One. Just one.

You get one photo of the sweater. Because it's currently 40 degrees with 15-20 mph winds out there, and we were freezing our asses off.


Onyx just had to squeeze into the picture.
And you can see the dangly bit where I still haven't fixed the right wrist seam.
Love this sweater, but a real photo shoot will have to wait till it warms up a bit.
Maybe around July 21st or so...

The Cabled Coat makes its debut, and we consider the advantages of zen photography

I love it when a plan comes together. My daughter arrived right on time (and this is no small miracle. Huzzah for her!), my inlaws arrived to collect us, and off we went to NH S&W. Never mind the fact that I spent the early part of the morning stitching madly at The Cabled Coat, trying desperately to finish it in time. I briefly considered trying to work on it in the car on the way, but discarded that notion when I realized that I would either A) puncture myself with a dull yarn needle, or B) make myself so carsick that I'd be puking out the window all the way to the festival.
I got it to this point -and called it close enough. The last flappy bit could be a design feature, and the yarn end was obviously a very delicate tassel.
Besides, I figured I should leave the flappy bit, just to crack up Laurie.


I remembered to pack up my camera, and threw, not one, not two, but THREE sets of batteries into my bag. I was so ready to document the festival.
Except for the part where I never took the camera out of the bag. Not once. We were there for hours, we saw amazing and wonderful things, and I didn't get a picture of anything...

So, you'll just have to use your imaginations while I show the photos I could have taken if I had remembered to pack my brain with the camera.

We saw the cutest little lambs:











and these:











and some of them were even Shetlands! Look at the colors on this little one's fleece.










These llamas were my favorites. Isn't the one on the left the most beautiful one you've ever seen?











One of the highlights of the day was the 4H kids costume competition. We saw Little Bo Peep and her ribbon-bedecked little lamb:












And this young man who'd outfitted himself as a cowboy and his sheep as a longhorn steer. Aren't those horns clever?












But my favorite by far was this little girl, who dressed up as a lilac bush by strapping flowering branches to her back, and dressed her lamb up as a bumblebee. Isn't that just the cutest thing you ever saw?












Here's a great shot of Laurie and Manise as I showed them the flappy bit. I think I really caught the twinkle in Laurie's eye, don't you?












I loved showing off my sweater - I got a lot of comments on it, starting with the lady in the ladies' room who complimented it as I was waiting in line. The nice ladies in the spinner's guild building all wanted to get a closer look, so I ended up twirling for them. And several other people flagged me down over the course of the day to check out the sweater.
I'm not used to getting so much attention. I tried to pretend I wasn't shy.

And I really enjoyed being warm in my big wrappy sweater. It was freakin' COLD!

And just to end the day on the highest possible note, Judy at Ball and Skein had the perfect pattern for the merino tencel I spun last fall. Feather Duster is absolutely the shawl I'd been dreaming of - the yarn reminded me of ostrich plume colors, and this feathery pattern will show those colors off to perfection.


I love wool festivals. Can't wait for the next one!

Tomorrow is NH Sheep and Wool

Uh oh.
It's supposed to be cold.
I made a rash promise to wear the Cabled Coat.
Ready or not.
It's still not seamed.
I'd better get to work.
Look for me tomorrow. I'll be wearing a light gray Cabled Coat.
Possibly with pieces flapping.
Say 'hi' if you see me.

Still skewing around

Hey, look! Skew really does have a heel! I'm just past the magic origami row that makes this look like this:(Warning - there is Kitchenering involved. Not much, but it's sort of a surprise in the middle of a heel...)

Speaking of socks, my traveling sock is getting a lot of attention. I'm currently training in another store (One more week to go! Yay!!) which involves a 40 minute commute each way. Madman has been driving me (Will the car issues never end?) so I have time to drink my coffee and get a little knitting done.

I've got about another 1.5" to go before starting toe shaping. If I stay on task, I could have a brand spanky new pair of purple socks in no time. (Stop laughing. It could happen. Srsly.)

