Will wonders never cease?

If you can believe it, dear readers, I have taken up Na Craga! Over the weekend, I excavated the WIP stash to unearth two sleeves, a front and the ribbing on the back. I ripped the ribbing (and found a broken yarn, to boot), cast on and knit the ribbing and first pattern repeat. The picture is horrible, but that's what you get at 10 pm using PhotoBooth!

Na Craga angst

Given my spotty posting track record, you are undoubtedly unconcerned about the fate of Eric’s Na Craga. In fact, you’d be quite forgiven for even forgetting the existence of Eric’s Na Craga. Let me bring you up to speed.

First, an inventory:
1. Sleeves. Completed summer of 2006. At the time I had two fears: (1) all those cables and (2) sleeve island. Figuring the sleeves had fewer cables than the front and back, I tackled them first. Baby steps, right?
2. Front. Completed fall 2006. Buoyed by the success of the sleeves, I jumped head first into the body and quickly clicked my way to the boxy neck.
3. Back. .

What happened? You may recall that in November 2006, I thought it prudent to invert my entire life by having a baby. It took about 6 months for me to reach a new equilibrium (what can I say? I’m resistant to change) at which time I thought it prudent to line up a postdoc and defend my dissertation. Six more months to gain my sea legs and bam, I decide to have another baby. Invert life once again (which oddly enough does not return it to the 2006 pre-baby state at all) and pretty much all knitting takes a backseat to treading water in the land known as parenthood.

At that point, Na Craga was buried on a shelf, dead to me, Eric and the world. And then one day, one of my many LYS (Threadbear Fiber Arts) held a Customer’s Garage Sale. So I sorted through my books, fiber and yarn, culling the heard to make some dough when what did I stumble upon, but poor, neglected Na Craga. I gave it a sad smile, plumped the fronts, smoothed the arms and vowed to work on it… soon.

These days, Na Craga stares at me from a basket on the shelf, batting puppy-dog eyes and whimpering ever so softly. Maybe this winter, Na Craga. Maybe this winter.

Where are they now?

It seems like forever since I’ve mentioned any knitting progress. And I’m so woefully limited on photographs lately. Could it be because Baby Jeneric has her first cold? Or could it be because she thoughtfully shared that cold with Mom?
Na Craga slowly marches on. There is a scant 10 cm left to the front (doesn’t it already look long enough?). One would have thought I could finish that in short order, but alas, I have flung away the interesting knitting in favor of simple ribbing.

May I present ’42,’ a ridiculously simple scarf (k2, p2 ribbing) in a fantastic forest green with a spasm of bark brown. There will be a matching hat, where the main color will be the bark brown (due to limited quantities of the forest green).

Did I mention I was knitting socks for my husband (the other half of Wily Jeneric)? I started these last year. They are the Gentleman’s Socks from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks.
Needless to say, these socks haven’t progressed very far for two specific reasons:
1. I generally knit at night. Knitting black in dim lighting is difficult (for me, at least).
2. The last pair of socks I knit was during the first trimester of my pregnancy when I experienced morning sickness like nothing I’ve ever felt before (even water was too difficult to keep down). Many thanks to the makers of Zofran. Ahem. This experience has tainted sock knitting for me. My stomach still gets a little queezy when I pick up the tiny dpns. What’s a knitter to do? In my case, I now knit baby hats.

All Better!

It was bound to happen. I’ve made some small cabling mistakes on Na Craga, never large enough to warrant rash measures. Until today.

As is my habit (well, now it’s my habit), I was scrutinizing the last pattern repeat for errors and there it was, smugly sitting in the middle of the large, bold, center motif. This was not a mistake to be ignored. This was a mistake that needed the smirk wiped from its face. Lucky for me, Baby Jeneric was fast asleep, giving me time to spank those stitches back into shape using the Yarn Harlot’s fantabulous tutorial.

I was too eager to get started to remember to take a before shot, but I did take a during shot:

Here, I’ve ripped back to the offending row. The stitches are isolated and trust me, they are feeling the shame. Using dpns (smaller than what I’m using for the project), I crossed the cable correctly, reknit the frogged rows and slid it all back onto a straight needle.

I won’t lie. There was a rush of adrenalin as I ripped back those six stitches, recrossed and reknit them. It was a good, short-lived high. I shall sally forth without fear of mussing-up a cable cross.

And the Na Craga Continues

Never fear, I have not abandoned Na Craga. Despite a minor set back in forgetting the pattern one knit-night, I have forged ahead, casting-on the front and working 5 pattern repeats.
Worried that I’d bitten off more than I could chew, I began Na Craga with the sleeves. I reasoned that sleeves were small, with 2 fewer cable motifs and 6 fewer cable blocks. Clearly, I shouldn’t have worried. Yes, there’s a lot more cabling going on, but none of it is tricky and it all follows very logically (at least to my brain. I’ve met a number of knitters who don’t seem to be able to memorize patterns at all, no matter how simple or straight forward. I know I use a pneumonic here and there, but knitting is so mathematical that it just seems to flow. Am I alone in this?). Now just because I’ve said the knitting is easy doesn’t mean (1) I won’t screw up. In fact, I have already, but it’s not noticeable; or (2) I’ll finish any more quickly. My goal is 1 pattern repeat a day and if you knew my life these days, you’d know that’s a pretty ambitious goal (if you’ve got tricks for convincing a 3-month old the merits of napping, I’d be forever greatful).

(ps Is it me or does that center motif look a bit like a nose?)

Mission Accomplished

And by mission, I mean the knitting of two Na Craga sleeves that match each other in length, width and knitting tension. I’ve been knitting just shy of three years (which classifies me as a newby when compared to some knitters) and I am still challenged to have a consistent tension. This skill is one I firmly believe comes with time and knitting practice.

The sleeves have actually been completed for three weeks. I had planned to cast-on for the front at knitting night (every Monday at a local library), but came up short when I realized I’d left the pattern at home. My needles are forlorn and cold.

Don’t fret that I was bored through an entire knitting night. No indeed! I had cleverly brought along a second project – a scarf!

I love this project simply for the yarn. It’s Fleece Artist, 2-ply cashmere (does this make me a yarn snob?). There’s no color listed on the tag, but it reminds me of an ocean just after a storm – the deep blue water broken by greens from the storm with the occasional white-cap still present. Handling the yarn is soothing in the way that waves crashing against rocks can lull you to sleep. In fact, I often do fall asleep working on this scarf (that I am knitting late in the evening has no bearing on the sleep).