As it Turns Out, I Didn't Get Too Distracted (Xeina Shawl Debrief)

So I did manage to finish the Xeina Shawl this weekend:

Its really hard to get a good picture of a large shawl

Despite all the minor problems, I think it came out pretty decent.  However, it also came out *huge*, which is completely my fault. I did a number of extra repeats in the body since I was using lighter yarn and later decided to just work the body until I ran out of one skein of the blue yarn, 13 repeats in total.  Yeah, in hindsight, I probably should have done 10 or 11 repeats instead, especially since the lace border came out bigger as well (probably due to using lighter yarn...heavy lace weight blocks out lacier, it turns out:

 ). When I realized it was blocking out really big, I measured it, and it's 80.5 inches long, and around 20 inches deep. As a 5 foot aught woman, it means the tips of the shawl go past my knees.

Though I probably shouldn't fret about it being big. I rarely wear shawls as intended; I usually use them as coat stuffers, and having a big shawl with some cashmere content means I have a neck warmer with length to wrap it around my neck and down my coat.  Or over my head and around my neck.

However, I'm still in love with the color scheme I used and how it works in this pattern, so I am a little sad this won't work so well with a dress. Not that I want to be wearing this now, with all the 85-90F degree weather we've been having here.

Ah, screw it, I'll do this properly:

The Pattern
I have little to say. It's a solid pattern that I had no issues with. All the issues I ran into were due to my misjudgement, not the pattern itself. Also, while it took me months, let me note that this was due to not having time to work on it much and the fact that I was using lighter yarn. If I had been using the sport weight yarn as intended, I could see this being a 2-3 month pattern with downtime, not a 6 month one.

The Yarn
I used Spirit Trails Fiberworks Sunna (the royal blue color) and Spirit Trails Fiberworks Nona (the darker blue). Sunna is a fingering weight and Nona is a heavy lace weight, by the way, and so not recommended for this pattern unless you're willing to do what I did, which is do more repeats and get through more repeats of the lace pattern (which, honestly, if you manage to get the right count for the lace part after adding stuff, I commend you.  I didn't, and had to fudge it, then fudge it again when my first fudge was miscalculated). However, these are beautiful yarns, especially the Sunna.  The Nona one unwinds a bit and sometimes sticks to itself or splits, but I find this an issue with most lace weight yarns.  I have a funny feeling that the issues I had, especially with the yo and k2tog rows in the body, wouldn't have happened if I had a heavier yarn than lace weight. Such is screwing around with the yarn choices.

Two warnings though: they do grow like no body's business (shame on me for not swatching, I guess) and it bleeds:

Ran out of vinegar before I could completely set it as well. Will have to try again another time.

 Funny story on how I ended up with this yarn for this pattern, though.  For the past two years at NYS Sheep and Wool, Spirit Trails has had this shawl as one of their display patterns, and it's still one of my favorite examples of it.  When I saw it the first time I did two things: fell in love with the two-colored version of the pattern and decided that this was something I could use the Sunna I bought the first time I went to Rhinebeck for.  However, because I though Spirit Trails only sold fingering weight yarn (they don't, by the way), I thought the Xeina Shawl had to be fingering weight.  It was only after I had bought the Nona yarn, blinded to the pattern and finding a matching color for the Sunna I had, that I realized that Xeina was a sport weight shawl and that I now had fingering and lace weight for it.  So I was determined to make it work.

Conclusion
All in all, it worked out, other than the size. And even that doesn't render it unusable. Also, now I finally have one of my big projects done.  Now back to using more of my backlogged stash. 

Just One More Problem

The good news is that I got all the knitting done I needed for people's presents.

The bad news is I miscalculated.  You see, when I said 'I need to get this done by next weekend'. I was thinking 'I need to finish knitting this by next weekend'. Make sense, right?  Just one little issue: everything also needs to be blocked.  Well, since I got everything done by Thursday, I was able to start blocking it all:

But I forgot something.  My mom's sweater, made out of nice warm alpaca-silk yarn that is brittle when wet?  That one?  Takes forever to dry.  It's been sitting out there since Wednesday night and it is still wet. 

I have to pack it up tomorrow morning.  It may have to be in a bag in my knitting bag, the way this is going, and even that's going to be an iffy trip.  Even though I'm hoping re-purposing my space heater as a blow dryer for it will dry it....naw, I'm screwed.

