Turkey baster knitting. Because I can't knit like a normal person anymore.

So, someone said they wanted knitting talk. Or, yarny talk. Or something to do with the header of this blog that now seems wildly misplaced.

And I thought, "Yeah. Knitting. What ABOUT that anyway?"

Then I went to Ravelry. 

Because in times of Maybe I Should Knit a Thing, But What? That's where I go.

Despite the fact that I have a whole shelf full of knitting books full of patterns. And all kinds of shit I've printed out over the years and organized in a binder like an old fashioned knitting lady. And patterns folded up with their yarn, all halfway done and foolishly hoping to be finished in my stash in the closet.

I'm FO-averse, friends. That's one of my knitting problems. 

I get started on something and, unless I'm totally obsessed with the finished object it is meant to become, I get part of the way through the thing and just go, "Meh, I'm over it. Let's play PS4."

Oh yeah, because now we have PS4. Which is another one of my knitting problems. 

Because knitting usually makes me angry and when I'm angry I need to kill things and society says I can't really kill things so instead I play PS4 where I'm rewarded for killing things.

Also in PS4, starting over is a matter of hitting a button and in knitting, starting over is a matter of frogging usually hundreds of stitches during which time drinking is out of the question.

Which brings me to another knitting problem and that is - no drinking.

Seriously. I can not. 

Because when I do, shitty shit happens and then frogging happens and then I'm hauled off to prison on homicide charges.

We can't afford that kind of bail, so I (we?) have decided that knitting = no drinking. 

And since cocktail hour is a much hallowed daily event in this house since graduation and starting a new job and Bubba starting a new job and JMT and and and, the result has been zero knitting since April. Though one might contend that April's knitting project looks like it was conceived and created by a very active drunk.

Which brings us to today and the new knitting project I'm about to start. 

Because despite the fact that I've "Cast on" on Ravelry, I haven't cast shit on. In fact, I haven't even knit the gauge swatch that I'm totally going to do because, brace yourself, I LEARNED SOMETHING.

People, friends, remember when I knit that perfectly awesome sweater for Bubba? And it came out all perfect and awesome and actually fit him?

You remember.

All of that was made possible by me actually knitting a gauge swatch. Because if I'd forged ahead knitting forever and all the while hoping that the gauge would magically come out right even though it NEVER DOES when I don't knit a gauge swatch first, it would have come out unmagically like a pile of shit.

And I've decided I don't want a pile of shit. The dog spends her time preparing those for me on the hourly and that is just plenty, thank you puppy.

Instead, I'VE LEARNED that I want a wearable knitted object that fits and in order to have that I'VE LEARNED that I must always knit a gauge swatch first. And then I'VE LEARNED that I must be for real with the measurements and accurately judge whether my gauge swatch is the size indicated by the pattern or whether it means I need to reknit the swatch with a smaller/larger needle or whatever to get it right.

I'VE LEARNED, is what I'm saying, and for this all of your lives are safer. I promise you.

But that's not actually why I haven't started yet. It's because I've also learned that, for me, starting a new knitting project is a fucking project in and of itself.

I have to first find the bloody project, which this time didn't take too long because HELLO.

Mielie Vest on Ravelry

Yes. 

I will make that and it will be orange and I will wear it over my long sleeves to work where I will load up those pockets with my two phones because I'm a loser and my greenhouse keys and my pH probe and all the nonsense that sticks out of my jean pockets all the time and really needs somewhere else to live.

Yes. 

But then next I had to figure out what yarn to use because OBVIOUSLY the yarn used in the pattern isn't available on Jimmy Beans Wool and they're really the only place I ever buy yarn so thankfully they have a calculator on the site to help me find a different yarn.

Not that the yarn used in the original pattern doesn't exist somewhere on the internet, I'm sure that it does, but then I'd have to set up an account on another site and wait and see how many hundreds of years it takes to get the shit in the mail and what if it's not right and UGH.

No.

Another knitting problem I have is that I trust no one. 

I won't delve too deeply into that matter as it relates to yarn buying, but let's just say that I've been burned by one too many fruity geocities-esque craft sites that happen to miraculously carry the otherwise unavailable color/make/model/style/material THING I'm desperately hunting for and then the transaction and usually project all go downhill.

