Lesson for today: read the pattern and pay attention!

Two weeks into September and I haven't yet shown off my August work. Tim and I had agreed to do socks and I chose Bloomin' by Jeannie Cartmel (link goes to Ravelry pattern page). So while socks aren't something I would consider challenging normally, it seems I inadvertently selected a pattern that was a challenge for me.

I started out simply enough. Two at a time on one long circular needle. Most of my sock knitting has been on double pointed needles but I've recently done a few pairs simultaneously. But what I did not for see was each sock starts out with a different chart (in order to have a mirrored design). So I was constantly flipping back and forth from chart to chart. This lead to me forgetting to actually read the darn pattern. The design on the top of the foot is a stem with leaves in stockinette on a reverse stockinette background. The bottom of the foot should be knit in stockinette. Did I do that? Heck no, I just assumed that I should purl my way around the sock. *headdesk* About the time I was approaching the heel, I discovered my error.

Yeah, so I was a bit upset with myself because of course the socks were taking a great deal of time to complete with all that purling. So for the heel and the rest of the sock, I decided to flip the back to stockinette. Also the circular needle slows me down so starting with the heel I slid one sock onto dpns to finish it and then finished the other. Overall, they look lovely. Although when I was blocking them, I thought that I had made another huge error. Take a look at the cuffs of the socks in the finished photo. They don't quite look like each other, do they? But do you see what I didn't see until I took them off the blockers?

Yeah, one is inside out. I must have forgotten to flip it when weaving in ends. Doh!

After much delay

I've been busy keeping Tim in a dungeon procrastinating. Actually, I've been hoping to find my camera so that I could post a better photo of my finished mittens but no luck so far. So here is the iPhone version:

They turned out very nicely indeed and I finished knitting them on the last day of July. However, the ends weren't all woven in by midnight so by Tim's calculations they don't count as finished. Doesn't matter to me, they are lovely completed mittens and that is all that really concerns me.

I was fretting about the garter stitch edge while knitting them but they've mostly blocked out flat so that's good. All in all, I'm very pleased with the mittens. I'm planning to make a hat to match in November for our hat month in the almanac project.

As for the August project, my socks have been knitted, I just need to block and weave in ends before the end of the month. Photos for that coming soon!

Too much to tell

Sorry for the long absence but Teri locked me in the dungeon it's a not so fascinating story...

I went on a road trip to visit my sister in Wyoming, which is where I finished the Andalus Mittens on July 12.

I really like how they turned out and I think I will keep them for myself...

I went from my sister's to the Men's Rocky Mountain Knitting Retreat in mid-July and had a fabulous time.  I met guys from all over...Florida, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado, Pennsylvania...too many to name. We stayed at a lovely resort in Allenspark, Colorado, (just down the road from Estes Park), ate great food, hot-tubbed, played tourist, and, oh yeah, knit. There were a wide variety of classes (Tunisian Knitting, dyeing with food color, continental knitting, etc.) and a very full schedule with several field trips (yarn stores, a spinning wheel factory, and an alpaca farm). We actually saw a bear in the wild...well, between the ranchettes where the alpaca farm was located. During one of the field trips to Estes Park I walked down to the stream/river of icy cold snow melt, took off my shoes, and stood in the rushing water. It was frigid, but on that hot day it felt absolutely wonderful!

Upon my return to Kansas City much drama ensued.  I won't go into details here, but it's like being back in junior high school and the mean girls are in charge...My therapist hit the nail on the head when she said of one of the mean girls, "What a Narcissist!"  I've moved on and at this point I'll just quote one of my favorite knitters who says, "Knitters are Bitches!"

Along with the aforementioned drama I managed to hurt myself. I went to see Circe Du Gay (it was wonderful) in the Kansas City Fringe Festival and during an audience participation bit I blew out my Achilles tendon. Surgery followed five days later.  Let me just go on record here saying I would make a terrible drug addict. I was prescribed Percocet (acetaminophen and oxycodone) which left me shaky, nauseous, and groggy...I slept something like 12-14 hours a day...and that was with me only taking ONE pill every TWENTY-FOUR hours (prior to bedtime) where the bottle said I could take 1-2 pills every FOUR hours...I think that would have put me in a coma!

I do already have the August project done but I think that deserves a separate post...

Nothing more to see here...Knit along!

Slow progress

While Tim is pushing ahead full steam, I'm slowing trekking up the hill. Not only is he a faster knitter, but he's also more focused. Well done, Tim!

