Oh my gosh I feel like I haven’t sat down or rested in 5 days. Ok I have sat down quite a bit as I’ve done a lot of knitting, but still.

Friday I wasn’t working so I raced over to the LYS to take a pic of the Duffle Coat before it’s owner arrived to pick it up. I was going to wait and see if she’d take a pic for me, but as it turned out I had to go down to my dad’s store anyways so I just made a detour.

Here it is, buttons and all:

Then, since I was still off the rest of the day, I got a huge chunk of progress done on Spoilt Rotten, the 2nd dog coat that Urban Pet asked me for a few weeks ago. I feel horrible that I still haven’t given the sweaters to them, but besides Duffle Coat I had spent almost a week and a half trying to get gauge on the Classic Cabled Aran and no matter what needle size I used I just couldn’t get it. I’m officially giving up on that one and taking it off my available list. There is an Aran dog sweater in the book that has Spoilt Rotten, if they insist on one (even though the weather’s changing now) I’ll make that one. Besides, after reading through the pattern for the CCA it really wasn’t that nice. It was mostly moss st, very boring, with only one diamond on the bag. Ehh.

Saturday I hurried home after work to take off for up north to have Easter dinner with Yannick’s family. There was still tons of light outside so I got more knitting done in the car. It was a really nice drive up. I’d been listening to a great book on CD in my car and had finished the first 2 CDs. I knew Yannick would like it too, so I brought it along in the car for the ride. It’s called Artemis Fowl. I forget the author at the moment but it’s read in a wonderful Irish accent and is a great tale of underworld crime, deceit, and faeries.

We spent the night up north, stuffed on a yummy rack of lamb dinner, and woke up bright and early for brunch the next day. Truthfully, it’s hard not to wake up bright and early when there are 4 kids under 9 running through the room searching for hidden chocolate eggs. 🙂

When we left we had to come straight back because my grandmother’s 81st bday party was at 2pm. We made it just in time, and I had enough of a long car ride to finish all but the pocket on Spoilt Rotten. It was fun to be at my bubbie’s. It had been a while since I’d seen her, plus it was nice having my whole family there. My mom’s sister Mimi was in from TO and Fran was there with my cousins Mark (in from Ottawa) and Jon, plus my cousin Warren was there and cousin Barbara Anne and her hubby and daughter, PLUS my parents and my 3 siblings. Once you add in the other residents of the home and the on site staff, it was a full house! In keeping with the productivity theme of the weekend I had a chance to discuss my parents’ 30th anniversary gift ideas with my siblings (I have a great idea but I can’t discuss it here ‘cus you never know who might be reading…lol), AND discuss an upcoming trip to Las Vegas. See, a year or so ago my auntie Mimi took my brother Michael, my cousin Mark and my cousin Barbara Anne to Vegas. Why I was skipped I don’t know, since only Barbie is older than me. In any case, this year is mine, my cousin Warren and my cousin Mitchell’s turn, and then in a few years it will be my brother Aaron, sister Laura and cousin Jon. Mimi hopes to travel in May or June, so we’re trying to work out everyone’s schedules and come up with a fun itinerary. Warren has been there before, as has Mimi, I’m not sure about Mitchell, but I’ve never been. We’ll be going down for 5 days so I don’t know what to expect!

Hmm…any Vegas wool shops I should know about?

Finally last night after a quick dinner and more of The Making of The Incredibles on the extra features DVD Yannick took off for my parents’ house to play poker with my dad, brothers and a bunch of others. I stayed home and (guess what?) knit. I finished SR but for the embroidery on the pocket, and started swatching for a very selfish project- one for me! I started looking through my wips still outstanding. Right now there are:

-To Dye For sweater from Stitch ‘n Bitch. It’s all knit up, just needs to be blocked and seamed.
-Mini Plain Cardigan. It’s a 6″ high cardigan that just needs buttons sewed on.
-Entrelac Throw. Only a row and a half done. No where near completion.
-Birthday Suit. Ha! Only 6 rows done out of an entire long sleeved shirt and long skirt knit on sock yarn.
-Yannick’s Thrum Socks. Not yet started sock # 2.
-Lace Socks. These are the ones for my knitting class. I’m working on the foot, almost at the toe decreases. Only on the first sock though.
-Heart Warmer. This is a baby sweater for charity.

