I finished Airy this evening. (it's from Spring 2008 Interweave Knits)

At first I kind of debated photographing it - I had showered and washed my hair, and was in pajamas and had no make-up on.

But I decided I had more time this evening than I would tomorrow morning (or tomorrow evening, for that matter: evening meeting). So I got dressed again, and combed my hair (as much as it will stay combed in the humidity we currently have) and put on make-up and photographed myself in it.

I'm going to refrain from commenting on how I feel like I look in the pictures. I recognize I'm going through a mildly body-dysmorphic period, and when I look at all these pictures I feel like they don't look like me for various reasons. So I'm not going to comment on how I feel like I look. (Also bulky yarn = bulkier appearance on body).

This actually feels a bit anti-climactic, I suppose it's because I've been working on it for so long. And because I'm kind of tired right now. And because it's HOT and I will not be able to wear this for at least two and a half more months.

So here it is, open, which is how I would ordinarily wear it:



(This is also the photo that I feel "looks most like 'me'")

And here it is closed. The sweater is shorter than I anticipated it would be; I think it will look better over a dress (but darnit, I don't think I currently have any dresses it really matches) than over slacks and a top.



This one is kind of dark but it was an attempt to show the buttons on the sweater. They are vintage Czech glass buttons (not sure how old; I'm guessing 1930s at the oldest and perhaps 1950s at the latest) that I bought at an antiques shop:



I think this is the best use of them because the sweater, when it is washed (infrequently) will be handwashed, so the buttons will be more protected.

I think I'm also going to include an "outtake" photo (I nearly deleted it from Flickr) here, because I have to admit even though I cringe a bit at how I look, it makes me laugh, because this is the kind of look I start to get when a student comes and says something like, "I forgot my paper can I e-mail it to you later today and oh I have to leave early because I have to take my kid to the doctor and I'm going on vacation in two weeks so I will be out of class, will I miss anything, kthx" and I am trying to avoid going all angry with them but am also no longer able to smile amiably. Call it the Cognitive Dissonance look. (Just as "stress" is "the thwarted desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it," Cognitive Dissonance is "I don't want to totally screw up my chance at getting decent teaching evals but I am beginning to feel my left eyelid twitching like Chief Inspector Dreyfus' as this student continues to ask for things I do not want to give")

This afternoon, I had to do something that probably every knitter winds up doing sooner or later.

I ripped back a sweater in preparation to start over.

I had been knitting along on the Cobblestone pullover a couple days ago, and I realized something was wrong:



Ruh-roh. (I don't know if you can see it well in the photo but there is a very obvious - even more so under fluorescent light - demarcation between where I ended the first ball and then started alternating the next two).

You know how those nice kettle-dyed yarns tell you on the label to "alternate skeins every 2 to 4 rows" because there are no dye lots?

Believe it. (or, as one of my colleagues threatens to write on student papers about proper citation: "Learn it, use it, love it.")

So I thought about it for a bit. And I decided it had to go. It wasn't a "wouldn't be seen from a trotting horse" situation. It was a situation where I'd think of it every time I looked at the sweater, feel unhappy about it, and probably wear the sweater less as a result.

I sat down and ripped it back this afternoon.



Going, going, gone...

I won't give you any of the melodramatic folderol some knitters would use - I did not have to lie down in a dark room afterwards. Nor did I need a stiff drink or even a strong hot cup of tea (the feminine restorative of choice in Golden Era British mysteries).

No, although I'm sad to lose all that work, I'm actually glad I did it. The resulting sweater will be nicer. It will look more even. I won't always wonder while I'm wearing it, "Is the light in this room making The Color Change look obvious?"

And the other thing - I don't often get a chance in my life to literally rip out mistakes I make - to go back, start all over, and have no one (except, well, the people I TELL) be the wiser that it went wrong in the beginning.

So the sweater is now in Sweater Purgatory (where basically good sweaters gone wrong go) and it will be re-knit (to mix religious metaphors, it gets a chance at reincarnation - but it doesn't have to come back as a cockroach or something unpleasant). In fact, I think I might cast back on for it tonight and get going again. I actually feel kind of energized about this; ever since I spotted that little warning on the ball band (after I was more than halfway through the first skein), I kind of felt wrong about the sweater.

So: Cobblestone Pullover is dead; long live Cobblestone Pullover...

For a little while, I was afraid I'd broken my knitting mojo. (Or lost it...I guess mojo is a thing you lose, rather than break? Or is that just the Austin Powers kind of mojo, which is different [and not necessarily a good different] from knitting mojo?).

But it's back. I really really love working on Cobblestone. I knit on it this morning while proctoring a test. I did find a place about 8 rows back where I had dropped a stitch - but when I came back around to it, I just worked it back up through the intervening rows (with the tip of the needle - I didn't even have a crochet hook with me, which is what I usually use) and kept on going. I was able to do that with ease because Araucania is such a well-behaved yarn - it's not super slippy, so the dropped stitch didn't ladder on below where I dropped it and missed it. It's stretchy enough that the place where I had knitted "over" the dropped stitch opened back up to let it back in. So the repair is invisible, and that pleases me. (Would that every mistake in life were so neatly and easily fixed.)

Oh, I love the yarn. Araucania is such a nice yarn. It's true that it's not as soft as some, nor does it have the funky Noro-esque color changes, nor is it even all that exotic. (It's just plain old wool. Not anything like Bluefaced Leicester or Magic Icelandic Sheep or even merino). But it's just so right for this sweater.

