pepperknit

The brick down here in Bay Ridge is different. It’s darker, or redder, or arranged differently—I can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s distinctive and really pretty. And when I fell in love with this wall, I knew immediately I needed to knit something and take my FO shots in front of it. And now. The yarn I bought at Webs was the perfect color, and the geometry of Norah Gaughan’s Swirled Pentagon Pullover was perfect.

Totally perfect.

Swirled Pentagon Pullover (my Rav page)
Yarn: Valley Yarns Colrain in Steel, bought at Webs in October
Needles: US 8
Skeins: 10 (9.25 or so, I’d say)
Started: Sunday, November 2
Finished: Friday, November 14
Notes: I didn’t get gauge exactly, so I knit the small size to get basically the extra-small. I knit the body in the round, adding one purl stitch for a faux seam (I’m not sure why I wanted a faux seam, but I like it). The sleeves are semi-deliberately too long, which I like—makes the whole thing more cozy (I knit them in the round, so I worked 10 rounds in between decrease rounds, rather than decreasing on the 10th round). And the turtleneck part isn’t the 9 inches called for, because that was strangulating me; I think it’s more like 7.

Otherwise, I followed the pattern exactly. I will always trust Norah Gaughan—when picking up stitches for the neck, I initially didn’t trust the number given in the pattern for some reason. So I decided to just pick up what seemed natural, making sure it was a multiple of 4. And then I counted my stitches—92, exactly what the pattern said!

Oh, there is a small typo in the pattern—my trust doesn’t go too deep, apparently. The half-pentagon for the back yoke says something like “continuing in 2×2 rib” but that is wrong—it’s got to be 1×1 rib just like all the others.

I wore the sweater to my grandmother’s surprise 80th birthday party yesterday, and though I yammered on to anyone who would listen that I’d finished it the day before, the response was generally, “Wow, I thought you got that at a store!” Which, I have to say, was the best compliment I could have gotten. And now it’s in all the family portraits!

I started out really strong right off the gun—but I rounded that first turn and hit something of a wall. (More like: I was on vacation at the beach and had other things to do besides knitting.

But when I realized yesterday that the Olympics are actually over tomorrow, I hit my second wind and quickly finished seaming it up. Today I went to Tender Buttons for the priciest buttons I’ve ever bought (total came to 3/4 what I paid for the yarn), but they’re worth it.

Drops Jacket
Pattern: 103-1 Jacket in Eskimo or Silke-Alpaca with A Shape
Yarn: Ram Wools Selkirk, natural/undyed
Skeins: 4
Needles: Addi Turbo US 8
Started: Friday, 8/8/08
Finished: Saturday, 8/23/08

Notes: Knit the pattern as indicated, with full-length sleeves. Instead of “casting off” in the body, I just decreased. I suppose I’d have liked it a little longer, but I’ll try to block it bigger next time I wash it. (Mirage was too long, this is too short!) And boy will there be many more washings; the yarn is incredibly scratchy but “softens with washing”; it’s a marked difference in softness from the knitting to the blocked piece, so I’m hoping more washings will make this more wearable. It is ridiculously warm, and will be perfect come winter. (As it was, I was dying during the photo shoot.)

Here’s to getting the gold!

I saw Mirage in More Big Girl Knits and immediately fell in love. While in Singapore, I did the work to go about sizing it down for me, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

I wore the sweater for my journey home from Singapore—those planes are so cold. On my way out, actually, the man sitting next to me put an extra blanket over me because I looked so cold huddled under my single blanket (and I was wearing a cardigan). Wow, the sweater kept me so comfy warm, I only needed one blanket on each leg. It was uncomfortably warm in the airports, in fact. In all, this sweater has seen Singapore, Korea, Vancouver, and New York.

I used a thinner yarn on purpose, hoping that I could just knit one of the existing sizes and not have to actually redo all the math. (I’m not afraid of math, but if I don’t have to do it . . .) Happily, it worked out to knit the smallest size in the book. But I actually used the principles and lessons imparted in the Big Girl books to think about whether the motif needed to be sized down further as well. I wanted it to be in proportion—and the tighter gauge accomplished that—but I decided that it needed to be still smaller. However, I swatched the “cable” part (which isn’t really a cable, it’s just an increase on one side and a decrease on the other) at different widths and preferred it the way the pattern indicated. The part I changed was the eyelet panel, which felt too wide as it was. So I dropped it down to just 4 eyelets, instead of 6. The additional stitches were transferred to the stockinette panels.

