Sassy Does It

I’m glad Christmas is over, and I’m not sorry I said it.

I had a good Christmas, really, but I’m just so done with it this year.

One excellent byproduct of the holiday nuttiness, however, is a spanking new baby blanket.

Little K was born last week, so this hot potato is ready for assignment overseas.

Pattern: Curlicue

Yarn: Blue Sky Alapacas Dyed Cotton (organically grown) in colorway 617 (Lotus), four skeins (150 yds each)

Needle:  US 3 circulars, 29-inch

Finished dimensions:
28 inches wide, 35 inches long

Modifications: I added a three-stitch garter border to both ends of every row.  To my eye, this was needed to keep the symmetry of the scalloped borders as written.

Clarifications: If this one is in your queue, double-check on how to properly end the even-numbered rows here (the last repeat is finished off with a ssk WHICH REPLACES the final sk2p as written). If you’re clever enough to have worked this out on your own, I hope your prowess is contagious.

Ravelry links: my project, the designer’s pattern

Verdict: Happy.  Easy pattern that doesn’t look super-easy, and it flew on non-Turbo US 3s like you wouldn’t think it would do.  Honestly, I felt like I was knitting on much fatter needles, like 9s.

The finished size was just what I’d hoped it would be (always nice, especially when you go to the trouble of knitting a gauge swatch).

I’m happy with the drape as well - gentle yet consistent.

The fabric is very soft; warm and substantial-feeling while still having the lightness of cotton.  It’s the nice fat feeling of the Blue Sky Alpacas fiber that makes the magic happen.

The finished blanket blossomed nicely with a 20-minute Eucalan soak, and behaved well during the blocking that followed.

The only silly-Amy moment(s) came about in the dash to complete my final rows as my yarn was running out.

Seeing as it’s a baby blanket that lacks the requirement of an exact fit, I should have just stopped when I knew I wasn’t going to squeak out another 5 rows and quit the pattern a bit early to finish gracefully with the final 3 rows of garter stitch.

But I like to live dangerously.

And I figured that blocking would cure all evils if I happened to stretch the yarn (too) tightly to eke out the final rows for a photo finish at the end of my fourth and final skein.

I pulled *really* tightly and finished all rows of the final pattern repetition and the border with only a couple of inches to spare.

Woo-hoo!  I whipped out my Eucalan wash, soaked, patted, and blocked.

But.

There wasn’t enough ease left in the fabric at that far end of the blanket to be able to block any sense back into it:  the width pulled in on itself and started to suck the life out of the rest of the project.

I started having flashbacks to my first baby blanket, a.k.a. The Trapezoid.

No one was ever going to notice that the pattern ended a couple of rows early, not even me.  Duh.

So I blocked all but the crappy end and once the remainder of the blanket was off the board, I frogged back 5 rows and finished with the garter stitch border in a more civilized fashion.

That said, I left out the evidence of my pre-frogged tight end and saved up my photo shoot for the happier times.  Pictured above is the (still sloppy) unblocked but re-knit trouble area which I subsequently prettied up in a second round of targeted blocking.

Below are a few pics of my just-off-the-UPS-truck blocking tools in action.

The Fiber Fantasy blockers I described in my last post did not disappoint.

Along with the curly end of a flexible blocker from this set, the tip of one of the straight-edge blockers is pictured here, next to the happy yellow yardstick that comes with the package.

During the first go at blocking, I ran two super-longshanks rigid blockers down the straight sides and T-pinned them 28 inches apart to set an even width.

Then I threaded a flexible blocker down the not-too-tight shorter edge until I ran out of wire (accounting for the extra length consumed by the scalloped edges, this was about 3/4 of the way across).

I finished off weaving this edge with the second flexible blocker and then pinned down the curves to set the shape.  The second scalloped edge (too tightly knitted, wearing the dunce cap) had to wait until I fixed it before it could be similarly guided.

