Finally got some knitting done. Yay! I cast on for the front of the crazy continental at Stitch 'n Bitch on Tuesday and managed yesterday to knit a few centimeters up to the beginning of the decreases for the waist. My tension is definitely improving and the motion of using my left hand is feeling a lot more natural. Finally! And last night I started the fair-isle pattern on the second sleeve of the Dale sweater. I think I'm doing a better job with the floats this time. They started out too loose at first, but I carried on and concentrated a bit more on getting the right length and weaving in the longer floats (the yellow especially) and it looks pretty good so far, I think.

Finally got my copy of the new Vogue Knitting (my fave pattern). Could someone tell me why I bothered subscribing? Maybe it was cheaper, I've forgotten. It certainly wasn't earlier. I've been hearing about it and seeing it about for a while now and no sign of it on my doorstep until yesterday. Sucks to be a Vogue subscriber with no patience. But it rocks being a Rowan subscriber! I subscribed online at the beginning of the week and had the latest magazine, newsletter, and the free purse kit delivered to my door yesterday afternoon. Not bad! I also subscribed recently to Interweave Knits and ordered some back issues. I've heard good things about their latest issue and so am looking forward to getting a big 'mag bag' from them soon. Finally, enough new magazines to oh and ah over until new ones come out!

Got a call from my LYS yesterday and I've got homework for the Steeking class next week. Yup, I have to knit a couple of 6 x 6 in. squares to c u t ! I am terribly excited about trying out the steeking. I should be done with the sleeves for the Dale sweater by then and so it's appropriate, I think, that I learn the steeking technique as I begin knitting the body (to be c u t !).

All this cutting talk reminds me of when I was a new knitter (about a year and a half ago) and began going to the local knitting group. There were some mighty inspirational knitters there (some of whom have moved on to other cities and other hobbies). One woman, Melissa (hi, if you're reading!) was a great inspiration for fearless knitting. She knit fabulously and never used a pattern. And if anyone ever said "uh oh" she would respond, "you can just cut it!" Thanks to her, I had the courage to cut the body edging off of the the new year's stripey sweater last year, so that I could make it longer. I wish she had been around when I was having the problems with elizabeth III. She would have had some sound (but scary) solutions.

And a quick update of the two active projects at the moment: the front of the crazy continental (into the waist shaping) and the second sleeve of the Dale sweater (past the pattern and on to the stripes).

We had a great yarn swap this afternoon at our knitting group, the Knitsmiths! There were lots of single skeins and odds & ends of all kinds of wonderful yarns -- enough for a scarf or edging or contrast color on another garment. And there were several abandoned projects (also made with amazing yarns) that people just couldn't get to work for them and were passing on. Some of them were so close to being finished it's sad to think that the new owners will rip everything out and start again. Dava brought a purple sweater that was completed except for the sleeve seams. The problem: gauge issues, too small. But tiny little Claire slipped it right on and it looked super!

I brought several skeins of sock yarn that I decided I probably wouldn't use and picked up over six skeins of some tweedy Tahki yarn in a lovely green. I'm hoping the color will look good on me since I have green eyes. The yardage wasn't listed on the skeins (anyone know what the yardage is for 100g Tahki Windsor Tweeds?), but I'm hoping I'll have enough for at least a cropped sweater. I also picked up a couple of loose skeins of Lopi for some charity knitting. After so many beautiful and luxurious projects for me and mine, I think it's time I knitted something for someone else entirely. I'm hoping that the whole knitting group can put together a batch of hats and mittens and bring them over to a local charity group for the holidays.

Best of all at the swap were Julia's old patterns and yarns from the 80's. Can you believe we dressed like that?! Some of the bobble-y, ribbon-y, 1981 Madonna-y stuff was picked up to be used as edging or to double strand with other yarns, but I fear the patterns were less fortunate. No way to update some of those things. Nope, not yet vintage, still ugly. But hilarious!

I'm getting a lot out of my most recent knitting book purchase, Sweater Design in Plain English. Maggie is my new hero. I feel like I am finally getting some tips that are going to help me make better sweaters. As we have seen, I can make yarn into a sweater, but I can't always make it fit. What I need is a way to tell when a pattern is going to produce something that isn't going to fit me well and then the way to adjust it so that it does. Well, this book explains how to take measurements correctly and how to convert those measurements into armhole depth and raglan shaping and bust darts, whatever you might need. Exactly what I was looking for!

