Atta Girl Sweater Cast On (White)

 Yesterday I was in a sacred space and remembered I wanted to knit a white sweater before being there again.  I had been collecting white yarns for months, from time to time, but had not settled on a particular set of yarns to use.  The Atta Girl Sweater designed by Cori of Irocknits was the sweater I had planned to knit. It calls for two strands of DK weight yarn held together to give a nice marled look.  Well, I was planning to hold two whites together for my "marl".  If you go to Ravelry, you will see the particulars about the Atta Girl Sweater.

Yarns I had collected:

1. Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool Worsted 465 yards/227 grams-Natural

2. Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted 110 yards/50 grams-White

3. Knit Picks Palette Fingering 231 yards/50 grams-White

4. Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted 110 yards/50 grams- Cloud

5. Knit Picks Swish DK 123 yards/50 grams-White

6. Harrisville Designs Shear (Merino-Dorset) DK 196 yards/50 grams-Buttermilk

7. Harrisville Designs Shear (Wellscroft Dorset) Fingering/50 grams 161 yards-Oyster

8. Paton's Classic Wool Worsted 194 yards/100 grams-Winter White

9. Briggs and Little Regal 2-ply 272 yards/113 grams-Natural White

10. Briggs and Little Heritage 2-ply 215 yards/113 grams-Natural White

11. Knit Picks Aloft Lace 260 yards/25 grams-White

The two Harrisville yarn amounts don't make sense to me but those are the numbers on the ball bands.

So as you can see, I had collected a lot of yarn and planned originally to make swatches of each of them before starting to knit. I wanted to choose wisely the yarn for the sweater for some reason.

Last night (remembering the coolness) I quickly picked up the Wool of the Andes Worsted-White and the Fisherman's Wool-Natural and just cast on.  After almost two hours of knitting I realized I was going to quickly run out of yarn.  At least I told myself that I did not want to use all these varied yarns to make the sweater. I just wanted two yarns to make the sweater...so what do you do in this case?  I checked to see if I could get the Patons Classic Wool Worsted and the Fisherman's Wool at Michaels.  No luck except online so...Since I had already started with the Wool of the Andes, I ordered more of  that yarn from Knit Picks and expect it to arrive in a week-plus. I also ordered two more Fisherman's Wool from Amazon and expect that next week.  

The Knit Picks? Well, I don't know. I HOPE I actually ordered it but as I am having password/account login problems, I don't know if I actually did place the order so I don't know when it will come.  In the morning (I am writing this at 2:00 AM...) I will call them and see what the scoop is.

So the sweater is on its way.  The reason I am writing this at 2:00 AM is that I woke up thinking about the sweater and realized to make the knitting go faster I needed to re-write the pattern with just my own numbers.  You know how sweaters are written with numbers for every pattern size--and this one has 9 sizes so there are many numbers--so I had circled all the numbers I need for the whole pattern but it was taking ages to go through the  rows of the pattern.

At present  I have Cast On, knitted the 7 short rows, Started the Raglan Shaping and am at Row 9 in that section.  That was when I went to bed last night.  

While rubbing Dear One's back before going to sleep  I was also watching quite a few YouTube videos on spindle spinning and blending boards. I have a good mind to order an Ashford blending board to prepare yarn for spinning on the spindle as well as on the two spinning wheels I have.  Finally I shut off the iPad and went to sleep sometime after 11:00 PM.

Now here I am with the idea to transcribe the pattern for my size. I will do one row here to show what I mean:

Row 9: K2, [YO, K2tog] 6 times, K1, M1R, SM,K2, SM, M1L, K13, M1R, SM, K2, SM, M1L, K1, [YO, K2tog] 12 times, K1, M1R, SM, K2, SM, M1L, K13, M1R, SM, K2, SM, M1L, K1, [YO, K2tog] 6 times, K2.  98 sts.

When I counted that row--the main reason I had gone to bed when I did was that my count was 99 stitches. I could not see where I had made the mistake.  Just this moment after transcribing the pattern and counting the row again, I FOUND the mistake.  AND it was an extra YO just two stitches before the end of the row!!  How good is that?!  So easy to fix.  Now I just want to pick up the needles and keep going but will exercise a little restraint and just transcribe more rows. Then go back to bed.  Or pick up the table. Or wash a few dishes.  But I had better go to bed as there are several pressing appointments in the morning.

This is what the sweater looks like so far:

What you see on the right is some of the sleeve stitches. The lace work is the back.  The same lace is on both fronts. In case I did not say, this is a cardigan.  Since my last three failed sweaters are pullovers, I think I will just make cardigans for a while. If I knit more than the class cardigan and this temple cardigan for myself.  