And I love the sweater design. I love that there are little panels of garter stitch that go under where the sleeves will fall. It gives it a rustic feel. The sweater looks like a sweater that someone living in a cabin in the woods would knit for themselves. It looks like a fall sweater. It looks like something you could wear to go apple-picking in, or to rake leaves or stack wood in. And that makes me happy, too.

I tend to prefer designs that are simple, but are well-engineered - designs that work without jumping up and kissing you on the lips about their designeyness, if you get what I mean. I like the quiet knitterly craftsmanship of this pattern.

I also remember when and where I bought the yarn - last fall's Mid Fall Break, at the same old yarn shop I go to every mid-fall break. This is actually unusually fast for me to start using a yarn that I purchased - often they sit in stash even longer than a year.

I'm almost done with my duties (well, save for the AAUW meeting tonight) for the day...I've decided that since I've been working what feels like extra-hard these past couple weeks, I'm going to take the afternoon off. Perhaps go out for lunch (I've not decided that yet. We have two kinds of restaurants in town: ones that are good and sit-down and impossible to get into over the noon hour, and fast food places. And I really don't feel like fast food.)

I'm going to wind off the rest of the Araucania for this sweater, and I think some of the skeined-up sock yarn that's been sitting around, and also dig out some Cascade 220 bought even longer ago at Stitches and Stuff and wind it off into big cakes in preparation for starting the Skye Tweed Vest sometime soon.

(Yes, it's another pattern designed for a man that I'm co-opting for me. How did the old song go? him: "I can knit a sweater!" Her: "I can fill it better..."?)

Also, moved by the feeling of success, I'm thinking about picking the Airy Cardigan back up this weekend and finishing the back, and then figuring out the sleeves. After all, I succeeded at lengthening the sleeves on the SitCom Chic; I should be able to do this one, too.


And Kucki - no, I haven't started Hey Teach. Maybe it'll be the next after these get done.

Yes, it's true that I lived through "worse" stock-market crashes. But (without being one of those annoying sorts who reminds anyone older of her not-so-extreme-any-more youth), when Black Monday happened, I was more worried about whether there was some way I could get the cute guy in my Inorganic Chem I discussion section to notice me, and how I was going to manage to read 300 pages of Plato in a week for Great Books.

Also, what money I had was doled out by parents, so watching the stock market drop when you have an allowance is different than watching it drop when you have an IRA.

****

And, once again, Little Dee is directly relevant to me. I've not chopped much wood in my life, but I have had the precise thing that happened to Ted happen to me.

****

But whatever.

Happiness is starting a new sweater.

I cast on for - and did the first couple rounds of - the Cobblestone Pullover last night. I'm using Araucania Nature Wool in color 50 - a reddish-purple, almost a magenta. Apparently it's a color not that far off of royal or Tyrian purple (The color on Justinian's cloak there), if my monitor is accurate. (I'd probably be more prone to call it "Murex purple," because it was made from a Murex mollusc - which is why it was so expensive; people had to dive for the molluscs and then extract the ink from them.)

I believe it's the same purple that Lydia is remembered as a seller-of-the-dye-of. No, not this Lydia (though perhaps she's named for the original one).

I also find, going through my archives, that this is a color that's not brand new to me:

There's the Hourglass pullover:



And there's the Greek pullover, though I'd say that's closer to burgundy than purple:



And the Tilling the Soil vest:



I admit I'm a little disappointed to realize the color isn't a new, unique, and breaking-out-of-the-box choice. Oh well. I like it, and I guess that's what's important.

It's a finished object!



Yup, I managed to get the current SitCom Chic done this weekend - the only thing that I might want to do yet is get some grosgrain ribbon to sew to the insides of the front bands, because they're curling a little bit.


Okay, another shot where I didn't manage to cut the top of my head off.



I made this out of K1C2 "Second Time Cotton," which is partially recycled cotton (pre-consumer waste...it's the leftovers from industrial processing). It's a nice yarn, perhaps a bit splitty on tight parts like the picking-up-neckline stitches.

One hint...for binding off the neckline and front bands, I found it EXTREMELY helpful to use a needle a size larger. I used a size 6 (4.0 mm) to knit the front bands and neckline, and then bound them off with a 7 (4.5 mm). I found this because I had to rip off the first front band after binding it off - it was way too tight and pulled the front out of shape.

I also altered the pattern to have long sleeves. They are perhaps a tad long on me, but not bad enough that I would take the thing to bits and redo it. And I think the full length sleeves look better on me than the 3/4 length in the original pattern.

I really love the color. I think it's also a flattering color on me, which is a bonus.

Here's why I'm glad my camera has a timer function:



This is the Obligatory Mirror Photo like some people do. Not so good.

Oh, and I wound up using neither of the buttons I was talking about using.



I found this Norwegian sweater clasp in my sewing kit. I think it probably came from a little Scandinavian shop in Champaign, Illinois, that was in the same shopping area where the seamstress who made the bridesmaid's gown I wore to my brother's wedding was. (If that's correct - and I think it must be, that's the only Scandinavian shop I've been to - I've had this stashed away for nearly 10 years. High time to use it, and I think it looks very nice on the sweater.)

I only had one clasp, so it seemed ideal for something like this where you only NEED one.

