To start, last night I made an event themed hash brown crust spinach/zucchini/tomato, olive and feta pizza. We "athletes" need to keep our strength up, you see.

When I was sufficiently suffoncified, knitting commenced. I didn't get very far last night-I worked only for about 45 minutes. Today, however, was a different story...I worked for a total of eight hours.

My circular needle is too full to spread out the work all the way, so it doesn't make for all that attractive of a photo. You'll have to take my word for it that this is the Easy Raglan Sweater from the Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book. I'm using Mountain Mohair yarn from the Green Mountain Spinnery in color Raven. Perhaps if the sun is out tomorrow I will make a more arty shot. For now the best light is on the bathroom counter.

Things I've learned:
1) A neat way of making cable stitches without a cable needle and without having to take any stitches off the needle.

2) Raglan shaping is cool. I understand how it works now, maybe even enough to tackle BPT again. I'm getting to the point where I have almost 300 stitches on my needle. In the long rounds the hardest part is wrangling and rearranging the stitches on the needle. I think I'm spending more time sliding stitches than I am actually knitting, and am kicking myself for not getting another circular so I could divide in two and work on two circulars in the round. I have eight more increases to do before I divide the sleeves from the body. I wanted to get to that point tonight but it's getting a bit late. I've pushed myself but I don't want to hurt myself. I am at that point where you swear you've knit at least six inches, and yet you measure and the length is exactly the same as when you measured the last time, two hours ago.

Small Kitty says:

Mommy, no more knitting!

I finished my first pair of "Just Wing It" socks. This was the first time I've done socks on my own and I'm proud of how like each other they came out. I used Sock Memories from Knitpicks on size US 1 needles. The colorway is called Fly Fishing. This yarn made me look good and knit up uniformly and smoothly. The only complaint I had is that in the first skein there was a break in the skein that threw off the striped pattern. However, I like the random look of two mismatched but matching socks. They are toasty warm and not itchy in the least.

Here is a picture of them after they finished blocking on the guest room bed.

And of course, Olympic training has begun.

After comparing these two swatches after requisite abuse, washing, and blocking, it looks like a bamboo needle size US 6 "wins" although the pattern suggests a size 7. It's becoming second nature to assume needle size suggested by pattern minus 1.

i'm going to participate in the 2006 Knitting Olympics. However, I will be knitting the Easy Raglan Sweater from _The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book_. With 1/2 hour of each lunch hour and 2 nearly 3 weekends, it'll be a challenge, but I think I can pull it off. There's minimal finishing, which usually slows me down, but there is cabling. I'm going for the gold, baby!

This weekend I have to complete swatching for a Requested Item. I am going to make another cellphone case for a friend. I made one for him in a fuzzy, felted wool variety about a year ago, when he got a new phone. His current phone won't fit into the old case I made, so I'm going to have another go at it, this time with a different kind of closure. We critiqued the design of the first case together and determined that while a velcro penny closure makes the phone easily accessible (squeeze the case and the phone pops out), it loses its "oomph" after a while because wool gets tangled among the little sticking up velcro hairs. Trouble is, I never wrote down what I did to make the first one so I'm starting over. I'm pretty sure I used size 8 dpns to make the first one. This time I will make better notes. Maybe even schematic diagrams.

This week, in Birch, I tinked back the row that I had completed last week that came up 2 stitches short at the end. This took an entire episode of Law & Order, as 289 is an awful lot of stitches to tink back carefully. I'm not photographing it because it looks like all knitted lace looks before blocking, that is, like c@rp! I'm estimating at this rate it will take me more than a year to complete it, especially since the process so far has been knit a row, say dammit, take out the row, knit it right, start the next, say dammit, take it out, do it over, say dammit, take it out, throw down the whole thing for a week. I know I need to be in a certain state of mind to work on it, but for some reason the state of mind is elusive. I keep telling myself that I need to meditate on the undoing as well as the doing, but that doesn't seem to be working.

This week, in Socks,I finished my first sock made from yarn from Knitpicks. I liked the way that this yarn made my knitting look very even and consistent. Or maybe it was the combination of good pointy metal needles and the yarn. It worked out perfectly when I used a size 1 needle. 0 didn't work all that well, but 2 was definitely too large. I have cast on and done the ribbing for the second sock. No Second Sock Syndrome here.

I am undecided about what other knitting project to work on this weekend. I might work on pulling out my first iteration of the Mountain Mohair sweater, or the Wildflower Knot Stitch Cardigan That Wasn't. I just today ordered some new pants to wear to work, so it would help to have another work-friendly sweater to wear with them. However, I can't seem to find a pattern that would suit me. I want something cable-y but not cardigan-y. Something complicated enough to keep me interested, but not enough to tear out my hair.

I think I may soon need to consider more spring and summer knitting. Is there any summerweight yarn that doesn't suck as much as cotton?

Dear Wildflower Knot Stitch Cardigan from Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book,

I bought the yarn for you and could barely wait for it to arrive in the mail, I was so excited about starting on you. I am sorry that my enthusiasm has not continued and that you are currently on holders and stuffed unceremoniously into a chest of drawers. The yarn is one of my favorite yarns in the world, Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair. I have bamboo needles, and I was having a real easy time of the pattern there, not having to Think Too Much. However, I found that instead of looking forward to the finished product, I was dreading it, thinking, hey, I'm going to make this cardigan and my stomach is going to be cold! The truth is I really wanted for you to be a pullover, but I just didn't know it. Will you ever forgive me if I give up on you and rip out all your stitches so I can turn you into something else? Something rich and cabley and gray and...pullovery instead?

Again I am so sorry. I thought that I loved you but instead I think I loved the Idea of you in the book.

