What a Life!

Can I just say that shopping for a car is a big pain and I will be so glad when it is over?

Too tired to say anymore…

Yesterday morning, soon after Ben woke up, he stood at the front window looking out and saw this:

He started to cry. “Mommy’s car got scratched,” he said. I, being the good mother that I am, cried with him.

It happened the night before. I had a Mary Kay appointment I was going to. I needed to leave at 6:30, right after I put Joey to bed, and so I had planned for supper to be ready at 5:45. We were grilling steaks with the charcoal grill. [Last week we grilled on the gas grill and it did the ball-of-flame thing again when Steve opened it and this time it singed his eyebrows so he swears he is never using it again.] Steve was going to take Ben for a walk at 4:00, returning by 5:00. I assumed the grill would be hot by 5:30 (it takes about 30 minutes to warm up), and that the steaks would be ready by 5:45 so I wouldn’t have to eat my supper in haste and rush out the door (not good when you’re trying to get a baby to settle down and go to sleep).

What actually happened? My husband, who hates to hurry, didn’t get back from his walk until ten after five. The grill wasn’t lit until 5:30 – he told me “had to get the bag of charcoal and open it…” when I sounded surprised that it wasn’t ready to go at 5:30. Then the steaks were finally ready at 6:15. I inhaled half of mine, put Joey to, donned my clothes, and rushed out the door at 6:37.

The evening sun was shining directly into my eyes as I was driving down the street. I don’t know if I took my eyes off the road to put down my visor or what happened. All I know is that suddenly I was parked crosswise, my airbags had gone off, and my car was totalled.

This is what I saw when I got out of the car. (The pictures of the actual accident were taken by the owner of the Explorer – the officer wanted me to stay at the scene while he wrote up the report and then it was too dark by the time I called a tow truck and got back down there with my own camera.)

From the other side…

Look closely now to see the damage on the left end of the bumper where I caught it – we’re talking mere inches.

The force and angle of the impact were enough, though, that the front passenger-side wheel got popped up onto the curb (I’m pretty sure all four wheels were on the street before the impact).

Gracious!

I got that car back in 1999, I believe. It had 37K on it. Yesterday when I wrote down the mileage on the title…161040. I went quite a few miles with that little car. It ran well and was low maintenance as far as costly repairs were concerned. We’d replaced the tie-rods and the alternator in the last year. The tires were about a year old. Other than gas and oil, I spent about $100 a month on repairs averaged out over the course of each year. Gas mileage was about 33 mpg the way I drove it – part highway, part in town. So I really didn’t have anything to complain about in those terms.

It had all sorts of bells and whistles on it such as the sun roof. The sun roof quit working when I moved to Lincoln in 2000. It was rusted, but the dealership told me the rust warranty only covered rust that had gone completely through – as in, left a hole. Then it was $800 to fix the sun roof because you had to replace the whole thing – they didn’t just have parts for it. For that reason as well as the fact that my husband called it a go-cart because it sat so low and was hard for him to get in and out of (he’s 6’1″), I will probably not be buying another Saturn any time soon.

It had power windows, and the rear ones didn’t work. One quit the summer of 2001 and I paid $250 to have it fixed. Then the next summer, both of them quit and I decided I didn’t want to pay $500 every year just to have windows that rolled up and down.

Then the speakers were horrible. The driver’s speaker always worked, but the front-passenger side speaker worked only about 50% of the time. When it worked, you had to turn down the radio, and when it went out, you’d have to turn it up. With that, keeping the radio at a volume that worked for more than one person was nearly impossible. I’m sure it was just a short in the wiring, but I never bothered to see what it would take to get it fixed.

I was planning to get a new car in the next twelve to eighteen months, and was starting to gear up financially for that. So much for that idea.

I have no idea what I want instead. I did like the Impala Mom rented when she came after Joey was born. It was comfortable, I think Steve would fit in it just fine, and it wasn’t so tight with getting the car seats in back. With the Saturn, whichever side Joey’s seat was on had to be where I sat when we went anywhere because the front seat could not be rolled back all the way. I don’t think the Impala had that issue.

At the same time, I’d kind of like to get a standard transmision again, as my Saturn had. Such a car would get better mileage, and I like my good mileage. I also like driving a standard, though Steve thinks it’s a pain. I like driving, and you just feel more in control of and a part of your car when you’re shifting the gears manually. I like that.

We’re renting a minivan tonight which we had planned to do anyway since my parents are coming to visit tomorrow. I have a weekly rate on the minivan, and hopefully we’ll be able to find a new car before I have to return it. My parents leave Monday. Steve’s mom has said she can watch the boys while we car-shop. Now I just need to figure out when we’re going to shop.

Good-bye, little Saturn! It was nice knowing you!

Yes, I’m still stuck on St. Brigid. You’d think I’d be over it since I’m taking a mandatory break while waiting for my swatches to dry, but no…I’m still agonizing.

