On Being an Elf

I don't know why I thought Santa needed an extra elf this year, but just before Thanksgiving I decided to change my mind and knit a few Christmas presents. I don't know why I can't seem to make these decisions earlier, like September or something, but I never do. Call it an impulse, or maybe a flash of inspiration. Either way I'm buying yarn in colors I wouldn't typically purchase for myself and knitting projects like a mad woman. Now if that isn't being an elf I don't know what is! The best part? I'm having so much fun! Too bad I can't show you what I've been up to, but we can't spoil Santa's surprises can we? HO HO HO!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's Basketball Time in Tennessee!

Mondo Cable Vest

It's that time again - it's basketball time in Tennessee! And since basketball is played during the winter one must have some warm orange and white garb to wear to the games. I picked up a few things last year, but I knew I wanted to make some new things for this season. Since it can get mighty chilly gong back and forth to the games and a bit drafty in Thompson-Boling Arena I decided I needed to tackle a sweater this time around. This might not sound like a big deal for most knitters, but for this skinny yarn, lace knitter a sweater is a challenge!

So how did I get myself into this predicament? It all started the day my Best Fiber Friend (BFF), Paula, unpacked a huge box of new yarn at my LYS, The Yarn Haven. The yarn was Pacific, a new worsted weight washable merino/acrylic blend from Cascade. There were oodles of great colors, but when this Tennessee Orange came out of the box my mind started racing. I don't buy yarn on impulse anymore so I left the shop without the yarn but it didn't stay there long. I went back a few days later and bought enough to knit this vest plus an extra skein for some accessories.

I cast on Bonnie Marie Burns' Mondo Cable Vest right away and worked on it during the month while I was sick with a nasty respiratory virus. While I was sick I didn't care that the knitting was mostly stockinette and rather boring. For a couple of weeks boring was good, then it was awful! I thought the plain stockinette part would *never* end! The top-down construction of this vest sounded like a wonderful thing at first, and it is, but the execution of the design for the upper portion is terribly fiddly. I wasn't too thrilled with how the pattern was written/edited so I wouldn't suggest newbies try it unless they have a mentor to guide them through. The actual knitting isn't difficult, but following the pattern is a bit cumbersome IMHO. Maybe my negative attitude is because I'm used to the precision of lace patterns, but I expect more from self-published (not in a magazine) patterns.

The designer intended for this pattern to be either a vest or a shell. As such, I expected the armholes to be rather shallow for stand-alone wear. I knew I'd be layering my vest over a loose-cut turtleneck so I dropped the armholes by 4 rows. The fact that my row gauge was a bit tighter than the pattern called for contributed to my decision. In the end I needn't have bothered as the armholes would have been plenty deep without modification. Live and learn. The vest was written to end at the high hip and I wanted mine to extend to the low hip so I added one extra repeat of the cable motif. I could have added a few more rows, but I'm satisfied with the length as it is.

I choose to knit one size larger than I normally wear as I wanted plenty of positive ease in my vest. Who wants to wear confining clothes at a basketball game? Not me! I love the overall fit of my finished vest so I made the right choice for me. Even with the extra length added to my vest, I ended up using ~150 yds less yarn that the pattern called for. This surprised me, but 400 grams was plenty. Now I have 200 g to knit a beret plus something else, possibly mittens. Whatever, I am ready to show my Tennessee Volunteer Spirit, sing Rocky Top, and cheer on Coach Martin's Basketball Vols. Go Big Orange!

So Long Summer...Hello Fall

September has finally arrived and I can thankfully say so long to the summer of 2010. With a few wonderful exceptions, like my trip to the Rustic Tarts & Old Farts Knitting Gathering back in June, the rest of this summer has pretty much been lousy. I've been working with my health care team to make drastic changes in the medications I take to manage my fibromyalgia. The end result will be very positive, but the journey has been anything but. I've been sick as a dog pretty much all summer. Add to that the excessive heat and humidity we've had here in Smoky Mountain Country and, well, I'm ready for Fall to get here and for life to get better. Much better.



When I haven't been sleeping --or not-- I've been watching sports on TV and reading novels that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf for years. My knitting output, especially in August, has been minimal. I spent July watching Braves baseball, Wimbledon Tennis, and the Tour de France. My TDF KAL project was an amazing Estonian-inspired lace shawl called Aurantium Blossom, which I knit in a delicate pink baby alpaca laceweight yarn. The lace patterning is comprised of two different Estonian flower motifs, accented by a simple leaf motif edging. Never one to leave things as is, I chose to gild the lily just a wee bit by adding pale pink silver-lined AB 8-0 seed beads to the edging. When the light hits the beads just right they look like raindrops. Beautiful!!! AB is one of the prettiest shawls I've knit to date.

Inspired by the stunning outcome of AB, I cast-on another shaped Estonian Lace shawl, Echo Flowers, the last week of the TDF. Having mastered the 3-into-9 stitch flower cluster I figured I could whip out EF in no time at all. Yeah, right. NOT! I was so sick I hardly touched my knitting for 2+ weeks. I barely managed to finish EF before the start of the La Vuelta in Spain(another 3 week road cycling Grand Tour Race, another KAL hosted on Ravelry). A shawl that I could normally knit at my leisure in maybe 3 weeks took closer to 6 weeks to finish. SIGH!!! The good news is that EF is perhaps even more stunning than AB because of the wide nupp and flower border that finishes the bottom edge. Once again I used baby alpaca lace yarn, this time in a butter yellow with rosy pink heathered highlights, and added a touch of bling with a few champagne pink SL 8-0 seed beads. The shawl is blocked, but I have yet to take FO photos. Stay tuned!

