Started!

As I mentioned last week, I have started the Urban Aran: I'm about 5" in at this point, and it's going well. My original plan to knit the medium with a smaller gauge didn't appear to be working out - I got a few inches in and decided that it was going to be way too wide. The sweater is designed with more ease than I consider ideal for me, so I'm going with the small and my gauge. So far it's looking like a good width. The cables do pull in, but not as much as I expected - of course it remains to be seen how much they pull in when an entire body piece is complete, but they aren't doing much at the bottom. Plus, with 100% wool I can surely block this baby into submission if it's a touch too small...My fear that the side cables would be too similar to those on the Chevalier Mittens was unfounded. They are similar, but this yarn isn't being knit at a gauge much smaller than it would like, so they aren't as difficult as the mittens. Overall I'm enjoying the sweater, although the Transition Mitts are really addictive - I finished the first one on Saturday. I've resisted casting on the second one so I can work on the sweater, but we'll see how long that lasts...

Madrona, or a break in the "yarn fast"

Ack! I uploaded these photos on Sunday morning so I could post about them, and here it is Wednesday already! The annual Madrona Fiber Arts Festival was this past weekend in Tacoma (Why Tacoma? Really, why not Seattle itself?), and Katrina and I headed down Friday after work. To be fair - we left early. Working in a lab is very flexible. After braving the traffic, we arrived at the hotel and prepared ourselves for battle. Armed with detailed lists and debit cards we attacked the market. In the end Katrina didn't buy anything and I didn't really buy that much, although I'm really happy with what I got. First I bought two skeins of Shibui Sock for the Transition Gloves, started here: That's what Ihad Sunday morning - by now I'm about 2/3 finished with the first mitt, and it's really lovely. I was also looking for unique laceweight yarn that I couldn't get in Seattle (harder than you think, we have a lot of yarn shops here), and I found some: This is undyed wool from Ireland from Black Water Abbey Yarns, and it's very sheepy. I'm imagining some rustic lace with it. I already have yarn for the Cobweb Lace Stole from Interweave, but this might be better. We'll see. Here's a close-up: And I bought some yarn that I probably could've found in Seattle but hadn't, for Anne Hanson's Morning Glory Stole, which Rachel bought me the pattern for a couple of years ago (!) now. It's almost exactly the color of the yarn in the pattern, and it's very lovely in person - the photo doesn't do it justice.So, that's all I bought, and I have plans for all of it. I avoided the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth. Well, I didn't avoid it, but I didn't buy anything there. None of the STR leaped off the shelf at me, even though I was looking for some to match a colorway that I already have for a striped scarf. We met Rachel and Pam there and neither of them bought anything either, although they were taking classes and still had Saturday left for shopping, and I've not heard the final damage report.
All in all I thought the mood seemed a bit subdued compared to past years. That's probably the economy talking - I think people are hunkering down a bit with what they have, and although they were there browsing, I didn't see much being purchased. One thing I really noticed, and I think I noticed this two years ago as well, is that the market has too much handdyed sock yarn. Now, don't get me wrong, because I love me some handdyes, but there were SO many vendors selling it, and how many socks does a person need? I realize the purple yarn above is actually sockweight, and I'm not intending to use it for socks, but really a lot of the crazy dyed stuff really won't translate that well into a lot of other items.
In other news, I have started the purple Urban Aran (twice) and it's moving along. I jetisoned my original plan of knitting the medium because it was looking really wide, so now I'm knitting the small and hoping for the best. It's looking reasonable so far, about 5" in...I'd be further along had I not started those addictive orange and white mitts!

Swatched!

Well, the mob, such as it is, has spoken, and it (you) have told me that I should knit the Urban Aran. I am in total agreement with you, and even had Anne-Marie not cast the tie-breaking vote yesterday afternoon, I probably would've proceeded with that choice. Having made this decision, I got to swatching:
I actually cut the yarn, and washed the swatch, which I photographed as evidence. May I just brag for a second that I took this photo with my phone (I got myself a Blackberry Storm for Christmas), and the color is really accurate, better, I think, than my regular camera would have done. Of course I took this at work where we have good light, so that might have something to do with it as well. I also uploaded it to Flickr from my phone, and now I can blog it, all without carrying around my camera. Hehe...
Now that I have the swatch, the problems can begin. Of course my row gauge is a disaster, which is frankly nothing new and I'm not worried about compensating for it, since I do it all the time and the pattern has things like "knit until 11 inches" in length, which make dealing with row gauge managable. The larger issue is my stitch gauge. I'm getting 4.25 st/in, and the pattern calls for 3.75 st/in. I did a lot of math and determined that if I make the medium size with my gauge I should get something in the range of the small size, maybe a bit smaller, which would actually be preferable. So, that's my plan. I was going to convert the pattern to the round to avoid seaming, but I think, with the stitch/row gauge issues, I should knit in pieces so I can knit the back first and make sure it comes out the right width before I knit the entire sweater. Thoughts?