Except at Jimmy Beans Wool which is my safe place of yarn.

As it was this time when I got Malabrigo's Rios yarn in Glazed Carrot because ORANGE. I love orange. You know this.

Extra orange is what I was going for. Obviously.

But, in my haste and excitement to buy this so gorgeous I want to eat it yarn, I forgot to pay the extra WHO CARES amount to have the skeins wound into center pull cakes that make knitting with the yarn just way fucking easier.

I assume, if you are a knitter, you've tried to take one of these beautiful wound skeins (hanks? I can't keep all the nomenclature straight. Nor do I care to. So, don't like, leave me a lot of comments about it.) and just start knitting from it. 

Just one of the more horrible ideas I've had in my life. The resulting pain and misery were enough to keep me from knitting for some time, I'll just tell you. Then I had to only buy yarn from the store near my house that wound it all for you when you bought it. 

Then I found Jimmy Beans Wool that offers this service and TEE DAH we don't shop anywhere else anymore.

Then I forgot to have them wind the wool for me this time. 

DAMN IT ALL FUCK.

So, this brings me to the last knitting problem of mine for this post anyway and that is - winding yarn. 

I do not have a yarn winder. They're big and clunky and OH JIMMY BEANS CAN JUST WIND MY WOOL and, if I need yarn wound I can just go back to that knitting shop which OOPS is out of business, DAMN IT ALL FUCK.

But! I had a momentary flash of genius in my moment of BUT I WANT TO START MY PROJECT WITH THIS FANCY ASS YARN WHAT WILL I DO and that was - go to YouTube. 

Not so much genius as common sense, but you can understand how, to me, that seems genius-y. 

And, on YouTube I found lots of nice people who could show me how to make a center pull ball of yarn from a useless skein of yarn using all manner of tools like a toilet paper roll, giant knitting needle, broomstick, turkey baster and probably lots of weirder things that I didn't take the time to check out.

This is the video I followed, though I used a turkey baster rather than a monster knitting needle, and it worked pretty fucking well.

And because I'm a fancy bitch, I used the dye lot tag as the center pull bit. I'm still congratulating myself on that bit of genius. 

Take that YouTube! You're not the only one that can think of things! 

Kind of.

So yeah, I've spent the last day and a half winding yarn into center pull cakes and I have some impressive carpel tunnel claw hands to show for it, but once I can uncurl my aching fingers and uncramp my meat fists, I'll go about knitting that gauge swatch for this, the project that will take the rest of my natural life.

Yay knitting.

I'M HAPPY AND ANGRY.

Probably the real news here is that I've knitted again, which is meant to sound as sinister as "I've killed again" because I nearly did.

People - knitting is not relaxing.

I just don't care who says it and with what frequency. For me, knitting is a dangerous game of I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL EVERYONE IF THIS DOESN'T WORK ON THIS VERY NEXT TRY and, so often, this is what it comes down to.

My latest knitting project is absolutely no different.

See, I came across this hysterical pattern on Ravelry. Or maybe someone forwarded it to me? I honestly can't recall. The rage has erased a good part of my short term memory.

So, obviously once I saw this pattern, my fingers started twitching and swears started revving up because OH I MUST MAKE THIS.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOooooooooooooo

Because of its hilariousness. And eyeballness. And hilarious eyeballness.

But, of course, I can't just make things all willy nilly without a purpose, so I decided I'd make it for my dad. Because it's his birthday tomorrow. And he drinks tea.

And likes snails? Wait, no.

He likes his teapot to stare at him? Nope.

His teapot is cold? Not that I know of.

Whatever.

I thought I'd knit this crazy ass thing and offset its absolute weirdness with things I know that he does like so that he wouldn't hate me or think I was, like, late stage retarded or something.

So I knit the thing up and put it with a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints, some really good black tea and a tea ball shaped like an elephant.

Not that the elephant part is relevant, but that was what I found and it amused me and let's be honest here - it's clearly all about my amusement.

And by it I mean everything.

Obviously.

But about my rage knitting.

It was ragefull.

And let me now summarize for you a few things about knitting that inspire the greatest amount of rage.

