2 Week Sweater

How proud of myself am I right now?

Seriously.

I, who has shown previously a curiously consistent inability to knit a sweater... have knit a sweater.

In under two weeks.

That fits.

February Lady Sweater
Malabrigo Worsted in Buscando Azul
Buttons from "The Silk Road" in Austin, TX

I know, I know.

I'm as shocked as you are.

Really.

I was sure right up until the end that it wasn't going to work. The sleeves would be too tight, or the hem would be too long (or worse - too short). The neck would be too tight or the yoke would not fit.

But no.

Its lovely.

Its issues are all minor and nitpicky (which doesn't stop me from noticing them, but they aren't about to keep me from wearing it either thanks).

And freakishly enough I liked knitting it. All of it. Even the part where I was forced to tear out and reknit the yoke.

I feel like a very accomplished knitter right now.

Novel things to do with busted up knitting needles

So I am pretty frequent about appropriating spare DPNs, crochet hooks and shawl pins to use to pin up my hair. Its not really a conscious effort on my part to decorate my person with knitting implements - its just that I am frequently without a hair tie and spare or orphaned knitting tools are pretty readily available around my person (I have also in the past used such exciting things as pens, pencils, chopsticks, paintbrushes, screw drivers and once or twice a letter opener).

Now I've had some KP needle carnage of late. One of my Zephyr sets arrived with a large defect on one needle and my 60" cable recently threw both connectors (The former were replaced, the later has not been since I cannot for the life of me remember who I might have gone in on an order with for it and it turns out you cannot get replacements without an order number. This may greatly restrict who I share KP orders with in the future).

All this means that I had a spare needle and connector on hand. Since there is a nice convenient hole through which to pass a jump ring on said connector I decided to decorate my newly minted hairpin with some stitch markers, beads and a few nobium rings that were lying around from back when I was doing chainmaille jewelry all the time.

I quite like it.

As a bonus, the slight flex of the Zephyr needles and their very light weight means its also a very comfortable hairpin.

Ravelympics Progress

I ultimately decided to do the February Lady Sweater out of the Malabrigo for my Ravelympics project. Knitting has been going pretty quickly though I think both sleeves would be done by now if I hadn't decided to tear out the yoke once already. I suppose that's what I get for actually trying to *watch* the olympics while doing olympic knitting.

The increases are very odd for this. I had originally thought I would just try and do the standard raglan increases until I had nearly the right number of stitches, but my row gauge with the Malabrigo made this awkward and I did not like how the sleeves were set so I tore back to the increase row and did standard (M1) increases instead. I only did the increases on the front and back panels and had only 49 sts on the sleeves. This seems off, but partly due to the stockinette yoke and partly due to the mystery that is malabrigo weight (I know there are people that can knit this to a worsted gauge, but I'm not one of them - on US6s the tightest I could get this was 16sts/in and I refuse to murder my hands trying to get it tighter on smaller needles) I've wound up following the XS instructions.

The fit right now is snug but acceptable, and based on everything I've read about the sweater I decided not to slip in the extra repeats under the arms since I anticipate it growing a bit when blocked (If it doesn't... well I need to get to the gym more often anyway).

I have decided to do both sleeves before continuing the body, partly so that I can try it on as I go and partly so that I can use every last yard of my remaining yarn in the body. After I finish the second sleeve it turns into a much easier project - just continue in the gull lace until the yarn runs out.

I love the way the yarn feels, even if its hard on my hands. Singles yarns just do not have any give. I also love that I will have almost no ends to weave in.

When adding a new hank its pretty obvious just to do a felted join, but in places where a new ball must be attached without a preexisting end I've worked out another end free join.

I seriously doubt I'm the first person to do this, but since I can't recall seeing this detailed anywhere else I thought I'd post it up for anyone else that might find this useful.

It works equally well on the ends of a long tail cast on. Easiest with a single yarn, but I expect it would work with any felt able yarn.

