Swatch twice, cast on once

I’ve never been a huge fan of swatching–when I’m knitting, I prefer to leap, then look. But when I’m making a yarn substitution, I do force myself to make a swatch. In the case of the Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the Fall ‘07 Interweave Knits, that turned out to be a very, very good idea. I’m swapping Valley Yarns English Tweed for the Rowan Felted Tweed that the pattern calls for, and on the recommended needles for the pattern, I ended up getting 5 stitches per inch, instead of 6 stitches per inch, which would have spelled disaster (in the form of knitting for weeks to months and ending up with a sweater that’s way too big for me). I worked my way down from a 3.75 mm needle to a 3.0 mm needle, and managed to get both row gauge and a stitch gauge that would let me knit the smallest size with positive, rather than negative ease. I even washed and blocked the thing! I neglected to take one thing into account: when a pattern gives a stitch gauge for two different stitch patterns that are used in a sweater, even though it’s on the same size needle, and is the same number of stitches per inch for both of them, it is a Very Good Idea to incorporate both patterns into your swatch.

If you don’t, you end up with what I did. A gauge of 5 stitches per inch on the ribbing, and a 40″ sweater. Since the design doesn’t include a peplum, there was no way around ripping back and starting over, this time on 2.5 mm needles (I didn’t have 2.75 mm needles that were long enough, and my gut instinct told me that I wasn’t going to be able to get 5.75-6 stitches per inch with such a small change).

Not that I actually bothered to swatch that. I just merrily cast on again, and things seem to be working out much better so far. Of course, my row gauge is now a bit too fine, and I need to lengthen the body of the sweater, so there’s all sorts of recalculating going on on the fly, but that doesn’t seem to scare me as much. My 200 stitch “swatch” is going to be a much better indicator of what’s going on with this sweater.

Something Wicked this way comes…

My first Wicked is finished (I say it’s my first, because there surely will be more). It was great to knit up, and aside from the 90+ degree temperatures outside, it’s super comfortable. I actually finished knitting last week, but the weather was so dark, cloudy and rainy that it was impossible to get a decent picture of it. Finally, this weekend, it was sunny enough to prop my camera on top of my DVD rack and set the self-timer and get a snapshot.

I made several modifications to the sweater, most of which were a result of using a lighter weight yarn than called for (DK instead of worsted). I initially cast on more stitches for the collar (a total of 148 before I ran out of yarn for the cast on), and recalculated the number of stitches for the smallest size to match my gauge. I moved the decreases for the waist shaping down a couple of inches, and spaced them out a bit more so the decreases and increases would fall in the correct place on me. I lengthened the body of the sweater by about 2 inches to keep it from riding up. To compensate for the finer gauge, I knitted the larger pocket size, and I believe that it scaled appropriately. Finally, I shortened the sleeves to 3/4 length, because that’s a more practical, comfortable length for me.

I ended up using about 7 and a quarter of the balls of yarn I had for the project. Now I just need to find a use for the 2.75 balls of the Debbie Bliss Merino DK that I have left over. It’s a great yarn, so I know that I’ll find something suitable for it. I couldn’t be happier with the way that this sweater worked out, and I almost wish the weather was a bit cooler so I could start wearing it right away.

Eye Candy Friday: Butterfly Bush

This wasn’t an actual Butterfly Bush, but the next best thing: a grouping of lantana plants at Longwood Gardens that was positively swarming with swallowtails.

There were some monarch butterflies in the gardens, but they were way outnumbered by swallowtail butterflies, at least on the Flower Garden Walk. That may have been related to the types of plantings they had there, which were very heavy on the lantana (the garden walk is arranged by color, and they seem to come in every color imaginable).

And finally, on a lantana across the pathway from the others, there was a really gorgeous black swallowtail.

The Out-of-Towner

I have a bit of a confession: I am a serious overpacker. When I went on my trip to Longwood Gardens last weekend, I brought a sweater to finish as well as the sock that I generally carry in my purse (I did leave the yarn to cast on new socks with at home, though). I’ve been sort of ignoring the socks lately, just knitting a row here and there, and mostly focusing on the sweater (which also fit into my enormous purse). Sometimes this overpacking trait all works out, though. If I hadn’t been dragging my Reunion Sock (the current traveling project) around with me everywhere, I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture of it, in all of its drooping elm leaf lace-y glory, with a real live elm tree I came across at Longwood Gardens.

