In which I channel Elsa

Over the past few weeks I've spent some time cleaning up my office/studio/general dumping ground for all things woolly. It's been a very good thing - I've found yarn I thought had gone missing, uncovered a couple of design swatches I'd forgotten about, and exposed a number of WIPs in dire need of five minutes before they are FOs.

I've also found some things that I've sadly decided need to take a trip to the big frog pond in the sky. First up on the hit list is a sweater that I was really, really super excited about when I started it - Automne by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud, the cover sweater for Knit Edge Issue 4 way back in 2013.

Photo (c) 2013 Alisha Irish

This sweater is gorgeous. Knit in a chunky weight yarn, it's nice and long, has a cool cabled waist detail, and a gorgeous wide lace collar. It's even got pockets! I immediately ordered yarn, discovered it wasn't going to work, ordered more yarn, and cast on in February of 2014. I knit most of the body over the half-term holiday that month, and then the sleeves and even managed to get everything blocked and the body sewn up and the collar knit and blocked.

Mostly finished sweater

Collar and waist detail

And then I tried it on. And realised three things: 1) my well-intentioned modifications to make sure the armholes were deep enough had resulted in sleeve caps that weren't going to fit in the armscyes; 2) that lovely cable waist detail was about four inches lower then my actual waist; and 3) most critically, a long bulky-weight sweater that ends at the midpoint of my thighs is REALLY NOT a good look for me. In reality, it probably looks ok, but I've spent far too much of my life unhappy with my shape to be happy wearing something that doesn't make me feel fabulous.

So, yesterday I heeded the advice of my extremely talented college classmate and Let It Go. I got out the ball winder and reduced my 90% finished gorgeous sweater into a whopping pile of potential.

That is about 600 grams (or just over 900 yds) of lovely red tweedy Elann Highland Chunky (sadly discontinued), which has now been reskeined, given a bath, and is drying over the kitchen radiator as we speak. I've already got plans for this yarn - another sweater, but more or less the polar opposite of Automne in a design sense. And I'm looking forward to casting on. Maybe it will be done in time for next week's predicted ridiculous winter weather? Here's hoping!

Recycling

The yarn I'm using for the Endpaper Mitts is reclaimed from two sweaters I picked up for cheap at Goodwill. I've now found another source for recycled yarn: previously knit sweaters.

This is my Mountain Mohair sweater - Moriah's Wildflower Cardigan. It's a beautiful sweater, and I wear it whenever it's cold enough (which is not as often as I would like). The yarn is beautiful soft and slightly fuzzy, and it's held up pretty well over the last 5 years or so. But on my way home yesterday, I looked down and noticed this:

Since the yarn is basically a softly spun single, not a plied yarn, it's not terribly strong. I must have caught the edging on something and it broke the yarn. Now, in and of itself, this is not enough of a reason to frog the sweater. But I've been thinking about knitting something else from this for a while. First of all, there's no shaping to the sweater. It's straight up and down and basically just hangs there when I'm wearing it. And it doesn't do a lot for my body honestly - I'm not exactly svelte, and I think that it would look better on me with a bit more shaping.

I also am not a fan of the seed stitch bands - they are a bit loose and floppy, and don't feel substantial enough. I've decided to frog the sweater and use the yarn for something else. Initially, I was thinking about a top down V neck with set in slightly belled sleeves. But after last night's Mr. Redjeans fiasco (finished ribbing, bound off, tried on and realized that A) clearly the designer did not have my figure in mind when she had us switch to size 7 needles for the ribbing*, but I really don't need to display that much of my tummy, B) it was going to be too short in any event, and C) clearly in my mind I am still in my pre-pregnancy, half-Ironman body, not my post-two kids-still-lactating body - I'm going to have to go up a size), I'm thinking that I may soon be working on Mr. Bluejeans, while Mr. Redjeans gets to wear a set of concrete galoshes.

* this is nicer then saying she was smoking crack because really, the ribbing was going to pull in anyway with the cables. Why have it pull in more with smaller needles?

It's not spring, but I think I hear the peepers calling

Yesterday on the bus I finished the body of the Basalt tank, with a great sigh of relief. Knitting all those hexagons and the construction kept it interesting, but I was getting awfully tired of hauling the thing in and out of my bag every time I wanted to work on it (big, sprawling thing that it was) (this should have been a clue methinks). And my fellow commuters are probably glad that I will no longer be taking up more then my fair share of the available seats on the bus with yarn and needles.

I decided to actually try the thing on last night before I sat down to pick up the umpteen million stitches I needed to do the straps and edging on the bottom. A very good decision, since it is way too big.

Damn. I had actually thought that I'd picked right this time - I checked my gauge ahead of time, and chose the size 39 which should fit with slight negative ease, given my lactation enhanced boobage. However, it is easy 3-4 inches too big around. ARGH! I don't believe that I've actually lost that much baby weight in the two months or so it took to get to this point, so something else is off. I'll have to go back and check my gauge in the actual sweater and see how that compares to my swatch. But hell. This hardly ever happens to me, not because I'm such a careful swatcher (hah!), but because I usually can work around any issues and muddle through. But the construction of this tank is such that the only way to fix it is to rip out the whole thing. All 5+ hexagons. And I will definitely add in Kelp's waist shaping trick in the Basalt Reincarnation (TM). And maybe leave off the half hexagon on the back. The only good thing is that I wasn't going to be able to wear it until the spring anyway, so I can put it away to be frogged in a few months with out guilt.

And...now I can start on something else for myself, conveniently ignoring all the C!#$%)^ knitting lurking in the background. This is calling my name, and seems to be a really quick knit. And since we're going up north for the holidays, I'll need something warm, right?

Edited to add: my disappointment about the new froggy nature of the Basalt tank was, however, mitigated by the Red Sox. Or rather, by the absolute implosion of the Rockies' pitching staff. I was folding laundry and kept looking up at the TV, thinking "Did he really just walk in another run? No, he couldn't have...ohmigod he did!" Thank you Josh, thank you entire BoSox batting order, and thank you Mr. Hurdle for keeping Franklin Morales and Ryan Speier in there pitching as long as you did. I guess maybe the 8 days off wasn't very helpful. On to Game 2!