Hubby's Sweater: No Honyemoon

Arrrrgh!

Hubby's sweater is going to be the death of me.

Or at least this two color ribbing will be.

I hadn't expected to get fed up with it until I was into the miles and miles of stockinette stitch for the body (despite the excitement of changing colors for the stripes).

I had to fix four (4!) mistakes in the first two rows of ribbing. Including ripping out the entire second row twice. In fact, I probably ripped it out a total of three times, considering I had to go back halfway twice as well.

Do you see how incredibly talented I am?

And I guess I'm just not accustomed to doing two handed colorwork, because it's killing my wrists.

I have to relax and adjust my posture and wrist positions. But it's hard with the slippery addis and not being accustomed to tensioning yarn with both hands. I mean, I can tension yarn with my left hand, that's how I do it when I crochet, but it's a different kind of concentration.

I knit for like two hours last night and only have an inch of ribbing to show for it. I'm supposed to have three inches before I start the body.

I wish there was a way to knit all the ribbing to get it out of the way then I'll just have to do the plain portions.

Well, I guess there is. I'm going to cut the yarn at the end of the ribbing anyway. I can just put it on scrap yarn.

But I'm worried doing that much ribbing all at once will put me out of commission for a week.

This is a good reminder about the importance of stretching and taking breaks!

Hubby's Sweater Yarn

Oh, I feel so popular with all the comments lately.

Did you know fox might taste gamey? Which not only makes sense, but probably means it wouldn't taste like chicken. I won't be eating any foxes any time soon, I don't like game meat.

I think if we have to resort to eating our domestic critters Bridget is going to be in a much better position than I am, what with her own pigs, sheep, and horses. Hubby and I should expand our menagerie beyond the pups.

This is all feeding (ha! no pun intended) my morbid sense of humor waaay to much.

Brace Yourself
I bought the yarn to make Hubby's sweater when I was at KC on Tuesday night.

You have to realize by now that I would find a way to make selecting colors as difficult as possible. Much dithering had to take place. Especially for something as important as a sweater for my beloved Hubby.

The original pattern calls for nine colors. Four in Rowan DK Tweed, which Ravelry says is discontinued, and five in Rowan Felted Tweed. They are plum (which looks maroon in the picture), black, three shades of grey, two shades of blue, and navy in both types of yarn.

I asked Hubby what specifically he liked about the sweater: the jewel tones or the tweed? He said he just liked how it looks, which was no help at all. As I was really certain the tweed thing wasn't going to be happening I focused on the colors.

There was moment of excitement when I got to the store and saw part of a Rowan label that said "Felted Tweed" but when I snatched it up it turned out to be the Aran weight, which is too heavy for the pattern. Sure, it's just a drop shoulder sweater, but I'd rather not have to go rewriting it.

Zara FTW!
I was back to my original idea of Zara and began yanking colors off the shelf.

Remember, the Vogue Knitting trunk show was that night. The store was wall to wall people, so my trying to find nine colors for stripes was tricky. What I should have done was get the color card out of the back, but it was too crowded for that.

Let's see, how did the cascade of changes begin?

First, we didn't have three shades of grey. Well, not three that I liked. I could have brought in a light grey Debbie Bliss Rialto, but it just looked off. So I substituted a tan/white chine for the third grey. I had charcoal grey and a black/white chine for the other two greys.

I selected a blue/white chine for the denim blue stripe. Trust me, there is a denim blue stripe in there, my shadow is on it. Our light blues were too pastel for what I had going on, so I substituted a dark green instead.

The two navy blues were the hard part. I realized later I should have gotten the color card to try to figure out what the difference was. Shade? Tweediness? We had a navy blue and a royal blue, which both looked pretty dark in the store since it was night time, so I got them.

The black and the maroon were easy.

The pattern calls for four of the charcoal grey and one each of the other colors. But I got two each to hedge my bets since the original yarn has about 53 more yards than the Zara.

I went home happy, although uncertain about the two dark blues.

Maybe purple?
When my 4 a.m. insomnia hit, I lay there tossing and turning, and thinking about the navy blue yarn. I thought maybe subbing a dark purple for one would work as it would contrast and I had learned that purple was in style still.

I told Hubby about my brilliant idea over breakfast. He said it sounded fine, but he didn't want to look like either Prince or Barney. I said he was silly, since it was a striped sweater, but made a mental note the purple would have to be the one row dividing color.

I hauled the pattern and all the yarn back to the store after work. It was quite, so I was able to take over the front table and arrange all my colors in the order that approximated the original sweater. Then I went and got the dark purple, which was a little brighter than I remembered.

A customer asked what I was up to. I explained the issue with the two dark blues. The purple didn't look good at all.

