Awesome stuff

I really hate it how all we seem to hear from people regarding customer service/new products are the horrible customer service and disappointments they've experienced.  I also hate how the details of these experiences are often blown completely out of proportion (I blame Twitter, incidentally).

I wish people would share their positive experiences with as much enthusiasm - why punish the crappy businesses and then ignore the good ones?

So today, I'm going to tell you about some recent acquisitions I've made that I'm very pleased with.  You might not care, but I'm going to do it anyway.  Here we go:

1.  New yoga pants.  I am not one of those creatures who believes that spending $100 on a pair of yoga pants (or jacket/top/whatever) is acceptable.   I have never paid more than $30 for a pair and many of mine have lasted for years and years (and I practice a very physically demanding form of yoga, so that is saying something).  Usually I go to Winners for yoga gear, but I don't like the inconsistency - just when I've found a brand/style that I like, they run out of it.  (Wanna see someone go ballistic in a public place with little or no regard for decency?  Come shopping with me at Winners on a Saturday morning on a day when I need new yoga pants and can't find a pair.)

But Mountain Equipment Co-Op just put out a line of yoga gear and I tried some stuff on while I was in Ottawa (we don't have a store here...*SOB*).  I confirmed my size and ordered a pair of the Messina pants online (yay! on sale!).  They fit perfectly.  So comfy, the fabric is soft and sturdy and the colour is really nice.  I had to hem them because I'm short for my size (large), but that's a pretty common occurrence and it's not their fault that I'm a hobbit. 

So: win.

2.  Still with MEC (a most wonderful chain of stores that I can NOT say enough good things about - if we had one here, it's probably the only place I would shop, I kid you not).  Last winter (the warmest winter I've ever experienced, so my purchase kind of went to waste), I bought a pair of merino leggings.  Black wool leggings.  Yes.  So very yes.  They're thin and comfy and totally non-itchy (and non-stinky: BONUS) and WARM.  I love them (and would love them more if I'd thought to buy them in medium, as the large is a little too large) and am getting at least one more pair.  Perfect under long wool skirts.  Perfect as pyjamas.  Perfect under jeans.

(Wool-sensitive Husband bought the men's long-sleeve undershirt version and loves it.)

Win again.

3.  A buckwheat pillow from Halfmoon Yoga (another great Canadian company). 

I do not sleep easily, friends.  I've battled one form of insomnia or another almost my entire life (there was a lovely bout between the ages of 17 and 24 where sleep came easily and I'm grateful for that, but alas, it waned).  It's frustrating to deal with so I take sleep seriously.  One of my big challenges is finding a good pillow.  Not too big, not too squishy (and for the love of all that is holy, no damn feathers!), but something that will stay put and has neck support.  I don't move very much in my sleep and I tend to remain on one side or the other all night, so it must have substance.

I'd read about buckwheat pillows and I have a zafu, so I had a sense of what it would feel like, but I wasn't 100% sold on the idea.  But I got good and fed up a few months ago and decided to just take the plunge, already.  Now, I don't consider $80 for a pillow reasonable - I was gritting my teeth in protest even as I was clicking on the "Add To Cart" button.  But I was so tired of experimenting with other pillows (thereby wasting money),  I went through with it.

This is the pillow for me. It took about 10 days nights to get used to it (my neck was sore for a few days and my ear hurt a fair bit from sleeping on it - the pillow doesn't have a lot of "give" to it), but once I got accustomed to it, it felt sooooo good.

Win win win.

4.  My Sigg wide mouth water bottle.  I bought this on my trip to Ottawa, not online.   It has a dual cap: one opening big enough to drop in ice cubes and one opening small enough that you can easily control the flow of water you're drinking, so that it doesn't splash you in the face.  Also, easier to clean than the narrow-mouth versions.  Love it.

Mine actually has a different and more ornate orange Indian/paisley pattern on it, but this one is nice, too.

Win x 4.