I really should have worked on finishing some of these, especially the first 2 since they really are almost done. But instead, faced with the thought that I couldn’t finish SR until today when I met with Nicole for embroidery tips, I knew I had a few hours of selfish time, so I worked on selfish knitting. My DKNY-designed Landscape Cardigan. It doesn’t really have a name, but since the main feature is all the cables that work up to trees and a fence, I named it the Landscape Cardigan, and before bed I finished my swatch. Yay!

Today I slept in until a door-to-door guy rang the bell. Then I made my way through the rain to my LYS armed with a huge bag of projects that I wanted to go over with Nicole. (And I mean huge bag, it was large enough for over 30 sk of yarn!)

First I decided to swap my 11 or so sk of Alafoss Lopi for 11 sk of Classic Merino Wool. I’m told that when it felts it is much less fuzzy and simply a dream to knit up, so I ordered it and will swap once it comes in. It’s cheapter than the Lopi too, so bonus!

Then we measured my machine knit swatch on Paton’s Astra so I could get an idea if it was feasable to use to make the charity baby sweater. It turned out to be spot-on for the rows, but too big for the stitches. I’m going to have to arrange a meeting with Nicole just to learn how to recalculate a pattern.

Then she showed me that the embroidery on my SR pocket was no more difficult than backstitching in cross stitching, so I knew I could do that later.

Finally I remade my LC swatch ‘cus it was too big. With a 5mm instead of 5.5 I was good on the stitches, but a bit off on the rows. I was given the go ahead to make the cardigan body and then Nicole will help me recalculate the set-in sleeves to fit.

Armed with all that, I finally made it home around 3:30 pm. Whew!

I finished SR and just need to cut out my custom labels. I think it’s cute. The words were a bit difficult to embroider, but they are on a kangaroo pocket which looks really cute on a dog sweater.

While I was working on it I got a call from my contact at the hospital auxiliary about the charity baby stuff. She’d given me the yarn in January, unfortunately right before I started making the dog sweaters, so I have yet to make her anything for the hospital gift shop. She’s understandably a little upset. After I call her back I’ll know if I’m to continue working on the sweater, in which case that’s what I’ll do tonight, or if she wants all the yarn back, in which case I’ll work on LC and give her all her stuff back next Monday. But first I’m going to eat supper! 🙂

In keeping with the “I’m a dolt” tradition of this week, I don’t have a pic to show of the finished Duffle Coat. (And I almost typed the Finnish Duffle Coat. See: dolt.)

I stayed up until 4:00am last night/this morning to finish it. Everything was done except the buttons sewn on, because a) I was 1 button short, and b) it was 4:00am!

I stopped at the LYS today after work, sewed on the buttons and left it to be picked up tomorrow.

And then got home and realized I’d forgotten to take a picture even though I’d brought my camera just for that purpose. Not only do I not have one to show here, I don’t even have a film picture for my scrapbook.

I called Nicole and she said she’d ask the woman to take a picture of her granddaughter wearing it and give me a copy, so hopefully I’ll have one in the end.

And now I have a migraine so I’m going to lie down. I’m not working tomorrow so I’m going to get a really good night’s sleep!

And then rush like mad to finish Spoilt Rotten. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do about the cabled dog coat. It’s giving me a lot of grief for such a small thing.

Had such a great night tonight! After work I went straight to the Wendy’s/Tim Horton’s at the corner of Sources and Hymus ‘cus Cynthia from the MKG arranged a meeting for people interested in helping out with the upcoming fair in October. I didn’t feel like going home first then back out, so even though the meeting didn’t start until 7:30 I got there around 6:30 and was planning on just hanging out. Turns out Cynthia was already there (with someone else- shoot I need to start learning everyone’s names!). I was going to get a snack at Wendy’s and then go sit down so I ordered a fruit bowl…and waited…and waited…after 25 minutes I finally asked for my money back. Everyone had to wait, they were so far behind! To give you a better idea of how messed up they were: while I was waiting a man came up to the counter and asked for the manager. He told her that he’d ordered a whatever burger with no onions. He opened up the burger wrapper- there was the bun, lettuce, tomato, onions- but no burger!