And here's that Cabled Coat that I keep claiming to be working on. See? Seaming in progress. I'm not exactly setting a land-speed record, but at least all the pieces are connected now. If it's cold this year for NH S&W (which is entirely possible, given the eccentricities of our weather up here) I'm going to wear it.


Whether it's done or not...

All Skewed Up

Well, they say third fourth time's the charm. (I didn't even take a picture of the third try at Skew. Ripped.)
Finally, something where you can actually see the magic!

This is Socks that Rock that I won on Cara's blog about a million years ago. I've lost the ball band (go figure) so I don't know the colorway. One of the Rare Gems, I think.
Anyway, I'm happy that I'm getting color runs that are actually long enough to show off the diagonals in this pattern. And that I'm finally far enough along that I have to actually look at the pattern again. (After 3 previous attempts, I pretty well had the beginning memorized. Except for Judy's Magic Cast-on, which I still have to go look at every.single.time...)

But I haven't been neglecting Maplewing. I'm now on the second repeat of section B. Hitting that decrease row where I went from 522 sts to 435 sts made a huuuuuuge difference. Practically flying through the rows, now.


And I'm back to my old wicked ways again. Why be monogamous when you can multi-task?

I needed a portable project for a car trip. Neither Skew nor Maplewing are the kind of thing I can knit without watching closely - and I get car-sick unless I'm looking out the window. So, obviously, I needed to cast on another project...
Simple mind, simple sock.

(Psst... Diane... I really am seaming up the Cabled Coat. Slowly but surely. Srsly.)

(And can anyone figure out what in this post is causing my google ads to all be for Love Spells? Is it the magic cast-on, combined with wicked and monogamous?)

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming

Life is good again. The internet connection is stable and I can google at will. No more jonesing for blogs. No more whining for email. And I didn't pull out all my hair...
Ahhhhhhhhh...

The cabled coat's collar piece is still drying. It went from pieces to piece when I grafted the live stitches together in the middle, rather than seaming them as the pattern called for. (There are only 2 reasons to use a seam rather than a graft - a) a seam gives stability, like at the back of a sweater's neck, or b) trying to explain how to kitchener two cabled sections would make both the designer and the knitter crazy. There was no reason for the center of a collar to need stability, so I'm going with option b as the designer's reason for the seam.)
There is a problem lurking, however. The instructions said to knit the collar pieces to a length of 24.5". I started measuring at around 18" and every other row thereafter. (Are we there yet? Are we there yet?) No way did I want to knit those last two pieces even a millimeter longer than I had to. The graft line came at exactly 24.5". Unfortunately, when I blocked it, the length grew and grew to over 26" at the midpoint. I tried pulling it widthwise, but that only scalloped the edges. Looks like I'm going to have to suck it up, and start seaming from opposite ends, then cut and rip back the center part and regraft it to fit. I'm at a standstill while I contemplate this.

So, with a major project off the needles (not complete, but off the needles. That totally counts.) I felt free to cast on something else!
But what?
Maplewing has been making my heart go pitty-pat for months. But there was also this sock pattern that caused sudden lust to overcome me.

What to do first?

Here are your clues:

Maplewing is at the top of my list for I-want-want-want-this-shawl. It has been for months.
I started it last fall, but hated the beige yarn I'd picked. In my heart I wanted orange.
I spun beautiful orange roving to make beautiful orange yarn especially for it.
I had a ball of that orange yarn already wound and ready to go.
The cast-on for Maplewing is 522 stitches.
Skew is a passion of only a few days. (So far. It just came out.)
I did have sock yarn in the stash.
I didn't have any sock yarn wound and ready to go.
I'd have to hunt for sock needles that weren't already occupied by something else.
The cast-on for Skew is 12 stitches.
But I'd need to go online to look up Judy's Magic Cast-On, which I use just often enough to not be able to remember how to do it.
I was having internet connection problems.
I could use Turkish cast-on, instead.

Which do you think I started?

Bonus points for guessing the time interval between binding off the last stitch of the cabled coat and casting on for the new project.

Prairie dog post - Gah!

