Knit Sisters

It was excitement galore here Chez Mad Dog when an ill-advised groundhog bumbled into our backyard only to be greeted by Shelley, who was deployed on a routine perimeter check.

From my home office, I heard an unusual cacophony of barking and scuffling. But by the time I burst onto the scene, the groundhog was, alas, not long for this world. Shelley has what dog people somewhat euphemistically call a “strong prey drive.” In practice, what this meant was that “the non-violent solution” to the groundhog’s breach of our borders was, ahem, not pursued. I was about to witness my sweet little pup, the companion of all my days, pick up this rather defenseless little creature and give it a violent shake. I heard a squeak. I heard a crunch. There was more shaking. Nature, red in tooth and claw!

Being of delicate sensibility, I averted my eyes. And the groundhog passed on to his hoggy reward.

Someone was rather pleased with herself:

“Look, Ma, I just self-actualized as a large predator!”

When I lived in Berkeley, I used to see a lot of cars with these bumper stickers that read, “Dogs are just little people in fur coats!” As I stood over this freshly-killed groundhog corpse that my dog had proudly deposited under my back porch, I found myself wondering if those people actually had dealings with any real dogs. Because, really, nothing could be further from the truth. And I had the dead groundhog to prove it.

(At least I hope that nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve just had a horrifying vision of little people in fur coats invading my yard in order to shake the bejeezus out of groundhogs.)

Rather than being little people in fur coats, dogs are really just wolves with manners.

Nonetheless, I was kind of feeling like a bad mother, the kind who doesn’t effectively teach her little charge about proper conflict resolution and how to be welcoming and share your cookies when a stranger comes into your yard and so forth, until my friend David told me that his dauschund not only killed a groundhog, but also ate it. I perked up. At least there were no dietary indiscretions Chez Mad Dog!

Still, we had to settle down after all the excitement. Shelley fell fast asleep, exhausted by her murderous efforts to keep the backyard safe from hog incursion:

I knitted more of Rogue’s hood:

A little better detail:

And as I thought back over the day’s events, I began to wonder what happens if a groundhog pops out and, instead of seeing his shadow, is summarily dispatched by his local canis familiaris? Will we have six more weeks of summer? Opinions?

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know:

P.S. I just learned that Woolcott has bamboo sock yarn. Can you say bankruptcy anyone?

This weekend Alex and I hung out in one of our favorite coffee shops (mainly to take advantage of their fabulous meat-locker-level air conditioning and only secondarily to consume some joe), a great spot for working on Rogue, who is growing a hood:

Detail:

And they were playing some reggae. I love reggae, used to listen to it all the time in college, but this time I was listening a little more closely to the lyrics and I noticed that a number of the lines seemed, um, how should we say? Written after smoking a little too much ganja, mon? In spite of my well-known love for and fascination with Bob Marley, I still have to ask what Bob was thinking when he wrote Rat Race, and included the ridiculous line, “Rasta don’t work for no CIA”?

Bob. My friend. Tell us something we don’t know.

Were Bob and his fellow rastamen frequently grilled about being in cahoots with the CIA? I gotta say, it just doesn’t seem likely. In fact, I’ll bet my whole stash that the following exchange NEVER TOOK PLACE:

Man (or mon) on street: So, Bob, as a prominent rastamon and international reggae star who spends most of his time rolling spliffs, relaxing on the beach, impregnating various women, growing his dreadlocks, and singing dreamy ganga-inspired songs about “one love” and other elusive concepts, I’m betting that you make some extra greenbacks on the side doing contract work for the CIA.

Bob: No mon.

Mon: Aw, c’mon. Just admit it.

Bob: No mon.

Mon: I don’t believe you.

Bob: No, mon, rasta don’t work for no CIA.

Rightio. Bob Marley is dead, so we’ll never know for sure, but…yeah, last I checked, the CIA, bumbling though it is, was still not soliciting help from guys who smoke pot every day.

Hey, wait just a minute! Maybe. They. Are. That would explain so much.

Now I don’t want to single out Bob for abuse here because we also heard Peter Tosh’s paean to marijuana, Legalize It, winner of The American Lung Association’s Setbacks and Misinformation Award for this stunner of a line: “It’s good for asthma.”

