March 2013 – Knitting Up North

Cabin Fever

The forcast was for clear skies and 38 today.

It’s snowing.

Soft gentle flakes that won’t add up to much. But…. it’s snowing. Seriously people, Easter is 5 days away, we’re in the midst of SPRING Break and it’s snowing. I now understand why people went a little snow crazy back in the day when their nearest neighbor was a half day away by wagon.

The interesting thing for me is that I’m not the only one who’s feeling this way. The Yarn Harlot talked about how she’s not feeling the fall and winter colors anymore and how she wants some spring colors. My good friend Dana talked about it in her blog. I was in Stillwater over the weekend and stopped in to Darn.Knit.Anyway to ~~check things out~~ fall down the rabbit hole. As I brought my skeins of purples, pale greens and pink to the counter, the salesperson commented on how everyone is buying springy colors right now. Even more so than usual this time of year.

TulipHues_1 — I’m ready for a little of this.

Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live. The first few lakers have gone out already. It’s always a positive sign that spring is coming when the ice gets broken up by the Coast Guard and the ships start moving again.

Although I’m not feeling the usual startitis that comes with spring (maybe I shouldn’t say that since I have 2 sweaters, 2 blankets and multiple other UFOs on the needles), I did buy enough yarn for 2 baby blankets.

I’ve come to the realization that the Beekeepers Quilt is not going to be finished anytime soon. And I’m ok with that. I’m rather attached to the little puffs and I like the idea of continuing the add to the blanket as I go. This has absolutely nothing (cough cough) to do with the fact that the idea of tying all these little hexipuffs together terrifies me.

Since the blanket won’t be done soon, and I have to come up with a gift for a newish baby and a 1 year old, I decided to crochet a couple of blankets. I know I ~~said~~ swore that I would never learn to crochet, but a very kind woman that volunteers at my office taught me. To be fair, I sort of watched her teach a child, grabbed a crochet hook (of which I owned exactly 1) and copied her motions. Then I stopped her in mid-hook (is that the right adjective?!) and asked her to repeat it. Easy peasy. Now I’m looking up other stitch patterns to try new things.

The blanket is just a combination of yarns with some stash yarn thrown in for texture and fun contrast. I’m doing a combination of single crochet and double crochet rows just to keep it interesting. It’s nothing fancy, but I love how fast it’s going. I think the different textures will make it a fun blanket for a baby.

Seeing Red

For some reason, all of my projects are red right now. The Banana Tree Cardigan – in Red Ella Rae Merino Lace. The Lettuce Pullover in Intenso Malabrigo Lace. And they’re almost the exact same shade of red. Even the Looped Loop cowl that I really want to start would be out of red cashmere. It makes it a little challenging to get motivated to knit on one verses the other.

This should be a refreshing change from the blues, greens and turquoises that I normally gravitate to. Or the spring greens that I normally crave at this time of year.

Especially when the world outside your window looks like this (with possibly even less color):

There is 2 feet of snow in my front yard, 6 inches fell on Friday and more is coming down today. Everything is blanketed in snow. Those of us Up North start craving a bit of color.

Personally, I crave a bit of this (remember when I said I gravitated towards the blues?):

Complete with sun, sand and surf. Alas, this is not my year for sun, sand and surf. I am almost tempted to find an insanely cheap Carnival cruise with the hope that I would be stranded on some tropical beach somewhere. However, I would probably need to go alone. Knowing my husband, if I took him, he would start a mutiny and take over the stranded ship, jury rigging the failed engine and get us back to port in time to make our planned flight home. Spoil sport.

All this to say that I really don’t have much knitting content to talk about. I haven’t done much more than put a row or two on each sweater at night. Perhaps if I weren’t having so much fun playing with paint combinations at Design Seeds, I’d get more done. I just keep thinking I will find the perfect combination of colors for the next room I redo.

The Nemesis Returns

Faster than stitches slipping off a needle….

More indestructible than 20 year old Red Heart yarn.

More difficult than an Alice Starmore colorwork sweater.

It’s my old nemesis Gauge back again for another run.

Do you remember the Banana Tree Cardigan? The brown one that I just started? Well I had just gotten to the top of the sleeve when I decided that perhaps I should check the length since it seemed to be getting rather long.

Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it was because I had worked on this mostly when I had 2 sick children home from school (one of which ran a fever for 4 days). Maybe it was that I was exhausted.

Maybe I might have just possibly forgotten that I really should have check gauge a whole lot earlier. Maybe I should have actually checked the ball band to see what the suggested gauge for that yarn was.

Maybe I’m not the brightest knitter in the shop.

I would probably have to drop down to a size 2 to make this aran weight yarn knit to the gauge I want it to be since I was already at a 4. It would be like wearing armor!

I hate when the hero in the story is taken down by the nemesis because they just don’t see what’s right in front of their face.

Turns out I don’t have the right yarn in my stash after all.

Nemesis

Out of the blue, Lily asked me what a nemesis was yesterday. I explained that a nemesis was something that you are always fighting, something that you are always struggling against. We talked about how comic book characters always seem to have a nemesis.

If I were a comic book character, Gauge would be my nemesis. It’s a constant struggle to get gauge. Take my Lettuce Pullover for instance.

I swatched on a US 4, a US 5, a US 2, and finally on a US 3. (And don’t ask me why, but it was in that order) I think it should really be knitted on a 2.5 because none of the swatches came out just right. I decided to go with a 3 because I have plenty of yarn and I think a pullover with slightly more positive ease is better than a too tight sweater. Especially a sweater like this where I will definitely have to wear a shirt underneath. Some things are just better left to the imagination.

Since you asked, this is what the sweater looks like right now.

Lettuce sweater — Happy Knitting to All and to All a Good Night

It’s slow going as only a sweater with laceweight yarn and size 3 needles can be. And no, I don’t think it’s the wine’s fault that it’s so slow going. I’m hitting that point in the raglan increases (about 20 rows before I can separate out the sleeves) that each row seems to take absolutely forever instead of the appoximately 10 minutes that each row really takes.

To cut the boredom and give my hands a break from the teeny tiny yarn, I cast on for a Banana Tree Cardigan. I have enough of a brown washable worsted weight yarn in my stash that I didn’t need to go shopping for it. I’m somewhat amused that all of my knits have food names right now.

In other news, I am on the search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. The chocolate chip cookie recipe that I remember as a child. One with lots of vanilla, too many chocolate chips to count (ok, I always add extra) and the perfect soft but not overly puffy texture. I just made a batch that was good, lots of vanilla flavor and soft, but they fell flat. If you have a good recipe, send it my way.