"You're not seriously going to wear that in public, are you?!"

Some needlework projects are never-ending, not through any fault of their own, but due mostly to what Gilbert Murray famously called"the failure of nerve" (Five Stages of Greek Religion, c. 1925). I have repeatedly categorized my loving homage to Frejya, our female Maine Coon (a.k.a Big Orange Fluffy Thing or B.O.F.T., see left) as one such. The whole thing took four long years from start to finish. But during that interval I spent most of my time ostentatiously (though guiltily) NOT working on it. Progress came, when it did, in fits & starts, with long empty gaps in between, while I agonized over what to do next. All the actual knitting on this sweater went extremely fast. What worried me was the embroidery, having never attempted to embellish my knitting with decorative stitching before.

Since the pattern did not call for embroidery beyond some simple lines for whiskers and toes, by far the hardest part was figuring out how much, or indeed how little, I should add to the intarsia, which already incorporated texture as well as color, by contrast with the coal black Peruvian highlands wool used in the body of the sweater: brushed Suri alpaca (akin to mohair) in orange, brown, and ivory for the cat, cushy cotton chenille in turquoise for the blanket (or pillow?) that she is curled up on, and on the back ribbon yarn in bright orange for the goldfish scales, and a nubbly chunky wool in dark green for the aquatic plant.

My initial concepts for embellishing the sweater were full of creative inspiration but proved too grandiose, not to say fiddly, and in the end I scaled back quite a bit on the eyelash yarn simulating Frejya's long hair, gave only the barest of outlines to eyes, face, paws, and (on the back) goldfish, and did not attempt to apply whiskers, or (for that matter) fins. I decided to let the cat's whimsical features show through as much as possible. After much deliberation, I chose to omit the dangling tail as well, despite having knitted the intarsia base for it, on the grounds that (a) I could not easily weave in enough eyelash yarn to represent the magnificent plume of a Maine Coon adequately (the breed is described as "the tail with a cat on the end," after all, and see above left), and (b) a tapered appendage hanging down from the side-seam of a garment would present far too great a temptation to our real-life feisty felines, who might attack without warning and damage the sweater (to say nothing of injury to the hapless wearer!!). So my woolen Frejya remains tailless, and contentedly so, at least for now. I reserve the right to change my mind at some point in the future. But in the interest of verisimilitude I should point out that the real Frejya does like to curl up with her tail hidden away underneath her (see above right).

In terms of the actual sweater construction, I kept the turtleneck from the original pattern but converted the raglan sleeves to a set-in style, with straight armholes and a gentle short-row shoulder cap. With its generous outlines and soft fabric, it hangs on me more like a drop-shoulder sweater than anything terribly close-fitted, but the shaping works, and I am delighted with how the garment looks and feels. For all its personality and pizzazz — and yes, that's how I happen to view it, although one friend really did blurt out the question that appears in the heading to this blog post, which simply made me laugh in response — this is also a WARM winter woolly that will serve me well when thermostats are kept low to conserve fuel.

Eventually I will probably sew in a polyester lining, so as to protect the back of the intarsia from abrasion and my dark cotton turtlenecks from stray multi-colored fibers. I have even purchased the black fabric for this, but I have not gotten around to actually doing it yet, in part because I think I want to wear the sweater once or twice as is, before doing anything else to it. Totally typical, hein? Nonetheless, I have been calling this a finished object on Ravelry since March 6th, when I laid down my embroidery scissors and weaved in the last few loose ends, and so I present this photo gallery to mark its completion.

What you see here are wide views of the front and back, followed by close-ups of the neckline, the sleeve shaping, the cat, and the fishbowl. As always, click on any one of these images to view an enlargement.
I just love the goldfish with their *googly* eyes, which I acquired courtesy of the ever-thoughtful Anita, who has a great big bag of them on hand because she often knits sweaters for her grandchildren. :-)

List Mania

OK, let's just come out & admit it: this past school year was NOT terribly kind to my blog on the whole, and it wasn't just coming up for tenure that caused the recurring difficulties. I faced a veritable host of other distractions.

Ghost & Goblin, formerly known due to ringworm as the "plague kittens" or chatonnes de la peste, were finally pronounced fungus-free and released from their long quarantine at the end of February. Here they are shown blissfully sleeping on the first afternoon in their new much more spacious & comfy abode. When the quarantine was lifted, I had a sore back and lot of catching up to do in all the other aspects of my life that had been woefully neglected while I dutifully sat tending baby cats in "The Haunted Loo." I barely remember the month of March, and the rest of the spring went WHOOSH!! Thankfully I managed to stay afloat in all of my courses, but I could tell that I was slowly-but-surely running out of steam. The prospect of a sabbatical from teaching in the coming fall was just about the only thing that kept me going to the end of Winter term. And then I took a group of students abroad to study Roman Italy for 2 1/2 weeks in May, which accounted for about twice that much time in preparation beforehand and afterward in recovery.

So the blog in 2010-2011 has had gaps & hiatuses up one side and down the other. On the up-side, I kept knitting at least, whenever time allowed, meaning that I have quite a lot of nifty stuff to showcase here, now that the summer is offering me a chance to catch up once again.

One way to quantify progress over the last twelve months is to compare what I've gotten done to the seemingly endless catalog of WIP's from June 2010. And the BIG news on that front is that I have now successfully completed eight (*8*) of the twelve (*12*) projects on that list, as follows...

1. Stained Glass Felted Bag: completed in June 2010, within days of the original WIP list and written up here;
   
2. Fiddlehead Mittens: completed in late August 2010, and discussed in the end-of-summer wrap-up here;
3. Candlelight Kimono: likewise completed in late August 2010, and discussed here;
4. Frejya sweater: FINALLY completed in March 2011, and not yet discussed in full;
5. Stornoway: completed in October 2010, and discussed here (with additional photos here);
6. Evenstar: completed in at the end of June 2010, and discussed here;
7. American Beauty: completed in time for Easter 2011, and not yet discussed in full;
8. Elm Row: completed in December 2010, and not yet discussed in full.

