FO: Pas de Valse

Things have been a little crazed around here as I prepare for a whole lot of stuff. Right now, I am focusing on trying to wrap up and summarize work projects from the past 6 1/2 years. Cleaning out my hard drive was a pretty sobering experience. It's almost over now and I'm begging my co-workers to throw me a party already.

This weekend was busy, but we made time to go to the Louis Armstrong house in Queens. I'll have more on that later as it was a blog-worthy experience in itself.

Louis and his wife Lucille settled in what could be called a modest house, in a real neighborhood...except they had a triple lot in which they had landscaped a beautiful Japanese garden to entertain in. I just happened to be wearing my latest sweater, and the day was sunny and warm enough for a little photoshoot.



I half excepted Louis to come out of his house and yell at me to get off his lawn.





The sweater is the Pas de Valse by Marnie MacLean from Twist Collective.



I used 4 skeins of The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga in Adonis Butterfly. I love this color blue. Since handpainted yarn tends to be a bit inconsistent color-wise I alternated skeins to make the color more even. I still ended up with an odd color splotch of green on one front though, but I'm not going to let that bother me right now. Aside from that, the yarn was a champion of loveliness- soft with cashmere and merino and it didn't stretch out when blocked (as superwash yarns tend to do sometimes). It's meant to be worn large and drapey, with a pin to fasten it whichever way you want. I personally like it low to give a more hourglass waist shape.



I do have a few gripes about the pattern. The collar extension was a bit sloppy to finish up in the back neck. The sample pictures seem to gloss over that fact that it's not quite perfect, and the instructions are a little vague when it comes to piecing that section together. I think the sleeves could be a little neater as well- they connect to the sweater by picking up stitches from the body and knitting down from the sleeve cap, and I don't like that look as much as sewn-in sleeves. I also think the sleeves as written taper too narrow, so I cast off when I had 50 stitches left on the needles (she has you decrease down to 34). I don't think that the sleeves would fit over my wrist otherwise- they are very narrow, fitted sleeves to begin with. I like the look of that as it is a nice contrast to the rest of the garment, but I think if you did it as written, you'll end up cutting the circulation off to your hands. I loved the lettuce crochet edging- it really finished the sweater off nicely.



I also love the drape and the shaping of the rest of the sweater- and there is a whole lot of shaping instructions to pay attention to. This is definitely making the cut and ending up in my suitcase. It's very flattering and wearable as far as a larger sweater goes. I kind of want to be the graceful and elegant person who would wear this on a regular basis. It wants me to go out and get my ears pierces so I can wear dangly earrings with it.



This did take a quite a while to make, and because I always had two skeins of yarn attached, it didn't leave the house. This is the 39" size. I used about 1550 yards of sport weight yarn- a lot of yarn goes into a long-ish oversized sweater knit at a fine gauge with a huge drapey collar. Aside from my pattern gripes, I enjoyed knitting this and I watched some good classic movies in the process.

FO: Well, This Wasn't Exactly How I Pictured Things.

The race to knit down my stash has new urgency. I can't move across an ocean and bring it all with me.



This beast, for example. It was supposed to be a hat. I don't know if the skein of yarn I had was a defect, but there was only 45 yards in the skein. It was supposed to have 110 yards.



It was supposed to be the Unoriginal Hat and now it's a cowl with a cable pattern.



Or a really warm headband. Your choice!



The yarn is Creative Focus Chunky by Nashua Handknits- 75% wool and 25% Alpaca. Methinks this might have been a sample skein or a dud, because it ended up being about half the weight that the label says. Sad face. Lemons make really nice lemonade though, especially when you dump a load of sugar syrup in. I'll stick with that story. Unforgivably, this isn't the softest yarn either- maybe not something you want right up close to your skin like that. I'm pretty immune to prickly wool, and full-grown alpaca can have a lot of guard hairs that might irritate your skin. I mean, you can see the pokey wire hairs in the picture. NOT SOFT. It's a pretty raspberry color though, and the bulky yarn at the tight gauge gives it enough structure so that it's not floppy.

