Strange Saturday and Sandy Preparations

Try as I might I have completely failed at quelling that anxious sensation about a coming storm. Usually I poo poo hurricane forecasts because hey - it's coming anyway. Nothing I can do to stop it. I am always somewhat prepared just because I like to have extras around the house. Also we're usually glad for the rain, though we didn't need all that Irene gave us. We could use some rain now, for that matter, though we're not suffering drought conditions by any means. But the thrum of angst - that energy which causes everyone to empty shelves in stores - is wearing.
This storm is moving slowly enough that it looks like it will ruin the first few days of the week - when I had planned to do Other Outdoor Things or Drive to the City, which I won't do in high winds. I'm glad I can drive a car but I am never in the mood to drive one. Many things can convince me to stay home.

Then - there is the threat of damage. I don't want to see trees down, I'm not in the mood for being without power as the long nights of winter take over from the lingering summer twilight. I don't want to see all the glorious colors stripped from the forest. grumble grumble grumble. Also - this low heavy cloudiness that presages the storm means I have to take my laundry into town to dry. Thank goodness I remembered Friday night, in time to do something about it, that, though the driers are fairly cheap to use, the washing machines cost a fortune in quarters now. You'd think if they're going to charge you $5 to use a washing machine they'd at least put a dollar bill box on the side.

Strange also is the fact that I haven't got a knitting project on the needles.

Ooops. Correction. I don't have an interesting knitting project on the needles. I am diddling with something made of brushed cashmere and silk that there is absolutely no hurry to complete - it's way too lightweight for the frosty weather of autumn. I also have the yarn to make an oatmeal aran - and only the last of the neckline to do to finish Bricca the Aran (which I may actually do if the weather shuts us in for days). I also have - not quite 50 shades of - Cascade 220 that would make the coolest looking intarsia cardigan. In fact it need not be intarsia, but I've been feeling like I need to knit something using that technique ... maybe even something with a random, serendipitous design.

Oh ... how typing that makes me laugh at myself. There's NO such thing as a serendipitous use of color. Oh - you may start out picking whatever looks good together - but after a while the project takes on a look - a color scheme that requires you to be deeply choosy about color just when you're getting tired of the garment and want to cast on something else. I can think of nothing more conducive to UFOedness than a random serendipitous colorwork project. Still and all .... I'm a little hungry for New Clothes ... or rather, Something New on my needles.



I'm just back from the Virginia Library Association conference - held, happily this year, in Williamsburg - where I am always glad to go, for many reasons, one of which is that the shopping is so interesting. Besides very quaint and often high quality reproduction stuff in the old town, there are the outlets - where, if you like only Jones of New York, or Anne Taylor, you can indulge yourself with whatever sartorial pleasures you're hungry for at slightly cheaper, outlet mall prices. The outlet malls have gotten so big now they require 3 stoplights on Rt. 60. I seldom have enough time to shop the entire length anymore. I'm usually either tired or short of time or with someone who wants to go into places I would skip, were I on my own. Friday, on the way home, I traversed the whole place.

And I was enormously glad I had spent last weekend sorting through and culling my winter clothes. Had I not, I know I would have spent several hundred dollars on lovely things that would not have fit in my small closet and 4 dresser drawers. (Of course - I could have another dresser drawer if I would only knit up the yarn I have stored in the bottom one) There are two things I need this fall - a down vest and a pair of dress boots and I didn't find anything that was exactly right ... and the dress boots are going to cost a bundle so I shan't buy anything that isn't perfect, while the down vests - of which there were dozens - were either of an unflattering fit or the wrong color. I would rather go vestless than wear something unflattering in either shape or color... and so I am. I will probably find the vest I'm looking for at Walmart.


The VLA convention is always associated with fashion to me because the first time I went - nigh on to 30 years ago - everyone had on the dark suit with silk blouse and foulard tie of John T Malloy's Woman's Dress for Success. I, otoh, did not own a suit and had only a plaid wool skirt with a matching sweater - something straight out of the Patty Duke Show. Back then, my wardrobe was limited at best and even then I wore jeans to work as often as I wore anything else. I did not return to VLA till I had a fancier wardrobe.

Yesterday I finished packing up summer clothes - culling from the heap all the saggy-but-serviceable t-shirts and baggy shorts, though I was unable to pitch the multiples that were in decent shape. I will do that in the springtime - at Tara. I did empty out a tub-and-a-half, so I put all the summer shoes into the empty tub. Usually they're piled in a heap at the top of the stairs. This year they are out of sight and stacked on top of another bin. Sweet.

I also managed to get the house tidy, dusted and vacuumed before we lose power - which the weather dot com guys assure us we will. I have water. I have kerosene lamps. I have battery powered lantern flashlights and extra batteries. I have a pot of chili. I have a gas stove. I have a basket of kindling and dry wood on the back porch. I have library books. I have yarn. I have watercolors. I will go fill the bathtub in a few minutes. I believe I am as prepared as I can possibly be. Now it's just a waiting game.

Take care all my friends in low lying areas. It will soon be better. At Tara.

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. 

Arcade swatch

As promised, here are photos of the BW Arcade pattern knit in Cashmerino Aran on a #7 needle. I think it's a particularly stunning pattern. I love how it looks in the yarn, though I don't think it lends itself to the pyramid design I talked about in the previous post. At least, not if I want to knit all the rest of the sweater in stockinette. I had thought those arching knit stitches would lead the eye along the diagonal but, in fact, this pattern really is a square of purls with bobbles surrounded by the knit arches. When you step the repeats you get something of a checkerboard effect, not a pyramid. 

See? 

