Finished Mini Kiri
The baby cashmere blocked perfectly
Pattern: Polly’s Kiri [pdf] - I knit 8 repeats of Chart 2 plus the edging and wound up with a shawl measuring 48″ across the top and 22″ down the centre.
Gauge: Roughly 5.5 st/1″ blocked
Needles: 3.75 mm (US 5), and 6 mm (US 10) to bind off
Yarn: 3.5 balls of Elann’s Baby Cashmere. The pattern describes using Kid Silk Haze with 4.5 mm needles. Both KSH and Baby Cashmere come in 25g balls, but the KSH is double the meterage at 200/25g. I used a heavier yarn with smaller needles to achieve a denser shawl since it’s to be used as a winter scarf. Merry Christmas, Mom!
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Dislocated
For the second time in five years, my jaw got stuck open and I spent the night in the emergency room.
The first time I dislocated my jaw it was wedged open so much that I had to cram a deodorant in my mouth to relieve the pressure. The only way to relieve the pain of your jawbones crunching together is to open wider, so I had popped in a stick of Secret to bite down on, instead of letting the weight of my head sit on my lower jaw. I was like that for 5 hours. Do you know what you can’t do when your jaw is stuck like that? Smoke. Add an anxiety disorder and I was panicking and freaking out all over the place. I got serious drugs and it took the doctor about 45 minutes to get me unstuck and relocated. This involved him actually getting leverage by having one leg propped up on my chair. It was gruesome. I’m glad the memory is so vague. Thank you, morphine!
This time my jaw loosened up immediately and even before we left for the hospital (which is a 20-min. drive out here in the boonies!) It was low enough that all I needed to prop it open was a pen. But this time I didn’t dislocate straight open. My jaw was totally crooked. Just as painful, but my bones were grinding from the side instead of one atop the other. The emergency room was nice and they saw me right away. Didn’t give me mophine until after they took their xrays, which made sense because I doubt I’d have been as easy to photograph. The pain from holding my head in certain positions was absolute torture. But once they gave me the muscle relaxant that makes it possible for the doctor to loosen everything, it hit me so hard the muscles in my face went completely slack and my jaw fell loose. Then I started talking mumbojumbo and I think I dropped the f-bomb. I talk shit when I’m sedated.
I managed to make it through this time without panicking. I was a hair’s width from freaking out entirely and I managed not to. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been on medication to manage the anxiety, and this was a huge accomplishment for me. I think having Alex there helped. We had to wake him up and bring him with us because I just wasn’t leaving him home alone, and I was scared I’d panic and terrify him. I didn’t want him to be scared.
I’m very much okay. I feel like I’ve been punched in the side of the head by Popeye but that feels good in comparison, and it’s nothing Advil won’t fix or at least numb down to a dull roar.
Hara Kiri
For my mom’s Christmas gift, I settled on Polly’s Kiri [pdf]. Beautiful and much more appropriate for winter coat wear than Charlotte’s Web. I’m using the Baby Cashmere like I planned, and it’s being worked on 3.75mm needles, to give it a denser weave.
This pattern is fantastic. Despite the title of this post, it does NOT make me want to off myself. I memorized it within my first repeat of Chart 2, but even without memorization the pattern is very intuitive and it’s easy-peasy to read your work to know what you need to do next. Right now I’m working the final 6 rows of the edging, and I’m done. I’ll have it blocked this evening and I’ll post with some photos and measurement details.
Right now Polly is working on an alternative edging. I can’t decide which one I like better; although short-rowing the garter stitch edging looks like a major fiddly pain in the ass, it is very beautiful and frames the leaf pattern perfectly. However, it doesn’t have a central point at the bottom. I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to tack on one more leaf with a second length of yarn before you begin the edging…I don’t know.
The original edging is pretty and easy because it’s just worked back and forth like the rest of the shawl. And it has a central bottom point. 6 rows to go!
Holiday Knitting
This Christmas we’re pretty much broke. Buying a house kind of sucks up all your money. When I was a kid we lived with my grandparents. My parents bought their own house when I was 12, and it took me a long time to forgive them. See, when we lived with my grandparents we had no real bills and my sister and I were pretty spoiled. My family wasn’t rich but we got pretty much whatever we wanted because there was extra money. When the house was bought, that money was gone. Not gone, exactly, but spoken for in terms of electricity and water and mortgage and all the other stuff that spoiled kids don’t care about. It took me a few years to understand; most of this emotional growth occured after I got my first real job and I learned what it meant to tire yourself for a few bucks.
Now we’re broke in terms of having extra money or savings, but we have a little home of our own. I wouldn’t trade it for all the yarn in the world, and lucky for us, Alex is not spoiled (karma obviously forgot to punish me) and enjoys having our own house as much as we do. When we lived at my parents’ we could buy electronics and yarn and toys on a whim and still have money in the bank. I get pangs now and again when I covet stuff, but it passes quick because I really do have more than everything I need. When my grandparents came to Canada they came with nothing and lived hand to mouth for many years before they could afford to spend any money on themselves. Our lives aren’t quite that tight and I have nothing to complain about.
