Not that it's of any importance...

...but there was a bit of back and forth yesterday about the last tutorial. I'm posting it because I feel it illustrates what I mean when I say that knitting becomes an obsession.

Phase VII:



Wood's reply to my e-mail with the tutorial:

"Eeeeeeee! I'm so excited! Thanks, and I'll let you know if I have any questions.

(Jim just asked me why I was so excited, and I told him you'd just sent the final set of instructions, and he said, "wow, she's really hooking you up, huh?" and I said, "indeed.")"

I couldn't resist replying:

"It's all in the interest of expanding our cult following. You'll recall I warned you about that at the beginning. It starts innocently enough (you're browsing the yarn shop, contemplating another garter stitch scarf, carelessly browsing the pattern books) and the next thing you know, you're looking into buying a spinning wheel and booking tickets for knitting retreats...

We're worse than Trekkies.

When my buddy broke her arm last year, she blogged about it and my first reaction was "Oh my god, how will she knit?". I didn't leave that as a comment, though - I thought it might sound kind of callous, considering she had a 2-month old baby and a 4-year old to look after and she couldn't paint (she's an illustrator). She probably had more important things to think about than knitting. I went over to her place a week later and asked her how she was coping and she said "Well, it's tricky. I can't pick up the baby and I can't cook and I feel helpless and I can't work, but I'm dealing with that, because PRAISE BE TO GOD I can still knit!". Turns out, it was one of the first things she tested out when she got home with the cast.

Brainwashed, all of us. Welcome to the club (I can safely say that you are in the club, because you are sitting at home on a Friday night, checking your e-mail for a knitting tutorial and you exclaimed about its arrival loud enough to attract the attention of your husband --- you're hooked, it's a done deal)."

Her confession came a little later:

"Oooh yes, you've got me. I did just spend two hours knitting on a Friday night, and it was really fun and there is nothing I would have rather been doing. Now my hand is cramped and my eyes are tired, so I better go to sleep before I start making mistakes.

Awesome story about your friend. That cracked me up. I'd write something funny or clever myself, but I'm too tired.

Thanks again for recruiting me into your cult."

That's knitting, for you. The yarn wraps you around its little finger and you can help but love the abuse.

Phase VII (the last of the tutorials for this sweater)

Phase VII is ready! We're finished!

A little bit of back-and-forth

About a week after sending Wood the pdf for Phase VI, I got an e-mail. It wasn't really crucial to include here, but I had fun with it:

"Okay, I've done the decreases, and as usual, your guide was great. I haven't grafted the armpits together yet, but might try it tonight.

It was tricky and kind of confusing to follow Joelle's instructions, but I think I got it right and am ready to move on!"

This is what I wrote back:

"Soooo, what you're saying is "get off your ass, woman, and get me my next tutorial!"

It's cool. I get it. The first bloom of friendship has wilted and the gloves are coming off. I see how this is going to play.

Heheh, I'm just messin' with ya.

I did 90 minutes of yoga tonight, so I'm totally wiped. I'll work on it tomorrow night and send it to you asap - how does that sound? We're almost finished, you realize..."

She wrote back:

"Ha!! Actually the original purpose of the email was to say I didn't understand what Joelle meant by "ending the last round 25 stitches before the last round -- 149 sts: 45 sts for front, 46 for back and 29 for each sleeve" but then as I typed it out I totally got it. So then I was left with an email without a point, so that's why it ended like that.

90 minutes of yoga? I am impressed!"

After which, I got off track talking about yoga (moi? prattle on and on about something? seems so out-of-character!!) and how awesome it is, until she brought us back to the subject at hand and asked:

"I spoke too soon. I do have a question about that last instruction: (1) for some reason, I have an extra stitch in front and back-- 46 sts for front, and 47 for back. But the sleeves are right at 29 each; is this a problem? I have no idea what happened. (2) if I end the round 21 stitches before the end, that is a few sts into the left sleeve (left if you're wearing it, right if you're looking at it). Am I understanding this right?"

My answer:

"Re: 46 and 47 stitches vs. 45 and 46: Totally no big deal. Ignore it and carry on.

