I have readers?

Wow. People actually read the blog. Thanks for all your great comments, Lisa.

I don't remember where I first learned about the lifeline, but it is just that. It's kind of tedious to put in (I haven't put one in yet on Snowdrop) but when you hit the disaster you can't fix, it will save the project. I've read that some people use dental floss - anything small enough and slippery enough to easily thread through your stitches on the needle (or on the cable, if you're using a circular - the easiest way to do it). I used some 8/4 cotton warp yarn because I happened to have a whole spool of it from my weaving attempts. It worked pretty well too.

The shawl yarn is wonderful, and I don't know if I ever said what it is. It's Silky Alpaca Lace by Classic Elite. I got this from Patternworks. I've never knit with laceweight yarn before, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I can tell you this yarn is luscious. It's silky soft, and very easy to knit with.

Thanks for the encouragement on 'doing things my way.' I think, really, I'm kind of lucky that I have such problems with published patterns, because that's what spurred me on to start trying my own things, and trusting my own creative impulses. And I think this is the most fun I've ever had with a project, planning it out myself, being able to choose so many of the creative aspects of how it will turn out - the pattern, the edgings, the type of neckline, the length of the sleeves, everything. And hopefully what I learn from this will allow me to, if I ever find a published pattern I'm just dying to make, adapt it to work for me.

Doing my own designs has always been both my dream and my downfall, because with past hobbies I've tried to dive into my own designs too quickly, before I'd learned the necessary skills. That would end up frustrating me to the point where in some cases I gave up the hobby in question.

Knitting's different ... I took it more slowly, learned some of the skills I need, got frustrated for an entirely different reason (problems with published patterns), and now know I can learn any other skills I need to finally branch out into at least semi-designing my own stuff. (Even if I am "cheating" by using The Handy Book of Sweater Patterns ... although I decline to consider that cheating, and instead look at it as merely letting someone else do the math). ;o)

Of course, whether or not this current sweater works out remains to be seen ... but so far, it's going great, and if for some reason there is a problem with it, at least it will count as a learning experience that I can hopefully recover from. My attempted trick on the neckline is working out pretty good so far ... pictures tomorrow.

And I didn't know dogs can't have raisins! Good to know ... this dog will eat anything that falls into his path (as we've seen).

The Yarn Fairy Cometh

Okay, the FedEx Ground guy probably wouldn't appreciate that. But the important thing is, my yarn for the summer cardigan showed up yesterday ...

... so I can go back to work on that project, too. Woo hoo. Last night I got to where the sleeve goes in, and marked that. Then I have to knit 5 1/4" past that point (1/4"? Really? How much difference can that possibly make?) and then start the v-neck shaping, which is where I experiment with my scheme to maintain the stockinette stitch border.

Waiting for the yarn to show up, I did some more on Snowdrop.



It seems to be going amazingly fast for such delicate yarn. I mean, it's no where near done, but my progress surprises even me. I ran into another snag the other night, where I got things quite screwed up and even dropped a stitch, which I didn't even know until I saw it's tiny little loop sticking out of the knitting several rows below. Had that been in an intricate pattern section, I probably would have been in big trouble ... because I don't know how to fix a dropped stitch that involves yarn-overs and what not. Although I probably would have had a crash course in it, because there was no way I was going to rip this out and start over. (Note to self - quit being so cocky and get the freaking lifeline in soon).

Fortunately - very, very fortunately - it happened in an area of plain knit stitches, and I was able to chain it back up with my tiny crochet hook, and fixed it. Incredible luck.

But mostly I'll probably be working on the sweater. Every time I've tried to knit a sweater, it's taken forever. For once (well, more than once I hope, but for now) I'd like to make this in something reasonable - 6 weeks would suit me. That's going to be a lot of knitting.

I'm not sure it's going to turn out as summery as I originally planned. I intended to make the summer cardigan out of a cotton yarn, but after I started on this I remembered that I'd gotten this one test skein that wasn't cotton, but it was inexpensive and the blurb in the catalog said it was incredibly soft, so I decided to try it. It is incredibly soft, almost merino-ish, and it's very nice to work with - but it's acrylic and nylon. The more I get done on it, the heavier it feels. Not weight-wise, it's very light that way. But 'heft-wise' or whatever you want to call it. It just feels thick and fluffy. It may be a bit much for warm weather, may end up being more of an autumn kind of thing. Well, that's okay. My 6-week goal is overly ambitious, and I probably won't get it done till fall anyway.

