Harry Potter and the Scarf of Doom

I knit a few more rows of the horrible Harry Potter scarf. I hate that scarf. It is the very bane of my existence. I still have 2 balls of red yarn to go. It's very long. It has to be, because it's very wide. I don't know if I'll ever finish it.

It's become famous. The kids make comments all the time about it.

"Are you ever going to finish that?"

Eventually. That or I'll donate it to poor bungee jumpers. It's nearly long enough now.

Next!

One of Ryan's Christmas presents was his choice from a book I recently purchased. It's Rowan's Knitting for Him. Rowan has great patterns if you're (a) a man or (b) a woman with a 34 inch chest (which I haven't been since, oh, I don't know, 6th grade).

This is the one he chose. Unfortunately, the yarn they suggest, a RYC blend of cashmere, wool, and microfiber, is somewhere around $9 a ball and it takes about 20 balls. For those of you who are slow on the up-take or have already started your New Year's drinking, that's somewhere around $180.


Being the resourceful girl that I am, however, I found equally fabulous yarn for about half the price. Knit Pick's Andean Silk in Chocolate is the orders I got. I think it will look pretty nice. Andean Silk is a wool, alpaca, and silk blend. I have a couple balls of this yarn and not only is it incredibly soft, but it knits up great. It gets a little sheen from the silk and has the kind of stitch definition that will look great in this sweater.


And ladies...before you ask...the nice young man in the pictures does not come with the sweater (sorry, Mom!).


I just have to wait until I get paid again! Because of course I need some more 14 inch Lantern Moons to get it going.

Why On Earth Anybody Felts Intarsia?

One review I read of Nicky Epstein's felted intarsia bag asked why anyone would felt their knitting after doing such intricate colorwork.

I now know the answer.

In real intarsia I would have been forced to weave in all the ends I had left over. By felting it, I got to be lazy and trim them all off of the halfway felted bag. This is the disaster that I had on my hands after the first run through the washer.


This is how much better it looked after I trimmed it. I think that by doing it between washings I nailed it. The ends were secure enough to trim, but the second wash hid the spots that were trimmed.


Again, this is why you felt the tremendously difficult intarsia. It's so you don't bang your head against the wall when you're trying to weave approximately 8,469 ends in. This is the pile of stuff I trimmed of the bag. You know, the stuff I would have woven.


The bag is finished. I forgot to take a picture of it before I wrapped it up for Christmas. It came out pretty well considering I ran out of brown yarn and started taking apart the I-cord, then cut it way down after it was felted because it was humongous, then sewed it by hand (you know how I feel about that!). I'm even considering using the leftover pink yarn for some kind of Valentine's Day felted something-or-other. We'll see how that goes.

Lace Blocking (A Primer on How to Fascinate Cats)

I saved myself 40 bucks or so today by going to Lowe's and buying some coiled 18 gauge steel wire instead of putting up the cash for lace blocking wires. You'll be happy to know that I was correct. They work pretty well...once you get the wire to stop coiling. I have blocked the first half of the Heart scarf.



I'm still working out the kinks (real kinks, this time), but it certainly does the trick.


I blocked it on the trusty ironing board, the favorite hangout for cool cats, so of course I had an audience for this, too. The fact that there was wire moving that they could bat at didn't hurt, either.

While it dries, I can knit the second half. You have to knit up from both ends in order to get the pattern to go the right direction when you wear it. So I have plenty of time to block the first part. Maybe I can block the second part while I finish the felted bag...

Here we have the second half in the fantastic orange bag. Still working with a net!

Safety Net

I, quite literally, ripped this lace pattern out 30 times. I was swearing at it. It got ugly. I put it aside and then went back to it and started using the knitting equivalent of a safety net.



On a plain row (many wrong side rows are all purl stitches) you weave a piece of scrap yarn through your knitting to mark a place where you know you were right. Then, when you screw up you only have to rip out 10 rows instead of a heart-wrenching 30 or 40 rows.

