FO: hourglass

i finished it a few weeks ago but haven't had time to take a picture. i like it. it has stretched a fair bit, and it is a bit flash dance-y at times, but the yarn is so soft and luxurious. all in all, a good knit despite my problems with the pattern. ravelry details here.

hourglass = donkey balls

when i say that a knitting pattern is poorly written, i am not saying it as just some bitter knitter who had to rip back about 40 rows of knitting. of course i am bitter about having just ripped out 40 rows of knitting, but! i am also a professional writer so i do know what i am talking about.

i do get paid to take scads of information and make it clear and concise. i have a degree in it. i've been doing it for nearly 10 years. i know of which i speak.

the hourglass sweater pattern sucks! donkey! balls!

the instructions are not clear. i did read them and re-read them more than a few times. apparently my reading comprehension is lacking when it comes to this pattern. i was nearly done my decreases when i tried the sweater on tuesday night at knitting. the front looked great. the back was all droopy and weird and yeah, donkey balls.

did i mention i had already grafted the arm pits? i ripped back to the graft and carefully picked up all 200-and-whatever number of stitches and started decreasing again. le sigh.

in other news, two weeks ago we had the mother of all snow storms. my mom needed to do some errands in the middle of the storm and i was still acting as her driver. as we walked out of chapters, i was looking down and spotted an ipod in the snow. it was barely visible and at first i thought it was some glossy apple insert for a magazine. i picked it up and lo! an 8 MB video ipod in bright pink, in perfect working order.

i walked back into the store and asked them to put a note with my number in the lost and found. the ipod has been sitting, waiting for it's owner call for two weeks. can i claim it as my own yet? maybe this is my karmic reward for returning two lost cell phones.

if you have an ipod, put your name and number in it. i would totally give this woman a call if i knew her number.

hourglass

sleeves on, decreases started.

yoke

the hourglass sleeves are now on the sweater and i am onto the yoke. (i know pictures are appreciated but i need good light and i'm not home during daylight...)

i had some time on sunday afternoon and so kitchener-ed the underarms. the pattern calls for 4 stitch holders and 40 stitches just hanging out on those underarms until the end. they were annoying me, getting in my way, so i knit 'em up. i'm really hoping the sweater fits because i don't want to undo those pits.

considering i started this sweater just over a month ago, i feel like i am making pretty decent progress with the little amount of knitting time i have. i'm at least 80 % done if not a little more.

i have a feeling that i am going to finish the sweater, seam up the sleeves, give it a nice bath, block it to perfection, and as soon as it is dry, spring will arrive and i wont get to wear it for at least 6 months. sigh.

i am seriously behind on some baby knitting though. and those babies don't exactly keep in the womb. one is already out! and one is over a week over-due. eep.

back on track

after re-reading the hourglass pattern for the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th time, i finally figured out that i did not have 10 stitches too many. i'm right on track. huzzah!

the first sleeve is now attached to the sweater (after reading and re-reading that section 16 times), and the second sleeve is cast on. i'm in the home stretch!

ack

i missed my blog-aversary (blog birthday?). anyway, it was a couple days ago. trixie, unraveled is one year old. i feel i've been a rather poor blogger. i'm still struggling with the publishing details about my life into the great beyond (i don't like it), while using this tool to stay in touch with a couple friends (hi hk! hi beckstar!). i can't seem to find a middle ground, nor do i have much time to knit so posts are sparse.

on to the updates!

the hourglass sweater: loving it. can't wait to finish it. counted the stitched on my sleeve last night, which is almost done, and i have 10 stitches too many. i really have no idea how i managed to do that. there's some decreasing and some increasing. perhaps i didn't decrease enough and have increased more than i meant to. i need to sit down in some good light with no distractions and figure out where i went off the rails. the good light and no distractions thing may take a good long time to come around so i'm miffed that my progress is no longer progressing.

question to the knitters: when a pattern specifies how many stitches you should have at the end of a round, do you ever count them? i rarely count. obviously or else i'd noticed i had more stitches than i needed quite some time ago. i figure that i know how to read a pattern so...i should just have the right number of stitches. damn it all.

