Sassy Does It

Good news - I’ve wrangled myself out of my knitfunk.

A few weeks ago I felt resigned to knitting little gifts because it seemed all I could manage with my knitmojo in apparent exile.

But now I feel happy to consider the realm of possibility here, in the land of little.  

With my job currently resembling a fat sweaty man that constantly butts into my personal dance space and steps on my toes, keeping it simple every way I can seems, well, necessary. 

The knitmojo has returned in terms of confidence to tackle bigger things, but I’d never get them finished.

Little gifts are just fine for now. 

I started a Skinny Scarf with Cascade Alpaca Lace in a beautiful charcoal gray.   This is stockinette - tiny stockinette with two strands, in the round à la Magic Loop - so it’s nice zombie knitting on planes without a pattern needed.  It’s the epitome of simple, but since this will be a gift for a 15-year-old, I think staying within the bounds of classic fashion will increase the likelihood of my idea of “cool” being greeted with a smile.

That said, I have a cute idea for adding a teenager-approved flourish once the knitting’s done.  We’ll see how it turns out.  Squeezer can take it or leave it if she doesn’t like it.

In other developments, I’m feeling a hankering for little lacy things. 

Not like a huge never-gonna-get-done shawl, but more like a little lightweight scarf.  I like the very creatively named Mohair Scarf, which I would size down for a kickier version, a smaller neck wrap. 

For this I picked up a beautiful pink skein of Rowan Kidsilk Haze after work yesterday.  It left me drooling over the other neighboring colors splayed on my LYS’s surprisingly well-stocked shelves.  I copped a feel of a few of them while the lady was ringing up my credit card and left it at that.

After poking around on Ravelry to see what else might catch my fancy, I landed on a couple of other cuties, pretty much still in the scarf vein.  I wanted something slightly bohemian for someone on my list:  not too fussy, but still feminine.  But not too fine or fragile, because that just isn’t her.  When I saw a pattern I liked with “hemp” in the title, my eyebrow raised - yep, that’s about the right speed.

It just so happens that the pattern is of the crochet persuasion.  At first I paused and said, “I’m a knitter. I knit.”  And then I decided it just looked like fun.  What the hey - I’ll crochet.  I’ve already been flirting with it.

Hemp’s alright, but I’m going for bamboo.  Gorgeous shade of red MeiMei on its way from eBay.  Yay for eBay.

I’m also looking at some fingerless mitts; one suitable for a very metro man and another more girly one - if I can be bothered to get around to these.  We shall see.

Considering my Raindrop Lace Socks have been on the needles for over a year, it may be unreasonable to assume that any of these things will escape the clutches of my Addi Turbos by Christmas.

And that’s twelve weeks from now.  Does that sound like a lot or a little? 

Either way, I better get cracking. 

Clacking.

Well, my friends - here she is.

Fifi by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes for French Girl Knits (download)
Size:  Small, with modifications
Yarn:  Rowan Calmer in Tree, 5.75 skeins (with lots of extra length - would have been less than 5 without it; see below)

More pics at my Ravelry post here.

Finished dimensions:

Bust = 29 inches around, unstretched, after blocking (pinned out to 32″)

Length = 27 inches (top of shoulder to bottom cast-off; longer than designed)

Widest part of neckline = 9 inches straight across at top (pinned out to 10″)

Modifications:

Sleeve length (from cap sleeves to short sleeves)

Torso length (from cropped to tuck-in-able)

Verdict:  Beautiful pattern, fun to follow, polished-looking result.  When knit with Calmer as suggested, the yarn works its magic to deliver the look that the pattern promises. 

There are a few corrections to check out, but nothing too extensive.  Not much else going on at the French Girl Knits website; best information is on Ravelry.

Only thing I would do differently is bump up a size.  I’m taking a less whiny approach to this topic than I did in my last post since I’ve decided it’s not as bad as I made it out to be.  The bust fits fairly well; the 29″ finished size as knit (32″ as pinned at blocking) stretches comfortably to hug my not-quite-B cups (~36″, over the sweater).

In choosing the size to knit, I decided to stay small because my boobs are, well, small.  Even though my frame, and therefore my abdomen, is not petite in circumference (mistake #1). 

I figured the clingy thing from boobs to waist was the whole point.  How could this be bad?  Sexy fit!  But I kind of forgot that clinging to unwanted curves is er, unwanted (mistake #2).

