It's A Start

I finally cast on for my official Ravellenic Games project (The Three Lace Cardigan from the Juniper Moon Farm Findley book) last night.

You know, I'd been composing this blog post in my head (as you do) and I've totally forgotten was I was planning to write. I do remember that it was going to be very clever (of course) and not really knitting related.

It was also full of excuses about why I haven't blogged since Saturday.

With that as the lame segue....on Sunday I drove two hours down to civilization to attend the bridal shower for my cousin's fiancee. It was fun and very nice to see the family (which reminds me that I have letters to write. You know, letters. On actual paper?).

Now when we moved from CT to NH we disposed of our second car. Hubby had a walking commute since we were living at a boarding school and I had zero commute since I was working from home.

With our move from NH to NY I've said we should give it a year before we run out and buy a new car. (That's a key point. Along with the fact that I'm the one who chose the house on the edge of nowhere.) Having grown accustomed to the reduced expense from having just one car I said we should give it a year to see how many times it's an issue.

Well, Sunday was an issue since hubby had to work and my event was at a time that prevented me from dropping him off.

Happily, my in-laws lent us their car.

So I didn't blog on Sunday because I was roaming the country side. Didn't knit much either, for that matter.

We were supposed to return the car Monday morning before hubby went to work, but then he suddenly freaked out because it was the end of the month and he had to do inventory. He changed direction on me and declared he couldn't return the car until Tuesday.

Of course that wasn't working for his parents.

In the end, I slammed a few drawers, stopped around a bit, then packed up my work stuff, and drove the car back alone.

I told hubby I had my toothbrush so if he didn't get home until midnight he should just leave me there and get me in the morning.

Fortunately he got off work early enough to retrieve me.

It worked out well because I got my necessary work done AND had lamb and mashed potatoes for dinner!

We were able to hang out and watch a movie after dinner because I ensured I got my work done in a timely fashion.

That allowed me to finally start my sweater.

Phew! Two inches of garter stitch in lace weight yarn sure takes a long time to knit.

Ravellenic Games 2012!

If you are reading my blog then you probably either knit or crochet and therefore know what the Ravellenic Games are.

For those rare people out there who are reading my blog and don't know, they are a personal challenge to start a project during the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games and finish it before or during the closing ceremonies.

For the sake of posterity, I'll point out this even was formerly known as the Ravelympics. However the US Olympic Committee finally noticed it and sent a cease and desist letter stating the name was violating their trademark.

Now, as you know if you followed the story, most knitters and crocheters understand and respect trademarks, copyrights, and intellectual property (although like any group of people there are some that either just don't know or know and don't care, but that is another conversation). Anyway, as has been reported far and wide, things would have been fine if it had stopped there, but the letter was a little derogatory to our crafts causing hurt feelings and a massive uproar.

The end result was the USOC apologized for the poor choice of language and the Ravelympics were renamed the Ravellenic Games.

Everyone, supposedly, is happy now.

I, of course, was not blogging regularly at that time (as opposed to now when I'm also not blogging regularly, but I have a really good excuse---my laptop crashed and put my work behind schedule, but that is also another conversation) so did not jump into the fray.

However, during the heat of the kerfuffle (do kerfuffles have heat? Maybe height?)...when the frenzy was at its height I had an Olympic athlete in my house. He is a coach for the skeleton team (which I think is like the luge or the bobsled? Now that I know one of them I'll have to pay more attention!). He might have been an athlete at some point, which reminds me that I wanted to Google him. And the skeleton.

Anyway, the point is that I resisted pouncing on him and asking him whether he felt that knitting denigrated his athletic endeavors. My supreme self-restraint stemmed from the fact that hubby had only recently become friends with him, hubby has to work with him in a professional capacity, and it was only the second time I'd personally seen him.

(However, I was not so restrained the third time I saw him when he was sitting on my porch drinking wine with hubby and I received the notice that my Trellis Mitts were accepted for the new 101 Lace One Skein Wonders book. I actually ran out on the porch and did a Snoopy dance right there in front of the guest.)

Still, it is important to know for the future that I have access to an Olympic athlete type person if for some reason we should find we need it. I understand he can be distracted by good wine, which probably also means he can be distracted by good food. We should factor that into any plans we have.

Anyway, since the point of the Ravellenic games is to knit or crochet I will now actually talk about my knitting.


Lace Long Jump

For Games past I've usually done the WIPs Wrestling style category. Whichever one was for taking a languishing work in progress and finishing it up. And, boy howdy, don't we all those those?

This year I decided to mix things up by doing a fresh project instead.

In a moment of insanity I settled on the Three Lace Cardigan from the Juniper Moon Farm Findley book. I've seen it in person and it's adorable. I even started it at one point, but didn't get very far.

