After much focused, earnest effort at knitting the cable section of the Tangled Yoke cardigan I took a hard look at what a mess the whole thing was becoming, then took a hard right & high-tailed it out of Dodge. Those cables can suck it, seriously.

I first discovered that I didn't know how to read a cable chart properly, and that helped enormously. However, even once I was following the chart as written, I kept screwing up. "Un"-knitting cables is a serious beating, and after you knit then un-knit/frog, whichever the case may be, the same 5-7 rows close to ten times you figure you may as well come up with a plan B. Plan A was a fool's errand. There is a reason those cables look like thorny brambles; they want blood. MAYBE I will attempt this sweater as written some other time, but for now I will be satisfied instead with a simple eyelet pattern to take the place of the cables.

Disentangled Yoke cardi

See that turquoise life line? I totally needed it. Precious arrows, no? So now I've only got the button band left to wrestle. I've already knit & frogged once, and now I'm thinking about doing it double knit, not 100% decided though. I'm really happy with the collar, and I finally got a nice photo of the true color of this lovely yarn ... see?

Disentangled Yoke cardi

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Quite negligent on the updates, but that's me. I am almost to the yoke of the Tangled Yoke cardigan. The sleeves have been dragging on forever especially after having taken a little baby blanket break:

Pinwheel baby blanket

The sleeves I am doing on two circulars, and I am so glad I did or I'd never finish this thing. I've got about 20 rows left on the sleeves at this point, and then it's time for tangles:

I'm itching to start about 5 different projects: more socks, a beret for myself (though cold weather is basically behind us for now), hand towels, more sweaters ..... and on, and on.

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I finished my first pair of socks, and so now I'm pretty much assured of success in all my knitting adventures. I wish I had the recipient's feet to model these. They'd look silly on me...

My first toe-up magic loop socks!

I think I may be confused about what constitutes a magic loop. I thought it was simply knitting on two circular needles, but Knit Picks' most recent email links to a tutorial where they are using only one circular needle folded in on itself. I thought I'd seen this trick once before, but then decided I must have made it up. Hmmm, so I'm not sure how I feel about magic loop -- this other approach is complicated looking enough to seem like magic, that's for sure.

At any rate, I'm so pleased to have finished the socks. Now I'm moving on to Eunny Jang's Tangled Yoke Cardigan ...

Tangled Yoke Cardigan

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While I can't say that I've made much headway on this year's gifts, I certainly have been productive in the knitting sense. Four pieces of head wear (not all pictured), half a shrug and a sweater also half done just in the past couple of months--not bad. Basically all the little projects have been brief diversions--pick-me-ups!--from the lace cardigan that will likely drag on into the new year. Starting and finishing a project in a short amount of time is reeeeaaaaalllly satisfying, so it's easy to justify the knitterly tangent

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Making good progress on the cardigan, 7 inches or so into the back panel. I think I deserve some Americone Dream!

Lace cardigan in progress

I love the vertical eyelet lace. The stretch is awesome. I modified the stitch pattern (row 3) to make the eyelets perfectly shaped since the book's instructions weren't right. I'll share:

Cast on 12 stitches
1st row: k12
2nd row: p12
3rd row: k4, yo, sl1 p-wise, k1, psso, k1, sl1 k-wise, slip both stitches back to the left needle, pass slipped stitch over k stitch from left to right, slip k stitch p wise without twisting, yo, k4
4th row: p12
(repeat rows 3 & 4 ad infinitum)

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I haven't finished my pink raglan yet, but ever since I got the idea of making a lace cardigan in my head I can't stop thinking about it. So I figured it doesn't hurt to have two projects going at once. I can bounce back and forth between the easy worsted (chunkier yarn) and the slightly more laborious lace. I have a game plan!

So I cast on starting with the back using the tubular cast on. I've practiced it once before, and it wasn't too terrible to knit. This technique gives you a somewhat invisible edge. You begin using a single cast on with contrast yarn, you cast on half the number of stitches you expect to end up with. From there, you start the first row with your main yarn doing a combination of slipping, knitting, bringing the yarn from front to back and so on. It's not hard really.

Here's what it looks like several rows in:

Tubular cast on, pt. 1

At this point you can remove the contrast yarn, as everything is pretty well held in place. Once you do, you end up with ribs that have lots of stretch:

Tubular cast on, pt. 2

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Tweed raglan

There's lots on the needles these days. After ripping out the pretty red v-neck sweater I'd been working on since New Years or so, I was somewhat reluctant or sheepish or something about starting another sweater. To date, I've only finished a single wearable sweater, but I've come quite close (2...) on all but one of my failed attempts (...out of 3).

I really love Stefanie Japel's sweater-making style, so she's pretty much my inspiration. I'm not using a pattern for this piece, but it's extremely simple. There will be no fancy shaping apart from the raglan increases at the shoulders. I thought about working in some darts in the bust area, but that's a little too advanced for me right now to just wing it.

You'll notice a rich raspberry hank of Cascade 'Pastaza' lying there -- that will be for contrasting neck/arm/waist ribbing. The main yarn being a tweed has lots of little colored flecks, but more subtle are the fine, bright threads of almost fuchsia throughout. It's very pretty even though I'm not generally a pink/magenta-wearing sort of girl.

Vertical eyelet lace

Rust orange is also a bit of a departure for me color wise, but nevertheless I picked up a sweater's worth of Knit Picks' 'Gloss' in Pumpkin back in the spring to make Knitty's "Thermal".

