kmkat and her kneedles

FO Friday Monday.

The sweater, she is DONE! Actually, she has been done for over a week, and I have been wearing her a goodly portion of that time. Warm, cozy, fits right, scratchy enough that I need to wear a long-sleeved t-shirt under it, but I have several so that is not a problem. The color are fairly accurate at left, but the neck does not do that funny thing it is doing in the photo.

I learned some things in this sweater, mainly that I am not quite as good a sweater knitter as I thought. I won't go into excruciating detail because I don't want you all to feel you need to reassure me. I know what is not quite right about the sweater and none of it is enough to prevent me from being pleased with it and happy to wear it. So there.

One thing I learned is that I need to allow a bit more ease in the sleeve length. The kimono sweater I finished almost exactly a year ago? Sleeves barely long enough, and I intend -- someday -- to frog and reknit the last six inches to remedy that. I do not plan to do anything to the sleeves on this sweater except to use them as a reminder that I really need to put at least one extra inch of ease into the length of the sleeve, amen.

The blue-gray background yarn is a bit scratchy on my skin, so instead of doing ribbed cuffs I did turned hems and lined them with the same merino as the stripes.

Knitting the hem lining on a sleeve:

The same sleeve hem turned back:

The hem being fastened down with a three-needle bind-off; I threaded a second needle -- the one at the top -- through the back side of the stitches where I wanted the edge of the hem to attach:

The finished hem:

The idea for this came from a sweater I bought a number of years ago. Its hem (this is the right side; the sweater is reverse stockinette):

It seems to have worked a bit better on the machine-made sweater :( I knit the linings on a needle one size smaller than the sleeve to ensure that the hem would not flare. This worked on the sleeves; not so well at the bottom or the neck. Also, the row of stitches where I worked the three-needle bind-off pulled in significantly. I was able to fix this -- mostly -- by a firm steam-pressing.

I am also happy that this knitting basket:

is now available for my next major work-on-it-at-home project. 

These last photos are for Heather, who requested to see the inside of the sweater. Here ya go, Heather!

That is the inside of of the side "seam" where I changed colors; since I knit it top-down in the round there are no actual seams*. Here is the right side of same:

 

WIP Wednesday.

Another UFO destined to be finished this week is the multicolored topdown striped raglan. I finished it -- except for the neckband -- months ago in September, but we had such a mild autumn that lasted well into November, I felt no push to do that last bit of knitting. Then there was a bit of sorta-kinda Christmas knitting, and wowzers, here it is January and cold and I could really, really use a wool sweater.

One tiny problem is that I made the neckline a bit too high, and adding a neckband in the usual way would make the sweater uncomfortably warm and probably scratchy on my delicate neck. I am such a fragile little snowflake, ya know.

My body decided a number of years ago that the way it would regulate its temperature was by the circulation in my neck. If I am cold outside, I don't worry about mittens or a hat or any of the normal things; wrap a scarf around my neck and I am fine. I gave up wearing turtlenecks at least ten years ago because there is no way to regulate my neck thermostat if it is completely encased in clothing. Mock turtles are okay, though, cuz they are not as tight-fitting.

So picking up stitches at the edge of the neck and knitting a neckband that would match the cuffs and hem -- about 1" wide, with a turning row of purl stitches and inner lining of navy blue merino -- was right out. Much thought went into possible solutions. What I finally decided on was to pick up the stitches, not at the edge of the neck, but 1/2" (or more) in from the edge. That should keep the neckband down where it won't annoy me. The gray-blue yarn is a bit scratchy and I worry about that turning row, but the merino lining of the neckband should be fine. In my quest for the right colors for the stripes I managed to acquire several skeins of the merino DK in navy, and that is what I have used to line the hem and cuffs.

 

* * * * *

Smokey gave me a new camera for Christmas, a point-and-shoot Nikon that is easily pocketable, and that is what took the first photo, above. I gave Andrew my old iPod Touch for Christmas (it was what he wanted) and bought a new, 4th generation for myself. That is what took the second photo (the 4th gen iPod Touches have both a front and back camera, plus video -- awesome). The difference in quality is obvious, but this was a difficult photoshoot -- minimal natural light, no flash, taken in a mirror. I cropped them both and adjusted the color and exposure to improve both as much as possible. In better conditions that iPod will be handy. I always have it in my pocket, but I don't always have my camera.

