EARRAGHUGHHFFBTPPBT!

Last night I worked on the Honeymoon Cami for about 3 hours. You may notice, however (because you pay very close attention to these things), that my progress bar has not ticked up one whit. What possible explanation could there be for that? you ask yourself. Well, I was going along my knitty way, having split the work to form the v-neck and v-back, merrily decreasing at each side every other row, and then something happened and it all went to hell. Problem is -- and this is the most frustrating part -- I'm not sure what the something was, except all of a sudden the v-neck stitches were all unraveling. So I had to rip out to exactly where I'd started that evening and spend an hour and a half getting the stitches back on the needle. They dropped down so quickly, so I was grabbing them 2, 3, 4 rows down the work, anywhere I could. I had to focus a huge portion of my energy on NOT SCREAMING as I painstakingly fixed each split stitch, each twisted stitch, each dropped stitch. So with all that work, I'm successfully right back where I was at this time yesterday.

Since I'm not really sure what I did wrong, I will be threading a piece of spare yarn through the stitches at my current location so that should this unknown problem arise again, I will be in better shape to recapture my stitches after frogging to the spare yarn. I'm hoping that will be insurance against it happening again, because what fun could it be for the knitting gods to try to torment me after I've taken such a precaution? (That is NOT a challenge, knitting gods.)

More yarn on the way!

For a while I was entertaining the notion of making the Anniversary Sweater from Knitty for my husband or some other deserving man in my life. It sort of got pushed to the back burner in my mind, but today I found the yarn called for in the pattern (Katia Pisco, a cotton/linen/acrylic blend) at Elann.com for 55 percent off! I got 21 balls (2000 yards) for $50! I couldn't pass up a deal like that, so I will stash it away somewhere and pull it out when the time is right.

My husband is rolling his eyes really, really hard right now, because I wasn't supposed to buy yarn for more projects until I finish off the ones I already have. He's going to have to learn that it doesn't work that way -- it's all about the stash. Am I right, knitters? Back me up here!

Sheepishly posted HMC progress

I'm not exactly proud of this, what with the terribly uneven stitches and the truly craptastic increases and decreases, but here is where I am on the Honeymooon Cami. I am just about ready to start the V-neck. I have knit the last zillion or so rows on the verge of frogging the whole thing and starting over, but I can never quite bring myself to do it.

Know who's great?

My husband. He made me those cool little status bars over to the right. I know there are flash versions of them floating around out there, but they require uploading and linking to a file, and he said he could make them to stand alone in the HTML of my blog template. Lo and behold, 15 minutes later I had them! Isn't he the best and the smartest and the most handsome? (That last one isn't directly relevant, but it's true.)

Now I just need to start a whole bunch of new projects so I can have more status bars! (I have exercised a lot of will power in not doing so recently.)

If anyone else is interested in the HTML for the status bars, I'm happy to share.

Honeymoon Cami progress

Things are coming along on the Honeymoon Cami. I finished the waist shaping last night (the stockinette looks more even in real life than in this picture -- circular needles don't really allow flat, smooth sections to photograph). Unfortunately, SOMEWHERE I accidentally decreased an extra stitch (I'm fairly sure I didn't drop one -- I have looked very carefully), and I can't decide whether to rip out until I find it or just increase at a seam and hope it's inconspicuous.

Tonight I'm going, for the second time, to the Providence Stitch and Bitch. Then tomorrow I'm getting together with the friend who originally taught me to knit some five years ago and we're going to spend the day knitting, baking, talking, walking, etc. How womanly and domestic. I can't wait! So expect substantial knitting progress by Monday.

HMC update

Current status of my Honeymoon Cami. It has taken me two days to do six rows of the twisted eyelet rib, largely because the yarn is very difficult to work with. Easy to split, and unforgiving when it does. There has been much heartache so far, but I expect things to ease up when I get into the stockinette section.

Weekend arrivals!

