FOgee.

Ogee Tunic
Cast on: February 1, 2007
Bound off: May 7, 2007 (so, apparently it didn't take literally forever.)
Pattern: Norah Gaughan's, from Knitting Nature

Tension: Oh, ALL RIGHT, I'll get out of my comfy bed and go measure........sleeve shows 25 sts and 38 rows to 4 inches. Back shows 25X34. Pattern called for 23X32. Now I understand why this sweater is too short. YES I SWATCHED.
Yarn: 12-ish skeins Sjuntorp Elite 100% Egyptian cotton 50g/125m colour #5 (dark electric blue? light royal blue? something like that.)
Yarn Source: Needle & Arts Centre 2003 January clearance, $40 for a 20-ball bag (meaning this sweater rings in at a measly $24).
Needle: Susan Bates Quicksilver 3.25mm circular

Modifications: lengthened the sleeve a bit - too much as it turns out. Wish I had lengthened the body an equal amount. (I would have, but I didn't realize I was knitting like a spastic fruit fly.) Substituted 100% cotton for the 100% wool called for. Sewed up the bottom 2.5 inches of the V-neck so I would not be flashing my luscious cleavage at all and sundry. You're welcome.

Notes: I like the feel of this sweater more than I like the look of it. When I check the mirror, it looks great...when I see a picture, I'm not so sure. It has taken me a while to post the FO because I wasn't happy with any of the photos. This doesn't particularly matter to me - it's enormously comfortable to wear because of its A-line shape, so I will wear it whether it looks good or not. The bottom hem is very loose - I think this sweater would flatter a classically pear-shaped body beautifully.

I had one moment of extreme irritation with the pattern writing. Gaughan notes "You may want to knit the Front first in case you need to make any adjustments to the length of the Back as you work." So I am merrily knitting the front, and I get all the way to the neck shaping only to read: "When piece measures same as for Back to shoulder, shape shoulders as for Back."

But.....I hadn't KNIT the Back yet, ACCORDING TO YOUR INSTRUCTIONS. A small thing, but no less annoying.

One other aside about the pattern - if you are knitting this (or, indeed, anything from this book) be sure to check the errata first. There are errors in every chapter. This particular design contained three, one of which is a wrong-way cross in a cable chart.

Working with this mercerized cotton yarn was hair-raising. I did get used to the splittiness after a while, and a needle adjustment took care of most of it. However, I still had to kind of massage the stitch over the tip of the needle, which gave me sore fingers after a while. As with all cottons, I found that this one showed gauge inconsistencies mercilessly, so I ended up developing a new way of purling to eliminate the problem. I now purl with the working yarn wrapped once around my little finger, to keep it just a tetch tighter.

Although I got used to the yarn eventually, when I was finished the sweater I went to Knit Night and handed the remaining 7 balls of this accursed stuff to my friend Kate, who loves cotton with an illicit passion. Fill yer boots, K.

When sewing up and weaving in ends, I had a few decisions to make about the cotton. The bundled yarn kept splaying at the cut end, and poking through the knitting. Also, for all its strength (just TRY to break this yarn without scissors), it really didn't like being used for sewing. It would fray and break after a short bit of seaming. I could have switched to DMC, but I just persevered, using short-ish strands of yarn. This resulted in way too bloody many ends to weave. To prevent the yarn from coming un-woven and poking through to the right side, I applied "Fray Check" or "Fray Stop" or whatever, to all the ends as I wove them in.

Step 1: weave the end through.

Step 2: pull on the yarn end so that the seam gathers a bit:

Step 3: apply Fray Check to the 1/2" - 1" of yarn that you have pulled out of the seam:

Step 4: pull the seam tight again, smoothing the gathers and drawing the yarn tail back inside, where the Fray Check will dry and glue that sucker in place:

Step 5: let the Fray Check dry, put the sweater on, and hope for the best.

Long After the Thrill of Livin' is Gone

Remember this?





In exactly one month's time it has become this:







My euonymous is thriving as well, despite being on the appy list at the Abominable Quadruped Tapas Bar. Note the nibbled branches. Those bastards are not supposed to like euonymous but I believe they will force it down if it means pissing me off. We have history.



Speaking of deer, I only managed to keep one package of bulbs from them this year. Lesson learned: put the deer fencing up before your carefully-chosen tulips become lunch.



And I am within spitting distance of finishing Ogee. I had a bad day today, full of unpleasantly gritty emotion, so I got a lot of knitting done as I paced around listening to my ambient "Waterscapes" CD and trying to stem the flood of mournful tears.

