WolfWeave

Remember in the movie Yellow Submarine (okay, dating myself here) when the Beatles are sailing through a sea and keep falling through holes into other dimensions (Sea of Time) where time seems to stand still and then through other holes where they encounter monsters (Sea of Monsters)? Well, that’s a pretty apt description of what my week’s been like. In two words: Spring Break. And joy of joys, it goes on for another week.

The Sea of Holes could pretty well sum up the lack of progress on my Square Holes Sweater (see photo 2 posts below), where I pretty much spent most of my free time knitting and frogging the same damn cursed annoying 8th row of squares trying to find the extra stitch that always appeared when I reached the end of the row until I finally gave up and just knit it together into the first bind off at the end of the row. I never did find out where it came from or where I was off. I figure it will just disappear into the side seam anyway and no one will ever know, right? At least tonight I had some enough quiet time to knit row 9. Nine rows–isn’t that like halfway up the back?

The Sea of Time aptly describes how slowly this entire week has moved along and yet, how quickly, for I seem to have accomplished nothing. Well, almost nothing. I did manage to start three freeform scrumbles for Prudence’s project (see explanation 2 posts below). Funny how freeform scrumbles seem to take on a life of their own until they have suddenly grown much larger than you intended and you don’t quite know how to make them come to an end so you just stop, awkwardly. It’s been odd to crochet because I haven’t really done so for about two years and I wondered whether I would even remember how but my fingers did remember and it all came back to me, with a little help from Prudence’s books. I even managed quite a few bullions (of which I am duly proud).

Then there’s the fabric postcard I plan to submit to the Tohono Chul Park Fiber Arts Postcard exhibit (this is a pdf) in Tucson, which has to be postmarked by April 1st. Let’s see…that would be SATURDAY! I did love Tucson when we were there and really want to participate in this, even if it means other projects have to wait (sorry postcard groups). I have printed out several my favorite photo from our trip to Tucson, have my backing fabric and all the stuffing, interfacing, etc. but need to cut and iron it all together and do any sewing and embellishing necessary. Maybe time really will stand still tomorrow so I can do some of this! But no, tomorrow is Thursday–Bead Group–and I’m supposed to have practiced my wire wrapping so I can learn to make myself some earrings out of the findings I bought last weekend (along with those art glass beads that have been languishing in boxes on my shelves for 4 or 5 years now).

And the Sea of Monsters? Well, it’s amazing the amount of care and feeding two teenage boys require despite the fact that they have a car and my wallet at their disposal, know how to order a pizza, and should be able to answer a ringing telephone within five or fewer rings. And yet, it might as well be a college dorm for the amount of clothing, wet towels, and food containers strewn about every time I gather my nerve to peer into their rooms…and the less said about the state of their bathroom, the better. They are both tired (despite sleeping until an ungodly hour every morning), cranky (the older one with good reason, for only thin envelopes from colleges have darkened our mailbox so far this week) (the younger one has only late nights and hormones to blame), constantly arguing over nothing, sometimes physically fighting, and seemingly engaged in a duel over who can play their music, television, or computer louder than the other. And did I mention the incessantly ringing phone? Oh yes, my husband’s out of town (and even HE seems to find it necessary to call every 20 minutes or so). I also spent nearly a day resurrecting my iTunes list from the remnants my husband had rescued from my crashed hard drive (but mostly by re-entering all my cd’s) and re-loaded my iPod. So, deciding to act like a teenager myself, I just plugged in my earphones and tuned them out. It’s a lifesaver, really–I’m not quite sure whose life it saved, but it definitely saved someone’s!!

Well, more than a week has passed and I haven’t knit more than a few squares on my poor sweater. I drag it everywhere but it languishes in its ziplok bag. In the meantime, it seems like everyone else in the group is already working ahead on their silk P90 Diagonal Triangle Tops Knitalong, which isn’t supposed to start until April 15. I’ve decided to just sit back and let them all work out any bugs in the pattern before I start! Iris had a wonderful article in the new spring Vogue Knitting with 3 new wrap patterns and a sexy photo of the P90 top.

And why haven’t I done more knitting? Life (you remember what that is) with all its complications has gotten in the way. Let me just narrow it down to a few words: teenagers, aging parents, doctors’ appointments, housework (what?), and colleges (April 15 looms–hours on the phone with colleges trying to figure out when decisions will be in the mail and how this jives with us making our visiting travel plans for the week after next). Not even mentioning all the time consumed by keeping an eye on the neighbor behind us who wants to subdivide his lovely wooded land, planning commission meetings, gathering evidence, etc. Or the emergency flight my husband had to make to Boston to help my ill son go to the doctor (1/2 day of phone calls to make arrangements). In a word…hectic. And those squares require concentration, as I believe I’ve mentioned before!

