Strange Magic

My many digressions to the contrary, I have been working on the Frog Prince.  Today I'm going to show you where the rubber meets the road, in terms of making it a sweater.  Up until this point, the thing was a (fairly cool-looking) combination of steeked rectangles and a collar.  Here you can see the next steps:

I picked up 342 stitches from the bottom of the hem on the front, up over the shoulder, and down the other side to the back hem.  The number of stitches is not pertinent, other than to make you feel sorry for me.  I just worked a stitch through three out of every four rows, as is my usual unscientific habit. Then I settled in for a long winter of plain black stockinette.  This was interrupted by some moderately interesting stuff, notably:

Binding off some stitches at the shoulder, only to pick them up again on the next pass, and add increases to them all, forming gathers at the sleeve cap.  Then I did some short row shaping in the hip area, bound off a bunch of the 342 stitches to create side seams, and pressed on with what was left to create a sleeve, decreasing as I went.  At the end of that, I drank some wine, and then started all over again for the other side/sleeve combo.  I'll admit, it was a dull bit of work.  You would think at some point that I would process the following information:  Knitting a whole sweater means that you must actually knit the whole sweater, rather than leaving the yarn out at night and hoping the elves will come and do all the heavy lifting,  Night after night, the elves' failed to show, their union being in the pockets of the perpetually angry and unfair Knitting Gods. 

So knit it I did, finding other things to post about while that process unfolded.  Thank you, Gentle Readers, for your patience - as ever, it greatly exceeds my own.  Finally the clouds parted, the angels sang, and the Day Of Blocking dawned:

Binding off some stitches at the shoulder, only to pick them up again on the next pass, and add increases to them all, forming gathers at the sleeve cap.  Then I did some short row shaping in the hip area, bound off a bunch of the 342 stitches to create side seams, and pressed on with what was left to create a sleeve, decreasing as I went.  At the end of that, I drank some wine, and then started all over again for the other side/sleeve combo.  I'll admit, it was a dull bit of work.  You would think at some point that I would process the following information:  Knitting a whole sweater means that you must actually knit the whole sweater, rather than leaving the yarn out at night and hoping the elves will come and do all the heavy lifting,  Night after night, the elves' failed to show, their union being in the pockets of the perpetually angry and unfair Knitting Gods. 

So knit it I did, finding other things to post about while that process unfolded.  Thank you, Gentle Readers, for your patience - as ever, it greatly exceeds my own.  Finally the clouds parted, the angels sang, and the Day Of Blocking dawned:

Binding off some stitches at the shoulder, only to pick them up again on the next pass, and add increases to them all, forming gathers at the sleeve cap.  Then I did some short row shaping in the hip area, bound off a bunch of the 342 stitches to create side seams, and pressed on with what was left to create a sleeve, decreasing as I went.  At the end of that, I drank some wine, and then started all over again for the other side/sleeve combo.  I'll admit, it was a dull bit of work.  You would think at some point that I would process the following information:  Knitting a whole sweater means that you must actually knit the whole sweater, rather than leaving the yarn out at night and hoping the elves will come and do all the heavy lifting,  Night after night, the elves' failed to show, their union being in the pockets of the perpetually angry and unfair Knitting Gods. 

So knit it I did, finding other things to post about while that process unfolded.  Thank you, Gentle Readers, for your patience - as ever, it greatly exceeds my own.  Finally the clouds parted, the angels sang, and the Day Of Blocking dawned:

My UFO Collection

Gentle Readers, in an uncharacteristic fit of Responsibility, I have decided that it's very nearly time to address the Elephant In The Living Room.  This particular pachyderm is harshing my mellow by hogging up more space than it should.  It's my UnFinishedObjects Collection, and I realized this week that it has begun to crowd my creativity.  And by "crowd", I mean, make it hard to think, hard to use my imagination for new stuff, and in some cases, hard to sit down. There may be one or two big fat ideas in my life whose time has failed to arrive.

One of the truly outstanding results of my having become a "real" artist is the air of credibility my work now has in my own head.  That is to say, when I ask myself, "Self, what should we make today?", I now offer myself alternatives that I think are likely to advance my art agenda, rather than waste time feeling badly about the andirons I'm not polishing, and the cobwebs collecting about the baseboards.  But legitimizing one's passion in this way is only gratifying until one runs out of clean underwear.  So by way of making a little breathing room, I think it's time to take steps.

