, and I can’t help but think it would be fun to spin some singles that would go a little more quickly than this laceweight angora nonsense.

Oh, and sis? I can’t believe that you’ve never done any stranded colorwork!  Are you holding one color in each hand or holding them both in your left hand?  (For those that might have wondered, Ellen and I both knit Continental, aka picking not throwing.)  The great thing about colorwork, among other things, is that you can feel entirely justified in picking up one or two skeins of some beautiful yarn, as long as you stick to about the same yarn weight with all your purchases.  “Well, I’ll just include this in my next multi-colored project,” you might think.  You understand, I’m speaking completely hypothetically.  I myself have never justified a yarn purchase in this manner.  I’m just helping the rest of you out, is all.  All part of the Knit Sisters package.

I took the little skein of tufted yarn and knit up a little swatch last night, just to see how it would look when knitted.

The knit side:

 

The purl side:

 

It’s kinda cool-looking, I think, although for me it was really more fun to spin than it would be to knit with.  For that reason, I am going to offer this tufted yarn as one of the prizes in the Fall Challenge.  Someone should have lots of fun with this yarn, I hope.

In general, I think I lean more toward smooth yarns and the kind of detailed knitting one can do with them than the fuzzy, hairy, and otherwise bumpy novelty yarns.  With a couple of exceptions, of course.  I have a minor love affair with mohair, of which I have lots in my stash (and covet more, especially laceweight–are you listening, she-who-works at-her-LYS?) and I can see that angora is fast sucking me down as well.

I finally made it to the underarm division of Blue Bamboo and started the fronts.  I am knitting these simultaneously, since that ensures that they will both be the same length.

 

 

Uh….I’m starting to think I might not have this sweater done by Oct. 15 for the Challenge.  This is somewhat lowering, since I am the one who issued the challenge.

I’ve said it before but I don’t mind saying it again:  working really gets in the way of my knitting time.

I spun on the wool/angora blend last night while watching the two-hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica.

I realize that Ellen posted about this very show just the other day, and I have to admit that I had never watched a single episode.  But my sister-in-law Pam is a big fan, and she was at our house last night and wanted to watch the show.  So naturally we all watched it too.  Well.  This is a good show, folks, despite what Ellen may say.  (I suspect that she secretly really enjoys it, but is just too proud to admit it.  Because, when I spoke to her on the phone just before the show started and told her that we were about to watch the season premiere, she said in an extremely wistful voice, “You get the SciFi channel?”)  Now I’m hooked.  It helped that Pam was there and could fill me in on what had happened in the previous two seasons.

But back to the angora blend.  I’m spinning this pretty fine, so my progress isn’t too dramatic.  Plus I had to stop spinning and comb some more of the fiber.  I love this angora.

Putting this picture up is a little like watching a TV cooking show:  nice enough in its own way, but there’s only so much a picture can convey.  You get the idea that it’s good food, but without the senses of smell and taste, true understanding is somewhat limited.  This angora is so, so soft you almost cannot feel it in your fingers.  You’ll just have to take my word for it, I guess.  (Or you could go right out and find some angora fiber of your own.)

And lest you think I have forgotten Blue Bamboo,

I have 18 inches done.  Knitting 21 inches straight of anything is pretty boring.  Enough to make you want to stick a pin in your eye.  But I am persevering.

Oh, and I washed the tufted yarn this morning.  I’m happy to report that the rayon ribbon did not immediately shrink up, but the yarn is still drying.  I’ll have a full report and a picture next week. 

Ellen called me on Sunday night and gave me her account of the Boston Knit-Out, including the tale and description of the so-ugly-it’s-cool furry fuchsia yarn she managed to acquire.

“Oh my, that does sound dreadful!” I laughed.

Imagine my shame and horror, then, when I actually read her post yesterday and realized that that self-same so-ugly-it’s-cool furry fuchsia yarn (Katia Danubio Style) is a yarn that resides in my stash.  Not only does it reside there, but it resides there in several different colors.  Not only does it reside there in several different colors, I made a co-worker a scarf out of that yarn last Christmas.

