FO: An Armful of Tweed

CPH. C'est fini!

Central Park Hoodie
Knitscene, Fall 2006
Yarn: Classic Elite Skye Tweed in color 1243 (a.k.a. "Heath")
Needles: US 6 Addi Lace for ribbing, US 8 Susan Boye aluminums for body
Extras: Wooden buttons from Knitty City
Modifications: Kitchenered hood together

Now, of course I'm jumping with glee over my first for-me finished sweater! I'm starting to realize the wisdom of limiting my handknit gifts to people who will actually appreciate all the work I put in. Namely, me. I'm so happy that when I finished weaving in the last end on the sweater, I immediately put it on and walked around the apartment in it. Which caused my roommates to question my sanity. Wool? August? They shake their heads and leave me to my blissful insanity.

The Skye Tweed is a bit stiff to work with, but it softens with washing (I used Woolite). The wool definitely bled some in the first few bowls of water I ran, but eventually the color stuck. It was rough trying to seam with it, though, because the stuff likes to fall apart. It was also incredibly smelly when wet. Ew. But the final product is worth it. It's woolly and soft and thick and warm.

However, if I make it again, I will make the following modifications: Add two inches in length to the body, knit only four inches of ribbing on the sleeve cuffs, knit the hood a bit bigger, and remember to split splice all the way through if I work with wool.

So, first I am going to 'fess up and share the mistakes. Maybe this will shame me into paying more attention next time 'round:

This is the worst of the mistakes. I knit the left front first, which starts with K2 ribbing. I then knit the right front, thinking I start with K2 ribbing and not checking with the pattern first...and then realized only while the whole durn thing was wet-blocking that I'd thrown the ribbing off on the right front. Meaning that the cables, which are supposed to flow out of the K2 ribbing, does not. Exactly. Flow. Instead, it just starts without preamble and looks a little awkward. This also causes the seam on the right side to look a little off because I was mattress seaming a purl stitch with a knit stitch. But what the hey, a nice lady at Knitty City told me that in Turkish carpets, there's always one mistake put in intentionally...because only God is perfect.

Second mistake: The sleeves are quite, um, long. The photo above illustrates where the cuff ends without pulling. They're like sleeve-gauntlets. Who needs mittens when you've got cuffs like that? I don't actually dislike this mistake, though. I like long sleeves, even if they get a little too eager and try to get all in your food.

Now, for some details I like quite a lot:

Lovely wooden buttons from Knitty City. I actually went to M&J Trimming at first and purchased red wooden buttons. And then when I brought them home and held them up to CPH...

Well, let's just let bygones be bygones and forgive the poor buttons for making me think too strongly of bloody, murderous clowns.

The purls on the inside. I lurve these waves. They're so nice and soothing.

The sleeve seams. This marks the first time I managed to use mattress stitch with both confidence and a fair amount of accuracy. Also, this photo makes me think of the beautiful patterns of grain on a piece of wood.

Now, it's very difficult to take photos of oneself in a hoodie. There are dozens of blurry, I-can't-quite-make-that-out shots on my camera that I will have to erase. But I cannot resist saving this one. I only meant to get the hood in the picture, but clearly my angles are all wrong. Maybe it's because I did a bunch of the knitting on this while I watched the LOTR marathon on TNT last weekend, but I took a photo of myself that makes me look like a hobbit. A pensive hobbit. What could this pensive female Asian hobbit be pondering so gravely? World peace? Gold jewelry? A new sweater? Muahahaha. I think this hobbit has gone over to the dark side.

CPH...she grows...

CPH is in da hood.

You can't see it in this photo, but she has delightful red flecks occurring throughout and this realllly tempts me to buy some red apple-shaped buttons for her front. The body has now been blocked twice: Once in pieces before seaming shoulders and knitting on the hood, and again after the hood and button bands were finished. Why? Because I was getting paranoid that the durn sweater was too skinny. I did not want a skinny sweater, I wanted one that was a little breezier. She needed a bit of fattening up. But now I'm worried I may have blocked a bit aggressively. Oh well, I'm halfway through one sleeve now and I'll worry about all of this once it's finished. If she needs a diet, I'll re-block yet again.

Speaking of "re" anything, I finished this one Anemoi mitten at the end of last winter and then it suddenly stopped being cold. Now I don't know if I want to make the second of this pair or just start anew with different colors. For some reason, I wasn't sold on the blue and white combo. Maybe a darker blue? Although the Harrisville wool was boo-tee-full...not super-soft, but I really like the look of it and my hands are not so lovely that they need to be encased only in cashmere.

Also, I rediscovered this fabulous enamel pendant while cleaning out drawers over the weekend:

I'm so in love with this and can't remember how I forgot about it. I like the poppy motif so much that I'd like to try and wrangle it into some intarsia-something or other. I've done fair isle, but no intarsia yet. I'm not scared to try, but I often don't like intarsia patterns so I steer away from them. This might set me over the edge...

The Weather Defense

Today's post is brought to you by the letter V (as in vitamin) and the number two (as in bottles of Vitamin Water consumed today).

This craptastic photo basically sums up the entirety of my life over the past four days. Ew. Apparently, this Hurricane Dean or some such weather phenomenon has been dumping the Northeast coast with a heavy, solid dose of grey. It feels like I am in the middle of the frickin' Mists of Avalon. Only without the cool medieval costumes and magical powers. Yesterday was, according to many old farmer's almanacs, the coldest day in August in maybe 90 years. It's interesting to feel literally "under the weather."

Unfortunately, whether the symptoms are psychosomatic or actually connected to science, my body does not hold up well to alarmingly sudden shifts in the weather. If one day's high temp is 60 and the next is 90, my body decides to short circuit. If one day is 90 and the next is 60, my body decides that Ice Age is not a charming animated movie but the state of my skin.

So last night, my friend hosted a small dinner party with some quiche and a good strong doctor-recommended dose of Gene Kelly:



This movie makes me so happy that I could just curl up with glee. If Gene can brighten my day by tap dancing with such joy through milky water with a temperature over 100 degrees, then I can overcome this durn cold to knit, goddammit...

These are the fronts and back of Central Park, post-blocking. They've been seamed at the shoulders and the hood is in motion. Due to aforementioned greyness of the local atmosphere, there is no achieving any sort of pretty photography with my sadly out-of-date camera. So I fudged it in honor of Gene. Black & white hides so many multitudes of sins, no? I think this is why all those film stars of old seemed to have such porcelain skin.

Also, I bought some yarn. I actually bought more than this, but this is what I will talk about today. I went to String the other day when it was pouring out and I just wanted to take refuge in some yarn. They're not going to be carrying Karabella Aurora anymore and so all this soft, petting-friendly yarn was half off. There was plenty of Aurora Bulky and Aurora 4 left, but the aran weight was only available in Melange. Which was fine with me, because this turquoise, green and brown blend was beyond gorgeous.

I decided to purchase twelve skeins and the lovely owner, Linda, asked if there were any more left of the colorway. I said there were two more left in the basket and she threw them in for free! So, basically, I got fourteen skeins of this deliciosity for about $3.80ish each. I heart String. Seriously.

I started a swatch...That's not technically starting another project. It's preparation. Yup. Not cheating. The left of the purl row is on US 7s and the right is on US 6s. The 6s give me gauge for the Hourglass Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but I'm going to have to wash my swatch because I've heard that Aurora grows like a Chia Pet when it hits water. With the extra yarn I got (for free!) I think I might try to fiddle around with putting a big cowl neck on Hourglass.