Agony of Defeat: Not so agonizing

Well, I'm out. I was fudging a bit on the official rules, initially, saying, "Well, I didn't cast on until like 8:30 on Opening Day, so I should have until 8:30 today, right? Right!"

And so I seamed like a furious little... seamer... this afternoon once the kids were finally down for their naps.

But eventually, after a couple hours and with a really narsty crick in my neck and fingers that were threatening to go crampy, I had to concede.


As you can see, I still have to seam up the sides and sleeves, do the ribbing on the collar, and weave in all the godforsaken ends. (Ugh! Now that I have a better idea of how these things are constructed for real, I'm definitely going to weave in as I go as best I can in the future.) It's not a ton of work, but it's more than I had time for. I figure I should be able to finish it this week easily - it's just a question of when I manage to tear my attention away from the, um... new sock I started. (It's not my fault! The pieces were blocking! I needed a tiny needle fix but had "cleared my needles" before the Olympics started, so I had to start something new!)

I will not get to put a nifty little gold medal up here on my blog. But I'm weirdly okay with that. I mean, it would certainly have been awesome to be able to post up a picture of one of my boys sporting a completely finished sweater. And I'm sure if I'd skipped the movie last night and stayed home to seam, I would have at least gotten as far as I'd gotten today, and perhaps after putting in my time today, I'd have squeaked in under the line. I'm certain that if last weekend hadn't been practically knit-free thanks to visiting my family, I definitely would have made it.

But really, none of that is here or there. Doesn't matter.

When you get down to it, I joined up on this crazy thing specifically to force myself over my mental block regarding sweaters, and I have totally done this. I've gotten past my sweater-phobia. Once I finish the green Prepster, I will decide if the other 8 oz of Candy Cane in blue-y purple will become another Prepster or if I will try my hand at a top-down raglan or something similar. Regardless, my newest goal is to have the other toddler sweater done in time for Easter. (Now watch, it'll be like 80 degrees out that day, making it cruel and unusual for me to make the kids wear wool sweaters while on some big egg hunt or something.)

I also am so very over my whole sweater-phobia that I ordered two sweater patterns for myself this past week:


The Braids cardigan, a big favorite over with the Ample Knitters group, so I'm sure to have a source for advice should I need it.


This one is "Brambleberry" and is a new offering over at Black Water Abbey. I know it's kinda complicated, but I'm really leaning hard toward this one as my choice for First Sweater I Knit For Me.

Also if you haven't happened to notice, the Knitty Surprises are up and I'm completely in love with Starsky. So that's another contender, I think.

So gold or no gold, I say my mission here is well accomplished. Many thanks to Stephanie for imagining and organizing this fantastic experience. While I didn't medal in my event, I do feel as though I've held fast to the original ideals of: citius, altius, fortius. I got a lot more done than I thought I would, considering how my diligence fell off after the front and back panels were completed. I certainly reached beyond my previous comfort zone and did something I was frankly really nervous about doing. And I do feel like I'm a stronger knitter for it.

Of course, no Olympian competes without the support of his or her team, and mine was a big help. The usual suspects, of course, were wonderfully supportive and I appreciate their cheering and good wishes. But a surprise assist came in at the last minute from Sally Melville's wonderful book, The Purl Stitch. So grateful am I for her wonderfully detailed instructions on how to seam pieces of knitting together (including her formula for figuring out the ratio of stitches to rows when attaching the sleeves, without that I probably would have just attempted it blindly and would have burnt the whole thing to ashes by now), that I find myself wondering if she might need a yarn sherpa or something, a la Stephanie's Yarn Boy. Because, you know, I'd be glad to do the job. Anytime.

So all in all, I'm really glad I participated in this Olympics, even though I didn't win my medal. I had a great time, gained new skills, and just feel really successful and pleased about the whole thing.

And to all the gold-medal winners out there: Congratulations. You earned it. Next time I'll be on the podium with you. Cheers!

I have an illness and lack commitment

So, this evening my nearest mommy-friend asked if I wanted to join her in seeing Brokeback Mountain after we got our respective children to bed. (Thank goodness for 9:30 shows!)

At first, I thought, "But... I need to seam my sweater! I was going to be all super-cool and have one of the kids wear it to Breakfast Club Sunday morning!" And then Caz wisely intervened and pointed out, "You have all of tomorrow. How often do you get out these days? Go. See. The. Movie."

