Notes from the Knitting Front
Note 1: Artichaut's yarn donation towards my being broke has arrived. Yay free yarn! It's Lion Brand Wool Ease in a cranberry red color that looks great on me.I want to make this shawl collar sweater from Vogue Holiday Knits 2003 (the one with the big flower on one of the collar edges). But it calls for a bulky boucle weight yarn, and this is a worsted. Also, I'm broke. And while I could run out and get me 5 skeins of Lionbrand Homespun, that's just not the same. It's also icky. It's just icky. Nothing more to say.
So, I thought maybe I'd just make the largest size on smaller needles. Denied! On 10s, I get a gauge of 4 stitches to an inch. I need 3 an inch to get a good gauge.
So, I used my Knitware to chart out the exact same pattern as worsted weight yarn. And as a seamless raglan sweater. Not because I think it would look better as a design element or anything. Because I'm lazy and I hate sewing in ends.
My main concern is that the pattern calls for 5.5" of ribbing (!) to create a sort of empire waist look, also eliminating any possibility of waist shaping. Which, frankly, I need. Unles I want to have it cropped and hit above my hips, so then I have problem of showing my belly button to the world when I scratch my head or something. I wish Vogue had a picture on their site I could hotlink to. Damn cheapskates! What you can't see without a copy of the magazine is a) the terrible angle that the photo was taken, thus obscuring details of the sweater and b) with the bulky boucle, the ribbing is completely hidden.
Maybe I'll just my usual 2" of ribbing and some waist shaping.
Note 2: I picked up my backordered copy of Interweave Knits Winter 2003. It has the fabulous fair isle sweater. The only sweater I would ever consider making. See! It's GORGEOUS!. I would love to make it (minus the bottom details - unwanted attention to unhappy areas). I would love to use my 700 yards of nice. black. wool. worsted for it, too. But that's not enough to be a base color and I don't want a white/red/blue sweater with black decorations! It should be the other way around! Le sigh...
Note 3: I went to the Library of Congress to check out Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting. It was kind of an ordeal. I mean, there's always the ordeal of the WMATA system. Oy. Then I got into the library of congress, past the security checkpoint and realized I had no reader card. Security checkpoint to make sure I wasn't stealing books, out of the building, across the street, through another security checkpoint, two forms and 15 minutes later, I had a card with a not too bad picture of me on it. Another security checkpoint, out of the building, across the street, security checkpoint, coat and bag check, winding hallway, bought a copy card, up an elevator, talk to the nice reference librarian, who tells me I'm in the wrong building.
Down the elevator, through the secret hallways under the building, up 6 floors, talk to a slightly less nice librarian man, and I have 40 minutes to kill before my book is ready, a mini golf pencil and a blank piece of paper, while everyone else around me is courageously studying with their computers, stacks of musty books and notebooks. I feel kind of silly getting a knitting book from the library of congress now.
After five minutes of antsyness, I went back through the rabbit hole, retrieved my backpack from coatcheck, and ran back to the Madison building 5 minutes later to find my book sitting at my station. Maybe 40 minutes means 15 to the federal government, I thought it was the other way around.
So, I look through the book. And it's terrible. I mean, terrible. The cables are GORGEOUS, I mean, talk about knitting PORN! But the patterns are absolutely disgusting and the hats are even worse. Blech, I want to say, but everyone else is studiously reading their business records of when President Reagan's chef bought cheese. And I'm sitting there with a very thin book about knitting.
The pattern I was looking for (it was a fairly simple sweater with a cabled shawl collar- the name eludes me) wasn't there. It was in Part 1 of the Viking Collection at Knit & Stitch, but not the only book the library of congress has under the name Lavold that's not in Swedish. Apparently, the books are vastly different. This irks me. Mainly because I didn't like anything else in that book and so it's not worth buying. Maybe I'll buy it and sell it on ebay. Or something.
This irks me. I'm irked. I don't suppose anybody owns the book, knows what I'm talking about and wants to send me a photocopy?
Note 4: Having a 40.5" bust is the most vexing thing ever. Because everything is made to measure 40" total. And while it could be the same and you'd just deal with a close fitting garment, with a sweater where you'd want an inch or two of ease, you either get -.5" or 3.5".
Vexing.
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