Humbly yours, Lefty

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In other news-the holiday season was productive, knitting-wise but the light has been really bad whenever I get around to grabbing the camera (and I'm sure that I don't want to have to continue taking knitting photos in my bathroom, as that's been where the light has been the best).

I have finished two hats and most of one scarf, and a Booga Bag for my mother-in-law. I also finished one wrist warmer and part of a sock, and also got started on a new shawl made in Kid Silk Haze, which is like dental floss and maddening and crazy-making but so light and soft when it turns into fabric that you just get addicted and keep on going, at once seduced and repelled. I've also been working here and there on a sweater of my own design made out of Wool in the Woods "Hurricane" yarn in the "Maiden" colorway. Or is it "Maiden" yarn in the "Hurricane" colorway-I can't recall.

On days like today I wish that I had made more sweaters. It is about 45 degrees outside and raw, and inside is not much better. Brrrr!

As a reward for finishing the semester with an A in my class, I bought three balls of Kid Silk Haze with which to make a Birch shawl (Rowan 34, Sharon Miller). It seems that in terms of fashion I am a year behind the times, as everyone in the blogosphere seems to have finished his/her birche(s) ages ago. But, it's beautiful and sure to be warm. It's a perfect opportunity to learn a new method of casting on for lace projects.

I've been-not so much swatching-as I have been practising with some stash yarn just to make sure that I can get the pattern repeats without incident. I want to avoid another experience like my one with the Sivia Harding shawl, the one that made my inner voice say "you can't knit lace, what were you thinking?" I'm feeling somewhat intimidated by the yarn, as though I'm not worthy of it, and also dreading ever having to frog it.

This week I also got a shipment of yarn for the purpose of Holiday Gift Knitting. However, I can't say much about that here as the persons whose gifts will be made from this yarn have the address for this blog. Two words, though. Karabella Aurora. Ummm. Photos to come. It seems like recently I've been knitting wherever the camera isn't, but I'm hoping to get some good outside pictures in full sun this weekend.

While I have recovered from the crushing shawl defeat, I still haven't started on a new one. I did finish a sweater. I made Rosemary's Middle Sized Sweater from this book in raspberry Mountain Mohair. I think that this yarn is one of my favorite yarns ever. Everything they say about it on Knitter's Review I'd totally vouch for.

And according to the laws of knitting, for every FO, there must be a UFO on the needles...
Jeanie Townsend's Cascading Leaves socks, size 2 needles, Jawoll Sock Yarn that I've been meaning to use up for about a year.

I'm not sure about this yarn yet. There's something about it-I can't quite put my finger on it but I'm not in love with it. It's decidedly unpoofy. And I definitely prefer poofy, especially in a sock.

I'm pretty embarrassed by this and I had major second thoughts about putting it up. However, since this is less an "admire my stuff" blog than it is a "chronicle of my learning process" blog, I figure I need to get comfortable with publishing my mistakes, no matter how huge and clumsy they are.

Tuesday night I was pretty ecstatic because I finished my lacey shawl, which I made after a pattern from Sivia Harding. I blocked it on Wednesday morning, an only then did the horror become apparent to me. Somehow, that I can't explain beyond the fact that I wasn't able to spread the whole thing out and look at it after it got to be longer than my circular needle (the number of stitches was always right and I used markers and infinite numbers of blue sticky notes to keep track of where I was), I was tremendously and jaw-droppingly completely off. Some of my diamonds just don't have tops.

The worst part about this was that I didn't even see it until I was in the process of blocking it and photographing it. So the emotional high I was on from actually finishing the stupid thing was completely deflated in a matter of minutes. Such a sad knitter. So after these photos were taken I hid it in the back of the closet, with Sinead O'Connor's "This is the Last Day of Our Acquaintance" playing softly in the back of my mind. Not much I can do but knit another one and try, try again I guess. I have another two balls of the same wool, but I'm not quite as enamored of the color of this one.

My wonderful, supportive husband says that he can't see the mistake, but how can you miss something this gapingly off?

The entire Crushing Defeat:

And if that weren't enough, here's a closeup of this train wreck!

Lesson learned:
Check your work AS YOU GO ALONG. Even if you need to spread the whole thing out and look at it off the needle. Cos really, you never want for this to happen. After all the hours you put in on a lace project, if it looks like this when it's done, you might as well go lay in the street afterwards!

As far as the raspberry sweater goes, it's trucking right along and I'm quite pleased with the one finished sleeve. I started on the other sleeve last night and am about 5" of the way along. It'll be cool that this time there will be no seaming to happen when the second sleeve is finished. Of course, I'm already looking toward my next sweater project, which I think will finally find a use for my Wool in the Woods limited edition yarn that has been burning a hole in my stash. This yarn is the same gauge called for in Knitty's BPT Sweater, but I'll need to size my needle down to a 6. By the end of that one I should be really good at (and sick to death of) cables.

I am posting this picture because I wanted to assure myself that I had indeed made progress on my sweater since the last time I posted. Because the sleeve seems to be taking forEVER. I think I have only a couple more decreases to go, but the number of stitches doesn't seem to be reducing.
Rationally I know that it is reducing, but I am caught in the sleeve knitting time vortex.

I'm making progress on the raspberry sweater. I finished the neckroll on Tuesday evening and have now started on the first sleeve. I like doing sleeves in the round, knowing that I will not have ANY SEAMING TO DO when they're fully decreased.

I'm more satisfied with the way that the cabling looks now that it is no longer in progress, but part of the whole. I think the yarn has relaxed into itself and the stitches look more uniform. Here's a photo of the rolled neck, shoulder, cable, and part of the sleeve that's still on the needle.