I wound up getting a cheese croissant from Tim’s. Knit my way through the meeting. Yannick came to join us ‘cus he wasn’t home last night and was trying to spend some time with me to make up for it. Oh, and the whole ferklempt thing? (To those non-Jews it kinda translates to overwhelmed, emotional, mishkabibbled…ok I can’t really translate it well.) One of the MKG members (I think her name is Daniella, again I really need to learn all the names!) brought her son Colin (or Collin). He’s 14 months old. And adorable. And spent most of the meeting in Yannick’s arms. [insert double-take here]

Picture me stunned!

For those who don’t know him, Yannick isn’t exactly a kid-friendly person. He’d sooner hold a cat than a baby, and runs at the first sight of drool or spit-up. Which is why stuff like this is such a good omen for the future!

[insert big, relieved grin here]

Now I have to go finish the Duffle Coat so I can deliver it tomorrow. I called the Wool Shop this morning and they have more of the buttons, so I can attach the last one there. I finished the button bands at the meeting, so I just need to sew the side seams, sew on the hood, pick up and rib the hood ribbing and sew on the buttons I have.

I feel really horrible that the pins I used to block the sleeves turned out not to be stainless steel and wound up rusting. I hear that Oxyclean gets out rust stains but I don’t have any, so I’ll have to give it as-is and just let them know. 😦

To Shell: Is his pronounced Ah-ron or Eh-rin? My bro is Eh-ron. Funny thing is at his old doc’s office when he was a kid there was a girl with his exact name! Erin instead of Aaron and our same last name but with a K instead of a C as the first letter. So we always had to specify if we were booking appointments for the boy or the girl. 🙂

To Danielle: Thanks for posting! 🙂 I hope you find those patterns eventually…or are really good at “winging it” lol. I had a crocheted sweater like that once. At least 3 years went by between starting it and finishing it, but by that point all that was left was the end of one sleeve and the seams. Took me 4 days to find where I’d stashed the pattern.

Had such a great night tonight! After work I went straight to the Wendy’s/Tim Horton’s at the corner of Sources and Hymus ‘cus Cynthia from the MKG arranged a meeting for people interested in helping out with the upcoming fair in October. I didn’t feel like going home first then back out, so even though the meeting didn’t start until 7:30 I got there around 6:30 and was planning on just hanging out. Turns out Cynthia was already there (with someone else- shoot I need to start learning everyone’s names!). I was going to get a snack at Wendy’s and then go sit down so I ordered a fruit bowl…and waited…and waited…after 25 minutes I finally asked for my money back. Everyone had to wait, they were so far behind! To give you a better idea of how messed up they were: while I was waiting a man came up to the counter and asked for the manager. He told her that he’d ordered a whatever burger with no onions. He opened up the burger wrapper- there was the bun, lettuce, tomato, onions- but no burger!

I wound up getting a cheese croissant from Tim’s. Knit my way through the meeting. Yannick came to join us ‘cus he wasn’t home last night and was trying to spend some time with me to make up for it. Oh, and the whole ferklempt thing? (To those non-Jews it kinda translates to overwhelmed, emotional, mishkabibbled…ok I can’t really translate it well.) One of the MKG members (I think her name is Daniella, again I really need to learn all the names!) brought her son Colin (or Collin). He’s 14 months old. And adorable. And spent most of the meeting in Yannick’s arms. [insert double-take here]

Picture me stunned!

For those who don’t know him, Yannick isn’t exactly a kid-friendly person. He’d sooner hold a cat than a baby, and runs at the first sight of drool or spit-up. Which is why stuff like this is such a good omen for the future!

[insert big, relieved grin here]

Now I have to go finish the Duffle Coat so I can deliver it tomorrow. I called the Wool Shop this morning and they have more of the buttons, so I can attach the last one there. I finished the button bands at the meeting, so I just need to sew the side seams, sew on the hood, pick up and rib the hood ribbing and sew on the buttons I have.