I ended up losing interest in that pattern, so having seen a nice lace cardigan pattern named for the inimitable (try as some might) Katherine Hepburn I decided that was how I'd like to use this yarn.

Here you see the start of my lace swatch. It's called Vertical Eyelet Rows, and it's very easy. I am certainly capable of lace work, but I want to keep it basic for such a large project as this will be my first pattern that will require lots of seaming.

I will have to break down and figure out kitchener stitch it seems. I reeeeaaaallllly hate seaming, but for the look I want it is imperative that I learn. And how can I really call my self a knitter without properly knowing how to sew up seams? Of course, there will be a great many firsts for me on this project: shoulders and tubular cast-on to name a couple--both self-inflicted.

Crunchy baby hat

And to wrap up, I've begun a hat for my friend's 2-year-old son. The design is one she saw on Etsy, and since the seller had no plans to make more of the sold-out hat, my friend asked if I could make it for her.

It just so happened that I had in my stash the very yarn and colorway she wanted--seems fated, no? I love a yarn challenge, so I swatched to find the right stitch pattern (not all that visible in this pic) and the gauge for size 9 needles, sketched the basic arc of the journey, mapped out the decreases and have left the final bits to pure chance and experimentation.

It's such a pretty yarn the Noro 'Kureyon' with its various shades of peacock feathers. And with that I'll say bye-bye!

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I've had quite the productive couple of weeks. I crocheted a Katamari Damacy hat for a friend who's traveling to a comic books convention in a couple weeks. I studied online pix of other people's interpretations (mainly the Mad Tea Party version) and just sort of winged it. I did lift the crown shaping from the Stitch 'n' Bitch Crochet Happy Hooker book, and even then I had to start over a couple times. I'm a novice with hooks.

Dignified

All the little nobules I completed over the weekend, and then I stuffed them with polyfill. So now I have the task of attaching the nobules to the hat ahead of me. Not exactly easy -- but not terribly difficult either. I could have tackled it this weekend, but I wanted a break so I unraveled the "Madagascar" v-neck instead because it was too small.

There's a new sweater on the needles, a top-down raglan ... again. I'm determined to get it right. So far I have completed (nearly) four sweaters for all time: #1 utter sparkly disaster, #2 Bad Penny with mods to sleeve/body lengths (wearable, WARM), #3 free-form, top-down cardigan using Noro (too large, frogged), and #4 the easy v-neck raglan using Cascade 220 in the Madagascar colorway (too small, frogged). Swatching and patience are skills/virtues I am slowly accepting as necessary for creating wearable garments.

I hope to have some FO and WIP pix up soon ... that is, if I can find my camera.

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Easy V-neck Raglan

Oh have I ever been slacking. I've been working my way through all the Sudoku puzzles in Brain Age on the DS, so I've really been just too, too busy.

I started a sweater on New Year's (eve I think?) and I really should have finished it by now. It's the Easy V-neck Raglan by Stephanie Japel (glampyreknits.com). A friend helped me pick out a color that wasn't green or brown, and I am really excited about wearing something so poppy-like and bold. From the pic you can see I'm nearly half finished with the first sleeve. I've actually grown quite fond of working with DPNs, but I recently got some short-length Addi Turbos that I'm sort of itching to try out. I'll wait for the next project so that the sleeves have the same gauge. I'm thinking about lengthening the waistband ribbing by a couple of inches so it's nice and long -- and fashionable ;)

I also made a lightnin' fast Calorimetry on a snow day while working from home -- 2 hours. Exhibit A:

Calorimetry

OK that's my only exhibit ... the buttons are what you want to see, right? I asked both my sisters if they wanted one. They both himmed and hawwed for about the 2 seconds it took for me to turn my head 'round, and then they got a load of the super cuteness of this pattern.

I chose two buttons instead of one since the pattern when followed to the letter turns out pretty big (as many blogging knitters have noted). I have a big round head, so it works fine for me. My sisters will require at least 10 or 20 stitches fewer at the cast on.

The yarn I used here is some I ordered from Uruguay (handpaintedyarn.com), and it is really soft to the touch. I love the colors, too -- greens and browns, of course.

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Getting off to a questionable start here, though I am no stranger to the once-a-month posting habit. On the bright side, I can never be accused of delivering TMI, right? Maybe, sometimes. Moving on.

More Kureyon

The Kardigan of Kureyon is resting, mellowing, hopefully not slowly air felting. I will stick to my guns by not starting the dismantling until after the 25th at least. Recently I reworked the sleeves on my Bad Penny sweater, bringing the cap sleeves down to half sleeves. Very cute. While knitting I decided that it can't really be called Bad Penny anymore considering I've changed the pattern so much, and there's no copper to be seen. I've settled on "Old Money". Oh, I crack me up. No decent pics yet, but I did acquire another batch of Kureyon for yet another sweater.

Sock in progress

Before getting back on the sleeves, I started my first sock ever. It's not perfect, far from it, though very exciting being that over the past year every sock attempt was a great big disaster. Friends, toe up is the way to go! Of course now I'm sort of stalled at the cuff because the 1x1 ribbing is so tedious. Quitter that I am, I might take it apart and start over so that my wrapped stitches will be perfection. I had hoped I might knit some socks for my sister as a Christmas gift, but I would want them to last. And wouldn't it be a shame to have one iffy sock and one very nice sock when they should be a bonafide pair? Yeah, let's frog that sock.

Chunky handspun

And I mentioned stash, so why not? I've had this chunky handspun wool laying around for a couple months now, and it's that time of year for turning out lightning fast hats. One of my sisters will be the recipient of a chunky hat with ball on top! Hehe.

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