No more secrets

If you follow me or Allison on Twitter, you might have noticed a very special retweet that popped up on Saturday.

We can now finally reveal The Sooper Sekrit Project we've been alluding to off and on for the past few months. Presenting:

YARN IN THE CITY: THE GREAT LONDON YARN CRAWL

There is some debate about who should take the credit and/or blame for our embarking on organizing this event. Allison swears it was my idea, but that is certainly not how I remember it...to be fair, I don't exactly remember the conversation that took place too specifically (I think it was on the train on the way back from Wales last autumn - I can only claim exhaustion/wool-fume-and-cider-hangover). In any event, six plus months and a lot of research and work onward, and here we are.

On Saturday, the 21st of September, 2013, six intrepid teams will take to the streets (and buses and trains and Tube) of London on a quest to visit four yarn shops over the course of the day (thereby dramatically enhancing their stashes). We are in the process of finalizing the details of the shops and the routes, so stay tuned for more info. You can either check the website, our Facebook page, our Ravelry group or follow us on Twitter as @GLYC. If you are in London, or can get to London, and want to come hang out with a gang of like-minded yarn fanatics for the day, keep your web-ears tuned for further announcements and updates over the next few weeks. We hope to see you in September!

One step forward, two steps back

Fresh off the high of finishing my Whisper Cardigan last week (pictures and post to follow as soon as I get some photos taken), I decided to tackle another UFO lurking next to my couch. This time: my  handspun Stasis Pullover, aka my P3 Today's (not)Sweater.

When last discussed on the blog, I had just come to terms with the fact that my swatch lied to me I didn't swatch properly, and had ripped out the four inches of sweater that I had to start over again with my new gauge and numbers from a smaller size. I managed to get most of the way through the waist decreases on the new version, which then sat in a crumpled pile for about 6 months. Last night I picked it up again, determined to get some good progress made. Then I realised (after referencing my spreadsheet that I was supposed to follow for both stitch AND row counts) that I had completely f-d up the waist decreases. Given my much-larger-then-called for row gauge, I was supposed to decrease every 8 rows. I had managed to ignore that directive entirely and go with the every 18 row decrease spacing called for in the pattern. Fabulous.

So I pulled the body off the needles to rip back to 8 rows about the first set of decreases so I could get them sorted out. And as it was lying in my lap, I had a sudden, terrifying thought: "You know, this looks kind of big..."

So I pulled out my trusty tape measure and checked. Several times. And discovered, in fact, not only was it "kind of big", my spreadsheet-calculated with-my-gauge measurement of 42 inches was actually...(wait for it)...46 inches. W.T.everloving.F!!!????!!!

Now here's the kicker - my gauge is still 6 sts/inch, but the sweater is coming out 4 inches too big. Either I cast on some bastardized number of stitches, or gremlins are coming and stretching my sweater out when I sleep. After much wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair, I ripped out again, cast on the number of stitches for the size 37, and got most of the way through the ribbing.

This morning, on the train, I realized that I cast on the number of the stitches for the body (240) not the number of stitches required for the ribbing (228).

I am beginning to think that this sweater is cursed. Truly, truly cursed. And I'm not sure it will be finished by October and the next installation of P3/Today's sweater.

But it will make a good story...;-)

Monday random bits

1. I have knitting that I can not share. Knitting in custom-dyed indie yarn even. The trick of alternating between two balls of yarn is working out really well in taking care of dye lot variations (which are quite dramatic). But that's all I can tell you at the moment...

2. I have another secret project, only this one is crochet. And it's a baby present. So no pictures at all, for the time being. Suffice to say that a) I had to buy yarn for this one and b) it's cotton yarn (I may now be convinced that cotton yarn is only good for crochet, by the by...) Both of my daughters have asked for the same item, only in wool. Hmmm...

3. Last week's freezing temperatures and snow may have led me to the "inescapable" conclusion that I needed to make the girls new hats and mittens. With hedgehogs (their request). Which meant I had to get some yarn on Friday when out doing "market research" with Alli. The fact that it is now 7 degrees C out has sapped my will to knit mittens and hats. Ehem. Move along here, nothing to see.

4. My Dirty Porridge yarn is now happily dry and ready to be measured and assessed. However, I have not yet managed to collect it from the towel rack in the downstairs bathroom and make such measurements, nor have I managed to collect the other 8 skeins of yarn that have been hanging over the shower head since early December. Knitter/spinner fail.

