It’s Good Friday, and although I am a Godless heathen, there are still things tradition says I do today. The girls are home, so they are thrilled with the big plan. Yes darlings…Good Friday is for cleaning. Big Time. Window washing kind of cleaning. “What is that in your closet?” kind of cleaning. Taking things to goodwill, recycling, putting the snow pants in the basement kind of cleaning. Good friday/spring cleaning is an enormous purge. I never know if I’m looking forward to it or not. I mean, I hate cleaning (really Steph? Really?) but I love cleanliness and order. Despite the 43 thousand kilos of crap in my house…I have a minimalist soul. (Note: yarn is not crap, we are discussing others stuff. Mostly stuff that is not mine. Joe’s collection of “High Times” magazines from the late seventies are a particular bone of contention)
The boring cardie has a back, two sleeves and a half a front.
Last night, as I was merrily working on the second sleeve, enjoying the meditative thrill of navy yarn in stockinette stitch, I was abruptly jerked from my happy place by the realization that there was only one more ball of yarn after the one I was using. It was enough to stop me mid-stitch. I don’t even know what yarn this is…that’s a considerable barrier to getting more. I spread out the back, the first sleeve, lay the second sleeve beside it…I’m thinking hard and looking nervous. Joe is a naturally supportive and lovely man, despite being largely fibre ignorant, so he asks what the trouble is. “I think I’m going to run out of yarn” I say, looking concerned. “You always think you are going to run out” Joe observes. “True” I say, (I can acknowledge that I have some neurotic yarn supply concerns from time to time…I’m a big person) “This time,” I ponder, “I really can’t get more of this navy yarn”. Joe looks at me, deadly serious and says…
“Use a different navy yarn…what’s the difference”.
I’m so misunderstood as an artist.
This is a raglan, so the fronts shouldn’t take as much as the sleeves, but that’s sort or shallow comfort. I decide that since I’ve knit the first sleeve, I’ve got some idea of what a sleeve takes. What I need to know is how much a front takes. I put the second sleeve on a stitch holder and cast on for the left front. This cements the button band plan. there’s no way that I’m knitting a whole sweater and then running out during a button band. No freakin’ way. Not this knitter. Get yourself another dummy. I will knit the button bands as I go. I’ll knit the front, then if it looks like I’m going to get another front out of the yarn then I’ll go back and finish the sleeve. The finish the fronts. (Yes…I have a knack for the complex plan.) If the front looks like it will take more than I have then I’ll simply….well, the plan isn’t perfect.
I’m showing you the wrong side of the front, so that you may fully appreciate the glory of the button band. I decided to take some suggestions (who knew? I can be taught).
I’m knitting the band very firmly. I’m making the stitches as tight as possible on the needle, giving the yarn a good pull with each band stitch with the fond hope that this will make them a little smaller than the front stitches, thusly reducing the tendency to flare. I’m also doing the band in twisted rib to firm it up a little and assuage concerns about durability. I have no way to deal with Aubergine’s “bad feelings” about stepping out of the button band box, nor any way to make him more comfortable with behaviour that may be “risky”. I suppose that I could work out some kind of wool sacrifice to whatever deity is in charge of this sort of thing, suggestions? Naturally, since Aubergine is the one who is uncomfortable with the risk…we will be using his stash, so go wild.
Yarn Harlot
Naturally.
But then again, it’s not my sweater. And moreso, Children are our future, but the now is for me.
Keep your fingers crossed…rub your rabbits foot… you know the drill.
I feel your pain, Steph. I’ve said a little prayer to the universe for the completion of the sweater and perseverance in housecleaning…. By the way, the couple hours on the couch worked wonders for me. And I got half a repeat on my baby sweater done! Woohoo!
Wow, Stephanie, I’d say you knit like the wind, except that I suspect that the wind has a tendency to tangle up the yarn as it knits.
I have my fingers crossed for you, but I’ve run out of yarn on my two sweaters so far, so I can’t promise it’ll work. 🙂
“Use a different navy yarn.” I love it.
I have the same sunflower blanket!
Um…You can always knit a big intarsia Iris, or Dump Truck, or portrait of Queen Elizabeth on the other front, depending on the intended wearer. Something to take up lots of space, but not actually have to change color for the fronts. Good Luck, Harlot.
*lol* Portrait of Queen Elizabeth… I got quite the charge out of that one. 🙂
Good luck Steph – I like the intarsia idea if you do run into trouble… maybe some cute flowers or something.
Hope you don’t run out! I like the intarsia idea. Or maybe you could do a colorblock thing and do one front and one sleeve a totally different color?
Ma charmante Stephanie, merci beaucoup pour le francais d’hier (je te demande pardon: je comprend pas comment faire les diacritiques)!
Ma joie est si profonde!
Repete, chere, apres moi, en adressant le cardie:
Fiche-moi le camp!
Ca veux dire: piss off.
Okay, feel better?
Speaking of Good Friday, (weren’t we?) my mom
always made the four brothers and me keep silent from noon until three on this day. (let me insert here that my ma once SERIOUSLY considered becoming a Carmelite nun, yeah the CLOISTERED kind)
We could read, but not speak or yell or play cards.
My ma talks alot.
We always suspected she chose this li’l penance because it was so hard for her.
I don’t mind confiding that this did not scar me or cause me to run to an expensive therapist.
I do, however, hate Easter, but I think that’s mostly due to being in choir for so long.
Well, that and the crap Easter food.
Feh.
I have been in your situation and you have my sympathy (my husband would be with yours…more different navy) First, you give up chocolate for the day as penance.
Then, take the sleeve to the grocery store or the post office when they aren’t busy. Smile very nicely and ask them if they will weigh it. Then weigh the yarn you have left. Do the math. (I have done this with one sock, and one skein of yarn, and do I have enough for another sock the same size)
Good luck!
Barb
Yellow stripe yellow stripe! You thought about doing it, I say this decides it. The stripe would be cute on the sleeve or on the front.
No fey intarsia, Steph. It would not suit your tasteful self.
Way too mignon.
OK. I laughed at the Queen Elizabeth suggestion and stood in amazed respect at the mere concept of telling the cardi to piss off (what moxie!). You could also make the incredibly boring cardi less incredibly boring (and solve the yarn problem) by doing a sort of Knitty.com Rosedale solution — a vertical panel of coordinating variegated, with a couple of stripes of the variegated on the sleeves just before the ribbing. (Don’t want to cause trouble, but what got you into the incredibly boring cardi to begin with? My mother got me into my current boring vest, where the boredom is mitigated by the colorful flecks in the yarn.)