in which I pout a little bit

"Holi canoli!" (I had my first canoli in Boston last summer...mmm, are they good) is probably what you're thinking if you've been keeping up with the Yarn Harlot's represent tour in New York. How I wish I could have been there to hear her speak and stick a knitting sample in the "Imagine" picture and experience the power of all those knitters and pointy sticks in one place. Alas, I can't justify a trip to NYC just for that, not in the middle of a rather hectic semester of performances and such.

I did participate in my own little way. I sent some hats:



That's just under a dozen hats of various sizes I made out of leftover yarn from various projects. There's some wool, some cotton, some blends. Some are big, most are small, some of them are kind of ugly, but I would hope that in a place as big and diverse as the Big Apple, each will find a suitable home.

I'm not going to pout because I can't go to New York to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. As awesome as that would be, I'm being realistic. But I might pout a little bit because I don't understand why her book tours never bring her here to Madison. For sheep's sake, I can only assume that the half dozen or more successful yarn shops in Madison and its 'burbs indicates that we have quite the knitting community here. We also have a lot of other stuff she would appreciate, like beer and bike paths. Plus, she's Canadian, so it's not as though the cold is scaring her off. Maybe next time I'm at Lakeside Fibers I'll ask why no one's managed to get her to speak here.

Finished! Baby Sasha's Dress

I remember reading a story in my childhood, a story about a Japanese painter who never quite finished his paintings because once they were complete, the paintings would come to life. He painted a picture of a crane but left out its eye, and when a drop of ink accidentally fell on the very spot where that eye would have been, the crane flew off his canvas and into the sky.

Sometimes I don't want to quite finish something because I'm just not ready to let it go. Like this little baby dress, for example. It was very easy to knit, and I'm eager to send it to the recipient, but when I finished all the knitting and hiding of ends and the blocking last week, I somehow couldn't bring myself to add the button and the ribbon tie, not yet. It just seemed a little too precious.

Today, I was ready. It took all of five minutes to sew on that button and thread the grosgrain ribbon through the eyelets and hold the ends to a flame so they wouldn't ravel. Then I spent the rest of Daniel's morning nap time trying to get a good picture. Damn, is fuchsia hard to photograph. Also, if my neighbors suspected I was a little off for running outside to take pictures of knitting every so often, I probably confirmed it when, in a fit of inspiration, I dashed out to the front yard in socks but no shoes, hung the dress from an empty bird-feeder pole, and walked around and around it, trying to get a good shot. Ah, well. It takes all kinds, yes?

Here's the front:



The back:



A close-up of that sweet little button and ribbon-tie:



Now that it's actually finished, I'm feeling very eager to send it off. B's baby is only a few weeks old, so I doubt she's big enough for it yet (I made the 3-6 month size, though I think baby sizes run small). I had planned to make some little beaded shoes to go with it, but now that seems a little fussy. I suppose I'll mull over it for a day or so.

Pattern: from Simple Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Patons Grace in "ruby," 100% mercerized cotton, a little over 2 skeins
Gauge: 25 st and 34 rows = 4" on #5 needles
Modifications: Instead of knitting in pieces, I did the dress in the round up to the armholes. I had a teeny bit of math to do because I'm anal enough to eliminate stitches for seaming.

What I'm Doing Instead of Researching My Diss. Proposal

Oh, Daniel, you little goof. How could I stay mad at you for long?



No, the naps aren't improving, and he seems to be on a hunger strike to boot, but I blame it all on those little teeth trying to break through his delicate little gums. Poor kid. I think there's a good reason we don't remember these first few years, eh?

