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Yesterday we drove up to the fairgrounds in Del Mar (it’s the racetrack, really, but they do lots of other things there when it’s not racing season) to pick up our fair entries — Henry’s dragon collection and my sweater and fern lace scarf. We both got blue ribbons, and I got a fancy yellow rosette because of my Donated Award from Common Threads, a $50 gift certificate.

Also went to another doctor for a second opinion and more tests. She thinks my Strange and Very Painful Condition is shingles, which is what I think too because it makes more sense than anything the first doctor suggested, and that’s also what my ER doctor friend thinks. Ugh. Whatever it is, it hurts like hell. The first doctor I saw (who was open on the Fourth of July, thank goodness, which is when my Strange and Very Painful Condition erupted) didn’t think of shingles so now I get to go get my blood drawn again. Hooray!

Henry and I saw some friendship-bracelet-type things at the fair, and I told him we could make them ourselves. On Friday I googled and found a fantastic website: http://www.steffe.se/vanskapsband/start.php. He’s got a basic tutorial to refresh your memory (how long has it been since you made a friendship bracelet??) and then a ton of patterns and techniques, and even a make-your-own-pattern generator thing! So Henry and I had a great time making some bracelets and I’m sure we’ll be making lots more. It’s a nice summer craft.

I’m finally feeling a lot better, whew. I just have a slight little cough, not bothersome at all. And I think my thyroid situation is beginning to even out. I have a little more energy lately and I feel like doing things again!

Henry’s Guys and Dolls performance last Tuesday went beautifully. He was so awesome! I was incredibly proud of the entire cast, and grateful to their teacher, Karen, for helping them shine. I’ll post photos as soon as I get around to sorting through them.

I finished the Baby Surprise Jacket last week. It only took a couple of days to knit and was so much fun. Now I understand why everyone knits them over and over. The shaping is so very entertaining, and when people come over to admire your work you can ask them what they think it is and no one will guess — and then you do your two little folds and presto! Baby jacket!

(lots of in-progress photos on flicker and ravelry)

The yarn is Knitpicks’ Shine Sport, a cotton/modal blend (modal is beech fiber) and was just lovely to work with, and machine washable and dryable! I tumble-dried it until it was barely damp, then patted it into shape to block it. I used almost all of three 50-gram balls on #3 needles.

And I finished Mom’s striped socks:

(that photo is a bit washed out. The real green is a nice grass-green)

They’re made with Knitpicks’ Essential sock yarn, which is the only Knitpicks yarn I’ve ever used that I don’t love 100%. It has a funny, almost slippery feeling in my fingers. But oh well, it’s a nice inexpensive superwash wool/nylon sock yarn anyway.

I have more things to say but will save them for another post!

I had about 38 grams of a 50-gram skein of Knitpicks’ Shadow merino laceweight leftover from my sister’s Print o’ the Wave stole, and I wanted to whip up a bit of lace to enter in our fair this summer. So I planned out an easy little lace scarf. I knit the edging on the long sides as I went along, so I was able to use up almost all the yarn and then just save a little for the edging on the two short sides.

Yarn: any leftover laceweight, 30 grams or more (less is fine but will make a rather short scarf)
Needles: your favorite lace needles. I used Knitpicks Harmony circs size 2, but I am a notoriously loose knitter, and I think it would have looked better if I’d used bigger needles anyway. You’ll probably want size 3 to 5, or even larger if you knit very tightly. Larger needles = longer/wider scarf.
Finished Dimensions: Mine turned out to be about 9 1/2″ x 52″ after blocking. Yours will surely vary somewhat!

Ok, think of this scarf as being made of several columns. The right-side edging is the first column, then a 2-stitch always-purl garter column, then a fern-lace column worked over 16 stitches, then another 2-stitch column of garter, then another fern-lace column, then another garter column, then the left edging. If you want a wider scarf or a stole and you have plenty of yarn, you can work more fern lace columns separated by garter columns. If you want skinny, just work one repeat of the fern lace (just like the chart).