I'm really happy with the sweater. I think it looks great and I think technically, it turned out very well. (And as I said: I love the color.)

Fortunately, later this coming week it may actually get cool enough to wear a cotton cardigan.

I'm back working on the blue SitCom Chic sweater again. I nearly finished the first sleeve (more than 30 rounds) during proctoring of exams this morning. And I finished the last tiny bit this afternoon while relaxing, and have begun the second sleeve.

I like the Second Time Cotton; it's a pretty nice yarn to work with. My only complaint is that the dark denim-y color I'm using leaves dark lint on my hands (and probably will on my clothes unless I wash the sweater carefully before wearing it).

I'm debating whether to bring this and try to finish it on my short trip. (Well, the time visiting family will be short. I will be at the Prairie Conference for nearly a week but I think I'm just going to take socks to that because they're more portable). While it would be nice to finish it, I also like the idea of just having easily portable, light projects this go - socks and maybe the ribbon lace scarf. And books. I've got a bunch of books I want to read including a new one on the American Chestnut that I saw favorably reviewed in American Scientist. (And the whole story of the American Chestnut interests me anyway....I remember older relatives talking about picking chestnuts and also reading in an old, old Uncle Wiggly story about them collecting chestnuts and always kind of wondering what they were.)

I also found a copy of "Maisie Dobbs" (a mystery series set in 1930s London) at the campus bookstore (they moved about a year ago and I'm happy to report that they now have a nice, if small, selection of "reading" books).

Knitty's summer surprises are up. I really like Hey, Teach! (and not just for the name). And despite my body shape, that kind of empire thing does look good on me (generous bustline + long, narrowish waist* seems to work ok with that style)

(*which I wish were more narrowish but I guess I'm not doing too badly for nearly 40. And maybe I will get motivated to take yoga back up when it gets cooler).

I have yarn in stash that will work for it; my first thought was the sage green Bernat Denim Style I bought ages ago for a SitCom Chic, but I have enough of that for a longsleeved cardigan so I think I'll use it for that. Then I remembered that I have some dark purple silk yarn I bought for the Otis pattern a long time ago, but I think I like this better for it and I think I have enough. I'd do the 43" size because they're saying on Ravelry it's not got a LOT of ease intended for the fit and of course this would be something worn over a fitted t-shirt or short sleeved blouse.

The lovely "Atlantis Blue" Sitcom Chic (the photograph really doesn't do the color justice) is progressing:



Over the weekend, I finished the body up to the point where the sleeves will get hooked on, and then did a little simple redrafting of the sleeve pattern to make them full-length rather than 3/4 length, because full length sleeves look a lot better on me. (3/4 length, I think they always make me look like I borrowed a younger smaller sister's clothes). It was not hard at all.

That little piece up at the top is the start of the first sleeve. I'm pleased because not only is my redraft making them longer, it makes the cuff a lot more fitted.

I also pulled out the buttons I bought a while back for this one. I saw two kinds I liked, and since it costs about $16 to drive to the fabric store and back these days (not to mention the time), I figured it was better to spend the $2 or whatever each and get both cards. (And at any rate - the unused buttons will find a home somewhere else someday).



I'm strongly leaning toward the ones on the right - the sort of pseudo-Celtic design. I think it fits a bit more with the style of the sweater. But I might always change my mind later.

I also started a silly little thing I talked about some last week.



That's just a preview. I decided it would be more 30s-esque to use a handwritten font (MY handwriting, in fact, considerably prettied up from what it usually looks like) rather than the Impact Bold or whatever it is those things usually have. You can't see all of the completed writing because some of it's currently caught up in the hoop. Needless to say, this project amuses me more and more the more I work on it. I'm even thinking of doing a companion piece using another famous joke from that same site. (Except I'd probably have to hand-draft the whole thing as I think patterns of the animal I have in mind would be very hard to find on the vintage embroidery sites. But I still might do it because it makes me smile every time I think of the concept.)

A third thing I've been picking away at - since I seem to have more free time, and especially more free time when I feel too enervated to do much other than read (it's been VERY hot here), is I've pulled out my copy of "German, Quickly" and re-started re-acquainting myself with the language. I've decided my ultimate goal is to be able to more-or-less read German. And maybe understand sung German, like in "die Fledermaus" and some of the lieder. Speaking, I'm not so sure, unless I can find some kind of good CD or dvd based program to remind me of the correct pronunciation.

My brain likes the different kind of stimulation. My brain gets bored if it's not doing enough different stuff. And my brain is unhappy when it's bored. (And, ironically enough, I've been sleeping better on the nights when I take time to work at the German before bed. Maybe it de-tracks my mind from worrying about things like journal article acceptances and such).

Both the fronts of the Airy Cardigan are done, and I'm working on the back. I'm still contemplating what to do about the sleeves; I definitely want to make them full-length and I think all it will take to figure them out is to measure how large I want the cuffs, figure out how many stitches that will be, figure out how many stitches are needed for the widest part of the arm, and then using row gauge decide how rapidly I need to increase to get to that point.

At least, I think. This is probably going to be one-at-a-time sleeves so if I screw it up the first time, I'm not stuck ripping out tons and tons of hairy yarn. (And I probably have enough - this sweater is taking far less than I imagined - that if the first sleeve doesn't turn out, I can chuck it and get the two out of the remaining yarn.

