First of all: STOP! We don’t want to cry ANYMORE. And all you nice people keep making us cry harder with all the freaking LOVE you’re sending our way. ENOUGH! Really, though, I don’t know what to say, I’m all kinds of touched. You start this blog thing because, you know, maybe you’ll talk about your knits and maybe you’ll meet some people who also like to knit and next thing you know this awful thing happens and you’ve got good vibes and thoughts and karma and hopes and prayers coming out the wazoo. I never expected it – I’m not really even sure I wanted this – but oh my god I’m so freaking grateful it hurts. ALL RIGHT. I said no more tears and I MEANT IT. NO MORE. It’s party time at this here blog – it’s coming up to the day we wait ALL YEAR for so no more. I’m going say THANK YOU from the depths of our hearts and that’s that.

Let’s talk knits.

On November 28, five days after we found out Georgie had cancer (did I mention he doesn’t have it anymore? No? Well, HE DOESN’T HAVE IT ANYMORE!!!) I became obsessed with Ariann after seeing it over at Margene’s. I bought the pattern and immediately began swatching. The next day I went and bought some yarn. Twenty days later, I’ve got this:

It’s not perfect, technically, but it’s freaking perfect. I have barely taken it off since I finished it. I LOVE THIS SWEATER. I knit it while I worried about my husband and our life together and basically everything under the sun and it calmed me down and distracted me and made me happy at a time when I was probably the least happy I’ve ever been. Happy, hell, I was scared shitless. But the knitting made me feel better.

I knit this sweater while I waited for G to get out of surgery – possibly the worst day of my life – and the sweater kept me sane when I was full of panic. Xanax schmanax. Ariann was my drug of choice.

The pattern is pretty much perfect as written because, well, Bonne Marie is a MASTER, but I did tweak it some. I made the body longer and I’m very happy with the jacket look. And I made the sleeves longer – although they turned out much longer than I intended. I turn the edges under and it looks fine and I don’t care because I love every inch of this sweater. I can pretty much guarantee that it will never be buttoned and I won’t be making the belt.

Sure I ripped it back a few times. Sure I messed up the sleeves a few times. Sure I knit more than I needed to a few times. Ask me if I care. Go ahead. Ask me.

I’ll tell you – I don’t care. Because anything that can make me feel like this at any time in my life, let alone the worst time in my life, is PERFECT in my book!

Ariann
Pattern: designed by the GENIUS that is Bonne Marie Burns at ChicKnits. (I made the 43″ size – I would recommend sizing up – a lot of people have been coming up small.)
Yarn: Cascade 220, The Heathers, Color #9460 – Dune Heath (I used six skeins just about.)
Needles: Addi Turbo, US size 6 (4.0mm) and 7 (4.5mm)
Buttons: Purchased at Tender Buttons in NYC.
Pictures: Jen stepped up once again. She of the supermodel post – man she can work that shutter, baybee.

If I had the yarn, right here right now, I’d start this sweater all over again. Did I mention how much I love it? Just a little bit?

I love this sweater.

I sailed along on Ariann yesterday! I think I only had to rip back once – and that was only like two rows (it was faster to rip than to tink.) PROGRESS! I even got to talk to the designer herself, and she was most encouraging. Thanks Bonne Marie!

I hate to say it, but I think I might be able to finish this for tomorrow. I’m tempting fate, I know, but I’ve got 11 more decreases to go (although I lost count somewhere along the way and this seems like too many decreases, but it’s how I can get to the numbers needed in the pattern. I can’t find a mistake anywhere but it looks like I’m going to be two stitches short along the back. Maybe I’ll just drop off two decreases back there. Otherwise, everything lines up. It’s all going to be covered by the collar anyway, right?)

Anyway – I’m off to get buttons today. If I make it back and there’s still light I’ll snap a picture – otherwise, patience my pretties. Patience.

Have a great weekend!
L, C

ETA: I found buttons!

I went to Tender Buttons in NYC and this is what I came up with – I swear I went through a million buttons. This color is really really hard. I ended up with a pretty plain button – it’s gray with a hint of green – which picks up the gray in the heather of the yarn. There’s a really nice swirl to the button so it’s not as plain as it appears at first glance. These may not be the buttons I end up with, but for now, they’ll do. Off to finish the sweater! It’ll be the best Hanukkah present! Happy Hanukkah everyone!

