Weakling

All my life I've been a weakling. It's a good thing I can run like hell.

New Sweater Design
I couldn't stand the pressure of having new skeins of yarn in great colors, so I started the new Mini-Chock-a-Block sweater yesterday. Here's a working copy of the graphic for color combinations.



The colors will be different than this, but I used this format to establish the proper balance of colors and how to equally disperse some of the brighter colors thoughout the more muted colors. Honestly, I hardly got any done, but I felt I should confess to having started another project. It took quite a while to just wind all the yarn on balls.

As penance for this transgression, I decided to force myself to finish writing up the pattern for the Chock-a-Block cardigan. Now the pattern is completely done, and is ready for submission to Unicorn as part of the men-on-men book.

Anyone up for a quiz?
I found this quiz on-line, and it seemed to accurately describe me, although I can't believe I'm a yellow. I don't even LIKE that color, and if I ever wore it, you would think I had a liver disease.

YELLOW You are very perceptive and smart. You are clear and to the point and have a great sense of humor. You are always learning and searching for understanding. Find out your color at Stvlive.com!

Fair Isle Progress
I did another inch or so on the Donegal sweater. Even though I worked on the new design, I still was able to get some Fair Isle knitting done. Again, I haven't gotten up to the neck steek, so I can't put a picture up yet. For those of you who hate that I started a new one without finishing all my outstanding projects, I can assure you that I only have the Donegal and the Patterned Sock with me now in Albany. I can't even think about working on the new design until I get home on Thursday night.

More Confessions
Okay, I succumbed to a request from a friend and neighbor to knit her young daughter two cardigans from yarn she bought when she was visiting her sister in New Orleans. I figure that they will both go very quickly since the child is pretty small, and they will be done on US5 needles. She bought a total of three yarns to be made into two cardigans.

The first yarn is a confetti colored yarn with slubs made out of cotton (I think). There is no label, so I'm guessing on this. I did a small swatch and it knits up kind of fun.



The other two yarns are Provence and Flora by Trendsetter. She wants me to use the Flora as trim or accent. I'm not sure how that will look, but I'll try either striping around the neck and sleeve cuffs or putting in a few stripes on the body. To make this one interesting, I will also probably have to add some pattern stitch work. I couldn't stand to have to do both of these cardigans in all stockinette stitch.



I haven't decided on a penance for this sin yet. All clever suggestions will be considered.

QueerJoe Doppelganger

An attractive, gay, male knitter in my own town that I've heard about for years, and never met...until yesterday.

The Mysterious Marcus
It was downright strange. A couple of years ago, over the course of about a month, three people in my life (including Thaddeus) told me about a very good looking man they met named Marcus. Everytime I'd arrive somewhere, someone would say I just missed him. Coincidental, but not extraordinary. Until, the ladies at my local yarn store told me that he had been in the store, and he was a fearless new knitter who was undaunted by even the most complex Aran patterns.

Now I was intrigued, but still, this Marcus man eluded me.

The World Wide Web has a great way of bringing folks together. He found my blog and e-mailed me earlier this week. As an additional oddity, Marcus told me that many of my 100 Things About Me list applied to him as well. About 30 of them, including the fact that he's got his private pilot's license.

We scheduled to meet at Simply Knit so I could finally get to meet this elusive stranger. Despite fears that the universe would collapse in on itself when we met, I finally got to meet this talented knitter. We had a great time shopping after hours at the yarn store, and he is a wonderful guy. Here he is looking over some complex intarsia designs in an old Rowan magazine.



I also decided to move forward on the Mini-Chock-a-Block design without waiting for Matt's color input. I don't know if they will look as good as what Matt's working on, but I figure I can always make two different colorways of this sweater, or redo it in Matt's version if I don't like mine. Here are the 22 colors of Jamieson DK that I bought last night.



I have to decide on which color I will use as the border color. I also realize from this picture, that I will need to be sparing with the royal blue in the center top row and the coral/peachy color on the bottom towards the right.

