Am I joining all these things because I’m bitter and want someone else to know the pain of running a KAL that has more than one participant? Of course not! I just want to have fun!

JOKING PEOPLE. IT’S A JOKE. Hahaha? Get it?

All jokes aside, I’ve done A LOT of joining lately. Groucho would be very, very disappointed.

Let’s see. I’m in RED HOT SIZZLING SOCKS.

I’ve got some Ruby Slippers STR that’s begging to be jaywalkers with a picot edge. I’m planning on making the Valentine’s Day deadline. These will probably be started on my romantic weekend in sunny Florida.

I also joined Sockapaloooza.

Even though I was shafted twice and did some shafting of my own, I’m back for another round. I can guarantee my pal that I won’t be making jaywalkers. All jaywalkers are for me and me alone. Unless of course my pal ASKS for jaywalkers, but honestly, I’m going to try to avoid it.

Um. Oh yeah. Just yesterday I joined Project Spectrum over at Lolly’s.

This is an inspired idea! Each month, beginning in March, I’m going to take on a spinning project with the designated colors for that month. For me, a lot of spinning is about color! I love COLOR! And I like the idea of having a spinning project. Something separate from the knitting.

And, yes, finally, I joined the Knitting Olympics.

Actually – I signed up the first day! And no I’m not linking over there because if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about I don’t know how you can call yourself a knit blogger. Hell – I don’t know how you could call yourself a knitter OR a blogger. It’s that big people.

There’s been lots of interesting discussion about these here olympics. Lots of pro – some con – some wtf? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not but I really like to challenge myself. I love to master new things – I love to learn new skills. I even like to get frustrated and curse and throw things around – and maybe – not often – stomp. Because when you finally do master that new skill, whatever it is, it feels so freaking satisfying! Really. You should try it sometimes.

That’s one of the reasons I truly love knitting. It’s a great way to challenge myself and honestly, usually, no one gets hurt. There are no great disasters if it doesn’t work out – like say – trying to get pregnant and having a kid. Now there’s a challenge I’d rather not be challenged by. But knitting? BRING IT ON! So when I saw Stephanie’s post about the Knitting Olympics I knew right away what my project would be: FAIR ISLE!

I’ve never done color knitting. Sure I took that class last year, but got sick on the second day when they taught fair isle. But it’s something that I REALLY want to learn. So here’s the perfect opportunity! And while I appreciate Stephanie’s call to lose our sanity during the fortnight, I’m not knitting a Dale of Norway Olympic sweater. I’m crazy but I’m not NUTS! My first fair isle project will be the Pirate Mittens over at Hello Yarn. I’m planning on knitting them in Dalegarn Falk in black and neon pink. Or navy and neon pink. Something and neon pink. Neon green and neon pink? Something bright and flashy and CRAZY! I think I can get the mittens done in 16 days. It’s the perfect challenge. I’m ready for it.

It’s a 3fer today! Be sure to comment on EVERY ENTRY. 😉

Okay – time to play Name That Tune – or Name that KAL. In case you’ve forgotten, you were playing for the book that owns this sweater!

There were so many good names, but I’ve sort of kind of narrowed it down to two. There will be vote at the end because I just can’t make up my mind.

Some of my favorite suggestions: Julia‘s JapaFuckingKnit was like an arrow to my heart, since I’m sure I’ll be screaming that as I’m throwing the knitting across the room. Jessica offered Kousa-Along since kousa means crossed in Japanese, but she also said it could mean a test or education, which she rightly thought this knit might be. Susan then suggested “anata ga suki yo” which means I love you in Japanese – I took that one step further and was going to go for aishiteru, which means “I love you” in a deep profound way. 😉 And then another Julia suggested Crossed in Translation. This one has really, really stuck with me. She based it on the movie – Lost in Translation, which, if you haven’t seen it, is about a young married woman who is in Japan and she meets up with an older married man who’s also in Japan and they have a…friendship. She’s kind of lost (which I suspect we will be with this pattern) and there’s definitely love between the two of them and better yet – SHE KNITS IN THE MOVIE! Okay – it’s a goofy scarf, but still, she knits.

Then, as a late entry, Barbara suggested AmiCable. This is her explanation: “The Japanese knitting site says that the Japanese word for knit is pronounced “ami”. “Ami” is also “friend” in French and the root of the word “amicable” which means “having a spirit of friendliness”. So you could call it AmiCable – knit (japanese) cables in the spirit of friendliness.”

So I’m narrowing it down to Crossed in Translation or AmiCable. You decide.

Polls will close Friday, 12AM EST. I want to start making buttons and stuff. 😉

Oh and I was emailing Judy yesterday – she has the book – and she says it seems like it’s in a DK/Sport weight with a gauge of 28 st and 24 rows per 10 cm [4 inches]. The back has 139 stitches which equals 20″ and the fronts, including button bands are 75 stitches. She also told me the sides are all seed stitch – so it will be easy to widen it. I’m still SO EXCITED. Thanks Judy!

