Category Archives: WIP


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that yarn from the other day

My arms are in great shape after a week of winding.

I turned Veronik‘s 2 cones of St. Denis Nordique, last seen looking like this:

Into this:

That’s 2 swatches, and 40 mini cakes, ready for our November MKG meeting.  I copied the gauge for a sample pattern using this yarn (Agathe, from the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of the St. Denis magazine), and knit 2 swatches using the required yarn and needles (with a moss stitch border). Our guild project will be to have everyone knit up the same swatches, and then to compare and see what a (presumably) vast array of actual swatch sizes we end up with, as a means to illustrating the importance of swatching.  You know, that just because you use the yarn and needles called for in the pattern, doesn’t mean you’ll end up with anything near the pattern’s gauge.

Each guild member who attends will get a little cake of yarn and a copy of instructions that I printed earlier.  It took me roughly 100 feet of yarn for my swatches, so I wound each cake to 120 feet to account for looser tensions eating more yarn.  (My yarn meter works in feet, and I’m too lazy to do the math right now.  Divide by 3 for yards).

My swatches will be used as examples by Veronik, who is bringing along her trusty steamer to show what a difference blocking makes.  One swatch will be steamed and become the “after”, while the other will remain as-is, as the “before”, and silently simmer and fume.

I also wound up the yarn that Maaike wound for me so I can finish my Linden.  I set up her ginormous wooden cake winder (because it winds ginormous cakes, not that it takes up a large desk footprint) and wound up (heh) with 2 BABs.

Yes, Maaike and I often speak in Three Letter Acronyms.  These babies?  They’re some Big A$$ Balls.


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this new year is broken, i want a new one

I didn’t mean to let so much time go by between posts, but the (Jewish) new year has been rather unkind around here.  Starting the week between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, health and other issues around here went haywire.

There were some good moments, though, and some bust-a-gut, laughing-out-loud moments, like the night I went to check on the boys and walked in to find Henri asleep like this:

He stayed that way while I took the requisite pictures (a mommy’s right) and even slept through me cracking up.

This weekend brought these smiles, when we had a rare day all together as a family and spent some time at the park.

I’ve finished the back and both fronts of my Linden, and that bit up at the top is my first sleeve-in-progress.  That was also all the yarn I had left, so I took a break while Maaike used her spinning wheel to spin up the single cakes into double-stranded skeins, and then hung them to dry.  They’re currently in my basement, nice and dry, and I plan to spin them up tonight.

The break in Linden came at an opportune time, though, as my aunt had a hernia operation last Monday and I wanted to make something for her, so I’ve spent the last week knitting her a pair of cushy slippers.  I’ve just got about 7 more rows on the cuff and weaving in a few ends to go, and I hope to finish that tonight.

I also hope to knit a swatch from one of these babies tonight too.  Next month’s Montreal Knitting Guild meeting is going to be a swatching challenge, and Veronik Avery graciously donated these two cones of Nordique (in Carrot) for our use.  I need to knit up a swatch to know how much yardage one would take, then wind off about 40 mini-cakes- one for each member at the meeting.

Luckily I’ve finished my studying for the night so I can devote the next few hours to knitting.


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linden’s left front – done

Last night I finished the left front of my Linden jacket.  I remember reading on Ravelry that people said to not continue the cables in the collar shaping, so when I got to that part I was careful to pay attention, looking to see why so many made mention of the collar directions being difficult or to avoid the cable crossings within the shaping, etc.

End result?  I have no idea why so many people had problems with it.  The directions are all there, nothing is omitted or unsaid, if only you know how to read it properly.

Here’s how it works, and hopefully this will help others who haven’t knit this yet but wanted to, and maybe were nervous they wouldn’t “get it”.

After the majority of the front is complete, the st st portion of the front is decreased away  then bound off completely, and the cable is worked on alone until it is long enough to reach up around the back of your neck.  There are short rows worked 4 times to make the collar curve nicely over your shoulder and around your neck.

I don’t want to write out the actual directions here, because it’s part of pattern copyright.  But I think I can be vague enough to not infringe, while still being helpful.

The cables are on a 16-row repeat, with the cable crossings themselves on rows 7 and 15.

