Snaps to Veronik Avery, Boo To the World at Large

I finished sewing on the buttons, weaving in the ends, and putting on the cardigan yesterday. And I'm in love. My secret shame has been that, ever since my first sweater turned out, I had been cursed to never knit a garment that fit. Many sweaters got close, but there was always something wrong, even if it wasn't as dramatic as the Pin-Up Queen debacle. Like Poppy, which will soon be put to the knitting project graveyard to later be resurrected as something hopefully useful. But this sweater fits! It fits just the way I want it to! And it's cute, and flattering, and everyone is suitably impressed and surprised when they find out that I made it myself. Even though I screwed up a few of your design elements, Ms. Avery, you managed to come up with one fine sweater.
And on to darker matters. What is there to write about the tragedy at Virginia Tech that hasn't been written, or recorded, or photographed already? It's a tragedy for all these brilliant, loved people who lost their lives, and a tragedy for their families. It's also a tragedy for society, that a place where you're supposed to be safe, even coddled in an intellectual community, can be destroyed so easily. And it's chilling to think how precarious our lives are, and how they rest so terribly on the secret life of other people. I went out to a party last night, and had a good time, but before I went to bed I couldn't help but think, in spite of the wine I drank, of all the tricks of chance that separated me from the victims. And maybe the chill in my room wasn't from the weather last night.

The Button Band Players

This big blob of brown heather will hopefully be a finished cardigan soon. Just knitting up the button band, and then I'm off in search of buttons. Cute buttons. Buttons that will push this sweater into the category of AWESOME. These holy buttons will hopefully detract from the following things I would correct if I could go back in time and start again:

1. Jimmy with the patterning on the sleeve after adjusting its length, so that the patterning continues across the shoulders, as it does in the pattern picture
2. Read the tutorial on V.A.'s blog so that my interpretation of the lace decreases and increases is a little less free-form
3. Shorten the sleeves by yet another inch. I have tiny, stunted, vestigial arms, my friends.

Go buttons!

It's The Cardi That Never Ends...

Can't blog. Seaming.

Knitting Night in Canada

The Dollar and a Half Cardigan slowly grinds to a close. Once I finish this cabled cardi front, there's just the finishing left to do. I'll try and finish in a timely manner, instead of neglecting the unseamed, unblocked bits as I usually do. The pattern has the sides reversed (if made up according to the directions, the cabled front would go on the other side than in the picture), but I just knitted it as is. It doesn't really matter to me whether it looks like the picture, or whether the cable goes on the right or left side. I did wing the decreases in lace pattern, though. I'm pretty sure it's not the right thing to do, so I won't reprint what I did here, but trust that it looks fine. I also knitted this in wool instead of a linen yarn. Briggs and Little Regal in Brown Heather to be exact. I love knitting with this stuff- the tweedy flecks and heathery mix of colours, its honest wool hand, and the idea that it's a very Canadian yarn. Yes, there's a lot of vegetable matter, but I just pick most of it out as I go along, figuring whatever I don't adds character. I knitted it a size smaller than what I usually knit, since all of my knitted sweaters turn out larger than I usually want them to be. I figure if it comes out too small after blocking, I'll just give it to my roommate. Or cry, as I burn it and my Poppy on my balcony.


And here's a baby blanket, made in (Canadian- I spy a theme) Koigu following the Mason-Dixon log cabin directions. One of my dearest friends/mentors back home (frientors?) is pregnant with her second child. Since her first is one of the sweetest kids ever, I know she does good work. And since I couldn't knit when he was born, I decided this one must have something knitted that is more than my usual baby hat. Then I realized that I had no money left for yarn. Which turned out alright, since I did have a stash of Koigu. The purple semi-solid and the red and purple mix were supposed to be a modular scarf, but I didn't know how to pick up stitches the right way for reversible modularity, so it looked kind of stupid. The one with purples and greens was bought on clearance online. After it came in the mail, I realized it was on clearance because it was pretty much spun of the mid-nineties essence. Together I think they work, and since she's all artistic and such I'm sure she won't mind putting all that purple on a baby boy. What do you think- garish? Too gendered?

Knitting Cowboy

Here we have a pile of brown wool, also known as the finished back and sleeves for the 1.50$ Cardigan. Since my last knitting project, Poppy, turned out a little hinky in spite of my best attempts, I'm just winging this. Like the decreases for the sleeves. Sure, I understood part of the instructions, but then again I understand part of Russian, and where did that get me? Making speeches about "easy pens "and "really big shorts". The prof used to dread my speech time. So, I decided to be a knitting cowboy and just do things my way. Yeehaw. It may not work out, but at least it will be an educational experience.
Yesterday, I went on a mini used bookstore crawl. Ever since dropping out of all my courses this semester (oh, the shame), I've had a lot of free time. And you can fill only so much of it by baking before running out of eggs, and starting to think of your now dim future. So, I decided enough was enough, I was going to do something productive, and that something would be trolling the used bookstores. I was hoping that one might have some Graham Greenes in the editions I've been collecting, or dare I hope, one of Elizabeth Zimmerman's knitting books, but no dice. I did find a copy of Rowan #31 for twenty bucks. And while this is not a bad deal, it was a bit more than I wanted to pay for a book whose designs, while lovely, just weren't firing me up. J. Westcott Books, close to my place, finally redeemed the whole thing. Not only do at least three cats live there, and as we all know the mark of a good bookstore is the quantity of cats, but they also had a trove of vintage knitting pamphlets. This Monarch Yarn pamphlet is from the twenties, and it features some truly awesome patterns. They are also very insistent that they are "MADE UP TO A STANDARD AND NOT DOWN TO A PRICE". Suck it, Toronto Dominion Woolens, and your skank-ass yarn, too! Some of the instructions have become hard to decipher with time. No gauge, naturally, and I think "ridges" means either garter or reverse stockinette stitch. But dabbling in some knitting archaeology would be worth it to knit an updated version of that jacket, no? I'm thinking a touch shorter, with buttons all along the button band. Maybe a bit more fitted too, but I love the art nouveau design. The pattern was originally knit in Cherry and White, but I want a different colour scheme.

I'm also fond of the vest in the upper right corner, although I would knit it in worsted, shape the waist and definitely shorten the v-neck. Thank God the colourwork designs are charted. The shawls and hats look interesting too. And there's the rest of my haul. A sock book from the fifties with some interesting patterns, Woolcraft with some nice basic patterns and boffo beehive hairdos, baby pattern book, and Paton's "Astra Easy-Knits For the Family", another artifact from the sixties. My Dad has been angling for a v-neck vest with very specific requirements, and I think this vest fulfills them. Plus, it's from one of his glory decades. I'm thinking Silky Wool, Calmer, or Wool Cotton. He has heat issues.