My Killdeer

When last we saw my knitting progress on Canary Knit's Killdeer pattern, I had hit a small snag in the form of a manufacturers knot in my first ball of yarn. I was remiss as to how to proceed and almost set the whole thing aside in favor of a cape more suitable to winter. I was (this) close, but then, I decided to hope on google and look for demonstrations on how to join yarn with a double knot, as this would easily fix the problem without any more ends that need weaving in. I hate weaving in ends almost as much as I hate manufacturers knots in my otherwise perfect ball of cotton yarn.

After watching the demonstration, it seemed simple enough, so I gave the join a try. I cut the knot from the yarn and took the two resulting yarn ends and I knotted both using the following method:
1. Cross the end under the other yarn strand.
2. Turn it around and cross the end over the other yarn strand.
3. Take the end through the resulting circle of itself and pull.

A small knot will result for both. Then, you pull on both strands and the knots magically come together to form a very strong join that hardly shows in the finished work, so long as you cut off the ends very close to the final knot. There are plenty of tutorials out there if this didn't make sense to you. Just give it a google.

I used the double knot trick to join all of my yarn thereafter and had hardly any ends to weave in when my Killdeer was finished. And it is finished.

I loved this pattern. The shaping gives the cardigan a nice fit, while the short-row detail results in a collar and sleeves with a slight ruffle to them. The pockets, created by knitting an extra patch of stockinette that you then join back into the main garment, were fun to knit. They really made me feel clever when I managed to pull them off.

It needs blocked still, but there's plenty of time to get that gone. It's February here in Ohio with a foot of snow on the ground (at least) and a consistently subzero windchill. I won't be able to bust out the short-sleeved cotton anytime soon.

Well this is easy... knot.

With a year of Christmas knitting behind me, my options have opened. Inevitably, this has actually caused an increased stress level, as I contemplated knitting All The Things. I want it all, all the patterns I've coveted and purchased in preparation of this moment. Staring at all the things I wanted to do, I was overwhelmed.

That's why it was actually a very good thing that my boss requested that I make her a hat. We planned it together. She explained what she wanted and I searched for patterns until I found something that fit the bill. Then, because she wanted a flower on it, I busted out my book of various crocheted and knitted flowers and she picked out a pattern for an irish rose. Then, that settled, I grilled her about what she wanted in a fiber, warmth? easy to clean? preferred color? any wool allergies?

Chat done, I had a solid lead on a good yarn choice that would meet all of her requirements but not break the bank. Yarn prices tend to give the uninitiated-- and the cheap-- sticker shock. She is uninitiated. I am cheap. I settled on a nice bright white color in Lion Brand's Wool Ease, a colorway called "White Frost," that also had a soft halo. For the pattern, I went with Lotus Hat by Uptown Purl.

This hat served as my just-after-Christmas knitting. I finished it and had the flower sewn on and the hat blocked and dried before the end of my work's Christmas break.

So far, everyone who sees it either loves it or loves it and wants one. It may end up being the it hat of the season.

Hat out of the way, though, I wanted to knit something for me. Looking back through my ravelry notebook, I, in fact, discovered that I haven't knitted a single thing for me since I finished my wedding veil, which just seems ridiculous. Until I remember I've been knitting the same blanket (not for me) for a year.

I thought about starting in on the ice skating cape from My Grandmother's Knitting using my 10 skeins of merino, but then, I wasn't sure the gauge was right. Plus, I really wanted to finally be able to knit a Canary Knits design, so I pulled out my Village Yarn Bahama Cotton DK-weight yarn and I cast on for Killdeer, which I plan to have finished in plenty of time to wear to work in warm weather.

I'm calling this project, knit specifically for work, Leftmost Corner Cubicle, as that's where my desk is located. The design itself, I'm loving so far. It's obvious that a lot of thought was given to its construction. I did have to frog 10 rows initially because I had a little confusion about the first line of instructions for increasing the yoke. It didn't come out quite symmetrical the way I interpreted it and I just couldn't live with that. I ended up using the following in lieu of the instruction given, which may or may not bite me in the butt later, but I don't think it will: 

Sl *k to m, sm, kfb* x 5 (I'm doing the medium), k to m, sm, k to 1 st before m, kfb, sm, k last 2 st

That results in a total of 7 increases per increase row, which should result in the required 235 sts after 44 rows, as long as I've done my math right. Either way, I'm loving how the increases look and I love what the colorway is doing. It's almost like blue camouflage.

So there I was, knitting my happy way to row 32 when it happened. The unthinkable. The dread swelled up within me as I saw it.