This is (hopefully) only the beginning of many successful sweater projects, so I can always make my cotton summer cardigan next winter if this doesn't work out - and I'll still have this one, so I'll be happy.

I Gotta Tinkle!

Greg brought me a present from the event.

He said they call it a "tinkle," a mini-mini inkle loom made just for the purpose of testing designs, so you don't have to spend all the time (and use up a lot of fiber) on the regular inkle loom just to try things out. How cool is this? It came with extra pegs, which you can add to any of the extra holes in the board, to - I assume - make things different sizes. Or regulate tension. Probably adding pegs at the beginning and then taking them out as you weave would help with tension, since bands get tighter as you weave them.

I'm looking forward to playing with this ... and dying to try out the loom I haven't gotten to yet ... so much fiber, so little time *sigh*

Sometimes I go through phases, months long even, where I'm not the least bit interested in knitting. Then other times I become completely obsessed with it. Guess which one I'm in now? I had four days off and could barely get myself to put it down. The only things I got done yesterday were washing and drying some laundry (not put away yet), washing most (not all) of the dishes, and sorting through a stack of mail on the kitchen table. Other than that, kept knitting.

Eventually this phase will wane, too, and I'll get back to being obsessed with weaving.

I'm making good progress on the shawl. I got a lot done last night, and (knocking on wood with crossed fingers) made no mistakes. Even while watching TV. I think I sorted out what the biggest problems were. Of course, dropped yarn-overs is always a concern. Two other things were contributing to my problems Saturday night. I've noticed that in this fine a yarn, my yarn-overs tend to roll over on top of the stitch next to them, and when I come to them across the wrong side row, they look like one stitch. If I'm not paying attention and purl them together as one stitch (very easy to do), then when I get back to the right side, I'm short a stitch in that section.

The other thing that was causing me grief is that the stitches right next to my ring markers are constantly rolling over the marker, and ending up on the wrong side of it. When I would get to the end of a section and be a stitch short, I'd assume I made a mistake, rather than checking to see if the missing stitch had actually migrated to the next section.

I've more or less solved these problems by knowing they exist and watching out for them, and by counting stitches as I knit, on both wrong and right side rows. Since the pattern repeats are only a convenient 8 stitches wide (except the center panel, which is 11), it's very easy to check each little section as I go, and know at the end of the row it's all correct. Checking the whole row at the end is a bad option, for the same reason it quit working on Triangles - when the shawl begins to get bigger, spending the time to go back over a whole row and count all those stitches is (a) something I'm not patient enough to do, and takes more and more time as the project progresses - time I could be knitting; and (b) leaves more room for error because of counting so many at once. Not checking at all is just kind of dumb (and I don't know why I wasn't doing this before).

But checking 8 stitches at a time, I can keep up with. And this kept me on track all last night. So I'm optimistic about Snowdrop, and it's progressing quite nicely.

I also think I figured out how to fix my 'frame' dilemma on the sweater. More on that when I try it.

But now *sigh* it's time to go get ready for work. Culture shock, to be sure.

A Weekend of Knitting

I worked on the front of the new sweater yesterday until I ran out of yarn. I got almost to the armhole section.


I ordered the rest of the yarn yesterday, and paid extra for 3-5 day shipping, so I should have it next week to get back to work on this. I'm really enjoying this project!

Yesterday I mentioned that I had to decide on the length before I began the armhole shaping. I had forgotten - there won't be any (shaping, not length). This is a drop shoulder sweater, which means the fronts and back are just knit as a big rectangle.

There is one interesting quirk. I decided I'd like to make this a v-neck cardigan. I can't stand regular v-neck sweaters, but in cardigans since I never button them, I've noticed v-neck versions seem to hang better - no bunching up around the neck. But to do that I am going to need to do shaping at the neck line, and with that strip of plain stockinette up the side I'm wondering if it's going to look funny when I begin shaping the neck and that disappears. When you have to shape away part of a pattern, it's not such a big deal - it just all kind of flows. But to have that very definite 'frame' around the pattern, then have it disappear right in the center front - I'm afraid that's not going to look so hot.

I considered trying to continue it ... as I do the decreases along the neck edge, add a stitch of stockinette on the other side of that strip (not make a stitch, but replace a pattern stitch with a stockinette stitch on each decrease row) - it's the stockinette that will encroach on the pattern, but the 6-stitch stockinette strip will remain intact up to the shoulder. But if I do that, there will be no corresponding stockinette strip in the back to match up at the shoulder. So that's kind of a dilemma. Ah-ha, I'm learning all the things designers have to take into consideration.

