The Mother's Day (Not-So-)Secret Gift

My mother is always asking me about various WIPs that are intended for her. Like the Blaze sweater that's been snoozing for, well, years. Or the chunky vest that's been snoozing since the weather started to warm up.

So when I came up with the idea of knitting Eunny Jang's Print o' the Waves stole for this year's Mother's Day gift, I decided to keep it a secret, just in case. Just in case I wasn't able to finish it in time. Just in case it turned into another snoozer. Just in case my dearest, darlingest mother felt like nagging me again about my knitting and knitting and knitting... And not finishing.

I did pretty well keeping the secret under wraps, nearly all the way through the 17th repeat of Chart A (also the halfway point). And then my mom walked up to the open doorway of my room and asked what I was working on. I stammered a brief reply and made her promise to forget she'd seen the WIP that is her intended Mother's Day gift.

On the bright side, I now have more flexibility as to when and where I work on the stole. On the less bright side, there's a whole lot of pressure now to finish the project in the next 13 days, because if I don't... There will be questions. Many, many questions. Chop chop, better get to it!

My eco-friendly FO

Well, I assume it's eco-friendly. There's the whole debate about how much it costs to produce these so-called eco-friendly products and the like, but I choose to believe that: (a) Kollage Yarns Hope organic cotton yarn really is eco-friendly, and (b) I will be making an enormous impact on the environment (in a positive way, of course) by carrying my hand knitted, itty bitty market bag to the market. Where I will only be able to fit narrow and/or small fruits and vegetables, like bananas, asparagus, plums, and possibly the smaller varieties of apples, through the minuscule opening.

I exaggerate, but only a little. The circumference of the opening is probably about 12 inches, which translates to a diameter of a little under 4 inches. Give or take. The rest of the bag is nice and stretchy. The attached i-cord opening, not so much. Fan-bloody-tastic.

I realized this as I was attaching the first i-cord. The opening of the bag seemed to be shrinking by the picked-up stitch. Did I stop? Oh no. I kept going. I had stopped, frogged, and re-started this darn bag so many times that by the time Day 3 of the adventure came around, I was not about to stop. For anything short of major disaster. Like accidentally dropping every single one of the 66 stitches off my circulars. Something like that might have stopped me. Possibly.

So I can only fit small items (like balls of yarn) in my market bag. Big deal. Maybe this'll encourage me to spend less cash on non-essentials. Like jugs of milk and boxes of cereal and the like. (Says the girl who just spent 50 bucks on makeup she will never wear, because there's a HUGE sale going on at E.L.F. - everything's a buck, people, can't pass up a good deal!)

The point is, folks, it's DONE! The Elisa's Nest Tote has officially transitioned - from frog pond to UFO and back - and is now officially an FO. An eco-friendly FO, no less! It's time to go celebrate. With the Scooby snack pouches I had to take out of the box and place in my market bag one at a time in order to get 'em to fit.

Ribbit. Ribbit ribbit.

I assume "ribbit" is how you spell the sound that a frog supposedly makes.

Why is this relevant? I have done a loooooot of frogging the past two weeks. First, there were the Jaywalkers. The legs were done, I'd turned the ankle, and the feet were part way done. On both of the socks. Then I realized I couldn't fit the darn things over the ankles, and poof, ribbit they went. Then came the Leah Tunic. You can read about the whole saga in my previous blog post, but essentially, I made it way too small, and they went to the frog pond. And then came the market bag.

Now, I made a huge amount of progress on the market bag in a single day. Ten inches of glorious lacy market bag-ness. And then I glanced at the remaining bit of yarn and groaned internally. I dug out the tape measure, only to discover the bag-in-progress was 11 inches across rather than the 8 called for by the pattern. Lovely. So my Kollage Hope yarn took a nosedive into the frog pond.

After a little one-on-one time with Excel (ahh, my dear friend MS Excel), I re-cast on, only to discover I would need a second set of circular needles in order to knit in the round. So I trotted over to my friendly local Michael's for a set of size 10 circular needles (16" ones, as it turned out), but I don't like 'em. Too dull. I like sharp lil critters, including my knitting needles.

So... Long story short, it looks like I will have to cast on 58 sts onto 2 sets of US 10 circulars, with 1 extra st on each of the two circular needles as selvedge sts (to compensate for the yarn overs). Fingers crossed... I'm not terribly fond of the ribbit pond!

Numbers never lie / math is infallible

I'm knitting. That's nothing new, of course; what a silly thing to say (write, err type).

I'm knitting the Leah Tunic from Purl Bee, or rather, a modified version of Leah. I don't like the untidy hem of the original Leah, so I'm using a deep garter stitch border at the hem. I'm also shortening from the tunic length so that the bottom hits right below the waistband of my jeans.

I've also substituted in a yarn with a significantly tighter gauge than called for in the pattern: 8.6 sts/in rather than 7 sts/in. The yarn is a new 100% silk lace ribbon yarn from Karabella called Manipur. More on that later.

After doing body measurements, gauge swatches, and a bunch of calculations, I cast on the required number of stitches for the middle size - even though the numbers said to cast on for the larger size.

I am now done with the first skein of Manipur and a few rounds past the second decrease round. I can now take some kind of semi-accurate measurement of the piece. As expected, 14 inches across for a circumference of 28 inches. I want/need it to be 15 inches across/30 inches around.

Umm, yeah. Why am I surprised? The gauge swatch, measurements, calculations - all indicated that with the medium size number of stitches, the piece would measure about 13.9 inches across (circumference 27.8 inches). Numbers never lie. Math is infallible. Why, oh why did I cast on 119 sts (each for front & back pieces, total 238 sts) rather than 130 (260 total)?!? I am an idiot, that's why.

So now I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I keep going, figure out a way to compensate for mistake, and hope for the best? Or do I grit my teeth, kick myself in the ass, frog and reknit?

I think I may have to go with the latter option, much as the prospect pains me... Because Manipur is a drapey silk that wouldn't look so great with negative (or in this case, borderline super negative) ease.

Oh, and for the record, Manipur is a great yarn to work with (minus the twisting, but that's to be expected with ribbon-y yarns), but a nightmare to wind. The skein is about 2 feet around, which makes it impossible to fit onto my swift. Oh, and it tangles like no other. I am SO not looking forward to winding anymore skeins of the stuff! Then again, I might prefer even that to frogging and reknitting :oP