another knitting blog

want a Pukey of your own?

I got Pukey Bear at a little shop around the corner. I stopped yesterday and picked up the last two they had.

Just for fun, I am going to send them to good homes. Put your name into the hat by sending me an email via the link at the bottom of the right-hand column by 8PM ET Wednesday, March 3rd. Make sure the words 'Pukey Bear' are in the subject line [emails without a subject line will be discarded]. One email per person, please [duplicate entries will be discarded]. Entries will be numbered according to the order they reach my mailbox. Wednesday, after the deadline, I will use my handy-dandy random number generator to pick the two winning entries. I will contact the winning entrants on Thursday.

That's it. I'm not going to ask you to do anything fancy. Maybe you could send me a joke or a funny story. [I could use a laugh]. It doesn't have to be a knitting joke, but please, if it is, let there be no 'pullovers' in it.

I did a little online searching looking for other unique tape measures. I didn't find any Pukey Bears, but I did find some interesting antique tape measures like Pukey's grandfather. And although there may not be a Poopy Bear, witness the horror of the squatting man tape measure [I am so sorry].

There is knitting happening. Remember Bark? I've started the second sleeve.

disappointed, dejected, and disgusted

Last night, I had a big fight with CPS. Today, we are not speaking to each other.

I spent all night knitting the collar of CPS only to decide at 11pm that it wasn't working out very well—certainly not the way I had envisioned it. This is going to take some hard thought and negotiation before we get things ironed out. I am really trying not to hold a grudge.

In the mean time, Rain Forest and I are still getting along nicely.

This is my new tape measure, Pukey Bear. [There's only one way this could be worse].

Button Quest

Thanks to everyone for their opinions on buttons for CPS. Many people seemed to think that wooden buttons would be nice. I agree, but I haven't been able to find any in the stores that I like, and I'm not quite ready to order any.

I got a few recommendations of other online button resources: Lace Heaven and Couture Buttons.

Friday, I went and got a new selection of buttons. Saturday, I brought the sweater and the buttons to K2P2 and got the sage advice of the knitting deities there.

[click for bigger views]

I've already decided on one of these six. See if you can guess which one.

I think the latest buttonholes will fit; if they don't, I'll just have to keep trying until they do. Maybe it's time to do some research on buttonholes.

Button Quandry

I've reached that critical point in knitting a cardigan that so often trips me up—button selection. Given all the work and care I've put into this sweater, I don't want to let up now. The buttons don't have to be perfection, but I do have to have some.

Monday, I auditioned buttons for CPS at G Street Fabrics. In addition to packaged dill buttons on spinning racks, G Street has two walls of boxes filled with loose buttons. The boxes are behinds counters and are guarded by the workers in the notions department. The notionaries will take the boxes down for you and can give some guidance if you are looking for something in particular.

However, even two walls full of buttons and someone completely familiar with contents of all the button boxes didn't allow me to settle on buttons for CPS. I bought some off the rack on the off chance that they'd work out.

They are aesthetically OK, I guess, but they are too big for the buttonholes I've knit. Because I think that any button that I like is going to be too big for the button holes I've knit, I'm knitting the buttonhole band for the fourth time—this time making the buttonholes one stitch bigger. I still have the band with the smaller holes, so when I settle on buttons I like, I'll sew on the buttonhole band that best accommodates them.

I'm going back to G Street today to take another look and see if I can exchange what I bought for a slightly smaller size. I may also make a run out to Hancock Fabrics and Jo-Ann Fabrics to see what there selections are like. G Street has dill buttons, but I find that I often prefer JHB buttons.

ButtonDrawer.com appears to sell the entire JHB line online. I looked through and found some possibilities.

[click for a closer look].

I don't want anything too bold—I don't want to clash with the strong pattern of the sweater.

If I can't find any of these in a store, I suppose I could order several possibilities. They aren't outrageously expensive and a button stash isn't any worse than a yarn stash.

Ooh, and I could also order one of these.

I would love to design a sweater to just to go along with this clasp.

Making Fiends

"Making fiends, making fiends.
Vendetta's always making fiends.
Making fiends,
while Charlotte makes friends."

There's a new episode of Making Fiends. [Hee!]

Amy Winfrey is also the talent behind Muffinfilms and Big Bunny. I find them all highly amusing, but Making Fiends is my favorite.

Join the Fiendlist and be notified when the next new episode comes out in April.

"Don't you want to pet the puppy?"

Good Grief!

You are Charlie Brown!

Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Noticed on Steph's blog

inside out

[You can click for a closer view].

I've seamed the arms and sides and I've attached one of the front bands.

Yes, attached a front band. For whatever reason, this pattern has you knit entirely separate button bands and sew them on.

I'm sure there must be a practical reason for this. For one thing, it's easier to make a good transition from the stockinette intarsia of the body and the seed stitch of the bands—no floppy stitches or messiness. Also, if the stockinette row gauge is drastically different from the seed stitch row gauge, it can be addressed by knitting body and band separately.