Not the Problem I Expected

The other project I'm currently working on now-a-days is a cardigan for my mother, which will be her Hanukkah present.  The good thing is I've had this planned since around Mother's Day and, knowing this was a little more ambiguous than socks, started back in September. (Funny story with that.  I bought the yarn in front of my mom, on a special trip to WEBS, and explicitly told her I would use it for a sweater for her Hanukkah present. Fast forward to September, where I went to measure her for it.  She asks: why are you measuring me?  I go: for your sweater.  She goes: oh, you're making me a sweater?  I go: ...).

Anyway, fast foward to now and I've got the body done:

If you're interested, the pattern is Raindrop Cardigan from Twisted Stitches by Connie Chang Chinchio

So, after you finish the body, the instructions tell you to block it.  I debated about this for a bit.  After all, the yarn I'm using is mostly alpaca; why should I block it and then try to pick up for the sleeves?  What will that do?  In the end, since I was in the middle of hand washing stuff anyway, I decided to give it a wash. 

It bled like nobody's business.  But that wasn't the main issue; after all, it will get another bath and I'll set it then.  The main issue is this happend:

That is part of the bind off sequence for the armhole. Broken. With four stitches dropped down and saved with split stitch markers (by the way, always have split or locking stitch markers.  They suck for normal use but they're a godsend when you drop a stitch or four come loose in a wash).  I have no clue how that happened.  I didn't agitate it much.  I wove in all ends.  I didn't do anything wrong, did I?

Now, this isn't that crazy to fix.  I need to ladder up the four stitches back to the bind off, then re-bind them off with another piece of yarn.  At least that's what I think will work.  Unfortunately, it's still drying, and I can't try to fix it until it dries.

Now, hopefully this is the last issue....it would really suck if, say, the armholes are too big after I join the shoulders together.

Misadventures in Shawls, Part 4: For Better or Worse, It's the End of the Road

Hey, I had a productive time void for once:

I am done.

I have to say, the last chart and half the chart before were pretty fast and simple.  Actually, they were so easy I went on autopilot and missed the fact that the second to last row had a double decrease.  On both charts.  The first I really had to hack the fix, so bad I did some weird 5 stitch increase, then had to pick up a bar from a couple rows below it on the next right side row to attempt to fill up the gap the crazy decrease had made.  I was partially successful:

Unfortunately, at that point the life line was so far down I didn't want to rip it out to do it right.

Then, I missed it again with the last chart, but at least all that took was an extra row of knitting added to decrease down to where I needed to be.  That did cause a gap in the beads in the top band:

Oh well.

Of course, blocking it wasn't very simple either.  I'm not talking about the multitude of pins; that's to be expected.  I mean that I forgot what Madelinetosh yarn loves to do:

Bleed.  Two vinegar baths later, it's still bleeding but no where near as badly:

That's when I ran out of vinegar and therefore gave up.  I gave it one more soap bath and took it out.  Good enough.

That first picture, by the way, doesn't do it justice as to how shiny those beads can be.  They gleam blue and other colors depending on the light:

That picture still doesn't do it justice, but whatever.

Part of me feels I should still do a proper debrief but...meh.  I covered most of what I would put into a debrief into this post series.  The only thing I can think of that I didn't mention was row 67.

Row 67 was the only row where I did it, checked my work, checked my work again, and still couldn't figure out why it was wonky because as far as I can tell, I followed the pattern right.  You see, row 67 did something weird.  It shifted the pattern over by a couple of stitches.  It also seemed to want 8 stitches for the end of the row section, yet there were only 6 before that and 6 after.  It made what I thought were small leaves look a bit more like spirals, or at least leafy blobs with something trailing off the left side.  It jagged the lines of yarn-overs and stockinette sections.  It looks better after blocking, but still.  I don't get what happened there or if I screwed up somewhere, or the pattern was the wonky one.  No one else on Ravelry who has done the pattern has mentioned it.

But oh well.  I guess it worked out well enough in the end.  As more than one person has said to me (and I've said to others, not that it stops me from doing the same thing), no one else notices all the mistakes you do.  So while I'm beating myself up about how it's not my best effort and it's got so many mistakes in it, and it's a wedding shawl and it should be my best effort and so forth, the two people I've sent the picture to have both complemented it.  One of these was the recipient.  So I did something right.