Right now the only projects that I have going, and the only WIP's listed on my Ravelry profile, are the remaining four of the original twelve. They actually fit across a single row on my little laptop screen!! I have been waiting a long time to see that happen. Although they are all on separate timetables and at different stages of completion, I have been making as-of-yet undocumented progress lately on two of them in particular, as follows...

1. Unst Stole: currently somewhere ~55-60% complete, with the center (FINALLY!!) and one border segment done. When the 2nd border is finished (sometime in July?), I will have only the edging left to do, and the project will stand at 75% complete. This project may have stalled out a couple of times before, but it is most definitely "over the hump" now, and I fully expect to have it wrapped up by the end of the summer.
   
2. Eriskay: the body is thankfully complete up to the armholes, including the bottom part of the underarm gussets, and I recently divided the stitches for the yoke. I have begun work on the back portion, and hope to have both yokes finished by the end of the summer and the entire sweater by Christmas.
3. Mehndi does not really deserve to be called a WIP, strictly speaking, since all I did in April 2010 was to cast on and knit far enough into the 1st chart to see what the yarn & beads & pattern would look like together. It did not amount to more than just a swatch, in other words, and I am still waiting for the right moment to pick it up and start work in earnest. Look for news sometime later this summer.
   
4. Peggy Tudor has been on hold for a while, waiting for me to get a long list of other things out of the way so that I can concentrate on the next segment. For the sweater is cunningly designed to be assembled out of many small pieces. I am deliberately setting no deadlines for this project, so that I can take it at a natural, unhurried pace and savor the intricacy of the process without ever having to distress myself over it. So while I expect to complete it sometime in 2012, I refuse to make any more detailed forecasts.

Meanwhile, in the past year all of the following additional projects also came and went, whether I have managed to write about them yet or not...

1. Herbert Niebling lace (x2): I did a practice square in crochet cotton and a rectangular piece in gossamer silk from the same pattern, with the latter as a wedding gift for my sister-in-law and her husband. Both were completed in July 2010, as discussed here and here.
2. Frosted Leaf Necklace: with this lovely kit from Earthfaire, I made my first foray into knitting beaded jewelry. It was completed in September 2010 and discussed here.
3. Rivendell Cowl: I splurged with some birthday money and bought the luxury color-shifting yarn to make this showpiece from Susan Pandorf, completed in December 2010, and discussed here.
4. Unikatissima's Lace Advent Calendar: this was a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing knit, completed just after New Year's and discussed here.
5. Continuum Legwarmers: a magnificent design by Sivia Harding, completed in January 2011, and discussed here (sadly my most recent post, prior to this one).
6. Elm Leaves wristlets: made to match Elm Row, completed in February and not yet discussed at all.
7. Garter Rib Socks (a.k.a. "Look Who's Got Tenure Now): my very first pair of socks, completed in early March, and not yet discussed at all.
8. Bunny Mittens: lined in alpaca and exquisitely warm, completed in early March, and not yet discussed at all.
9. Oak Grove Mitts: a design by Anna Dalvi done up in exquisite Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! yarn, completed in mid-March, and not yet discussed at all.
10. Gingerbread House Socks: my 2nd pair ever, with a lovely lace pattern and custom fit to just below the knee, completed in late March, and not yet discussed at all.
11. Eomer Shield Tam: a lovely colorwork pattern and my first ever test-knit for a friend on Ravelry who designed it, completed in late March, and not yet discussed at all.
12. Northern Lights Bracelet: my second beaded jewelry piece, also a kit from Earthfaire, this one using mood beads that change color when the ambient temperature goes up or down. Completed in May, and not yet discussed at all.
13. In Dreams: the second Tolkien-inspired mystery lace KAL by Susan Pandorf, using a custom "gradiance" colorway from The Unique Sheep (that I helped to design) and containing ~5000 beads, completed in June, and not yet discussed at all.
14. Sorrento Sunset: my travel-knitting for the Italy trip with a group of students (see above), completed in June shortly after we returned, and not yet discussed at all.
15. Beaded Blue Cashmere Gloves: my first non-fingerless glove project in luxurious 100% cashmere, completed just this past weekend, and not yet discussed at all.

So I have been a busy little professor in 2010-2011, and no mistake. What is more, even leaving aside any long-term plans and ignoring undue pressure from the back of the queue, I expect to launch at least two new projects in the coming week: a 3rd pair of socks, now that the gloves are off the WIP list (as per My Rules, to which I fully intend to adhere), and a summer KAL from BadCat designs where I will make a circular shawl bringing together gossamer CashSilk leftover from the Princess project, itty bitty 11/0 beads, and (for the first time in my life) nupps. Yes, I said *NUPPS*.

To be perfectly honest, the challenge for me is really not in the knitting, but in the typing, the text-writing, the image-processing, and the web-publishing. I have labored to produce this elaborate catalog today, therefore, as a testimony to the progress that I have made on the knitting side of things, even during the recurring periods of silence. And, more importantly for the sake of the blog, the same can also serve as a To Do list for the next few weeks. Let's see if I can REALLY get caught up by the end of this month, by documenting all my newest work as it happens, and by gradually writing up all the projects that as of right now are not yet discussed in full (= 3 total) or at all (= 10). Clearly I have my work cut out for me...

2.5 out of 3 and counting...