The collar shaping instructs you to work 5 rows of short row shaping, then 7 rows in est pattern, and then to repeat these 12 rows 3 more times.  Only the first 4 of the collar shaping rows are partial (short) rows, the 5th row (a ws row) has you working back across the complete row.  The pattern also has you only start the collar shaping once you’ve done a cable cross row, either row 7  or 15, depending on the size you are knitting.

For my size, I started the collar shaping after working a row 7 cable row.

I think what’s throwing people off is that they are looking at the 12 rows you work 4 times, and are thinking it doesn’t work out within the cable crosses.  What’s being overlooked is that you’re not working 12 COMPLETE rows in the cable.  You can ignore the first 4, and only count the 5th row, because that’s the only one that is actually worked across the whole row.

Therefore:

Collar Shaping Row 1 – WS – doesn’t count with cable rows

Collar Shaping Row 2 – RS – doesn’t count with cable rows

Collar Shaping Row 3 – WS – doesn’t count with cable rows

Collar Shaping Row 4 – RS – doesn’t count with cable rows

Collar Shaping Row 5 – WS – counts as cable row 8 (or 16, but I’m working with my size here.  You can adjust the row numbers for where you ended before “Shape Collar”).

Work 7 Rows in Est Patt:

Row 1 – RS – counts as cable row 9

Row 2 – WS – counts as cable row 10

Row 3 – RS – counts as cable row 11

Row 4 – WS – counts as cable row 12

Row 5 – RS – counts as cable row 13

Row 6 – WS – counts as cable row 14

Row 7 – RS – counts as cable row 15 – cable crossing row

And that’s the first repeat.  Then you do it 3 more times.

How this works out is that you have some short row shaping (the first 4 partial rows), then 7 full rows of stockinette stitch, then a cable crossing row, 4 times total.

It’s actually really smart how the short-row shaping was worked into the cables without actually affecting them at all, and hopefully this will help anyone having trouble figuring it out.

–

My mother-in-law called this weekend to say that we’d be celebrating Thanksgiving next Monday at my sister-in-law’s place, and wouldn’t it be nice if I were to surprise B with her long-awaited  pillows?  Hmmm.  Subtle.  So unfortunately I’m going to have to put Linden on partial hold while I work on the pillows.  It’s frustrating because I’m seeing it progress so fast, but I think I’ve figured out a way to work on both, by bringing Linden as my “take-along-knitting” for the appointment I’ve got later this week, but keeping the pillows (and their accompanying “designing”) as my night-time knitting.


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my boys and linden notes

Two weekends ago we went to a birthday party for my friend’s daughter, and besides some really cute pics of the birthday girl, I also FINALLY got good ones with me and the kids.  (I usually get good ones of them…but I’m rarely in the photos myself).  Sorry they’re blurry- another round of iPhone photos.

Me and Jakob who has a grape in his mouth, which is why it is all pulled to the side.  He’s 4.25 now, and I think he’s part hamster.  Earlier in the month my mom babysat while I went to the guild meeting, and she gave them a “treat” of a Mike & Ike’s candy, one each.  After dinner they played for about 20 minutes, brushed their teeth, then went to bed.  My mom was reading Jakob a bedtime story when she thought his cheek looked pushed out.  She asked him to open up- it was the same Mike & Ike’s candy- even after brushing his teeth!

Me and Henri, who does not look only 2-and-a-half.  If Jakob is a hamster, then Henri is a parrot.  In fact I’ve started calling the boys “Pete” and “Re-Pete” (repeat) because anything Jakob does or says Henri will usually do.  He runs on a 4-second delay, and is pretty consistent.  🙂

Besides all the studying, I’ve also spent some time over the last week knitting.  I’m determined to not take on any (more) commissions or obligations until I knit something for myself, not counting the stocking stitch socks I’ve always got in my purse for “found moments”.  My current project, I think I mentioned in my last post, is Veronik Avery’s Linden.  I was originally planning on knitting it in a ribbon yarn- a strange choice, I know.  Instead of an outdoor garment, my original plan was for it to be a dressy-ish layer to wear over a dress or a tank and a skirt, the kind of thing I could bring to an event in place of a shawl.  I have the perfect ribbon, in the perfect color, had swatched and got gauge, and had even ordered the extra bit I was missing from a Ravelry seller.  And then some woman in Quebec contacted the guild to see about selling her handspun, and next thing you know both Maaike and I had swatched the wool doubled, got gauge and cast on.  She’s finished hers but I got sidetracked with my busy Summer knitting/school schedule, and am only now getting back to it.

