Kaffe?

So, here's the Kaffe, or is it? I mean, what makes this a Kaffe Fassett design at this point?
Have I followed any color theory whatsoever? I certainly didn't pick a motif in nature in order to emulate the colors. I didn't pick a work of a great master, and paint his/her canvas with my yarn. The Kaffe Little Circles has 11 colors, I have at least 17, I'm not sure. The original pattern had a chart with a progression of colors, but frankly, it was nearly impossible to follow the progression because when I started I hadn't picked all of my colors yet, and I didn't predetermine what color was going to be which designated letter to correspond to the progression chart. So, from the beginning, I tossed the pattern aside, and began the dizzying experience of trying to come up with three color combinations that worked together, and when that was too exhausting, I just started grabbing balls from the bag. I wouldn't say I employed any kind of theory, unless randomness qualifies as a theory of madness. This piece is definitely more Jackson Pollock than Kaffe Fassett.

The original Little Circles is knit flat, in two pieces. Obviously, I'm knitting in the round, and I've just put the steek in for the v-neck.

Little Circles does have a v-neck, but I'm starting my V much lower, so it'll be much deeper. Oh, the original was nice enough, it's not that I'm dying for a plunging neckline or anything, but I had the tube off the needles, and shimmied my way into it - and it is SMALL!!!! The snug, undulated little circles over my love handles are hardly attractive. I started out on gauge, when the project just had DK weight yarns. But, having fallen in love with the Rowan 4-ply Tweed, I kept throwing it in, along with a few other fingering weights, and I went from 6 stitches to the inch, at the bottom, where you can see Whiskey, Felted Tweed, and a doubled Misti Alpaca, to 8 to the inch, about a quarter of the way up, when I stopped doubling the alpaca, and was really using a Whiskey or a Felted Tweed, and 2 fingering weights per row. Oopsy. So, I'm hoping with the low v-neck, I'll have a bigger playground for my boobs to run around in, and perhaps with blocking, I'll get another inch or so, and it won't be horrendous. And, if it's horrendous on me, it'll be a great gift for my skinny sister-in-law. It's just way too late to rip and start over now. So, with Courtney's math help, I started the v-neck lower, and have abandoned the original shaping of Kaffe's Little Circles.

So what's left of Kaffe? The color palette - gone. Method of knitting - changed. Shaping - altered. All that's really left is the simple Little Circle stranded pattern. I guess that's enough - I mean it's not really mine, I didn't design anything. It's not really Courtney's - she just did the math for the v-neck. It's kind of a mishmash. Whatever it is, though, its Krazy.

And, here's that Krazy thingy hanging out of my new knitting bag. I love my new bag, it's big, it's roomie, and I've been coveting it for a long time. Everyday I walk little Dexter down Pine Street, and we pass this cute little store, Omoi, that sells kitschy Japanese stuff. The tote bags are on a rack in the window.
This past weekend, I had to teach at a CLE, that lasted from 3:00 p.m. Friday, through 3:00 p.m. Sunday, uch! Each day started at 8:00 a.m., and went on and on and on. I definitely needed a treat. Normally, a treat would be casting on - but, a ha! I circumvented that urge (even though I did get the Autumn Rose pattern finally, to go with the yarn I already have, and I do have that Starmore calling my name), but promising myself that knitting bag in the window.

Look how much room it has!


And this, another little bag! All of the girls at Knitting Circle are ga ga over Piddleloop's project bag. This isn't one of them - they're always sold out. So, I orderd one from ZigZag Stitches, who also makes bags from Japanese fabrics. I haven't done a comparative analysis of the two bags, but mine came with a little needle case as well, seems sturdy enough, and is an excellent addition to my new knitting bag.


And Madness Manos Blanket? 13 blocks to go. There's no way I'm not going to cast on the Starmore any second, but I will finish Martha first. I have the back, a front, a sleeve, and 3/4's of the second front done, and probably if I hadn't strayed to the Kaffe for the past couple of days, it would be done. Probably over the weekend. And, with Tangled Yoke in the can, Martha out of the way, and Kaffe making signficant progress, I think I've done enough penance to finally cast on - the Starmore!

