Letters to My Ratty Grey Sweater

Dear Grey Sweater:

Remember the day I got you? You were just hanging there in that consignment shop. I'd been looking for a casual sweater to wear to class and you were perfect. I could wear you over a pastel tank top with my hair in a clip and a pair of jeans and look like a million bucks. Okay, maybe not that good but at least I didn't look like I'd fallen out of bed. You draped perfectly over my shoulders and around my frame just so. You didn't look too baggy, or too tight.

You were, in a word, the best sweater ever.

-Me

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Dear Grey Sweater:

Remember the day I first wore you to my job at the cafe? That was not our finest moment. You were covering up my shivers since it was late spring in the mountains and it was chilly out. I only owned khaki shorts and the boss lady had problems with blue jeans. So it was shorts and work t-shirts in the cool mornings and you were the right color to cover up my cold arms with.

That day I showed off my impeccable klutziness. I'd accidentally spilled an entire tray of coffee all over the two of us. We both smelled like old coffee by the time we got home. It took you a week to wash out.

-Me

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Dear Grey Sweater:

That first hole in the seam near the hood was a warning sign. I'd been taking you for granted. I pinned you up with a safety pin and went about my fall day. I wasn't working in the restaurant anymore. I was working at a desk from home. Those were good days, remember?

-Me

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Dear Grey Sweater:

Maybe the camping trip to Estes Park for the Wool Market was a bad idea. You snagged on a pole on the tent. That was worrying, but you appeared to be okay. I'm sorry I left you at the campground. I was going into a room full of other, more accomplished knitters than I and I simply couldn't bear the embarrassment of wearing a machine made sweater instead of a handknit one.

You were so resentful you managed to drag into a puddle that night when I tried to put you on. I'm still sorry about that.

-Me

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Dear Grey Sweater:

Going back to college was wonderful, wasn't it? We were almost inseparable in some of the classrooms. Those lecture halls are over-airconditioned, even in the wintertime. You fit nicely into my jackets - especially the lightweight canvas one you looked so nice in. It was just a little warmer in the elements, but not so warm as my winter coat. You made that winter so much more comfortable.

-Me

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Dear Grey Sweater:

The bagginess is unbecoming of you. Why would you do that? Especially on a day like this? I need you to pull yourself together and be a decent sweater, please. I'll put on something else and we'll talk about this later. I'm late.

-Me

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Dear Grey Sweater:

You never used to fall off my shoulders in public.

-Me

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Dear Ratty Grey Sweater:

It's time. The rifts in our relationship are simply to wide to bear. Just like a couple who fights too often, I find myself growing tired of you. I keep looking at grey cotton yarn online and perusing hooded cardigan patterns on Ravelry.

The holes in all of your seams are too large for me to even attempt to sew closed anymore. I tried in the past, but you've started making new holes before the old ones are even finished closing. The fraying in the cuffs is no longer something I can ignore. You're baggy and saggy in the sleeves and along the bottom where you weren't before. You no longer make me look like I didn't just roll out of bed, but now you make a point of emphasizing my unflattering parts. I no longer look lean under you, and while I have gained some weight that doesn't excuse the insult.

You have button loops that are coming apart, and one of the button's strings is fraying. I thought that was such a sturdy string, but I guess it wasn't. In fact, the sturdiness you showed me at the beginning of our relationship is gone now. You're a limp pile of threadbare cotton, and I dread coming across you in the closet.

In fact, I don't even know why I've been talking to you as if you were a person. You are a sweater. An inanimate object. If my wits were about me, I'd simply throw you away since you probably wouldn't hold up for five minutes in the donation bag.

So this is goodbye. I shall be saving up for some lovely Katia Pima Cotton in a fitting grey and knitting something more suitable for my needs.

-Me

The Great WIP Roundup!

Yeehaw! Git along little doggies! It's time for the Great Work-in-Progress Roundup! In this post, I round up all of the WIPs I'm knitting, take photos of them, and show the whole world just how short my actual attention span is. I'll post Ravelry links to the pattern and any links I can to the yarn used.

To start off the call out, we'll go with Diana's Cardigan! Knit in Debbie Bliss Amalfi. 

That's a shot of all the pieces up top. The bottom is showing that I have half of the second sleeve to knit. You know what that means, right? It means I have very little knitting left to do in the body and all I'll have to finish if I were to just get the rest of that sleeve knitted. Really, there isn't much left. 

