Treading Like Crazy

Things are going about as you would expect when one parent who has always been at home goes back to work in an office, leaving the other parent, now at home full time but also still working full time, to contend with all the various and sundry household and family chores that necessarily arise as a result of kids and pets and chickens and laundry and shopping and cooking and other chores.

That is to say, not perfectly.

So far, though, we are keeping our heads above water by treading frantically. Things are a bit messier and less organized than I would like, but I'm learning to let it slide. I don't think the dust buffaloes are actually dangerous, after all.

The four-day weekend was a help. I did a truly enormous amount of laundry, vacuumed the house, watered the plants, did the grocery shopping, and lavishly petted several seriously disgruntled dogs. We hosted Thanksgiving, which involved a whole lot more shopping and cooking and cleaning. I am proud to say that, three days later, I finally finished the last of the dishes. The boys had a sleepover here Friday night. I woke up to the Great Nerf Gun Battle of 2010, Older Son broke my favorite vase (a wedding present), and Heidi peed in three different spots, yet they all survived, so again--proud of myself. And a dear old friend of mine came to visit on Saturday and showed off her baby bump--a huge deal, since she and her husband (in their 40s and 50s, respectively) have been trying for quite a while and have been through two miscarriages in the past two years. Saturday night is Date Night, so the KH and I went out for Afghan food, sans children--who have been home for nine straight days. That was great on many levels.

I felt so inspired by all this that I put a double batch of sourdough batter out to rise last night, thinking I could bake today and have enough bread for the week. As I usually do, I warmed the oven slightly and put the dough in it to rise before I went to bed. This morning, the KH got downstairs before me and decided to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. You can see where this is going, right? My double batch of sourdough, responding to the delightful warmth of the heating oven, rose and spread and overflowed all over the oven, to the grave detriment of both the oven and the dough. I probably should have stopped while I was ahead...or at least, less behind.

Despite all the activity--or maybe because of it--I have been knitting. Here's proof:

This is a progress shot of Flame D'Amore, the top down raglan I've been working on. The yarn is handspun merino and merino-tencel plied together. It's about a dk weight, but I'm knitting at a worsted gauge, so the sweater is light and drapey.

I am basing the design on Francis Revisited, but mostly making it up as I go. I'm very happy with the way this is turning out. As you can see, it's a fitted design (Bertha and I are the same size), with a moderate cowl neck.

The edges are rolled, because I like rolled edges. I'm planning on elbow- or full length sleeves. I like the short sleeves, but I find longer sleeves are more wearable. Especially now, since my new office is just a couple degrees shy of "arctic". I'm not kidding. It's so cold that my nose runs and my fingernails turn blue. I have taken to wearing sweaters under my suit jackets and I am planning to knit a pair of fingerless gloves to wear while I'm working. I didn't start this with the idea of wearing it to work--hence the casual style--but I'm going to try it with a jacket and see if I can pull it off.

At some point I do have FOs to show you, but it's not easy to find time these days for a FOtoshoot, so I'll just leave you with the song that's running through my head, "Just keep knitting, gotta keep knitting..."

How Yarnhog Got Her Groove Back

Note the lack of resemblance to a black, fingering weight camisole. (Or a green angora lace shrug. But we will not speak of that.)

A week or so ago, my knitting get-up-and-go...got up and went. I've been struggling ever since. Not just with knitting, either, as you can tell from my last post. It seems that when the knitting ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Logically, then, finding my happy place with my knitting should bring back the happy to the rest of my life, right?

And this is my knitting happy.

I have a sweater's worth of this gorgeous (if I do say so myself) handspun, which has been maturing in the stash for a while. I had a design in mind for this, but my interest in the concept waned during the spinning and I never did cast on. After spending an entire morning perusing my Rav queue, and then everyone else's Rav queues, and feeling nothing more than a passing flicker of interest in any of the patterns, I decided what I really needed was yarn inspiration. A quick trip to the stash reminded me of this beautiful yarn and I was off and running.

This will be a top-down, raglan, cowl neck pullover with elbow-length sleeves, similar to Francis Revisited. It would actually BE Francis Revisited, except that I don't want to knit this yarn at the very open gauge required by the pattern, so I had to rewrite the pattern to accommodate my worsted weight handspun, and while I was at it, I made the cowl a little smaller, shortened and narrowed the sleeves, and decided on rolled edges rather than seed stitch trim. So the pattern is more of an idea than a set of instructions. I'm okay with that.

After a plain grey tank top and a plain black camisole, I'm loving this nubby, soft, variegated, red yarn. I'm also loving the fact that a round is something less than five million stitches. As soon as I cast on, I felt like I had exhaled. It felt like that moment in yoga class when you've done all the exercises and you finally get to the part where you close your eyes and relax, and you take a deep breath and feel your joints loosen and your bones sink into the mat. Just like that. And that's a good feeling.

So the rest of my life should be smoothing out any time now...right?

