theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Sorry about Meredith, Kim — she lived!  I told you they would never kill off the show’s namesake.  My daughter and I were both disappointed with the writing the last few shows.  Shondra must be paying too much attention to a possible spin off with Addison.  I’ll give them another chance, though….

I’ve been working on Eris.  Here is the back.  The picture is from my scanner so the color is more accurate.

I am 2″ past the point where you divide the body from the sleeves — woo hoo!  AND, with the beauty of top down knitting, I tried on the little puppy and it appears to fit. 

Sally and I are making a few alterations to the pattern.  One of these can be seen here.  Jenna had a built-in stockinette edge along BOTH edges of the collar.  I left the one on the inner collar off so I could pick up later and do an applied i-cord edge.  The advantage is that you can guarantee that the edge will be the exact size you need, and after trying it on, I will need to tighten up that edge quite a bit*.  I did this in the Rogue Hoodie as well, because I had seen too many of them (on blogs) that had a floppy edge along the hood.  Doing the collar this way would interfere with the cabled detail at the center fronts — I opted to finish the hem like the pullover so as not to accentuate my tummy.  Let’s face it.  I do not need a big arrow pointing out the fact that I have a too-big tummy.  I prefer camo, thank you very much.  Sally does not have this problem, but does prefer the look of the pullover anyway.

I went to knitting last night and had a blast.  What a crew!  After a week of computer torture training, I needed a break.  We have a “celebrity” that joins our group on occasion and has been there the last couple of Thursdays: it’s author Monica Ferris.  She has written a number of books, but several are knitting-related murder mysteries that take place in a fictional knitting shop in Excelsior, Minnesota.  She has mentioned some of our knitting peeps in her books, so it’s kind of fun.

*Jenna does include short rows to make the inner edge smaller.

PS — to Connie: Sally is planning to start hers today.

Honest, she said I could start!!  I needed a stockinette project and I had to get past the collar to get to the stockinette portion!  I really wasn’t trying to leave Sally in my wake.   This has happened before (in both directions) so I should have known better…

I have made some progress on my Eris: I did rip out the body once and started over, but it is progressing okay now.  I did not like the way my short rows OR my increases were looking, so that’s why I started over.  I think I’m now doing Japanese short rows (or at least what I call Japanese short rows!).  And I am doing the “yarnover make ones” that I developed for Sunrise Circle.  I think it works better because the increased sts are only 2 sts apart — they pulled up the other sts too much and did not look very nice.  I’ll show a picture when I have a bit more progress.

I have been enduring “special computer training” the past two days.  We start promptly at 7 am for four days straight.  My friend, Susan, and I are taking it at the same time.  One day I’m face down and the next day she is.  Tomorrow we’ll probably BOTH be comatose.  It is really a grind.  I have not been able to knit much because I am so exhausted when I get home. 

RE: Eris — In response to Wendy: I would call this sweater advanced, because of the elaborate cabling, short rows and unusual construction.  I have read several blogs where they said they started this project, but not so many that finished!  That could be said of a lot of projects, but I do consider it a red flag.  Sally and I have decided not to be deterred by the success or lack thereof of others — we’re not scared off by extreme knitting, baby!!  Let ‘er roll! 😉

PS to Wendy O — I think Rogue seemed easier because its construction is more straight forward — at least until you get to the hood itself.  There are some interesting things going on there!  It was easier to get started so that’s why I ended up doing the Rogue for my Knitting Olympics Challenge last year (I finished it in 12 days — no cleaning, cooking or housework of any kind was goin’ on during the “Olympics,” let me tell you).  The hood has some fantastic cabling and if you are intimidated by grafting, you could do a 3-needle bind off. 

The instructions for Eris are 40 pages — though that includes both a pullover and cardigan version — and her charts are done in large print.  I am doing the short row shaping where the cable section attaches to the body and the directions are 5 pages long!  She is VERY detailed, to the point that it seems excessive.  To her credit, she says she is detailed to help avoid confusion.