1. Fold a couple of inches of yarn back on itself. It helps to fray the end slightly.

2. Leaving a small open loop, felt the end to the other side of the yarn (look up "felted join" or "spit splicing" if you don't know how to do this - I recommend using water over spit, because spitting on your yarn... just... not very hygienic >.< )

3. Slip your needle into the stitch where you will attach the new yarn. Hook the loop and pull it through as a normal stitch.

4. Continue knitting as usual. Make sure if your loop is long enough before the felt that you have a stitch (like above) that is partially or all 2 strands wide that you knit these strands as one stitch on the next row.

Ta-da! No end to weave in later and its very yarn conservative.

Now, back to work on the sweater...

Scarf in a weekend

Friday night I warped my loom. I used the hank of Handmaiden Casbah sock yarn that has been calling to me all month for the warp. It took me a couple of half hours (interspersed with watching Primeval on Netflix) and a few false starts to get the color repeats in a pooling pattern I was happy with.

Saturday I went to the spin in out at Yarnorama.


Sunday I sat down with my loom, a couple of bobbins full of red bamboo and wove while watching the first season of Legend of the Seeker (little cliche for my tastes, but I'm caught up on most of my geek shows and it required minimal attention to follow. Also it has a lot of Craig Horner's Abs).

Whole scarf finished in one weekend.

I expect that I could have woven the whole thing warping to tie off in under 6 hours.

Must love weaving.

(Casbah Sock in "Monarch" with Valley Yarns 10/2 Bamboo in "Spice"

10.5" x 54", woven on a Schact Flip with a 12 dent heddle)

Valkyrie FTW

Turns out: Handknit socks that someone else knit you? At least 100% more awesome than normal. =D

Love(1000).

Shrug Update 2.4.10

Because everyone loves looking at really shitty mirror photos.

Come on. You know you love it.

Note to self: Congratulations on not making a squinty face. Next time consider that you are not about to be eaten by evil space monkeys. Try looking less like something is about to pop up and shoot you (camera notwithstanding).

I have been neurotically trying this one on as I go. Annoying though it is to toss the stitches onto waste yarn and pick them back up again over & over it does seem to be working for me. Any future issues aside the arms and back fit well.

I'm in the ribbing section before the increases and at that spot where I'm doubting a little that I should wait as long as I'm told to start them. I will knit to where it tells me to start and try it on again. If it pulls too much I can always tear back a few rows and start increasing earlier.

Fit is pretty good right now. The reverse stockinette/stockinette stripes are all smooshed up right now but based on that super-swatch I did was back when, I anticipate them relaxing substantially with blocking. The back should presumably drop several inches when this happens (May steam block it on the needles to check for sure). The shoulder bands where I have smoothed it down and stuck it to my shirt are much closer to how I anticipate the finished look to be.

I'm hoping that I can get the final length at the back to fall about to the base of my belt loops but this means a LOT more knitting to cover my freakishly long torso. Also there may reach a point where the Collar becomes too bulky and I have to say when (or else do something involving short rows... ugh). I expect I will like it even if it falls a bit short of the goal... just so long as it comes down past my natural waist.

Still on the fence about how long I want to do the sleeves. I have them on holders at elbow length but I'm considering if I want them full length. Going to wait until the body is done to decide for sure.

Evil Zombie Space Bugs Have Hijacked My Brain!

No. Really. They have. I was just ya know walking along, minding my own business and they swooped in and started hijacking people and taking them away to do evil experiments and stuff and so I had to rally up the troops and go hunt them down because the Fate of the Galaxy was at stake. It was crazy hard and everyone was being a jerk about my being dead and and so I just punched them all in the face and got on with it and then there was this big evil dead ship and more evil space zombie bugs that it turned out are really ---------- and I was super freaked out and I got the feeling the Fishman was hitting on me which was really sort of disturbing even though I totally liked him in concept but then there was an evil robot that wasn't really ---------- and more evil zombie space bugs and OMG CAN'T SLEEP. HAVE TO SAVE GALAXY.