So I did.

Never mind the four blocked and ready pieces of sweater I've got sitting here, never mind the seaming I need to do, never mind that the closing ceremonies are TOMORROW and weren't-we-using-the-Olympics-as-an-opportunity-to-grow and how-is-waiting-until-the-very-last-minute-like-usual-represent-growth-of-any-kind-again? Never mind all that. There was Getting Out to do, and dammit I did it.

The movie was, as all the critics have said, marvellous and amazing. Heath Ledger did such a good job being all clench-jawed and taciturn I was powerfully reminded of my grandfather through the entire movie. Michelle Williams was... I used to watch her on Dawson's Creek, back in its early, non-sucking seasons, and I had no idea she had this in her. Really just... remarkable. You should all go see it if you haven't already.

Here's the funny thing - did you know there are sheep in that movie? There are! OODLES of them! And me, with this weird new illness I just realized I have contracted, got all doofy looking at all those sheep going, "Wow. Look at all that wool."

sigh. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. (What? That's not hip anymore? The kids think that's lame? As is 'lame'? Really? Oh. Well. Crap. The cool kids do still say "crap", right? Oh good.)

Family Not Conducive to Olympic Success

Gnnnggg!

So I was doing great. Totally great. Right on target, everything going swimmingly.

As of late Thursday night, I had two finished sweater pieces:





So I was thinking to myself, "Gosh, if I really crank this out, I might be able to get the sleeves done and blocking before we go down to Chicago to visit my family!"

Which should have been my first clue.

Our two-day trip wound up getting extended into a three-day trip, complete with changing "home bases" between the first night and the second. I had gotten just an absurdly limited amount of sleep Thursday night, and then Friday night packing just did not go well for a variety of reasons, including marital miscommunication and plain ol' dumbassery on both my and Caz's parts. Collapsed to sleep Friday, overslept Saturday morning, final packing and getting things out to the car got side-tracked when Caz had an ill-timed OCD moment and decided to clean the living snot out of the kitchen, and so instead of leaving by 1 p.m. latest, we didn't pull out of the parking lot until 2:15. Which, all things considered, was pretty good, but still.

Then the kids didn't go to sleep on the way down even though they were by-God supposed to. Well, until the last half hour. THEN they decided to snooze out. So... yeah.

Anyway, lots of craziness later, and I finally cast on for the Green Prepster sleeves Sunday afternoon. Worked on them here and there along the way, but most of the times we were in the car I kept falling asleep, so exhausted by the crazy that is my family that I'd turned temporarily into a narcoleptic.

So as of this afternoon, this is all I had done:

This will not do.

I want to give myself two days for seaming, because heaven knows I've got no flippin' idea what I'm doing with all this, having only seamed like two hats in my entire knitting "career". Which means that I need to have these things blocking by Friday afternoon. Judging by how quickly the swatch dried (the swatch!! OMG! The answer to my What Do I Do If I Run Out Of Yarn prayers! I totally forgot until just this moment, I shit you not), I should have dry pieces by Saturday morning if I wash and set them up to block by Friday afternoon.

So I've got a lot of knitting to do by then. The two sleeves are roughly the same amount of knitting as the back, which took me four days to complete. I've got 2.5 days left to get this bad boy done. Eek.

Suddenly all those people who didn't choose endurance challenge-type events are looking mighty smart. Mighty smart indeed.

In somewhat less frantic news, I got to hang out with Meg Saturday night. Her partner is sock knitting, the Fiddlin' Fool, was unable to join us, but we managed to have fun all the same. She plied my frazzled self with Strongbow cider (mmmmmmmm!) and then we had fun with her ball winder, where I wound off several hanks of yarn - some which came hanked and some which I'd hanked myself after frogging various objects in order to soak out the kinks.


See how pretty?

The purple and periwinkle are Cascade 220 (one skein of the purple, three skeins of the periwinkle), and the two on the right are Sockotta in some gem/jewel-ish colorway (bottom), and striped Regia 6-ply (top) which will become another pair of Jaywalkers. Eventually. Actually I might cast those on Friday after I finish the sleeves (pleeeeaaaase let me finish the sleeves by Friday afternoon, O Marvelous Knit Goddesses!), just to give myself a break. This sweater is kinda startin' to kill me.

