Trenchwork

In the last few days, I’ve been working on syllabi, class websites, and lecture notes. Everything’s about set and I’m feeling comfortably prepared—or will be once I finish responding to some Master’s level thesis prospectus drafts and actually have Monday’s lecture in the box.

In the meantime, knitting has consisted of one object, and it’s finished:

It’s a sleeve. Ignore the pink lifelines, unturned cuff, and unwoven ends. There’s method to my madness.

Want more? Sorry, that’s all there is. Seriously. You see, a friend in the knitting group has been working on a sweater for her daughter for a while, and had reached the point where she dreaded anything to do with it. It dawned on me that if we could have barn-raisings (not that I’ve been to one recently), community-constructed quilts, or sewing-bee afghans, then surely we could contribute to someone else’s project. She’s already done most of the work; the body is done and when I last looked she had half a sleeve on her needles. With a little luck, she’ll actually be able to put the thing together before the weather changes and gets cold. In the meantime, I ran a lifeline at the end of the pattern in case she needs to rip back and lengthen (or shorten) the sleeve, haven’t woven in the ends in case she wants to rip it back altogether, and put the final stitches on another lifeline rather than cut the thread and cast off for all those same reasons. (Of course, I’m hoping that having tossed this good karma out there, it’ll come back to me when I get hold of a project that just seems to go on ad nauseum or from which I desperately need to be rescued.)

So, then. The only thing I have to show for knitting since Seraphim is a sleeve to a sweater I’m not even working on.

On a second note, this yarn is Rauma’s “Finullgarn.”

I like the colors, but I don’t like the yarn. It’s difficult to tell here, but the yarn is about sport weight and has a heavy twist to it. The weight is fine and the yarn knits up beautifully on 3mm needles, but that twist creates a kind of “nubby” feel and look that I don’t care for. I’ve discovered that if I’m doing a color pattern, I prefer a smooth yarn. Somehow this one gives the fabric an extra texture and makes the individual stitches seem uneven—or even be uneven. I’m curious to see what it all looks like after a proper blocking and when it’s all together.

Next up? Since I have a knitting group meeting tonight, and I don’t want to carry the sweater currently on my needles (not related to the sleeve above), I’m taking the stitch markers Karen of Beadmarkers has sent me this week to test with my lace. None of her markers have ever hung on anything I’ve done, but I seem to have a tendency to push certain styles through the holes in the row below. So we’re experimenting. You can translate that as “Rhonna’s having fun.”  It’ll be back to lecture notes and prospectus drafts in the morning.