a pattern note, i do hate the way this pattern is written. i feel like i need to read things 9 times before i understand it and am constantly assuring myself that no, it makes sense if i just think about it long enough. in my professional opinion (as a technical writer), this pattern is bunk. and i'm not just saying that because i have 10 extra stitches.

my mom: doing fantastic. her sister is visiting and the two of them are having a grand old time. we were just over there for some risotto and frittata. i'm still full and it had been a good 3 hours since we ate.

my wee man: just darling. i know parents dote on their kids and are biased but mine is rather cute and clever and charming. he doesn't sit still at all, ever. he stresses us out because he doesn't eat all that much. his words are coming fast and furious. he can mimic sounds really well and surprises us daily with new sounds and sentences. he's cuddly and friendly and has the most wonderful laugh.

prepping

my mom's surgery is tomorrow. i just checked in with her and she's doing fine. cleaning the house like a mad woman because her sister (lucy! in waterloo! i know!) is coming next week. she was lamenting not washing her floors. she's been off her artithis medication for a week because of the surgery and can barely walk and she's worried that she should have washed her floors. i think she is a wee bit nervous.

in preparation for a few long days hanging out at the hospital, i am packing:

1) the hourglass sweater yarn, pattern, and needles. time to cast on!

2) my ipod. i'm loading it up now and wondering if i should find a podcast to keep me busy or a e-book from the library. i'll do that next.

3) snacks and water. cereal bars, some baby carrots, a banana, gum, maybe i'll snag some arrowroots from the wee one.

4) a magazine. today's parent. i live on the wild side.

5) a book. balazac and the chinese seamstress (book club) or divisidaro, m. ondaatje.

lots to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied while they de-uteru-ize my mom.

wind it up

that atrocious gwen staffani song has been in my head since wednesday. that woman has some serious balls to rape the sound of music that way. now you can have it stuck in your head too! sorry about that.

why do i have wind it up on the brain? tuesday night was the guild meeting. (those guild meetings are a topic for another day. remind me.) i happily took possession of the swift and ball winder and headed home. first thing on wednesday morning, still in my pjs, i set it up and got winding.

and oh! the fun! and the speed! it took about four minutes to wind 250 yards of the kyoto cotton. and two minutes for hourglass noro. i went a little nuts. i dug out every poorly wound ball of yarn in my stash and went about setting it right. i wound 20 balls on wool on wednesday. 20! i did have them all lined up on my dining room table but started to worry about nefarious acts committed by microscopic bugs and so packaged everything up in ziplocks.

i am so excited! and i have to admit, if spinning is half as fun as winding balls i fear i might develop a new hobby.

a big shout out to bethy for talking up how much i need my own swift and winder in front of the boy.

lottery!

i almost forgot! i went to the LYS on saturday after to pick up the extra two skeins i needed for the hourglass sweater. incredibly, it was the same dye lot! woot! lynne, lovely and talented sales person, suggested i go buy a lottery ticket. heh.

Hourglass

i recently checked last minute knitted gifts out of the library and absolutely had to have the hourglass sweater. the sweater is made with noro's cash iroha yarn. people rave about noro yarn but i've never knit with it. i find the colors very muddy and dark and kinda ugs; however, cash iroha comes in solid colors. and is very soft. and pretty. and expensive.

off i toddled to my LYS to squeeze some skeins and decide on a color for my hourglass. the sweater in the book is knit in a fabulous orange. i look great in orange. the "orange" at my LYS was not nearly as nice as the one in the book (it is called "curry" apparently.) instead i chose the perfect red for me.

of course, the LYS didn't have enough of the perfect red to make the sweater. i turned again to the trusted internet. and found 10 skeins on ebay for $77 less than what i'd pay at the LYS. woot! and it arrived today! isn't it pretty? i can't wait to cast on.

i need 11 skeins for the sweater and i've read that some people have used almost an entire extra skein. option 1) i'll pop in the LYS to see if i can match the dye lot (not likely). option 2) use the non-matching skein(s) to knit the turned hems -- body and sleeves -- and inside the neck. option 2.5) one smarty pants out there used a contrasting color for her hems but i'm not sure i want to do that with this perfect red. maybe blue? option 3) i can also do alternating rows in the body to hide the mixed dye lots.