Wrong sides: always knit the wrong side of the edging, always purl the wrong side of the fern lace and garter columns. I’ll say this again later on so you don’t forget.

Start by casting on using your favorite provisional cast-on. I prefer this one.

You’ll need 4 st for the right edging, 2 for the first garter column, 16 for one fern repeat, 2 for the garter column between fern repeats, another 16 for the second fern repeat, 2 more for the last garter column, and then 4 for the left edging. Which makes, um, 46. Yes, cast on 46! Place ring markers between every column so there’s never any doubt what’s what and where you are. Seriously. I don’t usually have to do that, but I messed up a lot until I gave in and placed markers.

Now begin following the chart. Chart shows only odd-numbered right side rows (if I’d remembered to write the numbers in they’d be 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.) Go ahead and write them in :) For even-numbered, wrong-side rows, KNIT the edging stitches and PURL all the other stitches.

(D’OH. I forgot a symbol key. Circle = YO. Dot = purl. Right edging dec: ssk. Left edging dec: k2tog. Right side of fern lace dec: k3tog. Left side of fern lace dec: sl1, k2tog, psso) (Another note: the edging is an 8-row repeat. The fern lace is a 12-row repeat. The chart shows 24 rows so the two patterns work out even.)(Chart shows only odd-numbered, right-side rows)

Casting off for pointy edging:
When you complete the 7th row, you’ll have 8 edging stitches on each side. On the 8th (wrong-side) row, cast off the first 4 stitches so you only have 4 stitches remaining before the first marker. Work across. When you turn to begin the 9th row, immediately cast off 4 stitches (4 stitches remain before first marker) — then follow chart for row 9 (k1, yo, ssk, yo, k1).

Ok, so keep working until you’re nearly out of yarn. I put my working stitches on a string after a while and worked the edging across the cast-on stitches using the other end of the yarn, and then I knew I really only needed a little bit left for the last short edging.

To work the short-end edgings:

If you’ve ever knit an edging onto a piece of lace, you know what to do. If you haven’t, well, I’ll do my best to explain :)

Hold the scarf right-side facing you, and cast-on edge up. Slide a needle through 6 cast-on loops from left to right - 4 loops for the edging and 2 loops for the garter column. The tip of the needle will be pointing toward the rest of the cast-on loops. Ok. Now, slide the other end of your circular needle through the rest of the loops from right to left. Man, this is hard to describe in words — wish I’d taken a photo.

Start working the garter column and edging in pattern. Always SLIP the first stitch of EVERY RIGHT SIDE row. So, sl1, p1, k1, yo, k2tog, k1. Turn. K5, p1 — NOW ssk the last st together with the first cast-on stitch from the other needle. This sounds horrible in words, but when you try it it should make sense. Pretty much. Now keep going. SSK together with another cast-on stitch on every wrong-side row. To make the corner lie flat, you’ll attach the first repeat to only TWO stitches instead of four (just don’t drop the ssk’d stitch off the needle the first time, and re-use it the second time), and likewise the last repeat. Better put a marker 8 stitches in from the other side so you remember that that’s the time to double up your ssks again (ask me how I know that you’ll forget otherwise, heh). Then when you’re all done, weave the first stitches and the last stitches together. Voila!

Gently wash and block your scarf. Enjoy!

UPDATE (July 8 2008): At our County Fair this year, my scarf won first prize and a special donated award — a $50 gift certificate to a local yarn store, Common Threads, in Encinitas.

After a long hot weekend, yesterday was a perfect summer day, and it looks like we’re headed for cooler weather again. Good. Summer is bad enough here without it starting in May.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much… I haven’t been feeling well for the last couple of months and it’s hard to do much of anything. It kind of snuck up on me gradually, until I suddenly realized that I had many symptoms of bad thyroid levels again. I saw my endocrinologist last week. I hope it’s my thyroid levels, ’cause that’s very easy to fix with an adjustment to my synthroid dose.