One bright spot in the entire week: I took time for myself (don’t faint) on Sunday and actually didn’t cancel out of a pre-arranged meetup with two of my Freeform Crochet group friends whom I hadn’t seen for a few years. Tracy drove in from one direction, I from another, and we met at Bonnie’s beautiful house in Oak Park where we admired (and how could you not!) her incredible freeform crocheted dolls, exchanged bags of yarns, admired each other’s latest projects, and talked, often all at once! Tracy, it seems, has followed me over to the Multidirectional Knitting group, where, with her math background, her super-fast knitting ability, and her teenagers out of the house, she is speeding her way through the projects in Iris’s book Modular Knits! I’ve never seen anything like it!

Anyway, after exchanging all we could exchange, we went out for brunch and a super-quick shopping trip to some of the local highlights. Our first stop proved to be the best: the new yarn store Chix with Stix, a delightfully adorable store, bright and charming:

Here we are posing:

Susan, Tracy and Bonnie. For me, the most amazing part of the store was their incredible collection of Alchemy Yarns, which are usually very difficult to find in any great quantity at a single (especially small) yarn store. Chix with Stix had what amounted to nearly an entire shelf unit of Alchemy:

plus this adorable standing rack brimming over with their silk and silk/wool yarns:

Next we made a quick stop at Bead in Hand, Oak Park’s bead store (mainly because I needed some earring findings), and then a last stop at the other local yarn store, Tangled Web, which did not appeal to me as much as Chix with Stix (even though it has been in business a lot longer) because, despite their larger collection of yarns, the store was darker inside which made it hard to see, the yarns were not as neatly arranged, and there was a woman knitting at the table in the main room who had a large dog that I found intimidating. The room was small and it was hard to get around the table and the dog to see all the yarns there. But Tracy managed to find the perfect color yarns–Araucania Wool with which to knit the Building Blocks Shawl from Modular Knits.

And that was all we had time for. Bonnie had to rush off to a talent show at her daughter’s school and Tracy had to meet her husband and daughter to drive home. I, too, drove home after quite a satisfying day, and promptly took a nap! It was wonderful seeing old friends again and such fun visiting yarn stores with other fanatics; I’d forgotten how much fun it could be examining yarns, comparing colors, pointing out skeins and balls and books to each other and laughing over everything (as opposed to the 5 minute dash inside a yarn store with husband and kids marking time in the car). I hope we do it again soon.

So here’s what 7 completed rows look like:

And I’ve reached the end of the first skein of Artyarns Ultramerino 6 so 1 skein was good for 7 rows of 26 squares.

On another note, I think I’ve found my portable, quick, “you can actually work on it while someone is talking to you” project! I’ve joined a lot of my old International Freeform Crochet Group friends to contribute some scrumbles to a garment challenge to be presented during Chain Link, the CGOA national meeting in July. The group has decided on a cape in jewel tones and a shawl in underwater colors and the scrumbles are to be assembled by the inestimable “she-who-never-sleeps” Prudence Mapstone, as soon as she returns to Australia from all her travels. So, even though I haven’t crocheted in a long time while, I’m hoping my fingers remember how so that I can dash off a few scrumbles before the deadline. If finished in time, Prudence may also exhibit the garments at a craft fair in Sydney in June, before bringing them to the states. And, who knows, they may travel to further venues beyond Chain Link. I just HAD to be part of this project!

Monday was a mess. I might as well have been knitting with my eyes closed (which I cannot do, by the way). Granted I was trying to knit while sitting and talking with my parents, who are in town for 10 days–that was my first mistake. My second mistake was not actually really LOOKING at my work. I was just blithely knitting away, counting under my breath, and trying to keep my place while keeping up my end of the conversation. I managed to get through 3/4 of a row and was feeling pretty good about myself until Monday night when I got home and actually sat down where it was quiet and LOOKED at what I’d knit. Hmmm…it looked odd for some reason…different…something about it was off…what could it be? I puzzled over it and counted stitches and stared and stared and finally, from a distance, it hit me: The squares in that row were going in the wrong direction! How did that happen??? Oh shit no! I must have forgotten to knit back across the row and just started the squares right on top of the squares beneath! I wish I’d stopped to take a photo, because it was actually a kind of interesting effect (viewed from the distance of 2 days later), but I was so furious with myself that I just pulled the stitches off the one side of the circular needle and started ripping back the yarn. Unfortunately, I ripped a little too enthusiastically and, before I knew what was happening, I also had this long loose piece of yarn hanging in the middle of the row below. Arrrggghh!! I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get those stitches back in (these squares are nothing like picking up straight knitting), so I had no recourse but to rip (more carefully) back all the way to the middle of the row below. At least 2 days of work evaporated in minutes. I had to take a nap, I was so disgusted with myself.

