Soho Dress and New Project Yarn - it doesn't get any better than this.

At least, for a knitter it doesn't. A real live finished object - one that fits, one that is the right color, the right shape and well. . . one that's just right. I had the best time wearing this dress yesterday. I adore the way the skirt swings about my legs. I am thrilled with the texture of the yarn - even if it is already showing signs of it's Merino-ness. I knew that when I bought it. That is why there are sweater shavers and very sharp little scissors. Wearing it is like wearing the most luxurious hug, the silkiest bubble bath, the best heated massage. This is a winner.

I wish the photos weren't so yellow - but that is the light I was working with and, of course, these are reflected photos from my bedroom mirror. The one photo I let ThePrince take ... oh god. It was so butt ugly it would make you weep. Honestly he is the absolutely worst height for taking pictures of me and when I think that every time he looks at me he sees me looking like that!! It's a miracle he loves me. Or else his aesthetic judgement is so out of whack I can't trust anything he says ....

I couldn't help posing like a grouchy librarian - because when one is taking one's own photo in a mirror - it's hard not to get silly.

And so. Next up is this - Happy Yarn purchased several years ago at a Stitches event when it was still being held in Baltimore. It's a very bulky yarn. It's actually orange, purple and a lovely steely grey. It knits up at 3.5 stitches to the inch on a #10 needle - and it is going to be a boxy Chanel style jacket in stockinette stitch with garter stitch cuffs, hem and side edgings. I'll knit my tube with steek stitches and slice it down the middle. I believe I'll knit it from the bottom up because I already know how to do this ... but I will take a peek at the Barbara Walker knitting from the top down book first. I do like the idea of getting all that neck, shoulder, bust and armhole shaping done first and then just zipping on down to the hem. If I can figure it out quickly I will give it a try. I may also send out a distress call to Kristy McGowan, my new go to guru who designed the Soho dress. She is accessible via Facebook and is smart, warm and generous with help.


I am, at last, voiced again, though it's a weak voice. It's been a long slog of feeling sorry for myself and dopey and tired and schlepping around the house. I'm glad I had that dress to work on, since, by that time I was knitting the skirt and that was pretty mindless knitting. But as I begin to speak at last, the brain is beginning to think as well - strange wonders - and perhaps I shall have more interesting thoughts to post in the near future. 

Silence is Golden

 A whole flock of goldfinches is spending the winter in my front yard. When they're not at the long feeder hanging at the edge of the woods, they're here in the shelf feeder right outside my living room window. Tufted titmice (?), little black capped chickadees, and beautiful sparrows with dots of gold feathers around their beaks are the other regulars, supplemented on stormy days by cardinals and even a bold Jay who announces his presence with a loud caw.



And on one special day there came this pretty pink house finch. We don't see many of them, though they're common enough around here. Just a little shy. Here in my un-raked front yard they are perfectly camouflaged.


Of course no wintry feeding station is complete without marauding squirrels - which I rather like, just so long as they don't chew through the porch screen and the plastic lidded bins to eat sunflower seeds. Unfortunately, they do, so this year I have a metal lidded garbage can that I'm keeping in the front yard.

Goldfinches aren't the only golden thing around TheCastle this week. There is also Golden Silence, since TheQueen has been felled by the twin -itisses: bronchitis and laryngitis. The one struck on Sunday, when I was too sick to even knit!! The other blow fell on Monday and on Tuesday I hied me to the doctor who made my life better with chemistry. Bottles of pills later I am feeling somewhat human, though my voice remains but a faint croak ... or would do so if I were so foolish as to try to talk. I have a laptop for communicating lengthy prosy thoughts to ThePrince - who is truly a prince and is reading Ivanhoe to me.

How can it be that I let nearly 60 years go by without reading Sir Walter Scott? I believe it was because I didn't want to struggle with the rich tapestry of high flown pseudo romantic language. Having immersed myself in Dickens at 11, I have never since felt like wallowing in complex compound sentences unless I was writing them myself. I will admit, there are some fairly blooming sentences in Scott's prose, but he never loses the thread of  the story, which is great fun. I can clearly see the foundation of all my favorite swashbuckling knightly historical novels in his noble work.

It struck me today, that the reason these novelists of previous centuries were so wordy is because they didn't have an audience primed by vivid moving visuals the way modern authors do. Think on this: The average person has seen castles attacked, buildings collapse, babies born, lavish balls where gallants squire fair damoiselles, train crashes, safes cracked open, gunfights, ships sink - even wizards' and witches' wands perform magic- all this before she is 10 years old! Who needs lengthy descriptions when she already carries the images in her mind? Can't she get the highlights in 180 pages or at most, 360 and use her filofax of celluloid memories to plug in the necessary visual?