I'm not expecting to finish it by the closing ceremonies, although I might be pleasantly surprised, but I'm hoping this is a kick start to get it going and well on its way.

Yes, I did say I had started one once, but I've abandoned that one for a different color yarn. Therefore the first one counts as a swatch and was part of my training. Actually, that one helped me realize that the yarn doesn't play well with my Addi Turbos. I had even purchased new needles for it.

Cowl Jump

Despite the ambitiousness of that cardigan, I didn't not actually cast on for it during the opening ceremonies last night.

Instead I quickly changed direction and worked on a cowl instead.

My new local yarn store, Adirondack Yarns, had a kick off party last night. I keep attending their open knit-nights on Wednesdays with yarn from my stash, no one has said anything about it, but I feel a little bad. But I've bought stuff from them before and they know I'm new in town.

Anyway, for the party I thought I should use yarn I'd actually purchased from them. At Thanksgiving I'd bought two hanks of a locally grown and spun 100% angora yarn. This seemed the perfect opportunity to use it.

As though the cardigan wasn't enough of a challenge I've now set myself up with two projects!

Things aren't as bad as they sound since I flew through the cowl. I just need to get the dang thing cast off properly and I can move on.

Ok, I think I've rambled on enough for now (this tendency to go on and on is probably one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much lately--I know that once I get started it will be a black hole of time). The Ravellenic Games last for 16 days, there's plenty of time to tell you more later.

Yellow Lace Top Progress!

Sudden Progress

You can't really tell in this picture, since it's a dark and gloomy day here, but I've suddenly made a lot of progress on my Yellow Lace top.

I had put it aside because it wasn't good TV knitting since I had to pay attention to it because of the lace.

Well, it turns out I've more or less got the lace pattern memorized. I've had it memorized for a while now. You don't knit that much of a pattern without ingesting it eventually.

Because I've got it memorized I don't really need to look at the pattern any more, and really I only have to look at the knitting maybe for the decreases.

Let's see if I can explain what you are seeing in the picture.

First off, the back is done. Second, the left front is done and the shoulder is joined.

See? I told you I'd made progress.

The dark line is the scrap yarn I'd used as a holder when I divided for the front and back. The needle is on the stitches for the right front.

So I'd been plucking away at the back when I could. Then I suddenly realized I just had a few more pattern repeats to reached the desired length. Having finished the Uncooperative Green Striped Schleppy I was filled with the desire to finish other projects and started focusing on this top.

Then yesterday as soon as I finished the back I plunged into working on the left front. That was quick and easy because with the deep V of the neck shaping I was working on fewer and fewer stitches each row.

Of course, doing that keep me up later than I should have been. Oh, it was well past 11 o'clock. But I came down with a cold at the end of the week and had spent most of the day either sleeping or lounging on the couch knitting, so I wasn't sleepy until after 11 p.m. anyway.

I'll take a stab at getting the right front done tonight. At that point the sweater will be at least 50 percent complete, if not closer to 75 percent.

I'll do the sleeves two-at-a-time. I just hope they go quickly.

Yellow Lace Top

Works in progress be damned!

Knit from your stash? I laugh at the concept!

Because I have yummy new yarn and have finally decided on a pattern.

You will remember (perhaps bitterly) my recent bragging about receiving sample balls of the new Juniper Moon Farm Yarn "Findley" to play with.

Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right...anyway.

I had settled on a knit sweater, a crocheted sweater, and a shawl, but was dithering over the colors to use for all of them. Of all the colors I'd received I only had solid plans for two of them, but there was heavy math involved before I could start either of those.

Last week I laid out the patterns and yarns and made Hubby decide for me. Don't laugh. He has a very good eye. And perhaps not as much at stake.

For the crochet sweater he suggested the robins egg blue. For the shawl (which will be the cover pattern from the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Debbie Bliss Magazine) he selected the grass green.

Finally, for my friend Pam's Lacey V-Neck Top that is in the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting he selected the soft, buttercup yellow. Interestingly, it is also the one the women in the Library Knitting group suggested.

Away I Go
With a color selected, I cast on last Tuesday and have been clicking away.

The lace pattern only has an 8 row repeat and it's a fairly regular progression, so I hope I ingest it soon and can stop looking at the pattern. That will speed things up.

The sweater has waist shaping, but instead of having you increase and decrease Pam cleverly has you change needle sizes. In fact I'm already at the first change. I was surprised it arrived so quickly.

So surprised that my US 3 circular wasn't available. It was still in the lace scarf I've been knitting for, what, a year because scarves just kill me and now I only work on it during the Library Knitting group. Anyway, I knit it onto a pair of bamboo straights I own for some reason and freed the circ for the sweater.