He did, of course, fall asleep in the car on the way home from the Infant Learning Lab (they call us when they need test subjects for language and music experiments; it's great fun and we always get a board book to take home). It wasn't a particularly convenient time for me to sit in the car and wait for him to wake up, but at least I came prepared:



That's 45 minutes' worth of nap-time-knitting-in-the-car on the back of Aran Rose from the Spring '06 IK. I've been eye-ing it for a while, trying to decide if it appeals. Cropped anything on me looks silly, and I wasn't sure about the 3/4 sleeves, either. I had a false start last week when I decided to do long sleeves and finished the cuff on one, then changed my mind and frogged it. For now I've settled on keeping the sleeves as they are in the pattern, but making the body several inches longer, probably to fall at the high hip.

Also, I recently learned that the baby I'm knitting that fuchsia cotton dress for was born a couple weeks ago. Welcome to the world, little Sasha!

Here's the state of the dress as of Thursday:



And here's as far as I got last night whilst catching up on the last down-loaded episode of Battlestar Gallactica (we don't have cable, ergo shady downloading of certain television programs...shhhhh...and by the way, what the hell was up with Starbuck? Were they planning to go anywhere with that storyline or no?). Even though baby Sasha has entered this world already, it looks to me like this dress won't fit her for a while. It's a 3-6 month size according to the pattern, and it looks big to me. It even measures big, despite the fact that my stitch and row gauge were right on for the swatch, and are still right on for the dress. I don't understand how the gauge is accurate, the stitch count is accurate, and the dress is still a little big. Good thing Kans-arse has long, hot summers; she'll be guaranteed to fit it at some point before it cools off down there.



Gratuitous close-up:



Jenn's idea in comments from a few days ago to make little baby shoes is such a good one (and she's even a muggle!), I think I'll make some beaded fair isle ones to match. Won't that be charming?

(as good as) Finished! Two-Tone Fitted Sweater

Before I begin, I have to say I'm feeling some mama guilt about this whole post because at 4:30 this afternoon, after much struggling with getting My Child to nap, I finally closed his door and Let Him Cry. I seem to be the only person on the planet who can't get him to sleep properly during the day, and I'M HIS MOTHER! Every babysitter that comes over to watch him while I go to campus for rehearsals and whatnot says upon my return things like: "He just woke up. He's been sleeping the whole 2 hours you were gone," or "I just put on an Ella Fitzgerald CD and he konked out on my shoulder, so I put him in his crib." People, I don't get it. I nurse him, I rock him, I sing to him, I put him in his crib and stand there calmly with my eyes closed, modeling good nap behavior and NONE OF IT FUCKING WORKS!! This afternoon I was at the point where I either needed to start drinking or go shopping, both of which are unhealthy actions I would probably regret, so I closed his door (okay, I may have let it slam just a wee little bit) and went outside in the cold, gray snow to take some pictures for this blog, which should hardly be a priority considering all the things I Should Be Doing To Finish My Doctorate (most of which involve playing the piano, which I obviously can't do while he's sleeping, can I?) Long story short: he was asleep in less than 10 minutes, so maybe I'm not such a terrible, horrible, no-good mother after all.

Sigh.

You still with me? Good.

I finished that two-tone purple and red sweater/jacket. But isn't it nearly spring, you ask? Why were you so driven to get it done when 'twill soon be too warm to wear it, you ask? Friends, I live in Wisconsin. It was finally warm enough for me to bike the 4 miles to campus for a rehearsal this morning, and by "warm enough" I mean 22 degrees -- not counting the wind chill.

Yikes, Susan. Enough with the bitching and moaning. Let's see the dang thing!



It fits me beautifully, now that I've been to the frog pond and back. Just a little dip, nothing major, but it's much, much better than before The flare has been tamed.



(Yes, that is a belt buckle; no, I'm not that happy to see you...and by the way, you don't get to see my face in this picture because it was before I had finished my morning latté. Nuff said.)



This was my first sweater with one-row buttonholes. I have some tweaking to do. First of all, I did 4-stitch buttonholes and they're too big; the buttons slip out. I'll be goll-darned if I'm undoing the buttonhole band again, so I have a few options.

Option #1: Stitch up each buttonhole a little bit to the right size. This would be very easy.