Finally, yesterday, I started knitting again and managed to finish off the row (and knit back across it to the beginning, where I should start the next row) so I am back to where I was Sunday night. Lovely. And today is Wednesday. I can tell already that there is no chance in hell hope for this sweater to be finished by 3/31 for the promotion, so I guess if I ever want a copy of the Dramatic Squares Shawl pattern, I shall just have to break down and buy one. Even if I could knit nonstop for the next 2 weeks (without making mistakes)–not likely–we do have spring break coming up and have to take a road trip to visit colleges, so little concentrated knitting will get done then. I need to find some small idiot-proof knitting project to carry along to work on when I’m in the car or when I’m talking to people.

I also REALLY have to take some time to work on finish my postcards for Art2Mail and Postmark’d Art, as I have yet to send out my 2005 postcards for the group swaps and we’re 3 months into 2006! I guess I’ve really earned my Title Challenge of “The Duchess of Procrastination.” (Now if I could only find time to make my Title Challenge quilt!)

5 rows down, only an unbelievable number 10 rows left to go–at least until I start binding off for the armholes on the back! But it feels like I’ve really accomplished a lot (and I have!). Even the cats approve:

And isn’t it nice how they match my knitting? I’ve settled into a rhythm now, so I don’t even have to count the stitches in the row to know it’s going to come out all right (agghh–am I calling down the wrath of the knitting gods? Quick–what’s the counter-curse? Or maybe an offering of a ball of yarn on the altar of a finished object? Now I’m really in trouble–only UFO’s around here!).

But if I do have to offer up a ball of yarn, it won’t be this one:

This is the elusive Schaefer Yarns’ Laurel in the Frida Kahlo colorway (I refer to it simply, and fondly, as “Frida”). I had been searching high and low for additional skeins–I mean, after all, it may have 400 yards but what can you make with 1 skein? I couldn’t find more anywhere and had given up, as I explained below. After typing my post of yesterday, I decided to give it one more try and, lo and behold, Littleknits had managed to find some! (I swear they didn’t have any of that color the last few times I searched!) Thank you Sue Fulay!! Four skeins are coming my way and I am now fulfilled!

Though fulfillment doesn’t last long. For a brief moment I was tempted by some absoutely gorgeous Cherry Tree Hill fingering weight silk she was offering but then I came to my senses (thank goodness). I mean, I’ve been having enough trouble knitting with worsted weight silk, the slippery little devil. What in heaven’s name would I do with fingering weight silk on size 3 needles (seriously, a gorgeous tank top–for summer 2010?–because that’s probably how long it would take me, assuming I could keep the silk from slipping off the needles altogether)? But aren’t the colors to die for? I covet every skein on that page and the next!! Oh well, maybe in another lifetime when I am a more accomplished knitter.

All in all, not a bad day. An empty, quiet house; I’m plugged into my iPod; unlimited Diet Coke (Black Cherry Vanilla!) and nothing to do but knit. What could be better? We even have warmish weather today with occasional sunshine (though rain is rumored for later). Well, off the blog and back to the needles. See ya!

In the interest of full disclosure, it has been suggested by my conscience a passing stranger that I also put up photographs of some of the other hand-dyed yarns which have captivated me in the past several weeks. First among these would be Schaefer Yarns’ Helene in the colorway “Mary Breckenridge,” which literally leapt out of the bin all over me at one of my local yarn stores, Three Bags Full (in Northbrook; they don’t have a website):

It is also a 50% silk/50% wool yarn, like Lorna’s Laces’ Lion & Lamb (see 2/27 post) but slightly fuller, running 4.25-4.5 sts/inch and with just as much silkeny sheen. I had never really noticed the Schaefer yarns until I one day found myself buying a skein of their Laurel in the Frida Kahlo colorway–and I don’t even know why because it’s out of my normal color zone. But, there you have it, now I own one skein of Frida Kahlo in Laurel and the store had no more and I’ve searched the internet without success so, if anyone knows where to find more, please contact me because I can hardly knit something substantial with only one skein, can I?

