Hoping to correct my colossal mistake as quickly as possible, I immediately cast on for the second piece of my recent disaster by dye lot design. I double and triple checked the dye lots, knit one ball and then set about separating the two sections of the first piece. First step, pick out the first row where I'd changed to the new ball.

come on, you can see the dye lot difference, can't you?

Next step, line up the two sections with matching dye lots.

yes, now those two match!

Last step, graft. It was just that easy - no more challenging than closing up the toe on a sock - until I got to the purl ridges. None of my books explain how to switch from knits to purls when grafting. And as I'm not an intuitive knitter, or gifted with great spatial reasoning, I had to use trial and error to figure out the right rhythm.

This is as far as I got before I conked out on the sofa.

I made it through the grafting on the front of my design project. It was a nightmare! Somehow I managed to get through the first three rib repeats by trying something out, ripping and retrying but without learning the sequence. I had to start saying what I was doing aloud to really get the sequence down. It reminded me of that part of Galaxy Quest where they have to go through the chompers and Brandon is giving them the sequence over the vox thingy:

"You wanna take a left and then just straight on through the chompers... Okay, the sequence is - two-two-four-two-..."

And I'm totally feeling like Tawny: "Well screw that! We shouldn't have to DO this! It makes NO LOGICAL SENSE! Well forget it! I am not doing it! This episode was badly written."

"Whoever wrote this episode should die."

Another trip to the Lego store. The boys saved up their points, picked out what they wanted, and carried the boxes out of the store with much excitement and oh boying. And then, as instinctual as speech itself, B looks at his brother's box and says "mine's bigger than yours." Nevermind that S's legos are more complicated or have more pieces than B's. Nope, apparently size, and only size, is what matters.

Man, they start young!

Crinkle fronts: pink, lacy, and done.

This cardi is starting to look small to me. I tried on a sample at the store a while back that fit me great. Unfortunately, it wasn't labeled. We measured it and guessed that it was a small or a medium. So, given the propensity of cotton to stretch as you wear it, I decided to knit the small size for myself. Well, it certainly is small. I just keep reminding myself that it's not meant to close in the front.

Just the back left to knit! And I'm already starting to dread all that picot edging.

Well, we're offline at least. After about a two-hour power outage, our internet connection has not come back up. Our internet service provider says they'll come by "sometime tomorrow" to look at the "problem", but if it's our fault, we'll have to pay. Riiiight, we broke it.

So I'm imposing on some nice neighbors with an unsecured wireless network to say hi and apologize to all those to whom I owe emails and correspondence, and then I'll just fade away back into the dark ages of pre-internet life.

See you on Wednesday, I hope.

Well, surprise surprise, our internet provider admitted to having a wee problem in our area on Monday and managed to fix things without coming to our house and accusing us of breaking the internet. Who would have thought? So no need to cancel Tuesday after all!

Sockapaloooza kept me pretty busy this weekend. With the help of my awesome sock sisters, I've identified almost 20 dropouts and have arranged sock saviors for their pals. All of you who offered up finished or almost-finished socks were great. There were enough knitters with socks-in-progress out there to cover all the immediate pals-in-need. And a big thank you to super sock savior, Ann who (due to my not noticing that I'd already called on her once) has been a sock savior twice over! Check out all the folks with sock savior stars on the big list.

We've actually got some finished socks this week too from Ina's group, including Ina herself!

Ina finally finished beaded rib with bead socks.
Molly finished her socks and sent them out via super speedy mail!
Pam-M. finished stripey Metropolis socks.
Paula slogged out of a multi-layer swamp and finished her socks.

Thanks to everyone who checked off that they could be a sock savior. I'm sure we'll be needing a few more, but we're almost done. Can you believe it?! It has been such a relief this time to know that so many of you were willing to help out forgotten pals. Your generosity and concern that everyone have a successful swap is one of the things that makes me continue this. Wishing you all lots of good knitting karma for your good intentions.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

And in a side note, wouldn't you know it, I'm offline for one day and I end up on You Knit What??! Well, it was bound to happen to me one day, but the boys? What about this silly thing? Or these? The pants are even done in Homespun - there have to be bonus points for that.

It's getting down to the wire for sending out dye swap yarn (only like 4 days left!) and I still haven't sent out my pal's yarn - yikes! Since Knitpicks is out of their color-your-own yarn (doh!) and I've used/ruined the dozen skeins I'd ordered for practice, I decided to try overdyeing the last skein I'd made. The only thing I hadn't liked about it was the unevenness of the colors. After soaking it for ages in a strong acid bath and using more concentrated dye solutions, I ended up with really nice, even greens.