You can also see a corner of the white project bag I made out of one yard of fabric and a 22' zipper.  Some day I will put that pattern up here because it is a great bag which is so easy to make.  I have ten or eleven of them in different colors...should be enough for anyone's on-the-needles projects, don't you think?!

Wednesday Wonders: Giant Skeleton

 Quick one today.  I hope!

In our neighborhood there is a family who has a 10 or 12 or 15-foot skeleton on their front lawn.  This skeleton showed up in the fall for the first time and was duded up for Halloween. Shortly afterwards, early in November, he became a Pilgrim.  So very cool.  Then Christmas he was a Santa with a Naughty and Nice list with the names of children in the neighborhood which their parents had supplied.  So very cool.

Here he is today:

May I say I do think this is rather fun!  I saw the creator of this icon as he was dressing up for Thanksgiving and asked if the family was going to carry on through the year.  He said they were going to do their best.  I think that is admirable and a good way to get their money's worth out of that skeleton, which had to be a significant outlay...plus it gives all the neighbors and their visitors a smile.

Tuesday Times: Lots of Things Coming Up!

Over the past two years I have knitted for myself three sweaters. First time in years that I have knit for myself.  Kind of fun. These were test knitting projects.  Since we are in the South now I thought cotton would be a good idea for yarn.  The first sweater in 100% cottone came out pretty but was too big.  The second sweater I got a different yarn--a cotton blend.  It also came out more like a sweatshirt than a sweater.  Too big.  Six months ago I bought into another test knit for a designer and podcaster than I enjoy.  This time I used fine wool yarn...in this case Knit Picks Palette yarn with two strands held together.  The pattern was well-written and I was able to suggest some edits that would make the pattern itself more easily followed.  And this sweater ALSO turned out too large.  

Don't get me wrong: I like loose clothing. I am claustrophobic and that includes tight clothing.  Plus I am not in love with the sausage casing look that so many women buy into today.  I sometimes think people who are a size 20 want to be a size 14 and buy clothes they can get into but which do not actually fit.  At least not the way I want my clothes to fit.  

Anyway, part of the problem with the final sweater is that I did not read the pattern all the way to the final page where there was a schematic.  If I had looked at the schematic and then measured myself I would have made a different size.  Since then I have seen knitting videos that made me believe I had chosen the wrong size.  Well, duh!  Of course I chose the wrong size. I just did not know it for those three sweaters.

Three wrong sweaters in a row was so disappointing.  As I was watching a designer/podcaster early last fall she spoke of a Sweater Fitting Course that she was going to teach starting in January. I immediately signed up for the waiting list! NO MORE SLOPPY SWEATERS WANTED.

During the fall I spent a lot of time looking for sweaters on Ravelry that were the required top-down raglan or top-down yoke sweater.  I want a cardigan and searched and searched.  So many beautiful sweaters out there but I am sort of lazy I suppose. I did not want a complicated sweater to figure out fit on for the first time...just a stockinette stitch sweater.

Finally I found a sweater that was a crew neck top-down raglan sweater which had a steek so it could become a cardigan.  Just what I wanted. I have done steeks before and actually thought of turning the Knit Picks Palette sweater into a cardigan with an after-the-fact steek but have not done it yet. I am wearing that sweater as I type. We are having an unseasonably cold spell here so I feel good in this nice wool sweater!

The Victory Cardigan was designed by Corinne Tomlinson of The Woolly Thistle in West Lebanon, NH.  If  we still lived in Vermont I would be spending all my spare cash on their yarn if I had not already spent it at The Junction Fiber Mill in White River Junction!  Love the JFM yarn and have spent a good deal of money there over the last year.  Probably it is a good thing we moved to a yarn desert and that I am at least slightly cognizant of the cost of things.  Part of the reason I have bought that yarn is that some of the sheep whose fleece was used for the yarn live across the road from some very deara friends.  Connections!

To make a long story shorter, it was good news to get into the sweater fitting class.  I have now swatched both in the round and flat.  I believe the yarn will work on the needle size.  One evening soon will be the first class meeting via Zoom. I can hardly wait.

In the meantime I have been knitting the Sweet Baby Raglan Sweater pattern given to us by the course instructor as a quickly knitted sample of what we would be knitting in class.  The pattern calls for sport weight yarn. I did not have any to hand so I used the same sized needles on Hobby Lobby Sugarwheel yarn which is a worsted weight. I had to do some math to make this sweater proportional. I had arrived at the divide for body and sleeves when I remembered I still had some Patons Kroy Sock yarn which is close to sport weight and which I had planned to use in another project.  So--I started another Sweet Baby Raglan Sweater in the correct size yarn. I had recently purchased a set of six or eight different sizes of 10" double pointed needles and used them to cast on this sweater...dpns being what the designer called for.  That did NOT work at all for the worsted weight yarn, as you can imagine.