[The keen-eyed among you will notice 2 skeins of Crayon Sequins, color "Niteshades" from The Great Adirondack Yarn Co. nestled atop the skeins of Helene. I am thinking of knitting the Sequined Evening Sash from Modular Knits with them and wearing the sash as a necklace. Isn't it amazing how the colors match?]

Anyway, back to the subject at hand! While wasting spending some time perusing posts on the various knitlists, I read several recommendations for Brooks Farms’ new yarn Four Play (cute, huh?), a 4-ply blend of 50% “fine” wool/50% silk which sold in skeins of more yardage at nearly half the price of my other two new silk/wool favorites. Well, I had to try some, didn’t I? Here is what I ordered:

Although you know and can see that the silk is in there, it doesn’t seem to have the same sheen as the other yarns. Somehow, the four-ply nature over-emphasizes the wool, whereas the single-ply twist of the Lion & Lamb and the Helene lets the silk really shine through. Also, the colors of the Brooks Farm yarn are more muted, not as saturated. But still, overall, it is quite a lovely yarn for the price and I can’t wait to knit something from it. I may not have been overwhelmed by their Four Play, but I WAS blown away by the one skein I ordered of their 100% kid mohair called “Primero.” I chose the color “Amarillo” and it is saturated enough to knock your eyes out, to say nothing of the softness of the kid mohair! This is a yarn (like most of the Artyarns’ yarns) that I immediately wanted to live in! It is more of a sportweight and has 500 yards in its 8 oz. skein. Suffice it to say that I will be ordering more!!

The true color is more like the darker portion at the top of the photograph (okay, so we had 5 minutes of sunshine and this photo came out brighter than the other one!).

Received a box from WEBS with the loveliest surprise in it. Okay, it wasn’t a surprise, as I’d ordered it last week, but I’d already forgotten about my order and it was a surprise (as it always is) to open a brown cardboard box and find such loveliness hiding inside:

This is the Artyarns new Silk Rhapsody yarn–a delectable confection of one strand of Regal Silk wound together with another thinner strand of 30% silk/70%mohair, both dyed in the same colorways. To say the least, the photo does not do it justice; this is color # 106 and it has a lot more blues and purples than show up in the photo. I wish the sun had been shining so that the sheen of the silk might have shown up in the photo (that one white streak is not in the yarn–it is a lone ray of sunshine trying to peek through the clouds). I have no idea what I’m going to make with it but, for right now, it is enough just to stroke and pet the yarn–it is so soft and luxurious that it feels almost sinful to own some! Actually, it will be difficult to find a project worthy of the yarn–some luxurious shrug or shawl perhaps. I have six skeins now (grabbed the first two from the owner’s hand bought the first two from Nina and am already craving some more. It knits up at 4.5 st/inch on size 8 needles so if anyone has a pattern for something sinfully delicious outrageously elegant to suggest, please let me know.

Also in the box was my first pair of circular Susanne’s needles (size 7) out of ebony wood from Germany that everyone’s been touting. I’ll have to give them a try and see if I prefer them to my current favorite Addi Natura’s.

Wait! The sun actually came out for 5 minutes so I took another photo. (Let’s see if it’s any more representative of the loveliness of this yarn. If not, you’d better just go look at it on the Artyarns site–see link at top of this post.)

After much angst and nearly a week of trying, I think I’ve finally mastered the pattern to Iris Schreier’s Square Holes Sweater. The pattern was basically so diabolical repetitive that I was making a mistake somewhere but couldn’t find it and would only discover my problem when I reached the end of the row with a couple of stitches left over. As this happened time and time again, it was completely maddening frustrating. I received some great help and advice from Iris and from Lee, one of the women in the group, and, eventually, it just started working out. I still have no idea where I was making my mistake though. However, I now have nearly two rows on the back completed so I am on my way. I am using Artyarns Ultramerino 6 in what is apparently my favorite color, #117. (Don’t worry, soon I’ll break away from my grey/black/white fixation and try out some of the “real” colors!! I have enough of them in my stash!) I love this yarn–it is soft, even, bouncy, and the very best a merino can hope to be. Here is a photo of how far I’ve come (imagine this as a whole sweater someday):

Ta da! Presenting my Sheer 1 Piece Shawl from Iris Schreier’s book Modular Knits worked in Artyarns Regal Silk Color 117.

It turned out a little larger than it should have, due to my stubborn insistence on using size 8 needles instead of Iris’s recommended size 7. Oh well–it is open and lacy!