I’m making some modifications, but only to affect the final size.  A lot of comments on Ravelry talk about there being excess fabric under the arms, and I know in its nature as a swing coat, there will be a lot of extra fabric at the waist.  I’m smaller now than I was before, and while I like the style, I don’t want to look like I’m drowning in it.  Therefore I’m trying something that I hope will work.

My bust size is around 40.5″.  I was originally planning on knitting the 44.5″ bust size, but that was when I’d first seen the pattern, before I lost weight.  Now I realized that my belly/waist is smaller than my bust, so while I’d get it to wrap-around over my bust, it would be huge around my waist.  Then I was going to knit the 40″ bust size, but I took a measuring tape held at the measurement for the lower edge, and still found it way too big.  My thing with jackets is that I rarely wear layers.  I may wear a thin layer over a tank top, but usually it’s just a tshirt or top/blouse and my jacket.  If this is going to be a Fall/transitional jacket, I don’t care if it closes at my bust.  I can put a scarf around my neck…it’s really only at the belly/waist I want it to be able to close.  And Linden doesn’t have buttons or any form of closure anyways.

So here’s my risky decision: I’m knitting the 35.5″ bust size.  I’m following it as written except that I’m modifying the length.  The pattern for the larger sizes has you knit at least 4.5″ before getting into any shaping.  The 35.5″ size has you knit 3″.  On Ravelry people say you can add extra length at the end by making the garter border longer.  I actually made the bottom longer instead, by knitting the back and will make the fronts 6″ before shaping.

I also want my armhole to be deeper than that of the 35.5″ size, so I added about 1.75″ of length in the area that will be above the armpit (‘cus there are no real “armhole” sections with this design).  I’m also lengthening the sleeves by about an inch, to keep them 3/4 length, but since my arms are more the length of the larger sizes…though I’ll probably adjust that as I work the sleeves themselves.

Oh, and for the left-leaning decreases I’m working them still as double decreases as written, but working them as SSKs instead of K2TOGs, so they mirror the other side properly.  (The decreases go against the slope, but I just found that while the twists in the decreases were left leaning, I wanted the decreases themselves to be left-leaning too).

So, yeah.  I’m making changes, but I go into this knowing full well this may not work out.  In other words- if in a month’s time I’ve finished it and end up frogging, don’t hold it against Veronik’s pattern when the fault will lie with me!  🙂

Here’s where I”m at with it so far.  The back is done, and seems to be the perfect length, falling mid-butt.  I used to want everything to fall longer but according to all those “What Not to Wear” shows you look slimmer when your clothes aren’t too long, so we’ll see how this goes LOL!

The short piece is the left front, so far.  I love how the cables look, and I think I’ll really enjoy wearing this sweater/jacket.


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village du pere noel

Today I took the day off work and went with Jakob’s daycare to Santa’s Village.

Now, I’m a good little Jewish girl (well, as good as can be for one who cooks bacon at home and married a non-Jew), but I didn’t know Santa had a village!  I mean, ok, there’s the North Pole and all…but a Summer vacation home?  Here in Quebec?  Who’da thunk?

A small, twisted part of me pictured arriving at a log cabin in the woods; Santa would be wearing cut-off jean shorts and flip-flops, with a Hawaiian shirt stretched over his belly.  There’d be a beer in one hand, and a huge drumstick from a reindeer BBQ in the other…

But it was actually a lot of fun!  We were basically told “meet back here at 11:30 for lunch, then at 1:45 to leave”, and I didn’t have any other kids to watch out for, so Jakob and I got to spend the whole day there together, alone, exploring.  I took a ton of photos and I can’t believe how many I’m going to cram into this post.  If you’re really only here for the knitting, scroll down to the last photo for a glimpse, otherwise try again next post!

Getting there was a fun bus ride with the other kids from the daycare, parents and teachers.  Remarkably quiet for an actual “busload of kids”!  Oh, and my hair is still brown, and still roughly chin-length, with full bangs.  (I just got lazy and hairbanded it today).

