Happy Christmas!

It's ten to one in the morning, and I have just finished and wrapped Devil's sweater, and put it under the tree. Hooray! It's not blocked, and neither sweater had buttons yet, but the knitting is done. This year, that counts, in my book.

I hope you all have a wonderful and merry Christmas with family and friends, with lots of love and laughter and knitted goodness. Cheers!

Post-release bliss

I've spent the last week or so working on other people's projects. Which is to say, working on patterns that I didn't write/am not currently writing/am not planning on writing up and publishing. It's been very enjoyable!

I've been doing some spinning...

I ran out of yarn with one row and ten stitches left in the third chart of Jane's Ubiquitous Shawl, so over the weekend I spun up 8 more ounces, and last night I plied it all (in less then 2 hours - love the miniSpinner for plying!). It's now having a bit of a soak, and it should be dry by tomorrow, so I can motor on with that project.

I've been working on Ruth's Mystery KAL, a pair of gloves in Botany Lace.

I'm almost done with last week's clue on glove #2, which is good because the last clue was released this morning. I think these are going to end up as a Christmas present.

And I've been cranking along on Boo's Christmas sweater.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, she is not colorblind. She simply wants to look like a green and purple bumblebee. We had a mini-P3 reunion lunch last week, and the general consensus was "Did you talk to her about the color wheel at all??!!!"* and "You should probably do some kind of slip stitch when you change colors..."

The end result is a slip stitch color change row of which I am becoming increasingly enamoured. If I hadn't put a mental moratorium on designing projects** until after the new year, I would be starting a steeked fingering weight cardigan using this switch over. But in some more appealing colors, to be fair...maybe I can just do a bit of swatching?

* The girl is not yet six, but she has pretty definite ideas of what she wants. Color wheel, shmolor wheel. Green and purple it is.
** Note: this does not mean I'm not going to buy yarn for it. Knitpicks doesn't deliver to the UK, but they do deliver to my parents' house! Hello Christmas present to myself.

Still here...

I have no pictures for you today, I'm afraid. Events have conspired against me to prevent my being home in the daylight hours with reasonable light. However, Things Are Happening.

• There has been pattern editing. Much editing. Progress is being made.
• There has been dyeing. In fact, there is dyeing right now. All is fun with the pretty colors.
• There has been running. And working. And lunches with departing office mates, etc. Busy work stuff.
• Tonight, there will be swatching. Because, although it's not December (which means I don't actually have to cast on the girls' Christmas sweaters yet), it would probably be a good idea if I figured out what the crap I'm going to do with the stitch counts and such before Saturday. You know, so I can knit them eventually...

That's about it. Maybe pictures on Friday. Keep your fingers crossed.

Remember, remember...

I love Guy Fawkes Day. Not because of the terrorist associations of the holiday, or the burning effigies on a pyre thing, but because who doesn't love standing out in 3 degree weather drinking mulled wine and watching fireworks?

Anyway, the 5th of November seems like a good day to take stock of the state of my knitting world, and consider exactly how crazy the next seven weeks are going to be. I have a wonderful family, and I love knitting them things - we're at a stage now where pretty much everyone lives in a place where wooly goodness is a good thing. But, given the general state of affairs (and my time constraints), last week I decided that I'm not going to try to knit for everyone this Christmas. That's not to say there aren't going to be knitted gifts - I've been doing a bunch of hats recently, you may have noticed, so some of those may find new homes. I've also got a bunch of handspun crying out to be woven, which is way faster then knitting, particularly once the warping is done. So there will be weaving.

Then given all my good intentions and promises to myself of no more late night, panicked knitting sessions, I then promptly turned around and asked the girls what kind of sweaters they wanted for Christmas.



There is dyeing in my future (something new and different...). Boo wants green and purple stripes, and Dev wants colorblock in pink, teal, turquoise, bright blue and fuschia. Ow, my eyes!...I think I'll do Boo's yarn first and hope that Devil has a change of heart. Fingers crossed!

Today's sweater, take 2

Subtitle to post: Yes Gertrude, gauge does matter.



What you see above is my Today's Sweater for P3, so-called because I cast on the day of the Today's Sweater presentation. I dutifully knit my way through half of the colorwork chart for the bottom hem before I got home, and was very pleased with how things were turning out.

But when I got home, I put the sweater down for  a few days, and when I picked it up again, I began to have the sneaking suspicion that all was not well in River City. I knit a few more rows, all the while knowing, without a doubt, that I was going to have to rip out the entire thing and start over again.

Why was I going to have to rip out? I hear you asking. Well, dear readers, the answer is: swatches lie.

Now, perhaps they don't lie if you do a proper swatch, aka cast on 40 stitches, work in pattern for 6 inches and cast off, block the swatch, and then allow it to hang from one side for a few days so that the weight of the piece can work whatever voo doo it will do on your knitting. However, if, in a fit of wool fever, you knit a swatch that is approximately 2 inches by 3 inches while on the train to a knitting retreat, then block it by hastily wetting in from a bottle of water in a deserted Welsh train station while waiting for your connection and then have a complete and utter brain fart regarding the actual required gauge of the pattern of interest (note: 6 stitches per inch is in no way the same as 6.5 stitches per inch, just for the record), you may have problems such as the one I encountered.

My supposed-to-be 42 inch sweater was actually closer to 48 inches around, giving me approximately 8 inches of ease. And even for a comfy, oversized sweater that is destined to be worn as outerwear, 8 inches of ease is too much. Waaaay to much. So, with much muttered obscenity and a few tears, my 4 inches of Today's Sweater became piles of loose yarn, and I retreated to the comfort of Open Office spreadsheets to figure out what to do. I'm already knitting on US 2 needles, and I have absolutely no desire to go down a needle size, so I plugged in my gauge and the stitch counts, and have figured out that I can knit the next size down and get something that will fit. Hooray!

You may also notice that I've changed from a ribbed bottom edge to garter stitch. It just seemed better that way. Onward to rustic wooly goodness!