FO: Shawl-Collared Lattice Sweater, Pour mon Mari

I am always on the prowl for the perfect guy sweater. Men are very particular- they usually have a well-defined comfort zone when it comes to fashion, and anything teetering on the edge of normal will not get worn. It has to have unique details, but not too complicated or fussy or delicate. Color is important as well- the more drab and boring the color, the more loved it will be. Think of dirt, of UPS Brown, or the color you get when you mix all your watercolors together. That's what we're aiming for.



Cables are okay, but he says, "nothing too Irish". So no crazy cabled fisherman sweater, which aside from the basic plain sweater, seems to be the most popular men's pattern.

I found a pattern in Knitscene the fit the bill. It's called "The Lattice Sweater". I dug around in my stash and found some appropriately drab Cascade 220 Heathers in the color "Sparrow". I got to work on it- I knocked out the sleeves first and then did the body up to the 'pits when I was in Orlando on a business trip.



Everything gets joined at the yolk with raglan decreases, and the neck is split and the lattice cable gave me something interesting to do, finally. Except that I mis-read the instructions and ended up doing half the amount of decreases necessary and realized pretty late in the game that this would fit off-the-shoulder. Sigh.

I tinked back to the armpits, joined everything again, and did the correct amount of decreases. Much better now. Funny fact- when I realized my error in decreases, I denied it at first and continued to knit another few rows before I ripped it back. What the hell is wrong with me? In the end, knitting the yoke a second time didn't kill me as much as I thought it would.

I am going to re-knit the shawl collar though. As it is now, it's not big enough, and it's always teetering on wanting to stand up on its own. I want it to be bigger and drapier. He agrees. A little drama is okay once in a while.




Despite the fact that half the sweaters I've made haven't gotten any use at all this year due to the fact that it rarely hits a temperature cold enough, I keep slogging on with woolie knitwear with the plan of moving to someplace very cold one day. Maybe I should start taking classes in Scandinavian languages and brush up on my reindeer-herding skills.





At the suggestion of a friend, I think there should be some short-rows in the back to give it more shape. The front wouldn't ride up if there was more space for the shoulders. When I fix the collar, I might as well just keep going and rip back a few inches into the sweater as well.



Aside from the minor fit issue, he loves it. It was finished in time for his birthday, but since I fitted it to him multiple times it wasn't a surprise. Surprises when it comes to fit = not a good surprise at all.

I used a full six skeins of Cascade 220 and size 6 needles (size 5 for the ribbing and the collar) to get 19 stitches per 4 inches. I made the 44 3/4" size- his chest with a t-shirt on is 42". It's fitted, but it still gives him a good amount of ease. He loves it (and if he didn't, he wouldn't have the heart to tell me, but since he's already worn it a bunch I'm just going to stick with "he loves it") and I'm happy with it as well. Viva winter!

FO: Turn a Square for Jerry

For the most part, I like my co-workers. Some of them have the uncanny ability to drive me to drink, but I can honestly step back from the situation and view it as almost entirely positive as far as a corporate job goes. I get paid well, I get a stack of gift certificates and bottles of Scotch for Xmas, and every once in a while, they let me take the group someplace nice so they can golf and get enough alcohol in their systems to stop thinking about work.

No one is a baby and calls HR on me when they get thrown in the pool, and I don't call HR on them when they end up getting hospitalized for dehydration while they are at a strip club.

It's good to have co-workers who are willing to talk about something other than work. Jerry is the source of good office gossip, the fixer of the Web-exes that I tend to screw up, installer of big heavy servers that I can't rack myself, and the bearer of cute kids that he'll bring to the office so I can feed them Sour Patch kids until there is a sticky mess of vibrating children to be rounded up for the long ride home at the end of the day.



Oh, that's a terrible picture of him. Here's a hatless one that I like better. I took that for his linked-in picture. I think he has the same problem as I do with those corporate website pictures as almost every picture I have I'm either wearing sunglasses and/or have a drink in my hand.



There. Just imagine him with a hat now.



I felt like it was overdue that he gets some knitwear. He's been begging for socks for years, but I have put on a sinister squint and asked him if he and his wife was ready for the commitment of handwash only. So he gets a hat instead.

It's my go-to guy hat, the Turn a Square. I used leftover scraps of Noro Silk Garden from a few different projects and the last bit of Shelter in "Nest". I tried doing it from memory and realized when I was done that the pattern calls for stripes every 3 and 2 rows. I just did every 2 rows but I don't think that's wrong in any way.

