Cute as a Button

You may have been wondering about my little trip on Friday. Rest assured, it was successful. Perhaps a little too successful!

The weather was gorgeous! Behaving itself for the first time in ages. A glorious day to wander round the City. Into trimmings shops, Beads World and a couple of VSLYS (Very Special Local Yarn Stores)! But I get ahead of myself.

First stop was to a trimmings store where after going through the buttons for considerable time, I finally decided on these:

I think the little red flowers add just right the finish! I'm hoping to get this to it's new owner in the next couple of days!

I also spied these little beauties. Just perfect for a project I have in mind for next winter!

As for the rest of the haul, I will gently drop it in here and there. Savor the thrill, if you know what I mean.

While I was making my way into the City and then out to Brooklyn on Friday, and all the way back home Sunday morning, I got in some long overdue work on my Mad Color Love socks for the Socks that Rawk! group KAL. I'll try to get a progress picture tomorrow.

Thanks for all of the support you guys have been giving me with the Sock Madness. I can't believe I've made it through to Round 4! If you've been following this blog for a while, then you know that less than 18 months ago I was struggling to get through my first, properly fitting sock. And now look at me! But there IS more to life than sock knitting, and now that I'm between Sock Madness rounds, I've been getting in some quality time with this beauty:

So squishably soft and bright and happy. I hope the evenings chill off a bit so I don't have to wait six more months to wear it.

Yes, I am really on the 5th and final color of my Tequila Sunrise (Charlotte's Web)! Only 17 more rows of knitting and then it's time to bind off and work the edging.

And the gorgeous weather seems to be sticking around for a bit (although it will drop to the 60's by Wednesday). This is what I see when I walk out my door.

Reunited

Wow. It feels like forever since I've written! Most of my away time was taken up with Passover and I had a lovely time. Of course I wasn't knitting, but it was lovely anyway!

I took some time, moments sandwiched between the Holidays, to pour through some knitting books and sniff my yarn. It was a difficult situation but somehow I muddled through.

And of course this past Saturday night I was back to it! Knowing that Round 3 could start at any moment I made the most of my time and was pretty devoted to Charlotte's Web.

This picture is from yesterday afternoon. As of this morning I am three rows away from introducing color 5. I'm hoping that by the time I add the richness of color 5 (I'm hoping Bleeding Hearts won't be too obviously multi - if it is I'll be going with Jasper) that a balance will be achieved between the colors. We'll have to wait and see. I'm not thrilled with the Rosebud beginning, I would have preferred a bit darker of a pink, but I used what was available and I'm hoping it won't be too stark a contrast.

As for the February Baby Sweater, it is still button-less. I did finally get a picture of it though to replace the WiP over at Ravelry. I'm still seeing tiny red buttons on the garter yoke. I hope to go into the City this Friday and visit a button store, so stay tuned.


And finally, I cast on for the Q2 Socks that Rawk! Kal over on Ravelry. This quarter's projects are Shur'tugal and Mad Color Weave, both Free Ravelry Downloads. I've signed up for both, but with Sock Madness going on I hadn't had a chance to cast on for either. This was remedied yesterday when I cant on for Mad Color Weave with Love in STR Lightweight.

2.5 mm needle, 66 sts, 8 spi

Of course with Round 3 being released TODAY, these are back on hold for a bit. But since I have until the end of June to finish both pairs I'm not too worried.

Wish me luck with Round 3!

SoClose!

I'm afraid I didn't finish the FBS. Such a disappointment since I won't get back to it for a few days. Other things take precedence. "Like what" you ask? "And what's with that photo yesterday," you may still be wondering. Worry not, tomorrow all will be revealed. So until then, here is the progress I made on the sweater yesterday.

I finished the band of garter along the bottom and even remembered to bind of with a purl stitch.

I actually knit about 1/3 of the sleeve 2 but that was after dark. And it's dark and dreary out now to take any pictures. I'm still hoping I may finish at lunch today. (Yes, today is still fair game for this project!) I wanted to show you the sleeve before I picked up the stitches.

The pattern has you put the body stitches to the side, CO 7 stitches before and after the live stitches used for the sleeve and knit flat. But that would mean seaming. Aand I don't want this languishing because I didn't want to deal with all the peskiness involved. Instead, I put the 28 sts of the sleeve on a holder and added the 14 (x 2) into the body. You can see those below the stitch holder. When I was ready for the sleeves, I put the live stitches back on the needle and picked up 14 more from the Cast On edge.

And then went round and round, substituting K rows for the P rows. It looks pretty good to me!

So once I finish sleeve 2 all I have left is to weave in a few ends and add the buttons. I'm thinking red will be perfect!

Almost

I had hoped last night to get you a progress shot of the February Baby Sweater. I am making good progress. In fact I am making such good progress I've decided to hold back on the pictures until the sweater is ready. Which it almost is.

There was another minor setback. But really. Minor. I took it in to work yesterday to show it off to one of my colleagues. The one just back from maternity leave, the recipient of the BSJ (Rav Link). Well she took one look and confirmed that it was indeed on the short side. After I had bound off, of course. Hmmph.

Last night I finished the first sleeve, opened up the binding, ripped back to the last pattern row and continued on. Turns out I ended on row 2 of the pattern, not 4, so I knit those two rows and another repeat. That added another inch which is just about right. I have to keep reminding myself it is a baby sweater. Now all that's left is 10 rows of garter stitch and the second sleeve. I'm hoping to get that finished up and photographed for you. Though it may have to wait until the morning. Because it is almost finished. Almost. Well, I'll still have to find buttons. But that's something else altogether.

Until then I leave you to ponder the significance of this:

EZ Love, the Second Time 'Round

Thank you all for your compliments on my little February Baby Sweater. But you do understand that I frogged it? All of it? Right? I ripped the entire project back and rewound the ball Saturday night. And on Sunday I cast on. Again. And I think this time everything is going to be ok!