Just In Time Project Bag
I had completely forgotten I had ordered a canvas bag from Antonio's site, EarthaKnit. It will be perfect for the new sweater project.



I also didn't realize it was imprinted on the reverse as well. Gawd, I'll look fabulous with my new project bag.



Donegal
Stitch by stitch, inch by inch, I make progress on this sweater, but I am bound and determined to get it done this time. I had to bring Thaddeus in for a medical procedure today, so I got another inch done while waiting for him. I don't plan on including another picture until I'm back up to the neck steek. It looks pretty much the same as the last picture.

In answer to the question, "Are you using the colors called for in the pattern?", the answer is yes. There are two colorways, Earth and Sky. I'm doing the Earth colorway and the only color that was no longer available was Wood Green (I think), but there was an almost exact match in something else (that works perfectly.

Self Patterning Sock
Also made some progress on the ribbing on this project while taking a break from Donegal at the hospital.



I never like the ribbing as well as the toe, foot and heel when knitting with self-patterning yarn. It just doesn't show up as crisply. But I'm still liking this yarn.

Slow Progress

I can't imagine how Wendy makes so much progress on her Fair Isle sweaters...she makes me look bad in comparison.

Donegal
Work is continuing to interfere with my ability to knit, but I persevere. I've done about an inch, including setting up the sleeve steek. I've also taken some tips from Wendy and put some stitch markers to separate the repeats. My two-handed knitting is getting more and more routine, so I think progress on this sweater will get faster and faster. You won't see much difference, but here's where I am so far.



It will be a satisfying day when I get back up to the neck steek.

Pattern Sock Yarn
Given how much more work it is to do the Fair Isle sweater, the ease with which this sock is moving along is amazing. I'm not even sure if I like the colors or pattern that it's making. I'm just enjoying doing all knitting and having a pattern emerge effortlessly. It's a good change up from the work on Donegal.



As you can see, I have turned the heel. I did a standard short-row heel on half of the 68 stitches.

New Jamieson Line
Here's the little bit of information that I gleaned when reviewing the new line of yarns from Unicorn/Jamieson.

First of all, it is clear that David (of Unicorn Books) is extremely tired of Shetland wool. You won't find a speck of Shetland in the new line.

There is an extensive line of merino, soft tweed, cashmere and possibly cotton, although I don't remember if there's any cotton since I don't like cotton yarn, and this is all about "me" afterall.

My favorite yarn is a worsted weight tweed. The colors are rich and have a lot of depth. The yarn is plied loosely (looked like two ply, but I could be wrong). There's a rich maroon color that everyone liked, but lots of other colors as well. The tweed includes little slubs of other colors, which I like, especially when making classic men's sweaters.

The cashmere looked like a lightweight DK weight, although I didn't validate that. Colors were limited, but nice. This will knit up perfectly beautiful garments, but I imagine it will also be pretty pricey.

The merinos came in multiple weight and had a pretty extensive color pallette, although no where near the 180 or so colors of Jamieson DK. The merinos were also smooth, and lofty yarns that reminded me of the Jo Sharp yarns, except softer.

I'm expecting to go back to the yarn store this Thursday evening, so if you have any more questions, I'd be glad to check it out further.

New Starts

How amazing that I can be sidetracked so easily by a simple trip to my local yarn store.

Yarn Store Visit
I stopped in at Simply Knit on Friday to show them the final Chock-a-Block sweater. They all seemed to like it, so I was happy. Not happy that it won their approval, but happy because it looks like it will be a successful design from a sales perspective. I'm hopeful that the editor at Unicorn books will like it as well. If some of the guys who have expressed interest in submitting a design for "men by men" book come up with a few designs, then I will propose this one as part of that effort. If not, I will hope to get it into one of the next Jamieson books.

As it turns out, Jamieson is going to be coming out with an entire new line of yarns. I got to see a lot of them, and they look very exciting. It was one of those that triggered me to be sidetracked. Jamieson had sent a bag of random skeins of yarn in the upcoming line. One of them caught my eye, so the ladies at Simply Knit gave it to me to play with. I couldn't help starting it as soon as I got home.



