Totally Gratuitous

No knitting, since I have no photos of the items for which I have ballbands, and no ballbands for the items that I've knit.

The beginning of school is always bumpy, and my excellent organizational skillz go out the window (from my perspective. Everyone else is like, "Wow! You're so organized! Can I have a copy of that handout?")

So, to make up for it, here are two photos of Milo from our trip to St. Louis, where, yes, I did wear the Shawl of a Thousand Lives, twice (but not around him, since he's grabby).

My Mr. Man is quite the Big Boy these days. Seersucker shorts, pants, and argyle vest courtesy of my mom, who is from Grosse Pointe via Greenwich and can't help herself.

Ada's Hat and Donuts

A week or so ago, the Nonlinear Family minus Ada came over for a no-cook brunch. Portland was in the midst of an unbelievable heat wave and even though Friday morning was the first time we emerged from the basement in the morning and didn't burst into flames, I still didn't want to cook anything. We made a trip into St Johns for bagels and donuts, cut up fruit and had yogurt and granola, and though John did turn on the stove to make coffee, everything else was uncooked (by me).

This hat was made from the leftovers from the Necco Wafer sweaters I made for the Nonlinear Twins (here), and was the perfect post-shawl knitting, since I could actually watch TV while I worked on it. It's the same Knitpicks CotLin, knit up at 5.5 sts/in on a US 6 kneedle in 4-row stripes. The top braid is 24 strands of yarn (4 each color) so it's pretty substantial.

I know this isn't a Mommy Blog

A few hours ago, I sent the following to my pal, Nora, who suggested that I save it for 10 years because at that point I should be far enough removed to find it funny. Milo has always had eating issues and I have developed amazing skillz when it comes to catching barf. I didn't know my skills went this deep.

Milo, if you're reading this, know that this made the list of Grossest Things That Have Happened To Me. I expect some day that all things on that list will involve you in some way.

Hey Nora

Milo is full on in the tantrum phase. We thought we had more time before that happened, but nope. It’s like the clock changes to 5:30 pm and horns come out of his head and he’s inconsolable. Also, he took a tumble on Monday AND on Tuesday at daycare, and he has a huge bruise on one cheek (face meets concrete stairs) and one across the bridge of his nose and under his eye (face meets ground, also First Bloody Nose!)

Aaaanyhow, he had one hellofa tantrum Monday in the basement because I wouldn’t let him run with scissors or some such and he screamed for 30 minutes and the whole time was drooling and his nose was running and it was pretty maddening because there was nothing I could do about it. So, right about 6, he gets going again, and I pick him up and say he needs to stop because when he stops we’ll go have dinner. And he starts to gag on all the nose nasty he’s been swallowing while screaming. And we’re in the basement, so I rush over to the laundry room (concrete floor with drain) and I’m almost there and he BARFS DOWN MY SHIRT. Only there’s a little barf on the outside of my shirt and I feel like that’s it because there’s no barf on my boobs or my bra and then he barfs again all over the carpet and the cuffs of my pants and I stand up and realize that the inside of my shirt caught a cupful of barf and I didn’t know it until I stood and smooshed it against my stomach. And he’s still screaming and there’s barf on the floor and OH MY GOD how do you get a shirt off that is full of beef vegetable gerbers that he ate 3 hours ago. So I put him down and yelled at him but good, which by the way doesn’t get him to stop crying and I get my shirt off and I try to get the barf off the floor (so the cat’s don’t...ew....) and I’m scrubbing the floor in my bra and pants (which are barf-free, amazingly, except for the cuffs) and I’m grossed out and he’s screaming and John’s not home and I still don’t have my dress for the wedding next weekend and I’m probably not going to get tenure and I think, “I feel like Nora would understand how frustrated I feel right now.”

I also had a glass of wine with dinner later, because I felt like I deserved that, at least.

Stephanie

Here. Squint to see the Beads

Here are a few more photos of the shawl, and if you squint, you really can see the teeny beads. I promise. All 400 of them are there. The color is more accurate in the second photo -- the shawl is a buttery yellow.

Swallowtail Shawl

To get the story on making this shawl, scroll down or click here.

It was a little unfair for me to write the whole post about finishing the shawl without posting photos, so let me remedy that.