She said I should start with the greys and go from there. So we rearranged the yarn. She eliminated the green, blue/white, and tan/white colors.

It looked pretty good, but I pointed out the corrugated (two-tone) ribbing and brought the tan/white back. I also decided to use it as my one row contrast.

We dragged Cynthia over. She thought it looked good, but switched the order of two colors. So I wrote the new order down, since it was radically different from the pattern.

Then I had to figure out which colors to get additional balls of since we had eliminated two colors (four balls total). When Cynthia went to process my purchase she said, "I didn't realize green was a choice!"

We lined all the colors up again. I also brought over the purple and a wine red, just to make sure we covered all our bases. The purple still didn't look good and the wine red was too dark. But the green added a nice pop. We put it in two places in the sequence.

Phew! I ended up swapping out the blue/white for another maroon and another black/white, in an attempt to ensure I had enough total yardage. I'm not really sure which color is going to be getting hit harder in the new colorway.

Let the knitting begin!
I swatched like a good knitter and had to go down to a US5 needle.

Casting on took forever and I've only managed one row of knitting.

I worked the second row of ribbing last night. Only to realize I had all my floats on the public side of the work. Picking it out took almost as long as knitting it.

I'm a little concerned about the ribbing. In the picture it looks normal. But in the pattern it is K1A, P2B on the first row. I'm ending K1A, P1B. It doesn't mention how to end. I was thinking about sneaking another stitch in so it would end P2B. But then on Row 2 I'm supposed to work K2B, P3A. This means the colors totally don't line up.

I'm working the size large, so I was able to count stitches to the size small. That first row ends P2B, but it doesn't matter because the row 2 colors won't line up. The size medium ends strangely like the size large does.

There doesn't seem to be much point in adding a stitch if the colors won't line up anyway. Maybe it will make more sense once I get a few rows worked. grrr.

Two rows in and I'm already annoyed.

Look At Me
Hubby hasn't commented on the new color scheme. Actually, Hubby hasn't seen the new color scheme.

I'm a bit surprised after those strong views he expressed about what type of sweater he wanted. Also, he has a pretty well defined sense of fashion. Heck I often say he's got better taste than me. Because of all that I find it a bit suspicious that he's suddenly lost interest. I mean, really, I've dropped all other projects for his sweater!

Considering I'm up against the baseball playoffs, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Maybe I'll be able to corner him before the game tonight....

Arbitrary Lines

So someone left me a comment on my last post that flustered me when I read it.

I don't get many comments, so each one is precious, and it's surprising when one might be a little negative.

Or, maybe it's not negative, it's just a different world view.

They wrote:

You draw the line at wearing fur when you think it's OK to kill your dogs for their fur. If not, then why rationalize using the fur of another creature that was killed. Sheesh

I realized they were commenting on the fox fur on that hoodie I liked. And I thought, "Goodness! Why are they so mad at me?" And, "How should I respond? Should I respond?"

So I went back to my post and saw that I wrote:

And, shoot, I wear leather, so where does one draw the line?

Making the comment perfectly legitimate, since I had invited dialogue. Silly me.

In the interest of fair play, I share with you my gut response when I first read that comment.

I wouldn't kill my dogs for their meat, but I still love to eat steak and lamb.

Does that make me a hypocrite?

I wonder if the person who left the comment is a vegetarian?

I guess it is an arbitrary line I've drawn. My puppies are off limits, but bad luck for the rabbits and ducks we ate in France.

Hmm, I eat rabbit. That is an argument in favor of going with the real fur on the hoodie. Can you eat fox? Does it taste like chicken?

Of course, one could be socially conscious and use Fun Fur instead. I actually have a few balls of red and orange in stash. And a green one, I think.

Do you stop to think about where your leather jacket or that nice steak dinner came from? Or does contemplating it fill you with despair?

Oh, and in case you are wondering, if we did have to eat the puppies, we'd start with Baru (up there at the beginning of the post). He's much stockier than Samson (In the green room), so we'd get more meals out of him. We'd probably have to braise or stew him. How tough is puppy meat? He's pretty lazy, so he shouldn't be too tough.

What? Every family is supposed to have a plan in case of emergency.

Vogue Knitting Visit

Last night the editors from Vogue Knitting and Knit Simple were at Knitting Central for a trunk show and talk.

They brought all the projects from the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting.

A ton of people came, as you can imagine. It was really exciting to be able to see all the projects in person, try them on, and examine the details. Seeing them in person gave us all a different perspective and more appreciation for them than we would get just from looking at the pictures in the magazine.