It would work if I were knitting this in reverse stockinette - but truth is - I'm not all that crazy about the purl side of knit fabric - and I sure has heck don't want to knit the whole thing in purls. Ugh. I know all this sculpture is going to take time. I want the smooth part of this project to be fast knitting.

But I am utterly charmed by the pattern. It's easy to memorize, easy to read if I have to set it down for Other Things. I enjoy it enough to not mind the many repeats I'll need to do to carry it around the sweater body. The unblocked gauge I'm getting is 4.5 stitches & 6.5 rows in stockinette and almost a 1.5 inch square in the cable. But I have wet blocked it and it's drying on thick towels as I type this, because with cables, as with lace, you really need to have more gauge details before you cast on. 

I have 1700 yards of this yarn so I believe I'll have enough. Based on the unblocked gauge I will need 14 repeats of the pattern around and I'll make it 4 arcades deep. A slightly over-sized crew neck opening will be finished off with one round of arcades and the sleeves will end in a 2 arcade deep cuff. Everything will probably get an i-cord edging - much the way I did with my long lamented lost Flidas. 

So. That's the plan. After I have more concrete gauge information - sometime tomorrow.  

Two Swatches

I've always loved these richly textured all over stitch patterns in the Barbara Walker books. This one is easy - 16 stitches and 16 rows and it's nothing but ribs broken with garter stitch bands. And it's beautiful. I want scrunch it in my fingers to bite into it.   In my InnerDesignEye I can see this in a sleeve - I can almost see it in a pullover sweater body. My only concern is that it is a lot of knitting and purling. Lots of opportunities to make mistakes if I have to stay alert while knitting the approximately 60K stitches that go into a long sleeved pullover. Easy to fix, yes, but I don't think this will be brainless knitting. And to make sure it didn't ride up in front I would have to make it slightly oversized. Big Knitting in somewhat Big Yarn on a slightly Big Body? Maybe. Maybe not. But oh la! I love this stitch pattern.

Then there is this pretty cable. Running down both sides of a button band or perhaps centered with a little twisted stitch cable on either side of it - perhaps a twin running down the center back - it would be just enough to make a plain sweater interesting. A plain, almost brainless project that could be toted around. Something it would be easy to add short row bust darts to. 

The stockinette stitch and row gauge comes in at an estimated 4.5 stitches and 6.5 rows per inch - though I would block the swatch first before I cast on. The cable takes a smidge more than 7 stitches per inch. Not that it would matter much if I'm only putting in a few of them.   

So. Here I am. Still undecided. My PracticalBrain says "Oh go with the cable, silly" My FancyNancy Brain says "All over stitch pattern!" 

PB says "You'll get tired of having to concentrate and won't finish it"

FNB says "You'll always yearn for the pretty one"

PB says "You'll look like a mack truck walking down the streetn"

FNB says "You will look Celtic! and it matches your new skirt."

Ah well. There it is. My tweed yarn did NOT come in. It has 2 more days to make me happy but again - if it doesn't come in by Saturday I can always bring down the winter clothes on my Monday Holiday. 

Decisions decisions. 

UnAttic-ing Treasures

I really wanted to say unearthing, but I found this treasure in my attic. Because yes. There is Attic Stash too - in TheCastle. I am a knitter. What do you think is in my house?

Quite some years ago I saw the most beautiful red cabled sweater at some shopping mall store and thought "Hmm. I could knit that". Then I fell in love with this book and decided I wanted to knit the cover sweater. So for my birthday that year I purchased lots of balls of beautiful red Cashmerino Aran by Debbie Bliss from a very nice shop in Canada, the name of which I can now not remember.

And I cast on.

And I knit a good bit of it too before I realized I HATED that narrow cable on either side of the center panel. In fact, while I really love the look of cabled sweaters, I was not sure I had the discipline to actually knit a whole sweater's worth of them. So I set the sweater down. I cast on something new. I got tired of stumbling over that big bag of yarn. I packed it in a bin. I grew weary of having to move that bin to get to the stuff in the bin below. I banished the bin to the attic where I couldn't hear the yarn weeping. And there guilt was born. I know that we do get moths up in the attic. I know there's a chance that $$$ yarn was being eaten by hideous creatures who would live and reproduce and die in a wooly paradise.

Long stretches of time would go by when I could forget about that yarn but I always knew it was there and when I did think of it - it was with dread. I'd remember that yarn most frequently whenever I was considering making another big yarn purchase -  not when I was in a shopping frenzy at some fiber festival, mind, but whenever I was at home thinking "What do I want to make next?" - when I had to carefully consider, calculate and then lay out the cash. And since, lately I have been thinking about spending $$ AND knitting an Aran sweater, it should come as no surprise that the lovely red yarn, abandoned, but not forgotten, should at last take a stand.

And so I climbed the attic, flashlight in hand, and lo - in the very first storage bin I found Treasure. Lots of beautiful red cashmere blend yarn in a color I bet has been discontinued. After all, I bought this stuff 7 years ago!!! I inspected it carefully and then frogged it back to the ribbing. Not a single bite of moth damage in any of the  yarn - which leaves me feeling confident the rest of it, double packed in plastic, is in good shape.

So here I am - with a mountain of gorgeous yarn and a yearning to cast on something new (besides obligatory Christmas Socks - they don't count. I have to knit them). I won't try to make the cover sweater on that book. This is TheQueen. She always has to make up her own project. But I may use that pretty central cable. Or I may pull out my Barbara Walkers and pick something else.

Of course - there is now that big empty spot in the attic bin. I am sure the rest of the skeins inside are lonely and feel in need of some comfort shopping stash bin filling New Yarn. It's the end of September. Once I pay off Visa - I believe some oatmeal colored Cleckheaton tweed might come to live in that bin. Maybe. Perhaps. I'll think about it tomorrow. At Tara.