The Final Installment

Here it is: the long-awaited, much belated final installment in the saga of the skirt.

My unofficial completion date was the day before school started. After my previous post, I realized that I was getting down to the wire; school started the 14th. The knitty powers that be were on my side, though, and I finished side two on the 11th, exactly two weeks since I started. At this distance, both sides appear to match perfectly.



With so much at stake, I actually blocked the pieces before sewing them up, and was rewarded with the illusion of wonderfully even gauge. Sewing up was tedious as expected, but I got through it, and *gasp* I had a skirt.

Had? Past tense? A collective jump, popcorn goes flying-- Yes. I had a skirt. The ribbing stretched to fit past my widest dimension, but it did not, unfortunately, stretch all the way back. I'll be the first to admit it: lack of elasticity was among the crimes leveled against alpaca by the Experienced Knitter.

I had gone this far, I had extra yarn, and I wasn't going to be beat. So I experimented, and came up with this:



A handy dandy extra piece of ribbing. I'm calling the seam (sewn with thread because sewing up with alpaca stresses me out) a Decorative Element. And it holds.

The finished product, sideways because I have forgotten the code for picture tweaking:



This picture was only taken yesterday (Forgive my knees. I know my patellae are wonky, but there's nothing I can do about it.) because I was so afraid to actually assess what I hath wrought. The skirt looked good laid out on my bed, it went on and stayed on, but what would a careful scrutiny reveal?

Even after shuffling through all my photos, viewing them a dozen times to make sure they were all named correctly, I am pleased with the way my skirt looks on. There is definitely a better side, and there's a little bimp at the side marking the Extreme Decrease row, but alpaca has a beautiful drape, and the design is pretty classic.

Emboldened by the results of my photo shoot, I decided to test drive my creation by wearing it to work. Alack. After an evening of trucking about between counters and registers, the hem did creep closer to my wonky knees while the ribbing retreated from natural waist to low rise--slightly. I would like to blame the tights I was wearing below, but I know that it was the not-so-elastic alpaca. I shall need to experiment further.

The curtain falls, the lights fade on. Not a perfect ending, but certainly not as bad as the end of The Lifeboat (If you haven't seen it, spare yourself and watch Foreign Correspondent instead).

I feel that I have proved my point, and the Experienced Knitter can still inform all and sundry that she did warn me about the elasticity.

More Pleats

Few things are more distressing than trying to get some blogging done in the quiet of early morning and discovering that the Internet is down. Not permanently down: down until the power strip that the router is plugged into gets switched back on. Por desgracia, the router and its power strip are in Hermanita's room, which has a squeaky door, which means I had to sit and wait and knit until I could resurrect our network.

But sitting and knitting isn't such a bad thing. Side two (the piece that was knitted in the correct dimensions the first time) finished without a hitch.



I surprised myself with a moment of perspicacity: measure the ribbing on the first (wrong dimensions) piece--stretched to its greatest horizontal reach--then measure my own greatest horizontal reach and see how the two match up. Yes, this seems elementary. No, I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing such a thing until this project. Good thing I thought of it now: I discovered a shocking discrepancy in the two dimensions (we won't go into exact amounts), and went up a needle size for the ribbing on the second, correctly knitted piece.

That pitfall avoided, it was time to rip into side one. For those of you who have never tried it, sewn bind off takes eons to pick out, and if you discover a need to do so it in black mohair, don't. After the BO, ripping back went quickly, and I was further surprised by how little remorse I felt as I pulled out a solid week of work. The yarn is looking a little frail and bedazzled by all the wear



Luckily, it's knitting up OK. Here's where I am as of this morning:



Handy-dandy sheep gauge/needle measure thrown in for scale. (I love that thing. It is worth every penny, and like all the best knitting tools, can function as a weapon in a pinch. Check out the feet.)

Where is the anticipated conflict? Right here



The use of twice-knit yarn and adjusting the tension of one's hands to the tension of stitched roughly roused from their repose has resulted in a rough gauge. The picture hasn't caught the worst of it, but it's there. I see blocking on my horizon. Bleugh.