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, I had three knitting goals: (i) to finish the Frejya sweater, tail and all, (ii) to bring Eriskay up to the armholes, and (iii) to get past the heavily beaded bottom segment (= 7.5 pattern repeats in all, ~30 more rows) of Elm Row's second half. Then, I thought, it would be OK to start something new for a chance. And despite the inevitable delays and distractions, I am happy to report that I managed to complete 2.5 of the three during the break. :-)

Frejya is, not surprisingly, the one partial hold-out. I find it very hard to work on the painstaking embellishments when I am tired, which is, alas, almost always the case in these waning days of the fall term, especially right after I get home from work (i.e. during my prime knitting hours). So my progress remains maddeningly slow, but I am encouraged by the extent to which incremental steps continue to be taken. I have finished the face of the cat and one paw (two to go!) and acquired the googly eyes for the goldfish. Anita (The Fiber Artist) and I made an informal pact at our last Odd Tuesday gathering (Nov. 23rd) to complete a sweater each before the next meeting (Dec. 7th), since we both have projects very near to completion that require just one final push to get them "D-U-N done." I intend to wrap up the last few bits of embroidery *today* and then, God willing, to deal with the tail tomorrow (and the next day??), so that I really can wear the sweater to the next Odd Tuesday. Suffice to say that having this perennial project off my "To Do" list would be cause for GREAT rejoicing. As an added reminder that the darn thing is still pending, I am holding off on further photos at least until the embroidery is complete.

Although Frejya went slowly, I got excited about Eriskay and was able to complete not only the diamond pattern in the lower part (which was my original goal) but also the 18-row horizontal band that ends right at the armholes and marks the transition to the ornate yoke. I am following the instructions for the medium size, but added a repeat of the diamond pattern as per the large, once having reassured myself that the amount of yarn on 2 cones of Frangipani would suffice, so that the sweater will have plenty of length below the armholes. I want it to be ample, more like a man's sweater, since that's my preferred modus operandi in the depths of winter. I inherited several sweaters from dear old dad, and wear them often, grateful for the extra coverage. Click on the image above for a closer look at one of the lovely armhole gussets, although I should warn you that the dark plum color (code name "Damson") does not lend itself terribly well to low-light photography. I am waiting for a sunny day to see about getting some better pictures.

With Elm Row, my ambitions were fairly limited as well, but again I managed to exceed my goal by a wide(ish) margin. Happily, once I got going, it did not take long to make my way past the heavily beaded section, and then the work sped up enough for me to do several more pattern repeats. In fact, I surged ahead with it this past week and am now just *6* pattern repeats from the end. Happy dance!! Since the scarf/stole is destined to become a Christmas present, I am reluctant to post pictures of the finished piece until after the holiday, but I have to say that the combination of the graceful design by Anne Hanson, the sunny green-and-brown colorway ("Deep Forest") from The Unique Sheep (also shown here), and the sparkling metallic gold-lined crystal beads from Earthfaire, has proven to be a winner and I think blocking will really open up the lace into something truly special. Anne has also recently come out with this complementary pattern (and yes, I do mean that with an "e," as in "complementary angles"), which I am hoping the remainder of the skein will allow me to make in addition, as the perfect little flourish for the gift.

So where does that leave us in relation to new projects?? Well... I went ahead and joined this Advent KAL, on the grounds that it's not a big time commitment (12-32 rows per day) and will be over in just 3 1/2 weeks. Keeping up with the daily increments will get a lot easier too when classes end next Friday (December 10th). Because it is such a short-term thing, I'm not counting it as a "real" WIP either, but especially with Elm Row suddenly and unexpectedly so close to completion, I'm incredibly reluctant to start anything else until that and Frejya are finally done once and for all, leaving me with *5* of the original dozen, plus the KAL. Then, and only then, will I feel at liberty to cast on for something from my queue. *Almost* there...

Resolution (take that how you will)

I love my walk to work in the morning, because it always gives me a chance to mull things over, like impromptu lesson plans, household To Do lists, or knitting projects past, present, and future.

Today I decided on the best way to handle the growing tension between the need to wrap up WIP's and the urge to start new projects. This coming week, with the Thanksgiving holiday, will be a break from classes and should give me a chance to get some real knitting done. So... If I can manage to complete three simple tasks — (i) finish Frejya finally, tail and all, (ii) get past the heavily beaded section of Elm Row Part II (~35 more rows), and (iii) reach the armholes of Eriskay (all of which are eminently doable and within my grasp) — I will give myself permission to launch one new smaller project, like a pair of mittens or a piece of jewelry. I have a great big pile of such things in my queue, all lined up and ready to go, so now I will have both an incentive to make progress on the longstanding larger items *and* an opportunity to indulge in the easy gratification of colorful and/or shiny things that can be completed in just a day or two.

And if I play my cards right, the total project count won't ever have to go above *7*, which is where it stands right now. I think I can live with that. Happy dance!! :-)

Operating Difficulties

Here at The Faculty Meeting Knitter we have been experiencing operating difficulties lately on a number of fronts.

The trusty old Sony digital camera conked out several weeks ago, for one thing, after nearly eight years of loyal service. I was totally flummoxed by the sudden inability to take pictures. But before choosing a replacement device, I consulted with a friend of mine, a librarian at my college who freelances as a photographer and could therefore speak knowledgeably about all the latest advances in technology. The consumer market has certainly changed a lot! I told her what we wanted (something solid and reliable, and not too expensive, that could run on rechargeable AA batteries, to be used mainly for point-and-shoot but with manual override available), and she came up with several options within our price range. There was a Fuji at the "high-end of the low-end" that won over both me and my husband almost immediately, so we ordered it posthaste, and it arrived with fanfares a few days ago. It offers a dazzling range of features for what felt like an astonishingly low price, but although it is intuitively designed and very easy to use, at least on full-auto, it's going to take a while for me to get fully comfortable with it. This post, alas, will perforce be predominantly text-based.

Here's one nice shot that my husband took, however, showing me with les chatonnes de la peste (female "plague kittens"). That's Goblin in brown & white on the left and Ghost in beige & white on the right. They are growing by leaps and bounds, while steadily overcoming the scourge of ringworm in their bathroom quarantine, affectionately known as "The Haunted Loo" because of their names and the odd thumps and plaintive voices heard from within. Last Monday they went to the vet for a round of vaccinations and weighed in at a respectable 3 lbs. 10 oz. for little Goblin and a whopping 4 lbs. 3.5 oz. for her larger sister. If indeed they are litter-mates, as we surmise, then they are probably the runt and the largest of the lot. I think this picture really brings out the family resemblance between them, especially in the shape of their faces and the patterning around their eyes.

