St Brigid, in Progress

St Brigid is coming along - I finished the first sleeve and "basted" it into the sweater with a long 3.00mm circular to check the fit. I find the sleeve a tiny bit short, but I couldn't lengthen it because of the pattern repeat. I had just ended one repeat, so if I started another one the sleeve would have been 3 inches too long instead of .5" too short. I figure I can block the extra length into the sleeve during assembly.

I started to get the feeling I was going to run out of yarn. I had one ball-and-a-bit left, with one sleeve and the collar to go. I weighed the sleeve and discovered it took 125 grams of yarn. I had 155 grams left, with the collar still to knit, and the sewing-up to do.

"Hey, kids - wanna come to Quadra today?" We were off to Fun Knits on Saturday afternoon, where I found one last lonely ball of my yarn left in the store. The dye lots matched - it was serendipitous. I also picked up a fourth ball of Malabrigo Hollyhock, so I wouldn't run out of THAT when it comes time to knit up.

I'm about done with this sweater. I'm getting bored of knitting the same repeats of the same charts over and over. It has become a matter of powering through...sticking with it until it's finished. I really want to wear this sucker. But it's close - REALLY close. Observe:


The colour is completely inaccurate, but using the flash obscured the cables too much.

Totally Inappropriate

My friend came over for a couple of days and the first night we spent an hour or so after the kids had gone to bed, setting up their castle set. It was great fun, but I have to admit it got a lot funnier after this occurred to us.

I could say "after it occurred to her" but the truth is we were both equally culpable.

And yes, we put it to rights before the children got up in the morning.

We had a great time, though, knitting and chatting. She leaves in ten days or so to the Antarctic, and she's not back until mid-April. I'll miss her while she's gone. It's her last trip to Antarctica - she is moving on to other priorities - so she intends to make the most of the Stash Enhancement opportunities available down in the Southern Hemisphere. Apparently the yarn shops in Argentina are To Die For, never mind the ones in the Falkland Islands and in New Zealand. (She really makes the most of her trips, spending weeks on side excursions before and after her guiding cruises are over.) When I was staying with her in Victoria she showed me her stash...it's completely full of gorgeousness. She actually has a few balls of merino/possum yarn, which is so soft you would not believe it. She tells me it's prohibitively expensive, though, so she could only afford a scarf-worth.

I'm on the home stretch of St Brigid - I have finished one sleeve and have only the other sleeve, and the collar, to knit. I'm doing everything I can, up to and including neglecting my children, in order to finish in the next six days. It's so annoying - I have had to teach them all kinds of things to increase their independence.

CHARLOTTE: (Tentatively) "Mom? Can I have something to eat besides Kraft Dinner and Wheatlets?"

ME: (Vaguely, while trying to do a tricky cable cross) "Oh, are you hungry again? There's a box of Ritz over there - help yourself."

CHARLOTTE: (Sighing) "Okay... but my tummy doesn't feel very good."

ME: (Impatiently, while counting stitches and joining in a new ball) "Oh for goodness' sake... all right, grab that green bottle from on top of the microwave."

CHARLOTTE: "You mean the vitamins? But I can't open it."

ME: (Rolling eyes) "All RIGHT, Charlotte. Push down while turning..... no -- DOWN.... no, push down WHILE turning. There you go. Enjoy. Oh - please give one to your sister too."

I should be nominated for some kind of parenting award.

Nothing Better

I got a very exciting package in the mail the other day:


I LOVE new books. I am still expecting some more from www.amazon.ca - Melanie Falick's Handknit Holiday (at last), Gaughan's Knitting Nature, and J. Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today. My lovely Mum and Dad gave me yarn money for Christmas, so I clicked over and changed my "Wish List" to my "Shopping Cart"... I love doing that.

I took a chance ordering the above books sight unseen, and they are FANTASTIC. I am especially keen on Melissa Leapman's Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable Knitting. It's a very well-rounded volume. A basic how-to book, with quite a few nice designs from a wide range of difficulties. There are several I've got my eye on, which may even displace Eris from the "Next to Knit" list.

I actually ordered this book with Erika Knight's Classic Knits in the hopes that I could lift a cable or two out of the Leapman book, and add them to one of the basic designs in the Knight book. I've got three skeins of Malabrigo merino worsted in the stash, and I've been wanting to design a vest for it. I was hoping to end up with something with a central vertical cable that splits at the neck and wraps around, to be grafted together at the centre back. The idea has been sort of swimming around in my head for a long while, but it's the shaping that has stopped me from casting on - I want to be sure it'll fit first, since the Malabrigo doesn't like being frogged too much.

We'll see. I don't know when I'm going to get around to the sweat-and-tears design work on the vest, so don't hold your breath or anything.

One thing I love about Cables Untangled is the sizing: one of the sweaters I want to knit, for example, has finished measurements from 37.5 to 50.5 inches. The smallest design in here is a sleeveless V-neck top - its finished bust ranges from 34 to 46.5 inches. There is a cool knitted skirt (I know - never been a fan, but I would actually make this one) with a hip range from 31.5 to 47 inches. As someone with a generous bust, I always have to grade up knitting patterns to fit me, and sometimes it's just not worth the trouble. It's a relief to have it done for me.