I'll be glad to finish this; I'm not nuts about knitting with hairy yarn. It's harder to see my stitches (and so, it is harder for me to check my knitting against the row-counter and my written notations to be sure I'm picking it up in the right place when I pick it back up after it's sat for a while).

But it WILL be very pretty when it's finished. The fabric that the kid mohair knits up into is very nice - unbelievably light and fluffy; it's kind of like what you'd imagine the fleece from some kind of cartoon dreamworld sheep would feel like.

And it's pink. Very pink. And I like that.

I generally love Norah Gaughan's patterns.

This one is no exception:


Yes, it's Kenobi! All finished, all put together. It took just over 10 balls of the Berroco Ultra Alpaca for the whole thing (it's knit with worsted-weight yarn held doubled).

And another view:



It's very warm and is quite heavy (well, you'd expect that - all that alpaca and knit at essentially a bulky gauge). I love the idea of the "strips" of different textures on it; that took what would have been a very plain sweater and made it a lot more special.

Here's the back:



And of course, the REAL reason I wanted to knit it?

So it might confer upon me Jedi mind-powers for when difficult or demanding people come around, expecting me to do things for them I cannot do.

"This is not the professor you are looking for. You can go about your business...Move along."

It occurs to me, on further thought, that all this kerfuffle comes down to something that some people may overlook:

We each need to define success for ourselves. And "success" will mean something different to different people.

One of the worst graduation speeches I ever heard - I was already out in the workforce but it depressed me and made me want to move back home with my parents a little - was a woman who exhorted the "kids" to "succeed." By her own narrow definition. Which was climbing the corporate latter, rung by agonizing rung. She told them to arrive at work before their bosses and to not leave until they were sure their bosses had. She exhorted them not to take vacations, because apparently, if you didn't make yourself seem indispensible, you'd never hang on to that precious, precious job. She never said outright - but it seemed that the implication was - you were a fool if you had hobbies or did volunteer work or spent more than minimal time with your families.

I couldn't believe it. She didn't allow for any other definitions of success - she didn't suggest that one could be an artist or a teacher or a stay-at-home-parent and be successful.

And you know? Thank goodness different people do have different definitions of success. Because if we didn't, there'd be no one willing to do different jobs - everyone would want exactly the same thing. It's precisely because we differ that there are people who really, really want to teach. Or people whose life's dream is to become a cardiac surgeon. Or people who sign up for the Peace Corps and go dig wells in some developing nation.

I think young people would do well to take some time to think about what their own personal definition of success is - and think about it seriously (Hrm. Maybe that could be next week's Youth Group lesson). I know when I was an undergraduate, I started formulating mine. What I came up with was this:

1. I wanted a career where I wouldn't have to worry about sacrificing my deeply held moral and ethical beliefs.

2. I wanted to make enough money to support myself in a certain degree of comfort (but not make lavish amounts of money; as I've said before, I don't think I'd fit in with the American aristocratic class, and that's mostly rich folk)

3. I wanted to do something I enjoyed, where most days I got up and looked forward to going to work.

4. I wanted to feel like I was making the world a better place, or at the very least, helping people out a little.

I also realized partway through that I really, really wanted to go to grad school (which was good, because it turned out I needed that for goal 2 and probably goal 3 as a biologist).

Later on, I realized I needed a goal five:

5. Have enough free time to have a life away from work; be able to read books for fun, pursue my needlecraft hobbies, and generally have downtime to recuperate.

And you know? I feel better having written those because I realize that despite all the things I think I'm NOT getting done, I have achieved those basic five, more or less. (Don't know so much about #4 some days, but that's a hard one to evaluate).

So anyway. Perhaps some of the conflict is that there are folks who don't recognize that everyone defines "success" the same way, and you need to pick and choose what is right for you?

(It could also come down to the fact that Britain is fundamentally more classist than the U.S. and the people attacking Jane Brocket see her as an "upper middle class twit" and just feel sort of jealous or are wanting to take her down a peg. Something.)

But yeah. I don't understand why we as women (my experience being purely as a woman - no Tiresias I - I don't know if men do this kind of thing to each other. I've never witnessed it, but it could happen in more private, "just among us men" situations) feel the need to do this.

Whatever you do, as long as it's legal and moral and it makes you happy, God bless you and keep doing it.

*****

On to pictures.

I finished the left front of Kenobi last night.



This has now become my "mainly work on THIS" project, partly because I can almost see it being done, and partly because it's gotten cooler again and I can imagine a time when it would be good to wear.

I searched out the remaining yarn for the rest of the sweater (I have two half-balls left from the left front).



My six little alpacas! I had to search quite a bit for all of these; I had moved/tucked away/hidden yarn in different places during different phases of house cleaning. It took me a long time to find that sixth ball; at first I was afraid I was misremembering how much I had used already and I was going to come up short, and then I found one of the ball-bands so AT LEAST I had the color and lot-number if I had to re-order.

But I kept searching. (I'm always reminded of the Parable of the woman who had the lost coin - how she turned her house upside down looking for it, and then rejoiced when she found it, when I am looking for something [often a ball of wool I have misplaced]. I am kind of like that.)

So now these are waiting - I have two half-balls left over from the left front, which will begin the right front, and it will probably take the better part of two more balls to do that, then I have the sleeves (which shouldn't take more than a front each) and a little bit needing to be leftover for a collar.

