heartbreak (and some small consolation)

The problem with being a knitter is that it makes you very, very picky about buying commercial knits. I appreciate machine knits as much as anyone — I love very fine knits, which are impossible to do by hand — but then I see an aran-weight cashmere blend for $400, and decide that, screw it, I could make that for under $200. (That's coming, by the way. Although probably not until next winter. But it's a layering piece, fisherman's rib, raglan: simplicity itself.) Similarly, when I can't find exactly what I want, I tend to try to figure out if I can design it, and make it myself.

Pregnancy is particularly bad for this. Most clothes don't fit me (even the maternity ones) so if I want something particular, I almost have to make it myself.

For the past three weeks or so, I have been working on a cardigan. Something with a hood, at least fingertip length, and a lot of drape so I can cover up my bump when it gets cold. (This is what is lacking in most of my other cardigans.) Something light and lustrous. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Fino (yes, again), in a cream with tawny-grey-pink highlights (the colourway is "Ivory Letter Opener"), 2.75mm needles. I decided to knit it from the bottom up, so I made a schematic, I made calculations, I wrote everything out before I started.

Last night, I got to the shoulder seaming and the start of the hood — which, incidentally, was the first time I could try it on with any accuracy.

It was drapey.

It was fingertip length.

It was too small.

The shoulders, back and armscye are good. I just underestimated the amount of "front" I would need for the shawl-like drape. So if it had been a sweater, I would have been fine. There was, in fact, no gauge accident. But the way I'd made the front lapels meant that picking up the stitches and knitting an extra inch or four was out of the question — well, no, but it would look ridiculous. And there's no point in doing all this if it's not going to be perfect.

So, into the frog pond and back to the beginning.

There is some small consolation, though — and it's a good one. I'd originally given myself until the end of November to knit this cardigan, before I would have to move on to Christmas knitting. I'm still going to do that, but the Christmas knitting I've got lined up is this:


I know it doesn't look like much, but wait: this is 100% cashmere (from Handmaiden). I'm going to have to give it away, true. But half the luxury of having something beautifully soft like this is being able to handle it and play with it, and that's the best part of being a maker — I get that part to myself.

weekend(s): dinosaurs! goats! and a baby giraffe

It was the Santa Claus parade in Toronto on Sunday — but alas, not for us. The Spanish Inquisition seemed to like it last year, so we'd planned to go this year — but the forecast kept calling for rain, and she had a not-insignificant cold already, and ... to be honest, Pd and I were just Too Damn Tired. (There is the parade, which is entertainment in and of itself, but you have to get there early to get a good view, and the Spanish Inquisition is not the patient kind of toddler. If such a thing even exists.) So we ran errands and had an easy day of it, and I am trying not to feel guilty.

After all, on Saturday we did do this:


Her first trip to the museum, specifically to see dinosaurs, and she got to play archaeologist. To be entirely honest, I don't think she knows what that means, but she did seem to enjoy it. She knows that word "museum" from Olivia, but she thought that she would also get to see baby horses, which ... not so much.

She probably thought this because this is what we did the weekend before last:


The Royal Winter Fair, where she got to feed goats and, yes, pat horses. (I think they may have been ponies, actually. Or, at least, very small horses.)

And the weekend before that:


We saw the new baby giraffe at the zoo. (I say "new." It's taller than Pd, who is six feet tall. I suppose that's small for a giraffe.)

So it's not as though we're depriving her of experiences, or of things that she enjoys. It's not difficult, actually, to find fun things with her; the problem is that one have to keep finding or doing them, and at some point I need a nap.

straights vs circulars

We had a cold snap yesterday! It's still cold today, but yesterday it was positively winter — the temperature actually went into the negative and everyone scurried around in winter gear: coats with fur-lined hoods up, chunky scarfs, mittens and boots and bright red cheeks from the wind.

Of course, by March this selfsame temperature will feel positively balmy, but we're still in the onset of winter, here, so everyone is bundling up for the long haul.

I had been delaying knitting a new neckwarmer/cowl for the Spanish Inquisition. (Her daycare requires it, in that they prohibit scarves — a strangulation hazard. I'd like to tell them that my daughter is hardly Isabella Duncan, and there's a subtle difference between a short chunky knit and flowing silk beneath spoked tires, but I doubt anyone will listen.) I'd meant to knit it out of Dream in Color Starry, or some other kind of sparkly yarn, but I hadn't had time to buy it yet — so I kept putting it off.

Until it got cold, and I felt guilty that her neck would be unprotected. So I grabbed some leftover baby alpaca sport (which, don't let the name fool you, is actually a bulky yarn) and knit one up right quick. Because time was of the essence — I had about two hours to knit the whole thing — I decided to knit it on my 6mm straights instead of DPNs.

(I wish I'd taken a picture for you. But I finished it and went straight to bed, and now it lives exclusively at daycare, so I lost my chance. Just imagine a purple tube in 2x2 rib about the size of a toddler's neck.)

And ... it turns out that straights are so cumbersome! I never used to think this before. I learned to knit on straights — these particular ones, in fact. And I'd loved them. I only stopped using them because I've been knitting things that are bigger than I'd feel comfortable putting on a straight needle, and Pd had given me a set of Addi interchangeable circulars a year or two ago. But now, I kept noticing how the straights would bang into my elbow. Or the table. Or how I would have to really arc my knitting wide when I changed sides. And heavy! And I would think, really? I actually preferred this?

