Quick boring update. I don’t talk too much about my medical issues here, but I’ve got a boatload of them, and they’ve got me down for the count. Good (? well, better anyway) blogging will resume before too long. For now, a few completely random notes on the state of things:

1. I finished and blocked the body of Rogue. I’m a wee bit disappointed — it’s a little shorter than I’d like. I was worried this was going to happen, and debated with myself over and over and over again about adding an extra cable repeat to the side cable, and decided against it. I’m kicking the hell out of myself now and very upset. Hubby says it still looks great, but I dunno. Will be seaming and sewing in sleeves very soon, maybe today. Pics to come.
2. Hubby’s first sock has turned the heel and is coming down the home stretch. Ugly (and I mean ASS-ugly) pooling on the gusset, but nice striping has resumed now that I’m on the body of the foot (does a foot have a body?). I’m afraid the foot is too big. I’m going to finish this one, let him try it on, and then go from there — adapting and reknitting sock #1 if necessary.
3. My bag for sew? I knit! is (ha!) coming along. You can read about my adventures with my sewing machine here. I do not have the fortitiude to post about it again. So far I have not heaved the sewing machine into the wall. My nearest and dearest have a pool going on when it will happen.
4. My cousin is going to have a baby! First grandchild for her parents. New little person for me to knit for. I’m excited.

And in non-knitting news:

5. We had a realtor come look at our house today. Getting ready to put it on the market. Looking at getting a better price than imagined. Very scary.
6. The boy was in a wedding this past weekend. He did what he was supposed to do for all of about 32 seconds, did NOT go headfirst into nearby water despite my greatest fears, provided great entertainment for everyone there, and most importanly, was so cute I almost died.

Be back soon with more interesting and relevant stuff.

. . . but I can’t bring myself to actually finish it. What the hell is up with that?

I finished the knitting on the hood for Rogue, and to be completely honest — that’s when this sweater felt done. Never mind the ridiculous amount of work that was still left to be done at that point, I still got up and did my happy dance.

Then I set about the work of grafting the hood. I’d been dreading this part, because who really does grafting well? (Hint: not me.) And — in a combination of knit and purl? Over cables? I will admit, I considered taking the easy way out and doing a 3-needle-bind off. Because a neat, well-crafted, pretty unobtrusive seam would be better than a mangled, ugly grafting attempt, no doubt. But I decided to keep that in my pocket as a “what to do if you screw this up beyond words” option and got started on the grafting process.

I looked around, both on the internet and in my library of printed resources (which grows bigger all the time, and I don’t understand how that happens), and the very best instructions I could find were in Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook. So I opened it up, put all my live stitches on crochet thread, and took a deep breath:

Then started working:

Okay, this isn’t turning out so bad, only had to redo a couple of stitches, about halfway done now and still able to breathe:

Done with the grafting of live stitches to live stitches (notice my blue thread is still in there; my security blanket):

Just gotta graft these live stitches onto this edge here:

and DONE!

I’m pretty proud of how I did. I found it much easier to do well with the stitches off the needles like this, rather than keeping them on the needles and holding the needles parallel, which is how I’d done all grafting before I had the esteemed Montse Stanley to tell me, quite emphatically, to never do it that way. (Ole Montse was right; this way is better.)

I have to admit, though, I did have some help:

Guinny (short for Guinevere) came in from playing in the sandbox and immediately offered her services as superviser. She did a great job, too. (My apologies for the photo. High ISO, too much noise, and on this computer screen it looks desperately oversharpened. I’m on a laptop away from home so I can’t fix it now.)

So, what’s left for Rogue? She’s practically done. I need to knit the applied I-cord border on the front edges, then just blocking, seaming, and installing the zipper (see how cavalier that sounds? Did I fool you, or can you tell that I’m shaking I’m so afraid of screwing things up at this point?). I should say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I need to knit the applied I-cord border AGAIN. You see, I did it once already. And after finishing the first side, I blindly (stupidly? incomprehensibly?) ignored what anyone could see — that it was puckering — and knit the other side, picking up the same ratio of stitches, knitting with the same size needle. Grafted the ends of the second cord — I was well and truly FINISHED, folks — and then gave up the self-delusion and ripped it all out to start over.