Edited to add: My iPod Touch DIED on me yesterday! I was using it, put it into Sleep mode for a few minutes, then it refused to come back on. Rats, curses, #$%^#$!!! But Erika to the rescue. She sent me a link to a page that tells how to do soft and hard resets on the Touch (which I would have found on my own once I got over the denial, anger, and depression). Success! 

::bowing in Erika's direction::

Thanks!

1.2 Socks.

It occurred to me that perhaps I should remind everyone that I DO still knit. Currently OTN:

 

Notice the distinct lack of suntan, plus the remnants of that itchy rash on my legs. Ewww. Back in June when Smokey was doing the daily wet wraps of my arms, I was not as diligent on my shins. Working on that now.

Remember the multi-color striped top-down raglan? I tried it on after posting its progress earlier this month, and guess what? It was very nearly long enough -- only about two inches short! Finding out how close I was to finishing gave me some impetus to resume knitting. We are going camping again next week -- North Shore of Lake Superior this time -- and I hope to finish it once and for all then. Stay tuned...

The vacation, part 3: the knitting.

Did I knit while we were on vacation? Why, yes! Yes, I did. Thanks for asking.

You may remember I planned to knit a Noro striped sweater during the month we were gone.

Didn't happen. Never even took that particular knitting bag out of its cubby in the van. Starting that sweater was contingent upon finishing the multicolor striped raglan that I had been working on since February. When we left home, that (top-down) sweater had a yoke, both sleeves, and three or four inches of the body. I kept slogging plugging
knitting on it all during our trip. Here it is today, rather rumpled from having been stuffed into a traveling knitting bag for the month of June and most of July.

It's nearly done, isn't it? Maybe getting it out of its bag and seeing how close I am will inspire me...

I had started a pair of socks as my carry-along knitting before we left, but I was not enjoying them. The Knit Picks Felici sock yarn, while lovely soft and in nice colors, was also loosely plied and therefore splitty. There was progress made on the socks, but it was s-l-o-w.

They are now [finally!] finished, however.

Somehow, even though I knit them on the same number of stitches (60) and the same size needle (US#0) as always, they don't fit well. See how the end of the toes sticks out from the end of my foot? That is because it is too narrow. Such nonsense is probably the result of my not liking the yarn; disgust made me knit tighter.

So.

If I didn't knit the Noro sweater, and I didn't finish the socks, and I worked on but didn't finish the raglan, what DID I knit?

Baby hats for the PIH hospital in Rwanda! At the last minute I threw my baby hat knitting bag (it's where I keep all the yarn that is good for baby hats) into the van. Good thing I did; otherwise I might have had to finish the sweater and socks. As Dale-Harriet once said, Baby hats are like potato chips. You can't do just one.

My soon-to-be-fifth-grade neighbor helped me do the photo shoot.

She was so cute.

Then I showed her my iTouch and the knitting was forgotten.

 

Let's examine those hats in detail, shall we? They are being modeled by my trusty ostrich egg sitting in its base of brass and wart hog tusks. (How fitting for hats that will travel to Africa!)

This first five were all done on a US#3 circ from one skein of Socks That Rock heavyweight, colorway Gay Pride. The striping and pooling are different because the hats are worked on different numbers of stitches, from 56 to 68. Babies come in different sizes, so I figured their heads do, too.

 

I had a few yards of the STR leftover so I combined it with some green Valley Superwash DK for the hat at the left, once again on a US#3 circ.

I decided before I started the hats that I would not put a cuff on any of the wool ones, hoping to stretch this skein of STR to seven or eight hats. Didn't work. .

.

.
.

.

This next group were all knit from Knit Picks Shine Sport in River (blue) and Cherry (red, discontinued) on a US#3 circ.

 

The second photo shows the slanting jog that results from a new-to-me way of changing colors. (The jog looks a lot better in the socks in the link than in my hat; I don't think there is ANY way to make jogless two-row stripes.) The fourth and fifth photos are of a hat I made to experiment with the knit-one-below stitch (more on that in another post).

Next, three hats from Knit Picks Shine Worsted, knitted on a US#5.

