woe is me

I’m just... LANGUISHING HERE with my ribby cardi ☹
I am essentially at a standstill and it’s really frustrating. Every time I pick the thing up, my life starts to unravel temporarily and I have to put it down and deal. Even my son is telling me “mommy, I like it when you knit - why don’t I see you knitting this week?” Well, hello, maybe YOU being on spring break has something to do with it?? SIGH. It’s nice to have time with him, though.

New project??

OK. I am STILL working on my sweater, but it’s hanging by the wayside because I am so busy right now (all together now - PET FOOD RECALL - Argh! Plus, we move 4/20.) That said, I can’t help but consider casting on for one of these: http://www.flickr.com/photos/keribeth/425771542/

hee hee.

musings on a sweater

I’m nearing completion of the parts of my ribby cardi. I’m about 1/3 of the way through the right front, and since I did the sleeves first (due to not having the green yarn yet!) this is my final piece. I knit on it today while waiting to get a tire fixed. Apparently there was a screw in my tire. Weird, since Michael had a nail in his tire last week. But while I was knitting, a 3 yr old sweetie pie chattered away:

Whatchu doin’? Why knittin’? What is that? Why is it a piece of a sweater? you’re already wearing a sweater. Why you makin’ another sweater? Why is it green? Do you like green? Do you like your daddy? What’s your daddy’s name? Where is your daddy?

At that point the mom tried very hard to distract her, but fortunately for me (as I was quite enjoying this) she was unable. It went on and on (and on). Hee hee.

Anyway.

The thing is, I’m starting to fear finishing this piece. Once it’s done - what then? OK, so, I will block all the pieces. I will do the front bands (zipper bands?). I will sew my side seams and sleeve seams, and attach the seams. Then I will pick up and knit something for the neck (i’m thinking rollneck, but am not sure! I wonder if I could just do a teeny tiny ribbed something? I don’t even understand what the “collar” option on the pattern does!) and then.... and then.... um, yeah.

I need to put in a zipper.

This wouldn’t be such an insurmountable problem if I could only figure out WHAT ZIPPER TO BUY! I want a zipper that opens from top and bottom, and that separates. I think that is called a (everyone!) two-way separating zipper. I do not know how to get one that is the right length, or how to figure out what the right length is. I read Grumperina’s treatise on this and am just whimpering in the corner. She talks about the problem of the zipper buckling and how to avoid that by using a shorter zipper, I think, if I try to distill her article to a few words... but, I don’t know. I’m just scared of screwing it up. Plus, I’m not sure if I should get a zipper in the main body color or the sleeve color!

Stitch 'n Pitch night!

Wow.

A while back I read somewhere that they were having a “Stitch ‘n Pitch” night at the ‘stick (or whatever monstrous name they are calling Candlestick Park these days), and I wrote to the Phillies team administrators and suggested we have one here. Yeah, yeah, we’ll think about it, they said. However, I just heard from them:

Hi Hillary:
Thank you for your interest in a Phillies Stitch 'n Pitch night at the ballpark. We have received many requests like yours and have decided to go ahead and hold our first ever Stitch 'n Pitch event. The game date is Tuesday, June 26 at 7:05 pm. I have attached a link that will give you more information about this special night. Thanks and we hope to see you at Citizens Bank Park!

http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com/phi/ticketing/stitch.jsp


Sarah Magliochetti
Philadelphia Phillies
Group Sales Representative

woo-hoo!

holy moly

OK, first of all, I’m done the back and sleeves of the ribby cardi, and I’m well into the left front. That said, I’m still confused about how the decreases on this piece work. But I digress. I’m very excited about this sweater but unfortunately am having a really hard time finding time to KNIT it!

Moving on.

Yesterday I was walking around the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia and I went into one of those overpriced boutiques that sells outrageously expensive women’s clothing as well as items for the home. On a shelf in back I saw an assortment of felted handbags. The biggest one was about 2/3 the size of my oversized booga, and shaped like a booga with an extra-large base (so, a booga, with decreases worked so that it tapers toward the top of the bag). It didn’t have any fancy colorwork - simple stripes like mine. It was $158. In fact, all of them were $158! They were unlined, too. WTF? Who knew?

help. need help.

I am knitting a sweater as some of you know. I am having a problem with the pattern.

The problem section:

NEXT ROW: bind off 10 sts, then finish working sts as they appear; 40 sts remain.
NEXT RS ROW - DEC ROW: K2, SSK, work sts as they appear to end of row. Follow decrease instructions as for Back and when  20 decreases have been made, proceed to NECK SHAPING SECTION.
NECK SHAPING: while continuing to work armhole shaping decreases until total # of DECs = total number of BACK DECs, start neck shaping by binding off 6 sts at neck edge. Then DEC 1 st at neck edge every RS row 6 more times. Break yarn and pull through final stitch.

SO, ok. The back shaping instructions had me do one RS DEC row, then DEC every RS row 24 times, then every other RS row 2 times. That gives me a total of 27  decreases that I need to do for the armhole of the left front as well, right? So I do 20 of them, and then on the next row I BO 6 sts at the neck edge. Am I correct in assuming that I do the 20 DEC RS rows and then on the next row (WS) I BO 6 at the neck edge and then I do a regular RS DEC on the next row and also DEC 1 st at the neck edge on that same row??  Because when I write it all out... it seems to me that if I do:

decrease as per back instructions until 20 decreases have been made
proceed to neck shaping
follow instructions as written until DEC 1 at neck edge has been done 6 times

I still have done only 26 decreases, and the back instructions called for 27. So, am I supposed to do another decrease row?

The other confusing thing is that the back instructions say to do 25 decrease rows and then go to  every other RS row for 2 more decrease rows. I'm not sure how that plays into the instructions for the left front.

When I wrote the above message to the pattern author, she replied:

Start with 50 sts for size 38/39

50 - 10 sts = 40 sts after underarm BO

40 - 1 = 39 sts after initial DEC

39 - 19 = 20 sts left after initial 20 DEC worked

20 - 6 = 14 sts after initial Neck BO

14 - 6 = 8 sts after all Neck DEC worked

8 - 5 = 3 sts after all RS row DEC worked

3 - 2 = 1 sts remains after the last 2 DEC worked

You should end up with one stitch.

There are 27 total DEC.

-- to which I say a resounding “huh?”

Alpaca farm

This past August (2006) while vacationing in Stone Harbor NJ, we went to an alpaca farm in Cape May County one day. My son in particular had a very strong interest in going, and I figured hey - maybe I could score some yarn out of it! Plus of course I do like alpaca, too. So we went, and had a good time. I ended up buying some yarn to make a scarf out of, which I wear all the time and which is one of my favorite FOs. I finally uploaded some of the pics from that trip so here you go - Picasa claims that if I put this code here you’ll see a neat photo-link to my album of the alpaca farm. Let’s see what happens.

Alpaca farm visit, August 2006