Firstly, there was a lot of "Make two" going on in this muther fucker of a pattern. Like, "Make two eyeballs" and "Make two pupils" and "Make two shafts" (HA! SHAFTS! I'm real mature.) and such. And you know how much I hate any pattern that requires me to knit something and then, just when I'm finished with it and I see the light at the end of the tunnel and oh I have a finished object NOPE..."Make two".

I mean, I get it. If you're going to have a pair of anything: gloves, socks, eyeballs, whatever - you're going to need two of them and I know that the pattern is going to say to "Make two" and I know that when I get to that part in the pattern that I will roll out my special "Make two" swears and call it a scheming sunuvabitching whore.

But I'll get over it.

And make two like a fucking grown-up.

But here's a knitting thing that I've only touched on ever so briefly in the past but enrages me like fucking fire: Weave in ends.

OH REALLY? IS THAT ALL? Just weave in the ends like in five seconds and then we're on our way TO where everything looks perfect and will stay put just like so?

You know what I always say when I get to the part of every pattern where it says, "Just weave in ends."?

JUST FUCKING BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS.

That's what I say. Because I am the boss of knitting. I point at the thing I've just slaved away knitting and go, "Oh yeah, sweater that I've been knitting for half of my adult life? Just weave in the five thousand ends you have dangling all over the place? WHY DON'T YOU JUST BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS/SLEEVE HOLE?"

My rage comes from the fact that "just" weaving in the ends is always this mystery activity of where the fuck do all these ends really go so that they don't show through the front of the work and how long do they really need to be to stay in place even if this thing gets washed and what if I just tied a good old fashioned knot here and cut the ends and called it a day and such.

Because this is my thought process every time I get to the "Just weave in ends" part of every pattern after I have my temper tantrum wherein I command the pattern to blow it out of its non-existent ass.

Again - I'm real mature.

But also, saying "Attach securely to [project]" isn't helpful at all.

HOW?

HOW WOULD YOU SUGGEST I ACHIEVE THIS ALLEGED SECURE ATTACHMENT?

HOW DID YOU DO IT?

ARE YOU MAGIC?

CAN I BORROW YOUR MAGIC WAND TO SECURELY ATTACH THESE SHAFTS (HA! SORRY.) TO THIS SNAIL TEAPOT COZY?

NO?

Well, then you can blow it out your ass, too. You and your pattern can have an ass blowing party and I'll just sit here and burn over the ridiculousness of this pattern and...oh wait...I got it...oh my god that's the most hilarious thing I've ever madetotallyworthitHOORAY.

So, yeah. 

The Snail Tea Cozy is, to me, entertaining and hysterical and also a little cute and that's sort of helping me forget about the fact that it took me more than 10 tries to get this thing started properly because the pattern calls for starting with 6 stitches knitting in the round on double pointed needles.

Because the chick that designed this pattern hates people, so she makes adorable patterns using punishing techniques and thank the maker that someone had the wisdom to post a crucial tip on their rendition of this pattern, "I started by making a 12-chain crochet ring, then picked up stitches out of it and knit from round 3 of the pattern."

That helped a lot, Annettle. You're tits.

Without that nugget of wisdom, for which I was wholeheartedly searching after failing over a dozen times at the start of this pattern, I would have burned my entire knitting stash after stabbing my eyes out with all of my needles.

Twice.

And just five short days later...another knitted thing.

OK, so that last post has been totally haunting me.

Plus, I am at the tail end of my much revered and over planned Break Between Semesters, during which time I had planned to do All Things due to the complete fullness of my life once class resumes.

Tomorrow.

SHIITE.

So, in the name of Doing All Things and while I was still drunk with the power of knowing how to re-cast on a cast off hem, I decided to go back and fix Sweater #2 to make the sleeves longer and to nail down those son of a bitching roller shade hems.

Let it be known that I do not enjoy rolled cuffs.

DO NOT ENJOY.

Now, even after thorough searching of the knitting bible, the book housing my favorite sweater pattern that I've never been able to satisfactorily complete, the book housing Bubba's perfect sweater and the world's biggest knitting resource - I still wasn't able to find a method for casting off in stockinette that results in both a flat cuff that DOES NOT ROLL FUCKING STOPPIT while maintaining a straight stockinette stitch.

It just doesn't exist I guess.

Or I gave up before resulting to extreme blocking techniques.