The red chiffon tied around the tree is part of an art exhibit they had going on around the grounds. It’s supposed to symbolize the tree’s indomitable will to survive Dutch Elm disease, or something along those lines. I may be exaggerating a little bit, but the prose on the signs about the art was seriously flowery (they wrapped red chiffon around a metal contraption used to prop up heavy branches on a tree and called it a testament to human ingenuity).

When we got to Longwood Gardens, the first thing we did was to go make a beeline for the Waterlily Garden in between the two main Conservatories:

I especially get a kick out of the miniature waterlilies sprouting from the center of lilypads:

After that, we took a break to have some peach cobbler, and then toured the rest of the greenhouses, before falling into a bit of a sugar coma.

We watched the main fountain show:

Everything seems to sort of come to a halt around the gardens while the fountains are running. It’s actually a really good time to walk around the conservatories without having a lot of crowds around, or to beat the line at the cafeteria.

We walked up the hill to see the bell tower, waterfall and rock garden:

Then we went to see the Italian Water Garden:

That one is a bit of a hike from the entrance and the conservatories, but it’s worth it.

I took a ton of photos, and I think that I have Eye Candy Friday fodder for the next 5 years or so. Not surprisingly, the flowers attracted a lot of butterflies and other insects. I spent some time watching a bumblebee collecting nectar in one flowerbed. We saw some honeybees at work along with the bumblebees, which was kind of a comforting sight.

It rained pretty much all day on Sunday, but luckily that didn’t affect our trip to see a traveling exhibit of WWII bombers at a local airport. They had a B25, a B17 Flying Fortress and a B24 Liberator, all restored to working condition.

This exhibit was of special interest because my grandfather was a navigator in the Army Air Corps, and the B24 was what he flew in. Even though I didn’t have any real knowledge of where the navigator would sit before going through the plane, I was lucky enough to get a picture of the navigator’s position:

After taking a walking tour of the B24 and the B17, I have even more respect now for the servicemen who flew those planes than I did before. Those planes were not easy to get in and out of (especially the B17, which had some very tight corners and was higher off the ground than the B24 seemed to be), with a lot of very small spaces, narrow walkways, and low doors. I was actually a little nervous about falling out of the bomb bay of the B17, but I maintained my footing.

During all the driving from place to place this weekend, I found the time to finish my Wicked sweater. I tried taking some pictures of it, but it was a rainy day, so they didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked. I’ll give it another shot when it’s sunny out, if it’s ever sunny again.

Eye Candy Friday

Here’s a day-flowering waterlily from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It was purchased by members of the du Pont family to preserve old-growth woods, and over the years they added many fountains and a pair of large conservatories and a water lily garden. We’ll be taking a trip out there this weekend, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve finished the left sleeve of my Wicked sweater, and I picked up the live stitches for the right sleeve. One of my goals for the weekend is to finish it off, so I can start on something new. I’m trying to decide if it should be Tomato from No Sheep For You, or if I should try to finally get those Monkey socks off my back. Of course, I should finish the Gothic Spire socks for my grandmother, or my Reunion Socks before I begin any more of those, but I don’t generally let that sort of thing stop me.

Got (Nickel-Plated) Brass in Pocket

I’ve been making a lot of progress on my Wicked sweater. This past weekend I finished knitting the (optional) pocket, and pinned it to a towel for a quick steam-blocking. I knitted it onto the body of the sweater, and then took a brief detour from the directions in the pattern to get it sewn on as quickly as possible–the hot, humid weather we’ve had recently would undo all of my blocking efforts long before I got around to sewing up if I were to finish working on the edging and the sleeves beforehand.

As much as I dislike seaming by hand, this pocket was so small that I didn’t have time to get sick of it. Using Elizabeth Zimmermann’s sewn cast-off to bind off some 160 or so stitches, on the other hand… I did the majority of the binding off en route to and at an outdoor concert on Sunday afternoon, so I had plenty of distractions. In the future, however, I’ll save the sewn cast-off for socks and other small items.

I’ve finished some more of the sweater since I took that last picture. I decided to go with the seed stitch border in the pattern as written, and I’ve picked up the stitches for, and knit about 8 inches of the left sleeve. My plan is to do 3/4-length sleeves instead of full-length to save me from having to push the sleeves up all the time, even though I have plenty of yarn left. Based on the amount of yarn I used for the pocket and am using on the first sleeve, I should get in at around 7 balls (or very slightly more). That leaves me with about 3 skeins of the yarn to play around with at some point in the future.

