Taking It To the Mats

This picture makes my blocking look crooked, but it's really the picture that's wonky. I was standing on a chair with the camera held overhead, and the angle is funny. (Proving once again that I am a genius with a camera.)

I thought I would talk a little about the blocking process because I do things a little differently than some.

First, I soak the pieces for 30 minutes in cold water with a good blob (1 or 2 tablespoons) of hair conditioner dissolved into the water. Dissolve the conditioner in the water before you add the wool, or you'll get uneven distribution. The conditioner will soften the wool dramatically. It won't hide all the crunch in a rustic yarn, but it will mask the roughness and let the blocking go a little more easily. Cheap conditioner works just as well as the expensive stuff.

Next I insert blocking wires on the straight edges of the garment -- in this case, the side edges of the body piece -- and use those to stabilize the fabric as I pull and smooth and squoosh it into shape. The actual shaping can take a few minutes, but inserting the wires will shave a lot of time off the total. Pin the straight edges first, too, because those make good reference points for shaping the rest of the piece. (My mats have grid lines scored into them, so I can use those to make sure things are straight, too.

Not everyone uses conditioner and wires to block pieces like these. The other tools I use -- a straight-edge ruler and tape measure -- are pretty ordinary.

In this case, I wanted to block the sleeve to the body piece to make perfectly sure that the saddle was blocked to the proper measurements. So I'm doing one sleeve plus the front now and the other sleeve plus the back later.

There's still quite a lot of finishing work on this sweater before it will be wearable. Not just seaming, but knitting the braided bands at the collar, cuffs and hem. The bands are knitted on sideways. I'll post pictures of those as I do them, because it's kind of a cool technique that could come in handy if you ever need to lengthen something.

The Back Is Off the Needles

Well, gosh, that only took ten weeks.

There's one mistake. Can you see it? I think it's totally obvious.

Half Back

Here are four pattern repeats of the back piece for St. Brigid. I love the way this pattern unfolds, and I especially love how quickly it happens.

Laying this piece out for a photograph helped me reach a decision about something. The original design calls for a fringed hem, and I'm not a big fan of fringe. But something has to be done to even out that hem. I mean, look at it, wobbling and jiggling up and down like that. Ugh. I know others have managed to go fringeless and have a nice, even hem, but it appears I am not one of the fortunate few.

So I'll be attaching a banded border of some kind, probably of the braided rope cable, to give a neater edge there.

The meds are beginning to knock out the chest infection I've been fighting for the last few weeks, but I'm still a bit like that lower hem edge -- raw, weak and wobbly. S'ok. It will pass.

St. B-eginning

This is just a smidge more than two chart repeats on St B. So far, so good.

The pattern is far from intuitive, though. I have to consult the charts frequently on every right-side row. I keep thinking there has to be some kind of logic to these charts, some kind of rhythm to the cable crossings that will make itself apparent. So far, not so much. This may be one of those charts that you just have to memorize. Or keep in your lap while knitting.

Things are still pretty busy with work here, though I can definitely feel the tides begin to shift. I'm contending with fewer emails now -- under 200 so far today, definitely more manageable -- and fewer of those emails contain problems that need immediate attention. In other words, it's not January anymore! Woo hoo!

It's On!

Aw, wookit the cute widdle baby sweater! When it grows up, it will be St. Brigid!

I had to cast on twice. The first time, I missed a major cable crossing in row 3 -- I believe I was looking at the wrong chart when that happened. The charts for this are a bit confusing at first. Not dreadfully so, but enough that it would be pretty easy to look at the wrong chart that early on, and not realize what was happening. So that's my theory on that one.

Anyway, botched cable crossing on row three, discovered the problem on row four. Ripped and reknit and got to row eight before taking this picture. I hope to get a little knitting time in tonight, too, and have even rented a movie in a most optimistic, non-Monday fashion. (Pineapple Express, in case you're wondering. I'm told it's very silly and funny, which seems like just the right thing for the day.)

I got a gauge and fabric I liked on size 6 needles, by the way, but am wondering if I might not end up ripping and reknitting on 5s. I've heard other people complain that the gauge swatch was no accurate predictor of finished size, and almost all of them gained inches and inches in width. I figure I'll knit through a few more rows, just to let the cable crossings draw the fabric in as tightly as it is likely to, and then measure. But right now, with only 8 rows knit, this thing seems wicked wide.