With this kind of firm grip on medical science, it is not entirely surprising that Peter Tosh is dead too. He was allegedly murdered, but I think we may have stumbled on a likelier, if less exciting, explanation for his demise. RIP, Peter, but maybe in your next life, think about enrolling in a basic health class.

Shelley, meanwhile, spent her weekend mornings attempting to rouse her pack members from their slumbers:

“Can you see what I’m up against here? Hopeless, I tell you, hopeless.”

“Dear Lord, what will it take to inspire this slug-a-bed to rise up and face the day?”

“Perhaps like in the fairy tales, a little kiss will do the trick.”

“My work here is done. I will take this sock as recompense.”

I finished the simple summer sweater on Tuesday.  Here I am modelling it:

 

And here is a detail of the neckline edging:

 

Although this edging may look like crochet, it is not.  I’ll just be upfront right here and now and say that I avoid crochet whenever possible.  I don’t like it.  There, I’ve said it, and to heck with the consequences!  (I could go on, but I think we’ll just stop this topic right here.  Things might be said that I would later regret.)

I’m pretty pleased with this sweater.  It turned out almost exactly the way I was envisioning it (a rarity), and it fits very well, I think.  I designed this with negative ease, which was a bit scary for me, but I committed myself to trusting in the measurements, and all worked out in the end.  There are a couple of things I would change, one of them being the way the top-down sleeves are constructed, since I think they ended up just a bit too full.  I am thinking of actually writing this up as a pattern (with other sizes, too!) and offering it as a free pattern on the blog.  Anyone interested in that?

And now, on to other things.  My next project, is, as yet, just an emergent swatch:

 

and a rough sketch:

 

This yarn is Filatura Di Crosa Millefili Fine, 100% mercerized cotton, that I purchased from Elann some time ago.  In fact, this yarn has already had one life as a sweater that I wore many times and enjoyed, although it never fit quite the way I had wanted, or was as flattering as I feel it could have been.  So, a couple of months ago, I ripped the whole thing out, washed the yarn, and have had a few ideas simmering on the back burner for it.

Right now, as you can see from the sketch, I’m seeing this as a fitted, short-sleeved cardigan sweater, although not one that would have something else worn underneath.  The v-neck I would like to be deep enough to be a little sexy, but not so deep that undue cleavage is shown.  But, I’m still pondering the details.

(Upon reading over this post, I realize that I have made it sound as though I have only one project going at a time.  I would like to stress that this is not true.  In fact, I am one of those weak-minded persons who cannot resist casting on with whatever new or rediscovered yarn crooks its little finger at me.  Right off the top of my head I can think of three other projects I have going, and those are just the ones in the top layer.  It is also not uncommon for me to get 2/3 or even 3/4 of the way through something, only to decide that I no longer like it or it’s not worth the candle and rip the whole durn thing out.)

In celebration of our nation’s independence (hard won in a bloody revolutionary conflict and now being squandered three ways from Sunday by our political leadership…one could weep, absolutely weep…but I digress), I have a little Independence Day photo gallery. With commentary, naturally.

Stifling heat and 99% humidity punctuated by short, furious thunderstorms could not keep the Bales/Wellerstein Partnership away from the grill. A small but delightful cookout was staged on the back porch. The lastest sock visited the chip bowl and enjoyed a Sam Adams:

Shelley watched over Darwin’s Garden to keep it safe from British incursion:

Eternal vigilance is the price of being a dog.

Meanwhile, Dave and Alex discussed patriotic topics like Paul Revere’s ride and Battlestar Galactica,

while Nasser shared important new information about himself, like the fact that his two favorite Saturday Night Live skits involve Jimmy Stewart.

But wait! What do I yonder hear? Does a Red Coat draw nigh?

Nah. It’s the 21st century already. It’s just a cat.

Since the United States itself was a rogue nation in the 18th century, it was only fitting that progress be made on Rogue, even though the room had to be air conditioned down to about 42 degrees before I could even think about picking up that wool. Here’s the front of the sweater, now missing only a hood and the sleeves:

A detail of the Celtic cabling on the side:

And a close-up of the motif on the front out of which the hood will grow. Whenever I can get back into the air conditioning.

