Rowena Revisited

A sister is both your mirror - and your opposite.
-Elizabeth Fischel

Many of you thought I was knitting Rowena as a baby gift. Let me introduce my baby sister: Perhaps she's not as small as you might have imagined? You may or may not recall that I received Knit2Together as a Christmas gift from my uncle and aunt, and as soon as I saw this pattern I knew that I needed to make it for my sister. I steathily asked her to measure a sweater of hers, and set to work. It's technically a (rather early) birthday present for her September birthday, but I wanted to make sure it fit. And it's a perfect fit. In size. In color. And certainly with the hydrangea bush.

Rowena Fair
Pattern: Rowena from Knit2Together
Yarn: KnitPicks Ambrosia in Petal, 9 1/2 skeins for a 34" size
Needles: US4 Addis
Notes: I made the sleeves a couple of inches shorter to make them 3/4 length rather than bracelet length (a decided preference of the recipient), and I knit the hem stitches up as I went rather than sewing them down later. Also, I only put a ribbon at the neck rather than also at the hem and sleeves.
Best Thing About This Project: It was 94 degrees and very humid in that photo above. And look how happy she looks in her new sweater!

And one more thing - as happy as she is above, my sister would like you all to know that she has many outfits planned for the sweater, and none of them involve the shade of fuschia she was wearing when we took the photos.

In The Details

God is in the details.
-Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

This may be my finest sweater yet. The knitting, the ruffles, the decreases, the ribbon, the buttons. It's all here.





Rowena
Pattern: Rowena from Knit 2 Together
Yarn: Knit Picks Ambrosia
Needles: US 4 and US 3 Addi Turbos
Notes: I've previously discussed my raglan and ruffle mods, otherwise I made it as written. The ruffles were fiddly, but in a good way. The hardest part was probably finding a complementary ribbon.
Best Thing About This Project: Sshhh . . . . It's a surprise. There should be a modeled shot from the recipient later this summer.

A Larger Problem

It gives a lovely light.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

I won a contest. Normally this is good news.(Here was the contest.)

But the goods arrived just as I finished updating my yarn inventory spreadsheet for more Ravelry fun.The total? 496.5 skeins and 108,296 yards of yarn. And this doesn't count oddballs I couldn't characterize. The 20,000 yards of laceweight on cones are killing me here, but clearly there's a larger problem. We'll talk more about that later. We'll also talk about the limitations of Flickr (and why most of this still isn't uploaded, but that's a topic for another day.

In the meantime, here's a teaser:
Rowena is all things lovely.

Evolution of an Evening.

Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attemped, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Last night was one of those nights perfect for knitting. The (afianced) beau was on call, I had a new DVD from Netflix, and nothing pressing. Time to knit. But what? The Chuppah is, of course, the biggest priority, but it's actually also portable and will probably be finished on my plane trip East this weekend. So I had the freedom to muddle with some of the other projects.

Last weekend I started, as you may recall, the Ballet T-Shirt from Loop-d-Loop. And last night I tried it on. It's down to the bust, and it actually looks better than I might have thought. But I wondered if I'd ever wear it. -- Brief comment: the pattern in the book actually has only two sizes, the largest of which is a 28" bust, with the comment that it is "stretchy." I'm actually using the pattern for the Ballet Sweater from Interweave Knits (Spring?) 2005 without the sleeves. -- But I'm still thinking that it'll never be a go-to sweater for me, that I'll never pick it up out of all the possibilities in my drawers and closet and actually wear it, except, perhaps, out of a sense of "should" . . .

So I pondered using this purple yarn (which randomly showed up in my mailbox one day and which I now like very much) for it's offshoot, Picovoli. This is a t-shirt that Grumperina designed, inspired by the Ballet T-Shirt, but to actually look good on a real woman. What a concept. And it seems to have worked - check out the gallery, where it's obvious it does look good on many women. But then I got lazy, of a sorts, and really didn't really feel like doing a provisional cast-on for the picot edge. So I contemplated Green Gable. . . so much so that I downloaded it. But somehow I just didn't feel like it either. And I didn't feel like ripping out the Ballet T-Shirt either. It is, after all, about halfway done.

