Beret tales

I finished the beret. My head measures 22", so I decided to make the larger size (22.5") and do an extra round of decreases, which should have made it fit. And I was on gauge. But I think one has to make the beret significantly smaller than one's head measurement.. anyway, the 19" would have fit. The one I made, well..

It looks vaguely "hobo cute," I'll concede (sorry about the photo quality, it was dark this morning), but if I move as much as an inch, it slides off. :-)

I have enough yarn to make another one in 19". So the question is, should I felt this to size (I think this yarn will felt just fine), or find someone who might like it with a bigger head? I think my head is not small, but.. head size is just not one of those things you stand around and compare with others, so who knows?

I get distracted.

Deliberate distraction, in this case, from the fact that I have to frog all that painfully-executed star stitch on Big Star. If it were just the hole... Well, I might have spent an hour figuring out how on earth to redo that. But it's also the fact that it's pretty clear it needs a cable cast-on, not my lazy-man's long-tail. And that I wanted the contrasting-color vertical edging to be wider. So... all things considered, I'll be joining trek's Frog Party. But I need a break first, and some success.

In the meantime, I've been working on my Clapotis, and, because I really needed another item on the needles ;-) , I started a beret from some handspun Romney wool my friend Sarah got me at the Farmer's Market near her in New York. It's very 'classic' wool, slightly scratchy but very pretty colored — kind of a tweedy blue with bits of purple and red in it — so I decided a hat that wouldn't touch the skin would be best, and I found the Tweed Beret patten I'm using in an Interweave Knits (I forget which one, it's at home). I made good progress this weekend:


Almost done! But this wool is wacky. As I knit, the loose wool curls itself up into tight little twists, kind of like what you can see on the left side of this image:

You spinners out there, is this what is called putting too much twist on the wool? I also noticed a number of broken places in the yarn, though it felts together again so I'm not too worried. It interested me, though.

!@#$(!@*#!!!!$*($*#@(#$ poo.

Last night I was purring merrily along with the first stockinette row of Big Star, when I saw A Hole. You know, one of those deadly, dratted ones, several rows back in my knitting. (I was too traumatized to photograph it.) In the star stitch section.

I dropped stitches back, but...
So, crap. I haven't the foggiest idea if I'm going to be able to fix this one. It's one thing to drop stockinette, quite another to drop star stitch. But I shudder at the thought of ripping back 2/3 of the star stitch rows and redoing them. My hands are still swollen from round one!

I'm soothing myself with Clapotis:


I realize that some people [you know who you are!] hate this colorway, but I love it, and even if you didn't love it you could close your eyes and just enjoy the silk/wool combo running through your fingers. Sundara Silky Merino DK. Ahhh. It's balm to the soul AND the hands. I'm making good progress on reknitting since the great ripping.

It kicks my a--

Knitting Star Stitch in linen/cotton yarn, that is. Man it hurts.

It's really pretty, though. And, washed, linen/cotton knits have fantastic drape and wear like iron. Stockinette isn't nearly so painful, so the rest of Big Star shouldn't be as bad.

Ting stmiccture.

I had sworn to myself that I would not allow this month's credit card balance to go over a certain amount (I do pay it off monthly). Then I saw that Araucania Nature Wool and Araucania Magallanes are on closeout at Webs. When you check the prices, do note the yardage. Most of you will be able to get a sweater out of 8 or fewer balls. I looked at my credit card balance; I was already $20 over my personally set 'limit'.

Yeah, and I can't stay on a food diet either... I bought enough Nature Wool (grey and green) for two sweaters (designing them now!) and enough Magallanes (red/pink and turq/yellow) for two pairs of mittens which I don't need.

This, however, I bought for a reason:

I have actually been asked to knit a couple of pair of fingerless gloves. These are both purple, and both lovely, though the Rowan Designer DK outsaturates the gorgeous part-alpaca Khroma DK. I had no suitable purple in my stash. In fact my stash makes it painfully obvious that green and brown are my favorite colors.

The best reason to cut down on yarn is my swiftly shrinking storage space, so what I need to do is finish up some current projects. I'm making good headway on the Clapotis and hope to be able to show you something tomorrow. I've also spent a lot of time today finishing up Grasslimb: polishing up layout, proofreading, getting it ready for the printer.

Meanwhile:


Just one highlight of a manual that came with one of Rob's multi-testers. No more than a novel style, indeed. Ting stmiccture.

A few things are clear...

I mean, aside from the poor state of my cuticles:

1) My cast-off looseness varies from day to day. (That is, I'm a loose woman, but there's no guaranteeing just how loose. ;-) )

2) Wool gloves are warm. Yay!

3) There is no way these gloves are going to fit the man they're intended for (my cousin's husband). He has very slender hands, and these are baggy even on me, thus ensuring that...

4) There is no way these gloves are going to fit me, either.

Will I frog?
Hah.
Will I finish the other glove?
We'll see.
Will I do the mitten tops?
Hmm.