I had a little pout-fest halfway through the torso after trying it on and realizing that I didn’t look as svelte as I wanted to, and I had to put Fifi away where I couldn’t see her for a few days after that.

Then I decided that A) as knit, it’s an encouragement to get back to the gym, and B) probably, blocking will help.

Ultimately, upon trying on my FO again a few weeks after initial blocking (which didn’t help that much – alas, it’s cotton), I decided that wearing this with skirts will improve the look in the short term. 

I still have to suck in my gut, which was necessary for modeling here, but the waistline of the skirt is more forgiving since it can ride higher on the waist without looking dorky.   I have trouble with things that sit “just below the natural waist.”  See my rant on denim below.

On the yarn:  My advice to those weighing the cost of Calmer vs. a substitute is to wait for the Calmer - wait for those sales.  It’s worth it. 

Blocking: I stretched this a lot in the boob/abdomen area and did some shaping around the neckline and shoulders. You can see that the mid-to-lower torso pattern with 2×2 ribbing does stretch appreciably with the added touch of microfiber twisted into the cotton. Not enough stretch in my case, as we’ve already covered, but once I get rid of the extra flab it should – in theory – have a slimming effort.

Length:  I know, I know, it looks like a tunic on the blocking board.  Why so long?  Well, I’ll tell you.  My long torso combined with a sizeable booty require special needs when it comes to anything I might end up wearing with jeans.

Two things about jeans that don’t mix well with my body shape:

Denim – even stretch denim doesn’t stretch enough to hug this butt when I go to sit down.

Low-rise anything - High waisters aren’t exactly “in”, but with low-rise trousers, unfortunately I risk revealing more to the bleacher seats behind me than I bargained for, if you know what I mean.  I wear the low-rises anyway because I agree with Mother Fashion’s guidance on this (I’ve no desire to re-live junior high, thank you very much).  But.  You get the gist of my issue here.

As such, I decided that I wanted this sweater to be a tucker-inner so that I could wear it with jeans and sit down without constantly feeling around back there to see if I was giving the person seated behind me a little show.

As I said above - tuck-in or no tuck-in, after experimenting a bit, I’m happier wearing this with a skirt for now.

Sleeves: I added a couple of inches.  I don’t quite have the Michelle Obama arms I want yet, so cap sleeves don’t do me any favors. Not that short sleeves hide much more, but they do help the cause.

You can see below that the red yarn line was the point at which I began adding.  I threw in an increase on each side of the seam under the armpit every row for a few rows, then every other row for a few more, before knitting even for a bit until I was happy with the length.

Neckline:  I liked the way that some of the Ravelry FOs had a nice wide boat-necky ballet-like neckline, although I was puzzled by the way the neckline look varied widely (without declaration of modifications).  Maybe it’s just different body types (shoulder width and length from top of shoulder to bust).

Because I was too lazy to modify via increased cast-on stitches, I simply cast on very, very loosely and let the initial row stretch out a bit more than as written.  It might have added a bit of width between bra straps, but nothing dramatic.  The edge looks smooth, anyway, and I’m happy with it.

And, that’s all I’ve got on Feefers.  Highly recommended.

Even if it ends up a size or three too small for your body size.

[scurries off to gym, a trail of variegated burgundy sock yarn in her wake]

I’m not dead.  My blog has seemed far, far away from the bottom of the rabbit hole that sucked me in, but I’m still breathing, and in fact clutching my way back to the surface.

Mostly I blame being slapped upside the head at work lately, but I did take a vacation in there somewhere, so at least part of my absence is due to something good. 

Yes, vacation.  My family’s lake cottage is my favorite place to be.  Usually it’s crazy busy with boats zipping around with skiiers, and usually I’m not up at sunrise, but I managed to grab this shot on the morning we left.  Peace, man.

But.  This is a knitting blog.  There’s no denying I’m way behind here.

Feefers is long since done; will post her FO shortly. 

I don’t have much else to show for my time, knitting-wise.

It’s fair to say I entered a bit of a slump when I finished Fifi, mostly due to a misestimation of the collection of flab I’ve been building. 

Fifi fits like a glove that’s a couple sizes too small after accidentally getting dropped in the hot cycle. 

I saw it coming as I was knitting, but I decided to forge ahead (motivation to work on that spare tire around the waist!).