I feel really horrible that the pins I used to block the sleeves turned out not to be stainless steel and wound up rusting. I hear that Oxyclean gets out rust stains but I don’t have any, so I’ll have to give it as-is and just let them know. 😦

To Shell: Is his pronounced Ah-ron or Eh-rin? My bro is Eh-ron. Funny thing is at his old doc’s office when he was a kid there was a girl with his exact name! Erin instead of Aaron and our same last name but with a K instead of a C as the first letter. So we always had to specify if we were booking appointments for the boy or the girl. 🙂

To Danielle: Thanks for posting! 🙂 I hope you find those patterns eventually…or are really good at “winging it” lol. I had a crocheted sweater like that once. At least 3 years went by between starting it and finishing it, but by that point all that was left was the end of one sleeve and the seams. Took me 4 days to find where I’d stashed the pattern.

Had such a great night tonight! After work I went straight to the Wendy’s/Tim Horton’s at the corner of Sources and Hymus ‘cus Cynthia from the MKG arranged a meeting for people interested in helping out with the upcoming fair in October. I didn’t feel like going home first then back out, so even though the meeting didn’t start until 7:30 I got there around 6:30 and was planning on just hanging out. Turns out Cynthia was already there (with someone else- shoot I need to start learning everyone’s names!). I was going to get a snack at Wendy’s and then go sit down so I ordered a fruit bowl…and waited…and waited…after 25 minutes I finally asked for my money back. Everyone had to wait, they were so far behind! To give you a better idea of how messed up they were: while I was waiting a man came up to the counter and asked for the manager. He told her that he’d ordered a whatever burger with no onions. He opened up the burger wrapper- there was the bun, lettuce, tomato, onions- but no burger!

I wound up getting a cheese croissant from Tim’s. Knit my way through the meeting. Yannick came to join us ‘cus he wasn’t home last night and was trying to spend some time with me to make up for it. Oh, and the whole ferklempt thing? (To those non-Jews it kinda translates to overwhelmed, emotional, mishkabibbled…ok I can’t really translate it well.) One of the MKG members (I think her name is Daniella, again I really need to learn all the names!) brought her son Colin (or Collin). He’s 14 months old. And adorable. And spent most of the meeting in Yannick’s arms. [insert double-take here]

Picture me stunned!

For those who don’t know him, Yannick isn’t exactly a kid-friendly person. He’d sooner hold a cat than a baby, and runs at the first sight of drool or spit-up. Which is why stuff like this is such a good omen for the future!

[insert big, relieved grin here]

Now I have to go finish the Duffle Coat so I can deliver it tomorrow. I called the Wool Shop this morning and they have more of the buttons, so I can attach the last one there. I finished the button bands at the meeting, so I just need to sew the side seams, sew on the hood, pick up and rib the hood ribbing and sew on the buttons I have.

I feel really horrible that the pins I used to block the sleeves turned out not to be stainless steel and wound up rusting. I hear that Oxyclean gets out rust stains but I don’t have any, so I’ll have to give it as-is and just let them know. 😦

To Shell: Is his pronounced Ah-ron or Eh-rin? My bro is Eh-ron. Funny thing is at his old doc’s office when he was a kid there was a girl with his exact name! Erin instead of Aaron and our same last name but with a K instead of a C as the first letter. So we always had to specify if we were booking appointments for the boy or the girl. 🙂

To Danielle: Thanks for posting! 🙂 I hope you find those patterns eventually…or are really good at “winging it” lol. I had a crocheted sweater like that once. At least 3 years went by between starting it and finishing it, but by that point all that was left was the end of one sleeve and the seams. Took me 4 days to find where I’d stashed the pattern.

The knitting machine adventure went well yesterday.

First I brought it downstairs ‘cus I was a dummy and didn’t realize it clipped on to the front of my workspace. I thought the clamps went into the back and I wasn’t about to reach forwards over my kitchen table to use it. Luckily (even though it turned out unnecessary) I had a small, unused coffee table that worked perfectly. So I brought everything downstairs.

I had no problems setting everything up, but it took some trial and error to get it all working in what I imagined to be the right way. I decided to be productive with my playing around and make samples with the 3 yarns I plan to use, in the various tensions the machine has. Here’s a pic of me underway:

After 3 hours I was left with over 600 rows of knitting completed- definately not something I could have done without the machine!