Here’s a close-up of a flexible blocker in action on the second end after the rip-out-and-redo (you can see that I only re-soaked the last few inches).

You weave the blockers through outermost stitch all along each edge, every half inch or so.

And then you hook yourself up with ship-shape corners by pinning squarely at the joining point.

After blocking, even the reverse of the fabric has a nice smooth look.

Beeteedubyuh, did ya notice my sexy new blocking board along the way here?

Ohhh, it’s delicious.  Boy, did I feel professional voodooing my work down into submission with those T-pins.

As you can see, she folds up real nice so that a gal like me can clean up after herself when the blocking’s done.  Or at least have the potential to…do that.

Some call it cluttered, I call it cozy: I’m currently happily surrounded by knitting items, both old and new, and I’m hunkering down to get some things done here.

In spite of my slight tendency toward bah-humbuginess this year, Santa was very kind.

It’s not about the gifts, I know, but my eyes did get all misty when I unwrapped a shiny new ball winder and a gorgeous swift to boot.  Eureka, my heavy hinting worked!

It’s all I really wanted, so I figured the hinting was justified.

If I don’t do it, birthdays get forgotten and it ends in tears.  It’d be easier if gifts weren’t even involved, you know?  But I digress.

I do like gifts.

Oh joy, I felt like a kid - as soon as it seemed socially acceptable to do so when everyone had finished opening gifts (I gave it about 30 seconds), I bee-lined for my knitting bag and whipped out an unballed hank of Mongolian Cashmere and got to work.  I just happened to have this on hand.  Just in case.

That swift spinning away with a steady whir and a gentle breeze was glorious.  After I got it going.

I wasn’t sure quite what to do since I hadn’t done it before, but I figured I’d better just stick the little end into the big end and go for it* (before Tommy came back and hit me over the head with a tack hammer).

I felt like Ralphie on Christmas morning with his new Red Ryder BB gun, with his dad standing over his shoulder asking him if he knows how to load it.  That kid had been dreaming about loading it for so long, he tuned out all extraneous noise, nodding and smiling (maybe drooling?) and just got down to the business of enjoying it.

And then he went outside and (almost) shot his eye out - but thank goodness I didn’t do that.

I did quickly get my fix, however, and then moved the new goodies to the corner (still where I could see them) while I watched Mamma Mia and squealed for nearly two hours like the girl I am.

Now on to the New Year.  I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to ring it in doing anything exciting, but that doesn’t mean that something couldn’t come up.

Right?

I could just knit it in while others are ringing it in.  That would do.  I’ve got a lot of projects coming down the pike (in theory), so that would suit me just fine.

Old. Boring. Lady.

Emphasis on the Lady, thank you very much.

Toodles, dears.  TTYL.

Well, well – somebody’s been absent from blogworld for a while.

And by absent I mean floating adrift in a real pisser of a month.  I feel like I’ve been dog-paddling along in the wake of life as it’s plunging forward, mightily, without so much as a glance back in my direction.  I’ve been struggling in spectacular fashion, but today is when I pull myself up by the bootstraps.

Help me up, girls - I’ll emerge from this yet.

Finished my Curlicue blanket for Kymber’s baby girl – what was it, two weeks ago?  Just needs blocking.  Little K is actually past due, so my shocking pink creation will need to hit the mail any day.  Somewhere in Holland that baby could be entering the world right now.

I’ve been waiting on the blocking because I haven’t wanted to give it my usual (still-frosh) effort: a quick, 30-second soak in the sink followed by a roll-up in a towel to suck out the excess water, and then a layout flat to shape.

My soak in the sink has always included a few drops of Downy (standard April Fresh, thank you) in the water.  No soap - just Downy.

I know – not really a lot of thought about the possibility of my beloved Downy leaving any waxy fabric-softener residue on my little treaure of fine fibers, freshly knitted.

You’d think I’d put more time into thinking it through, given the time spent on the knitting part.

