Last night I came to a decision and in order to celebrate I ripped out my swatch. Quite likely this was a reckless thing to do, but then again, maybe not. I think I had learned all it had to show me.

Once that was done I cast on 58 stitches, joined them and got on with knitting Carla in the round. There is a photo, but it’s not very good, so you will have to wait until I have knit some more. Don’t hold your breath, as I feel the need to rip out a couple of rows, if not all of it, and redo the increases in some as yet to be determined but infinitely better manner. Particularly the first set of arm increases which look terrible. Carla’s stitch pattern does not make for easy double increases.

Adina sent me some questions:

1. Do you knit continental or English? Neither, I knit Combined. I learned continental style but my purl tension was way off and Alison kindly pointed me at Annie Modesitt

2. How long ago did you learn to knit? I learned to knit about a year ago in order to make Isabelle a woolen nappy cover when she started wetting through every other night time combination we had come up with (we even tried disposables which was less effective than cloth). I had a big break after that while moving states twice, and all that entailed. I started again in June or July 2004, which is when I learned about gauge, nice yarn, nice needles, etc, it is also when I changed to combined knitting.

3. First FO? A dolly blanket for Isabelle, which we gave to her with her first real doll at her weaning party in August.

4. Favorite yarn? I prefer natural fibers, actually I am yet to even try any synthetics (well All Seasons Cotton is a blend it’s true). My fiber snobbery started long before I learned to knit. In terms of knitting so far I prefer wool to cotton, which mostly seems to make my hands ache.

5. Favorite pattern? A favourite pattern suggests to me that I would knit it again and again, the more I knit the less likely that seems to be! I have made 2 Booga bags and three French Market bags but as wonderful as these patterns are I knit them twice (or thrice) because they made great gifts, not because I had an urgent need to re-experience the pattern. No favourite patterns yet.

6. Favorite pattern source? Hmmm, no front runner here either. Knitty, Stitch’n'Bitch, Debbie Bliss, Phildar, Rebecca, Rowan all feature fairly equally in what I have done or am thinking of doing.

7. Favorite needles? Addis, not fond of bamboo at all.

8. Nicest thing you’ve ever knit? the bags I made at christmas were very popular but I think my Big Bad Baby Blanket is closest to my heart at the moment.

9. Most hated project? The result was pretty but my hands ached for days after knitting this wash cloth for a friend.

10. Who are you going to pass this on to? umm, ahhh, I feel weird about passing on the memes so, no-one, sorry Adina!

It’s so long since I put my swatch down that I couldn’t remember which pattern row I was up to, or how to do the second row. Yay for blogging - having documentation rocks! Once I had that figured out I sat down with pen, paper and calculator and worked out the best way to redistribute the raglan increases. The increases are kind of erratically placed as written and it seems it would be better for them to be more even when knit all in one piece.

During the last few weeks of not knitting I have been thinking about Carla a lot and had recently come to the wonderful realisation that the dropped stitches on the sleeves actually need to be dropped from the wrist end when knit in reverse (duh!). So that is another of my outstanding problems solved. I think my pattern re-write is good to go.

This is all good right? Well it would be if I could figure out how to measure the gauge on such stretchy lacy fabric and I still need to finally decide whether to actually go with this approach or not. I have come to the conclusion that I can probably knit neat enough edge stitches to knit and seam Carla as Rowan intended, which would be so much simpler, at least in terms of being confident I would get the right look to the sweater. On the other hand I have done all this work to figure out a top down pattern and it would much more easily allow me to get the exact length I want on the arms and body.

I.just.don’t.know.what.to.do.

The quilt was a hit

So was the cake….

She was so tired today that not even an ice-pole was exciting enough to keep her awake come 5 pm.

And now, at last, I am going to knit. Let’s just hope that I can remember how.

And no-one else is dead either, well not in my family anyway. I think this might be a record gap between posts for me. I have no real excuse for not blogging, oh apart from this being a knitting blog and I just haven’t been knitting.

What I have done is finish Isabelle’s quilt, and a matching pillow slip too, but I won’t be taking any photos until I can actually get it out during daylight and get some good shots. I feel anxious about how to photograph something so large with no large or well lit place to display it. I have been working madly on Mem’s new website, and so has she, I am getting anxious about whether the end result will be good. I have been feeling anxious about Isabelle’s birthday party. I have been feeling anxious about changing fertility specialists and upping the interference with nature this month. I have been feeling too anxious about Carla to actually pick her up and start knitting. I just can’t decide whether to go with the original pattern or my own reverse engineered in-the-round version. I have been thinking about the TV meme daily, afterall it would give me something to say, but yep, you guessed it, that makes me anxious too. There is nothing on at the moment that I like enough to actually want to announce to the world that I watch, and yet the TV is on every night.

So um, I guess the title of this post should have been “I’m not dead but I am anxious”, though it has to be said that one thing I am not anxious about right now is dying, and that is something, right?

