sweetgeorgia

The Power of Knitting is Fierce

Thanks so much everybody for your wonderful and mood-lifting comments! You guys made me laugh — especially Gleek who said _”we yarn-buying ANIMALS totally hosed your server!! the power of knitting is fierce.”_ And we all know that with great power comes great responsibility…

So in celebration of the new dedicated server and yarn-buying animals everywhere, 10% of the sales on Monday will go towards the Canadian Cancer Society via my friend, [Jazzi](https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=146011&lis=1&kntae146011=37B7CB77DCF1405C87EBF571EBE3FD5F&supId=124930490), who is participating in the _Relay for Life_ on June 9 in Salt Spring Island.

Michelle was superfriend yesterday and when I said something about “this is the kind of day that needs wine”, she bought me a bottle of [Cedar Creek Ehrenfelser](http://www.cedarcreek.bc.ca/2_our_wines/wine_list.htm) — a wine that’s been described as “fruit salad in a glass”. Ah yes, because that’s what friends do. They bring wine on bad days.

But last night, _during_ dinner (much to the amusement of the waiter), I finished my Pomatomus socks and Michelle finished Kate Gilbert’s [Anouk](http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring04/PATTanouk.html) — Michelle’s version is knit in denim yarn with the cutest red ladybug buttons. Must get a photo of it! My socks are here:

…and now I can continue to work on Fair Isle Yoke Cardigan (Elizabeth Zimmerman)…

The photo is of the left shoulder… and yes, there are no real sleeves yet. The EZ method is to knit the body in the round, then knit two sleeves separately in the round, then join them all together and start the fair isle yoke bit. Same idea as the Hourglass Sweater except that the Hourglass has raglan shaping and the EZ cardi has round shaping (evenly spaced decreases).

I wanted to break up the long stretches of plain, grey stockinette rounds, so rather than knitting up sleeves, I just did a provisional cast-on for the number of stitches that I want at the top of the sleeve and joined the “sleeves” to the body. Now I can enjoy the fair isle portion of the sweater. When it’s all done, I’ll just pick up the sleeve stitches and knit down to the wrist. Easy and lazy.

Happy weekend!

Your mileage may vary.

Last week, the frenzy surrounding Stephanie’s [Knitting Olympics](http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/olympics2006.html) got me thinking — what would be challenging for me to knit in 16 days? And really, the answer would be “anything”. Even a single sock would be challenging for me to knit in 16 days — the challenge being finding the time to do it.

But during my decision making process, I considered knitting up Starmore’s Grant Avenue… which led me to consider buying the [Virtual Yarns kit](http://www.virtualyarns.com/scripts/showitem.asp?ID=119) from Alice directly… which led me to thinking about buying yarn for Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Fair Isle Yoke Sweater (from the Opinionated Knitter)… which led me to think that I really (really, really) should knit something from my stash… which led me to pick up the Fair Isle Cardigan that I’m already working on.

Is it depressing when your mileage is measured in millimetres per hour?

No, no, not depressing at all. I love making each and every stitch, spreading them out on the lovely ebony Holz & Stein circs and watching the colours ebb and flow. The cardi is nearly 300 stitches around, so yeah, it’s going to take a while. But no rush. No 16-day deadline.