But I do have a bit of progress to show off so far...

Yesterday at lunch, I finally made it to the thumb separation. And the good news is that it seems to fit me so far. A good thing considering I picked the colors to match my winter coat. You can see in this photo how the garter stitch hem keeps flipping up. I'm not convinced yet that blocking will fix this. At this point, my options are to just flip it to the underside and stitch it down or to cut it off and knit some sort of other hem. I'm leaning towards the second option because then the hem border could be in the purple yarn.

Anyway, I made more progress last night after work while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation (streaming now on Netflix!) and cringing at the sweaters that they put on Wesley. I'm just starting the first flower on the back of the mitten in purple. The colors contrast so nicely and I'm much happier with his yarn choice than my original pick.

So, a little bit of progress to show for my time. Time to stick to my knitting for a bit and get more accomplished!

Shaky Start

So, I diligently started the Andalus Mittens on July 1...and things went badly.  I wanted to do a different hem (just a provisional cast-on, a quick four rows of plain  stockinette, a purl row, four more rows of plain stockinette, and then join the live stitches with the provisional cast-on before starting the color work).  Total failure.  My color work gauge is so much tighter than my regular gauge (and I am a tight knitter to begin with) that I couldn't knit tightly enough in plain stockinette to match my color work gauge and I didn't want to decrease the stitch count.  (Did I mention these mittens are going to be bulletproof?)  So after multiple tries...*cast-on, knit, rip, repeat from *...I finally gave up and did the called for four rows of k2, p2.

I worked through the wrist pattern and decided I wasn't happy that I wouldn't be able to wear it when I was done.  So, I went stash diving...I came up with some Bonkers Handmade Originals Hand Dyed Sport Wool (given to me by Teri) and some Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash.  I had not yet learned my lesson, so I tried to do the different hem with the same tragic results...*cast-on, knit, rip, repeat from *.

I finally decided to do it (mostly) as written and now, the first mitten is done!

Onward!

Nothing more to see here.  Knit along...

And we're off!

I searched through Ravelry to see if I could find a different pattern that could work with the Tove yarn and I didn't fall in love with any of them. So instead I searched through my stash for a fingering weight yarn that would work with the Vinterblomster pattern. Success!

Here's my swatch...

The white yarn is Jawoll, green is Cascade Heritage and purple is Crafty in a Good Way (a local yarn dyer). I would have also swatched the green on a white background but if you look closely in the upper right corner, the needle snapped.

No matter, on the morning of July 1st before heading to work I cast on for the first mitten. I had company from out of town for the holiday weekend so as of today I only have this much to show:

I've almost completed the second chart which will probably be completed very soon. I'm not thrilled with the look of the garter stitch hem so I might flip it under and stitch it down...or I might cut it off and knit an actual hem. Time will tell. Not something I have to decide right now. Of course, I'm even debating lining the mitten too. Clearly I'm over ambitious as always.

Swatching for the Andalus Mittens

Here is my swatch...

I did the cuff pattern twice; the one on the right was done with 3.25 mm (US size 3) and the one on the left was 2.75 mm (US size 2).  The one on the right was bang on 8 stitches to the inch while the one on the left was right at 9 stitches to the inch.  I like how the one on the left looks (the one on the right looks pixelated), but it will result in a mitten too small for me to wear.  I don't feel like trying to modify the pattern to get a mitten in my size with the look I prefer so it looks like someone will be getting a gift of mittens in the near future.  Who will be so lucky?

Nothing more to see here.  Knit Along.

Now what?

So I've been swatching for the first project, the Vinterblomster mittens. I'm happy with how the swatch looks so far.

Vinterblomster Swatch

So here comes the bad news: The gauge for this pattern is 36 stitches = 4 inches. My gauge is 24 stitches = 4 inches. Pattern calls for light fingering, my yarn is sportweight. So of course I'm not going to get gauge...why even attempt it?

So now I need to make a decision. What's more important to me at this point? The yarn or the pattern. If it's the yarn that I want to knit with then I need to find another mitten pattern - for sportweight this time! If it's the pattern the I really want to knit, then I need to hunt up another yarn from my stash. I'm pretty much determined to see this project through without buying any new yarn. (Spinning new yarn obviously doesn't count)

Time to look through my Ravelry queue, favorites and my stash and make a decision. One more week before I need to cast on so this decision needs to be made soon.

Chiming in...

