Never enough yarn

The person who releases the technology that allows us to transmit photos directly from cameras to blogs will be a millionaire in minutes. I swear, often the only reason I delay posting is that it just seems like too much effort to dig out the camera cord, upload to iPhoto, upload to Flickr, title and move to photo sets, edit sizes, etc. No, it didn't actually take me more than ten minutes. Yes, I am whining.

This has been a decent few weeks on the knitting front. I made it into London last weekend (Avenue Q! Raunchy singing puppets! Genius!) and stopped by John Lewis. I don't know if I have mentioned before the dire state of yarn shops in my neck of the woods. West Sussex is, I fear, entirely bereft, unless you count C&H Fabrics (and I don't). Sometimes I think I named this blog Knit City in an attempt to convince myself that I don't actually live smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Well, that, and all the good puns were already taken.

Anyways, John Lewis. I was overwhelmed in minutes, even though I'm sure it still has nothing on US yarn shops. The only brands they carry are Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Louisa Harding, Noro and Sirdar, but for someone who's been limited to Internet shopping for months, it was an embarrassment of riches. I had planned on buying some Aran wool to make Snow White, but I couldn't quite bring myself to pay full price for 12-14 skeins of anything. I am ebay's bitch, I fear. I did, however, pony up the cash for a few skeins of fun yarn, as it was my birthday weekend, after all.


Once again, I must apologise for the darkness of this shot, but it was the only one that captured some of the richness of that deep red ribbon yarn. Two skeins of that will become a mini Clapotis, a perfect accent for the holiday season. The shiny copper has not yet announced what it would like to be, but I could not resist the glitter. However, I could only afford two skeins. The plan was to make a very open-weaved wrap, but I haven't found a pattern that will work for that yet. It also may end up as a decorative scarf.

Those projects must wait, however, as Trapeze is still on the needles.


Here it is, with the requisite cat tail that seems to sneak into every shot. I had some trouble with this one. I was making it in the large, but it seemed too small, so I frogged a weeks' worth of work (sob!) and started again. Unfortunately, the XL was clearly huge, so THAT got frogged and now it's back to the large, which might be a bit snug, but at least it's a rib stitch, right? It will stretch. And I'm slowly losing weight, so it might fit by the time I finish it.... Well, it was either that or swim in an XL, so I'll live in Delusionville and hope for the best.

Getting on the trapeze

This has been a quiet weekend, spent strenuously avoiding all the marking that was waiting for me. It's now 9:00pm on a Sunday and I haven't picked up the red pen yet, so I'm either doing something right or very, very wrong. When I am groaning mid-week about all the marking I have to do, I must remember this.

The quiet weekend got off to an excellent start with the arrival of two packages containing some prime weekend reading:

Please ignore the hideous carpet and concentrate instead of the wealth of patterns. I found Rowan 38 for cheap on ebay, and despite that fact that I am unlikely to knit a thing from it before spring, I love the patterns from the 'romance' section and will definitely be knitting up a few of those.

I eagerly dove into the two magazines, searching feverishly for my next pattern. I skipped all the articles -- I'll go back for those later. This was all about finding a use for 20 skeins of DK wool/silk so I could finally get my next project started. (Here, I must go backwards and say that, having swatched the night before, I had actually spent part of the morning working on Ivy. My gauge was perfect, my cables were cruising along, and I was ready to burn the needles in frustration. Just say no to bulk ebay bamboo. The needles themselves are fine, but the fabric does not budge an inch on the cord without assistance. I've encountered this problem before and hated it then, but now that I've been spoiled by working with Addi Turbos and Lantern Moons, I can't go back to the bunching fabric and having to constantly stop knitting to push it around. I can't! So Ivy made it 2 inches before she was frogged in frustration. New plan: buy one set of GOOD needles every month, since I currently only have sets in 3.75 and 4mm.)

Although I like the new IK a lot, nothing grabbed me and insisted I make it. VK had several striking pieces, and I immediately started swatching for the lace hoodie, but I did not like the way it looked with the only possible yarn I have on hand. Add that one to the queue. The number of oversized, cabled sweaters is a bit worrying -- I lived through the 80s once, people, and I don't need to do it again.

Having realized that my current needle/yarn situation was not going to work with any of the patterns I wanted (note to self: this is an excellent excuse to build up your stash), I turned to the Internet and, on the same day I received three knitting magazines, bought a pattern. It was an emergency, I said to my wallet. I had nothing on hand I wanted to knit!

So, behold the first few inches of Trapeze.. It's an interesting knit, and definitely helping to improve my rib stitch, as the entire thing is worked in a slipped rib pattern. The pattern starts off immediately with short rows -- no messing around here. I made a few mistakes, but by the time I spotted them, I had three more inches of perfect rib under my belt and there was no way I was frogging it.

