ARGH!!!
I am frustrated with myself right now and angry to the point of ranting profane words all over the place.
I don’t tolerate wool well. It tears my skin up, it makes me itch, my eyes water, my nose close, etc. I don’t use anything that’s pure wool, I don’t read felting patterns, I don’t know anything about the ins and outs of taking care of wool. I don’t even buy wool sweaters. My wool pants or coats have to be fully lined and with no wool actually touching my skin.
So, when I got ketchup on my Clapotis last night, I didn’t think about proper ways to clean wool. I thought about proper ways to clean a delicate garment that was 50% silk. “Oh,” I thought, “Gentle cycle, cold water, vinegar rinse.”
And I f#$%ing felted my Clapotis. I’ve spent the last half hour trying to at least save the ladders from sticking to each other, because really — what else could it do to it? Ruin it? Not bloody likely, that’s already taken care of.
Clive may have his $100 cat bed after all.
Gauge on empty.
I didn’t have enough to do with Cozy and the socks for my brother, so I decided to go ahead and start something else. I was all set to knit Samantha (see sidebar for link) and had wonderful, beautiful yarn picked out for it. I got out my bamboo size 3 needles and my bamboo size 4 needles and prepared to start.
This is when I learned the valuable lesson that English “double knit” is not the same as U.S. “double knit” weight.
I don’t generally swatch, see. I go ahead and start and do periodic checks and measure as I go. I hate swatch knitting, and you’d think that an experience like this would cure me, but probably not.
I thought, as I went along, that the casting on seemed to be awfully long for a baby sweater. (Clue 1.) I also thought that my size 3 bamboo needles seemed about to snap sometimes with pulling the yarn through. (Clue 2) I decided to continue for a few rows because I loved the yarn in question, Debblie Bliss Cotton DK. I then pulled out the tape measure, checked a 4 inch stretch, and counted the stitches in it. That count was the big, flaming neon sign indicating that everything was off.
I got online to do my research and found The Wool Shack, an online store based in Australia. I want to tell you right now how much I love this store. I love it so much that I really am tempted to pay the international shipping and buy things from them. Their site makes so much SENSE, is so handy, and is just generally helpful … other yarn store owners, please take note for when you try to build an electronic storefront.
First I went to the yarn section and decided to see what they had listed in their “yarns by weight” search options, and I could find out what the Debbie Bliss Cotton DK gauge was. Sure enough, all I had to do was pull down the drop box to see that a UK DK is a light worsted weight US yarn. It is not a sportweight yarn, which is what the pattern calls for. If I’d been more experienced (or just had a clue), I would’ve looked at the yarn in my hands and thought, “Huh. This doesn’t feel like a sportweight yarn,” and that would be that.
So I promptly ordered another yarn. (Not from Wool Shack, but I’m thinking about it.)
I left Samantha on the needles and immediately cast on a different baby sweater so I could get out my knitting frustration with something that I KNEW would work. Another friend just had a baby boy, and I’ve given blankets to his two older sisters. (This is one of them, actually … still one of my favorite patterns and end results.)
Anyway, another reason I loved Wool Shack is because I could turn my search around to find projects knit with the Debbie Bliss Cotton DK yarn. It popped up pictures of these projects, a link to buy the book, pictures of other patterns in the books, and I was able to be comforted that all would NOT be lost. Love them, love them, love them. I have no idea what they’re like to order from, but I’ve been using them more and more just to see what’s out there for a particular yarn.
So, moral of the story: have some common sense, Erin. :)
Cozy on up to me.
I never did post an update on Cozy and my cousin’s wedding, did I? Oops!
I ended up not finishing the wrap in time for the wedding. I was up to three feet by noon on the day of the wedding, and I’d already warned Mom that it wasn’t looking good for getting finished. She called at 12:30 and said that she’d found a substitute, so my fingers and hands finally got to rest. I’d been knitting almost all of my waking time since 2:00 p.m. the previous day!
I still haven’t really picked it back up. I did a few more rows, maybe a complete pattern repeat, but I just needed a break.
So I started on Phillip’s socks.
I’ve gotten halfway through the heel flap on the first one. I have to hand it to the sock knitters … it’s nice and easy, and a basic sock is mindless knitting that’s still enjoyable. I’m already afraid, though, that this yarn won’t be good for socks even though it’s a sock yarn. It stretches a lot, see, and there’s no elastic in it.
We’ll see. Onward and toeward!
So. Socks.
My almost 18-year-old brother has requested a pair of socks. He’s got this sock collection (I’m not kidding) and loves tall socks. I’m going to make him some right after I finish Mom’s Cozy, and I’m going to be good and continue to use up stash instead of buying new. That means he gets socks in Sock it to Me! Harlequin yarn in Blue Jeans.
Now I just need a sock pattern. Any recommendations? I don’t really want to go buy more double points, and I’m taking it with me so I can start it on my trip home. I have sizes 3, 4, and 5 dpns with me already.
Ow, my hands …
No time for posting or gabbing, must keep knitting until hands drop off at the wrists. Can’t even stop then, not unless Cozy is finished! The cousin’s wedding is Saturday, you see, and my mother will freeze if Cozy isn’t finished. (And I keep typing “Cosy”, thank you very much …)
Oh, what the heck. Here’s a picture of Co(s)zy as it was Tuesday morning:
I knit more on Tuesday evening, progressed slightly on Wednesday, then realized I had to frog six rows and reknit them. Do you know how much of a pain it is to pick up rows of a lacy pattern? That’s right. A HUGE pain.