5.  And last, but not least: my new travel mug. 

I have bought 4 travel mugs in the past 2 years.  Four.  And they all sucked.  Either the caps were gross and uncleanable or the body of the mug itself took on water when it was being washed (which would naturally escape later, when I was trying to drink from it...mmmm old dish water running down my chin...GAG).  This one, bought from www.goneshopping.ca (AWESOME online shop with a fantastic assortment of eco-products - they sent me a lovely personalized e-mail and then a little handwritten note with my shipment, offering me a discount on my next purchase), is a total winner (though the price tag initially took me some time to justify - until I calculated how much I had wasted on the previous 4 mugs).  The cap comes apart for ease of cleaning, the body is fully sealed - so there's no seepage, and it keeps my tea hot (HOT, not just slightly warmish) for literally 7 hours (no joke - if I prepare it at 7:00 am, my tea is still be drinkable at 2:00 pm).

It's shown with the loop cap, but you can buy the "café cap" to go with it - that's the one you need in order to use it as a mug

I bought it on a Thursday, it arrived at my office on Monday morning (Monday!  I live on a little island in the Atlantic - nothing ever ships here in 2 days!) and I used it Tuesday and Wednesday (by which time I was totally smitten, as you can imagine).  Then, on Wednesday night, I flew out to Toronto for business and proceeded to lose this little guy in the taxi from the airport.

I don't really have to tell you how much cursing and screaming (quiet screaming, mostly internal, but very effective) I did the next morning when I went to make a cup of tea in my hotel room and discovered that it was missing, do I?  I got a grip (took me a few hours to calm down, I'm ashamed to say), conjured my inner Gandhi (not an easy feat, I assure you, kind of like horking up a hairball) and told myself that it was ok, some lucky bastard had just unknowingly inherited the best damn travel mug ever made by humankind.  It was just $30.  Let it go.

Right, so the next morning (that's Friday - 8 days after my initial purchase, in case you've lost track), I walked two blocks from the hotel to the Yonge Pharmacy (what a great, old school place that is!), where the interwebs told me I could find more Klean Kanteen stuff.  I couldn't find the insulated ones, so I approached the counter and asked if they had any of them in stock.  They had just received a shipment the day before and had exactly what I was looking for in the back.  So I prepared to lay down (another! ARGH!) $30 for a replacement and while the clerk was ringing me in, I started recounting my tale of woe.  He kind of chuckled (not laughing AT me, I'm sure...) and said "Aw, that sucks.  Well, seeing as you had such a crappy time of it, I'm going to give you 20% off this one."

Yeah, that's right.  Good karma: I has it.  Glad I coughed up that hairball after all.

(And I have been guarding the freaking thing with my life ever since - if anyone so much as looks sideways at my travel mug, they're going to lose an eye.)(If my house was on fire, I'd grab my great-grandmother's knitting needles, my husband, my two dogs and this mug.)

So that's it - those are some of the good things I've recently purchased that I am so very pleased with.  The shops I've linked to are amazing and take customer service very seriously, for which I commend them.  If you have Christmas shopping to do in the next few months, you may want to consider sending some business their way - they deserve it and you won't be disappointed.

(I don't really have to say it, do I?  None of these people have given me a dime - or free product - to give you my recommendations.  I just really like them and wanted to go on the record with my experiences.)

Progress has been made

This is going to be another long-winded knitting blog, so if you couldn't care less and would rather go and watch paint dry than hear me blather on for an age on this, know that I won't be offended if you bugger off for a while.  I'll let you know when it's safe to return.

I've been diligently working away on my Seamless Hybrid and have made a couple of important discoveries:

1. You are never ever so good at something that you stop making mistakes.
2. The mistakes just get more "interesting" (read: frustrating).
3. As I would have known, had I taken the time to figure it out, performing a short row doesn't add ONE row to your knitting, it adds TWO.

To demonstrate:

The blue lines represent the regular, in-the-round knitting that form the body of my sweater.  The orange lines represent the short rows.  So when you do a short row, you're adding two rows to the section you're working on.  Right.  Lesson learned.

Apparently, I am also not past the point of accidentally twisting my knitting when I join to knit in the round.   I wasn't in the mood to knit a Moebius sweater, so I ripped it all back (2" worth of sweater) and started over.  Grrrr.

