purlsandmurmers

Unwindings and new beginnings.

The last time I posted it was mid December and much has happened during the intervening weeks.  Our planned trip to Knoxville was cancelled.  My step-daughter and her family decided to come up here at the last minute so we had a lovely Christmas with my three-year old grandson.  Much time was spent playing, painting, baking holiday cookies and decorating them, and one morning we were even able to go out and catch snowflakes on our tongues.  

Knitting progress was shelved in the general hubub and the rush to make a magical Christmas at home on three days notice; but then Christmas is all about magic and it doesn't take a lot, just creativity and love.

The family is gone now, and I have settled down to the Elaine Striped pullover and one of the worst colds I have had in many a year.  I worked on the sleeve today, got up to the shaping at the top and decided to sew up the sweater and make sure my lengths were correct before proceeding.

At this point I finally had to face facts and deal with the uncomfortable little gremlin that has been sitting on my shoulder and nagging me about this sweater for some time now and admit that he was right all along, and in fact the reason I have been making slow progress is due to the fact that I was never able to completely convince myself that all was well.

The simple truth is that the armholes are just too long.  When the sweater is sewn up the armhole opening is halfway between my bust and my waist, considerably low. And there is no way the sleeve cap, as written will fill the space.  In fact, I don't even want the sleeve cap to fill the space as the sweater would be cumbersome and unwearable.  

 So I ripped the sleeve back to before the cap shaping and then I started ripping back the sweater.  I have finished ripping the back, although I sill have the side seams sewn together at this point.  Next I will rip back the fronts.  

Then I need to add about 4 inches to the sides before the armhole shaping and continue the neckline and shoulder shaping as before.  The total length of the sweater is perfect, the armhole depth is the only issue.  And I will be happy to continue this knowing it will fit.  In fact it may even move along a little more quickly.

It is a suitable end to the year, and although ripping a sweater sounds like a sad way to end a year and begin another, it is actually quite positive since I am no longer fooling myself, wasting my time pursuing dreams instead of reality.  Not that dreams aren't worth pursuing, just that they need to have some foundation.

I hope to close out this year by unraveling this sweater, hopefully finishing  long before midnight,  at which point I shall top off the evening with a little green glass of Nyquil rather than the pink champagne residing in my icebox.  The dawn of a new day and a new year is time enough to begin again.

What's Next: A Plan that might actually stick

I mentioned, a couple of posts back, that I was greatly enamored of the cover sweater for the current Interweave Knits.  When I saw it I immediately envisioned it in some red Aurora 8 that I have in my stash.  Unfortunately there is not enough of the Aurora 8 for that particular sweater so I put the project aside in my head as I fretted and contemplated yarns and whether or not I wanted to order something and if so, what that yarn might be.

 As I was sorting through the yarn stash however, I happened upon some Alpaca Silk from Blue Sky Alpacas.  It is the perfect shade of cherry red and I realized as I looked at it and fondled it, as much as I love the design of the Interweave sweater, what I really want is a red sweater. 

 Luckily for me this red yarn almost fell right into my hand.  As soon as I saw it I remembered purchasing it last February with the intention of knitting the Silk Cocoon Cardigan from the Spring 2009 Interweave knits. This was another sweater that I was eager to knit when I saw it, but the store did not have enough of the color I wanted in stock, and by the time the yardage arrived my attentions had wandered elsewhere.

 

Now it seems like the perfect sweater, although it is vying for attention with this fabulous blue and black cashmere from Stacy Charles called Luba.  I see this yarn in a very simple shape, where the yarn is the star of the show and am considering knitting Ingenue from Wendy Bernard's book, Custom Knits.    This might come first as we are definitely getting into the cold weather season here in the NorthEast and a cozy cashmere sweater is always a welcome addition to the wardrobe. 

For those of you who are eagerly awaiting the Anny Blatt Sweater, Valadon, not to worry.    I never really intended to start it before January, and I was hoping to have reached another interim goal in my weight loss journey, but I will start the sweater whether I am progressing as fast as I hope or more slowly.

I have the yarns together for Valadon and I am ready to go come January, whenever I am ready to start it.  I will finish the Elaine cardigan first as I just don't want to be working two color work sweaters at once right now.  And I might well be knitting two sweaters at once, as I don't believe Valadon, especially once I get up to the color work on the yoke will be a good sweater for portable knitting.