My yarn ball has a knot in it from the manufacturer. I have a big beef with manufacturers who allow knots to exist in their skeins. If I had purchased mill ends, I would not be complaining, but I did not. I purchased full price (well... on sale) yarn. There should be no knots, and rest assured this will be my last Village Yarn purchase. I have put the project aside until I have the time to sit down with the video I saw that one time about the way to knot yarn so that it doesn't come untied later (i.e. how to join yarn with a double knot). In the meantime, I threw the whole project in my stash cedar chest and shut the lid in disgust.

I have looked into the gauge on that merino and I think it might work for that cape after all. Depending on my mood, I may swatch for that and do the cape before returning to the knot situation. Or I may buckle down and figure it out now. I do know this: I refuse to have to weave in yarn ends for a manufacturers knot. It's just not fair. Not fair at all.

Be Sweet Yarn

Last week, I met a wonderful surprise waiting for me in the post. You see, I won a giveway over at the Canary Knits blog for a package of Be Sweet yarn, so I knew it was coming. However, I did not expect this package of wooly goodness to arrive on my birthday.

The package included:

• a ball of satisfaction in the peacock colorway
• a ball of whipped cream in the grape colorway
• a ball of bambino taffy in the licorice colorway
• a skein of magic eight ball (that would be the really funky multi-colored one pictured above)

The yarn itself is soft, soft, softy soft in a extreme. It made me want to hold it up against family members' faces and rub while muttering "Feeeeeel it." It was an urge I could not resist acting upon. The husband was less than amused.

I am now figuring out what I can make with the squishy, high-quality fiber yarn now at my disposal, with the bambino taffy, with its part-cottony softness, reserved for an as-yet unknown baby gift. Until I finish my current project of doom (the never-ending Maize and Blue Blanket) though, I can't act on my wish to knit all the things with the pretty yarn. Thus, I have placed them safely inside my cedar trunk reserved for the best of my stash.

If the yarn wasn't delicious on its own, I am also quite thrilled with the company it hails from. Be Sweet is concerned with being "socially and environmentally" conscious. They employ those in economically depressed areas, allowing them to become independent and able to support their families. The sheet my yarn came with shows a lot of smiling women in South Africa who benefit from the ideals of this company.

Sweet yarn. Sweet company. The name makes total sense. It was quite a pleasant package to find in my mailbox on the day that I turned 29.

Attack of the killer sterilized cat

Over the Easter weekend, I had a bit of time to make headway on the veil. Because I was at my parents' house, carless, and in a position to kick my son outside to play in the fenced-in yard, I spent quite a bit of the weekend sitting in a chair in the sun on the enclosed back porch, knitting.

They have a new cat, who was found out back in a nest with her four siblings over six months ago. She had a brother go to my brother and another brother went off to live with my sister. Her two sisters were adopted by a cat-loving couple who are good friends of my brother-in-law. At the six month mark, she became eligible for reproductive part and claw removal (my dad makes his own woodwork from scratch so it was either declaw the cat or put it down), so for the past three weeks now, my mother has been very adamant that we need to keep the cat calm, rather than allowing her to play in the rough-and-tumble way that kittens do. The cat, of course, wants no part in calm anything and promptly makes her way into as much mischief as she can.

Apparently, this goes double when mohair is involved. There I sat, yarning over and counting my stitches while watching my son jump on the newly erected trampoline. Suddenly, my knitting was pulled from my grasp. Alarmed I looked down and there was a cat with the long tail from the cast-on end dangling in her mouth. She managed to separate a few strains of mohair before I disentangled her from the veil. From then on, every ten stitches or so, she would leap at my right-hand needle with enthusiasm before falling to the floor, having no claws to catch her footing on my nice neat stockinette. I eventually gave up after finishing my row and used the free needle to swing in the kitten's general direction so that she could pounce in earnest. When she tired of the game, I shut her in the porch with the slider's screen door and sat at the table to start the next row.

She attacked my mohair twice on Easter morning as well, but at least I was better prepared. I have seen many a cartoon featuring a fluffy kitten and a ball of yarn, but it never really occurred to me to be on the watch for fiber-munching felines. My cat is more than content to sit just beyond arm's length on the couch from where I am knitting and fall asleep. He only gets bite-y if you decide to reach out that arm to pet him if he's not in the mood for human interaction. Never has my Kitkat attacked my yarn without very consistent provocation. And for that, I am now very grateful. My cat is fiber-considerate. And he plays a mean game of billiards.