Tell me what to do!

Folks, I am having a wee knitting crisis. I've been knitting loads of accessories lately, but I have trouble getting around to wearing them. Mostly this is due to the fact that I bike commute, so I don't really spend much time outside in situations where I need warm scarves (although I have a lot of them), hats (fewer, but still a significant number), or mittens/gloves. I ski, and snowshoe, but for skiing I don't wear scarves, and snowshoeing I really get too warm most of the time. Thus my compulsion to knit fun scarves/hats/mittens/etc is being tempered by the realization that I don't actually get to wear them very often, and although I'll keep knitting accessories, I need to move on a bit just now.
It's not that I haven't knit garments before, but I haven't made a sweater since last winter, and I figure I should get back on that. I have several sweaters worth of yarn hibernating in the stash, and it's time. But, dear readers, I need your help. I have several sweaters in mind, and I'm torn about which to make, and that is where you come in. I'm putting these as non-Ravelry links as well so my mother can see them and provide her opinion, as she is wont to do!

Patons Urban Aran Pullover - in deep purple tweed (Ravelry)
Central Park Hoodie - also in deep purple tweed (Ravelry)
Demi - either tan or light maroon tweed (Ravelry)

I had pretty much decided on the Central Park Hoodie but then I noticed that some of the ones on Ravelry don't really look that great (although plenty do). Then I remembered about the Urban Aran, which I love the shape of due to the pulled-in side cabling. I had almost ruled out Demi since it's so complex, but I want to knit it sometime, so I put it in there.

What should I knit? I want to start soon, please comment!

Snowshoeing to Snow Lake

Dave and I went snowshoeing on Sunday (before, not instead) of watching the Super Bowl (go Steelers!). We attempted to go to Snow Lake, but we somehow (it might have been my fault) got off the trail and followed some ice-climbers tracks instead, and we ended up turning around when we got frustrated with essentially making our own way and I sliced up my hand in an unfortunate glissading incident (It was warm, I wasn't wearing gloves. Yes, that was a bad idea to begin with.). We eventually saw some other hikers about 200 feet downhill of us, and figured that they were on the trail, so we headed down there and went a bit further on the trail (which was completely obvious, when we were on it). In the end we didn't get very far but it was nice to play in the snow a bit - we haven't been skiing yet because we're waiting for some actual new snow. It hasn't snowed in the mountains for weeks and weeks, which is odd. Good thing they got a nice base back in December or things would be quite dire.
My hair is really long, isn't it?

Parade of Christmas FOs - Part Three

And, finally, I knit my grandmother a lace stole: This was the last of the Christmas knitting to be completed - there was definitely some stress there as I was finishing the second half and grafting it the day before I flew home. The grafting? Major hassle and I can definitely see the line. While I like the concept of identical ends, I don't know if I can be bothered with that in the future. Someone remind me I said that as soon as I cast on something that will require it...

Project Stats: Waves of Grain Stole

Pattern: Waves of Grain, by Rosemary Hill, from Knitty Fall 2008. Raveled here.

Yarn: Zephyr Wool-silk, colorway Curry, purchased at Acorn Street.

Needles: Knit Picks Harmony bamboo straights, size 4.

Time to knit: October 15 - December 20, 2008.

Modifications: Aside from making it shorter (only 52"), I also added extra beads on the first row because I misread the chart and thought that the "b" meant bead when it actually meant knit through the back loop. So, I repeated that error on the second half, and I think it's nice actually. I would do it again - it adds extra weight to the end of the stole and it's shiny.

Impressions: This was fun! I really enjoy knitting lace even though (or perhaps because) I do it fairly infrequently and generally complain about it when I'm not physically working on it. I decided that I wanted to knit my grandmother something nice this year, and I had this yarn laying around from the Swallowtail Shawl I made my aunt (her daughter) last year, and it was a match made in heaven. The Knit Picks Harmony needles are great for lace - nice sharp tips, not too slippery. The only problem, and this is likely just me, is that they're 10" and I prefer 9" because I knit with my needles propped on my stomach and 10" is a tad too long. But, I got used to it. You can get a lot of lace out of a skein/ball of Zephyr. I believe I started with 4 oz, knit this and the Swallowtail, and still have a ton left. Probably enough for another thing of similar size, which makes Zephyr an absolutely great deal. I think I paid $17 for the ball and that's a lot of bang for the buck!

