KarenJoSeattle

I Swear It's a Swatch

I know this looks like a good start on a sleeve for my first NaKniSweMoDo sweater and we still have a week and a half until 2009. I feel the need to swatch this by knitting a part of the sweater to figure out how the cable and rib pattern I'm also improvising as I swatch will actually work. This is my third version and I'm debating if it still pulls the purl stitches to much. I really don't want them to look like openwork when it's done and blocked.

I knit and washed a flat ribbed swatch. I plan to use the change in gauge there to figure how my gauge on this sleeve and, by extension, the garment will change. I used the weaver's trick of making an outline of my swatch pre-washing so I now know this Alpaca/Jacob blend bulky yarn will get wider and shorter.

My master plan is to base a sweater on a sleeve whose stretched dimensions look good when worn, allowing for the % change that will happen with washing and blocking. I count on the elongated chained cables I've alternated with a plain rib not to change that % too much.

I'll figure my numbers for a saddle-shouldered (with a sleeve cable continuing up the saddle) EPS from this derived gauge. The cowl/turtle neck of 2x2 rib should echo the 4 1/2 to 5" of plain rib at hem and cuff. I'm aiming for something fitted, but not too clingy, to offset the bulky nature of this yarn, though in slightly-stretched ribs I get more like 4 to 4.5 than 3 stitches per inch.

Wish me luck. I'm flying by the seat of my pants here.

Here is today's morning newspaper article on Seattle weather and another photo gallery or two. Keep in mind that Seattle gets an inch or two of snow maybe once or twice a winter, sometimes none at all, and frost maybe a quarter to a third of winter nights. At this time of year many days run a high of 45F and a low of 40. It hit 14F at the airport today and broke a 1954 record for 24-hour snowfall there. Only in Seattle would baristas consider themselves essential personnel at a time like this.

Meanwhile, here at my holiday home in the foothills of CaliforniaI (I know it's hard to keep track of where I am. I get confused sometimes, too.) I just dealt with all-day rain in the high 40s. My nephew, on the other hand, had his Christmas-break flight out of Portland cancelled and should now be somewhere just inside California on his drive from Olympia, Washington, if he made it over Siskiyou Pass.

The cat, though, is all better and back to being a demanding pain in the rear. I love her dearly.

Wish You Were Here

Most of the time we were back up in Seattle I dressed like this. The temperature did not get above freezing for the five days we were there. This did give me an opportunity to use my wrap that I knit over a year ago. I got a complement and more than one passerby who turned to check out my warm and, I hope, not too dorky look.

After we left the weather got worse. Since then it's looked like this. And this. Plus this and this. A short ways outside the city looked like this. The incoming storm will bring high winds as well as snow.

I know other places are colder, icier, and snowier but Seattle doesn't deal well with weather like this both because of all the hills and because we rarely get it. I really hope things thaw out before we need to drive home over passes next weekend.

Here where I am in the foothills of Northern California today the temperature got above 50F and the sun shone. Unfortunately, I didn't make it outside. Instead I spent the day hanging with a sick kitty. (Why do they never get sick during office hours?) Winne had a goopy eye, was lethargic, uninterested in food, felt hot on the top of her head (the only part that wasn't snuggled up to something), and was not bugging me all day for a lap and undivided attention. She was definitely sick.

She's doing much better after a day of just lying next to me while I swatched, caught up on blogs and occasionally changed the load in the washer and dryer.

I'll try to post some of the swatches over the next couple of days. It's all the knitting I'm managing right now and writting a post seems to be hard to get around to, too. I'm sure most of you are in the same place this week. I did decorate yesterday and today. I may bake tomorrow. Happy holidays to everyone.

Saturday Sky

As this posts, I'm sitting in the football stadium at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon watching my nephew's playoff game. Hopefully it's not raining and the game is going well.  (ETA - We Won)

Early this last week we had an unusual for us episode of heavy late-morning fog. I looked down on it from my 19th floor windows. Rebecca/Supergirl got photos from a different perspective.

Not a lot, but some progress has been made and life could be much worse

This evening I headed out to my newly reorganized hardware store here to look for the foam insulation sheets Robin suggested in the comments for the a previous post to use as a blocking board for my Mountain colors top-down cardigan. Apparently they haven't completely restocked yet and no foam boards could be had.

They did, however, have packages of a smaller size of the foam puzzle mats I use in Seattle, complete with cute edging pieces. These should easily store here and give me a familiar surface for pinning and drying my sweater.

I like these because they break down to a storable size, the pins stick in easily without going through to the floor, the knitted pieces don't slip, and the foam doesn't soak up the moisture so things dry a bit faster on them.

Plus, in a few minutes I am going to go up and do a little workout and nice stretch on that cushy surface since it's too late to want to soak and pin my cardigan tonight.

I did get the sleeves hemmed after I got home from the hardware store. I'm ready to soak and block first thing tomorrow, given that for me first thing starts somewhere around noon.

