Spending money to save money

I know, I know, it doesn't make sense. But if you were going to spend the money anyway...

What the heck am I talking about? Well, when my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrived last month, tucked into the package was a Chapters/Indigo "Magic GiftCard", the value of which was an unknown dollar amount somewhere between $5 and $1000. In order to find out the value of the gift card, you had to spend at least $50 in one of their stores during the month of August.

So I asked my mom if there was anything she was planning to buy at Chapters/Indigo, to try and create a $50+ purchase. Fortunately, she did have some things in mind and today I went and bought stuff. (My Magic GiftCard was pathetically worth just $5 - big surprise.)

(Ramble, ramble, ramble. Sorry. I'll get to the point.)

One of my purchases was Zoe Mellor's Double Knits, which Chapters/Indigo has on special at $4.99, down from the list price of $24.95. I'd seen this book before and thought it was pretty cute, so I bought it, figuring that if I didn't want to keep it, I'd be able to think of someone who'd appreciate it as a gift.

My initial reaction is that it's a pretty cute book. There's not much in there that's really unique or spectacular, but the patterns are all pretty solidly attractive. This definitely gives me more fun things to make for babies when I don't feel like designing something myself. The items I especially like, upon the first skimming of the book, are the jester booties and the all-in-one.

Fair isle romper for baby Marte

No sign of the royal blue yarn in the mail yet, obviously, but in anticipation of its arrival, I have restarted the swatch of the fair isle motif. I've gone as far as I can without the blue, and now I'm waiting - very impatiently! - for it to show up.

Striped socks for moi

Well, work continued on the socks today - I'd guess I've got about five inches done on the foot so far. The pattern of the yarn has emerged, and it's, well, weird. It is sort of striping, but it is also (get this) pooling at the same time. Here's what I mean:

I have to be honest, it's not jazzing me. But I am still enjoying the knitting.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

I've mentioned before how badly my camcorder takes pictures of this particular colour of yarn. This is the best I could do, photowise, after all the natural sunlight vanished with the setting sun:

You are looking at the progress of the back of the sweater. Please try to ignore the suckiness of the picture quality as much as possible. Even though the pattern of the sweater is barely visible, you should still be able to see the needle, which indicates where I am in my back-of-the-sweater progress. You can see that it is very close to being the same length as the front of the sweater. With a little bit of work, I expect to be finished the back by the end of tomorrow. Yippee!

Goodwill hunting

Fair isle romper for baby Marte

Well, the vendor of the second royal blue Bernat Sox eBay auction got back to me, and quoted me a very reasonable $1.10US for shipping. The Canadian vendor had quoted me $5.50US, which was ridiculous - it's never a good sign when the shipping for an item is over twice the cost of the item itself. Plus, the cheaper-shipping auction was a Buy It Now, so I was able to snap it up right away. Before I even went downstairs for breakfast this morning, the yarn was won and paid for.

(We will not discuss how much money the yarn ultimately cost me, what with all the dollar-a-litre gas I wasted visiting five different shops only to conclude that I could not buy it in person. Yes, I have environment-destroying guilt. However, my household is pretty frugal in the energy conservation department, so I am not completely evil.)

To top it off, the vendor emailed me before the morning was up to say that the yarn would be in the mail within the hour. What. A. Sweetheart. How delicious to deal with someone who understands the need to have yarn rightnowthisveryminutenowaiting. Naturally I will wait until the yarn arrives to leave feedback, but so far I'm desperately impressed.

I am so excited about finally being able to start swatching in my red/purple/blue colourway!

Striped socks for moi

I am aware that I have A Schedule. I am aware that this Schedule is very tight. I am aware that Christmas is fewer than four months away and that babies are coming. Really, I am. I know the news that I have started knitting these socks may make it seem like I'm not aware of all these things, but I am, I swear. It's just that, well, last night, there was no way I was going to be able to meet The Schedule's demands for my BIL's Christmas sweater before bedtime anyway, so therefore I was quite free to cast on for the sock and do a little bit of the toe before I went to sleep. And this morning, well, I figured there was no harm packing the sock project in addition to BIL's Christmas sweater project, right? I mean...just in case? And it's a good thing, too, because the subway was really packed this morning and it was much more considerate to my fellow passengers to whip out a small sock than a big sweater. Yeah.

(Ah, sweet Logic. How easily you can be twisted to suit my purposes.)

Sadly, though, the universe may be punishing me for deviating from The Schedule, because the sock just isn't striping. Now, admittedly, I've only just finished the toe and have about a half inch on the main foot, so perhaps the striping is just taking a while to fully show itself. But so far, it's a bust. Especially considering how beautifully the same yarn striped for me on another pair of socks in a different colourway. But I will be patient. Perhaps I am in for a pleasant surprise.