One or the other.

So, my final OK FINE I GIVE UP solution was to add a textured cuff.

Straight garter stitch was out because that felt like I was mailing it in somehow, that diagonal stitch that looked so cool in Vogue Knitting sounded complicated and like something I'd probably fuck up resulting in a flesh wound to some poor nearby soul (probably me via knitting needle) and any kind of ribbing seemed boring and predictable so I went with a good old favorite - seed stitch.

It's not fancy - just a K1P1 repeat on the first row and the a P1K1 repeat on the second - but I figured a few rows of that on all cuffs would result in a cuff that would STAY THE FUCK PUT so that no one would have to die and so that I'd have a new sweater to keep me warm instead of rolling up into an off-putting woolen tube top while sitting through many MANY hours of lectures and multiple hours of lab work in the greenhouse and field that begin in, oh 12 hours from now.

SHIITE again.

Don't even think about rolling. DO NOT THINK IT.

Thankfully, after masterfully removing my cast off rows (I'm so a pro at this now), adding a bit of length to the sleeves and three rows of seed stitch to the cuffs and casting off again - this is now a totally wearable sweater.

Oh yes. I shall wear THE PANTS off of you. Which makes no sense whatsoever since you're a sweater.

OH SWEET MERCY YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

Why, are those cuffs and a  hem that DO NOT ROLL? Yes. Yes they are.

I WIN, CUFFS. I totally win.

So yay.

I feel triumphant, awash in warm cozy sweaters and also overwhelmed because even though I totally killed my To Do list (triumphant list ass kicking recounting coming soon - with triumphant photos), I still need to pack my bag, make my lunch, sort out the vitamins for the week (I could recount my vitamin situation, too. Anyone interested in how that's going?), pack the Crock Pot with tomorrow's dinner and, you know, have a minor melt down because this semester is going to be harder than last semester because it involves four classes instead of three and two of which that involve chemistry.

People - I have not done chemistry since, I think, the ninth grade when we probed bits of Happy Meal for its nutrient content, so you know there wasn't a lot of math involved since 0x0=0 and such.

Basically, I'm scared pants-less about the chemistry because we all know that also involves the math that I don't do and who knows if/how I'll be able to manage a 4.0 GPA with this extra class, but HEY let's just run off crazy into the Spring term while also ramping up the business, starting twice as many plants indoors and hey at least three other huge things that I will, I'm sure, talk endlessly about in no time at all.

I'm starting to think that I left the whole, "Take a day off" thing off my To Do list and that this was a major mistake, but at least I know what I'll wear tomorrow.

And just a short two years later...a knitted thing.

Hey! Remember how I used to knit? Yeah, me too. I think I've started every knitting post in the last handful of years this way.

Oh how I've gone astray. 

Until such time as there's a road trip, however. And you know we just went on a road trip. 

Evidence of a true road trip: Combos in every tragic flavor. I like the cheddar cheese pretzel ones because I, at the same time, sort of hate myself.

Also, we saw this Biggest Machine Ever digging a hole to China. I can only assume.

And that is basically the sum total of the photos I took from the road because I was alternating between rampant illness management (Bubba and I both got the plague before we left. Hey THANKS CES for infecting us all.) and knitting the forever-taking #3 Sweater.

Why #3?

Well, because first there was this one. 

Sweater #1 from the Leaf Tshirt pattern that no longer exists on Ravelry. Rude.

Then there was this one.

Sweater #2 from the Leaf Tshirt pattern in which I ditched the leaf and gave it sleeves.

Then there was the forever-taking one that I *just* finished after...um...almost two years.

Why, hello October 2011, fancy meeting you here IN 2013 GEEZ WHERE HAS MY LIFE GONE?

Which, in the end, looks nothing like the first one at all.

Sweater #3. Everything different except the raglan shaping.

In the sense that it has short sleeves instead of cap sleeves, 1x1 ribbed cuffs instead of rolled cuffs, shaping at the hips and no leaf pattern at all.

Because, apparently, I became all I Don't Know About This Rolled Cuff Thing as I was getting to the bottom of the sweater and decided that I didn't want that dumb cuff rolling up on me like so much roller shade. 