Things are looking up. The outlook is quite rosy. If this were a Jonathan Stroud novel, you would read those words with a sinking in the pit of your stomach, knowing that the mere fact that a character has thought that will doom them to tribulation in the following chapters. Despite just having finished Ptolemy's Gate, I still have my sights set on a Jane Austen ending.

Fresh Out of Words

So here are some pictures of Monita in her bolero.





And there you have it, the world's crummiest knitblog entry.

Need More Knitting Time?

Get a stapedectomy. This ingenious operation will leave you flat on your back, with all the normal dexterity in your upper limbs, alert enough to follow an intermediate-level knitting pattern, and has the added bonus of preventing further ossification of the bones in your ear, thereby improving your hearing! The strong of stomach can view step-by-step illustrations here.

Oh--did I mention that you won't be able to move without experiencing extreme dizziness for a solid five days, that you won't be able to hear out of the ear in question for the same amount of time, and that you will consume more Advil in those five days than you did in the past five years? Minor details.

Yes, this is how I have spent my post-Christmas break. I have torn through about four solid books and completed one and a half sides of this:


And still managed to fit in time to be a bit bored.

Every project I embark on has a Story. Empirical evidence gathered from other blogs suggests that this holds true for many knitters. Except Brooklyn Tweed, who seems to just bang out masterpieces, without patterns and without batting an eye, at the speed of light. But I digress. I fell in love with the pattern--Pleated Skirt by Blue Sky Alpaca--first, after seeing an ad in Interweave Knits. It's clean, classic, and knit in one color. I wanted the pattern, I needed the pattern, I had to have the pattern for that skirt. My mania was such that I committed my first act of online shopping to procure it.

Yes, the pattern was simple. The sizing was a bit wonky--cast on the same number of stitches for Extra Small, Small, and Medium, and vary needle size to vary the gauge and therefore the fit. And another factor: there were two lengths. But it was still Quite Simple, and I was still going to knit it.

In my local yarn store, while getting advice on yarn amounts for Velma (this all went down last spring), I showed the pattern to an Experienced Knitter. I had discovered that Blue Sky Alpaca yarn is not sold anywhere nearby, and to put it mildly, I have had some unpleasant experiences with yarn substitutions. This Experienced Knitter was only too happy to offer me advice on yarn substitution, but she took exception to the pattern. First was the way different sizes were achieved, second was the fact that it was a pleated skirt. Some negative attributes were ascribed to alpaca yarn along the way. She seemed to have quite a vendetta against pleats (perhaps a project had once gone awry for her), and did all she could to dissuade me from knitting this pattern without actually crying out "Don't knit this abhorrent object!"

A note: Empowerment and diligence are both good qualities. In moderation. In larger qualities, they are expressed by negatively-shaded adjectives such as headstrong, mule-stubborn, obstinate, refractory, etc. And then there are those horribly self-righteous phrases, "pride comes before a fall", and "I told you so." I mention these things to explain why, after a knitter with honorable intentions, and whose years of experience far outweigh my own, offered me myriad reasons why knitting this skirt was without a doubt a bad idea, I made up my mind that I was going to knit this pattern, and I was going to make it WORK.

I bring this up to give you all ample time to get your popcorn. Nine times out of ten, this plot line ends with a project crashing and burning, and I'm sure the aforementioned Experienced Knitter would like to be on hand for the climax.

I found the yarn called for in the pattern at the same store I got the Calmer (ooh--that could be a sign!), and last Friday, I began. Here's where I currently stand:


Add that with the side photographed beneath the pattern, and you get three quarters of a skirt. However, this is where we reach the first plot wrinkle. The first side is knitted in one length. The second, incomplete side is knitted in another. Pause to ponder the wisdom of choosing your desired final dimensions before embarking on a project.

So the suspense builds. I have completed half a side in the correct measurements without a hitch, I have established that I will have plenty of yarn to finish the project. But--I have to rip side 1 back to the first 2 inches to adjust the length. Will I complete it successfully? What's more, will I complete it with my sanity, or will the curtain fall on a gibbering mess entangled in yards of frazzled, twice-ripped alpaca?

