Done!

We Work the Black Seam.

[with apologies to Sting]

Yes, making a top-down raglan sweater is way easier than making it down-up in pieces. Yes, I am a perfectionist and when I bind off this sweater at the waist I have to use a tubular 1:1 rib cast off. And yes, doing it on over 200 stitches borders on insanity. But doing it with one long, long, long bit of Noro Iro? Totally wrecks all the time and seaming that I have saved on doing the top-down raglan sweater.
Loony bin, here I come.

Three Little Brilliances.

Three little epiphanies while making Noro Raglan for Lukie (Noralu):

1. The edge of slipped garter stitch looks massively better and neater if the garter is all PURLS. I would not recommend doing an entire sweater or blanket with purled garter stitch, but it is just brilliant as a little neck edging or buttonhole band.

2. My M1 look a lot worse than a simple twisted "add a stitch". By M1 I mean the "knit into the front and back of a stitch" method of increase, also known as the bar increase. The raglan for Sarah's baby is much more raggedy than the one I am making right now.

3. From the crochet world: working the first row into the bumps of the chain rather than across! It makes the end look like a bound off version or the top of a single or double crochet. And I have been crocheting for almost forty years and did not figure this one out. Sad. Really sad. This idea is from the most recent Inside Crochet out of the UK.

Happy New Yarn.

So much has happened. I started to work very hard at some writing for work, so I have had a lot less time for the blog. Knitting continued, but at a slower pace.
We had a really good Chrismas - my sister and her husband Yeng came from Cambodia (she is liontamer on Ravelry and the engine of Cambodia Knits). They brought lots of puppets and monsters for show, sale and delivery. My sons had a great time with their aunt and uncle, occasionally modelling for Cambodia Knits. Last Tuesday she made a presentation at our knitting guild (The Around the Bay Knitting Guild) guild and that went very well. It was good to have her here for a while, but it had to end.
On Thursday I felt quite blue and I went to the Needle for some yarn therapy. I had been there recently to restash a few yarns, but it was not therapeutic enough. This time I bought some Noro Iro, in spunky blue that I really do not know what I will make from it. Another scarf, may be? But getting it, petting it and sniffing it helped a bit.
Today I got the new Interweave Crochet and the new Inside Crochet came sometime before Christmas. I so seldom crochet, but I love reading about it and looking at different projects. The difference betweeen the UK and the American project types is illuminating - a lot more non-clothing doodads on the European side of the Atlantic.

Going to Rome.

And I finished all my easy knits fit for travelling! At a loss as to what to take with me. Will need to figure something out tonight or I will end up actually w o r k i n g on the plane there. The horror! The horror!
I knit the Sideways Cloche during the San Diego trip two weeks ago and it was nice and easy even if I completely messed the thing up on the flight back. Two Coronas will do that to your math skills.

Machinery Doesn't Answer Either, But You Aren't Married to It.

Sometimes she knits and sits,
Sometimes she sits and knits,
And you tell her what you have been doing all day and
you ask what she has been doing all day... and you
speak tenderly of your courtship and your bridal,
And you might as well try to get a response out of an
Oriental idol,
And you notice a spasmodic movement of her lips,
And you think she is going to say something but she is
only counting the number of stitches it takes to
surround the hips;
And she furrows her beautiful brow, which is a sign that
something is wrong somewhere and you keep on
talking and disregard the sign,
And she casts a lethal glance, as one who purls before
swine,
And this goes on for weeks
At the end of which she lays her work down and
speaks,
And you think now maybe you can have some home
life but speaks in a tone as far off as Mercury or
Saturn,
And she says thank goddness that is finished, it is a
sight and she will never be able to wear it, but it
doesn't matter because she can hardly wait to start
on an adorable new pattern,
And when this has been going on for a long time, why
that's the time that strong men break down and go
around talking to themselves in public, finally,
And it doesn't mean, that they are weak mentally or
spinally,
It doesn't mean, my boy, that they ought to be in an
asylum like Nijinski the dancer,
It only means that they got into the habit of talking to
themselves at home because they themselves were
the only people they could speak to and get an
answer.
Ogden Nash, 1929

Generosity.

Last night I went to the Around the Bay Knitters' Guild meeting in Dundas. It was our annual charity silent auction. I took with me some order forms for Cambodia Knits and the first four puppets that the knitters have produced.
The members were very interested and appreciative. They want Monika to come and talk at the January meeting. Many asked for the order form, and two women bought the puppets on the spot! More puppets were requested, but I only had those four. One woman bought the Monkey and the Pig, because her daughters were born in the years of the Monkey and the year of the Pig! The Moose and the Lion also found a new home and 12 dollars for Cambodia Knits were collected.
As if that was not enough, I got the remains of the auction donated to Cambodia Knits! A whole shopping bagful of colorful yarns for more finger puppets.
I Skyped my sister later last night and all she could say was: Thank you! Thank you!