So, yeah. I’ve been very slowly knitting a lace scarf to enter in the fair. It has to be delivered next week, but I’m almost out of yarn so I should be finishing soon. I used a fern lace pattern and knit a sweet pointed edging along the sides as I went, ’cause I didn’t know how far the yarn would take me. I already knit the edging onto the cast on edge.

I’ve been reading a little bit, though it’s hard to concentrate on anything but the most compelling stories, and I do find myself reading the same page several times. But Anna Maxted is always good, and I’ve just started The Country Wife by Dorothy Van Doren. I’ve been reading Everything Bad is Good For You to Henry for his bedtime story. :) When we’re done with that, I’m going to try him on some Agatha Christie.

Also, TV has been pretty entertaining lately. I discovered http://hulu.com/, where you can watch full episodes, clips, and a few movies for free, legally. Sure, the selection is limited and there are a few short ads, but if you want to see last night’s Family Guy without bothering to find a torrent and download it, hulu does the job. Also http://watchtvsitcoms.com is handy — we’ve been working our way through Seinfeld in order on the weekends :)

The Office season finale was excellent. Survivor is over now, sigh, but we have next fall to look forward to. We’ve been catching up on House — the current season is quite good. And The Tudors is great. Poor Ann. And last week we finally had a good episode of Battlestar Galactica! FINALLY! Things happened and it wasn’t boring! Dancing With The Stars ends tonight. We can’t wait for next season.

Oh, and my night-elf druid hit 70 last weekend :)

I finished the Print o’ the Wave Stole! (Note: As written, Chart B for the edging contains an error. The second-to-last stitch of rows 9, 11, 13 and 15 should be marked as a k2tog.) I knit 34 repeats of the main motif in one long panel, instead of grafting two 17-rep pieces together down the back.

Yarn: Knitpicks’ “Shadow” in “Lost Lake” (dark green, with just a hint of blue and brown). I bought three 50-gram skeins, but only needed 12 grams of the third skein.

Needles: Knitpicks’ “Harmony” wooden circs, size 2.

Finished size: 23″ x 65″

This was my first fine lace project. It was fun and easy, and I got it done much faster than I thought I would — less than a month start to finish. Both lace patterns were relatively easy to memorize, so of course the knitting sped up when I no longer had to refer to the chart all the time.

I wish you could feel the finished stole. It is so soft and fine and light and floaty, yet very warm. It’s a very beautiful thing.

Photos! Because there are so many, I’ll make them small. Click to embiggen.

And now, backwards in time a bit, here it is blocking yesterday. It dried fast in this insanely hot weather:

And here’s what it looked like as I was rounding the final corner with the edging:

Happy birthday, Kirsten :) I’ll pop it in the mail soon!

I’ve been working on the edging like crazy. Here’s what one short end of The Stole looks like, pinned roughly out to shape:

As of tonight, I have only about 15 reps to go!

Also — last night The Office was on. Hooray!!!! I believe that was Michael’s finest “That’s what she said!” ever. Ahhhhh so wonderful to have new Office.

I’ve been working on Eunny Jang’s Print o’ the Wave stole, in Knitpicks’ Shadow laceweight merino (Lost Lake colorway) with size 2 needles. I’m having a lot of fun with it — it’s a nice easy lace pattern with restful purled WS rows. The zig-zags are so nice and obvious that I don’t need markers to remind me where the pattern repeats are, and it’s easy to tell what row I’m on if I forget. (Note: errata here! Most important thing is “As written, Chart B for the edging contains an error. The second-to-last stitch of rows 9, 11, 13 and 15 should be marked as a k2tog.”) I’m knitting the thing in one piece from end to end so there’s no grafted seam down the middle. And I don’t think I’ll be doing as many reps as the pattern calls for (34 total)… we’ll see how long it gets.

Progress on March 23:

And earlier today:

I was just browsing around for alternate knitted edgings, in case I want to change things around a bit, and by sheer coincidence I bumped into the very same pattern (pretty sure, didn’t analyze it but it looks the same) as the main body of the stole, only here it’s called Coral Pattern. Neat!

Henry’s Happy Striped Socks are done!

Yarn: Knitpicks’ Risata — one entire skein of blue, with only a couple yards left over, and less than half of a skein of buttermilk.

Needles: Knitpicks’ Harmony 32″ wooden circs, size 0

Vague Details:

CO 16 st using Judy’s Magic Cast-on. Make toe till you have 52 st total. Move one st from sole to top (25/27). Top is k3,p1. (End k3) Work two rounds white, 5 rounds blue till you have 9 white stripes. Make ordinary Dutch heel on 25 st (heel flap will be under the heel) for 14 ridges. Turn heel on 8+9+8. Pick up all those side stitches. Decrease away gusset stitches every third round. Continue ribbing pattern for 5 more white stripes. Switch to k1p1 ribbing in blue for 12 rounds, then 4 rounds double knitting to prep for grafting (14 rounds total), then graft. Done!

Kung Fu Socks!

In progress:

I love the Magic Loop method! I’d never knit socks that way before. It made them go really fast, because you only have to fiddle with your needles twice every round, instead of four times! Also it made them way more portable, and easier to try on at any time. I’ve started another pair just like these but in green and brown — Henry’s choice. I also discovered that i don’t hate toe-up socks if I don’t try to make a fancy backwards heel. A regular old Dutch heel is just fine.

Knit Picks’ Slipped Cable Vest, in Wool of the Andes worsted. Needles: Harmony wooden circs, size 4.

Cute, huh? I’m quite pleased! It was fast and fun to knit. However, for the sake of other knitters who might want want to make the same vest: Warning! There are a lot of errors in the pattern!

1. You need to start the cable patterns on the second row (RS), which is not really made clear in the pattern. Also, you don’t want to just randomly place your increases! Count your stitches and figure out where to place increases so that the ribbing continues unbroken up the sides of the vest.

2. This one might trip up a new knitter: when working the short-row shoulder shaping, you will start on a WS row for the left side, and a RS row for the right side! You want the taller part of the fabric at the neckline, and the lower part at the armhole, so you’ll start working the short rows at the neck edge, not the armhole edge!

3. When you start knitting the right side and back after binding off for the armholes, the instructions are unclear and could lead you wrong. You must start by knitting a WS row or you’ll lose a row of your cable pattern.

4. When you pick up stitches around the neckline for the collar, the instructions don’t tell you to pick up stitches up the side-fronts! For me (size small), it was 23 front +18 side-front + 46 back +18 side front +23 front for a total of 128, not the 94 called for in the pattern. Quite an omission. EDIT: Now I’m wondering if maybe I’m wrong about these numbers… maybe they really did want me to pick up far fewer stitches than I did, though it seems as if the fabric would pucker. That might account for the width of the neckline. Hmm… Well, try it both ways and see how it works for you!

All in all, a somewhat sloppily written pattern and not one I’d recommend for new knitters, or those who don’t want to have to figure out where the pattern is steering them wrong :)

This was a fast and fun knit, despite the pattern errors. Wool of the Andes is a lovely yarn, very easy to work with, and it blocked beautifully. The pattern needs some tweaks to make it great (besides fixing the errors). Balancing the cables, front and back, so that like cables meet at the shoulder, would be easy and very effective. In size small, swapping the positions of the front cables would not change the stitch count and would mean that the cables met smoothly at the shoulders. The neckline is oddly low. The collar needs short rows in the back to raise it — I added four sets of staggered short rows, raising the back of the collar by an inch (4 inches high in back, 3 inches in the front). Another touch I added was to balance the collar ribbing so that it starts and ends with k2, PLUS a chain selvage — so, on a right side, sl1, *k2, p2* around, end k2, p1. Wrong side: sl1, *p2,k2* around, end p3.