So I then I turned to a completely different project with different yarn and a different pattern and actual sleeves. This is a sweater from an old Family Circle Easy Knitting, back when that magazine existed, written for Cotton-Ease. Ironically, the magazine hit the stands very shortly before Cotton-Ease was discontinued and has several wonderful patterns for the yarn. I've already made the zippered cardigan (which I wear all the time, in spite of the tragic zipper story here) and at the same time had photocopied this 3/4-sleeve sweater pattern and stuck it in a bag with an appropriate amount of Cotton-Ease in a lovely blue that is totally not captured by either photo (it's been very overcast in San Diego lately). I think I had intended to do it two summers ago when I was traveling, but never did. And then I intended to do it last summer. And then . . . last night just seemed like the night. And after a few false starts wherein I proved that I can't count to six, I've already knit about 6 inches of the back in a rice pattern (close up in the completely mis-represented color on the right). And I'm just loving it. Simple, but not boring. Relaxing. It's measuring out to just the right measurements. And Cotton-Ease has such a delightful drape. (I'm knitting this on US7s.) While it won't be the summer tank I was planning, I do like the way my evening evolved. Expect to see this one fly off the needles.

Given my not-inconsiderable number of UFOs - Why the quest for another sweater, you may ask? Rowena is blocking - and drying - and my only other sweater in progress is a Debbie Bliss Aran in denim. Which I can't really start until I'm done the Chuppah, so that the indigo dye doesn't transfer from my hands.

This post seems to have a lot of free-association in it, I realize. But so did my evening.

A Crafty Weekend

The land of the fairy,
where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
-William Butler Yeats

I am thoroughly enjoying my month on Dermatology for several reasons. The good and noble reasons have to do with how much I'm learning and how this is actually required for my Internal Medicine Residency. The less good and noble reasons involve how there is no call, and I have entire weekends off. For an entire month. And, for the record, these are the first consecutive two-day periods I've had off in about 7 months. It's really nice. And I'm keeping plenty busy . . . which is why I'm getting around to posting about my weekend on, um, Thursday.

So, in addition to all that quality time with my sewing machine (three cheers!), and a birthday party, game night, and a Padres game, I did a whole bunch of work on some long-term knitting projects.

Rowena saw a great deal of fuddly finishing (ruffles!) and is getting very very close to blocking time. (I usually seam before wet blocking.) You know it's been a long-term project when my fiance comments that I've been working on it "for a long time."The Chuppah, of course, got it's due attention and is coming along. The border is now half done, and again I feel so greatly indebted to Victorian Lace Today for their excellent corner-turning instructions. Above and beyond.

I also started the Ballet T-Shirt, with many mods, from Loop-d-Loop. You'd be correct if you guessed that this was a book I owned from which I had not yet knit anything. . . . it's a Book-a-Month thing. (And, between you and me, I'm kind of glad there's only one month left after this one.)

And knitting even found it's way into non-knitting activities. The Retro Ribs saw some action at the Padres game.

And, speaking of baseball, take a good, close-up look at this photo - It caught the ball in mid-pitch, halfway between the pitcher and batter, all the way from the Upper Deck.

Rowena Randomness

Rowena: Fame and Joy
- Latinized version of a German name

• I'm seaming every chance I get, rapidly approaching The Final Ruffle.
• My raglan shaping modifications look amazing.
• The sweater is going to fit it's intended recipient (not me). Three cheers!
• This is one cute cute cute sweater.
• Seaming the ruffles sure is hard work! (Inside, outside, leaving the space inside to thread a ribbon.)
• I'm really used to making sweaters with 100g balls of yarn rather than 50g balls. This makes a huge difference in the number of ends to weave in.
• Oh, wait. There are still button bands to make.
• And buttons to buy.
• As well as a ribbon.
• Hmmmm . . . Maybe it's not as done as I thought.