Back to the TV thing, I really have been thinking about this a lot. When Isabelle was 3 months old and I first caught her trying to figure out what that screen was on the other side of the room I was horrified and we immediately instigated a no TV while she is awake rule. Despite the fact that there were a number of shows I watched religiously back then I lobbied hard for getting rid of the thing. Jesse, who watched virtually no TV, refused. We kept it but we stuck to our “only while she sleeps” rule until we started moving around the country when Isabelle was 16 months old. Suddenly Play School became my best friend and now Isabelle watches more television than I am comfortable with but I just don’t know how else to get through the day… I on the other hand no longer have any shows I care that much for and these days I knit, so I don’t pay attention anyway. So what TV couldn’t I live with out?

Play School
Bear in the Big Blue House
The Fimbles
The Hoobs
Boobah
Pingu
Bob the Builder
Postman Pat

Not all in one day of course, but you get the picture. I still wish we could just get rid of the Television but now that it is her that is addicted it seems so much harder. Or maybe it is my dependance on her addiction that makes it harder. Whatever the case I don’t see us getting rid of it any time soon and meanwhile the most important thing on it is ABC Kids.

I really, truly, am going to start knitting again soon. Very soon, maybe even tonight.

Look what came in the post yesterday! When I bid for this on Ebay I really didn’t expect to win it so I was very pleasantly surprised when I did. It’s in immaculate condition (did the original owner even read it I wonder?) and it was well less than half price. I did some other shopping yesterday too, I went and bought a walking foot, and while I was there accidentally bought an overlocker, a singer, complete with all the extra feet and also less than half price. I seem to be developing a craft problem….

Back to the walking foot, I also bought some new needles and machine oil for my little sewing machine. Came home, got sewing and WOW, what a difference, I can honestly say I had no idea how much easier it would be. I expect I will finish the stitch in the ditch quilting tonight and maybe even start preparing the binding. I am starting to believe it will be give-able (if not exactly finished) by next weekend.

I know that this is still not knitting, the knitting is coming, eventually. In the mean time I have finished this months book-keeping, made good in-roads on the web development job and tonight I have spent an hour or so on my knees with 170 safety pins and am happy to say that I have basted the layers of Isabelle’s quilt together.

I tried doing some of the quilting and it didn’t go so well. The good news is that I am confident I will actually be able to sew straight lines. The bad news is that the 2″ by 2.5″ table I work on is woefully inadequate as a workspace and Jan was right, the top layers are bunching up, so tomorrow I will see if I can get a walking foot for my machine. I don’t know how I am going to fix the workspace problem though…

And now for the question. I am planning to stitch in the ditch around all the squares and the seems between the borders. I am then thinking I will go round the edges of the appliques and make similar shapes in the plain squares for decoration. The question is - can I put the binding on once I have done the stitch in the ditch along all the seams, but before outlining the appliques? I am worried about time you see. I have to have this done by Sunday week and I figure I can give it to Isabelle without the appliques outlined (and fix it later) but I can’t give it to her unbound…

If you have any other tips of the quilting and binding processes please feel free to share, I suspect I will need all the help I can get.

I am still thinking about the tv meme, actually that’s a lie, tonight I was too busy watching CSI while bookkeeping, researching web tools and talking to clients to think about anything else… So tell me do you use Ecto? Do you like it? I have just set it up for a client and now I am wondering why, if I think it is so great for them, am I not planning to use it myself? My blogging process is kind of… manual.

I think I mentioned when I started this blog that I tend to be a one big problem at a time kind of person. Well I my blog is suffering from my one-thing-at-a-time-itis. Carla is still there at the top of my knitting pile, I even pulled her out and knit 2 rows on the weekend. Yes, two rows. Of my swatch. Yep, that’s 40 stitches. It’s sad, I know.

On the other hand I have reconciled about 10 bank statements paid a bunch of bills and generated a whole bunch of invoices. The things is I have about 10 more invoices to go, then I have to send them. Then I have to generate and send statements. Blah, blah blah. Book keeping sucks.

I have a website to rebuild, which all of a sudden is needed next week and I have less than 2 weeks to complete Isabelle’s quilt. And I feel compelled to do these things one at a time. It feels like I may never knit again. BUT! I promise that I will knit again, no more than 2 weeks from now, and that when I do I will be knitting a like a woman possessed… at least I hope so, autumn is looming and I want to actually wear some of those things in the queue!

So I am very sorry if I seem somewhat boring in the meantime, if it is any consolation I am bored too. Rock Chick has sent me a meme. I fear that I am going to find the answers embarrassing to admit, but given the lack of knitting content I am probably going to fill it out anyway - at least there will be something to read.

Bloglines has been broken for about 12 hours and I don’t know what to do with myself. The fact that I was asleep for about 6 of those hours matters not in the least. I am not really sure how to get through the waking up process without bloglines. I have had a quick peek at all the blogs I can remember urls for, but silly me doesn’t have most of them bookmarked when bloglines is just so handy…