Also while searching I gathered up all the yarn for Samus, which I want to re-start. I'm almost done with the bottom band (and thank goodness, the row-counter telling me where I was in the pattern was right there with it). I'm telling myself once I cross the Khyber Pass of picking up allllllllll those stitches, it will be nice easy stockinette for a long while.



It's hard to see the colors in these but these are my new knit-and-read socks - they are the Kaffe Fassett "Mirage" colors (in the earthtones colorway) that Regia puts out. I bought two balls as soon as it came out because I love Kaffe Fasset's color sense, and I love the subdued earthtones look. I've done about 3" of ribbing - I wanted these to have a very deep ribbing - and then I'm going to do about 4" of plain stockinette before doing the heel.

Wednesday's post a bit early.

I did finish the Greek pullover and tried it on.



This is my favorite shot of it.

I think the pattern is probably better suited to a less-busty woman; it makes certain "features" of my anatomy a bit more prominent than I like.

It would also probably suit better someone more willowy than I am. Oh well. That's something unlikely to change at this point.



Also, jeans probably aren't the "primo" choice of what to wear with this - a straight black skirt would probably look nicer. And probably one of the "nude" or "champagne" or whatever-its-called-color brassiere might be better than the white one I had on.

This also shows one of the hazards of broad shoulders - I had to adjust things very carefully to get the sweater to work. And it's the kind of sweater that's best for standing around and looking pretty because when you move around, it tends to ride up. Or at least on me, it did.



I think when I wear it "for reals" (unless I decided to wear it on a date or some other kind of short-time span where I'm unlikely to perspire a great deal), I will probably wear it over a turtleneck, long-sleeve t-shirt, or even cotton blouse. (That would also help with the feeling of needing to tug the shoulders up to cover everything every few minutes).

Another option - which I'm sort of considering, as I have more of the yarn left, would be to do another row or so of single crochet around the neckline to expand it and stabilize it even more. (I might just try that. If I don't like it, it would be easy to take out).

So - if you decide to make this, how might you want to alter it? I think the neckline in front would benefit from being higher (at least on someone with my build). I also think the shoulders would be nicer if they were wider (but then again I have broad shoulders for a woman).

I finished the sleeves of the Greek Pullover. I blocked them, even, using Lydia's trick (link is to her blog - for some reason, permalinks to everything I try lately have been messed up) of blocking the sleeves right on top of each other, so they will be the same size.

I also (at least temporarily) gave up on Gulliver's Travels. It was depressing me. Jonathan Swift - I mean, I knew he was a cynic and a satirist, but as I read the book, I'm all "Yeah, yeah, Jon, people are all stupid or avaricious or both and there's no good system of government or religion or anything. So what exactly do you suggest? We can't all transmutate into horses, and even if we did, we'd probably pull our human natures along with us..."

And I just don't need that right now.

So I started instead the first volume of "A Dance to the Music of Time." Now, I don't know anything about Anthony Powell and it yet may break bad on me, but right now I'm in the middle of his narrator's (Jenkins) retelling of his school days, and it's more enjoyable than the Swift is. It's also, it seems, a lot DENSER - description-wise, I mean- I had to go back and re-read passages to make sure I was understanding.

I thought of this book because the new Folio "It's time to re-up" flyer came. Every year I say I won't rejoin (you have to buy four books at one shot to do it, and their books range from about $30 to $80). But. They had published the other three volumes of the "Dance to the Music of Time" set...and I NEED those, you understand. I can't read the first one in a nice big hardback format with notes and pictures and then go to some mingy "Barnes and Noble publishing" paperback format that's all full of typos and cheap paper.

AND they are apparently reprinting the Moomintroll books in hardback format - they had Finn Family Moomintroll listed as coming out in December. Now, yes. I have paperback versions of all of these - in some cases, books I've had since I was a kid. But I really want a more "permanent" copy, and a nice hardback copy. So I ordered that too. (And a couple of other things...Folio has some unusually interesting offerings this fall).

Thanks TChem. I'd offer to trade with you except mine seems to be no prize right now, either.

And Karin, thank you for the card. I appreciate it (even if my memory of German has decayed - already - to the point where I couldn't read everything on the page).

I'm working on the sleeve cap of the Greek pullover. I'm amazed that I'm nearly done with this.

I'm also thinking about "next patterns" - oh, I still have Kenobi (and I pulled out what I had done this evening to look it over). But I also have some really nice Cascade 220 in a color that almost perfectly matches my eyes (true: it's brown with sort of a green heather overlaying it) and I want to make the u-necked vest from Fitted Knits. (And it will be nice, for a change, to not have to do SLEEVES.)

But I'm contemplating what size. My M.O. has been to make a size bigger than what I "absolutely" need - to factor in a couple inches of ease. So that would mean doing the 46" size, probably. But - this is supposed to be a FITTED top.

And you know, after looking at the "gallery" of 1824 blouson tops at Knitting Daily, I'm beginning to think that maybe zero or even negative ease would work better here. The 44" size would be like 1/2 inch ease...but the 42 1/2" size would be just a tiny bit of negative ease - like an inch - and you know, even worn over a t-shirt or t-shirt-fabric turtleneck, that might look better.