Small Changes

Without a hoop, without a ruffle,
One external jig and shuffle.
-Catherine Marie Fanshaw

Thanks to Jenn for pointing out that I've knit nearly all of Rowena (from Knit2Together) without posting. So let me wax poetic for a moment on the joy of knitting plain stockinette. When reading. When studying. When one is too tired to knit lace. When one is riding (not driving, just riding) in a dark car. When waiting for friends at a restaurant. Or really, any time that isn't reserved for knitting of a higher order. That's why so much has gotten done. Each piece of Rowena (1 back, 2 fronts, 2 sleeves) begins with a ruffle and then proceeds merily in stockinette stitch, with a raglan at the top. Easy peasy.

I did make a few small changes to the pattern as written, so I'll share them here now. Because if I wait any longer, it'll be done. Above you can see what I didn't change - how the turning edge looks with the purl turning row and the kfb increase every other stitch. I think the turning row is crucial to letting the ruffle be kind of flat and not too '80s-pouffy. To the left you can see the part of the ruffle that I did change. Although Laura recently had a good experience sewing down hems, I like to knit them up. It makes the sweater seem so much more finished as I knit it.

The pattern didn't clearly account for a place to knit the hem stitches together. There are 11 rows on each side of the hem, and the back has half the stitches of the front (hence the ruffle - following?) On the 12th row, you decrease the number of stitches in the ruffle by half (back to your starting number - still following?). On the 11th row, then, I picked up my hem by knitting one stitch of the cast on (just a regular long-tail cast on) with one stitch from the ruffle - only I used every other ruffle stitch. And it worked great. Because of the pouffiness of the ruffle, I can't really see the hem knit up. Can you?

The only other change I've made involves the raglan decreases. The pattern calls for decreasing the last two stitches of the row together, which makes for rather poor seaming in my experience. Examining the photo in the book, however, it was clear that they wanted to minimize or de-emphasize the raglan lines. It is not, after all, a sporty sweater by any means. Instead, I decided to put the decreases in one stitch from each edge, but to make them fully-fashioned, i.e. angled into the edge rather than away from it. (Like in this pattern.) So far it looks nice in the pieces (and I thought I had a photo somewhere . . .), so let's hope it looks good all sewn together.

Need a refresher on the other sweater details? My early posts about it are here and here.

Random Saturday

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart, --
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
-William Wordsworth

Welcome to Random Saturday! (Seals on the beach in La Jolla)

1. First off, if I owe you an email (and if you're reading my blog, I probably owe you an email), it's coming. It's been a crazy four or so days at work, so hang tight.
   


2. Alas, no knitting photos. See #1 above.
   


3. Rowena is 80% done? Inquiring minds want to know. Yes, indeed. Maybe even more at this stage. I realize it's just been off the blog radar, but it's kind of incredible how all that stockinette just seems to knit itself. Posts coming soon about the joy of ruffles and also changes I made to the decreases.



4. Ribby Cardi - Bonne Marie emailed me some helpful hints, one of which was that I had an older version of the pattern and that the new version has a deeper raglan. As a bonus, she sent me a copy of the new version of the pattern. I owe her an email, too (of course), but I'm very impressed with her diligence and unsolicited (but very welcome) pattern support.



5. This is good because I'm now dying to make Ariann. Have you seen Cara's version?



6. And about starting Ariann, should I make it in Cotton Ease or Cascade 220? I have some lovely (old-style) blue Cotton Ease in the stash, and it might be lovely for San Diego. But I think I may have enough Red Cascade 220 in the stash. Decisions, decisions.



7. The Chuppah border is coming along swimmingly. We had a day of lectures on Navy-specific medical stuff, which was a solid five hours of knitting (before we had to run our Physical Readiness Test . . . only in the Navy). I'm now half-way down one side, and there is an anticipated 50-60 hours of knitting on it left. Should be done by early June for an early July wedding. And looking lovely, I might add.
   
8. And I did get a Webs order the other day. I'm thinking Regia Silk for my Hogwarts Swap Partner. There was a sale, after all.
   
   

Weather or Not

We all grumble about the weather
but--but--but nothing is done about it.
-Mark Twain

You know that I've grumbled a bit about the weather in San Diego. It's always sunny. No variety. Who wants to be in a place where it's always nice? I have to say, though, that in the last two days while my parents are buried in ice and the beau's parents are buried in snow, I've both gone Rollerblading around the bay and - AND - gone swimming. Outside. I think I'm beginning to appreciate this.

