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. 

Normal Time and 1 Progress Photo

I absolutely love it when daylight savings time goes away. I can't understand why anybody wants to tinker with time anyway. If noon is when the sun is directly overhead - for goodness sake! what sort of hubris-like overload is going on when we say it's an hour later?

Of course -  TheQueen considers sleeping a recreational activity and that being up at dawn is the Right Thing To Do - a personality type that is at war with DST. The party-all-nighters probably think I'm crazy, but We Morning People know we're superior.

Why yes. I did marry a night owl... why do you ask? We met on the stairs, of course.

So please know I'm teasing about this - I will accept that the world needs both kinds.... (mutter mutter mutter).

The weekend was beautiful - a pretty sunshiny Saturday and a Sunday that grew into its name. Since ThePrince and I have never been to the Urbana Oyster Festival we thought this would be the year to go. I had forgotten why I had never been tempted before till we got to the parking space - where they were charging $20 to park. Then I remembered. Of course I understand why it costs so much to park. I completely agree with what the UOF committee is trying to do. I wish them every success in their fundraising efforts. I completely understand why they need to ferry folk in and out of that tiny little town. I understand what that costs. I just didn't want to spend that kind of money. I know for sure that each oyster would cost about $1 and when it comes to eating oysters ... I like my own oyster cooking just fine and for $25 I can buy a quart of good ones. So that's what we did - drove home, stopped at TBonz and Tuna - and we had Oyster Pie and home fried oysters for Saturday night dinner.

Me - when I could eat 2 pans of biscuits

It's been a looooooong time since I've cooked anything with a biscuit crust - or cooked any biscuits at all,  for that matter. Time was I would bake a pan of biscuits for dinner - eat them all - and then bake another pan for dinner. Really fine biscuits are a taste from heaven - wheaty, fluffy, with a steamy rich smell. They don't even need to be buttered. Of course - real biscuits can only be made with lard - which, for geezers with heart issues - is what? the Sweat of Satan. But for flavor - only the real stuff will do. And with Thanksgiving on the horizon and pumpkin pies waiting up ahead I'd bought some lard the last time I was at the grocery store ... because Everyone knows you can't make decent pie crust without lard ... except if you're making puff pastry, which calls for butter, so ... what's the difference? Both of them are sure artery cloggers. Eh. It's just once a year.

Yup. It was as good as I remembered. Sigh.

The rest of the weekend was spent pretty much puttering around. And trekking through the woods with BD He's been working hard clearing paths and trying to get the big trees cut into firewood before the farmer needs to harvest beans or put in wheat. It's a scramble because the ground has been too wet to drive the truck up to those trees. But we've got a heap big pile of firewood for the winter.

I did get in some knitting - though somehow I managed to let 6 stitches slide off the needle right where the only complicated cable cross is on this pattern and had to rip out 2 inches of sleeve... but here is a shot of what I've done so far on Bricca. Perhaps you can imagine the missing bits. I'll plug away on that second sleeve (13 inches of stockinette) and try to reach the underarm joins by the end of next weekend. It's a 3-Day one happily - there may be some extra knitting time.

Otherwise - it's almost 8 - time to get ready for work. Happy Monday.

One Sleeve Done!

Just a quickie post about Bricca. I am on sleeve 2. What does it look like? Like sleeve one, of course. I will knit as fast as I can so that maybe there will be something worth photographing by the end of the weekend.

And now - I'm off to do my A.M. Yoga.

And Then There Is Knitting

 After all - TheCastle is a knitting house. It's just that - there's not much to see yet - most of the first sleeve, perhaps 4 inches more. I did switch to stockinette on the body after 5 repeats of the entire pattern but it was a difficult decision to make. If I am not entirely happy with the switch ... and I have tried the body on and I'm still undecided - I can always rip it back and knit the whole body in the arcade design. There is enough yarn. But I need to see it hanging from shoulders first and the only way to do that is to knit away.

Here's a closeup of the cuff - which I think is pretty upside down, though, it no longer looks like cathedral arches. Nothing for it now except for More Knitting. Hmmm. There's a little time - I believe I can get in a few stitches right now.

TA

Frogged

Yeah. I can do the hard stuff too. Before Bricca could calcify into a UFO I ripped out that loose stitching. I decided to give the KPDreamz needles a second chance. It may not have been their slickness but my tired hands that caused all that sloppy stitching. And I'd really like to spend more time with these new needles. Not that there will be much knitting done today - it is Wednesday, and in the middle of October that means quarterly board meeting AND pre-school story hour day. 

And if there's time this evening I'll stop by the brand new wine shop in Tappahannock -



for their Wednesday afternoon wine tasting. Yum. They promise a Cabernet Sauvignon - and that's my current favorite wine. 

Baaaaaad Skein

Man - I have had such trouble getting Bricca off the ground - or at least, out of the skein. I've cast on half a dozen times. I joined the knitting with a twist, ripped it out and knit the set-up round - Rnd 2 - at least 3 times. Ugh. I am blaming the way the skein was wound at the factory, combined with the softness of this plush merino, cashmere and microfiber blend. Three slippery fibers who want to wander all over the place are a natural for tangling and misbehaving. I will not, of course, blame the fact that I made this first mess after a nice dish of shrimp scampi with a crisp white wine, while watching a movie.  

I finally had to give up on this hot mess, take it off the needles and leave it in a heap. When I am not wining (and whining) I will untangle it and put things to right. I will have to do quite a bit of frogging because I am sure I will need every inch of yarn I have to finish Bricca. Eventually, all swatches will be sentenced to the frog pond. 

But at last I have the beginnings of a sweater and am motoring along nicely. This is because I rewound the skeins with my trusty blue ball winder, releasing this long stored yarn from any bad karma left over from being rejected for 6 years. In it's new cake it feels free to become all that it can become - which is 15 arcade patterns sweetly marching round the needle. 

How I wish I could stay home today and as BD says, "just ka-nit ka-nit ka-nit." Especially since it's once again raining. But a nice long weekend is coming soon. There will be ample knitting time then. I am sure I can't complete this sweater in 4 weeks, but I bet I can have it done before Christmas.