More books are filling in when ThePrince is otherwise occupied. I'm just at the end of my annual visit with my beloved Betsy-Tacy series - which I pick up every November, right after Thanksgiving. I am also reading Expecting Adam, by another, albeit more recent, favorite author, Martha Beck. Though I only discovered her a year ago I am an avid fan. We aren't much alike, she and I. She's very intense and expresses herself in superlatives. Her swings are much wider than I can imagine living with and to have submitted to the pressure to please others as completely as she once did is really unimaginable. And yet - from those wild powerful impassioned depths she has written a truly magical story about carrying and mothering a child with Down Syndrome. I had to borrow it via Inter-library loan but I am adding it to the collection even if I have to track it down on the used book market. It's a treasure. Kept me up till 3 am. last night.

Yes. There is knitting news. I'm stitching the last ball of yarn into the skirt portion of my dress. After that I'll take a picture - or I may finish off the sleeves first. What this dress really needs now is a good wet block. It's as lumpy as an orange peel. And my goodness! are there a lot of ends to darn in. No wonder this yarn was so cheap at Elann. Every ball has had a knot it it and some had them in multiples. Isn't it a good thing I like darning in ends? Each darn is like a final pat goodbye to a beloved knitting project.

I'm not going back to work until I can actually talk - so, with Monday being a holiday, that means I'll be here 5 languorous days with nothing to do but knit and read and nap. Doesn't that sound heavenly?

Moment of Decision and another progress shot

I'm working on the skirt of this dress. You add stitches at evenly spaced points every so many rows. For my dress I'm instructed to knit an increase row 7 times - but here I am at only 4 increase rows and look how wide that skirt is getting. I believe I will stop here and just knit down. I'm wickedly short waisted and smaller on the bottom than the size of my top would call for on any ordinary fashion sloper.

Fewer increase rows mean less stockinette knitting to do and less weight overall - a consideration with Big Knitted Projects. On this last day of 2010 it will be interesting to see how many inches of skirt I can knit.

Of course - since it's finally warming up into the 50's AND it's sunny outside - I believe I shall plant those last 100 daffodil bulbs first.

2010 was the best year of my life and something tells me I ain't seen nothin' yet. Hope you are in the same place.

Progress Shot

Brrrr. It's just too durn cold in here to write much today - but I wanted to share a photo of the Soho Dress as I begin the long decent towards the skirt hem. Looks like I have about 40 acres of stockinette to knit.

I'll be back when I'm not so blooming cold.

Ta.

Snow plus Vacation plus Knitting = HEAVEN

 It snowed all day yesterday, making a curtain of white flutter in every window. Since it was Sunday we had our weekly pile of pancakes, for the guys, smothered in sorghum molasses, for me in regular syrup. Then it was bundle up and go out to investigate the wintery forests. I love it here in eastern Virginia, where there is an understorey of holly trees. Our West Woods has such old ones that they actually tower themselves, though they're topped by majestic pines and ancient hardwoods. I never cease to marvel at how snow transforms a forest and I always get the feeling I'm walking in a Christmas card, even if the month is February or March!

 Every branch seems like snow lace - every surface is transformed into something out of Narnia. Bundled up humans move with wide swinging arms, stuffed tight with sweater sleeves and vested tummies.

We couldn't capture this in the photo, though we certainly look snowy and happy, but we were standing beneath a vaulted holly cathedral of white topped glossy green leaves. Brrrr.

I can see out the French doors that the sky is clearing and cold north winds are shaking the snow frosting off the bare limbs in our yard trees. It's Monday. I'm on vacation. I'm just not sure how I will spend this day but I'm sure it will include some knitting. I realized last week that I'll be teaching a sock class in January in a store across the river and I don't have a sample sock for the store to display. I picked up a ball of (be prepared - hold your breath) acrylic sock yarn to knit a sample sock. I don't usually 'do' acrylic anything but this is what the shop sells. It was not too bad. It is certainly a color that I think people will be tempted by. It went fast because it was knit on #3 needles.

But today - ahh today. Today I get to bring out my Soho Smocked Dress and work on her a while. Maybe 2 inches more of smocking and I will begin the skirt. Photos coming soon.

So -  what is the Day After Boxing Day called?