Today even at noon I'd barely started at all. I just couldn't wake up. My sister's party was over by 9:30, as Sunday counts as a work night for most of the guests, and we had things well enough picked up by ten. I lay down for a moment and woke up enough to go to bed at 12:30.

Then I just couldn't wake up today. I got the decorations down, but I haven't mopped the kitchen. Didn't I just do that yesterday? And I didn't get out to the stores until after 6PM.

Besides the too much food and wine and champagne last night, I think I suffered from having in the house today too little of the good stuff I normally eat. The cupcakes turned out really yummy, and looked fine with the glaze on them. But cupcakes, even vegan gingerbread with cranberry fig relish spread on one, don't have the same effect as my usual heavy on the fruits and vegetables diet. And alcohol gives me hot flashes, though much milder than the ones I got a few months ago.

When I got home from shopping, I had an e-mail from my Seattle house sitter/Garden Guy. If you missed it, Seattle had a day of snow Saturday; unusual at all and a bit more fell than normal in the usual rare snowfall. Then they had a rainstorm that came second in all time since records have been kept - about 130 years, I think. Six billion gallons of rain, according to this report. And it hasn't stopped.

We had a leaky window in our 19th floor unit. According to the response from our concierge, windows leaked all over the building.

Last year I missed the record wind and power outages; this year the record rain. Here in California we had sixty degrees worth of sunshine today. I think I'll go do that workout and contemplate my good fortune.

Rain, Rain

First I caught the ferry over to Bainbridge Island to go to a knitting circle at Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. Yes, that's rain in the photo; over a quarter inch fell today.

I'm happy as things on Bainbridge didn't get watered when we didn't get over there this weekend.

At circle, Karen Alfke helped me figure out stitch counts for the heel on my current sock. I have 90 stitches at 11 spi. Wendy used 64 or 72 stitches at 8 spi in the pattern for the heel I want to knit .

I think we interpolated pretty well. At least our numbers make sense. We'll see as I just started the gusset increases.

That took all of our time, though, so I still didn't get my Mountain Colors cardigan cast on.

Afterward, we got some some ideas formed on the wedding shower I'm giving her. It has a knitting theme. We're excited.

Then this evening I went to the Seattle Knitters Guild meeting. No photos -- an oversight as I had my camera. Ironic, too, since the program topic was on-line knitting communities and tools, including blogging.

Lizabeth talked about KALs and Yahoo groups. Rebecca covered Flicker and Jessica covered Ravelry. Janine,  Megan, Melinda, and Sarah formed a panel on blogs.

I just volunteered to be a reporter for the newsletter so got to introduce myself. I think I'll enjoy working with these women.

Sticky Fingers

Hotter than usual and somewhat humid describes the weather in Seattle for the last couple of days. In the 90s with humidity around 40 to 50%. Tomorrow holds more of the same.

The speed of my knitting suffers in these conditions.

Yesterday I took a ferry over to our place on Bainbridge Island, my version of commuting. I knit on my Pinnate scarf coming and going.

It felt like knitting in mud. My hands started to sweat as soon as I picked up the piece. I made a fair amount of progress, but with lots of effort.

Today when I ran out to catch the elevator down and walk to my Pilates lesson, the elevators didn't respond to my call. Ditto the freight elevator.

I trotted 18 floors down the usually empty utility stairs with several people from the commercial section of my building and a couple of maintenance guys in a big hurry.

Three fire trucks sat at the curb. I'd noticed the sirens stop close by but hadn't bothered to check how close.

Turned out the workmen doing construction on one of the units broke off a fire sprinkler head. That project seemed jinxed from the start, with ongoing problems partly due to the owners' choice of contractors, apparently. Neighbors on that floor have complained loudly and often, even the mild ones. Still, I wouldn't wish this kind of heartbreak on anyone. They were very close to done.

Anyway, instead of walking, I ran uphill a block and grabbed a bus that would get me there on time, so got in more knitting. I've knit more than 3/4 of the yarn for Pinnate.

But I didn't block my socks.

Sproing!

It's Spring today in downtown Seattle. Cherry blossom petals clog the gutters. Even the most stressed of the street maples show signs of green leaves.

When I walked to Pilates at 11:30 this morning the thermometers read 47, though it looked like it should be warmer. Women's apparel ranged from cabled sweaters and jackets to silky T-shirts, strappy sandles, and goosebumps. I wore the sweater and jacket.

At 5 PM it's 59 and glorious outside. We plan to walk to the Ballet's Celebrate Seattle Festival, as we did last night.

Much more damp gloom will hang around here before summer weather arrives sometime after the Fourth of July. For now, we've shared our rain with Southern California, who needs it much more. And the sidewalks are elbow-to-elbow with people grateful that these little previews of summer happen in the Pacific Northwest.

Spousal-Equivalent tried on the sock foot and declared it to fit. I think I need to add a couple ribs to accomodate his high arch. He'll need them in the leg, too.

Also discovered that his heel is taller than the standard 2 inches. He wants another inch and a half of stockinette before I start ribbing all the way around.

I really like this toe-up sock thing.