I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff there was to do there!  Jakob  was enamored of these slides right away, but we were told many times that we should visit Santa first, then go play, because otherwise there would be lineups.  Jakob’s “thing” is slides, and you have no idea how hard it was to make him walk past these without stopping.  (They are weird, though- you don’t slide normally- you have to wear a potato sack to help you glide down.  Jakob wasn’t a fan, and only did one trip down.)

We saw an igloo…

…and reindeer…

…and then the mane (heh) man himself!  Jakob, as usual, wasn’t shy, and did not hesitate when giving in his Christmas order.

We played in a funhouse full of xylophones and wind chimes and giant xylophone-esqe contraptions built out of black PVC (I think).

We saw a nativity scene.  (Jakob thought Baby Jesus was “cute” and had “stinky feet”- his misnomer for “bare feet”).

We played in the water park.  The center of the “village” is made up of a kid-sized water park, half of which is a wading pool of various depths and the other half of which is a splash park.  There are drains in the ground that randomly spray jets of water in long arcs…

…and a large spray pipe (?) with a continuous stream of “rain”.  The large striped candy canes at the 4 corners of that part are also showers that turn on randomly as well- I learned quickly that it was safest to just stand anywhere that the ground was dry.  (Ask me how I learned!  LOL)

The wading pool goes from about an inch or two above my ankle at one side, to just above my knees on the other.  The water was freezing cold, though, so we didn’t stay in there long.

We went into bunch of other funhouses; one with a hall-of-mirrors-style setup, but in glass, one with funny sound amplifiers and video magnifiers, and finally one that was really just a huge ball pit below a cool climbing/slide jungle-gym contraption.

And this was all before lunch!

After lunch we decided to visit everything that we’d missed in the morning.  (Though a few activities, like the climbing castle near the tree house, and the zip lines, are more suited for older kids.  The giant bird looked cool, but Jakob had no interest).

Instead he made a beeline straight for the bouncy house!  There are actually 2- a castle-style open one on the left, and an enclosed big round one in the the back.  On the right are some open blow up games, like a slide and tunnels.

After the bouncy house we played a bit with the giant “Lego”s before totally making Jakob’s day…

…with a few laps around the race track!  This was his first time riding anything like a go-cart, and I wasn’t sure how he’d do ‘cus at home he sometimes veers his trike/etc off the sidewalk, but he did amazing!

We moved on to the duck pond…

…and the bird house, where some pigeons and chickens were cohabitating with an annoyed-sounding peacock.

The petting zoo was open, but empty when we went, and it was awesome!  It wasn’t like the usual pens that you see, it was a large, fenced-in lot where the animals could run free.  There was no guard or staff member, there were no other guests, it was just me and Jakob and the animals, and it rocked.  There were sheep and goats, and no matter how slowly we walked up to them, they’d get up and just as slowly walk away.  They never ran or hid, but we weren’t able to pet any.  We probably could have pet the ones that stayed sleeping, but I didn’t want to take a chance on startling a sleeping “wild” animal.

There were 2 big llamas, and while Jakob wasn’t crazy about the idea of approaching an animal that was already taller than him while sitting down, he was really brave and later ended up “making nice” to the orange one.

We saw more chickens, and some bunnies…

…and until I bought him a souvenir later he told me that his favorite part of the day was standing at this fence and watching the ducks in this enclosure.  This duck pond was about 3x as big as what this photo shows, and you could feed the ducks corn kernels, and we must have spent over 20 minutes just standing alone on this farm, watching and feeding the ducks.  We felt alone and together, and it was my favorite part of the day.

There were also 2 pigs (the 2nd one is behind the post in front of Jakob)…

…and a cute horse.  I honestly don’t know enough about horses to know if it was simply a calf, or a dwarf horse (I’m leaning towards dwarf) but it was really friendly and didn’t try to walk away or move at all when Jakob approached it.  I think it was  cooling off in the shade, ‘cus I never saw it walk away during the whole time we were in there.

This pic almost gives you a sense of what I was feeling…the duck pond is the whole left side, behind the fence.  Up ahead are some pens with a black and a brown horse, and to the right is the whole open farm/zoo with free range goats, sheep, dwarf horse and llamas.  There was literally NO ONE there besides us.  (It was like the time Yannick took me to the Britney Spears movie Crossroads, and when we got there the theater was empty and we joked  that he’d been so generous as to rent out the whole theater just so we could watch the movie alone…only this was actually cool).