Yup, I was using up the last of that particular yarn in the last hat. How can you tell?

The last few.

The first is more KP Shine Sport, this time in Willow and with some one-row stripes of a fuzzy novelty yarn. I got from lisa. The second is Cleckheaton 8-ply County Check superwash wool  worsted (discontinued) left over from knitting mittens a couple years ago. Third is KP Comfy in Honeydew, combined with KP Shine worsted in the fourth. That last hat is my favorite of them all.

And that is what I knit on my summer vacation.

More random.

Censorship: it's as American as, well, censorship.

From boingboing.net:

"A music-industry speaker at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm waxed enthusiastic about child porn, because it serves as the perfect excuse for network censorship, and once you've got a child-porn filter, you can censor anything:

'Child pornography is great,' the speaker at the podium declared enthusiastically. 'It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites.'

The venue was a seminar organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm on May 27, 2007, under the title 'Sweden -- A Safe Haven for Pirates?'. The speaker was Johan Schlüter from the Danish Anti-Piracy Group, a lobby organization for the music and film industry associations, like IFPI and others...

'One day we will have a giant filter that we develop in close cooperation with IFPI* and MPA. We continuously monitor the child porn on the net, to show the politicians that filtering works. Child porn is an issue they understand,' Johan Schlüter said with a grin, his whole being radiating pride and enthusiasm from the podium."

IFPI's strategy on porn.

* IFPI = International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. From their website:

"IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide, with a membership comprising some 1400 record companies in 66 countries and affiliated industry associations in 45 countries. IFPI's mission is to promote the value of recorded music, safeguard the rights of record producers and expand the commercial uses of recorded music in all markets where its members operate."

* * * * *

I just finished reading this book. It was absolutely fascinating -- I read until 2 a.m. two nights in a row because I was so enthralled.

Markopolos was a quant -- a numbers guy in the securities industry -- who figured out after five minutes analysis (5 minutes!) in 1999 that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, either doing a type of trading that is illegal or, more likely, running a Ponzi scheme. Markpolos's boss at the investment firm where he worked wanted him to reverse engineer Madoff's trading strategy so they could duplicate it. They were losing clients to Madoff and wanted to be able to compete with him. 

From Amazon/Publisher's Weekly:

"Markopolos, the whistleblower who filed five unheeded complaints against Ponzi king Bernie Madoff over nine years, has produced an astonishing true-life whodunit set amidst the personalities, plots, and international intrigue of Wall Street. Having collected damning information on money manager Madoff -- the respected co-founder of NASDAQ who ran the largest financial scam in history -- since 1999, Markopolos's work as a chartered financial analyst and certified fraud examiner, aided by an industry journalist and two colleagues from his days as a derivatives portfolio manager, lays bare the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a tragically inept regulating agency that 'didn't give a rat's ass about protecting investors,' and seemed to consider Madoff 'just another guy cutting some corners.' Realizing he had not one but two powerful opponents -- 'Madoff and this non-functioning agency' -- Markopolos refused to give up, despite fearing for his life and his family; accordingly, he transmits his team's determination and fascination in contagious detail. The hows and whys of Madoff's eventual arrest, Markopolos's subsequent appearances before Congress, and the carnival of press coverage makes a satisfying conclusion to this strange epic; Markopolos also includes complete documentation of his formal submissions to the SEC, plus his recommendations for much-needed reform at the agency."

Part of my fascination with this story stems from my professional history. I was an auditor for three years and by sheer chance ended up specializing in the securities industry. After that I spent seven years at a regional financial services firm. This was back in the 1980s and things have changed since then, but enough has remained the same that I recognized the industry I was acquainted with. Plus, after I had finished the book, I realized that a number of my tax clients probably had invested for years in one of the funds that had >$1 billion *invested* with Madoff; the head of that fund committed suicide two weeks after Madoff was arrested.

If you have any interest in the world of finance and/or fraud and/or government regulation -- or you just like a good thriller -- you should read this book.

* * * * *

This video brought back memories. Back in about 1987, when #1 Son was 2-1/2, he loved Labyrinth. He must have watched it 50 or 100 times. Srsly.