Seems like Tim has represented our idea well.  I've had fleeting thoughts in the past about knitting my way through Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac in one year but I've never fell in love with all the projects enough to actually knit all of them. Also, I've knit some of the patterns already and don't feel like knitting them again. There are exceptions, of course. The Open Collar Pullover in October has always inspired me. I do love me some top-down raglans and it looks like not nearly enough folks have posted their versions on Ravelry. 


Anyway, so Tim and I have been mulling over this project for the last couple of weeks. We actually have planned out the first six months (as he posted earlier) and have some vague ideas as to what we will do for the last six months. We debated for a while as to whether we would actually knit the same project every month but decided it was probably best if we only knit the same pattern if it were something we truly wanted to make. I've learned (and not the easy way) that unless I really love a pattern, I will probably lose interest, set it aside, cast on something new and then eventually rip out the unloved project a year or two (or five!) later. 


I haven't done well with challenges that I've set for myself in the past. But I know that partnering with Tim on this will mean that I have someone to whom I am accountable. I know he wants to challenge himself and step out of his sock box. My reasons for jumping into this is to actually finish each of the items that I set out to knit. Seems simple, but I have had a lot of distractions lately and while I am nearly constantly knitting...I have little to show for it. Of the eight-ish projects that I bothered to record in Ravelry for 2010, only two of my finished items were actually for me. 


But for those who know me...also know that I never do anything the easy way. I've got to put a challenge on top of a challenge. Are you ready? Here comes the bat shit crazy part...at least one of my items will be knit from my handspun. Oh, not crazy enough for you? Well, how about if I add in a Tour de Fleece challenge to the mix? Wacky, I tell ya! 


For those of you that don't know, the Tour de Fleece is a spinning challenge that runs at the same time as the Tour de France bike race. (Think Knitting Olympics for spinning.)  Still not insane enough? The challenge is from Saturday July 2nd through Sunday July 24 which means I'll be attempting to spin a project's worth of yarn during the same month that we are kicking off our DIY Almanac. Bat shit crazy is just how I roll, baby.

The Plan

My friend Teri and I (FiberTerian and Fulton, respectively, on Ravelry*) were sitting around a couple of weeks ago and I said, "I would like to put together something like Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac for myself and do a year's worth of projects.  Since it's the beginning of June, that gives me seven months to pull it together."

To which Teri responded, "The nice thing about an almanac is you can start on any month."

So, we decided that both of us would commit to putting together a list of 12 items that we would like to do over the next year...and start knitting July 1...of this year...

So far, we have the list done through December and we think that is good enough to start.

Month	Category	Tim	Teri
July	Mittens	Andalus Mittens	Vinterblomster Mittens
August	Socks	Oliver	Bloomin'
September	Shawl	Leaf Shawl	Maja
October	Polo	Open Collar Pullover	Open Collar Pullover
November	Hat	Koolhaas	Custom design to match July's project
December	Neckwear	Incognito	Dragon Scarf

The Rules

• We will work on similar but not necessarily the same projects (e.g. October we will be doing the same Open Collar Pullover Polo, but in July I am doing the Andalus Mittens while Teri will be doing the Vinterblomster Mittens).
• The project itself cannot be started before the 1st of the month.  Swatching and test knitting may be done at any time.
• The project must be completed by midnight local time on the last day of the month.  Completed means all knitting and construction (i.e. seaming) done, blocked (if necessary), and ends woven in.  Failure to complete a project within the given month will result in severe penalties (mocking will be involved).

One of the reasons I want to do this almanac is that since I started knitting in April 2009 I have done almost 40 pairs of socks...mostly toe-up stockinette or 3-and-1 ribbing.  Don't get me wrong, I love socks and I now knit a damn good pair, but I need to get out more expand my repertoire.  I need to do color work (stranded/Fair Isle and intarsia), lace, double knitting, sweaters, vests, shawls, and on and on and on.  There is a whole world out there for me to play in and I have been limiting myself to mostly feet...time to step out!  (I didn't say the humor would be good...)

Teri, on the other hand, has her own reasons for participating in this project (other than being as bat-shit crazy as I am) and she will be sharing her thoughts here also.  The goal is for each of us to blog about our progress at least once a week.  I also want to discuss new techniques (have you tried the Interlock Bindoff yet...it ROCKS!) and whatever else crosses my twisted little mind.

Nothing more to see here.  Knit along.

* If you aren't a member of Ravelry, go there now and join.  Registration is free and it opens a whole world of patterns and information on the fiber arts.