Hunting for rare beasts

Fair isle romper for baby Marte

For the following story to make sense, you need to know that the romper design calls for seven colours - one main colour, and six colours for the fair isle motif. My original plan for the fair isle motif was to have three separate colour strips: red/pale pink, royal purple/lavender, and royal blue/baby blue, with canary yellow as the main colour. I had already managed to pick up the red, pale pink, royal purple, lavender, and some yellow. But I was missing the two blues. So this weekend I went yarn shopping so I could start the darn romper.

Hahahaha.

On Saturday I spent two hours hitting three different Zellers (Zellerses?). The first one (closest to my house) was a complete bust. The second one did yield some baby blue fingering weight yarn, as well as a pounder of cream-coloured sport weight yarn (I hardly ever see that, so I nabbed it), and some other yarn that I could not resist (read further down in today's entry for more details).

However, I was still SOL on the royal blue sock yarn. I know that Bernat Sox comes in this colour, and I know that Zellers carries Bernat Sox yarn. However, hoping that there was a Zellers anywhere which carried royal blue Bernat Sox yarn was obviously asking too much of the universe.

Fortunately, at the third Zellers, there was some very pale yellow fingering weight yarn. I figured, okay, maybe I replace the royal blue/baby blue combination with canary yellow/pale yellow instead, and use white as the main colour for the romper. (I vowed long ago never to knit anything white for a baby because they have no control over the explusion of various bodily fluids and I have no desire to inflict laundry nightmares on already stressed new parents - but I was desperate at this point because the alternative was a mostly green project, so I figured what the heck.) I bought the pale yellow fingering weight yarn and several balls of white. They looked like this:


So today I sat down with all these colours and swatched my fair isle design.

DISASTER.

The canary yellow/pale yellow turned out to be a terrible idea - the motif pattern was completely lost wherever I used them. I had no choice but to find my royal blue Bernat Sox yarn (and exchange my several balls of white fingering weight yarn for canary yellow).

DH and DD were sleeping. I left a note and took off for Zellers #4.

No luck. In absolute desperation I threw our family's boycott to the wind and visited a Walmart. I got very excited when I saw they carried more colours of Bernat Sox than I had seen at all four Zellers combined, but was intensely disappointed to discover that none of the new colours was my royal blue.

Completely discouraged, and having wasted much precious gas, I went home to search on eBay. There are currently two auctions for royal blue Bernat Sox yarn. The shipping on the Canadian auction is fairly exorbitant. I'm waiting to hear back on the shipping for the other one. Hopefully it is less outrageous.

If anyone snaps up either of these auctions I will have no choice but to hunt them down. You have been warned.

Striped socks for moi

While shopping I discovered a new colourway of Bernat Sox yarn:


It is all for me. Mine, mine, mine. I know I posted just on Thursday that I was going to make myself some sleep socks using the Amazing Feets pattern and some light worsted weight yarn, but, you know, when the colours of yarn in the store speak to you, there's not much you can do. You know what I mean?

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

My goal of finishing the back by the end of tonight is toast. I have 39 rows of 196 stitches left. There is no way.

Herald tabard for moi

No progress, but I have taken a picture of the three yellows:

I definitely will not be using the one on the left. I'm currently trying to decide between the two right-most yellows.

How did that happen?

Somehow, three days went by without blogging. Probably because even though there's been a lot of knitting, the knitting that's been done does not make for scintillating journal entries. Sorry. I'll keep trying!

In an effort to compensate for the dullness of my own blog, I have added a link in the sidebar to another blog which is definitely not dull. It's You Knit What??, and you should absolutely check it out because it is freakin' hilarious.

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

I've been taking this to work with me most days this week, and some progress is happening. I am, however, only 23% done.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

My goal of finishing the back this week is looking more and more like an impossible dream. The back is probably about nine inches tall, it's Thursday already, and I've only done about two inches. Taking a week off in the fall just to knit is an idea that's looking better all the time.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover for DH

I couldn't help myself. DH went out last night to get gas so I whipped out the project and did a few more rows.

Herald tabard for moi

I finally took the three balls of yellow wool down to the basement and found the electronic scale. The news is good - each ball is around 55g. At approximately 900 yards per pound, that gives me over 100 yards per shade of yellow. This might well be enough. It should at least be enough for one of the yellow motifs, so worst-case scenario, I can always do the motif on the front out of one of the yellows, and the motif on the back out of another yellow, and you won't be able to tell that anything is off unless you walk all around me looking for inconsistencies.

