Cupcakes Make Everything Better

Giant Americano joined by tiny cupcake.

Friday is my day off. Most weeks I completely fail to plan anything and end up kind of wasting the day. Not this week. Amelia was looking for someone to join her for a little knitting and hanging out. We agreed to meet at Trophy Cupcake. Then I found out Rebecca was having a day off too. I invited her along as well. Then Amelia was running late and didn't have my number. She called Jeanne who also happened to be free. So we all got together and had a lovely morning of knitting and chatting. Then Amanda called. She came over too. Amelia had to go before lunch but the rest of us went out and just generally had the nicest time. We wrapped it all up just in time for me to go pick up the kids at school. I wish all Fridays could be like that.

With all that great knitting time I made a lot of progress on the GLMC.



And I started my fourth NaKniSweMoDo sweater too! I didn't mean to. Honest. But I made a swatch and well...you know where that leads. I'm making the Asymmetrical Cardigan from Knitting Nature in Noro Cash Laine. It's long-discontinued 80% wool and 20% cashmere. Mmmmmm. This stuff is nice. Also nice to have something on larger needles that is less chart-intensive than the GLMC.

The Short Row Shaping

Several of you asked me to explain the short row shaping on my sweater in greater detail. In The Opinionated Knitter, Meg Swansen adds in a note about the fair isle yoke sweater "consider working 2 or 3 sets of short rows at the base of yoke." She goes on to explain that the short rows should work well into the front of the sweater (10-12 sts in). So here is what you do.

Just after joining the sleeves to the body knit around until you are 10ish stitches into the front of the sweater. Wrap and turn. Work until you are 10ish stitches into the other side of the front. Wrap and turn. Work back until you're 5 stitches shy of the wrapped stitch. Wrap and turn. Do the same for the other side. You can then work a third set of short rows or continue knitting around, picking up the wraps and knitting them together with their stitches as you go.

That's it. It subtly raises the back of the sweater and doesn't interfere with the pattern at all. I forgot to do this on my son's sweater I knit recently and it shows. The front of the neck is too high and it makes the fit of the sweater look decidedly homemade.

Granny Smith Fair Isle Cardigan

Pattern: Fair Isle Yoke Sweater Made Entirely on Circular Needles by Elizabeth Zimmermann from The Opinionated Knitter
Yarn: Cascade 220, colors 8914, 8010, 9441, 8401, 9341
Needles: US6 and 4 Addi Turbos
Notes: I added my usual waist-shaping borrowed from the Retro Prep pattern. I made the sleeves slightly wider at the cuff than usual and lengthened them a bit. I didn't put in buttonholes since I never button my sweaters anyway.

I love it.

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

I wish I could show videos every week. Somehow a video of a horrible design just brings the awfulness to life. I was going to post a few items from the new Vogue but now you can watch them move around set to wretched music!

Click here then click on the "Bold and the Beautiful."

Mostly I'd like to call out garments #2 and #3.
#2 has pretty much everything wrong with it I can possibly think of. It's super-bulky, screaming yellow, cropped (!), dripping in bobbles and has a completely weird collar. Other than the fact that it is knit and made of yarn I can't find anything to recommend it.

#3 worries me deeply. The model in the video is holding the identical pose as the model in the magazine. This tells me that if she moves at all something terribly wrong about this item will be revealed (other than the huge gauge and crazy-short dolman sleeves).

I was finally able to find the most crazy items from the fall TNNA fashion show. I warn you. They are crazy. Kuh-razy. The insanity begins around 6:25 and peaks around 7:06.



I don't know why it never occurred to me to knit a vest out of chinchilla fur and feathers...

Work With Me

Theo Chocolate held a "Stitch & Sale" event tonight. They invited knitters and crocheters to come by, sample chocolates, nibble on snacks, knit, crochet and buy chocolate. It was fun and they put out quite a spread. I think they were a little shocked by the massive turnout.

While I was there. I completed my fair isle sweater. I finished binding off the collar, I wove in all the ends and stitched down the inside of the steek. I got many compliments on it.