Next up: The Dirigible Ground Crew Socks. My own pattern. Made with a discontinued, handpainted sock yarn.

I started these in December. I still have the foot and toe to knit of the second one. Apparently I got a nasty case of Second Sock Syndrome.

The Beauty in Ashes Lace Wrap. Knit from some alpaca handspun I got for my birthday last year.

This one is especially sad. It's a beautiful pattern, knit on one of my favorite pairs of knitting needles (a Christmas gift from my friend Tasha a few years ago), and did you see that ball of yarn attached to the stole? Yeah. It's the last of three balls. I'm almost done. This thing is going to block beautifully and I just keep setting it aside. 

Lochinver: The Sequel! Knit in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino.

This deserves a bit of a back story. When I first started knitting I really didn't have much of an understanding of gauge. My second year I started knitting things that really required a working understanding of it, and I never knit a swatch! So when I started Lochinver the first time, I used inexpensive yarn that was far too thick (supposed to be sport weight, not worsted), and needles that were too big. So, if both components were too big, what do you think happened? I got a multi-room, wooly tent that fit my 200 lb, 6 foot 4 inch stepfather, that's what. Plus it pilled like crazy within about a day of finishing. 

The Aforementioned Sunburst Stole. Knit in - oh, just click the pattern link. It's from a previous blog post (that might actually be on the same front page).

Since I've already spoken at length regarding this lovely little slip of lace, you get no further description here.

Fire on the Waves. Knit in KnitPicks Swish Worsted. 

I took easily a dozen pictures of this. Inexplicably, they all came out weirdly blurry. This is the only one that looks decent. 

In my own defense, this sucker has gotten so big and unwieldily that I have to pick it up about ten times a row, and therefore do ten bicep and tricep curls a row. It's halfway finished. It's huge. I'm still mustering up the courage to do more work on it. 

Anouk. Knit in Cascade Bulky Superwash.

This is meant for a baby. I don't know any babies. I don't know why I still have it on the needles. But there it is. Ta Da!

The Beekeeper's Quilt. Knit in whatever leftovers (and some lovely mini-skeins from a raveler!) I have laying around. 

I have photographed the hexipuffs this quilt requires with my tennis shoe for size comparison. In order to make a king sized blanket, I'll need to knit literally 1000 of these. 995 to go. I'll be done in roughly... five years. Oh well. They're a good train project, at least.

And lastly... (ZOMH we're actually at the last project!)

The Raindrop Cardigan! Knit in Aslan Trends Pima Clasico mill ends. 

"Now wait just a second!" you're likely shouting at the screen, "That looks an awful lot like a finished cardigan!" you say. And you'd be right. I finished the knitting and blocked it last night. I hung it on a broom handle which was set on top of the shower curtain rod and the corner of the shower's ceramic wall. I pulled it off this morning. 

However, it isn't finished. 

It still doesn't have any buttons.

Worth It

It was worth it. Every last bit of it.

Really Didn't Think This Through

About two years ago I bought a beautiful yarn from Wolles Yarn Creations called "Sunburst." What makes all of Wolles' yarn interesting is that she makes what she calls "Color Changing Cotton" or CCC. CCC is four strands of thread that slowly transition from one color to another. She literally starts with all of the thread in one color, and then changes out one thread at a time to the next color as you knit, giving it stunning color transitions. I absolutely love everything she makes, but of all of them I've decided that the stuff I got is my favorite.

If I love this yarn so much, however, why has it taken me so long to knit it up? Because I haven't been able to figure out exactly what I want this yarn to be yet.

Then, last week, I discovered three lace patterns that worked together perfectly. And I love all of them. They fit with the yarn beautifully and they're fun to knit. This is how much I've knit so far:

See? Isn't that pretty?

Only there's one tiny problem: That section is almost into the completely yellow part. There's only four major colors, and I only have two balls of this yarn. I have no idea if I'm going to have enough. The odds are that I won't, and I'm going to wind up with a seriously truncated stole. Or, worse, have to completely rip this thing back (I have ripped this poor yarn back so many times so far) and redo it as a kerchief or, horrors, as a scarf. I really don't need another scarf. I really don't need a scarf in cotton, either. 

That or I could find a yarn that is similar in color (or even slightly darker) than the center yarn and knit that for the middle bit. I'm opting for that. What do you think?

Because really, this yarn is too beautiful to be anything else.