Of course sweater progress was derailed when I skipped town over the weekend. But I'm back at it.

Another nice thing is that it's knit in the round so there won't be much seaming to worry about at the end.

Well, considering I've only knit around 3 inches of sweater there isn't much more to say.

I think it's time to stop typing and start knitting.

KFI: Findley! Yummy new yarn

This blog post is mean on so many levels.

First this yarn I'm in love with won't be in stores until the Fall 2011.

Second none of the colors I have are going to be available in stores. However, the 12 colors that will be available are just as stunning.

Best.Job.Ever.
Perhaps you have heard of Juniper Moon Farm. Susan Gibbs did what many knitters and crocheters dream about. She quite her desk job and started raising sheep.

Instead of the resulting wool being spun and sold to yarn stores for years she sold it directly to people. You can buy a CSA which entitles you to a portion of the wool production while Susan and her team takes care of all the messy, hands on business.

Pretty exclusive stuff.

Now a different door to her creative sensibilities has been opened. She has teamed with Knitting Fever Inc. to design a new yarn line that is spun and dyed in Italy. Her little flock of sheep could not grown enough wool to meet the demand of nationwide distribution, so they had to call in reinforcements.

The new line is also called Juniper Moon Farm and is starting with three yarns: Willa is a bulky 60% Merino, 40% Super Fine Kid Mohair blend, Chadwick is a worsted weight 60% Merino Wool/40% Baby Alpaca blend, and Findley is a lace weight 50% Silk, 50% merino blend.

Tanis Grey, formerly of Vogue Knitting, has designed patterns for all the yarns. I did not get a pattern book to go along with my yarn, and I suspect it's because they aren't finished yet! There is a sneak peak of some of the sweaters on the farm blog (scroll down). They look very interesting.

Oh, Findley.
This yarn is so soft and lovely. As soft and lovely as you would expect a silk merino blend to be.

And the colors are just lovely. I especially like the yellows and the blues, but the green is lovely too and well, I could just list them all as my favorite, but that would be silly. Really, they all deserve to be worked up into some fabulous project.

Considering I have four balls of each color (well, two of white) and each ball is a whopping 800 yards, I can make multiple fabulous projects.

Which means I'm totally spoiled for choice and was just a wee bit paralyzed when I first opened the box.

But I'm pretty sure I have it sorted now.

I was considering the Abotanicity sweater from Knitty. To that end I started swatching with the yarn held single on a US 1. That was kind of insane. It occured to me after several rows that people don't usually try to get a dense fabric with lace weight yarn. Also, since that pattern calls for fingering/sock weight yarn I don't think it will work out.

Since I'm not really a lace shawl knitter, I decided to expand my options by holding the yarn doubled on a US 4, which is this blue swatch.

That made me think of my friend Pam's Lacy V-Neck sweater that is in the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting. (It's the middle one of the second row of the "A Softer Shade of Pale" patterns.) Those lacy bits you see in the blue swatch is the stitch pattern. I'm pretty sure it's going to work, which is very exciting.

The trick is deciding which color to use. I might stick with this robin's egg blue one. Although I'm debating the silver grey one, which I know is the influence of the magazine picture.

The next sweater I'm considering making is from the 2004 issue of Simply Creative Crochet magazine. I don't see a picture of it online. The sweater had a plain body and lace sleeves made with wee square flower motifs that are connected as you go along. I've had that pattern in my library for quite a while. The pattern calls for crochet thread, so I think this lace weight yarn will work. I crocheted a little swatch but it calls for a D hook and I only had a C available. My B, D, and E hooks have all evaporated!

Again, I'm not sure which color to go with. I'm debating between the burnt red and the pale yellow.

The last of the published patterns I have my eye on is the Jade Sweater from Elsebeth Lavold's "Book Two: The Sentimental Journey Collection." This book is very possibly out of print so if you see a copy grab it. This is another pattern I've had my eye on for a while. No hesitation on color here, I'm totaly using that royal blue. The trick with this one is the pattern calls for 5 sts/inch and I'm getting 6 sts/inch so I'm probably going to have to rewrite it for my gauge. Considering the small would have been big on me I would have been fussing with it anyway.

The final color I have plans for is the deep yellow goldenrod one. I want to knit something fabulous that will take lots of buttons because I think that yarn is a fabulous match for the tartan buttons I made. For this sweater I'd like to do something clever with a non-traditional neck line that goes diagonally across the sweater. You know, from the center neck down to one armpit.

The question is whether my knitting math skills are up to the challenge.

I'm also tossing around several shawl patterns that would use the yarn held single. And, of course, I'll have to reserve some for when the pattern books are available so I can make an official pattern.