The white “snake” is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 using Patons’ Astra. The pink is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 with Patons’ Canadiana, and the blue is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 8, 8.2, 9, 9.1, 10 with Patons’ Decor. The yellow lines are pieces of cotton woven through to mark off the sections. The snakes were all done Monday, and this evening I started measuring 4″ squares in each to see what gauge I got. I’ve measured the pink one so far. Unfortunately none of the gauges matches the 20 sts x 26 rows I normal need with the Decor or Canadiana, so I think I’ll have to go back and make more swatches using the middle tensions (each whole number has 2 other divisions before reaching the next whole number).

I stopped using the machine around 7pm and spent the night relaxing with Yannick, enjoying some Domino’s Pizza (I had $5 off) while watching Medium and CSI:Miami. Yannick and I have a mutual dislike for, well, we affectionately refer to him as “the arrogant redhead”, and greatly enjoy making fun of his character flaws. Especially how he takes himself so seriously. Hysterical stuff.

Today I got home from work intent on making some progress. Earlier today I had a chance to make a st st gauge swatch using the Alafoss Lopi. I started one in garter too but didn’t get to finish before leaving for work. I need to mark off a 4″ square with a contrast yarn then felt the swatches so I can measure how much they shrunk. Because I’m making the bag larger than the original I need to be able to calculate how much larger to make it in each direction. So when I got home I finished the garter swatch, measured one of the above machine swatches, then sat down to do as much work as possible on Duffle Coat.

That’s when I became the dolt refered to in the title above.

First, as directed, I seamed the shoulders. It took me a few minutes to figure out their placements ‘cus there’s no schematic included, but finally I matched up the cables and st st stripes and did a very nice seaming job. See-

Look how nicely those peices line up! They’re only bunched ‘cus I left my tape measure underneath before taking the pic.

So I did both sides, then moved on to the next step: button bands. I picked up all the required sts, did my required number of rows including the buttonholes. That’s when I realized it. Look:

This is what it looked like right before doing the button band. I kept thinking to myself “man that neck opening is small! How will that fit around a kid’s neck?” Once the button band was done, it was even smaller. I mean, the neck opening was no more than 2″ wide- in circumference! What did I do wrong?

Easy. See the cutouts on the armhole sides? Those L shaped wedge openings that I had assumed were to fit in the sleeves? Nope. Those are the neck edges. I’d seamed the two front panels on the wrong sides.

Luckily I don’t weave my edges until I’m done. (Thanks Nicole!) It wasn’t hard to frog the button band and pick out the mattress stitch joining the shoulder seams. I even had time to rejoin the seams the right way and pick up the band sts and do a few rows before stopping for the night.

Oh well. At least doing the button band gave me a chance to realize that I wasn’t given enough buttons! I was given 6 but this size sweater needs 7. So I won’t be able to finish the sweater after all. I’m not going to sew on any buttons and take the chance they have no more of that type. I’ll wait and see what they have in stock first.

To Shell from the comments: A) I’m SO SORRY you don’t have addi Turbos there! I love them for non slippery stuff. And thank for the “talented” comment, it’s really sweet of you to say so! B) I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t wild about Robots. My brother’s name is Aaron! Wait- was it you who already told me that your son has my brother’s name? I really should take notes on who’s who! 🙂

To Kadi from the comments: Hi! I hope you’ll be at the next meetup! I had a good time there. I purchased the issue of Rebecca at RedBirdKnits in December, and the link to the page with all their Rebecca magazines is here. I just took a quick look and saw they have 3 issues available: one in the original language (is it Danish? German?), the one I have that you looked through, and a new issue.

And a big HI! to Bernie even though you only emailed me when you needed something. ;]

The knitting machine adventure went well yesterday.

First I brought it downstairs ‘cus I was a dummy and didn’t realize it clipped on to the front of my workspace. I thought the clamps went into the back and I wasn’t about to reach forwards over my kitchen table to use it. Luckily (even though it turned out unnecessary) I had a small, unused coffee table that worked perfectly. So I brought everything downstairs.