Jakob learned how to pump his own water…

…which reminded him that there was one more water-related activity that he had yet to try.  (If you can’t see him, he’s on the center boat.)

By the way, forgive the grainy pics, I only had my iPhone with me.  Still, you can click on any to open it up bigger.

The thought of water was enough to make him thirsty, so we picked up a bottle of water and a juice box at the snack bar then headed over to the park to play a bit.

There was just enough time to squeeze in a giant Freezie before piling back onto the bus to go home.

My second favorite part of the day was when he fell asleep on the bus with his head in my lap.  There is construction on the highways, and apparently everyone was heading into town from Up North, so the drive took longer to get home than it had to get up there.  Still, I’d packed some Emergency Knitting in my bag and while Jakob slept, and the other kids either slept or told each other all about the day that they’d just shared together, I cast on for a 2nd sock.  (Regia Brasil (sic) Colors, toe-up with some magic something-or-other cast on, short row heel, on 2.5mm Lace Addi Turbo).

See- I told you there’d be knitting at the end!


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wha? where’s green?

My ball of Zauberball is insane.

Remember what it looked like in ball form?  Lots of pink, blending from nearly-white, to deep…and right in the middle was a bright Spring green.  It was the combination of the colors that I fell in love with, so bright and cheery.

When Maaike and I wound the yarn, we made sure to divide the whole ball evenly in half, and then rewind one of the halves from the outside-in, so the colors wouldn’t pool in the same direction.  I was immediately enchanted by the stripes, and was picturing sections where light pink met green, dark pink met light pink, light green met light pink, in my head it was a beautiful sort of controlled chaotic madness that I couldn’t wait to see on my feet.

I finished the first foot, and so as not to mess up the striping (that I was working from the inside of the ball) I did the heel from the outside of one half-ball.  Since my last stripe was light, I chose the ball that had a lot of dark pink on the outside, and did a short-row heel.  I put a stitch marker on that ball to remind me to use the other ball for the other sock’s heel, and started to knit a few more stripes when I realized something.

My foot was all pink.  My heel was all pink.  And if I looked at the yarn still to come from the center of the balls, there was still a LOT more pink to go.  (The lower one is misleading- it LOOKS like green is coming up, but it’s all lies.  There is a ton of pink squished in there).  I don’t like my socks to be too long, and at this rate I’d have one entire sock in shades of pink before hitting green in the second sock.

I had no choice but to cut the yarn.  I did a few stripes after the heel for stability, then transferred the stitches onto dpns and cast on for a new foot.  I decided to keep going from the inside of the balls, and at the very worst I’d have two feet that were entirely done in shades of pink, but at least I’d hit the green by the time I got to the legs, and I’d just make sure both legs had some green in there.  No sweat.

By random fluke I started the second sock with a light stripe, and it gave me the same color-bleed section as the first sock, but still ended up with the stripes reversing, so I had an almost exactly opposite sock from the first one.  (Good think I’m cool with fraternal twins).  When I got to the heel my last stripe was dark, so I grabbed the half-ball that would give me a light heel- which was conveniently the one I didn’t use for the first heel.

I finished the heel and set about to finish the leg, eager to race through it and show Maaike that I’d managed to finish almost a whole pair already(!) when I realized there was STILL a ton of pink to go.  My socks are usually only about 4″ or so up from the heel, including ribbing.  I find more is a waste, and I’d rather be on to knitting something else.  There was no way I’d even get a hint of green in this pair.  What would I do??

When I knit the second short-row heel, the yarn was so light that I didn’t realize it wasn’t at it’s lightest tint yet.  While I was knitting I was barely able to see the subtle graduation from pink to barely-pink-white, and the more I looked at the heel the more I really liked seeing the colors fade like that.  Not many sock yarns do a true fade or blend, very often it’s just a chunk of one color followed by a chunk of another.  I find it’s a show of dyer’s skill (well…when hand-dyed anyways, not sure what the Zaubby process is) to get a soft blend, plus I really like the look.

