Life, Knitting and the Pursuit of Roller Coasters

My car is having an expensive and torrid love affair with the dealership service shop. A few weeks ago the casing blew off the mirror, the check engine light came on, then the brakes started grinding. That was a pricey visit and it was happy for about a week. The day after the new mirror piece was put on the car, the check engine light came back on.

Then on my way home from Knitterpalooza, all hell broke loose. We suffered a catastrophic failure. First it looked like a clogged intake, then they dug deeper. The deeper they got the more expensive things got and it has progressed to the point of needing a new engine. For a lot of money.

After trying a few other avenues, I’ve ended up requesting a loan on prosper.com which is an interesting concept… just not one I’d ever thought I’d have to use as a borrower.

So, a huge repair cost on top of my other debts is quite possibly the catastrophic rock bottom event I’ve been stashing for. The yarn stash isn’t going to get any additions til this thing is paid off, and there will be some major cutbacks on the traveling next year while I behave like an adult and get my ass out of some debt.

Knitting, however, has been a great stress outlet through this whole week. I’ve frogged a couple socks that were getting neglected, and cast on for mittens at the beginning of the week. The first one is done and just needs a thumb. I’m using helloyarn’s generic Norwegian mitten graph and lifted a few traditional motifs from various other free pattern charts. My first corrugated ribbing, and I made myself knit all the light color continental-style, which as a left-handed reverse-directional knitter is all kinds of weird as I’m then holding the yarn in my right hand. But I think it might get me one step closer to knitting right handed. Or at least give me an alternative when my wrists get tired knitting Lefty English style. Plus the whole two-colored two-handed yarn handling took some getting used to, but after about 20 rows, I started getting the hang of it.

Mittens aren’t quite what I’d planned as my next project after my sweater, but it’s a nice diversion while I decide what the next sweater will be. I’ve got yarn and patterns handy for a few that I want to try. Right now I’m debating between three good contenders. The cable-down raglan from the spring Interweave in a deep claret colored Cascade 220 is one option. It’s gorgeous, and would be a good “next logical step” after a plain worsted weight top-down raglan. I’ve also got yarn and pattern for Rogue, either in a tweedy banana yellow or a rustic tweedy orange. Rogue is one of those patterns that got me interested in knitting and I’ve seen so many wonderful versions of it out there that I want one for my very own.

The other one is one that just lives in my head. I have 20 balls of Rowan Yorkshire tweed 4ply in two colors, a green color and a khaki color. I’ve also got a couple balls each of two accent colors, a grey and a purple. I’m envisioning something with the light color as yoke, upper sleeves and the green lower on the body with the accent colors acting as a transitional fair isle band between the two colors. This one looks good in my mind, but the yarn is small gauge and coming out of my head it will take a little more work to get the FO to match my vision. I’m not sure if I’m ready to tackle all of that as my second sweater.

Thoughts?

I present my first sweater. 

Top down Raglan formula V-neck with seed stitch edging. The yarn is an unknown worsted weight wool. I love it! The sleeves came out a little shorter than I’d have liked, but they sit properly at 3/4 length so they still seem to work. I wore it yesterday for Knitterpalooza and it did well to stave off the chill. Not too bad for a first time out, and It’ll work well as a fall sweater. I’ve been bit by the bug now, I’m itching to expand into other patterns now and have plans for several other sweaters swimming around in my head.

Knitterpalooza was a blast! Thanks again Kristi for hosting a mess of knitters! We had a great afternoon of shopping and hanging out with knitters in Lansing. It was nice to put faces to some of the blogs I read and meet a whole world of other new-to-me locals.

I’m still plugging away at the sweater, although not having every hour all day to work on it has slowed me down a little. I have added the neckline stitching.  I ripped and redid the hem (i hadn’t gone down in needle size when I switched to seed stitch, and it flared a lot). And I’ve got one sleeve finished. It’s getting close, I should be able to knock out the other sleeve this week. If the weather cooperates and stays cooler, I could even wear the FO to Knitterpalooza on Saturday! I’ll probably bring it along to show off even if it doesn’t get cold enough to wear it though.

I also had a good combo hobby weekend in Pittsburgh this last weekend. My carnival jaywalker got to see Kennywood. This was a precautionary trip in case I for some reason don’t get back to Kennywood in October like I plan. I had a good day  visiting the park with my local-to-Pitts friends and got a little knitting done in line and even brought the sock out on the carousel.

On Sunday afternoon, Greg and I went to Knit One and spent a while petting the walls. I picked up some koigu and some calmer plus some dalegarn that I’m thinking will be for mittens. We had a nice laugh at the wrong assumption that Greg’s my adorable and patient husband. Although I suppose adorable, patient guys are a rarity in yarn stores, husbands or not. I think Mike might be really upset with me if I went and got married without telling him though.