I told him he could wear it on his foot if he wanted to.

FO: Leyfi Pullover

Fa-la-la... I finished something....



Actually, I finished it a couple weeks ago, but their isn't enough daylight in my week to get a decent shot of it. I think if you are going to spend hours and hours handknitting something you really need to do your work justice with a nice well-lit outdoors or studio photographs. This usually isn't a problem from May to September, but wintertime can be a challenge.





The pattern is called Leyfi by Romi Hill. It's from Interweave Knits Fall 2010.



I used 2 skeins of Cascade Eco Wool. The way the sweater is constructed makes it fun- you start with the crazy open lace turtleneck, work your way down to the shoulders, and then split for the lace sleeves. It flows together seamlessly.

I might have made a mistake in interpreting the pattern- I think the sleeves are meant to be more of an open lace pattern. I knit all the yarn overs through the back loop like the pattern said, and now that I look at other people's finished project, I see that they didn't. It doesn't effect the fit per say, but it just makes it less lacy.



The only thing I did to modify was a few short rows in the front for boob-shaping. Otherwise, this sweater would be the same front and back. Also, I added some garter stitch to the bottom hem to keep it from curling up. This is my first completed sweater for 2012. I can only hope that I can order up some cold, snowy weather in time for this to get more wear before spring.

It knit up fairly quickly- once the sleeves were done, it only took me a few days to complete the body. It was hard to haul it around to work on the acres of stockinette stitch that made up the body, so I watched a few movies to get through it at home. Specifically:

In a Lonely Place:

The great Hitchcock film, "Shadow of a Doubt":

And, what might be my new favorite movie ever, "Le Trou".

I guess I've always been a sucker for great iconic acting and the suspense that these old movies had to rely on instead of CGI and pyrotechnics. I knew how this sweater would end anyway. Happily, and with a warm heroine.

FO: Sans Argyle Socks

Oh, sigh. These were such a good idea:

They are the Argyle socks from Veronik Avery in her lovely book Knitting Classic Style. The beauty of them is that there's no colorwork to keep track of or get tangled or mess with your tension or have to deal with knitting the sock flat and seaming it, but everything colorwork is duplicate stitched on top of the finished sock. Genius.

Except I failed at the colorwork. I've done duplicate stitch plenty, but for very small expanses. Like the black faces and feet on these sheep.



Or like all the green bits on the Snail Mittens (which are still my favorite mitts):



But all the intricate criss-crossing on these socks got to me, and I realized after several tries that my stitching wasn't even close to being perfect enough to make these socks look like an arts and crafts project gone wrong. It made them look very, er, "homemade", in a really sad kind of way. My embroidery was too sloppy to be seen in public.

So I put down my darning needle and left these as it. They are plain, but warm and cozy and most people are a little horrified that I would knit my man a gift of socks that are a Cashmere blend (and handpainted to boot).



So here are the two colors I was going to use:



One thing I did learn was that it comes out a little more evenly if you use a thinner weight yarn. Even that wouldn't save them in my hands though.

I'm happy with them anyway. I knit them almost entirely while traipsing around Paris so they have lots of good memories worked in. Also, the yarn is wonderful- The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga in Autumn Tiger Beetle. It's a pretty good way to spoil anyone you might know. I guess that time will tell if this is a good sock yarn though- if the heels blow out after a couple of wears then I will turn sour on it faster than warm milk.

Also, I got this sent to me in an email:



He's pretty adorable, eh? Plus he's wearing a Snail Hat from my handspun (and a faaabulous scarf that was meant for mum, but I'm supportive of whatever he wants to wear). Smaller than adult sizes always confuse the hell out of me- I know babies and children have proportionally large noggins, but I never know how large. Lots of stretchy ribbing and maybe something that expands quite a bit seems to work better for me that trying to guesstimate inches. I think I even put a note in with the hat saying that I would knit him another one if it doesn't fit. I dodged a bullet.

FO: Fantastic Mister Faux

I'm a little fascinated by the relic of the 1920's and 30's: the fox stole. Why anyone would think that an animal carcass with facial features and feet slung over their shoulders is beyond me. But still. It exudes a certain glamour.

