That’s The Way I Like It!

I really love knitters and knitting designers. I really admire someone who has a design vision and sees it through to completion and then the fortitude and business acumen to write up a pattern and sell it. Seriously, what other group of people would you feel comfortable emailing a question to, over a weekend, and get your questions answered within hours? I had a couple of questions for Wendy regarding the Marilyn’s Not-So-Shrunken pattern and emailed her on Saturday. What a sweetie – she was back to me within hours with answers and a couple of other suggestions. Thanks so much, Wendy!

This past Friday, I knit one swatch using 3 mm needles. I washed and blocked it.
Stitch gauge check = exactly on.

Row gauge check = one row too long; I can live with that.

With a pretty successful swatching experience in hand, I cast on Marilyn’s Not-So-Shrunken cardie on Friday night. I managed to work on it on and off throughout the weekend and yesterday while other WIPs beckoned. Here’s the progress so far:
The pattern calls for ‘at least’ 24” circulars. I’m still casting on stitches so this baby is going to be uncomfortably tight on the needles before I put the sleeve stitches onto waste yarn. It’s too bad my trip to Wolfville yesterday coincided with Gaspereau Valley Fibres’ closed day of the week or I would have gotten longer circulars. I don’t know if anyone else nearby sells them or not but, after last night’s knitting, I realise I’m going to have to try. The stitches are so tightly gathered together that they are threatening to slide off the needles and I’m having to use a significant amount of hand muscle force keeping them where they should be.

I love how you can see the raglan part of the sleeves appearing in this top down knit. It’s very exciting and my first top down sweater. Naturally I will keep you posted on how it goes. Stay tuned for a 2008 FO date - I hope!

The other big knitting news in my life is that, thanks to Ravelry (ah, Ravelry. The online community that give so much and asks so little…), I have hooked up with a fellow ‘raveller’ right here in Middleton! This is a dream come true as I was really missing other knitters to sit and knit and chat with. A group of Ravelers here in the Valley have met up a few times but I haven’t been able to attend thus far. Then, on Saturday when I was perusing Ravelry, I noticed that they were meeting that afternoon. I called Barbara to initiate a car pool but the meeting ended up being cancelled. Instead, Barbara offered for her and me to meet up at her house for an afternoon of knitting. It was great fun and I hope I can host a knit up in the future. That is a little more difficult to plan for at my house. Not that I don’t like visitors, I love them and can plan and host a play date at the drop of a hat. However, Iain is not conducive to knitting. He pulls on yarn. This is bad, bad, bad when you’re trying to knit. Particularly if you hope to finish the project you’re working on instead of picking up the stitches he keeps pulling off.

Sorry I missed writing a blog post yesterday. Iain was overdue for his twelve month needles. He was already fussy yesterday – a fact I attribute to teething seeing as the only thing that would settle him was chewing on frozen fruit – and a needle yesterday did not help the evening or this morning. Anyways, it’s been a bit of a rough 24 hours or so. I did knit a wee bit last night but had no time or extra energy to write.

I Be Swatchin’

Elizabeth mentioned a few comments ago that I must be very patient as I knit swatches. I had to laugh out loud, ‘Patty’ and ‘patient’ not two words you’re likely to often see in the same sentence. I am not patient. At. All. Just ask my family. They can tell you all about it. The only thing that makes me knit swatches is that I hate a sweater that just does not fit more than I dislike knitting swatches. And, after swatching recently for something else, I realise that my swatching process takes a week as it takes me that long to knit a swatch, wash it, wait for it to dry, realise that my gauge is off, and start all over again.

The nice thing about this current round of swatching is seeing the colour play of this yarn. Isn’t it lovely?

I knew it was going to be nice but even I am impressed with how darn purdy this fabric is going to be.

I managed to get my skein wound into, somewhat, passable yarn cakes. My ‘swift’ (two chairs back to back) was being unreasonably difficult.

You may have noticed the little note on the completed swatch. Usually I just write the needle size and the gauge I got with that needle. In this case, as I was using a set of Addi Turbos which I am not used to using, I decided to add that information as well. There is every likelihood that the ‘slipperiness’ of the Addi’s threw my tension off as, for the first time since Moses was a baby, my swatch is too small. I’m usually a very loose knitter (don’t tell anyone. The neighbours already have too much to talk about, what with me out putting yarn in trees to take pictures of it) so was very surprised. Then again, the yarn may have shrunk. Regardless, I’m now knitting up from a 4mm to a 4.5 mm needle. I’m hoping to have a decision before we leave at the end of the week. Stay tuned.