As you can see in Sweater #2, that rolled cuff is no joke. It wants to roll like friggen crazy. Hate that. 

But - that brings me to the Important Knitting Thing That I Learned during the knitting of this, my #3 Sweater from this pattern - you can totally take out a cast-off row for a do-over. 

So, like, for example only, you *think* that you've knit the thing long enough, so you happily and full of relief and joy cast the thing off only to find that, once trying it on, it's actually about half a foot too short - you can cast that final row back ON and resume knitting until such time as you've deluded yourself into thinking, once again, that it's "totally long enough, I'm so DONE with this sunuvabitching project" and you cast off again.

Repeat as necessary until such time as it *is* actually long enough or you've worn the yarn into dust and can no longer knit it lest it disintegrate fully in your fingers.

For example only.

The danger of me now knowing that I can totally undo and redo a cast-off row is that Sweater #2 back there is in jeopardy of being reworked. 

Because I hate that muther effing rolled bottom cuff and I think it needs redoing otherwise I'll never wear it because the thing turns into a tube top in five seconds when I'm wearing it which is not the look I'm going for in winter when I'm putting on a sweater. Or in the hottest summer months when I'm sweating just wrestling on the Boston Marathon Strangler.

I don't wear tube tops is what I'm saying.

Also, I think I may have knit this sweater a bit too long. It either needs to be about six inches longer so that I can wear it with leggings or about six inches shorter so that it can rest at the top of my jeans and not get all HEY I'M A FATTY around the middle. 

Perhaps I should stop taking sweater photos during PMS time. Yes, perhaps.

Anyway, I finished this #3 Sweater for the time being and since classes resume next week, I don't imagine that I'll have fuck all for time to go undoing it and redoing it and then messing with the other sweater even though I'd like to be wearing them both RIGHT NOW because it has suddenly gotten cooler again.

And here I thought it was going to be spring now.

First daffodil right there. And the "Circle of Friends" that I recently exhumed from the future hop yard.

Yeah - hop yard. We'll get to that soon enough.

The Death Clock of free time is at 18 days...

You may never get sleeves.

Friends, shit's been busy.

Which, obviously, otherwise I'd be posting here a lot more often because HELLO I have things to tell you about.

Like the fact that we harvested honey from our work hives last week and that my hive is about to go nigh-nigh for the season and that the garden is about to come down and that I made an awesome potato and kale soup without a recipe but just from my own pea brain and also I nearly snapped off a toe during a drunken descent from my Adirondack chair on Girls Weekend and...

We harvested one million jars of honey. It was glorious.

White Trash Dinner Season is upon us.

I blame the champs for my unscheduled dive off the patio.

Potato Kale Leek Sausage soup. I'll have to give you the recipe sometime. Except that's basically it.

Yeah. But then this pesky thing called work/life/100 hobbies got in the way and so here I am.

I've begun knitting a thing. A thing that, in a few weeks' time, will likely end up sitting unmoving in its lovely WIP bag (as seen above) until December.

Because in a few weeks' time, NaNoWriMo begins. Specifically, 18 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and ... seconds from now.

That countdown is like the deathclock of any remaining free time.

Yes! That's right! I'm still planning to carve out enough time on a daily basis to write 1600 or so words during November and, in a month's time, 50,000 or more words all pressed together in what is my new NaNoWriMo machine.

Sticker is not enormous - machine is just real small.

I wouldn't say I'm getting *too* serious about the NaNo business, but with Scrivener on Mac only (although I just saw something about it being available on PC soon - oh.) and us traveling back and forth from the mountains regularly and me needing to be able to AT ANY MOMENT write a word, I figured I needed a buddy.

So, a buddy I got. And thank you to a very good and nice friend of mine who loaned me her Apple discount so that this buddy could be 15% less wallet sucking.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say with all this is that even though I've been quiet-ish around here lately, I don't *mean* to be, but in a few weeks - if it gets quiet again - I *do* mean to be. Because I'm using all my words elsewhere.

In a novel that, for once, even has a vague outline and - TEE DAH - some research applied to it.

Weird.

Also, seed saving. I've been doing that. But won't be. In 18 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and...