Well, today, while waiting in the doctor's office, I had PLENTY of time to knit so I have nearly finished the length of the purple sweater.  For sure the body should be done before bedtime and the sleeves should be done in the morning.  I will then pick up the worsted weight sample and try to get that done before the first class meeting, though it will be tight!  I do not foresee doing any house work tomorrow....just knit knit knit.  Despite having said this was the year I hope to get the house in order, get my health in order, and use up all the yarn collection.  It is possible that I can manage one or two of those, but all three? Debatable.   Pray for me...

This is the Patons Kroy Sock yarn sweater.  It is supposed to end up 18" circumference. I need to knit fast if I am going to give it to a new baby.

Munchie Monday: Food Success:

 On Sunday there was to be a Linger Longer at church.  This is basically a potluck meal that is shared as some people have set up dining tables and other people have set up food table and everyone there sits down to eat.  Except the kind people who are in charge of seeing that all goes well; that food is set up on serving able and water pitchers set on the dining tables.  Those people not actively helping are chitchatting and being neighborly, a nice thing to do.

For our Linger Longers, which usually happen the last Sunday of the month, there is often a theme.  This month the theme was "New Recipes" to go along with  a new year.  I had just seen a recipe reel on Facebook then saw it again and again and thought it might work.  It seemed about as easy as could be so I decided to give it a try.

This is the recipe:

Chicken Cobbler

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3-4 cups cooked then chopped chicken--can use a rotisserie chicken
12-16 ounces frozen mixed vegetables or just frozen peas and carrots if you can find them. (In the store where I shopped there were no peas and carrots)
2 cups milk
2 packages Cheese Garlic Bisquik mix
2 cups chicken broth
1 can Cream of Chicken  Soup With Herbs

Get out your glass 9 by 13 casserole dish and place the butter inside.  Turn on the oven to 350 degrees and put the pan in the oven to melt while the oven preheats.

When the butter is melted, carefully bring the pan out of the oven and place on hot pads.  Sprinkle the cooked, chopped chicken evenly over the butter.  Next sprinkle the frozen vegetables over the top of the chicken.  

In a four-cup measure or a quart bowl place the Bisquik mix and the milk an stir until fairly smooth,  Pour evenly over the vegetables.  DO NOT STIR IN.

To the same bowl without washing add the Cream of Chicken soup and the chicken broth.  Stir well then pour that over the Bisquik/milk mixture.  ALSO DO NOT STIR.  I say this but do not know why.  I did not stir or mix our two concoctions and the recipe turned out perfectly...so Do Not Stir!

Bake for 50-60 minutes.  Or more, depending on your oven.  It took 65 minutes in our oven.

Remove from oven when the top is nicely golden.  Put on hot pads and let sit at least 10 minutes before serving.  Purportedly this time is mean to help the sauce thicken up a little.  We did let it sit so I cannot swear that it would work otherwise.

+++++++

Since it was a new recipe, I decided to make it on Saturday and give Dear One a serving to get his opinion.  If it was garbage, I did not want to take it to church and there would be time to go with some tried and true recipe.  You may think I was being defeatist but I have found good-sounding recipes on the internet before and have been burned.  Badly burned, so I have become a little cautious.

Dear One ate his small serving and said, "Why don't we have good food like this at our house?!"  You can imagine my delight!  Truly.  He thought it was good. I did point out that since he does not like leftovers, if I made it for just our family, he would be buying into days and days of leftovers...

After letting the dish cool for a while I put it into the refrigerator to rest until morning, then rested myself.

So early-ish Sunday morning I covered the dish with foil and put it in the oven at 250 degrees F for a little over an hour then put it in the casserole carrier that really does keep things warm, or hot, for ages.  It might be a Rachael Ray carrier but I have forgotten the brand.

When it was time for the Linger Longer there were some issues.  Many people had not gotten the word, or had forgotten, that there was a Linger Longer so there were only two food tables instead of the usual six food tables.  Fortunately, most of the people who had not brought food went home to eat.  Dear One and I were the last two through the line.  There was just enough food for us and for maybe three or four people to have  a small second serving.  

These potluck meals are pretty interesting slices of humanity.  Some people go through the line and pick out a few bites.  Others go through the line and heap their plates so full they can barely carry them to their places at the table.  Interesting.  Years ago when we were in Vermont and Dear One was bishop, he was always in meetings so we were the last ones through the lines then, too.  Sometimes we had to go home for food.  Not a problem as there was always food available at home.  There are those who then and now do not have that luxury.  I am so grateful to be blessed with plenty of everything we need to live and be happy, and pray that others will eventually get there, too.