We are determined to raise them as affectionate "people kitties" rather than cooped up, neurotic, anti-social beasts, and so each of us has been spending several hours in the bathroom with them every day. They are *full* of bouncy energy most of the time (and are obviously both avid climbers), but they can also fall very fast asleep, as befits their species and tender age. So we play silly games and give them plenty of quality cuddle-time too. The space is not surprisingly rather cramped, and one is constrained to sit on the floor with minimal cushioning. Fortunately, though, there is wi-fi, so although books and papers (and alas, also knitting) are strictly verboten in the quarantine zone, we rarely go in there without a laptop. Keyboards, screens, and casings can easily be wiped down with 1/10 bleach solution on returning to the outside world, after all. :-)

My husband generally takes the babies their breakfast and spends the morning with them, while I head off to campus, and then I serve them dinner and sit with them in the evening. To prevent contagion, we always change clothes before going in or out of their room, and we bathe ourselves thoroughly with soap and shampoo containing tea tree oil after prolonged contact with them. We also anoint ourselves liberally with this amazing salve throughout the day. So we have managed thus far to ward off rampant skin lesions, and what is more, our six other cats still show no signs of contamination. I don't know how we could manage the worst-case scenario, if the fungus ever got lose into the general population of our household. But so far, so good. Meanwhile the kittens are thriving, and have finally grown big enough to start taking the oral med itraconazole that will eventually clear up the ringworm. In fact it's already had a noticeable effect: in just a few short weeks their bald spots have basically disappeared. They will still need another month or two before the quarantine can be lifted, because our vet wants to play it safe and make them pass two tests in a row, two weeks apart. At that point a new world of "fun" will emerge as we try to soothe and/or cajole the other cats into accepting the newcomers into the clan — but that's another adventure.

As I mentioned, time spent with the kittens has forced me to do less knitting than I would like, since I cannot bring fiber into the quarantine zone without bleaching it afterward, but I still try to squeeze in at least a few rows each day for sanity's sake, if nothing else. My progress has been irritatingly slow, with nothing 100% completed since Stornoway over a month ago. There are, alas, still *7* active projects on my Ravelry profile, and although I would very much like to finish one or two lingering items before launching anything new, mental pressure from the queue is becoming a noticeable distraction. I have are SOOOOO many yummy things all lined up and ready to go. For the time being I am still doggedly working away at what I've got, rather than giving into temptation, but we'll see how long it lasts. Then again, I really could not bear a return to the days of a double-digit project count. Perhaps the best approach is to paraphrase Dory's sage advice and just keep knitting, just keep knitting...

In that spirit, here's a quick rundown of the present State of the Kingdom, with a promise of more to come in the not-too-distant future.

The Frejya sweater is 90-95% complete. Despite my confident projection in the aftermath of Stornoway, I did not manage to have it finished by Hallowe'en. Nor is it quite done yet, even now, with Thanksgiving fast approaching. As always, it is the embellishments rather than the actual knitting that are causing the delay. I did the sleeves top-down using a short-row technique that was quite new to me. It took a bit of fiddling (and yes, tinking) to get the proportions right, but the process still went very fast, and I love the end results. I promise to do a more detailed write-up at some point. I also redid the turtleneck collar to make it more roomy, because repeatedly pulling the sweater on and off over my head while trying on the sleeves convinced me that I should. And then I did some embroidery, outlining the two goldfish on the back in shiny metallic copper thread, and on the front the face, eyes, and nose of the cat in appropriate silky shades of orange, brown, black, and white. I still have to do something about whiskers (but what exactly??), add claw-lines to the two front paws, possibly 0utline the entire body of the cat (although I'm not sure about that and may end up leaving just the face highlighted, depending on how it looks), and add the tail. That's all it needs. It sounds so simple and straightforward when you put it that way...

In fact, the tail itself is already knitted and would be ready to attach, were it not for the need to add the @#$^%!! eyelash yarn to make the cat a Maine Coon. At one point I had imagined knitting with multiple strands of the eyelash yarn, pulling the dangling bits to the RS as I went, but the 2-tone intarsia pattern was complicated enough by itself, without all that extra tangled mess to contend with. So I did the knitting first, and will have to use a darning needle and some version of duplicate stitch again, as I did with the body. After the first few attempts proved unsatisfactory, though, I realized that this was going to be a fussy and time-consuming project and laid it aside to consider my options. To be honest, I have not so much as looked at it for a couple of weeks. But I really will get moving on it again very soon, because I cannot stand to have it looming over me any longer. On Tuesday I will get to see my friend Anita (a.k.a. The Fiber Artist). She has a big supply of googly eyes in various sizes and has offered to give me two of the smaller ones for the goldfish at least, if not a pair of the larger ones for the cat as well, so that will be a nice incentive to finish the embroidery. And maybe this same gathering of the Odd Tuesday fiber folk can even induce me to solve The Dreaded Tail Problem at last. Hope springs eternal...

I knew when I first finished Stornoway that I would be facing a bit of an uphill battle to reduce the number of WIP's further, because apart from Frejya (which was about 2/3 done at the time) and one of my Christmas 2010 lace projects, Elm Row (which remains at ~60%), everything else that I had going was still very much in the early stages (~5-25% complete). But I did *NOT* expect Stornoway itself to keep coming back for more. The dilemma is that my husband has longish arms and likes the sleeves of his sweaters, when stretched, to come all the way down to the the base of his thumbs. As noted in the original post, the pattern as written yielded sleeves that were plainly too short, even after blocking. So I went back and immediately doubled the length of the ribbing at the cuffs, thinking that the ability to adjust them slightly would be enough to fix the problem. Yet when he wore the sweater out-and-about for the first time, with a turtleneck underneath, as opposed to trying it on briefly over a T-shirt, it became abundantly clear to both of us that I would have to lengthen the sleeves even further. Sigh.

