this one was nearly heartbreaking.
So it’s been quite a journey with my Mondo Cable Cardi. (digression: is anyone else sick to death of hearing people talk about their “journeys”? I sure am….) I had a sweater’s worth of beautiful madelinetosh’s tosh merino in this soft collection of colors called graphite. It’s really just gorgeous, perfectly complimentary to the loftiness of the yarn. I love it. So I cast on the day after Christmas last year and very quickly made it up to the armholes. Kept going, jolly old sweater, going quickly, tra la la.
Then I noticed that all my remaining skeins were a very harsh blue black – heavy emphasis on the ugly blue. (I love blue, this was just a hideously harsh shade, not to mention that it wasn’t GRAPHITE. It was so grossly different that alternating skeins would just give me a striped sweater.) So I started haunting rav forums, posting desperate ISO notes everywhere. One very sweet raveler got in touch and said she had a sweater’s worth and if I just couldn’t find any anywhere, she’d part with some. Which, of course, meant she couldn’t knit her sweater. So I kept searching. Occasionally someone would write, but their skeins were green black. FINALLY, months later, Jenny (boopersin on rav, friend her!) and her skeins matched mine and the deed was done.
But by then, I’d lost my passion for the sweater. I was also afraid that when push came to shove, it still wouldn’t be a good match. Anxiety and fear kept me from picking it up again. Maybe that’s happened to you before.
Finally, after the high of finishing my Peasy, I picked it up and hunkered down and did it. I finished the sleeve that was about 3/4 done, started and finished the 2nd sleeve, and completed the collar (which took much longer than it seemed it would, for some reason!). Soaked it and set it to blocking last night, and this morning it’s just a bit damp. When it’s completely dry, I’ll walk it over to the park for a photo shoot. Here is is, just lying about:
such gorgeous yarn!
in the “scarecrow” pose so popular this season
I hope to take an action shot this afternoon! I’m really glad this one is finished, and just in time to start the next one. Come on, mailman, bring mama a present.
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sweater #2 finished!!! Fait accompli!!! 
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
And another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
I finished my Mondo Cable Cardigan y’all! It’s soaking right now, so it’ll be a little while before I have my F.O. pictures, but I’m telling you, it’s a beautiful sweater. The madelinetosh merino is thick and lofty and will probably pill like mad, but I don’t care. When I had to bind off the collar (1×1 ribbing), I started with a regular old bind-off but it was wavy and hideous so (being the newly mature knitter that I am) I ripped it out and investigated my options.
Tubular bind-off seemed like the best approach, but all the tutorials I found were confusing. I started, got several stitches in, and ripped it out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Minor despair started to build. Then I found this great little video and *presto changeo* it was easy and obvious. And my bindoff is amazing, if I do say so. You’ll see, I’ll be sure to point it out in the inevitable pictures.
“Video tutorial courtesy of Liat Gat of KNITFreedom.blogspot.com, the site that teaches people how to knit over the Internet using high-resolution video e-books.”
So two sweaters are done, and I’m really ready to get my new yarn this week to start the Eve’s Ribs Shrug project. Byzantine, y’all. Byzantine.
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just say it once, Thoreau.
I don’t remember who made the observation – why did Thoreau say “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!”? To be truly simple, shouldn’t he have just said Simplicity!
Anyway, that struck me this morning when I was handwinding a ball of madelinetosh merino, in graphite, for my Mondo Cable Cardigan. The yarn is lofty and soft, and the subtle variation in color that characterizes madelinetosh yarns is physical and lovely. And the resulting ball is beautiful, showing the work of a hand rather than a machine.
handwound ball of graphite-colored lofty merino
Now and then a moment of simplicity strikes, you know? A moment of just stopping the buzz and noticing. I’m trying to help those moments happen more frequently.
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If 2009 was the Year of Cowls, I’d have to say that 2010 was the Year of Socks plus the year I got into sweaters. Let’s see them (for complete project details of all the 2010 FOs, see the rav page here).
Begun at the end of 2009, these were my first FO for 2010: Fools Rush Socks by Cassie Thoreson. I’d always wanted red and white striped socks, so I used two colors of KnitPicks Risata – buttermilk and spicy. I didn’t enjoy working with the Risata very much, and they’re not soft to wear. But dang if the color and stripes don’t make me happy! Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass, is one of my favorite books and red and white are important colors in that book, so I call these my Tin Drum Socks:
Continue Reading–234 words totally
If 2009 was the Year of Cowls, I’d have to say that 2010 was the Year of Socks plus the year I got into sweaters. Let’s see them (for complete project details of all the 2010 FOs, see the rav page here).