I’ve never put much thought into cleaning my clothes beyond the following:

1. Toss it all in the washing machine.
2. Toss it all in the dryer - unless it’s “delicate” (meaning “might shrink” and make it look like I’ve put on weight).  If delicate, [sigh] air-dry.
3. God forbid it doesn’t fall into one of these categories, which is rare, it goes to the dry cleaners.

It makes sense that I don’t have a good feel for the care of fine fibers, since I’ve not had the luxury of being a person who lines my closet with cashmere sweaters (awww, poor Amy).  Even if I did, they’d probably fall into category 3 above.

Pictured here with its
new-fangled labeling

I have a vague recollection of Woolite being on Mom’s laundry shelf.  I don’t recall seeing it used, but I think I may have inquired once what it was (”but why do we need extra soap when we’ve got the magic of Tide?”).

This curiosity arrived around about the time I reached that plateau of womanhood at which first-ever pairs of pantyhose and the dowdiest of rubber-heeled pumps are bestowed upon thrilled-beyond-words pre-pubescent girls.

For me, I’m pretty sure this occasion coincided with some type of after-school event in sixth grade that involved – oh, dear heavens – square-dancing. 

Emphasis on the square.

I grew up in the Midwest, what can I say?  This is what we did in gym class when we weren’t pelting each other (in my case, being pelted) with surprisingly painful rubber balls.

As I recall, I made it through one wearing of the stockings, miraculously, without any (super-obvious) runs or ladders that required retiring them to the bin.  Hence the onetime use of Woolite to wash my delicate, delicate, $1.99 Leggs pantyhose before they were trotted out for the next later-embarrassing grade school social event.

After that I promptly forgot about Woolite or anything resembling it.

So you get the picture – I’m not well-versed in the blocking or washing or even rinsing of delicates.

But now that I’m a knitter and all, I probably should be.

It’s been on my list to order up some wool wash of some kind.  I remember reading about Kookaburra first on somone’s blog - darned if I can remember whose - and then on another and another.  Something about making your wool super-soft and super-supple.  Super-supple!  Gotta get me some of that.

Then, recently, when the plan to order some Kookaburra was near the top of my mind, SouleMama made a loving reference to Eucalan, of which I had also heard rumblings.  It seemed compelling enough to give me pause about my choice (probably her fantastic photography added to the delicious appeal of her choice), and this put me all in a jumble.

It dawned on me, as if it were a surprise this would happen, that a decision between more than one option would be required, which would necessitate (possibly months and months of) analysis.

You know, since I’m me, and I can’t just pick one without going through the analysis.  Or just buy freaking both of them in small quantities to try - because doing that would be wasteful.

Oy.

Suffice it to say that after a bit of Googling, I forced myself to stop with this review, which was scientific enough to whet my OCD appetite as well as lead me to a conclusion.  In a nutshell: both leading brands are great.  No perceivable differences in method of use or in the look and feel of finished garment.  Both environmentally friendly, both contain lanolin, both excellent washes for any natural fiber.

By this account, only variations in scent seem to separate the choices (and perhaps a slightly different potential for repelling moths, which wasn’t at the top of my concerns list).  Although I’m as picky as the next girl with smell, I couldn’t tell over the internet which I preferred (I’d already contacted my LYS about whether they carried wool wash – ah, no).

Ultimately it was personal preference, and by all accounts I’d read, each of the multiple scents available was very nice.  Subtle, in every case, which helps.

Could have gone with unscented – but what’s the fun in that, pray you?  This recovering Downy Girl needs some kind of scent to remind her that this garment has been pampered in some special way, just like Mom would have done.

So I flipped a virtual coin – something that is very hard for me to do, even virtually.

I went with Eucalan.  Original eucalyptus scent.

I ordered it from Webs, along with some new blocking equipment, since I don’t have any.  I’d purchased some T-pins a few months ago whilst whisking through Jo-Ann’s for something, but alas, T-pins don’t do much good without something like the soft surface of a blocking board in which to stick them.