Home Improved

As part of Operation Clean Up, not only have I been making my house cleaner, as in you can eat on the floor, I've been making it more functional - as in, you don't have to eat on the floor. Yes, I finally broke down and bought an expandable table for my living room. No more dining on the ottoman, I have a real table. And, voila - a place for the table runner I knit for Lisa Shobhana Mason's book, YarnPlay Home

When Lisa asked me to help her out with the book, I had the choice of knitting a table runner or a bathmat. Hmmmm . . . and the girl without the table picked the table runner. But, that was ok - it was an easy knit, although not a quick knit - it's very long, although narrow, and it was a bit hard on my hands, it's knit in hemp. But, as you can see, the finished project was worth the effort.
So, if you haven't checked out the book, and your house needs a bit of sprucing up, you should. Written in the same vein as YarnPlay, all of the projects have room for your own touch, and more than a dash of creativity. Not only can you throw some splashes of color and texture in your own home, the book has great gift ideas, like a wine cozy, a tea cozy, and an cd case cover, among other things.
So, while I generously got a gift, signed copy of the book from Lisa, I probably would have bought it anyway - a great companion to the original.

So, there's one old project that finally found its place - on to what's new - or going to be new - because, keeping to my No New Projects until the Manos Madness blanket is complete (14 blocks to go!!), I have not cast on anything new since the Mukluks. Right now, I'm working on Martha from Rowan Studio in the Manos Silk blend - yum. Can't even tell you how much I love knitting with this yarn. But, you shall see - the back, and one front are done -- it should be done sometime next week.

And then the Kaffe - really, the Kaffe.

And then, I have on word for you - STARMORE!


Just call me crazy, that's really all I can say about this project at this point!
I found this pattern on ebay - in Vogue Knitting Fall 1989. Individual copies of the magazines sell for up to $30 on ebay, but I found this one in a lot of four 80's Vogue's - I almost felt like I was stealing when I clicked the Buy Now for $12.50 button, but that's the world of ebay commerce! The pattern is knit in Jamieson and Smith's shetland, and Courtney and I did our best to substitute all TWENTY colors with Jamieson's Spindrift. I have no idea when I'm going to get started on this - I'm sure in a moment of madness - hmmm, just like when I stared the Manos blanket!

Yoke Untangled

Give a girl a Duncan Hines cake mix, and all kinds of craziness can happen - even a nice Jewish girl can make an Easter bunny cake. I'm having a heart attack just looking at it, but there it is -

And, that's not the only thing I finished over the Easter break - tangled yoke is a tangle no more!
I don't even remember when I started this - whenever the magazine came out, I think, because I know I grabbed this color, Avocado, out of our first fall shipment of Rowan yarns, and I think I cast on before I cast on Cobblestone (which, by the way, is such a tragedy - because Mr. Tall insisted on washing it, and hanging it on the back of a chair to dry - all of that ripping out I did because I had overestimated how tall he really is is now completely for naught - as it has stretched back out to its oversized, ridiculous original state. Ah well, back to the blocking board!). I knit the body, and the sleeves pretty quickly, and then - the yoke -
You can hardly see the cable, or the decoration as my niece called it, on the yoke in this picture, but it's there - and it scared me. I saw that one to five increase - the stitches increasing at the speed of light. I imagined the stitches on my needle, falling off my needle, becoming unwieldy and unmanageable. And, I tossed it aside, and tried to put it out of my mind.

Then, Marian was at knitting circle one night, and picked out her yarn, Whiskey, to get started. By the next week, she had finished the body, joined the yoke, and had her markers in to start the cable. I admired hers, and began to covet. I coveted my neighbor's sweater. So, Laura and I were working at the shop on Saturday, and I mentioned my fear of the cable, and my potential inadequacies as a knitter, and Laura was like, "huh, I should knit the yoke for you - it looks like the only fun part of the sweater." I let that sink in a bit, and it sank -

Until it was like a Call to Duty (not that Call to Duty is imbedded in my brain or anything from Mr. Tall and his son playing it for four hours yesterday while I read the Times) - I must knit this because I CAN. I CAN DO IT.
So, I joined the yoke, color coded my cable chart, and three days later - the yoke was done. And, I was mighty proud of myself.
Then, my second fear rose to the surface.

