In the power of the swatch.

Georgie and I had a FANTASTIC weekend. Saturday morning I woke up and started seaming the sleeves on my Central Park Hoodie. While I was out in California, Nona had suggested that I seam up the sleeves first, before I tried to set them in, because it was easier to go tube to tube than flat to tube. (I had knit the body in one piece so there were no side seams.) So I seamed up the sleeves and I was enjoying the seaming so much (I heart mattress stitch!) that for a little while I was almost sad that I did the majority of the body in the round instead of in pieces the way the pattern was written.

I seamed on the floor while Georgie was on the couch and we watched a very interesting PBS program on past presidential administrations. They had great slogans back then. Like in the 1884 Presidential Election between Grover Cleveland and James Blaine. “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!” That was Blaine’s slogan for Cleveland, since Cleveland had a child out of wedlock. And Cleveland countered with “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from the State of Maine.” Good times. Anyway, I had a blast seaming up the sleeves, then managed to get them set-in on the first try! Both on the first try! Nona was right – tube to tube couldn’t have been easier.

They could probably be a tad bit neater, but I’m pretty happy with them. Then G and I took a trip into the big city and I hit up Tender Buttons. I had bought some buttons a few weeks ago for the sweater, but they turned out to be too small. I spent about an hour picking out the PERFECT buttons. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but another trip into the city today to go to M&J Trimmings determined that I did indeed have the perfect buttons.

They’re wood, I think, with lots of great swirls and I particularly like the square in the circle idea. Once I got them on I knew they were the right choice all along.

Saturday night I washed the sweater in some delicious special edition SOAK. This is where the whole swatch thing comes into play. I inadvertently made three swatches, which was fine because I love this yarn (more on that in a minute) but the swatches DEFINITELY changed after washing. And when I say wash I mean the sweater was fully emerged in lukewarm water with SOAK and left to sit for like 15-20 minutes. Then I tried as best I could to drain the water from it, took it out of the bucket I soaked it in, and rolled it in two towels TWICE (so four towels total) to try to get as much water out of the sweater as I could. Then I laid it out on the floor as straight and flat as possible (the hood made it kind of interesting.) I didn’t stretch it or pin it – just flat. And then I crossed my fingers.

Doesn’t my ass look great? I showed the pictures
to G – who took them – and he was like “Yeah.
I noticed that.” “So why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought you could photoshop the lines out. ” If only it were that easy!

Sunday I had a job in the morning with a really great family and a super cute baby girl, visited with the in-laws a bit, and came home to obsess about my sweater and how long it was going to take to dry. G and I had a great date that night for some of the best steak I’ve ever eaten and then went to hear a friend play with his band. FUN! Today we did our city run, did some car stuff and house stuff, and then went out to take pictures. Here’s one of the cute sexy ones G took:

And here’s how I looked one frame later when the wind kicked up:

This is a great pattern – very easy – it’s a really nice first sweater. The cables aren’t hard at all (and if you should happen to fuck them up, I’ve got a nice way to fix them.) The directions are simple, easy to follow and while there are two mistakes in the published pattern, they’re incredibly intuitive to fix on your own in case you miss the errata. Modifications: I did the back and the fronts together up to the arm holes, and cut out one stitch at the ends of the fronts where they met the back and one stitch at each end of the back – this way my ribbing matched up perfectly. Instead of doing the shoulders stair step, I did them using short rows and then put the fronts and back together using a modified three needle bind off. (I say this because I don’t know what else to call it.) Margene taught me this: you put the stitches of the corresponding front and back on two needles and you slip one stitch from one needle over it’s mate on the other needle. Do this with all the stitches. You now have one row of stitches – bind them off as you normally would. Supposedly this is a stronger bind-off than
the regular three needle bind off.

I also kitchenered the hood together instead of binding off and seaming it up as the pattern called for. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Perhaps the greatest modification I made was to adjust the pattern for my row gauge. When I washed my swatches, the yarn gained about a stitch per 4 inches in stitch gauge and LOST about 4 rows in the row gauge. The pattern called for 6 rows per inch and I got 7. I changed every measurement to match up to this gauge. It was pretty long and big when I tried it on before washing it and I kind of held my breath until it was completely dry. AND IT WORKED!!! The sleeves shrunk up (even though they’re still a bit long – I made them long to begin with) and the hood is DEFINITELY smaller and the yarn bloomed and it’s a bit bigger around and everything that was supposed to happen happened. How’s that for bossing my knitting around!?