Sleeping socks for moi

Stealing DH's birthday socks to sleep in last week convinced me that I had to make a pair for myself. I don't know when I'm going to have the time, but somehow I must find it because, damn. Those socks were comfy.

A blog entry full of sound and fury, signifying very little knitting

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

Work has begun on the top back. Just a few rows, nothing exciting.

Herald tabard for moi

I forgot to mention in my previous post that the yellow wool arrived in the mail late last week. The vendor actually sent three different yellows, which was fantastic of him. Now I have to get myself a money order so I can pay him back.

I am a little nervous that he didn't send enough of each colour. I told him I didn't need more than 100g of the yellow and I think he misunderstood and sent me 100g in total. This means I'll have about 33g of each colour, which may not cut it. I haven't been able to tell for sure, though, because DD accidentally knocked over my postage scale last week and now it doesn't work properly. DH has an electronic postage scale, but it's in the basement and I haven't bothered to take the wool down there yet (besides, the scale never seems to be in the same place twice). But we'll see. Worst case scenario, I can always ask the vendor for more.

Romper for baby Marte

At last, at last, I can 'come out of the closet' about this project! Here's the story: about five years ago, I started participating in an online bulletin board community, mostly for women, where we discuss life, the universe, and everything. There is one woman in this online community who has been there since I started, who has been a real bedrock of the group. Super-nice, very with-it, intelligent, reasoned, helpful, terrific, the whole package. Unfortunately, she's also had years of fertility challenges. I mean, obstacle after obstacle was thrown in front of this poor lady to the point of ridiculousness. And then finally this spring, she announced that she was expecting a baby. Well. The entire board (myself included) went kooky-nutso-wild in celebration. :)

Naturally, I am designing and knitting her something. But I was so paranoid about not jinxing the pregnancy that I didn't really want to start the project or even blog about it until she was about 24 weeks along.

So today, I am delighted to say that my self-imposed 'jinx ban' is lifting and I am discussing the project. :) This pattern will be for my book, so I won't be taking pictures of progress or going into tremendous detail about what it looks like. However, I can say that I will be making a romper with some fair isle-esque pattern banding around the chest, and fair isle ribbing at pant and sleeve cuffs (maybe the neckline, too).

I'm almost all set to go. I have a romper of DD's that fit her very well when she was smaller, which I will be using for sizing reference. I have already designed the fair isle motif. The only thing I still need to do in order to start swatching is complete my purchase of all the yarn I want. Two trips to Zellers have failed to yield all the colours I need, so I will be doing another shopping expedition there (hopefully sometime this week) to see whether my luck gets any better.

The Schedule gives me five weeks to do everything. Stay tuned.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover for DH

Slightly more work was conducted (still in secret) on this project on Sunday afternoon - I got another inch done on the back. Should I have spent the time working on a more urgent project? You betcha. Do I feel guilt? Not much. Alpaca eases a multitude of sins.

Carnival Coat for DD

I didn't actually work on this, but I did spend some time looking at it and trying to figure out how I was going to make a buttonhole in the middle of perfectly solid knitting without losing my mind. I came up with a plan.

I'm going to graft the replacement stitches, buttonhole included, where they're supposed to go, and then I will cut away the original sections of knitting and weave in the cut-away ends so the whole sweater doesn't unravel. I have not yet discovered a reason why this would not work, but the great part about the plan is that it doesn't require me to make the commitment of slicing away bits of the sweater right at the beginning. Grafting first will allow me to figure out the 'lie of the land', as it were, and if I screw up doing that, I won't have damaged anything irreparably. I think it will work. I will try to remember to take pictures before, during and after.

Separated at birth?

Take a look at this photo. On the left is the Luxury Collection alpaca (DK weight) which my MIL bought me for Christmas so I could make DH a sweater. On the right is some of the 1kg cone of alpaca I bought from eBay (fingering weight) for BIL's Stornaway sweater.

Whaddya think? Is there just one alpaca yarn manufacturer in Peru and everybody buys from them?

Okay, in fairness, you can't tell very well from the shot (my camcorder sucks at taking good pictures of this colour) but in real life, the gift alpaca is a bit more blue than the eBay alpaca. However, the difference is not nearly enough that my MIL won't think I've cheated DH out of an alpaca sweater when she sees BIL unwrap his gift this Christmas. Explanations will have to come swiftly.

And speaking of BIL's Christmas gift...

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

The front is finished!