5. I am a bit concerned that I'm going to be stuck in the middle of a big thing at work and be extremely late to meet Devil's bus after school. Oy! FWP for the win on a (finally!) sunny Monday.

Goals for 2013

Happy New Year everyone! We have finally made it back from our whirlwind tour of the Eastern Seaboard in winter, and I can attest to the fact that the Gulf Stream is alive and well and keeping the UK balmy (as evidenced by the fact that we woke up in Maine yesterday it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and when we landed in London this morning it was 10 degrees Celsius...). I had a lovely holiday, full of family and friends and food and lots and lots of sitting around knitting, reading books and drinking coffee. Now, I'm in the throes of jetlag and while it's getting on towards 10 pm here in London, my body thinks it's just about cocktail time and maybe I should grab a glass of wine or something. Bah!

So I have an ongoing list of knitting goals that are slowly taking shape in my mind, and now seems as good a time as any to start getting them down on (virtual) paper.

1. I have a group of four sweater designs floating around in my head, loosely grouped around the points of the compass, and inspired by four places in Great Britain. Three of these are cabled (dear God!) and one is inspired by a Penny Straker gansey I knit when I was in college. I have the yarn for all four, and I just need to sit down and get going on them. I'm leaning towards self-publishing these as a collection in the fall, which is going to mean cracking down and getting my butt in gear on the knitting. Because, as we all know, cables are so fast to work...
2. I have a shawl design to submit to Knitty for their fall issue - if it isn't accepted, it will become one of four shawl designs also inspired by the UK. I've got one of the others nailed down, and will need to dream up a couple more. These babies won't be finished until next year I'm thinking...
3. Stripey sportweight sweater, probably also for Knitty First Fall.
4. Spin and knit a couple of sweaters from the sweater lots of Hello Yarn fiber taking up valuable stash space. I've started on one of the sweater lots, and I know the sweater I'm going to knit with one of the others, but haven't started the spinning on that one yet.
5. More weaving.

Hmmm...seems like a lot of designing, doesn't it? If I'm being completely honest, there's two more shawl designs and a couple of other accessory type ideas floating around my head, so that would extend the list. I'm feeling like I need to get a massive whiteboard to hang in my office, just to keep all these things straight. It would probably also be a grand help if I managed to get my ideas a bit more in tune with the submission schedules of various magazines, but that remains a long-term goal.

What about you? Do you make resolutions or goals for the new year for your knitting? Or your spinning? Or just life in general? I find I'm really good at making lists and putting things down on paper with the best of intentions. But then the paper gets buried under something else, and I forget about the general plan, or I loose focus and get distracted by something else. So this year, I think that my goals can be narrowed down to "Follow Through". I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes.

Preparations

In a little over one week, I will be hopping on a train and heading off to the wilds of West Wales for a weekend with about 30 other knitters, headed up by the lovely Brenda Dayne and the fabulous Amy Singer. To say that I'm getting excited would be a bit of an understatement, although the jury is still out on whether I'm more excited to be hanging around with other fiber people or escaping from my everyday life for a while...

In any event, it's getting on towards the time when I have to decide what I'm going to bring to this event. My mental list is enough to qualify for steamer trunks and Sherpas to get it all to Pembrokeshire. Since there is just me, I'm going to have to cut it down a bit, but honestly: how many clothes am I really going to need? (Correct answer: not many - is it ok if I wear the same shirt for four days?)

We have been instructed that we don't need to bring any yarn - there will be goody bags with everything we might require (squee!), or we can buy stuff at the small but fabulous marketplace that will be set up - danger Will Robinson! But if there's something in particular we want to bring, we can.  I do need to bring needles. And some stitch dictionaries. Needles and stitch dictionaries I have in abundance, so there's a good third of the suitcase gone already.

My big question to myself is: do I want to bring my new toy? I am waffling back and forth...I could bring it with me, but am I really going to want to spin? There's going to be so much knitting going on...on the other hand, spinning is a pretty good mindless thing to do while chatting with everyone, so it might work out ok. Hmmmm...I had coffee with a fellow P3-er this morning, who said I should bring it just because loads of people might want to try it out. Maybe Kevin Hansen will consider giving me a commission on new business?

Decisions, decisions. I suppose it will all get sorted out by next Friday, but I'm pretty sure that I will be the only attendee who presents a bag of skeined yarn and a printed out pattern for Today's Sweater.