(By the way, I took Rogue for show-and-tell at my knitting group on Monday night and much was made by Julie, the one spinner there, about what nice yarn Sarah had spun for me and how great it works with this pattern. She admired Sarah’s spin craft (is that what you’d call it?), and I could not have agreed more heartily.)

When all meat was fully grilled, we celebrated the 4th of July in a classic American way by gorging ourselves on hamburgers, blue corn chips, guacamole, tomatoes, and hot Italian sausages. The sausages were a late entry and motivated by the exciting World Cup semifinal victory of Italy over Germany in what I like to think of as “extra innings.”

At the end of the day, there was the simple fact of a man and his mint julep.

And a hope for genuine liberty and justice for all.

Ellen, here are a couple more knitting rhymes for your future teaching pleasure:

Under the fence
Catch the sheep
Back you go
Off you leap

Stab ’em
Choke ’em
Drag ’em back
Throw ’em away

(This latter is for the “really tough guys”  aka boys 7-9 years old, and is obviously a variation of the one that the lovely Lorinda left in the comments for us.  Thanks, Lorinda!) I have many more rhymes where these came from, as well.  I can’t claim that any of these are original or even the result of extensive research on my part.  I acquired them from that best of all possible knitting lists, Ample Knitters.

I am nearing completion of the simple summer sweater.  I finished the second sleeve last night.

 

I also started working on the neckline edging.  I started with an simple lace edging from Knitting on the Edge, but discovered before I got very far that, though it is indeed simple, it was not simple enough.  So I ripped that out and simplified it further, eliminating the edging points.  (Do you sense a “simple” theme here?)  Here it is, only a few repeats in:

 

I like this, although I think I’m going to rip it out once again and use a smaller needle.  I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that before I started, but there it is.  I’m planning to go down to a #2 needle; the rest of the sweater (as you may recall) was knitted on #4’s.

I’ve been spinning those handpainted rovings, as well. 

And, because I just can’t stop myself, here are two of the completed skeins.

 

See that furry paw in the lower left corner?  That’s Tortellini, our old and grouchy cat.  She wouldn’t stand still for a proper photo, but here she is lurking around on the front steps.

 

And Hugo, looking out the front door in the sure and certain knowledge that, if I’d just let him out there, he could get her.

Today was the last day of summer school–woo hoo!!  Now, I really shouldn’t complain, since I just worked the mornings from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and plenty of other people were stuck at school every day until 4:00.  But it does seem a tad gratuitous to put in 5 more weeks when you’ve just finished up a whole school year.

In any case, now I have seven weeks of sweet freedom before school starts in the fall.  And you know, don’t you, how I’ll be spending the bulk of that time?  Why, that’s right:  pursuing fiberish fun.  I have many, many things I’d like to accomplish–no doubt more than I’ll ever finish.  But, you must aim high, no?

I’ve been working on the simple summer sweater and have completed the body.  I got started on the first sleeve the other night.

Whenever I can I knit sleeves from the top down, picking up stitches around the armhole.  I follow the directions in Knitting From the Top (Barbara G. Walker) for knitting set-in sleeves from the top.  (By the way, Knitting From the Top is a wonderful book which I recommend that everyone have in their knitting library.)  So that’s what I’m in the process of doing here:

 

The end is in sight for this sweater, although I still don’t know what kind of edging I’m going to put around the neckline.  I may turn to Knitting on the Edge (Nicky Epstein) for inspiration there.  It needs to be something delicate looking, yet sturdy enough not to flop over.

In spinning news, I am working on a couple of handpainted rovings, which have related although not identical colors.  

(They are actually more related than these pictures show.)

I will be plying these together–in fact, I already have some plied, and it is lovely, although I am not including a picture today so as not to induce fatal wool lust in my sister.  I’ll post a photo when it’s all done.  Both rovings are 8 oz., so I will have a very usable total of 1 pound of yarn when finished.

And now, off to enjoy my freedom!

Well, I don’t know about this whole “knitting is the new yoga” thing.  I myself feel that knitting is the new tae kwon do.  No wait, I think I mean that tae kwon do is the new knitting.  No, that doesn’t make sense either.  Maybe I just mean that tae kwon do is my new knitting.  Oh, hell, just forget it.  (I do have to say, however, that I find more stress relief from punching and kicking and yelling than I ever did from the Downward Dog.  My Dog was plagued by the fact that I am a heavy sweater, even while doing yoga, and my sweaty palms would habitually start to slide away from me, making my Dog look more like a Downward Inchworm as I tried hard to hold onto the damn thing.)