I became enamored with this fair isle hoodie (project #7 on page 54). The magazine says the model in the pictures is a size Small, so I figure that is the size of the model in the store. It fit me pretty well, although the hood could be a bit smaller. That is fox fur around the hood opening. We sell beaver in the store, which might be a good substitute. I would be a bit concerned about using critter fur, considering the histrionics I had as a child over mom's rabbit coats, but it really does make the sweater. And, shoot, I wear leather, so where does one draw the line?

I ended up buying a copy of the issue, which I'm not sure I would have done without the trunk show.

Actually, I almost wonder if I would have had a chance to buy one. The store's shipment came on Saturday and they all flew out the door. I'm not sure how much that had to do with our on P having her Lace V Neck Sweater in this issue (project #18 on page 66). We all hooted and clapped when it came up during the presentation. Poor P was put on the spot when Trisha said, "Why don't you tell us about it?" but she managed really well.

(As you can see, it was so crowded I resorted to sitting on the cash-wrap counter and P is standing on a chair!)

The editors did a slide show for both magazines. They showed the pictures in the magazine and talked a little about what attracted them to each pattern and which details they liked. They said cowls are going to be big this season, and there were several patterns in the issue.

I asked P what the difference is between the cowls they were showing and my little Cropped Poncho. She shrugged. Which was my assessment. Do you know what this means? This means I'm totally fashionable all of a sudden!

They shared a lot of interesting information. But one data point struck me enough to write it down. They've just finished a reader survey during which they learned that 63% of VK readers crochet and 70% of Knit Simple readers do. Wow! That's a lot of cross over. I wonder if it will help crochet get more of the respect that it deserves?

We also got a sneak peak at the projects that will be in the January 2010 issue of VK. Some of them looked quite nice. There were some good men's patterns. If I have Hubby's sweater done by then maybe they will be considered for projects for him.

They also talked about which colors will be popular for the upcoming season/year. (Cynthia pointed out she covered this in one of our recent e-mail newsletters and she was pretty spot on.) Later on one of the customers pointed out to me that I was very fashionable as I was wearing a coral shirt with a turquoise scarf.

I replied it was funny because I thought the scarf was ice blue, and the shirt was melon two years ago. Which gave us all a good laugh. I'm not used to being so cutting edge in my clothes. Especially since I think I selected that shirt myself.

In addition to the fun of seeing all the projects and the talk, I managed to buy the yarn for Hubby's sweater while I was there. But I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.

AND one of our customers who reads my blog told me she really enjoyed my posts about our trip to France over the summer. She said she lived in France for three years and my posts took her back. She even liked all my excruciating details. So that's two people who have told me the excruciating detail is good (well, my mom probably likes it too). Phew! I worry I'm boring when I get long winded like that.

You can read more about the trunk show on P's blog, Major Knitter's blog, and the Knitting Central blog.

Stupid Hat Redeemed

Still no pictures of the hat.

In the previous post about the hat, someone (possibly my mom?) suggested finishing the prototype hat with different yarn, since I ran out of the handspun Wakefield yarn.

This had not occurred to me at the time. I suppose it would be possible. Well, it would be possible, no "supposing" about it. I don't think I have yarn of the same gauge, but how much would it matter since it's just the top of the hat?

Ms. Create suggested using the tube as a cowl instead.

This hadn't occurred to me either. Bit of tunnel vision when a project doesn't work out the way I want? I tested it this morning while I was waiting for the pups to come back inside. It doesn't look like it will work in the tube's current state.

This version of the hat actually fits me. Nice and snug. I thought the fabric might stretch enough for me to pull it down anyway, but the cast on is a wee bit tight.

So I tossed it back on top of the dining room credenza in disgust.

Alpaca Hat
The second attempt out of the recycled alpaca yarn has met a slightly better end. (which still sounds gruesome.)

I was knitting it, trying to decide if I really should just forge ahead knowing it was too big. I put it on to contemplate the situation from a new angle.

Putting on my thinking cap?

Hubby asked what I was doing.

I explained the situation. Then, even as I was digging myself out from under my knitting debris in order to attack him with the unfinished hat, he said, "I bet it would fit me."

Proving that great minds think alike (or we're really in tune). It did indeed fit him.

Then he remembered the hat was his scarf in a former life. At which point he claimed the hat for his own.

This allowed me to finish it with a clear conscience.

Still Cranky
However, it's not all sunshine and puppy dogs.

I had to dip into the second ball of yarn to work the last two rows of the hat. How rude! Of course, this is overlooking the fact that I have an entire second ball of yarn.

I'm not sure what to do with it. I was considering forging ahead and trying to make a smaller hat, but then Hubby and I would have matching hats. We're cute, but we're not gross like that.