And in other San Diego travel news, we headed up into the mountains over the weekend. Beautiful - see above. It was extra-beautiful because we took the scenic route (Yes, I was navigating. Why do you ask?). Ultimately, though, we did reach our destination: Palomar Observatory. It was excellent for so many reasons. Not the least of which was this:

SNOW! Yes, that is an actual snow man. Made of snow. With acorns for buttons. And with Rowena. He tried to help me out. See how nicely it's coming along? After the fun of the ruffle, the stockinette stitch is so soothing. And I'm loving the KnitPicks Ambrosia. I don't know how it wears long-term, but it is lovely to knit. Rowena was just the thing for those windy mountain rows. I did knit a few rounds of the New England Sock (which I WILL finish by the end of the February), but looking down was not recommended.

There wasn't much in the way of snow, but plenty of people were trying to sled anyway. I had no idea what we were getting into, weather-wise, since I've never really believed my mom when she told me it was snowing in San Diego. Doesn't it just figure that I wasn't wearing any handknit socks that day? It was a sneaker kind of day . . until the snow.

And speaking of handknit socks, thank you for all your sympathy on the last post. Those socks are five years old, made of $2 of wool remnants, and have been darned on 3 separate occasions, the yarn has been mildly felted, and they are just done. Good socks probably deserve a good retirement.

Giddy-up!

Rodeo cowboys usually keep goin' until they're crippled-
injured by animals, run out of money for entry fees
and traveling expenses, quit or get killed in the arena.
-Chris LeDoux

Is your knitting scattered all over two apartments, three purses, and your locker at work? Do you feel like you've been in a haze where you can't tell a ruffle from a cable, a lace lattice from a beaded rib? Have I got a solution for you!

WIP RoundupClockwise from top left: The Chuppah, Rowena, The Humbug Pillow, The New England Socks, a ball of yarn meant to be Dalarna socks, and Plain Winter Socks.

The beauty of the UFO Resurrection (and yes, The New England Socks seem to be in this photo as a Work in Progress, doesn't it?) is that all those other projects? They don't count. Of the above, I can only really claim to be making progress on The Chuppah and the Plain Winter Socks, but Rowena gets a few rows when I'm on the phone, and the Humbug Pillow when I'm reading email. Overall, quite manageable. Quite.

If only I didn't want to drop it all and knit the new Interweave Knits from cover to cover . . .

Field Trip

God comes to us in the things
we know best and can verify the most easily,
the things of our everyday life,
apart from which we cannot understand ourselves.
-John Paul II

You know how I feel about road trips. Very positively. And the upside to working as much as the beau and I do is that we really enjoy your time off. Even a single day is really valuable in the way that it wasn't when I was, say, in college, and I needed a whole week to feel like I was getting a break. With our confluence of 30-some hours away from teh hospital, the beau and I and Rowena took a great little day trip on Sunday to explore parts of southern California we'd never really seen before. It was a fabulous mini-vacation, without any of the stress of actually trying to get somewhere.It was so much fun the last time, let's have another contest to guess where the knitting has been. Here's the back of Rowena from Knit 2 Together playing tourist. It's incredible how much stockinette stitch one can knit if the beau drives, isn't it? I started the day at the top of the ruffle and am several inches beyond this photo now.
A close up of that ruffle is definitely in order:
The ruffle is actually a hem, as you may be able to see from the turning row with the hem 1/2 the stitches of the ruffle (which is twice the number of stitches as the body - see how this all works out?). As I usually do, I knit up the hem with the body, which took pretty much forever. Up close, I think it would have been tidier to sew, but from any kind of distance I don't think it makes much of a difference. And the psychological benefit to me is huge.

So, where did we go? Here's one last hint. Email your guesses to me by Friday February 2 at midnight Pacific Standard Time (GMT - 8), and the winner will get something wonderfully yarny to be determined next week. Be as specific as you can.