Well.

My daughter has just informed me, in her very-emphatic-six-year-old voice, that she DOES NOT WANT me to knit her school sweater this year, nor any other knitted item, for that matter.

NO NO NO NO NO!

This as I was getting out the already-purchased yarn for the already chosen design that we have been talking about all summer. Thus destroying my plan of knitting her school sweater every year until she is in her teens, and therefore far too cool to wear something handmade by her uncool old mom. Apparently six is the new sixteen. Alas.

It was going to be so cute, too. An eyelet lace shrug with a bobbled ruffle at the edge of the 3/4 length sleeves and 1X1 ribbing around the opening. In scarlet baby cashmerino. Like the one I made for myself and she demanded a copy of all summer.









*shhhhhhhhhh* I might just make it anyway. Don't tell her.*

Ze Gauge, she is a wily and capricious mistress.

How is it that woman with thirty-plus years of knitting experience and a thousand or so swatches under her belt can make this huge mistake not once, but twice? TWICE! I can blame it on the fictional entity of Gauge As Whimsical Goddess, right? She is really getting on my nerves, man. I swear I swatched this thing ten times before the first disaster. Which turned out to be literally twelve inches shy of its intended circumference.

An entire foot. I'm pretty sure my client, the lovely Gloria actually wants the sweater in the dimensions specified.

So I laughed and chalked it up to a crazy fluke, did a much bigger set of swatches and cast on again, confident in my experience and abilities, and enjoyed the development of the multiple cables and the feel of the yarn softening with work in my hands.

Measured again this morning, and it is wrong. Again. By far less, but still, wrong. Apparently the only thing that will work with this project is a 100% size sample. So that is what I will be doing this afternoon.

It's a darn good thing I really like this pattern. It's definitely not boring me. :)

Here's something else I'm currently working on:




I can't wait to block it and see what happens.

I'm putting the pattern together and also looking forward to wearing it because it is *dreeeeeeeamy*. It's in Regia Silk 6-ply, a dk weight sock yarn that I just can't seem to get enough of. So so so soft and cuddly and wonderful to knit. I actually went out and bought a coat for Fall just to go with it.

And the best part is THIS!



The archival (thank you Morgan!) pattern, or the back. It reminds me of some sort of sea creature or seeds embedded in their fruits. It looks great right alongside the facing pattern and I am so happy that both sides will be visible when it's worn. Props to Barbara Walker for her Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I adore her.

***

And here's the progress on Dunstaburgh Castle (I am now 7 rows into the pattern repeats):



As you see, each individual cable pattern is separated by a set of colored markers. There are six of them. I color coded the parkers and then hilighted the pattern to make following it "easier."





Easier. Yeah.

Although while simple it is NOT, I am enjoying it even more than I thought I would. I just need many many hours of uninterrupted knitting time to finish it.

Finally! A small amount of progress has been made since this pic was taken, but I'm just happy to have figured this much out. Camera Master has given me a smallish lesson (and left all the camera settings on "auto"), so I will be shooting a few other works in progress today.

Why does my description show twice? I am such a rookie! *eyeroll* So much to figure out.

While I'm here, I'll just mention that I'm off the endless ribbing part, and onto the multiple-simultaneous cables part. There are SIX. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaang. Photos on the way. The Camera Master was too busy to teach me everything there is to know about the camera last night, so I will have to wait for him.

Gloria's Ruins of Dunstaburgh Castle Pullover

OK! Good place to keep track of my custom work, yes? Yes!

Met with the client, the lovely and sweet Gloria, last Wednesday to pick up her yarn and pattern - Classic Elite "Ruins of Dunstaburgh Castle" and Dale Heilo - to make her a huge cuddly walkin'-the-dog-type sweater for this Fall.

She wants to substitute k2p2 rib for the trinity stitch border and cuffs, make it mid-thigh length, and throw on a mock t-neck as well. No sweat, right? Except that today, as I was converting the pattern to knit in the round rather than in flat pieces, I realized that we had planned to make the body 5 inches longer than it is in the pattern.

Rut roh.

Quick, only mildly panicked call to Gloria - quick consult, and what we decided is this: I will knit the body to the length recommended in the pattern, then make one sleeve and see exactly how deep the sleeve hole really is (I'm betting MUCH deeper than originally suspected), to determine whether we need to actually make it that long. She is, you see, a little peanut and our first plan might have left her swimming in a giant cabled sleeping bag. Then another quick call to The Weaving Works to find that they have only 6 balls of this yarn left and they are a mixed bag of dye lots. They are holding the whole motley pile for me for 2 weeks just in case. Bless their hearts.

So now I have to learn to attach pics, I guess. I am so lazy about that. Takes away from my knitting time! Grr! As soon as I figure it out, I will post a pic of the incredibly exciting two and a half inches of k2p2 ribbing I have finished so far. YEEHAW.

That k2p2 sure pulls in. *nibbles nails a little*