Central Park Hoodie
Pattern: from Knitscene, Fall 2006, by Heather Lodinsky
Yarn: Beaverslide, Huckleberry Heather, 90% Wool/10% Kid Mohair. I used just under 7 skeins I think. FABULOUS YARN! Now one of my favorites. I can’t wait to use it again – and I will. While I was knitting this sweater I bought enough for two more.
Needles: Addi Turbo, US size 9 (5.5 mm) and 8 (5.0 mm) and a cable needle.
Buttons: Purchased at Tender Buttons in NYC.
Pictures: By Georgie. When he complained that he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, I told him to BUCK UP! He wasn’t going to make it as a Swimsuit photographer by complaining about the cold. He didn’t appreciate that. Who loves you baby?

I’m loving all this sweater knitting – now I just need a new project! Thank you for visiting!

On my way to the dentist…

— Winner announced later today. Dudes. I fell asleep.

— My first button band was grossly underplayed. Second one was perfect:

Now I have to decide where to put the button holes on the second band, knit it, and block the sleeves. This baby SHOULD be done over the weekend.

— HUGENESS! Get your calendar’s out: I’ve got a TENTATIVE DATE for Spin Out 2007: September 29, 2007. I had my heart set on a date in September (I figure there’s less chance of rain) and apparently that’s a real tough month for Central Park. But Cherry Hill Fountain is free, and we’ve got our application in, so now I just have to wait for it to be approved. Fingers crossed. Don’t make any plans. We are DEFINITELY spinning in the Park this year!

Be back later. Wish me luck for no cavities!

You know, theories are grand. Examples are wonderful. Practice makes perfect. But eventually you’ve got to shit or get off the pot. So last night, spurred on by all your accolades for my magic act, I settled down to fix the last cable on my swatch, then move onto my sweater.

Wouldn’t you know it! I FUCKED UP THE SWATCH! I’m not sure what happened, but I did everything exactly like I’d done before and yet there were two pieces of yarn that crossed the bottom cable – I don’t know what they were, I don’t know why they were – but I cut them in an exploratory surgery kind of way and got the fix to sort of work (big holes because I ended up ripping out more than the three stitches across the top.) Great. Just great. My dress rehearsal was a frigging bust. Now what to do? Could I really perform on opening night? When you get no other chances?

Janice told me yes. CUT IT, JUST CUT IT! And to call her when it was over.

I swear to Bacchus I felt nauseous. But I kept telling myself if I messed it up it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Sure I’d risk humiliation in front of all of you – you’d know me for the fraud I really am – but I could live with that. Sort of. I mean, really, I could just take the blog down and disappear. And the sweater, well, the sweater could be reknit. Which is what I thought I’d have to do from the beginning.

So I did it.

And the fucking thing actually worked. Honestly, unless I turn the sweater over and look for the tell tale ends, I don’t know where I fixed it.

I believe in MAGIC!!!

Then:

And now:

On to the sleeves!

*It’s National Use Your Yiddish Day! Just ask my favorite Jewish girls, Margene and Ann

I got it perfect on the first try baby! I haven’t fixed the actual sweater – I want to try again on the other two cables to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Details sometime tomorrow, but rest assured – tonight I will sleep well.

How was your weekend? Mine started off pretty good. I worked hard on Friday and rewarded myself Friday night by finishing up the back of my CPH. Georgie brought home some EXCELLENT take-out and I slept pretty well. The next morning I headed off to a job – where I was greeted by another sappy song on the CD player left by my fantabulous husband (“God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys) and where I successfully drove to the job by MYSELF (this is an accomplishment in my phobia ridden life.) The baby was a cutie pie, the parents were nice and I came home and knit away the afternoon, finishing up one of the fronts on the CPH. We went out that night to see some old friends and it was okay, but there was lots of cancer talk because some people only knew about the hip surgery that never happened, not the cancer stuff, so I ended up drinking more than I should have and I came home drunk and went to bed. Woke up a bit hungover – nothing really bad, just blechy, but even though I was feeling like crap I STILL WENT OUT AND RAN!! (I think we can say this is a habit now. I may actually be starting to see some body changes as well.)

The rest of the afternoon was spent nursing a killer headache (I ALWAYS get a headache before it snows. Without fail. This was not a wine headache.) and packing up socks for virgins. (US Virgins – you should get your yarn this week. NON-US Virgins – maybe next week? And all virgins have been accounted for – but I appreciate the volunteers.) Then I settled into the couch to finish up the second front of my CPH.