I had no problems setting everything up, but it took some trial and error to get it all working in what I imagined to be the right way. I decided to be productive with my playing around and make samples with the 3 yarns I plan to use, in the various tensions the machine has. Here’s a pic of me underway:

After 3 hours I was left with over 600 rows of knitting completed- definately not something I could have done without the machine!

The white “snake” is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 using Patons’ Astra. The pink is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 with Patons’ Canadiana, and the blue is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 8, 8.2, 9, 9.1, 10 with Patons’ Decor. The yellow lines are pieces of cotton woven through to mark off the sections. The snakes were all done Monday, and this evening I started measuring 4″ squares in each to see what gauge I got. I’ve measured the pink one so far. Unfortunately none of the gauges matches the 20 sts x 26 rows I normal need with the Decor or Canadiana, so I think I’ll have to go back and make more swatches using the middle tensions (each whole number has 2 other divisions before reaching the next whole number).

I stopped using the machine around 7pm and spent the night relaxing with Yannick, enjoying some Domino’s Pizza (I had $5 off) while watching Medium and CSI:Miami. Yannick and I have a mutual dislike for, well, we affectionately refer to him as “the arrogant redhead”, and greatly enjoy making fun of his character flaws. Especially how he takes himself so seriously. Hysterical stuff.

Today I got home from work intent on making some progress. Earlier today I had a chance to make a st st gauge swatch using the Alafoss Lopi. I started one in garter too but didn’t get to finish before leaving for work. I need to mark off a 4″ square with a contrast yarn then felt the swatches so I can measure how much they shrunk. Because I’m making the bag larger than the original I need to be able to calculate how much larger to make it in each direction. So when I got home I finished the garter swatch, measured one of the above machine swatches, then sat down to do as much work as possible on Duffle Coat.

That’s when I became the dolt refered to in the title above.

First, as directed, I seamed the shoulders. It took me a few minutes to figure out their placements ‘cus there’s no schematic included, but finally I matched up the cables and st st stripes and did a very nice seaming job. See-

Look how nicely those peices line up! They’re only bunched ‘cus I left my tape measure underneath before taking the pic.

So I did both sides, then moved on to the next step: button bands. I picked up all the required sts, did my required number of rows including the buttonholes. That’s when I realized it. Look:

This is what it looked like right before doing the button band. I kept thinking to myself “man that neck opening is small! How will that fit around a kid’s neck?” Once the button band was done, it was even smaller. I mean, the neck opening was no more than 2″ wide- in circumference! What did I do wrong?

Easy. See the cutouts on the armhole sides? Those L shaped wedge openings that I had assumed were to fit in the sleeves? Nope. Those are the neck edges. I’d seamed the two front panels on the wrong sides.

Luckily I don’t weave my edges until I’m done. (Thanks Nicole!) It wasn’t hard to frog the button band and pick out the mattress stitch joining the shoulder seams. I even had time to rejoin the seams the right way and pick up the band sts and do a few rows before stopping for the night.

Oh well. At least doing the button band gave me a chance to realize that I wasn’t given enough buttons! I was given 6 but this size sweater needs 7. So I won’t be able to finish the sweater after all. I’m not going to sew on any buttons and take the chance they have no more of that type. I’ll wait and see what they have in stock first.

To Shell from the comments: A) I’m SO SORRY you don’t have addi Turbos there! I love them for non slippery stuff. And thank for the “talented” comment, it’s really sweet of you to say so! B) I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t wild about Robots. My brother’s name is Aaron! Wait- was it you who already told me that your son has my brother’s name? I really should take notes on who’s who! 🙂

To Kadi from the comments: Hi! I hope you’ll be at the next meetup! I had a good time there. I purchased the issue of Rebecca at RedBirdKnits in December, and the link to the page with all their Rebecca magazines is here. I just took a quick look and saw they have 3 issues available: one in the original language (is it Danish? German?), the one I have that you looked through, and a new issue.

And a big HI! to Bernie even though you only emailed me when you needed something. ;]

The knitting machine adventure went well yesterday.

First I brought it downstairs ‘cus I was a dummy and didn’t realize it clipped on to the front of my workspace. I thought the clamps went into the back and I wasn’t about to reach forwards over my kitchen table to use it. Luckily (even though it turned out unnecessary) I had a small, unused coffee table that worked perfectly. So I brought everything downstairs.