Anyway, I haven't decided what to knit out of here yet. There is a chapter of cabley stuff for the home (pillow, afghan, rug-type stuff), a chapter of clothing for women, and a chapter of designs for gifts - men's sweaters, scarf, bag, child's sweater, and so on. Lots of options. Leapman has also included an extensive stitch dictionary in three parts: "Cabled Ribs", "Cabled Panels", and "Allover Patterns". In conjunction with the "Designing with Cables" and "Techniques" sections, you could do a lot of interesting things.

_______________________________

In other news, I have almost reached the spot I was at before I tore out St Brigid's first sleeve. I have probably two more 24-row repeats to knit before I get to the saddle (which will fly), so a couple more sleepless nights should do it. An aside - I'm so glad I decided not to knit both sleeves at once with two balls of yarn...it would have been fairly daunting to have to frog and reknit TWO sleeves instead of one. I can't wait to get this sweater finished. I'm pushing my luck, as here on the West Coast spring is literally breathing down our necks. My friend Kate has sharp, deep green furled crocus leaves already out of the ground in her garden. I'm thinking when I get St Brigid done, it will be just in time to pop it into a muslin bag for the summer.

In the Interim

I know I said I'd have St Brigid done soon, but I took a break from it to do some other knitting which I can't show you (I have started Christmas 2007 knitting already). Plus, I got over halfway through the first sleeve and realized I had messed up the increases. Alice Starmore, bless her, is sometimes a bit terse with the instructions - you have to pay attention, and I obviously didn't. So the sleeve went from this:


to this:


and now I'm ready to start again.

I have lots of other knitting to show you, but it will have to wait until the next post, because I've got a sick child in the house now. Next time, though, I will hopefully have an FO. I am just doing the weaving-in on my cousin's baby's Trellis, and it's looking pretty good. I have plans to sew a dress to go with it, and a soft toy from a book I recently acquired. It will likely take me a couple of days to do all the sewing, so I may stall you on the Trellis FO until next week. But, here is a little glimpse of the Trellis being mattress-stitched, and the dress fabric underneath it, just to give you an idea.


Back soon.

They Weren't Kidding

When they said all my customizations would be lost. I foolishly thought "they probably don't mean the sidebars, like my links list."

Oh, yes they do.

Anyhow, it's cleaner, and I think the font is easier to read. The whole template is more in the spirit of January's asceticism.

BUT.... I am going to be spending the next however-long reconstructing my FO list and my links. I can't believe I didn't save them somewhere else.

Too Lazy to Think Up a Title.

Because I clearly need another hobby, this is what I picked up the other day. Fun, but definitely cuts into the knitting time.




And this was my New Year's Day culinary contribution: Bobo's meat and potato pie ("Bobo" is the name we called our wonderful maternal grandfather). Big chunk of this, some cold sliced dill pickles, and an icy root beer - nothing better. Actually, I realize it's probably better with non-root beer, but our family tradition, based on Snoopy's annual celebration, is "quaffing" root beer on New Year's. Tasty.




By the way - the weird thing about organic root beer is, it's clear. Man, does that feel strange, drinking clear root beer.

All right, I'm obviously short on content today, so I'm giving you the recipe for this pie, then I'm off to spend a few days without blogging. I have this panicky feeling that, if I don't post at least every other day, all (well, both) my readers will abandon me. However, I myself have been daily checking a blog I read, though it hasn't had a new post since November 27, so I know some of you will return, like the swallows to Capistrano. Hope so.

Bobo's Meat and Potato Pie

Equal weight lean ground beef and russet potatoes
1 large onion
Bit of garlic
Teaspoon or two of dried sage
Lots of salt and pepper
Basic pastry recipe, like the immortal Tenderflake version from the inside of the box (excellent for large batches, can be rerolled as often as needful without losing its flakiness)

Brown ground beef with onion, garlic, and spices. Drain and add a bit of water if you think the pie needs it.

Peel and chunk potatoes, boil in water til tender, drain. Bash up the cooked potatoes a bit , leaving plenty of large chunks. Mix with the ground beef.

Roll pastry to fit your tin, which you will have chosen depending on the amount of beef and potato you have used. I sometimes use a large deep glass pie plate, or a cookie sheet, or, as in this case, a Pyrex 8X10 rectangle. Personally I prefer the cookie sheet - I like that proportion of filling to pastry. Generally speaking, the deeper the container the more filling you'll get per inch of pastry.

Cover the bottom and sides of the container in pastry. Pour in filling, being careful not to compress too much. Cover with another sheet of pastry. (Optional: you can lay slices of onion on top of the filling, under the top pastry. I've never tried it but others tell me it's good.) Pinch edges to seal, and cut steam vents in the top crust. Then, brush the crust with a beaten egg, and bake at 375 (350 if using a glass pan) for about 30 to 45 minutes, just to cook the pastry.

DUH lish.

First Foot, part II

Ha! first to post in 2007.