a southern gal in the north

Nantucket Jacket
design by Norah Gaughan
Yarn: Berroco Pure Merino (100% merino; 92 yd [84 m]/50 g): #8532 cinnamon stick, 12 (12, 14, 16, 18) balls.

Nantucket Jacket, Interweave Knits, Winter 2006

The Ariann that was almost complete – is dead.

Ripped out and frogged and gone bye bye.

The frogging was a royal pain and now I have to go and lie down and recover from it.  more later.

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ok its later… the problem was that what was supposed to be a fixing session ended up at 5 am being a frogging session – its a long story but it involved ripping the side seams of Ariann which were too tight across my hips as I had done the decreases (for waist shaping) but made the sweater longer and thus when wearing the sweater it was HUGGING way too tightly the worst part of the bod.

so all the yarn is rewound including one ball with MANY MANY two row lengths.   sigh

i think i am going to let this yarn rest for a few days before deciding whether to tackle this pattern again with more knowledge of how to do it… or go for another sweater pattern – i really like the Nantucket in the Winter IK… and had flagged it to do – I love cables and really need more of a jacket than a sweater… will swatch later and see . But first I need to finish charting a fair isle FIREMAN sweater i am designing for Mr. W my just turned three… AND finish the sleeves and do the Icord for the Tomten Jacket for the Berkshire Nephew. 

In other news I purchased this last night:

(click to see full size)

Knit Visualizer from Knit Foundry. 

I have spent many hours over the last week downloading and demoing bunches of software – and while this one is far superior in regards charting lace and stitch patterns it currently has not color charting capabilities.  HOWEVER that is added in the yet-to-be released 2.0 version – which I am awaiting anxiously! 

I charted a Saxon Braid cable chart with just the repeat only section and it was fairly easy – typing the pattern in row by row and having it be translated to chart is WAY cool! 

I am looking forward to playing, oops, using this more in the future.

hopefully I will be able to stay awake enough tonight to rechart the sweater so I can get going…

Its been one of those weeks – a sister is visiting from New Mexico but staying in NYC (from Sun) and her husband joined her on Wed.  Tomorrow we are celebrating the fifth birthday of the first grandchild and first nephew  and then on Saturday we celebrate the second gc and nephew’s third birthday.  For that party the small village’s fire company is sending over one of the fire engines and will let the children climb on it and talk to the firemen and they get little souvenir hats, etc.   The weather is predicting highs in the hi 30s – let’s pray as its BITTER COLD tonight with a horrendous wind child.

Anyway, Monday and Tuesday were ERRAND days – Village Sister and new mom needed to have presents returned at two different malls in the area – about 30 mins apart over the Tappan Zee bridge over the Hudson River.  Also I had errands at JoAnn, Target, Home Depot and Barnes and Noble to run – so Monday afternoon off I went.

 

The Tappan Zee Bridge as seen from Rockefeller State Park Preserve

The last time I drove around doing errands was in Baton Rouge Louisiana – I would drive when I was visiting on trips home on vacation,etc.   Its funny how the memories of the driving around BR come back as I am negotiating the new landscape of Westchester, NY.    My driving skills have come back without any problems – even parallel parking is now almost perfect.  Still driving in new terrain I find a bit stressful.

So Monday I went to the first mall (on this side of the river – Nordstroms and then Bloomingdales) and then went across to the other mall (Palisades Center)  And there after the last return at Macy’s did my errands.  Its a funky mall – a bit ragged around the edges but there are signs of some attempt to upgrade it.  However its definitely a destination mall with Target, H&M, Macys, a huge B&N and other largish stores like JoAnn, CompUSA, BJ , etc.  Interestingly the Home Depot sits at the north end of the mall and has no entrance into the mall.

It was a successful trip as I found most of the items on my list – however the Target was really dismal – a really lower end version of their stores.  It was running late so I skipped Home Depot and it was starting to sleet/snow and I wanted to get back before it got really treacherous.

On Tuesday, headed out again after visiting with the N Mexico sister and Village sister and the nephews. It was a much better day – clear and cold but not as cold as today.  This time went to Home Depot first and was able to get most of the items – except for one item – a two step stool which they had at the other one up the highway. 

The new Kitchen light

and my new purse (YAH)

Then I ventured up the highway (adventurous aren’t I) and found a super store Target  which was much better and had several of the items the other one didn’t but NO CAST IRON DUTCH OVEN – you know the one EVERYONE is talking about.  SIGH. oh well across the highway to the Home Depot curiously way back behind two strip malls making it a little cumbersome to get to but with its own entry back on to the highway (87).   

And so my debut as a cross-Hudson River driver has happened! 

Last night we were treated to our first significant snow of the season – last week’s lasted about two minutes.  Here is a shot of the backyard .

Here is how I keep warm in my little study while blogging and surfing and…

oh and I upgraded my cell phone (FINALLY) ….for only $10 (since the old one is five years old!!!)  Meet Katie the Katana phone … and yes, she really is pink..