I wasn't sure it was going to fit.

My weight fluctuates - up five, down five, up seven, down 10 - we all know how it is. My bust is like an inflatable balloon - 36C, 36D, 36C and once, after a totally obsessive round of weight watchers - a 34C!) - When I picked which size to knit, the 38, I was coming off the summer, was in pretty good shape, and had not yet gone back on the pill. A good six months later, and 2 mos. of birth control in my system, preceded by Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now, a very chocolately Easter - well, a C is a stretch, and the D is pretty much where I'm at now. I became very nervous that the buttons wouldn't close, or if they did, it would be a tight squeeze. I consoled myself with the thought that the cardigan would still look pretty open, with a crisp white shirt underneath.

When I went to Rosie's to buy my last stash of the Felted Tweed that I had on hold, I chatted with Jen, who also has a Tangled Yoke in the mix. I mentioned that I hadn't seen many Tangled Yokes parading through the store. She had, and I don't remember her exact wording, but she had seen a few sloppy button bands - loose, and pulling away from the sweater. My anxiety level increased. But, I was really determined to finish it. Laura's offer to do my knitting for me had definitely sparked a competitive chord in me -- it was a matter of pride, and if worst came to worst, it would be a great gift for a skinny person.

In an effort to avoid the gaping button band, and the dreaded stretchy button across the boob, I did two things. First, I ignored the number of stitches that Eunny instructed us to pick up, and just picked up my button band like I would pick up a sock gusset - leaving no stitch unknit - and I ended up picking up a good 20 more stitches than the pattern called for. On the next row, I decreased to the correct number of stitches, and I think my button band is pretty darn spiffy.

The next thing I did was I added buttons. The pattern calls for 9 buttons, I went with 11 spaced 2 inches apart. I figured the more hardware, the more restraint, and the more likely my boobies would stay put, in the sweater as opposed to popping through the buttons.


So, I crossed my fingers, and hoped my prophylactic measures worked - because I knew that aggressive blocking would foil the cable.

And, voila - it fits. And, not only does it fit, I think it's one of the best fitting sweaters I've ever made.


And what happened to the mukluks - is March Mukluk Madness over? Have no fear. One mukluk is in the can, and the second is at the cuff (which since you start at the toe makes it about 3/4's done!). And, the Muchos Manos Blanket of Madness is moving along - only 15 more blocks to go! I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. And, since the mukluks, I have not cast on anything new. While we were at the Kaffe class a few weeks ago, someone asked me how many projects I had going at one time. I couldn't give her a number, I mentioned a few, and while the group was quietly knitting, I did some real soul searching about how many WIP's I actually have - and it's scary. Just as Laura's offer to do my knitting for me struck a nerve (not that it wasn't a generous offer, just that I knew I had it in my to knit the cable), I found myself growing hot under the collar, I'm sure my face turned a greenish shade of red - I don't even know if I can confess how many projects are actually hanging around. My fingers are hovering over the keyboard about to type the list, and I can't do it - hello, my name is Wendy, and I'm an addict . . .

So, I do feel better having finished Tangled Yoke. After the Mukluks, and of course, the ongoing blanket, I'm going to finish Martha, and then assess what's next. I do know that Autumn Rose is in my near future, but I'm going to try try try to hold off casting on until I do some more colonics of the stash. And,

Krazy Little Circles

From this perspective, it doesn't look so bad . . . with it sitting in my lap, or peering down at it, my eyes all squinty, and my lips pursed in concentration, it looks like poo.

And I feel like poo when I knit it - it's exhausting! Adding that extra color to the row just throws things into a tizzy - a big, twisted muckety muck. I sort of have a sytem of throwing my yarn, and I say sort of, because I have to really think about it - it doesn't come naturally at all, and I can't seen to find a production machine-like rhythm that I usually have when I knit.