But who cares about all that?  I have some progress to show you.  First, I should probably tell you that I decided to make this sweater in a funny way.  My main area of concern was the bust area, so I decided to start with that.  It's not a top-down sweater, though, so I had to get creative.  I have no idea if this was a good idea or not, but I started with a provisional cast on at the armpit mark and started working down from there.  When I'm done with the body of the sweater, I'll pick up the yoke stitches and work up to the collar.  Smart?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I'm sort of channelling EZ on this one and have taken on a devil-may-care attitude.  We'll see if it works: you'll be the first to know (well, after me, of course).

Admittedly, I have a bit of an advantage with this whole design-as-you-go process: I have a custom body form/mannequin to use as a reference:

The top edge is the provisional cast-on.  The bottom edge contains my needle cable (with the nifty little end caps that come with KnitPicks interchangeable needles).  The markers are helping me keep track of the sides of the sweater and the location of the back darts:

No, it isn't perfect.  I think I need to add some darts below the bust on the front (I pinned it there for these photos) and that means ripping back 2" of work to put them in.  I'm not worried about that, though: it goes quickly.  I'm so used to knitting with fingering weight that this worsted feels like rope.

But the short rows did the trick!  I'm not sure why I'm surprised because I've heard it from enough knitters to know that it SHOULD work.  Still, I'm pleased.

You can just barely make the ends of the short rows out in this photo (sorry, but I am kind of addicted to my iPod's camera at the moment and didn't feel like dragging out my behemoth Canon 40D for one picture).

To recap:

1. This mannequin represents the best $200 I ever spent.
2. I am going to rip back to insert some darts in the front.
3. I adjusted my scheme for inserting short rows because I figured out that each one adds 2 rows of knitting, not just 1.  I knew I needed 9 extra rows (maximum) in the bust area.  I ended up putting in 10 (5 short rows), because the math worked out really well, but it was probably overkill.  I could have stopped at 8 (4 short rows).  Maybe when I rip back to put in the darts, I'll take out that last short row.
4. The back darts are beautiful.

Seamless Hybrid Part I (Planning)

As I mentioned in my recent posts, I'm attempting a Seamless Hybrid sweater.  My Ravelry peeps are kind of following along, so I'm going to post my steps so that they can a) follow along or b) watch the train wreck as it unfolds.  If you're not here for the knitting, feel free to come back in a few days.

So here goes (please note: I have no idea what I'm doing - copy me at your own risk):

Planning Stage:

Using my yarn and a circular needle, I knit up some swatches until I got the right fabric density/softness/etc and blocked my swatch.  I got: 18.5 sts/4" and 28 rows/4".

(Helena, if you need metric, let me know... I'm horrible for flipping back and forth between metric and imperial.  The blame can be laid entirely at the feet of those pesky Americans - they refuse to switch over to SI and they're kind of the boss of us, so we have to learn both.)

(Americans: you're not pesky.  I'm just kidding.)(Also, you're not really the boss of us.  So don't get any ideas.)

Sorry, where was I?  Oh yes.  I took out my measuring tape and measured a few things:

• My upper bust circumference (at armpit height)
• My bust circumference (fullest part of the bust)
• My ribcage circumference just under my bust
• The vertical distances between all of these imaginary horizontal lines on my torso
• The circumference of my upper arms (at armpit height)
• The circumference of my arm at the elbow
• The circumference of my wrist
• The vertical distance between wrist and elbow and then from elbow to armpit

I drew myself a little diagram of my body, showing all of these things.  Note: these are called ACTUAL BODY DIMENSIONS.  If you need a starting point, you can borrow this image from my Magic Raglan pattern (don't worry about the raglan length or collarbone - they don't apply, here):

Then, I drew up a little sketch of how I want my sweater to look.  I know that I want to make a jacket-style sweater and that it needs to have positive ease (meaning: I want it to be loose so I can wear a couple of layers underneath). To do that, I added 2" to each of my actual circumference measurements and wrote them down on a sketch of my sweater.  Note: these are called FINISHED DIMENSIONS.  I also wrote down the vertical distances (in inches) between each of those important points on the sweater (armpit, bust, ribcage, etc).