However, if I would have been paying attention when I started knitting the fronts, I would have cast on the extra stitches for the bands to begin with and put them on a stitch holder after the bottom seed stitch band was done.

Then, I could have gone back and knit them separately. [I've done this before with a Rowan pattern and the result was quite nice]. This would have avoided the icky seam that now runs the entire length of the band. The good news is that the seam disappears for most of it's length. It's only at the bottom where seed stitch meets seed stitch that it's noticeable.

It's just a small detail; but by this point I have enough experience that I should have been able to anticipate it.

I am now working on the buttonhole band for the third time. I think I've finally got buttonholes I can live with; and, due to the Presidents' Day holiday, I have an extra day off to work on finishing. [Yay!]

And speaking of Presidents' Day: Haven't you always wanted your own collection of talking action figure US Presidents?

[Apparently, Dubya is the frowniest American president ever, even when hitching a ride onto an aircraft carrier. In contrast, Bill was a very happy guy].

[I had a hard time figuring out whether it's President's Day or Presidents' Day. I still don't really know].

bitter

No use trying to put up a good face. From my point of view, Valentine's Day sucks.

So, in the time honored tradition of sour grapes, I give you a few anti V-day links.

Despair, Inc., maker of Demotivators and the pessimist's mug, now brings us BitterSweets, Valentine's candy for the rest of us.

Women.com brings us over 100 ways to say the hell with love, girlfriend.

It's official, after 43 years together, Barbie and Ken split.

along for the ride

I appreciate all the thoughts everyone shared about knit-alongs. I enjoyed reading the range of viewpoints.

For those who participate in knit-alongs, the benefits include help troubleshooting patterns, help keeping focus, support and encouragement, and a sense of community. All good things.

Almost everyone agrees that knit-alongs are fun to watch. Several people mentioned enjoyment in seeing the variety in the realization of each design. I'll go along with that.

Like me, many knitters would like to join in, but have attitudes and circumstances that hold them back. We may have trouble deciding on which project or what yarn to use. By the time we get our act together, we feel the train has left us at the station. We may have a wandering eye or a short attention span and find it hard to stay on track. When we can't 'keep up', it's hard seeing others zoom ahead.

It seems that the key becoming part of a knit-along is to let go of expectations, obligations, and schedules and just knit [dammit]. There are no real deadlines, only the ones we impose from within. Afterall, if everyone else finishes and we are still working on something, it's not as if the knitting police are going to come and take the sweater away just because we aren't done [even if we wish they would]. We should view all those speedy knitters as a resource, not as competition.

And once again, I have to remind myself, this isn't a race or a competition, it's knitting. [Sheesh! You think I would have learned that one by now].

So, if the stars align, a knit-along may still be in my future. It may have to be a stealth knit-along though. I don't want to tip off the knitting police.

it's all coming together

In the meantime, I'm making progress on the very independent CPS.

I've trimmed a bunch of ends...

... and sewn the sleeves on.

just me, knitting

In my wanderings among the knitting blogs, I am intrigued by the number of knit-alongs that are taking place at any one time. Lately, I've been wondering why I never join in. I've analyzed a few of the potential reasons why this may be so.

#1: I don't like the projects. [FALSE]

This is an easy reason to dismiss. Sure, I don't like every project in every knit-along, but many of the past and present knit-along targets are on my list of possibilities. For instance, Banff is great...and fun to say. [Banff Banff Banff. See what I mean?]

#2: I don't want to spend any more money on yarn. [FALSE]

Give me a minute here while I dry my eyes. Whoo, I cracked myself up with that one!

#3: I knit too slowly. [TRUISH]

We are getting closer.

Often, when I am making the rounds of my regular knit blog reads, I'm amazed at how quickly everyone else seems to work. New projects spring up over night and are completed in a week or two. I have had CPS on the books since last March. I seem to be knitting all the time and yet nothing ever manages to get done.

I'm not completely sure, but I think some laws of physics are being broken here. I don't seem to be living on the same knitting timeline as everyone else. I used to think I was a relatively speedy knitter. Maybe I am; but, I am also a busy and distractible knitter. I love to knit, but I rarely manage more than an hour a night anymore.

I don't relish the idea of joining a knit-along and steadily falling further and further behind while all those aforementioned speedy and conscientious knitters finish and move on to the next big thing. If everyone else is done, you are no longer knitting along, you are knitting behind. Which leads to...

#4: I stink at knitting on a schedule. [TRUE]

When I started blogging, I had a one-project-at-a-time rule. It worked and I completed a stalled project; and then, [because I refuse to be ruled by mere logic] I gave it up. [What? Seeing results? Give that habit up!]

Look at all those projects in the progress bars...and those are just the ones I'm bothering to list.

I'm sort of going back to a more disciplined approach. I spent a few days of concentrated effort on Rain Forest this weekend and CPS is the focus for the week. [I will finish that darn sweater, and soon].