What I really really like about this book is that Maggie doesn't just give us some formula to use, but rather explains what is happening. There's a chapter about how different stitches and stitch patterns "act", ie, how they change your gauge, how they stretch with wear, when/where it is best to use them. And the whole last half of the book goes through a series of patterns which are less for making than they are for learning. They take you through the planning process of progressively more complex sweaters involving more and more shaping and leading up to top-down, in the round sweaters. She makes the process so clear that I am actually starting to believe that I could design a sweater. Of course, I have no orignial ideas, so I'll be sticking to published patterns, but I hope to feel more confident about tweaking them so I can use the yarn I want or make them to the exact size I need.

Empowered with my new knowledge, I immediately set off to take some proper measurements and check out the crazy continental. I'm just winging the pattern for the sweater by mathing up a pattern from A Season's Tale for different gauged yarn. Since I'm just learning continental, I'm worried about my gauge and the shaping, so I wanted to check what I've already done against a good set of measurements. Well, it checks out okay so far. I'll be making the front about 4cm shorter than the back (since it will be too long, as I suspected), but otherwise the width and armhole openings look like they could work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

And here's the front of the crazy continental after some weekend knitting. I'm really happy with how how the tension is improving. It's almost as even as my right-handed knitting now. Lookie!

Found a little bit of time yesterday to work on the Dale sweater. I'm about half way done with the second sleeve now. I'm really looking forward to starting the body, not only because it will be a lot more fair-isle work than the sleeves, but also because I won't have to do it on double pointed needles (grrr!) and I won't have to do a lot of increases (boooh!).

I am very happy with how the sleeves are coming out overall, but one thing that is bothering me are the increases. They just look bad in some places, especially where I was doing the pattern. I'm still learning all the knitting secrets like when to use which increases (for some reason the decreases seem more intuitive to me), so I thought I could try out some different methods on this sweater. I usually use a knit-into-the-stitch-below increase, which someone at Knitsmiths showed me and called an invisible increase. This method always looked good in regular stockinette before, but this time some of the "invisible" increases were coming out visible, even unsightly! Well, over the weekend I received my back issues of Interweave Knits and one of them had a very helpful article by Ann Budd on increases. So I switched to what she called a raised increase -- and what I've elsewhere seen as just make one -- that is, picking up the bar between the stitches and knitting it twisted. I had hoped this would really neaten up the increases, but the new increases kinda looked the same just a bit more bumpy. So I went back to my original method. Elizabeth Zimmerman suggests doing the same increase I was originally doing, but twisting the stitch picked up from the row before. I tried that too once or twice and it seemed to pull the color from the previous row up too much for my liking. Hrrmpf.

So, I think I've messed with the increase line enough on this sleeve! Maybe on the next set of sleeves (got two sweaters to knit, you know!) I'll try EZ's loop method from Knitting without Tears.

Do you all have a preferred method for increasing?

Steek class is tonight! Here's a homework swatch still in one piece.

In addition to making a few swatches for the class, I knitted a bit more of the Dale sleeve and am almost done. I should be able to finish it today (during the boys' naptime). I wanted to have it finished before the class, so I can start knitting the body as soon I'm sure that I will be able to cut it! I'll be picking up some bamboo circs at the LYS to use for knitting the body. Like Kathy I'm having some slippage issues with the two-handed technique on the metal needles I normally use. I'm knitting very high up on the tips of the needles and the stitches want to jump right off the end. And I don't feel very confident about recovering dropped stitches in the middle of fair-isle color work.

Frankly, with the all over fair-isle pattern on the body and then the steeks, I'm starting to get a little scared!

Steeking class was lots of fun. We watched the instructor cut the steeks on a Dale baby sweater (one I really want to make now, by the way!). Then we went to it, sewing and cutting our own swatches. I cut a placket opening on the Lorna's Laces swatch above. Wanna look at the back? Then I picked up stitches for a front band. And just like that, it looks all better. Now look at the the back. But wait, there's more! I also made a swatch with some mercerised cotton (Dale Kolibri left over from the knitted lederhosen). I cut an armhole opening into it and then sewed the other corner in as if it were a sleeve, making Frankenswatch! If you're feeling brave, check out the back of this one!

I have to say, I really enjoyed the steeking. Of course, they were only (s)crap stockinette swatches. But once I had machine sewed around the steek area, I didn't really have a problem cutting into them. I may wash the frankenswatches a few times, just to convince myself that the stitching will hold and those loose ends will stay put. Still, I feel like I'm ready and, more importantly, willing to do it for real.

So, now that I've survived steeking 101 and finished knitting the sleeves of the first Dale baby sweater, I'm ready to start knitting the body. Wish me luck!

I am embarrassed to say how long it took me yesterday to cast on 210 (tiny) stitches (onto a size 0 needle!) for the body of the Dale sweater and knit this far. Suffice it to say, I have no other knitting to report on today.