Vital Stats
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits Fall 2006 issue. Modified by adding 10 extra repeats of the budding lace pattern, substituting beads for nupps, and then later a knit row with 4 yarn overs and 4 kfb increases to make up for some bad math.
Needles: John's grandmother's metal straight US 4.
Yarn: Cobweb weight alpaca from Blacksheep Gathering in cream. About 600 yards
Beads: Size 11 Czech beads in pale sage, applied one at a time using a size 14 (3/4 mm) crochet hook. Probably 300 of them.
Finished size: 62 inches across the top and about 44 inches deep. In other words, it's pretty large for a shawl, but it's perfect for me. Lucky!

I'll take some outdoor photos when it's a little cooler out. These were taken on my office floor, because there is a/c in here, but I do realize that you can't really see the beads. They're there. I promise. I'd show you a picture of what it looks like on me, but it's alpaca, it's 300 degrees out, and it would stick to me.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics. I assure you mine are far greater" - Einstein

A quick recap:

A few months ago, John says, "Why don't you knit something nice for yourself?" and I think, "He's right. I should do that." I stash dive and find 2 skeins (580 yds each) of cobweb weight alpaca in a pretty cream color, and start looking for a pattern. I think I'd like a shawl to throw over my shoulders at John's cousin's wedding on Aug. 15th. I need something with a short, easy pattern repeat so I can work on it while watching Milo. I settle on the Swallowtail Shawl, which I made for my mom (in an aran weight).

Things progress nicely. I finish 14 repeats of the Budding Lace pattern and realize that the thing isn't going to be big enough since I'm using a smaller-than-called-for yarn. I need to add repeats, but a little figuring and looking at the 3 rows of border lace and I realize that however many stitches I add (at 4 increases every other row), that number has to be a multiple of 6, 8, and 10. That makes 120 extra stitches increased, or 10 extra repeats of the Budding Lace pattern. I trust this will be sufficient to make the shawl big enough (keeping in mind that I am 6 feet tall and have broad shoulders). Of course, without taking it off the needles, I have no way of knowing how big the thing will be, and there are 195 stitches on the needles, so they're not coming off. Blind Faith. I had it in abundance. So much so that I had a lifeline thread 60 rows back, and I didn't tie it and at some point Milo gave that bright blue lifeline a good tug and about 2 inches of one side were stitches without a net.

Hey Nupp! You can SUCK IT. Love, Stephanie
With the budding lace pattern (24 repeats) down, I started on the Lily of the Valley lace #1. The first row is all knit save 4 increases. I purled back. Then I set up for the nupps and amazingly all the numbers came out right. On the purl back row, I had to purl 5 together at each nupp to make the little bobble. Somewhere well past the halfway point (so, say, around 200 stitches in, I was doing this little maneuver, and the yarn broke. In the nupp. Not the working yarn. The part already knit. I didn't cry. I didn't even say anything unladylike, though I did tell John he needed to sit down and be quiet and not offer suggestions because he didn't know anything about it. (Sorry, John.) The shawl went into time out while I decided what to do.

A day later, I was ready to face facts: there would be no nupps in this shawl. The yarn was way too fine for rough handling. Also, I was not going to unravel the thing back to the lifeline that didn't go all the way across. No, I was going to do something way more rational. I was going to pick up all 319 stitches in the knit row 2 rows back.

One thing about me: I don't take kindly to being told that I can't do something. WHen I was in college, I saw this advisor and he said I wasn't serious enough to be a math major at the University of Michigan. He may have been right, but he shouldn't have said it, because a week later I went to the chair and declared myself an honors math major. About a month later I met another female student who'd been told by the same advisor, "Women don't major in honors math at the University of Michigan." About a year later I made a pop-up book called, Calculadies: The Women of Mathematics. No, I never emailed the guy to tell him what happened to me. I did sit in on his class about a decade later when I was in Ann Arbor, and when he asked me who I was I told him I was a graduate student from UCLA working with some of the top guys in the field. I may have given him the middle finger under the desk while I said it.

Now, nobody said I couldn't pick up all 319 stitches, but John, who provided coffee and stopped talking when I said, "Honey, I'm counting," did say, "This might not end well."

But, after 8 hours (4 long Milo naps) later, all the stitches were picked up and I was on my way. I was slowly going blind, but I was on my way nonetheless.

I know! Beads!
The next day I placed a call to my knitting buddy Elaine, who is a crafter and an artist and has good suggestions. Mostly I wanted her to confirm that I could NOT put the bobbles in the piece, and to agree that maybe I could put beads there instead. You know, because I'd never done that before and it was a good time to try something new. Elaine knows how I roll with knitting, and agreed I could add beads. She even told me what size to get (11) and lent me her crochet hook (.75 mm -- yes, you read that right). So I went to get 400 size 11 beads, and the woman at the bead store, when I told her what I was doing, said, "Oh, I don't think you'll be able to do that," which was all the push I needed to plunk down $2 for the beads and get to work.