Kismet

This is my swatch for St. Brigid, which a few of us in my local SnB plan to start on February 1. I swatched it last night, for the fourth time, and I'm still not sure if I have gauge. The first three times, I measured the wrong number of stitches in the swatch and couldn't figure out why my gauge was so wild. This time, about halfway through the swatching process, my knuckle started to act up and my gauge changed. I was on gauge before my knuckle started swelling. But I lost a stitch per four inches after it began to hurt.

So do I assume I will get gauge as long as I knit with a healthy hand?

As I pondered this question, I googled St. B, and here are a few fun facts about her.

* She is the patron saint of bastards. Which seems appropriate, somehow.

* Her saint day is February 1. The same day we picked to cast on the sweater. Cue the Twilight Zone music.

* She was sort of famous as a child for giving away stuff to anyone who knocked on her father's door, which was a source of considerable strain between Brigid and her father. At first, she mostly gave them milk. But when she gave her father's jeweled sword to a leper, her father put her in a convent.

* Eventually, she founded a convent of her own, and as she was being consecrated as its Abbess, the priest accidentally made her a bishop instead. For about 500 years after this, all the Abbesses at this convent had the rank of bishop.

* Some say she never existed at all, but that early Christians swiped existing Celtic legends about a goddess Brigid (or Brid, pronounced breed) and stamped Christian ethics onto the existing faith. This was a very common conversion practice, but it seems pretty likely that she may have lived, seeing how there's a tomb with her name on it.

So there you have it. We all now have permission to mutter "Bastard!" whenever this pattern irritates us. And I think I'd better wait until February 1 to cast on. It is, after all, her day.

Pondering January

Oooh, look at that purty purple. So yummy. Torino feels every bit as soft as, say, Malabrigo, but it's plied and perfectly round.

Round enough for good cabling?

Thanks, Knifty Red, for the reminder in the comments. Honestly, I've been so focused on other things -- like finishing other knitting, and creating that interactive e-book, and let's not forget the mumblety-mumble holidays and the way they hoover up huge chunks of life -- that I'd completely forgotten about our new team project set to start in January.

We're knitting St. Brigid. And I think mine might just be in the purple Torino.

I purchased this Torino several years ago at Kool Knits in Naperville. I think this predates the opening of Nana's Knitting Shop in my neighborhood, because Nana's carries Torino and if Nana's carries something, I buy it there.

I'm actually getting much better at self-control while breathing that delicious nectar of yarn fumes at Nana's. Used to be, I couldn't get out of there for less than $100. These days, it's often under $50. Rumor has it that I've been witnessed leaving after open knitting with no new purchases. But my stash closet doubts the truth of these rumors.

Financial self-discipline has become a pressing concern for me lately. I have enough money to live on, but I'm very worried about the economy, as are most people. This past week, though, in back-to-back explosions known around the publishing world as "Black Wednesday" and "Gray Thursday," the axe fell on many heads at many houses. Editors, artists, sales specialists, managers -- at one house, I hear an entire production department was laid off.

Publishing is a small industry and requires a specialized skill set. It's not enough to know where to put the commas. You have to also be able to predict the future and know what people will want to read a year or two from now, which cover graphics will be more appealing, which topics will be hot. It's not guesswork, though gut feelings do come into play.

The people who lost their jobs this week, a staggering number of people, have demonstrated abilities to both predict the future and get the commas in the right spots. They were smart, talented, capable people, folks with track records of creating best-sellers and prize-winners.

And now they're out of a job, and frankly, this is probably just the beginning of an whole-industry contraction in publishing.

My job is safe. For now. And for the foreseeable future. But, to be perfectly candid, I can foresee less of the future than I used to. And in a job that requires a fortune teller's ability to see the future, this troubles me more than I can express.

I was going to use the purple Torino to knit a FLAK aran according to Janet Szabo's instructions. I bought extra yardage to allow for all the sample swatching she recommends, and if I use this yarn for St. Brigid, I'll have around 500-600 yards leftover.

But, with the future so uncertain, I might just hang onto my cash and use the stash. It's a tough decision.

What do you all think? Have you changed your shopping habits even though your income is unchanged? Am I being overly panicky?