Ganging aft agley - those plans of mine

I am officially on vacation. I don't have to go back to work till the 29th of November, which seems like a long time from now. Considering I was only in the office a day and a half this week, I have almost the feeling of a 2 week-er about this vacation. But this is not the vacation I was expecting to take - which was an extended weekend in NYC with special friends that included - along with delicious meals, thrumming urban sightseeing, and Real Shopping - two evenings at the opera. Instead, I will be spending quality knitting time here, in their waiting room, while BD has More Eye Surgery. 

Ah well, the best laid plans of mice and men, hmmm? And even agley plans can have their silver linings. I mean - there will be quality knitting time. There will be other operas and other trips. But there are only these eyes and the prospect of better health for a big darling. All in all - I'd say it's a fair swap. 

Besides - I am never sorry to spend time at my house with my dogs and my toys. Right now I'm moving slowly down the bodice front of my Soho Dress. The directions are for you to knit the two pieces at the same time - these shoulder fronts, both right and left. Using 2 separate balls of yarn, I might add. Now. I know there are eager super efficient types who do this all the time. I have a friend who always knits 2 socks on 2 circulars, gleefully exclaiming that this way she never suffers from second sock syndrome. I tried that once. It was horrible! Theoretically you're supposed to get through things faster this way - it's so efficient. 

What nobody tells you is that the 2 balls of yarn are always getting twisted around the cable and around each other. You pull on the yarn and suddenly your garment is strangled. Nothing flows. Nothing moves till you painstakingly weave balls of yarn back the way they were twisted. Where is the time saving when you are constantly stopping to untwist the mess?  And for that matter,if you're going to knit 2 socks at a time, why not 4 or 6 or 20? Well. Here's why. 

The Reality

The Dream

And as for Second Sock Syndrome (for non knitters it means you finish one sock but can't bring yourself to knit the same durn thing all over again so you end up with .... yup. Just one sock) -  my solution is to just wear a sock once it's finished.  Who's looking beneath your trouser cuffs? And miss matched socks are stylish - in a youthful funky way. 

The generous and very warm hearted author of Modern Top-down Knitting wrote and told me Not To Worry - that she didn't knit 2 shoulder pieces at a time either - never had done and didn't write the directions that way either. Evidently a pattern editor or perhaps a publishing director, had decreed that 2 pieces at a time was their policy for knitting patterns. Since no less a knitting designer than Elizabet Zimmermann struggled with this same editorial policy - I'd say Ms. McGowan is in good company. EZ tells the story of how her first seamless circular fair isle yoke sweater pattern ended up being printed as a flat knitting design with the yoke sewn on after the body was assembled!! I mean - what were they thinking?!? Why would a pattern publisher want to torture so many knitters? Getting revenge for childhood sufferings? sheesh!

Anyway - I have nothing but More Adobe Colored Knitting to display right now and I am sure, it's Tangled Adobe Colored Knitting. Even though every stitch of this dress is interesting for TheQueen to look at, I will spare my viewers till I have a little more geometry to display. Instead I close with yet another beautiful autumn view of TheCastle's back yard. Since I am on vacation, it just might be a good day for a picnic, hmm?

From Greedy to Gracious in 9 sentences - plus a 99% Finished Object

I-cord bind off

  And so I am at the 99% done stage on that Shawl Collared Vest I began last August. I had only inches more garter stitch to knit but I had forgotten all the little fiddly bits that come after all the knitting is done. The weaving in of ends. The tacking down of facings. The buttonholes. Finding buttons, for that matter. Ha! That task took an hour! Happily, buttons were found and ends are woven in and all that is left is to finish of 3 buttonholes, sew on 5 buttons and wetblock this baby and I can wear it later this week. Because I've tried it on and I know it fits! Yippee!

 

So close - and yet so far away

what 99% finished looks like

This yarn is from my stash and there is a LOT more left - in assorted colors. As I've worked on this vest I've pondered other things I might make from it. I'm a greedy puss when it comes to knitting. Almost everything I make is for myself. Of course, it isn't just greed. There's something extremely intimate about knitting, especially when you are a process knitter like me. And it is a slow process - it involves lots of thought, both of a practical nature, while planning a project, and of a more introspective, even fanciful nature during the long hours spent quietly moving stitches from one needle to the next. I couldn't possibly spend 300 hours doing something unless I took great pleasure in - at every stage. That pretty much means I have to be knitting to my taste - and I don't expect anybody else to share my taste. I knit socks for my guys and every now and then I make something cashmere-ily luxurious for a close friend. But I am far too polite to foist my taste onto somebody else.  

