Fulmar Sleeves, Creeping Toward Completion

On September 23, at the end of my self-declared Summer of Sleeves, the Fulmar sleeves measured to about 6.5". I put them away then and didn't touch them again until just after Christmas. In a month of sporadic but somewhat concentrated knitting -- that is, not a lot of time for knitting, but what little I had went to Fulmar -- the sleeves almost doubled in length.

Kind of makes you wonder what I might be able to accomplish here if I actually, you know, tried.

With St. Brigid on the needles now, I doubt I'll be working on Fulmar much in the near future. New toys are so much fun! But knitting the Fulmar sleeves in January reminded me of how much I really love this pattern and yarn. This sweater deserves to be finished, and I have a feeling that will happen sooner rather than later.

Farewell, Summer of Sleeves

I blinked, and the summer was over.

This was going to be the summer of sleeves, the summer in which I dedicated myself to knitting six sleeves on three sweaters-in-progress. I declared it so around the end of May, and then promptly set about knitting two brioche berets, two pairs of mittens, some socks, a vest -- just about everything EXCEPT sleeves.

Is it any wonder that my driving determination lately has been to recapture my focus? I've been living a butterfly's life, flitting from task to task with no plan and little comprehension of my own personal butterfly effect. This is highly atypical behavior for me. And I can't say I like it.

But the truth is, I hadn't even realized how bad it had gotten until we were at the editing retreat in August, and one of my friends made a gentle joke at my expense about unfinished manuscripts lingering on my desk. Dammit, she was right. My lack of purpose and plan has led to lingering, unfinished business in every corner of my life.

These things don't happen all of a sudden, of course. It's not like one day you're driven to succeed and the next, you're coasting. Instead, I found myself jiggling my schedule to make room for things like tv -- and that should have been a big warning sign in and of itself. I bet I haven't averaged five hours of tv a week over the course of my life. So why would I suddenly need to stop everything to watch American Idol, of all ridiculous things? And why would I skip a trip to the gym in order to do so?

I know why I did that. There were reasons. We all go through times when the urge to play ostrich swamps other concerns.

But since returning from Goat Rock, I've been taking stock and pulling my head out of the sand. Just as the change from focused to unfocused didn't happen in an instant, the return to focus is also taking some time. I started by reprioritizing my workload. I took inventory, set up a schedule, made goals. I created ways to hold myself accountable.

And I knit some damn sleeves.

Anyway.

So what's next? Right now, I'm working on finishing the Sockotta ribbed socks and the Fulmar sleeves. On Monday, I get to cast on something new, and that "something" will be a sweater from that purple Kyoto.

By that time, I expect I'll have finished the Sockotta socks -- or they'll be very close. That will leave me with one pair of socks OTN, and that's where I'll keep that number. I'll keep one plain sock on my desk, as always, to knit when I'm dictating or reading. My other knitting time will go toward finishing things in progress and toward Banff.

Banff is an easy sweater which won't take a lot of thought. Knitting the Veronik Avery halter vest this summer reminded me how much I enjoy making simple fabrics with just a bit of design interest in the shaping. So I'll have Banff, and Catherine Parr will be wearable before the end of the year, and Fulmar will continue to be the project I knit when I have time for something a bit more challenging.

I'll finish Catherine Parr, the Fulmar sleeves, and the new Kyoto sweater before the end of the fall. And that means we've moved from the summer of sleeves into the fall of finishing.

Summer of Sleeves? Oh, Yeah

Apologies for the terrible pictures. For some reason, blogger gave me error messages every time I tried to upload the good picture, but it lets me load this fuzzy crappy picture with no problem. Thereby proving that blogger still hates me.

The sleeves are now 5 inches long, and they feel like they're knitting up quickly. Of course, that's probably because this is the narrow end of the sleeves. Once I get to full width, I'm sure they'll feel like they're taking forever. I'm in the third pattern repeat and each repeat is getting me about an inch. So my row gauge is off -- I'm supposed to get ten rows to the inch, but I'm getting twelve. I've decided I can live with this, even if it means my sleeve width will flare a little too quickly.

All things considered, though, I'd say week one of my personal summer of sleeves is off to a decent start!

Baby Sleeves

This blue is so electric that it's hard to photograph. It confuses the camera!