Stitch ‘n’ Pitch

It’s a three-for-one this Friday: some (baseball) eye candy, a knitting event, and a baseball game. How did I manage this? I went to The National Needlearts Association’s Stitch ‘n’ Pitch at Shea Stadium!

I procrastinated about registering, because I wasn’t sure until the night before if I’d be able to go, and somehow the order I placed didn’t go through. I was undeterred, and I decided to try my luck at getting a ticket at the box office before the game. Section 41 of the upper deck was all that was available, so I got one of those, and then employed the old trick of sitting in the section that I wanted, and being prepared to move if I had taken someone’s seat.

It turned out that I needn’t have worried about being in someone’s seat. I ended up sitting next to a very nice family of Met fans, surrounded by people who came in from central Jersey. I ended up having my pick of about 6 seats, and actually sitting in 2 different rows so as not to make the couple sitting next to me at the beginning have to get up to let me in after I got myself an ice cream cone as a snack. The only downsides to the way I went about attending were that I wasn’t counted for the Stitch ‘n’ Pitch attendance, and I didn’t get one of the cute swag bags. However, after the lengthy wait for a subway train I could fit onto, I was really just glad to be there at all.

Our group got a lot of attention during the game. First the people a few rows down from me were some of the “fans of the game”:

I’m actually visible in the background of the diamondvision screen on this one. I’m wearing my green sheep shirt, and holding my camera over my face.

We also got a lengthy visit from Mr. Met, because another lucky Stitch ‘n’ Pitch attendee got to answer the Mets trivia question.

There were needlework celebrities on hand for the evening, too. I thought I recognized a couple of people from their blogs, but was too shy to introduce myself. Lily Chin was there, and she showed off her baseball-themed apparel.

She was sporting a Mets jersey, a glove, and a “baseball cap”, and blended in pretty well with the sea of blue and orange:

The event even got New York Times coverage (registration required). Turns out that Lily Chin is actually a Yankee fan, and just knitted and crocheted up all the Mets gear over the weekend. I always knew that I liked her.

There was also a definite “freak out the non-knitters” factor at play. I nearly had my Addis taken away because I went to the wrong gate, but once I was sent to the right place, a bemused-looking security guard took a look at my sweater-in-progress and sent me right through. I’m not sure what they made of all the people bringing pointy sticks to a ballgame. Several innings into the game, a guy who was sitting several rows above the Stitch ‘n’ Pitch crowd looked around, walked down the stairs, and wondered if we knew that almost everyone in the section was knitting. He seemed to think it was cool once he learned what was going on.

I worked on my Wicked sweater, which was perfect ballgame knitting. Straight stockinette, around and around and around, and the Debbie Bliss Merino DK is smooth enough to knit by touch.

Oh, right, and there happened to be a game going on during all of this. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez was the Mets starter, and he turned in a pretty good outing, giving up only three runs, all in the 6th (after striking out Escobar and John Smoltz, he walked Willie Harris, gave up a single to Kelly Johnson, then a double to Larry “Chipper” Jones and a single to new Brave Mark Texiera). To my surprise, he came out in the 7th, and worked a 1-2-3 inning.

The Mets spread out their scoring a bit more. Jose Reyes singled in the first and reached second on a steal attempt that resulted in an error to Atlanta. Then Luis Castillo and David Wright sacrifice bunted him over to third, and hit a sacrifice fly, bringing him home, respectively.

After that, John Smoltz settled down until the 7th inning. He gave up two singles and got a fly-out, and was pulled. Then the Atlanta bullpen proceeded to give up the lead, allowing the two inherited runners to score.

Moises Alou ended up being the hero of the game, hitting a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth.

Although closer Billy Wagner tried to make things interesting by loading up the bases with no outs in the ninth, a force-out at home plate and a 4-6-3 double play bailed him out, and the Mets took the game.

There was much rejoicing.

I got a pretty decent chunk of knitting done at the game, and on the way back (on the way out to Shea, there was barely room to stand, let alone do anything else).

I’m pretty confident that I got the body of the sweater to be long enough, especially once I take into account the amount that it’ll stretch out in the wash, so I started working on the pocket last night. I think I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on this one: I have about half of the pocket to finish, and then the seed stitch border of the sweater and the sleeves. With about 5 balls of the yarn left, I should be sitting pretty on this one.

Hit Parade

My family and I took a trip out to Yankee Stadium back on July 31st in the hopes of seeing Alex Rodriguez become the youngest player to hit 500 home runs. We braved a couple of very packed #4 trains, and got into the stadium just as the lineup cards were being handed in.