Well, if all goes well, my next post will have a finished sweater. Wish me luck!

I’ve dreamed of my first sweater since before I started knitting. I’ve looked at a million patterns, made some miniature doll sized sweaters, envisioned a dozen different designs in my head. I’ve been planning and forming and knitting this sweater in my head for nearly 2 years now. It’s lived up on the top of a pedestal and I wasn’t quite ready to climb up and claim it. I’ve read a zillion posts on gauge, seen other people successes and read the stories and hopefully learned with them from their mistakes. And yet, with all that education and thought and energy, I never took the plunge. Sure, I made a couple false starts, but never actually jumped in with both feet and full commitment.

I’ve completely surprised myself. I’m a woman obsessed and astounded. I had the day off on Friday. A 4-day weekend. For some reason the itch hit hard Thursday night. I’d been burnt out all week, my brains were scrambled and I really needed the break. I’ve had these 15 balls of worsted mulberry-colored wool in my stash that I got on ebay for a song last year. They’re unlabeled, but I’ve done a felting test and they’re definitely wool. I sat down Thursday night with the bag of wool in front of me, pulled out my knitpicks needles and swatched. I browsed around Ravelry and found the free top-down raglan formula that I’d been looking for, measured my swatch, measured myself and figured out my neckline plans. Before I went to bed Thursday night, I’d washed my swatch, cast on and the first ball of yarn was knit up as the start of the neckline.

Friday I slept in. I pushed forward. I wasn’t sure what I was going to end up with, but I kept plugging away and after a lot of TV and a lazy day in my PJs, on Friday night I’d finished the V-neck, joined in the round and made it to the point of splitting out the sleeves. Saturday was more of the same. TV. Knitting. PJs. I just kept going and by Saturday night the body was long enough to sit below my chest.

Sunday I took the day away from the needles to meet some friends at Indiana Beach, we had a relaxed visit and had a lot of fun hanging out at the park. But then on Monday I was back at it knitting fast and furiously in front of the TV. Before I’d gone to bed last night, I’d finished the body of the sweater and the fifth ball of yarn.

Three days. I’ve made the body of my first sweater in three days.

I’m still obsessed and I’ve never wanted a finished object more. The more of it I do, the more of it I want done. I just keep plugging away. It’ll get a neckline tonight, and if there’s time I’ll start in on the sleeves. If I can keep this pace and keep the motivation, I could have the whole thing off the needles by the end of the week. Seriously. Madness never felt so good.
The thing is, I’ve been fretting and fussing over taking the plunge into a hand knit sweater for a long time. It’s been this huge unsurmountable hurdle. And I’ve just clamored over it like it’s nothing. I don’t know my own strength.

For some reason though, I have this little tiny fear that if I clear this hurdle unharmed (I mean, it’s not just my first sweater, but it actually fits too!) that the knitting gods are going to strike back with a vengeance. For now though, I’m not going to worry too much about that. Because even if for some reason the knitting gods do strike back, I’ll have this great sweater to wear when I face them.

About a week ago, I finished two scarves. My chevron scarf is done now and an un-blogged bulky weight striped garter stitch scarf I started to use up a little bit of stash is also done.

The chevron scarf gets the spotlight, it was a spur of the moment impulse project back in April and the first half of the scarf went along quite quickly. It got a little bit of work here and there over the summer and once I hit the end of the first skeins it sat while I debated if the length was enough without adding the second skeins on. I finally decided a couple weeks ago to add the second skeins in and knit up another foot or so before calling it finished.

It’s gorgeous, I loved working with the Claudia’s Handpainted, and the carousel and cotton candy colorways behaved beautifully with one another. I love the drape on the fabric and the steaming I gave it to uncurl the stockinette softened it up even more.

It will be a great addition to my fall wardrobe and you’ll definitely be seeing it around my neck at amusement parks near you this fall and for many to come.

The black and white bulky scarf is completely different in nearly every way. Well, except that is was also an impulse project. The yarn was in my stash and for some reason it jumped out at my while I was going through it for Ravelry. It’s bulky weight wool ease, I’m not even entirely certain how it made it into my stash, but there it was. I grabbed it and put the needles near the computer and a few weeks later, it had practically made itself.  It will also be warm and nice for the fall and winter.

I’ve since moved on to other projects, lots and lots of socks and a major surprise object that can be used as a measure of my obsessions are going to be blogged about in the very near future. But the scarves deserved their own post.