Knitting Infidelity

It's true - with only scant inches to go on Brica I cast on with the Cascade 220 just to see, you know? It doesn't mean a thing. I swear it, I was just curious.

It's true, too - I feel so guilty about abandoning Brica at the altar that I am always taking the new knitting along and leaving the chart behind so I can't knit on it - I guess the truth goddesses are trying to make me be faithful.

But I really will finish that sweater. I promise. I'll do better. I'll do better with blogging too - once I get through this patch of busy-ness that is January.



There is good news on the technology front - I got the help I needed with the EReader, I train my staff today, we go live on Wednesday but we'll let it seep into peoples' consciousness for a week or two before we do the big publicity push.

I'll get around to ordering a new phone too - but cell phones rank low on my list of priorities. I need a new one - especially with my aged mother who was ill enough this week to need hospitalization. (She's better, btw) But I am in the same 2 places most of the time and both of those places have land lines.

And of course right in the middle of all this stuff I took a day off to go lingerie shopping. Ever since I watched that first episode of How To Look Good Naked  I've wanted to be fitted by a bra whisperer so a few weeks ago I wrote to Laruen DeLoach, the fashion columnist in the Richmond Sunday paper (just in case she actually lived in Richmond) and asked if she knew who the best bra fitter in Richmond was. She recommended the folks at Blythe which, technically, is in Henrico, at Short Pump across from that vast sprawl of brick shopping,  on the south side of Broad Street. She also said don't try to shop there on Saturday, but I didn't need that advice. A Master Shopper, I know that Tuesday or Thursday mornings are the best times to get super personal attention anywhere.

At my age it takes a little guts to go talk bra fitting with sylph-like twenty somethings in size zero clothes, but Anna was enormously helpful, knew the stock inside and out and brought me dozens of pieces to try on so I could be sure I got what I really wanted. I wore my new acquisition out of the store and let me tell you - there is nothing but nothing quite so wonderful as strolling around in new undergarments that fit you to a T. mmm mmm I was walking tall all day long.

The shop doesn't have a website but they do have a facebook page here.  And for the curious, you can see what I bought here.

And now? Now it's Friday. Friday Friday Friday Friday Friday

Why yes. I do plan to knit a little this weekend. Why would you ask?

First Glimpse of Brica

Whoa - didn't mean to disappear like that - stuff just happened. PerfectAngelBabyDarlingOnlySon, a.k.a. LD,  returned from a month abroad - which always makes the tempo around TheCastle different. He's another dawn prowler and I don't like to use a computer when there is a PABDOS to talk to. 

Then more family showed up which made electronic devices even less interesting. Only niece on my side of the family is adding a new generation so we welcomed the 2.5 of them on Saturday for a long delicious afternoon of talking, walking and eating the magnificent honeybell tangelos I brought home on Thursday. 

I am in love with her man and think her father would have adored him. I'll just have to love him twice - once for me and once for Ned, who surely is smiling down from that great archaeology dig up in the sky. 

But I know my faithful readers are really longing to hear about Brica (the former Aran) so here she is - in all her penultimate glory.

  

 I'm delighted with the neckline, over which I agonized. I am less thrilled with the sleeves which want to poke up right at the seam and feel a little skimpy at the very cap. Too narrow. This tells me that I either:

a. came in too far when I was decreasing from the body

OR

b. decreased too frequently as I was taking stitches from the sleeve

I'm going to go ahead and finish the sweater. Yes. I know - complete with neck band that I will have to rip out if I decide I'm still unhappy with it. But I'll block this baby and see if that will take care of the shoulder and sleeve cap issues. If it doesn't - there are 2 more skeins of this decade-old Cashmerino Aran to reknit the shoulder area. I can do that.

Something odd cropped up while I was dithering with the shoulder part this weekend. I decided to weave in ends, a soothing task that is my second favorite part of sweater making. (the first is casting on, of course) I found a hole. A hole with ends woven in around it. When I plucked out the ends to see what the h????? there was just that - a hole - and 2 stitch loops on the bottom - 1 stitch loop on the top of it. I can't figure it out. I can't imagine when this happened. This is so definitely not the way I knit - with weird surprises showing up at the end. Eh. It is darned. It shows - to me - but I know where to look. Thank goodness, it's on the side, in the stockinette part of the sweater, pretty much where my arm will hang down and hide it. But - weird.  

I'm anxious to finish this baby up before what little cold weather we've got left is gone for good. I have two other sweaters just begging to be knit and warm weather will be here before you know it! 

And now - it is Tuesday - this week's Monday. Ta.

I Can Do The Hard Stuff

Here is proof that TheQueen really can do what has to be done. As you can see in this photo - the decreases in the sleeve did not a sleeve cap make - a sleeve peak, maybe, but not a cap. The unfortunate thing is that I really knew this within oh - a few inches of sleeve decreases - but thought it might not be so bad if I continued on making decreases into the sleeve every other round. 

wrong

I will know better next time. My excuse is ... no excuse. Just laziness. 

Of course - this is always a disappointment to a knitter and TheQueen is no exception. I just pushed the whole sweater into a corner on the couch and told myself I would get to it later. And of course, I went back to work the next day, and the gym afterwards, and then I was sleepy and went to bed early - after a nice hot bath. And then it was Wednesday and there was no knitting that night because I will not cast on another thing until Brica is finished - but who could finish a sweater that needed 8 inches of shoulder knitting frogged? 

The dilemma then was - if I wanted to knit - I would have to frog first - and so yesterday morning the ordeal began. 

To prevent creating a vast nest of tangled yarn I tied the loose end onto my swift and twirled away at that, simultaneously unraveling my knitting and making a tidy skein - there were 2 skeins worth of yarn to pull out of my poor sweater. 

I'm happy to report: Nasty Task completed (even that length of yarn is nicely wound into a center-pull ball now) and knitting can resume this weekend.