Okay – so don’t forget to vote and have a great day!

die boglines die!

Sometimes I get so excited about things I wish I was Norma. You know, so that the words can come spilling out of my head and onto the screen without delay. Today’s a Norma kind of day.

I’m going to go slow so I don’t miss anything. Okay. Yesterday I was perusing the blogs, as is my main method of procrastination, when I came upon Mary’s admission of love. Wouldn’t you know it?! I fell just as hard, just as fast.

Please click on it for a larger picture.
The gloriousness that is this sweater must not be denied!

Mary started off her post with something of a tease – just a link to the picture (which I’ve shamelessly lifted from Montreal Knits. Thank you!) She added more information later but the results are still the same: I love this sweater with such unadulterated abandon I left Mary three comments yesterday and a separate email.

She’s given me the go ahead – I’m starting the Knit A Long.

Now before you get all super excited to the point you might pee your pants like I have, let me warn you. The beauty that is this sweater will be an arduous journey to attain. Sure it’s got lots of cables and twists and that is always a challenge, but there’s more. Wait for it…the pattern comes from the book, New Style of Heirloom Knitting, which just so happens to be in Japanese. That’s right, my fellow knitters – the nirvana sweater is in JapaFUCKINGnese. (By the way, that’s not a slam on the Japanese language, which I’m sure is very beautiful – it’s a slam on my brain which can’t make heads or tales of the beautiful Japanese language.) We should be able to read the charts, right? Please tell me we can read the charts!!!!! And while I haven’t seen the book in person, rumor has it that they only give the pattern in one size – super small.

Because of this minor irritation, this Knit A Long is going to be a true, true Knit A Long. We’re going to have to put our heads together to make this work – make lots of mistakes – fuck things up – curse, scream, rip out, rip out again. I’m very tempted to hire someone to translate the pattern for me. BUT I KNOW WE CAN DO THIS TOGETHER!!!!

ETA: Barbara and Leanne emailed some great links to help us out with translating stuff. Go here and here.

So let’s start. First off, we need a name. I’m going to solicit names from all of you and then I’m going to pick a winner. The winner will receive the book!

Please click here for purchase information.

I’ve already ordered one copy and will be ordering another today. I WILL CHOOSE THE NAME, not the random generator. You can enter as many as THREE times. But please, make the entries serious contenders. I’ll close the contest next Tuesday.

Since the book takes a little while to get here and the holidays are coming up and stuff, the KAL won’t officially start until January 1st. Sort of a birthday present to me! I will set up a separate blog for it – I think the work that this pattern’s going to need warrants it. Everyone will have posting privileges. Leave a comment if you want in, or send an email to cara at januaryone dot com with KAL in the subject line.

Let’s establish some ground rules early:

– Rule #1 – It’s just too gorgeous not to knit it.

– You’re going to have to get a copy of the pattern somehow somewhere. I suggest buying the book – Montreal Knits has some other great pictures up and it looks like the patterns are all beautiful – there are some gorgeous shawls in there. DO NOT ASK FOR PATTERN COPIES HERE OR ON THE KAL BLOG. They will not be available. I’m hoping we’ll all be working on the same page so that if someone has a problem with Chart A, for example, we can all pull out our Chart As to help.

– I’m not sure yet if we’ll write up alterations for sizing and stuff – it may be we all just size our own and learn from each other’s mistakes.

– I’m not sure if we’ll each do our own translations and help each other out – or if translations won’t be necessary because the charts are so clear we can each make our own version of the sweater pulling the cables all together.

– There will be no time limit on this project as I suspect it will take a lot of slogging to get to the end of it.

Okay. That’s what I’ve got for now – fire away!

I have no idea what the yarn for the sweater will be – I’m seriously, seriously hoping it’s a DK weight (I guess I can always make it a DK weight) because I’d love to use the ton of Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed I’ve got in my stash. I’ve got a beautiful pink color too. But I’m willing to buy whatever yarn I’ll need to get this right. This is exactly what I’ve been wanting for a long, long time. It’s modern, yet classic. I just can’t wait to start. I hope it’s not too frustrating. I want it to be perfect already.

I didn’t knit much yesterday. I didn’t have to time to re-do the glove hand, but Margene made me feel infinitely better about the holes. Basically she said holes are going to happen – it’s inevitable and a little darning may be necessary. Exactly what I wanted to know – thanks Zen Master! I’ve got a lot I want to accomplish today work-wise, so if I get time tonight, I’ll be trying the join again.

I’m still trying to figure out what pattern my angel socks should be. I think I’m back to a simple, yet elegant, garter rib. I may cast on those today too. I need more size one needles. Actually, I need more size 1s and 2s.

I did knit a little bit (read two rows) on the Prairie Blanket yesterday. It’s so, so beautiful. I wish I had more time in the day. Is there something wrong with me that all I want to do is knit?