In Other News, I'm Still Here

So I am a lazy bum who just got out of obsessively watching the Olympics for over two weeks and realized that I haven't written a blog post in over a month.  However, this lazy bum also has been spending half her free time studying for the GRE, and the other half trying to keep up with social obligations, projects, and the fact that she really needs to keep her apartment a little cleaner since a roach decided to chase her out of the kitchen yesterday (I'm no where near a slob and the kitchen wasn't insanely dirty either, but I had been keeping dishes in the sink overnight.  Not that you could ever get a kitchen to a level of cleanness that completely stops them from coming in, over, whatever.  I also have a roach phobia so...yeah).

Anyway, I did get my cardigan done, finally:

Of course, this was after I ripped out the collar three times on top of all the stupid little mistakes I make while knitting.  My swatch lied, or otherwise I was blinded with my love of this yarn, this pattern, or both, because when I blocked it the thing grew.  Not massively, but enough that it felt like it was just hanging on my shoulders, with a huge neckline and floppy collar.  Also, I spaced the buttons out too far and they were gaping.  After throwing it into a corner and sleeping on it so I didn't rip the whole thing out in spite, I ripped out the collar and button band.  I then ripped out three rows of the back before realizing that that section was the only one with live stitches and now I had to pick them back up (which didn't work 100% -- there was an unexplainable gap where the extra yarn hung out at the end of the live stitches and the start of the bind-off -- but I was able to hack it enough and the collar hid it anyway).  Once I fixed that, I decided to go down several needle sizes and re-knit it with new yarn (well, that wasn't a choice because I murdered the yarn when I ripped it out).  Along the way I decided to put one more button and less spaced out, and put less decreases in the collar.  The first thing worked (though I did bind off a bit too tightly), the second thing didn't.  Collar was now too small.  So I ripped that part out again, added more decreases and knitted over the short rows a bit more so the fronts were bigger.  That produced a do-able collar, though I had to sew it down to keep it folded.

I'm still not completely happy with it; it really needs a tighter gauge (damn worsted weight acting like a DK), one button band is slightly tighter than the other, and the collar isn't exactly what I would like...but it does fit more or less now and is extremely warm.  Oh well.  Shit happens.

I probably should do a proper debrief, but right now it's 11pm and I'm tired, so I'm off to bed instead.

Sometimes the Mistakes Work in My Favor

First, it's time for a beer because in this whole post, most of it works out in the end (or maybe it was time, thought I guess it's always time because it's always beer'o'clock somewhere):

In the interest of explaining that I'm not an alcoholic, I took this picture weeks ago.  It is really too late for a beer right now.

 Anyway...a couple of weeks ago, I started the actual knitting process for the tank I'm designing.  And started it.  And started it.  But after that, I finally got past the first five rows and managed to make some progress on the garment.

I then did the absolutely correct thing and after getting a bit into it, I steam-blocked it and re-took my gauge measurements. It turns out that, of course, the gauge swatch I made, and even took measurements on just like the class I took told me to (take a bunch and average), is a lying liar that lies.  My gauge in the project is about 0.5 stitches more per inch than I used for my calculations, and 1.5 rows less.

My first thought was 'oh, great, I got to rip it out AGAIN.'  But first, I went back to my spreadsheet and changed the gauge listed there.  I looked at the new results of my calculations.  Looked back at the garment.  It didn't seem right.  If I were to cast on the number of stitches my spreadsheet now produced with the new stitch gauge, it would be too big for me.  To test this, I tried on the little bottom strip I had.  It fit as is. 

So, screw it, I'm keeping my calculations as my original stitch gauge.  This yarn has some sort of weird gauge warping ability, as this isn't the first time something's come out bigger than it should in this yarn (remember my first tank attempt?).  I should note that this is after I calculated a -1 negative ease into my calculations because I was worried about the cotton stretching too much. Oye. But that part worked out.

However, that leaves me with the row gauge being off.  Now, I had already started on the waist shaping, so changing the row gauge would mean changing the whole frequency of the shaping.  This meant I may have to rip it out, at least part way, anyway.  So, steeling myself for the inevitable, I went back to my huge spreadsheet and stuck in the new row gauge.

I then looked at the column for my custom size and went 'huh?'  It had barely changed.  All the standard size ones had changed, but my size didn't.  It didn't make any sense.  So, I kept studying it and tracing back my calculations...only to find that I had pointed to the wrong cell for a couple of the length calculations, and it was calculating a length about half of what it should be.  The waist decreases were wrong in the first place, let alone the row gauge being off.