It's funny. I've been so programmed by the fashion rags and your standard clothing stores to think of myself as a Fat Chick - and therefore, the conventional wisdom goes, I should hide myself in tentlike, voluminous things. But I'm beginning to rethink that - my favorite pair of dress-slacks right now are *just* fitted enough that they're still comfortable, but they kind of skim certain curves and hug, ahem, others. (Okay - I will come out and say it. I think, despite the fact that there are a lot of body parts I feel there's something "wrong" with on me, that I have a nice butt. It's neither too big nor too flat [word up to Sir Mix-a-lot.]. It's well toned thanks to the copious exercise I get. And it doesn't sag.)

And maybe...maybe that could be true of the top, too, as long as the tops are well-designed. (I wore a men's Hawaiian shirt today and was reminded of one of my frustrations with it - the buttons are on the "wrong" side, and when I wear my purse over the shoulder I conventionally wear it over, the strap can catch on the buttonhole edge and unbutton a "strategic" button on the front. But part of the problem is that the design of the shirt assumes a basically linear torso, not one with curves, so there's a bit of pressure being exerted right on that part of hte shirt.) So maybe some negative ease on a nice, girl-designed top would look nice.

After all, it's worth a try. If I absolutely loathe the way it looks, I suppose I could rip back and do the next bigger size, or give it to my (slightly woolaverse but would probably wear a vest) slightly slimmer sister-in-law.

Anyway. Maybe I need to replace "Fat Chick" in my mental image with "Curvy Chick," or what I like better, "Voluptuous Chick." (Oh, yeah, I know - in some circles "voluptuous" is a polite euphemism for "fat," but work with me here.)

TChem, you are absolutely right. The "Laugh-Out-Loud Cats," now that I think about it, is startlingly reminiscent of the old Krazy Kat and Popeye comic strips in terms of its spirit - sort of a "Here's a look into my weird world; I don't care too much if you don't understand it all." (There are probably other old strips I'm forgetting but I remember checking out books of the old Popeye comics and the Krazy Kat comics from the library when I was a kid.)

Stuff like that blows me away - how he can so letter-perfectly capture the spirit of those old strips, and yet also have a nod to the silly new internet phenomenon. Maybe that which seems new is not so very new after all.

< waynengarth > I'm not worthy! < /waynengarth >

(I hope he does a book of them someday; I would buy it.)

****

And finally, some photos.

The one thing I actually finished over my recent "vacation." These are the Waving Lace socks (so cleverly photographed with the book that they are the "cover socks" for):



I used Lorna's Laces sockyarn in a pale apricot color. The socks are made following the standard pattern.


I also did work on a pair of "simple" socks, using a Trekking yarn (it's from the line they call "Aquarelle," which I now know - from my researches on that "Brazil" song - means "watercolor." I forget the number but I bought it from Carodan Farm and I think they probably still offer it.



They are my current knit-and-read pair of socks.

And finally, the back and front (just finished this evening, and no, I didn't need to do any plotting or planning to get the shaping to reverse) of the Greek pullover:



I've cast on and started the sleeves. I am doing my standard technique of knitting both sleeves at once on a long circular needle; that way I'm sure to get the shaping exactly the same. (And it seems that they go faster that way.)

I'll be glad to actually get this one done; just a few days ago it seemed like it was going to never be finished but now it seems pretty close.

The back of the Greek pullover:



That's a pretty true-to-color shot (I am using the color Rowan calls "Crush Velvet," which I've said before bothers me as a color name - it should be CRUSHED velvet. "Crush velvet," as I said, sounds like a command. Or it sounds like a really unappealing type of soft drink ["Velvet Crush"?]). But anyway.

I started the front last night and got a couple of inches done of it.

I enjoy having a big expanse of stockinette, with just some minor shaping to consider, to do. I like knitting stockinette. I can put music on, or watch something on the television, or even read while I knit. If I'm tired, or distressed, or borderline sick (and I was all three last night) it goes more easily and is more soothing than something that requires more concentration.

It also gets done faster than some other knit stitches and that's comforting in its own way - that you are making progress, that you can SEE the inch or so of fabric you've added.

Most of the sweaters I've made have been mostly stockinette. I realize I've also not really made any multicolor sweaters, other than ones that use row-by-row striping - I don't like Intarsia that well, and I'm still not satisfied enough with how my gauge works out with Fair Isle (it seems to be a lot more variable than my gauge knitting with just one color...sometimes it's too tight, sometimes it's too loose) for me to want to knit Fair Isle just yet.

(I do, someday, want to make the Prince of Wales vest that's in Folk Vests. Being an Anglomane, and particularly an Anglomane-for-the-time-between-the-World-Wars, a Fair Isle vest or sweater in that style seems like an extremely wonderful and stylish thing to me. And yes, one of the characters in the Campion movie I watched was wearing a really neat Fair Isle sweater. No, I'm not obsessed enough to use Pause and to try and chart it out; the idea of making a similar sweater using an already existing pattern is enough. But that's still a Someday Project...for when I'm more comfortable with Fair Isle, and when I've worked the existing stash down somewhat.

It's nice having Someday Projects though; it gives you something to look forward to).

I'm also almost over my cold, which is good. I still have the sore/scratchy throat, which I could honestly live without, but at least I'm not congested any more.

Sweater love:



The first few inches of the back of the Greek Pullover. (I've just started the part where you increase.) I've been working on this off and on since the weekend.

