The Cardigan Refused to Be Finished Part 4

The final installment in the saga. When last we left the tale I began knitting on the dreadful thing. I tried to be optimistic because I could tell the work would not cooperate with me if it knew my dislike. So I took it with me to my summer job every day and pretty much knit on it with every spare moment I had. As first, nothing extremely bad occurred. I worked my way through the back finding it to be meditative if a little boring. Then I began the front pieces. That is when I noticed my hands were not happy. I was very careful to keep them relaxed and not knit too tight. I even cut down the amount of time I knit to add more time of hand rest. Still, I was cramping very easily. I finally decided it had to be the yarn. Cottons do not slide through my hands as easily as the natural wool fibers or the nylon sock yarn I am used to working with. On top of the monotonous pattern, the ugly color, and a deadline, I now had to deal with the fact that my hands were being ripped apart! Plus, it just never seemed to end. The cardigan was worked in pieces so that involved a back, two front panels, two sleeves, and a button band. Not to mention that I was mortified it would not fit my pixie stick of a sister. She is incredibly thin, and after the near fiasco of my first sweater I did not want a repeat performance. Granted I had done a swatch and accounted for my idiosyncrasies, but it never left me that I could be going through all this for naught. By the end of July, all the pieces were knit. Seaming is usually not a big deal for me. However, cotton is not nearly as forgiving as a fuzzy wool or acrylic. Any little mess up in your seaming process will show as a glaring error which I knew could not occur in this sweater. As a result, the process took twice as long as usual simply because I was being so flipping careful to make the seams look clean. When I was finally through with that, I had to move on to the buttons. My sister had insisted on some lackluster light beige buttons, and they absolutely refused to cooperate! How hard is it just to stay where I put the initial tacking thread? How come they could not just work on this cardigan that I needed TO JUST BE FINISHED DAMNIT! But low and behold some hours later, the thing was finally ready. I gave it to my sister some weeks later fairly biting my nails with nervousness. I need not have worried for the cardigan fit beautifully. She had to roll up the sleeves, but other than that she was smitten. I was proud and relieved that I would never have to touch the stupid thing ever again!

A Day Steeped in Fiber

Some times, the Lord shows his love in ways we can least expect. At some points in life the Lord provides a beautiful opportunity that never entered into our thoughts. Such an event has occurred in my life in the form of a completely unexpected connection to a person whose family raises alpacas. This girl stopped me in class one day with a query as to where I got my yarn. Before I could even begin to go into detail she told me that her mother raises alpacas and they are willing to sell me the fiber for extremely cheap. I could barely contain my ecstasy as she continued to explain that her family had far too much fleece and nothing to do with it. What providence that I just learned to spin this summer! How could I not jump at the opportunity to own oodles of my favorite fiber for so little cost. I eagerly agreed to some terms of a deal, and we arranged a visit for me to pick out the fiber I desired. So that is what I did yesterday dear co-blogger, and here are some lovely shots of my adventure and its fruits. 

 

These are the views that met my eyes from the back patio. My friend's step-father built that barn. 

The interior of the barn was just as beautiful as the outside. Every edge routed to perfection, and full of light as well as the smell of animal. Not the manure smell that can clog the nostrils just hay, fur, and wood. The white cutie is the baby alpaca that is the newest member of the herd. She got curious first, and she looks so boldly at the camera. She is simply called Baby. The other is the alpaca that has my favorite fleece that I purchased. I know the picture is shadowy, but you can see the softness of her coat. Her name is Bambi. 

The farm has three females counting Baby, and all the others are males. The second picture is of the three females (Amber is the front and mother of Baby in back. Bambi is the other female.) The dark man in the top picture is the lover boy of the farm. He is Baby's father, and the only male to successfully convince a female to mate. His name is Echo, and I think that his coat is the most beautiful color of the entire bunch. I don't know if it translates well, but it is this amazing maroon brown like the color of cherry juice on a black forest cake. I did not actually buy Echo's fleece. However, the family proposed an even bigger discount if I agreed to knit scarves from the fiber. My friend's mother picked Echo's fleece for the project. The fiber I bought for myself was from Bambi (the tawny female behind Amber) and a male named Sundance. I did not get a good close up of Sundance. However, there are pictures of his fleece below. His is actually award winning, and I liked the touch of it more than Echo's. Still, after playing with Echo's fleece when I brought it home I have decided that I must get some for myself next time I visit. (The order of the fleece below from top down is Bambi, Sundance, and Echo). 

I know this post is long, but I cannot help but wax poetic about this stuff. It needs some cleaning. It needs to be carded. It still smells of animal. But, there are few pleasures as tactfully beautiful as dipping your arms elbow deep in clouds. I will need another post to talk about each fleece specifically so for now I leave you to gaze at my treasures.

Vermonters

Until very recently, I have been adverse to knitting fair isle, mostly because knitting with more than one ball of yarn at a time is extremely difficult when you're confined to a tiny desk in a lecture hall. This year, however, I have learned to deal with it. I went to WEBS after Halloween and bought 6 balls of Northampton wool in various colorways. The woman at the cash register asked me what I was knitting. "Hats. For Christmas. Everyone's getting hats this year."
Now, you may recall how frustrated I became last year after having knit about 30 hats in the span of a semester. Clearly, I've gotten over it, because I spent the next week knitting hats. Many colored, snowflake-y hats. I knit 6. In 5 days. My modmates reveled in them, and began pick the color combinations for me. Every day, it was "Wow, Heather, ANOTHER one!" They got really invested, and I just kept knitting.
So, when it became time to photograph the first six of these hats (I have enough yarn to make about 15), I knew I'd have to make it a group effort. My modmates and honorary modmates all gathered on the couch, and had a lovely FO shoot.
Sarah (the one with the plant--I don't really understand why that is) directed, and made sure each hat looked nice on each person. She then demanded poses, like from Haley above, "Look cold! But cute!" We all decided that the photos looked like they were from some ski trip to Vermont that we never took. I couldn't have done it without them...

