Little Things Add Up

Thanks, everyone, for your sympathetic comments on my last post. I’ve now decided that Ms Polly does notice that her daughter is gone. The first night she slept at the top of the basement stairs instead of in her bed and meowed in the wee hours for us to let her up. We didn’t but she’s been even more sucky and noisy than usual around us. Because she’s so deaf she yells out her meows! She can’t hear herself. (Kind of like me actually — I always talk louder without my hearing aids on.) I’m sorry there’s not enough love in the world to fill the gap left by a lost loved one.

I had the desired quiet Mother’s Day yesterday. I didn’t hear from my kids but that’s normal. We had a lovely time Saturday evening at Milady Daughter’s for a chicken barbeque cooked by her DH. And I knew that The Ninja would be busy with his family and his mother-in-law. I never mind the lack of gushing and cards for what I call Hallmark Holidays. I know they all love and appreciate me and they don’t need a mandated day to tell me so. However, the generation before me is another ball o’yarn! I phoned my birth mom and had a lovely long chat. She loved the card that I sent her and was very grateful for the cheque included. It was her request for cash because she needs to purchase expensive herbal supplements to fight her cancer. Since she lost her part-time cleaning job in her apartment building it’s been a tough go. She’s doing fairly well though, all things considered. I’m glad I’m in a position to help a little.


Then T-Man and I worked out in the back garden for awhile and planted more of the stones and shaped the beds better. We’ve only got one path’s worth to go and it’s looking quite attractive. We even got some positive comments from neighbours on how well the garden is coming along. I say it would look better if there was actually something growing in it besides weeds! Nice paths and clean beds are all well and good but some potential vegetables would be nice. At least we’re getting all the asparagus we can eat now. The weather promises to be nice and getting quite a bit warmer over the next few days so hopefully I can get the beans planted and the tomatoes into the ground in the greenhouse. I want to put the cacti out too. The smaller of my disocactus already has a flower bud.

In crafty news, I’m now on the home stretch on the Hepburn Cardi. Just sewing the seams together preparatory to washing and blocking it. I want to give it a good wash rather than just a steam block because the yarn is waxed for machine knitting and I’d like to get that out. I also need to get just the right buttons. It’s a good thing I waited to get them because I only made 10 buttonholes instead of 12 and I probably need to test to see if they fit through the finished buttonholes. Somehow 10 fit in better with the decorative ribbing on the button-band and 12 just seemed too much. With the sun out today there’s some reason to believe it will dry in a reasonable amount of time if I can put the sweater outside. But first I have to finish assembling it.

No, I haven’t done any weaving. Don’t ask.

So Close I Can Almost Taste It

At least I have nice teeth for it after my nearly 2-hour dentist appointment for a cleaning yesterday. And my thrush is gone. (I hope.) But maybe I really don’t want to taste the wool. What I’m babbling about is that I’m almost finished the fronts on the Hepburn Cardi! I’m on a final push to get this one off the needles and into the Accomplishments Book. Only 18 ever-diminishing rows to go. Then it’s on to the collar and button bands. Remind me how long it takes me the next time I get it into my head to work a pattern with such a complex overall pattern, hey? I needs me some good old-fashioned plain stockinette with minimal shaping. Which would be this:


The beginnings of Stargazer’s Pullover using the Johnny Boy pattern from Berroco. It lets the sock yarn do all the patterning and all I do is knit back and forth. I would have changed it to knit in the round but that would stretch the stripes out to half their depth and some of them would just be blips on the back or front and not nearly as attractive. I’m quite liking it so far. This is On Your Toes sock yarn and the pattern takes 2 balls. I’m knitting a size 2 which should fit him for awhile since he’s quite small for his nearly a-year-and-a-half.