Mirage (my ravelry page)
Pattern: Mirage Pullover (rav link), from More Big Girl Knits
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, which softened upon blocking and wearing
Skeins: 6
Started: Sunday, July 13
Finished: Saturday, July 26
Needles: Addi Turbo US 5
Notes: I’d figured that there was risk of the sweater falling off my shoulders (and other knitters reported such), so I’d planned to work the yoke further than called for. Because I transferred the stitches taken out of the eyelet panel to the stockinette panels, this meant that I already worked the yoke further in order to decrease until the stockinette section had disappeared on the arms. It was perfect with just that change—probably about 1 additional inch.

On the sleeve (above) I didn’t do the increases the way they said—between the purls and the stockinette section—because it produces a distinct jog; instead I did M1s one stitch in on each side. Adds some elegance, to my eyes.

Other mods were to not make yos in the “cable” panel but to do M1Rs and M1Ls. This was no big deal until I got to the short rows at the neck, when working the M1s backward was too much for my brain to handle. I’m not even really sure what I did, but it’s not noticeable so it’s fine.

I think I made the sweater overall too long (that’s the hem above), but I’m not going to change it. I knit until I got to a length I liked—which turned out to be the length given in the pattern—but in the wearing I think it could be about one inch shorter. It doesn’t grow or anything, it just feels too long.

Over the years, I’ve knit far too few sweaters (being a product knitter I tend to love the quick, fast knits), but I want more, more, more—and this was a great first step.

Erm, wait, it IS February. But it seems that the February Sweater bug is making the rounds–do people feel more inspired to knit it during the second month of the year, or is this a fluke? Because Annie just finished hers (we can’t believe she finished before me. Not that I think all knitting is a race, but well, I wanted to win), and Stacey is teasing us with her completed one. These are just two of the blogs that I read; I didn’t dare check Ravelry.

Baby Sweater on Two Needles, or as it’s more commonly called, the February Sweater
Knitter’s Almanac, by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Liza Souza Super Sport, colorway Can’t Elope
Needles: US 5
Size: Longer than the pattern specifies, by about an inch or an inch and a half–eh, I had more yarn and I figured, why stop now? However, I will venture to say that this additional length reduces the cute factor ever so slightly.
Started: February 4, 2008
Completed: Last end sewn in February 20, 2008
Modifications: Knit the sleeves in the round. Down with seaming!
Notes: The reason this took so “long” compared with other tiny things that I knit is that I debated the closure. EZ calls for buttons, and there are some great examples out there with different button placement. But I wanted something that would up the cute quotient.

Pom-poms were clearly the answer. And some 3-stitch I-cord pulled it all together perfectly. When I did the yoke increases, the typical twisted M1s were making the rows look a little wonky, so I went with lifting the strand between and making a hole—the slight laciness in the yoke is cute, and that last row of increases was perfect for weaving an I-cord into. I think my I-cord is something like 20″ long.

This is another baby knit that is awaiting its recipient—and let’s all keep our fingers crossed for another girl, ok?

Many thanks to Brenda for being the first to let me know of my idiotic mistake, in which I completely shut my own blog down due to financial issues. That is, I forgot to update my credit card info with the various agencies that I needed to pay upon the anniversary of purchasing the domain name and server space. She instant messaged me with a “what happened?” and I was like “huh? . . . oh, SHIT!” [smacks head]

So I quickly paid up, and fretted about the potential loss of everything, but it seems we are unharmed. All that time away gave me some time for this, though . . .

Not a final final swatch, but definitely an informative tool for slight tweaks from here.

Yes. I was up way too late last night obsessing over that yoked pullover of Hermione’s. I spent a lot of time looking at some of the great links people provided and researching yarn, again beginning with a suggestion from the comments. After dinner tonight, I broke out the colored pencils.

And I started charting the colorwork. I’ve since moved to Excel, where I can copy, paste, and see the repeat quickly. Only once I swatch will I really get a feel for how this will look. And I can’t swatch until I get some yarn, right?

My current choice for yarn is Karabella Aurora 4–from the name alone it’s appropriately Harry Potterish. I will try to find the time to get over to School Products (home of Karabella) this week to look at the yarn and think about colors (do I go with Hermione’s brown and tan? Or brown and something else? The white is most definitely my favorite part, so that stays). I expect to be knee-deep in this one by the weekend, if possible!

I plan to provide this pattern when it’s ready, if it works. (Likely for a small fee.)