Hey Mikey, she likes it!

But what the picture doesn't show, and what I didn't see until the skein was all dry, is that there are little speckles in the blue. I don't think I can send it. Poop!

In the meantime, I got my dye swap skein from Roxanne. Look what beautiful blues she made for me!

the pic she posted here is much better
with all this rain here again, my camera couldn't do it justice

(You can even get some of this yarn on her online store or from her etsy store!) I love the yarn, but I feel bad, because apparently my preferences were difficult. Sorry, Roxanne! I love pretty much everything in her store, so however I phrased things must have made me sound like the pickiest person on earth. I do love the results though. Thank you, thank you!

So it's pretty blue socks for me and back to the drawing board for my dye pal. Anyone have another dozen skeins of Knitpics color-your-own to sell me? ;0)

You may recall that I started knitting this cardi in the hopes that if I knit something springy, spring would come. Instead of spring, we got floods. And it's still raining. Knitting crinkle would appear to be some sort of powerful rain dance. Luckily, I'm almost done dancing.

The sock! I forgot to finish the Gryffindor sock! I found it this week buried under design projects and crinkle.

No idea when I'll be able to get back to this poor neglected little guy. Maybe it's time to pull out the Harry Potter DVDs to get me in the mood. Any other HP knitters out there working away on stalled projects? Know any spells for getting your knitting back on track?

Proof that it's been much too wet around here lately.

The boys wear their swim goggles every time we go out. And they're building Lego boats.

This weekend was our last chance to dye our dyeorama swap yarn before being hunted down and publicly shamed for delinquency. I'm not about to get caught not doing right by my swap buddy!

I crossed my fingers and put my last skein of yarn in the dye pot. The dye gods took pity on my poor miserable yarn-ruining soul and gave me a winner.

introducing self-striping "80's Retro Prep"
and a yarn to be named later

The darker skein is the first skein I dyed for my pal. It looked so good after another wash and reskeining, I'm sending that one off to her as well. I think it might be more her colors. Telling you what I named it would give away who my pal is, so it's still a secret for now!

Bye, bye beautiful sock yarn. And thanks to Scout and the other dye swap mamas for running such a great show!

Well, maybe pen-penultimate round up.... We have a couple more finishers - "hip! hip!" for Emily and Flan - and "hooray!" for these finished sock saviors:

Allie has finished sock savior socks!
Erin finished sock savior socks (in one of my favorite yarns!).
Sarah sent off a wonderful sock savior package to her second pal.

And on an only tangentially related note, I have bought my last skein of pink sock yarn. I have had a serious pink sock yarn craving the last few months. Pink, pink, pink. I haven't even knit a pair of pink socks yet, but I clearly want to.

Regia, Koigu, Ultramerino, Trekking, Seacoast Handpainted, Shelridge Farms, Lornas, Regia

The most recently purchased skein, bought at the store over the weekend, is Seacoast Handpainted "Cherry Fizz" (it's the red-pink one by the Trekking). I've spent weeks telling people to buy this yarn so I wouldn't have to. They didn't. So I bought it and told myself it has to be my last skein of pink sock yarn. Well, perhaps my pen-penultimate skein....

My dye-o-rama swap sock yarn is knitting up nice. There's been no major pooling and the yarn feels great. It's sport weight yarn - I'm knitting on US4s - and it really reminds me of the ArtYarns Supermerino: soft and squooshy. And it matches my blog!

I've been seaming and finishing my dye lot disaster, grafting rescue design and in all the try-ons, I didn't once notice the grafting line or even remember to look for signs of it. All's well that ends up well grafted, I say.

check the upcoming July Magknits to see more!

I guess you never know what you can do until you screw something up really bad.

After a lengthy blocking (and the pieces are still biasing!), I was able to seam up crinkle.

Just a few dozen miles of picot edgings left to do on this little thing. And it's one of those cast on 3, bind off 4 kinds of picot edgings, so it's going to involve like a million stitches. Someone tell me this sort of thing goes more quickly than it sounds.

