I think my needles are on fire

SO MUCH KNITTING this weekend. Friday night, I knit on the moody mansock during my game time and I finished the first sock. Saturday morning, I sat down and finished my sweater. I even sewed the underarm seams and wove in the ends. That afternoon, I cast on for Veronique and by Sunday night I had around 8 inches completed. Monday, the SO and I went for a drive down Skyline and had dinner in our favorite restaurant from when we were in college before heading back. I took the panda socks and the three-scarf ruana, figuring I would knit on the panda socks until it got dark and then knit on the ruana, which I don't need to see. Unnecessary! We got back just before 8 p.m. and it wasn't dark yet. I finished off the sock before I went to bed that night.

It felt really good to get some longstanding projects off the needles. The panda socks took me almost two months to knit for no good reason except that I was loaded down with other projects and some neuron in my brain refused to fire, so I never got the pattern memorized. I needed the pattern for the start of every round for some reason; once I got started on the round I was fine, but I couldn't seem to remember how to begin each round. Very annoying, but not the fault of the pattern at all. Just me.

Now that my #1 needles are free (or, at least they will be when I kitchener the toe tonight, I saved that for a more clear-headed moment) I really need to get a move on on the mitts for my mom that were supposed to be done ages ago.

The sweater is, as I feared, really too big for me. I'm sorry, I meant to say, the sweater has a lot of ease. Also, the sleeves are so long they come down to the first joint of my fingers at least. That's the only part that really bothers me, but there's no way to fix it unless I were to frog the entire yoke, and then frog and reknit most of the sleeves. I could just unravel them from the hem (or just cut them off, rejoin the yarn and knit down, I suppose) but...I'm fine with being done. It's still soft and comfy and I'll just wear it like it is. It does need to be blocked before it can really be shown in public, though, there is a discernable line where I started the yoke that I hope will come out in blocking. The part below the line is the stuff that had previously been blocked, and the stuff above the line has never been blocked, so it stands to reason that if I am lucky the line will even out with blocking.

But, now on to lighter and airier things. I'm knitting Veronique out of the discontinued Rowan Kidsilk Night in colorway Oberon, which is sort of a smokey grey with a touch of blue. The metallic thread in the yarn is a little rough running between my fingers - I wrap my yarn around my first three fingers so it runs between my ring finger and my pinky, so the metalic bit scratches right along that little soft inside area of my finger. But, it's not too bad, I'm okay with it. This garment has been a thousand times less frustrating than the Moonlight Sonata stole, leading me to believe that I did in fact make a poor choice for the yarn on that one, and I'm right to give up on it. In simple stockinette, the yarn is much easier to work with. I'm not saying I wouldn't use it to knit lace - I just wouldn't use it to knit lace that requires stitch manipulation more complicated than your basic decreases (it was the funky increase used in the midnight sonata shawl that really got me).

I've also given up on the Water Turtles Shawl. I don't like it. I like both the pattern and the yarn just fine, but I don't like them together. So that project is going to the frog pond.

And just like that, I'm back down to a manageable number of projects.

And...just like that, I'm really tempted to start more. I've been waiting for Pink Lemon Knits to come out with her new pattern, and she finally has: Flamenco. I have two skeins of the same yarn she used in a different colorway that have been sitting in the stash since the early days of my knitting career. I do kind of love the color she used, though - one of the lifelong issues I struggle with is that the colors I love to knit are not necessarily, or do not entirely encompass, the colors that look good on me. I'm not a big fan of bright colors, but I do look really good in red. I have compromised in the past by looking at yarns in the burgundy type range, but the two skeins of Suri Blue that I have are in Ruby, which is by no means a subdued red. It's perfect for the theme though. A flaming red flamenco flourish!

But, I will hold off as long as I can, to keep the guilt of unfinished projects from watering down the pleasure of a new one. I know that there are no knitting police, but I have tried it both ways, and I really think that it's better to live with the anticipation than to try and do too much at once.

Since I have no knitting pictures to display all of my projects this week, I will leave you with a picture from our drive yesterday instead:

Sleep is a curse

I am so close to being finished with my sweater! I don't know what it is - that first diamond took sooooooo looooooong but now they are whipping by. I knit as fast as I possibly could last night, but I couldn't finish. Around 9:30 I stopped to take stock of my progress. Maybe, just maybe, if I stayed up late I could finish. This is a dangerous tactic, because my propensity for mistakes increases drastically with the lateness of the hour, but it would be worth the risk to be done. I have plans for the rest of the week so I wouldn't be able to work on it until Saturday at the earliest.