It was going well – I was happy with the changes I had made to the pattern: doing the fronts and backs together up to the arm holes. Switching out the bound off shoulders for short row shoulders (directions here and here.) And I was thrilled that I could incorporate these changes without a lot of muss or fuss – really feeling like I’ve grown as a knitter.

I cruised along – would I start the hood next, or leave it and go to the sleeves? I dreamed of wearing this on the beaches at Big Sur, the hood up, the sea whipping around me. Still LOVING the yarn. Still loving the pattern. Still loving the knitting.

Even with the headache – the night was going to end well. Knitting had saved me once again. La la la la la….

ZZZZZZIIIIIIPPPPPP! (Insert the sound of someone scratching the fucking needle across the record.) WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?

I was comparing the two fronts – making sure I had put the first cable on the holder at the right row when something looked…how shall I say it…OFF.

JUPITER’S C*NT!!!! (Been watching too much Rome. Sorry – but we only take Roman Gods‘ names in vain now.)

I thought I was going to throw up. Georgie immediately knew something was very wrong. Was it the violent cursing? The hurling of the sweater across the room? He says I just should’ve taken a picture of my face when I realized what had happened. I didn’t. But let’s just say I looked something like this:

What happened though, really, was that I gasped as if I were dying, let out some stuff about Janus and Mars performing unspeakable acts, and called Ann. Boar answered the phone and asked me if I was okay – I sounded depressed. I mumbled something about headaches and snow and Ann got on the phone and said what’s the matter honey? And I may have started crying, or talking about Hades’ asshole or something, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t laugh. She told me I had three (or four – but now I can’t remember the fourth) options. 1) I could rip the fucker back to it’s bare freaking bones; 2) I could try to fix the cable in one of two ways; or 3) I could ignore it and keep knitting.

All my previous choices for this sweater suddenly seemed very VERY wrong. You see, the cable that’s twisted wrong is way down town. WAY down town.

I thought I was so fucking smart to do the back and fronts in one piece. SO FUCKING SMART. You know what, if I had just followed the pattern and done it all in pieces the whole ripping it out and fixing would have ABSOLUTELY been the answer. I could’ve ripped out the front and knit it back up in a day – two days – at the most. And I swear to you that’s what I would’ve done had I knit the thing in pieces. But I didn’t knit the thing in pieces. I knit it in ONE PIECE. Ripping it means this:

Ann and I both remembered a post from Stephanie a while ago that talked about fixing a mis-twisted cable. We both headed to the computer to look. Stephanie says the proper way is to drop down and reknit the stitches – of course she’s talking about six rows. And honestly? If I had miscrossed a cable six rows back that sucker would’ve been ripped before you could twist Minerva’s tit. I have no problems ripping and reknitting to get something right. And honestly, I tried to fix a cable earlier in the sweater – isolated it and ripped it back and tried to reknit it and it looked like shit. The second option that Stephanie talks about is fudging the cable – duplicate stitching OVER it to make it seem like it’s twisted in the right direction. She says to use this (and I quote)

…for miss-crosses very far down. Too far down. Too far down with other cables stacked on top of them creating complications. It’s for when you have knit a whole stinking back of an aran for a 7 foot tall 500 pound man and you find a miss-crossed cable on row 9.

It is for when you know that you will not be able to live with the mistake, but you know that you can’t live with ripping back either.
It is a last resort. It is voodoo.

Um. You think? Please, please! I need the voodoo that you do so well! Ann and I decided that I should at least try this before I ripped the whole thing back. So we found some websites talking about backstitch and duplicate stitch because at that point my head hurt so bad I don’t think I could’ve knit a garter stitch scarf if I tried. In fact, I was so distraught over the whole thing I folded laundry instead of knitting. Later on, I did pick up a sock, but the yarn was so thin and the needles so small after the Beaverslide on 9s for days on end, I felt like I was all thumbs and just put it down. People. I FOLDED LAUNDRY. That should give you a clue as to how bad it is.

If you’re looking for the happy ending in all of this, I haven’t fixed it yet. I did try the backstitch part of the equation and it worked pretty well and then I ripped it out – but I’m going to have to practice duplicate stitch. I think in theory this should work – but if it doesn’t – if I don’t like how it looks – I’m going to rip it out and reknit. You may think I’m completely insane, and I don’t blame you if you do, but there is NO WAY I could live with the mistake. It will absolutely RUIN the sweater for me. The fact that I KNEW I could fix it – KNEW I could just reknit the thing and make it right – well, that’s all I need to know. I’ve been enjoying knitting the sweater – as I said before – I love the yarn and it will hold up perfectly to ripping (don’t ask me how I know) so in my mind there is absolutely NO excuse for NOT reknitting. I’m going to try the fix, because as Ann tried to convince me, it will be new skills. And if it looks okay then fine. But I’ll still always know it’s there. Accepting that might actually be the greatest lesson learned in all of this. Wish me luck.