This is where I would have thrown up my hands and walked away, except that when I fixed the calculations, the frequency of decreases it returned not only made more sense, it worked with what I had already done!  My other mistake had literally saved me from having to re-do the waist shaping already completed.

So, sometimes, they work in my favor.  If only I could say the same thing for a couple of other things I've done recently, like get a hot iron too close to an acrylic baby sweater (no, a piece of scrap linen does not work in substitute for a pillowcase), or cutting fabric (me? Cut or sew straight?  Never.  This is why I like yarn craft, you build the fabric, not cut it and attach the pieces into shapes).

And before it's asked, no, I didn't completely ruin the baby sweater with that bit of stupidity.  It's just a bit shiny and slightly different color green (yes, it looks blue in the photo.  It's not; it's green) in the front (because I was trying to get the bands to lay flat, despite the fact that that is why you knit them, but that's another post):

At least my first attempt at colorwork was successful:

So...I can still knit?  Yay!

Oh, Look, I'm Done Frogging (Professoressa Cardigan Debrief)

Well, that was a trip.  But I'm finally done:

I don't know how I got it in my head that this would be a quick project.  Ha ha.  Even if I hadn't screwed up as much as I did or had been doing things I've never done before, it still wouldn't have been particularly quick. 

The Pattern
I had no issues with the pattern itself (Professoressa Cardigan from Textured Stitches).  It was clear and easy enough to figure out what was going on. No errors that I saw, which is good because I don't think I looked for errata either. Chart took a couple of read throughs to get, but that's because the symbols were different than the last several charts I'd done, not because the chart was unclear. Also, this is I think one of the first books I've seen with full, complete schematics.

While I did make a good number of changes, the only design oriented one was taking out the bell sleeves.  I almost left them there, because they do add some interest and I don't dislike them, but decided it would be easier to have it straight-sleeved so it would be plain enough to work with my whole work wardrobe (you see, when it comes to jacket-like items, I'm boring.  I'll wear the same cardigan/zip-up sweatshirt over everything.  I wore my last work cardigan almost every day of the year last year...which is probably why it got a hole).

All the other changes I made were because I'm [insert body issue here], and patterns are done in standard sizing.  This isn't a complaint; it's just a fact.  So I change it to fit me, because if I wanted a slightly off-fitting garment, I'd go buy it off the rack.

Some tips and tricks to keep in mind:

• This is a general tip, but weave in ends as you go.  You'll be attaching and re-attaching yarn, and this makes all the difference.  If you're going to be re-attaching where you cut off, leave a tail of yarn long enough to pick up and knit with the working yarn to weave it in (see the second method on this page.  It's what I tend to use for same color joins/random ends.  Though the other methods on that page work if that's more your cup of tea).  
• I can't stress how much easier doing cables like this is when you can cable without a cable needle.  The cabling here isn't hard, but it is slightly intricate (and you can't always read where's its going due to the twisted stitches and wrong-side crossing).  Rows 5 and 15 will throw you as well, since you're not crossing the stitches you think you would be (for example, you'll do a K-P back cross with two K stitches, but when you do that row the back one is worked as a P stitch from that point).  Keep your counts straight and the chart handy, and you'll be fine.
• The cheat method of making sure you do the same number of rows on both sides of the front after splitting for the armholes?  Try to do an even number of repeats of the chart.  If you can't due to sizing, just note how many repeats you did and what row you ended on on the last one.  Simpler number to remember.
• Also, when you start working the first front, write down what row of the chart you started on, so you know where to start on the other side.
• Post-it notes!  I wrote down all my changes on post-it notes and stuck it in the book on the relevant page.  There's enough picture space here to do this, and it's very helpful.  This trick only works for books though, so if you made a copy to carry around, just write everything in.  Also, make sure you record it somewhere a bit more permanent (like in a notebook, or on the Ravelry page, or in a text document) at some point, because you may not lose things, but I misplace paper all the time.
• If you don't want to sew in the sleeve, you can block the body, bind off the shoulders, and then do the whole short-row afterthought sleeve trick.  I didn't because I wanted to learn how to sew in sleeves and it was either learn that or the short-row sleeve trick (which I've never done so I'm fuzzy on the details, but it looks cool).
• On the other hand, if you are sewing in the sleeves, this site was invaluable to me to learn how to do it well. I might have spent the day ripping it out to figure out where to put the ease (I also think I didn't quite block the cap big enough.  Now I know why that's important, ha), but I would have spent more if I hadn't found that site, and I own the book she mentions for calculations (see previous statement about sleeve caps.  The math didn't work so well).
• Since I also had to learn how to do short rows for the neck, well, I used this page, which got me through it (though not neatly, and I still did several things wrong).  I then found this free class on Craftsy (don't ask how I ended up on that site, I just did).  If you don't mind creating an account and have a couple of hours, I highly recommend it.  It also teaches the short-row sleeve trick if you need to learn that as well.

