knitabit

The Home Stretch

I've completed the chain stitch embroidery on the two sleeves and I've assembled the pieces:

Yet to finish is the chain stitch embroidery on the lower body, weaving in the ends, sewing on some braid trim, and sewing on some buttons. I still haven't actually bought the braid or buttons yet, but I'll be driving past a big crafts store (Michael's) on Sunday on my way to my parents house.

Look what the UPS man brought me:

I LOVE the yarn - the color is outstanding. I'm not sure how I feel about the pattern, however. The body is mostly seed stitch (not fun!) and the sleeves are 3/4 length. I could make modifications, of course, but I'm also looking at some different cardigan patterns.

One source of inspiration is the Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns that I picked up at a new yarn shop in Fort Collins yesterday. My sister and I finally got together and made a visit to the store. I won't be going back - what a dud. The yarn selection was uninspiring. The owner must be more into the weaving thing.

NOTE: Sorry, the comments still aren't working. Hope to get to it this weekend!

Interactivity Restored?

Comments may or may not be back on - I may have gone overboard on my fixes. In fact, the volume of "test" comments I've posted has triggered one of my defenses and I won't be able to complete my testing process until later.

Update 1:00 p.m.: Nope, they're not working. Stand by.

Proceed With Caution

Instead of rushing through my finish work, I'm being extra-careful this time. I'm even using Nancy Wiseman's "Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques" to read up on the recommended approach before tackling each element.

Last night I did the shoulder seams with a sort of grafting technique that I had never used before. Look how neat and nice it turned out!

This is the "wrong side" view of the seam that shows how tidy the selvedge turns out.

Then I started on the left front button band. I carefully marked the front edge in one-inch sections and picked up eight stitches in each section. I used a crochet hook to pick up the stitches, and then lifted each stitch onto the needle - tedious but not difficult.

Today: the right front button band (with buttonholes) and the neck band.

Next step: assembly

Well, lookie here - the body and sleeves of Fanasaeter are done:

The directions call for completing the shoulder seams as the next step, then the front plackets. I will need to shop for some buttons and braid/trim in the next day or two. I'm sure there are many excellent online sources for these items, but I'm thinking I want to meet these items personally before making a purchase.

By the way, I ordered a kit from Peace Fleece on Sunday. I decided on the Coup d'Etat Cardigan in Sakhalin Salmon. Life is too short to be bland, so I went for a fairly obnoxious bright color. I had all kinds of intentions to knit a pullover, but really a cardigan is so much more practical, and I like the detail on this particular one. I intend for this to be my vacation knitting project, although I might squeeze in a bit of a head start before we leave. It would be so awesome if I could complete the sweater before we get to Glacier National Park (towards the end of our itinerary). I suspect that a toasty wool sweater will be just the thing in mid-June.

The Fahrenheit Meme

Okay, Patricia, I'll take the bait:

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?
"Walking Across Egypt" by Clyde Edgerton. I've read it so many times, it's practially memorized already. It's that good.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Lonesome Dove's Gus McCrae.

3. The last book you bought was...?
"The Bounty" by Caroline Alexander.

4. The last book you read was...?
Coincidentally, "Lunch at the Piccadilly" by Clyde Edgerton (not nearly as good as Egypt).

5. What are you currently reading?
"Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke. (Slow going.)

Back in the Groove

Even though it had been a long day, and even though reclining on the couch in a vegetable-like manner was awfully tempting, I forced myself to resume knitting on the Fanasaeter baby sweater last night.

This is the second of two sleeves, and I'll likely finish it today. Then the real "fun" begins - the pattern calls for chain-stitch embroidery around all of the snowflakes motifs. Plus casting on the buttonband, assembling the pieces together - the kind of work that if done poorly will ruin all your beautiful straight knitting efforts.

No one was in the family room when I started knitting, so I called up my DVR menu of previously recorded programs and was reminded that I had recorded "Young Frankenstein" a few weeks ago. This movie was the "Napoleon Dynamite" of my generation (though not nearly so innocent); everyone over the age of 13 in the 1970's could quote at length from the movie.

I spent some time reflecting on my long knitting drought of the past couple of months. I came to a couple of conclusions:

• The quality of the knitting experience suffers when it's a project not of your choice. My sister-in-law picked out this sweater pattern, and although she has great taste, it's not what I would have chosen as a knitting experience.
• Similarly, bad yarn detracts from the experience. (Yes, I'm a yarn snob!) The yarn I'm using for those striped socks really bugs me. I don't like the feel of it, and I'm not crazy about the colors either. I bought several skeins of this stuff and I now intend to unload all of it on eBay. I think I've become a Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Yarn fanatic.
• Once these two projects are wrapped up I'm going to go for something totally FUN and INSPIRING! I'm thinking a Peace Fleece pullover of some kind. In fact, I'm going to head over to their web site right now!
• Finally, part of the problem has been just plain laziness, I think. It dawned on me last night that sitting on the couch like a vegetable is not really a stress-reducing activity - it's not! It just puts your mind in neutral and nothing happens. Add knitting, however, and it seems to me that you are actively knitting your stress away. I've been thinking lately "I'm too tired and stressed out to knit" - well, the only way to make that feeling go away is to KNIT!
  Posted by karen at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)

May Mayhem

Does anybody else out there dread the month of May? It's like chock-full of end-of-school-year events, tournaments, programs, graduations..Good Grief! Knitting continues to take a back seat to all the other stuff in my life. Just when I think things will calm down, the pot starts boiling again.

I am looking forward to a post next week about a trip to a new yarn store in Fort Collins. My sister and I have been trying to plan this for weeks now.

I am sorry to report that I must once again temporarily disable the "Comments" feature on this blog. The blog-spammers have got me targeted - and the odd thing is, I manually approve each and every comment so their attacks are totally futile. In any event, I'm tired of wading through the comment spam every day. I'll be looking for some sort of fix for this and hope to be back to interactivity mode very soon. In the meantime, I'm happy to respond to emails - karen at road13 dot com.

Some Actual Knitting

Well, more like knitting-related.

My parents got back from Germany and Mom got all the girls (me, my sisters, my daughter, my nieces) some chenille scarf yarn:

Mine is the denim blue, my daughter's is the purpley-pink.

Also, here is my progress this week on the second Ringel sock:

I was able to knit during one half-time of one soccer game.

Lots of changes to report in Knitabit Land. Perhaps the constellations are about to align such that regular knitting can once again resume. Remember the big trip to Wyoming? It was to attend a series of pre-proposal meetings for six projects up there. I spent the month of March furiously writing proposals. The month of April was spent recovering from furiously writing proposals. Last week, we made a series of interview presentations before the Wyoming Water Development Commission. On Friday, we were the highest-ranked firm on five of the six and were awarded FOUR contracts - all for work in the Cody area. They didn't give us the fifth one because they didn't want so much work to go to an out-of-state firm. We've also been tentatively awarded another project in Morgan County, Colorado. That's lots of fun actual engineering work for me during the next 12 months!

We will get formal Notice to Proceed on June 15, so I've got between now and then to get some other projects out the door.

Also, at last Monday's DARCA board meeting, I officially stepped down as Executive Director and am now serving on the Board of Directors. So I turned a low-paying part-time job into a once-a-quarter board meeting. That feels good.