When I ran out of this yarn, I went back to work on the shawl for awhile.


I was having some trouble this time - the usual, running out of stitches in a repeat before I was done. I think I fixed them all. I didn't rip anything out, just un-knit back till I got it right. In one place I did have to make a stitch to match up the stitch count, because I simply could not find the lost stitch. Probably a missed yarn-over. The last row I did last night worked out, though, so I'm hoping it will be okay today. There's no guarantee. Lots of times with Triangles I'd knit a row which would be fine, and I'd think I had it fixed - and the next time across suddenly stuff would be messed up. That's what always frustrated me - simply not being able to figure out where stitches disappeared to.

Tyler's doing grand.


And I'm doing much better because I finally set up the air mattress! When he first came home, we decided it might not be a good idea for him to have to get on and off the air mattress, so we've been right on the living room floor all week. But that was about to do me in, and by last night Tyler was well enough that I was pretty sure getting on and off an 8" high air mattress was no longer going to be dangerous for him. So I set that up, and ah ... bliss. After sleeping right on the floor for a week, this is like heaven.

I called the vet yesterday and got permission to increase his food a little bit - that was the worst problem he was having, thinking he was starving to death. No wonder. He's used to getting 2 cups of food a day, and he was only getting 1/8 cup (that's only a spoonful) four times a day. It took me a whole week to use up one can of the special prescription food they provided! One can of food in a whole week, when his normal consumption would be the equivalent of almost a can a day. Not only did I feel bad because he was so hungry, but I was afraid he was going to start losing weight on so little food - and he's a little dog who didn't weight that much to begin with - and that the limited food would compromise his energy and health, right when he needed all he could to heal well. But at first I wouldn't risk feeding him more, because of the stitches in his stomach and intestines - I figured the amount they'd told me was the safest, then.

But after a week of that, I had to ask. And they told me as long as he was doing well (he is), to go ahead and put him back on his regular diet. But that seemed to go to the other extreme, to me. To go from 1/8 cup four times a day to suddenly a whole cup of food at one sitting, after abdominal surgery, didn't seem wise to me, despite what they said. So I'm going to increase it incrementally over the next week till he's back up to normal. But after getting so little for a week, even what he's getting now (1/4 cup 5 or 6 times a day) is keeping him quite happy.

Ask the vet if I can do something, then disregard what they say? Well, after this corn cob incident I'm never again going to second-guess myself when my intution is different than how things appear outwardly or what I'm told. Logically Tyler shouldn't have gotten the corncob where it was; my gut instinct was to move it anyway, but I didn't - and he got it. After he ate it, Tyler seemed fine, and my 'logic' was telling me not to panic, to just wait and see what happened. But my gut instinct kicked me out of bed at 2:00 a.m. and sent me online to check, which confirmed my intuitive fears. So from now on, when I have 'gut instincts' about Tyler (or anything else, for that matter), I'm going to learn to listen to them, despite logic or advice to the contrary.

So he's getting a slowly increased diet, he seems happy, I'm comfortable with it, and that's what we'll be doing over the next week.

I had Thursday and Friday off as vacation days, but didn't get to go on the scheduled camping trip because I needed to watch Tyler. At first I was disappointed I couldn't go, but I gotta tell you ... it was nice. Three days to do absolutley nothing but sit on the living room floor with Tyler and knit. Enforced inactivity, to keep Tyler quiet. Usually when I have time off, I keep myself so busy during it that I don't even feel like I had a 'vacation' when it's over. Not this time. It turned out surprisingly well. (As a bonus, the weather was pretty cold and crappy at the event - par for that course - and I would have probably been miserable and grumpy anyway).

I say "three days" because today I do have to get off my butt and do some things. But that's okay. And now's probably a good time to start.

By Jove, I Think She's Got It!

Check this out!!


This is what I got done yesterday. This is the front left side of the cardigan. The color's a little wonky in this picture - indoors, at night, with a regular lamp as the only light. I didn't use the flash because when I tried that it just washed everything out till you couldn't see the pattern.

Okay, I'm really liking this. And I'm getting really psyched because, to my complete amazement, the gauge appears to be dead on. I've measured this piece several times and it matches the schematic exactly.

The world's going to end.