And last night, I wound off a couple of the skeins, swatched (successfully), and got this far on the back of Kenobi:



You knit it with worsted weight yarn doubled, so it's going to be a fairly fast knit. And it's a nice balance of thought-requiring and "mindless" - there's no shaping for the first 19 inches, but you do change stitch patterns as you go across the row. (You can see the stitch markers I've put in there to remind me, and you also might be able to see that there are panels of moss st, reverse stockinette, and a couple kinds of rib).

Two things the pattern does not mention but that are helpful: first, using stitch markers to denote the different panels of pattern. Second, it's helpful to write out a "crib sheet" for both right and wrong side rows of what pattern goes where. (Eg: "right side: MS - RS - 1 x1 rib...."). Although as you get later into the knitting it becomes clearer what each pattern is.

****

A couple of comment roundups:

Lydia, thanks for the references. I'm going to look those up. As there aren't normally German classes taught on campus I'm not sure the campus library would have them, but I've had pretty good used-book-finding-fu through Powell's and other places, so I may see if I can get my own personal used copies.

And actually, I like the idea of learning it primarily for reading (the old graduate school model - my parents both learned French and German as reading-courses; in their day, it was required for Ph.D. students to take two languages, at least up to some minimal level of reading proficiency. That requirement has since been dropped, at least in the sciences.)

We don't have a German program here (We have French, Spanish, Choctaw, and sometimes Italian for the people in music), which is why I think the class I'm in (as a continuing-ed class) is pretty full.

Grace: I use a cross-country ski simulator. I've tried propping a book on it and reading, but either the book falls off, or I get a little seasick because the book moves with the exerciser. I suppose I could get an old music stand and set it up next to the exerciser but I'm concerned about having my neck out of alignment...I'm prone to neck problems. Also, as I'm exercising at 5 am (usually right after getting up), I kind of prefer having the overhead lights off, less of a shock to the system. I suppose I could look into books-on-tape, see if my university library has any they check out.

K., I've seen SO MANY studies supporting that. Learning and keeping the mind active are apparently key to not "checking out" before it's check-out time, so to speak. It kind of makes me wonder about the push, at least in some areas of society, to be passive consumers who don't really DO anything other than consume. And it makes me wonder a little bit about the people who are so fast to zone out with their iPods and such. Don't get me wrong - listening to music can be very active and thoughtful - but I've seen enough glazed faces, enough people who look like they've "checked out," to make me wonder if electronic amusement always has a salutary effect.

First of all: thank you for sharing your thoughts on my recent essay. Grace, I'm happy your daughter recovered. And thank you to the anonymous person who said I reminded them a bit of Thoreau. No Thoreau am I, really - I couldn't live in a cottage in the forest (for one thing, I'm far too fond of indoor plumbing) - but I do appreciate that the things I write strike a chord and seem to be thoughtful.

Secondly:
Happiness is a new sweater.



I finished the Central Park Hoodie.

Here's the back:


My "wingspan" is a bit wider than the camera's field of view.

Here's how I'll probably wear it most of the time:



(The junk in front of me is my kitchen step-stool, set up with automatic waterers for my houseplants. I'm bad enough at remembering to water them that the automatic waterers help.)

The color of the yarn (100% Alpaca from Elann) is called Thistle - it is grey with faint overtones of pink, blue, and purple. But actually what it makes me think of is this:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
--Carl Sandburg

I remember memorizing that poem as a grade-school student.

It's interesting to me how many of the bits and pieces of poems I've read or learned over my life come to me at odd moments. While working on the sweater, I kept thinking of "The fog comes on little cat feet."

The other day, I was thinking of: "All things counter, original, spare, strange" which comes from:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

If that's not been set to music and sung as a hymn, it should be.

How different my life would be if my teachers (and my parents, for that matter), didn't make an effort to expose me to poetry. I think my life would be a lot poorer. I know there are a lot of people who don't care for poetry, and that's fine, but I do think schoolchildren should be exposed to it, and then they can decide as adults whether or not it's something they need in their lives.

As for me? It's something I need.

First: a comments round-up.

Diann: please thank Mr. Ken for me. As I've said before, no objective standard of how I look, long awkward phase, teased a lot as a kid...all that. So it means something when someone tells me I look ok or better than ok.

Grace: Thanks for the confirmation on "don't fix it yourself." I figured it probably wasn't a job for the untrained. Also, my garage - thanks to the clay soils in the area and the drought - has settled and if I get the opener repaired they may have to do something to the tracks.

For now, though, manually opening and closing isn't such a big deal. Which is good, because it's one of those busy weeks where taking an afternoon off to wait on a repair person would be kind of maddening.

To the anonymous person asking about Dulaan: here is a link (the update for 2007 is as a .pdf file here). The address to send items is: The Dulaan Project, F.I.R.E., 107 N. San Francisco St., Studio 4, Flagstaff, AZ 86001.

Which reminds me: I have some of the bulky-weight wool left from my Ireland scarf that I could knit up into a hat or two. And I think when I get the Central Park Hoodie done I'm going to have a bunch of worsted-weight alpaca left over from it that I could double and knit up into some warm hats.

I have a book of mostly-bulky-weight hats that would be fun to try.


*****

I don't often talk about specific products on here, but I'm going to mention one today. (And standard disclaimer: this is not a flog; this is something I bought and paid for, the company's not offering any compensation, etc., etc.).

Burt's Bees Peach and Willowbark Deep Pore Cleansing Scrub.