Fur has gone out of style, and for good reason- it's heartbreakingly cruel, right up there with foie gras and veal. I really only see it being worn by the Russian Trophy Wives that go on discount shopping trips in my neighborhood (along with heels that I, a high-heel wearer, can only dream of walking in) and sometimes an eccentric older lady will be donning a full-length mink that looks like it's seen better days.

Just before Christmas, we were invited out to one of those grand corporate parties of awkwardness and much drinking. Last minute I was told that it had a 1920's theme. I dug through my stash and came up with the very last novelty yarn I could unearth, and set to work to make a little glamour for my night.











Well, we were pretty much the only people to dress up costumey (which was fine, because their was no real theme going on after all except for excess everything...like southern food). Techie people aren't known for their creativity in their wardrobes. We did see a lot of pleated pants, and quite a few untucked and rumpled shirts restraining a lot of pasty white skin, and red, computer screen strained eyes. Ah well. For this one night, we looked fabulous dahhling, fabulous, if only because very few other fish were in the sea.



The bad thing about the party that it was so huge and spread out, you couldn't find a bar that had the same theme twice. Mixing is bad, people. Champange from the fountain and shots from the vodka luge and a whisky bar and a beer bar and a wine bar and...oh, hell. I should have just stuck to water.



Here is my foxy faux, up close and personal.



He looks much better now in person- after a night of hard drinking, his eyes were coming loose and were hanging by threads and I almost lost his nose at one point. Fox needs to change gears, maybe not do so much damage to his liver. Nice doggy.



Also, note the color change we have going on. He was a scrappy fellow, and when I ran out of one color, I just kept going with the next. Also...his front legs are longer than his back, because I ran out of that yarn.

Here's a list of the yarn that went into him.

Crystal Palace Yarns Fizz Solid
Crystal Palace Yarns Merino Frappe
Crystal Palace Yarns Splash Print
Sirdar Boa
Suss Yarn Mohair

He's squeaky like plastic. Fantastic plastic.

I used a hair clip for his mouth so he will attach to his tail. The pattern is from Knitty from years and years ago. I actually made one from a kit from a now defunct website that made such kits and I gifted that fox to a fabulous glamourpuss friend of mine. This was what I had for leftovers from the kit and other assorted scraps. It only took a couple hours to whip up, finishing and all. It's only really tricky because holding a lot of novelty yarn together makes a mess of your stitches, but it also hides any mistakes you might make.

He's currently elegantly draped across the back of my sofa. Sometimes I hold him in my lap and pet him. I'm creepy like that.

FO: Merino Lace Socks

Well hello! I'm so happy that I didn't publicly declare my need to "blog more" in the New Year. I have some nice things to show off, plus plenty of events and pictures to share, but really no good time to sit down and collect my thoughts on anything in particular. Everything is good though.

So, first up, a pair of socks. They will be the last socks I knit for a while...I want to knit some sweaters this year and I'm finding that a pair of socks will ofttimes take me just as long as a sweater. So I quit. Cold turkey. I swear it. I do miss them dearly though- the sweater sleeves I'm working on don't fit in my bag quite as nicely, and when I pull them out, they tend to cause everything else in my bag to empty out onto the floor. I will survive this atrocity however.

This started out as a couple of skeins of Koigu KPPPM that I had in my stash. The colors were so pretty, and a cushy merino sock yarn is always a joy to work with. I've been wanting to make a pair of Merino Lace socks for a while, and I thought this yarn was subtle enough to make nice with the busy pattern.



I cast them on while traveling. The lace pattern was easy, but I didn't quite get around to memorizing it. It was a lovely fun pattern though, with a girly ruffle on top.



The pattern seemed like it might be a little too lumpy-bumpy to go under a pair of shoes, so I did the foot plain. I love them. An appropriate "last sock" to kick off my self-imposed sock diet.



I only did 4 lace repeats on the cuff and I'm glad I did- I had very little yarn left in the end. What I did with the leftovers was string up my darning needle and reinforce the heel properly. Socks are meant to be used and abused and worn and worn out, but you can try to fight it a little, right? It's like botox for socks.



They were gifted over Xmas to another knitter, who needed a little mood pick-up to go with cozy feet in winter.



Yup. It's hard to take pictures of your own feet.