Gathered Pullover: so close

So, so close.

I finished the bodice:



(sorry, 1 a.m. and bad overhead lighting does not make for good photographing. But I was just so excited!)

The end was in sight. When I tried it on, though, the bottom (the cast-on edge) was really, really tight. I thought long-tail cast-on was supposed to be pretty stretchy, but this was just so binding and immovable.

So I picked out the cast-on, all 184,724 (approx.) stitches, and re-bound off with a sewn bind-of a la EZ. Stretchy, flexible, and totally worth the crick in my neck.



I really should look up a better cast-on next time, though.

Anyway, the point is that I am now So. Close.



So close.

Meanwhile, the Flamingo Scarf resists being photographed, but it is a pretty color!

My Knitting Fantasy Life

In my knitting fantasy life, I am knitting Tempest. I even have the colors and the yarn picked out: Fleece Artist Blue Faced Leicester 2/8 (the recommended yarn, even!), in “Aurora” and “Amythest.” (link to a site that has both colors) I can see it, in my imagination—I can see how the almost-solid Amethyst picks up the purple tones in the Aurora. Since this is my fantasy and I can do whatever I want, I can also see how the sweater knits up in two weeks with no trouble at all, and how I'm not even bored with knitting an entire sweater in laceweight yarn, and how it fits perfectly and hugs my curves in a tasteful (not too tight) way. And since I’m fantasizing, I’m wearing Tempest for an evening stroll in a moonlit garden with a handsome fellow, or perhaps to my exciting and stimulating job (instead of the certain spinsterhood and unemployment that I am convinced awaits me after graduation).

I love this sweater. I love the fitted shape, the teeny little buttons, the wearability of the classic shape paired with the possibilities for wild colors. My fantasy sweater is beautiful.

Back in reality, meanwhile, there is no moonlit garden, I need to do laundry, my kitchen floor is suspiciously sticky, and I’m drowning in an ocean of denim blue and I’m worried it’s not going to fit.



I tried it on when I finished the front last night, and it sure looks like it’s going to be too big in the bodice—but it’s impossible to tell because the back isn’t finished. So I’m knitting as fast as I can, thinking in my faultless knitter’s logic that if I knit faster, it will fit better. Much like how knitting faster helps keep you from running out of yarn.

On the bright side, if it does work, I've already finished the sleeves, so I'm superclose to being done! At any rate, if I manage to pull this off and it does fit—-or if I’m going to be wearing an expensive and time-consuming sack-like object—

It is pretty! I had to color-correct this photo like crazy because um, newsflash, taking pictures at 11 p.m. does not do so much for the natural lighting, but check out how the cable turned out:



Nonrelatedly, yesterday I saw these guys singing a capella and dancing in the metro:



If you can't make it out, they're all wearing oversized Barack Obama YES WE CAN shirts. I love DC.

And finally...my Flamingo Scarf (for that, I have decided, is the best description of the color), poses in the sun on the train platform. Little does this innocent little lace scarflette suspect the massive (not really, I'm just a whiner) tinking that lies ahead. Lesson learned: don't drink and knit, kids.*

*Although as of thirteen hours ago, I am twenty-one! So said drinking and knitting, while not optimal for the chart-following, is at least now legal.

Necessity is the mother of invention

Being a poor college student, meanwhile, is sort of the mother of necessity, so does that make poor-student-hood the grandmother of invention?

Maybe. But so what do you do, poor college student, when you want to knit your pretty scarf but you can't print the chart because you have no printer, and you can't keep track of your rows because you have no sticky note?



Yes. You improvise.