This picture is a few hours old, so add four inches to it and you've got a sleeve that is almost at the armholes. Yay me!

Must hit the pillow now. All the aforementioned emotion tired me out...hence the early bedtime. (Please note the time of this post and also the sarcastic inflection of that last sentence.)


PS: I had meant something special for this one, but I am simply creative-d out. This is my 100th post. Congratulate me if you will...although commiseration might be more appropriate.

Vegetarians Beware.

My brother turns 35 today. I would like to do a blog tribute to him, but I'm afraid Gwen is a tough act to follow. So, Mark, I'll just say an affectionate "Many Happy Returns of Your Birthday With Love from Shuber", and show you my idea of your perfect B-day celebration.

Actually, now that I see it (in the flesh, so to speak), I realize that it could in fact be an artist's conception of your actual self.

Get it?
______________________________________


In knitting news, I finished the first Ogee sleeve the night before last, at one in the morning. I was tempted to cast on for the next one Right! That! Second! but decided I should opt for sleep instead...once again life gets in the way of knitting.

But last night I cast on the second sleeve, and am halfway through the ogee chart at the wrist. If I can keep my (half-hearted) momentum up, I should be done the whole sweater by the end of May. Ordinarily I would expect its completion sooner, but I have started a new pair of geisha socks for a flip-flop-wearing friend, and would like to finish those before the tunic.

I walked to Knit Night this week, and saw some pretty things while moseying.


I do love driftwood.


And lighthouses.


Go Canucks!

And AT Knit Night, Karen had this beauty on display:

It's "Better Than A Hundred Hands"!! It's an "Improved Money Maker"!! You could make a whole dollar and a half for every dozen pairs of socks you cranked out of this beauty, according to the attractive brochure (dated 1920). Karen picked it up at AAA Salvage years ago, and is now ready to clean it, oil it, and give it a whirl. Hopefully she'll post all about it, on our group's fledgling blog.

Now, I've got some busyness to do -- Mr HSBoots is on his way home, and when he gets here I should at least look like I've been productive today (and knitting doesn't count). Wish me luck.

Quick Boring Update

We are languishing here at Maison HSB, waiting for Mr HalfSoledBoots to come home from a four-day conference. The night he arrived there he phoned and said he had opted out of the "Meet and Greet" event which opened the conference, because he wouldn't know anybody there. "Hence the name," I remarked.

But that is the strange thing about being as garrulous and outgoing as I am: you end up surrounded by those who are, themselves, shy and retiring. We chatty folks are the only ones with the power to draw them out of their shells.

Last night my (shy and retiring) friend came over to do a bit of dancin' and zillin' and shakin' of the booty, then stayed to (re)watch Once More With Feeling. We had Fresca and buttery maple-sugar-sprinkled popcorn. It was so nice to spend some time with a fellow Buffy zealot.

So I haven't had much time to post this week, due to single-parenting. It's not so much that I am doing two people's jobs: it's more that it feels a bit like a holiday from the normal state of things, and the girls and I have been making the most of it. Today we are on our way to the picturesque and retail-rich city of Courtenay, to look at the bellydance store, buy some pyjamas for my little sweeties (at a different shop, of course), and get an ice cream cone. The sun is finally showing itself today, so it's a good chance to get some walking and playing done. I'll do my best to present a pictorial record upon our return.

***
PS: Wanna see some Ogee progress? I present Sleeve the First.



I estimate I'm only about 70% done this sweater. Kill me now.

Eggy Woolly Flow'ry Clappy

24 eggs, their contents removed by me, by dint of blowing through pinholes

plus

a miasmic haze of dye and vinegar

equals

the biggest headache of my life. But look:

pretties! In the end there were 22 eggs, since two broke during the blowing process. Utterly disgusting. Also I had the unnerving experience of being watched intently through the window the entire time by a robin whose beady eye did not waver. I felt shamed, jaded - like an abortionist at playgroup.

It wasn't me, Cock Robin. Don't judge me. Those poultry farm chickens are sellout whores anyway. Should they really be given the chance to reproduce?

Tomorrow we decorate, and Sunday morning they will be hung in the apple tree outside, the tips of whose branches are swollen with the promise of buds. How deliciously pagan of us.

_________________

Spring continues despite inclement weather and, with every moment of sunshine, visible progress is made by nature

and by (wo)man.



