No pictures yet because it really needs a blocking, but the little lever-knit sweater I’m calling Baltic Rose is all finished! Although I still had about six short rows to go when they extinguished the Olympic torch, I was finished and able to give the closing ceremonies my full attention by the time they rolled out the giant inflatable beavers in the finale (which was like a Bollywood musical number with lumberjacks), so I’m awarding myself a lever-knitting medal. And really, if I hadn’t decided at 3pm that what my little sweater really needed was a hood, I could have been done by the time the gold medal hockey game was over.

(I’m one American, by the way, who thinks that game came out exactly as it should have. I cheered when the U.S. tied it up in the last half-second of regulation, but I was glad Canada’s young star could earn his country the win in the end. Both teams played hard and well, it was dramatically close, it went to overtime but not to the somewhat hollow victory of penalty shots, and in the end the gold went to the country that really showed the passion to deserve it. If the Americans had won, we’d all have patted ourselves on the back, and some of our youngest hockey players would have remembered it for years, but there wouldn’t have been nationwide street parties, you know what I mean?)

Pictures soon and full details soon, I promise.

It doesn’t look like much, does it? (Although I’ll tell you I don’t know what possessed me when I thought this design really needed a bit of stranded colorwork… knit flat. Purl-side stranding? Way arduous. I’m sure I swore never to do it again a few years back.) But every stitch of it is lever knit. It has a sleeve now, too, which I lever knit on two circulars. Whether it will fit an actual baby remains to be seen; the math for the yoke just didn’t want to play nice and even after four rounds of increasing by a third I wasn’t convinced I had enough stitches for a body and two sleeves. I ended up casting on 20 to rejoin at each underarm and then increasing six more beneath for extra body fullness. But I think I can finish it before the closing ceremonies, and while it doesn’t feel like my most amazing accomplishment, it’s been something entirely new for me in terms of technique. I’m choosing to equate it with competing in curling rather than in the cross country marathon or aerials — it’s about precision and focus rather than unbelievable strength and stamina or derring-do bordering on insanity. At least it’s no more underwhelming than snowboard cross.

Oh, and the little stripey sweater? It’s going to be called Okoboji, thanks to Mia having reminded me of our dear sailing roommate, Kate, and her charming Iowa hometown and its lake. I’ve almost finished writing up the pattern notes to send to those of you who volunteered to test knit. Thanks, guys!

This is everything I accomplished at Madrona. Not a lot to show for myself, is it? On the spindle is a small quantity of really softly spun Cormo and CVM 2-ply, and on that loooooong straight needle is about 20 ridges of garter stitch in really yummy Jacob/alpaca DK from Toots LeBlanc.

But I can now tell you what cop is (the yarn you’ve made that’s wound around the spindle), I can use the drop spindle standing up (a really good idea, as I’ll explain later), I can do a thigh twist to start the spindle (standing on one leg, even), I can kick start it when it’s near the floor, I can fix thick spots in the yarn and do a better join when I need to “edit” a thin spot, I can keep twist out of my draft zone by back-twisting with my right hand just a little bit, and I can ply out of my bra.

Yes, you read that right.

Turns out a good way to ply two or more strands is to wind them together onto a crumpled ball of paper, pop the resulting ball down your cleavage, and wield the drop spindle pulling the strands from between your buttons. If nothing else, this is certainly more eye-catching than my old method using the chopstick apertures in my two rice bowls.

And I’m darn proud of my 40 rows of garter stitch, because I achieved them by lever knitting. That means the technique for knitting that relies on one needle being fixed under your arm, in a belt or sheath, or wherever you can comfortably plant it and then bringing the knitting to the fixed needle tip rather than fishing after it. I’ve read about it — this is how the Shetland knitters made their beautiful jumpers on long, long double-pointed needles before circulars were invented — and now I know (in theory, at least) how to do it. It feels just as clumsy as whatever knitting method you use felt when you first tried it. Stephanie assured us we would all suck, and she was perfectly right. This tiny girl is clearly beating me around the block:

This photo is from the Shetland Museum Archives and is proof I will always reach for in the future if I need to argue that small children are capable of intellectual focus and remarkable dexterity… and of not poking their eyes out with tools. This tot’s grasping a set of needles that are longer than her legs, and she’s already knit half a sweater with them. Awesome.

Anyway, Stephanie challenged us to practice lever knitting just a little each day for 30 days. And since I can’t back down from a challenge, I vowed I’d lever knit a baby sweater in that time. Hence my 20+ ridges. Which I’m going to add to right now while I watch the men’s downhill. Next time I’ll tell you about my final Madrona class, Knitting Happily Ever After.

I picked up a handful of sample skeins of Happiest Girl! Dyeworks sock yarn at Knit Purl’s Sock Summit party back in August. Those little skeinlets are like mini-cupcakes — so cute and brightly irresistible. But what can you actually make with them? Since the dyer was at the party and encouraging us all to take as many as we’d like, I grabbed a pair in several colors with this pattern in mind. And it turns out I was exactly right: one sample skein = one Blue Steps Bootie with just enough left over to weave in the ends! I can’t tell from the internet whether Happiest Girl! is still in existence, but this is the colorway “Parrot” and the resulting socklet does, indeed, make me very happy.

I’ll finish the second one on the train to Tacoma this evening. Madrona, here I come!