"How much more do you think I have to go?" I asked hopefully, showing the chart to the SO.

"Hmm," he said. "You started here tonight?" I nodded anxiously. "And you're here now?" Nodnodnod. "Well, I'd say you've probably got another four or five hours."

"What?!" I grabbed the book back and stared at the chart. "No way! Look how small that is! And there's decreases at each diamond so the rows get shorter!"

Sadly, his math-fu defeated my knitter logic as he pointed out how long it had taken me to go from here to here and therefore how long I could expect it to take to get me from there to there. I ran out of yarn for the night 10 minutes before Deadliest Catch was over, so I gave up, watched the rest of the episode (Jake! You are breaking my heart! You were so happy and excited and young and now you are so jaded and cynical and mean!) and went to bed. I think it should only take me one more ball of yarn to finish, so I'll wind it sometime this week and hopefully finish this weekend.

I have been doing a lot of yarn surfing this week. I'm not officially on a yarn diet anymore but I am trying to maintain some degree of self control, especially since I already have plenty of stuff to work on. I am enamored of Fly Designs at the moment. It's definitely on my 'yarns to try' list. I am especially pleased that they have a merino-tencel blend sock yarn. The last pair of merino-tencel (the blue embossed stitch socks) socks that I made were really nice and have worn very well. I've been on the lookout for that blend ever since but it doesn't seem very common, at least not in the brick-and-mortar stores around here. I still have plenty of sock yarn to go through so I am trying to be good, but the next time I need a fix I will be all over that. The colors are fantastic, too.

In order to keep my yarn-buying impulses under control, I've been looking at patterns instead lately. Whenever I find a pattern that I like on Ravelry, I fav it, and then when I am looking for a new project I go shop my favs. Once I've knit it, I take it out of my favs. However, I don't think all this pattern browsing is helping me. There are so many things I want to do! I have about 240 faved patterns to date. I have about 9 in my queue, 5 lace projects, 2 socks, and one pullover that I keep changing my mind about. I have about 1400 yards of Valley Yarns Northampton in my stash and I can't makeup my mind what to do with it. I'm thinking I would prefer a cardigan or something that would go over other clothes. Northampton is soft but I'm not sure it's next-to-the skin soft. Then again, I am kind of spoiled in the softness category. I'm thinking about Rogue, but I'm a little short on yardage. I'd need 1485 and I only have 1400 and change - and that's assuming none of the skeins are short. So, I'd be taking a risk. I'm not really sure it's a good one, especially considering how economical Northampton is. I could just go buy 7 balls and not be so worried. $35 plus shipping for security - not a bad tradeoff in my mind. So, that gets me a rogue hoodie but does not solve the problem of what to make with the Northampton I already have! Maybe Hey Teach? I'd want to make the skirt a little longer but that might could work. Hmmm...

Still Fevered

I had a very busy weekend and made very little knitting progress. I knit a little on the blue mansocks and I knit a little on the Water Turtles shawl, but not enough to be counted on either. I knit a little bit on the yoke of my sweater yesterday but I'm at the first decrease round and I got confused and thought I had done something wrong, and picked out almost two rounds before I decided that I hadn't done it wrong, or that if I had done it wrong, I hadn't done it wrong in the way that I thought I did it wrong, and then I was just confused so now I have to think about it again. Very frustrating.

My spring fever has also triggered my nesting instincts, which have taken the form of "geeze this house is a mess" so I've also been spending a lot of time cleaning and picking things up and trying to figure out what I can change so that stuff stops migrating to my loveseat, ottoman, and kitchen table. This all cuts into knitting time.

I also took a lot of pictures at the church retreat I just went to, which means I will need to spend some time post-processing and getting them on my church photos shutterfly site. I am not one of those people who has as much fun post-processing as photographing, so I've really been making an effort to get the shot as right as possible the first time so I don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But, there are still a lot of pictures and even if I only spend a little bit of time on each one, it will take me a while!

