Yarn Choice for Capecho

Isobel and I stopped by Yarns in the Farms on our way home yesterday to say "hi!", since I wouldn't be able to attend Knit Night with Peter being back (Isobel was very excited for him to come home, by the way - "Yay!" and hand-clapping when I told her we were going to the airport to pick him up). While there I helped a woman make color choices for a felted bag along the lines of the diaper bag in Knitting for Baby that she was going to have her mother knit for her. We ended up with a lovely combination of deep olive green (F29), some light green (F31), and a skein of a beautiful, springy, variegated yarn (G123) in Sheep 2.

Anyway, I realized that I could do the Capecho in Green Mountain Spinnery's Sylvan Spirit, a merino/tencel blend. I have two skeins of Luminosity (when that yarn came in the shop, I went gaga) already and would probably need only three more. I think the tencel, which gives an amazing pearly sheen to the stitches, according toClara, would give a wonderful effect and enhance stitch definition. I'll have to give it a swatch.

Speaking of swatches, I wound up a skein of Schaeffer Elaine the other night. It overflowed the ballwinder, being 600 yards, and I had to wind up the rest of it by hand. I guess I could have pulled the cake off the winder and then started from the other end of yarn left on the swift to make two cakes, but it was kind of fun to actually wind some of the yarn by hand. Man, is that stuff soft! It's also finer than it may appear in the skein. I started swatching with US8s and immediately found the stitches too open with the thin parts of the yarn. The US7 swatch is better and probably what I'll use, though I may do a quick swatch on US6s to see what that would look like.

Stockinette is fine in this yarn, but I think garter or reverse stockinette really shows off the bumpiness, so I am planning to go top-down in the round and then turn the whole thing inside-out a la Wendy's Last-Minute Purled Beret.

I've made some more progress on the Sheep 3 Shrug but am really keen on something woolly with all this super-cold weather. I had hoped to do the Jane Addams sweater on a larger needle so it would go faster, but I'll just knit as fast as I can!

Mooore Yaaarn!!!

Hopefully, this will be the last of the SABLE stuff until I'm able to knit the stash down a bit. My Rockin' Sock Club kit arrived yesterday. Squee! The yarn is beautiful and a colorway I wouldn't have chosen myself. You can really see how it will work in the reskeined Emergency Sock Yarn skein. How cute!

I didn't even have time to read through everything in my binder last night, but I did put my Rockin' Sock Club pin (looks like the colorway on the pin is Rhodonite)on my knitting bag, which is bright pink.

The reason for the lack of reading? More progress on the Sheep 3 shrug.

Sheep 3 is a gorgeous yarn! The silk gives it the most amazing shimmer. And I'm a sucker for anything shimmery or sparkly. Ask anyone. And, of course, I'm in love with this turquoise, variegated colorway. The hand of the yarn is a little dry, almost crisp, when knitting, due to the silk, I guess. But the finished knitting is soft and lovely. Can't wait to finish this one.

As for the Capecho yarn decision? Bridget is absolutely no help! Thanks a lot. Hehe. I'm tabling the decision for a little while but will keep you posted.

Capecho

What a horrible name for a beautiful-looking pattern. Why didn't Norah Gaughan call it the Starfish Shrug or something? Anyway, would someone, please, for the love of wool, take my computer away from me? I am obsessing over yarn choices for the Capecho at Webs, thanks to listening to Ready, Set, Knit on the way in to work this morning. They have the original yarn (Berocco Pure Merino) but only have four balls of ecru (24 balls of ice grey). They also have Queensland Uruguay DK on clearance, and enough of the cream color to work. I made the first Hourglass Sweater from #8 (the pale blue), and it's a nice yarn. Then there is Vermont Organic's O-Wool in either Oatmeal or Sky. I love the idea of this yarn, and it has good yardage for the price. But I have been seeing a lot of grey for fall out in the fashion world, so maybe grey is the way to go. It would have to be a light grey, since I want the cables and construction to show nicely. Oh, man, what about Valley Yarns Colrain in Steel? The Tencel gives it a nice sheen, no? When I make this, I think I'll go longer on the sleeves.