While I was at the mall above which lurks my dentist’s office, I went to that store beginning with a Z and bought some new clothes. They had a sale (yay!) and for 5 tops and 3 bottoms it cost me less than $90. Which was around the price of the one blouse I looked at in the Bay. Oddly (or maybe not) most of what I bought was black. Good summer colour, eh? All the other colours were too syrupy sweet for my taste. I did get one deep nearly-violet blue long button-front cardi in a lightweight cotton knit. Other than that, all black or black/dark grey. You will not catch me wearing pink, pale blue, light teal or lemon yellow, thankyouverymuch. Unless they are part of a colour palette that includes a lot of other deeper richer colours. After all the orange I’ve seen around lately though I was surprised that there was nothing in that colour because I would have gone for that for sure. I also dithered over red and a nice soft green but they didn’t have quite the right things in my size. Oh and I now can say I have a pair of “jeans”. Well they’re black and grey denim pull-on pants with big pockets. Close enough. I haven’t worn real jeans in about 30 years. Currently they are all in the dryer. I don’t wear new clothes until they’ve been washed. Who knows where they’ve been? In this case, China and Bangladesh at the very least. Yes, I know. Not politically correct and possibly not environmentally correct either. Are the expensive clothes any better? And how would you know. Truly.

So far this lovely spring morning I’ve heard a woodpecker drumming and a raven calling. I have a heap of dishes from the day before yesterday to wash. And I want some lunch. I can almost taste it!

One More Piece of the Puzzle

I finally finished the back of the Hepburn Cardi. Yay! Now I’m quickly casting on for the fronts. I worked the shoulders as short rows instead of binding them off in stair steps. Now they’re on holders from my Denise needle set. So easy to get on and off with the needle tips and I can use them to do a 3-needle bind-off when I get the fronts done. I bound off the neck edge in pattern because if you just pick up live stitches the neck can stretch out. The bind-off edge gives it some stability. This yarn and the lace and cable pattern together are very sproingy and stretchy so stability is a very good thing to have. And the 3-needle bind-off on the shoulders works the same way to provide some stability so the shoulders don’t droop. When I first started knitting sweaters I thought it was very cool to graft the straight shoulders that were very popular then on live stitches so that there was no seam. Silly me. They were already drop shoulders and they ended up somewhere down around my elbow by the time they were finished stretching out! I already have short arms and the sleeves were long enough for a gorilla. Just because you can do all those elegant techniques means that you need to be able to choose the right one for the circumstance. Amen.

I’m also winding the Sea ‘n’ Sky yarn up into balls so I can start on the socks for my niece that I promised her back in January. Teal greens are her favourite colour so I hope she likes this lighter version. I plan to use the Synesthesia Socks pattern by Sarah Fama. It’s the right number of stitches and doesn’t seem to be complicated enough to stop me from working on it fairly obliviously. The yarn is pretty plain so it kind of needs a bit of stitch excitement. I’m kind of tired of plain socks but I like knitting them. Here I’m attempting to find a compromise. More anon.

OK, I’ve taken up too much time today messing around. I was carrying on this debate on a spinning group I’m on and it became very time-consuming. I need to go out to get some fresh air before this sunshine disappears again.

Questions To Ponder

Why are there so many beginner craft books and so few advanced ones? Do too many people get stuck at beginner levels or quit entirely? What makes the rest of us want to learn more? I know we want to encourage the newbies. I’m just a bit annoyed that the really brain-bending books usually go out of print much too quickly due to lack of interest while the “how to do a knit stitch” and “wool comes from sheep” books are legion. I’m sure publishers don’t want to take a chance on advanced stuff in case they don’t sell enough copies. And they’re probably right if the audience for the advanced level is so much smaller. Have I just argued myself around in a circle?

Is It "The Ides" Yet?