What if I were to knit yet ANOTHER sock foot?  The pink I had in the center of the first ball was at the lightest shade, but not too far off from getting darker.  And eventually it got light again before transitioning into green.  What if…Ok, this would work!  I’d knit another sock, only I’d do the toe in black so I wouldn’t waste the color change on the narrow toe part, plus it would keep me from using up too much yarn in the second pair, ‘cus I still need to finish the first.  I’d knit the foot with the center of just one ball, to get the full gradient effect.  When it was time for the heel, I’d work another short row heel, maybe in black again, so I would save the yarn, and also ‘cus it would set off the colors nicely.  I’d work the leg until I had enough green (ha!) and then do ribbing in black again, and put aside all the Zaubby left from that sock.  I’d use the remaining half-ball for another one with black toe/heel and in the end I’d have 2 left-over balls that I could use to finish the striped pair.

It’s a lot of work, but boy I’ll be getting my money’s worth from this ball of yarn!

sd

Here’s where that got me.  On the dpns are both striped feet, awaiting legs.  On my foot is the beginnings of the 2nd pair, working a lovely blend of colors.

Except…look at that giant chunk of pink!  I’d have to knit that entire section of shades of pink before getting to even a hint of green.  There’s no use.  I’m going to have to cut again.

–

In other news, I’m doing ok.  My belly still hurts but hey- the surgery was only on Monday.  This is the longest I’ve tried to sit up in the whole week and I’m starting to feel a bit queasy so I’m going to go lie down again, but at least I can knit while reclining!  🙂

This coming week is going to suuuuuuuuuuck ‘cus I have to figure out a way to study from big, heavy textbooks in time for our in-person midterm next Sunday.  Once that’s done I’ll still have studying to do, but won’t be as stressed about it.

I still haven’t gotten to my emails, but don’t worry, if you sent me one, you’ll get a reply.  Just not today.


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taking it easy

I had my umbilical hernia surgery on Monday, with no last-minute pulls from the OR again.  I think it went rather uneventfully, the surgery was at 12:30 and I’m pretty sure I was home by 5-ish.  I’m going to be home for the next 8 weeks, under doctor’s orders not to lift anything heavier than a book, especially since after fixing my LAST hernias, a new one appeared 3 weeks later, during the time I was still taking it easy/no lifting/etc.  This time I need to be EXTRA careful.

I’ve spent 99% of my time since getting home in bed.  It’s a pretty sweet setup, with both my laptop and iphone here with me…though I’ve been sleeping so much that I haven’t been able to take advantage.  I just don’t have the strength or energy yet to get some work done, though that will have to change soon ‘cus our live midterm is next weekend.  😦  My online midterm showed me that I’ve got a LOT of studying to do if I want a good mark.

To keep my sanity level even, I have a small knitting bag in bed with me.  It’s a sock, worked on a magic-looped circ, so I’m not worried about putting it down (or falling asleep halfway through a row) and losing stitches.

After seeing the Zauberball yarn I picked up last week, Maaike decided to get some too.  We’re doing a mini KAL, both having divided our balls in half, then winding one of those halves from the outside-in, so that the colors run in the opposite direction.  We’re both doing toe-up socks with 3 rows from each ball per stripe, with the only difference being that she did her toe and heel in a solid black yarn, and a wrap/turn short row heel, whereas I did my toe striped right from the get-go, and I’ll be doing a YO short row heel.

Go figure that after all the work to rearrange the yarn, I still ended up with a section of overlapping colors.  I could have cut the yarn and forced the stripes to continue, but I decided to just let the yarn do what it wants.

I only managed to get about 10 minutes of knitting done yesterday morning, but it was worth it just for the peace it gave me.  Plus peeking into my knitting bag makes me feel like I’ve got a bouquet of Spring blossoms in here with me.

Somehow, even with the pain meds I’m on, I even managed to fix a stitch that looked wonky.

This is as much as I’ll be posting for now, ‘cus I can’t put the computer on my lap, and it’s obnoxious to try and type with one hand, over to the side.  If you’ve emailed me and I haven’t replied yet, it’s just ‘cus I’m waiting until I can sit at the table, ‘cus this is really awkward.  I just wanted to let you know that the surgery went well, and that for the first time in 2 years, I seem to be hernia-free!  🙂


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how it begins

A while ago I had an idea for a new pattern.  Actually, to be more specific, it’s a major modification using the basics of one of my existing patterns.