How to make a sock

How to make a sock in 8,251(ish) easy steps
by Rita

1) Buy sock yarn.
2) Vastly overestimate your knitting abilities and the speed with which you will finish previous projects. Carry sock yarn all over three continents (I do not exaggerate).
3) Finally cast on (on the train from Valencia to Barcelona while listening to Harry and the Potters, which for some reason I remember very clearly. Funny, actually because it was SO LONG AGO). Decide to do a picot edge.
4) Instead of a using a provisional cast-on and then unzipping it, attempt to pick up your already cast-on stitches. With sock yarn and tiny needles. On a moving train.
5) Develop a raging headache
6) Make a bizarre twisted Mobius-looking picot edge
7) Decide you can't face doing it again. Charge ahead bravely.
8) Knit the leg on a plane over the Atlantic
9) Upon landing and unpacking, shove the sock in progress in a corner somewhere.
10) Ignore for three months
11) Dig out sock, examine.
12) Decide cannot take any more of knitting leg. These will be short socks.
13) Knit 3/4 of heel flap.
14) Get distracted by something (school? Band? Pretty new yarn? Who knows)
15) Ignore sock for five more months
16) In an effort to avoid studying for finals, dig out sock, finish heel flap, turn heel
17) Knit sporadically for a month or so
18) Finally, finally finish toe while spending four hours on a plane that's stuck on the tarmac, while listening attentively to the scintillating (rather one-sided) conversation of seatmate (age 6).
19) Decide twisted picot cast-on is just too ugly for words. Also, foot-amputatingly tight.
20) Attempt to rip out picot edge
21) Ripping is harder than it looks. I have to unpick each and every godforsaken little stitch.
22) Oh god, my neck is killing me.
23) What's happening to my eyes? Is it normal to need bifocals at age 20?
24) Screw it. Where are the scissors?
25) Yep, short socks.
26) Finally get rid of the remnants of the doomed picot edge. Decide to knit a short little 1x1 rip instead.
27) Knit ribbing.
28) Ignore sock for three more weeks (seriously, this is pathetic)
29) FINALLY work up the energy to look up a sewn bind-off and finish sock.
30) Eleven months after cast-on...



I made a sock! Now, do you think by the time I finish the second one my grandchildren will want to wear them?

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorway "Tuscany," approx. 3/4 of a skein for one sock.
Needles: I forget. Wooden DPNs, size 1.
Pattern: Standard flap-heel sock recipe; originally with picot edge, but, well...

If I am completely honest I am not entirely thrilled with this sock. I used 72 stitches on size 1 needles, but it's still pretty loose around the ankle and foot. Next time I might try 68, or even 64. And would you look at the POOLING! I hear Lorna's Laces is pretty bad for that, actually--although a different stitch count might help. Except oh wait, I have to make another (identical) sock to make this thing called a PAIR. Drat. On the other hand, I do like the stretchy sewn bind-off!

Midsummer Progress Report

Name: Rita
Grade: Is "college" a grade?
Subject: Achievement of Summer Knitting Goals

Category 1: Gathered Pullover
Grade: B+



Points given for successful "gathering" of cable. Points deducted for the fact that I started this sweater in January. (Sorry the picture sucks--you can actually see the cable a little better in real life).

Category 2: Trellis
Grade: INCOMPLETE
Yeah. About that.

Category 3: A baby sweater. Any sweater. Just knit a damn baby sweater.
Grade: A
Body completed, sleeves on the way! The sweaters for the small people, they go fast.





Garter stitch around the bottom. Simple and cute, no? I'm going to jazz it up with some embroidered flowers around the edges. It's a little shiny right now (that would be the microfiber, I think) but my swatch sort of softened and fuzzed a little when I put it through the washer and drier.

Category 4: Finishing up old stuff
Grade: A!
Details to come...but here's a teaser. Does it...could it be...is that a sock?!



Category 5: Not starting new projects until successful completion of categories 1-4
Grade: FAIL



Um. Yeah. I would just like to say that this is ENTIRELY Rosa's fault. All of it. Why, she came right over here and put a gun (made of candy) to my head, and she told me that if I didn't cast on for a new project RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT she would...um, she would...yeah, OK. But it's true, though, she did gift me the yarn for this project (Drops Alpaca, lovely and soft and an impossible color to describe. Is it salmon? Or hot pink? Or coral?) And she has been knitting lace and telling me all about it, and what can I say, all the miles of blue stockinette, interrupted only by tan stockinette, finally got to me. I'm weak.

The pattern is from here and looks like it will be lovely. Assuming I don't get bored halfway through, what with how I hate scarves but always seem to forget that.

Relatedly (not really, except in the category of "stuff I made"), you know what's awesome? Baking!

Before: ugly-ass "pie."



After: Crispy, peachy, deliciousness!



Seriously, this was just about the easiest thing ever. I bought frozen pie-crusts (I was very slightly ashamed of this, but then recalled that the last time I tried to make a pie I accidentally put four cups of vinegar in the crust. I am not even kidding.) Then I chopped up some peaches, added some flour and sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg and stuff, and tah-dah! Delicious.