But, I will perservere! Our next class is April 24th, and I hope to get to the armholes so that Lisa can show me how to put the steek in.

Whiskey on the High Seas

So you knew the mukluk couldn't be far behind the tam, right? Or, ahem, the Caspian Sea Socks, my substitute mukluks. I shouldn't really call them mukluks, because they're not - they just kind of look like the mukluks I have in my memory. But since this is all about the ethnic sock experience a la Priscilla Gibson-Roberts I feel like I shouldn't slap a generic (wrong) label on them - it's kind of like when my clients say "I wasn't out there selling drugs, I was just going to the Chinese store (meaning the convenience store on the corner run by someone of either Asian, Indian or Middle Eastern origin).

So, for my folkie socks, I'm using Whiskey, in blue, olive, plum and orange.
The pattern uses Tiur, which from my understanding is a very mohairy, dk weight yarn. I went with Whiskey, which without the mohair is coming in at gauge on a 4, as opposed to the 2 used in the pattern. And, of course, I know that because I cast on on 2's, and had to rip it out after completing the toe because all I had was a tiny nipple cover.


And speaking of nipples, sort of - I'm not a big fan of how the toe nipples - and I knew from reading the pattern, is was going to, because there are four straight rows before you start increasing for the toe shaping. I wish I had gone free form, but since I'm not really a toe up kind of girl, I decided to follow the pattern. And now, sigh, I have a nipple toe.

So I did my Middle Eastern cast-on -- three times. For anyone who has never tried this technique there's a very good video on Youtube. I would link to it, but I'm at work, and I can't open download sites here. Anyway, first, I cast on, and I just could not figure out the chart, in combination with the written instructions. The pattern is charted, and the instructions are also written out line by line. When I tried to put the two together, I was befuddled, literally scratching my head. I was at knitting circle, and I can't remember who it was, was like, "oh my G-d, I've never seen you like this - never!" And I really was stymied - increase where? Two times? In what color? - the large size and the small size are charted together, and the small size is outlined by a heavy black line. The written instructions say something like, "knit four in pattern, increase 2 repeat." I just could not figure out which were the four, and where the increases were, looking at the line by line itemization. So I screwed it up, ripped it out. Cast on again. I tossed aside the written instructions, and just followed the chart, and everything worked out just fine.

Except that they were too small. Ah well, so I made a nipple toe swatch.

And, the fact that I couldn't actually read the perfectly good, standard English instructions, gave me hope that I will actually be able to knit something out of Ethnic Socks and Stockings, which has almost no written instructions, but rather a formula - toe up, follow the foot chart, waist yarn heel, follow the cuff chart.

Hope is a good thing - a little luck won't hurt either!

Knitting a Tam Family Style

Some projects are as easy as just thinking of them. I wanted a tam, I have a tam! The knitting was almost an afterthought it went so quickly.
Using Mary Rowe's recipe for a basic 10" tam, I plugged in the palm pattern from Eunny Jang's Anemoi Mittens, and then for the wheel, I used the first wheel pattern in her appendix in the back of the book.

The book reads much like a Chinese restaurant menu - 1 from column A, 1 from column B, and finish your meal with the Chef's Special wheel. There's a chapter on knitting a basic tam (there is also a very math heavy chapter on changing the size of your tam, but I just thumbed passed any page with a square root sign on it), with different numbers for different weight yarn. To add color fair isle patterns, she refers you to her 2 appendices - one with traditional xo patterns, and the second section, for the pattern that will border the wheel - pick one from Group A, one from Group B. In her book, both of these patterns form the "body," and her wedge shaped charts form the "wheel."



