Had a lovely time with Meg chatting and comparing knitting things - I showed off my Jaywalkers, she showed off all her preparatory materials for Crossed In Translation - and walked the three blocks to a nice Greek restaurant near her. Normally, a three-block walk would be nothing. But see, it was something like 14 degrees Kelvin in Chicagoland Saturday night, and I'd stupidly left my hat and mittens in the car when Caz drove off to take the kids with him to my dad's. Luckily, I was in the home of knitters, so I had my choice of several hats, and some gloves were found for me as well. Thank goodness, because it was so cold on the walk back I thought my face was going to freeze off.

Meg also pointed out where the LYS near my dad's house (where we stayed the first night) is, so I stopped there Sunday afternoon for 20 minutes while Caz drove around the area with the kids. I wound up leaving with this:

I'm not sure of the specifics, but those will combine to make one pair of socks. I'm going to hold off on making any hard-and-fast decisions for now (look at me, delaying gratification! I think I'm growing as a person!), but I'm pretty excited about the colors.

And then Monday we finally decided it was time for us to visit that Temple of Organization, The Container Store, where we bought several nice things to help organize our apartment into something perhaps a bit more liveable. I also wheedled and looked pitiful enough that Caz allowed me to buy these for the keeping of the stash:

Aren't they gorgeous? As soon as I get this Olympics thing done, I'm going to do some serious stash organization and do my darnedest to avoid yarn temptation. Well, I'm going to try, at any rate. I figure that's got to count for something, you know?

So yeah. That was my weekend. Aren't you glad you got all the fun knitting content and none of the My Family Is Bugfuck Insane content?

Day Six - No Pix

I know, I promised pictures. I'm a filthy liar.

Actually, it's that I'm all snarly and snappish and so fiddling with the digital camera and then fiddling with the pictures and then fiddling with Blogger to put them up? Way beyond my levels of patience right now.

All this week, there's been construction going on around my apartment. Monday and part of Tuesday (the part before we took the kids out to play in the warm sunshine, of course), it was the razing of a bunch of the trees behind my apartment which make this... ahem, place palatable. (Yes, the italics would be where I'm self-censoring out a lot of "colorful" descriptors of my two-bedroom apartment with a single lonely little phone jack and a half-size dishwasher (and me with two toddlers) and a kitchen with practically negative counter space and no drawers wide enough to be a silverware drawer (oh, how I wish I was kidding!) as they're all half-size drawers (to match the dishwasher, I'm sure) and the smoke alarm directly in front of the stove.)

Anyway, so Monday was spent trying to knit despite the pounding in my skull (from the woodchipper outside my window) and counting how many times Caz or I said to the other, "Are they still cutting down trees?" Eventually, I gave up and napped the afternoon away in sheer self-defense.

Tuesday was spent trying to wrangle the kids and Caz out of the house (how come having two adults around to help get the kids handled and out the door actually takes longer than when I used to do it on my own?) to go play in the sunshine, despite the fact that the woodchipper got fired up at 8:30 and had been shut down 15 minutes before we left.

At least it seems they're done chopping down trees, and it seems they even left a few up. Which is something, though I've got a bad feeling the remaining trees aren't here for long.

Today, though, was something new - apparently they were out in the corridor outside our apartment putting up chair rails and otherwise beautifying the halls. So all day there's been a circular saw (wow, I really am my dad's daughter - how on earth can I tell the difference between the sound of a circular saw and say, a band saw? Weird) running outside our door, plus the usual drilling and pounding and hammering which would accompany such a project.

So, like I say. My head is pounding. My patience has worn thinner than thin, and I'm beginning to feel hustled by this sweater.

The back panel was easy. Honestly, it was alarmingly easy. I even got the cast-on right the first time. That /never/ happens! But now I've moved on to the front panel and well... the tides are turning.

First I forgot to switch my Denise Interchangeable circ from US8 to US6 to do the hem ribbing on the front panel. So I'd cast on and done the first couple stitches before I realized my mistake, had to start over. So I switched to US6, cast on, did the ribbing. But then I forgot to switch back to US8 when I finished the ribbing and moved on to the stockinette section. Did four rows before I realized my mistake. So picked up the stitches on my circ (okay, gotta admit, I looooooove that trick), frogged back, switched to US8 and started the stockinette again. Since then, it's been all right, but I'm on my guard now. The trust between me and this sweater has taken a hit, and it's going to be a while before we rebuild it.

