Thursday, April 27, 2006

Knarcissus Knits

Apparently, I have frogged all I can frog, and I can'ts frog no more.

Seriously, I frog stuff all the time, which is a kind of personal progress for me. Usually when tasked with something with even the tiniest creative/productive component, I fuck up early, realize the fuck up later, and stubbornly refuse to correct it. I then burn the project, bury it at a crossroads, and salt the Earth so that my bastard child can't spawn some kind of B-movie monster of popsicle sticks. But with knitting, I just pull it apart (sometimes multiple times) and start over again.

But this baby blanket has resurrected my inner mule (this would, of course, be the mule that Jesus rode in on; I have it on solid 4-year-old authority that this poor beastie was nailed up shortly after Himself, so resurrection is somewhat seasonally appropriate). I had ceased knitting it so that I could investigate my options for finishing it in all its megabbb glory. All the Classic Elite Attitude has disappeared from the 'verse, as though it never existed. I've been trawling through Yarndex and websites hoping against hope to find a gauge, texture, and color match. And then I thought I'd look into this Cold Fusion thing and clear up all this sillyness in the Middle East.

So all my LYSeses have received a visitation from Me on a Mission. I've turned up pretty much bupkus. Online searching is, of course, riskier because of the color-matching aspects. But finally, I got desperate enough to order some of a new Classic Elite line that's cotton, silk, and (ew) nylon. The nexus of gauge, appearance, and material similiarity was the best I could find. Colorwise, from what I could tell from holding hanks up to my laptop screen (this is professional driver on closed course territory, my friends, don't try this at home), it seemed that their "moss" and "cinnamon" colors might serve, and Patternworks.com happened to have these in stock.

The yarn arrived Tuesday, and it's a good news/bad news situation. The hand feel and look will do. As an added bonus, the cinnamon is a great color match (it has a slightly "tweedier" look to it, but it's in no way an eyesore). The moss . . . well, the moss is much greener than my green. There's no getting around that. But my inner Zombie Jesus mule is powerful. I'm thinking that if I knit on with the old green/new brown and new green/old brown, the difference will be subtle enough that the blanket won't evoke images of Peter Boyle belting out "PUTTIN' ON THE RITZ!"

So far, the old green/new brown looks great. I can only find the row where the new brown was introduced by feeling around really carefully. Of course, the old brown/new green is the real test, but we're not going there just yet. In my ultimate fantasy, I can knit with old green/new brown to the turnaround, and then the introduction of the new green will look quasi-deliberate. I mean, it's for a baby. A baby with a soft, squishy, developing brain. Who's gonna trust a baby's color-discrimination ability over mine, hmmm?

In any case, yesterday I was knitting away in blissful oblivion, not worrying about green, not giving any thought at all to the fact that this baby seemed INTENT on vexing me with threats of C-sections and early arrivals. And then when I got home, I had an e-mail from my mother: the baby has moved into birthing position. That means no C-section, no early arrival, and vast acres of time during which I can knit the rest of that fucking blanket off. Now some of you may be wondering about my poor sister-in-law, who is facing the prospect of vaginally delivering what may turn out to be some kind of giant superbaby. You seem to be missing the point that this is ALL ABOUT ME. Bitches.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Rage Against Gauge: 7843rd in the Crafty Fucktard Cycle

Back at Thanksgiving when we were vacationing at Casta Wombata, your three intrepid heroines journeyed to Knit-Wit in scenic Olathe. Yours truly scored some very pretty Classic Elite "Attitude" in a seafoamy green and a nice silvery-brown taupe. This was slated for a 2-strand Big Bad Baby Blanket for my impending neiphewlet person thingy, who is due in May. The only problem on the horizon with this project seemed to be my usual overwhelming desire for ME to have this pretty pretty cotton/silk blend.

About 2 weeks ago, I dutifully did my gauge swatch on my Addi Turbo 13s. Conveniently, it seemed that the gauge came out exactly the same as when I did the blanket in Misti Alpaca on 10s. I cast on, knit pretty seed stitch with no fuck ups, and I saw that it was good.

Except I seemed to run through my first two balls right quick. I wound the second two and knit away and though "Jeebus on a swift, how much of this did I buy?" as they end of those came up. I peeked into my bag of tricks and I've got exactly six (2 sets of 3) hanks left. Dude, WTF?

Clever duck that I am, at 45 rows in, I think to measure the width. The width of my majestic 36-inch-wide blanket (it's supposed to knit up at 28" square and block out to 31"), which is now about 11 inches tall. If all goes SPECTACULARLY as planned, that results in a 36 x 27.5" blanket. And, of course, Attitude has long since been discontinued. That had better be one fucking weirdly shaped baby. Because knitting is fundamentally about me.