I finished up the socks for my husband from the Yankee Knitter Classic Sock Pattern. They came out nicely, though I had a couple of holes on one side of the second sock where I must have picked up the stitches funny. I fixed 'em up afterwards, and it will be our little secret.

The Sheep 3 Shrug is coming along nicely after I frogged the first attempt. I just wasn't feeling the love, so I did some more math and adjusted stitch counts and whatnot. I also added some yarnovers between the neck ribbing and stockinette sections, which I may use to thread a ribbon for closure or just leave alone. Remember the ribbon obsession? I may call this the YO shrug. Teehee.

Oh, the reason someone should take the computer away? I have more than enough yarn, people! I picked up my Schaeffer Elaine in Jane Adams order Thursday afternoon at Yarns in the Farms and grabbed a couple of skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Brushed Suri in Pink Lemonade to do Pam Allen's lace shrug from the Spring Interweave Knits Staff Projects. I like the GGH Soft Kid called for in the pattern but have longed to find something to do with that Brushed Suri (suri, merino, and bamboo, for wool's sake!). And I'm excited for the color and a chance to do some lace, since I don't have time in my life right now to commit to a shawl.

Icarus? Kiri? Print o' the Wave? Stop that.

IMOnday: Interweave Knits

[Back to our regular topic: Knitting! And I know it's Tuesday. Big whoop.]

Wink asked what I thought about the new Interweave Knits layout. As an art director, of course I have an opinion! I understand that they're trying to freshen things up, lots of fresh patterns with some blogger action and all. And the idea of little editorial themes for the patterns is interesting. But separating the photos from the patterns seems wrong-headed. IK should be a leader, not a follower. They're following the tired Vogue Knitting setup. BTW, have you noticed the VK models? Yikes. I'm sure they're pretty girls. But if you slather them in eye makeup and ask them to pose like bad '50s mannequins, it's just bad. Only highlighted the '80s agony of the Bed of Roses set for me.

Back to IK. What I want to see is a page or three with all the featured items. Sort of like the yarn requirements page on the website. But in print form. Why do I have to leaf through every page of the magazine to see if the pattern I'm thinking of is in this issue? And I only have a few issues, since I'm rarely overwhelmed by the wonderfulness of one. And for gawd's sake, people, they call it an editorial well for a reason. Don't put ads opposite every editorial page. If the advertisers' pages are compelling enough, we'll read them. Put the onus on the advertisers to make appealing ads and leave the editorial content in its own space. I've heard people say they can't tell the difference between the ads and the "front of book" pictures of the patterns. Bah.

You Can't Fill a Hole in Your Heart with Yarn*

*But you can try.

[I started this blog to keep track of all the wonderful knitting things I've found online and to keep track of my projects. But sometimes life intrudes. Apologies for the paucity of knitting content in this post.]

I've suddenly gone full-on SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy):

-a sweater's worth of 100purewool in Sky
-a minisweater's worth of 100purewool in Pasionaria
-a skein of 100purewool merino laceweight in Blue Knots for something
-a few (five?) skeins of 100purewool Corriedale for hats in various colors
-an order of Schaeffer Nancy in Jane Addams for a sweater
-the Mermaid (Hourglass variation) Sweater's Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk, which I'm going to have to start again, since the body is twisted (sigh)
-Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn
-Mountain Colors Bearfoot sock yarn
-Kidsilk Haze in Candy Girl for a neckwarmer
-Misti Alpaca laceweight from a destash
-Sheep #3, which is turning into a top-down raglan shrug thing

Yes, all the 100purewool was from a group buy, and the Blue Sky Alpacas and Cherry Tree Hill were bought on sale at YITF, and the destash was, well, someone's destash, so the only full-retail yarns are the KSH and Bearfoot. And the Sheep 3 is a sample for YITF. But still.

That's a LOT of yarn.

The past year has been the most difficult in my life, especially the past few weeks. My husband has gone in to rehab for alcohol in Maryland, and my world has gone to pieces. Luckily, my family has been there for me, my LYS and knitting groups are full of wonderful people, and Isobel is my sunshine every day.

I've had to take care of my daughter, my pets (yes, even the dog I "whispered" back from the woods for his sake), my house, and my job alone for the past three weeks. I've had to consider hiring a lawyer. I've had to try to focus at work and be functional at home. I've had to drive 115 miles a day to get Isobel to daycare and me to work and home again. And there's another week to go. I've learned that I am capable of more than I ever thought. I only wish I was writing about my knitting abilities.