But I figure they'll fit someone, someday, and meantime I'm enjoying the knit too much to stop. There is nothing quite so cute and baby-porcupine-like as knitting the fingers on this thing, with two needles holding stitches, three more around the finger on which I'm working, and a sixth in my hand. Pokey!

So expensive. So worth it.

I've been swatching, as you know, for the Big Star cardigan.



And I just haven't been all that happy. Okay, it's cotton/linen, which sucks to knit. And I could come sort of close to gauge. Somewhere in the neighborhood, ya know. But I tried two different needle sizes and was still not quite there. And I didn't like the way the needle slipped through the fabric. I was using my Inox circs, which I normally love. I wasn't dropping stitches. But something made me think the needle was just... too slippy. Because the gauge swatch was just...
too sloppy.

I had a yen.
For wood.

Now I hate bamboo needles. Sometimes when I've needed more grip, I've actually used the Susan Bates colored aluminum needles, but that just didn't seem quite right for this. So what?

Ah. I heard the siren song of Lantern Moon.


US #6 24" ebony circs. Not so hot for the star stitch, I have to admit; not pointy enough. I'll probably still use the Inox for that bit. But all of a sudden, I've got gauge, I've got a nice firm fabric with decent drape and no slop, and it feels fabulous to knit. $23, which feels insane, but worth every darn penny.

It's sort of still Tuesday

I said I'd post today, but it's been busy. I had band practice tonight, which went really well (lots of new stuff! I love that), and then I had a bit more work to do. Covering (to some extent) for four people at work is a bit crazed, though I am still enjoying my job. It'll just be more or less frantic for about three months.

I started this Broad Street Glove on New Year's Eve weekend, amid the melée of house guests (I don't think I entirely exaggerate. Ok, well, maybe I do). It didn't get past the wrist until this past weekend, though.



It's now humming along. If it works out, I think I'll make three pair — two for the folks whose wedding gift they're destined to be, and one for me! Yet another use for sock yarn.

And remember this? Remember how I said I had to frog back to the turn because I didn't have enough yarn?



It's been turned into this:


Not the color change — I photog'd this last at night, crap lighting. Just the horrible shrinkage in rows. I frogged 1.5 balls of yarn, out of 2 knit. That hurt, but at least it's done.

I find this type of frog needs a good night's sleep before contemplating. Then a deep breath. After it's over, it doesn't feel so bad. Let's hope I get the math right this time!

Long weekend...

MLK day is great for all kinds of reasons, though I do tend to feel the government does lip service to equality. (However, I do not mind the day off of work!)

The weekend has been good in some ways but hard in others; after a memorial service for someone special on Saturday, we spent yesterday driving to LA to visit my grandmother. Each time I see her, I think it's the last visit. She is tenaciously hanging on to life, but she's fairly weak, now. I did a lot of knitting on the way up and back. Though this grandmother doesn't do crafts, she likes to see me doing them.

It's been cold for SoCal, going well below freezing at night and either damaging or killing some of the plants I didn't manage to cover. I am kitted out in hand-knits, with my baby camel Fetching fingerless mitts and thick wool socks on my feet. I decided to try to use up some of my stash, and I needed a new pair of leg warmers — I sleep in them on nights I sense a calf cramp coming on, and it successfully prevents them. My old pair is a threadbare grey acrylic pair from the '80s, and I felt I really deserved some wool ones.

I had a bunch of Peruvian Collection Highland Wool in my stash, in a somewhat unpleasant yellow-pea green (the color looks far better in these photos than in reality!), that I'd bought off deStash from a woman who had thought it was going to be a different shade of green than it was. So did I. However, it's soft and warm, and no one sees my leg warmers (well, except on here) but Rob, and he does not care.
My own pattern, i.e. measure your leg, 2x2 rib for a while, then some stockinette, than various ribs to keep from getting bored and to make the warmer cling to the thinner part of the calf approaching the ankle. I used #5 DPNs for the rib, #7 DPNs for the stockinette. Started Friday night, finished Sunday. For a 40-cm/15.75" calf at largest point I cast on 64 stitches with 4.5 spi. This was, however, too big:


so if you have a slightly larger calf than mine, this would likely be perfect. These are comfy but don't stay up, so I'll probably pick up and knit a tighter rib around the top.

I am also working on a mitten pattern for some SoHo in my stash (plus some more of the Highland Wool).


(And also some Broad Street Gloves/Mittens, but more about them in the next post. Gotta save something for Tuesday!)

Fast FO!

Bulky yarn sure does knit up fast. The color's wack, here, because I forgot and left the camera set on 'cloudy' instead of 'sunny', and I didn't block it yet, but I've used up all of April's generous yarn donation now, and got to use up the strange furry yarn, too, and I have two neat little vests for Mongolian kids that await only buttons! Yay.

Even better (for me), the Green Wing TV special arrived in the mail yesterday, so we get to watch it tonight, finally, 8 days after my UK buddies have seen it. Can't wait!