"The Pattern's in the Mail"

I ordered the pattern for this sweater:



It's the cable Aran pattern of my Irish family heritage complete with descriptions of the symbolic meanings of the cables and my family crest.

But... they (ClanAran.com) emailed me back to say that their sweaters and patterns have been more popular than they had imagined and everything's been taking a month longer than usual to get out.

I wish they could just scan and email it to me then. Don't they have scanners in Ireland?

Anyway.... I'll continue to wait for my pattern in the mail - and perhaps I'll do the saxton scarf in the meantime or something else to ease my cable cravings.

progress report: slow

there's a gnarly underarm gusset on the left sleeve but i'm too embarrassed to show it. took me six tries, that one sleeve.

i ordered a pair of 47" long circular needles anticipating the joining of the sleeves. i suspect i won't have them satisfactorily knitted until second week of march. i'll try to post pictures of whatever little progress i make. i hope to see yours in the meantime.

a finish line?

should we make an arbitrary deadline for the knit along to end?

I've almost completed the back of my sweater and the thought of doing two sleeves and the front seems a distant goal, not to mention the fact that my motivation level always drops severely after gettting the first chunk done. If I had a deadline to meet, it might - MIGHT - gift me the boost to get it all done. Otherwise it may be on my needles til next year. What do you all think - or should I just shut my mouth and knit....?

at a stand still

i've got no progress to report. i do have this link to share.

i hope your projects are going well.

short ribs

Here is a really bad pic of the short ribbing on my sweater

it actually looks ok in this picture. I think the more length I get to the sweater the better I'll like it...

to rib, or not to rib.....

After much ado, I decided to start my sweater with the handpainted yarn with the color that Im not crazy about. I dont know if my pattern is technically "aran" but it consists of a series of a few cables virtually butted up against each other across, creating a really nice deep texture. (Photo to come - digital camera issues). My question for you all is - Im really not a big fan of long ribbing at the bottom of my sweaters, and this pattern shows that. I tried my sample pattern swatch with no ribbing, but its too wavy across, so i started my sweater with only 4 rows of ribbing , just to pull the bottom edge in a bit. Now I think it looks odd, but maybe its just me. Have any of you done a sweater with short ribbing?
hey - kudos to thuy and holly for figuring out the stitch issue... gosh what did we do before email and the internet?!

deciphering the poom's english**

holly and i bounced back and forth on starmore's instructions like a couple of ESL kids. holly had it right all along. the only stumbling block was the centre bit.*

here is my interpretation of the mess after our discussion, shown upside down for stitch clarity.

hole check

we figured out that the instructions is nothing more than a way to stuff five stitches into one, with the centre stitch being the middle one of five. this is one of those instances where a picture would say it all. but that would be too easy.

* the correct spelling would be center.
** my friend bean once referred to debbie bliss as a poom. i imagine she feels the same about alice.

whee for thuy!!!

i was IMing with Thuy this afternoon about my vexing cable issue and she solved it! it's all in how you think of the 'centre' stitch. but maybe she will post, with her great picture of how it SHOULD look.... (hint, hint...)

second, a technique question

is everyone doing cables with a cable needle or is anyone doing them without, as described here and here? just curious....

first, a call for help

i am doing swatches at the moment - figuring out what stitch patterns to use - and i am having a problem with one of the stitches. it is a decrease 5 stitches into one, described as follows:
sl decrease 5 sts tog thus - sl 3 knitwise, one at a time, with yarn at back, drop yarn, then * pass the second stitch on right hand needle over the first (centre) st; sl the centre st back to left hand needle and pass the next st on left hand needle over it**; sl the center st back to the right hand needle and rep from * to ** once more; p the center stitch.

this is what i get:

a big fat hole! any ideas? i'll try anything that pops into your mind at this point!

sleeve, take eighteen

good god, what is happening to me?



i finished one ball of the mismatched yarn for the sleeve. the color difference is unbearable! if one discolored arm is already driving me nuts, two will surely kill me!

so, i've decided to use the 2ply of the original batch for the sleeves. i can work with the gauge difference because they're entirely separate from the body. i'm sure there will be a slight incosistency where they will join to the body but at least it won't be as obvious as the color difference. wish this darn light bulb was switched on before i sent briggs+little $65.

i truly hope that you're doing better with your project. have a great weekend, everyone! try not to do any fancy cables during the superbowl.

It's Finally Here

My yarn arrived from Handpainted Yarn Monday. The color is alot darker than I had anticipated, its almost black with turquoise and deep green variations in it. Really nice - but it doesnt speak "aran" to me... I'll decide what to do with it over the weekend. If it doesnt work out for the aran sweater, I still have my blanket to work on for the knitalong.

Happy Araning everybody....

I started my sweater about 3 days ago. And so far, I love working on it! Granted it takes me about an hour to get through two rows but still! :) I did make one large error but I was only one row above it so I frogged back to the error and fixed it. Hopefully it will go smoothly from here on out...

I am having trouble with my photo host so the picture is sort of cut off.

note the snazzy button on the side bar

holly did it. everyone's name is on it. 100% official.

i did not say rabbit rabbit this morning. in fact, the first word i uttered was no. so much for good luck.

my aran progress as of yesterday:

as i feared, the cables look very much cramped. too late now. i have to learn to like it because i'm not going to rip it.

here's the sleeve:

top

seam

i ordered supplemental yarn from briggs+little and received them within two weeks. unfortunately, it's a cold gray that doesn't quite match the batch i own (which i suspect was not made by b+l). i wavered between using the mismatched yarn and continuing to search for the perfect match. it really hurts me to have to give in but i did. lesson learned.

all the screw ups plus two

there will be a ghastly line at the underarm where each sleeve is joined to the body. i hope it won't be so obvious. otherwise, i will have to take the project to the fireplace.