Even though there's a very detailed section on the different wheel patterns - scallops, petals, leaves, etc., I had a hard time visualizing how the wedges were going to come together - huh? That makes a flower, really? And, because the "body" in the book is also referred to as the "border," this kind of confused me. The body is 3.5 to 4 inches long, and the wheel is 26 rows. So, when looking at pictures, with the tams already blocked, I wasn't sure how far up the body traveled(was the Group "B" pattern the pattern that appeared above the blocking line/fold and what she was referring to as the border or is the whole body the border, I thought to myself), and what was the beginning of the wheel. So, while I toyed with the idea of throwing in another pattern in the body, I was gunshy because I didn't know exactly how much would be on the underbelly, and how much would border the wheel on the top. Nor, did I get exactly where the wheel started, I mean, I could see the decreases, but the few rows before, that had like "squiggly" patterns,little bits of color, sort of - was that B or the first row of the wheel? - so the planning process was also kind of like a Chinese dinner - pork, chicken and shrimp in the soup, pork, chicken and shrimp in the eggroll, and pork, chicken and shrimp in the entree - kind of hard to draw the digestion line.









































Knitting the tam put it all in perspective.


The tam starts with a corrugated rib, and goes straight into what Mary describes as the body. On my tam, the body goes all the way to the "border" 3 rows of one row blue, one row main color, one row blue, and then the wheel pattern begins. So, if you put 2 of her traditional patterns in (an XO pattern, and a larger pattern), the XO will be on the underside post blocking, and the "border" pattern will be the top half of the body.
























So, now in this 50+ degree weather, I finally have my perfect winter ensemble! Yes, Mindy, it is a little matchy matchy for me, but I think throwing Maude, and a little Koigu in the mix completes the picture just fine.

On Friday, I was hit with mukluk fever. I was surfing around, and stumbled across these mukluks. Once, I bought a pair of mukluks at a street vendor for a pollyanna at work. To me, I really thought they were kind of a joke present - I mean, really, they were silly, crazy colored things, but they turned out to be the hot gift - the gift that everyone wanted, the gift that everyone stole instead of gambling with the grab bag. I couldn't steal them back, and my mukluks went home with someone else. I passed the vendor again, and it was always, "eh, I'll pick up a pair next week," until one day, they were gone, and I forgot about them.

Until I saw them on the Kristin Knit a Long and I had to have them. More than that, I had to knit them - NOW! So, I went on Ravelry, and tried to find the pattern. Nothing. I tried to find a pattern for another mukluk, but only bootlike mukluks came up, not slipper-like mukluks. Argh! I googled. Zip. No one had ever knit them? Couldn't be. At one time, they were kitted up by Classic Elite - no one knit them? Huh.

On Saturday, at Rosie's, I flipped through every loose pattern we had - I looked on the shelves, in the back, in the office, under the seat covers - everywhere - and, success! I found them! I had visions of dancing around my living room in my mukluks, burrying my feet under my bedcovers in my mukluks, cooking dinner with my new wok in my mukluks.

And then I read the pattern.

Completely and totally incomprehensible.

Between my Friday internet search frenzy, and my Saturday discovery, I had settled on a compromise pattern - , the Caspian Sea Socks by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. I Raveled it, and other Gibson-Roberts patterns came up. I tried to find the book, Ethnic Socks and Stockings online, and chuckled when I saw the book listed for $200 on Amazon. I didn't need vendor mukluks for $100 per sock. But wouldn't you know it - Rosie's had a copy on the shelf - not so burried treasure! So I bought a copy, and read it.

And read it.

Not incomprehensible, not at all. The history lesson didn't tickle my fancy quite like mitten courtship rituals, and the detailed explanations of the gazillion different castons, heels, arches, legs, cuffs - really hurt my brain, but I'm definitely going to tackle something in the book - some day. Right now, I think I'll stick to the Caspian Sea Socks, where the instructions are written out line by line, and I can practice many of the techniques needed for a good go at one of the many socks in Ethnic Socks and Stockings, which seem to require a good grasp of Eastern sock construction, because while the charts look doable, the written instructions are more like a recipe than an actual pattern - throw in a Iranian cast-on, use a waste yarn heel - sort of.

Anyway, so I cast on the Caspian Sea Socks right?

Nope, I cast on a tam.

Huh? In my quest for the perfect ethnic slipper/sock at Rosie's on Saturday, Bridget came into the shop, and mentioned her finished Fair Isle Tam. I asked her if she could recommend a good Tam book, and she told me this one. Rosie's had one copy, and I got completely sucked in by the pretty pictures. Huh, wouldn't it be nice to have a tam that matches my mittens? Yes it would!