Thank goodness for top-down construction!! Adjusting the length of the sleeves would have been extremely troublesome — not to say heart-wrenching — otherwise, but I simply undid the bind-off at the cuffs for the 2nd time, ripped out the ribbing and the transitional decrease row between the sleeve pattern and the cuff, and added 3 1/2" to the bottom part of the sleeve that is worked even, below the decreases. It took maybe 3 hours per sleeve, which I stretched out over 4-5 days. The patterns of Stornoway repeat every 6, 8, and 20 rows, and thus do not all converge very often. The original design had been carefully orchestrated so that the math would come out evenly, and I was loathe to attempt any adjustments for fear of disrupting the Order of Things. Fortunately, however, the 20-row pattern had completely disappeared into the sleeve shaping up above, leaving only the 6-row and 8-row patterns in this lower portion. Those two multiples were *much* easier to coordinate. When I reached the desired length (after 41 additional rows), I did the decrease row as written, and then switched to the smaller needles for an amount of ribbing on this 3rd go-round that was less than I had done the 2nd time but more than the 1st, just enough to fold over for a neat 2". He has tried on the new sleeves and pronounced them worthy at last. It would appear that 3's the charm. Rather than blocking the whole thing over again, I soaked just the ends of the sleeves and allowed them to dangle freely while drying. I promise to get the dear man to pose for some celebratory pictures very soon.

As noted above, Elm Row is my other project nearest to completion, but it has been stuck at ~60% for quite a while, waiting for me to find the time when I can sit still and work on it in a concentrated way again. With my limited knitting time since the arrival of the kittens, I have not managed to do any beading whatsoever. Truth be told, this particular project has *never* lent itself very well to being my main focus, because for whatever reason I cannot seem to work on it except in scattered short bursts. I have started the second half, though, and it will get easier once I finish the first 8 pattern repeats, which are heavily beaded, and begin the main portion, where there are fewer beads and the knitting can speed up a bit. With only two more weeks left of actual classes this semester, maybe some decent blocks of time will finally open up soon. At any rate, there is no reason why I can't have the whole thing done in time for Christmas, as planned, as long as I fix it as a priority and continue to whittle away at it gradually.

By far the biggest surprise in recent weeks, while so many other things have been languishing for lack of attention, is the stunning progress that I have made with Eriskay all of a sudden. I picked it up after finishing off Stornoway for the 3rd time, as something relaxing and relatively straightforward to knit when tired. For November is a *very* tired month in academia... And without ever doing more than a few rows at a time (especially with 320 stitches around on 2.25 mm needles), I have nevertheless managed to bring it within an inch or so of the point where the underarm gussets will begin. That is an amazing feeling, and I look forward to posting pictures very soon to mark the accomplishment.

So... Barring some catastrophe unforeseen, Frejya, Stornoway, Elm Row, and Eriskay will *ALL* be subjected to the new camera in the coming days. Maybe I will even be able to check off one or two more finished objects before the next wave of new projects hits. Good things are certainly on the way, whatever happens, and meanwhile this post should suffice to keep the blog alive while we iron out our operating difficulties. Please stand by.

Frejya at the Crossroads

Some projects just seem to drag on and on for no good reason. My Frejya sweater is one such. I've been working on it — or more to the point NOT working on it — for several years now. Whenever I have actually managed to devote some time to it, the progress has come quickly, but then weeks or even months go by between sessions. It keeps happening. First I stalled over weaving in all the loose ends left behind by the intarsia on the front. That took forever! Then it was the embroidery and embellishment on the front, and some more loose ends on the back. Blah blah blah.

But today, knowing that with Stornoway finished I really have no excuse anymore, I finally put my foot down and made myself get through what needed to be done on the front. Or so I thought...

I was using eyelash yarn with duplicate stitch to give the cat "long hair". It is supposed to be a Maine Coon, after all. My plan was to add orange hairs to the body of the cat and ivory ones to the pale segments at the underside and extremities (chest, abdomen, paws). The *face* posed a real problem, though, because I soon realized that the dangling bits got in the way of the intarsia design and gave the whole thing a muddled appearance. So I had stopped short with the body basically done, while a debate raged internally (literally for months) over what to do next.

Last week I finally filled in the lower part of the abdomen with the ivory, but then on Friday and Saturday, when I tried to do the same with the upper chest, the result looked more like an old man's beard than a fluffy cat's neck ruff. *Ick*. So I took the embellishment away from the chest area. BIG improvement. And today, looking at the whole thing with the cold eye of reason, I came to the same conclusion about the paws, face, abdomen, and entire lower edge. After all that time spend trying to *add* stuff to the sweater in order to get it finished, in other words, today I took a whole bunch of stuff AWAY again. Go figure...

Here is what the "new & improved" front looks like (click for a larger view). Believe it or not, there is actually LESS embellishment on it now than there was a year ago. But at least you can see the adorable pussycat underneath it all, and the effect is more authentically Maine Coon-ish than before too, since the long hair is confined to the places where it would appear on a real cat. I could grumble all day and all night about why in the world it took me so @#$^!! long to decide that less is more, but the observation would be moot. Clearly I needed time, and a string of failed experiments, to reach this point. I will probably still use embroidery floss to outline the face and pick out certain details of the features (eyes, nose, ears, whiskers, claws, etc.). Or not, I suppose, depending on how it looks. But that final experiment means another trip to the craft store, and meanwhile I am done with the eyelash yarn. Huzzah!

Moreover, I am also done with the intarsia on the back of the sweater: a whimsical goldfish bowl motif for which I used some interesting textures (ribbon yarn held double for the fish scales, and a wonderful nubbly green yarn for the aquatic plant) in addition to the blue of the water (a different color of the same Wool of the Andes that is providing the black background) and the silver gray that represents the glass of the fishbowl (a bit of wool/rayon blend from my stash). As of this evening, the ends are all woven in too.

Which means that aside from the little bits of embellishment remaining to be added, which will have to wait for a shopping trip to purchase appropriate colors of embroidery floss (i.e. orange, rust, white, black, and ivory), and the cat's fluffy tail, which is a separate little knitting project all on its own, to be set aside for some afternoon/evening in the not-too-distant future, whenever I feel like it, it is now OFFICIALLY a matter of plain black stockinette knitting to finish the upper portion of the back and then the sleeves.

