An award? For me?

Sarah, I humbly accept. I was going to make a crack about this being kind of like getting a "best daughter" award from my mom, but it makes me so happy that someone is reading my blog. In recognition of the honor, I'm going to try to make this entry less wordy, and more beautiful-- turns out knitting snafus make me ramble on... and on...

First, seven things about me:

1. I'm going to become a homeowner soon. This is pretty exciting.
   
2. I own way too many books, and since becoming a full-fledged knitting junkie I barely read anymore, unless you count obsessively trolling Ravelry forums. (Vickie, I confess I just acquired another Penguin: Great Expectations!)
3. I'm double jointed in both thumbs.
4. I never thought I would end up living less than 10 miles from my hometown.
   
5. My husband and I are exact zodiac opposites-- which is "perfect" according to our friend Kourosh. Imagine him saying "perfect" with unconstrained glee in an Iranian accent. Oh yeah, and I was apparently born on "The Day of Authority", which basically sums up my whole personality.
   
6. Eric and I have impromptu dance parties in our kitchen most nights. I invented something called the finger dance. At least I think I invented it.
   
7. I taught myself to knit Continental in November and am now an almost-exclusive Continental knitter after 10 years of English knitting. This makes me absurdly proud of myself. (I have also recently acquired a taste for rye whiskey. Not quite so proud of that.)

And now, for the beautiful part:

Knit in the round, thank you very much

The body of the sweater is finally the right size, and is nearing completion!

Knitting With Tears

There are a few things in life that are inevitable-- death and taxes, of course, but if you're a knitter, you can add gauge to that list. Gauge, and crying over gauge. Gauge is kind of like Karma, only worse. When gauge and Karma gang up on you, you're totally fucked.

I can count the number of readers of this blog on one hand, and I know some of you don't knit. So for the record, gauge is the number of stitches in one inch of knitting. Gauge changes when you change your yarn, needle size, needle type, the color of your underwear, or how you brush your teeth. If you have a glass of delicious and refreshing red wine, your gauge can change. If you are knitting while watching a suspenseful movie, your gauge can change. Sometimes, for no apparent reason whatsoever, your gauge can and will change.

You can thumb your nose at gauge, for years even, blithely knitting up scarves, hats, blankets, Christmas stockings, and all manner of wonderful things. Some may turn out bigger than expected, some smaller, but none of that really matters and you're having a delightful time. Thing is, gauge is critical for a garment that actually needs to fit.

Let's take, for example, my husband's sweater. Just for example. I basically want to knit a 44" circumference tube. I have diligently made my gauge swatch-- a little piece of test knitting-- using my yarn and multiple needle sizes. I have even washed and blocked this adorable little strip of knitting to get a feeling for how much the fabric will stretch out. I decide I like the fabric best at a gauge of 5.5 stitches/inch after blocking. 44 X 5.5 = 242 stitches that I need to cast on. Tra la la.

I am expecting that before I wash the sweater, my gauge will be 6 stitches per inch. 242/6 = roughly 4o. So I know that when I measure the tube, as I will diligently do every few inches or so, it should be 40" around.

Yeah, and monkeys might also fly out of my butt.

This is what happened Monday. I woke up, knit a few rows of the tube, and then slipped all 242 stitches onto a piece of white cotton thread. That way, I can stretch out the tube to it's full dimensions. And measure it. It should be 40", I know this at the very core of my being.

Gauge and Karma. They don't like me. That six inch long tube, which has taken me quite a few hours-- mindless, pleasurable hours, but still, many-- to create, and into which so much thought and homework has gone, measures 44" around.

I know you're following me closely, so you remember that I want a 44" circumference tube. What on earth could be wrong, then? Well, remember the yarn I'm using contains 50% soft, fuzzy, delicious Alpaca fibers, which have all the resilience of a wet noodle. There's only so much the 50% sturdy, elastic wool can do here. It's going to stretch out like gangbusters. My 44" tube (which I knew in the deepest part of my soul should measure 40") is going to end up fitting like those "before" pants in a Jenny Craig commercial.

