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.

Procrastination

Last evening during hockey practice, (my son's, not mine ;P) I finished the sleeves for Ljod, my current project. Ljod is supposed to be knit with Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, which I have used before and didn't care for. I used Rowan Felted Tweed in Dragon colorway instead. Other than the yarn not matching the picture on the internet (it showed more blue flecks than it really has), I like the yarn. Ljod is from Elsebeth Lavold Viking Knits, from which I have had more than one knitting disaster, but the patterns are just so dern beautiful that I keep trying. Ljod has turned out beautifully, except the waist. There's a lot of shaping on the waist, but no diagram, so I didn't realize until I turned out a cardigan front the width of dental floss (okay, so I exaggerate...) that I was in trouble again. Ended up measuring my waist and blocking all the pieces until they screamed for mercy. So WHAT if the loopholes around the waist are the size of Cheerios. HA.

I washed and blocked the sleeves last night and they dried overnight. So what did I do today? Balanced the checkbook, cleaned the house, went to the store, beat the dog (just kidding), in other words everything BUT stitch this thing together. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime I've cast on for the center-cable V-neck sweater from November 2008 Cast-on. I couldn't just sit idle last night while Ljod was drying, could I?

Skye sweater (Amy pattern from Debbie Bliss)

Don't tell my son, but he's wearing a chick sweater. I absolutely loved the Amy pattern by Debbie Bliss in KidKnits, so I 'masculinized' it using navy and cream yarn and renamed it "Skye" in his honor in case he was looking over my shoulder when I'm on Ravelry. Which is a lot. Turned out really great. It went straight to the closet, where it hasn't seen the light of day yet.

Yarn used was Reynolds Kids from Webbs, which will have to be dry-cleaned, but oh well. The navy stripe in the white ribbing is actually stockinette as is the first white row immediately following. This gets rid of the color "blips" you get on the purl stitches where the other color peeks through. Don't look too closely at the neck, I screwed up the center decreases in the beginning but perservered on instead of a) ripping back 10 rows or b) trying to ladder down through all those decreases without losing my sanity. Oh, and it was meant to be a Christmas gift, but I finished it on New Year's Eve.