We will return to our presentation after a knit break.

Christmastime Is Here

All right--I have gotten over my Calmer tizzy (that statement is loaded with irony) and I am quite pleased. Seeing the Fiery Bolero finished, tiny as it is, somehow made all the stress, the entire days and late nights spent finishing it, the feeling that my triceps was going to peel itself off the bone in protest of its abuse worthwhile. Debbie Bliss is an amazing designer, and thanks to Theresa Vinson Sternson , I got the ribbed bands picked up so tidily, they look like they grew there. (Her Knitty tutorials are truly incredible.)

No pictures yet, though: it my Christmas fervor, I wrapped it up with the rest of my gifts. Maybe we can do a Christmas morning photo shoot.

Over the years, I have lived out many a gift-knitting saga. At one part, one begins to doubt one's sanity. But I am not alone: Stephanie Pearl McPhee's army of gift socks makes my paltry three gifts look like nothing, and Blue Garter has captured--with photos!--the pride of a gift well-finished. Seeing what they, and many others, go through for the thrill of giving a homemade gift has reassured me. Knitters are givers. What better time to give, to push our skills (or at least our patience), and even to show off, than Christmas?

The tree is up, all my gift knitting is done. I am chock full of holiday cheer. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Brain Break

I can't take it anymore. I have been home sick all day (thank you, Hermanita), and in an effort to feel useful, I have been working on the Fiery Bolero. As of right now, I could die, be reincarnated, and live out that life without ever seeing a single milligram of Rowan Calmer, and that wouldn't be long enough.

Exegesis: I have substituted the Debbie Bliss Cathay (Big surprise~Debbie Bliss designed the pattern) with Rowan Calmer in Coral.

It's horrible. Torture. High-quality, yes, but ugh--sticky, and stretchy, not at all like worsted *ought* to be. This summer, mi familia y yo happened to be going past Chix with Stix, which is an awesome little store, so of course I had to stop. (Incidentally, I was sick then, too.) I only bought the stuff because I knew I needed a cotton blend that knitted at 22 sts over 4 inches and the ultra-cool, ultra-helpful woman behind the counter suggested it, and I was being rushed.

I did not do any of my homework on this one. I did not check to see what size needle was recommended on the label. That would've set bells ringing. Cathay gets 22 sts over 4 inches on U.S. size 5 needles. Calmer? 21 sts over 4 inches on U.S. size 8 needles. Their site hints at its bizarre texture--in an oblique, all-our-yarn-is-wonderful sort of way--but once I had the yarn in hand, I didn't think to check what the manufacturer had to say about their product. Finally, I didn't even wind the yarn into handmade balls. For big projects, I usually don't. Unless the yarn comes in a skein and must be wound to avoid distressing snarls, I figure that it's not worth the effort. Usually, it's not. In this instance, that first acquaintance with the yarn might have saved me some undue distress and frogging.

Thank goodness I did a gauge swatch. That, at least, told me I had to go up to a size 7 and use metal, not wood. I invested in an Addi Turbo. I'm not really into metal needles--that incessant clicking annoys me and all the rest of mi familia, and this particular circular was ridiculously expensive. But I must say--it is oh so shiny, and the vile Calmer doesn't drag along it like it did on my bamboo needles.

Even still, trying to get gauge is murder. I detest gauge--it has lied to me on many a project. Whenever I can, I say to heck with swatches, jump into the project, and figure it out from there. Because I rarely knit things that have to be just so, this approach works quite well. But this is a sweater, a gift sweater, and a gift sweater that must fit snugly.

All day, I have been closeted in my room, sinuses pulsing (again, thank you Hermanita), knitting. I knitted through 100-odd pages of a new book. I knitted through Fables, Definitely Maybe, a Concretes single, and one of my own mixes.

And I've gained about 4 inches in length.

Oh, the agony!

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself

Like the Burt Bacharach song (but the White Stripes' cover). Back in the throes of the semester, I was sure that when I reached this point, I would feel like walking through the streets of Paris singing We're Here like Fyfe Dangerfield. But that's not the case at all. I've spent the last three days on quotidian tasks: cleaning, organizing, et cetera. It's quite perplexing.