So, I'm about to go back and try to knit now that it seems the sawing in the hallway is complete (please, Knit Goddesses, grant me this one request), the kids are down for naps and Caz has been banished sent out to run a few errands.

But to end on a much more upbeat note: Congrats to Scout who was among the six winners of the Jaywalker KAL contest! I'm sure you'll pick out something extra-yummy!

...and she sticks the landing!

Okay, that's gymnastics, not figure skating, but it's what I could come up with.

Felt very much a part of something immense tonight, as I cast off the back panel of my First Sweater while some really amazing Olympic pairs figure skating was going on. And I just have to say - I don't think I've ever seen someone with more sheer, unadulterated grit than Zhang Dan of China. If somebody had hurled me through the air and I landed on the ice on my knee? I wouldn't be skating through, I'd be sobbing under the judge's table demanding a cold pack and a bucket of Advil.

So my cast-off took a while, because I kept having to pause to stare, but I did get it done. Tomorrow I will cast on for the front and try to not think about yardage. I am less worried about it than I was previously, so hopefully it was just a bunch of panic for nothing. (Not, you know, that I'm good at that or anything.)

Photos tomorrow, and a Happy Valentine's to all!

(Oh, and this just makes me ludicrously happy. Gleeful all out of proportion to how it should. But hey, it's kinda fun anyway.)

Jaywalkers - complete!!

Yep, that's right - I finished my Jaywalkers. Did up the kitchenering and wove in my ends just a couple hours before I cast on for the Olympics. I was pretty darn pleased, really - I put them right on and wore them during my opening ceremonies knitting.

Now I know, you're thinking, "Waitaminnit, didn't she give up on her Kool-aid Jaywalker and start up some new ones?" Yep, you're absolutely right, I did.

But that was before I'd realized that if I wanted to finish my Jaywalkers in time for the end of the KAL, I was going to have to knit a complete pair of socks by Feb 10th, in order to make room for the Olympics. It was also before I got down to the heel flap on the new stripey Jaywalkers and discovered (you can guess already, can't you?) that they didn't fit.

So, that was when I went, "You know... I like the Kool-aid Jaywalker. It does, technically, fit, though I could wish the stitches didn't spread so much when I put it on, because it diminishes the coolness of the pooling. But that half a heel flap is awesome, and I've stared at it for close to a month now and still can't bring myself to frog it, so maybe I should just carry on as I've begun."

So that's what I did. I cast on and started the ribbing.

Oh, but that wily Jaywalker, it had to have one last laugh at my expense. Because see, I'd cast on and gotten going on the ribbing, and man... it was taking forever. Now mind you, that first inch of ribbing on a sock always seems to take forever to me. I don't know what it is, but somehow I immediately enter Stephanie's Knitting Black Hole and just have to grit my teeth and slog through until finally, somehow, I manage to escape. (It should also be noted that, if one were to go through and measure the top ribbing on all of the socks I've knitted so far, the smart money would go on the side of "not quite an inch of ribbing" rather than "a bit more than an inch of ribbing". Just sayin'.)

But even so, knowing that that first inch of ribbing is always hellish for me, this still was taking an awfully long time. And yet I persevered, dreaming that perhaps I'd be able to wear my nifty Kool-aid Jaywalkers during the Olympic opening ceremonies (drat, I've already given away the ending...). Finally, after staying up until Oh-God-Thirty one night with Caz, having intended to watch one episode of Buffy and instead watching, um... the whole disc... I finished the ribbing. Oh the glee! The glee! I was so happy! And so I decided, to celebrate, I would knit one last round - that first round of the pattern which is actually just a knit round.

Now, it should be noted that when I start up a sock or really any project on dpns, I prefer to use the lowest number of dpns I can get away with - I just find it more manageable to do it that way, at least until there's sufficient fabric to kind of hold it all together. So even though the pattern calls for using five dpns, I decided to just use four while I did the cuff.