I bought a wrap for myself that my mother can use as a substitute.
Cozy is now 24″ as of tonight, and I’m going to bed. My arthritic hands can’t take much more tonight. Just for grins, though, here’s a shot of the couch this afternoon. It cracked me up. The bi-weekly housekeeper (I LOVE corporate apartments) spread my triangle shawl on the couch for me, I’d tossed Clapotis on the couch when I came in, and there was Coxy all sprawled out. It’s the Houston Couch of Knit. No wonder Clive likes coming down here with me.
Final Clapotis pictures.
But what about the Cliveotis?
Once, there was a wee grey kitty named Clive. Clive loved to lounge about upon his girl’s knitting. He could bat at it, help her straighten the yarn, and make sure the points of her bamboo needles were nice and rough.
His favorite project, though, was the Clapotis. He knew it by its true name, the Cliveotis. It was a secret the two of them shared as they snuggled up together while the girl fussed about with its ends.
All was well with the cat and his Cliveotis … until it suddenly disappeared one evening. Clive looked and looked. Where could it be? Why … is that the Cliveotis, hiding behind the door?
It is, it is! Clive was so relieved to find his Cliveotis again. “What happened?! Where did you go?!” he frantically meowed.
“Don’t worry, little grey cat,” responded Cliveotis. “I am merely resting after a small bath. I will be good as new tomorrow, but I have to tell you … I think your girl would like to borrow me for a while.”
“Well,” said Clive, “I suppose that will be all right. I know that she’ll leave you out on the chair or a couch sometimes, and we can have a cozy little nap together sometimes. I’ll leave you to your drying, my friend. I seem to remember something else ‘Cozy‘ that is around here, and I better go check on it.”
And the Cliveotis smiled to itself, and settled in for a restful night of drying. She knew that Clive would be back, and that he would tell her all about the other friends he made.
C’est … um … completo!
(My apologies … I was a Spanish major, not French! I actually dropped out of French class after two weeks because I kept answering everything in Spanish and my French had a Spanish accent. Turned out, a few years later, that even my Russian has a Spanish accent, so … anyway … right. Knitting!)
I finished Clapotis tonight but Clive won’t get off of it so I can finish weaving in the ends. I love and adore this pattern, and I love the yarn enough to suffer through the itchy eyes and slight sniffles I get when I wear it. The pattern is simple genius, it really is. Basic stitches with careful planning and a bit of whimsy, that’s what Clapotis is.
I had four (minor) issues/mistakes with Clapotis:
- I ran out of yarn. I’d bought the three recommended skeins and then had to order another one, and didn’t get the same dye lot. Eh. The fourth skein is less vibrant than the others, but really — who cares? Not me.
- I forgot one yarn over in my set-up stitches. This made a bloody mess out of the end of one of the ladder runs, but I think it’ll be easily fixed with weaving. I’ll let you know when Clive gets up.
- I forgot to drop a stitch in one of my ladder runs, so I’m short a ladder run. I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I did. Again: eh.
- One of my sections is a stitch short. Again with the “eh!” because (a) it sounds so French and (b) it’s still beautiful, so who cares?!
On to Cozy while the cat snoozes beside me on the $100 cat bed known as “Clapotis” …
Pre-emptive Knitting?
I have a sudden urge to lay aside Cozy and pick up Clapotis. This urge has quite a bit to do with the cold front that will sweep through Houston tonight, and the fact that I left all of my coats in Dallas. I’m feeling the need for some warmth.
I never did post an updated picture of Clapotis after the drive out to Atlanta, so here you go:
You can click on that picture for a bigger version, but it’s all fuzzy because I clearly didn’t have enough caffeine this morning. Compare that picture with the picture pre-Atlanta trip, stretched over the same couch:
That, my friends, is what 13 hours of driving and about 10 hours of knitting get you.
Inch by inch …
I had to put Cozy away for a week. I decided that an imminent stroke was not worth a handknit wrap, no matter how pretty it is.
I picked it up again on Sunday night and started diligently ripping out the three rows I’d messed up. Then I ripped out one more row for good measure and to make sure I really knew where in the pattern I was. I’ve tried all kinds of ways to keep track of what I’m doing and where I am in the pattern, and I’m going back to a spreadsheet. Last night I put the pattern directions into a spreadsheet, made my “Completed?” column, and went back to work.
And here are the results:
Click for more pictures …
So keep your fingers crossed for me … I’ll keep knitting my heart out, and hopefully there won’t be too many more detours. I’ve got a little under two weeks to get this thing done!
I did figure out, I think, what one of my problems is. I’ve done a LOT of lacy baby blankets that involve similar patterns. I think those pattern stitches have been ingrained in my fingers’ memory, and my fingers are zipping into autopilot mode with Cozy. Unfortunately, they’re zipping into the WRONG autopilot mode, and I’m making a feather and fan baby blanket or some such thing instead of the Cozy. This doesn’t help me much in the current situation, but at least I don’t feel like such a moron now!