Right.

What Garrus said.

As I understand it all this Galaxy saving made me a pretty amusing person to be around last week. Between the lack of sleep and adrenaline and caffeine I was basically running on I gather that most of my conversations with people that were not aliens (or humans that I was not allowed to kick off the ship) did not really follow a common thread of sense much.

Perhaps miraculously I did actually get quite a bit of knitting done though. I attribute this mostly to loading screens and my stubborn refusal never to click through dialogue even if I've already been through a section 4 times before.

I've started a new cardigan /shrug (shrugigan?) out of the red Inca Gold that I originally bought for the Vivian cardi back in December. That particular attempt didn't work out so well and I was all set to try it again... when I randomly decided that it would look just as good as a Textured Circle Shrug and probably get more wear as that pattern also. Bonus for it being brainless enough to knit while half asleep at 2 am or at knitting group (I've been on a string of inability to knit and talk at the same time failures).

I am liking the pattern so far, its pretty intuitive, easy to modify and there was a big KAL at Lion Brand for it so I have copious notes available from other people who have already knit it (and with any luck that have already messed it up so I don't have to - or at least blocked off some routes to my messing it up. I will have to be more ingenious to find some obscure and confused way to make this a disaster.)

I also finished some socks:

Malabrigo Sock yarn in Caribeno. 56st stockinette soles knit toe up with afterthought heels and 3x3 ribbed cuffs (increased to 60sts after the heel location). Pretty much my default socks.

I started these way back in... uh... it was summer I think. Or what passes for fall here. One of those two. I made big progress on them at the KidnEwe Festival and then sort of forgot about them for a month. My gauge was kind enough to walk off onto its own planet somewhere between sock 1 and 2. Its not a big fit difference but the pooling changed pretty dramatically around the cuff of the second sock.

Do like them, but find myself with no socks to work on now. I think this is OK as I'm thinking I may be suffering from sock burn out right now but I need to find something small and portable anyway. Maybe carrying my drop spindle around a lot instead for awhile.

I have been thinking about Olympic knitting projects lately. I think I have picked out my yarn:


It is Malabrigo Worsted in Buscando Azul. Which is a pretty awesome nearly solid blue.

But I am torn on the project. There are 4 skeins of the Malabrigo (840yds). I have been considering doing a Shalom Cardigan (really more of a vest - though I would like to add some small sleeves if/when I do that one) but keep going back and forth on if I love it or it would linger in a dark corner of my closet once complete. Alternately I really really want (and am pretty sure I would wear - A LOT) a Gallery Jacket. My issue with this one is that I might prefer it out of a non-wool fiber or at least something with a blend in it and multiple plies. I am thinking perhaps the black bamboo that's been in my stash forever would work. I am on the fence about being able to knit a sizable project from such a non flexible fiber in 2 weeks however. Also considering: a shorter sleeved version of the February Lady's Sweater (made doubly appropriate since I'd be knitting it in February?), a Back to School U-Neck Vest the main obstacle to which is that my copy of fitted knits is in Kentucky somewhere, a Hey Teach! cardigan, which ironically I already have the suggested yarn for though I have not been able to get anything that resembles gauge with it (have also considered doing a Rusted Root with said yarn instead), or a Kelso Lace Cardigan which would actually probably work with any of the yarns I have in sweater amounts already and have already mentioned or, just to throw in one more option, some of the Arucania Lonco that I have with the strands held doubled (there is one knit in Paton's grace to support the idea that this would look pretty stellar in a lighter weight mercerized yarn).

Yes.

I need some help picking this out clearly.

Anyway. Galaxy saving calls. (Did I mention there is an advert for handspun Asari burial robes on the citadel? I am now convinced there is a knitter on staff at bioware.)