Having serious connecting issues, interspersed with colorful crashes. Must type quickly!
First time I've actually been able to connect since Friday morning. Frustrated!!
There's been knitting in between streams of cursing. Or concurrently with.
Last stitch was knit on cabled coat. Last piece blocking. Sewing will commence when I can stop pounding my head on the desk long enough to look at it.
*thud*

The Danger Zone

That's where I am now with the cabled coat. I've knit the back, the godet, the sleeves, and the fronts. I've got about 10" of collar pieces left to knit, and the urge to cast on something else is so large that I'm practically tripping over it. Even the UFOs are starting to sing a Lorelei song. But if I set this knitting aside for even a moment, it'll be months before I get back to it. Months. And I really want this sweater...

To help my focus, I've started blocking the pieces. I got the back, godet, and fronts laid out today, and will get to the sleeves tomorrow or the next day. The first problem was finding a place that a) was a cat-free zone, and b) had some available horizontal surface. There's not a lot of overlap of a and b here. (I once needed to block a shawl in a hurry - what with the binding-off and the gift-giving coming so close together and all. A house full of house-guests complicated the matter. I ended up pinning it to a wall - using the vertical since I had no horizontal...)
Youngest daughter's former room has bunkbeds. And the door closes.
Hallelujah.

And can anyone figure out how one of my skeins of orange handspun wound itself into a ball? I'm thinking it's probably a Genuine Miracle. There's no chance at all that I did it. Nossir.

Geometry is the only math I ever really understood...

I finished the first front for the sweater, and have cast on the second.

When this odd-shaped piece is blocked, it will be a half-hexagon. One of the things I really liked about this sweater is all the non-standard pieces. The back looks like a tall truncated triangle with a split at the bottom to insert the godet (a simple triangle), the sleeves are elongated hexagons, and the fronts are half-hexagons.
My geometry teacher would have been so proud.
Here's a close-up of the cabley action.

Assembling this beast is going to be a challenge. What fun!

Speaking of beasts, I'm very glad I went out a little early to feed the critters this afternoon. Fifteen minutes after I came in, I looked out the window at a complete white-out. It had only been spitting snow when I fed the sheep...

Minor setback in the knitting.

So I was knitting happily along on one of the fronts of the cabled coat, when I realized that I'd made an error with the decreases. I ripped back several inches, and reknit the section, only to realize that I hadn't made an error at all. So I had to rip back what I had just knit, and reknit again to get back to where I was in the first place.
At least I wasn't knitting both fronts at the same time...
*sigh*

There's a hole in my finger

Over the last few months I've been trying to tighten up my knitting a little bit. Nothing drastic, but a bit of slow change so that it will become a habit. (I'm tired of having to go down 2 needle sizes to get gauge, and I want to write more patterns for other people to knit without making myself crazy trying to figure out what size needle normal people would need.)
The down side is that I've discovered I have a bad habit of bracing the left needle point against my right index finger in order to push stitches up into working position. Now that they're tighter, I have to push harder. And the circ I'm using for my cabled coat is really really pointy.

I've poked a hole in my finger.

Still making progress.

Though working is really cutting into my knitting time, sadly.
I've finished the sleeves. Yay for finishing the long slog of moss stitch.
Though seriously, I don't mind moss stitch, or its cousin seed stitch. Since I knit Continental, it's no harder to knit moss stitch (or ribbing either, for that matter) than it is to knit garter stitch.
If, at this moment, you're thinking "Oh, no! Continental purl is hard!", then you're obviously new around here, and have missed my previous rants.
If you think Continental purl is hard, then someone taught you wrong. Follow this link for Easy Continental purl, or just click on the Continental purl label over in my sidebar. Someday I'll do a video (if I can figure out how to hold the camera some other way than in my teeth...), but in the meanwhile I've got a short photo essay showing how easy the purl stitch is. (Do not be fooled by the arthritis-inducing contortionist version that will pop up in a Google search. That video is a cruel cruel joke.)
Okay, end rant.
So, the sleeves are done, and I've got one of the fronts underway. I would have liked to do both fronts at once, but at 260 stitches each, my needle just isn't long enough to accommodate that many stitches.
So, I'm back to the engaging cables. This sweater is just flying along.