So we've really turned a crucial corner here. I feel totally confident now that this baby is going to be done done D-U-N DONE by Hallowe'en!!! :-)

"In the first week of summer, a knitter on a spree made progress with these WIP's..."

*TWELVE*.

That's how many weeks are left now until school starts again at the end of August.

It's also how many WIP's (i.e. works-in-progress) I currently have piled up on my Ravelry profile. I just took total stock for the first time in a while. Eeeep!! Obviously there's no one else to blame for this over-exuberance. I let it happen, and I am not afraid to admit that. Yet even though I saw myself giving into a certain amount of "start-itis" over the past couple of months, I never meant to let it get quite so much out of hand. I guess that's what comes from not really keeping count of new projects, or more accurately from discounting (i.e. ignoring) certain long-term ongoing — I suppose the technical term is hibernating— ones.

But however this absurd / lamentable / crazy-making state of affairs came about, there is clearly no good reason why it should be allowed to continue. So... I have decided to dedicate the bulk of my summer knitting this year to wrapping up as many works-in-progress as I can. One of them I actually expect to finish as soon as today or tomorrow, and several more by the end of this month. July and then August will each see their share of completions in turn as well. Yet tempting as it might seem to do some simplistic math and set up an elaborate, regimented scheme for getting them *all* done by the end of the summer (e.g. 12 projects / 12 weeks = 1 project per week on average), I WILL NOT GO THERE. It would be silly, unrealistic, and joy-killing in the extreme to put that kind of undue pressure on myself. The projects are at different stages of development, ranging from 95% complete to just getting started. Some of them will no doubt continue into the fall/winter and beyond, but the goal is to make demonstrable headway on each and every one of them in the next dozen weeks.

Plain old common sense dictates that I adopt such a plan, and there is a financial incentive too. I would like to avoid undue expenditures wherever possible, and it should be easy to stay on track with so much already in the works to keep me occupied sans new purchases. I do have a wish-list, of course (what knitter doesn't?), most notably including Silk Thread or maybe Silk Thread II from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in one of the Raven colorways for Anne Hanson's Irtfa'a farose shawl and Gossamer CashSilk from Heirloom Knitting in *black*, which they recently made available partly at my urging. I would also like to acquire a woolly board for the guernseys when the time comes. But all of these things can wait until August, when I should have some birthday money to throw around.

Meanwhile there are these twelve ongoing projects spread out here in front of me, including five lace pieces (four beaded and one gossamer), five sweaters, a pair of colorwork mittens, and a felted bag. My goals for each of them are as follows. Click on any of the image thumbnails to get a closer look...

[1] At the very top of the list, because it is the closest of the entire bunch to being 100% finished, comes my Ravelympics 2010 Stained Glass Felted Bag. It was all but wrapped up back in February, needing only a lining and shoulder straps to pronounce it "D-U-N done." I even purchased some appropriately cheerful lavender lining fabric weeks ago, but then I did not get a chance to tackle the actual cutting and sewing until just yesterday. It was a tricky little bit of seamstress work, if I do say so myself, and I will devote an entire post to the finishing process, also including the knitting, felting, and attachment of the shoulder straps, as soon as the project is successfully completed. It will be nice to check off at least one item right away. :-)

[2] The second item is actually new to the blog. Somehow I never got around to mentioning it, but right after the Ravelympics I started a pair of the ever-popular Fiddlehead Mittens using some jewel-toned Borgs Vävgarner S.N. 2 garn from the depths of my stash. I got the body of one mitten done in short order and ordered some yummy alpaca yarn for the linings, before my life became too hectic and the weather too warm to think about mittens anymore. So I put the project away for a while. The first one did not take more than a day or two to knit, though, so I will get the second one finished at some point during the summer, whenever the mood strikes, and then try to have them both lined and ready to wear before the snow flies. No huge rush on this project, then, but not a big deal to wrap it up either.

[3] I may have waited nearly 20 years to say it, but as I mentioned in a recent post, the lavender-blue silk Candlelight Kimono is happening VERY fast. Sometime in the next few days I should actually have the back finished and start the two fronts. After that it will require only short little sleeves and some careful blocking and sewing to ensure a proper fit and drape to the fabric. But even so, I will be frankly *astonished* if I do not have the option of wearing this sweater for the July 4th holiday.

[4] Based on actual start-dates (as opposed to yarn acquisition), the single longest-standing item on the incomplete list is my sweater tribute to Frejya, our fluffy orange Maine Coon cat. The front took me no more than a week to knit, but that was 3 years ago!! First I procrastinated mightily over weaving in all the loose ends produced by the intarsia. Then I took almost as long again with the duplicate-stitch embroidery. But the latter is 85% complete, and I will see to it that it gets the rest of the way done during June. I have already started the back of the sweater, which is slated to have a goldfish bowl on it. More intarsia and embroidery there, alas, but thankfully on a smaller scale than the front. So I will aim to complete the knitting in July and the embellishments in August. Then (mirabile dictu) the sweater will need only sleeves and a collar — oh, and a fuzzy dangling Main Coon cat-tail!! I would love love L-O-V-E to wear it at Christmas. So help me, then, oh ye Gods of needlework, this project *will* be done in 2010...

[5] My husband's Stornoway is coming along nicely, though at a rate consistent with the 2.5 mm (US size 1+) gauge, and is now missing only the sleeves. I recently acquired the 24" circular needle required for the upper portion of the arms and have picked up the first round of sleeve stitches. My goal is to finish one sleeve in July and the other in August, thus ending Phase I of the Great Guernsey Adventure, which was launched here last July. Since I fully expected the His & Hers project to take at least a year all along, everything looks to be more or less right on schedule.

[6] Since I did not actually cast on for my Eriskay until late November, I do not expect to finish it anytime soon. But I have made quite a bit of progress on it lately, since completing the ribbing. In fact, the body now measures 6 1/2" , which is already more than halfway to the base of the armhole gussets!! So I will try to reach the armholes sometime in the next few weeks and maybe get through the front and back yokes (or at least one of them) by the end of the summer. Then again, I am not in any great hurry and can always recalibrate the timetable if need be.