The GGH Mystik yarn for my Honeymoon Cami and my Denise Interchangeable Knitting Needles (which come in an adorable case that looks something like a hardcover book -- very nice).

Wheeeeee!

My Denise Interchangeable Knitting Needles are in my possession! On Saturday morning I got up and, in a preview of what I believed would be the sort of interactions that would be dominating my life for the coming weeks, called the post office and got bounced around from department to department and eventually hung up on. Saturday's mail had already come, so that had made 5 days of no knitting needles since the original delivery attempt. I was mentally preparing myself for the reality of falling hopelessly behind in the Honeymoon Cami Knitalong when...what's that rumbling? Is that a truck coming up the road? Oh, I'm sure it's just a moving van or something. Wait, no, it's a U.S. Mail truck! But the mail already came today?!? Wait...it's stopping...it's stopping in front of our house...the guy is walking toward our door with a small package that looks precisely the right size for a long-awaited set of interchangeable knitting needles...a special delivery just for me!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!

Okay, yes, I am aware that my level of excitement may seem to be out of proportion with this situation, but you have to understand that the backlog of projects that I couldn't start without new needles sizes was like a rushing river pushing against a dam. In this metaphor the dam represents the obstacle presented by my not having my knitting needles. When the dam finally broke (needles arrived), all of a sudden the waters of anticipation rushed over me I was free to start all my wonderful new knitting projects! (NOTE: I promise not to employ any more literary devices in this blog. Clearly I am not trained to handle them.)

So yesterday I finally got to knit numerous gauge swatches for the Honeymoon Cami, fail to get gauge every time, and finally give up and cast on with my best guess anyway. I'm starting over because I got pretty dramatic "ladders" (excess yarn between stitches) at the join on my circular needles on my first couple rows. I'm going to pay more attention to that this time, pulling tighter at that spot and trying a trick I've heard of casting on one extra stitch and then knitting two together the first time around. Pictures soon!

False Hope

Today I got home and was very, very, very excited and disbelieving to see that my signed delivery slip was no longer on the door and a priority mail package was wedged in the mail slot. Ecstatic (because knitting merchandise can do that, really), I ripped the package open to find...not the knitting needles. Some lovely yarn that I'd forgotten I was expecting, sure, but not the knitting needles, the knitting needles that I NEED to start several projects. That's why they're called NEEDLES. But clearly the post office felt they'd done their job because they'd taken the slip -- the one meant for the other package -- and left this item in return. Sigh. Much hassle is in my future.

To cheer myself up, I will post a picture of the cute baby bucket hat I recently finished from a pattern at Little Turtle Knits with Mission Falls 1824 cotton. I knit the height of the hat shorter than the pattern called for and it still looks a little high for me; I'd decrease that further if I did this pattern again in the future.

Knitting needles lost in the void

After doing some quick calculations about what it would cost me to buy circular needles in every size and length as I need them over time, I determined it would be prudent to look into an interchangeable needle set. Many of the folks over on the Knitty boards raved about their Denise Interchangeables, so I found some for a good price on e-bay, made PayPal magic happen, and sat back, eagerly anticipating their arrival via USPS Priority Mail.

Monday evening I arrived home from work to find a slip on the door announcing that they'd tried to deliver a package but - lo! - I wasn't home. So I signed the slip where indicated, taped it to the door, and spent what I thought would be my last night with a severe knitting needle shortage.

But then -- nothing on Tuesday. Slip still on the door, no package. Nothing on Wednesday either. So I called the local post office to see if it was waiting there for me (as the slip indicated it would be if I didn't sign it for delivery). After what sounded over the phone like some very non-technological rummaging (they didn't even want my tracking number), I was told they didn't have it and that it was probably with the carrier and I'd get it the next day.