Got this in my kinder surprise egg today!

The editor and several contributors to Knit Lit had a reading at the Booksmith today. They scheduled it to coincide with our weekly knitting group so we could all come and bring our knitting. It was great fun and the stories were beautiful and sweet and funny. If you haven't checked out the book yet, you should!

Unfortunately, I ended up being that annoying woman who keeps having to get up and go outside. You know there's always one of them. I'm just not used to it being me. First, I arrived a few minutes late, since I totally forgot that it wasn't regular old normal knitting group and I parked a ways away and enjoyed my stroll to the store through the lovely fall weather we've finally been having. Then I just had to pee - I'd been thinking about it the whole way over - so I had to get up and run out to the coffee shop next door. And then, my husband called twice (during a very touching story about a dying grandmother) because the boys had gotten into the Balmex and he didn't know what to do. But, thankfully, after the first twenty minutes, all my crises were resolved (they didn't eat any Balmex and certainly not enough to be harmful) and I was able to enjoy the stories and even managed to knit some!

While I was there, I cast on for the first sleeve of the crazy continental. After spending way too much time yesterday doing all the math to come up with a sleeve that I liked in my gauge, I was excited to finally start it. I'm doing a wide full-length sleeve. The body of the sweater should be pretty form fitting (I hope!), but I wanted the sleeves to be kinda hip and loose at the wrist. So, I decided to start with the full number of stitches (about one third of the body stitches, says Elizabeth Zimmerman) and do a straight sleeve up to the raglan shaping. Reading Knitting without Tears again almost convinced me to do the sleeves in the round, but then I remembered that the point of the crazy continental was to practice knitting and purling with my left hand. And since I'm getting practice knitting with my left hand while doing the fair-isle work on the Dale sweater, there was no way out of doing the purling here. And speaking of the Dale sweater, I'm just past the ribbing and am about to start the pattern on the body. Stay tuned!

How about ewe, ewe, ewe? (From the junkyard farm in the Franklin Park Children's Zoo.)

Nope, not the Dale sweater. I wish! I haven't worked up the courage to start the pattern yet.

But I've passed the halfway mark on the first sleeve of the crazy continental. I should be doing the raglan decreases later today. There have been a couple of spots where my tension went bad, but usually only for about ten stitches at a time and I've been able to pull those stitches tighter and spread out the extra yarn through the rest of the row to even it out. I really think the long, straight sleeves are going to look great!

And I'm almost halfway done with an entirely different project, my one hundred things about me page. It's wicked hard to come up with 100 little tidbits, especially ones that I haven't already written about somewhere else on my webpages. It's fun though. Enjoy!

Not too much to report from the blue room today. I'm still working on the sleeves for the crazy continental. The first is complete and I've got a few inches done on the second one. I'm thinking about going ahead and blocking the pieces that I've finished so I can sew them up (at least provisionally) and finally see if/how it fits! I still have to shorten the front, but I'd like to slip the whole thing on once before I decide how much to cut off. I don't want to have to do the cutting thing twice.

I'm having the same feeling about the sleeves that Clemence is with hers: they are taking forever! I was thinking 'oh yeah, I'll just whip up the sleeves and be wearing this thing in no time'. News flash - knitting is not only not a way to save money, it is also not a way to save time! At some point I think I started focusing on the finished product and mentally skipped over the actual knitting process. I started expecting a finished sweater and forgot about the knitting, which I really do love. Bad Alison! Does that ever happen to you all? How do you keep from letting the pressure to make progress (either from deadlines or your own expectations) get in the way of the pleasure of knitting?

I'm a bit under the weather today - stuffy and what not - so won't be doing too much besides necessary child care and resting. I did lay out some pieces of the crazy continental for blocking. That seemed like something I could accomplish while sick! Otherwise, I'm a little more than halfway done with the last sleeve, so I hope to start sewing things up this weekend. And maybe I can finally have something new to put up on the finished works page sometime soon. This cold bug is thankfully taking some of the (self-imposed) pressure off to complete this thing quickly. And thanks for your responses yesterday to my process/progress query! I'm trying to not let myself feel so rushed. Deadlines and expectations be damned - that's not why I knit!

Now, back to bed...

Not. Still sick. In an effort to make myself feel better, I knit up a little flower to put on the crazy continental. The flower is from Rowan Junior, and since I don't have a little girl to knit it for, I had hoped eventually to put it on a sweater for me. The crazy continental is just plain old stockinette, so I thought it might look good. I think it's pretty cute, but I'm not 100% sure about it. (Maybe I'll redo it and see if the colors work out differently. Or I could try to find complementary yarn scraps in my stash and make another one out of that.) It did cheer me up a little though.