Can you see it? Here's a hint -- 2/3 of the way in, on the bottom right side. I've decided that I can fix it in the blocking or just count on the rest of the sweater to hide it. I am so happy to finally be cruising along on a project that I don't want any interruptions. I'll just say that I kept the error in to remind myself of my fallibility. Yeah, that's it.

Progress report

Although I am, deep down, terribly lazy, I do occasionally have fits of productivity in which I finish projects I have been procrastinating on for weeks. Such was the case last night, when I finally grabbed the summertime tunic and wove in all the ends. There were a TON of ends, because the yarn was very knotty and needed to be cut far too often. It took me well over an hour, but this morning she was washed and is now christening my blocking board:


I also bought ribbon and beads for the straps, so this one should get a proper FO post soon -- only two months after I finished knitting it. I was hoping it would be done by this evening, but today turned out to be a cold, rainy day, and nothing is drying quickly in this weather.

Clapotis has been teaching me very a important lesson about hand-dyed yarn. And that lesson is: never use it again for projects that require more than one skein. The first two I used were perfectly matched. Then I started happily knitting with the third, only to discover (after knitting about three inches, of course) that it was noticeably darker than the rest. Frog frog frog. Next skein was better, but seemed to be missing most of the red tones. Snip that yarn, start a new ball. The one after was fine. The next one had a perfect blend of colours, but the overall tone was a bit darker. So now, as I enter the home stretch, I'm alternating the two balls that were only a bit off in order to produce a more even effect overall. And, once again, creating too many damn ends that I'll have to weave in.


The next time I feel productive, that is. Not now, for goodness sake.

Always a WIP, never a FO

I am beginning to wonder whether I will ever finish another project. Forget the sweater curse; I have the curse of the never-ending WIP. This is another way of saying that the ends on the summertime tunic still have not been woven in and Wisp, well, Wisp is having issues. I was finished. FINISHED, I tell you. However, despite going up a needle size and binding off loosely, the cast-off edge was still too tight. And the yarn knotted when I undid it. Until, eventually, in a fit of rage, I cut off the cast-off edge and tried to recreate my stitches. I managed to pick them all up -- no dropped ones, it seems, but I didn't manage to pick them all up from the same row and still need to find a loose end of yarn to start the actual knitting. It is in time out for the moment.

So, instead of dealing with these two projects, I became one of the last knitters in the world to knit Clapotis.


Here it is, halfway done. I'm using Araucania alpaca which, despite being unseasonal, is so soft that I am really enjoying knitting with it. I'm not sure yet if this will be for me; I suspect it will go in the pile of knitted Christmas gifts, and I'll figure out who gets what in December.

Secret Pal Contest: All your WIPS

Secret Pal is keeping me honest and making sure that I update (somewhat) regularly. I didn't mean to disappear. Work got hectic and life got tough and all sorts of other things like that. However, the brilliant thing about a knitting blog is that it is the one place where I do not moan about my life. No troubles shall darken the door (page) of this blog! Only the knitting matters!

Now, if only I had more knitting to show. The latest secret pal contest asks us to show all our WIPs. At the moment, I have three:
You know, I really don't like earth tones quite as much as this picture would suggest. It must be time to invest in some intense red or purple yarn.

This is My Very First Sweater. It was never quite completed.
I began this one way back in December, in the first month I learned to knit. I managed to a) twist all my purl stitches due to misreading instructions and b) ran out of yarn for the hood. I'm sure it could still be saved -- it's basically just a big, shapeless hoodie -- but I'm almost scared to seam it up and discover that my first jumper is a mess. Right now, it's Shroedinger's Jumper. It could be a masterpiece, or a disaster. I like to live with the delusion that my first jumper was, in fact, a masterpiece. Or, at least, it would be if it was ever completed.

Up next is Lauren. Oh, Lauren. You have turned out to be something of a bitch.
Once again, I managed to drop some key stitches and was left with something of a mess. This wrap is proving to be my emotional litmus test. If I am in a positive mood, the knitting flies by. If I have anything else on my mind, disaster strikes. I am currently living in denial with this one. I don't want to go back and try to fix it until I am willing to accept that the whole damn thing may need to be frogged again. Right now, Lauren is in a serious time out.

Finally, there is some actual progress. I'm shocked, too. After thinking about working on Soleil for ages, I finally realised that, despite having the yarn on hand, I really wasn't that enthused about the pattern. Fortunately, Interweave Knits swept in and saved the day with the Summertime Tunic. It's a very straightforward knit, perfect mindless knitting in the round.
I'm not thrilled with the ribbing, which seems to be one of my knitting weaknesses. It never looks even, no matter how careful I think I am with the tension. However, I'm back to straight stockinette now, and I'm hoping that a bit of blocking will sort it out.

I'm already starting to look around with increasing desperation for my next pattern. I need a break from all this simple knitting with tough cotton! I think I'm about to start a shrug made with some handpainted alpaca, so hopefully there will soon be an addition to my WIP list.