The Last of Freya

So much to share!

First, Freya. She probably could have used still more ease (I'm now convinced it couldn't have been just the sports bra -- I think I also seriously underestimated how much ease the design needed), but it looked so good on her as is, Freya went to Mom:

Anonymom.



Together, we chose the greenish buttons:




And a final look at those cables (I just love them):




Why am I not more upset that it doesn't fit me?

Well, partly because this yarn was on a super sale, and when I bought it, I bought so much that there is actually enough left to make another Freya and 1/2. Not that I plan to make another one, at least not immediately.

But mostly because this is par for the course.

I have made four sweaters ever -- not counting kid sweaters, which are pretty much guaranteed to fit at some point -- and none of them has worked out as planned:

1.) A cabled vest thing (out of some truly awful seafoam acrylic yarn -- what was I thinking???), knit before I understood that there was a thing called "tension." It was supposed to be for me, but it could have fit my Dad. Perhaps two of him, which is saying something. I was a teenager, and the older ladies of the lunchtime "Happy Hookers" club (risque, eh?) I occasionally attended were highly amused. This put me off knitting for a while.

2.) The Doctor's Sweater. Also quite a while ago. He chose the yarn. He chose the pattern. What seemed like a few years later, I finished. The neck was too tight and the sleeves were several inches too short. I think I said I would fix it, but he claimed that the yarn was a good deal more scratchy than he thought it would be, so even if I fixed it, he probably wouldn't wear it that much. (!!!) At the time, I was a little . . . uh . . . disappointed. (In him? In the sweater? Who knows.) But now I think he probably realized that it was beyond my powers to fix, and so he'd better get out now and blame it on the yarn. That one is still somewhere in the Doctor's closet, never worn except for the one time the Doctor tried it on. This also put me off knitting for a while.

3.) A top-down raglan, using one of the "Custom Fit Your Raglan" pyramid schemes out there on the web. It fits, in that I can fit into it. It doesn't fit, in that it looks just awful. Baggy in all the wrong places. Too tight in others. (Have no idea how I managed it!) I can't wear it so much in public, but it is good for keeping warm 'round the house. (Wool.) Too bad it is dry-clean only, because that is a lot of trouble and expense for a cr$ppy jumper one only wears at home. Increasingly cr$ppy with each wearing, as it pills. Gobs and gobs of pills already, and the thing was knitted only a year ago. That being said, this one did not put me off knitting. Probably because it was kinda, sorta wearable.

4.) Freya. You know the story there. Totally wearable. Just not by me. I am not put off knitting one jot.

Better luck next time?

I rather thing so. Because if there's any pattern at all to my adventures in knitting bad sweaters, it is that each sweater is a distinct improvement over the last.

Hopefully that is actually the case -- as opposed to a delusion, which is also possible.

You see, I have my eye on a new sweater, and this one I think I would actually be more-than-miffed if I messed it up.

I don't have the pattern yet, but I am given to understand it will be in my super-splurgey holiday gift to myself.

Which hasn't arrived.

But I'll give you a hint.

It begins with "Aran" and ends with "Knitting."

(Gack! I can't believe I bought it either.)

More soon. (I made out like a bandit.)

This Is What Greed Will Get You

Freya is definately going to be too small.

Not by much, but by just enough.

I am still in the mode where I'm trying to think up clever ways to increase Freya's size so that I can keep her for ME. (So far, I've had plenty of ideas but none have been particularly clever.)

Probably, though, someone I know is going to get an unexpected extra Winter Gift Exchange 2006 present.

Criminy.

I Must Have Been Wearing a Sports Bra

Freya is dry! Huzzah!

Only a few snagged stitches (courtesy of the cats*, who several times defeated the shield o' towels), all easily fixed. Huzzah!

I think she can be ready for the party on Saturday! Huzzah!

I'm afraid she may be too small! Baroo?

Ugh.

I won't be completely sure until I'm done with the seaming, button bands, etc.

But at some point between the pre-knitting measuring and now, I seem to have grown significantly in the bust.

What?

I suppose for most ladies this would not be viewed as a problem, but for the greedy-knitter-of-sweaters-for-oneself . . .

Well.

I can't think how this happened. The only thing that comes to mind as a possibility is that perhaps I might have been seriously not thinking when I took my measurements and, as the title says, been wearing a sports bra.

So Freya will definitely have less ease than planned for. (Or, rather, I will have more bust.) Hopefully there will still be enough. (Ease, not bust. I got plenty of bust.) Won't know that until I try it on.

The sunny side of things is that, if it doesn't fit me, I have about a billion female relatives who are -- each and every one of them -- smaller than me.

So if Freya doesn't look fabulous on me, probably it will look fabulous on one of them.

Frankly, even if Freya does look fabulous on me, it will probably look even better on them -- each and every one of them.

They are all -- each and every one of them -- WAY better looking than me.

I must be a changeling.

But enough of that.

Anyway, I'm seeing nearly all of them on Saturday, so one way or another, Freya will have a home.

But what have I been working on in the meantime?




Another Baby Surprise Jacket (surprise!), this one for the Strategic Baby Handknits Reserves.




Rowan Felted Tweed in Pine and Herb. It still needs seams, but I'm going to wait on the buttons, probably until there's a baby for it.

