Witchy Woman
What with the holiday and a lovely knitterly afternoon at Lisa’s apartment yesterday, I was able to finish up Lightning’s primary body parts and toss her in a lavender Eucalan bath this morning. Here’s the cat examining my blocking job:
I forgot how Rowan Plaid grooooowwws when it’s wet – that’s alpaca for you! So I patted it back into shape and left it moisten the couch all day. Then I started on the collar, which I hope to finish tonight. Lightning doesn’t make anything easy, so I’ve had to do considerable frogging on each piece. Just when I think I’ve got her figured out (and I can “read” the pattern in the knitting perfectly at this point), she hexes me with mysteriously incorrect stitch counts. I have to go back and add in extra-pattern increases or decreases any time there’s shaping, and count each row as I go along. So she’s been a loooong time in the knitting – you’ve seen her lurking there at the top of the list of projects on the needles for the last ten months, after all! But the end is in sight, and I plan to have her ready for Rhinebeck next weekend. (Whether or not it’ll be cold enough for bulky weight alpaca blend sweaters is another issue, of course.)
So what’s next? I spent a good few hours this afternoon working out the pattern for my father’s Christmas gansey. (And by the way, some of the Spiders told me they had no idea what I meant by a gansey: it’s traditionally a seaman’s pullover sweater that originated on the Channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey, hence the name. It has patterning – cables, raised stitch patterns, etc. – over the chest and upper arms.) I still have a couple more inches of dull-as-dirt stockinette-in-the-round before I get to begin…Garter Welts, Ripple Stitch, Christmas Trees, Raindrops, Gull Stitch, Willow Buds, Twisted Tree, and Scotch Faggoting Cable(!). Don’t it have a kind of poetry to it? It was a hoot poring over Barbara Walker’s First Treasury of Knitting Patterns to choose the different elements, and then arranging them so that the stitch counts would work together properly. I tried to select patterns that remind me of something about my dad, and it’s going to be an engaging puzzle trying to put them all on one chart.
I have further design inspirations, too. I’m not going to share them just yet, but this beautiful Rowan yarn I got from Amanda at our impromptu yarn swap is fuel for the fire:
Posted: October 10th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
i was going to ask how many of the patterns you’re using for the christmas gansey came from barbara, but you told all. wow! i’m glad it’s been useful, as well as lustful. if worse comes to worse, wear the lightning around your shoulders! it’s supposed to be in the mid to upper 70’s here next weekend (we’re going to the pumpkin patch to play on sunday!)
and i’m jealous once again. no decent yarn/wool festivals close enough for me to go, sigh.
Posted: October 11th, 2005 at 4:24 am
Spectacular knitting, my dear, once again. I’ve had some little gremlins like that myself – just when you think, “hah! I don’t HAVE to look at that stinkin’ pattern anymore” – you realize, “uh, yeah I do.” *head bowed in shame* And since WHEN does the fact it MAY not be cold enough for bulky weight alpaca stop us from wearing it anyway?
Posted: October 11th, 2005 at 6:34 am
Oh dear. Now I’m going to have that song in my head (oooh, ooooh, Witchy Woman see how high she fly-i-ies.)
Hope that you’ll share more about your design inspiration.
Posted: October 11th, 2005 at 8:14 am
wow — your father’s gift sounds very ambitious. i once knit my father a tie for christmas, which was a lousy idea.
Posted: October 11th, 2005 at 9:42 am
I can’t wait to see the finished product. And I love how the cat is carefully sniffing and watching the blocking process.
Posted: October 11th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
looks like you’ve got a lot of seaming to do!! it’s gonna be great when it’s done though 🙂
Posted: October 11th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
It looks great – but does alpaca really grow that much when you block it? If so, I’m in trouble!