It’s the birth of the Auror Pullover.

My understanding of blocking is that you do it to “relax” the yarn into place–to set all those thousands of little stitches. I don’t really understand what happens with the whole fact that the fiber will bloom and get bigger. When it’s dry, it goes back to its “natural” state? Or it only goes back partway, perhaps? Or only to where you pin it to?

See, I thought (foolishly, apparently) that if yarn had been washed several times before, it would have sort of worked out its blooming/shrinking issues. You see where I’m going with this, right?

The yarn I reclaimed from the Ex’s sweater had been washed before. In sweater form, in unraveled form–what other form could I have washed it in? I even did that thing where you sort of stretch the reskeined yarn out with a hanger to smooth it after you’ve washed it. So I knit up my Cambridge Jacket, taking the recommended measurements and assuming that any “growth” would be minimal.

Oh how wrong I was. The fronts, to the armhole, are longer by an INCH AND A HALF. The sleeves? FIVE INCHES longer than they’re supposed to be. I am an idiot, apparently. So now what? Will it shrink as it dries? Or do I have to take it out and start over? I don’t really think that just shortening the sleeves is going to help. This requires an overhaul.

I’m sorry, but my feelings on this can be summed up in one glorious word: FUCK.

Today was all about treating myself. Treating myself to whatever I wanted. And boy did it feel good!

First, I took some time to decide on the special patterns I’d work on for ME. I’ve always loved the Adrienne Vittadini “Allegra Twist-Front Top” (on the right), despite the fact that the very few bloggers who have managed to get through it have reported ridiculous errors, confusion, and complications. In fact, everyone says that about all Adrienne Vittadini patterns. Am I insane? But it’s so pretty! I don’t even like the lace or patterning all that much–it’s the twist and the seam across the bust. All I really want to do is read the pattern to figure out how it’s constructed, then I can start to build my own pattern out of it.

I also think I’m going to get Wendy of Knit and Tonic’s latest, Sahara, from Stitch Diva. The yarn raises a big issue, however. There’s so many reasons to not buy the Tilli Thomas the pattern calls for (cost, the whole keystone pricing thing, and, most importantly, the fact that it seems to knit up looking more variegated than mottled, and I hate that striping), but what to get instead? I’m not opposed to KnitPicks, really, and various reviews of Andean Silk have been largely positive. But then I thought maybe I’d go to Tess Designer Yarns and treat myself to something special (the silk & ivory is the wrong weight, but I could make it work). Of course, there’s only pictures for a few of the colors; I’d have to call and talk to someone and would have to tell them what color I want, which means I have to know when I call what color I want. Instead of trying to find a sequined/beaded yarn, I think I’ll do the beading myself. I’ve never knit with beads, and it’s about time. So this project will be an undertaking, to say the least. I’m on a quest for yarn and beads. Thoughts?

This afternooon, I treated myself to other things–most notably, new clothing. It was the “friends & family” weekend for the whole Gap co (Banana, Old Navy, Gap), so two friends and I went shopping. And wow, we did some damange. I needed tops in colors and jeans that would fit. I got a little more than that.

We were in the Banana Republic for literally hours. The lines to get into dressing rooms and then to pay were interminable. Afterward, we went to the Gap but I didn’t get anything, and by then we were too exhausted to go to Old Navy. I got everything I needed, anyway.

And then, tonight, I rediscovered my love of cooking. My cooking mojo had been on the fritz for a while–six months? A year? I’d cook, of course, but it was uninspired cooking. I moved to New York, alone, and it got worse–I couldn’t get excited for my “party” of one. But tonight? It was a celebration.

It’s a grilled tuna steak, perfectly rare, done on my grill pan, which just came back to me. Alongside we’ve got balsamic-roasted cipollini onions and sauteed baby bok choy. The tuna and onion combination came from Giada de Laurentis and her Family Dinners cookbook. (Since I’m on the subject of Giada, you must read this. Be warned, you will pee in your pants it’s so funny. At least, I can’t not laugh at it.) Back to the food. This is what hers (or her food stylist’s) looked like, in comparison:

I didn’t do too shabby, did I? The tuna, cut to my specifications at Citarella, was melt-in-your mouth tender. It was amazing.

I’m sitting now in a mess of a living room. I have every single kitchen item known to man in here now (my belongings were returned to me yesterday). So not only is my cooking mojo back, I have all the tools with which to play! It’s gonna be an adventure.