Here's the key part of your design: shaping.  If you want a non-manly sweater, you need to look at a few things.  One of them is shaping.  It is not easy to figure out how shaping works, so don't expect a magic formula that will make it all just come together for you.  (Also, I'm not a fashion designer, so I'm just fumbling around in the dark here, myself.)  Here are some key areas where you can place shaping:

• Some increases/decreases along the side "seams" of the sweater body (because this is a seamless, there are no actual side seams, but you get the idea)
• Some short rows at the bust area
• Some increases/decreases to form darts at the back, under your shoulder blades
• Some increases/decreases in the sleeves, so that they fit more snugly.  Bell sleeves can also be very feminine...
• Some ribbing along the side seams to "snug" everything in
• Some ribbing just under the bust, so you get an empire waist effect
• Look through some of your favourite patterns to see where they have placed some shaping to see if you get any other ideas.

One of the problems I ALWAYS run across is that if I choose a sweater size based on my bust dimension, the sweater is too big.  My bust is 38" around, so I fall in the "Medium/Large" range.  Trouble is, my ribcage is only 32.5" around.  That's a big difference.  When I try shirts on in the store, I almost always end up buying a Small (Medium at the very biggest).  So I am going to try something with my sweater: I'm going to design it so it fits above and below the bust and the fullest part of my bust is going to get some extra fabric in the form of short rows.  I am going to ignore the measurement of my bust at its fullest point.

I'm going to try my best to explain this in writing:

I know what my upper bust measurement is and I know what the ribcage dimension is.  I've figured out that if I measure between those two lines perfectly vertically (I measure this by standing in front of a mirror and holding the tape up in my armpit so that it can hang down straight along my side), I get 6".  BUT, if I measure the distance between those SAME POINTS down the front of my *ahem* boobies, across the fullest part of my bust, that measurement becomes 7.5".   

Right.  So what? you ask.  Ok well, I know that I need to vertically add 1.5" of fabric in the front of my sweater, between my armpit line and my ribcage line.  The goal is that there will some extra fabric there to go around my boobs - this will look like a bulge when the sweater is laid flat. 

What was my row gauge again?  Right, it was 7 rows/1".   So that means that between those two points, I will have something like 42 rows of knitting I don't do any shaping.  And it means that I need to add 7 or 9 short rows in that area (for the sake of simplicity and in the spirit of not overdoing things, I'm going to stick with 7) in order to get some extra space for the girls.  One short row will go right at the fullest point of my bust.  There will be 3 above that, evenly spaced between my armpit line and my fullest bust line (one per inch)(in other words: one for every 7 regular rows). {ETA: I revised this later on, when I made a discovery about short rows: every time you perform a short row, you're actually adding TWO rows of knitting into your fabric...click here for more info.}  Make sense?  Short rows are basically partial rows - they do not go all the way around the sweater body.  You sneak them in wherever you want them.  In my case, I'm going to make them run from armpit to armpit, across my bust.

Are you even still with me?

Other shaping I'm contemplating:

• Two vertical darts in the back, starting under my shoulder blades.  I need to take it in a bit back there - all my sweaters always gape in that area.  I need to go from 176 stitches (armpit height) to 162 sts (ribcage height), so I'm going to try and take it out of the body in the back, as opposed to just on the sides.  (Kate Davies did something similar in this most amazing dress she made herself - only it is very fitted and she calls it an arse-accommodator.)  Mine is much less exaggerated - just a little taking in.
• Some increases in the body (along the side seams), below the ribcage line, so it forms a slight A-line.

Feel free to step in here, Chris, if you think I'm barking up the wrong tree.

Decorative Stitches:

Another way to inject a feminine touch in to your sweater is to use decorative stitches (lace, cables, twisted stitches, etc) in various areas.  There are entire books dedicated to this sort of thing, so I won't get into details here.  Suffice it to say that if you want something to look more girly, it's easy to find a nice simple lace pattern that you can slip into the side "seam" area or in a panel up the middle of the back.  My yarn is variegated and has a beautiful sheen, so I think I'm going to leave it alone and just use stockinette stitch.  If you have an idea and you aren't sure how to implement it, let me know and I'll help you out.