I like the pattern, too, and the way I've set it up. Because of the number of stitches I needed to cast on, and the number of stitces in the pattern repeat, I had 13 stitches left over that I couldn't use in the pattern - but I needed them to make it the right size, I couldn't just get rid of them. So I decided to do 6 stockinette stitches on the button-band side, and 7 on the arm side. Turns out that looks really cool - almost like a frame for the pattern.

I decided to do a picot hemmed bottom edge, and I think that's going to look really awesome as well. (It's not sewn yet, just turned up for the picture).

Since this beginning of the front worked out so well, it looks like this is the color it's going to be. Today I'm going to order the rest of the yarn I need to make the whole sweater.

I was only able to get so much done yesterday because, being confined to the living room floor with Tyler, that's almost all I did all day. Under normal circumstances I don't have that much time, so I suppose progress on the sweater will drop off in the next week or so. But I'd like to keep up a steady pace on it, because I'd like it to be done in time to wear this summer - what it was intended for. It's a light yarn with an open lacy pattern, and I intend to put 3/4 length sleeves on it. Besides, I'm tired of it taking me two years to make something. This does go fairly quickly, though - the pattern's not terribly complicated to work.

I haven't decided yet whether or how the back's going to be worked - with the stockinette stitch 'frame' or not. Some of that will depend on the stitch count and whether or not I have to do that. I also haven't figured out what's going to happen where these patterns meet at the shoulder, as I was too impatient to chart the whole thing out and try to arrange it so the patterns ended or met at a pleasing point. But once I get to the armhole shaping, I'll have to decide exactly what length I want the sweater, because once I begin the shaping it'll be too late to change it. Maybe at that point I'll do some figuring, and work it out so the pattern ends at a nice point just below the shoulder.

And I haven't decided what kind of edging I'm going to put around the front and neck edge. I don't want to do the same picot hem thing. Maybe just a standard rib of some sort. I also still need to pick out buttons, or decide whether I'm even going to have buttons, or do something else instead.

Wow - this 'design your own sweater' thing rocks. I am liking this so much better than trying to follow published patterns (and being continually frustrated). I am far more psyched about this project than I have been about any other sweater project for a long time.

Tyler Update; Knitting Update

First thing's first: Tyler's doing well. So well that he's driving me nuts. The better he feels, the harder it is to keep him quiet so he doesn't hurt himself. He wants to run (tried that twice yesterday, till I had to resort to putting the leash on him even in the house). He wants to chew on his belly - caught him pulling out a stitch with his teeth yesterday. Yes, I was watching him, I was sitting right next to him, but it was like a stealth attack - he must have been calculating that move for days to get such an instant and perfectly targeted strike, that in the time it took me to see his head move, lay down my knitting and reach for him (about 1.3 seconds), I already heard the loud "snap" of him biting on that stitch. I had to make him wear the Collar Of Doom after that.

I had been keeping the Collar of Doom off of him when I was sitting right next to him and (allegedly) able to watch him. He really hates it, and has not adjusted well to it. He walks into things constantly and doesn't like to lie down with it on, so he can't get comfortable or relax. Of course, we probably didn't help - the thing's just an embarrassment. I don't think he was too happy with the fact that after we put it on him, we decided it would be a good idea to autograph it, like people sign people's casts.




This weekend everyone went to the year's first SCA event. I had the days off to go, but took them instead to stay home with Tyler (since anyone I knew who could watch him is now partying in the middle ages; my brother usually watches him, but such a long trip to a house full of stairs was too risky for Tyler). We're living on the living room floor. How appropriate.


If it looks like a mess, well it is - this is where we've been since last Sunday night, so we can be constantly near enough to Tyler to keep a close eye on him, and pet and pamper him. Blankets spread out on the floor and cushions pulled off the furniture so Tyler doesn't try to make a stealth leap onto the couch (tried that too yesterday, but I intercepted him in time). When you spend entire days and nights in a 10' x 10' section of the floor, it tends to get this kind of 'lived in' look. And this is where I'll be living the rest of the weekend, trying to keep myself entertained while constantly watching Tyler for attempts to sabotage himself.

Ah well. He's doing great, and despite my apparent grousing, the fact is I'm thrilled that he's doing well enough that he requires this much watching. Things could have went much, much worse. I think this is the most dangerous thing that Tyler's ever been through. And when he does finally lay down calmly for 5 minutes, I'm constantly checking him to see if he's 'okay.'

The worst of the 'danger zone' has passed, though. The vet told me the first 3 to 5 days were the most critical for not letting him do anything too strenuous that could rupture his internal sutures. Today is day 6, and I believe we've succeeded. I still don't want to take any chances, and will be struggling to keep him calm and quiet for another week yet.