In the meantime I have several knitting projects I'm working on in fits and starts. The Atlanta Braves are in the NL East pennant race and playing better. Tennis has moved on to the US Open in NYC, the Schleck brothers are cycling in the sweltering heat of Andalucia, and beginning this Saturday it's FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE! GO VOLS!!!

Fat Yarn, Fat Needles

Since the day I finished my first lace knit scarf about four and a half years ago I have been in love with skinny yarns and tiny needles. That scarf, an "Old Shale" lace knit in a white mohair/silk blend yarn on US size 6/4.0mm needles sent me on a path where my knitting had never gone before. It's been exceedingly difficult to persuade myself to return to fat yarn and fat needles and to try knitting sweaters again. Let me define "fat" for you. By fat yarn I mean anything worsted wt or heavier and fat needles are anything bigger than a US 7/4.5mm. Such yarn feels more like rope in my hands, the fat needles more like broomsticks.

Returning to the "fat" way of knitting has been a real challenge, but I was determined to give it a go. Besides the added bulk of everything was my fear of knitting sweaters. Me? Afraid? YES!!! Why? Because I have yet to ever knit a sweater than fit well and flattered my curvy self. I've done big-enough-for-two-to-wear-at-the-same-time sweaters, I've done boxy, oversized, drop-shoulder, you-just-gained-20-pounds-by-putting-this-on sweaters. I've done multi-stranded, super chunky, cropped OhMyGosh! sweaters and no-pattern-innovate-falls-off-the-shoulders sweaters. And (oh yeah!) the one it's-kinda-snug sweater (you mean dk wt is different from worsted wt????) that I did wear even though it left marks on my arms where the sleeves were binding (so much for puffed sleeves of the 80's). I have learned that accurate gauge swatches are not only important, they are essential to good sweater knitting. Sigh.....

When the new Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting showed up at my LYS I picked it up and started to thumb through the pages with my usual skepticism for VK. But wait! This time VK came through with lots of lace and plus-sized sweaters that even I wanted to knit. SHOCK!!! When I came across the lace tunic designed by Project Runway contestant Gordana Gehlhausen I knew I had to knit one for myself. I bought some lovely lavender cotton blend yarn (dk wt. :-) and started in. My gauge was perfect using a size smaller than the pattern calls for needles (sz 8). I couldn't stand the thought of having to heft around sz 9s!

Knitting WW cotton yarn sweaters is physically more taxing than lace shawls, so I have had to pace myself. I found that I can do it in the morning, but not at night. Even still, I am only a few short rows from being finished only a month after starting. This is very good. Once I am done there will be photos to share, so keep tuned. In the meantime I chose another summer cardigan/top from a back issue of VK for my next sweater project. Sweaters are great for my wardrobe. I think I'll try and knit some more :-) Shocking, I know :-)

Gotthold Doily

Gotthold
Originally uploaded by beadntat

I'm finally getting around to posting photos of my recently completed Niebling Doilies. This is Gotthold, from the folio Kunststricken: Grosse un kleine Decken that was reprinted by Verlag fur die Frau in Germany and made available in the US at Lacis. It is so nice to finally be able to access legal copies of vintage Niebling designs at an affordable price. Before then avid lace knitters either had to pay a King's ransom to buy the patterns on Ebay or they downloaded illegal copies from the internet. I refused to do either so I was out of luck. No more! Lacis says they will have another collection ready for purchase soon...and this time it will be translated into English and the patterns will all have been proofed and test-knit so they will be error-free. WooHoo! I can't wait :-)

Christel Doily

Christel
Originally uploaded by beadntat

There were many long evenings of squinting and finger stretches, but at last little Christel is off the needles. I say little not because the doily is small, at 18 inches blocked it is anything but small, but the DMC tatting thread and the US000/1.5mm needles I used to knit Christel are most definitely small. Very small. Crazy small. Forget bifocals and ditch the glasses small. That's SMALL!!! But I really love this little doily. She is so delicate when compared Gotthold knit with sz 40 cordonnet and US 0/2.0mm needles. Yes, Gotthold looks huge!!!

Gotthold was my third Niebling Doily (Starry Night/Valentine's Day was my first, Mallins 44 the second) and Christel my fourth. I am most definitely hooked on knitting these vintage German designs. So much so that I dropped a small chunk of change on ebay last night for an old magazine filled with patterns by another designer, Erich Engeln. In German Engeln means tulip so it only makes sense that his lace designs frequently featured tulips. There are several doilies plus a large tablecloth with the most amazing tulip motifs that I can't wait to knit. I'm sure Mom will be thrilled since tulips are her most favorite of all flowers. She loves many types of flowers, as do I, but she loves tulips the most. Now all I have to do is contemplate thread choices and wait on the DM (Deutsch Mail, known to be notoriously slow at times) to send my little treasure on its way to me. I can't wait!!!