FO: Mr. Greenjeans

So this is a little embarrassing. This sweater was done back in...March, I think? And not only have I not given it an FO post before now, but in searching the blog, I've realized I never even mentioned it. I did show you the yarn. I was considering using it for Surface at the time, but swatching determined it wouldn't work for that pattern. I loved the yarn so much, though, that I scrapped my plans to knit Surface and instead cast on for Mr. Greenjeans. And that's all she wrote.

One should not take my lack of communication for lack of interest in this project. I loved knitting it, and I love wearing it! You can see by the wrinkles that it has definitely been worn (several times, before the killer death star began its annual assault on my person and my sanity).

The Details

Pattern: Mr. Greenjeans by Amy Swenson

Size: Um. Well, my gauge was different. The finished size is about 36"

Yarn: Some sort of undyed merino/bamboo blend in light worsted weight. I got it in a Rav destash in one giant one pound hank. $20, including shipping, so it was pretty much impossible to pass up. Lovely, lovely yarn, too. This project used about 2/3 of the hank; maybe 800 yards?

Needles: Knit Picks Options, of course, sizes 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Mods: I added length to the body and sleeves. I made the sleeves narrower at the top and changed the fitted cuff to a longer bell shape. I alternated the direction of the cables instead of making them all cross the same way. I shaped the bodice to end just below my bust. Oh, and I increased needle sizes as I worked my way down the cabled section to make a more A-line shape for the body. The result is a generally more drapey and fly-away type sweater that looks great with skirts or jeans.

Thoughts: This is a fantastic pattern. You don't need to change anything to make it work, but it's easy to modify if you're so inclined. It's a top-down raglan, so there is no seaming, and the sleeve stitches are held on waste yarn until the body is finished, then put back on the needles and worked top-down in the round. The stockinette is quick and mindless, and the cable and rib pattern is easy, but still interesting. I think I finished this in about a week and I thoroughly enjoyed knitting it.

Move Along, People...

...nothing to see here. Return to your homes...

{Is she gone yet? The KG, I mean?}


The body of the Kochoran Scoop is done. I even picked up and knitted the collar. That was a little tricky. Since the diameter of the opening got smaller as the ribbing got longer, I had to do something to prevent the ribbing from flopping over as it grew. I did the collar in 2 x 2 ribbing, and I didn't want to decrease part way through and change the look of the ribbing. Instead, in the bind off row, I purled two together for each purl rib as I bound off. This pulled the ribbing together and seems to be preventing the flopping, but I won't really know until it's blocked. I have accepted that I may need to redo the bind off if the collar relaxes too much after washing.

I am expecting quite a bit of change after washing. I used Kochoran for a sweater coat I made, and the fabric changed dramatically when I washed it. It became much, much drapier and looser, and the coat grew more than four inches in length, as did the sleeves! To prevent such a huge change with The Scoop, I worked at a tighter gauge and also made the entire sweater shorter and more fitted than I ordinarily would. I am hoping this will not backfire on me. I will be really annoyed if this doesn't relax after washing. It fits now, but it's pretty snug, and about a inch or so shorter than I want it to end up. I think this will result in a post-washing sweater that fits perfectly, but it's still a gamble.

I'm working the first sleeve now (picked up and knitted down in the round, natch!), so I should be done with this in a few days. Good thing: since I've discovered the destash group on Ravelry, the stash is going to need its own zip code soon.

The Scoop

So Silver Belle was a grave disappointment. I am still planning to make it, but I'm debating whether to use the same yarn and rework the pattern, or use a light worsted/dk weight and knit the size small. I found someone on Ravelry who is my size and who successfully made one, but she did the small and took out two cable repeats. I say again, what is wrong with this pattern?

Let's not dwell on that now, though. I have another project to share. I'm a little reluctant to even show you this one, because it seems to be flying under the Knitting Goddess's radar and I don't want to jinx it. It's going so nicely, though (knock on wood), that I couldn't resist.

This is my Kochoran Scoop, so named for the Noro yarn (oh, angora fuzz, how I love thee!) and the deep scoop neck. It was inspired by Kolsva, which is a Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton design using Kochoran. In fact, I bought the pattern book intending to make Kolsva. I like the simple, fitted shape and deep scoop neck. But I don't like the saggy cowl and I don't really want to knit it in pieces and sew it up, because, you know, I'm really loving the top-down, one-piece knits these days. And then, the original is really too short, and I want long sleeves, and...

So, in a small fit of pique after ripping Deep Purple, I wound up some skeins of Kochoran I had in the stash (I think I got this from The A.D.D. Knitter in a destash a few months ago--thanks, Heather!), and without benefit of pattern, plan, or calculator, I cast on with reckless abandon.

And wouldn't you know, it fits perfectly and I haven't ripped once.

Considering the fates of some of my recent, carefully-considered, well-thought out, agonizingly- planned projects (what round yoke jacket?), I'm not sure whether to be happy or annoyed. I've decided to go with "happy" for the time being.

Because, really, what's not to love?