Sometimes words can't capture a moment:


I briefly flirted with the idea that I could very delicately cut the tube and seam it back together with fewer stitches, then continue on my merry way. I think EZ would approve of this strategy-- remember EZ? Then I came to my senses-- the whole point of making a seamless sweater is to not have to sew, right? There is a time and a place for cutting a hole in your knitting, and this is not it.

The only compensation I had for unravelling 6 inches of sweater was getting to use my favorite new toy, the ball winder. Now I have a cute pile of yarn cakes awaiting my renewed efforts:


I'm sitting down now trying to come up with the reasons my gauge sample betrayed me. Karma and hubris come to mind. It also dawns on me that I knit my gauge sample flat, rather than in the round. I thought of that while I was knitting the flat gauge sample, but I decided that my gauge would probably not change much-- famous last words, as they say.

The good people on Ravelry had many helpful suggestions. My favorite: "Ultimately, your finished work will be your most accurate gauge swatch." Does that mean I have to knit two sweaters for every one that fits? Fuck.

I think I'll start by making some gauge swatches in the round. As soon as I finish crying.

The Commitment Sweater

There is a somewhat foolish, but well documented, knitting superstition that you should never knit a sweater for your significant other before you are married or you will break up. One can only imagine the pitfalls for knitters in same-sex relationships, though I guess it would be one more argument in favor of legalizing gay marriage-- as if there weren't enough. And of course, we all know that people never break up after they are married.

Ever since I learned to knit, Eric has periodically mentioned his desire for a sweater. In the beginning, fear of such an undertaking caused me to refuse, but in the past couple of years I admit to feigning belief in the infamous Sweater Curse in an attempt to nudge along a marriage proposal. For shame.

So I have the requisite skills. Now I am legally wed. Hence, the Commitment Sweater. I have been planning this magnum opus since I started becoming confident in my knitting skills, but it didn't begin to really take shape until this fall. I have been searching for just the right pattern and just the right yarn. I have done hours of research on Ravelry. Now I'm ready to start!

Eric is probably unusual among husbands in that he actually likes going to yarn stores. We made a couple of trips together so that I could get a feel for his color and texture preferences. We're both excited about this:

Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Mahogony Mix. Yum.

I always planned to make a seamless sweater-- sewing gives me the willies-- and I had initially decided on a pattern for a top-down raglan. With a 50% alpaca content, my yarn of choice does not behave well at 4.5 stitches per inch, the gauge called for in said pattern. Too much drape, too much stretch. I realized I needed a more open-ended pattern.

Early in my knitting career, my mother bought me The Sweater Workshop by Jacqueline Fee. Again, I don't think I was quite ready for the idea of knitting sweaters. Additionally, the sweaters shown in the book have a distinctly 80s look, which might be cool in 2009, but has never been my cup of tea. Sorry Mom.

Flash forward to 2009. I need a sweater pattern that can be adapted to any yarn and any size. At some point I gave away The Sweater Workshop, which teaches you to make such a sweater (crap crap crap). From somewhere in the depths of my memory, I recall the name Elizabeth Zimmermann. Don't tell any knitters that I may have forgotten her name. She's something of a knitting goddess, or was one. In knitting circles, she goes by EZ.

I checked out Knitting Without Tears from the library. I don't feel I can approach a decent description of how entertaining and useful this book is. Besides, many many many people have already done so. In it, EZ describes five ways to make a seamless sweater, using your own yarn and measurements. I say describes, because they aren't really patterns so much as very chatty formulas. This part scares me a bit, because I like the security of a pattern that tells you exactly what to do. But you trust in EZ kind of like you trust in Jesus.

So I'm going to take the plunge today. I already have my gauge sample:

Washed and blocked-- I'm such a good little knitter

Now to cast on 242 stitches!