So doing the first round of the pattern stitch served two purposes - it was not only celebratory, but it was also going to be my chance to get the stitches shifted around onto the proper number of needles. So I'm knitting along, reducing the number of stitches on each needle to 19. So I put 19 sts on the first needle, 19 on the second, 19 on the third and... waitaminnit. There's a lot more than 19 sts left here. WTF is going on?!?

I count out the stitches and discover that instead of casting on 76 sts, I've cast on 96 sts! 96! Ninety! Six! Gnnnggg!

See, you can see for yourself here:



The sock on the left is made with 76 sts (I quadruple-checked, so I'm sure that's right). The inch of ribbing on the right? 96 sts.

So I frog and stuff it aside for a day or two until I can cool down and look at it again without wanting to throw it on the ground and stomp on it. Finally managed that last Saturday, cast on, and somehow managed to churn out a whole sock by Friday, which for me is rather an accomplishment. Though um... I do think it was helped along by my spending the whole of Sunday afternoon sitting in my recliner under a quilt knitting while I finished recuperating from a really vile stomach flu.

(And because it's just not a knitting blog until I've included a cute picture of my pet with my knitting, this is my sweet Converse (yes, I did name her after a shoe, but it's not my fault - when she came to us her name was Teva!), napping next to Jaywalker: The Final Iteration.)



So here, at looooong last, are my completed Jaywalkers! Yay!


And check out those heel flaps - it would figure that they would be the parts with the funkiest pooling, eh?


And finally, an action shot. (No, I don't plan on wearing these socks out in public with blue plaid pajama pants - I may be oblivious, but I'm not that oblivious.)

Team Sweater - Day Two

(Okay, so I'm totally slacking on updates here - was all week. Was not my fault, though. On Wednesday the monitor went ka-fizzle, leaving me with no real way to do proper updates. However, the kind folks at Dell stepped up to the plate and managed to get us a replacement monitor in, I shit you not, something like 18 hours, from the time Caz called to the time the FedEx guy knocked on our door. Anyway, will get caught up later, I promise. Really!

So, the Olympics. I never did get a chance to officially post up what I'm doing, so here it is:

I'm making my first-ever sweater, toddler-sized in deference to my usual time constraints. The pattern is "Prepster" from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits in this funky-cool light green Candy Cane yarn I got at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival from Sandy's Palette.



So far, so good:



(The red and gold bits would be Dove Dark Chocolate hearts - Go Team Chocolate!)



However, I'm realizing that the true challenge of this project is not going to be the whole notion of knitting up the pieces of a sweater and turning them into a wearable garment. The true challenge is going to be resisting the urge to gnaw my throwing hand off out of sheer boredom over all the freakin' stockinette. Good lord! Should one of these challenges come up again one of these days, I gotta remember to pick a project with a bit more interest!

It's quite seriously all I can do not to go start up that other Jaywalker I've got yarn for.

Also? I'm worried about yardage. According to the pattern, I would need 540 yards of yarn for the size I'm knitting (still hitting gauge pretty much spot on, so that's something at least). However, that number is, so far as I can tell, for both the sweater /and/ the matching hat. I've temporarily misplaced the "ball" band (quotes because it was a whoppin' great hank, not a ball), but I know it was over 8 oz of wool, with somewhere between 520 and 560 yards. I bought two skeins - one green and one blue, but I'm not sure which skein was the larger off hand.

Anyway, point is, I'm worried about the yardage. Caz wound it all off for me (now that's what I call an Olympic-level support team!) into four center-pull balls, and I ran out of the first ball tonight. I don't have a scale here at home, so I have no idea what sort of weight I'm dealing with as far as amount knitted vs. amount remaining, but this is starting to make me a little batty. I have, however, decided that if by the time I finish the back and the front I'm still really worried about it, I will do a provisional cast-on for the sleeves and save knitting the ribbed cuffs until the end. If all else fails, I'll do the collar ribbing and the cuff ribbing in a contrasting color. And if I really wind up screwed, once I finish cussing and throwing things, I'll do that freaky ass nifty trick where you can separate a piece of knitting and save all those live stitches. And I'll do the hem ribbing in said contrast color as well, then.

Gnnnggg. It's going all right, but I think I might have to give myself a day off once I finish the back, so I can work on something cool and interesting for a change. I can't imagine doing a plain ol' stockinette sweater for an adult, even a cheeky wee adult quite unlike myself or Caz. I think I'd go stark freakin' mad.