The Cascade and Plymouth Galway are very nice, but I’ve had bad experiences with knitting beautiful sweaters with those yarns only to have them felt with what I thought was very gentle care. I use Peace Fleece for longies for the boys, and I wash them in the handwash cycle of my washer with no problems at all. We had one pair of longies made with Cascade Tweed and they felted in the crotch just from the seatbelt in his car seat! Ach! I made Ben a sweater using Cascade 220 last fall and I washed it to block it and it half felted, the stitch definition disappeared, and needless to say, he’s never worn it. I made Galway Guy for Steve with Plymouth Galway, and while it hasn’t felted, the arms are looking like they need a serious meeting with the sweater shaver (which I can’t seem to find right now). Another sweater I made for Ben with Galway has started to show signs from felting, and he’s only worn it a few times (though it has to be washed every time he wears it which may have started the felting). Cascade 220 is great for felting. I’ve made some of the best bags with it. It felts like a charm, where Peace Fleece would probably take more work (based on my experience with it not felting when I washed it). I haven’t tried felting with Galway, but I’ve heard it works great too. It’s that wonderful easy-to-felt quality of those yarns that scares me.

I was nosing around on the yahoo knit-a-long group for St. Brigid and someone posted a referral to Jamieson’s Heather Aran Shetland Wool as a good substitute for the yarn used in the original pattern. Remember that entralac hat that I frogged and re-knit (and am thinking about frogging again but haven’t posted about it yet)? I knew it was made with Shetland yarn that I found on clearance at one of my favorite local yarn stores. I went upstairs to look at the label. That yarn happens to be Jamieson’s Soft Shetland which was discontinued and for which they recommend Jamieson’s Heather Aran as a substitute.

So today, I shall be swatching with that yarn. I am sure I will not need all of the yarn I have left for my hat, so snitching some to swatch for St. Brigid certainly should not be a problem.

Now I must go feed my children and then do my usual Friday errands including a run to the grocery store. I wouldn’t want Ben to cry again because we don’t have any yogurt…

I started swatching for St. Brigid last night.

Yes, I’m swatching…but for more reasons than just getting gauge. I’m trying to decide what color yarn I want to use…in fact, what yarn to use.

The two colors I have in the Classic Elite Skye Tweed are medium dark and light. I’m thinking the cables would show up more with the lighter color because the shadows would accentuate them – shadows aren’t as visible with darker colors. I also, in my many Google searches, have read about knitters using yarn such as Cascade 220 and Plymouth Galway with good results.

I started swatching, first with some leftover Cascade 220 in my stash in two colors – a dark blue and a medium heather blue. Then I got out some Plymouth Galway in a sea green and swatched with it. Finally, I swatched with the sage Classic Elite Skye Tweed – I wanted to see how the tweed flecks looked and whether they’d detract from the sweater (vs. a solid color).

Here you can see the swatches all lined up. Do you notice the cables more in some colors than in others?

From the top down, the yarns used in the swatches are Classic Elite Skye Tweed Sage, Plymouth Galway, Cascade 220 (dark blue), Cascade 220 (medium heather blue).

Let’s just say that swatching can reveal facts that otherwise might have never crossed your mind. In this case…how the fabric drapes. Pre-blocking, the Cascade 220 was the softest and draped the nicest. Plymouth Galway was a close second, but the stitches were a bit more pronounced than I’d like. The Classic Elite Skye Tweed certainly brings out the pattern of the stitches, but it tends to be…shall we say, stiff?

And stiff, in this case, meant the Classic Elite Skye Tweed swatch measured a full three-quarter inch larger than the other three. Pre-blocking. Here you can see them stacked with the Skye Tweed on the bottom.

Now once I washed them and blocked them, they were all about the same size. They haven’t dried yet, though, so I don’t know how they feel.

The stiffness of the Skye Tweed is making me a bit nervous. This sweater is long and has seven or eight inches of ease. If the fabric drapes nicely, that isn’t such a big deal. But I’m afraid that if it is stiff, I’ll look like a whale.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the Skye Tweed. I simply think it would be better suited to a more standard fitted (vs. oversized) project with some shaping in it. In fact, I think shaping would work especially well with this yarn because it wouldn’t get lost with the movement of the sweater.

St. Brigid is straight on the sides with no shaping at all. Because of all the stitch patterns, the style simply doesn’t lend itself well to shaping. Now an adapted Aran style sweater where you changed the cables to create shaping rather than keeping them the same throughout would work well and still give the yarn an opportunity to show off the stitch patterns.

It’s certainly possible that the Skye Tweed may soften now that I’ve washed and blocked it. It will take a good twenty-four hours for my swatches to dry so we won’t know until sometime tomorrow.

So for now, it’s back to my Bells & Whistles socks where I’m almost ready to turn the heel on the first sock.

Please excuse my absense yesterday – I was dealing with a minor obsession…

You see, there’s this sweater I’ve been eyeing on another blog I frequent, namely St. Brigid.

I know, I know, I keep saying I don’t follow patterns – I just knit my own designs – but this sweater was worthy of being an exception to that general rule.

