theknittyvritti

just in time

Number twelve, finished just yesterday, a week before the end of NaKniSweMoDo. Sorry for the less than impressive photography, but there's nothing squirmier than a three year old, unless it's Operations Man at photo time. I get five minutes before the whining sets in, never mind the hours that it took to knit this.

I don't really mind, he puts up with me, too.

This is the Charcoal Ribbed Sweater, available at the Interweave pattern store on-line. I think it is the perfect husband sweater. He hasn't taken it off except to sleep last night, so I guess he thinks so, too.

Knit in Berroco ultra Alpaca, colorway, Duncan, a rich dark chocolate color that goes with everything he owns. Just right for when you can't get away with knitting one more sweater for yourself.

 

 

structure

I will spare you another picture of the brown sweater. Suffice to say that my efforts are not going unrewarded. I've finished the all of the large pieces, and am beginning to put it together. There's one more big task ahead, knitting the collar and buttonbands, but I am now reasonably sure that I will finish NaKniSweMoDo with twelve sweaters.

As I think about it, I realize that the efforts I've put into finishing these twelve sweaters, a project which gave me pause, are very similar to the efforts that I'm having to put in to make sure my big black German shepherd dog becomes a civilized beast. There are occasional moments that I'm a little scared of her, and many moments when I'm afraid that I won't be able to train her to be a well-behaved animal, very important when your dog is scary-looking and the neighborhood is full to bursting with uber-parents who don't want their children eaten by dogs. Moments when I ask myself what I was thinking, and wonder whether it will be worth it, when I think maybe a shih-tzu would have been easier.

At 7 a.m., over-protective parents are not much of a problem. That's when we have our first long walk of the day, the only walk when we have the streets to ourselves. The walk is a structure, one that she relies on for her exercise and stimulation, and one that I am trying to embrace with her. This morning, I brought my camera, and tried to see my well-worn paths anew. The beauty of structure, used properly, is that it can open one up to improvisation, inventiveness, new ways of seeing. Without that, it'd be impossibly to maintain, too boring. In the same way that the structure of knitting twelve sweaters allowed for the play of deciding what the sweaters would be, a daily walk opens one up to seeing things that you've never quite seen before, but have been there all the time.

perfect

I had a feeling that this one would be good. I loved the Norah Gaughan pattern as soon as I saw it, and when this Colourmart cashmere turned out to be exactly the right gauge, I was, well, really pretty happy. The detail makes the sweater, which is otherwise as simple and unobtrusive as can be. A perfect example of how the right stitch pattern can elevate a sweater to the sublime.

I highly reccommend the colourmart cashmere as well. I'm usually appalled at the price of cashmere yarns...somehow, it seems that there should be some economy in knitting your own luxury wool sweater, but this is not always the case. This yarn is much more affordable than anything I saw in in any store, and I've got a lot of it in navy. I'm resisting buying it in more colors only becasue I have about eight sweater's worth of yarn in my bins.

Here is the whole sweater.

 

The pattern is as great as the sweater. Easy and clear. I made mine a size between the second and third sizes, and the calculations were simple.

A perfect note on which to end the selfish portion of Nakniswemodo. Number twelve is not going to be for me. More later.

finish line fantasy

This is what it looks like to finish the NYC marathon....in first place. Sunday's marathon had me thinking about this last, painful leg of NaKniSweMoDo which is it's own kind of endurance contest.

If we translate sweaters knit into miles run, I'm on about mile 22, It feels like this challenge will never end, but I am hopeful that I will cross the finish line.

When I do, I think I'm gonna kiss a sheep.

careful with that axe, eugene

(in case you don't know what I'm talking about.....go here)

I had a ninth grade art teacher who used to play Ummagumma for us and ask us to draw what we saw. She didn't play Eugene, thankfully, as even the lackadaisical parents of those days might have thought about protesting. I guess I'm thinking about this because next weekend I have an unofficial but very large junior high/high school reunion, and in a strange coincidence, since none of us are in touch any longer, all four of the people whose deskes were adjacent in Mrs. Pittle's art class will be there....and two of us are knitters.........

 
..... it could also be that my loose associations have taken me here via the Windowpane coat, which I have been thinking about in the context of Paul Bunyan. You get it- lumberjack>axe>eugene...... 

As for the sweater, I don't love it. I had the fantasy that maybe I would really want and need a very outdoorsy sweater, and this will be very nice to have upstate for a cool fall day, but it was more work and yarn money than I really want to expend or spend for a look that isn't my favorite.

Still, there are a few really nice details on this one.

A shapely neck enhanced by natural wood buttons from the fabulous M & J Trimmings. The buttons are most fitting for this ecologically correct (all yarn making powered by windmills) all-natural yarn, handspun and dyed with natural dyes.

And my favorite detail, the back vent.

