Rules of the Ridge

Sexy new yarn is the best new yarn. Look how shiny it is!




Patons SWS, (in row order from top to bottom), in Natural Blue, Natural Denim, and Natural Navy.

I scored three bags on sale...I won't brag about how good, y'all will be jealous, but I am making Lizard Ridge for less than half what the price would be if I were to make it in Kureyon at average retail price. That's the only way I can make it at all...go, go, Christmas money!

(Speaking of Christmas, I've been holding off on the obligatory Christmas goodies post because I'm only through 2 of my 3 Christmasses. First was with the in-laws, second with just my parents, and third, still coming up, is with my brother and sister-in-law plus my parents again.)

When I realized yesterday that the red sweater (which is what I've been calling the Threepenny pullover in passing, because "red sweater" means much more to my husband than the name of the project) wasn't going to be done in time for the New Year's party, like I'd hoped, I decided I might as well succumb to the siren call of shiny soy-wool and get my lizards a-leaping.

Here's 1 and 5/8ths blocks done:



I'm following the modifications made by the wondrous Aija, detailed here. The long and short of it is that it's knit in panels (vs. blocks or all-at-once) and the non-short-row rows are in garter instead of stockinette. I think I might go mad trying to knit the entire width of the piece all at once...plus I didn't really like the look of the official version done with that method, so the panels thing is wonderful. And when I saw that she said that the garter ridges made lining up the panels for seaming much easier, I was sold!

I had to lay down a set of laws for myself about color, though. Since I'm using three different colors, and I decided to be gung-ho and spit-splice every single yarn change instead of carrying them up the side, I knew I would get tempted to switch between all 18 balls in some crazy attempt to make every color change gorgeous. That madness MUST be prevented.

So I drew myself a little chart of blocks, and I labeled them A/B, B/C, and C/A, showing the two "colors" I was going to be using per block for the whole afghan. Rule 1: No deviation from the chart.

I decided I was always going to use the center of the ball first, barring incidents where the center end just could not be found. Rule 2: Once the direction of yarn usage is established, no switching midway through the ball.

Though it's no Noro, any yarn can have knots, thus, Rule 3: Cut out the knot, splice, and keep going, even if the color changes abruptly. (I've only had one knot so far in the three balls I've got going, so I'm already ahead of the curve compared to Kureyon.)

And finally, one I haven't road-tested yet....Rule 4: When hunting for a new ball of yarn, go with the first one grabbed that's the right colorway; no hunting for a nice starting color.

I'm taking this project with me away for the weekend--we're staying with friends pre-party--so it might very well be bigger when I get back to the blogging on Tuesday.

Happy New Year's, you crazy knitters!

Finished Object: Snowflakes and Snowmen Fair Isle Vest

Project Specs:

* Pattern: Seasonal Fair Isle Vests
* Yarn: KP Palette
* Size: 44"
* Yardage: 13 balls, I think, with none-to-half-a-ball left of each color
* Needles: Size 3
* Gauge: Supposed to be 7sts/inch in st st on #1's....see my gripes below
* Modifications: Altered coloring and order of some of the pattern bands; simplified some of the embroidery to save thread and time

Gripes: Gauge. How useful is it to list a gauge in a different stitch and on a different size needle than those that are actually to be used in the pattern? I got gauge, I would swear on a stack of whatever holy texts that happened to be handy that I did. But my stranded knitting gauge on larger needles turned out to be too big. Of course, because this is knit in the round, and my #3 needle is kinda short, it was all scrunched up the whole time I was knitting it, so I couldn't be sure. I did have a vague feeling the whole time that it would end up too big, but, hey, I got gauge, right? So everything's fine!

So, what's a girl to do? I finished the steeking--which went much better than I'd envisioned, thank you, Eunny, for your fabulous series of entries on steeks--and tried on the almost-finished vest myself. Now, my mother is a bit larger than me, so it wasn't going to be perfect....but on me, the shoulders were exactly twice as wide as I would have wanted them. Waaaaay too big.

I took the damn thing to my mother's for her to try on, so I could mark where to lop off the excess shoulder width. Then, I had to rip out the armhole ribbing, fold back the extra, pin, futz, re-pin, and finally do the ribbing over again. After that came the re-steeking, where I treated the extra width as half a steek and trimmed it back safely.

Then I had to do the other side. (whimper)

With that trauma behind me, I found myself poised on the brink of a week-long visit to my in-laws...which is where I've been the past week. Did I want to take it with me to finish? No, not really. So I didn't. I took my red sweater instead--the one I haven't blogged about in ages and suddenly decided to finish in time to wear to a New Year's party. I may still make it...

So I left the embroidery, the tacking-down of the steeks, and the buttons to do until today, with only hours to spare before going to my parents' tomorrow for Christmas. I've spent most of the day doing all that, and some of the time worrying that I would run out of black embroidery thread before I finished the skate laces. I didn't, but I only had about four inches left. (whew!)





All in all...my mother better love this. Grrrr.

The Triumphant Return of Pron

Sorry about the absence. I'm fine now, just a little stressed getting ready for the holidays, and having too many hobbies to boot....

A while back I traded more yarn for fiber, and here what I managed to score for a hank of HPY laceweight.



Some scrumptious Polwarth subtly dyed with pink, purple, and blue.

Sadly, the fluffiness of the fiber combined with my shaky camera hands meant that I got no good closeups, so it's time for a little digital art.



I miss having access to Photoshop, I could have done a lot more with it. This is just some messing around with the color and brightness, plus zealous use of the Sharpen feature. I was going for Pointellism, but I fell somewhere short...if I'd sharpened it any more to get it pixelated, half of the picture would have been white!