I started by picking up 2 out of 3 stitches, as indicated by Claudia’s most excellent cardigan modifications, but for whatever dumbass reason, that looked kind of “off” to me. (I don’t know why I’m all the sudden not trusting Claudia, who’s only done this twice so far and has been knitting a lot longer and knits a lot better than me, when I’ve been trusting her all along, but there it is. Just an attack of dumbass, as far as I can tell.) So instead I picked up 1 out of 2 stitches, because that “looked better.” Dumbass.

Now that all that has been ripped, I did the first side again — this time, picking up 2 out of 3 stitches all the way down, then doing the edging with a size 9 (US) needle (the sweater has been done on size 7s). It looks, if I do say so, gorgeous.

And I just have to do the other side.

And I just can’t seem to get there.

But. Hope springs eternal. I am away from home (visiting my Mom and Dad on the other side of Houston) and my family is going out for sushi for dinner tonight. I’m hoping to con them into taking my kiddo with them, so I will have a free evening, and be able to finish this edging. We’ll see.

I’ll leave you with images from my husband’s garden. (This is part of the reason I’m not finishing Rogue. It’s lovely outside, and Nate and I are spending a lot of time out there. This isn’t a bad thing.) He planted irises because I like them — and I like them very much.

Lots of things to talk about, most not very connected with each other. I’ve been on “vacation” back home in Mississippi, and didn’t have access to a computer that plays well with others (or with the camera, for that matter) so I’ve been a little out of touch. It was a really strange trip home — it’s the first time I’ve been back to the Mississippi coast since right after Katrina. Seven months later, I would have hoped to see more progress in rebuilding. While there has been a lot of recovery — the devastation was so very large-scale, that there is still so much left devastated. It was, for me, a very disheartening trip.

I did get some knitting done, though not as much as I would have hoped since my son decided to take the week at Grandma’s to be possessed by some wild hellion child (or, he was really thrown out of whack by traveling so far from home without Daddy and having his routines completely messed with, take your pick) and I fell into bed exhausted every night after running herd on him every second of every day. I did finish the body of my Rogue:

And managed to make a (very little) progress on the hood:

I’m pretty happy, still, with how this is going, though right now I’m a little paranoid. The body is a little too small around and more than a little too short (though not quite a LOT too short, more than just a little). My rational brain is working overtime to reassure my emotional brain that this is OKAY. See, I made gauge swatches, and I washed and blocked those gauge swatches, and I know that this sweater is going to grow — pretty significantly, even — once it’s blocked. I know that my sleeves were right on (maybe a teeny tiny smidgen too big, even) after blocking even though they were far too small before blocking. I know these things, but when I put what my DH is calling my “weird vest looking thing” on and it’s so small, my poor little brain freaks out a little bit. But I’m smart. I know that it’s going to be okay. My gauge swatch will not have lied to me.

I have gone back to cabling without the cable needle for most of the cables. My brain and I finally got it figured out how to twist the cables the right way again after a review of Grumperina’s tutorial. I must have reviewed it a dozen times while I was making Trellis, but this time my brain finally gave in and let me remember how to make the twist in the right direction. (Which is a good thing, because I was beginning to feel very, very dumb and very, very frustrated, given that I had done it successfully in the past.) I don’t know how much time it’s actually saving me, but it makes me feel acocmplished. On the other hand, it makes me wish I were not using these Addi Turbo needles — their points are so NON-pointy! Who on earth things knitting needles that are THAT dull are a good idea? I find myself really wishing I’d gone with needles that had more of a point to them to “dig into” those stitches as I do the cables. At least next time I’ll know not to use the Addis for a project that involved cabling. (Or lace! I’m having nightmares just imagining trying to do lace with these things.)

