The Angora Hairshirt

Fast, cheap, and easy

And no, I'm not referring to myself on my last date (which, a propos of nothing, was not a good one).

I'm referring to this -- the sluttiest baby sweater ever. 

Seen here in the process of the not-so-effective, but somewhat photogenic "fan suck blocking technique."  Only now that the weeks of 100+ degree heat have passed am I willing to sacrifice this much airflow for he sake of a picture for the blog.  It's been a trying few weeks for those of us in Southern California without air conditioning.

While my inability to do anything other than sit still while at home (hey, if your house temperature didn't drop below 88 degrees for nearly two weeks, even in the middle of the night with all the windows open and fans blasting, you'd be doing a lot of sitting still, too) means I've gotten a lot of knitting projects started lately, I didn't even start this one until yesterday evening.  The heat here in SoCal finally broke this weekend, but rather than being able to get out and enjoy the relative coolness, I managed to strain a back muscle playing tennis, and ended up spending Sunday evening on the couch finishing the DVD of "Lost" season 1, and busting out this little number, destined for my cousin's one-week-old son.  I'll probably make something more interesting for him later, but I wanted to get them something reasonably soon after the birth to let them know I'm thinking of them, and of course anything more complicated than a boat-neck drop-shoulder sweater could take me until he starts kindergarten.

ad-libbed boat neck baby sweater -- the specs:
yarn: Bernat Cottontots, less than 1 skein each of "Sweet Cream" and "Blueberry" (cheap! -- less than $7 for yarn, with more than enough left over for a hat --  notable, considering what a yarn snob I can be)
needle: Addi Turbo US8 (I am LOVING how all the knitting I've been doing on US4 and smaller needles makes worsted-weight projects seem like ultra quick knits.  Must keep this up.)
start to finish: 6 p.m. Sunday to 10 p.m. Monday -- including a work day -- no joke!

I don't pretend to think this sweater is a great feat of knitting.  Tomorrow, I will take on Norwegian knitting (Seriously, I will! Though it might be more like next week.  More on that later.).  But for tonight I'm loving the fast, cheap, and easy.

And I've got a whole bunch more stuff started and planned, and even one more FO -- stay tuned.

Not what I had in mind

Sometimes I get really sick of winding balls of yarn (particularly since my broken and taped-together swift is on its last legs), and get annoyed at all the yarn I have (and want) that is in hanks rather than balls or skeins.  But I will never complain again, because there simply is some yarn that should not be put up in loosey-goosey center pull skeins.  Case in point: SWTC Bamboo:


This was not what I had in mind when I put my knitting in a bag to work on over lunch.  It took one very generous lunch hour to fix this mess.  The skein was too loosely made and the yarn too slippery.  I will be re-winding each of the ske ins as I go, 'cause I NEVER want to do that again.

Oh, as for the other bamboo, I still love the yarn, but I didn't finish on Friday.  I came close, but I soon realized that the size/shape would be all wrong for the originally intended recipient, who is quite slender, but rather broad-shouldered.  Instead, it will go to a smaller-framed friend whose birthday is the first week of August.  It isn't much to look at this way -- I hope to post a picture on a real person after I give it to her.

In Memoriam: UFO

I have a lot of needles. I know I do. I've certainly bought enough of them in my relatively short time as a knitter. Yet I never know where they are. And when I'm looking for, say, size 6 dpns (I know I've got two sets...), but can't find any, I eventually have to admit that I really do know where they are: they are in some project I started 6 months (or a year, or 15 months) ago, and haven't touched in almost as long. Hidden in my sprawling stash are god-knows-how-many UFOs, non-starters, and pre-project swatches. Like I said before, I'm a great starter, but a terrible finisher.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about finally ripping all those projects up, reorganizing, rethinking, and clearing out the stash, despite the fact that the amount of "wasted" knitting will be epic. So yesterday, after being moved to find and start a quickie birthday gift knit (for a friend who actually requested something handknit -- yippee!), I bit the bullet and pulled the dpns out of the sweater I was knitting for a friend's son last summer. It would have been way too big for him then, but will be too small by this winter.

I don't remember why I stopped. I think it was because I hit a small snag or error in the pattern -- it's far too common for this sort of thing to totally take the air out of my balloon. So fickle I can't even take the time to figure it out -- I'm on to the next project before I have time to figure!

I actually liked the way the color was spiraling when I knitted it up. But it looks WAY more extreme in the photo than in person (why is that?), so now I find it unbearable. Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my decision.