On the knitting front, I am continuing to plug away on the Simple Summer Sweater:

I have gotten up to the point at which I switched to a straight 5×2 rib.  You can see the side waistline shaping up above, and here is a closeup:

You can see where I’m increasing back out to the bust measurement.  Now the question is whether or not to include short-row bust darts, and where to put them.  Big Girl Knits recommends starting the beginning of your bust darts at the level of your bra band.  I’ll have to think about that a bit.  My standard practice up until now has been to place the bust darts about 1 1/2 inches below the underarm bindoff. 

Ellen, I can’t believe you own some Alchemy yarn and you hadn’t told me!  And I thought we were close!  Have you been holding out on me about other things as well?

That stuff is seriously gorgeous.  (Actually, I just like to say it:  “Alchemy Yarns of Transformation.”  Not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds pretty cool.  Maybe I could adopt something similar as my own personal motto:  “Sarah Woman of Transformation.”  I realize that sounds a bit like I am a werewolf or shapeshifter, but no matter.)

To finish today, a somewhat gratuitous picture of Hugo hanging out in the armchair:

 What a sweetie.

So, I had this idea that I would make myself a simple little summer sweater, something I could wear with everything, you know?  I visited the stash (being the extremely good girl that I am) and came up with 11 balls of Reynolds “Tiara,” 70% viscose, 30% silk, worsted weight.  I swatched:

 

I not only swatched, I washed my swatch and laid it flat to dry.  I not only washed my swatch, I measured gauge both before and after washing.  (See what a good girl I am?)  Now (and here is where the plot thickens), the only problem with this lovely little swatch is that I forgot to write down the size needle I used.  No doubt I thought to myself, “Oh, I will remember.  No problem.”  (Actually, I usually make little knots in the yarn tail to tell what size needle I used, but I forgot to do that, too.)  So, I revisited the yarn label, and it says to use a #6 needle.  Knowing that I habitually go down a needle size (or two) since I tend to knit loosely, I deduced that I had used a #5 needle on this swatch.  I immediately made five little knots in the yarn tail.

OK, what I haven’t admitted yet is that all this happened several months ago, because, you see, I was going to get a jump on that summer knitting.   So, when I picked up this swatch a week or so ago, I saw five little knots in the yarn tail.  “Oh,” I said to myself, “I used a #5 needle for this yarn.”

Earlier this spring I purchased a simple little sweater–short sleeves, scoopnecked, and form-fitting.  I decided to make this new sweater as a virtual clone, shaping-wise, of this commercial sweater.  I did exactly as the knitting experts advise you to do:  I laid the sweater out on the bed and took careful measurements.  Bust, waist, lower edge, armhole depth, neckline depth, neckline width, shoulder width, length, the whole deal.  Armed with this knowledge and the careful gauge measurements I made of my washed and dried swatch, I confidently cast on (in the round) for the lower edge. 

Knit, knit, knit.  Some time later (about 2 inches later) I realized that this wasn’t looking exactly right, gauge-wise.  Perhaps it wasn’t a #5 needle that I used on that swatch.  Perhaps it was a #4.  “Well,” I thought, “that’s really not a problem; I’ll just switch to a #4 right now.  After all, my hips are bigger than my waist and I wanted some waistline shaping anyway.”

 Knit, knit, knit.  Some time later (about 2 inches later) I realized that the whole thing was looking a bit, well…large. 

 

Hmmm.  I checked gauge.  I checked my math.  I checked the dimensions of the commercial sweater–now it was measuring three whole inches smaller around the bust and waist.  How could this be?!  Well, here’s how it could be–the first time I measured it was right after I wore it and stretched it out.  The second time was after it had been washed and returned to its rightful dimensions.  Nobody told me about this!

Rip, rip, rip.  Simple little sweater.  Pah.

(Oh, by the way, this whole “involvement with the CIA” thing has been blown way out of proportion.  These days I just consult.)