But basically, my dear Fifi makes me feel like Two-Ton Tessie, so I can’t wear her for a little while unless everything below the boobs is obscured by a suit jacket.  It’s not horrific, just disappointing, because she’s so pretty. 

Photos with me sucking in my gut as much as possible will be posted all too soon.

[Note to self:  my bust size = small; the rest of my abdomen = not small.  Remember this.  Make adjustments.]

So  - my knitting ego took a blow in my apparent inability to judge my own girth, and I downgraded my aspirations from making another summer thing or two to acknowledging I might as well crack into Christmas gifts.  Seriously.  I mean it this time.

And I’m sticking to things like mittens that are hard to screw-up size-wise so as to avoid making someone feel fat.

That said, my remaining WIP is still hanging around like a bad rash.  I’ve spent a random smattering of minutes furthering my efforts to close out the pair of socks that have been on my needles for…oh, a year.  

Those poor Raindrop Lace Socks. 

Maybe they’ll wiggle their way off to make it under the tree in December.

My big ambitious project now is a blanket..but not a real one (I’m done with those for a while).  It’s a 8×10-inch mini-me version for Maizy’s doll called Baby, who, strangely, is approximately the size of a baby. 

Yes, this means it’s basically an over-grown swatch, but such is the nature of my knitting motivation. 

She requested one a couple of months ago after realizing she got the short end of the gift stick when her baby sister was born. 

The new kid received fresh-off-the-needles knitlove and Maizy got squat from her visiting auntie. 

Not to be duped, she draped said sister’s Summer Baby Blanket around herself and pranced around the living room - nude as a bee - twirling and striking poses for her adoring audience.  She garnered as much attention as possible before putting her clothes back on and shifting into What I Need You To Knit ME mode, starting with a blanket for her Baby.

She rallied for about six other things, too, and I took copious notes, but an 8 by 10-inch swatch is about all I can handle.  Sorry Maiz.

Here’s a photo of my impressive work:

No Babies in sight, so a pepper grinder filled in as the stunt double.

I’ll rebound, I know.  I think I feel guilty for getting behind on all of my blog-reading, too…all my friends are moving on without me! 

Knitting mojo - I command you to return.

Pretty please.

Fifi is nearly off the needles and - oh, for pete’s sake - she’s been in that sad state for over a week.

I’m going to try to blame this on the whole Michael Jackson thing.  It took a good long while to peel my eyes off of the media coverage, as extensive as it’s been.  I think I was overcompensating because when the news first hit I was too busy and far away from a TV to immediately soothe myself with The Making of Thriller on loop for hours on CNN. 

Everybody else was getting their MJ fix with funky Motown compilations of Little Michael singing his way into Weird Michael, and poor me, I was left to suffer in silence, stuck in yucky meetings.

Well, I made up for it by subsequently planting myself in front of the telly with my dancing shoes on.  My knitting took the blow into the backseat.

Does that excuse fly?

A few parting words on MJ, because really, it does suck that he died.  I know he’d turned indisputably wacko and all, but still.

All I could think of last week was dancing with Sissy B in our Flashdance outfits on the shag carpet in the basement, rewinding and forwarding the Thriller cassette a few hundred times to get Billie Jean and Beat It to play ad nauseam. 

Those dance routines were in tip-top shape for our stage debut in front of Dad’s video camera.  I think I’ve mentioned this before.  I fell down a few times.

Not ready to post that clip yet.

Anyhoo.  Farewell, Michael.  Object of my teenage affection.  Source of my delight on the big Grammy night.  Enabler whenever and wherever I want to Blame It on the Boogie, from now until I just can’t boogie no more.

In the absence of knitting news, I did want to make mention of a little gem I discovered in the way of yummy treats.

Allison over at The Whole Ball of Yarn(s) is open for business with Lilah Bug Bakes.  She’s the kind of person who comes up with recipes for things like Mojito Truffles, so you can understand why this chickadee has my attention.

Holy Yummy. 

Check her out.   Totally bookmark-worthy.

Upon learning about her store (after months of drool-inducing evidence of prowess in the kitchen had mounted on her blog), I scurried on over to her website to see what she had on offer. 

And then I ordered. 

Oh, the goodness she delivers with fresh-picked berries and the occasional irresistible twist (chocolate! amaretto! ginger! wine!).

When I received my package after ordering, I tore into the box to find two jars of Agave-Sweetened Strawberry Vanilla Jam and a jar of Bittersweet Chocolate-Pear Sauce.  There was some Pear With Caramel, Lavender, and Vanilla Sauce in there, too.