Ooo. How do you like that reasoning process? From greedy to gracious in 9 sentences!

In other Knitting News - TheQueen has cast on her Soho Smocked Dress! In fact, she has dubbed this a New Beginnings Project - a sort of Knit A-Long sponsored by Clara Parkes for her Retreat attendees. I am not an attendee, though I have been in past years. She has kindly invited Others to participate. The intention behind the New Beginnings Project is to knit something for yourself that pushes you a little out of your comfort zone and this knitted dress certainly does that for me.

It's the first dress and the biggest project, I have ever attempted and I want to finish it by January - preferably by the time I go back to work after my long Christmas vacation. I love the dress - I think it will look good on me - I seriously love the yarn but my goodness. 3,000 yards of yarn is a LOT of knitting. I am going to need all the help I can get to finish this. It was an extreme extravagance to buy MoreYarn and put it in TheCastle. I don't want to hear any tsk-tsking even from my inner Virgo scolding self. For this project I will be a joiner.

My MondayMonday photo is completely untouched by digital paint. This is really what it looked like yesterday - and I am not ready to move away from such a beautiful day. Rain is due tomorrow - I'll be glad to look on this the rest of the week. I hope you enjoy it too. And so I bid you all a happy Monday. 

27 Balls of Yarn

This is what 27 balls of yarn looks like. 2 bags of 10 and another bag of 7. A bit daunting, but exciting. Mostly, though, I am disciplining myself to Finish my Now to be collar-less shawl collared vest without sleeves. There are only a few more rows to do on the button band and it will be done. I am not 100% happy with how the button band looks ... it's a little loose. I will block it - and wear it - and if I am still not happy I'll rip out that band and reknit it more tightly. 


Blocking does take care of a multitude of defects.


But this box of yarn is beckoning me, and its siren song is quite a bit louder than the mewling plaints of the almost finished Christmas Socks for BD and that ball of yarn for making LD's Christmas Socks that is somewhere in this house. I am going to have some long stretches of down time in the next week or so - waiting times that are good for filling up with knitting. I will do my dooty by those Christmas Socks, including digging up the missing yarn while cleaning the house today, but for the most part I am going to concentrate on this box of brick colored goodness. 


 I stepped outside early this morning, before the sun had peeped over the treeline. This is a view looking south  along the east end of the farm and you can see the gegenschein towards the west. I often catch this in the evening, especially in summertime, when the pink of sunset glow actually forms a rim around the whole farm.



Just bring that view in a little closer and you can see the vivid colors of autumn, still rich and delicious even as we roll through November towards Thanksgiving. The long drought, late rains and warm temperatures have prolonged our colorful display - but yesterday we got our first frost. Today there was another one. These colors won't last long and soon the trees will stand skeletal against the winter skies. 

I couldn't resist taking a few more shots - I never tire of autumn and I smugly believe I live in the prettiest place in the whole world - even if we don't have ocean waves or mountain backdrops. Who else has a house peeping out from behind a forest fringe?

Or a back yard that glows?


Of course - what I am really doing is postponing the monumental Heap-0-Housework I need to do today if I want to be able to enjoy the rest of the weekend. Alas. Now that I have confessed I am unable to linger in play. So. Off I go - reminding myself that caressing my possessions, even if it is with a dust cloth,  is a privilege, not an obligation. Right?  Yeah. Right.

Swatches - and tough decisions.

Soho Dress Swatches

I cast on two swatches last night, the Elann.com Highland Wool and the K1C2 Camelino.  I was lookng for 4  things: 

What the fabric looked like

What it felt like

How easy to knit the yarn was

How fun to knit the yarn was

I switched back and forth between the two swatches so I could get a good comparison. I really like the Highland Wool color - it's a deep russet brown - almost a sassy color. It sort of twinkles, which is something you won't pick up in an amateur photo shot in my kitchen. Knitting it was pleasant with little splitting and a cooperative stitch definition. The fabric created had a nice texture but nothing out of the ordinary. There was still the hint of scratch to this wool, though, that worried me. As the swatch grew I kept placing it on sensitive body parts, hoping to find a definite "Yes" or "No" reaction. It never happened. The itchiest place was right at the base of my neck ... and the dress doesn't really touch that part of my neck. all those other sensitive spots had no complaints.