Useless knitting is better than no knitting

We went to see the Star Trek movie this weekend, and needless to say, the yarn I ordered from WEBS did not arrive in time (I'm not complaining, they are totally taking a reasonable amount of time, I just didn't think to place the order soon enough).

So here I am, with absolutely no movie-suitable knitting, and a two-hour movie, and what on earth am I going to do?

I took my swatch. I need to swatch size 8, 7, and 6 at least so before we got to the movie I switched to the 7's, purled a row, knit a row with 7 yarnovers to remind me of the needle size, purled back across that row, and I was all set up for movie knitting.

Two hour movie, and a 50-stitch square of stockinette.

Yeah. Needless to say, this swatch is of a generous size. I actually put it down towards the end of the movie because I could feel that I was going to run out of yarn and I would either have to frog some of what I was doing or start a new ball for the size 6 needles. It was actually a really difficult decision, but I kind of hate knitting with Ramen-noodle-esqe frogged yarn, so I put it down. Fortunately, it was a really great movie, so I was only midly uncomfortable without knitting.

From now on I vow to always have a reasonable weight garter or stockinette piece for movie knitting. Meanwhile, my WEBS yarn is en route, which is good, because I still want to see Monsters vs. Aliens!

In other knitting news, this weekend was really busy so I didn't get a lot done. I did, however, get a lot UNdone. I frogged the yoke of my sweater as planned. I pulled out the yarn attached to the current ball by hand. I knew there was an entire other ball of yarn that would have to be pulled out, so I went upstairs, draped the sweater over a chair, stuck the end in my ball winder and just wound it right off the sweater. Then I took the sweater downstairs and frogged what was left.

I ended up frogging all the way back to the place where I had joined the sleeve. I hadn't intended to do this, but finally decided it would be the easier than trying to figure out when I had frogged enough and where the start of the round was and all that jazz. It was only two extra rows anyway. This turned out to be a very good thing because it was actually supposed to be 4 extra rows, but I was dumb and didn't realize (don't ask me how) that there was a different number for different sizes.

I've worked on the sweater some since then but I'm really sort of slogging along at this point. I'm ready for the sweater to be done. The weather's changing and it's warming up, so I'm not feeling the drive to work on it the way I did in the cold (strange but true). Also, it's getting heavy. I tried to work on it some last night, but I was watching the Caps game and had to switch to TV knitting when I missed two out of three goals because I stopped to count.

My WEBS yarn did arrive yesterday (one day too late for the movie! doh!) and I cast on for the Three-Scarf Ruana (rav link) and used that for my hockey knitting. I'm using Valley Yarns Northampton in a nice heathered light gray. Very pretty, utterly dull - perfect. 34 inches of garter stitch before I have to think at all. (I may be less excited about that 15 inches from now, but for now - thrilled).

The colrain lace and the silk alpaca lace are both very pretty and brought me much glee. But, I am doing nothing until I finish this sweater. I think Veronique (rav link) is up next. We'll see. I may not start anything else for a while, because I'm really feeling the lace bug at the moment. I want to get MS4 off my plate so I can start Hanami before the spring/summer are totally over.

Woe

Yesterday I got out the measuring tape and measured the yoke of my sweater so far. I had omitted the bottom row of diamonds in an attempt to compensate for my too-loose guage, since I was afraid it would end up much too long if I knit the pattern as written.

I've got about 18 rows to go in the yoke and it was looking kind of short when measured against my hand, so I got out the measuring tape and enlisted the SO to help me with the math. Then I refused to believe him, tried to work out how it would be okay, wondered whether I should just go the last few rounds and finish it and see what would happen, or if I should just give it up now and rip back. Finally he convinced me to put it on waste yarn and try it on. I did, and he measured to where he thought it would reach, based on our math. Verdict in. No doubting it now. The yoke is too short. I have to pull it out and do it the way it's written. I cannot begin to explain how this is so, but it is. SIGH.

Really I'm not as bothered as I could be. The yoke has actually been pretty quick to knit and fairly intuitive, allowing me to catch mistakes as I was making them rather than many rows later. What I'm really irked about is that I have to rip back so far that I will be back in the area where it was tight and difficult to knit because of the sleeves. grr.