And this took some doing. The left neck shaping was done first, and then the right. But when I finished the right shaping, I realised I was two pattern rows ahead of where I'd stopped on the left. Great. After MUCH tedious examination (the row markers you see in the picture were inserted to help with this) I concluded that the mistake happened in the left shaping. I ripped it all out and redid it. Happily, I was correct about which side had the error. Can you imagine if I'd ripped out the wrong side?

Notice also the beautifully wound centre-pull ball of the yarn lying nestled within the neckline. This is meaningful. When I started knitting this project, I foolishly began taking yarn right from the cone. (I guess I was thinking I would only work on it at home or something. Duh.) So when it came time to bring the sweater on my commute, I had two choices: bring the big honking 1kg cone with me, or break the yarn so I could wind up something smaller. I chose the big honking cone option and have been breaking my back carrying it around ever since. However, the pattern finally called for breaking the yarn when I was at home with my ball winder, and the result is that on Monday my bag will be much, much lighter. Hooray!

Next week's goal: finish the back.

Henry VII/Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover for DH

The indecision concludes.

The story so far:

around November 2004: I've been working on Alice Starmore's 'Henry VII' sweater pattern for DH for some time, but have started to have misgivings about the yarn I'm using for it (Red Heart acrylic). It doesn't seem luxurious enough to do the pattern justice, and I'm worried that the sweater will end up looking like crap.
Christmas 2004: MIL gives me the 'Simply Beautiful Sweaters for Men' book, a whole bunch of DK weight alpaca, and a request to make the 'Stacy's Sweater' pattern for either DH or my brother.
post-Christmas 2004: I realise that the 'Stacy's Sweater' pattern does not jazz me. I decide I want to make Alice Starmore's 'Henry VII' sweater pattern with the alpaca instead, and thus solve two problems with one solution. Test swatch shows this will work.
New Year's eve 2004/5: I ask DH if he minds if I do Henry VII instead of Stacy's Sweater. He confesses he likes the Stacy's Sweater a lot, even though he also likes Henry VII.
early January 2005: I have guilt about messing with MIL's gift intentions and DH's desire for the Stacy's Sweater, and decide to go with the Stacy's Sweater pattern after all. Discover very shortly that the yarn is waaaay too small for the pattern. By process of elimination, this leaves me with only one choice: use the gift alpaca to do Henry VII.
a few days later: I lament the fact that the yarn, while of course it looks lovely doing Henry VII, would look even more lovely doing the Stacy's Sweater pattern.

Fast forward to this weekend...

I was flipping through the 'Simply Beautiful Sweaters for Men' book. And once again I came across the 'Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover' pattern:

And once again, I drooled over it. I'm sure you can see why. It's a lovely sweater, and ever since I saw it I've wanted to make it for DH. Not only is it gorgeous, not only do I think DH would look really sexy in it, but it is also very stylish. And I hate to say it, but the vast majority of the sweaters in DH's wardrobe are...well...not stylish. They tend to hearken back to the Bill Cosby era of sweaters.

So this time flipping through the book, it hit me...what if, by freakish chance, the gift alpaca was the right gauge for this project? It would suit the Larry's sweater bee-yewtifully, and, making a sweater from the same book as the Stacy's Sweater pattern would be much more in line with my MIL's gift intentions.

But I figured it would never work, since the yarn had been way too small for the Stacy's Sweater project. But what the heck. I did a test swatch last night. I GOT GAUGE.

This morning I cast on for the Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover. Here is where I am so far:

For the first time since this whole rigmarole started, I am truly at peace with (and excited about) the decision. I still have no idea what yarn I'm going to use for Henry VII (which I still really want to make for DH), but at least I definitely know what I'm doing with the gift alpaca. I'm going to use the one navy ball that came with the 'kit' to do the ridge around the neckline below the collar. I think it will look fantabulous.

DH knows nothing about any of this. It might be a surprise. :)

Self-abuse redux

DH read Monday's blog entry, and he has given me permission to post his reactions to it here.

• He does not seem to feel badly about the lack of wearable knitted sweater love. He emphasized this by saying that...
• He love-love-LOVES his socks. Loves them. (He lent me the blue pair last night because my feet were cold and I have to admit that they might just be the most comfy things that have ever touched my feet.)
• He reminded me that Hell Sweater was not actually finished on Christmas Eve, but rather in the wee hours of Christmas Day. He recalls that I had to stay up well into the night to finish it. (Again, my brain seems to have blocked this memory.) Apparently I was additionally hampered during this wee-hours knitting because he kept coming into the room every hour and complaining that I had not yet come to bed. (I can only imagine how much that would have elevated my stress level!)

And speaking of self-abuse...