Before I could cast on, I needed yarn.  I need red, black, white, blue and cream yarn, in roughly a worsted weight.  I didn’t think I had anything, until I remembered some Berocco Comfort DK I’ve had for a while now.  Perfect! I printed out my chart, and last night while Yannick and I watched an episode of $h!t My Dad Says, I did a mini swatch.

Hmm.  The yarn calls for a 4mm, and I need a tighter gauge, so I swatched with 3.25s, but the fabric I got was still pretty open.  I couldn’t find a 3mm (actually, I could barely find any needles- where are they??) so I figured I’d just get thicker yarn.

I went to my LYS this morning a bit before they opened, so while I waited I went online on my phone and took another look through my Ravelry stash.  Ok- things were looking promising…I had the right shade of blue and white Cascade 220 in my stash, so I would only need a red, black and cream.  Great!  Except…

The LYS didn’t have the right shade of red.  😦  They had crimson, fuchsia, raspberry, red wine, almost every possible pinkish tone of red that exists.  But no RED, like a real, primary color red.

We started going through other possible options, and D, who works there, showed me the exact color red, in Berocco Comfort Worsted.  Yeah, but, I told her, I tried swatching with that last night, and didn’t get a tight enough fabric.  I stopped thinking about it, and kept looking around the store.  I’m ashamed to say it actually took about 5 more minutes of discussion before I realized that I’d swatched with the yarn I own, which is Comfort DK.  The yarn in the store was Comfort Worsted.  Thicker.  Duh.

Great!  Except…

The LYS didn’t have the right shade of blue.  😦  They had denim, cornflower, dusty blue, almost every possible greenish or grayish tone of blue that exists.  But no BLUE, like a real, primary color blue.

I was about to give up and head to Zellers for some Red Heart Super Saver, just to get a chance to knit up a sample, when I had the bright idea of knitting with the DK I own, but held doubled.  I had enough for my project, and it would obviously give me a thicker yarn…it just might work.

I felt really guilty, though, at having taken up their time and having D run around to the back to look for the right shades of yarn for me, so I might have bought a ball of sock yarn.

Look, Ma- it’s my very first Zauberball!

(And it’s Ravelry colors, just in time for Spring.  LOVE.)

–

I had to make a run out to the Children’s Hospital this afternoon to bring Henri’s doctor some recent videos, and when I finished there it was late enough that it didn’t make sense to head back to work, but early enough that I had about an hour to kill before picking up the kids.  I came home and sat down to start working on the project with the Comfort DK doubled.

I HAD an hour, but ended up with only about 20 minutes of knitting time.  When I turned the TV on it was at the party scene in Batman & Robin (the Val Kilmer/Chris O’Donnell one) and man- that movie is like a car wreck or something- I didn’t want to watch but just couldn’t tear my eyes away.  From Nicole Kidman’s non-moving face to Jim Carey and Tommy Lee Jones’ over the top villians…wow.  Just wow.

I started with the white, and a 3.5mm needle.  So far so good.  I moved on to the black; still working great.  Then I threw in some red and came to a screeching halt.  My red wasn’t red.  I thought it was red, but it wasn’t red.  It was very-dark-almost-red-but-just-a-little-too-pink-to-be-actual-red red.

That sucked.  Not sure how well the color came out via cell phone camera, but it’s like faux red.  It’s like almost, but not quite, entirely unlike red.

–

But there was a solution to be had, and I still had enough time to carry it out.  My LYS still had that ball of Comfort Worsted in The Right Red.

Or rather, they had had it.  I have it now.

Can you tell the difference?

–

So here’s where it begins.  You take the pattern, you take the yarn, you take the needles, and there you have…the facts of li- whoops.  Hehe.  Sorry.  It’s been a long day.

I’m going to go take the edge of by knitting.  Do you ever need to squeeze in a few rows just to get through a rough patch?


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knitting intervention needed

UGH!

I think I need to rip out Featherweight cardi.  THE WHOLE THING.

I tried it on just now, now that I’ve finished the first half of the collar.  The collar?  Awesome.  Fits perfectly, shapes like a dream, exactly like I’d wanted.  But now that the collar fits, the rest of it looks SO SLOPPY!

I’m going to try to get Yannick to take photos to show you what I mean.  But really?  Ugh.  I would never, ever wear it.  It’s too baggy, the arms look like they’ll be huge and there is so much extra under the arms that I could lose over 2 inches and still have a good fit.  I don’t know if it can be saved.