Spent some sick time yesterday trying out my swap yarn. I want to make a cool raglan sweater for myself based loosely on this pattern from the latest Vogue Knitting. But this yarn is nowhere near as chunky as the Waterspun Weekend called for in the pattern, so I experimented a bit with the gauge and how wide and long to make the cables. I'm so proud of myself for making a real test swatch. Usually I am such a loser about that sort of thing (and we wonder that I have problems later on!).

What am I doing swatching for something new, you may admonishingly (and with good reason) ask. Well, all the pieces of the crazy continental are knitted and blocked and need to be sewn up, but I've just been feeling too crappy and runny-nosey to be leaning over seaming up a sweater. So I was in search of some more good simple knitting (for my left hand!) to take my mind off of this cold. In order to indulge myself a little (hey, I'm sick here), I allowed myself to do the swatch but then (inspired by my virtuous swatching) I picked up a half-completed Christmas project, the tiger hat for my nephew. I thought I would try using my left hand, even though I knit the first half of the hat using my right. "So it'll be a bit looser. Then I won't worry that it's too small." Knit twenty rows... Nahhh, this half's not too small. It's humongous - fitting around my husband's head. Did I mention that my nephew is six. Rip!

I am inclined to believe that the universe is telling me to keep those works-in-progress in their project bags, think no further about those pesky holiday gifts to be completed, and start a new sweater. But that could just be the Nyquil talking.

The crazy continental is coming along. I've sewn up the sleeves and am working on the sides. Of course, I still have to shorten the back and then pick up and knit a little neck band. Oh, and weave in a thousand ends. But then she'll be all done (the shaping is quite feminine, plus I'm definitely keeping the flower, so it's a she). I slipped it on to be sure that the fit was right. Well? You asked for form fitting and you got it! And it feels wonderful. I was worried about it being a little scratchy since it's wool and I won't be wearing a turtleneck or anything underneath it, but it feels just like a comfy long-sleeved tee. Dare I say that I love it!

And getting here yesterday were some awesome Phildar catalogs and yarn. Woo hoo! Can I just say that I have fallen for Phildar, hard. I received their new layette catalog from Becky (whose projects are picture-perfect advertisements for their yarn and patterns) and got some of the yarn for a project from the last Phildar baby catalog from this online store in Canada. (Phildar fans, check it out!)

In other news, I'm slowly getting over the cold. Slowly. And I'm getting excited about getting back to the Dale bug sweater!

I'm finishing up the crazy continental. At the Knitsmiths (our local knitting group) yesterday I picked up and knit the neckband. The neck turned out to be more of a boat neck than a crew neck. I think that has to do with the number fudging I did and how close-fitting the sweater is around my shoulders. I like it though and the neckband finishes it off nicely, I think. I've really enjoyed sort of designing this sweater on my own and figuring out what I want it to look like and seeing how it worked out. I feel confident that my next sweater (the green cables I swatched for) will fit even better.

I also managed to deal with the other finishing issue: cutting off the bottom few centimeters of the back, which I decided early on was too long. I cut an edge stitch right above where I wanted the new ribbing to start, threaded a smaller needle into last row of stitches before the cut to keep 'em in place, and picked out the stitches below them all the way across. Fun! Now I've got this crazy strip of ribbing as a souvenir, I guess. Or a headband. "Oh, very Bjorn Borg," said Julia! I reknit the ribbing and am using EZ's cast-on cast-off method to make a nice cast-off edge.

Yesterday we also got to see the amazing Dale pillow that Emily just finished. It is so beautiful, it's like you gotta redecorate the rest of your house now beautiful. Seeing it really makes me want to get well so I can get back to the Dale sweater I put aside right before I got this never-ending, now-relapsing cold. Now that the crazy continental is almost finished, it's calling to me. "Come back. Fair-isle is fun, remember!"

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, I wanted to call attention to Kristi's fantastic fiber voyage. She's lining up knitbloggers to take us on virtual fiber arts tours of their fair cities for a day. I thought the idea was so cool that I signed up right away and will be presenting my favorite knit spots around Boston in December. Join us!

OK, I've got a few assorted little projects that I have to get finished by December (well, let's say middle of December). Clockwise from bottom center: I'm working on the back of the tiger hat for my nephew. I have yet to start the Opal tiger socks for my other nephew. I need a baby hat to go with the baby mittens for a neighbor who's expecting. And I have to knit at least one hat out of these Lopi scraps for charity.