Re: end of knitting in the left sleeve: I had the same thing happen to me. Conclusion? Either we made the exact same mistake or (more likely, I say) wonky pattern writing, Joelle! I refuse to consider that I got cocky and misread the pattern. Nope, not my fault. No way.

Now that we have absolved ourselves of guilt there, here is the solution: I totally fudged mine, so you can too. I don't have a camera with me at the moment, so bear with me: You want to find yourself in the middle-ish of your 46-stitch section of stockinette (the front). Knit that 46-stitch section on your last round, but stop when you are 25 stitches from the first right sleeve marker - it'll be about halfway-ish. (note: right arm goes in the right sleeve, just to make sure we are talking about the same sleeve, here). That's where you'll be working the neck placket (see photo), so that's why you stop there, and not at the end of the round. Don't worry if the round is a little offset and you have to knit a partial plain row just to get back to the front section (you probably have your "beginning of round" marker in the wrong spot) - no-one will ever notice, in a trillion years. That's the nice thing about knitting for babies. Their cuteness distracts the viewer from goof-ups in the knitting.

"Oh, isn't that little girl adorable? Wait. Is that decrease slanting the wrong way in her- Oh, she just smiled at me! She smiled! She's the most beautiful baby in the World! Hmm... Now, what was I going to say about her sweater? Oh well, mustn't have been important... She's so pretty."

Hope that answers your questions."

She wrote back the next day:

"Still getting the hang of reading those patterns.

I think I know what I did -- I put my place holder at the wrong sleeve -- I used the right front from my perspective, which is really left. Oops. I knit a partial row to get to the right spot.

I stitched up my armpit holes last night, and the first one is a little rough looking, but the second is better. Like all things with knitting, the first time I didn't really understand what I was doing, and by the second time it made more sense, and as a result, looks much better."

Some recipes

Hello!

I've added links to some interesting recipes in the sidebar. One is for homemade laundry detergent (super super super easy - don't be intimidated) and the others are for a couscous salad and a date/chocolate/almond cake (gluten-free).  {ETA: Sorry, I've done some downsizing and I've taken them off the web.  Let me know if you're interested and I'll send them directly to you via e-mail.}

Phase VI - the sweater yoke

Aaaaand, here's Phase VI.

You'll also need to learn how to graft.

Phase V - finishing the first sleeve and connecting it to the body

Click here.

Phase IV - starting the first sleeve and learning how to knit with dpn's

My next e-mail was sent off a few days later...
{ETA: Am not sure when I sent Wood Phase III, but here it is.}



"Ok, so here is Phase IV.



Listen up: I'm giving it to you on the condition that you wait until you are well-rested and have an hour or two of peace and un-interrupted quiet (stop laughing, I'm serious) to try it. Don't attempt this on an empty stomach or when you're PMSing or when you're nursing a 4-year-old who has caught H1N1 back to health. It won't work. You'll get frustrated and you'll decide that anyone stupid enough to try this deserves to be taken out of the gene pool. And, seeing as you've got my home address, I'd rather you didn't get to that point.

That said, it's quite do-able. No really, it is. I actually much prefer double-pointed needles to circulars, which I realize makes me an anomaly, but still. Just keep in mind that the needles (whether you're using 4 or 5) are going to dangle and clink and clang together while you knit. Totally normal. I tried to show you as best as I could how to do this, but I figured I would send you this link, if you need a YouTube video. She's not knitting in seed stitch, so just remember that. But, she's got a cool accent and her instructions are quite good (socks and kid sleeves are essentially the same - just tubes). She's using 4 needles, instead of 5 like me, so you can see the difference. Also, she is using a completely different cast on (see, I had no idea it even existed - you learn something everyday!):



I just realized you may be confused about why my yarn is now beige in the Phase IV tutorial. I started this tutorial with my yellow yarn last week, and was knitting along nicely until this weekend, when I picked it up again and realized that I had made a mistake and ripped it out to restart. I didn't have the laptop's webcam here and I got so carried away with the knitting that I went way beyond the point where I finished the tutorial and decided to just keep on going. So, I had to go back and re-document what I did, using a different yarn and set of needles (I didn't want to restart AGAIN and my needles and yarn were otherwise engaged). So, I'll get back to the yellow yarn and bamboo needles in the next installment. Make sense? Do you even care? Probably not. Oh well."

Here are Phases V and VI: