I’ve tried two color knitting before. I really wanted to make the Huntington Castle Pullover from Interweave, but I couldn’t get it to look decent. The floats just wouldn’t work.

Now, in the Olympic Spirit, I have decided that it is time to Conquer My Fear and Frustration. This time I’m better prepared: I got a book. It’s called Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified. I bought it for the three pages of instructions – there isn’t a pattern in there that I want to make. They are not to my taste. Also, that would be two layers of wool in the entire sweater. It doesn’t get cold enough for that.

The three pages of instructions have been worth the investment! This is my first practice piece:

You can see me getting better as I go along.

You put one color in each hand and work two different kinds of stitches per hand: the first kind (odd stitches) is regular, the second kind (even stitches) is to anchor the unused yarn. This means there are no floats! The only bad thing is that the book only tells you how to do knit stitches because all of their sweaters are worked in the round. This is fine for now, my Olympic hat and mittens are in the round.

Again, I’m getting better as I go along!

And the inside?

See? No floats!

It turns out that this is fun! I am feeling much better about the whole thing. I feel so much better about it that I am a little concerned that I have under-shot my Olympic goals . . . but I didn’t know that two colors wouldn’t be a hideous experience! I may be speaking prematurely: you never know how the actual project is going to go, M’s mom and sister are coming the week after next, I’ve never made a person-sized mitten (weird, I know), and I am notorious for starting over when things aren’t going well.

Next on Yarn Miracle:
Beginning the Checks and Charms Hat and Mittens.

The pattern had me make the heel in stockinette. Which I thought was wierd. I also thought that maybe it wouldn’t fit my Secret Socky Pal’s foot as snuggly as a sock should – especially considering the lace on the top. So I switched from size 2s to size 1s and am feeling better about the whole thing. I made a couple of other “adjustments” to the pattern, but I can’t tell you about them and maintain Secret Socky Pal’s anonymity. You’ll just have to make peace with not knowing.

The Doppelganger Cardigan has seams and a neck! The neckband doesn’t look quite like its counterpart, so I’ve soaked it, pinned out and it’s drying. If it still looks weird after all of that, I will take it off and put it back on. After that, all that’s left it a row of single crochet around the bands. Great Gran is going to put it on for me. Nice touch.

I solved my Family Denim Aran problem.

I had this stuff in my stash.

That yarn was supposed to be for a vest for M. I swatched and it works perfectly! The real questions is: why did I buy SO MUCH to make a sweater vest? It must have been a premonition.

I finally made it down to Daphne to Debi’s Little Yarn House’s clearance sale to buy all of this:

Not Pictured: 200 Knitted Blocks

Sadly, this was the only Cherry Tree Hill left (what do you think, Becky?). But the Wildfoote is pretty cool – I don’t have any lavender socks. Debi says she has some pale pink somewhere. She will hang on to it for me when she comes across it. And we all know how much I like to knit with self-striping yarns! Especially when they are half price!

In our next episode: Emily learns to do fair isle for the Olympics.

Great Gran’s Surprise:

Darling Sister (on the right)! See our dark circles? We stayed up Too Late.

My Mom and my sister Elizabeth came down from Atlanta! And the best part is that it was a complete surprise! For her birthday, Great Gran got a new VCR/DVD thing, a toaster, a set of Denise Interchangeable Needles (from M and me) and enough birthday cards to fill up the top of her chest of drawers. I think she had a great birthday.

While Mom was here, we started on scarves made from the chenille Becky sent me in a trade.

From right to left: the one Mom is making for me, the one I am making for Mom, the one Great Gran is making for Elizabeth

We are using the Jo Sharp pattern “Misty Garden” from Scarf Style. Since the yarn is hand painted, each one is unique. Mom says to tell you that she’s winning the knit-a-long. I’m not sure that I adequately explained what a knit-a-long is…but YAAAAAY, MOM!

Elizabeth brought her one Excessively Long Sock back with her since since she didn’t take any pictures. She claims that her camera will only take blurry pictures. Whatever. I’ve taken one:

The sock is Substantially Too Short. The current plan is for me to try to get a hold of the Haneke Yarn People (they are tough to get a hold of) and try to get another hank or two of yarn in the same lot so that I can add many more inches at the knee. If I can’t do that, we have decided not to start over with a whole ‘nother batch of yarn. Instead, I will either make two pairs of socks of ordinary length with diamonds on the back, or I will make her a pair of diamond knee socks. All of these options require me to frog most (or all) of the Excessive Sock. Sigh.

The BF socks are moving along slowly, I had to give up my Cat Free Zone so that Elizabeth could have a place to sleep. The right front of the Doppelganger Cardigan (Amanda is right, this is coming out WAY too close to the original to truly be Inferior) is almost finished. I should be able to block the remaining pieces tonight. Which is great because I really need to start practicing fair isle for the Olympics. I know NOTHING about fair isle.

*I would have told you all this yesterday but Elizabeth wanted to run to Daphne to go to just two stores. The plan was to be home by lunch. Then she said, “Hey, lets go to the outlets in Foley!” And the rest of my day was lost…

Happy Birthday, Great Gran! There are surprises for today – but I can’t tell you yet. I only have to keep the secret for 5 more hours…

Yarn Miracle has been experiencing some technical difficulties: for about 24 hours there, my mail went somewhere other than to me. M offers his appologies. He has explained to me that it is “just gone” and there’s nothing to be done. My response was “huh.” So, if you haven’t heard back from me regarding your very kind comments, that’s why. After this, I am going to find everyone through the comments page and respond personally (that’s the plan anyway).* In the meantime, thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on YM’s condition in other browsers, I really appreciate it!

The left front of the Inferior Cardigan is finished:

The Perfect Cardigan is the one on the right, which places the Inferior Cardigan on the left.

It’s almost creepy how well this is coming out. Perhaps the Inferior Cardigan is the Perfect Cardigan’s evil twin…or perhaps Great Gran really did just follow one pattern (instead of mix and matching) after all. The world may never know.

I’ve gone on ahead and blocked the sleeves. I have limited blocking space and it’s so much easier to seam things when the edges aren’t curly. Here is a fun extra: the Inferior Button Bands are knit along with the rest of the cardi. They are 11 stitches long, but you slip the middle stitch on the RS to make a “fold line.” You’re supposed to sew the outside edge of the band to the inside edge to make a thicker for the buttons. Pretty nifty.

Bloomin’ Update: Emily has made 24 rows of pattern!

It would have been 32 rows, except I managed to Misplace a stitch. The funny thing is, when I backed up to the offending stitch, my count STILL wasn’t right. I had to tink back to the ribbing before it was right again. I never did figure out where that stitch went.** When I started over, I elected to work in a Cat Free Zone with no distractions. Things have been going much better.

*We are looking at other blog software (MovableType didn’t have anything to do with my missing email, that was all M). My requirements are few: some sort of “are you human” check on the comments and let people with gmail and hotmail addys post a comment (for crying out loud already). Also I like “lightbox” a whole bunch so I want that instead of having to make pop-ups.

**Perhaps it went the way of my email.

As you can see, we dressed up the blog a bit. I’ve only seen the finished product in Safari and Firefox, so if anyone has any technical troubles (things don’t seem to be where they ought to be etc.) please comment or email me. Thanks a bunch.

PS Personalized yarn bands are a hoot to make!