My only real issue with this was that I had a tough time with the grafting. It was completely nerve-racking the entire time (almost 2 hours) because I was SO worried about screwing it up/dropping a stitch/not lining it up/etc. Part of that was because I was finishing this close to Christmas and I knew there wasn't really any room for error, but I think it would have been stressful regardless. And I thought grafting was supposed to be invisible, and although my line of stitches matches really well and looks like perfect stockinette, there is definitely a shadow there that I wish wasn't. But, it's certainly not something that detracts from the piece and maybe it's just an inherent problem with grafting in thin, light-colored yarn? Feel free to reassure me on this, or contradict it - if I need to figure out a better way to graft I'd like to know now before I screw it up again!

My grandmother loved the stole, and was totally impressed with it. I'm glad that she liked it - I'm always really happy when people like and appreciate the things I knit for them. I knit this for her because I knew she would both appreciate it and use it, so I'm quite satisfied.

Oh, and these photos, with the actual snow, were also taken when I was in PA, when it snowed again just before I came back to Seattle. The weather was really all over the place...

So ends the parade of Christmas knits - now onto the more current projects, although there will still be gift knitting involved!

Parade of Christmas FOs - Part Two

Okay! The second large Christmas gift that I knit this year was a vest for my dad, which I had been meaning to knit for a couple of years. I wanted to knit it last year but ended up making socks instead because I hadn't found a good vest pattern. The year before I made felted clogs. You'd think finding a simple men's vest pattern would be easy, but apparently not. I apologize to my dad for these photos, which I took candidly while he was showing Dave around his workplace, Organ Supply Industries. So you know, they make pipe organs and parts, not livers and kidneys. It's a really cool place and I always like visiting. Big pipes, sheets of metal for making pipes, fancy woodworking, etc.

Project Stats: Dad's Vest

Pattern: Based on the Argyle Vest from Knitting Classic Style, obviously without the argyles and with a different bottom edging. Raveled here.

Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, in Cedar, about 6 skeins. Yarn purchased at Acorn Street in 2005(!) - note use of stash...

Needles: Clover bamboo circulars, size 5 (ribbing) and 6 (body).

Time to knit: September 27-December 16, 2008. There was a delay there while I hunted down appropriate needles for the armhole ribbing and mustered up the courage to pick up all those stitches.

Modifications: Oh, lord, where to begin. Obviously, no argyling. I did think about that, and I have this yarn in a different color as well, but I wasn't really sure about my dad's feelings on argyle. I also knit ribbing at the bottom instead of doing a sewn-under hem. More on that later. And, I converted this to the round until I had to split for the armholes/v-neck, which made the whole thing go much faster. As I've mentioned, I don't like seaming. I did do a faux seam with a line of purl stitches up the sides. I'm hopeful that this yarn has enough structure that it's not going to stretch ridiculously without seams. Oh, and I did shortrows and a three-needle bindoff for the shoulder shaping/seaming instead of doing stepped bind-offs. Why patterns don't use shortrows for this I really don't understand. SO easy, SO neat, and SO much easier to seam. Do they think shortrows are too hard? They're really not.

Impressions: First off, I love this yarn. I bought it quite awhile ago and have enough for a sweater for myself in another color and probably a vest for myself left in this color. So, it's good that I like it. I'm a big fan of tweeds, which is clear looking through my stash but maybe not so obvious when looking at my projects because I'm keeping it for myself and most of what I seem to finish are gifts. I had a good time knitting this, I'm a big fan of large things knit in the round, no purling, just round and round. That said, I think this came out a bit big for my dad. I measured one of his vests the last time I was at home so I'd have something to go off of, and this is actually not that different in size, but somehow it seems really baggy. Part of it is the ribbing at the bottom, which doesn't pull in like I was expecting/hoping. That's what my dad is used to, so this is a bit more casual than what he usually wears to work. It's also a bit big in the back - definitely a comfort vest as opposed to a form-fitting dressy one. But, I'm hoping he'll get some use out of it!

While I'm on a roll with this, I also made Anne-Marie a scarf:

Project Stats: Juliet Scarf for Anne-Marie

Pattern: Juliet, from Knitting Little Luxuries. Raveled here.

Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Angora, cherry red, about 3.5 skeins.

Needles: Size 9 Clover bamboo.

Time to knit: October 7-November 23, 2008.

Modifications: None aside from using bigger yarn and bigger needles than the pattern suggested.

Impressions: This was a nice knit, although it's impossible to photograph. That's not its fault of course, it's my fault for using red fuzzy yarn. My camera doesn't do well with either, so this is a double-whammy of photographic misery. Neither of the photos is really an accurate representation of the color. I used bigger yarn because Anne-Marie moved back to the great white north this fall, and it's cold there, and I figured something warm would be more appropriate than something dainty. I'd been meaning to use this yarn for her for some time, so I was glad to find a pattern that suited it. As for the pattern itself, I absolutely couldn't remember it, even by the end, which was frustrating. Not that it was hard, the lace panel on the left just wasn't intuitive for me.

Next, up, the Waves of Grain stole!