And everyone asked, "How long did it take you to knit it?"
"Two and a half weeks," I told them, brimming with pride.
"Oh," they all said like that was the standard answer.
You could at least pretend to be impressed.

Doubleknit #14

The new podcast is up.

Another Collar Set Back

My theme for NaKniSweMoDo this year seems to be "screwing up the collar." The first sweater the collar screw up was in the pattern (and I still need to rip it out and reknit it). Tonight after I bound off the last stitch on my fair isle cardi I saw immediately that the collar was HUGE. After a lot of staring and counting stitches I realized that I had forgotten the final set of decreases in the yoke. What a screw up. I was in such a hurry yesterday trying to get the steek sewn before leaving for work that I just skipped the last part of the yoke. I've ripped it all out and am starting again.

Warning: You May Die from Laughter

Best Songsmith ever on Wes's blog. Most of these are merely dreadful but this one...this one is beyond the pale.

Cardi, TNNA and Dog Update All Rolled Into One

I must be having blog-related dementia. I thought I had blogged my progress on my granny smith green fair isle cardigan when I started the sleeves but now I see that I never did. Last night I started the colorwork.



If you recall I choose two dark red/purples that were way too close in hue and value to use in the same fair isle pattern. I started a half-assed mini-swatch yesterday to after sketching out some ideas for color placement. I was thinking that I would go to the shop and get a skein of very dark gray to sub in for one of the too-close colors. As I worked along I kept thinking, "This needs more contrast." I decided to throw the granny smith green in and the colors really popped.

I also nearly forgot to throw in a few short rows to raise the back. I'm glad I remembered because it helps the fit so much on this style sweater.

So I should be done with this sweater in a few more days. Next will be a return to the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan.

I never really blogged about TNNA, did I? The winter show is smaller and slower than the summer show. It makes sense. Going into spring yarn shops see a big slow down. I felt the mood was kind of gloomy. Wholesalers didn't have much of anything new to offer. There were new cotton yarns but I don't find those very exciting and we don't stock many. I also didn't see any strong color trends. Last summer the color trends were very clear.

There are a lot of modestly priced shawl pins and sticks coming out. Brittany has one (see picture below); Lantern Moon has expanded their line of shawl pins; One World Button has some; Annie Adams expanded her line (one of hers is in the photo below too). Lantern Moon has also come out with some really beautiful crochet hooks in both ebony and rosewood.


TNNA swag includes the two shawl pins I mentioned above, a chicken kitchen timer from Blue Sky Alpacas and a simple tool case.

Books were being handed out left and right though most of them have been out for some time already. Some new books that I saw preview copies of that look really nice are Sock Innovation by Cookie A. (see preview here)and Simple Style (preview).

One good tip I learned from the ladies at the Eucalan booth is that it makes a good dog shampoo. We tried it last night on Isabella and she is very soft and shiny now. They also pointed out that eucalyptus and lavender are natural flea repellents. The flea population in Seattle is so vigorous that I would not rely on lavender-scented shampoo alone unless I was washing her every day. But it sure smells nice.



We stopped by the vet yesterday to get Bella her rabies shot and we put her on the scale. She weighs 100 pounds! I was so shocked I made Wes reweigh her twice. I knew she was huge but holy crap. 100!

Maybe This Was the Problem

Remember how this summer my neighbor got all tweaky about our rented goats. Maybe she was worried about her car getting boosted.

Here's a Headline You Don't See Every Day

Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This? TNNA Edition

Pictures are not allowed at TNNA and unfortunately everything from last weekend's show is still under wraps. So I'm going to share with you the biggest, most Thursday item in all of TNNA-dom. It's been at every show I've attended so far. I've searched high and low to find a photo to share with you. I can't find one. But I did locate this video of last year's fashion show. If you're impatient you can jump right to 3:48.



Sadly no video can do justice to this creation. Every time I see it--and you see it a lot at TNNA--I instinctively reach for my camera. That is after I recover consciousness.