It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s the story of my life these days. I’d show you a new picture of Ariann, but really, just look at yesterday’s picture because it looks EXACTLY the same. But, yet, I knit for hours and hours and hours yesterday. Behold: A Cautionary Tale.

Ariann is no doubt a great knit. If this sucker should fit when I’m through with it I can safely say it may be one of my favorite knits of all time. But I think it’s a challenging knit in some respects. Those dreaded words: increase/decrease within the pattern are going to kill me. When last we saw Ariann, she was speeding along, decreasing up a storm. Raglans are nice in that the rows get shorter and shorter and the knitting gets faster and faster. I was on the phone with my fellow Ariann knitter, Margene, yesterday boasting about how much work I was getting done when I remembered that my row gauge was off and my beautiful decreases were probably not going to work so well. Margene encouraged me to take it off the needles and try it on to see how the underarms were doing. I did and cried for ten minutes because it’s small across the bust. Then I remembered my beautiful swatch and took that out and measured it and measured it again and reminded myself that I washed it and it grew and everything will be okay with the sweater. (Please let everything be okay with the sweater. This sweater HAS to fit.)

I redid the measurements with help from Ann and started back on the decreases. Then I forgot one and had to rip back. (One thing about the Cascade – I can’t fix mistakes without ripping because the loops get so stretched out when I try to reknit them nice and tight without ripping – drives me crazy!) Then I knit back. Then I figured out I had messed up two yos and I had to rip back again. By this time I had knit for hours and hours and I realized that something was VERY wrong with the decreases – I was actually INCREASING stitches everytime I did a DECREASE. Magic, no? What I wasn’t paying attention to was that there are mirrored increases and decreases in the stitch pattern. I had decreased out a decrease, but by still knitting in pattern, I was INCREASING every right side row. And since I had added rows to compensate for my row gauge, I was making the freaking sweater BIGGER instead of smaller!!! After hours and hours and hours of knitting, I had to go back and rip down to one of the first few decreases to get things back on track. I managed to knit back to where I started yesterday – maybe even a bit further row wise because of the added rows, but I’ve still got a lot to go.

Of course, all of these problems showed up right after I said I wanted to finish it for Saturday. I found out yesterday that I’m going to see The Nutcracker on Saturday with my sister and her two oldest and I thought how perfect! I can wear my new sweater! Isn’t that always the way? Hopefully some decent progress pictures tomorrow.

Because it’s more like sleeve hell. And an island connotes peacefulness, calm, vacation. Sleeves are anything but. I’m still loving the pattern and the yarn and yada yada yada but really there’s nothing enjoyable about knitting sleeves. Why is that? I’m SO glad I’m doing them both together because the pattern calls for you to work the increases into the pattern and oh my god that’s so freaking hard that if I had to decide what I was going to do on one sleeve then try to remember or understand what I did when knitting the SECOND sleeve I would never get it done. And of course I write stuff down but who can remember what they wrote when they’re scribbling stuff? And I always forget something somewhere. So the sleeves continue.

And even though they look like socks, I promise, they really are sleeves.

I probably won’t get much knitting done this weekend because the cards and all their packing materials arrived. Now I just have to put it all together and wait for USPS to send me the priority mail boxes. Which hopefully come today or tomorrow. There is still stock to be had, so if you’re interested, here’s the information again:

Palette Blank NoteCards

Box of eight press printed notecards. 5″x7″ glossy card stock. Blank inside. Envelopes included with each box. All cards in box are the same. Will ship in approximately two weeks from purchase. $4.50 shipping and handling charge added to each purchase. Quantities are limited.

The cards came out better than I ever hoped and I’m really really really happy with them. Thank you to all who have purchased the cards – I hope you love them as much as I do! (PS – They make great stocking stuffers. 😉 I’m SO bad at the self-promotion!)