My cunning plan is to call upon you, dear blog, for your wisdom and inspiration.  I'll offer 3 UFO's for your consideration.  The one receiving the most votes for attention will be photographed, commented upon, and then Disposed of in one of the following ways: 

1. Finished and enjoyed and/or published;  or
2. Returned to Nature, via gifting, frogging, or combustion.

Submitted for your consideration, the following UFO Disposition Candidates:

A.    UFO A is a delightful cardigan from last fall.  I submitted A's design proposal to two different knitting rags for publication.  In a rare move, I was so excited about A that I actually bought yarn and dove in; convinced that it would have to get published by somebody and then I'd actually be ahead of the knitting schedule.  Ill-conceived bit of logic, that.  Neither publication went for it, the weather changed, and I saw something shiny, all before it was finished.  Gray Peace Fleece worsted with cables and a collar.  Still missing one sleeve and the collar.  I even found & procured the perfect buttons.

B.    UFO B consists of no less than three (3) unfinished pairs of argyle socks.  Level two of the Master Knitter program requires the completion of one argyle sock.  Having no love of intarsia, duplicate stitch, back-seaming, or any of the other required argyle sock elements, I naturally went after this project with all the restraint of a chainsaw.  I figured I'd keep knitting them until I either mastered the process, learned to love them, or ran out of sock yarn.  None of these things happened.  I have learned how to graft a toe, though, since these went to time-out, so The Argyle Project might actually still stand a chance for completion.  Also, some of these socks are in smally sizes, so it would be cool if they could be worn before being outgrown.

C.    UFO C enjoys long walks on the beach and quiet evenings at home, which must be what drew me to it.  C may actually be the most recent pattern I worked on which was written by someone other than myself.  It's a reworked vintage pattern for a short-sleeved fair isle pullover, and it's really adorable.  Except that it's made of COTTON YARN, for some damn dumb reason, and is therefore unsteekable.  The top 1/3 of the garment requires knitting back-and-forth, maintaining the pattern.  I can't remember exactly how close to the end I got before crying uncle, but I do remember the pain.  I know the sleeves and the entire lower body are finished, so it probably should be revisited.  If nothing else, it deserves the "It's not you, It's me," speech.

So there they are, dear friends.  Three UFO's whose fate should really be decided, in order to gain a little intellectual surface area.  Won't you weigh in on the candidate you feel is most likely to succeed? 

While you decide, I'm going to finish the Frog Prince (no, I haven't forgotten, and it's closer to Done than you would think), and I'll show you the rest of that process next week!
 

Friends Bearing Gifts

Today I was going to tell you how this weekend I made yarn while the sun was still shining.  I was going to tell you that I have reached a milepost in the washing of the sheep, in that half of my fleece is now clean.  I was going to tell you that I even have a second bobbin of it all spun up, which will be ply #2 of the 5-ply I am dreaming of.  I was even going to tell you about how I have begun to imagine what my perfect black sheep gansey might look like, should I live long enough to scour and spin the second half of the circus tent fleece.

But then my friend Collier came home from his trip to Ireland, and every thought about my current and future knitting projects (and I have MANY) went clean out of my head.  He came over to our house especially to bring me this:

You see, my friend Collier asked me very kindly if there was anything I'd like him to bring me back from Ireland, and I of course said YARN, not really thinking he'd be able to find any.  I mean, if I landed in Ireland, I would not necessarily know where to look for yarn, though I'm an expert at sensing its presence, so I didn't really expect Collier to spend a lot of his vacation on a yarn quest. 

Lucky for me, I was SO wrong.  Dude has Master Yarn Sniffing Skills.  Can you believe the bounty?  There are 5, count them 5, skeins of this, and it's my favorite color and everything.  The color is called Bilberry (who knew?) and I am in love.  Oh, and get this:  It cost so dang many Euros that Collier decided my "punishment" would be that I have to knit HIM a sweater, too, so there are also 6 skeins of this in Jacob color for me to make him his Dream Aran.  Can you believe it?  It's my greatest "Will Work For Yarn" fantasy come to life. 

I have the best friends in the entire world, and Collier is their King.

Here is a picture, taken immediately after Collier left. 

Phillip:     "Would you like me to sleep on the couch tonight so you two can be alone?
Me:          "Would you?"