I had no problems setting everything up, but it took some trial and error to get it all working in what I imagined to be the right way. I decided to be productive with my playing around and make samples with the 3 yarns I plan to use, in the various tensions the machine has. Here’s a pic of me underway:

After 3 hours I was left with over 600 rows of knitting completed- definately not something I could have done without the machine!

The white “snake” is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 using Patons’ Astra. The pink is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 with Patons’ Canadiana, and the blue is 30 sts wide, 30 rows each of tensions 8, 8.2, 9, 9.1, 10 with Patons’ Decor. The yellow lines are pieces of cotton woven through to mark off the sections. The snakes were all done Monday, and this evening I started measuring 4″ squares in each to see what gauge I got. I’ve measured the pink one so far. Unfortunately none of the gauges matches the 20 sts x 26 rows I normal need with the Decor or Canadiana, so I think I’ll have to go back and make more swatches using the middle tensions (each whole number has 2 other divisions before reaching the next whole number).

I stopped using the machine around 7pm and spent the night relaxing with Yannick, enjoying some Domino’s Pizza (I had $5 off) while watching Medium and CSI:Miami. Yannick and I have a mutual dislike for, well, we affectionately refer to him as “the arrogant redhead”, and greatly enjoy making fun of his character flaws. Especially how he takes himself so seriously. Hysterical stuff.

Today I got home from work intent on making some progress. Earlier today I had a chance to make a st st gauge swatch using the Alafoss Lopi. I started one in garter too but didn’t get to finish before leaving for work. I need to mark off a 4″ square with a contrast yarn then felt the swatches so I can measure how much they shrunk. Because I’m making the bag larger than the original I need to be able to calculate how much larger to make it in each direction. So when I got home I finished the garter swatch, measured one of the above machine swatches, then sat down to do as much work as possible on Duffle Coat.

That’s when I became the dolt refered to in the title above.

First, as directed, I seamed the shoulders. It took me a few minutes to figure out their placements ‘cus there’s no schematic included, but finally I matched up the cables and st st stripes and did a very nice seaming job. See-

Look how nicely those peices line up! They’re only bunched ‘cus I left my tape measure underneath before taking the pic.

So I did both sides, then moved on to the next step: button bands. I picked up all the required sts, did my required number of rows including the buttonholes. That’s when I realized it. Look:

This is what it looked like right before doing the button band. I kept thinking to myself “man that neck opening is small! How will that fit around a kid’s neck?” Once the button band was done, it was even smaller. I mean, the neck opening was no more than 2″ wide- in circumference! What did I do wrong?

Easy. See the cutouts on the armhole sides? Those L shaped wedge openings that I had assumed were to fit in the sleeves? Nope. Those are the neck edges. I’d seamed the two front panels on the wrong sides.

Luckily I don’t weave my edges until I’m done. (Thanks Nicole!) It wasn’t hard to frog the button band and pick out the mattress stitch joining the shoulder seams. I even had time to rejoin the seams the right way and pick up the band sts and do a few rows before stopping for the night.

Oh well. At least doing the button band gave me a chance to realize that I wasn’t given enough buttons! I was given 6 but this size sweater needs 7. So I won’t be able to finish the sweater after all. I’m not going to sew on any buttons and take the chance they have no more of that type. I’ll wait and see what they have in stock first.

To Shell from the comments: A) I’m SO SORRY you don’t have addi Turbos there! I love them for non slippery stuff. And thank for the “talented” comment, it’s really sweet of you to say so! B) I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t wild about Robots. My brother’s name is Aaron! Wait- was it you who already told me that your son has my brother’s name? I really should take notes on who’s who! 🙂

To Kadi from the comments: Hi! I hope you’ll be at the next meetup! I had a good time there. I purchased the issue of Rebecca at RedBirdKnits in December, and the link to the page with all their Rebecca magazines is here. I just took a quick look and saw they have 3 issues available: one in the original language (is it Danish? German?), the one I have that you looked through, and a new issue.