In addition to working on Rogue, I also started a new project — my husband’s socks. S. has a pair of socks that he bought that he wears around the house in his pajamas to keep his feet warm, and we came up with the idea that I should knit him a similar pair so he will have more than one. (I don’t honestly remember whether I came up with the idea or he did, but it pleases both of us.) So I told him I would do that as his birthday gift (he didn’t want me to buy him anything, so this seemed like a good plan). He’s been getting a little impatient as I keep working on other things instead of his socks. (To be fair, his birthday is in January. Early January. He may have a point.) I had bought some sock yarn, but when I started knitting it up I decided that it was really too thin a fabric for the intended purpose. So I had to order some new yarn and wait for it to be shipped. It came in on Monday, and I immediately started on his sock. He was a little surpirsed that I started instead of continuing to work on my sweater, but I felt like I needed to throw him a bone.

The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in the Blackwatch colorway. Can I just say . . . WOW? This is the first time I’ve knit with Lorna’s Laces yarn and I am loving it! Sooooo soft and yummy. I’m knitting it using a new pair of Bryspun double pointed needles — my first time using any of their needles, and so far I’m not sure what I think. I’ve only used bamboo or wood DPNs before, and getting used to the relative slipperiness of the needles is taking me a bit of effort. On the other hand, I love love love the points on these things — nothing blunt about them! Of course, I’m doing a simple k2p2 rib for the leg, which I don’t need the pointy points for, really, but I’m liking them anyway. The sock is not going as fast as I would like — what you see is all the progress I made in about an hour of sitting watching my son play outside — but I guess by now I should be resigned to the fact that I just knit really, really slowly. I’m tickled with the spiral-stripiness thing they’ve got going. I’m amused by such little things.

Nate has started to really get interested in my knitting. The other day he told me he was going to knit for me. He had two plastic rods in his hand, and told me they were knitting needles, and that he was going to make me a pair of socks. Then he said “OH! WAIT! I don’t have enough needles for socks; I will knit you a sweater because you can knit a sweater on only two needles.” Who knew that he paid that much attention? He “knit” for a minute, then ran off to his room and came back with five “needles.” He arranged four of them on the floor in a square and began poking at them with the fifth. “There. Now I am knitting you socks because I have enough needles to knit socks.” He really blows me away sometimes. Yesterday he asked me to teach him to knit. I know that, regardless of how bright I might think he is , trying to teach a 3-year-old to knit is just an exercise in frustration. But I figured there was no harm in showing him, so I got him so needles and yarn and helped him make a few stitches. He then demanded to be left alone, and this is the result:

In case you’re wondering, he’s working on a sweater for Mama.

Rogue is kicking my ass. Not in complexity or difficulty — I’m actually finding it a fun, easy, just-complicated-enough-to-keep-my-brain-engaged-knit — but in time. I knew I was a slow knitter, and I knew this was going to take a long time, but DAMN. The rows are just so long! I’ve been making little mini-goals for every day — and I do mean mini-goals. On the order of “finish three rows today” or “get through one of the side cable repeats today.” Slow and steady, right? I keep telling myself that anyway.

(Please excuse the poor photos that follow; my camera and I are fighting with each other.)

Here is my progress as of today (I have just finished Chart A and split to do the fronts and the back separately):

And a couple of details. The side cable:

And one of the pockets (this also shows the hem, which I’m quite happy with):

As if the achingly slow progress weren’t enough — my right wrist starting hurting me on Tuesday — hurting me very badly. I freaked out about possible RSI, but the reality is that I was trying really hard to try and make my knitting more “efficient” by changing the motion with which I throw the yarn. I actually like that way of knitting better, but it hurt my wrist. A lot. I don’t know if it’s because my wrist just needs to get used to it, or if it’s because my wrist can’t handle that particular motion. I’m not quite ready yet to put it to the test (especially since I really want to work on my Continental knitting anyway, so it might not be worth it to change my style of throwing). Either way, I rested my wrist for 2.5 days (that was a long time for me!) and started knitting again this morning, and it seems to have resolved itself for now (though I’m back to my old way of throwing the yarn, which involves a horribly inefficient total release of my right needle, but oh well. One thing at a time.)

