OMG! The Bohus is absolutely gorgeous! Congratulations, and Happy Bloggiversary! No fanfare this year, but we are both happy to have been blogging with you for the past three years! 🙂
March 20, 2009
March 19, 2009
From Sally — Lost in Translation
My Large Lace Collar is finally completely finished! It’s a beautiful pattern, beautiful yarn, but I’m a slow knitter. As much as I love my Bohus, I’ll be very happy to work on something else without a black cloud of guilt, merino, and angora hanging over my head.
I apologize in advance for the quality of today’s pictures. The lighting is not ideal for photography today. This is a soft, subtle project, which makes it even harder to capture properly. It gets a bit lost in translation. However, I’ll subject you to them anyway (even though you might be getting as tired of this project as I was).
A rare shot of an actual person in the sweater:
Here are some close up views of the hem and cuff:
For those of you who appreciate the technical details, here is a photo of the underarm. Look, ma, no seams! (Note the little white hairs; DNA from my little assistant.)
Here’s a photograph of the wrong side of the yoke for the more prurient knitters out there. (You know who you are.)
Finally, one last shot of the yoke.
So pretty. Le sigh.
March 17, 2009
From Susan — You May Already Be a Wiener
I already AM a wiener! I won a book tonight at the Knitters Guild meeting — it’s a really lovely book with some great patterns.
Knitting Classic Style by Veronik Avery
It has a little bit of everything: sweaters, vests, socks, gloves, wraps, styles for all ages, fair isle, lace, cables, beads. There are several patterns that piqued my interest. Woo Hoo!!
Veronik has done a lot of designing for Interweave Knits, and she has several designs that you would (might?) recognize:
So, it was a nice St. Patty’s Day! Hope yours was great, too, and sober!
PS — the blog title refers to an old cartoon that was one of my favorites. It shows a hot dog mailing an envelope that reads…yes, you guessed it, “You may already be a wiener!”
March 15, 2009
From Susan — Keep Your Focus!!
I am so at the point when interest fails! Yes, you have heard it here before….the cry of waning interest! Oh well. But, “I’ll be back,” as Ahnold says!
Here is a status update on my Ode to Joy. I do love it. The colors make me happy.
As we have mentioned before, the design is from Candace Eisner Strick’s Strickwear Merging Colors line. There are several colorways from which to choose, and they are all stunning. She has a number of different designs, also. Her website is for wholesale sales only but your local knitting shop can order from her on your behalf (or check her list of distributors). The pattern is very well written.
Yesterday a neighbor called with a “knitting emergency.” My favorite kind! She ran over with a confusing pattern question and I loved it! I could blather about knitting for hours, so I thoroughly enjoyed it, plus I was able to help her. 
March 9, 2009
From Sally — The Sweater That Will Not Die . . .
Unlike my sister, I’m not a big fan of horror movies. Oh, I like some of them — but not the ones that are truly creepy. Not the ones that get under your skin. Not the ones that give you nightmares. And certainly not the ones that feature sharp weapons doing bad things.
Ahem. That was foreshadowing. Because sometimes a sharp weapon is just what you need when you’re dealing with The Undead.
Remember my Bohus?
I finished the first sleeve. I finished the body. I started the second sleeve. But somehow, prickling the back of my neck like the sound of a door opening when you think you’re alone, was the inescapable horror: it needed to be longer.
I made myself finish the second sleeve before I took action. I have enough singleton socks and gloves — not to mention a drawer stuffed with one-armed pullovers — to recognize my own limitations. So. I finished the second sleeve. The sweater still felt just slightly too short; I knew I’d be constantly tugging it down in the back. It would haunt me. So out came the big guns scissors.
Off came the bottom hem:
I ignored the shrieks of horror: “Where’s the rest of me?”
I put the fiend back on the needles, and Lucy is proudly wearing a new sash.
Stay tuned. The next time you see my Bohus, which I hope will be later this week, it will be finished. Of course, it was almost eighty degrees here yesterday, so I have NO idea when I’ll ever get to wear it.
Le sigh.
March 6, 2009
From Susan — I hate Knitting Socks, but….
…I do on occasion. I made these a while ago but did not post them because they were a gift. So, upon whose tootsies do they reside? None other than sister Surly! They are quite small and fit Sally’s petite feet.
The pattern is Mingus Socks from Cookie A. The yarn is beautiful, but unfortunately I can’t remember what it is!
Have a great weekend! 🙂
PS — and speaking of gifts and Cookie A, Sally ordered this for me! Sock Innovation: Knitting Techniques & Patterns for One-of-a-Kind Socks by Cookie A.
March 3, 2009
From Susan — Knitting Along
My Ode to Joy is coming along nicely. The back is done, and I started the second front. That is all.
Okay, so we have hit a boring patch. That always allows us to fill in with other crap explore new and exciting alternatives! Here are some pun-tastic jokes to keep you laughing (or retching as the case may be) as you read the latest stock market reports:
1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. The butcher backed into the meat grinderand got a little behind in his work.
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
9. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, ‘You stay here, I’ll go on a head.’
14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’
16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, ‘No change yet.’
17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
18. It’s not that the man did not know how to juggle, he just didn’t have the balls to do it.
19. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
20. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
21. A backward poet writes inverse.
22. In democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
23. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
24. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!
Groan! 
February 27, 2009
From Susan — The Promise of Spring…
…is nowhere to be found in Minnesota!
We got quite a bit of snow yesterday (during evening rush hour, thank you) and the wind chill today is -14 degrees. Spring may be coming up on the calendar but it sure looks a long way off from my window!
To seek spring, I’ve turned to my knitting. Sally’s Ode to Joy is so joyful and bursting with beautiful spring-like colors, that somewhere along the line I decided to exchange my autumnal colorway to Sally’s Cape Cod. Candace was very accommodating. I started this a couple of weeks ago.