My site stats are showing me that someone found the page on this blog detailing the doll clothes I knit for my daughter by searching for the phrase 'mistress hard for wip me'.

Is anyone else a bit scared by that?

Moving onto more pleasant topics...

I went to the Lettuce Knit SnB last night and had a lovely time. It was Aven's last night there before she moves out east and so I fortunately got a chance (however brief) to say goodbye and congratulations and good luck and all that nice jazz. I regret that I didn't have enough time to really get to know her while she lived here, but she is clearly a lovely person and she deserves all the best.

Stornaway sweater for BIL

Neck shaping has begun! I'm currently working on the left side of the front. I had the rest of the front stitches on a spare needle for a while, but I kept stabbing myself in the chest with it, so I transferred the stitches to some spare yarn instead. I'm seriously thinking of doing the same with the stitches for the back and the two gussets - it will make taking the sweater on the subway a lot easier.

A quickie

No humourous or meaningful insights today (assuming, of course, that you feel I usually come up with any) - I'm trying desperately to catch up on my sleep so it'll be just a quick run-through of the only project I've worked on today and then it's off to the land of nod for me. (Ordinarily I would just skip blogging and go to bed, but I went through the trouble this morning of taking pictures, so I'm not about to let that go to waste.)

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

This morning, the sweater looked like this:

But it's bigger now. I'm halfway to the neck shaping from the armscye split. Here's a closeup of the pattern (containing what I think is the most accurate colour rendition of the yarn thus far):

I do it to myself

My thoughts were wandering today while I was working on the Stornaway sweater for DH's brother. I was thinking, my poor DH, by this Christmas (or so my plan goes), his two brothers will have each received a handknitted sweater, and his mom two sweaters and a vest, and all he's gotten from me are two pairs of socks. He is seriously bereft of my knitted love.

And then, it all came back to me, with dazzling clarity.

I had knitted him a sweater. Several years ago. I had begun my journey down the slippery slope to knitting obsession and had a fair number of knitted baby items under my belt. I decided, as a Christmas present, to express my love in yarn for my darling man and sometime in the fall (yeah, I gave myself about three months to knit a man's sweater) I bought a bunch of 100% acrylic (don't judge me, I was a novice) and began to do Nancy Salcedo's Man's Lattice Sweater pattern. It lured me with the word 'medium' in the size heading. I didn't even bother to check how the finished measurements actually stacked up against the man I was knitting it for. No swatch was made, I just assumed I would be getting gauge because the pattern called for worsted weight and I had bought worsted weight. I also guessed at how much yarn I would need.

In short, I misjudged just about everything there was to misjudge: the time I had to knit the sweater, the amount of yarn, the gauge, the size, everything. If memory serves (and it might not, because I think the trauma centre of my brain has been working very hard to block it all out ever since), I finished it extremely late on Christmas Eve. It was my introduction to panic knitting. DH was absolutely no help at all, either. I had been counting on him leaving the house to do his Christmas shopping (the only reason he gets all his Christmas gifts for family bought in time these days is because I now do most of his shopping for him - the man's ability to leave Christmas to the last moment is legendary). When he was gone, I would be able to finish it all up. But HE WOULD NOT LEAVE. He kept putting it off. I distinctly remember screaming at him to get his ass out of the house so I could finish making his present so it could be a f**king surprise, thank you very much (thus completely blowing, as you have no doubt guessed, the surprise). Oh, and also, with the second sleeve only partially completed, I ran out of yarn. I went back and bought one or two 50g balls in the same colour - but with a slightly smaller gauge. Oh, the humanity.

Needless to say, the thing was a rather large disaster. And I mean 'rather large' in a completely literal sense. My guy is about 5'7" with a medium build. The sweater has a chest circumference of 62" and the sleeves, when the sweater lies flat, are over six feet long, cuff-to-cuff. (Yeah. I got nothing even remotely close to gauge.) The poor man adores the sweater (bless him) but has absolutely no reason to wear it as it comes down to about his knees, pools ridiculously around his body, and completely hides his hands.

All. My. Fault. However, in retrospect I guess we can call it a learning experience.

full view (and the only way I could fit it all into the camera's viewfinder was to stand on the bed and hold the camera up to the ceiling)

rumpled view

Self-designed baby blanket for unknown

I realised this weekend that I've been forgetting to mention this new (yes, another one, don't hate me because I'm stupid) project in the past...week? Two weeks? Something like that.