I went to a new doctor on Wednesday, and I’m on a new medication (this brings my grand total up to 8 different medicaitons daily, and at least 4 more on an as needed basis). I feel so broken and old. But, hopefully, the new medication (metformin for my PCOS, which I’ve been wanting to get on for several months now) will help with a LOT of my issues and will allow me to ditch several of the other medicines. It’s all about trying to find the ROOT cause of the problems, fix them, and then hopefully the others will fall in line. Unfortunately, the metformin is making me feel really yucky (I’m told that will get better with time) so I don’t know if any real progress in knitting is going to be made anytime soon.

I am chugging along on Rogue. I thought about entering the Knitting Olympics, with the goal of finishing the body of the sweater, but the truth is I am a SLOW knitter, without a whole lot of time to knit, and I didn’t want to put that kind of stress on myself. So instead, I’m spectating, and making little goals for myself every day.

I have finished knitting the pockets themselves, and I have turned the hem under. This is what my progress on the body looks like so far:

It’s not much. This is going to take me a LONG time. I am not helped by the fact that I’m knitting the largest size, which meant I had to cast on (with a time-sucking provisional cast-on!) 218 stitches. This is, by far, the largest thing yet that I’ve knit. (Kiri is pretty big, I guess, but it starts off small and I haven’t gotten to the really huge part yet.)

I chose to do the k1,p1 ribbing for the hem stitch, and I made a slightly longer hem than called for in the pattern (15 rows vs. 12 rows). I used a provisional cast-on, did a reverse stockinette turning row, and then knit the hem and the body stitches together on the 15th row of the body. (I did the exact same for the sleeves.) I like the nice solid hem that this gave me.

I am really tickled with the construction of this pocket (which, of course, became pockets on the cardigan). I had to really think about how to modify the pockets, and I’m thrilled that I got it figured out without a single false start. It’s not that it was difficult; more, that I am still new at this, and I’ve never done anything like this before (this was my first pocket ever). Splitting the pocket into two wasn’t something that was intuitive or obvious for me. So I was tickled with my ability to figure it out without having to rip back even once. Add to that how cool I think the turning-under edges of the pocket are, and you have a knitter who was very entertained as she was knitting these little flaps of fabric.

Well, at least I have the sleeves done, so when I’m finished with the body I don’t have those to worry about!

Here are the sleeves, blocked and everything:

These have been done for . . . about six weeks now, I think. I finished them (did them both at the same time) and then had to take a time-out to work on the baby sweater for my friend. I blocked them on our guest bed, which seemed perfectly reasonable to me, but my hubby tripped out about it. “You stuck all those pins in our bed? That’s not good for it!” So I’m not sure where I’ll be blocking the sweater. (I am quite tempted to order a super-fancy-cool blocking board, but I have more restraint than that.)

A close up of the cable detail:

I like the yarn I’m using. It’s Kathmandu Aran from the Queensland Collection (in the beach color). It’s a “rustic” (I can’t come up with a better word; forgive my failure of vocabulary) kind of yarn — not very smooth, almost what I would call “homemade” looking. It’s got a lot of character, and I’m loving the way it knits up. It is quite soft and very pleasant to work with, but it’s not giving me perfect, even stitches and fabric (like the yarn I used for Trellis did) — and I like that. It’s not got super wild variations like the Noro I used once upon a time a long time ago (which I didn’t care for), but it’s got just enough to make it interesting. I’m really glad I chose this yarn for this sweater. I’m also really glad I picked up a pair of Addi Turbos to use with the yarn; for the smaller needle needed for the hem I’m using my Denises, and they are sticky with this particular yarn and make me even slower.

I knew I was going to ramble once I started talking about this sweater. I’m having quite an adventure; this might be the most fun I’ve had knitting yet. And I’m so excited that the end product is going to be an actual sweater just for me!

but barely.