Option #3 it is

A new pattern. In spite of my deep emotional attachment to Trellis and all those cute cables, I just couldn't afford more yarn and didn't want to knit a sweater that would stand up on its own, so a new pattern. This one could not be more different from Trellis and its cables; I'm making an incredibly simple top-down raglan cardigan from here, and maybe a hat to match if I have enough yarn.



And I just found out, when I was at home, that the baby is a girl! So I think I'll embroider some sweet little flowers to jazz it up a little.

Look at those nice paired increases! This should be a pretty easy knit (note to knitting gods: now that I have said that, please do not light my needles on fire. Thank you).


And my other projects are coming along, too! It's amazing what a few weeks with a 9-5 job and no homework will do for your knitting. The sleeves on my Gathered Pullover are finished (for the second time, after the first attempt ended in crap), and the body (not pictured) is just up to the cabling at the bust. I might even have an actual sweater, for an actual grown-up person, to show off one of these days! But don't get too excited.





Oh, that reminds me, though--there's an FO I never showed off! It's not a knitting project, actually, but I'm still quite proud. It's a lovely linen skirt, in pattern "I don't remember" from "Simplicity? I think? Or maybe Vogue?"

I must confess that while I did all the cutting and the lion's share of the sewing, I did not QUITE finish it before I had to go back to school after last Christmas break, so I had a little help.


See that nice piping? That would be Mommy.



But I am quite pleased and proud, though, and I wear it a lot. There was one screw-up; I had intended it to be a nice high-waisted skirt, sort of fifties-style. When I tried it on, though, it ended up falling significantly below my belly button. This means one of two things:
a) I magically lost fifteen pounds between the cutting and the trying on, or
b) I am a doofus who measured wrong.

You decide.

But still, though, I really, really like it--the linen has a nice weight and drape to it, and it's perfect for summer.

Plus, I get to do this!

DAM(n)

Hey, what does a fish say when it runs into a brick wall?
DAM!

And what does Rita say when she blatantly ignores the very concept of gauge and thus throws her carefully planned project into chaos?
DAM(n) IT! DAMN SWEATER! DAMN %$&! GAUGE! &#@! NEEDLES! DAMN.

Indeed. OK, so remember, how I was making Trellis? And remember how I had that nice yarn? And I was all "Screw it, I'm not going to check my gauge, the yarn's kind of the right weight, I'll just cast on blithely and see what happens? Because hey, it's a baby sweater, it'll fit the kid eventually, right?"

Yeah. This is what happens when you laugh at gauge:



Looks normal, right? What you can't see is that the back, or at least what I've started of it, measures 14 inches across. Which is fine, except that the schematic says that the smallest size (6 months) should be 10.5 inches. Siiiigh. And I would almost be tempted to just keep on knitting, but the biggest size (for an eighteen-month-old) is supposed to be 12.5 inches across the back, which means this thing might fit a two-year-old. Yeah, not so much with the toddler clothes at a baby shower, right? And I would STILL almost be tempted to just keep knitting (because evidently I am both that stubborn and that dumb) except I would probably need more yarn, right, if I were sizing up from a six month size to a two-year old, right? And this yarn, as you may recall, is DISCONTINUED.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

Last night, after I'd finished grumbling and sulking about the fact that the precious little sweater I'd envisioned just wasn't going to happen, I made a list of my options:

1) Get new needles. Probably not. Not because I'm cheap, but because I really liked the fabric I was getting on size 6s. Even if I did manage to get gauge on smaller needles, it would probably be way too stiff. Useful if the kid ever got caught in gang warfare crossfare and needed to be protected from bullets, but probably not the look I'm going for.

2) Get new yarn. A possibility. Advantage: I would still get to knit Trellis, which I SO want to make! Disadvantage: I PROMISED myself I wouldn't buy any more yarn this summer, with the intention of being able to buy, you know, food and stuff.

3) Get a new pattern. Also a possibility. In an ideal world, this pattern would be written for the gauge I'm actually getting (18 st over 4 inches). I've looked around a bit and not found anything, but I'll keep looking. Advantage: cheaper than buying new yarn, plus I already have the Adrienne Vittadini and it'd be nice to use it. Disadvantage: I want to knit TRELLIS, damn it.

Hmmph. In the meantime, here's the dinner I made the other night; I appear to be falling into my father's school of cooking, which can basically summed up as the following:
1) get some stuff from the garden (or farmer's market)
2) cook it up with olive oil and garlic (some's good, more's better)
3) put cheese on top (not pictured)



Yum yum.