It occurred to me that baby blankets really are just about the smartest thing for me to design if I want to publish something sooner rather than later. A baby blanket is big enough that, if you want, you can really go to town and incorporate a clever pattern. But it's also small enough that it's not going to take you forever to knit a sample to photograph for publication. Another huge plus is that the structure is super-simple - a rectangle. You don't need to mess around with shaping, or test-drive how something is going to work in three dimensions. You don't even have to have tremendously accurate gauge. And best of all, instructions for a blanket only need to be written in one size.

Add in the fact that a baby can never truly have too many blankets, and you have a stand-out winner of a pattern idea. So...what the heck, thought I, why don't I design a baby blanket in between doing patterns for my book, and see if anyone will publish it?

No, there is no impending baby which needs this blanket.

No, I have not suddenly finished a whole bunch of my current projects to be able to have the time to actually work on this.

No, there isn't really any force in the universe that can stop me when I get it into my head that I really want to do something. (Especially logic. Logic is particularly useless in this regard.)

The blanket will contain a repeating lace motif, which I am currently testing to see if it will look nice. So far, so good. However, snags I have encountered include: a) I'm not sure what kind of a pattern I want to do for the edging, and b) I've been keeping my test knitting on our kitchen table, and this morning I inadvertently upended an empty bowl of Cheerios - containing an entirely unexpected amount of Cheerios 'dust' - all over the damn thing.

But other than that, I have great hopes.

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

I've transferred the work onto my longest 4mm circular, which means I am better able to see how the pattern is coming along. Let us say that I am both pleased and displeased. The pattern idea certainly is working, but on the other hand, my lacework is wonky enough that I am relying very heavily on that knitting thing which says that the true magic of lace is in the blocking. (Please, oh please.)

Oh, also, The Schedule says that I'm supposed to finish this week.

Go on, feel free to laugh. It's certainly the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

I am very pleased. My goal for the week is to finish knitting the front. Since the neck shaping begins when the front measures 18cm from the armscyes, and I am already done 4cm so far, and Monday isn't even over yet, I'm feeling pretty good. It may even be photo-worthy tomorrow.

Blue star

Yesterday my feedback rating on eBay changed from 49 to the big 5-0 as the seller of my new digital answering machine left me positive feedback. (The answering machine was bought because after about four months of not having to pay $7 plus tax for a voicemail service, it will more than pay for itself and then we can start saving almost a hundred bucks a year on our phone bills.) This is significant because it means that the star icon indicating my level of feedback changed from yellow to blue. This doesn't, unfortunately, get me anything special (which kinda blows - wouldn't it be nice if eBay gave you, say, free gift certificates once you went up another feedback level?), but it certainly does make me feel happy, and it makes me look better to potential buyers if I ever want to sell anything. So I'd like to thank all the wool vendors and knitting booksellers which made my new feedback status possible. :) I couldn't've done it without 'em.

My good mood about this was slightly shattered, however, when I looked at my stats this afternoon and found that someone had found my blog via Google UK by searching for 'knitting mistakes'. Sigh.

Hat/mitts/booties for baby MacPherson-Henderson

So I sat down last night and worked out what I want the pattern to look like. It looks great. However, actually achieving it in real-life knitting is another question. Many rows in the pattern use four or five different colours throughout. Eep. I've charted it all out and it looks like the most efficient way to pull it off (without going completely crazy trying to figure out where to anchor eighty-gazillion floats) is a combination of intarsia and stranding. Aiee. If I can pull it off, though, it's going to look really damn good. I am loving the pattern, although I suspect I will love it much less when I start knitting it. I particularly suspect I will lose my sanity when I start trying to figure out how to knit a bootie without ripping off someone else's instructions (I don't seem to be able to visualise something three-dimensional like that very well).

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

Flushed with the success of having begun the armscye division on the Stornaway sweater, I decided to take this project to work this morning instead. I've done a few rows so far today, and hope to surge ahead even more by the time I go to bed. I'm getting a tiny bit more confident that I won't run out of yarn. I've got three cones in all, and it doesn't look like I've used up even half of the first cone, yet I've completed over one-sixth of the project. On the other hand, I don't know for sure whether all three cones have the same amount of yarn on them, so I might still be screwed. Plus, my visual assessment of how much of the cone I've used up could be for crap. And I'm too chicken to break out the postage scale to see for sure whether or not I'm doomed. Stay tuned for the continuing drama.

I've knit yarn with a higher IQ

This week I was planning once again to go to a Wednesday evening Lettuce Knit SnB. I was all set - I'd made extra sandwiches to take with me for dinner, I did extra laundry on Tuesday night, DH was cool with the idea, the whole shebang. I was all ready to go.