I bought some of this a couple weeks ago and have been using it every couple of days. In the winter, I get dry skin, and if I don't exfoliate regularly, my skin looks kind of dull - and it feels bad to me, it feels tight or something. This stuff works nicely to take care of that.

And I have sensitive skin - lots and lots of things make me break out but this hasn't. (at least so far). And it smells nice. And I think the salicylic acid in it (from the willowbark) is doing something good for my skin. (isn't salicylic acid used in some anti-acne preparations? Usually my forehead is a little "spotty" but that's cleared up since I've been using it). And I think it's got some of those magic "fruit AHAs" in it that are supposed to make your skin age slower or something.

It's not CHEAP (my only real complaint), but it's pretty nice. (And it's cheaper than that tony stuff they sell from counters in the fancy department stores).

****

A couple of pictures.

First, is what Wendy of Wendyknits would call "old knitted crap." (although I do not like the term "crap" used anywhere around stuff I've knit.)

I made the Cache-Coeur from Weekend Knitting well over a year ago, and although I've worn it kind of like a bedjacket over pj's when it was cold and I was reading in bed, I've never worn it outside the house before today.

I found something it works over:



I've decided that those little Spencer-type jackets require a dress that has an unbroken line across the waist - ideally, ones with either a fitted waist or an Empire waist.

I WAS going to wear a shawl over the dress today (it's COLD here and I didn't feel like wearing slacks yet again, and so that's why I chose the black knit dress), but I happened to see this in its storage bin and I put it on and decided it looked good.

And I feel better actually getting "real wear" out of something I made and hadn't used.

I also snapped a shot of the current sweater's sleeves:



They are ready for me to start the sleeve caps. I decided to leave that for a time when I was more alert so I didn't mess up the decreases.

I also did a little measuring last night and I've decided to make the 42" size (even the sleeves) of the Grecian Pullover. If the thing has even an inch of ease everywhere (which I am sure it will as it is just stockinette and not some bizarre "woven stitch"), it will fit just right. It will be close-fitting, but from examining the photo and the schematics and doing a little imagining, I don't think it would look so good loose-fitting.

I may do the sleeves first and just pin them on to see how they fit; I could always rip back and redo if I'm not happy with how they came out. But I think I'd be more likely to be unhappy doing the bigger size and having it fit like a tent.

****

Except for the part about eating the whole second cake, I pretty much relate to Ted in today's Little Dee.. "Not sure if that makes me a good bear, or a pushover."

The increases on the Central Park Hoodie sleeves are done. I've got perhaps another 2" to knit before I start the sleeve caps.

I'm thinking about the next sweater. I think I'm going to start the Grecian pullover, since the yarn came for it. I'm still on the fence about sizing, though. I bought enough (and an extra ball) for the 46" size, but I'm seriously considering the 42" size...it's supposed to be a fairly close-fitting garment and I suspect it would stretch enough to fit properly over the bust. (I'm something like 43 1/2" at the biggest point) The only issue is the sleeves...I do NOT have small arms and the sleeves on the 42" size might look uncomfortably tight. I wonder if the sleeve cap shape and size is all that different between those sleeves and the next size up? Because I could do the 42" body, then, and the 46" sleeves, and have a nice compromise for my "I'd like people to be able to see that I have a bust and a waist while I'm wearing this" and "but I have sort of fat arms."

I don't know. I'm still thinking.

I am oddly tired today. I suppose it's partly because I was in my office a lot this weekend and didn't get a lot of downtime. It's also sort of chilly and rainy and all hell's supposed to break loose this afternoon (thunderstorms, then the temperature drop something like 30 degrees overnight).

And from the It's Always Something files: my garage door opener broke yesterday. I think the motor burned out or something - the door opened but then I couldn't close it. I knew the remote was working because I heard the thing trying to switch over but the motor just kind of growled.

The good news is, my garage door stuck open (I have a detached garage with no other entrance/exit), and by fighting with the thing a little bit, I was able to decouple the door from the opener, so I can at least push it open and closed (it's a lightweight aluminium door).

But the bad news is:

a. I have to open and close the door by hand. Which is kind of a drag when the weather's bad because I have to do it out in the rain or snow or whatever.

b. I'm going to have to get someone out to look at the thing (standard frustration with workers in this town: "We will come either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, sometime between eight and noon or one and four, except if Wednesday is a new moon and then it will be between four and six. Please be at home during those times.")

c. It will cost money to fix. I really don't know how much a new garage door opener costs - if it's likle $200, that's fine, but if it's $800 or more...well, my whole dang garage isn't worth $800, I think.

(And please don't e-mail me assuring me how easy it is to install one myself. I'm sure it is. But I am on campus from 7 am until 5 pm some days and the thought of spending maybe 3 hours of my life - I am NOT handy - trying to install one of these things alone just doesn't appeal. And yeah, there's someone I could ask for help, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to be beholden to him in that way yet. And I'm not sure his handy-ness extends to garage door openers)

I don't know. I will probably eventually break down and get a new one even if it is fairly expensive - it's one of those little quality-of-life issues for me...I KNOW I can survive without a garage door opener, people did for years and years and lots of people still do. But there's just something about being out in the rain at 7 am when it's still dark out (and it will be dark even longer into the year this year thanks to the foolish extension of Daylight Saving Time) and getting my hands dirty from pusing and pulling on the garage door that...well, it's just one of those things that I generally fit into the category of "being pecked to death by ducks."