Since then I haven't made a single mistake, of course! We'll see how this goes. Only 25 or so pattern repeats (250 rows) to go!

Queen of Hearts

I've knit lace once before. There are lace panels in the cable scarf. They're nothing fantastic, but they are still lace. I've been having trouble with more elaborate lace lately, though. I just can't get it right. My yarn overs never look as big as the pictures in the patterns.

I did find a cute heart pattern, part of an old Knitty special edition. I'm having some luck with it. It might become a scarf.


It's a pretty simple pattern. Aside form the k4tog (knit 4 stitches together all at once!). You just have to split it in the middle if you want all of your hearts to go the right way. That's easy.


One of the things about lace knitting is that it doesn't look like much until you block it. I wasn't really sure about it until I had blocked it. I'm on my way to Lowe's to look for wire instead of paying through the nose for lace blocking wires. We'll see how that goes.

5 Feet of I-Cord Later...

I have now made it all the way across the 56 rows of floral intarsia pattern. I have begun knitting the bottom so that I can do the floral pattern again up the other side. Woo-hoo!



I have knit approximately 5 feet of I-cord.



Great. Only 2 more feet to go. No problem.

I'm Not an Idiot

I can knit. I can knit lace (kinda). I can knit cables. I can now knit intarsia. I can knit English (yarn in the right hand). I can knit Continental (yarn in the left hand). If you put the two together, I can knit Fair Isle (in theory...I'm not really that great at it, yet).

I don't tell you this to brag. I tell you this because until half an hour or so ago...I couldn't make a decent I-cord.

The "I" stands for idiot. Because it's so easy, any moron could figure it out. Except this idiot.

Finally, I decided I'd better figure it out because the felted purse has 84 inches of I-cord for the handle. So I gave it another shot and I finally got it. It ain't pretty, but it's getting twisted and then felted anyways.


I have about 12 inches done so far. Let's see 12 inches, out of 84 inches. In Ryan math that's probably 3/4 of the way done...All right!

It's a Kind of Magic

They say that patterned knitting like Fair Isle and intarsia and such go faster because of the magic of watching the pattern form. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with this, but it is pretty neat to watch the flowers and leaves happen. It almost makes me forget that I have 30 pieces of yarn dangling from my work. Almost.


This is what the back looks like. In real intarsia you have to weave all the ends in. Which might be my favorite thing ever. Right up there with visits to the dentist and driving to Saegertown everyday through the snow belt.


But, hey, by now I must be done if I was halfway done the other day...

Making Progress

I'm getting the hang of this whole intarsia thing. What I've found is that you have to stop thinking about the shape of the flower or leaf or what have you. You have to think in rows.


That means you have lots of separate yarns for each color part. This makes for a big mess no matter what I try to do. Every couple of rows I straighten the whole thing out again. It's a good time. Really.


I am getting somewhere, though. I have a flower and a leaf done. I'm about 25 rows into the intarsia pattern. According to Ryan, that means I'm halfway done. I think he must have flunked math because I have to do it again on the other side. And do the bottom and the sides and the straps and sew it together and felt it. I don't think that's half.



This is testing the outside limits of my skills. I like it.

Intarsia - ish

So, I started the Nicky Epstein bag. This is the first few rows that end up becoming the casing for the dowel. No problem. Stockinette stitch with a little garter thrown in for a turning ridge. Easy. Could do this in my sleep.


Then we get to the intarsia, the floral pattern, and I want to bang my head against the wall just a little. There's got to be an easier way. I have ripped this out at least two dozen times already and I'm only about 15 rows into the pattern. I think I'm making it harder than it has to be. That, and I keep missing things because I suck at reading patterns. Basically, it looks like a big mess right now.


The actual pattern is starting to emerge, though. I can see it. I'm glad it ends up getting felted. I'm not very neat about it yet. Here's part of a flower and a leaf. Really, I swear.