There's no orange in the matrix

Almost the Matrix Sweater

based on the Leaf Tshirt by Melissa LaBarre
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK in "Tape"
Needles: #5 24" circular needle, #5 10" circular needle, Tapestry needle
Raveled here

So, back when I asked you how y'all thought I should handle the sleeves on this thing, the majority vote was to leave them rolled.

So leave them rolled, I did.

Of course, because I'm ME and I'm apparently unable to determine how long sleeves should be even when I try on the sweater a million times before casting off (like, three times, but still, it seemed like a lot since it involved getting off the couch), I still think the sleeves are too short.

Because apparently I like my sleeves to drag the ground as I walk. Or I need them long enough to do this trick.

Either way, them sleeves remain rolled because, as it turns out, I cast-off in an unnaturally tight manner - a contradiction to my too-loose knitting style - and so, if I want, the sleeves will remain unrolled to the edge if I just straighten out the roll. And I need them to unroll as far as possible now that they're *just* a little too short.

Oh.

The problem with the length then becomes a question of how far I want the sleeves dangling off my shoulders.

Why, hello there shoulders...

Now, while I had fully anticipated always wearing this sweater over something - in the layering manner to which I've become accustomed - I sort of imagined it would still fit like this in the shoulder.

Except, apparently, when I went to try on the sweater to check for sleeve doneness (it's highly scientific, I assure you) I didn't properly adjust the shoulders and, as such, didn't do a proper measurement of sleeve doneness and ended up with too-short sleeves. I just feel like they should be longer. For my sleeve dragging lifestyle, I suppose.

The body length, however, is perfect. And having a rolled hem at the waist is also perfect because it can be allowed to roll skyward to enhance thy waist (or whatever it does that makes it look better this way when worn over a dress) or allowed to unroll almost completely over some jeans.

The important thing to note about the rolled hems and cuffs thing is that it more effectively achieves my desire for Matrix-like attire.

For some reason, clothes with raw edges and drab colors really attract me. Like, my sense of style has a doomsday fascination or something. Meanwhile, it appears my sense of style has an unhealthy attraction to orange at the same time, resulting in some unorthodox clothing pairings.

Orange silk and "Tape" cashmere knit go together, right?

I can't account for these inconsistencies, as my sense of style is something of a mouthy bitch and I don't question her motives often.

Getting too obscure? Yeah, well, I've written over 3,000 words for NaNoWriMo so far and it's only Day Two, so my focused energies have gone into the first two chapters of a story that has yet to make sense.

Yay!

At least now I have a finished object to keep me warm while I try to develop these obstinate characters.

In the event that you, too, need to wrap yourself in a self-knit while whining your way through 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, or just want to pretend you're in the matrix, here are my pattern notes for your perusal. Also, they're in Ravelry, but I don't want to be all exclusionary (really not sure if this how you use this word) to those in Ravelry, so I'm putting them here, too.

To promote fairness in the world. And also to self-promote. Because you know how I like to do that.

Almost the Matrix Sweater

based on the Leaf Tshirt by Melissa LaBarre
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK in "Tape"
Needles: #5 24" circular needle, #5 10" circular needle, Tapestry needle
Raveled here

Using the Leaf Tshirt pattern by Melissa LaBarre, I made the following adjustments to achieve a snugger fit and long sleeves:

Measure the width of your narrowest point (for me, this was my waist - 28). Take that number of inches and multiply by your stitch gauge (5 stitches = 1 inch). This is the number you cast on (142).

Knit in the round for one round and follow the pattern for the Leaf Tshirt, except DO NOT knit the Leaf pattern, and instead, just leave it out and DO NOT replace those stitches with knit stitches.

This will result in a smaller distance between arm increases on one side - this side of the sweater becomes the back of the sweater.

Following the Leaf Tshirt pattern through to the point where you have your sleeve holes of adequate size, transfer the sleeve stitches to stitch holders or scrap yarn. DO NOT CAST OFF.

Resume knitting the body section in the round, leaving the sleeve stitches on their holders, until the body is as long as you want it to be. If you’re leaving a rolled hem, knit the body long enough to accommodate some rolling. If you’re knitting a cuffed hem, knit to exact length, cast off and knit your cuff.

Once you’ve finished knitting the body, pick up the stitches of one sleeve with 10” circular needles in the same size as the body (in my case, #5), place marker at beginning of round, and knit in the round until you reach an inch above elbow length.