I will probably still use my straights when I can, or when it's convenient to do so. I want to rediscover my old habit. I have some lovely bamboo and rosewood pairs, the latter of which are so lovely that I will actually pause my knitting just to look at them. They're warm, and supple, and feel so much more personal than aluminum. And I firmly believe that tools get better when you use them.

All that being said, this is my current knitting obsession:


Manos del Uruguay Fino (yes, again), in "Ivory Letter Opener," on, yes, Addi Interchangeables. I had something very specific in mind, so I'm designing it myself. Miles of stockinette — again — but broken up just enough by the texture of the seed stitch. Creamy and lovely for cold days and nights.

(The picture at the very top is technically Christmas knitting, which I have abandoned in favour of the Manos right now. Luckily there is still some time. I loved the gradients so much when I spread the skein out that I had to take a picture. It is SweetGeorgia's tough love sock in "Shipwreck," and it knits up in a reasonable stripey fashion.)

FO: Roo

Here, finally, is the Spanish Inquisition's new purple sweater-coat:

The penguin buttons/bribe totally worked; she loves them, and they don't disrupt the pattern too much (and the button band makes the jacket close fully, which is good).  I originally envisioned it as an early fall jacket, but it's too cold for that now, so she gets to wear it as a cardigan. Which is fine. She's worn it a couple of times since Thanksgiving, and it fits perfectly — which makes me feel a bit better for insisting on re-knitting it in the 24" size, as this means that the original (22") really was far too small. I would have preferred a longer length, but it's hard to adjust on the fly.

This coat has a garter border at the bottom of the coat and somehow, I managed to knit a different number of rows for the back and the two fronts — and not notice until seaming. This means that I even blocked it without noticing the discrepancy. Luckily the fabric is very dark (this photograph was taken in nearly-full sun), and the Spanish Inquisition moves around a lot, so I don't think anyone will notice. But I'm a little appalled that I managed to do that. It's not like the pattern doesn't give me the exact number of rows I should be aiming for.

The only other problem was that the penguin buttons are very, very skinny, so they kept slipping out of the buttonholes as knit. (I used a simple double yarnover-k2tog). I sewed the holes tighter when we got home after Thanksgiving, and now they're fine.

The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, which is 50% wool and 50% alpaca, in the imaginatively named "Deep Purple," between 2.5 and 3 skeins. 4.5mm needles. The pattern is Roo from Twist Collective, by Kate Gilbert.

fly-by update

What a week. Work has been busy, not least because I've had to take some time off because home has been busy — various members of the family (including me) had various appointments that couldn't be shifted, and so we've started earlier, stayed up later, and paradoxically worked less, time-wise, than usual this week. I wrote a very simple, fairly irrelevant post earlier this week; Blogger ate it, and I've had neither the time nor the inclination to write it again. (It really was negligible. It was about the Spanish Inquisition's hats.)

We took the Spanish Inquisition to the new aquarium last Saturday! And the picture above is the only photograph I'm ready to show you. I know: there are sharks in there, and sawfish, and giant Pacific kelp, and I'm showing you ... jellyfish? But they were beautiful. And they photograph well; always a plus.

Meanwhile, this is what I have been doing this week:

This is roughly how much of a fingerless mitten one can get through when forced to sit still (more or less) for three hours or so at the doctor's office. The pattern is Sherbet Lemon by Ysolda, and the yarn is Alisha Goes Around, Richness of Martens in the "Genevieve" colourway. 2.75mm needles. It was a sock club yarn that I've been saving for something special; I love the colour but I thought that it would be wasted on socks. These are much more fun.

I aded an extra half-repeat so that it goes (roughly) up to my elbows; that's why the beginning of the cable looks slightly different from the original pattern. If I had to do it again I would sit down and plan the tessellations a little bit better, but this isn't bad, and I was anxious to get started. I actually finished them today; in fact I'm wearing them now. And oh, they are so lovely; there's 15% cashmere and 10% silk in the yarn. It's been getting down to the low single digits here in the mornings, and so these will be perfect.

I have also the never-ending sweater (doesn't it seem like I have one of those every fall?) and the Spanish Inquisition's Olivia Petit, which is almost done. I really only have about an inch and then the sleeves to go, but sleeves are never terribly fun, so I'm finding it a bit of a slog. (Also: the alpaca, while lovely, sheds as I knit it, and I am big enough now that my knitting is generally resting on my bump ... which means that, every time I knit it, it looks like I went and rubbed up against some particularly-hyperallegenic cat. So I have decided that they are not really good as subway- or work-knitting.)

And then there is also this (although technically this is cheating; I did these last week):


Yup. (Canadian) Thanksgiving is over, which means it's time. This year I am attempting to be rational about it all and to do a little bit frequently, instead of trying to create 60 cards in the span of a week. So far I am only averaging perhaps a few cards every two weeks, but even then, that puts me ahead of where I usually am. These are being left for now; I've got my eye on a stamp I want to emboss on the top, but I have to wait until the One of a Kind Show in late November to actually get it. Perhaps this year will be the year I actually learn to use the embossing gun effectively.