The needles enjoyed only a brief taste of freedom, though. Triumphant in my decision to scrap the sweater (now I have a bunch of green-blue Supermerino to add to the stash!), I made myself a nice big mojito (in honor of the doomed green sweater, and the liberated green needles), and headed out to my newly-outfitted Thotful Spot. I went back in to gather the supplies for the gift project when disaster struck:

Just in case you can't see the problem (why did I risk the camera and bother taking these pictures?  I have no idea):

Rather more like a Gloomy Place now. But a little water can't hurt a mojito, right? It still was darn tasty. If I'm going to start using my nice new chair to knit in, I'd better learn the sprinkler schedule.  Here's what I started:

It will be the "bolero with lace pattern" -- Pattern 30 from Rebecca 31. I actually got much further yesterday, but my ribbing looked terrible, so I'm ripping most of it out. The Classic Elite Bam Boo is so lovely and soft, but it is very very splitty, and mercilessly flaunts any unevenness. It's far too drapey and heavy for a garmet for myself, but will be perfect for this little bolero. Just need to finish it by Friday night. . . .   Stop laughing!    It could happen! Of course, I'm going to (another!) concert tonight (Lyle Lovett at the Greek), so I'll probably have to squeeze in some late night quality time with the bolero and TiVo-ed Project Runway (hooray for the return of Project Runway!). Just you watch. Come Friday, there WILL be an FO, and the green casein needles will sleep soundly in their case for once.

An Embarrassment of Riches

I can't possibly keep up this pace.  In the past two weeks, I have seen Nikka Costa and Van Hunt at the House of Blues, Damien Rice and Fiona Apple at the Greek Theatre, Beck at the Wiltern Theater (LOVE the puppets -- described here from the Austin date), and just last night the Shins and Belle and Sebastian with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.  And this with a 5-day break in Wisconsin.  A whole summer's worth of amazing concerts in just a few days.  Whew!

With all that fabulousness, I hadn't even had a chance to think about the fact that the Summer Knitty is up.  But now that I have checked it, I know I wasn't missing anything.  Don't get me wrong, the editors and all the designers and others that make it happen do a great service for all us knitters.  But a whole summer edition without a single summer garment?  Le sigh.  Those of us in warmer climates live for the spring and summer issues.  Alas, 2006 has not been a good year for us. 

While I'm being Little Miss Negative, I would also like to register my befuddlement at fingerless gloves.  I don't get them.  I've lived where it's more than cold enough for gloves -- in which case you need fingers.  I get cold fingers.  Not cold palms.  And where it's too warm for the fingers, it's too warm for gloves.  I'm sure there are some people who would speak up in defense of the fingerless glove.  But still -- two fingerless glove patterns in the summer Knitty?  I don't get it.

Again, I don't mean to disparage Knitty.  I have no right to expect them to cater to my needs.  I guess it's just up to me and other warm-climate knitters to get going and design some fabulous summer knits.  My goal: a cute, flattering, summery top in a smallish gauge with lots of shaping, made with a non-floppy/shapeless fiber.  Maybe by next summer I'll do it.  That is if I stop spending all my time going to concerts...

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Well, let's hope this isn't my only vacation this summer.  This past weekend, I took full advantage of the extended holiday (like many, we had Monday and Tuesday off) to visit the 'rents in Wisconsin and my sister (and by default, the brother-in-law) in IL.  Much of the weekend was spent helping my sister pack and move to her lovely new house, but there was also considerable high-quality chillin' time sitting on the deck knitting and watching hundreds of fireflies flicker in the backyard while sipping frosty, watermelon-y drinks (we don't have fireflies in California -- bummer.  I like fireflies).

Before schlepping down to Rockford to help my sister pack on Saturday, my mother and I stopped at the local yarn store (the surprisingly well-stocked Needles 'n Pins -- the owner was so friendly.  And who knew there would be such a great little shop out there in the middle of nowhere, just a few miles from my parents' house?!).

She's not normally very enthusiastic about my hobbies, but I suggested that she should pick yarn for the sweater I'm knitting for her in person, so she can see the color and feel the yarn.  She wants Salt Peanuts, which I had been knitting up in Brown Sheep Handpaint, but I simply cannot bear the yarn anymore -- it sheds so badly that I end up breathing mohair, which is not my idea of fun.  And then on her own she came up with the idea to have me knit something for her neighbor's brand new baby girl.  I thought of baby socks like these, which I could finish before I left, but they had a sample of one of those baby Uggs, and she loved it.  She wanted something really, really girly, though, as the new baby has two older brothers, and her mom is pretty excited about finally having a girl.  So this is what we came up with:

(my father maintains a lovely lawn, doesn't he?)

They're made with Berroco Suede in "Annie Oakley" and bright white Schoeller+Stahl Grazie.

And of course they're sitting on a ballband dishcloth made with some Peaches & Cream cotton I picked up when mom dragged me to the eeeevil store I can't believe I bought anything at and will never admit patronizing.  I made a couple of them as a little housewarming gift for my sister.

The booties came out perhaps a bit bigger than I would have liked.  Wish I had brought size 4 needles with me.  I wove a bit of the suede yarn thru the booties at the ankle to they can be secured a bit, which should make size less of an issue.

Now, what to do with the big white ball of fluff I have left over?