I'm going to keep reading. God knows I have enough books about knitting. I ought to be able to figure this out.

Felt Up

I am taking on the Nicky Epstein felted bag from last year's Interweave Holiday Gifts issue. I actually have no idea whatsoever how to do intarsia. I have some books, though, that tell you how. I'll see what I can do. This is what it's supposed to look like. The big rip in the page is courtesy of Gracie.



Of course, I couldn't find the yarn that the pattern specifies. Well, that's not entirely true. I found some of it. I just didn't like it. Instead, I ordered some alpaca from Victoria. Then I decided I really wanted to use KnitPick's Wool of the Andes instead. So now I have a bag full of WotA and lots of extra Alpaca Yarn Co. Classic DK (darn!). Here's the WotA in the kitty-proof (and doggie-proof) bag, ready to go.



I even knit some of it together in the order it will go in to check how it felts. I like it. The picture makes it look a little bright, but it blends together pretty well. It needs to be felted a little more. You can still see individual stitches. The finished product will have to be washed probably three or four times in order to felt it completely.




When you do that on purpose, it's called felting (or more accurately "fulling"), but when you do it accidentally and your favorite sweater comes out sized perfectly for a doll...it's called shrinking.

I plan on casting on tonight to start this bag. We all know how that goes. It's on my list, anyways.

The Sweater Goes to England

The Sweater. The stuff of legend. I read somewhere the other day about how women in some knitting traditions would not start knitting their "betrothed" a sweater until the day the wedding date was set. This may be the origin of the sweater curse.

I no longer fear the sweater curse. Ryan loves the sweater. He wore it a lot while he was home. I had to wash it before he left (that was a lot of fun...wet hand-knit sweaters are HEAVY). He's picked out others with scary things like pockets and collars. He's not going anywhere. He knows that he's spoiled rotten. He might even get some socks if he's a good boy.

My family had to be told during Thanksgiving dinner that it was The Sweater. They hadn't even noticed. I'm assuming that is a testament to my skill and not a commentary on their powers of perception.

I think it looks pretty good!

I'm Thinking of Throwing a Little Party

The sweater is done.


Ahhhhhh.

After waiting forever for yarn. After waiting even longer for needles (I could have walked to Vietnam faster). After knitting and knitting and knitting. After blocking and waiting for pieces to dry. After re-doing the neck four times, increasing the number of stitches and the size of the needles. After ripping out both sides and re-doing them, too. After more hand-sewing than I ever like to do. It's done.

It even looks like a sweater.


Hoooray for sweaters! Now, he just has to come home and get it!

So Close

I almost made it. The pieces of the sweater are all knitted and blocked...ready to go. I picked up stitches for the neck and they actually look good for the first time ever. Unfortunately, something went horribly awry and the neck is very small. Not sure what happened, but I have to take them out and fix it. Then I can sew the shoulder, put the sleeves on, and sew the sides. I've got two weeks, why not?

The Problem with Knitting

I now have the sleeves and the back of the sweater finished. I have 10 or so rows of the front done. Not bad.

Unfortunately, I am entering that stage of the project where I start to look at other patterns and think about starting them. I've had a pattern for a lace scarf for a while now. I have pretty lace weight alpaca to make it with. It's almost more than I can withstand.

But, if Ryan's going to have a sweater to take back to England with him, I must press forward and continue the sweater, unimpeded by beautiful lace scarves or black wool socks or even other sweaters from that book I just got.

I will be strong.

"Back" to the Sweater

I now have not only two (count them) sleeves, but I also have half (or so) of the back of a sweater! It's amazing really. Now all I have to do is finish the back, do all of the front, find someplace big enough to block them, sew them together and finish the collar. No problem!

Fun with Sleeves

I have a sleeve.


I have started another. That's probably a good thing. This sweater would look pretty silly without two, eh?


I also have a cool kitty-proof bag. Ginger says, "Drat! Foiled again!"



He might just get this thing on the 26th!