I'm all packed up for a weekend away in NYC. (With the boys.) I'm not expecting to have any knitting time, but just in case, I've packed a little bag.

another wicked cool giftie my mom found
at our favorite Brooklyn boutique, Otto

It's a swim cap that has been sewn into a bag! Isn't it just the neatest thing? It feels all rubbery and spongey just like you'd expect. It's so funny. And it's the perfect size for holding a skein of sock yarn!

a skein of my 80's Retro Prep for me - wheee!

Sightseeing in NYC with the twins...

Look, a giant FIFA soccer ball in front of the Adidas store. (The boys got free little soccer balls.)

And a trip on the Circle Line.

S really, really, really wanted to have those green foam Statue of Liberty hat and torch souvenir thingies. I wasn't sure why he wanted them so much, but they were only $6, so I figured what the heck. Was it ever worth it! He put on that crown, grinned as big as I've ever seen, and lifted up the torch like he was the beacon of freedom itself. And he kept it up for everyone in the boat to see. We weren't anywhere near the statue yet so he sat back down in his seat, slightly bored with the trip, but with torch held high. He stood up again proudly when we finally got to the statue itself.

Then he raised his torch for every passing boat on the ride back from the statue. And for then for all the passengers on the M42 bus. And then for our fellow subway travellers. And then back at home....

Blankie update:

It's still falling apart. He still loves it.

Phew! (Wipes sweat from brow.) I know it doesn't look like much from here, but I'm still hunting down stray socks and sock saviors behind the scenes. Um, if any of you who reported being done knitting haven't sent out your socks yet, please do so now. I've been chasing down finished but unsent socks all week. They aren't going to walk themselves to the post office! ;0)

We have three more finishers this week: Danielle and Mia are done! And Bev received her socks from Connie, who has no blog, so go see them on Bev's blog later today! And if you hold real still, and listen real close, you can hear the clicking of sock savior needles and the smiles of saved pals (like Dorothee who received these socks from Agnes). Go sock saviors!

Just in case you haven't had enough of sock knitting, check out Angela's Crazy Socks Design Competition. The details are in this post in German, but the idea is to be creative and design your own pair of socks, be they crazy, normal, men's, women's, kids', wool, cotton, whatever. Think up something new, send in your design to Angela and then everyone gets to vote on the best. The winner gets a prize! Leave a note for Angela on the blog if you're interested. I'm sure she'd be happy to post the details in English if there's interest.

Five designs-worth of yarn is sitting in boxes in the office waiting for me. I've received so much yarn recently that the mailman now has a special honk he uses to call me to the door! It's exciting, it's overwhelming, it's horrifying all at the same time.

I'd love to get some feedback from anyone about the following yarns:

Knitpicks Shine - I almost scored some of this at the last Knitsmiths yarn swap, but Johanna snatched it up!

Classic Elite Renaissance - they had a TON of this at the latest (and still on-going) semi-annual clearance sale at Wild & Wooly and I loved it! Even though I hadn't planned to buy anything, I couldn't pass up this bag.

Cascade 220 Superwash - it's even better than the original, isn't it? And the colors!

Oh man, I love yarn.

Sunscreen, chalk, dpn's. What more do you need for an afternoon in the park?

(Sorry, I can't show you what I was knitting, because then I'd have to kill you.)

Nothing to see here. I'm working on pattern writing. As S would say: "boooooooooring." So go watch a little World Cup instead.

I was at least going to go shopping for the ribbon yesterday, but torrential downpours and flash flooding convinced me to stay inside. Luckily, knitbuddy Lisa had a few ribbons to help me get an idea of what kind of look I want.

so, what kind of a look do I want?

I kind of like the plain pink one, but then again, I'm boring like that. I'd love to find a wide ribbon like in the original. In fact, exactly the ribbon in the original would be great. Oh jeez, this is going to be just as hard as picking out buttons!

Finally some knitting I can tell you about! More rain slowed business at the store this weekend, leaving me with time to start a new sample. A small swatch for KFI's Extra Angora turned into the Short Lacy Scarf from Ella Rae Book Two.

I've never really done a genuine lace pattern before (I just don't wear lace). But I have to say, it's pretty darned cool. The angora is a delight to knit with. I hadn't liked it so much when I was knitting the swatch, but when I started the lace, it's like the yarn felt better. So thumbs up for the Extra Angora. And (yes, you know what's coming) it's blue!

co2, bo4, co2, bo4... - only 186 stitches to go!