I went a little overboard in my initial sampling of each.

It started out innocently enough.  I thought I’d have a tasting party.  Um, a party for one:  these were my own sneaky treats.  I opened them when no one else was home to bust me. 

I tried the Strawberry-Vanilla Jam on bread, on bread with butter, and on bread with peanut butter (so it goes, right?).  But then I cracked open the Chocolate-Pear Sauce and drizzled it on vanilla Häagen-Dazs that I went out especially to buy.  Hey, the sauce needed a suitable partner.

Then, a few hours and a Corona or two later, I waddled to the freezer for another scoop of ice cream (”Those containers need to be bigger,” says my tummy; “Noooooo!” says my waistline).  This time I put the Chocolate-Pear AND the Strawberry-Vanilla on top.  OK, and a tiny dollop of peanut butter, since it was already out.

What a little piggy!  Oh well, we all need a bit of excess now and then.  (Wait, can there be only a bit of excess? or does it have to be a lot of excess? or maybe just plain excess?) 

On a healthier note, my proto-garden is still taking baby steps.  Any forward progress I consider a victory.

The tomatoes didn’t take the first time so I had to re-plant the seeds when they didn’t show signs of life after two weeks.

The one plant in front has been flaunting its comparative girth in front of its tiny backup dancers. 

I’ll transplant a few of them now that they’re growing (note that this is well outside any gardening skills I even pretend to possess) to give them all a little more room to accommodate the fatty in front.

The beans took off running from the beginning, so they’re considerably ahead.

Let’s see if these guys can hold my attention long enough for me to notice if and/or when they actually bear fruit.

Bear veggies.

But technically the tomato…really fruit…right?  Whatever. Something’s growing.

Baby’s out, and it’s a girl! 

That crochet border can be as feminine as it darn well wants to be.

Three girls for Sissy B now.  Boys are nice and all, but back in the day, my two sisters plus me made a total of three, so this feels about right.  No boys allowed in the treehouse.

Everyone is happy and healthy and hopped up on the promise of sleep deprivation.  All is right in the world.

Let’s get ready to rumble with a rundown on this Summer Baby Blanket.

First – I do realize it’s a simple blanket pattern and there’s not a whole lot to write up here…but I’m a big writer-up-er, as you know.  Partly because I like to blab on about things (hence the blog); moreover because it takes me so long to get things done that it seems each FO should be fawned over.

Pattern: 
Summer Baby Blanket, free pattern here (all in Japanese, but you only need the chart download)

Yarn:  Blue Sky Alpacas, Skinny cotton

Needle:  US 6 / 4.0 mm, circulars

Dimensions:  43”H x 40”W (blocked)

Overall – yes, I like the look of this blanket very much.  The pattern isn’t tough - very easy by heart with six rows of repeat - but for some reason it just looks cool to me. 

The blanket might look lacy, but I don’t see it as lacy.  The Skinny yarn isn’t really that skinny (5 st/in on size US 6, bigger needle than recommended) so the plump stitches create the kind of texture that makes the pattern pop up.  I like the way the each column of three knit stitches stands out between the purls, a neat double-decrease twist that comes up to meet each flower before tucking under. (And yes, I can call it a flower now.  A girly-looking one.)

Either side could be considered right-side, but for me it’s the side with predominantly purls.  Wrong-side shown facing up in the photo below.

It ended up wider and longer than I anticipated (I blocked it firmly in the end, on purpose), but bigger is usually better in my opinion.  All the more room for spreading out and (eventually) rolling around.  I like that it’s a touch longer than wide, as this is the way my eye likes my blankets.

I’ve been trumpeting on about the crochet border, and really this was the cherry on top for me.  It was fun to make and I like the finished look. 

I used this site to coax me along with videos of crochet stitch instruction, including a little reminder education on the chart symbols.

Even though as a crochet novice I had my share of screw-ups along the way, everything panned out with a little patience for the occasional rip-out and re-do (inserting a beer in between did help).

Because I’m weird, I tend to be frightened of color combos in knitting (both with multiple solids and variegation – what if my stripes end up looking stupid? what if people roll their eyes and say, “who puts those two colors together?), but I went out on a crazy ledge here, and I do like the sagey-green Pear color against the natural tone of the border.  I think it works.

My only beef with this project is the fiber I chose, really.

I do like the yarn, but I don’t love it. 