Last night, I did my sleeve math for Fulmar and knit the rest of the cuffs. Oh, yeah, baby, knitting again. For those of you in the Fulmar KAL, I shortened the cuffs to 5 cm (she calls for 7), and I will be using Starmore's rate of increases for the first part of the pattern. That's the faster rate of increase, adding one stitch every three rows. By extending that rate further up the arm and delaying the switch to the slower rate of increase, the sleeve will hit the maximum width a little closer to the elbow. This will make it easier to modify the drop sleeve to remove some of the underarm bulk. I shortened the cuffs that little bit because I have short arms, and that's an easy way to shave off a half-inch in sleeve length.

I love this pattern so much. This might be my favorite knit of all time. The instructions are so clean and easy to follow that she turns the whole process into a magic trick. You see this complex and detailed pattern? Presto-change-o! It's a piece of cake!

And the yarn. swoon! Can you imagine what high grade merino feels like after crocheting 2000 yards of Encore?

I'm a very, very happy knitter right now. With great reluctance, I won't take Fulmar with me to the lake house today for the holiday weekend. Many children + smallish house + cold and rainy weather = bad for Fulmar. The cashmere mittens are staying home, too. A simple sock, that's what I need. And I will be ready to tackle those sleeves, full speed ahead, when I return.

Fulmar Update

Six pattern repeats, done! Woot! This measures a notch over 15" in length. I am considering one more pattern repeat before I bind off some stitches on each side for the armholes. (That's not part of the original pattern, but I'm doing it anyway.)

One of the reasons I started this blog was to record project information which might be useful to other knitters contemplating a particular yarn or pattern. Also, to amuse myself, which is a high priority in my life. ;)

What I've decided about Fulmar is that I'm very glad I went with a sportweight yarn. (Silver Creek Merino - 306 yds in 100g, tightly spun and round.) I've seen some other Fulmar pictures here and there, and some of them are dense enough to stand up on their own - great for durability, but less attractive when worn.

Mine is resulting in just what I had hoped for, a sturdy and dense fabric with some flexibility left. We'll see if it retains those characteristics once it's finished and made up. Which, at my current knitting speed, ought to be somewhere around the end of the current millenium.

I Am So Freaking Fashionable

I can't believe it. Dudes, I'm hot. I'm so hot.

Someone just emailed me a link to a blog called style sightings written by someone who apparently works in fashion. And look at the picture there!

The writer calls it Yves Klein blue, but we all know better, right? That's Fulmar blue!

OMG, I think I am going to faint from my own fashion-forwardness.

Interference

Lately, my computer looks like this.


















It.s supposed to look like this. Actually, it switches back and forth between the right way and the weird way. Yes, I'm shopping for a new computer. <-----Imagine that said in an Eeyore voice. Because I hate computer shopping, and because it's not going well. I found one I liked in a price I liked, but then discovered it won't work with some voice recognition software I've been wanting to install. So now I'm back to the beginning, and I hate shopping for computers the same way I hate frogging mohair. It sucks.
























Also, special shout out to the guys from the phone company and the guys in the construction zone for the new housing development. I just lo-o-o-o-o-ove what you're doing to my phone service. Especially with being on dial-up and all. (Anyone else think it is rather odd that he leaned his ladder against the wires? Isn't that a safety hazard?)

So that's why I'm an intermittent blogger these days. I'm dealing with constant postus interruptus.

In knitting news, Fulmar is now twelve inches long, meaning I'm 2/3 of the way to the armhole decreases. It's a slow knit and doesn't provide much blog fodder. I mean, how often can I say "I love it! It's so fun! And it's a half-inch longer now!"

At my current pace, I should have the front finished by the end of the year.

But I do have one bit of excellent news on Fulmar to report. Row 5, that queen mother of all rows, used to take me around 50 minutes to knit. Yeah, 50 minutes for one row. One. Row. It's a doozy.

So the other night, I found myself with a half-hour of free time before I had to go meet with someone. An episode of That 70s Show was just about to start. (Providing additional support for my theory that, at any time of any day, you can find an episode of that show on some channel somewhere.) So I pulled out Fulmar for a half-hour, knowing that the end of the show would signal that it was time to put down my needles. I tend to get a little lost in Fulmar, yanno. I start knitting it, and day turns into night while I'm counting my purls. It really is a fun, absorbing knit.I realized I was on row 5, and knew I could never knit the whole row during a single sitcom rerun. What the heck, right? Half a row five is better than none.