There is really nothing extraordinary about this yarn or the sock that it's making. It's just another self-patterning sock yarn. Up until now, I have resisted knitting with any of these yarns. I feel like I shouldn't like them. They seem fake, or too easy, or taking away my ability to be creative with colors of my own. I have to say, I am LOVING knitting this sock. I don't know why, I just am.

Baltimore Orioles
As a celebration for the success of my last project at work, we had a party in one of the executive boxes at the Baltimore baseball field, Camden Yards. In addition to food and drink, we got to watch the Orioles get spanked by the Kansas City Royals. I thought my blog-buddy Justin might be interested to know I witnessed this public humiliation.



Donegal Progress
Getting back to the point where I could actually start knitting this garment again took a while, and I had to count 336 stitches a few times just to make sure I was really back to where I should be. I haven't even gotten back up to the sleeve steek, so I won't put a picture in till later.

I plan on making this my primary project while I'm working in Albany, even though I have to carry a bag'o yarn with me, it will be nice to finish this wonderful sweater.

Knitting Blog Pets
For those of you who read Wendy's Blog as often as I do (and I know most of my readers know me from her blog), I have been hesitant to post about her cat Izzy having to be put to sleep. I have actually been shocked into paralysis about writing about Izzy, not knowing what to say, but knowing I wanted to say something.

As I type this blog entry on my lap top, my cat Gage is sitting on my chest, waiting for Thaddeus to come home. The thought of losing this wonderful animal is a devestating one for me, so you can imagine how I felt when I read Wendy's post. Izzy's personality was apparent in how Wendy showed him on her blog, and I grew to know him as well as I felt I knew Wendy. Her blog post that day had me crying for her loss. I also was glad that Izzy had such a wonderfully loving mom, like Wendy to take care of him, and having rescued Gage from the local shelter, I hope he feels the same way. I leave you with some pictures of Gage in his favorite napping place.

Finishing

Finishing a garment well can make all the difference in terms of how I enjoy the result of my knitting.

Sara Cardigan
The worst part about this sweater is the fact that it is not at all photogenic. As I've written before, I love wearing this sweater and it gets more compliments from people whose opinion I respect than any other sweater I wear. I tried once more with the new camera, and that didn't help either



The gros grain ribbon helped a lot (I hand stitched it in with a tacking stitch like you'd use to do a hem), but after finishing this sweater and sewing in the buttons on the Chock-a-Block cardigan, I've realized that I don't do button bands very well. I find that I have to constantly make adjustments to them and even then, I'm never fully satisfied.

Chock-a-Block Cardigan
As mentioned, all the buttons are on, and I figured I owed all those folks that suffered through the design decisions a few finished pictures of the sweater. First of all, here's one that shows the buttons and a close up of the button band. The buttons don't match any color in particular, but they end up adding style without detracting. Exactly what I look for in a set of buttons. And of course, thanks to Marilyn, on all her advice with buttons.



And here are a couple of pictures with me wearing this final creation. You'll note that it's shorter than a standard men's cardigan, so I will make the pattern so that it includes two sizes, this one and a larger one.



You can also glimpse some of my other sweaters in the armoire behind me where I store my sweaters.

Finally, here's another one that I thought looked good.



Other Fiber Efforts
A while ago, I decided to try to teach myself quilting. I wanted to machine stitch the pieces, so I bought an old Sears sewing machine. I picked one of the most complex patterns and realized I hate using a sewing machine and gave up quickly. Then I decided that maybe hand stitching would be more enjoyable. I've gotten eight squares done so far, and maybe some day I'll pick it back up and make the quilt that will go with my alpaca bedspread.



While I haven't worked on this in over a year, I did enjoy the hand stitching much better than the machine work.

Well, I'm off to Baltimore for a project team celebration. You'd think I'd stay over for the MarylandSheep and Wool festival since it's tomorrow, but I would prefer to spend some time with Thaddeus. Now that you've seen another picture of him, you know why.