As much as I can while keeping the Poo from running, leaping, or chewing out his stitches, I've been knitting. I am really excited about the new project. Sweater design in progress:


I took one of the three balls of yarn I'd ordered as test yarn, and knit myself a large gauge swatch. I got three types of yarn because the texture is very important to me, and I couldn't tell that without actually feeling it and knitting it. Turns out I liked the first one I tried well enough to just go with that for now. I can always use the other two for other projects later.

Second, I got a very definite 6 stitches per inch over its entirety, so I was pretty comfortable with that.

But I decided I wanted to put a pattern into the sweater. I looked through my book, "Beautiful Knitting Patterns" by Gisela Klopper, and picked one I liked. I switched my swatch to that pattern for awhile, to see if I could figure out my gauge in that.

I couldn't. I don't know how to figure out spi in a pattern stitch with yarn-overs, cabling, etc. I tried just laying the ruler over the swatch and counting them out as best I could, but I came up with 6 spi. I didn't think it likely that my pattern stitch count would be the same as stockinette stitch. So I tried something else. I measured the three pattern repeats in my swatch (11"), then counted how many stitches were in that width (66). Hmmm. 6 spi again.

I decided to go with it, and do a "test start" on the sweater itself. Using the Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, I cast on the appropriate number of stitches for the left front of the cardigan at 6 spi, and I'm knitting away on that. When it gets large enough to trust I'm getting a true measurement, I'm just going to measure it across and see if my knitted piece matches the schematic provided in the book.

Sounds like a rather tedious and unscientific, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way to do it? Well, probably. But ... I'm going to make damned sure that this sweater fits when it's done, no matter what it takes. If I have to knit half the sweater front, find out it's not measuring out right, rip it all out and start over, well then ... that's what I'll do. It's certainly no more tedious and time-consuming than knitting an entire sweater to find out it doesn't fit. I'm trying to learn some patience and tell myself, this is all part of the design process.

I'm undecided how I feel about that color of yarn. When I ordered my three 'test skeins,' I tried to pick colors I thought I'd like to have the finished sweater be. I wanted something neutral and light toned, but not just bland taupe or beige. This color looked interesting on the computer screen (it's called "Sprig"). But in person, I'm waffling. In some lights it looks yellowish-green or even golden-green (not bad). In some lights it almost looks mustard-yellowish (also acceptable). But then sometimes it just looks like baby puke. But for an overall impression, I do kind of like it. It's different, but then ... so am I.

I've decided to let Fate decide. If this sweater front piece I'm working on turns out to be the exact right size, matching up with the schematic, then I'm keeping this and going ahead with the sweater in this color. If it doesn't and I have to start over, I'm going to go ahead and order the yarn for the entire sweater in a different color, and start my next attempt in the new color.

I'm still going to be working on the Snowdrop shawl, but with Tyler demanding my attention every 20 or 30 seconds, I didn't think that was a good time to be trying to knit lace.

So - I've started my own mostly self-designed summer cardigan! Woo-hoo! (well, if it works).

Tyler's Recovery

Tyler's doing really great. He's moving around very well - in fact, I'm struggling to keep him from trotting all over the place. This dog's always been a trotter. When he moves around the house, he trots. When he goes outside he trots around the yard. When we go for a walk, he trots the whole way. The dog rarely just walks. Now that he's feeling better, he keeps wanting to trot, and I keep panicking - the vet said no running. I don't know if trotting counts as running, but I don't want him doing anything that might jostle his insides around and risk his internal stitches. It's great that he feels so good, but the better he feels, the harder it is to keep him calm and quiet enough not to hurt himself.

I won't be so freaked out about it in a week, when things have had time to heal better.

He's also drinking plenty of water, and eating well (what little he's allowed to have).

He's started wanting to lick his belly all the time, though, so I had to go get him one of those Elizabethan collars. So we all decided that the proper thing to do would be to sign it, like people do with casts.

He was not amused. (He actually looks perkier than in this last picture; I didn't want the flash going off in his eyes, so it's dark and grainy). I haven't left this on him all the time, just when he's licking incessantly and I can't be right there to constantly stop him.

I've been very lucky to have a couple of great friends watch him today and tomorrow while I'm at work, but they won't be available Thursday and Friday, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do then. Unfortunately, I think my only recourse is to crate him, which he'll hate - and I can't find my crate. Looks like I may have to buy a new one.

But hopefully recovery will proceed as smoothly as it has so far.