I'm not sure whether I will rip all the way back to where I joined the pieces and redo it, or if I will just rip back to the two plain rows after the join and before the chart. I do have a couple of gaping stitches where I picked up stitches for the front shaping that I could take this opportunity to address, but then I would have to worry about things falling out further than they should, etc. I don't know. I'm going to spend time thinking about it. I'll be busy all the rest of this week except for tonight, and Tuesdays are for spinning, so I have some time to figure out how I want to handle it.

Taking Care of Business

My flickr uploader tool has decided to hate me so I didn't get pictures uploaded for a blog post yesterday, and only about half the pictures ended up uploaded today. But, whatever, I'm going with what I've got.

I spent this weekend tying up loose ends. I finished the blackrose socks. Pretend there is a picture of the pair here.

I got my sweater seamed and joined so that I could start the yoke knitting. I've done a little bit of work since this picture was taken, but it's gone rather slow.



Part of the problem is that the area where the sleeves are joined is really awkward to work at this point. I think when I get a few more rows away from the join, it will go smoother. I also have some gaping holes where I picked up stitches for the front shaping that I can't explain. I twisted the picked up stitches so those have closed up enough that they're not a big deal, but there is one stitch at the end of the front shaping that is huge. I'm going to have to do something about it at the finishing, though, I don't think there's anything I can do about it just now.

I cast on for the second panda sock, avoiding second sock syndrome which I was somewhat afeared would strike me since I had knit another pair since the first sock. It turns out I am anal enough that I wasn't even tempted to start something else.

Although, I did start another pair of socks for my big-footed man. It's in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock that I bought a long time ago and, frankly...hate. I don't really like it. It's not really a quality issue as it is a preference issue. These are 100% merino and yet the Happy Feet I just worked with, a merino/nylon mix, is softer and more pleasant to work with.

Anyway, pretend there is a picture of two or three measly rows of panda sock here.

I also finished chart 4 on MS4, which I didn't bother to photograph because it would look only a very little bit different from the picture in the last post. I realize this is not really tying up a loose end because I am neither finished nor even at the halfway point, but it makes me happy to check it off and it does count as progress toward tying up a loose end.

And, last but not least, I wove in the ends and blocked my hemlock ring blanket. There is one spot with some wierdly large stitches but you wouldn't notice if you weren't an anal knitter in the midst of blocking. And what really bothers me is, I can't figure out why this problem is there. I can only guess that I had too many yarnovers in that spot, discovered them on a later row, didn't want to tink back two whole rows to get to it (this was quite a ways in and the rows would have been quite long at this point), so I just dropped them and went on my merry way.

Anyway, I shall finish this post with a burst of glory, since those photos did, thankfully, upload.



You can see the blocking wires kgd and family gave me for my birthday in that photo. I did use them to get it stretched out initially, but found that my swoops were so big that they really needed to be individually pinned. However, the stretching process happened much more easily and evenly and if you want my blocking wires you will have to pry them from my cold dead fingers, and I will haunt you for the rest of your life. I'm just saying.



I hadn't snipped the ends yet so there are some threads running underneath the big yarnovers, but know they are not there in the finished project.



I had imagined it draped elegantly over the back of my couch all this time I was knitting it, but it did not occur to me that my couch has big poofy pillows instead of a smooth back, so...not quite so elegant as I had hoped. I did note last night that it looks much better from the front.

The Answer

This weekend, I:

--blocked & seamed the sleeves A sleeve of my sweater. I blocked both, but only got one seamed. It turns out that seaming is a soul-sucking demon from which there is no escape. I decided for my own sanity to seam the second sleeve later.
--finished the front of my sweater.
--spun quite a bit on Friday night and some on Saturday, and got through almost all of the Spunky Eclectic fiber from January. Had to quit when my burning resentment of the fiber for being so difficult (even though I already knew that merino and I have issues) became too great. Have about two lenghts of the roving left to spin, then I plan to chain ply this mess and see what happens.
--hauled off and started something totally new to feed my lace craving, Swan Lake. Made it through chart A and most of chart B.
--worked on the Hemlock blanket, but didn't get very far. It turns out the speed with which one can complete the first couple of chart rows is not indicative of the speed at which you will continue. Funny how that happens on things that are constantly getting bigger.
--slept late and stared into space, but did so with my fingers moving. I also watched some stuff from the DVR and most of Goodfellows on Netflix.