How quickly things change! It has been mostly sunny and very spring-like around here for a couple of weeks. Yesterday we got the majority of one side of the front garden revamped and composted. Today it’s snowing! Well, it actually rained all night which shifted into sleet this morning and now it’s turned to snow. Not sticking though and I doubt it will last long. At least all the hostas, perennial cornflowers, cranesbill geraniums, and heucheras that we dug up and replanted are getting well watered in. As long as they don’t freeze their little roots off first.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling very stiff but proud that I was able to keep up with the gardening. I may still be coughing some but my energy and stamina are nearly back to normal. Yippee! Today I’m relaxing after doing some exercises to try to mitigate some of the stiffness. Of course while we were working outside, the inside gets ignored. I need to vacuum the basement where the cats track their crunchies and kitty litter everywhere. I swear that area gets vacuumed twice as often as the rest of the house. At least. Messy old lady cats! Gotta love ’em.

I’ve been slowly — and I do mean s l o w l y — working up past the armholes of the back section on my Hepburn Cardi. No, I didn’t yet start another pair of socks. Maybe I’ll get the cardi done faster if I just put that off awhile. If I have enough light on my work I can knit even while watching TV because I have the pattern stitch memorised now. The reason why the knitting is so slow is that this is a combination of cable twists every 4 rows and a ribbed arrowhead lace pattern that has a 6-row repeat. It takes 12 rows total before the whole thing repeats. There’s a lot of stitch manipulation from knit to purl and back even on the wrong-side rows plus the cable needle (which I’ve gotten pretty efficient with). The yarn I’m using is a cabled 100% merino yarn and was coned for machine knitting. The cabled structure has three fine 2-ply yarns Z-twisted and plied again with a Z-twist and can be quite splitty if you aren’t careful. However I think the sweater will be quite nice and durable when it’s finally done. My samples got a pleasant matte surface with a slight nap when wet-finished. It’s quite resilient and stretchy too and the hand softened considerably. I hope it will be something that I will wear a lot.

OK, the snow stopped and we’re back to rain. It’s colder than it has been though and I’ve got my winter layers on again. The rain blew right through the bug screen on my studio window:

Glad I don’t have to go anywhere today.

An Extra Day

Happy Leap Day! The solar year doesn’t coincide with the Gregorian calendar which we use so we have to add an extra day every once in awhile to compensate. Since February is already shorter than other months, that’s where they stuck it. This leap year day is also the 5th Friday in the same month. Unfortunately none of this actually gives me any more time than I already had. Sigh.

After knitting the back of the Hepburn Cardi an inch longer than the pattern’s 14”, I managed to get the decreases for the underarms done on it. I’m hoping that’s long enough to bring it to a more flattering length on me. I was afraid to go too far in case I run out of yarn. Now I’m ploughing up toward the shoulder decreases which I plan to shortrow rather than bind of in stair steps as the pattern states. I like that straight line and may just put the shoulders on holders to do a 3-needle bind-off instead of trying to graft it. Further news as it happens.

I’m feeling the lack of a sock to work on but I need to do some dyeing before I begin knitting the next pair of bespoke socks. I may just have to start a random pair in between — just to take the edge off, as Yarn Harlot would put it. The Hepburn Cardi is not quite simple enough or portable enough for when I need that mindless traveling project. Of course I could just do the dyeing deed and get right on that pair but The White Lady is bringing the grandkids over today so she can shop at Dressew (my fave fabrics & notions supplier) without their little helping hands. She has started a little home-based business making suspenders (aka braces) in child and adult sizes. She got frustrated with the lack of good quality suspenders for her kids who, like all little ones, have no hips to hold up their pants and skirts. Belts just don’t work either. So she experimented making her own and they are very nice, in lots of colours and with really functional clips. I remember getting suspenders for her DH, The Ninja, when he had the same problems holding up his drawers as a kid. They weren’t nearly as well-made or as sturdy as hers. Even though I made lots of things myself, it never occurred to me to make suspenders and I think it’s a great idea. Best of luck with your enterprise, hon’!

Better get this posted before the Thundering Hordes arrive! Though it does take them awhile to get here on public transit.

Paddling Off Sleeve Island

Yep, I did it! I finished the Hepburn Cardi’s sleeves, both at the same time. It took me all morning and I shouldn’t have been so smug yesterday about having the whole thing charted out because I found a few errors of my own making. Happily I was able to adjust as I went and now the chart has been edited in retrospect. It doesn’t matter now, I know, but that doesn’t stop me from correcting my mistakes and printing out a good copy for my notes. I’m anal like that. These aren’t blocked yet since I plan to block all the sections at the same time. I think I’ll cast on for the back next.