I know my family understands that we can’t be extravagant. We’re spending the bulk of our shopping money on Alex and getting him a Nintendo DS. I want him to have something really fun from us this year. I’m knitting my father a winter hat out of stash yarn (he lost the one my sister made for him a couple of years ago). It has to be machine washable since my dad is rather bald and his hats need cleaning more often. I’m thinking a ribbed pattern with a simple cable would be plain enough for him to want to wear and interesting enough for me to want to knit. Natalie told me that my mom wants a scarf to go with her new coat. She specified a sheer silky one rather than a knitted one, but since I have some Baby Cashmere (in Parchment) from Elann in stash I think I can whip up a very pretty lacy scarf in little time. My mom likes to fold her scarves into triangles so I’m thinking a miniature Charlotte’s Web would be very nice. I would have preferred to make a Flower Basket Shawl but I can’t find my appropriate copy of Interweave Knits. Natalie is trying to save for a big shelving unit so she’s asked us for a gift certificate to put towards this, and that’s what she’ll get.
Do you understand what all of this means? It means I don’t have to go Christmas shopping! And really, that is the greatest gift of all.
Must be the Dilithium Crystals
When James Doohan died he asked for his ashes to be flown into space. Apparently this has been delayed due to engine trouble. The extreme tragedy? He really cannae fix it, Captain. (link via Bonne Marie)
I’ll Take More Cowbell for $1000, Alex
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the fact that one of the categories during College Championship Jeopardy today was “I Need More Cowbell.” Loves. It.
Snow and Hello! What’s This?
Blech
This is the view from my driveway this afternoon. I was expecting it to melt today, but no such luck. It’s snowing even harder now. On the one hand I’m very distressed, on the other hand I’m craving a peppermint-mocha latte from Starbucks and I want to put Christmas lights in the window.
Surprise! I’m almost finished!
I started Via Diagonale the other day and I’ve been using my Denise needles because my 24″ 4mm Addi is attached to another bag that I started eons ago and forgot about. The Denises aren’t great for this project because the Butterfly cotton doesn’t stretch so the needles are flexing. The cord is too thick and I’m spending more time shoving the stitches around the needle than doing any actual knitting. This morning I pulled out all my stash bins to find my Addis and swap them out. I couldn’t find the stupid bag, but at the bottom of one bin I found this sweater. I had forgotten entirely about it.
It’s a raglan cardigan, 2×2 ribbing at the edges, no waist shaping. Apparently I’ve completed the back, one front and one sleeve. Unfortunately I have no pattern notes. I know I was using one of the sweaters in Rowan’s A Season’s Tale as a guide, but I modified it. I’m just going to have to count stitches and rows to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do next. I don’t even know what the gauge is or what needles I was using, so I have to swatch for a sweater I’ve almost finished.
I’m glad I found it…it’s exactly what I want in my wardrobe right now and the fit’s right, too. The yarn is some single-ply chunky Peruvian wool in the colour, Nutmeg, from Elann (it’s NOT the Peruvian Highland stuff…it’s different). I’ve been spit-splicing it, I’m happy to see. But I did some crazy short-row shaping at the neck of the front panel that I have no idea how I’m going to replicate. Ack. Why can’t I be organized with my pattern notes?
Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo
I want to thank everyone for all the really nice comments about my raglan sweater. I will reward you will pictures of scaly creepy crawlies.
Meet Stuart, the 400-pound alligator
Cork Raglan Details
Voila!
Pattern: My own. I measured myself and came up with a basic raglan pattern. I added a horseshoe cable down the centre length of each sleeve. I added a bit of waist shaping and used a 4×1 rib at the bottom edges. The turtleneck is 2×2 rib.
Gauge: 4st/1″
Needles: 5mm (US 8) for the turtleneck and 5.5mm (US 9) for the rest
Yarn: Rowan Cork in the colour, Chilly. I love this yarn. I wore the sweater all weekend and except for a bit of bagging in the elbows (which wasn’t noticeable except in the top photo), the sweater held its shape and looked fresh. Not even a hint of pilling. It’s really light and very warm. If I can get my hands on more Cork, I will.
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Cork is Done!
I finished the whole thing. I knit a crewneck in 1×1 rib, bound off with kitchener stitch (all 94 stitches) and ended up hating it. The collar looked okay in the front but it wouldn’t lay flat in the back. Fuck. I couldn’t be bothered to pick out the Kitchener stitch, so I cut the edging off and ripped back to where I picked up. I knit a turtleneck in 2×2 rib, and it looks really good. The neck ribbing needs to be steamed a bit but I’m not going to worry about that right now.
I don’t have time to take a picture now since we’re leaving for Ottawa very soon, but I will post one on Monday night. This is my best sweater to date, I think.
One good thing about binding off in Kitchener even though I had to cut it out is that I finally got comfortable with grafting. I ended up in a rhythm and now I’m never going to be apprehensive about grafting a few stitches at the toe of a sock again. The resulting bind off looks just like a tubular cast-on, provided you get the tension right. All you need to do is put the purl stitches of your ribbing on one needle, the knit ones on another, and graft in the usual way. Here’s a great example, along with some other tips for a stretchy, bound-off sock cuff.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