And then he'll be back, and my world will change again. Doubtless his world will change, too, but I can't do anything about that. Yes, I've figured out detachment. With love, even, thanks to the Family Wellness program this past weekend.

My mother suffers from clinical depression. She went through years of talk therapy and sorted out all her issues, and she was still depressed. Living in a tunnel with no light at the end depressed. Drug therapy and ECT had to intervene before things got better depressed. And I always thought that the worst thing in the world would be to be depressed. To be so helpless against the dark. But the worst thing is to love that helpless person. To have a grip on the world and have them not take your hand because they can't even see it.

I bought the Bearfoot to make him a pair of socks.

Argh

I've cast on for the body of the Mermaid Sweater again. Bollocks. I count and count, and it's still wrong. It may need a time out for a few days here, while my personal life goes further awry.

I'll take it down to Maryland, but it may stay in the bag. Other projects are coming, too, including the KSH cowl and the sample skein of Sheep 3. Still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Some sort of shrug item, I think. May just have to wing it.

Unfortunately, I missed Knit Night yesterday due to packing. Hopefully I'll be able to go next week, perhaps with some Sheep 3 item to display.

I have to get organized

With all the yarn and book stash enhancement lately, I need to get organized. Not so much the actual items, since I have bookcases and a closet to hold the yarn. But sometimes I can't lay my mind on something, so I need some sort of list. For instance, that Sheep #3 sample skein is burning a hole in my project bag; I need to find a DK-weight project that only calls for 300-some yards. I was thinking of Glampyre's Minisweater, but that calls for 400 yards of heavy worsted. Perhaps a One Skein Wonder, to stay on the Glampyre bandwagon. Or just a little shawl something, like the Clementine Shawlette from the new Interweave Knits.

Speaking of IK, yes, I bought a copy on Saturday at YITF. And that afternoon I bought a copy of Vogue Knitting - the one with the Norah Gaughan bolero on the cover. That's probably the only thing I'll make out of the magazine, but it is stunning, and people who've made it seem to like the process.

So, I need to keep track of projects I want to do in the future, which is one of the reasons I started this blog (to collect all those delicious links). And it would be good to know yarn requirements. I think I see a database in my future, which would make things easier to view in different ways (by item, by yarn weight, by gauge, etc.). I could do it as a spreadsheet, I guess, but databases are more elegant, don't you think?

OK, back to IK for a minute. What's with some of those projects? The bandeau? That halter from Wenlan Chia? And the Bauhaus Fairisle, though nice, seems a little out of place. And six skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere for the little bobble capelet? It looks pretty, at first glance. OK, it is pretty (especially the color). But then you start to think about it (and realize you'll wear it once), and then you start to do the math: $90!

I do like Kate Gilbert's Keyhole Top. Lurve Stephanie Japel's Cable-Down Raglan. And the socks from Grumperina and Eunny Jang are nice (first time I've seen the appeal of Entrelac). The Swan Lake Cardigan is pretty, especially the tulle detail, which is why I'll never actually make it. But I will make that lace shrug in the Staff Projects section. I've downloaded it twice already. And they have the yarn in some very me colors at YITF. And I have two gift certificates burning a hole in my tool bag!

The Mermaid Hourglass Sweater is progressing, slowly. I am on my third start to the body, I think. I sort of stopped counting. Had some issues with ... counting, I guess. As in I can't always. I've been distracted. But we're back on track and on the second round of the lace. I ended up increasing the stitch count to 90 for front and back so that I could do the pattern evenly, then, since I want it to be longer than my last one anyway, I'll do an extra decrease round. And then I'll have to decrease two stitches. My overall stitch count is up six from the pattern, and the decrease round takes away four. Or I could work those decreases into princess seams in the front. Things to ponder as we work our way through this next round of lace. And I have to figure out where to include extra lace repeats going up. On the sleeves I switched to every other repeat after the first two rounds, but I'm not sure I want to do that on the body. It may just be the two rounds around the bottom and that's it, since we have to consider what's underneath the sweater (my tum) as we progress up the torso.