Actually, it’s better. I am on a medical leave of absence from my job, and that REALLY has helped. After four months in which I had five rounds of steroids, enough albuteral to power a small city from the shaking reaction that it gives me, enough antibiotics to kill every hapless bacteria between here and the Mississippi River, plus enough Vicodin that I could have made a small fortune on the resale if I didn’t actually NEED the damn stuff — I decided it was time to change something. So I took a 12-week leave of absence. The idea is that if I am not dealing with 130 different kids, all with different ailments that they drag to school with them (because I teach the accelerated kids who never stay home), then I will not catch their junk and therefore will get out of this never ending loop of illness leading to bronchitis and pneumonia — again and again and again. In addition, I will have much less stress (since my job was sending me home in tears from stress most days) which will help bolster my immune system, which will keep me in better health.

So far it seems to be working pretty well. And I may or may not go back after the 12 weeks is over; I am taking a very “wait and see” approach to see how my health is and whether I think it’s a good idea.

So, you’d think this would mean I have lots more time for knitting! Since my kiddo is staying home with me, not as much as I would have expected, but still — a lot more knitting time than I did have. Unfortunately, my camera died and is now back with Nikon getting surgery, so I don’t have evidence of all the knitting that I have been doing.

First, Kiri. I have finished 10 repeats of Kiri. This is the one place in this entry where not having a camera doesn’t bother me, because Kiri looks pretty much like she did in the last entry - a gray/silver blob. She’s been up on a shelf for quite some time, though, because I got the yarn in for my next project . . .

Rogue! I am sooo thrilled with this I can’t even begin to describe. This has been my dream for my first sweater for me since I started knitting. I find myself pinching and poking myself as I’m working on it. I am using Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran in Beach color, and I am looooooooooving it. I have finished the sleeves (I did them both at the same time, and did them first.) I am going to be doing the sweater as a cardigan, thanks to Claudia’s modifications. I am VERY EXCITED about this, and wish I had a camera so I could show you my sleeves, which are currently happily blocking.

I had read a lot of people talking about the “weird” increase used at the beginning of the cables in this sweater. I followed the directions I found exactly, and had no trouble with it — but for one thing. The directions said “pick up the strand lying between . . .” (can you tell I don’t remember exactly what they said?) but they never said that the strand would in fact be one of the legs of one of the stitches — so, since it was obviously the leg of a stitch, I kept feeling like I was doing something wrong. While reading savannahchik, I came across Jody’s excellent tutorial on this increase, and she confirmed for me that it was in fact a leg of one of the stitches. This made me happy for a very long time because it confirmed for me that I wasn’t, in fact, going out of my mind or doing something so wrong that it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I’m THRILLED with Rogue so far. Pattern is so well written and the yarn is a joy; I’m having a blast knitting it.

Alas, I had to pause in my Rogue knitting to do some deadline knitting — an online buddy is having a baby and I wanted to knit him a sweater. (The cool part is they live in Canada so the sweater might actually get some wear!) I picked Trellis and I’m doing it in Cashsoft Baby DK. LOVING this one, too. I’m getting such a kick out of seeing all those lovely cables appear in my hands. I was trying cabling without a cable needle (which I’ve successfully done before with no problems) but I kept getting the cables crossed wrong when I was doing it. I know HOW to cross them correctly without a a needle, but my brain just won’t stay engaged well enough for me to get it done properly, so I’ve gone back to relying on the cable needle for now (since this is on a deadline). It’s still moving along quite quickly, and I’m really enjoying the knit. Still and all, though, I’ll be happy when it’s done so I can get back to Rogue.

The final bit of “news” is that I got a new knitting bag for Christmas. It’s a namaste bag, and it’s red, and it’s gorgeous and it’s perfect and holds and organizes everything I want it to. And it’s so easy to get everything in and out of, and easy to carry, and makes me feel pretty when I carry it. What more could you ask for in a knitting bag?

I’m hoping for more regular updates — and a repaired camera for pictures — in the New Year. We’ll see.