I had photos, but I'm a ditz and though I put them in the flickr uploader tool, apparently I forgot to actually hit "upload" so...photos later.

I have sleeves!

The sleeves are done, yay!

Also, I measured - I got 5.5 inches done on the front during Coraline, for a total of six (I did the garter hem before the movie).

8.5 inches to go on the front and then it gets exciting. Clearly, I need to watch another movie or two.

A weekend full of progress

Although I didn't take pictures because they would just be boring, I did get a lot done this weekend. I had several events to go to that were knit-friendly, so I made progress on several different projects. I'm at the heel of my second Caribbean sock, I'm into about the fourth increase row of the feather & fan chart for the Hemlock Ring blanket, and I made progress on both the sleeves and the front of my sweater.

I cast on the sweater front because we were going to see Coraline and I needed something easy to knit, and I thought managing the two balls of yarn for the sleeves would be problematic. I was also in the increase section and I didn't want to go past where I needed to increase in the dark. This turned out to be a good decision, since it turns out you can get a whole lot of stockinette accomplished during a movie. I have maybe three to five inches of the front knitted (I did cast on and knit the garter rows on the hem before we left for the theater, but that's maybe only an inch.

I did work on the sleeves, enough to discover that over the decrease rows I did end up with substantially more length than I was supposed to have. I expected this to happen. The instructions are to work the decreases and then work even until the sleeve is a certain total length. According to the diagram, there should be about two inches of even knitting between the decreases and that certain length. I only had about an inch to go. Kind of a big difference!

I am definitely going to have to compensate for this somehow during the yoke, and I think I will do this by eliminating the first diamond at the start of the yoke. I'll do the one decrease row that happens at the end of that diamond, and then work the rest of the yoke as written. I think that take off about an inch of length to get me in the ballpark of where I need to be. I hope. I hope it doesn't affect the look of the sweater too terribly much.

I will also need to take this into consideration when I knit the sweater front. There's decreasing and casting off and all kinds of stuff at the top that will have to get done in a certain amount of space. However, I'm not too worried. My biggest concern is the front not matching the back, and since the yarn on the back is still attached, I can add a couple of rows if I need to. I like my sweaters to be long (waist-length sweaters never look good on me, I really need them at the hips or lower) so I'm not fretting over this too badly. Much. Really. (I deserve every worry I get for going ahead without worrying about the fact that I didn't have row guage, even after I realized my stitch guage was also too big. I really should have tried it on smaller needles. I probably could have saved myself a lot of fuss. Oh well...I've got a total of about 30 inches of sweater knitting that I don't plan to rip out until I have to, so nothing to do but forge ahead. I hope I am not being intolerably stupid, but if I am I will always have the "well, it was my first" excuse for why the thing looks like it was made for an ape.)

I also did some spinning this weekend, and I finished off the sparkly purple batt from Butterfly Girl. Tonight I plied it, and it's soaking as I type. Before I go to bed, I'll hang it up. I ended up with a lot more on one bobbin than the other, so I wound the remainder off into two center-pull balls. I was just going to do one and ply from both ends, but the singles broke at a spot that approximated the halfway mark, so I just went ahead and made two balls. I have about 250 feet (not yards) of yarn if my reckoning is correct. I'm going to use it on the end of a scarf or something like that to give it a little pizzazz. It's largely thinner than my previous attempts although there are some spectacularly uneven bits. It was a fun experience.

Old Business and New Business

Old Business



Ta da, the finished mitts. Blocking did not entirely solve the ladder stitch issue, unfortunately.



You can see here what I was talking about before regarding the point on the top "orchid." On the right mitt, the top border lines up to complete the orchid below it:



This is the original photo of the mitt that was lost. This was the (original) left mitt.



You can see that the point didn't line up. When I redid this mitt (grr), I moved the pattern over so that the point did line up correctly. I don't think I would have frogged the previous one, but it did really bug me so I'm glad I fixed it. I'm really not convinced I didn't make a mistake because KnitSpot patterns are usually pretty meticulous and it seems like an odd blip. I really think I missed an instruction.

Speaking of comparison shots...here's the reason I decided to restart my sweater.



Original back on the top, new back on the bottom. See the difference? The original was HUGE.

Here's the pics of my Spunky Eclectic fiber.