Very splitty.  Very. 

Not that it wasn’t manageable, just annoying on a fairly frequent basis.  You can see here that there are a lot of plies involved and my heavens, do they ever like to separate whilst one knits.  Like a bunch of strings.

The finished fabric is softish, but not dreamy.  Not like the slightly heftier (yet not bulky) cotton from Blue Sky Alpacas that I used for Curlicue (this cotton was much softer, and with plies that stayed together, mind you).  It seems counterintuitive to me that Mr. Skinny is heartier than Mr. Only A Bit Bulkier from this manufacturer.  In the end, though, hearty is good: this increases the durability, which is what I was shooting for – something that will take a good beating and wear well over time.

All of that said – now that this puppy is finished and blocked, the afore-dinged yarn and I are getting along better.  It’s got a nice drape, and the fabric isn’t too heavy for summer.  And I think it will soften up a whole lot with a couple of good machine washes and a nice slug of Downy.  Part of the draw was that this cotton can go straight into the wash (and the blanket’s big enough that there can be plenty of shrinkage and it will still be big).

Pattern-wise, well, I made a few adjustments, even though it doesn’t seem like this would be that critical for a blanket (uh, knit it as wide as you want, and then stop knitting when it’s long enough, duh).

The number of stitches repeating in the main blanket pattern is different than the number repeating in the border, so it seems they should both divide in to the same multiple (assuming you want them to meet up and play nice at the corners).  With that in mind, the recommended number of stitches for the width and height seemed off to me.

But.  That may be because I was guessing as to what was actually recommended.

The only numbers in the pattern were wedged in between Japanese characters, so I kind of assumed that these particular numbers corresponded to the number of total stitches.  It’s true that my lack of Japanese fluency may have led me astray here.

Anyhoo, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation (OK – I did a spreadsheet, because I’m a nerd) to come up with a stitch count that had the proper multiple.

• The pattern suggests 163 across; I cast on 155.
• Where the pattern came in at 194, I finished with 200 rows.

With these stitch counts, the repeated crochet border pattern overlaid with the blanket repeats very neatly.  Small changes, but they appeased the math beast and made me sleep better at night.

On the border: lovely as it is as written, I actually decided to nix the last of the outside rows.

There were quite a few (simple chain) stitches meant to trace the total surface area of the already-curvy border. 

Very pretty indeed, and I wanted to keep it, but there was just a little too much ruffle. 

I’ve got nothing against ruffles, but in the end it seemed A) too flouncy and B) too heavy in contrast to the airier look of the blanket. 

And I wanted it to block out flat, which it just wouldn’t have done with the last row in place.

If you want a pretty ruffle (seems more appropriate if you’re forging ahead with the feminine idea from the start), a lighter-weight yarn would rock that look.

Blocking:  even without that extra outside row, the border wanted to ruffle a bit length-wise, but this went away with blocking as desired. 

I got out the fancy blocking wires I was all excited about a few months ago and slid the longest straights down each side.  I could’ve used a boat-load of T-pins to achieve this, but don’t the wires make more sense?  The before and after pics make me proud of my blocking bling (and grateful for the quick work).

I opted for a gentle wash with my mild-mannered Eucalan prior to blocking.  Always a pleasure, that stuff.  For some reason, I feel quite fancy whipping it out of the closet.  I think I’m still chuffed that I’m no longer confounded by the likes of Woolite, the rarely-wielded luxury item whose function perplexed me as a child, looking up at Mom’s laundry shelf and wondering what the heck it was for. 

I have my own special soap now, tra la la.

The blocking was definitely needed as the blanket wanted to pull in width-wise before blocking, leaving the poor thing with that unkempt didn’t-check-myself-in-the-mirror-this-morning look.

This initially put me off when I checked the pre-blocking photos of others’ work before committing to this project, but since their blocked blankets looked nice and uniform, I trusted that mine would, too, after blocking.  And it did. 

After washing again, it could bunch back up, but really – who cares, for Pete’s sake. As long as it’s loved.

Well.

Looks like this is the end of the line for me and Summer Baby Blanket. 

It’s been fun, blankie, but it’s time for you to sally forth.

My brand spankin’ new niecie awaits, and she’s a fine little lady.  Keep her safe and warm.  Be her companion, her comfort,  her shelter when she needs you. 

Enjoy, pretty girl, and know that you’ll always be wrapped up in my love.