Knitting, Phase I: Sleeves

Sleeves are a major component of the design.  Do you want bell sleeves, fitted sleeves, 3/4 sleeves?  This is something you'll have to decide (along with how many stitches you want to start with.  The Seamless Hybrid is a hem-up sweater, so you start with the cuff measurement, but you'll want to figure out how big around that upper arm needs to be and how often/where you're going to increase to get there.  EZ gives some guidelines in the form of percentages, but I've learned that these have been modified over the years to suit evolving fashions and are really just meant as a guideline.  I'm kind of ignoring them, myself.

I want long sleeves for this jacket.  I am notorious for underestimating how cold it is outside and I want to be able to pull the cuffs down over my hands if the steering wheel is cold.  I don't want any special shaping, though - just simple and easy.  In my particular case, that means casting on 42 sts (I figured that out by doing some math with my gauge and sweater schematic) with my 4.0mm needles and knitting in 2x1 rib for 4" (ALWAYS GO DOWN A NEEDLE SIZE OR TWO WHEN RIBBING - otherwise your ribbing is going to be schlumpy).  Then, switching to 5.0mm needles and knitting in stockinette, increasing every 5 or 6 rows as EZ describes in the Seamless Hybrid pattern (except I'm so lazy, I didn't even count the rows) until I got to 66 sts (which is 14" - that's the measurement I wanted for the upper arm).  Then I stopped increasing and just knit straight until the sleeve measured 22.5" in length (total).  Easy peasy.  My sleeves aren't *exactly* the same (see reference to laziness above), but you can't tell.

And guess what?  I knit the sleeves first so that they act as insurance gauge swatches.  Turns out I got just a *little* tighter when I knit them up (it didn't affect the size of the sleeves, really) and I was able to adjust my gauge number as a result.  It means that I had to go back and adjust my numbers for the body of the sweater, but I'm fine with that.  Better safe than sorry.

(to be continued...)

Spring Wardrobe

It looks as though mother nature may have finally gotten the memo that it's spring (allegedly).

No, those temperatures are not fantastic, but you may have noticed the big yellow spiky circly thing in the middle of those icons, yes?  We haven't seen that sparkly doodad in quite a while.  I'll take the 10C as a trade for some vitamin D.

As a result of this monumental turn of events, my mind started turning to spring wardrobes and oh-crap-what-am-I-going-to-wear-this-summer?  I lost a fair bit of weight last summer/fall (15 lbs, actually) and then gained a bit of it back (that's ok, I knew that would happen when I started to recover from my malady).  The result of this seesawing is that I have no idea what fits and what doesn't.  Plus, I am due for some new clothes.  Some of my summer wardrobe is over 7 years old.  Don't get me wrong - I take really good care of my clothing, so it sure doesn't look that old.  But, I'm getting tired of it, you know?

So.  I went fabric shopping.  I spent an OBSCENE amount of money.  Money we don't really have.  Money that I'm trying REALLY HARD to feel guilty about spending, but to no avail.

 Some beautiful poplin in several (this was not all of it) colours, for pants and capris:

Some really gorgeous rayon/cotton knit in a shimmery taupe colour:

I have plans for this knit (the black one on the right):

Image courtesy of Burda

I also got completely blindsided by this fabric:

I know, right?  I just about fell to my knees before it in the store.  They had to pry the bolt out of my hands to cut the length I needed.  It's a beautiful crisp (almost crinkly) batiste and the background colour is the softest lilacy rose colour.  You almost can't tell.  Gah, I'm so in love.

{Don't worry, I bought lots of discount cotton fabric to make a muslin of this dress before I cut into the batiste.  I've learned that lesson well over the years.}

The gorgeous stuff is going to become this (if I have anything to say about it, anyway):

Both images courtesy of Burda

There is just something about the long version, isn't there?  I don't have enough fabric for that one, but mine will definitely be longer than the first version.  I don't do "above the knee".  No way, Jose.  No can do.  Me and my "athletic" legs are staying firmly under wraps.

Other than that, I bought some very serviceable cotton for the hubbie (shorts) and some new needles and thread (boring but necessary).  Plus, I renewed my membership to the special club (woot, an automatic 20% off every fabric purchase, yeeeeehaw).  If you're getting into sewing your own clothing and your local store has a rewards program, I strongly recommend that you look into it.  It has been very beneficial for me.

I'll touch base again when I've got some of it finished - show and tell time!

Have a great holiday weekend, if you're in Canada!