Now, the deal-io to me going to one of these things is that I have to make my own way home instead of having DH pick me up after he gets DD from daycare. I work in downtown Toronto, but I live up in the northern wilds of Richmond Hill (anyone who lives in, say, Sudbury is likely laughing their @$$ off right now over my use of the phrase 'northern wilds', and I freely admit that they are correct in doing so). This means using York Region Transit to get home. I have a stash of YRT tickets in my purse for this very purpose. (A smart thing to do - but as you will soon see, not smart enough.)

So. On Tuesday night as DH and I were trying to fall asleep, I suddenly remembered that the last time I had tried to use a YRT ticket from the stash in my purse (one morning when I had to make my own way downtown), I was almost left ride-less at the bus stop because YRT has recently changed their tickets (unbeknownst to infrequent riders such as myself) - fortunately, the driver took pity on me, accepted my outdated ticket, and let me on the bus. YRT is willing to exchange my old tickets for the new style of tickets, but this requires taking my old tickets to their Head Office, and not only is that a royal PITA, but I forgot to do it.

And so...I cursed for a while and then decided that I couldn't go to the SnB after all because I didn't have the right tickets, and there was no way I could obtain the right tickets before having to get on the YRT bus in the morning (yes, you can pay a cash fare, but that's assuming I actually had change in my purse, which is a laugh and a half).

Have you spotted my error yet?

I didn't have to take the YRT bus in the morning. I only had to take it in the evening! And in the evening, I would have caught the YRT bus from a terminal where I could buy new-style tickets. And naturally, I did not catch this error in my thought process until it was far too late.

What was I thinking?!? AUGH! So I missed out again on an SnB for no reason (save my own stupidity).

Next week. Next week.

NEW! Hat/mitts/booties set for baby MacPherson-Henderson

A few years ago, one of my co-workers went on mat leave, and her replacement for the year was a very cool lady with whom I got along splendidly. Said cool lady has since gotten another job with another employer, but her new job is such that one of the groups in our department gets to work with her from time to time. So yesterday, one of my co-workers was at a meeting with her, and came back to tell us all that she is expecting her first child! Whee!

That's the good news.

The bad news is that she's due (like everyone else in the entire world, apparently) around December/January. Thus, if I want to knit her something (which I do), the project must be piled up on top of my already stupid Christmas knitting stressload.

Despite this, I am planning to design the project myself, because this is the perfect opportunity to create something else for my book. However, in deference to the impossible Christmas knitting project list, the gift will be small - a matching hat/mitts/booties set. I'm thinking a fair isle of some kind. And if I run out of time, I can give her just part of the set (hat and mitts only, mitts and booties only, etc.) and she'll never know there's anything missing.

However, I am seriously thinking of taking a week off in October to knit.

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

Apparently I cannot do basic math. In my last entry, I wrote that I had about 150 rows left before the edging. This was incorrect. The real number was actually closer to 130. And after last night's knitting, the number is 125.

Of course, this is all a moot point because I don't know what the heck I'm going to do for the edging anyway...

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

The sweater has been divided for the armscyes! The gusset stitches are on stitch holders, the back stitches are on a spare needle, and I am currently working on the front. Hoo-ray.

Plodding along

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

Progress is crawling forward. I've got about 150 (ever-increasing) rows left before starting the edging, and only two weeks (according to The Schedule) to do them. Ha! Despair is starting to set in.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

This is what the underarm gussets looked like this morning:

However, after today's knitting I've done another increase on the gussets, so they're now wider. Fewer than 11 rows to go before dividing for the armscyes!

Herald's tabard for moi

Well, I contacted the seller of the NZ wool to ask if he would be willing to sell me about 100g of yellow worsted-weight yarn, and he was extremely accommodating. Not only was he very willing to wind up what I needed, he offered me a choice between two different kinds of yellow, and all he's asking for is the cost of postage...after it arrives on my doorstep. Unbelievable. What a guy. Needless to say, unless the postage cost turns out to be some horrifyingly high amount, I will probably pay him double or the guilt will haunt me forever. (Incidentally, in order to prevent hordes of people bugging him for the same kind of deal, I should probably point out that I previously bought twenty-six pounds of yarn from this man in one shot, so I suspect you would probably have to be the same sort of customer for him to be so ridiculously generous with you.) So...soon I shall have all the yarn I need for this project, at which point I will probably burst some vessels in my brain with the effort of resisting the urge to start knitting it.

Free pattern

So I finally got my s*** together and finished writing up the pattern I created for the argyle cardigan project earlier this year. You can download it in PDF format (167K). I've also made it available in my sidebar under the 'My Designs' header. Enjoy. I've tried to make it as error-free as possible, but if you run into any problems, please let me know. If you make the cardigan, pleeeze drop me a line, I'd love to hear about it.

