Five Hundred and Eighty Three

No, this is not a length of yarny intestine.  It's a 60" circular needle, with my Butterflies scarf in progress.  Sexy, no?  

There are 583 stitches in every round.  I'll wait while you consider that. 5.8.3. Possibly the biggest round of knitting I've ever made.  And you know what?  I twisted it when I made the join.  Not that I could tell that until I'd already knit 2 inches of butterflies.  

But of course, this is not the big deal it might seem to be.  I'm going to cut the thing open at the end, so all I have to do is try not to think about it and keep knitting until it's time to make the cut.  

Try not to think about it (there's a twist in my round) while I'm grocery shopping.  Try not to think about it (there's a twist in my round) while I'm picking up the kids.  Try not to think about it (there's a twist in my round) while I'm gold-leafing the Thanksgiving cornucopia.  So far, It's working out great.  I predict this will be the fastest knit of my career, because knowing there's a twist in my round is causing me a fair degree of discomfort, and the only cure will be to get done knitting and cut the sucker.

And in the meantime, I'm stopping often to admire my work.

This is the marriage of pattern and yarn I was looking for, and I'm so glad I pressed on after my first false start.  

Thought for Today:  There are people in my house who actually think they know what it means when I say "As soon as I get to the end of this round..."  Ha ha.

I Still Have some Thursday Stuck to my Shoe

O, what a strange week this has been.  On Monday I had everything figured out, and every day thereafter, I got a little bit Wrong-Er.  

I briefly posted an actual jpg of my Butterflies chart without even thinking about the fact that anybody could just knit right from it.  I don't want to sound un-generous, but it's hard enough to make a living as a knitter without accidentally giving away the store.  I realized I had shot myself in the foot and took down the chart.  But not before I got several gracious thank you notes for posting the "free pattern".  It WAS my mistake entirely, so if you managed to save a copy of the chart before I removed it, good on you.  Just please do me a favor and don't sell it or share it.

And then there was yesterday's bizarre re-sending of a post from July (yeah - I got that too - FeedBurner must have really liked that one?) to all my subscribers.  Sorry to spam you with old news; I have no idea why that happened.

But the biggest Wrong Thing I did this week was to declare with certainty what yarn would be in this year's Madrona knitting kit.  Before I swatched it.

A funny thing happened between my design and the beautiful Sincere Sheep yarn I was planning to use.  Turns out my stranded colorwork design was totally wrong for the gorgeous, subtle natural dyes that I love so much:

What's wrong with this picture?  Other than the fact that the unblocked knitting is kinda wobbly?  CONTRAST.  Or lack of it.  Sincere Sheep's naturally-dyed hues all have roughly the same value; resulting in butterflies that don't stand out from their background enough to be read. My design just didn't do the yarn any favors.  And as much as I wanted it to work, I had to grit my teeth and start over.

Now I've done a total reversal.  And this time I know it's really going to work.  Because the new swatch is underway, and it's HOT.  This is Kauni, from Denmark, whose crazy self-changing colors are going to make everybody's project just a little bit different from the others.  And what could be better than that?

So, what have we learned, Dorothy?  

1.    Sometimes the first pancake has to be fed to the dog.  It doesn't mean you stink at pancakes; You just have to try again.  The hardest part is admitting you've made dog food.

2.    We don't just swatch for gauge.  Things I also learned from the first pancake include: I don't really like two-color castons for corrugated rib.  I don't like corrugated rib for this piece in the first place.  The background behind the butterflies needed to be a tonal fade of ombre, rather than delineated stripes.

3.     Stranded Colorwork swatches worked flat (which I was doing to estimate yardage) should be against the law.  Purling back in pattern is totally sick and wrong.  Which I know you know.  It just needs to be repeated from time to time.  No need to try it yourself to prove if it still sucks; I've done it for you.  You're welcome.

I'm spending the weekend knitting butterflies.  See you on the other side.

Finished Fana

Here is what my Fana looked like last week when I took it to Sandpoint, Idaho to play with the knitters there.  The only things missing are the braid trims and the second sleeve.  That's right. This artfully arranged photo hides the fact that she's really only a one-armed bandit.

I like to make a habit of bringing finished samples to the classes they support, but this time, I just flat ran out of time.  What I didn't know was how useful it would be to show the sleeve-setting in progress.  The cut armhole openings and sleeve-top facings which cover them are routinely the most difficult for me to explain, because once the finishing is done, it's really hard to understand the parts that can no longer be seen.  This little exercise in humility turned out to be a great lesson for me: I need to make a sample which is intentionally unfinished for class. Maybe not full-sized though.

When I got home, the toilet in the master bathroom had come completely loose from its moorings.  Which I had predicted, due to a certain listing sensation we had been experiencing. What I had not anticipated (or perhaps, had tried to deny?) is that the old cracked and grubby tile floor underneath it would cry out for demolition, once I ejected the old throne.  Yep: Before I knew it, I was ankle deep in ceramic shards, swinging a sledge hammer like one possessed.  I hated that floor for almost every day of the eight years since I had (very poorly) installed it. Turns out that ceramic tile (and its removal) is just not my medium.  I've sworn off both for good. Once I had the floor out, I could finally repaint the walls to match the new towels I scored last May.  Phillip has been asking me weekly why we couldn't use the new towels without first changing the wall color.  What an amateur.  Has he not met me before?  The old wall paint was red, for pity's sake.

In the midst of the Bathroom Reboot, Phillip came down with a chest cold that I feared was pneumonia.  It wasn't, but it took a chest x-ray to convince both me and his doctor.  He's recuperating very slowly, all the while barking like a bull walrus.  Seriously, the poor man is rattling the windows.  And yesterday was Campbell's 13th birthday, which I tried my level best not to have overshadowed by the other dramas.  He assures me I did an adequate job of celebrating him, but I still worry that his bar is set artificially low.

Anyhow, the new floor, and the new loo, (and fluffy towels and cheery shower curtain) have definitely improved my attitude.  Eight years is a long time to be mocked by an unfortunate DIY project.  Oh, and I *may* have replaced the doorknobs, too, while I was at it.

With the plumbing, and the patient, and the newly-minted teenager (sort of) all under control, I returned my attention to the Fana.

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As you can see, it now sports two sleeves, each with anatomically-mounted, functionally-buttoned cuffs.

And yes, there are four different trims on it now.  Once I get going, I just can't stop.