#5: I am a rock. I am an island. [SADLY, TRUE]

I'm not a joiner. I try for connection and community, but I'm shy and introverted. I won't reach out.

Most of the time I'm happy doing my own thing. Sometimes, I do feel a little like I'm missing out though.

[Nanette has been reading about introversion and provided a link to an interesting article on the subject].

There are other potential factors, but if I keep listing them I won't have any time for knitting tonight.

So, do you join knit-alongs? Why? Why not? What do you feel that you get out of the experience?

Friday Fair Isle Fiasco

Yesterday was my biweekly Friday off. It rained all day and hovered above freezing. Sidewalks and roads were treacherous so I stayed inside and spent most of the day knitting. I haven't been making much progress on anything lately, so I decided to make a real effort to get somewhere on Rain Forest.

Near the end of the evening, I noticed I had used the wrong color for three rows about nine rows back. I've been trying to let a bit of the perfectionism go and have let a few small mishaps stay, but this was just too noticeable to let go.

Right before I slunk off to bed, I ripped out nine rows and put everything back on the needles. Today I've been working to get back to where I was last night. [One advantage to ripping out all those rows: it did allow me to fix one of those little errors I would have let go otherwise].

I'm beyond my mistake point now and 5 inches from starting the steeks. Tomorrow I'm going to answer phones at the public radio pledge drive. I ought to be able to get another row or two done between calls.

I saw today that Colonial House, coming to PBS in May. I've previously talked about how much I enjoyed the other programs in this genre like Manor House and Frontier House. I'm already looking forward to this one.

misc.

Louise knit a cowl using my pattern and Noro Silk Garden #65. Go take a peek and stay to admire her knitting and spinning.

Alison and Sonja are surprised that I felt in a pay washer. Lisa and LE Melissa recommend that I try hand-felting my mittens.

I don't know. I've done all my felting so far in pay washers and this is the first time I've had any difficulty. Then again, this is the first time that I was felting anything other than a bag. With backpacks and purses, the exact finished dimensions are not as important. In those cases, I just kept running them through until I was satisfied with the felted texture. [Note to Peggy: The texture and feel of the mittens is great. They are very soft and not at all stiff].

Hand-felting sounds like an awful lot of work [Horrors!!]. However, I'm intrigued enough to think I should at least give it a try. I'm still a little dubious though, so I'll probably knit up a swatch and practice with that. Is it very hard to get things to felt evenly by hand?

Becky and melissa j noticed my 'cute little foot' in the before felting picture. I will point out that the little foot is wearing a Koigu sock knit from my sock knitting recipe.

Silvia thinks Molly wants her own mittens. We tried that one, she wasn't goin' for it.

Kathleen thinks Molly needs a felted kitty bed. I don't think so. The entire world [including me] is her kitty bed. Actually, she does have [gasp] a store-bought kitty bed that she loves. It's lined with a failed knitting project of mine. That's as close to a hand-knit kitty bed as she's going to get from me.

[Do you ever feel like you are being watched?]

Molly is a sweet girl, born on a farm. When I went to the farm to pick out a kitten, while all her brothers and sisters ran away, she ran toward me. I figured either she was stupid or loved people. Luckily for me, she turned out to be a total love sponge. She gets her way more through her loveable nature than being demanding.

She can stare at me all she wants, I'm still not going to make her a felted kitty bed.

A felting failure...or is it?

Last weekend, instead of making substantial progress on any of the many projects I'm working on, I knit a pair of enormous mittens.

At this point, when I put them on they went up to my elbows.

I used a pattern I bought a few years ago at Stitches East, Nancy Lindberg's Felted (Fulled) Mittens. [The only place I've found the pattern currently available online is Lamb's Ear Farm].

The yarn is Plymouth Galway, which I used last year to make my Felted Triangle Handbag.

When it came time to felt the mitts down, I ran them through the washing machine on hot with a couple towels and a wool sweater I was purposely shrinking. [They were in the special felting pillowcase]. They came out a bit fuzzier and a bit smaller, but not as small as I expected them to be.

Because I live in an apartment building with a laundry room, every load of wash has an immediate cost. However, it's not so much the cost of doing a load of laundry that bothers me as it is the loss of the quarters. Quarters are not to be spent lightly. You always want to make sure to have some on hand.

I ran the mittens and the sweater through along with two loads of 'real' laundry. The sweater kept on shrinking, but the mittens were stubborn—they refused to shrink further.

I was pretty confused. Last year when I felted with Galway, it shrunk right down. I did have to run it through more than once, but it showed progress with each cycle. [You can see the before shot of the purse here. Three cycles reduced the size by about 2/3].

Then, I remembered that previously I had added baking soda to the water. I threw the mittens in for another dip, this time with baking soda and [ta-da!] got significant shrinkage.

They could probably stand to go through one more cycle, but now they are at least a useable size. [It does start to annoy when you have to spend almost as much money to felt the items as the you did on the yarn to knit them].

Molly pulled one of the mittens off the drying rack so she could sit on it.