You've probably already guessed where this is going, right? Right. I got the row done.

You can't imagine what a big deal this feels like. I mean, I suspected that I was knitting this a little faster as I gained familiarity with the charts. But shaving 20 minutes off my row 5 time? HUGE. That clips 100 minutes out of the time needed to finish the front. 160 minutes out of the back. That's like four and a half hours of knitting time. I've knit entire hats in four and a half hours.

So I started paying attention to my row times, and discovered I really am knitting faster now. Not fast, mind you, but faster. I'm still at about 15 or 20 minutes for a back side row, but my cabling rows are picking up momentum. Yay!

A Tale of Two Fulmars

It was the best of knits, it was the worst of knits.

Mostly, it was the best of knits.

Knifty Red and I both brought our Fulmars to SnB last week so we were able to take side-by-side comparison shots. Mine is the one which will cover the vaster acreage of my enormous ass. (That would be the one on the bottom.)

One thing mystifies me about our Fulmars. We are using the exact same yarn (Ashland Bay Silver Creek Merino sportweight) and the same needles (size 2 addis). We both got gauge on our gauge swatches. Whenever Red and I have knit companion pieces before, such as the possum mitts last year, we've concluded that I'm the tight knitter and she's the loose knitter.

But look at those Fulmars. Even accounting for the fact that hers isn't smoothed out as much as mine, I think she might have the tighter knit here.

Skinny Report

I'm posting another two pound loss, making three to date. My stash jar contains maybe around 4-5 dollars in quarters right now. Not enough, but not horrible. It's a start, anyway.

Fulmar Progress

Yes, the blue really is this vivid. I love it.

This is a very slow knit, but oh-so-satisfying. What we have there is three pattern repeats of the ribbing, topped by two chart repeats of the body cables, measuring around 7.5" in length. That's a whole lot of hours of my life there, folks. Some of the back rows only take 15 or so minutes, but row 5 with all it's crosses can take as long as 50 minutes. That's for one measly row.

Of course, there are 262 stitches in a row, so maybe "measly" isn't the word we want to use here.

At my current rate of knitting, this sweater will take around 9 months to complete. I'm hoping to pick up the pace now that I have the pattern more or less memorized -- I still have to check the charts sometimes, especially for Chart C which is the saxon-braid-ish thing in the center and which is the hardest to work with it's three-over-one crosses. For the other charts, I can usually just look at the rows below and know what I'm supposed to do.

Chart C is the troublemaker in other ways, too. Last week, I noticed I had moved a column of stitches in the wrong direction and couldn't work the next cable cross. So I decided to ladder down that column -- it was only two rows -- and reknit just those stitches. This is a fix I've worked on other patterns with some anxiety but little real difficulty. It just takes time and courage.

Except for in this case.

I laddered down and knit back up, and things looked a bit too loose on the needles. So I counted my stitches and realized I was short a purl. Hmm. Checked the back of the work, and there was my lonely little dropped purl, now about three rows lower than the point of the original miscross. Working with that section had caused it to run a little.

So, not being a quitter, I laddered down again (further this time) and reknit the column a second time.

At which point, I realized I had somehow managed to drop two other stitches, a different purl plus a knit.

After much bad language, I called it quits on this particular fix and placed the two dropped stitches on safety pins so they wouldn't run. Then I tinked back, stitch by painstaking stitch, to the point where I could pick up the safety pinned stitches. Then I reknit all those rows.

Tinking and reknitting those rows took four hours. I watched "The Godfather" on A&E, with commercials, while reknitting those rows. That doesn't include the time I spent on the original "fix" a/k/a mess.

All of which is to say, Chart C is not currently my bff.

October 1 Means...

October 1 means that the streetlights are still on at 8:30 in the morning, an hour past sunrise, because the sky is a thick gray blanket.

October 1 means that there's a hint of fall color in the trees, and everything is somehow wet even though it's not raining.

And October 1 means...




















Fulmar!