Here is a picture of the chicken cobbler baking and serving dish:

As you can see, I did not think to snap a photo of the cobbler when it came out of the oven.  Or even this morning when I put it into the casserole carrier.  Many times we bring home some of our food...which also is a blessing...no need to cook the next day.  I am getting a little weary of cooking.  And especially of cleaning up.  Current our kitchen is a hell hole...but that won't last.  But as I sit here writing I am not committed to cleaning out tonight though that could change if I put on my headset and the book "Gather" that I am "reading".  We shall see.

Life Is A Funny Thing!

 It has been multiple months since I wrote.  Thank you to all of you who checked up on me.  All is well here.  Well, actually it is quite cold and we have snow on the ground.  Many people are still in their homes.  On Tuesday I had a doctor appointment a thirty-minute drive from home.  The forecasters were telling us scary things about snow. In South Carolina, if you can believe it!  I was watching the sky like a hawk all the way down, and then all the way back.  The very moment I was pulling into the garage one small  snowflake landed on the windshield.  Funny.  I went in and told Dear One that I had seen a snowflake.  He was not overly concerned.  Thirty minutes later I looked out the front door to see if the mailman had dropped off mail yet and there in front of me were honest-to-goodness snow flurries!  I knew that was the end of my driving for a while.  As a Vermonter, I have done a great deal of driving in the snow. I am not afraid of snow.  Ice is another story.  I am VERY scared of ice and roads and driving.  Well, to go on a bit...since snow is such an anomaly here in South Carolina, I did not want to do any traveling at all with inexperienced snow drivers on the road. So we have stayed home.

Dear One was supposed to have bloodwork this morning but it was canceled as the doctor's office was still closed. two days after the storm  Finally they opened the office sometime after noon today so he could reschedule.

The months since I have written have been very hectic.  A few activities every week with every other moment filled with knitting projects.  If you want to see the projects go to Ravelry.com and look at my notebook. I am trying to keep it up-to-date though sometimes I fail.

In the fall I learned of a sweater knitting fit class.  Since the last three sweater projects I made for myself (the ONLY sweaters I have knit for myself in recent memory...) were all significantly poor fitting, I decided to put myself on the waiting list for that class.  It is really sad to work work work on a project and then not have it turn out the way you hoped it would.  I had told Dear One that I wanted to take the class and all through the fall I was more careful with my personal account spending so I would have enough funds to take this class. I told Dear One he could pay for the yarn and I would pay for the class.  The yarn was likely to cost more than the class...even though class was pretty costly.

Well, as the new year came around I decided that this year...a big number for me...was going to be the year that I worked hard on my health,  worked harder on organizing and cleaning the house, and the year I was finally going to use up all the yarn in my collection bins.  As I began the clean out/hoe out/organize project  in early January I found suitable yarn for the sweater I want to knit.  I had spent a GREAT DEAL of time looking for a sweater pattern I wanted to knit. The class requirement, if I got into the class, was a top down and either raglan or yoke sweater.  I was hoping to knit a cardigan since I don't enjoy showing off my belly when I take off a pullover sweater.  Just too icky.  So a cardigan was on my wish list.

Finally I found a sweater pattern.  And the best news was that not only was it a cardigan, it was knit in the round and then steeked!  Best of both worlds...a little bit of flat knitting at the beginning then joining in the round and the rest knitted round.  Ending with a steek and button bands.  My thought is to put on the button bands before cutting the steek.  Anyone who has done that is more than welcome to give me advice.  I am thinking of reinforcing the steek with needle felting.  Anyone with experience with that is also welcome to give me advice!

Last week I learned that I had gotten into the Fitting Class!  I am so thrilled.  I have knit swatches both flat and in the round and they are soaking at this very moment.  When I finish writing I will put them, along with the socks and compression hose they are socking with,  in the "Drain and Spin" cycle in the washing machine, then block.  Full steam ahead.  

There is a little sweater in with the beginning fit class packet.  Since a lady at church just had a baby, I think I will cast on a sweater for that child and see what I learn with this little raglan top down sweater.

Back to the snow:  yesterday I took a few photos.  The one I liked the best was the icicles hanging off the Mexican Petunias in front of the house.  This is a picture of them:

As usual, it is not a good photo, but I think you can see the icicles.

This is the view of our deck.  Unbelievable.

May you all be safe and warm and comfortable.  Hopefully I will get it together and write more often.