So, I cast on a tam, here's a blurry picture:

















I used the same corrugated rib that's on the mitten, and the body is the pattern that is on the palm. I'm not sure about the wheel yet - I think I'm just going to do something from the book - I'm not sure if the swirlies from the mitten will do well in a decreasing pie wedge, but I may chart it out, and consider it.

And mukluk fever? It's calmed down. Although I did check the vendor outside Anthropology at the corner of 18th and Walnut to see if perhaps she had imported mukluks among her ethnic knitted goodies, but no soap. I'll just have to knit them . . . maybe next.

Much Ado About Mittens

I had a plan when this winter began. I was going to knit mittens. I was intrigued with mittens. Selbuvotter had caught my eye, and I was fascinated with the intricate designs on the backs and palms of these mini canvases. These mittens really seemed to express personality - Poetry Mittens, Squirrels, abstract designs - and I saw myself making gift mittens, mittens that would be my personal Hallmark card. My messages through my mittens would be as clever as a fortune cookie, or perhaps as abstract as cave paintings, or modern day graffiti.























The text of Selbuvotter described the mating rituals that became attached to the making of these mittens - tokens of affections, signs of friendship, talents at domesticity; Value as a wife and life partner were attached to these mittens. Oy the pressure!

So, I freaked out . . . no mittens!

But, the freak out period passed, and I returned to my Anemoi Mittens. I started these mittens back in October, and returned to them partly out of affection, once again embracing the mitten as an artform, and partly out of necessity - I lost my third pair of gloves this winter, and my hands are cold!


















So, now they're done, so pretty I could put them in a picture frame. And, I've worn my mittens for a day now . . . and you know, they're just not that practical. I reevaluated the mitten.

Why talents as a wife, or a homemaker, or a lover, or a friend, or a sister or a daughter, were ever attached to the ability to make something so impractical is really quite astonishing. You can't do anything with a mitten on - can't juggle your coffee, the newspaper, your files and your keys. Can't change the song on your iPod. Can't drive, probably, although I wouldn't know about that. So, then I started thinking - it can't be the finished product that had value - but the process.




















And looking at my bemittened hand, I became more enamored with my mittens.
























There was a time, and a place, and a prevailing attitude that had such a respect for the process of knitting, and the act of creating, that courtships would rise and fall, marriages would be decided, and friendships would be sealed. A sonnett - where design, tension, color were valued as much as rhyme, meter, and metaphor.

Which brings it all back to me - my mittens will not be hallmark cards, or tokens of affection - only another knitter could read the love, affection, loyalty, commitment knit into every stitch in this day and age. And, since I'm not gifting mittens to all of my fellow knitters (sorry my dear Rosie's friends!), I'm just going to have to make them for myself, and my mitten art will decorate the world, but perhaps not speak to it in a way that asks for acceptance, or love, or appreciation, or conveys the same. Judge not my mittens! But, you can tell me they're pretty though!

The Last Cast

Mission accomplished - Kaffe is back on track! I guess . . . it kind of looks like poo to me, but I'm sure blocking will do wonders! Right? I can't even really tell you what's going on - there's a bit of Whiskey, Felted Tweed, Drops Alpaca, Rowan Scottish Tweed, and bits of other things in there - and as for the pattern, I'm just winging it. A little light here, a little dark there - throw some medium in - it's kind of the way I cook (which is probably why my Super Bowl chili, while absolutely delicious, did cause some digestive havoc). It's quite the hodge podge. I took it off the needles, and with a good blocking, it's going to fit - I think. If not, it will be a great gift for my skinny sister-in-law.