I realize that anything I say in my own defense at this point will no doubt seem both slightly pathetic and self-serving, but I’m going to say it anyway.  I kind of like this yarn.  It’s a mostly wool fur yarn, which is rare, and I purchased it with the intention of using it in some felting projects.  (Which, no, I have not done yet.  There are many knitterly things I have not done yet.  That’s why I need to quit my day job and become a free-lance knitwear designer.  Oh sorry, that just kind of popped out.)

Aaanyhoo, Danubio Style knits up pretty nicely.  I was pretty pleased with the scarf.  It’s waaaay better than, say, the Fun Fur you get at Michael’s.  So there.

In other news, I am still working on those 21 inches of Blue Bamboo that come before the armhole shaping.  I’m into my third skein of yarn.  Will I have enough?  Only time will tell.  Stay tuned for further developments…

I’ve been plugging away on Blue Bamboo.  She now looks like this:

 

I realize that this is virtually the same picture I offered on Wednesday.  Not much to be done about that; I have 21 inches to knit before starting the armhole shaping.  I’m 1/3 of the way there.  I’m starting to have my habitual and predictable fear that I will run out of yarn halfway through the second sleeve.  That’s why I knit–the suspense.

 

I started listening to The Echo by Minette Walters last night while knitting.  She is one of my favorite mystery writers–her books offer a little more psychological drama than your garden-variety mystery.  Check out The Scold’s Bridle if you have a chance.  Come to think of it, I need to reread that one myself.

A couple of Friday-after-a-long-week photos for you all.

Hugo, apparently seeing one of the cats doing something highly suspicious in the corner.  (Actually, when aren’t the cats doing something highly suspicious?)

 

And Rob, looking both goofy and handsome.  (It takes a truly gifted man to do that, I’ll tell you.)  That’s another one of his artworks hanging on the wall above the refrigerator.

Have a lovely and productive knitting/fiber weekend.

I got all my hair cut off this week.  This was kind of a big deal, since my hair was pretty long.  My hairdresser, Linda, measured and said she cut off about 15 inches. 

Here I am, posing with my new haircut and new cardigan, Nicola.  My head feels light and free!!

 

It was actually cool enough to wear Nicola today, which made me happy, even though I had to go to the doctor this morning because I’m just not kicking this cold.  It’s settled in my sinuses, and I’m now juiced up on antibiotics and Allegra.  Then I spent the afternoon in bed.

I did work on Blue Bamboo last night, and made some good progress, although I had to rip out both fronts after I realized that I had made a mistake on the edge stitches.  I had just been feeling pretty pleased with myself for my rapid progress; then I found my mistake.  Sheesh.  Pride goeth before a fall.

Here’s a detail:

Barbara asked in the comments about how much experience I had before I started designing my own garments.  Weellll…that’s really hard to answer.  I was always one of those little kids who loved making things, and would come up with elaborate plans for things I was going to make (like little dolls and their clothes).  Often I didn’t get them made, but still!  I learned to sew and knit at a fairly young age, and so had early experience following other people’s patterns.

When you’re young, you know, you don’t have as much fear, and so it wasn’t long before I was branching out and making up my own patterns both for knitwear and sewn clothing.  I remember making my mother an original sweater when I was a teenager.  I also remember checking out the first Kaffe Fassett book from the library over and over, and seizing on that sort of freeform approach to making sweaters.  I made one sweater in that style, and looking back I can see that I made tons of mistakes, but I did have a lot of fun doing it.  I still have that sweater somewhere.  (I also remember some fairly spectacular disasters, mostly relating to sewn clothing.)

I guess I’ve just always been one of those people who wanted to know how to do things from scratch.  (Well, things relating to textiles.)  I’m rarely able to knit someone’s else’s design without changing it in some way, and a lot of times I just can’t find the “right” pattern that I see in my head.  So I have to make it up!  And from making up patterns to fit just me, it’s been a fairly small leap to expanding the size range.

I hope this answers your question a bit, Barbara!