[7] The fifth and final sweater on the list, which I have dubbed "Peggy Tudor," went into quasi-hibernation in early October, when I completed the second of the four large body panels and laid the next two aside in deference to other things. I have deliberately never set any timetable for this painstaking (dare I say 'monumental'?) project, preferring to emphasize quality over quantity in my overall approach to it. I do not want it to go on forever, though, and it would be nice to start seeing some real progress again in the not-too-distant future. Indeed I would like see if I could have all the remaining body pieces done by the end of the summer. That's two side panels and four openwork panels, so not entirely out of reach, depending on how the time goes. As with Eriskay, though, I will take stock of things in July and adjust my expectations as needed. I will order the buttons before long, though, following the lead of a fellow Raveler who put me onto this magnificent solution to the otherwise vexing button problem. So the work goes on...

[8] Among the lace projects, the one closest to completion is the Evenstar. As described in my recent update, I continue to plug away at the beaded edging, a few points at a time. I try to do at least a little bit every day. Sometime very soon, although I won't pledge myself to an exact date, I should reach the halfway point. My goal is to finish the shawl in time for my sister-in-law's wedding in mid-July. I should manage it with ease, if I just keep working at the slow-but-steady pace that I have established.

[9] The American Beauty shawl could move up and become my "front-line" beaded project when the Evenstar is out of the way, but I will not force the issue if other things seem to take priority instead. I am enjoying it immensely, as I intimated not long ago, and I fully intend to savor it for as long as it lasts. So I will continue to work on it whenever the mood strikes and trust it to keep growing at a reasonable rate without applying any undue pressure. This is one where the best plan will be to set no timetable whatsoever and simply let nature take its course.

[10] Remember the Unst Stole? I have done nothing and said nothing about it for a very long time, but I have not lost sight of this delicate piece that I started last summer as a kind of coda to the Princess Shawl. It was driven into hibernation by the sudden arrival of beaded lace, and then kept there by a succession of other projects that came along to grab my attention. Truth be told, I was ready for a break from gossamer knitting after the Princess, even though it took me several weeks of gradual "detox" to realize it, whereby I started this follow-up project. But the better part of a year has gone by since then, and I have been meaning for a while now to pick up the 1.5 mm (US size 000) needles and get back to work. The Platinum colorway in the Gossamer CashSilk has always reminded me of Tolkien's mithril, full of magic and mystery and lore. I have done two full repeats so far of the complex alternating body pattern, and it will need either 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 repeats in all, plus the second "frame" band, before I can move on to the diamond border that is my favorite aspect of the design. I am reluctant to set a firm goal before actually taking a hand to it, so that I can get a sense of how a reasonable pace will look/feel, but roughly speaking let's watch for me to start knitting it again during June and to finish the body in July/August. Then I will work on the borders, and I might aim to have the rest done by mid-winter or spring break. Something like that, anyway.

I have not written about the last two items on the list. They are both beaded lace and belong to the Christmas 2010 Project. I don't think either of the intended recipients pays any attention to my blog, but I will try not to give too much away here. There is more information on my Ravelry profile.

[11] I started working with this skein of Unique Sheep Eos (50% merino, 50% tussah silk) in late March. It is in the Earthfaire-exclusive colorway called "Deep Forest," and I am making a beaded lace scarf/stole with a delicate motif appropriately based on woodsy foliage. The pattern comes from one of my favorite designers. I am nearing the halfway point already and hope to have the whole thing done by August 1st or thereabouts.

[12] Last but not least, I had no business casting on for Yet Another Beaded Lace Project, but I had been thinking about this one and looking forward to it for so long that I finally gave in a few weeks ago and got started anyway, just to see what it would look like. I am using a 100% organic cotton yarn (Pakucho Lace) from EcoButterfly and some magatama beads in a drop-dead gorgeous colorway called garnet-lined transparent topaz AB. The pattern comes from another one of my favorite designers. I have done only a few inches so far of what will eventually be a substantial stole, but it is very open lacework on 3.25 mm (US size 3) needles, so the knitting should go quickly when I finally get a chance to focus on it, which is highly unlikely to happen until August.

So I have my work cut out for me, as the saying goes. To recap the stated goals in a slightly different (i.e. chronological) format:

• this week: finish the felted bag and the back of the kimono, keep working on the Evenstar;
• by the end of June: finish the kimono and the front of the Frejya sweater, reach the armholes of Eriskay, keep working on the Evenstar, get back to the Unst stole;
  
• by mid-July: finish the Evenstar;
• by the end of July: make the 2nd Fiddlehead mitten, finish knitting the back of the Frejya sweater, one sleeve of Stornoway, and the "Deep Forest" stole;
  
• by the end of August: embroider the back of the Frejya sweater, finish the second sleeve of Stornoway and at least one yoke of Eriskay, plus the body portions of both Peggy Tudor and the Unst stole, make some progress on the EcoButterfly stole.
• along the way: keep working on American Beauty, whenever I feel like it...

*Phew*. That was a long haul, and no mistake. But it feels really good to have typed all this up. For one thing, the blog is now completely up-to-date. No more "hidden" or undocumented projects lurking in the wings!! What a relief. It is always a balancing act between knitting and blogging, but maybe now that I don't have to focus quite so much on catching up with the latter, I can spend a bit more time on the former. From now on, periodic updates throughout the summer can refer back to this post by way of holding myself accountable for the goals that I have set. I have placed a convenient marker beside each of the twelve entries to facilitate that process via precise hyperlinks.

Of course, setting goals can be dangerous, especially when you declare them publicly. If I should fall behind at any point, however, let me say right up front that there will be no guilt or recrimination, only adjustments to the timetable. After all, more than anything else I need this to be FUN and RELAXING. :-)

A Ravelry Moment

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember my Frejya sweater, which I am making in honor of the eldest of our three Maine Coone cats. I have been working on it in fits and starts for a long time, mostly turning to it at interludes between other projects. At the moment I am almost through with the embellishments for the front (using an eyelansh yarn in duplicate stitch to add long hair to the mohair intarsia pussycat), and I have also completed several inches of knitting for the back. My goal is to have it all finished and ready to wear by the end of next summer.