It was an eventful first inning. After getting ejected from the game for arguing over whether or not Derek Jeter checked his swing, Ozzie Guillen lost his cool (and the contents of his pockets). He argued his point for several minutes, but the umpire remained firm. Jeter ended up with a hit, and then Chicago starter Jose Contreras started throwing batting practice:

First, Bobby Abreu hit a 3-run home run. Then Alex hit one to the warning track for the first out. Hideki Matsui followed up with a solo home run (his first homerun of the night; he’d go on to hit a two-run shot in the 6th):

And then Jorge Posada doubled before the inning was over.

Yankees starter Mike Mussina gave back three of the runs in the next inning, but after that, he settled down and held the White Sox scoreless while the Yankee offense went to town, knocking Contreras and a number of White Sox relievers out of the game.

Robinson Cano’s 3-run home run was what sent Contreras to the showers, just when we were really beginning to like him…

Naturally, Melky had to get in on the fun too that inning, bringing home Andy Phillips, who reached first on an error.

Then the catcher, Jorge Posada hit one into the stands in the fourth inning. He’s been so consistently good this year that I do hope Cashman gives him whatever he wants in the offseason.

Jorge’s homer was by no means the last of the game, either. Matsui hit his second of the night in the 6th inning. Johnny Damon led off the 7th inning with a solo home run. Later in the inning, Shelly Duncan, the new kid on the team, who came in to pinch hit and play RF for Bobby Abreu. It was his 4th home run in only 21 at-bats.

He has a reputation for being very exuberant in his celebrations–we were impressed that Larry Bowa remained standing after he ran by.

We ended up seeing some history being made; just not the history we had hoped for at the beginning of the night (although I’ll take tying the most home runs hit at the Stadium any night).

In the end, every Yankee who had an at bat, save for Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Andy Phillips hit a home run that night (and everyone save for Alex got on base, although Andy didn’t get a hit). Mike Mussina turned in a quality start, Kyle Farnsworth actually worked a 1-2-3 inning, and the Yankees took the game 16-3. So even though Alex wouldn’t hit #500 until Sunday afternoon, there was plenty to celebrate.

Eye Candy Friday

IMG_6202.JPG, originally uploaded by limonene.

Despite the ongoing effort to rip up every single inch of campus (or so it seems from all the jackhammering), most of the landscaping has remained intact. There are several Rose of Sharon bushes in the planting in front of the lab, and they’re just coming into their own with the hot, hazy weather we’ve had all this week.

And now for something different

IMG_5982.JPG, originally uploaded by limonene.

When the mercury rises, I can think of nothing better to do than to start a wool sweater for the fall. Actually, I started knitting this last week, before the heat hit in earnest, but I’m still standing behind my decision to begin knitting Wicked from Zephyr Style before I work on Tomato. After taking what felt like forever to finish the razor cami, I can only hope that I finish this up by the time it starts snowing. That, and the Debbie Bliss Merino DK that I picked up on sale from Little Knits has been aging a bit longer in the stash than the cotton for Tomato.

Of course, I can’t seem to knit anything lately without making some sort of major yarn substitution and pattern alteration, and Wicked is no different. The pattern calls for Artyarns Supermerino, which is worsted weight. As I don’t have anything in worsted weight in a large enough quantities for a sweater, I decided to go with the Merino DK. I’d previously used it for the stripes on my Tubey, and it was a great yarn to work with. The teal blue is bleeding on my hands a bit, but it’s a very soft, sturdy-feeling yarn.

Doing the Tubey saved me from swatching, but it didn’t save me from a bit of math. I figured that I needed to cast on 152 stitches to get the neck circumference that was called for. I ended up casting on only 148 because I ran out of yarn, but I figured that was close enough, and then I proceeded to scale everything from a 4.5 st/in gauge to 5.5 st/in. I’m knitting something sort of between the extra small and small sizes–the top-down construction has allowed me to try on as I go, and make adjustments on the fly.

I’m actually a little further along now than I was in this picture, when I happened to be in Central Park. I’ve removed the sleeves, and I’m knitting the body of the sweater. Until I hit the waist shaping, it’s just miles of stockinette (my one miscalculation in going down to a finer gauge yarn), but it’s been a good project for on the bus or reading or watching TV, or even standing on line. My goal is to finish by Labor Day, and I’m eager to see if I can pull it off, both time and yarn-wise.