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

Work proceeds. I got a few more rows done last night while watching the travesty that was the Canadian Idol results show. (I am still staggered and incensed that Casey has not once appeared in the bottom three. Clearly people are not voting based on performing competence. But I digress.)

I tried this morning to take a picture which shows off the nice shimmery-ness of the silver yarn, but without giving away what the piece looks like (since I will be trying to publish the pattern). This was the best I could do:

Oh, well. Trust me - in person, it's sparkly.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

I've reached the underarm gussets! I've reached the underarm gussets! Mind you, they're still really small - but I'm just a few stitches away from being able to increase them again.

Mountain Laurel Counterpane blanket for Cooper Gelman

When we were at my parents' place for dinner earlier this week I asked my mom if she'd given the baby's maternal grandparents (who live in the same condo building as my parents) the blanket so that it could be passed on to the baby's parents. My mom said yes, it had, and that the gift had been given to the parents, and opened. Apparently, said grandparents went into transports of delight upon seeing the blanket, and the grandfather wanted to know if I would make one in grownup size for him. :) I have no idea if the parents liked the blanket (my mom forgot to ask), but at least somebody related to the baby did, so that's good. :)

More appropriate than I knew

When I first thought up my blog title, I wanted something that conveyed the fact that I always have a ridiculously high number of WIPs on the go...because I do. However, what I failed to realise at the time was that I also have a tendency to come up with ridiculously complex or time-consuming projects (often having ridiculously short deadlines). This makes the title 'WIP Insanity' doubly appropriate. One of these days I will delve deeply into my psyche to try and discover what is behind this inclination. Am I setting myself up for failure? Do I like a challenge? Is it a product of low self-esteem? Am I subconsciously avoiding other things in my life by creating knitting panic? All of these are excellent, worthy questions...which I can't bother to answer now because my gawd, have you seen my project list?

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

Over the weekend, it hit me that this project has moved my penchant for difficult knitting from the realm of 'merely amusing' into 'downright disturbing'. I think the moment this all came home to me was when I realised that the last row on this ever-expanding shawl was going to have over 1,200 stitches in it.

Yeah, you read that right. Twelve. Hundred. Stitches.

Why am I creating this design in the hopes of publishing it if no one but myself is stupid enough to actually want to knit it? Ah, a question for the ages. Nevertheless, the work continues.

I went shopping at my local Zellers this weekend in search of the yarn for this project (among other things) and came up completely empty-handed because the craft section there SUCKED ROCKS. I am so annoyed. They had just two (count 'em, two) balls of sock yarn left and a paltry selection of fingering weight yarn (two colours - one of which was, heaven help me, green). I left the store yarnless and went home to rummage desperately through my stash, which is notoriously bereft of lightweight yarn.

However, I came across the laceweight yarn I'm using for my Catherine Howard sweater. It's a 70% wool/30% rayon blend, is definitely soft enough to use for baby stuff, and I have it in three colours - blue, silver and gold (and I do mean silver and gold, not just grey and yellow, because the rayon component has nifty sparkly bits). Now, I will need most of the blue for the sweater, so I couldn't use that, but I really liked the idea of using the silver or gold. By this point, however, I had realised just how freaking huge the project was, and was nervous that I would run out, so I chose the silver, because I have more of that than the gold (and I'm still nervous about running out).

After several false starts (I hate knitting in the round starting out with a small number of stitches and having to do yarnovers between DPNs), I finally got it going and have done about 60 rows so far. Given that there will probably be about 210 rows by the time it's all finished, 60 rows sounds like I've made tremendous progress, right? Nope, because the pattern adds 12 stitches to every other row. So I'm not actually over 25% done. Rather, I'm around the 9% mark. Odds of finishing this in three weeks? Slim. Especially since I never actually completed a whole test pattern before starting the real shawl (yes, dumbass, I know) so I don't even know if the pattern will look good. I'm working on faith - I guess I like to live on the edge. Stay tuned - things will probably get real dramatic, real fast.

Stornaway shawl for BIL (blue)

Remember my confident assertion that I would get to the underarm gussets by the end of the weekend? Yes, well. That would have required actually working on the sweater this weekend. Nope, I worked on the lacy shawl instead and didn't pick the poor sweater up until this morning. But those underarm gussets are getting closer and closer! The sweater now measures over 12.25" when it just sits there, but it's still a half-inch short of 12.25" when I stretch it as it would be during blocking.