Once again, thank you for all the good wishes, vibes, mojo, karma you’re sending our way. I fear I may have used up a lot of my own personal good karma yesterday driving into the city to get to the appointment. G had gone to work much earlier for some conference calls and I left around 9:30. You should know that NYC is literally around 3 or 4 miles from my house. Then add on another couple miles to get to the East Side. Round it off large and you’ve got say, 10 miles. That’s being generous. It took me over 2 hrs to get to the appointment. I alternated between crying hysterically that I was missing possibly the most important appointment of our lives, and screaming at the top of my lungs at every other car on the streets of New York. If you happened to be looking into my vehicle yesterday, I can assure you it was NOT a pretty scene. As luck would have it, when I finally got to the hospital, G had not gone in yet and we waited another 45 minutes before they called us in. I felt like the worst wife in the world while I was driving though – it was not a fun start to the day.

Thanks for all the advice about going on the Internets and looking up cancer. We learned that lesson the first weekend after the diagnosis. I’d be in the office ostensibly doing work and would let out some huge sigh and G would call from the other room – what’d you read? Tell me what you read. Or I would walk into the living room where G would ostensibly be doing work and his eyes would look a little red and I’d say what did you read? Tell me what you read. We quickly got over that and stopped reading. Even me, former research queen – I couldn’t handle it. I figured there would be plenty of time for research when and if we needed it. Fingers crossed we won’t need it.

I managed to finish the back/fronts of Ariann yesterday. At least I think I’ve finished them. I didn’t bind off the way the pattern instructs you too because, well, you never know if you’re going to need to tink a bit or add some on so I stopped at 16″ (the pattern calls for 14, but I added some to the length) and I’m going to start on the sleeves today. I’d take a picture – actually I tried to take a picture – but it’s sort of long and the pattern looks EXACTLY the same as it did the other day when I posted pictures so I decided they weren’t going to be interesting so leave them out.

I generally like to do the sleeves at the same time, and I’m taking this opportunity to learn to do two socks on two circulars but instead I’m going to do two sleeves on two circulars. It’s always the cast on that trips me up so I’m going to take extra time today to figure it out. It really shouldn’t be too hard.

I’m still LOVING this project. I pass my own test. What test is that you ask? Well, I was reading over at Megan’s (The Knitting Philistine – very nice blog, by the way) and she was saying that if you don’t love your knit as much as I professed to love Ariann in my last post, then maybe you should move along to another project. Tongue in cheek, surely, and I can certainly be accused of being OVERLY enthusiastic at times, but really, why knit something you’re not enjoying?

I’ve tried to live my life in this manner. If I find that I don’t like something – be it graduate school, a job – and I mean REALLY don’t like it – not have a frustrating or a bad day every now and then – I mean when it eats at you and it’s a chore to get through the simplest tasks and you feel nauseous when you go to work every day – then it’s time to move on. Life is SO short and we can’t waste our time doing things we don’t like. I understand that I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate that when I hated a job or a life direction I was able to move on to the next thing and find what I love. I’ve been EXTREMELY fortunate in that. But I have worked at jobs that I didn’t love. Jobs that were just a job, a way to make ends meet – and it was during those times that I tried to fill my off hours with things I DID love. I worked so that I could throw pots. Or take classes. Unfortunately I wasn’t knitting then, but I loved what I was doing outside of work nonetheless.

I’ve talked before about how knits don’t have feelings. So if you want to start one project but don’t feel like you can move on from what you’re working on – even if it’s no longer giving you pleasure -take it from me: the knits don’t care. They really and truly don’t. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in my life is that it’s just as important to find the things you DON’T like as it is to find the things you DO like. Crossing things off the list – whether it be a knitting pattern or a career choice or a relationship – these are learning opportunities. I’ve found it’s much easier to find out what you don’t like than it is to find what you love. And everytime you cross something else off the list, you’re getting that much closer to the thing that will give you the most fulfillment.

So people might say that my knitting has become very pigeon-holed and that I limit myself to certain fibers and certain kinds of patterns – but I’ve tried a lot of stuff and I KNOW WHAT I LIKE. It works for me. And that’s all that really matters.

KNITTING! And it feels so so so good!

