brainylady

Harlotry and a Sleeve-Over

For someone who can never find enough time to knit these days, Friday was very exciting indeed. I had the chance to spend hours with my people (you know 'em -- they're your people, too), and it was lots of fun. Stephanie the Yarn Harlot was speaking at the McGill bookstore at 5:30 p.m. I went early to meet up with Kate (and the adorable Tadpole), and over the next hour the room slowly filled with knitters, which in itself is a wonderful thing. (It was entertaining to see the odd student stumble unwittingly into the space -- the sheer confusion that resulted from encountering not a bunch of other undergrads, but dozens of ladies of all ages with balls of yarn in their laps and needles in their hands! Muah-ha-ha!)

Stephanie was, of course, delightful. Her wedding shawl was truly stunning. There was a husband sitting near me who had been a little nervous at the beginning -- looking around for other men, clearly feeling a bit out of his element -- and I noticed that after ten minutes, he was laughing right along with everyone else. This is the power of Stephanie.

No photos, alas, but I'll name-drop just this once: it was great to see Mona, Molly Ann, Kadi, Robyn, Mary, Melanie, Deawn, and all of the other MontrealKnits ladies. Another Kate had come all the way from Kingston. And I finally met Lee Ann and Jae in person. We all tried to show Stephanie a good time so she'll come back soon. I hope that worked.

I took a sock to knit during the Harlotry, but last night I was up late watching Fight Club on TV, and I decided to have another go at that laddery sleeve I'd complained about last month. I think the ladders were the result of both using DPNs and knitting at too loose a gauge. I ripped the loosey-goosey in-the-round sleeve and cast on flat on a smaller (4.0mm) circular. This is going to be so much better.



To recap: I'm knitting a saddle-shoulder sweater based mostly on Elizabeth Zimmerman's instructions in Knitting Without Tears. I've already deviated a little bit from EZ, though; my sleeve increases, for example, are every six rows instead of every four.

And yes, everything I'm knitting right now is hemmed, including socks. I just like how it looks. If you haven't hemmed but would like to try, there are good instructions (for plain and picot) within the Perfect Sweater pattern (that's a PDF) that sprung from Mason Dixon Knitting and was co-designed by the lovely and talented Mandy.

OK, I need more coffee, and I need to get to work. Those hours spent revelling in being a knitter on Friday were hours not spent reading and thinking about an upcoming paper. I will now spend the afternoon immersed in Discipline and Punish, which about sums it up.