*Now that's karma for you. (Or for me, rather.) Classic example of entirely appropriate cause-and-effect. I neglect to trim their claws because I am "too busy" knitting Freya. Freya gets snagged. I have no one but myself to blame.

While You Were Drying

The blocking of Freya continues. She must be somewhat dryer than she started (she must, right???), but it sure doesn't feel that way. I had hoped to wear her to a party this coming Saturday, but that is seeming less and less likely.

Possible.

But not likely.

In the meantime, I am kicking around some ideas for other green washable yarn candidates. I swatched and washed the Rowan Felted Tweed, and found that when they say the "gentle" cycle, they really mean it. Probably the stuff should be called "Rowan Only Partially Felted Tweed." It doesn't shrink dramatically or anything like that (at least not on the "gentle" setting), but it clearly wants to be slightly more felted than it is. Which means that if the sweater accidentally went through the regular cycle with everything else . . . disaster. So. Anyone tried the Valley Superwash from Webs?

On another front, the Doctor asked me for a hat, um, a while ago. (Last January!)

I had cast on for a double-knitted hat like Alison's months ago, but the yarn (127 Print) just wasn't working very well with the double-knitting technique. Or at least not with my double-knitting technique, which admittedly is lacking. 127 Print is a single ply, and I kept snagging just a few fibers every time I slipped a stitch. And there's one slip for every single darn stitch. The hat (all one inch of it) was looking pretty ragged. Also note the yarn is not so nice after frogging.

I was so down about the whole thing that I wasn't even considering it to be a real project.

But here I have some time on my hands. (Not really!) So I picked it up again.

I still wanted the functionality of double-knitting -- although I didn't need the double-knit stripes; my yarn would do that for me. But I wanted the hat to be two layers thick, reversible, and I wanted my cast-on edge to have all the stitches (extra stretchy) rather than later picking up another set of stitches for the inner hat / lining.

I figured I would have just enough time to re-start and finish this in perfect time for Freya to dry.

But I'm already done.

Two hats in one!
The Doctor likes the teal side best, but I'm partial to the black.


And . . . Freya is still quite damp.

But she could be dry any time now. (Really, she could!)

So I really can't start working on anything too big.

I'm actually considering weaving in some of those ends on that pink and green mitered square baby blanket . . .

Anything, really to avoid working on that scarf for V.

(Most of our "Winter Gift Exchange 2006" is actually happening in early 2007, so I've got plenty of quality procrastination ahead.)

Blocking and Buttons

Major combat operations are ended:




But the blocking process could very easily devolve into a quagmire.

Conditions on the ground are not conducive to drying:




And I need to up-armor the knitting to prevent damage from insurgent attacks:

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! (N.B. that this happened in the approximately only 10 seconds I left the knitting to get the shield o' towels.)



I suppose I wouldn't really mind them shedding all over my nice clean sweater. I do have the tools to deal with cat hair on clothing.

But the felines don't know the meaning of the word "gentle":

The shield o' towels, after only a few hours.



So if I want a sweater and not a pile of rags at the end of all this, the towels are probably necessary.

Hopefully Freya won't mildew before it dries!

In the meantime, I'm thinking about buttons:




I was leaning toward the white four-holed ones, but the greenish ones keep catching my eye.

Anyone out there have an opinion?

Beyond All Expectation

Can you believe it?

I have plowed through both sleeves of Freya and have started the left front:

Bad lighting -- this really is yellow.


Nothing can distract me. (Ha! You might have guessed that the green yarn I'm waiting for still hasn't arrived.) And a closer look at that cable:

Both easier and harder than it appears.


My row tension is still a wee bit off, and I'd like the sweater to be the slightest bit shorter than designed, so I've made some minor modifications. Hopefully they will work out. If not, there will be an awful lot of frogging in my future.

Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (what I'm using) is really nice. Very soft, a little nubby, nice sheen. And on sale (All hail the mighty Webs!), which makes it all even better.

Here's a proper picture of the color:

The Wages of Impatience

I am awaiting a delivery of several skeins of green Cascade 220 Superwash for a sweater. Not this one, as you might imagine. Something more like this. (No, sadly, not for me. It will be much too small.)

But I am impatient, and I don't want to work on that scarf, or [insert any one of the shameful number of other ongoing projects here], etc. I want to work on a sweater. One for me, frankly. That would be ideal. But Posy just won't cut it, since there's no way that I'm wearing that for months (cotton lace, in winter?). And what I like best about this sweater idea is the fantasy of wearing the thing very, very soon. (I say "fantasy," because when have I ever finished any new project "very, very soon?")

So . . . I've started Elsebeth Lavold's Freya. (Or Freja, depending on where you're from.) Pattern is in Viking Patterns for Knitting. There aren't a whole lot of examples of this one in the blogosphere, but here's one over at Fiber Dreams, if you're curious about what it's supposed to look like. (Mine, of course, will be yellow.)




I've sped through the back already. Just started a sleeve. My working theory is that if I finish the not-so-interesting pieces first (the back and sleeves are almost entirely stockinette), then I won't drop the project for months and months once I'm done with the extremely interesting fronts. We'll see how that goes.

I guess I'll worry later about what to do when that green yarn arrives.