Sir Edward Saves the Day

Safe to say that life has interfered with my knitting! My garden (aka vegetable farm) now has a fence and has been thoroughly weeded and my house has undergone spring cleaning and clutter removal. Some items to go on eBay, some items to St. Vinnie's, and some to the dump! Whew, I love it when the decks are clear!

Always wanting a lovely photo to open a blog entry, here is one I took with my trusty Treo walking from Meg Swansen's Schoolhouse to her Warehouse a few weeks ago. Wisconsin in springtime is a wonder, isn't it? What a commute Meg has (although she cuts through the trees).

My Adult Surprise Jacket is coming along nicely, but with modifications along the way. I slipped it off the needles the other day to see what it would look like, and I was relatively pleased. Here's the picture (notice I didn't bother getting off the couch to take it!).

I decided, however, that the maroonish strip was too close to the front edge, and that the neck was a little deep. (Let me explain. The neck is too deep because I'm going to put in a small saddle shoulder. This is because I tried to out-smart EZ and make the sleeves narrower, and they are too narrow! Moral: Never try to out-smart EZ!). So, I ripped back to the part where I put the neck stitches on hold (on the garish teal yarn) and put fewer on hold. Then I decided to make it a V-neck instead, and started decreasing on the neck edge to create the V, and I kept increasing the miters past the maroonish stripe to get 8 ridges of solid blue before putting the front stitches on hold. Now, if you've never knitted an ASJ, this will all seem like Old Frontier Gibberish, but trust me, it will make sense to somebody!

I'm now satisfied that I'm on the right track, but wait! I was certain I had enough wool to finish! Now it seems I won't. I'm using Jaeger Matchmaker Merino Aran that I purchased in England or Wales in 2000. Believe it or not, the color is Mariner (blue). I had copious quantities! However, Garter Stitch being what it is (a little hoggish in the wool requirements) and my body being what it is (a little long and wide for quick-and-easy knitting), I seem to be running short. I still have 2 fat balls of wool, but have not finished the body, and then need to lengthen the sleeves.

So, I start searching the internets (sic) and find that the Aran weight of that yarn was discontinued in 2003! There are several batches for sale on eBay of different colors, so I could mix in some Navy and make it look intentional, but what fun would that be? So I searched "completed listings" on eBay and found that 2 skeins of the exact dye lot had been sold 3 weeks ago! I wrote to the seller, asking if they had any more (they did not) and to the buyer asking if I could please purchase it from them or exchange it with another yarn. I didn't get an answer in the first 48 hours (although I checked every 15 minutes), so I thought all was lost.

Then, I got an email from the buyer! He's a wonderful British knitter named Edward who understood my plight and will send the yarn right off if I pay for postage. He only asked that I send him some merino sometime in the future! Of course, I'm sending it immediately with my profuse thanks. Don't you love a story with a happy ending?

Back to the garden/farm/yard... I was ready to mow this morning, but Parsnip was using the mower. Guess I'll have to knit instead!

A Long Day's Journey into Garter Stitch

The more I knit Garter Stitch (which is really often), the more I like it. I like to think that Elizabeth Zimmermann is nodding knowingly as she sees me, and hundreds of like-minded knitters, realize the immense beauty and satisfaction of just knitting, row after row.

I know many knitters who credit EZ as the inspiration for becoming "thinking knitters" and learning to look at their knitting instead of looking at directions. I'm not one of those! I found Meg Swansen before I'd ever even read one of EZ's books, so I guess I'm part of the next generation of thinkers. I was taking a Community Ed knitting class in Rochester, MN from Ann Swanson and Katie Nagorney (Two Old Bags, which seems a silly name because they are two, but will never seem old, and nobody who met them would ever refer to them as "bags"). Anyway, they were a great teaching team, but apparently, I asked a great many (perhaps too many?) technical questions, and they said "you really need to go to Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp" - foisting me off on an unsuspecting Meg. Obedient student that I am, I applied that summer and went. I've been going ever since, but because I get to be there for 4 sessions every summer, I'm on my 55th camp now (just a guess).

One of the suggested pre-reqs to attending camp was to have "read and digested" at least one of EZ's books. I guess I'm not that obedient, because I didn't do the homework! Once I got to camp and fell in love with Meg, I decided to read one quickly (didn't want her to be disappointed in me), but who can stop at one? Within a week of coming home from camp, I'd read the 4 that were in print. It took me a few years to ball up the courage to try to get to know Meg, because I was so in awe of her, but I did, and the rest is history. I dare her to try and have a camp without me now!

Back to Garter Stitch - here's the line-up:

1. Baby Surprise Jacket - certainly not my first, but I teach it as a class pretty often, and always want to have one on the needles. In my most recent class, one of my lovely students has a suspicious bump on her front-side, and I liked her quite a lot. So, I'm going to finish up this BS and give it to Rachel, assuming the bump will someday need clothing!

I'm using Classic Elite Waterlily in Lake with stripes of Lily Pad. This yarn is delicious to knit with and to look at. I used some left-over yarn for the Provisional Cast-On just to show my students that the cast-on edge does not remain in a straight line for very long.

2. Adult Surprise Jacket - This is the most fun I've had on my couch in quite some time. It's just sitting there like a lump, waiting for me to knit, and knit, and knit. No thinking required (as long as you remember to do your 2 double-decreases on each front-side row). Well, now I'm to the double-increase part, but "remembering" is not so taxing as "thinking". Of course, the end result is that I'll get done too quickly. Such is life!

For this, I'm using Jaeger Matchmaker Merino Aran from my stash! What a virtuous knitter I am. I bought the yarn in England probably 6 or 7 years ago, and I bought lots. It's just as spongy and wonderful as the Waterlily, which is why I decided to sneak some in. The stripes are Lake, Leaf, and Azalea. I was going to add some Goldfish for zing, but didn't get back to the yarn shop to pick it up before time to knit the 4th stripe, so ... no fishes for me!

Again, I used the Provisional Cast-On, this time in relatively garish teal. It makes me want to knit faster to get that edge off the sweater! Any inspiration in a storm, I say.

3. Pi Are Square Shawl - Kathy D from our retreat a few weeks ago was starting one, just as Amy A gave me a skein of Malibrigo Laceweight in Violetas. A sign from above that I was supposed to cast on immeditaely. It would be tacky to say "oh, that's beautiful, thank you!" and not cast right on! That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it!

First things first, I had to call The Sow's Ear (one of my local shops) and tell them to send 1 more skein of Malibrigo home with Randy, who was going to pick up coffee beans that day. When Randy got there, he and Liz decided that 1 more skein wouldn't be enough so he bought 3. What a well-trained man (and a well-trained Yarn Shop Employee)! So, I have something like 1800 yards of this super-fine yummy stuff, it's going to be one hell of a shawl!

Now that the post is written, I need to (clean off the dining room table and) photograph the projects! Knit on.

P.S. Randy loves that I have a blog... the dining room table gets uncluttered almost weekly because of this!