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almost an elephant

I tried, but couldn’t quite cut it.  Between all the studying I had to do to stay on track before taking next week off, and getting sick over the weekend and wanting to go to bed early each night, I came close but couldn’t finish on time.

This is where I left off last night.  I’d wanted to completely finish by Thursday night, and by 10 pm I had both halves of the body, the underbelly, both ears and 3 of the 4 foot pads.  I usually get into bed around 11pm or so, and I’d planned on staying up until I finished.  But Yannick came home from bowling at 10 and I mentioned something to him in passing about Ravelry, and he always gets confused when I talk about Ravelry, mixing it up with Knit Picks, and never knowing what I’m talking about.  Since the laptop was nearby, and on, I decided to just show him the two sites, and then he was looking at my listed patterns, and next thing I knew it was 11pm.  I couldn’t bear the thought of staying up until 12-1am just to finish the elephant, especially when I realized that I would be giving the gift to the bride’s family to give to her, since she’s on mat leave.  I wouldn’t be able to see her reaction whether it was while I was at work or home on leave.  I still want to finish it this weekend, but I don’t need the pressure of getting it done by a certain date.

Jakob has been having a “thing” for Sam lately.  He always wants to go get him and carry him around the house.  Right before I took this picture he’d actually carried Sam into the kitchen upside-down, the poor cat’s head was dragging on the floor, and Jakob had him clutched around the hips.  By the time I got my camera open Sam had gotten loose, so he grabbed him again so I could get a shot.

Oh- funny story with Jakob: for a week now he’s been telling Yannick about a naked daddy with a broken arm that he saw at school.  We had no clue what he was talking about- I know he calls all men “daddies”, but a naked man?  With a broken arm?  At school?  What??  I finally remembered to ask Jakob’s teacher Stacey yesterday, and after a lot of thought she remembered they have an Usborne book about going to the doctor, and in it there’s a little boy with a broken arm, and his daddy tries to help him put on a shirt.  Bingo! I thought, that must be it!

When I dropped the kids off today, Stacey called me into Jakob’s class to show me the doctor book.  I flipped through it, and sure enough there was a photo of a little boy with no shirt on, wearing a sling to indicate a broken arm.  Just to be sure, I called Jakob over to show him.

“Is this the naked boy with the broken arm?”

He shook his head, to indicate no.

“Sorry, is this the naked daddy with the broken arm?”

Again, no.

“Is the naked daddy in a book?”

Yes.

“This book?”

No.

I asked him to show me the book, and he started towards the stairs to a different classroom, one on the main floor where all the kids still there after 5pm go.

“It’s in the ghost book, in the purple classroom,” Jakob said.

I got permission to bring him to the other class, then asked those teachers if we could come in.  “Jakob says you have a book with a naked daddy with a broken arm, and he can show me,” I said.  They let me in right away- they wanted to see this “naked man” too!

Jakob went right to the book shelf, touched a book and said “this one”.  He handed it to me- it was a large, thin, hardcover French book, all about ghosts and assorted Hallowe’en monsters.  I asked him to point out the page and he opened it right to a back page.

“There”.

And, sure enough, he was right.  There, in the ghost book in the purple classroom, was what Jakob would call a naked daddy with a broken arm.  Wanna see?

Since we have a Jakob photo above, here’s a Henri one to even things out.  On Monday I’d kept him home for the day, and after getting back from the doctor (he was fine, just wanted to make sure the cough he had didn’t go back into his lungs, from two weeks ago) we spent the rest of the morning doing crafts.  There was come coloring, a little water painting, and then we had fun smashing Playdough.

The bib was to protect his Habs jersey from getting dirty, and the personalized chef’s hat (a souvenir from a cooking birthday party) was worn for fun.  Henri LOVES wearing stuff, whether it is the chef’s hat, a “love bug” paper crown with antenna he made at school for Valentine’s day, the stethoscope from a doctor’s costume, or even the small, yellow plastic glasses from Mr. Potato Head.

Well, now it’s Friday night.  It’s 9:30 and my studying for the night is done.  I’m going to sit down with Yannick, the elephant, a 1 lb bag of stuffing, and an episode or two of Hawaii-5-0.