After three years, one month and 29 days, I am FINISHED with the Barbara shawl. Six months ago, I never thought this day would come.

I finished the lace edging this morning. It needs to be blocked, which I will do this weekend. A few shawl facts: pattern from Stahman’s Shawls & Scarves by Myrna A.I. Stahman; yarn is Jaeger Cashmere (discontinued); started 8 August, 2002.

I’m so excited that I’m ready to start my next shawl project, I can’t though. I’ve made a promise to myself that I have to get a job before I can start a new project and I’m trying to stick to it. I have some job prospects that I should know about by the end of next week. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me.

After ripping out the Hobo sweater, I have that to work on and I need to finish sewing the bottom seam of Bryan’s ultra warm hat. With the completion of the shawl, I’m now down to three projects to knit, not including Bryan’s hat. I don’t remember the last time I had just three projects. Whatever will I do with myself? There are Christmas gifts to work on and spinning to do.

Speaking of spinning, I finished spinning the Lemondrop yarn and am working on plying it. I’m doing a 3-ply cable yarn. So I’m plying two yarns first and then plying those together with another single ply of yarn. I read about it in Spin-Off so we’ll see how it works. When I was winding the yarn to figure out 450 yards for each ball of yarn to ply from, I had a bit of a mishap. I took the singles hank off and put it on the swift to wind it into a ball and the last 10 or 12 yards on the swift started to get tangled. I figured no problem, I’ll wind it by hand from here. Big mistake, I ended up spending an hour and a half untangling it. It’s not plying very nicely, so we’ll see what happens. What a hassle, but it will be cool yarn when I’m finished, I have to keep reminding myself of that. Perseverance.

Oh and before I forget. If you like Stars, Broken Social Scene or Metric – you absolutely must check out the new Metric album Live It Out!! Bryan and I have been listening to it non-stop since we bought it on Tuesday. Even if you’ve never heard Metric, they are worth checking out.

Today has been much better than yesterday. Despite the major disappointment of the realization that the Hobo sweater wasn’t going to make it, yesterday ended much better than it started.

Yesterday, after dealing with the potential loss of Hobo, I worked on the Barbara shawl. After some measuring and assessment of yarn, I realized I was finished with knitting the shawl. Finished may not be the right word, more like finished with the main section. Last night, I started knitting on the lace edge. It took me a bit to figure out exactly how to knit from the chart and attach it to the shawl, then I finally figured it out. The lace edge is knit and the last stitch of the edge and the shawl are knit together. It’s actually quite cool how it comes together. Bryan brought home Dodgeball from the library for us to watch last night. We both needed a good comedy to watch and this one was very cheesy and funny. I worked on the lace edging while watching Dodgeball and actually made some progress. Then this morning after breakfast, I worked one lace repeat. Chloe was helping me keep track of what row I was on the chart. A helpful kitty is always nice.

Also today while I was watching Days of Our Lives, I decided to be brave that rip out the Hobo sweater. After doing a swatch last night on size 4 needles and getting a gauge of 28 stitches to 4 inches (10cm), which is the correct gauge, I knew what had to be done.
Yesterday, it was this beautiful sweater with a very bad gauge.
So I got out the ball winder during Days and just wound and wound without paying attention. I had to do it this way so the grieving wouldn’t be too overwhelming, and I knew I couldn’t do it by hand, I would never have finished. By 1:30pm, halfway through Days, it looked like this.
Thank you all for your support through this tramatic time with this sweater. Once I was able to have a good cry about it and worked a swatch with the correct gauge, I felt much better.

I need to recap Saturday for you. My new knitting friend, Ms. M, and I drove up to Chicago to see the Yarn Harlot at Arcadia Knitting. We had lunch at the always wonderful Chicago Diner and then headed over to Arcadia Knitting, which is in my old neighborhood. The neighborhood has changed a lot since I left two years ago. While we were browsing waiting for the Yarn Harlot to arrive, Kelly, a former student of mine tapped me on the shoulder. I introduced Kelly to Ms. M and Ms. M to Kelly. Then we sat and knitted and waited some more. When the Yarn Harlot finally arrived, the store was all a flutter and Franklin was taking photos for the store. The Yarn Harlot was absolutely hilarious sharing stories with us, including one about her daughter, a daughter’s playmate’s mother and one of the yarn closets. Doesn’t everyone have a yarn closet. She was even knitting one of her famous socks. Everything you’ve read about her is true and she’s even funnier in person. My cheeks hurt when we left the store. The Stitchin’ Seminarian gives a very good account of the Yarn Harlot’s visit. (I’m even in the background of her photo of Franklin.) After the Yarn Harlot spoke and we were lining up to get our books signed, I realized that Laurakeet had been sitting in front of us. I asked her if she had a blog and then was she possibly Laurakeet. (Phew, there’s a lot of name dropping in this post, sorry about that.)

I got the newest Yarn Harlot book signed and am not regretting not having a photo taking with her. Oh well, at least I was there and got to meet her.
I also had to enhance the stash a bit. I needed to buy some Rowan KidSilk Haze to make a gift anyway and was very happy to see that now there is Kidsilk Spray that is variegated – very cool. Unfortunately, you can’t see the variations in color in the photo. And for myself, I couldn’t resist this Kid Merino from Crystal Palace Yarns.

I don’t think I’ve ever had this reaction to a sweater but I’m near tears right now.

In my attempt to finish several of my very long overdue projects, I started working on the Hobo sweater. I’ve done more than two inches in the last three days. It wasn’t until this morning when I went to retrieve a new ball of yarn to continue knitting the sweater that I realized, I’m going to be one ball short. This is one of the sweaters that I’ve loved knitting and the yarn is fabulous, it’s a cashmere silk blend. I’ve figured out what my biggest problem is – I’m one stitch, one sticking stitch, per inch too small on gauge. That’s four stitches over four inches. (I know, I know I should have followed my own advice about gauge, but this was one time that I didn’t think it mattered because the sweater is knit sideways.) I’m literally feeling sick to my stomach and have been crying. I’ve been working on this project since May 2002 and can’t imagine ripping this sweater out. But I honestly don’t know what to do. I don’t know if the yarn, Barruffa Bollicina is even being made anymore. Several months ago, I emailed the store where I originally purchased the yarn and they no longer have any balls. I’ve been searching online for the last two hours trying desperately to find this yarn, even if it’s in a different dyelot. But to no avail. I’m so upset about this that I think I need to put the sweater away for a while before I made any crazy decisions about ripping it out without seriously thinking this through.

Here are some of my options:
1. I have the option of shortening the sleeves, which I can’t be sure will even solve my problem. And the sweater just won’t work as a short-sleeve sweater.
2. Another option is rip out the sweater and start over with new yarn, and use the Bollicina for something else. I love the pattern so much but I don’t know if it would be the same using another yarn.

Update 6:30pm: I’ve come to terms with the fact that the sweater needs to be ripped out. I had a good cry about it and am now swatching to see if I just go up to a size 4 needle if that will solve my problem. Then I could reknit the sweater with the proper gauge. If I don’t get gauge with a size 4 needle, I’ll have to find a different pattern for the yarn. To make myself feel better today, I ripped out the Glint sweater. Kidsilk Haze is not the easiest yarn to rip out but I’ve already ripped out the sleeve and four stripes of the back. It’s slow going but for some crazy reason, very satisfying! It’s exciting because I’ll finally be able to start a combination of these two sweaters once I get all of Glint ripped out.