The changes I made (and how to do them) are below:

• Since I'm a pear shape, and not an hourglass like this pattern, I chose to do the 34.75" size (close to my bust size) and CO'ed 12 extra stitches so I started with more width at the bottom.  I figured this out by doing the calculations on how many stitches it would be to get about a 36" circumference at the hips instead (using the blocked gauge, which was pretty much on gauge for me.  See yarn section for more details).  I spaced these stitches out evenly so there were three extra on each front and 6 in the back.
• Due to this, I started the dart decreases around 2.5" from CO edge, and set up the darts so the extra stitches would be on the side of the dart you'd decrease from.  This works out to adding the front stitches between the cable panel and the dart, and the 6 extra in between the two back darts.  I also worked three extra decrease rows to get back to the pattern-specified stitch count for the waist.  From there I stayed with that stitch count.
• I only worked 7 rows between the first three decrease rows, and 5 rows between the rest of them so I could fit all the decrease rows (including the extra ones) in a slightly shorter length.
• 2" straight for the waist, then I did 7 rows between the first three increase rows, and 9 rows between the rest (again, goal was to shorten it so that the darts were done before the bust line).
• In total, I subtracted an inch from the length before armholes.
• To subtract bell sleeves, I added a series of increases starting from 2" from CO of sleeve, spaced out every 7 rows.  Do this until you get to the stitch count stated after the bell decrease.
• Only went up to 9" before starting upper sleeve increases, and 16" before cap shaping.
• Since it turns out that I have no slope between my back and neck (the things you learn about your body when you make clothes for yourself), I added extra 7 st short row to each wedge for the neck (guess how many frogs I had to do to figure that one out) so that the top was shorter than the pattern specified.  I also went down a needle size just because.  I could have gotten away with a little bigger, but I like how this pulls in the cardigan. 

 Some of the issues I had:

• Once again, need to learn to read the instructions before changing something.  I didn't and missed that the stitch count was not the same below and above the bell sleeve.  I figured this out when I got to the top of the sleeve cap and had way too few stitches.  Yes, I had to frog the whole sleeve and start over.
• Need to make sure I block out sleeve caps to measurements.  Also, most of the ease I need is near the armhole, with some at the top (though it would be better if I could have put a little in the top of the second section of the sleeve, but didn't have any left).  Took me four times sewing in one of the sleeves to figure that out.  At least I got really good at the seam stitches.
• The neck piece...it's both ingenious and the biggest pain in the ass.  That got ripped out three times, once because I was learning short rows, once because I wore it to work and decided that I couldn't live with the neckline being too loose (for this pattern, this makes the cardigan hang wider as well), and once because the I added too many short rows when I changed it, and the bottom was too big.  All from it fully being seamed in, since that was the only time I could really get a sense of how it would work.  Then I had a slight issue with the bottom middle bulging out a bit.  To correct that, I did a horizontal-to-horizontal mattress stitch over the bind off to pull it in a bit.  I may do the rest of it, but for now I'm done.  I'm thinking it has more to do with the bind-off being thicker there due to all the sewing ends.  It looked like this in the end:

The Yarn
I used Blue Moon Fiber Arts Woobu, which is a Merino/Bamboo blend.  This is seriously one of the better yarns I've worked with, and it worked perfectly for this pattern. It's warm but with just enough sheen to make it look nice and professional.  It's soft but not overly so, and it can tolerate a good amount of frogging.  It's better after you wash it the first time.

I managed to split it while knitting, but at a much less rate than usual.  But I can split the best of yarns, so that means nothing.

