All the Cool Kids have Photos...

The seamed Rowan Glace Sweater, with Take Three on the button band well underway. This should be finished today, and then on to the Great Sleeve Debate. (Basically, I could do sleeves, easily. But do I *want* to do sleeves?)
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Closeup of the button band. Girl buttons go on the LEFT. My carpool knows this, after calling my driver's friend Lois just after 7 a.m. to go have her look in her closet to see which side the buttons went down. I've never met Lois, but she must be pretty cool to take odd knitting telephone calls from people she doesn't know at seven in the morning on her day off...
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Turns out a button band picking up every row straight on to the needle doesn't work well. Nor does every other row, even if you knit it on as you go. The rule is, and shall remain, pick up one stitch every nine rows all the way around. Diane Zangl said this clearly in the first pattern of hers I did from Knit'n'Style:
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See? The button band works fine, and clearly I knew the rule. But I just *had* to see if there was another/different way. Bad, bad knitter. Stick to what works for the basic stuff, OK?

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While progress has momentarily halted on the Lilly of the Valley Shawl, I discovered that a good way of keeping my ball of yarn from running away is to put it in one of the wonderful new shatterproof orange cups my husband got me. Keeps it from getting squished in my totebag, too.

Now, on to the new stuff:
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The beginnings of a sweater: two pounds of yarn. In past experience, one pound of yarn, intermixed with some other color, gets me a nice cardigan. Two pounds of yarn might get me two cardigans... or a cardi with matching hat, scarf and, if there's enough left, mittens. Either way, I get to watch my mother freak out again when I cut my steeks, which is always fun. (And she's the one who's all about stitching in the round whenever possible. I don't get why steeking bothers her so, I really don't!) Hm. I don't seem to have a picture of the last Fair Isle sweater I did - steeks and all - and I wear it a LOT. I wonder where it is? Hm. Looks like I'll need a sweater-hunt sometime in September. I'll post a pic when I find it; it came out really well!

This is the first pass at the design for the Cat Sweater. Originally, I was going to do something more like a zen-brushstroke cat on the back, but that was deemed (by me) boooring, and much easier to do if I was duplicate-stitching afterwards. There's no challenge there! Thus, the random pawprints with hidden words. I'll be switching it around so it says "Here Kitty Kitty" vertically down the front ("Here" on the right, "Kitty Kitty" on the left), and see if I like that better. This will be cast on as soon as I'm done with the needles I'm using for the Glace Sweater. Really.
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Copyright CJB 2007

Blast from the Past:
And just for fun, and because all the cool kids have tons of photos in their blogs, here's the Dragon Illusion blanket that didn't get pulled out, since it's much farther along than I'd remembered! If you're not familiar with illusion knitting, here's the thing. Straight on, it's a black-and-cream striped blanket. Viewed from a 45-degree angle, suddenly it's a black dragon on a cream background. This is SO going into knitting shows when it's done, just for the "Ooooooh!"s it'll get!
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Glace Sweater: Now What?

First:

Last night, I finished the back of the Glace sweater; this morning (and yes, it made me ten minutes late to my desk at work), I did the side and shoulder seams.

Now what do I do with it?

I *think* it's crying out for a pink button band (my usual k2/p1 for five rows), and I think five small buttons would work well (I wonder if I could find a matching orange? If not, white will do.). The real issue: short sleeves, or no? They'd be inset-looking (ie, all the decreases would be hidden in the armpit) if they were there. I've got enough yarn, certainly - almost two full balls of pink, ball and a half of white, and two plus balls of orange.

But does it really want sleeves? I guess I'll do the button band first, and see what the sweater tells me then.

Second:

I entered Crazy Aunt Purl's (see sidebar for link) Cat Sweater Sweepstakes. I will *also* be entering Part II of the sweepstakes by knitting a "Cat Sweater" in the next six weeks. Last night, I found my one-pound skeins of beige and chocolate yarn (the stash organization progresses well!!).

Today, in between a gajillion projects at work, I'll be designing said sweater, and post the ideas tomorrow.

The Alleged Pattern for the "Harry Potter" Scarf

I've had one request for the alleged "pattern" I used to make my HPII scarf, and just in case anyone else is interested, here you go. Note: This makes a nice jacket-length scarf, a hair under six feet long. If you want your scarf ultra-long like in the movie, you'll have to add a few more repeats, and I'd suggest getting an additional skein of yarn as well.

Materials: I used Red Heart sportweight in "Cardinal" and/or "Vermillion (I'm guessing one is the name of the color in 2006, the other in 2007, since they match!), three skeins.
Gold Glitterspun, 1 ball.
Circular needles, anywhere from size 5 to 8, depending on what's comfortable for you. (I used 6's.)

Pattern: C/O 66 st in the round.
Knit 32 rows in red; 3 rows gold, 5 rows red, 3 rows gold.
Repeat six times, then, after the last set of gold rows, knit 32 rows.
Cast off.
You now have a Harry Potter tube.
Make fringe to desired length; fringe.

Lesson on fringing: It's really pretty easy.
1. Making fringe to desired length - well, I tend to wrap my yarn about 100 times around a standard Harlequin-sized romance, and cut through at one end of the book. Ooo, lots of fringe pieces!

2. I attach the "sides" of scarf together, making certain the start of a new row is on the very-thin edge of the scarf, as I attach the fringe.

3. Attaching happens by jabbing through both layers of the scarf with a crochet hook, pulling two fringe pieces at a time through by the center (so there's a loop on one side of the scarf, and dangly ends on the other), and catching the ends through the loop.

4. I also square-knot two strands of neighboring fringe once everything's in place, so there's no chance of my fringes trying to go free.

5. Should there be undesired unevenness in the fringe, trim carefully to desired length/eveness. I tend to just let it be fringey.

Stash diving...

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While going through my stash, trying to NOT start something new, I found this cotton glace sweater I started a while back. Having adopted it as something to do instead of the LOTV shawl I'm supposed to be working on, I'm actually just about to start the second white-pink-white stripe on the back.

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Here's a closeup of the cool loopy thingy pattern. I've actually done an entire shawl of the loopy-lace pattern in boucle - it doesn't show up so well in that as it does in the cotton. Finished the scarf (prev. entry), and discarded another project (see here). Leaving me with four Knitted Things on the needles - and a zillion other crafty things. *sigh*

A finish!

The finished HP-2 scarf. This one is mine. It's about half the length of the Truly Authentic one I did for my mother, due to less yarn, and less patience for myself. It'll still look good at the next movie.
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