Knitting: Insanity Halted

Well as much as I love the look of the Autumn Rose Pullover, and love the idea of knitting such a cozy thing, I think I'm scrapping my two inches of progress later today. I'm not even going to frog it, just save the needles and toss it. Why? Because when I started getting into the color changes, I really hated the way the colors combined. My yarn people may think their colors are decent substitutes, but I assure you when it comes to the "original" color scheme, they do not.

That, and the chart for this thing is set up in an insane manner. The light color yarn is indicated by shaded boxes, and the dark color yarn is indicated by white boxes on the chart. WTF? The chart is hard enough without having to have to think about which color is which at every color change... and there are a LOT of them.

I'm still thinking of charting my own pattern though... without the insane number of striping changes.

I'm pretty much finished with the blanket coat. It's wearable now, with the sleeves set in, but I think instead of stopping there as I originally thought, I'm going to go ahead and pick up and knit the facing for the borders.

Another change in my plans is regarding the pound of natural Oatmeal Blue-Faced Leicester I spun up, hoping to use it for the coat on the cover of the Fall 2009 Interweave Knits magazine. I've already knit one coat, I don't want to do two. So I've started a very simple shawl with it. They're Aran to Bulky weight one-ply singles... so the project is going quite fast. I've got about two feet done on a garter-stitch border, triangular shawl, and I've just started insetting a garter stitch in the center, using appropriate increases and decreases to keep the border and middle stockinette as an even stripe. It's kind of a chevron look, but the stripes are four inches or so wide.

So far I've used about three ounces of what I had spun up... that leaves a heck of a lot left, including a huge bag of the fiber that hasn't been spun yet. However, this is soft, incredibly fuzzy warm stuff. It will make excellent winter garments.

I will most likely have enough left for a very chunky-knit sweater. Here's hoping!

Knitting: Stop the Insanity!

I don't know whether I mentioned it, but I ended up turning my "No-name" scarf into a headband instead by binding it off after only seven or so repeats and stitching the ends together. I felt like I needed something warm over my ears and bad-hair-days more than something lacy and pretty around my neck. Since my pictures look crappy unless I set them up with proper lighting and such, I don't have them at this moment. I stopped being a perfectionist with my blog, remember? That way lies procrastination.

I am nearly finished with my Blanket Coat. The body was bound off yesterday and set to block while I started on the sleeves. I'm a repeat and a half into them. I decided to do both sleeves at once on my circular needles so I don't get second-sock syndrome... (for non-knitters, that means procrastinating on starting the second item once the first is done). By doing both at once, I also ensure that any mistakes made will be symmetrical, and look like they belong. Kind of like Ray Romano's joke about checking to see if you have the same oddity on the other side of your body... if there are two weird lumps, they must be intentional and part of a set.

This week I also started the "Autumn Rose Pullover" I've wanted to do for two years. Knit Picks had their translations of the colorways into their own yarns up waaaaay before the book even became available to the general public, and I had been on the waiting list. What I did NOT REALIZE was that this is a knit-in-the-round intarsia sweater on SIZE 2 NEEDLES. Yes. Size TWO. I must be insane. Even on socks I will try to stretch the limits of proper guage to do them on size 3 or even size 4 needles.

So after a couple of days (which, granted, has been interrupted by the Blanket Coat knitting) I have a grand total of ONE INCH of the sweater done. It's ribbing, in two colors, but quite striking. This will be an heirloom sweater, for sure, but man... I have got to be crazy.

Of course, now I have these running dreams in my head of making up my own intarsia patterns and cranking out a billion of them, even as I curse my slow progress. It's so slow, but oh, OH so pretty.

Knitting: I Can't Get No...

... Satisfaction. Even at the ancient age of 40 (and something), I know I'm a little young for that particular Rolling Stones tune. Still it fits. Go, Mick.

I'm not technically done with the Blue Log Cabin yet. I bound off the last segment, but I haven't picked up the stitches for the new segment. It's about the size of a very large and bizarre shawl, but I think I'm done with it for a while. I can only do *so much* garter stitch.

