It’s that time of the year…

The holiday season in New York can be a bit crazy-making. It’s already getting really crowded, and I anticipate the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony will make it a challenge to get around this evening. But the window displays in the shops make it all worthwhile. This little guy in an antique-shop window made me do a double-take and get out the camera.

I gave it a shot, but I’m nowhere near finishing my latest sweater this month. I did a bit of math and figured out that the two half-sleeves and the 4 inches of body are somewhere in the neighborhood of 23,000 stitches. There’s really no shame in making it halfway to the stitch-count, and this sweater has been a lot of fun to work on. I’m prone to go on knitting jags, where I’ll knit one type of thing to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. Last summer and fall it was lace shawls, this spring it was definitely socks, and now I’m on my third sweater in a row. I do need to finish knitting a sock for my grandmother before Christmas, and I want to make the mate to this Traveling Sock:

I started it on my trip to England last summer.  It’s in some Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport that I purchased on clearance, and I’m using Bryspun dpns.  I prefer to use Magic loop for my socks, but I didn’t want to run the risk of the TSA not liking it.  That’s a picture of the sock at the Tower of London.  I didn’t feel brave enough to ask one of the Yeoman Warders to hold it, so the outside of the building where the Crown Jewels are kept had to be good enough.

Oh what a tangled. . .

. . .yoke we knit?

I’ve been finished with my Tangled Yoke Cardigan since marathon weekend, and I like it so much that I’m wearing it yet again (it seems to have become my favorite weekend article of clothing, so I’ve been airing it out during the week. I’ve decided that this weekend I’m going to throw all caution to the wind and wet-block. My swatch didn’t undergo the drastic changes that other people’s did upon washing, and Soak seems like it’s pretty mild. And if the shoulders get a bit broader, that’ll just make the sweater fit better.

The final specs:

Yarn: Valley Yarns English Tweed in Light Sage (from Webs
Needles: Addi Turbos in 2 mm and 3 mm, Addi Lace in 2.5 mm and 3 mm, Knitpicks Options in 2.25 mm
Buttons: Albino Horn from Tender Button
Modifications: Lengthened body by a total of about 2 inches. Made sleeves narrower by knitting ribbing with smaller needles and changed the spacing of increases to adjust for differing row gauge. Added an extra pair of short rows to back neck to accommodate row gauge. Increased the number of stitches picked up for the front button and buttonhole bands.

For my first attempt at picking up and knitting a button band, I think I did an OK job (and this is another area where a little more ease could help matters). This sweater was a very enjoyable knit–it’s a nice blend between fairly mindless stockinette and an unusual cable pattern. The increases and decreases were a bit fiddly at times, but the final product is more than worth it. I especially appreciated the seamless construction of the cardigan. The mock seam stitches give a bit of structure without any of the actual sewing required for a more traditional sweater.

I found out too late about NaSweKniMo, which is probably a good thing, since I normally can’t resist this sort of challenge, even though I’ve yet to complete one of them (the Knitting Olympics, The Amazing Lace) over the alloted time. I did start another sweater this month, but too late for it to be realistic to be able to finish by the end of November.

It’s the Racer Pullover kit that I bought from Shelridge Farm at Stitches East in October. I’ve finished about 8 inches of each sleeve and have yet to start on the body. The Shelridge wool-cotton blend is wonderful to knit up. It’s nice and soft and squishy and the hand-dyed yarn has enough color variation to keep things very interesting.

And if any more proof was needed that it’s now sweater weather:

It’s not the first frost by any means, but it’s the first one that I was able to catch when I had my camera with me.

Not a moment too soon…

I finished up two projects over the past week: my Tangled Yoke Cardigan and My So-Called Scarf, and just in time, too. It seems like the cold weather is here to stay. Last weekend was Marathon Weekend, and a marathon of a marathon weekend at that. I had friends in town to watch the races, so I was up and out before dawn last Saturday for the men’s Olympic trials in Central Park.

This is the least blurry photo I have of Ryan Hall, the eventual winner of the race. He was that fast (actually, it was rather dark out for the race, and I was shivering, so my pictures suffered a bit. He was really fast, though). I have a lot of mixed emotions about the day, and my condolences go out to Ryan Shay’s family and friends.

The New York City Marathon was more pleasant, both timing- and weather-wise. My guests and I met up with some friends from school at the much more civilized hour of 11 AM to watch the elite women and men run up First Avenue.

We cheered them on from 64th St, and then ate brunch and watched the finish of the race on TV. This was the first time I’ve watched, and since both the men’s and women’s competitions were decided in the final hundreds of meters, it was pretty exciting. I do have to say that it felt a little strange to be chowing down on pancakes while watching really, really fit people running, but I got over that pretty quickly.

Even though I started wearing the My-So-Called Scarf out of desperation on Saturday, I didn’t actually finish it until the eighth round of my pub quiz on Monday night where I was playing as half of the Toledo Mudhen Hall-of-Famers. Here are the final specs:
Yarn: 2 skeins Manos del Uruguay in colorway “Mar”
Needles: Size US 11 (8 mm)
Modifications: Cast on 26 instead of 30 stitches to make longer, narrower scarf.

I couldn’t believe how fast this was to knit. I started it as a way to put off picking up stitches for the Tangled Yoke, and to have a project that was portable, and I nearly finished it before I sewed the buttons on to my cardigan. I guess that’s the difference that knitting with 8 mm needles instead of 3mm needles makes. It was done long before I got tired of the pattern, which is a problem that I often have with scarves, and it’s quite warm and cushy. I’d definitely be willing to make another of these in a different colorway in the future.

Reaching the finish line

‘It’s going to be a double marathon weekend in New York City, and my new scarf seems pretty psyched about it. That’s definitely a good thing, because it’s gotten very chilly lately, and looks to be especially nasty out for the Mens’ Olympic marathon trials. Several of my friends are runners, and they’re looking forward to seeing 52.4 miles of running.

I am so, so close to finally being done with the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. As soon as I can remember what I did with my hand sewing needles or get out to the fabric store to pick up some that will fit through the buttons I picked out, it’ll be ready to wear. I’m a little bit afraid of wet blocking the thing because of the stories that this yarn really blooms after being washed, although I did carefully wash my swatch and still got gauge. I’m around 0 to negative ease, though, so a little bit of growth might not be a bad thing, and will keep the buttons from gapping. Or that’s what I keep telling myself to avoid panic. Maybe I’ll just steam block. . .

In other news, apparently the NHL strike has ended, because I got to go see the Rangers play the Capitals at Madison Square Garden last night, courtesy of a friend who got extra tickets from work. In a lot of ways, it felt like a minor league baseball game (with little kids taking penalty shots and grown-ups racing on tricycles during the time between periods), except it took place on skates and there were Zambonis. Oh, and the stadium was a lot warmer than the Yankee game that my friend and I went to back in April, which was pretty nifty, considering the playing field was made of ice.

Having been to all of 2 professional hockey games in my life, I can’t claim to know anything about hockey strategy, or customs or players, so I can’t comment on the Rangers’ performance like I can with baseball games. They seemed to turn the puck over to the Capitals a lot, but that might just be the way the game works. I was, however really impressed with the Rangers’ goalie, Henrik Lundqvist, who preserved a 2-0 shutout for the team, despite the Capitals taking 31 shots on goal.

The real Rangers fans seemed to appreciate his performance too, so I feel quite comfortable saying that he did a very good job.