I have one purl row to go before the last waist shaping decrease. I need to figure out a button hole method and also add a new ball of yarn (one down six to go!) before I start knitting again. That’s about 7” of glorious Ariann. I love this pattern. LOVE IT! I’ve made it a bit longer – instead of the pattern specified 4 pattern repeats before the waist shaping I did 9. A repeat is only two rows and I’m dealing with the whole row gauge thing (I’m getting 28 instead of 24 per 4 inches) so I think it works out well. And when I did the decreases I added an extra repeat between each one. I’m going to do the same with the increases. YAY! My goal is to have the body finished by the end of the weekend. We’ll see – no pressure – but I want this sweater wrapped around me ASAP.

Bonne Marie is a genius. Look how beautiful the stitches are – I love how the decreases and YOs all work together. I think this would make a beautiful sock pattern as well. Nice and simple but oh so elegant. I did what Bonne Marie suggests and took the sweater off the needles and measured it width-wise to see how it’s going. With a little bit of stretching (which you’ll need to do for the lace anyway) I’m getting the 43″ called for in the pattern. I’m just so happy about this project. I hope nothing happens to fuck it up. It’s like I’ve put all my eggs in Ariann’s basket. Not too much pressure or anything.

I was remiss yesterday in not mentioning where I bought the cutie string dolls and yarn – Knitty City in NYC. A very nice yarn store. Check it out if you’re in town. A MUCH better choice than the other knitting store on the Upper West Side. BEYOND better.

A couple of other things: SUBMIT TO YARNIVAL!!! Two days until the deadline for submissions for the next issue. Go! Run! SUBMIT!

Also, I might be the last person in the world to link this, but I first saw it over at Cate’s. Apparently, there’s this guy who’s doing some kind of project on how meme’s spread. Consider this my mention and link to the project. And now I’m going to go ping the entry. Let’s show this guy that knitters KICK ASS. Go ahead and link to the project on your own blog. And don’t forget to ping! (What does that mean anyway?)

Have a great day. I’m gonna go eat some fantastic leftovers from the fabu dinner Georgie cooked last night and then I’m gonna knit knit KNIT!

Thanks for all the comments on my goof up on row gauge. I actually figured it out myself while sitting a red light yesterday. Thank god no one told me how much math is involved in knitting before I actually started because I’m afraid I never would’ve picked up the needles and knitting is manna from heaven so WHEW! Dodged that bullet. I still hate math and knitty math even more because I know what should be right but I just can’t seem to wrap my brain around it. So I sort of gloss over and ignore it and, well, that just makes more work than necessary.

When I left you all yesterday I was pondering which size to choose for Ariann – the 38″ or the 40.5″ I was pretty set on the 40.5″ and then I went home from buying yarn (more on that in a minute) and measured my ginormous boobs and found out that I’m about 39.5″ around. Hmmm. That’s not a lot of ease in the 40.5″ and people have said that this pattern is running a bit small. I don’t want a close fitting cardigan. I’m not going to wear a camisole underneath it (the last time I wore a camisole I was like 8) and I want something I can really wrap around me. So in a complete surprise I cast on for the 43″. I don’t think this sweater will look bad on the bigger side. I don’t intend to ever really belt it or button it and I like the big floppy look to it. Besides, so far I’m LOVING knitting it and I have enough yarn so why not? What’s the worst thing that can happen? It’s a little big? I’d much rather it be big than small.

I bought yarn yesterday while out with my stylist and she said it was PERFECT.

It’s one of Cascade 220‘s THE HEATHERS which I totally love because pop-culturally that makes this yarn really really bitchy and I’ve just been itching to be bitchy lately. Color #9460 – Dune Heath – it’s a mixture of celadon green, some subtle yellow and gray. I think the picture above is fairly accurate. After debating for too long of a time on what size to cast on – I cast on.

I’m about 4.5 pattern repeats in. Technically I should’ve started the waist shaping but I’m going to do at least 2 extra pattern repeats (two rows) maybe more because a) my row gauge is a bit off and b) I want it to be a bit longer anyway. So I’m knitting knitting knitting. And I’m loving it! It’s so nice to not want to put a project down. I’ve been missing that.

Kay bought my boy a present yesterday too and then I bought one for me.

These are string dolls from Kamibashi and right now I love them more than anything. Kay bought Safety Boy for G:

Safety Boy will help you recover from your injuries quickly. My boy really needs that now. And I bought Lover Boy.

Lover Boy attracts passion, inspires loyalty, and serves up the love. As you all know, I’m all about the love.