Moth Heaven

Another Day, Another Collar

I should know better by now, having served as one of the midwives for almost 100 Twist patterns, than to second guess Fiona Ellis. I've spent my whole life second guessing and recalculating patterns, and I will continue to do so when I'm modifying, but I should trust Fiona and Sandi Rosner (the Twist technical editor) to write a pattern that actually delivers the sweater as it is pictured.

I finished the body pieces for Paula when I decided that I wanted to have the turtleneck maybe be a little more generous than as written. Plus, the finished opening looked huge, and I couldn't imagine picking so few stitches as the pattern suggested to get this result, so I used the pickup numbers for the next size up.

I was insecure about the collar while knitting it because of the stockinette portion which I feared wouldn't support the cable, and I worried I would have to rip the whole thing out eventually because it was doomed to collapse under its own weight.  So I added extra cabling rows to make up for that, and lengthened the chart so I would have more collar to cover the joining row, just because. When I cast off this morning, it looked like this.

 

Looks fine, doesn't it?  However, it sits poorly, and the edge of the collar curls up  because (get this) it's. too. long.  Everything I feared about the collar was all for naught, and if I had just trusted Fiona and Sandi in the first place and knit it as I was told, I would be wearing the sweater by now.

So I'm ripping.  And next time, I'll listen.

Mimico Polyvore Collage

I spent most of my knitting tme last night playing around instead with a site I just found.  Polyvore is like paper dolls for the internet age: you grab images, or use ones they have already, and make collages. Once I jiggered around with it a little yesterday, I figured out how to add Twist images to the stewpot.

Mimico Vest by Barbara Gregory by juliafc

so I'm trying this out to preview what it looks like, and if it will fly as a tool for some future Twist blog post. And boy, can I waste a lot of time playing around with this one. If you don't hear from me for a week, send a rescue party. Thanks.

Wardrobe Functions

More outfits I want to knit for.

A simple (but not too simple) oatmeal coloured cardigan (like maybe Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnson) to go with menswear trousers (image from Cabbages and Roses).

Elsewhere on the same site, I love the stripes in this cardigan, but I especially love the candy buttons on the tweed blazer that pick up the colours. Must find a jacket I can do this to.

This great scarf, with stripes. Mine will be in green and gray with the black and white. I forget where this came from, but I've had it in my favorites file for about  a year now, still burning bright in my want-to-knit list.

 

Meanwhile, I can't help but be seized with gratitude when Scott Schuman photographs girls who aren't leggy models in stiletto heels, girls more like me yet who have great style (it's rare, but worth waiting around for).  I borrowed this shot from The Sartorialist in the spring, thinking about the Chanel jacket on this woman, Violaine.  I love everything about what she's wearing, all of it already in my closet, except for that jacket.  I think of Teva Durham's Tartan Jacket as a possible solution, or at least, the woven stitch she used in it.

 

But I am conflicted, because I have an unnatural interest in Cowichan sweaters lately.
I'm seeing their influence show up here and there (like these designs by Jared Flood or Mary Jane Mucklestone) , but I haven't seen the one for me quite yet. This blanket comes closer than anything else I've seen, but that would mean math stands between me and the sweater (or one sweater) of my dreams.

 

(image from Soko Magazine)

That's just some of the things keeping me up at night.

Paula Progress, and a Dinosaur

I'm approaching the sleeve cap on the second Paula sleeve, feeling like this is more knitting than I've had a chance to do in months. It's wonderful what enthusiasm for a project will do for my commitment.  

I even knit on it during the school costume parade today while all we parents stood around waiting for the kids to show upIt made people very uncomfortable, my just standing knitting away, the yarn dangling off my wrist in my KnowKnits bag that matches the green. It amuses me that people still think of knitting as some kind of spectacle, especially when they see it being done. in. public.

This is The Boy, in this year's dinosaur, a Corythosaurus. He had me make it purple because that is the colour of the Corythosaurs on Dino Train on PBSkids, his new TV obsession.

Knitterly Behaviour

I cast off the back for Paula by Fiona Ellis the day I returned from Rhinebeck, and bit into the sleeve right away, as a kind of reward for finishing the expanse of the all over (but fun) stitch pattern that looks like giant garter stitch. It's the kind of reward worth knitting for, one stitch for awhile, then fun cables for the next.  I'll knit the front next, then finish off with that last sleeve and the collar as the cherry on top.

I went to Stitches East (my first time!) on Friday.  It was in Hartford, after all, and Random Kelly drove the Town Car, so how could I say no? Friday beat the crowd a bit.  I also had the good luck to find myself there the very day Fiona Ellis was signing books at the Yarn Barn booth.  She was delighted to see my work on her design, and offered an clever explanation of why the wrists feature a brief run of short rows, which she promised to write up for the Twist blog, soon. Here's a hint: she knows a lot about dressmakers details.

I ran into Clara Parkes (we have similar "yarn-dar" and found ourselves reaching for the same skein of Kauni in the Isager booth), Divine Bird Jenny (with her new Haldane wheel — see her in the photo below?), plotted which Signature Needle Arts needles I want for Christmas (because it would be greedy to just say "ALL of them"), picked up some Madeline Tosh for a hat at the Webs booth, schmoosed the Modern Yarn girls (love their tshirts, even if I never wear those things) and picked up some never-released sparkly sock weight Dream in Color for a Pas de Valse that I didn't know I wanted until. I. saw. that. yarn. I don't see it on the seller's website, but that doesn't mean they won't post it after the show is over.

I also got to knit on The Big Sock. I look a little demented in this photo, but it is an action shot, after all.  I mean, that knitter is moooving.

At 1500 stitches around, that thing is huge.  The heel will be some kind of engineering feat, I suspect, perhaps requiring that only one or two knitters can work on it at a time.  I got my Big Sock Badge for the Brownie Sash.

Have you knit your row yet? It goes to Rhode Island next, I think. Here's the big sock blog, with tales of all its travels. Happy Trails, Big Sock.