Here's the thing: each bead has to be placed individually on the (very delicate) yarn using a hook so small that I had to use my thumb to feel which side had a hook on it, because I could not tell by looking. Also (and we did not consider this), the hook needs to be held in the right hand, which then completes the manipulation to get the bead threaded. I am left-handed. This process felt very much like I was doing it with an oven mitt on my hand. Each row took about 2 hours to complete, and I clicked the row counter with real gusto every time I finished one. I needed something to live for, and watching the dial go up by one was all I could look forward to. Even the purl rows started to take forever.

However, I got through all 20 rows of the two Lily of the Valley lace, and put that tiny hook back in the container and felt thoroughly proud of myself. Take that! Unsupportive Bead Shop Employee!

The Wrong (Multiple of 8) plus 19

One lace pattern to go. 16 rows of lace, then 2 more rows and I'd be done. I started the Border Lace with 2 stockinette rows, and then on row 3 of the pattern, I realized I'd made an error. See, way back when I added those 120 stitches, I added 15 multiples of 8, and though I am not a number theorist, I do know that 15 is an odd number. The pattern repeat was 8 stitches long. So my bad math waaaay back before the nupp/bead fiasco meant that I'd added 7 pattern repeats to both sides, but had 8 extra stitches lying about in the middle. That wouldn't do. I realized this only after I got to the middle of the now nearly 400 stitch row, and had to unknit, in a lace pattern, that half of the row. That took about an hour. I added a stockinette row and increased 8 stitches across it's length. That seemed fair. Now I had the right (multiple of 8) plus 19 (presumably) and I proceeded with row 3 of the border lace. Only when I got to the middle, I had 6 stitches left, which didn't make sense.

(I'd like to take this moment to point out that I have a Ph.D. in mathematics, but not one in arithmetic. However, I still knew I'd done an OK thing, and that it should have worked out.)

At this point, I could either burn the thing or unknit the half-row AGAIN and count everything. Also at this point, I did say some rather nasty things to the shawl. And when I finished unknitting and counting, I realized that I was spot on.

I knit row 3 a third time, and things came out OK. I knit the second half of the row, and that was OK too.

I worked another 9 rows or so without incident, but the ball of yarn was getting very, very small.

The 30-minute Ball Wind
Six (SIX) rows from the end, the ball of yarn gave out and I realized that yes, I would actually have to wind the other 580 yard, very delicate cobweb-weight skein (which I was now referring to in very nasty terms). It took 30 minutes and was painstakingly slow. Also, you know who likes the ball winder? Abby. The cat.

The yarn broke once, but it was far enough into the ball that I decided it would only have an effect on the NEXT person to use the yarn. I added it in and kept knitting.

In which the shawl gives me the middle finger under the table
I got through the last bit pretty easily, actually. The rows were really, really long and took forever, but whatever. Nothing compared to picking up 319 stitches or keeping the cat away from the ball winder.

In the past, my lace bindoffs have been a little tight, so I went up a needle size. This had a nonstandard bindoff, presumably to make it stretchier, but I got the pattern down and started in on all 443 stitches. And before I got halfway, the working yarn broke. I'm not even making that up. John was there, and saw my head explode. I grabbed that tiny crochet hook and undid the complicated bindoff a few stitches (I was getting REALLY good at unknitting lace), reattached, and in one blessed sitting, bound off the damn thing.

John was sitting next to me when I got to the end, and he said, "Have you thought about how the yarn is going to stand up to blocking?"

I forget, what was the fuss about?
I'm glad I get to report that this ends well. The ends were easy to sew in, though there were many, many of them (in my opinion, a lace piece should have a beginning end and an end end and no ends in the middle. Elaine. Nod if that makes sense.) I picked up each scallop with waxed dental floss and ran floss across the top. I doused it in the guest room sink, blocked it on the guest room bed (using the floss to pull it tight) and unpinned very carefully to make sure I didn't catch any yarn in the T-pin. It's lovely.

I'd show you, but none of the computers I have at this moment have a working interface with my camera. Seriously. But it's really, really beautiful.

319, Actually

There are 319 stitches on my needles. I forgot to include the 4 increases in the row I was picking up -- I mean, I remembered to pick them up, but not to include them in the count.

In any case, I've counted, recounted, re-recounted, and purled back to make sure. I think I might be good to go.

OR the whole thing is going to unravel, and I will follow suit.