I've not been able to resist working on my next sweater, which is more my style. Feminine, cashmere, and, um, purple. It's working up very quickly, so unless I get lost in lace, or find out that I'm knitting the wrong size, which happened just last month on this very sweater, I may have another for you soon. This is number ten for Nakniswemodo, by the way. I'm starting to think I'm a shoo-in for finishing.  

dangerous liaisons

I am knitting away at sweater number ten, and NaKniSweMoDo is starting to feel like a very old marriage. In fact, so much so that I have named sweater number ten "Paul". In part, because I feel married to it, and since the relationship is so personal, it ought to have a name, but also in honor of Paul Bunyan. As I've said, this cardigan is muscular, and burly, and the perfect thing for a woodsman. While I knit it, I sing "I'm a lumberjack and it's OK", vaguely thinking that this is a Monty Python song. Can anyone help me out here and confirm or deny that?

Ahem, as it happens, I'm brilliant at real-life monogamy, but project monogamy? Not so easy. At least at this point...I've got the ten-project itch. So don't tell anyone, but I've been stepping out.

And not with just one project.

First, I have been unable to resist the siren call of lace. Paul is thick, heavy and woody, and this lace is cobweb thin, complicated and elegant....everything he is not. I fantasize about our meetings even while I'm knitting away on Paul.

And that's not all. I've been unable to live without color. So I've been working on another project which makes me smile ear to ear because of it's beautiful hues. Kind of like dating the funny guy, which I've always loved.

It does feel dangerous to be spread so thin....like an affair that might blow up at any moment. If I lose track of time, and fall too deeply into the trance of lace, or take just one risk in knitting one more row (and one more row...) of bright colorwork, I may lose everything. Nakniswemodo will be a flop, a broken promise, a shame. I'm trying to be good, I really am......but it's harder than I thought it would be.

do you know katia?

One nice thing about having a finished sweater is that I don't have to think about my weekly post. And Operations Man and I have the photo shoot thing down to a science. It's not as hard as it used to be to get him to take a few minutes for the shoot, because it really is a few minutes.

And in a shocking new development, he has donned my Culinary Institute of America apron and disappeared into the kitchen to make bread. This is the first time since I have known him that he has expressed any interest in the kitchen, which we call my tool room. To differentiate it from his tool room, full of hardware store products. I frequently find myself in there, so maybe things are balancing out. I have read that men become more emotionally expressive and women become more comfortable with aggression as they get older, so perhaps OM's presence in the kitchen signals another trend in  the direction of androgyny around here.

This sweater is one of several that I'd like to make in the Katia #52 Mujer book. I found this book during my spring visit to the scary yarn store in Cleveland. I had never seen a Katia pattern book before I laid eyes on it. Although I'm still having nightmares about the novelty yarns I found at the store, this book made the trip worthwhile. The styles are really interesting, and isntructions are very simple, very brief, very accurate. The sweater was a real no-brainer.

This stitch pattern has a really interesting look, very textural. It was fun to knit as well, although I imagine it looks like the knitting of it might drive one a little crazy.

And once again, a trip to M&J yielded perfect buttons.

It'll be a while until my next NaKniSweMoDo project is finished. It's a big one, and I seem to be trying to sneak in a couple of little projects. I am on deadline, however, since I think I'd like to wear Number Ten to Rhinebeck, where I bought the wool for it last year.

the color purple

I didn't think I still loved the color purple as much as I apparently do until I got most of the way through NaKniSweMoDo. I've made more purple sweaters than sweaters of any other color.

Just like words, colors have associations for us, based on personal memory. My first design choice was the decision to paint the walls of my room purple as a pre-teen. My mother, who detests purple, probably hated it, but she kept that to herself. Unlike my first mother-in-law, who shared her opinion that purple was the color of death (really?) with me on a shopping expedition that was supposed to be a bonding experience. Well, when she took me to the polyester clothing store, I simply announced that I only wore natural fabrics. Needless to say, it was an uneasy relationship at best. I can't say I didn't try (occasionally). Like the time I visited and found when I arrived that she had locked herself in her bedroom after my then husband and his father had teased her about making tomato aspic, which she had then unceremoniously dumped down the drain. Who do you think ended up in her room consoling her( and this after her most interesting pronouncement, that psychologists make lousy parents)? Fortunately, the aspic was gone, so I wasn't really tested.......I have to say, I might have laughed too. Not yet understanding the urge to cook odd foods for the people you love, and not yet aware of Julia Child and maybe, just maybe, fighting back.

Where was I? Oh, yes, purple. Seems like I have strong feelings about purple....or in-laws, or something.....Well, sweater nine is going to be purple, and so is sweater ten. And sweater eleven is a purply-brown. I'm mother-in-law-less this time around (although I do have some really loveable in-laws), and I'm still a natural fabric girl. And my mother still doesn't like purple, and since I'm not a teenager anymore, I'll probably get an honest opinion about the sweaters.