The winter issue of Knitty is out today and boy, Amy better get more bandwidth because it’s really really slow with everybody all wanting to see it at once! That’s what you get for doing a good job and becoming popular, eh? So far I’m totally in love with Romi’s lace wimple with beads. And just about everything else. Though it’s kind of hard to see when you’re getting “page not found” errors from too many people trying to all look at the same time! I’ll leave it for awhile and go check back later. I’m starting to get annoyed that there are so many great patterns out there to make and not enough time in anyone’s life to do them all. Wahhhh!!!

BTW, I appreciate the comments on yesterday’s post. It’s nice that someone besides myself reads my tappings. I do think about these things a lot because, like many people these days, I like to minimize my consumption and waste. But I hope I didn’t sound too holier-than-thou because I haven’t even approached the level that I’d like to be at. I haven’t even finished getting rid of the junk that’s still lurking in the corners. (Though my attic spaces are clean!) Let me put it this way: I still haven’t found the portable hard drive with all my computer backups that I “hid” back in June before we went on holiday! If I can lose something the size of a large book in my own fairly small house, then I still have way too much stuff.

Changing the topic entirely, we had a lovely double rainbow yesterday afternoon when the sun peeked out of the rain for a moment or two:


It’s showering on and off right now even though it’s supposed to be sunny with cloudy periods. Typical winter weather around these parts. Any season’s weather, come to think of it. We have two seasons really — cold and wet or slightly-less-cold and wet. With occasional sunny periods thrown in just to remind us there is hope. Just so we don’t all jump off a bridge en masse.

Gee, and I was hoping for a nice day because I really have to get out and get a few groceries. I usually shop for fruits and veggies and dairy once or twice a week and then we do a larger shopping to a supermarket in the car once a month or so. The Wobblies have put me behind and the produce is down to a few limp celery sticks, half an apple and a jicama that needs to get eaten soon. (Hmmm…that sounds like the makings of a yummy slaw, doesn’t it? Just shows you how I can continue to eat out of the food stash for a good long time before things get really desperate!) Guess I’ll wait for T-Man to get home and then we’ll decide if we’re walking or driving. And it’s brightening up.

Beginnings, Middles & (Hopefully) An End

I heard (but didn’t manage to see) a flock of Canada geese honking their way south today. We are mild enough around here to actually have a resident population but the majority leave for warmer and hopefully drier climes. I love watching them because it reminds me again about the turning of the seasons. Like the colourful leaves, they are a definite sign of changes in the air. And speaking of changes, the rain is slated to give us a bit of a break later today and tomorrow which would be nice. We ended up staying in and having a restful quiet weekend because it was positively snorkeling weather out there and neither T-Man nor I felt like venturing out in it even to go get groceries. Wimps. A little rain didn’t stop the heron which flew by just after the geese did. He wasn’t going south. Our herons don’t migrate. Like us they tough it out through the cold, soggy, dark winter. But unlike us, he doesn't have a nice warm dry house with electric lights and lots of stuff to amuse himself with.

I’ve finally started in again on the Hepburn Cardi. I got a few centimeters worth of sleeves done so far:


I didn’t wash the kinky frogged yarn, but just wound it back on the cones. If I had washed it, it would have not only taken out the waxing (this was knitting machine yarn) before I want but would have meant skeining all of the yarn, not just the used yarn, which was way too much work. Hopefully the kinks don’t mess with my tension too much. Since I’m not a very even knitter anyway, you probably won’t be able to tell. It will be interesting to see how far I get until I run out of the kinky stuff. I had knitted both sleeves to the decreases at the underarm where the sleeve cap begins. This time around I’m hoping to finish the whole sleeves and still have more left over. We’ll see how that goes. So far the charts I created have been a big help. Purple Post-It at the ready!