He would put on a pair of tall black dress winter boots with 1" heels that I had then (the boots were knee-high on me; on him they came up to his crotch) and carry some kind of stick to be a scepter/wand, just like The Goblin King. He would stand in front of the TV and [attempt to] sing along with "the baby song", all the while wiggling his butt and dancing back and forth in an imitation of TGK. I especially liked it when he would yell "Quiet!" at the goblins, right along with David Bowie.

Smokey sent this YouTube video to #1. We are waiting to hear if he remembers anything of those days.

* * * * *

Speaking of sons, #2 Son is, even as I type, hosting the No-Hater Rolling Dance Super Bike Mega Party 2010.0. Perhaps you remember the N-HRDSBMP2K9? Apparently that one was such a success that he is repeating it.

As you can see in the photos in the linked post, one Saturday night in last October he and about 20 others rode their bikes together through light rain and partied and danced (under bridges, where it was dry) until the wee hours. This time? As of some time last week there were already 248 people signed up to attend.

He got a parade permit from the City of Minneapolis, just in case.

* * * * *

On the knitting front, my multicolored striped top-down raglan now has a yoke, two sleeves, and a few -- say, 3 -- inches of body. I will definitely have it ready to wear by next winter. I hope to be able to wear it if necessary when we go camping near Glacier National Park in June.

Currently, I also have the second sock of two different pairs OTN and am having great fun making log cabin felted potholders for the Friends of the Polk County Libraries to sell this summer. I also have committed to at least one hat for a Relay for Life in fund raiser in June. Progress on all projects is being documented photographically. Stay tuned.

Linkety and stuff.

Great moments in figure skating.

Celebrities and their cats.

* * * * *

Photo on the wall at the author event on Saturday:

 

I knew it looked familiar. Not the same, but eerily similar.

Edouard Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, 1862-1863

* * * * *

Slowly it grows, row by row...

Linkety, fortune cookies, and knitting.

Essentials to include in your survival kit: not what you might think. Every one of us would, of course, include yarn and needles in our survival kit.

* * * * *

What to do with excess yarn: make a lampshade. Not that any of us have excess yarn...

* * * * *

When Matthew came home the other weekend he brought us a present.

 

That is a small portion of the two large garbage bags (!) of fortune cookies he *rescued* from the dumpster next to a fortune cookie bakery that happens to be near a bikeway in south Minneapolis. Apparently the bakery throws away any cookies that get broken or mis-packaged. Their loss, our gain. These cookies are actually fresher than any you might get at your local Chinese restaurant because they were baked the day Matthew snatched them up.

Guess what? Our dogs like fortune cookies! Who knew?

Lucy's fortune: "You will be praised and rewarded for a job well done." Is that the perfect doggy fortune or what?

* * * * *

The multicolored stripe raglan continues.

 

I am absolutely loving the idea that I will have new sweater in a few days weeks months. This is one week's progress, so it will take longer than three more weeks to finish, hence, months.

Saturday sky.

This frigid image brought to you in consideration of the fact that you may be as bummed as I am by Cookie's and Squish's images of warmth and sunlight and buddin' and bloomin' trees.

The above is the first ice fisherman I have seen on our lake this winter. Usually there are several every weekend, some of whom leave their fish houses on the ice for weeks at a time. Weird, that lack of fisherman/houses. Maybe the fish have migrated to Lake Wapogasset, twenty or so miles closer to the equator.

One more photo to empathize with those of you who also are still suffering through the throes of Endless Winter. My deck, the snow carefully decorated by doggy pawprints:

* * * * *

I made the ball of yarn at left into the chemo hat at right. Hat has been mailed to the requester in hopes that it will complement the efficacy of modern medicine. Damn cancer.

* * * * *

The multicolor striped raglan progresses.

Yes, that is the same pink yarn in the current stripe as in the previous hat. I was, er, over-generous when I ordered the yarn for the stripes.

The Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan pattern is knit neck down. The knitter measures her neck and, using that measurement multiplied by her gauge, figures out how many stitches to cast on. After the neck shaping, the pattern says to increase 8 stitches every other row, two at each raglan seam, as is usual in raglan patterns.

Implicit in this instruction is the assumption that the wearer's body is in perfect proportion to her neck. Ahem.

