Brick. House.

One of the drawbacks of Heretical Knitting is that in the process of doing things one's own way, there are sometimes surprises.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make an Elizabeth Zimmermann Tomten jacket.  Even though the entire nature of this garment is based on its being worked in Garter stitch, I decided that I would fly in the face of tradition by knitting a Stockinette Tomten.  I feel that I can attempt this with impunity because Elizabeth, herself, was the original Heretic. If anyone would have encouraged me to go on and do things my own way, it would have been EZ.  And while I was feeling defiant, I elected to make my Tomten a trapeze silhouette, rather than straight like the original.  Since stockinette would change everything about the row gauge, I figured I might as well throw caution to the winds and really play with the shape.

And if all that weren't enough, I even messed with the yarn, using a windfall I love, by plying thin yarn into fat yarn.  Therein lay the first surprise:  Fat, cablespun yarn, knit at a firm gauge, makes STOUT fabric.  And by stout, I mean just this side of bulletproof.

I've met Persian carpets with more drape.  KT felt it, and pronounced it a Bomb Shelter.  She's not wrong.  But rather than frog it and mess with the gauge, or Heaven forbid, change the nature of the yarn I've re-spun, I altered my expectations.  Rather than a sweater, I've begun thinking about this piece as a real live winter coat.  The fabric is so stable that I think it could even support some Afterthought Pockets, and what could be more Zimmermann than that?  

It's also really big, here at the bottom where I'm working.  Which means that it's likely to get correspondingly long, as I decrease my way up the body.  Yet another reason why this is no longer merely a sweater, and now more of a winter coat.  Who knows? Maybe I'll even install a lining!  Fur-trim around the hood?  Sky's the limit my friends! 

Or else, disaster.  Equal likelihood exists that I won't be able to bend my arms in it at the end. 

Dontcha just love a good adventure?

Mad Fandango

Although my history of dancing at weddings is tragic (I once blew out my ACL when they played "Twist and Shout" at my friends' reception. I did both, effectively ending my pro football career), I'm ready for another go at it.  Even if I land in another crumpled heap on the dance floor, at least I will look sassy doing so:

Twirly, no?  Looks a bit Flamenco, if I do say so myself.

Assisting in today's photo shoot is Ichabod, who normally oversees the activity in my sister's laundry room.  I thought he deserved a special assignment, so he came outside to sit on the windsor chair. 

He's not a bad model, once you get past his ego (thinks he's God's gift to laundry room statuary-there'll be no living with him now that he's famous). 

Things I practiced/learned/used on the Mad Fandango:

2-ply handspun: Spun loose & plied tight makes fluffy yarn and happy knitting.

Ruffle: It's just possible I have been cured of knitting ruffles.

Short Rows:  I wanted it wider at the center and narrower at the ends. Which is what happened.

I-Cord bind off:  Always wondered how that worked, and now I know.  I dig it.

All this and I didn't even have to shake my grove thing.

Much.

600

I made this batch of string last Thursday.  It's 8 ounces of Dicentra Designs roving in a color I can't name, that I bought at Black Sheep Gathering last year.  I'm making a sleeveless dress to wear to a wedding later this month, and I happened to notice that this bit of fluff was exactly the right color to go with it.  So I spun it up, fast and dirty, into a bumpy squishy and lovely bit of 2-ply.

I threw it into the suitcase, unfinished, knowing that my pal KT could be talked into finishing it for me.  I'm on the road teaching this week, and her house was one of my vagrant resting places.  I was right, and KT worked her magic, finishing it with her patented "WHUMP Really Hard On The Edge Of The Bathtub Technique".  Lady's gifts are epic.

I'm calling it Mad Fandango, and it's going to be a ruffled shawl to wear to the wedding.  I've never knitted a ruffle before.  What could possibly go wrong?  

Well, among other things, the 600 stitches I cast on for the ruffle edge were way too long for the cable I had chosen.  Not that I realized this until I was at my sister's house, in the Capitol of Nowhere Township.  Lucky for me, I had longer cable with me. Unluckily, it was deeply imbedded in another project.  Same thing we do every day...

I got the cable problem sorted.  That's when I noticed that 600 stitches makes for a long damn row of knitting.  One would think that this sort of observation would be self-evident.  Particularly after having cast on said 600 stitches myself.  Evidently my powers of observation require repetition to deploy.  

My great grandaddy Clarence Wolff was an interior designer in Louisville, KY in the 1930s and 40s.  In addition to an outstanding and unorthodox sense of color, he was well-known for his love of ruffles as a design element.  I've been thinking of Granddaddy, whom I never was privileged to know, today as I struggle with this ruffle. While Clarence did love his ruffles, he never actually had to fabricate (or for that matter, iron) any.  He had people for that.  An entire workroom, in fact, with many seamstresses, whom he kept fed (and hopping, too, no doubt) all through the depression and the war.  He kept the windows at Burgorf's Department store, and the fashionable parlours in and around Louisville, dressed for tea in miles and miles of his signature ruffles.  

People in my family sometimes compare me with him, in the way I love to dress things up.  I think it's a great compliment, and I really do wish I had managed to be born in time to have met him.  So even though this might be both my first and my last ruffle, I'm using it to spend time with Clarence Wolff.  

Here's lookin' at you Grandaddy.