It is a slow knit. Sally described this in detail, but to recap — you are always knitting with three tiny strands of yarn. The color change is created by changing out one strand at a time to the next color in sequence: 1-1-1 changes to 1-1-2, then 1-2-2, and so on. It is difficult to knit without looking because you must be certain that you don’t miss any strands as you are knitting. It is knit on 3.25 mm needles. The novelty of changing the colors wears off quickly, long before you are done. BUT, after seeing Sally’s lovely sweater and the desire to wear it this spring, I will plod on.
Heaven save me from Ravelry! Again, I have been sucked in, but gladly. I just received a package from Needle Arts Book Store. If you order the Peacock Feathers Stole pattern (the triangular shawl converted to a rectangular stole) and two balls of Exquisite, you receive an additional ball of yarn. I wanted four balls, so by buying the pattern, I actually saved money, kind of (shopping logic is great I tell you!).
Exquisite completely lives up to its name. It is gorgeous: 50% mulberry silk and 50% merino wool, laceweight, 500 m to 50 gms ($8.50/skein).
Exquisite Yarn in Slate Blue
It has the luster of silk and is incredibly soft. The color is amazing. I think it is much higher quality than Zephyr Merino and Silk, which I have used and loved for lace shawls. This is nicer.
I’m off today and no one is home — yay! 
— but I am doing laundry and cleaning bathrooms — boo! 
Off I go to the salt mines, but may get a little fun stuff done, too!
AND, go read Yarn Harlot! Been there, done that…over and over again!
Check this out from Moosie:
Exquisite is 50/50 merino wool/mulberry silk. Zephyr is 50/50 merino wool/tussah silk. Two different types of silk with different characteristics. Tussah is from the Antheraea pernyi moth’s cocoon while mulberry is from the bombyx mori moth’s cocoon. Tussah worms feed on oak leaves while bombyx worms dine on mulberry tree, wormspit.com gives a lot more info about silk in all it’s different forms.
In response to Wendy who asked, “As always, you gals are an inspiration! I’ll be interested to hear if there was much yarn left over. Dare I ask what size you’re knitting?”
The Ode to Joy Kit comes in 2 sizes: small and medium/large. Sally made the small size and had some yarn left over. I am making the medium and will need to lengthen the sleeves. Usually I make the jumbo size in everything. In this case, however, I decided to make it to fit a bit smaller and cropped like it was designed — it would have taken way more yarn and a lot of refiguring of the pattern to remake it into a larger sweater. I will make a dress or two to go with it and wear it to work. When I make a sweater to wear with pants, I make it huge to get to where it needs to go…but this will be a very short jacket on me.
February 25, 2009
From Susan — Our Male Counterparts
One of our regular readers, Kyle, is conducting a survey about knitters who happen to be men. Let’s face it: they are outnumbered. Kyle wants to learn more about the men who knit and about women’s attitudes toward male knitters. So, the survey is open to both genders. If you are interested, please click the survey link and join in!
February 22, 2009
From Sally — Ode to Spring
It’s windy and cold here today. We even had a passing snow flurry this morning. So it’s a perfect day to turn one’s thoughts to spring, especially if long stretches of knitting tiny black stitches has become wearing.
That being said, I finally finished my Ode to Joy cardigan. The knitting of this piece was finished months ago. I just hadn’t been able to force myself to do the final finishing, especially weaving in ends and sewing on buttons. I hate sewing on buttons for some reason. I even batted my eyelashes at my sister in January and tried to get her to do it for me. It didn’t work. Yesterday, I wove in the ends. This morning, I tackled the buttons. (There were only three. How much whining does it take to sew on three buttons? Apparently lots.)
There was one legitimate issue with sewing on these buttons, in addition to the many issues that always come up (proper placement, deciding whether the shank is long enough, etc.). They are square buttons, and my intention had been to place them so that they “sat” on the sweater as squares instead of being turned so that they look like diamonds. The problem was that the way the shank was affixed to the button made that very difficult.
The buttons kept wanting to turn. I finally relented and just placed them as they insisted.
Lucy wants to know whether from the back she looks like a linebacker. (I told her no; don’t shatter her dream):
A Few Ending Points:
1. I’m trying to decide whether I will ever wear this without buttoning the buttons. If not, I may lightly baste the button band down to keep it from gapping slightly. (One tip: if you ever do that, sew it down where the outside edge of the band with the buttons sewn to it meets the inside edge of the buttonhole band. That way, the visible outer edge on top will look as if its been buttoned and not sewn.)
2. I had talked about lengthening the sweater considerably, but I didn’t. I made the lower band deeper and I blocked it somewhat longer. If you wanted to make this significantly longer, and wanted to keep the color shading, I figured out how. The problem was that I was past the point when I could have done so by the time I figured it out.
If you look at the back of the sweater, you’ll see that the pieces making it up are the same “height” as the matching front pieces but are twice as wide. That was done by casting on twice as many stitches, but doing two lines of decreases (forming the decorative triangle). If I had thought ahead, I could have started the front by making a third piece (which would have been the first piece I knitted). I would have cast on the same number of stitches, but done the two lines of decreases, roughly figuring out the color transitions on the fly. My basic front pieces are 8″ long; that would have given me a 4″ piece — plenty of extra length. On the back, I would have had to do four lines of decreases (creating two decorative triangles on the bottom piece).
All of that assumes I would have had enough extra yarn AND that the new triangle and double triangle pieces would still have looked cute. Who knows? I’ve probably lost you all by now anyway.
Someone asked me recently about my Little Assistant. He’s been visiting me since mid-November. I’ve become insanely attached to him and will blubber like a baby when he leaves, which will be soon. He’s taking a nap next to me right now.