ETA: Margene just told me about a fourth option – cutting the three stitches that go over the wrong way and bringing the back stitches to the front. Then knitting a couple of rows and kitchenering the cut stitches in the back. I’m going to swatch and try this. Hopefully I’ll have something to show you soon. I’m taking my time with this though – so don’t hold your breath.

ETA2: LOOK WHAT I FOUND! Via Yarnival, via Jenn.

I worked my ass off today – processed more than 1/2 a job. That’s damn good. And made some decisions about my business. But mostly I worked. I work from home when I’m not out on a job and there are LOTS of distractions. But one thing I always do is keep the TV off in the mornings until 1 PM when Days of Our Lives comes on. Cool fact: I have cable TV on my computer. Georgie bought this thing – don’t ask me what it is – but it splits the cable coming into our cable modem and we have TV on the computer. Regular TV. So I can process pictures and have the soaps on in the background. I turned the TV off though around 2:30 and didn’t turn it back on until closer to 5 and then I started flipping around the channels. I hit on a GOLDMINE and almost bought this: The Time Life Collection of Classic Soft Rock! OH MY GOD the memories! I’m old enough that I remember listening to Wizard 100 in Philly – THE AM station when FM was like all alternative and no one I knew listened to it. I go crazy, when I look in your eyes I still go crazy…. Georgie always makes fun of me that I LOVE those ’70s Soft Rock Ballads. I wanna kiss you all over and over again…. I swear the commercial was on for like 20 minutes. I was thisclose to buying the whole damn thing. But luckily, after I sang her like 100 of the 168 songs in the 10 cd set, Ann talked me down and I didn’t buy it. Fool if you think it’s over ‘Cos you said goodbye…. [PS – If you’re like Georgie and can’t stand the soft rock, check out Vicki’s post today – and you can wash this post right out of your hair!]

Speaking of TV – can I tell you something completely AWFUL I keep seeing and throwing up a little bit in my mouth every time? A couple of weeks ago I was talking about favorite childhood books and one of the ones I had almost forgotten about was Bridge To Terabithia by Katharine Patterson. I LOVED this book. Read it many times. And while I don’t remember my siblings reading other books, this one I KNOW we all read. In fact, my brother was known to disappear some afternoons and when my mother would ask where he went, he would tell her Terabithia. This book is ALL about imagination. That’s why every time I see a commercial for the movie they’ve made of it, I cringe and close my eyes and cover my ears. It’s so horribly awful, I can’t bear it. Please please please! If you love your children, DON’T SEE THIS MOVIE! I know that sounds kind of harsh – maybe it’s the best movie ever made (but I doubt it given the animated monsters in the previews.) Instead, PLEASE READ THE BOOK. Thank you very much. By the way, I’ve started The Westing Game again and I LOVE IT all over again. Rant over.

I decided what to do with CPH:

I’m doing the back and fronts separately. I’m planning on trying to do short row shoulders instead of the bind off called for by the pattern. Also, I’m thinking that once I’m done the fronts and back I’m going to seam the shoulders and do the hood and button bands before the sleeves. This way, if I don’t finish it before I go away I can knit the sleeves on the plane. This is the plan. Although you know what they say about plans.

I’m just about done working for the day and then I’m taking to bed to watch my tivo’d General Hospitals and Another Worlds and knit my cozy hoodie. Have a great weekend!

My whole blogging schedule is so off it’s ridiculous. Usually I blog pretty early in the morning – depending on how big the post is and if I need to wait for some light to hit the apartment for pictures – and then it’s done and I do whatever else I’m doing for the day. But I’m in the middle of a big work project with an ever impending deadline and I’m trying to work in the morning BEFORE I blog. Today I worked in the morning (lots of tedious reading) and then I ran (WHOO HOO! I’m still intending my intentions) and then stuff happened and then I worked some more and NOW I’m blogging. I have so much to talk about and like no time at all. I’m not sure if there will be a post at all tomorrow – I’m lunching with the ladies in the big city and then, if I can stand it, I’ve got to squeeze in some work. I will try my best for Thursday.

Okay – on with things.

DUDES. Everyone and their 8 yr old brother knows: YOU SMELT IT, YOU DEALT IT. All I have to say is that I was out and about in my lovely little swampland town yesterday and I didn’t smell a freaking thing. (Besides, when we do smell stuff, we usually blame it on Lyndhurst.) Ahem.