However, this yarn grows after blocking.  Not just a little, but so much it will change your gauge and you NEED to take it into account.  Luckily, I checked out Ravelry first and saw other comments along the same lines, so I made a good sized gauge swatch and blocked it.  To give you an idea, when the swatch was unblocked, I was close to gauge using a size US6 needle.  After I blocked it, I was on gauge with the US5.  Any changes I made involving measurements were calculated using the blocked gauge.  Because I kept this in mind, it fits perfectly after blocking.  If I hadn't done that, I would have been screwed.

Conclusion
I might seem nuts with the notes here, but that's because if this wears out, I'm seriously considering making another one and I want to know what I did.  So, you know, the frogs don't take over my apartment again (my blocking boards on the other hand, they live here now).  I just wish it hadn't taken two months to do.

Now onto the next sweater...a simple top-down raglan.  Because I need a break.

I Spoke Too Soon

I hate when the stupidly unexpected happens, especially when you think you're done with something and...nope!  You screwed up and now have to fix it!

You see, while I was up at my parent's house for Thanksgiving, I decided to test wash Crazy Cable Blanket.  You know, to make sure it wasn't going to fall apart or anything.  That, and it needed to be washed.

Well, the good news is that it came out of the washer and drier intact.  The bad thing is doing so unblocked the damn thing.  This is acrylic/nylon yarn.  The blocking job I did should have been permanent (and, yes, you CAN block acrylic yarn, you just have to steam block instead of wet block the item.  Oh, and unlike wool, once you block acrylic, it's always blocked.  Which, given that I tend to use acrylic when I need something that can be washed and dried, is nice).

So, this means two things: either the nylon is keeping me from doing the acrylic perma-block, or the whole pillowcase trick I used became my iron has hard water dust all in it (which I rather not get all over my knitting) didn't really block it.  Having done a bit of research after the fact, it seems that it's the latter.  I'm guessing that I was supposed to use the steam setting of the iron with the wet pillowcase  because the pillowcase isn't supposed to generate the steam.  Or I didn't iron it until the pillowcase was dry enough.  Or both.  Probably both.

Of course, I left Crazy Cable Blanket up at my parent's house as planned, which means I have to wait until I go up there again to use their non-hard-water-damaged iron to steam block it again.  This also means it will be done right before I give it to my brother....so if it doesn't stick this time, I failed.

At least the other Hanukkah present I'm making is moving:

...for now, that is.

Crazy Cable Blanket Debrief (With a Bonus Border Pattern)

So, I finished Crazy Cable Blanket:

Yet I cannot make my bed well, or pick up the shoes I haven't worn in months.

It's all done.  Border, blocked, everything.  I can't believe I managed to finish it.  The label I sewed on it says it all:

I ordered them from KnitPicks, but other retailers may have these labels in stock as well

Anyway, since this took about a year and a month of my life (though if I had worked on it consistently, it would have been more around eight months), I figured I go into detailed 'debrief' of the pattern for anyone who's crazy enough to make one.

The Pattern
The pattern I used for the blanket itself was Alice Starmore's St. Ciaran (missing accents; sorry) from the reprinted version of the book Aran Knitting (it may be in the original as well.  I don't know and I can't vouch for that version).  Like all of Alice Starmore's cable work, it is interesting, creative, intricate, and absolutely crazy.  What made this more fascinating is the idea of having cables form Celtic patterns, which involves learning how to make the cable appear like it's making a bend when in fact that's where you started or ended the cable.  As I love cables, and I like Celtic designs, I loved this.  Hell, I bought Aran Knitting because I saw this pattern knitted up in a KnitPicks catalog.

However, the Celtic cabling is also what made the pattern challenging.  Now, honestly, the pattern and the charts that go with it are flawless.  I had no problem learning how to read the chart, setting it up, and following it.  I did have some issues the whole 'start and finish the cable in the middle of it' step in the beginning, though.  The first couple of times I screwed up and had to re-start the blanket.  But after that, all my mistakes were more due to my momentary lapses in paying attention more than anything (can you blame me? Knitting solid cables 200+ stitches across gets a bit tedious, no matter how much you like the pattern).

The other interesting thing about this pattern is that it's actually supposed to be a shawl.  However, it's a really big shawl...what most of us would call a small blanket.