And here's some of my Spinderella spinning:



Didn't even put a dent in the bag. A pound is, apparently, a lot of fiber. I'm definitely well-supplied for a while with the extra fiber she threw in.



Next up, spinning class spinning:



New Business

This weekend, I finished the first Caribbean Sock:





And I got to the stopping point on the back of my sweater, so I started on the sleeves. I'm working both at once to make sure the length is consistent. No photo, because it looks just like the back.

Today was my last spinning class (postponed from last week, where we got snowed out) and I learned how to Navajo ply, among other things. It wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be and I was so tickled! I asked for help on drafting and got some good tips, plus I got to spin with a bunch of different fibers - flax, a finn/lincoln cross, a mohair/wool blend, something called EcoSpun made out of recycled soda bottles. It was a lot of fun and I'm so pleased with all the progress I've made in the past few weeks.

Busy Butterfly

I say butterfly, instead of bee, because bees do not spin and butterflies do. I have spun my little heart out - well, really, I've spun my little BACK out. I think I need a lower chair for spinning. I don't have nearly as much difficulty at my Monday night spinning class as I do at home. It may be that I'm spending longer on the wheel at a stretch at home, I'm not sure. I haven't timed myself. Anyway, I'm going to take a couple of days off spinning at any rate (even though Tuesdays are for spinning) because I really overdid it a bit and my back is pretty sore.

What all did I do? Why, I did this!

And this!

And this!

Yeah, you're computer's not broken. There's no picture there. I took pics and didn't get them off the camera again. So, the written word will have to suffice.

I have recklessly abandonned all the stuff I was in the midst of spinning. The purple batt and the wine red corriedale are sitting off to one side. For one thing, I had homework for spinning class. I had to spin two full bobbins of singles to take so that I could learn to ply at the next class. I dutifully spun my two bobbins, and I came back with two bobbins worth of 2-ply yarn. Washing and setting will be the next class.

Meanwhile, I got a nice big box in the mail. KGD (formerly known as SOMom) expressed an interested in some handspun because she likes textured yarn, and I thought, I know just the thing!

Back when the Yarn Harlot did the Tour de Fleece, she posted about Spinderella thrum mixes, and how it's impossible to spin an even single from them, so you just kind of have to relax and let it go. I thought, that might be a really great source fiber to make a nice, textured yarn and it sounded like fun, so I ordered it, and I started spinning it. Unfortunately, life interfered a bit, so I only got four skeins spun, plied, and set before the birthday dinner. But, I got what I wanted out of it - it's very textured, and all four skeins seem to be well balanced, so I felt pretty good.

Except for the color, which was not at all what I expected. I am actually wondering a little bit if the wrong thing got put in the box. But, KGD liked it so no big deal. And, to make the whole experience even better, when I opened the box there was a SECOND bag of fiber in a different colorway, and a note on the invoice that she couldn't find a smaller box so she just stuffed some extra fiber in there. Then it said, "Sorry!" and I just laughed. It's not a small amount of fiber, either!

I also got my Spunky Eclectic shipment for the month. This time it was 4 oz of Corriedale with yellows, orangey reds, and a littel bit of brown. I haven't touched my January fiber yet, since my last experience with merino made me a little gun-shy. I'm kind of holding off on it until I can draft a little better (or until I have time to really thoroughly pre-draft). But, I thought to myself - Corriedale I can do! And I did. I spent most of Saturday spinning it. At first, I thought I would try to keep the colors in order - not by Navajo plying or anything complicated like that, but just by predrafting and then splitting the predrafted roving down the middle.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be (I really can't imagine why I thought it would be easy, because if it were, why would people learn to chain ply? clearly I am not as smart as I think I am). I had some trouble drafting the fiber, because it didn't occur to me to open the fiber up a little bit after unrolling it from the bump, even though it was clearly still twisted and the whole premise of spinning is that twist keeps the fibers from moving. Duh. Once I figured that one out (dumbass) I had a much easier time, but I don't have enough control yet to keep the thing from falling apart, so of course I had thin spots and when I went to tear the pieces in half they didn't want to cooperate and it was just kind of a mess.

I persevered through the first half of the fiber, but - I really didn't care for the results, so I just spun the second bobbin in no particular order. I let the bobbins rest overnight and then plied them on Sunday afternoon.