And, I finished my Elizabeth Zimmerman Yoke Sweater. Can I tell you how warm and yummy this sweater is? And how EASY PEASY this sweater was to make. Start with some Cocoon, throw in some colorful Polar and Cascade 128 and voila! Originally, I was inspired by Kate's Cold Hearts Warm Hands Cardigan. I loved the yarnny yarn - nothing fancy, just natural wool, with natural colors. So, my original color palette was all Cocoon - Tundra (the main color), Chocolate, White, Beige, Light Grey, and Dark Grey. I don't know what came over me, but I actually swatched the fair isle on one of the sleeves, and decided that the colors were too subtle, and while I was trying to be au naturel, it needed some color to make it pop. We had some Polar in the sale bin (the pinky purple color), and I threw in some Cascade 128 in a magenta - and here it is - and it was so EASY. There's nothing like going round and round on 9's. And, it's the exact fit I was going for - oversized, but not ridiculously gigantic. I've been practically sleeping in it for 3 days.

Anyway, that's Mr. Tall standing next to me - as you can kind of see, I come up to about, oh, his shoulder - it's like walking next to a wall sometimes, but I'm getting used to it.




















I was so pleased with my first Knitting Workshop excursion, that I've started another EZ extravaganza. As I started talking about below, this is going to be a saddle shoulder sweater, with fair isle sleeves, and a solid body. While the finished project looks fanastic in my head, I haven't quite visualized how I'm going to get there - as you can see, I'm going to have decisions to make when I get to joining the sleeves to the body. Am I going to do Intarsia in the round - I've been carrying an article from Interweave around in my bag all week, but I'm too scared to look at it. Or, will there be one long float across the sleeve, that I'll tack down as I go across the row. Or, will I knit flat, and sew the saddles in. I don't know - right now, I'm leaning towards the long floats that are woven in as I knit.






















The sewing - that's run far behind in third - dreaded seams!

And, this Saddle Shoulder creation, my friends, is going to be the last thing I cast on this winter. I mean it, truly. I went through all of my unfinished projects, and while I'm not nuts enough to believe that I can get them all done - I've made a queue, and I'm determined to clear some of them out - Monster Manos Blanket, the Tangled Yoke cardigan, stalled midway through the second sleeve, Martha, in a holding pattern 3/4's of the way through the back, a slipstitch cardigan from Vogue that I started years ago, that is only 2 inches away from being finished, the Anemoi mittens, and the Frankenmitts. Oh, there are more - but that's the finishing pile - by June. Of course, there's always that Maryland Sheep and Wool excursion that could throw me from my course - but that's still a good bit away. And, since I did the Auto Show with Mr. Tall this weekend, and I don't drive, I think he will be doing MSW with me in May - and that will, alas, probably curb my spending. Well, not so probably, probably definitely . . .

Updates

Ok, I just wrote a gigantic post of updates - restaurant week reviews, knitting updates, etc. and somehow, I deleted the whole thing!!! Its that new autosave function - uch!!!!

Anyway, I'm going to skip the restaurant reviews - I just can't bring myself to write them all over again. Let's just leave it as I'm really fat - I ate at Upstairs at Varalli's Monday (which was really downstairs at Sotto, which was abig disappointment because my whole plan was to have a great, romantic view of Broad Street), Amada Tuesday, Wednesday was a day of food coma, Thursday was Bliss (and Avenue Q - go see it!), and Friday was Xochitl. Saturday was Chinese New Year, and fried food galore, and Sunday I made super awesome chili and cornbread for the Superbowl - mmm mmm good!

Ok, so there you have it. Now to the knitting update, which I had just started typing, so it's not going to quite kill me to do it again.

For a few weeks, I felt like the biggest loser knitter. I just wasn't getting anything done. And, it wasn't the typical, I'm not finishing anything because I keep casting on - it was I'm not finishing anything because I keep messing up. And, because I came up with the bright idea to do a Kaffe Fassett workshop at Rosie's, and then found myself in the position of actually having to knit a Kaffe project - something that had never been on my radar.

But, first the mess ups - the lace. Ah, poor Spring Shawl Surprice. By the middle of clue 2 or was it 3? I realized that the fill pattern was this dreaded pattern, my nemesis from the red shawl. For some reason, even though I know this pattern kicks my ass, I decided to work on it while I was working at the shop - big mistake - no amount of unknitting the one row has been able to fix it - at least 3 rows are going to have to come out, so I've tossed it aside in frustration.