For anyone who wants to attempt the pattern, the advice I'd give to you is:

1. Use a 60" circular needle.  Use a good quality one as well; you will put stress on the joins between the cord and needle with this pattern and you don't want them popping mid blanket.  However, you will not get far with straight needles unless you are so against circulars you insist on using them.  Your sanity and wrists will thank me later.
2.  I know it's a blanket, but for the love of the knitting goddess, SWATCH FIRST.  If you're too lazy to swatch one of the charts (which is recommended to learn how to do the cable from nothing trick before you start the blanket and then have to re-start it), at least swatch in stockinette.  Alice Starmore's patterns are notorious for tight gauge (I think I saw someone call it 'bullet-proof'; it's not too much of an exaggeration).  You may have an issue with it and have to go up a needle size or two, depending on the yarn used.
3. While I used an acrylic/nylon blend successfully, I would still recommend going will some sort of wool, wool blend, or some other flexible, springy yarn for this blanket.  You will enjoy knitting it more with a yarn that doesn't mind going through some gymnastics, because that's all this pattern is.  You may find a different fiber that will work, but tread carefully.  If you need machine washable like I did, you may have to compromise on ease-of-knitting a bit, however you must triple-check that your chosen yarn won't send you to the wrist doctor for pain either (Ravelry reviews of other knitters having done cables with said yarn are a godsend for this).  This is also why you need to swatch, hopefully before you commit yourself to buying all the skeins.
4. On the other hand, the yardage you will get by calculating it out of the pattern is a bit more than you need, unless you're knitting more loosely or putting the fringe on.  I used a little under 2100 yards on the blanket itself as written (minus the fringe), but bought 2730 yards based on the pattern.  With my border, I used about 2520 yards.
5. Put stitch markers where each chart ends/begins.  They don't really get in the way and they help you see where all the charts are.
6. Have separate row counters for each chart, along with one representing the whole blanket. You can use an app for this if you don't want five string-on counters on your needle cord.  The benefit of the app is that most of them will switch all the counters with one button push.  The downside is that you need your phone/tablet around and not dead whenever you knit.
7. It may be easier if you photocopy the charts so you're not flipping back and forth in the book. I insist on it if you're using a library copy or someone else's copy of Aran Knitting. I didn't do this, and  I broke the spine of my book and the pattern pages de-attached. I had to duct tape them back in. Twice.
8. Don't try to memorize the charts.  You may get the A chart down pat all right, as it's just a six-stitch braid (and it's the most common chart in the blanket), but you will make more mistakes than anything if you try to memorize the other three charts.  They are too long and complicated.  Save yourself some hair-ripping and just stick with reading the charts.

The Border
The border isn't part of the pattern.  I made it up on the fly.  The blanket just looked unfinished to me without one, and I had extra yarn anyway.  However, the thought of picking up stitches along it and knitting a border...no.  Just no.  So I crocheted it instead.  I love being bi-craftal.

For anyone who wants to go the extra mile of crazy, the border pattern is below:

Start in a stitch or two in front of a corner of the blanket.  It doesn't really matter which corner, but I started on the end of the blanket.

Use a US G/6 (4.25mm) or whatever is slightly smaller than the knitting needle size you're using (Go with the G if you're knitting with an US 7 (4.5mm)). Always end the round by slip stitching (sl st) into the top chain to end the round.  sc = single crochet, dc = double crochet, FPdc = front post double crochet, i = # of side you're on, loc = stitch you're at (the location).  This is a quick and dirty pattern, be warned.  The chart will be added later, as it will take more time to make (though it will be much clearer than my written instructions for many people, I think.  I said it was a bonus).

Round 1:  for(i=0; i < 4; i++){sl st to loc == corner st.  3 sl st.} sl st to loc = 0

Round 2:  Ch 3. for(i=0; i < 4; i++){dc to loc == corner st. 3 dc.} dc to loc = 0

Round 3: Ch 2.  for(i=0; i < 4; i++){sc to loc == corner st. 3 sc } sc to loc = 0

Round 4: Ch 2. for(i=0; i < 4; i++){while(loc != corner st ){sc. FPdc into below dc.} if(loc == corner st){sc, FPdc into corner dc stitch, sc.}}. do{sc. FPdc into below dc.}while(loc != 0)

Round 5-8:  Round 3

Round 9: Round 2

Round 10:  Round 4

Round11: Round 3

I can't tell you how many stitches I did on each side, because I was lazy and didn't count (and therefore had too many stitches and had to decrease. Then I had to learn how to property decrease in crochet, because I realized I've never had to decrease in a way that didn't involve just skipping the stitch.  The result was that I learned that decreasing in crochet is just a two stitch cluster, but I still had a few too many stitches on the ends).  I will tell you that you need to slip stitch into every knit stitch on the sides of the blanket, but you'll need to only do a percentage of them on the ends.