You can see where this might pose a problem for those of us who: 1, are Amply Endowed, and B, have added more than a few too many pounds over the years. I was knitting away happily according to the stated instructions -- had, in fact, reached the end of the second colored stripe -- when this realization hit me.

Recalculate the rate of increase to allow for my different proportions.

Oops.

Frog back to beginning of first stripe and reknit.

At roughly that same point in the stripe pattern it occurred to me that perhaps my arms, and hence, sleeves, might not follow the exact same formula as The Girls.

Recalculate. Yup. Need a slightly different rate of increase on the sleeve side of the raglan seam.

Frog back to the beginning of first stripe and reknit.

I think I have it right now. (Surely hope so.) The good thing is that both yarns seem to accept frogging and reknitting quite well. The steel blue Phildar is particularly indestructible. It is also a bit scratchy, indestructibility and scratchiness seeming to go hand in hand. The merino in the colored stripes is soft and smooth, and I am hoping that there is enough of that surface in the finished sweater that I don't itch to death in it.

For the curious, the rate of increase for my body is 4 stitches in 6 out of every 10 rows. I made myself a little chart to help me remember that:

The rate of increase for the sleeves is 4 stitches every other row, so I am doing the increases on all even-numbered rows.

As long as I don't lose the row counter -- hanging from the needle in the first photo -- I should be golden.

Election results. New Year's resolution.

Primary election results for the District 6 seat on the Polk County Board of Supervisors:

 

Can I get a w00t? Thank you :)

The real election is in April. Now to plan my campaign...

* * * * *

And now for something far more interesting to y'all. On Sunday I made a New Year's resolution. 

I am going to knit four (4!) sweaters in 2010.

Just in case you cannot guess, that is a whopper of a resolution for me. The kimono sweater I just finished? Started in November, 2007. It was the first sweater I had knit for myself since... 1980.

What brought this on? You may well ask.

On Saturday and Sunday I bought two 10-skein lots of Noro Silk Garden on eBay with the intention of making a simple pullover modeled on the famous Noro Striped Scarf. I also favorite-d a whole bunch of Noro patterns, as a couple of you already noticed. I'd been thinking about a Noro striped sweater for a long time and decided on impulse to buy the yarn when I saw some that I liked on auction. Afterward I reflected that I had now accumulated the yarn and the plans/patterns for four (4!) sweaters. My next thought, only half formed, was something like, What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? And bingo! the resolution was made.

Acting on that resolution (and after realizing that the year was already 3/24 gone), Monday night I cast on for Sweater The First:

 

I am using the Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan pattern from Ravelry, but I will have to do some serious tweaking to make it fit my, er, ample self. Math is not a problem; the real potential problem is to continue to knit at the measured gauge.

The blue-gray yarn is fifteen skeins of Phildar DK 100% wool I bought from Juno a couple-three years ago during her destash; it may or may not be superwash. The yarn for the colored stripes is Valley Yarns Superwash DK, not all of which has made it onto my Ravelry stash page yet.

This plan requires that I not succumb to the siren call of cute small projects like scarves and hats and squares for somebody's afghan. Baby hats for Rwanda and socks for myself will have to be my 2010 take-along knitting; this particular sweater, knit top-down all in one piece, will quickly become too big to stuff into my emergency knitting bag. In fact, I bought the basket in the photo above specifically to hold this sweater project next to my knitting chair.

Yee-haw, I am pumped!

Resolution(s), updated.

I have thought about the sweaters for myself and refined my resolutions a bit. I'll state it here for the record.

I, kmkat, being of [mostly] sound mind and body, do hereby declare that intend to knit three sweaters for myself in 2010, namely:

1. Finish the kimono sweater
2. Knit the multicolor striped top-down raglan
3. Knit Baby Cables and Big Ones Too, hereinafter known as Baby Cables Etc.; I bought Elsabeth Lavold Silky Wool for that one a year ago.

Shall we take bets on this? I'm not even sure how I would bet. It all hinges on my ability to 1, stay focused, and B, Just.Say.No. For the record, I have already come upon a potential project-for-others, gotten excited about it, and almost jumped in. Then I remembered my resolution and Just.Said.No (to myself).

Oh, and by the way, do you want to guess what is currently on the needles?

 

Yeah, a sock. At least it is a sock for me.