I know it doesn't look like much now. Those sleeves sure make a big difference. But this time I managed to make button holes! I opted to make them just on the yoke. I don't really like the look of buttons down the front placket. And anyway those YO button holes are for tiny buttons!

The back looks a bit better. I still haven't decided how long to make it. EZ says to add 5" more after the arm holes (after the first 4.5",) but 9.5" seems a bit short to me. The yoke is 2" and there is a final 1" garter band so I think 7" of lace may work. I'm almost there so I'll have to decide soon. The orange marker denotes 5" of lace, which means it would be 2" longer. What do you think?

I'm still planing on knitting the sleeves in the round. This time I did remember the 4x7 extra stitches! The arm hole is much bigger now. All I have to do is work from the live stitches and then pick up 14 along the bottom edge. Which means no seams!

And just for the fun of it, here is a close up of the Gull Lace pattern.

Too Pithy?

When Elizabeth Zimmermann refers to her instructions for the Baby Sweater on Two Needles as pity she isn't exaggerating. Her pithy instructions are pithy indeed! Blown up to 200% they still only take up one page. And that includes the Gull Lace Pattern! And so reading through the thread on Ravelry is perhaps the only way to understand what is going on if, like me, you are a solitary knitter. And even with the the wealth of information there I missed the most important post! And even more embarrassingly, it was posted by someone I know. Knowing so few knitters in the "Real World" you would have thought I'd pay more attention to what she said. But apparently I breezed right by it. A couple of times. Lauren (Rav linky) had a lot of helpful things to say, but here is her crucial quote:

The pattern has you CO 14 stitches on the sleeves AND (my emphasis) on the body. For the sleeves she says to work 28 stitches plus 7 CO at each end, 42 in all. Then for the body she says to work 92 stitches “knitting up 4x7 sts at the cast-on sleeve-sts.” That’s the most confusing part of the pithiness, in my opinion, but it means to cast on 14 stitches under each arm and work them with the body. Then you’ll seam the 14 co sleeve sts to the 14 co body sts when you’re done.

Oh, Lauren, I wish I had read that through one sleeve and several inches ago!
So here's what the sweater looked like before I read that post and realized I was missing 28 sts in the body.


Yes, pretty good progress. But the sweater was looking more Newborn than 9 months to me. That's what prompted me to go back and reread the thread. Still, starting over is not so bad, really. It is a tiny baby sweater, albeit slightly bigger after adding in 28 stitches to the body! And anyway, the first time around there were no button holes, since EZ doesn't mention them until after the yoke is finished. And I think her 5" sleeves were a bit short for my taste. So I learned something from this and have frogged, rewound and cast on again! I still plan on making the sleeves in the round. So at this point I have moved the sleeve stitches to holders and cast on the additional stitches into the body. But I want to PM Lauren to make sure I'm not missing anything else before I boldy go on.

That's it for the night. It's late. We'll say where tomorrow takes me.

Little Distractions

I'm supposed to be working on my WiPs. Right? Get something finished before I start something else. The queue is backing up. So many things I want to work on. So many things I want to finish. So I'm supposed to getting through the ones on my needles before I start something else. It makes sense. Right? Only...

Some things are out of my control. As I was slowly making my way through my two work projects, finishing up my second go at Rose Red (and preparing to make a Gretel for the Cheerleader, who is rightly fed up with waiting for her Endpaper Mitts) a friend of mine goes ahead and has a baby. I had no choice. I had to cast on for a sweet little something!

Once again, I'm using an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern. EZ was a genius. Pure and simple. She's one of those people that I would have liked to have met. And one day I hope to do so, if only by watching her DVDs. Thanks to a recent 40% sale over at Knit Picks, I managed to pick up the books I was missing from my collection and look forward to reading my way through EZ's wit and wisdom. To have that much more understanding and control that I can really start to think about designing a little. And hopefully come out the other side a better knitter.

EZ's Baby Sweater on Two Needles, better known as the February Baby Sweater, comes from the slim little volume called Knitter's Almanac. Here EZ gives us patterns to take us through the year. I may be a month off, but this sweater has been calling to me for a while. And I've been waiting for the right opportunity to make it.

So back to my newest project. After 3 boys, my friend gave birth last week to a little girl. I originally thought to go with pink, but quickly abandoned that for something with a bit more personality. I've had some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in the stash for a while now. I'm not even sure when or why I bought it but it seemed just the thing for this sweater.

The sweater is pretty straight forward, though EZ's "Pithy Instructions" are pithy indeed. So I did the best thing any knitter can do. I went straight to Ravelry and found the Zimmermania Group, where the February Baby Sweater thread was full of fabulous tips and information. For instance. EZ says to knit the garter section then start the Gull Lace section.

Close up of Gull Lace pattern

When you reach 4.5" it's time to separate for the sleeves. Ummm, is that 4.5" from the cast on or from the lace pattern? Common sense states that it must be from the cast on, after all this is a wee little baby sweater, but it isn't written out and many people have scratched their heads with the same question. The answer, BTW, is yes, from the cast on.

The only modification I'm making is to knit the sleeves in the round. Knowing what we do about Elizabeth Zimmermann it is a little funny that pattern was worked with the sleeves flat. Perhaps she was writing for an audience that wasn't quite yet ready to work in the round? Regardless, I puzzled out what to do and I think it is working out well.


Of course, I haven't gotten that far along yet but this is tiny sized and I hope to have it finished by the weekend. I should have enough yarn left over to whip up a pair of booties to match.

I've got a couple more friends waiting in the wings, so to speak. Perhaps for one of them I'll make a Tomtem Jacket. Then I'll have hit the EZ Trifecta.