Yes, I know I could get creative and use a pile of towels, a spare bedspread, even part of an ironing board.  Yeah, that hasn’t happened.

I sprung for a blocking board, the big one, deciding that I’ve waited long enough - and if I’m going to get a blocking board, get a blocking board, you know?

Of course then Webs e-mailed me to tell me it was out of stock and would have to be shipped later.

Oh well.

Good thing I had one other goodie in the shopping basket, besides the aforementioned Eucalan wash, which is en route to me now:  Fiber Fantasy Sweater Blockers.

Sounds exotic, and I’m expecting to be impressed. 

While researching all things blocking that I had been missing out on, I discovered the existence of these little guys.  It’s a set of blocking needles that can be used for more than just your mama’s sweaters.

“Great for scalloped edges”, I read – hey, my Curlicue blanket has scalloped edges! – so I read on.

Twelve of the fourteen needle thingies are used for standard straight-edge blocking (8 are 36″, 4 are 18″); the other two are flexible (but not permanently bendable into a new shape).  Thus, these later two are touted as a nice solution for blocking the curve of the top of a sleeve or, better yet, stretching out and holding an edge pattern by winding wires through the ends of your knitting, locking the design in place during blocking.

There’s a great review of these here, which is where I also found this photo.  [Note to Angelika at yarn-store.com, from whom I also considered purchasing the blocking board: the extra $20+ in shipping for the board couldn't compete with the free holiday shipping offered by Webs, but now that I've found your store, you are on my list of vendors!]

Not rocket science, this bendy wire idea, but since the concept hadn’t occurred to me, it felt like it.

My previous attempts to get scalloped edges to lay flat (for Maizy’s and E-dot’s Little Girl’s Shrugs) involved the traditional approach of pinning the fabric down flat and then steam-ironing the heck out of it – and this did not result in what I’d call a success.  Stubborn, those scallops.

The memory of that challenge made me click on “buy” without much further delay – mercifully, I spared myself further research.

So - it took me all that to fill you in on where I stand with Curlicue.  Final pics once the blocking is done.

Sheer Poncho is moving sssslowwwwly in the midst of tumultuous life lately, but over the weekend I finally got my booty into the LYS to procure some US 5 Addi Turbos.  The cashmere stockinette is looking lovely, but with only a fat inch or so on the needles, my cheapo Michael’s circulars weren’t cutting the mustard.

In my frustration to just Turbo it already, earlier last week I’d swung into another yarn shop (off the beaten path from my usual LYS; I might add that stepping into Someone Else’s LYS and passing it off as my own with the sales lady was seductively naughty, especially since it was such a cute shop) for this purpose.

I was tacking on the quest for these needles to a list of already annoying errands and trying to cram it all in to not enough time (shocker).

I arrived at SELYS four minutes before closing, breathless yet triumphant that I’d actually located this place before it closed.

No standard US 5 Turbos on the shelf – curses! – only the Lace Turbos.  I’d thought about whether to Lace or not to Lace my Turbos before walking into the store.  I’d pretty much decided not to Lace.  Worried that they’d be too slow for simple stockinette; that the previously appreciated fine drag wouldn’t be appropriate for this project or this fiber.

But with only the Lace variety available, and time ticking away – oh, I couldn’t wait – I just went for it.

Shifted the stitches from the cheapos to the Lace Turbos that night, gagging for a few quick rounds of Sheer Poncho before beddy-byes.

Oh, poopy pants - too slow.  Not an improvement, even in all their pretty gold shininess.  Drag not appreciated, cashmere too clingy.  Darn.

But.  Now I’m all set with the right ones - straight up, slick as all get-out, standard Addi circulars.  I’ll be non-Lace Turboing it up for the rest of the week.

Thanks for sticking with my blog and with my writing-lots-of-words-makes-me-happy ways.  I’ve missed you.  

Curlicue Glamour Shots coming soon.