Begun at the end of 2009, these were my first FO for 2010: Fools Rush Socks by Cassie Thoreson. I’d always wanted red and white striped socks, so I used two colors of KnitPicks Risata – buttermilk and spicy. I didn’t enjoy working with the Risata very much, and they’re not soft to wear. But dang if the color and stripes don’t make me happy! Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass, is one of my favorite books and red and white are important colors in that book, so I call these my Tin Drum Socks:
Fools Rush Socks by Cassie Thoreson, in KnitPicks Risata
Aren’t they cute? I made a 3rd pair of socks for my stepdaughter Anna, whose feet get cold in her dorm. She picked out the yarn and color – KnitPicks Felici, in the cochineal colorway, and I chose the pattern: Hedera by Cookie A. It was a nice mix of yarn and pattern:
a pair of socks for a cold dorm room floor
I realized I’d knitted a lot of socks for Anna, but none for Katie, my oldest daughter, so I presented her with a range of yarn choices and asked her to pick. She’s a pretty Irish girl, so both yarns had green bits. With the Lorna’s Lace Shepherd Sock Multi, I knitted Holes in my Socks! by Nicole Okun. It was a fun pattern to knit, and the fit was comfortable:
Holes in my Socks! by Nicole Okun (Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock Multi, colorway Beverly 209)
Her other yarn choice was Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks, colorway meadow 1518. I returned to my old standby pattern, Monkey by Cookie A., which I could knit in my sleep. Katie liked these, too:
Monkey by Cookie A.
I made a new pair of socks for ME, using this beautiful madelinetosh sock yarn in the crow colorway. This pattern, Kai-Mei, is in her new book titled Sock Innovation, and it was loads of fun to knit. I just plowed forward, not quite understanding what was going on, but it turned out wonderfully:
Kai-Mei, by Cookie A. - madelinetosh sock, crow colorway
A pair of pink socks for my worm farmin’ power liftin’ badass daughter Marnie: No-purl Monkeys, knit with KnitPicks Felici (colorway Positively Pink, and they’re not kidding about that).
i call these Minkeys - pink Monkeys
These Circle Socks, designed by Anne Campbell, in a Kaffe Fassett colorway (I call them my Wowie-Zowie socks):
Wowie Zowie Socks (Circle Socks, by Anne Campbell)
A pair of very plain socks (no pattern used, just plain old socks) in madelinetosh Tosh Sport, colorway tweed. The yarn is fantastic, and I hope it’s hardwearing:
tweedie-pie socks
Inspired by this truly gorgeous skein of yarn by madelinetosh (tosh merino light, colorway tern), I knitted the Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante. I looked through the project notes of other knitters who made the pattern, but didn’t quite take seriously enough the caution to bind off loosely. If I make it again, and I think I will, I’ll investigate different bind-off techniques so I’m sure to make it elastic enough to be able to pull out the points. Still, it’s pretty!
Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante, in tosh merino light (tern colorway)
And this lovely little Baktus scarf, my subway knitting project knit with Noro Silk Garden Sock and a skein of KnitPicks Essential:
wearing the baktus scarf
A lace ribbon scarf in Rowan Felted Tweed – pattern and yarn selected by the recipient, my friend Susan Lee. She saw my Peasy and loved the yarn, and asked if I’d make her a scarf like my orange malabrigo sock lace ribbon. I wouldn’t have put the yarn with the pattern, but it’s ok!
lace ribbon scarf (Veronik Avery), in Rowan Felted Tweed
A very meaningful project – an heirloom project – was a wedding shawl for my daughter Marnie. I learned a lot, making this, and while I’m not sure how many more cobweb-weight shawls I want to make, I am very happy with how it turned out.
placeholder shot of blocking - will replace with full shot after I give it to her
I made this sockhead hat to donate to the BSD Project, using yarn that my stepdaughter gave me for Mother’s Day earlier this year. Although I got really bored with all that stockinette round and round and round with sock yarn, I did love the outcome:
a hat in search of a home
It took me long enough, but I finished a cardigan – Peasy, by Heidi Kirrmaier. I used Rowan Felted Tweed, in avocado, and bought some beautiful little Italian handmade leather buttons, oval-shaped. I love the sweater.
Peasy, in Rowan Felted Tweed. LOVE.
Peasy in the park
A second sweater finished on the heels of Peasy, even though I cast on for it Dec 26 of last year. One dilemma after another – it was the high of finishing Peasy that made me haul butt to finish this, the Mondo Cable Cardi – et voila:
At the end of the year, I had 2 sweaters on the needles (Dark & Stormy and Eve’s Rib), a scarf in progress for a friend, an afghan in the works, and a set of monsters coming together for Katie. Not as much knitting as I’d have liked, but that’s life.
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