At one inch from the elbow:

K1,K2tog,knit to within 2 stitches of marker, SSK
Knit 1 round
K1,K2tog,knit to within 2 stitches of marker, SSK

Resume knitting in the round until you’re an inch below the elbow and follow the pattern above.

Knit until sleeves reach desired length, cast-off.

Repeat for other sleeve.

Weave in ends. Try it on. Call it a day.

Craft FAIL | Knitting SUCCESS

So, 'member (Bubba hates that) when I was all, "Hey, look at my amazing thing called Corks!"?

And I thought I was so smart for using my old corks to hold my stitches on my knitting?

Yeah, you remember. It was one in a long string of super modest moments. I'm so humble.

Anyway, I reveled in the discovery like a professional reveler. I mean, I was always giving myself a mental high five every time I took out my knitting (which has been pretty often given the cooling off of the weather) because I'm such a smartie that I managed to reuse two of my five billion corks in a useful way and, at the same time, had avoided losing stitches to the evil knitting gnome who lives in my knitting bag and likes to yank my project from its needles as it sits innocently by the couch.

These were precious moments, folks, when I felt smart about myself for five minutes.

Anyway, in my typical Queen of Forcing It fashion, I took my smartie-pantsness too far yesterday as I tried to set aside my knitting so I could focus my anger on the 49ers as they insisted on allowing the Falcons to remove their heads in a bloodbath to the tune of 45-10. And in the process of this "setting aside" I thought I had an amazing idea.

One that would keep the sleeves of my project from coming off their stupid double pointed needles.

One that would use the existing awesome cork stitch holders in a new and awesome way.

And that idea was to take the three points on one end of the project and jam them into the sides of one cork and then take the three points on the other end of the project and jam those into the sides of the other cork thus creating a virtually impenetrable fortress of safety for my stitches from the evil bag gnome.

Do you get what I'm saying here?

Well, if you don't, don't worry - I'm about to show you why this is an awful idea meanwhile you will probably see what I was going for.

It would have been great, I tells ya.

Yeah, so, had this worked and my amazing Hulk-like strength had not burst forth from my ripped guns, I would have had three needles covered on both ends with two corks. Real fancy good use of two old corks, I thought.

But, instead, I had three needles covered on both ends with two corks and then YAY broken in the middle to form a soul-crushing little tent-like thing.

YAY.

Because, of course, bamboo needles are made of bamboo and not, say, steel or some other not-super-breakable material, and so when you go applying force from both ends and then twisting even the tiniest bit, well, they snap like my ankles before a cold pre-dawn run.

These stitches are now living on a too-long circular needle. It irks me.

And the sound is nearly as sickening. I swear it to you.

Anyway, the FAIL here is easy to see, because DUH, there are the broken needles right there, but thankfully this was paired with a Knitting SUCCESS otherwise someone other than a certain SF tight end might have had their head removed. By moi. GRRR.

The knitting success, which maybe you already guessed at on your side of the computer screen, was the fact that this bastardized sweater pattern is totally working out because I've moved onto the sleeves!

Which I totally wouldn't have done if I'd tried it on only to find out that it fit like some other piece of crap that I knit in the past or maybe a new horrible incarnation of horseshit knitting.

I have never let myself dream that I could knit a fitted garment, but there you go.

So, yes, the body of the sweater fits perfectly, which is a huge and surprising success, and now all I need to do is knit the sleeves while contemplating whether to finish the hem and cuffs off like I did on Bubba's sweater.

I can't decide. You decide! What do you think: Do I ...

• Leave the bottom hem and sleeve cuffs au natural so that they roll (see above photo)?
• Use that fancy technique I learned from Knitting without Tears (Swears) where the edges turn all nice and neatly?

Keep in mind that the neckline will be the Au Natural Rolling way because the fancy turning technique is not going to work up there given the giant neckline. So you know.

I haven't been able to decide because I've been too busy ordering more yarn (What? You need more yarn to turn a Tshirt into a long-sleeved sweater? Oh. Right.), replacement DPNs and Addi Turbos in even more sizes.

Because, even though I've had a love/hate relationship with these guys in the past, I'm currently in the Love camp because they make this mind-numbing sleeve knitting process just OH SO MUCH faster.