I think the Purple Moderne Log Cabin blanket is felted into my couch, I haven't touched it in so long. Even in Knit Picks Palette, it's frikken expensive.

So late last night I started a fairly simple scarf (Scarf with No Name... pattern designer's words, not mine) with some Twisted Fiber Arts Circle sock yarn... I want to say it's her Arial yarn base, but who knows? I don't have a memory for these things, and I wound it into a ball months ago, thinking I was going to start some socks. Hah. I suck at socks. When I complete a pair, they're great, but dang it takes me a while. My point being, the label is long gone.

I've hit the point in the "Some Coat" project where I split for the sleeves. I've done the left front and the back segments, and am about a third of the way through the right front. Soon I'll be reconnecting for the long haul to the bottom, then the sleeves, finishing, and it's done. A quick look with my tape measure, and it appears it will be as long as the photo implies. I guess the model is a full-heighth woman after all. Those numbers looked really, really small though.

So I'm excited about knitting again, which is nice. The scarf is a quick knit, but it's lace, so it's not recommended for bedtime knitting when you want to relax. The blanket coat is not as boring as the name implies with its alternating squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette. However I want to finish it faster than the small amount of late-night knitting I do allows. So I'll probably be trading off the two projects during the day, and doing "just a few more rows" on the coat at night for the relaxy factor.

Meanwhile, another dentist appointment today. New insurance, so he wants to do a full workup again since the last one is three years old. Normally I would say this smacks of fraud, but there have been enough changes that I believe he's right. He was even kind enough to schedule a bit of extra time in case any work needed to be done. I'm hoping not, but you know how that goes. By the time *you* know you need dental work, it's already almost too late, really. I know it's a pain, but keep up with your checkups, people. It makes a HUGE difference in your health.

And it's no fun not being able to chew. :D

Knitting: I swear, it's a coat!

Well I decided to (metaphorically) get off my hiney and start a new project, even though I am still working on my Dixon Knitters blankets (for the new people, I started a log cabin blanket and a moderne log cabin blanket at the same time... I know, I know). They are mostly stockinette or garter stitch, so they were kind of boring to do, even watching TV, and I spent less time knitting as a result.

Then I started (literally) grinding my teeth over my dental bills, so I knew stress-reduction was needed. Spinning and knitting are the two best stress reducers I know of. Since I'd ordered more spinning fiber for *that* project (the Clasica coat on the cover of the Fall 2009 Interweave knits) on Oct 8th and it still hadn't arrived due to a backorder on the buttons, I had to find another project fast.

I ordered a bunch of Knit Picks Gloss in heavyweight worsted (not fucking cheap, let me tell you), and started the Winter Wonderland coat. And re-started. And ripped back five times. There is something seriously wrong with that chart! The pictures show a lacey leaf shape flanked by lacey diamonds. At the top of those diamonds, the last row of them (at the edge of the repeat, no less) is a left-slanting decrease, then two yarn-overs in a row, followed by a right-slanting decrease. The next row was straight stockinette. Huh?

There had been previous rows with double yarn-overs. That wasn't what was boggling me. The problem is the row above it... how to resolve that last double yarn-over wasn't addressed. I ended up with a huge ladder above the diamond, no matter what. And since that wasn't what the finished coat in the picture looked like, I was at a loss. I tried looking up the erratta on the Interweave site, but they must have been having problems because every page I went to resolved into a 404 error or a database error page. Finally, I gave up. I mean, this was supposed to be stress *reducing* right?

So I switched to a coat I'd started and frogged in another yarn and color, the Blanket Coat from Knitter's Magazine Winter 2006. It is a basic blanket shape, with sleeves added at a strategic point allowing it to be worn as either a duster, or a cardigan with a very large cowl collar. At least this is what the pattern claims.

In any case, I'm now knitting yet another blanket. But in squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette, so it's slightly less boring. I even have pictures:



Okay, I have *one* picture of my progress. But that is two-days-worth of knitting, so it's proceeding quite quickly.