Speaking of verdancy, let me show you a problem I'm having with my Common Welsh Green socks. I am working short-row heels on this pair, and I'm using a new-to-me yarn: Sweet Georgia's handpainted merino. Now, I am a huge fan of Felicia from way back - I've been lurking on her blog for ages, and always wanted to get some of her sock yarn but never managed it - just not fast enough on those days when she updated her shop. Luckily for me, Pick Up Sticks started stocking her yarns and I snapped some up. To be exact, I snapped up three pairs' worth. Now, I am turning the heel on my first pair of Sweet Georgia socks, and here is what the final wraps look like, as I come around to the last few rows of heel:

That fuzzy mass you see at the right side of the needle there? That mass is actually 5 separate stitches, all fused together just from the friction of my hand as I knit the centre heel stitches. By the time I had zigged and zagged across the heel for a total of 40 rows or so, those stitches were so felted that the plies couldn't be seen at all. They were so tight on the needle that in the end I had to switch to a smaller needle to knit them. I figure I am going to get 2, maybe 3 wears out of these socks, unless I refrain completely from standing or walking while I have them on. Then I should be okay until the nap of the couch wears a hole into them.

The problem is the softness of the yarn (and the loose spin). Over the year or so that I've been knitting socks, I have realized something. You can have "soft merino", or you can have "durable". I love wool socks, I love fancy hand-dyes and soft tootsies, but I just can't deal with disposable knitting. I have two pairs of socks in my darning basket: my Koigu Elfine socks, and my Fleece Artist Lacy Scallops socks. The Elfine socks have an enormous hole that appeared out of nowhere on their 8th or so wear (no shoes, of course, and with the heightened consciousness that comes from knowing you have thousands of careful stitches and hours of painstaking work on your clumsy callused feet), and the Lacy Scallops socks are waiting patiently for their THIRD darning.


The lesson? That $22-per-skein, hand-dyed, hand-spun, 100% merino wool would be perfect for wristwarmers (no fingers, naturally, due to high traffic and the inevitable holes), for hats (unless you have dreadlocks, because then you risk hat-hair fusion [which - it occurs to me - if you have dreadlocks, is probably fine with you]) and of course for fair-isle anything, which sort of lends itself to felt-prone yarn anyway, and carries the bonus of a double-layer for hole-prevention.

Despite my discouragement, and the certainty of darning to come, I am forcing myself to finish these socks so that I can cast on for Clapotis. Lizbon suggested it for use with my divine Hollyhock Malabrigo (pictured below), and I do believe she's on to something... The quicker I get these socks finished, the quicker we can see if she's as right as I think she is.

Edit: Sweet fancy Moses, could I use more punctuation?

Progress, on Several Fronts.

It's been a gruelling week chez HalfSoledBoots. My poor little baby is on day four of a feverish cold, or flu, or whatever it is. She looks like a ghost - observe:







But I'm in high hopes she's beginning to feel better. I did the old Vinegar Sock trick* last night, and it seems to have broken the fever. This morning she had something to eat, and has been actually playing toys today. It feels like weeks since she has been herself, instead of days. I remarked to my mother yesterday that it's no wonder the 'flu is so often fatal to impoverished, undernourished children, since it turned my healthy, strong, first-world girl into a mere shadow of her former self in just three days.


Waste Not, Want Not

Work continues on the Ogee Tunic, excruciatingly slowly. I actually can't believe how long it is taking me to knit this, between the splitty yarn, the slippery needles, the sick baby, and the sick mummy (yes, I've had it too). At this rate I won't be finished until June.








But I really like how it's looking. I think the yarn sub is going well (the pattern called for 100% wool; I'm using 100% cotton because it was in my stash and wool wasn't...those are the rules).





And lastly, in the continuing spirit of Using Up What We Have:


Potential:



Oldish speckled bananas, and Old slumpy apples.

Actual:


Lovely, buttery apple pancakes.




Yummy banana bread.

* The Vinegar Sock is an old-fashioned home remedy for fever. You soak a sock in vinegar and put it on the child, putting another sock overtop to keep the vinegar more or less off the sheets. The vinegar is absorbed through the feet and drawn up through the body, cooling as it goes. It does not usually bring the fever completely down, it just makes it bearable. The principle is, if your body elevates its temperature, it has a perfectly good reason for doing so, and as long as it's within a few degrees of normal, you should not get all wiggy with the Tylenol, but simply let the immune system do its job. Once I had a vinegar sock on my daughter for about 36 hours straight, and by then you could smell it on her breath, and she was complaining of a funny taste. But, the fever was down.