Really. They do. I believe that's why they call them "Turbo".

Anyway.

That's about it for the trials and tribulations of my small knitting while watching football and breaking shit lifestyle. I hope to be back with a fully executed Perfect-For-Me sweater of my own bastardized design soon.

And I will share the pattern changes I made so maybe you, too, can knit one of these things if you so desire, and without the ritualistic snapping of nice needles.

*Sigh*

Don't-lose-your-shit stitch holders

There's other stuff on the docket for me to bang on endlessly about this week, but all of it can wait because LO I have discovered an amazing thing.

Corks.

And when I say *discovered* I mean that I've discovered something new to do with them while I await the dawning of the great project idea that's had me collecting jars and buckets of corks all this time.

True to form, I will now tell you the story of this Cork Discovery because that is my way, even though you can probably already guess from the photos what this discovery was all about.

Don't care - forging ahead...

Once upon a time yesterday, when I sat down to begin the permanent formation of my ass print on the couch for all-day football watching, I also took up my current knitting project which was sitting conveniently by the couch right there.

During the early game (Chiefs v Raiders - awful) I made some decent headway on this sweater thing and, around the 3rd quarter I believe, I had the bright idea to try it on. Now, given this is a knit-from-the-top-down sweater and I can't begin to get the 24" circular needles holding the bottom hem over my head and shoulders, I had to do some improvising.

This improvising looked a lot like me slipping my left arm into the left sleeve by way of the neck hole and admiring the look of the raglan shaping for a moment before attempting to slip my right arm into the right sleeve also by way of the neck hole which immediately felt and looked wrong and resulted in a SHIT SHIT SHIT moment of me dropping about a dozen stitches off the end of one needle and about five off the other because duh I'd forced the sweater to stretch too much with my inane trying-on maneuver.

As you can imagine, this pissed me off. Even though I knew I was doing something stupid that wouldn't result in any useful fit information but was more for the satisfaction of just making sure that the sleeve holes were big enough for my arms (they are) and that the neck hole will serve as an adequate escape route in the event of a sweater-wearing emergency (it will)(and what is that?) and to distract Bubba while his team failed to convert another hard-fought drive (it did).

After fixing my stitch dropping no-no and continuing on knitting in the round until I perish, the thought of stitch holders came back into my mind again, and for the billionth time.

Because that would have been handy. To have stitch holders on the ends of these needles to keep me from losing my shit (the stitches) during my tomfoolery with the neckhole-entry-trying-on and to keep me from losing my mental shit when they inevitably did exactly that.

But every time I've seen these things I've stopped myself from buying them because it always seemed dumb to pay $6 for plastic triangles just because my reckless self couldn't keep the damn yarn on the damn needles. I'd just be more careful.

Pfffffffft. Clearly that strategy has worked well and successfully.

Well, as it happened, I was sitting there on my Custom Formed For My Ass couch as I re-began this thought process yet again, when I happened to turn away from the game (I caught a glimpse of a fully-decked Raider fan in the end zone seats - sometimes I have to shield my eyes) and then landed, TAH DAH!, on the answer to my endless quest for stitch saving:

Corks.

People, I have a lot of corks. Let's just put it that way. From wine, champagne, booze and so on. They pile up in bowls and hurricane vases and jars and drawers to the point where, in the absence of having a Real Project in which to use them, I've started using them as decor.

Don't laugh at me.

But finally (now) I have a Real Purpose for Corks, even if I can only use two of the million corks I have - they act as fully functional stitch holders.

Fully Functional Free and Readily Available Stitch Holders.

Yay?

Yes, yay.

Just grabbed a few from the bowl, I did, and jammed them on the ends of my needles. They stuck. They didn't fall off. Even after I re-tried my neckhole trying on method.

OH TAH DAH.

So, yeah, that's what's more important than recounting the debauchery of Oktoberfest, dishing on my last long training run and sharing photos of how we wrecked the yard with a new incarnation of heavy landscaping machinery - corks holding my knitting on the needles so that I can perform ridiculous stunts for Bubba's entertainment while his team loses to their rivals on our TV while not losing my shit (stitches and otherwise) on an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon.

I'll remind you - My life is very glamorous.