The pattern comes from the book pictured here: Cat Knits by Melinda Coss (St. Martin's Press, c. 1988), a charming collection of feline-inspired sweater designs which I purchased in college at my beloved LYS (now long out of business).

Well... The other day on Ravelry, I got a comment on my Frejya sweater FROM THE DESIGNER HERSELF, complimenting me on my work and saying that it looks like her own "late, great Gingypop," i.e. the orange cat after whom she named the original pattern ("Gingypop Tweed Raglan Sweater").

What a beautiful surprise!! I felt elated to receive such high praise out of the blue, especially when I checked her profile and discovered that Melinda Coss has left the design business and is currently living in France: not only are we talking about a design from over 20 years ago, but it's an international connection as well. I was moved almost to tears to hear her speak in such warm, nostalgic tones about her own beloved pet. Despite the distance in time & geography, I recognized the sentiment immediately, since my husband & I certainly dote on our animals. It had always been precisely that love that shone through in the design and that convinced me (by identifying myself with the point of view of the pattern's creator) to make the sweater to honor our dear Frejya. I had always known that only a real Cat Person could have conceived of the sweaters in that book, but back in the days before the Internet, the chances of ever meeting or making contact with the designer were vanishingly small. You simply got inspired and enjoyed the project in your own little bubble of friends & family.

And for the designer in turn, I can only imagine that the situation was even more isolating: you labored long & hard to produce your best creative work, and if you were lucky you got it published & sent out into the wide world. But after that, beyond the vague hope that other people might be inspired by your work, and the disconnected sense that book sales must equal approval, how could you ever really KNOW what had become of your designs??

This is *exactly* the sort of magic that Ravelry brings off effortlessly. A designer need only run a quick search for his/her name, and suddenly a whole world-wide gallery of projects appears. The inspiration is real and tangible. Knowing this, I replied immediately in the warmest possible terms. I have not yet heard back, but at least there was that moment of sympathy and mutual admiration.

Thank you, Ravelry.

A Sweater for Frejya (or rather in her honor)

I purchased the book Cat Knits by Melinda Coss about 20 years ago when I was still in college (it was published in 1988) and then tucked it away. By now it's definitely one of those familiar objects that I only vaguely remember ever having acquired.

One particular design always appealed to me as a possible queue item. You can sing along: "Someday my yarn will come...". The turtleneck sweater features a cheerful tabby cat on the front (complete with whimsical dangling tail!) and a fishbowl with two goldfish on the back. I never really contemplated actually making it, though, until our first pure-blood Maine Coone arrived in 2002. A great big fat orange sassy lady who goes by the name of Frejya (our two boy Maine Coones are Wodin and Thor), she is the spitting image of the cat on the sweater, as you can see from these two photos. Click on either image to get a closer look.

Can you honestly tell which one is the real cat??

Alright, maybe that's going a bit too far, but in all seriousness, the design suits our girl to an impeccable T.

Oh, look! Just as I was typing that last sentence the eponymous lady herself came waddling into the room (that really is the only verb to describe her manner of locomotion) to say hello before curling up on her favorite rocking chair for her afternoon snooze. She snores rather loudly, I'm afraid. It's an unbecoming habit.

The original sweater pattern called for a tweedy background, but not finding anything that I liked well enough in that line I opted instead for plain solid black wool. I chose the remaining yarns in a WIDE variety of textures to accentuate the decorative elements of the pattern design: 3 shades of fuzzy mohair w/ coordinating eyelash embroidery for the cat (see below), a turquoise cotton chenille for the pillow/blanket underneath, varieageted orange ribbon yarn for the scales of the two goldfish on the back, a nubbly dark green boucle for the plant in the fish bowl, pale blue wool for the water, and a metallic silver worsted weight yarn that I dredged up out of the depths of my stash for the outline of the bowl itself. They're all listed on Ravelry for those who are interested in the details. I bought *way* too much. So there will almost certainly end up being a hat, scarf, and mittens to match.

What else? Lemme see...

I first began this project about two years ago. It took a little while to select and assemble all the different yarns from their various sources, but the intarsia pattern for the front took no more than a week to knit. I'm not kidding. Whoosh. It goes that way sometimes.

When it was finished the WS was an absolute NIGHTMARE, with something on the order of 10 *squizillion* loose ends in various colors and textures that each had to be carefully secured first and then woven invisibly into the back side of the fabric. I will not lie: weaving in loose ends is the aspect of knitting that appeals to me least of all, and I simply could not stand to work on this particularly egregious specimen for more than a few minutes at a time. So then the entire project went into hibernation for over a year while I slowly picked away at those ends with a crochet hook and a pair of embroidery scissors. Not fun, but perseverence pays off...

By the middle of last summer the WS was finally all cleaned up (hooray!), and I started in on the embroidery, which is picky work in its own way too, but much more creatively satisfying.

Why all the fuss with embroidery? I want to make the knitted cat look as much as possible like a Maine Coone, for Frejya's sake. Browsing for yarns online, I had the clever idea that a shiny eyelash yarn could imitate the long hair typical of the breed. Early experiments with knitting the eyelash yarn into the fabric alongside the mohair, however, made a horrible tangled mess of the eyelash strands. Undaunted, I then came up with the alternate plan of applying the embellishment by hand using duplicate stitch after the knitting with the mohair was complete. I would guess that I am now ~75% finished with that painstaking task, which has to be done one eyelash at a time for optimum placement and distribution of the strands.

I was afraid at one time that the final effect might look garish or too hoaky, but the entire sweater is so whimsical and over-the-top silly that a little extra glitz doesn't seem to hurt a bit.

Be thankful for small blessings. At least I stopped short of RHINESTONES & SEQUINS!!