With the support of my best knitbuds, I sat down this weekend to tackle all that picot edging on crinkle. Although the picot part didn't take quite as long as I had imagined in my nightmares of the last few nights, the picking up stitches part took longer. Five hours over two days, and I'd finally picoted the whole thing. But now all my cute little picots are flipping up along the curled edges of the sweater. Grrrrr.

and I already blocked this sweater!

So I'm blocking the bejeesus out of it again with the aid of a few phone books.

the official blocking tool of the Boston Red Sox

It's the first time I've touched those phone books in years. I knew they'd be good for something someday.

Patience is rewarded!

In case you didn't see the "well-worth-the-wait" socks Bev got last week, check them out here!
And this week Anne sent sock savior socks to Lavendersheep.
Dani received sock savior socks from Janine!
Di got her package complete with Sundara sock yarn!
Grumperina finally got her lovely lacy socks!
Jen received socks from her pal.
Jill got sock savior socks from Amber.
Kara received sock savior socks from Kit.
Karen got TWO pairs of socks from her sock savior, Sandy!
Lene received her socks.
Suzanne sent sock savior socks to Alicia.
And I heard that Ariel finished sock savior socks, Ina is working doubletime on a replacement pair for her pal and a sock savior pair, and Lou's finished a sock savior pair as well, so at least four more pals will be rewarded this week.

Thanks to all the awesome sock saviors out there! And a big shout-out to Allison at Simply Sock Yarn for going above and beyond to help a sock savior get started on socks in a hurry. (And she's still waiting on socks herself, folks!)

It was a beautiful day yesterday in Boston, so the boys and I went out to the Public Garden for a ride on the swan boats and a quick trip to the Paper Source across the street.

We spotted a great ribbon for crinkle right away and then the boys granted me a whole four more minutes to see if there were any others that were better. I did find a second one I liked and since I didn't think I could decide between the two before boy meltdown occurred, we dashed over to the counter to get both.

The boys earned an ice cream cone for coming with me to the store and we rode on the swan boats one more time before heading home, where I could decide on that ribbon and finish up a still slightly curly crinkle. Yes, the blocking had only moderate results.

Most of the edging now lies sort of perpendicular to the garment, instead of lying down flat. It's not completely flipped up anymore, so that's actually a huge improvement. It looks pretty much like in the image in the book, with plenty of natural curl left in but still just enough picot showing to add that frilly element to the sweater.

So, what ribbon did I pick? How's it look? You'll have to wait until I shower and steal my photographers away from their legos to see....

I couldn't resist the pink/orange ribbon! Although the pink in the pink/green one matched perfectly, and I absolutely loved the little red picots on the edge of the ribbon, too much of all that was lost when I wove the ribbon through the eyelets. Plus, it gave the cardi a more sedated look and made it, dare I say, even a little boring. Once I strung the pink/orange ribbon through the eyelets, crinkle really became a cardi I wanted to wear. It makes it so fun and bright, which is good since it's another overcast, soon to be wet day here in Boston.

You may recall that I started this sweater back in April (which I've renamed "March Two: The Wrath of March") in the hopes that it would finally bring on the spring. It didn't work (note: May will now be called "March Enough for You Yet?"). All we got was rain. And now we've got rain with an intermittent chance of summer. Conclusion: my knitting either has no effect on the weather or a very, very bad one. But I can't worry about that, not when I've got my super fun scrunchie cardi to play with: up, down, up, down....

I have to say it's been a little strange knitting this cardi here on the blog, since I feel like so many folks out there are following along, waiting to see how it all turns out before starting one themselves. It's sort of like how I feel about being a mom. I don't have any friends with children older than mine and so I feel like my friends with younger kids or no kids are taking the opportunity to watch to see how things go first. It's hard going first, but I try my best. In this case, I think the results are pretty good. I'm ready to give most of the credit for that to the pattern, the yarn, the ribbon, the fates, all of which worked with me this time. I'm sure there are several things that others will want to do differently, but I like the way it came out. (And for the record, I think the boys have come out okay so far too!)

For those of you thinking about making this one, I'll even toss in some specs for ya:

Crinkle
Rowan 39
size small
cotton glace #822 Peony
US2 (edging) and US3 (body) needles
24 sts and 34 rows-ish per 4"/10cm over pattern

(Programming note: As of tomorrow, the blog will be going on vaca for a few days. I'll be here, but my techguy is moving, so the blue blog will be offline while the server is driven to another part of the country and set up in its new home. Be back soon!)