The next day. Nothing. I am now truly desperate to start a new knitting project, but I can't because I don't want to buy the size needles it calls for since I supposedly have a whole set coming. I call the local post office again to no avail and then the main Providence branch. A very nice woman takes all my information, puts me on hold, and then comes back to say she has "walked around the whole building" and doesn't see anything. Umm, okay. I mean, it's true, the package is about the size of a book, so if it had been there, it would have been hard to miss. (Eye roll.) But she was very nice and promised to speak to our carrier and see what he knew.

And now I'm just waiting. For all I know it came today (doubtful), but if it didn't, and they can't find it, I just know it's going to be a long, drawn out process of getting reimbursed and filling out forms and generally doing things that do not involve using my brand new Denise Interchangeable Circular Knitting Needle Set. Grumble.

Archives again...

Don't worry, there's not THAT much left in the archives, unless I go digging around in the basement for the insanely thick wool socks I made as my very first finished project and the sad misshapen gloves that are my only intentionally unfinished project to date.



This is a photo that doesn't show off very well the Christmas stocking I made for my Dad several years ago. It was an excellent lesson in tension and gauge, in that I did both terribly. I declined to knit a gauge swatch, and the combination of using multiple colors (that is, bringing strands of unused colors along too tightly) and knitting so tightly I had to slide the stitches all the way down to the points of the needles to even be able to work them meant that the body of the stocking didn't have quite the give I was expecting. So I eased up for the rest, maybe a little too much, since the foot/toe turned out HUGE. I mean ridiculously huge. Fortunately the stocking doesn't have to fit anyone (except a pile of small gifts), so my newbie errors didn't result in an unusable project. And my dad loves having the biggest stocking in the family.


This is what the stocking was supposed to look like. If I can find a better photo of my dad's stocking I'll put it up so you can see the difference more clearly.

More Knitting Tools

An extravagant birthday gift from my wonderful husband -- a knitting needle holder! He got it from the Organized Knitter. I love it!


Opened up. Clearly I have not come close to filling it up yet. You know what that means -- an excuse to buy more needles!

Knitting for Charity

Current progress on the baby blanket in the works for Project Linus.


Closeup of basketweave

This is my first-ever use of variegated yarn, and I'm not loving it. I mean, I knew I never wanted to use it for clothing (unless the variegation is very very very very very subtle), but I thought for a baby blanket I might give it a try. I do like working with it (it makes it easy to follow my stitches, which has helped me get better at fixing errors and weaving in ends the Knitty way. But I just don't like the way it looks in the finished product. It feels very 70s-ish, though I don't really have enough fashion knowledge to confirm that variegated yarn was popular in the 70s. I guess I just prefer the classic, simple look of single colors. I'd knit this basketweave blanket again, but I'd do it in a solid. And I'm hopeful that the eventual recipient of the blanket feels differently about the yarn than I do.

More from the Archives

I'm working on getting some photos of more current projects, but for now I'll continue with some from the past. This was my first sweater ever, knitted for our friends' son Charlie. I was happy with how it came out, but I found multi-color knitting very stressful. I finished this sweater about a year and a half ago and I'm only now ready to do the multi-color thing again.

Baby fever + no personal baby plans = lots of baby knitting for others

A baby sweater I finished for a friend recently. My first cable pattern. I loved cabling! I used Mission Falls 1824 Wool in poppy. You can sort of see the matching hat at the top, too. Both patterns from Knitting for Baby.

Knitting Tools

My trusty knitting bag, made with Cascade 220 and felted in our not-very-felter-friendly front-load washing machine. It's the diaper bag pattern from Knitting for Baby, but it's doing a nice job holding things other than diapers. I customized it with a bunch of little pockets on the inside for scissors, stitch holders, etc. This is the home base from which all my other knitting projects spring forth.

Knitting Repository

I have begun this blog for the purpose of cataloging and showing off and basking in my many beloved knitting projects. Expect pictures, musings, and off-topic ramblings. If I can't knit at work, at least I can blog about knitting at work. (That is, I will be at work while blogging about knitting, I won't be blogging about the subject of knitting at work. But you knew that.)