...And now I have too many hats. Again.

The Cardigan Refused to Be Finished Part 3

(Parts 1 and 2 can be found in earlier posts) I knew I was doomed because the moment I saw the color only one word came to my mind, "ick!" Taupe is the less than attractive step-sister of beige and it is completely against my nature. I like to knit with bright, bold, and saturated colors. I enjoy yarn whose color makes you drool with desire to wear it. When I had previously knit things for my sis, they were in beautiful greens or deep merlot. She is a gorgeous woman with a taste for good clothing, and the one time I offer a sweater she manages to pick the color that I would never have even considered touching unless it was for a dish rag. I will admit the color does have one advantage; taupe matches everything. Even though black can achieve the same advantage taupe is lighter and less stark simply because it has not personality of its own. Bemoaning my own stupidity and quietly cursing my fickle sibling I began to search for yarn. I decided knitpicks was my best option due to my limited funds. My sister had requested that the cardigan be light enough to wear around in spring, but heavy enough that she could potentially wear it in the cooler months. Keeping this in mind, I settled on knitpicks Cotlin in the colorway Cashew. It was the right weight, machine washable, and the linen would give it a nice drape while the cotton would keep it from being too warm. I went ahead and ordered the stuff and prayed that it would less yucky in person. No such luck, but the die was cast. 

Peace in frogging

So I just spent the last half hour frogging three inches of knitting. Although this may not sound like a great feat, you might reconsider that position when I tell you that it was about 140 yards worth and 6004 stitches. Yes, I just had to frog an entire ribbing of a sweater. The stitches got so hopelessly twisted that there was no saving it. It is strange that I do not find myself upset when I have to frog things, or even when I have to start things over in general. I remember when I used to take private art lessons, my teacher would sometimes advise me to go back into the piece and recreate a certain technique that I had already created on another part of the work. Daunting as recreation is, I always said, "If I did it once, I can do it again." With this in mind I have faced many starts and stops with a strange sense of patience, especially in knitting. I find that the aspect of frogging is far more vexing than actually making the decision to do it. In the case of this work, I came to a couple realizations that I would not have discovered had this initial error not occurred.

1. Even though this sweater is a massive project, I was able to keep up with directions and maintain the correct stitch count. I have a big problem with phantom stitches when I do large projects. However, I am still very happy that after the increasing my stitch count continued to be correct even with the daunting number (394 at that point)

2. With the work off the needle, I was able to see its actual size. I am making this sweater for a man and I was a little worried about sizing issues due to the fact that he is a big guy and my gauge is, yet again, a little wonky. As I was knitting I was constantly worrying that it would be too small. When I took it off I was able to compare its true size with a sweatshirt I had on hand. The sweater will prove to fit him the way it is supposed to, which is looser than fitted. I am extremely excited now because I know for sure that I am on the right size track.

I will cast on again. I will knit the ribbing correctly this time. I will recreate the beautiful stitches and the right number of them. If I did it once, I can do it again.

The Lost Generation

I'm back! ...For now. I can't be blamed, I'm fulfilling my pre-practicum as an intern at the performing arts school down the street, taking a Shakespeare Seminar that I'm far too young to take, and I'm TAing a freshman tutorial. Lots of reading, but so rewarding--especially because of my duties as a TA.

So my professor Michele (now my committee chair and mentor and wonderful) sent me an email that listed my TA duties. I skimmed it quickly, saw that it was the usual stuff (hold office hours for students, hold writing workshops, planning lessons, etc.), and went on to the next email. In our meeting before classes started, we were bantering on the topic of these duties. "Hey, at least I'm not knitting in class!" I retorted. "Well, then you obviously didn't read the email very carefully," she said. Hmm? She opened the email on her laptop, and scrolled down to the bottom. It said "Knit me a scarf for winter." She was ASKING ME TO KNIT IN CLASS...even while I was teaching!

I've been drooling over photos of Noro Striped Scarves (a la the pattern that Jared Flood claims was not his idea), and while I've never really been much for Noro (don't shoot!) I saw the opportunity and dove in head first.

Now, I'm just going to show you photos, because I've spoken long enough, and the pictures speak for themselves.

I took these around campus, and actually waited two weeks for the right light to do so.

On the fire escape outside my house.

On the Graffiti Wall and adjoining stairs in the Arts Village.
On the trellis at the entrance of the Community Garden out my window.
God I love this. I haven't put it on, because I'm afraid Michele will never get it off me.

A Brief Respite From the Cardigan: Psycho Socks!

Yes it is true, the socks are finished! I have never taken so long to finish a pair of socks. Seriously, even my pomatomai did not take me so long. However, these socks are completely worth the trouble. They scream my name with a larger than life bull horn. What is funny about this pattern is that my lovely co-blogger is doing the same design. We did not plan this. Indeed, I was absolutely tickled to discover that we picked the same pattern with no previous consultation or hints. Even more awesome is how different the two pairs are from each other. My co-blogger chose to do them in a stunning solid (was it red? I really can't remember except for the fact that I oggled) while I picked a very loud hand-dyed. My socks are perfectly me. What you see first is the crazy colors spreading themselves in a dizzying array of neon green, purple, and electric blue. Then you notice that there is a pattern. Finally, if you take the time to really look, you can see that the pattern is extremely intricate and lovely on its own. I am layered. First you see the boldness, then you notice the texture, and if you stick around long enough then you might discover the depth. Your dice Heather, make sure you post about your socks! (PS Pattern is Vilai by Cookie A. and it can be found in her book Sock Innovation)