Fingerless mitts occurred to me. But that would put me back in the lots of friction causing pilling issue that started the whole hat business in the first place.

Setting out to make a cowl occurred to me. However since the yarn makes my neck prickle I wouldn't be likely to use it.

Also, Hubby has revealed that he might not wear the hat in public! At first he was all excited about it, but the lighting wasn't very good and the hat wasn't done. He was even talking about how students who saw the original scarf are in his class again (he teaches sophomores and seniors) and he could show them the hat.

Then he saw the finished hat in good lighting and started wavering. I think the main issue is the picot cast on I used. If I'd known the hat was going to be for a boy I would have used a regular cast on. He's been tucking it up inside. He's being a bit cagey. He hasn't actually said the hat is too feminine. I'll have to corner him on that, I thought the design was unisex.

Oh well. He's been wearing the hat around the house. It's still getting worn/used. And that will also delay the need to turn on the heater. So I probably shouldn't complain.

This Could Get Interesting

I came trotting down the steps Saturday evening to find Hubby playing with my Cropped Poncho.

Step away from the knitwear!

When he spotted me he pulled on the poncho, then darted to the other side of the room so I couldn’t get to him.

You might remember he has been fascinated with my poncho since I finished it back in December.

His renewed interest with the cold weather proves I should have followed my instinct and made him his own last winter.

The poncho stretches enough that the collar will fit around his neck. But the body of the poncho then just puddles around his shoulders in a scrunched up, scarfy blob.

I decided to ignore him.

Then he said those magical words every girl longs to hear, “Maybe I’ll have you make me a sweater.”

(Of course he uttered the top magical phrase, “Will you marry me?” several years ago. He also regularly says, “I bought ice cream.” Hey, everyone's magical phrases are different.)

Rejected
All this time I haven’t suggested making him a sweater.

I didn’t want to pressure him or force the issue. I figured at some point he would come to the idea himself, and the instinct paid off.

Baru and I dashed up to the attic and grabbed a ball of the green Elsebeth Lavold Cotton Patine I bought during my Glorious Month working at Patternworks in 2004. Then we raced back down to the dining room credenza to get the Designer's Choice Book 2: The Sentimental Journey Collection that goes along with it.

I showed him the Ruben pattern (above), which I had selected for him all those years ago. At the time I was intimidated by it because of the cables, which I hadn’t worked yet. Then I became intimidated by the thought of making a man-size sweater.

Well, Hubby was decidedly underwhelmed. He said the sweater was ok, but didn’t like how loose the collar looked. He didn’t like the shade of green. And he thought the yarn was too lightweight.

Turns out he had some ideas in mind already. (I asked him on Sunday how long he'd been thinking about it. He said he wasn’t plotting this, it just occurred to him as he was playing with the poncho.)

He wants a mock turtleneck in a dark color, perhaps blue, but he’s open to variegated, or maybe tweed. I was worried this would turn into a situation where we searched for a specific project, without truly knowing what we wanted. What I really didn't want was the possibility of trying to design one myself.

Narrowing Options
So the pups and I went back to the attic and dragged down all my Rowan Magazines and all the Interweave and Vogue Knitting issues I have. Probably a dozen.

I set him to flipping through the Vogue Special Men’s Issue from 2002. All the Rowans were a bust. I didn’t make it to the other mags before dinner.

He liked pattern #3, which is a gray, two-tone zip front cardigan, and #12 which is a striped turtle neck (seen here).

During a bout of 3 a.m. insomnia I went through the Knitty archive as well. He liked Cheesy Puffs, but decided the two in the magazine were the best.

Easier Than Expected
Neither pattern will be a problem for me. They are both drop shoulders, so I don’t have to worry about shaping or anything.

I studied both patterns.

Then I informed him the cardigan is a bulky knit with pockets, so I thought it was actually an outerwear garment.

This seals the deal for the striped turtleneck.

I’ll actually be at KC Tuesday, so I’ll try to pick up the yarn then. The pattern calls for Rowan DK Tweed and Felted Tweed. I’m really sure we don’t have either of those this year, so I’m thinking Zara is going to be the way to go. We have those marled Chine colors, which might work, mixed in with solid colors. But I’ll see when I get there.

It’s all very exciting.

On The Other Hand
Now I have 17 balls of green Cotton Patine to use on myself. The problem is I still like the Ruben sweater, but it would be way to difficult to downsize for myself.

Currently, I'm thinking about making Garnet out of the same book. I had liked that one as well, but didn't want to buy enough yarn for both tops at the time.

Of course, that still would leave me with 11 balls. I guess I shouldn't complain. My undesignated stash has just increased. I'm yarn rich!