Projects
Weekend Knitting: A Tale of Two Projects
Dear Ann,
Later this morning I have to run to catch a train to Washington, D.C., for a weekend of museums and family and Jeni’s ice cream and a restaurant in the Virginia suburbs called Super Chicken. (It is where they make the super chicken.)
It took five minutes to pack my clothes and personal care sundries. Usually it takes at least ten times that long to select, gather, and organize my travel knitting projects. You want the transportation project, the sittin’ ’n’ gabbin’ project, the grab-and-go project, and the What If I Get Stuck There for the Rest of My Life project—at a minimum. It’s just good common sense.
This time, though, my knitting is cut out for me. Fate has decided.
The Project I Won’t Be Taking (Sob)
Although no project is too large to qualify as “portable” in my book, I have reached a pause on my epic all-Coins version of Kaffe Fassett’s Stranded Stripe Throw. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, two seasons deep in a soapy, soppy, first-time binge of Where the Heart Is on Britbox, I finished the last repeat of the Coins motif. For those keeping track, it was my 37th stripe of Coins.
How long is it, you ask? 52 inches, or as Ann “metric” shayne would say, 132 centimeters.
I didn’t bind off anything but the five steek stitches, because I’m going to start with the remaining 249 live stitches to knit the first side of a garter stitch log cabin border.
But Kay, you say, a garter stitch border is perfect portable knitting! Why aren’t you taking it? Keep that Kaffe-inated momentum going!
I’m not taking it because I only have a partial ball of Treacle, one of the best-named shades in the very well-named Felted Tweed palette. It looks like its name: deep, rich, brown but not brown. The first and last stripes of Coins on my blanket are in Treacle, so it was an easy decision to use it for the border. Now I just have to wait for my Treacle reinforcements to arrive from Nashville!
I’ll save the needle-felted steek for when I get back. My Clover 5-stabber is in the house, my balabusta knitting group is planning to call an Extraordinary Session to witness this spectacle, and I can’t wait!
Deadline Knitting!
Ann! Did you know that the last day of Bang Out a Sweater is February 29, two days from today? It is!
And here’s me, after bragging about how fast I banged out my first Main Squeeze Cardigan, and boasting about how much faster I’d be able to bang out a pullover version, with only 5 hours and 47 minutes (and 6 seconds) in on my sweater.
Pride goeth before an unfinished sweater.
In truth though, my progress is not too shabby: I’m nearly up to the armholes, with three balls of Big Wool already knitted up.
So: Hell or high water, super chicken or ice cream, I’m going to be banging out my Main Squeeze pullover this weekend, and I’m going to make it my sole project. Whee! Who’s with me?
Love,
Kay
Super Chicken is,excellent. Be,sure to have,what,my friends and I call plantain, but actually may be yucca. By any name it is delish. I am up to the armholes in my sweater with sleeves finished. Not sure I will make deadline but am perilously close to an actual Finished Object!
Your Main Squeeze really pops with the All Coins Throw as it’s backdrop. I don’t know if you realize this, but you have managed to make the perfect Winter Lounging on the Sofa Binging on Britbox ensemble. I predict it will sweep the nation faster than corona virus anxiety hit Wall Street.
Kaffe-inated! I love it.
Me too! Especially since I was mispronouncing his name like this for a while!
I’m with you! My Bang Out A Cardigan is also approaching the arm holes. I’ve packed it to take along on the train from Raleigh to Washington D.C. tomorrow although I might need to ride to the west coast and back to “get ‘er done!”
I am intrigued by the Kaffe coins but haven’t attempted it as yet. It would need to be at the bottom of a very long list of projects for which I already have yarn. But I am curious…why the felting tool?
Because I’m going to use Gretchen Funk’s needle-felted method to secure the steek before cutting. Here’s a link to her article: https://www.moderndailyknitting.com/how-to-make-a-needle-felted-steek/
Having just tried my very first needle-felted steek ( on the Stranded Stripe throw), I can absolutely and enthusaistically recommend it. I mean, WOW, what a game changer.
Your Coins Blanket is wondrous to behold. I feel your pain about not being able to take it with you on your trip to DC. i was so inspired by your blanket that I started one myself, but using two color stripes rather than one color for the background. It’s my first stranded project and I had to teach myself continental knitting before I started. I love it, although it is slow going. Part of the fun is picking the colors for each stripe. I definitely plan to do another with a solid background, so I’m curious—how many skeins of Stone did you use? Safe travels!!!
I was on my 6th ball of Stone, but had only started it on the 36th stripe. It went a long way!
Thanks! Enjoy Super Chicken. it’s in my neighborhood!
Garter stitch log-cabin border on a Kaffe coin stripe blanket! Be still my foolish heart!
Hmmmmm…..thought I was the only one that packed multiple knitting projects!
Epic. Love that blanket. Happy weekend knitting!
Thrilled to have #bangedout a Jade cardigan (german pattern) by Feb 14 in Florida & halfway thru CocoKnit KAL on Silke (bc Julie’s book was home in Canada so I bought a pattern)…loving all the FOs
I haven’t commented before. However, entirely because of your posts I am in the middle of a Kaffe inspired blanket (with a color scheme bordering on the anarchic/chaotic. Also nearly done with a Kaffe coin extremely long scarf. I live in terror anticipating the steek for the blanket, and spend my free time re-reading your felt steeking posts and shopping for felting tools!
After redoing sleeve attach section twice I am almost done with the bind-off. I might just make it, if the knitting gods are with me. Love the blanket! It is just spectacular.
I predict you WILL complete your Main Squeeze pullover before midnight on Saturday! And I might have my Lopi Main Squeeze Cardicoat done by then too 😉
I have been guessing at the border color of your fabulous coin blanket. Is that the same color Ann used?? I think I may be more excited about that garter stitch border than you are!! Can you hear Carly Simon in the background???
Super Chicken, not yarn chicken! Wishing you a very fun weekend with a completed sweater before the weekend is over. You have day 29 as a bonus!
Also looking forward to your Log Cabin-y edging on your felted steek coins. I love the idea of calling an extrordinary balabusta group meeting!
I had a good hour of speaker-listening time this evening, but decided my Main Squeeze (I’m on front bands!) was not only not highly portable, but also unsuitable for knitting in a desk-chair in a med school auditorium. So I took my Dottie Jane instead, and got to brioche while I listened!
And I love Kaffe’s Coins….
Loved Where the Heart is! Maybe I will binge watch again as I knit my Parallelogram scarf in the Sequences book I just got!
No shame is ‘banging’ into March! I’m working on my first-ever adult sweater (after lots of grand baby outfits) and am pleased to report my navy with gray colorwork ‘Hadley’ is at the yoke stage. Sleeves attached beautifully and excitement is building. Thanks for inspiring me to take this on!
In the. past I used to travel quite a bit. And I, too spent hours choosing all the differnet knitting catagories-especially the “what if I get stuck someplace forever”:)))) Always so happy to read your column, Kay. I used to think I was the only one who had “knitting fever”. Love you all.
P.S. Usually I went to the local knitting store where I was visiting and bought yarn for a new project and never touched the suitcase I brought that was filled with projects. :))))))
One project for travel? Life on the edge.
How can I purchase the Coins pattern?