Magical Flip Top Mittens

One Magical Flip Top Mitten down, one to go. I think these will come in handy next hockey season. The inside is like a fingerless glove, with an outer mitten that flips back out of the way when you want to use your fingers. Yarn used is Lion Brand Cashmere Blend in black. I used slightly more than one ball for one mitten.

A visit to the FROG POND

Well, despite successfully blocking the Sideways Spencer and beginning the finishing on it, here's one last pic before it visits the frog pond (rip it, rip it):

It had too many things wrong with it to continue. The main thing was that the armholes were too tight. Second, was that despite blocking it to measurements, there was no way that you could add 3" of overlapping ribbing down each front and get the 40" measurement described in the sizing. I am nowhere near 40" in the chest, and I would have been popping the buttons off trying to close it. Combine that with uncomfortable armholes, and it was a show-stopper.

Now, normally, I would forge ahead, finish the sweater, then promptly stick it in the back of my closet to await the next donation call from a local charity (somewhere there's a charity worker thinking, "Man, I wish that chick would quit sending us these ugly sweaters"). But I have reached a turning point in knitting. It's no longer about quantity, it's about quality. I frogged half a mitten the other day because I didn't like how the cast on looked. Today, I'm frogging an entire sweater. Soon, I may work up the nerve to frog a sweater I finished last year that I hate wearing because the shawl collar is too heavy and pulls the sweater down (I didn't give that one to charity, that was EXPENSIVE yarn!).

Also, I bought a new book, Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard (author of the blog Knit and Tonic), and she is basically saying the same thing, stop making sweaters that don't fit, knit from the top down. However, I may be too much of a follower to do that, I get inspired by other's designs, converting them to top down might kill the joy. Although, wasting 3 weeks of your life on a sweater that doesn't deliver is a real bummer, too.

I think it's time to regroup. Instead of spinning my wheels churning out sweaters, it's time to do some stash reduction and knit some things for charity. I have a lot of odd balls of leftover yarn and I'm running out of space. Hopefully the next post will show items that are for someone else. And that I actually like!

PS- I survived frogging the sweater, although I confess to self-medicating with a cookie afterward.

Began Lace Ribbon Scarf and hate the needles

Well, it was back to Dallas this last weekend for Squirt (9-11 year old) quarter finals in youth hockey. They won all their games and advance to the semi-finals in Dallas next weekend, meaning I will miss the Stitch-n-Puck at the Blazers game next Friday night. Wah!

The Sideways Spencer is now too large to tote around, so started the Lace Ribbon Scarf on the Kollage square circular needles in size 3. Yarn I'm using is J. Knits Creative Hand-Dyed Superwash Me Light yarn in Washington DC colorway (screaming coral). I had a lot of trouble with the needles, coaxing the YOs back onto the needle from the cable was a tedious process. The Kollage needles have a rough join, at least my pair does when compared to the Addi Turbos. I think I'll either knit this onto an Addi set, or go buy a cheap set of straight metal sock-length needles or I'll never finish this. And the square needle, while a nice idea, means you practically have to line up the flat sizes of the needles when you're trying to dig into a K2tog or SSK. So, these were a poor choice for lace knitting, as far as I'm concerned, but I'm still willing to give them a try on other projects, if the store will let me feel the join before I buy another pair of them (ha).

The Knitting Gods have farted in my general direction

The Knitting Gods have farted in my general direction (to paraphrase Monty Python). I just returned from our 4-day trip to St. Louis for a hockey tournament. Now, you'd think that being gone from home for 4 days and living in a hotel, where there's no office, no phones to answer, no cooking, no laundry to wash or dog hair to vacuum off the kitchen floor, would practically guarantee long stretches of knitting time. So I planned for this. (Okay schemed would be a better word.) I wouldn't want to (gasp!) run out of knitting, so not only did I take ALL the yarn for the Sideways Spencer, I convinced myself that I'd get so much done on the Spencer that it would no longer be portable (since it's knit side-to-side all in one piece) and that I really needed a Backup Project to take to the rink with me. So I managed to squeeze in a trip to Gourmet Yarn during my Leaving Town Errands Run and bought J. Knits Superwash me Light Sock Yarn in the Washington DC colorway (shrieking salmon pink) to knit the Lace Ribbon Scarf on Knitty by Veronik Avery. I mean, a scarf is the ultimate portable project, next to socks, right? I even moved the Lace Ribbon Scarf from the queue to cast-on status in Ravelry.

As usual, stuff always takes longer than I think it will. Incorporating the sleeve
increases into the lace pattern took some thought and fiddling. Then, the pattern tells you that you HAVE to end on row 48 of the pattern before casting on for the body and your sleeve will be 16". Liars! 18-1/2" is my sleeve length, which just means I'll have to shorten the ribbing on the cuff when it's added later, I'm not stopping now!

Of course, you Knitting Police out there (you know who you are) are smirking and nodding wisely, muttering "She didn't meet Row Gauge with that yarn she substituted." If I meet row gauge it's a complete freaking accident. Patterns are usually written with lengths in inches specified instead of number of rows worked for poor knitting wretches like me. I'm convinced that the only person who ever met stitch AND row gauge on any project was the proverbial "little old lady from Pasadena, who only drove the car on Sundays to church" because she spent the REST OF HER TIME trying to meet both stitch and row gauge. Enough said.

And no, I didn't even START the damn scarf and Ravelry won't let me move it back to the queue, so it sits there, mocking me. Dammit.

Center Cable V-neck Sweater Finished but too small

Well, I'm bummed. This is the Center Cable V-neck Sweater by Treva Durham in November 2008 - January 2009's Cast on magazine. The sweater is finished, I like it and think I would wear it, but the armholes are too small. I had noticed in the directions that the arm scye shaping was a little different than usual, but forged on ahead. Usually for the arm scye you bind off 3 or so stitches on each side, then another two or so stitches each side, and then start decreasing. This pattern you only bind off 3 st each side and then start decreasing, making a narrower arm scye that evidently my "healthy" armpits can't squeeze into. Oh well, onto the Sideways Spencer!

Crazy Guilty Gleeful

Sale Sale! I've been a bad, bad girl. The Gourmet Yarn Co. had all their Berroco yarn on sale for 25% off! Isn't it beautiful? It's for the Sideways Spencer by Annie Modesitt. Now, of course, I'm ready to kick the poor Center Cable V-Neck Sweater to the curb and start the Spencer. How fickle am I. Luckily I knit the sleeves and back first, so at least I'm knitting the most enjoyable part of the sweater now, saved the best for last like dessert.

Ljod - finished and wearable!

It's finished and it's actually wearable. A little snug around the middle, but still flattering. It's Ljod, from Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Knits books. I really wish it had a diagram, I had to really stretch the waist to make it fit, yet the shoulders fit great and the hem is actually so big it ruffles a little, which I think is intended.