Blocking hides a multitude of sins

Or so I hope. The gansey is done, and it's drying in the craft room. DP said that if it doesn't fit my dad, he'll take it, so it will have a good home regardless :)

Yargh

I'm still plugging away on the gansey, but it's tough...it means I can't really make anything else, because I have to save all of my energy for it. I'm halfway through the second sleeve, and then I just need to do the neck and block the thing, but it's wearing on my psyche.

I tried to knit socks on the bus, but I found that when I got home my hands and arms were tired, and they didn't want to stay up til midnight making a sweater. So, I just read pattern books and curse every second away from the sweater.

I'm using today to make puff pastry. I'm going to make an apricot frangipani tart for Thanksgiving (DP's idea) and I figured I'd make an extra batch of it to use for a Pithiviers for Christmas. DP was actually woken up by the deep sighs I was making as I tried to roll out the dough :)

I really really want to make the Dolomite socks for my brother for Christmas, but I don't think I'll have time. We've all enjoyed watching the Dolemite movies, and our fantasy football league is named after a phrase in Avenging Disco Godfather. Sigh.

Hopefully I'll get myself in gear and get some more pics up. Now to roll my dough.

Finally, some pics

Finally, I found the usb cord for the camera! Here's a pic of the gansey (I'm a bit further now, since I have the shoulder straps done:



And a closeup of the ill-fated initials:



My hope is that the blobbyness will block out.

Here's my niece's watchcap, made with STR Walking on the Wild Tide:



It's blurry, but this is the picture with the color as close to real life as I could get.

Now that I've finished the shoulder straps, I'm going to have to finish the arms. My plan is to work the arms separately to the definition ridge, then Magic Loop them two at a time through the stockinette and cuff ribbing, to make sure they're the same size. I'm going to use the pattern I started with, the triangles pointing to each other, but then at the bicep on each side, stop the cables and insert an anchor (my dad was in the navy). After the anchor, I'll go back to the cabling. I'm also thinking of adding some diamonds or more chevrons, because it would be too boring to just be the strap pattern.

There's got to be...

A way to keep my shoulders from cramping up. I don't know what that is, but there's got to be a way!

I'm moving along on the gansey. I finished the front and back, and I started on the shoulder straps last night. I wish that I had a set of US4 dpns, because using a 47" US4 is getting old fast.

I also had to spend all of Saturday changing the purl columns back to knits. I realized that while a traditional gansey is fitted, my dad might not prefer it that way. The cables are a lot subtler, but still neat, and the size is right. It took me half of Sunday to come up with the design for the shoulder straps, and in the end I went with something simple:

> <
> <
> x <
> <
> <
> x <
> <

Triangles of purls with 4 stitch cable crossings every 8 rows. I'm liking how it looks, and I think it matches the body.

Gansey woes

On October 12, I started a gansey for my dad. He loves fishing, especially ice fishing, and his mother had made him an aran sweater that he loved (it's currently in my possession). I used that sweater as a schematic for mine.

On October 14, I was merrily knitting along, very impressed with the look of the seed stitch initials I had knit into the bottom of the sweater. I stopped to admire my handiwork, and I realized that I had knit the WRONG INITIALS. It's my dad, for goodness sake! It's only three letters! So, I ripped that part down and crochet hooked it back up - it took an hour and a half. I guess I shouldn't knit while watching cheesy movies.

On October 17, I was into the patterning. DP went to bed early, so I stayed up watching less cheesy movies. After about 6 inches, I again stopped to admire my handiwork. It was looking a bit small, so I measured it. 5" less in circumference than it should be. The cables didn't draw in that much...then I discovered that instead of working over 242 stitches, I had been working over 224 stitches. I may not currently be a math genius, but I got a 5 on the calculus AP test, and I took advanced math courses in college. The fact that I created motifs specifically to fit over 224 stitches when I had written on the first page of my notes "Over 242 stitches" blows my mind. I ripped again, increased inside the definition ridge and started the pattern again.

What will I do next?

I'm trying to get DP to take me to the yarn store that's NOT on the bus line...I want to pick up some cascade 220 for bed socks. I've also been wondering how 220 works steeked...how much reinforcement (if any) it needs. But, I don't want to waste any of my yarn on a practice swatch :)

I've been spinning this fiber from Squoosh on Etsy. It's quite pleasant to spin with a bit of drafting. I'm using the fractal method that I read about in Spin Off. I've spun up the bobbin with the most changes, and I need to start the one with the longer color repeats.

Dear me

I participated in my first swap, and it looks like I screwed it up. Sigh. She got the package and liked it - hooray!

That accursed swatch still hasn't dried yet, and my sister in law will be over in a forty-five minutes. Not everyone likes the smell of wet wool, least of all someone 6 months pregnant!

I'm also working on a mini Retrofit, with sleeves each of a different green. DP was having trouble choosing a color.

Viva, regina

Well, I've been working on the swatch for Juno, and I'm at an impasse. The gauge is taken over 2x2 ribbing, and my ribbing on various needles all seems to scrunch up to the same gauge. I just washed the swatch and it's drying now, so maybe there will be a change. I'm dying to make this sweater, but I don't want to make something that won't fit.

I finally got a picture of the slippers I made for DP:



He insisted on having that movie in the pic.

I also finished my sock for the October swap:



And from the front:



The toe is a little pointy, but I'm proud of the design :) I was going for a jack o'lantern face and an indian corn type toe. The orange is some stash yarn I had left over from a consignment project, and the reddish black is STR Lenore. Strangely, only the orange bled when I washed this sock - people had been complaining about the Lenore bleeding all over the place, but no dye loss at all.

This is what I was up to last night:



Sitting on the couch, drinking vin santo, and reading a Knit Picks catalog. Nerdly? Why yes!