Worked simultaneously or in sequence though I am pretty happy with having these as my next major projects.  I'm not saying there won't be a pair of socks, or mitts or gloves in there, possibility even a hat.  There are a few openings in my wardrobe for small portable projects.

And of course I must finish my current project first.  I'm sticking to my no more additions to the UFO pile rule, as well as my determination to work that pile down.

A week has passed.  Intended progress has not been made.  Perhaps, my plans were a bit ambitious, although they did not seem at all so. I have not finished the gray sweater although I do intend to finish it before I leave for Knoxville.  Little progress has been made on the striped cardigan because little time has been spent with it.  

Yet I don't feel particularly frustrated by my lack of progress.  There has been much singing of Christmas carols to myself, even as I worked on non-holiday inspired projects like sewing.  Snow on the ground only serves to brighten my spirits more.  The tree is up and lit, although not fully decorated yet this year.  It has been put on the sun porch, which is not heated but is protected by sliding glass doors from the rest of the house.  It is a safe place to leave a tree with a young cat in the house who feels it his mission to climb every mountain.  Since we will be away Christmas week, it seems like the best coarse, and I am content to see the sparkling lights twinkling in multiple iterations as they are reflected between the windows and sliding doors, sparkling in the dark winter night.

Cookies have been baked and distributed and, if I have not been knittng, I have at least finally been assessing the state of the yarns stash which is piled up behind closed doors in the library, safe from young kitten claws.  The process of sorting, indexing, and putting away has begun, and although I am somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of yarn in residence, I am also very much enamored of every skein, eager to start every project "right now" as I pick up the yarn and put it away.  New projects are tempting, but the projects that are here waiting are calling to me strongly now; egging me on to finish the piles and mountains that are dragging me down.

I don't think the UFOs will be finished this year, aside from the grey cardigan.  I have other priorities at the moment but that mountain of sewing and finishing as well as unravelling and remaking must begin soon after the new year begins.  In the meantime, I hope to make progress with the yarn stash, organizing and putting away, and although I don't think I finish that either in a week, significant progress can be made.

Update: Elaine Striped Cardi

 The Elaine Striped Cardigan is moving along nicely.  I started the back last night and here it is shown with the two blocked front pieces.  The sweater is not really wider than it is long.  That's just me trying to get it all in the picture in a rush.

Maybe I'll even have it ready for Christmas, but I have several other sweaters waiting to be finished as well. I seem to better at starting things than I am at finishing them lately but I do intend to get a handle on that.  My plan is to finish the gray cardigan this coming week and also finish the body of this sweater.  I suppose I am pushing it to think I will also finish the sleeves and assemble the sweater before we leave for Tennessee on the 23rd.  But I am considering the possibilities for a travel project as well, just in case.

I also installed the new stitch count app on my iTouch.  I'm already using it and quite happy as I can keep count of total rows and also a counter for shaping.

Winter Interweave

 Three seems to be the magic number for sweaters in new knitting publications this past month.  There are three sweaters I like in the Winter 2009 Interweave Knits, and just as in my last post, two are textured and one is colorwork.

 I adore this jacket. I loved it when I saw the first picture.  The second picture, of the back (below) sealed the deal.  I'm not sure I want it in alpaca, but that is not really an issue.  I want to start it now, tonight, yesterday even.  But I seem to say that about every project I see and I do have projects in the queue that I definitely want to wear soon, projects that are higher in priority than this.

 

But still, it is really lovely isn't it?

 











I also like this lovely Braided Riding Jacket.  I love the texture and the combination of patterns.  I  think it would be really fun to knit.

The pattern is written fro Tahki's Tweedy Alpaca yarn, but I think it would also work beautifully with some Tahki Donegal Tweed, some of which I have in my stash, and some of which is currently existing in the form of Rogue, which is getting a good bit too large and will probably be frogged and repurposed at the end of this winter if not before.

 And I mentioned that there was one color-work sweater I liked as well.  I was referring to Miss Michele's Jacket which is stranded color work at almost 9 stitches to the inch.  Not a fast project, but oh so lovely.

There are a couple of other projects that I think are pretty, but they are not for me, and there is a hat I like as well.  There seem to be a lot of hats I like floating around  and one of these days I might decide to knit myself one, but I haven't reached that stage yet.  There are a lot of higher priorities in my life.