The Camelino is a softer, duller color. It also knits into a softer plushier fabric. On #7 needles it came in at 4.5 spi in contrast to the Highland wool's 4.25. In either case I have to go down to smaller needles to reach the 5x7 SxR gauge called for in the pattern. Truth is - the knitting pleasure factor of this yarn beat out the previous swatch, hands down. The thought that kept coming to the surface was "Butter!"; not just with the stitches on the needle, but also with the delicious, plump fabric I was making.  And at 10 o'clock at night, I was sitting up in bed thinking "Boy! Knitting this yarn is FUN!"

It's just a wee bit more expensive - but there is another secret savings stash in my house that could pony up the extra $30 or so needed to support my SILM jar contribution.  And when I think of the millions of stitches I'm going to have to knit to make this dress - I believe the actual knitting pleasure is as important as anything else.

So. Why haven't I placed an order yet? Well. I had to get my thoughts in order, of course, which is why I'm writing this out. And then - there is color issue. The Camelino's soft color - which matches the soft fabric vs the Highland Wool's bolder color, and somewhat itchier fabric. I'm more of a big bold color sort of person. Even when I try to mute it down, I tend to pick louder colors than anybody else in the room.

Still and all - this is a WHOLE LONG SLEEVED DRESS. Do I want a lighter softer color all over my body or do I want to go big bold. Well. The highland wool isn't big and bold. It's just a sort of twinkly brown. But it isn't plush. Honestly this is a tough decision,  being pushed by the fact that the yarn is on sale ... and could be sold out quickly.

Sigh

Decisions, decisions.

Choosing a yarn

My package from Elann.com came yesterday - the one I ordered on Friday - the one full of different red yarns. Alas, the photo doesn't really do justice to the colors, but right away there was an elimination. The Sonne is the wrong red. It's a bright cherry red that longs to be stranded with some beautiful  whites and greys and blacks, or put together with a kelly green, lemon yellow and sky blue to make some little girl her favorite jacket. Alas for this. It was $1.85 and would have knit me up a dress for $50 which is just about what was in my SILM jar.

Of the other three, this is the one that had the most delicious color. It's Elann.com's own merino/silk/bamboo yarn and is of a redness that makes my mouth water. The silk gives it glow, the wool gives it heft, the bamboo gives it a next to the skin softness. Alas. It is also the most expensive, coming in at $3.98 a ball (still very reasonable) and I would need $104 to make this dress. I'm a little worried, too, about the sag factor. I haven't actually ever worn anything with bamboo in it and, really, the butt sag worries me with this yarn.

Elann.com's highland wool is a wonderful color - a little browner than red, but still very Bess-ish and Queenly and a dress this color would be flattering to me. At the end of the day, when I'm a little more tired and a little more sensitive, this yarn had a little more of a scratchy feel to it. Since I'm considering wearing this yarn over my entire body ... itch factor plays into the equation. This morning, all rested and post-morning coffee and feeling snuggly and relaxed, I can't find any scratchiness to it at all, so this not only a definite possibility, but also puts this yarn in the lineup for a swatch.

Alas, when I purchased this sample skein last Friday they were selling this color in blowout sale bags of 10 for something like $1.98 a skein. That also put this yarn in the front running since it would knit up a dress at $53, which is what's in the SILM jar. I can't find it on sale today - but them's the breaks with a place that sells remainders. Its regular price is still low enough to bring me in a dress at around $67.

K1C2's Camelino is another strong contender. The color is much more a clay color than a red, but that's still a lovely shade for TheQueen. I can wear just about any earth color. This yarn is very smooth. It doesn't have a lot of bounce to it and is more tightly spun than the highland wool. It has a fabulous next-to-the-skin feel to it. A dress in this yarn will come in at $80 but I'd have to jump on it toot sweet. This is in their discount bargain bin. Today there are still 50+ skeins in stock but I would need 27 of them to knit up my dress.

Guess what I will be casting on today.

And in case you are wondering what TheQueen has been knitting on the past week or so - I am sad to say ... it is not the Shawl Collared Vest which is languishing on a dresser by my bed - but somewhat out of sight. I have been making hats, from other yarn that has been languishing ... more in my line of sight, on the chair by the window. Evidently if I have to stare at unknit yarn long enough, it's misery will register and I will knit it out of it's unhappy state.





Here I am trying on the hats I've been knitting - this one is of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride and something south american ... maybe Manos ...  a single ply in variegated colors - I'll get better photos when it's actually done.

And here is the sample hat I've been knitting along with my students. I think it's a little big because the brim covers up the first row of colorwork, but hey - it's a sample.