The Yarn
The yarn...what can I say? I used Berroco Comfort in color 9763 (it's a navy blue color, despite some of the photos I took). I knew everything about it from the reviews I read, and I pretty much had the same experience, minus one.  The good is that it's cushy and provides enough stitch definition for cables.  It's also machine washable and dryable, which is good for a blanket for a 13-year-old.  I haven't run it in the washer machine yet, but it's been in the dryer and it came out fine.  The steam blocking job I did created a bit of fuzzy, but that's because I wasn't being careful (it does say not to iron the yarn and while I was using a pillowcase between the iron and the blanket (wet pillowcase = steam without the steam setting), I was pressing too hard and had the iron up too hot).

The bad is that it does have a tendency to split into tiny threads, especially on the sharp tips of the metal needles I prefer.  I'm pretty used to this by now, as I can split yarns that almost never split when using said needles, but it's a bit of an issue with this yarn in particular. Also, you don't have the desired flexibility with the yarn that you may want with such a cabling job.  Sliding the stitches and twisting them are a bit tougher than one may like or expect with a good flexible yarn like wool.

The one thing I do disagree with from a review I read was that I found it easier to crochet with than to knit with.  Since the crochet hook was blunt, and my knitting needles were sharp, I had less of an issue with splitting when crocheting with it. It still split, don't get me wrong, but not as badly.  But maybe my experience is tainted with the fact that I was crocheting simpler stitches than I was knitting, so it just tolerated the less demanding stitchery better.

Conclusion
This was one of the most trying projects I've worked on, and there were many times I dropped it like a hot potato and let it cool for a couple of months. It got tedious some days, and I can't believe I spent so much time on it.

The next one I do is for me. In a nice wool.  I keep staring at it; I love the cables and I want one now.  Or maybe I'll adopt the cables in St. Brigid into a shawl like I wanted to do before I do another Crazy Cable Blanket.  Or actually get around to making Eala Bhan, which is the other pattern I bought this book for.

Don't worry, it won't happen any time soon.  I have enough yarn for other projects already that it'll be awhile before I get around to buying yarn for another one of these....

Problems with Vinegar Baths and a Resultion to Ribbing Woes

Ok, so I decided to still do the 1x1 ribbing on the bust of my Milk Maiden sweater:

To keep it tighter, I kept all the stitches I either knitted or purled on the tip of the right hand needle until I did the next one.  It seems to be working as good as the examples of other peoples' work I looked at.

On the other hand, I was helping my mom block a shawl she crocheted today (yay corporate holidays).  I ended up doing most of the work because the yarn she used, Madelinetosh's Tosh Light, bleeds oh so very much, and I dealt with the same problem with my Tosh Light shawl.  Now, for my shawl, I stopped the bleeding with two vinegar washes.  Hers...well, it was still bleeding after soaking it in three vinegar baths.  I just gave up and told her to tell the giftee that if they wash it, not to wash it with anything else.  It at least wasn't as bad as it had been.

Now, from my research, I know that vinegar is supposed to be the best way to stop bleeding yarn.  So I don't get what I'm doing wrong.  Am I diluting the vinegar too much?  Does it not work for some yarn dyes? Was I not using enough vinegar (the shawl was a whole lot bigger than mine, but I can't say I measured the vinegar out any of the times I used it)? I'm confused. 

At least I wasn't as confused as my stepfather, who was questioning my use of the vinegar, saying that he used vinegar as a caustic agent to clean out the coffee pot (that had recently decided to clog up and overflow coffee every time someone made it.  I claim no fault.  It worked fine for me last Friday).  I stupidly replied: 'Well, don't you know that that's how Easter eggs are set?,' completely forgetting that my stepfather has never dyed Easter eggs (explaining this would unfortunately require a whole paragraph, so I'm not).  My mom and I had to explain that vinegar is used in Easter egg dye to set the dye on the egg (for any other folks out there who've never dyed Easter eggs for one reason or another).

Tomorrow, it's back to my actual paying job, and not knitting the crazy cable blanket.  That I just found a mis-crossed cable on.  Ug.