So I’ve been swatching. Lots and lots of swatching. And I love my Beaverslide yarn so much after all this swatching I bought two more sweaters worth. No kidding. I am LOVING this yarn. Did you all get your colorcards? DO IT. Now. Anyway, I started swatching on Friday on US 8 needles, which is what the Central Park Hoodie calls for – by the way, there’s a KAL if anyone’s interested in joining. I made a beautiful swatch and measured it carefully, then SOAKed it, and laid it out to dry. This yarn is really really interesting. If you’re going to knit with it, make sure you swatch and wash your swatch the way you intend to wash your knitted item. First off, it blooms really nicely. My unblocked swatch was 19.5 stitches per 4″ and after drying it was 18 stitches to the 4″. BUT, it shrinks up in row gauge! My unblocked swatch was 26 rows per 4″ and that squished down to 29 rows per 4″. Huh. Interesting right? The pattern calls for 17 stitches and 24 rows per 4″, so I thought, let me swatch on 9s, see what I get. I got my US9 Addis out of their package sleeve in my needle drawer and swatched again. For my swatches, I cast on 36 stitches, knit four rows of garter stitch, switch to stockinette with 3 stitch garter borders until it seems about square then finish off with four rows garter. I don’t pin out my swatches when they’re blocking, just let them dry.

I enjoyed swatching with the 9s just as much as I liked the 8s and I’m thoroughly LOVING the yarn. I cast off and started measuring out the swatch. WHAT? It’s almost EXACTLY the same as the gauge on the 8s and worse yet – the row gauge is even SHORTER. This time I measured the dimensions of the swatch before I washed it. 71/4″ x 71/4″. After blocking the dimensions became 71/2″ x 63/4″. Shrinkage. I was totally perplexed by this yarn and actually called Margene to ask her about it – since she’s the one that turned me onto the yarn in the first place. She said she knew about the blooming, but not the shrinkage. (I love that this yarn expands and contracts at the same time!)

Here’s where the story becomes either extremely funny, or awfully embarrassing. Depends on if you’re Ann or Me. The next night, Sunday night, I went back to the needle drawer and took out my OTHER size 9 needle. I had a quick project I wanted to knit up (I’ll talk about it later this week) and I needed two circulars for it. I went back to the couch, where I knit the swatch the night before, and looked for my other size 9 needle. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I found a few needles that seemed like they could be 9s, but I check with my needle gauge and they’re 8s. Where the hell is the other 9?!? I ripped the couch apart. Blamed G (who threw up his hands and said he knew better than to EVER touch my knitting stuff) and got thisclose to throwing stuff because I couldn’t find this freaking needle.

THEN I figured it out. You know where I’m going don’t you? A few months (weeks? who knows the last time I tried to clean my disgusting house) ago I put away all my needles laying around. At Rhinebeck, I had picked up a handy new needle gauge to go along with the other two I have. The new one was special though!

It was made SPECIFICALLY by Skacel – the people who make Addi needles and since I pretty much knit exclusively with Addis – I figured it would be THE needle gauge to have. (It’s the one on the top right in the picture.) One problem – this needle gauge STICKS even when the needle is the RIGHT size. I figured out that all those weeks? months? ago when I was trying to put my needles away I must have mistaken an 8 for a 9 because I had a bit of trouble getting it through the 8 hole. Which makes perfect sense because I was short a size 9 Addi package and I keep all my packages.

Am I making ANY SENSE? I’ll spell it out for you. I KNIT TWO SWATCHES ON THE SAME DAMN NEEDLE SIZE! Laugh your asses off. I deserve it.

We won’t talk about the fact that I have no less than 5 size 8 circulars because the real problem is that I only have ONE size 9 circular. I couldn’t do my little project. But I could swatch again.

The good news out of all of this? Besides the irony of the fact that I never swatch and now I’ve made three – swatch #3 on size 9 needles got me stitch gauge. Which is much more important to me than row gauge because I can crunch the numbers pretty easily for that. Also, I can probably block out at least one more row. I think I still ended up with 29 rows per 4″. I have to count again. Furthermore, look how pretty the swatches are:

The fact that I can’t wait to cast on for the actual sweater after three swatches is a testament to this yarn. I’m planning on doing the back and fronts together, so I have to read over the pattern a bit before I actually do cast on, but look for it soon.

(See! I managed to write an entry that lives up to it’s title – long and boring. Just like Dickens. Although it’d be nice to get paid by the post. )