At the same time, I’ve been working on both the Earl Grey Socks (heading down the feet) and the Jacoby Gauntlets. The gauntlets, or more accurately fingerless mitts, are coming along fine:


However I’m not sure if there will be enough room in the thumb for another glove underneath. I guess we’ll see how that goes. They fit just right on bare hands. Though the main cuffs are on fewer stitches, I did the thumb gusset and opening as per the pattern but because they’re knitted on smaller needles they are a bit tighter than the original. I also plan to make the part above the thumb opening shorter than the pattern so I can bend my fingers more easily. My hands are very small so I always need to adjust patterns to fit me properly. I love having gloves that really fit and don’t have too-long fingers flopping around. Makes all the fiddling around knitting said fingers worthwhile.

I need to get on to my latest volunteer weavers’ guild job. I promised to do the Membership Booklet this time. Unfortunately I have to start completely from scratch since the last person has a Mac and used software I don’t own. At least I have the majority of the files I need, assuming I can get them to play nicely. Remind me again why I said yes?

Last Minute Prep

We’re not so much Martha Stewart types at our house. We don’t mind impromptu gatherings, family dinners or even hosting Christmas dinner. But we rarely throw parties because, frankly, it’s a heck of a lot of work! I’d much rather party at somebody else’s house but sometimes you’ve just got to offer to hold an event or feel like you’re not doing your share of the entertaining. So we’re having a party tomorrow for our new son-in-law’s 30th birthday. For about 20 people. We have a fairly small house and only one bathroom but we do have a large room-sized deck and extra grassy area beside it. That works really well if the weather holds. So far the report is a mix of sun and cloud and a high of 23 C. which is just about perfect. We’re going to try to barbeque a turkey. It’s been lurking in the big freezer since New Year’s so it really needs to be eaten and since it’s about 6 kilos, we need a crowd to help! I’m also baking the birthday cake: deep dark chocolate with chocolate frosting. Special request of the birthday boy. Do wish us luck, hey? We’ll need it!

Meanwhile, I spent this morning (when I could have been cleaning the house some more, but who cares) knitting on my Hepburn Cardi. Am I the only one who starts on the sleeves instead of the back? Why start on the largest piece when you can start on the smallest? I also work on both sleeves simultaneously on the same circular needle. That way the increases and decreases are done on the same rows and they automatically match. I usually do the same with the fronts, just working the decreases on the opposite sides. If I position them left and right as they would be when assembled into the sweater, I can immediately tell if it’s going to work properly and fit correctly. The back piece comes last instead of first as pattern-writing convention would have it. I’d go all the way and put it together with the fronts to eliminate the side seams but the whole thing would be too big for my needle’s cable. 245 stitches is a lot! And no, I’m not going to go buy another 2 sets (3mm for the rib and 3.25 for the main body) with longer cables. These are truly great needles but they are pricey! This is where the Denise needles shine. You can make the cables as long as you like with the connectors. However they don’t come in sizes smaller than 3.75mm. And I do like working with the brass Addi Lace needles. Just not enough to buy ones in sizes I already own but with longer cables.

There is an inherent danger in working the sweater in this order. I could run out of yarn while knitting on the largest piece, the back, where it’s much harder to fudge things without major frogging. I’m pretty sure I have enough yarn, but it’s hard to tell for absolute sure until I finish. There is no way of finding more since this stuff is ancient. (Even the store I bought it at no longer exists!) So I’m going by the yardage specified in the pattern and as we all know, that information is not necessarily accurate. I have about 1-1/2 lbs of yarn that measures about 1500 ypp on the McMorran yarn balance. So that’s around 2,250 yards give or take. The pattern calls for 8 – 220 yard/100g skeins which equals 1760 yards. So the math tells me I have enough. But I don’t trust numbers. I’m going on faith. Brave, eh? So far it took me most of the morning to get one 12-row pattern repeat past the ribbing. Am I a slow knitter or what? There's not even enough to show off yet.