Maybe, Just Maybe

Gauge might be trusted after all.

OK, just having said that, I realize that no, you can't. Because now that I have said that, Gauge is going to rush up and bite me in some vital part of my anatomy, just to teach me a lesson.

Still, all seems to be going well with the Arwen Cardi. This is the last photo I took of it, although I'm a bit further along now.

This is the back panel. The front is mostly just boring, so I won't subject you to a picture of grey tweed knitting. I've actually finished the front sides and have all but the last 40 rows or so of the back done. From what I've got, it looks like it might even fit, despite my fiddling with the pattern in 27 different ways. I'm using the sizing and the front cables from the Arwen, the panel (St. John's Cross) from Louhi and the shaping from Rogue. I even changed the side cables on the Louhi panel so they are never ending and will be putting the centre bit of the cross on the sleeves, just to make them interesting. I love what I have so far and hope it continues that way. I did have one slight problem with it, or rather, my inability to pay attention caused me a problem. I messed up the cable band slightly in one place, and on both bands at the same time. It took me much too long to notice it and by the time I did, I was already another 40 rows (256 stiches to a row) and couldn't be bothered to frog. However, it did look bad, as I had forgotten to go "under" with one of my cables thus causing it to lose the woven look, so I had to do something with it. Finally I basically just fudged the "under" bit by weaving in faux stitches to make it look like it went under when it should have. I think it looks good enough to get away with. If not, at least it looks the same on both sides. This is before

and this is after. See where the white thread is on the lower half right side? That's it. The white thread is actually part of the yarn, but it's a handy marker.

You'll notice that these are two different sides of the sweater, but like I said, I did the same thing on both sides and this is just the fix for the other side and not the one in the above picture. 6 to one, half a dozen to another.

Finally, I finished a pair of Phone Socks. I call these coffee socks because they remind me of coffee just after you put cream in it, but before you've stirred. The yarn is a wool, bamboo mix and is very comfortable to wear. I need to make more of these.

Yarn Pimp

A good friend of mine has set up an Etsy shop with hand dyed yarn. If you're interested, pop over and take a look ThePinkSheep's Shop .

Arwen is coming along nicely, although it may be causing a little tendonitis. I know I should leave it be for a couple of days, but I can't. I don't want to. I may regret this, but, yes, well, you know...

No Trust in Gauge

Where the time goes, I'll never know. There are so many little things I'd like to do, vaguely think I'll do them some time this morning/afternoon/evening and suddenly it's the next day and I'm thinking the same thing all over again. At this rate, I know I'm going to get to the end of my life by what will seem like tomorrow. I'm going to look back and wonder where it all went.

Thus far, things are looking pretty good with the Arwen. I'm doing the bottom in one piece on a long cable and it looks like it will fit just fine. I'm waiting for all hell to break loose when I block. I think I may just wash it in a sweater bag this time and lay it out flat asap so I don't have to worry about water weight stretching it out or anything similar. I really, really want this sweater to fit. I'm loving what I have done to the point where I sit and stroke it before putting it away at night. It's so soft and smooth and pretty and lovely and I want to be able to wear it. If it fits, it will be my crowning project as a knitter. Please, please fit! Please! Mr. Gauge, I promise to swatch properly for every sweater I ever knit again if it does fit, so please let it fit me!

Now that we've had the party, I can blog about my Little LotR Cardy with pictures. Theoretically, I shouldn't have said anything at all pre-party, but I'm almost always knitting for other people and my blog would die if I hid everything (besides, I love this little sweater). Anyway, here it is:

I knit this for a friend in Michigan who's having a baby next month. It's for a 18-24 month old, but I wasn't sure what to knit for a new born in Michigan in April. The weather could go either way and if I picked the wrong thing, it would never get worn. This should hopefully be wearable two autumns/winters from now. The yarn is a 50/50 wool/cotton blend and is fabulous. Unfortunately, the store I bought it from is no longer stocking it. Had I known about it and known it would be running out, I would have gone and bought more colours for stash purposes because it's fabulous. It's soft and warm, just like you would want for a baby. It also knits up really well. I used 2.75mm needles, so it's a tight knit which will help keep the warmth in. Since I still wasn't getting gauge even with the small needles (I spent over a week gauge swatching this one. The knitting gods hate me.), I added another band of cables on each side to take up some of the extra width, which I think worked. I seriously hope that I one day get pictures of little Ife in this sweater, because I love it and I think Mommy did too.

Deep Sense of Foreboding

*looks around shiftily*

I'm searching for evil things lurking in dark corners, which have every intention of jumping out, grabbing me and winding me up into a gigantic ball of yarn before smuggling me off to some small sweatshop somewhere on an unknown continent where they force me to knit pink lace for the rest of my life.

OK, so that's a little over dramatic, but something's not good. I haven't been well recently (yes, I know. I really need to have the tonsils out. I have a pre-op appointment in a couple of weeks (although this won't be happening until Oct.)). Not feeling well makes me rather un-inventive, so I've been knitting things like socks, which I could knit in my sleep if I had to, which may have actually happened once or twice, but I'm straying again. Anyway, I figured it was a good chance to get a boring gauge swatch out of the way, since that's pretty much mechanical straight knitting which doesn't require much brain power. So, I got out the yarn, picked out the needles it says to use on the yarn and...

got gauge.

Then I promtly fainted. Honestly. I knit a 5 inch swatch, measured pre-washing, washed, dried, measured again and I'll be bound if I didn't get gauge on the first try. True gauge. No stretching, no pulling, no half stitches, no wishful thinking. I got gauge. Theoretically, I should be jumping for joy, but it's too good to be true. As a severily cynical and jaded person, I don't trust it. It's Gauge's new way of playing with my mind. It wants to lull me into thinking I'm on the smooth road to sucess before biting me in the butt, hard.

This is just to let Gauge know, your evil plan has backfired. I'm now prepared for the worst. Muhahahahahaha!

After the tonsils, I may need to seek out psychiatric help, don't you think?