Option #2: Just never button the sweater. I like my cardigans hanging open, so no real problem here. This would be even easier.

Option #3: Try backing the buttonhole band with some wide, red grosgrain ribbon. I've never done this on a sweater, but I've seen glimpses of it on some other knitblogs, and I think it might make the whole thing a little more sturdy. Thoughts, anyone?

In any case, I'm considering this baby finished, because I've already worn it.

Pattern: from Winter '06 Knitter's Magazine
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in eggplant (for the main body) and spice (for the trim)
Modifications: I did the body of the sweater in one piece, and the sleeves in the round so I could avoid seams, because I think seams in raglan sweaters are a little silly. Once it was ostensibly done, I took part of the bottom out and added some length, so at that point I was quite glad I'd done it in one piece to begin with.
Gauge: So glad you asked. Early on, I realized my gauge was a little tighter with the sleeves. I know, I know, I know gauge is often tighter in the round than back-and-forth but I swear to all the gods of sheep and wool out there that this is the first time it's happened to me. Fortunately, the change in gauge was minimal (on size 8 needles, 19 st = 4" in the round, 18 st = 4" back-and-forth), and after blocking there was no way to tell. The sleeves fit perfectly, so I've got no complaints.
Other comments: This sweater was nice and quick. I think it took roughly two months from start to finish, and that was with other projects cropping up in the meantime. It's not superbly fashionable, but I think the bold red (my favorite color, by the way) and fitted quality keeps it from making me look like an old school-marm.

Too Much Flare

Joanna: You know what, Stan, if you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair, like your pretty boy over there, Brian, why don't you just make the minimum 37 pieces of flair?
Stan, Chotchkie's Manager: Well, I thought I remembered you saying that you wanted to express yourself.
Joanna: Yeah. You know what, yeah, I do. I do want to express myself, okay. And I don't need 37 pieces of flair to do it.
[flips off Stan]

If I have to tell you what movie that's from, it's not worth the trouble.

I finished the button band on the purple and red jacket thing, soaked it, blocked it, and then confirmed my suspicions that there was just a bit too much flare at the bottom. Plus, it's too short, even though I made it about 1" longer than the pattern specified. But a jacket with a nipped waist that falls right above the hip on my kind of figure just isn't, well, flattering. I would constantly be tugging at it, and that's just no good.



(Check out my faux Gap picture. All you need is a big-ass snow drift in your front yard to use as a backdrop...)

Commence the frogging. I had to ribbit the whole buttonband, which wasn't so tragic considering the less-than-stellar job I did on the buttonholes. It was my first crack at one-row buttonholes, and I'm still figuring out how to make it so they're not really, really tight.

Here comes the part where I'm very glad I decided to do the body of the sweater in one piece. To lengthen it, I just removed the red garter from the bottom:



Then I ripped out the purple up to the appropriate place for the waist/hip shaping, picked up the live stitches, and now I'm on my way to knitting stockinette stitch down a few more inches to the hips, where I'll re-do the red garter for the border. (This isn't too unlike just doing a provisional cast-on, like for a lined hat, where you would go back and pick up live stitches once the main part is done, except in this case, I had to rip out some of the fabric first.) It would be neat if I could just graft the same garter band on instead of re-knitting the whole thing, but alas, that won't work. I saved the detached garter band, but it has more stitches than it should, now that I'm decreasing the flare factor. Also, I think the garter edge should have about 10% fewer stitches than the body of the sweater so that the border itself doesn't flare out, which I definitely noticed when I blocked it in the first place.

What's my deal with fixing sweaters at the bottom once they're ostensibly finished? It happened on my dad's Christmas sweater, too, only that was even more of an ordeal. One of these days I should just learn how to knit sweaters from the top-down (I know there are whole books on the subject; I just haven't read any...yet.) Any knitters out there with experience in various methods of construction have any thoughts? Hallooooooooo!