Another one of my favorite bloggers – b r o o k l y n t w e e d had posted about a sweater he was planning, and the yarn looked absolutely gorgeous (I have a weakness for tweeds). He revealed what yarn it was in a subsequent post – Classic Elite Skye Tweed and I knew I had to have some. I decided to order some with the birthday money I was expecting [and have since gotten but haven’t deposited yet – thanks mom and dad!]. Webs was having an overstock closeout sale – I couldn’t decide what color I wanted – so I ordered enough for two aran sweaters – one in Quail (1206) and one in Sage (1221) [the colors on my monitor are more accurate on the yarn link than on the store link].

I got my yarn, but I needed to decide what to do with it. That’s where the St. Brigid sweater comes in…I decided to look for the pattern…did a few Google searches…and discovered it was in a book called Aran Knits by Alice Starmore…which happens to be out of print. You can buy a used copy at amazon.com for a mere $240.95. Needless to say, that is just a tad out of my price range. On the knitalong group over at yahoo, those who couldn’t afford the book said they checked it out of the library. I requested the book via interlibrary loan from the Lincoln Libraries, but hadn’t heard back yet.

In the mean time, I came across an insightful post over at See Eunny Knit, the blog of the new editor of Interweave Knits (one of the popular knitting magazines). I decided to try and study the pictures and see if I could figure out the pattern without laying my eyes on the book. I did a few more Google searches and found blog posts giving the number of stitches and rows in each pattern. That was my obsession [which kept me away from my blog]. But even with endless studying of photos and repeated attempts at swatching, I was unable to unlock the code.

I did another Google search – this one was for the Omaha Public Library system. Perchance they might have the book and I might be able to check it out from them. After a day of studying and swatching, a mere thirty second search revealed that, indeed, the Omaha Library system did have a copy of the book – three copies, in fact, and two of them were currently available. I called the library to see if I could check one of them out – yes, I could. I talked to the circulation desk where one of the books was kept and they put it on hold for me, and when Joey woke up from his nap, we made an impromptu trip to downtown Omaha to pick up the book (a forty-five minute drive each way – I really wanted that book!).

As soon as we got home, [rather than writing an entry in my blog] I parked myself on the couch and started reading this highly-sought-after book. They advertise it as the history of Aran knitting with some stitch patterns and some sweater patterns. What it really is, is an in depth history of Aran knitting, a step-by-step logical analysis of cable stitches beginning with the most simple ones and using the common elements to explain the most complex patterns…and a few patterns, including the one I sought.

I must say, I absolutely loved the explanation of the cable stitching. I own a copy of Vogue Stitionary II which covers cable stitches, but it is just a compilation of many things people have come up with over the years, as many stitch books seem to be. Aran Knitting, on the other hand, is a very logical, step by step explanation of the logic behind various types of stitch patterns. I had started to figure out somewhat on my own what the integral components of the various patterns were, but I don’t think anyone could come up with a logical explanation of how the components work than what Alice Starmore has done.

Even with the knowledge I’ve gained from her explanations, I don’t think I ever would have been able to come up with the cable stitch pattern for that sweater with the information I had. There are a couple specialized stitches I was not familiar with (half of which were explained on one blog but not completely). I also would have needed to see the fabric in person in order to verify the actual stitch counts because she uses multiple cable techniques in how she created the stitch pattern.

Now I need to decide whether I’m going to knit St. Brigid in the Quail or the Sage. The Sage has more flecks, which could be distracting from the beauty of this pattern. At the same time, I think I would prefer the sweater in the darker color considering how oversized it is – I don’t want to feel like a boat when I wear it. I will probably swatch with both yarns and make the decision then (yes, I do swatch when I want to see how something will look).

I would certainly buy this book if it was back in print. Rumor has it that the author (who is still living) and the publisher are perpetually in court arguing over royalties and such…which is why it hasn’t been re-published in spite of it’s apparent popularity. My only comment would be that in the mean time neither party is making any money on the book…so get over it! In the meantime, I’ll be making good use of the copy I have obtained for free from the library.

Here is a picture of my yarn sitting on the book as it is open to a page showing a picture of the sweater.

Because you can take “eh” and turn it into “Ahhh!”

Seriously…you take something that looks nice but isn’t “together” and by adding a seam or a finished edge, you make something that looks marvelous! [No, sorry, my fellow knitters…I have no desire to do your finishing for you…I simply enjoy doing my own, thank you.]

Actually, I frogged the i-cord I had done when I posted a picture of this project the other day. I wasn’t getting the tension right and it bugged me. So it sat as a UFO (unfinished object) for a few days.

Then while working on the other sweater Jack, I came up with a different way of picking up sts and doing the i-cord. Namely, rather than picking up the sts and working them as a I went along (which meant too many sts on the needle and thus the tension problems), I picked up the sts with one strand of yarn (with my addi turbo) and then followed along with another strand of yarn and worked the i-cord as a simple i-cord bind-off (with my bamboo dpns). Much easier, much prettier. Best of all, it didn’t wear out my hands like the first method did. I was able to knit with regular tension and the sts formed themselves perfectly on my needle.

More later on how I un-vented this method on the little sweater named Jack…at the moment, I must go stop a certain three-year-old from throwing every single toy he owns across the basement…