Like the total knitdweeb I am, I stayed up late last night studying the Fulmar charts and wondering how I would ever sleep. At one point, I looked at the clock and thought, 11 p.m. means it's October 1st somewhere, can I cast on now, can I can I can I?

And then this morning, I woke with all the anticipation of a kid on Christmas morning. It's here! OMG at laaaaaaaaaast!

Fulmar Day!

I leaped out of bed -- and dudes, trust me, it usually takes dynamite and a forklift to get me out of bed in the morning. But not today! Not on Fulmar day!

I cast on and started knitting with a big dopey grin on my face. Yay, I finally get to knit this sweater!

And then it hit me. This sweater used to scare the bejeepers out of me. I was terrified to knit it. Seriously, so intimidated that every time I looked at that page in the "Aran Knitting" book, I would feel my belly do a little flip. How gorgeous, I would think, and then almost in the next nanosecond, That's way too hard for me.

See how things change? All it took was a little thing like 91 other knitters in a KAL, a set start date, and a mountain of swatch knitting, and here we are. Eagerness has replaced terror.

October 1 is turning out to be a pretty good day.

Fulmar Baby Steps

I got gauge! Woot! This gorgeous electric blue is going to be my Fulmar yarn. How hot is that? Have you ever seen such a saturated blue? One of the things I love about the Silver Creek Merino is that every single one of their colors is stunning. They're not all wild and bold like this one -- there are pastels and neutrals, too. But each color has that extra little oomph that makes it really sing.

And look at the way those stitches pop. This is going to be a fabulous Fulmar, which is a heavily textured sweater and needs great stitch definition. Yay, yarn!

Naturally, this yarn is discontinued. sigh....

Anyway, I am so close to spot-on with the gauge for this -- row gauge is as perfect as it gets, and stitch gauge is 30 stitches per 4 and 1/16 inches. To be flawless, that sixteenth of an inch would not be there. But really, I don't think that 1/16 is going to amount to a diddly of a difference, even over the two hundred eleventy thousand stitches I have to cast on for the front alone.

Getting gauge feels sort of momentous. This pattern scares me a little (okay, a lot), and I keep saying to myself, in a very soothing voice, "Just take it slow. One step at a time. It's just knits and purls, like any other sweater."

Ha! Is not! It's got extra voodoo and wicked skeery stuff! And tiny needles! And La Starmore herself says it requires patience!

*panic*

Step one was taking the plunge -- admitting I wanted to actually knit this thing and buying the yarn. Step two was corralling a whole mess of perfectly innocent bystander knitters into knitting this with me. The poor dears. They're being very good sports, and several of them are showing signs of being fiercely smart knitters. Honestly, they amaze me. The support and kindness in this group is -- well, it's what you would expect from a group of knitters. We have a way of blowing the curve in those departments.

So now, here we are at step three. I got gauge. This means I don't have any more excuses. I said I wanted to knit it, I have a few dozen charming co-knitters, and ... I got gauge. *gulp*

It feels a bit like standing on the edge of the high dive for the very first time, with a crowd of supporters lined up on the stairs waiting their turns to jump. No turning back now!

Announcing Fulmar KAL

I'm starting to put the word out on some of my knitting lists and fora, and thought I'd also make an announcement here.

Knifty Red and I have decided to knit Alice Starmore's Fulmar pattern from Aran Knitting beginning October 1. This is reputed to be a challenging pattern -- La Starmore herself says it requires patience, and coming from her, that's saying something.

But we're up to the challenge. (We hope! If not -- aaack!) If you want to knit along with us, leave something in the comments letting me know how to get in touch with you or email me at knitterary at gmail dot com, and I will add you to my growing list of interested knitters. I'm thinking we might want to set up a yahoo group for this rather than a blog, because it's easier to ask questions and get feedback on a closed loop. Especially if we crash our knitting into a tree and it ends up looking like twisted, smoking garbage. (Hey. Just sayin. I'm sure we're all far too talented to need the privacy to admit the scope of our disasters, but just in case....)

If you want to see what a finished Fulmar looks like, go here~~
The Wendy's Fulmar

Aran Knitting is one of the less pricey Starmore titles. You can generally find a used copy for around $200-300. Luckily, two of my neighborhood libraries carry the volume. Check your libraries, because this is one Starmore title that manages to pop up in collections pretty frequently.