Another little tweak — instead of binding off for the armholes, just slip the stitches to a holding string. Drop the working yarn, and attach a new ball for the back and another new ball for the other front. Then when you pick up the armhole ribbing it will continue smoothly up from the side-ribbing!

This is not my favorite FO, but it’ll be useful, and the yarn was only $14, so even though it’s not perfect I’m still happy I made it :) More photos:

(Look at my ridiculous puffy hair. Oh how I wish it would lie flat!)

Another beautiful day today! Hung more laundry outside. It’s so nice to have a real backyard with a clothesline! Henry and I went down to Mission Bay again, and we brought his bike so he could ride on the bike path, back and forth, back and forth. I sat in the shade and worked on the Slipped Cable Vest, finished up the fronts and started the back!

(Thanks to Aperture, this is a relatively accurate representation of the color, at least on my iMac’s monitor)

When we got home, we played another game of Agricola, and then in the evening I took him to his Kung Fu group class for the first time in two weeks. So happy he’s feeling good again. And after Henry went to bed, Dan and I watched episode 9 of Celebrity Rehab. Love that show! Seth and Mary and Jessica went to Sober Living, yay!

I recently ordered knitpicks’ Slipped Cable Vest pattern and 8 skeins of Wool of the Andes in a lovely honey-brown-gold color they call “wheat” (on sale for $1.79/skein. Dude!) Also a set of size 4 Harmony needle tips (Yeah, pattern calls for 8s, I got gauge on 4s. Go figure.) Last night, after finishing the brown and cream mittens, I cast on for the vest and worked about two inches of ribbing, and then today I finished the ribbing and worked two repeats of the cable pattern. Working 198 stitches in ribbing is funny. It starts out six miles wide and draws in gradually while you’re working, and when you finally have 3 inches of knitting it’s a reasonable width :)

It’s very restful, after all the improvisational knitting I’ve been doing, to just follow a damn pattern for a change :) The pattern is very simple, and is written pretty well, but the transition between ribbing and cable could be made a lot clearer. If you follow the directions, it seems that you need to start the cable patterns on the second row (RS), which is not really made clear in the pattern. Also, you don’t want to just randomly place your increases! Count your stitches and figure out where to place increases so that the ribbing continues unbroken up the sides of the vest. If you goof it up a little, you don’t need to rip the whole thing back — just drop the offending stitches, rearrange them a little so that the knitted ribs are unbroken, and pull them back up with a crochet hook.

Here’s my progress so far:

I’m enjoying working with the Wool of the Andes. It’s a little rougher than Telemark, and I wouldn’t want to wear it directly next to the skin, but for outerwear it’s very nice.

Man, these were difficult but the result is so satisfying. One hundred grams of Telemark didn’t seem like very much, so I split each ball exactly in half and knit the mittens top-down. I don’t like afterthought thumbs, so I un-vented a new top-down thumb! Knit a thumb tube and then attach it to the hand with 3-needle bind off over just a few stitches (5 seemed right for these), then decrease away the extra stitches as you work down the hand. I decreased one stitch every three rounds. Because I had to do quite a bit of ripping back and re-working, it took nearly a full day of knitting for each mitten. *whew*

I loved working with knitpicks’ Telemark. It’s springy and soft and wonderful. Yum!

Mom hired me to make two pairs of mittens for some friends who took her skiing. One wanted burgundy and light gray with snowflakes, the other wants brown and cream. I finished the snowflake pair yesterday:

I knit it from the wrist up, with thumb gussets. I improvised the patterns using charts from The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor, a wonderful resource if you can find a copy! (Link leads to a book with a slightly different title, but I think it’s a reprint of the book I have)

Not my greatest achievement, but I think they will do.