I don't think my color is really a success. I had a boyfriend in high school that would mix all his condiments together on his plate and dip his french fries in them, and that's what my end result reminded me of. I think I need to get a book on how to deal with color in spinning. I clearly do not have a clue.

But, but, but! The end result is clearly the best spinning I have done to date. It still varies quite a bit in thickness, but overall it is much thinner and there are places where it acutally looks kind of a little like commercial yarn. This tickles me to no end. I don't necessarily want to spin something that I could just go buy off the shelf - I just want to be ABLE to spin something that I could just go buy off the shelf. At the very least, I want to spin something that could generally be classed as worsted or sport as opposed to, you know, super bulky huge. I'm making progress.

I have also made progress on the Caribbean sock (note to self - do not name projects things you cannot spell). I got through the heel turn and gusset decreases, and now I'm headed down the foot. I don't know how I feel about the yarn; it doesn't seem to bounce back the way wool does when I put them on (it's a wool-bamboo blend), but that really doesn't matter once the sock is made - it should (hopefully) return to its shape when I wash it. It's only a nuisance now because I keep putting the sock on to see how much farther I have to go.

I also worked on my sweater, but I'm still not quite where I was at the restart. I plan to get back on the exercise bike this week, though, and I may be able to add some more length onto it during my exercise time, as long as I can find a way to keep it off my legs/lap.

Square - Uh, ROW 1.

I cast on for my sweater this past week and knitted happily along on the back. I LOVE the yarn (Valley Yarns Colrain in Grape Jelly), it's beautiful and it feels so wonderful to knit with, and it's not splitty. At first the plain stockinette was kind of boring, but it grew pretty quickly and I enjoyed watching it after a while. I got through a ball and a half of yarn and was about 8 inches in when I thought, you know, I should measure this to see how wide it is. Make sure I'm getting what I'm supposed to, and all that.

Yeah, I might be a little slow.

I measured cheerfully, and found to my disgust that I was getting 24 inches where I was supposed to be getting 22. I thought, well, no big deal, it'll just be a little big, and - here's the kicker. I kept going. I am a moron. It bugged me and it bugged me and I finished out the second ball of yarn and measured and again and discovered that I had been a little optimistic before, that it was actually over 25 inches wide and I was forced to face facts...I was knitting a tent. A giant, beautiful, soft, tent. The thought of having to rip out all that beautifully even stockinette and reknit it with wavy yarn made me want to weep.

I put it away. I fussed. I harassed the SO into entering into my misery, but we both agreed. It was madness and folly to continue on.

I got a fresh ball of yarn and started the back again, but this time I cast on for the size one down from what I was working on. I debated for some time between switching to a smaller needle or knitting the smaller size, and finally settled on the smaller size just because I was relatively certain, based on the amount my initial attempt giant swatch was off by, that this would give me the correct width, and I could not bear the thought of attempting it with a smaller needle only to find that I was going to have to start over a third time. I'm still questioning this decision a little, since I would kind of like it if the fabric were a little tighter, but I'm forging ahead anyway. I'm actually a little concerned because my row guage is also slightly off, but I don't really have a problem with the sweater being a little longer than it is supposed to be. I think. And if I do, I'm reasonably certain I can fix it in the knitting. The only part that is not fixed in length (in other words, the only part that does not say 'knit until it is x inches long') is the spiral chart, so if I find it is too long, I can always take out a diamond.

The upside of this whole thing is, that I was able to change the hem, which I was really wishing I had done. The sweater is knit entirely in stockinette so the bottom edge rolls, and the roll was driving me crazy. So, I knit a garter stitch hem on it when I restarted, to control the roll. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. I love it. Almost enough to not be better about knitting it twice. Really, I wouldn't be bitter at all, except for the intense pain I feel at the thought of the wavyness of that frogged yarn. I *think* I may actually have enough yarn not to have to rip out the first try giant swatch.

I know that I could always frog the yarn, reskein it on my niddy noddy, and wash it to take out the kinks, but...I'm lazy. If I can avoid that, I will. We shall see.

Thank God I love this yarn so much. If I were indifferent toward it I think I would shoot myself, but since I have such an appreciation for its softness and beauty, it's okay.

I just hope it wears at least moderately okay - it will break my heart if it comes apart the second time I wear it!