Then there's the ends. I've got to weave in the ends on the crazy continental. I'm dying to wear it, but now that the knitting and the exciting finishing are complete, I'm procrastinating. I just have to wear it this week though, so look for the finished pic to be coming soon!

And once all that's done, I'm allowing myself to start thinking about this.

Well, one hat at least. I finished the hat and mittens for my neighbor who's expecting a girl. Yeah, I got to make flowers! I think I'll try to work on the tiger hat today. If I get a couple of these odds and ends out of the way, then I can return to some of my more self-indulgent projects (finishing the crazy continental, continuing the Dale bug sweater and redoing Elizabeth III).

But I'm still not thinking about this.

I love it!

Finished the tiger hat for my nephew! All drunk from my recent knitting successes, I threw caution to the wind and just did the intarsia knitting with no bobbins and let the ends hang all over the place. Wild! The Opal tiger socks are next. And to inspire me to keep finishing off the odds and ends, today we present an internet tiger sock tour.

Of course, we must begin with Wendy. She made hers at the beginning of the year. Next, we have Stephanie of stephknits. It looks like she finished hers earlier this fall. Inga from Der kleine Sockhaus and Erin, aka tree, just finished theirs. Valerie of Valerie's blog has both socks on the needles. And Melissa from loose ends has a pair still just as virtual as mine!

And look, I didn't even mention this once!

Well, despite my attempts to psyche myself up, I didn't start the tiger socks. I did pick up the Dale bug sweater, though, and started the pattern on the body. But we've all caught another little bug here (what is it that's going around?!) and I have only been able to do a round or two at a time. So slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

And I confess - I thought about this a lot!

I'm feeling well enough to blog, I suppose. But no photos today - too pooped to pic!

So Sunday started off okay. Our Knitsmiths group was great, as usual. Anna brought in a fabulous sweater she just finished in Rowan's Big Wool and Biggie Print. It looked terrific on her! And Emily brought in a shell she completed using Noro Kureyon (inspired by Shobana's). Beautiful colors. Of course, you'll just have to take my word on this, because the bad news is that I hadn't remembered to bring my camera. And on the ugly side, as I sat there trying to make it through a couple rounds of the Dale bug sweater, I started feeling worse and worse and worse. That was the fastest descent into sickdom that I can remember going through. By the time I left Knitsmiths, I was having the full blown flu. That night was the worst so far, but I'm still relegated to the sofa for most of the daytime.

I thought about knitting and even tried starting a simple little hat out of some Kureyon leftovers (Emily's shell and Teresa's bag were so lovely I wanted to use that yarn again), but I didn't get too far. And then I mostly obsessed about how ugly I think the pattern is coming out on the Dale bug sweater. I can't seem to get a consistent tension going with my left hand this time. The stitches are looser for a row and then tighter for the next, so the pattern isn't a smooth as it was on the sleeves. I'm sure it will get better as I continue and get more into a rhythm on this sweater. In fact, I had the same concerns with the crazy continental, but now that I'm wearing it, it's all good.

A list of knitty things I am thankful for.

• The next project.
  
• Circular needles,
  
• a case to keep them in,
  
• and Elizabeth Zimmerman, who taught us (among other things) how to use 'em.
  
• Self-striping yarn (like the Kureyon in the hat I'm working on).
  
• Amazon.com's wish lists for helping me dream my dreamy little dreams.
  
• All things Phildar
  
• and fabulous frenchy friends who live near Phildar shops (you know who you are!).
  
• Chibi's
  
• My friend Julia for teaching me how to knit
  
• and my boys for looking so good in whatever I knit for them.
  
• Pottery Barn for sending their sheets in bags that are just perfect for knitting projects.
  
• Norway, for all of its amazing designers who inspire me to do fair-isle knitting (my first Dale so far).
  
• Knitty, of course
  
• and all you awesome knitbloggers out there!

First, a big cheer for antibiotics. I am finally feeling genuinely better (not 100%, but better). That was two and a half weeks of sick, which was of course just enough time to make absolutely sure that everyone else got sick, including my little boys, my husband, my mother who came for Thanksgiving, and who knows how many acquaintances and passersby. (Sorry everyone!)

Next, a cheer for a finished project. In the last few days I managed to finish the Kureyon hat, my easy knitting project for my convalescence. I'm not sure who this is for yet, but it does fit my own head very nicely. I'm positive that the recipient will want a matching pair of mittens. (Wink, wink.)

Finally, a little cheer for native, which I think I am finally ready to pick up again. I had been worried about the size, but after her visit, my mother assured me that she wanted oversized, so I am determined now to rescue this project from UFO-dom.