Speaking of natural fabric, the cone is cashmere from Colourmart. I'm really looking forward to knitting it up; it's my first and only Colourmart purchase. And check out the fabric below. It's the back of sweater nine, made of Rowan Cotton Glace. I'm loving this pure cotton yarn, and the cool stitch pattern of this sweater. Purple natural fabric? I guess I've died and gone to heaven.

origami

 

This weekend, our cousins picked up their daughter and a friend from camp, and spent the weekend with us. Having the girls in the house was so evocative. I went to camp for years, and while I sometimes remember the astonishing cruelty of young girls, and the challenges of getting along in a group, this weekend I remembered the sweet pleasures of camp. The songs, the secrets, the freedom and exhilaration of being in a group of my peers.

I learned to make a paper crane in camp.  I have never quite gotten over my amazement at turning an ordinary square of paper into a beautiful bird.

 

Truth be told, I have been known to make tiny birds, one after another, while working. (One of the problems with a job where they call you "doctor" is that very few people seem comfortable asking "what the hell are you doing?", so in a story for another day, I have quite a few bad habits that I engage in while sitting in my chair. Not, alas, knitting, which I have deemed too self-indulgent).

Paper Crane by Kirsten Johnstone, must have been inspired by origami. You knit a shape like this:

 

and turn it into the body of a cardigan, as evidenced in the photo below.

Johnstone made hers in a Habu linen lace, which is lovely, and perfect for summer. But I had my own agenda. I wanted to make a sweater out of Malabrigo lace.

I had a few skeins of this yarn in the colorway "polar morn", and I like the idea of a really lightweight cardi for early fall. I've seen a lot of Whisper cardis made in Mal, but I don't really like the shape of the sweater (described by one Raveller as "boob enhancing"), so I haven't wanted to get on the Whisper train. I decided to see if Paper Crane would be well suited for wool. It turns out to be very well suited for this yarn, producing a lightweight garment that still hangs well, and is surprisingly warm. All that was needed in the way of mods was to lengthen it a bit (personal preference), and to reduce the number of rows for the armhole decreases to adjust for the slightly different gauge of the yarn

 

My answer is "yes". I like this sweater so much that I just couldn't wait to show it off. Please ignore the not-so-classy safety pin standing in for the beautiful button I will get just as soon as I can get to the store. I think this one has the potential to be just as much of an instant Malabrigo lace classic as Featherweight is. What do you think?

contraband

 

All week long, I anticipated a blog post entitled "I am knitting a cloud". I was visited by song lyrics, like "Get off of my cloud", and especially "Heaven is a place where nothing really happens", the latter because aside from a few torturous calculations to adapt the Paper Crane pattern to Malabrigo lace, nothing much does happen on this project, other than rows and rows of stockinette. Soothing, but not much drama.

Until Saturday. We got tickets to the Bob Dylan and Friends concert at Bethel Woods, the outdoor music venue on the site of the Woodstock music festival. My sister-in-law (age 62) is having a second adolescence....she has been kinda following Dylan around this year, and this was an opportunity for the whole family to share in her obsession. And, I thought, a great venue for knitting. Family, friends, music, knitting, the great outdoors, sign me up.

Little did I guess that my project is not a cloud. No, it is contraband.

 

I am accustomed to that moment of suspense at the airport when I don't know whether my needles will make it onto the plane. I realized a long time ago that the long plastic tube of my circular needles might make a fine garotte. But airline security has been unphased, maybe because I don't seem like the strangling sort of person.

Not so the nice young man who looked through my bag, or maybe Dylan's "people". It's apparently the performer's perogative to ban anything they want from the concert. So cameras and "sewing materials" as he said, are on Dylan's list. Even weirder was the conversation I had with the somewhat aggressive (yes, she was matching me in emotional intensity) woman who confirmed the ban. She actually offered to hold my needles, and when I was ready to leave, she said, I could call her on my cell phone and she'd get them back to me. Yeah, that sounds helpful. Me and her trying to connect at the end of an outdoor gathering of ten thousand people. I passed on her generousity and trudged back to the car to deposit my knitting.

As you can imagine this put a damper on the day. Not only did I have to relinguish my project, but my cell phone camera didn't work, so I couldn't have my little revenge. After all, trying to ban cameras is ridiculous, as the crowd were taking pictures and movies all night with their cell phones, not to mention an occasional large camera that had been smuggled in somehow.

And we're not even gonna talk about the plastic beer bottles flying (really) and the contact high from the drugs that were smuggled in in (unsearched) pockets.

Last summer, Operations Man and his sister saw Dylan in Prospect Park. Here is a quick look at the man himself, taken with OM's phone last summer. I guess it's legal, after all, they said "no cameras" not "no pictures". Or maybe me and Bob are both outlaws......he just gets to make more rules than I do.

 

Perplexed, I asked Dr. Knittyvritti what the big deal with the needles might be. She suggested that some performers are so narcissistic that they can't stand the idea that someone would be multi-tasking at their concerts.