I also started Irtfa, in the recommended yarn, Laci, from Blue Moon, from the Raven colorway series. I forget what color this is, but it's in the blue family: Anyway, this is also on hold, in favor of the Kaffe project, and others - I finished the first chart, and have a bit done of the second, nothing tragic, other than it's just hibernating.

And the Kaffe project - you can read about the inception of my project, Little Circles, here. I cast on, and the knitting is laborious, to say the least. I'm not the best stranded knitter to begin with, and this pattern has three colors per row, and as Elizabeth Zimmerman says, any pattern with more than 2 colors per row should be viewed with suspicion - because there's just no need. Here here Elizabeth!














After four stripes of bubbles I put the work down, and thought about it - and I hated it. I hated working with different yarn - I didn't like the texture/weight changes. I didn't like how it looked. I didn't like that it appeared to be REALLY small, even though my gauge and my stitch no. should have been making it big enough. I really really wanted to just rip it out - or take a scissors to it and slash it into a million pieces. But, I didn't, I put it aside, and I started again. This time with Jamison spindrift, in the colors from Autumn Rose. I figured, I like Autumn rose, there's the same number of colors - it'll work.
Eh, not so much. The problem is that while there are many 2 color combinations that work well together, there aren't that many 3 color combinations that play well together in a way that you can actually see the bubble blobs.















What to do? I already returned the yarn for the first incarnation - well, the ones that I hadn't busted open the ball bands. But, that's not such a big deal - I had ended up with colors that I liked, plus colors Lisa, Courtney and Kate liked - too many hands in the pie, I think, because I ended up with some colors that I just don't like, or didn't work - specifically, the blue in the ribbing section. So, I think I'm going to set aside incarnation 2, and save the yarn to actually knit Autumn Rose. Then, I'm going to take No. 1 off the needles and block it, as Courtney warned me was really the only true solution. And, if it's going to work size wise, I'm going to rip out the ribbing, and leave a provisional cast-on there, and knit down after the thing is finished.

Or, I'm going to pick a different Kaffe project . . .

So, what better to solve my knitting frustrations but the maniacally large Manos blanket. Can you believe it - I messed that up too!













See that multi, large square that I'm working on now - at the bottom edge. Well, instead of picking up the first edge, and casting on the second edge, I picked up the first edge and the second edge, and I didn't notice until I had finished knitting that entire gigantic square. AAHHHH!!!! I couldn't even do that right. So, I tossed that aside too.

And, instead of resurrecting something, I opted for something foolproof - an Elizabeth Zimmerman yoke sweater. I had originally thought I would stick my own fair isle design on the yoke, but considering how woeful freestyle knitting was going, I opted to use the one she had in the book:












I knit this in Rowan's Cocoon. I had originally planned to do it all in Cocoon, with the fair isle pattern being subtle shades of browns, naturals and greys. But, it was too subtle, and I threw in some Polar (the purpley pink), and some Cascade 128 (the magenta). Since taking this picture on Friday, I finished the sweater over the weekend. The ends are woven in, and it just needs to be blocked. And, of course since it's warm and yummy and cozy, it's supposed to be in the 50's all week, so it's unlikely I'll get a wearing in immediately, as is needed, right? In any event, pictures sometime this week.

So, now that the EPS yoke is done, it's back to the Kaffe (whatever that may be), and, um, I bought yarn for another Elizabeth EPS sweater - this time the saddle shoulder sweater. I have this idea in my head to do the sleeves of this:, with the fair isle continuing on the saddle, with a solid body. This, of course, will require some intarsia when the sleeves are joined to the body, and some flat knitting, when the saddles are knit, but I think it'll be neato. We'll see. Between the two ends of the spectrum - Kaffe and Elizabeth - I'm in the Zimmerman camp at the moment.

So, that's the update. Still in project limbo are the Tangled Yoke Cardigan (body and sleeves knit, trepidation about starting the cable), Martha (back 3/4's done, just not enough time in the world, and it's not stirring my imagination), and a host of forgotten things -

Goal for this week? Get Kaffe back on track, whatever track that may be. Right now, it feels like a train to no where, and I'd be happy just to get to Hoboken.