Sorry, we’ve been having server problems and I think I lost a comment that someone (maybe Thuy?) left. She said all I needed now was knitted pants. Got ‘em already :) (edit - no, I didn’t lose a comment, she commented on my flickr and I was sleepy and didn’t notice. I’ll leave this post up anyway)

I sent several hours putting in the pockets this morning, and was wearing it when Dan got home. He took these pictures right then, so it *still* isn’t blocked!

The pockets are nice and deep. They go right down to where the border starts. I’m happy it’s a cold, rainy day, so I can wear it! By the way, this top-down, one-piece sweater was inspired by Jared Flood’s Cobblestone Pullover. Thanks, Jared!

Well, I wanted to wait until it was blocked, but I can’t :) So here it is, looking a bit wobbly, on my dress form this dark and rainy morning:

I’ll probably add afterthought pockets today, and I’ll block it tomorrow, maybe. When it’s dry, Dan will take photos of me actually wearing it!

Yesterday Fargo’s parents dropped him off to visit for a few days. Fargo has been Henry’s best friend for… four years maybe. He’s a great kid, a big reader and a real person. Henry decided to skip his classes today in favor of playing with Fargo, which says a lot because he loves his Thursday classes! The boys played and watched Naruto until Henry’s dad came to pick them up, and then I went out to buy buttons for my red sweater. I finally decided on some largish wooden ones, and came home and sewed them on so I could try the sweater on and see how much longer to make it.

This evening during Survivor I finished it! It’s wonderful. I want to wear it to the Rockola show tomorrow night, so I won’t block it yet and I don’t want to take photos until it’s blocked. But trust me. It’s a beautiful sweater, nice and long and warm, and it fits me perfectly.

Oh, this evening Chloe and I went out to pick up a few things for the show. She wanted a See and Say — you know, “The cow says.. mooooooooooooooooo” — but the modern version of that toy is extraordinarily lame so we skipped it. Also, we couldn’t find any bathrobes. I think they must be like slippers — only available at Christmas. Stupid. But we had fun :)

Yoke is done, have divided for sleeves. Pretty, huh?

A bit of poor planning on my part (forgot that my ROW gauge was also different — blame it on tooth pain) means my V is not as deep as the pattern V, but I think it’s deep enough. I don’t know if I have enough yarn to do the whole wrap-front thing, so I’m going to work the sleeves next, and then decide if I should do the wrap or just join the fronts and make a pullover.

Yarn: Knitpicks’ Gloss (merino wool/silk)
Gauge: 5.5 st/inch
Stitch pattern:
right side: k7, p1
wrong side: p

I’ve been feeling really worn out lately. I guess it’s probably because my mouth is still healing. I didn’t feel like doing anything over the weekend, so I mostly knitted and watched TV. We worked through all four seasons of The Office over the past two weekends, and finished up season 4 yesterday. That is some high-quality entertainment, let me tell you. It’s the only show I’ve missed during the writers’ strike. Now that the strike is over, rumor has it that a new episode will air on April 10th. Yay!! Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

I also watched The Darjeeling Limited and enjoyed it very much, and then watched Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, so it was a Wes Anderson weekend. Darjeeling and Tenenbaums are vying for first place. I still haven’t decided which I like more, though I’ve seen Tenebaums twice now. Rushmore was good but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the other two. All three are stunningly beautiful from beginning to end.

I started a new sweater, a neck-down wrap cardigan, number 263 on http://www.knittingpureandsimple.com/cardi.html. I’m using four colors (Pumpkin, tan, cocoa, black) of Knitpicks’ Gloss (merino wool/silk blend) in 8-row stripes, and I’m doing an all-over seeded rib as well (k7, p1 on the right side, p all on the wrong side). Of course the Gloss works up to a very different gauge than the required light worsted, but it’s such a peasant and simple pattern that it’s easy to rekajigger it to suit my gauge. I’ll get a photo for you when I have the energy to get up off the couch.

I’ve also worked a lot more on the red cobblestone cardigan, and have gotten to about hip level. It fits like a dream.