And a big HI! to Bernie even though you only emailed me when you needed something. ;]

Last night was wild! After work Yannick picked me up and we hurried home to change, then picked up Pat & Gina to drive down (up?) to Chambly. It’s about an hour’s drive away although Yannick took a wrong turn and we made it in 45 minutes. We still arrived about an hour late ‘cus Yannick didn’t know what time the party was called for. At least we didn’t ruin the surprise!

The dinner was at Fourquette Fourchette, the Quebecoise theme restaurant in Chambly right on the site of the famous Chambly Fort. (Don’t ask me what it’s famous for, something historical and Quebec-related. I’m not up on my hometown trivia. Something good I think. Maybe we won?) The food there is fantastic, and since the restaurant is also a brewery, there were many, many drinks going around. There were some novelty breasts being thrown around….one broke a glass and spilled beer everywhere…there was lute playing…there was dancing…there was water spilled over 3 peoples’ heads…it was madness! First time in a long time I was out, never mind up that late. We only left the restaurant around 1am! Plus we still had the drive home and dropping off Pat and Gina, we went to bed after 3am, that’s for sure.

Sunday Yannick and slept in for a bit then went over to the West Island mall. He did some shopping at Winners then bought me some ink refills and stationary at Bureau en Gros. The stationary is to replace the thin loose leaf in my knitting journal, it’s really nice with an etching of a ribbon on it. He even waited with me to use the copy center’s slicer to cut the paper in half since my journal is the half size. He slowly cut all 100 sheets in half for me so I could use them. How sweet!

In the mall they had an Easter treat for the kids. Ok, it was also a treat for me! Voila:

Future Sweater

Future Scarf & Cuffs

Sweaters in Training

After a quick lunch at Saint Cinnamon’s and the time spent at Bureau en Gros, we stopped at the library. I think I scored big time with my finds. Not only did I get 6 books I’ve been wanting to read, but I took out about 15 audio books. I’ve been wanting to have something to play those times when I want to knit but don’t feel like watching TV. They had a few on CD so I took those for the car. The ones on tape are for home. The coolest thing is that 5 of the tapes I got are narrated by Tim Curry! Dr. Frank N. Furter himself! I love him. For the next 3 weeks I get to listen to him growl his way through 3 crime mysteries and 2 of the Lemony Snickett books. :]

From there it was off to Loblaws and then to Nicole’s (my knitting teacher). She so graciously offered to lend me a knitting machine, so Yannick and I went by to pick it up. She has such a beautiful home! It has such a charm- it’s one of the ones in Pointe Claire by the water, and I love that whole area.

My original plan was to whip up a bunch of KM (knitting machine) swatches so they could “rest” over night and I could start working away today, but it was already 7pm and we hadn’t eaten yet. By the time I’d made supper and put everything away it was 8:30. I wanted to at least finish the second Duffle Coat sleeve before bed so I could let the two sleeves block so I did that, but then realized that the hood wasn’t picked up from the body- instead it was to be cast on and knitted separately. My conscience wouldn’t let me go to the KM when there was still stuff I could do on the Duffle Coat.

I worked on the hood while we watched Shall We Dance?. It was a cute movie. I liked how it reaffirmed a marriage without resorting to an affair.

Today I finished the hood in my knitting class and bought a skein of a variegated gray blend Alafoss Lopi. I have a bunch of charcoal Lopi I’m going to use to make my felted knitting bag but since I’m planning on making it larger than the original I was afraid I’d run out. They have no more charcoal but they do have the gray mix that ranges from light gray through charcoal and to black, so I’ll use that for the base. The bag should look really good once it’s done.

Now I’m off to play with the KM monster. Here it is in its box, taunting me. It’s a Singer HK-100, bulky machine. Wish me luck!

After showing up really late for the cake ‘n coffee at B’s (blame Yannick who only got home after the time we were supposed to be there and STILL had to shower) we hung out there for a while then went to see Robots.

Eh. Nowhere near as funny as Shrek 1 or 2, nowhere near as INCREDIBLE as The Incredibles, and most of the humor was directed at kids not adults. I’m not disappointed we went though, it was cute. Plus we got to see another preview of Madagascar which we can’t wait to see, and our first preview of Star Wars 3.

Didn’t get any knitting done.