 And today installed an underdesk keyboard and rearranged my worktable – SO SO much better for typing etc (as the post attests I fear in its longwindedness!)

So this weekend has seen a huge change in the sweater  and design etc..

What happened this weekend?

• researched in my knitting books and found some great designs to use as inspiration
• decided I needed to add colors – so added a pale blue, gold, and white to the original red and denim blue and reworked the backgrounds of the motifs
• of course, now I need to go and buy the yarns – but I checked the colors of the yarn I am using and used only those in the same wool.
• spent many more hours fine tuning the colors and patterns and arrangement and…..
• borrowed one of my nephew’s sweater that fits a bit loosely to get good measurements
• measured the sweater
• readjusted the chart and patterns to fit the new measurements.
• continued to “design” the colors, now I have FOUR versions of the sweater to choose to knit.  (YIKES)

Things to do:

• Monday get yarn in the colors I need
• FINAL check on size and chart and patterns
• Print chart in color
• CAST ON

oh BTW I want to finish this by Saturday.    (send prayers …)

Here’s two of the patterns:

It was great to peruse the McGregor and Starmore books – amazing tomes of inspiration and instruction!

Well, I am bitten by Fair Isle and color patterns in a big way…. so much that I was up WAY past bedtime last night (erh this morning) poring over Sheila McGregor’s The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting to find designs.

Let me back up…these last few days have been consumed with designing a sweater for my nephew Walter (the Village Sister’s first born).  His birthday was yesterday but we are celebrating with a little party next Saturday with a visit from the FIRE ENGINE from the village – they will come to the house and let the children climb on the truck and they get hats and little kits with firemen stuff. 

Of course at 3 (!) he is obsessed with Trucks and Fire Engines and Airplanes and WORKING on his Tool Bench and in his “work site” (the side of the driveway).  Having only sisters, I am intrigued and fascinated by all his activities.   (He has a book called 100 TRUCKS – which kills my sister and me – whoever knew?)

Anyway, I have wanted to design a truck/fire engine something sweater for awhile – and going to Meg’s Camp this summer plus re reading Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books these past months has given me a lot of information and the courage to fail.    And I needed it this week! 

So I ordered Lion Brand wool ease yarn (Village Sister has specifically requested machine washable yarn with a new born on board now too).  And then swatched and then started to fool around with a design of a fire engine.  Originally I was going to just put it on the bottom border and the sleeves…. but welll…. it all got out of hand VERY soon!

[Note I am basing my sweater design on the Scandinavian Sweater design in Elizabeth Zimmermann’s THE OPINIONATED KNITTER and creating my own color patterns .

I started with a ladder motif and then the fire engine and then the ladder and then I went back to the “drawing board” and started doodling around and designed a W (for his first name) and then a Bell and then a flame (for fire) and … well then I realized I needed some help and went searching my Knitting Library – and there was that LOVELY McGregor book (The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting) which I had bought many years ago in hard back, before I could ever hold two colors in two hands, because it seemed valuable and was OOP and … well, I was in a collecting phase then.  [Note its now in paperback by Dover)

So after a while (hours?) going thru each page of the designs (you could really spend weeks on this book!) I found a few that I liked:

– a curly wavy design to represent Water

– a better looking Flame to represent Fire

– a much better looking initial W for his name  [NB on Saturday, decided to not use this so that the sweater can be passed down]

So I am adding these to my original Fire Engine and Bell and Ladder motifs.

And then I spent a bit of time (who’s counting at ? o’clock in the morning?) rearranging the patterns to make a nice vertical arrangement.  (I am using Excel BTW).

THIS is SO addictive!  More fun than.. well, so much that I forgot to eat dinner last night!

Then on to KNITTING:

Here is the First Version:

(I have altered this pattern a bit more)

Early this morning, I ripped back to the bottom ladder motif and then did the new first pattern (Water) and a ladder motif and then to bed.

However, when I got up this morning, I needed to check my row gauge to figure out how many repeats I could fit in (according to the sequence I had come up with) and then saw that my STITCH gauge had shrunk – I had originally knit 4 st/inch but with this Second Version I was getting FIVE sts/inch. 

Ok after a deep breath and a cup of freshly brewed tea, I ripped out the Second Version and recalculated for a body of 23” + 2” ease = 25”  Actually its not too bad as I really didn’t like the 16” needles i was using – not sharp enough for that yarn and I have some Addis that will work better in the next size.

Now of course I am thinking I need a few extra colors – I was going to do the sweater in only red and the background in the blue (its Denim blue) but… well, I am thinking I need a paler blue for the water motif and another color – gold? for the bell and… the flame red and gold? and … hmm. Where is the closest Joann?

This is the closest I have ever gotten to “drawing” and I see that is a major part of the attraction of Fair Isle – interpreting nature and other objects into patterns in the yarn to paint the sweater.   Very rewarding.  I am already thinking of another sweater based on a set of operas (THE RING) that are my most favorite in the world.  Hmmm, that one will take a while to stew.

ok, so now I am truly bitten.

And now onward to the Third Version… and maybe someday I can grow up to do the Russian Prime!