Why don't I cut to something interesting: last weekend. The trip was just what I needed to take my mind off my Spanish final. Somehow, not knowing how to talk about paying import and export taxes in Spanish just doesn't seem that important when you've just discovered you're on the road to Ventura and you're about to be run down by an H3. We got lost to varying degrees every single day we were there, and at one point, I just had to toss Mapquest's directions out the window (figuratively), backtrack to the last Barnes and Noble we'd passed, and get a LA area map.

We learned about one of Mapquest's least enchanting features the night of the Nutcracker: end at. Reading that, it sounds as if, after traveling x miles, one will be beamed up out of his or her car and beamed back down right in front of his or her destination. Ha. In the pitch black, in speedy evening traffic, it took us three tries to get into the theater we were supposed to magically "end at" to see the Nutcracker.

But the show was so worth it. The scenery was awesome, the dancers were incredible, the choreography was stellar. The whole thing was just fun to watch, and I'm not just saying that because Hermanita was in it. Among the most impressive dances were Snowflakes, which is all corps dancing in perfect synchrony with not a spangle out of place, and Arabian. I took just enough ballet to know how hard a slow dance (adagio) is, and this adagio blew my mind. The whole thing was a masterpiece of balance and control.

And what about the sweater? I wore it. In a moment of panic, I envisioned myself freezing to death in a crowd of high-powered stage mothers in nothing but my plaid miniskirt and my beloved but decidedly low-key Tokyo Police Club shirt, and so I dragged the sweater out and finished it the night before we left. It was marvelously warm without being suffocating, and quite adorable if I do say so myself. Here's a picture, taken on my bed because the light in my bedroom is atrocious and all my attempts at photographing myself sans flash with the sweater on blurred.



The specs are as follows:

Pattern: The Fitted Ribbed Turtleneck from Hollywood Knits. Suss has terrific design sense, but a) she is OBSESSED with knitting flat, which is anathema to every knitty principle I hold dear, and b) her instructions are spare, to put it mildly. Check out the bottom of the sleeve on the front cover of the book. That's a tubular cast on, but nowhere in the pattern does it tell you to use a tubular cast on. I would not take exception to this except for the fact that the entire book is marketed as a treasure trove of patterns for *beginning* knitters. I have been at this 9 years now, and if it hadn't been for my last fiasco--I mean sweater--I never would've thought to use tubular cast on. At Monita's urging, I used tubular bind off for the neck, which meant going back four rows to do the setup, but as she pointed out, it makes the whole thing look very finished. My final tweak was to move the raglan shapings in one stitch from each edge so they made a nice line down from the neck.

Yarn: Just under 16 skeins Meunch Goa, as called for in the pattern. It was muy caro and I had to special order it from my LYS, but after the above-mentioned fiasco, I didn't feel quite up to a yarn substitution. The yarn does have an unusual texture, as Suss noted, but I really enjoyed working with it: it wasn't inordinately stretchy, and the pieces worked up incredibly fast.

Needles: I cast on with a straight size 10, then worked the pieces on a size 10 circular. I admit to a Zimmermanian fondness for circulars, but think--between the bulk of the yarn and the width of the pieces, doing this on straights would be quite unwieldy. That, and you would run the risk of disemboweling anyone seated nearby with the ends of your needles.

Seaming: I used mattress stitch, which was a bit bulky. However, it is essentially like doing one of those laceup toys, especially at this gauge, which is about the extent of my sewing capacity, and I didn't have the vim to search for another seam that was both invisible and doable.

Weaving in: DO NOT weave the ends in before you seam. This is another thing that goes against everything I hold dear, but I tried weaving in some ends before seaming, and it was a mess. Grit your teeth, do the seams, and then hide the ends by running them through the seams.

In sum, a fast, functional retro piece that anyone *ought* to be able to whip up in a few weeks, 2 months max. I will be the first to admit that I have a terribly short attention span when it comes to sweaters. I usually get in over my head, and it's so unbearably hot here 8 out of 12 months, I don't have anything to push me along.

Here's to a holiday full of successfully completed projects.