And a random tip - I had to make two attempts at casting on those 260 stitches. The first time, I ran woefully short of tail in my longtail cast-on. So I started over, grabbing a second ball of yarn, tying a slip knot in the two ends, and using yarn from the second ball as the 'tail.' It means a couple extra ends to weave in, but that's still easier than making multiple runs at 260 stitches.

Sleeve Labor

(Sorry. You know how I am...)

Though I also thought of "Sleeving is Believing." And "I'll be sleeving you (in all the old familiar places...)" And the ever-popular traveling knitter's song "I'm sleeving on a jet plane."

It's the fever. It's making me light headed. Really.
That's my story.

So, in between naps today, I got some knitting done. (Yeah, sleeves. How'd you guess?)

Whenever I'm knitting sleeves flat, I like to do them at the same time. This way, I know they end up the same length, with all the decreases/increases in the same places. You can see where I've got a safety-pin holding them together about 1/3 of the way up. (There would have been another pin or so, if I could have found another one. Way too much effort today.) By linking the two sleeves, I can keep track of which direction I'm going. The trick is to never ever ever stop at the gap in the middle. If you have to set the knitting down, either stop a few stitches before the gap, or start knitting a few stitches after it; then, when you pick it up again, you don't have to guess where you left off.
The two-at-a-time thing is an especially good solution if you're making mods. By knitting both sleeves (or both fronts, etc) at the same time, you don't have to worry about keeping notes to help you make the second piece to match. (I usually manage to lose the notes...) (Note to self: find better way to keep notes to self organized.) (Um, wait...)
So I'm at the point where I start decreasing for the raglan shaping. That will be tomorrow's project. Then on to the fronts!

Happy Blogiversary to Me - a day late. (Story of my life...)

My second blogiversary, and I forget it. I'd been meaning to check, the last couple of days, thinking that it was coming up soon. But I haven't been feeling well. In fact, last night I felt bad enough to Go To Bed Early. I never do that... (I've always had a really hard time letting go of the day.)
This morning I woke up chilled to the bone and shaking. A quick check of the thermostat showed that it wasn't actually cold in the house.
Uh-oh.
Running a fever. Feeling ghastly.
I called in sick (something else I never do), and headed for the couch.
Here I am, wrapped in every afghan we own, knitting the sleeves for my cabled coat, in between fever chills.
*sigh*
At least I'll get some extra knitting done...

Perhaps there's something to this "Project Monogamy" thing...

Finished the godet.


And have cast on the sleeves. (Do the rest of the boring part, then I get to do the interesting part again. Carrots on sticks are so important.)

Not a great picture, but the camera and the editing software seem to be fighting with each other. I'm just the innocent bystander...

Onward!

Woohoo! The back is done!

That's the end of boring for a while. Until the sleeves, that is. I'd better make them before the fronts...


Starting the godet. I'm on the 3rd skein of yarn, and loving the knitting so far.

Still carless.
*sigh*

And another thing...

The other thing I did Sunday, besides doing ninety-two loads of laundry, washing a mountain of dishes, and baking a loaf of bread and a big honkin' pork roast, was to cast on a sweater. For me. Hallelujah!
I'm making this cabled coat, by Norah Gaughan.* I fell in love with it the first time I saw it in Vogue Knitting. I'm doing the boring moss stitch backs first, knowing myself as I do. Otherwise, I'd knit the technically interesting cabled sections and never get around to finishing it. (Moss stitch, like its close cousin seed stitch, is fun to knit, but vast amounts of it can be tough going. I'm using the cabled parts as the carrot on a stick...)
I started with the Right Back - which was actually a large gauge swatch. When I saw that my gauge was spot-on (I went down a needle size from what was recommended. Loose knitter, here.) I immediately cast on the Left Back and knit it to catch up.

Now I'm knitting them simultaneously, just like I knit sleeves two-at-a-time, linking them with safety pins so I don't lose track of which direction I'm going. (That's Sunday's photo above. I'm now about 6" along.)

* How is Gaughan pronounced, anyway? Rhymes with Vaughan, perhaps?