WTF, Sally Melville?

I have the trilogy of Sally Melville's basic Knitting Experience books, which includes (1- The Knit Stitch, 2- The Purl Stitch, and 3- Color).  I don't necessarily have a problem with the "fashion" of these patterns, albeit a good number DO look a little dated to me.  The books' patterns (particularly those in Book 1) are mostly odd, asymmetrical, boxy things that don't really look good on someone my shape and size.  But the books have value for me not because of the patterns, but for the basic knitting instructions. It is what sets Melville's books apart from other knitting books.  The patterns are laid out very clearly with detailed information about gauge, yarn, needles, etc. 

Yeah, not so much in the 3rd book, sadly. The quality of the pattern instructions has really declined.

As of the date I am typing this, I am currently trying to knit "The Seventies" poncho pattern for my seven-year-old niece. She personally picked this pattern out. First of all, I am about 1/3 of the way done and I just noticed that the charted snowflake pattern that I've been diligently knitting does not match the pattern as it appears on the garments worn by the models in the pictures. It's not terrible---in fact it is the same pattern---just slightly different, like it's centered differently or something. So referring to the pictures is NO HELP when trying to determine if I'm staying on course. 

Second, I have also noticed that my poncho is turning out really small. Like toddler sized. According to the pattern instructions, the child size fits sizes 4 to 10. My niece is very tiny; she still wears a child's size 6. I must have missed something somewhere, right? So I looked back at the written instructions. There it mentions the unusual increases in the chart rounds. I haven't had any problems following the chart and the increases at all. But the instructions mention "rounds 69-77." Um...my chart ends at row 69.

So, Oops, I guess?

Thirdly, I decided to check the internet and, lo and behold, there are errata available for this book of patterns, and this pattern in particular.  Do they address the charting being off-centered? No. The missing 9 rows? No. But the errata DID mention that the entire poncho should have been knit on size 7 needles and not size 6. Awesome. Thanks for that.

So now I don't trust that anything at all is right with this pattern. I was getting gauge on size 6, but maybe that gauge is wrong? Maybe I was supposed to use bulky yarn instead of worsted?  What ELSE is screwed up?

I'm not ripping it out. I need to have this done and sent to North Carolina in time for Christmas. I am just going to have to extend the chart out on some graph paper.  Hopefully, I can get it close to the 20-inch length that it's supposed to be (not counting fringe). As it is now, if I don't do something, it will be like 14 inches long.

Hey, Sally, did anyone bother to test knit these patterns before you committed them to the book? This is like knitting patterns 101, here, Sally. Come on. Very disappointing.

I really do exist

Hi. Yeah, so I know it's been over 2 years. There really is no excuse for my lapse other than my own depression and/or laziness. Mostly laziness. Things are way better now and I feel compelled to write again.

Trying to recollect where I left off in my life...rebooting...I'm just going to start spewing out things as they come to me, ok?

Well, we're back up to 7 cats again.  My sister adopted Toothless in early 2012 and now he's livin' large in an upscale apartment in Hoboken, NJ.  A few months after, we took in my parents' 10-year-old black cat (in the summer of 2012). His name is Rudy. Rudy was always a standoffish kind of cat when he lived with my parents. Not so with us. He adores me. He follows me like a puppy and sits on my chest at night. He drools on me. He licks my nose and cheeks. It's awesome. Fi-Fi hates him. Not so awesome. After 2+ years, she will still awaken from a sound sleep in her kitty bed and wander upstairs with what seems like the sole purpose of attacking him for no reason. She succeeds more often than we'd like. It has gotten better, but I don't like my babies hatin' on each other.

Herc is enormous -- 22+ pounds. Orson has arthritis in his silly toes. :-( Titus was very ill last year right around Thanksgiving. I was a wreck. But he's perfectly fine now. His birthday is actually tomorrow. He's 10. They're all getting older and knowing they won't go on forever makes me very sad. I try not to dwell on it.

All other cats are present and accounted for.

Probably the biggest news is that in March 2013 I started a new job. Todd also got a new job just about the same time. There is no other way to say it: it has changed my life. For the first time in I-don't-know-how-many-years I really have NO complaints. Sure, I still have the daily frustrations that come with any job. For instance, I just spent most of the day in what can only be described as an email exercise in tooth extraction with Dell over a missing monitor stand. I still don't think they know what the hell I'm talking about. But the people in my immediate group of co-workers and my boss are all wonderful. No weird egos. No jealous backstabbing. No soul destroying lies. Everyone treats me with respect and my contributions are valued. It's a nice feeling.

Still knitting. I've knit a lot of stuff since I last posted. Too much to mention everything. I will post some things soon. I've taken to lace knitting.  I love that wow factor that you get when you take a pile of knitted fabric that looks like nothing more than a giant wad of knots and then spread it out for blocking and you see this amazing landscape of delicate intricacy. Here are a few examples:

More to come....

FAIL

If you'd have to airbursh out your nipples in photos, then it's a failtacular pattern. Although I think she's actually wearing pasties...

This pattern costs $8.  EIGHT DOLLARS to knit a holey camisole.  I love how the pattern notes call the holes in the front "a Freeform [sic] eyelet pattern."  Yeah.

Allons-y, Alonso!

I remember being a little girl and watching my 3 favorite shows on PBS: Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Doctor Who.  To this day, whenever someone says "Doctor Who" to me, I immediately think of Tom Baker and his delightfully endless scarf, floppy hat, and 1970s fro-like hair-do.  He will always be the perfect embodiment of Doctor Who for me.  Running a close second is David Tennant.  I will admit it took me a little while to get beyond Barty Crouch, Jr. being Doctor Who.  (And it was really peculiar to see Barty Crouch, Sr. as the inventor of the Cybermen facing off against "his son" in season 2 of the recent Doctor Who reboot.)  But after a few episodes, it was clear that Tennant was the right choice to pick up the yoke of Doctor Who and run with it.  Some of the most memorable episodes in the recent series reboot of 2005 have been Tennant's.  I've found seasons 3 and 4 to be my favorites.

Every Doctor Who has their specific quirks and Tennant's Doctor, I think, was the funniest.  One particular thing he liked to say was "Allons-y!"  Quasi-proving that I didn't waste 6 years of French study, Allons-y means "Let's go."  In a couple episodes The Doctor mentioned how he always wanted to meet a person named Alonso, just so he could say, "Allons-y, Alonso!"  Well, The Doctor gets his wish in the Christmas episode of 2007, Voyage of the Damned, when he meets an officer on a space cruise ship bearing that most-desirable moniker.  The Doctor is ecstatic. 

After I finished knitting my Owls sweater on vacation, I started knitting these Tardis socks.  I had originally used a chart that I found on Ravelry.  But after knitting up the top portion and the start of the paneling, I just didn't like how it was turning out.  The letters were too indistinct, the window part was too smooshed together, and the door panels were not visible enough.  So I ripped out everything back to the ribbing and wrote my own charts with clearer lettering and devised my own technique for doing the windows/paneling.  I think they turned out really well!  The chart is available for free on Ravelry.  If you don't have access to Ravelry and still want the chart, just comment and include your e-mail address and I'll send it to you.

The rest of the sock is just the standard, awesome Ann Budd "sock recipe," with one minor exception: I do a circular, tubular cast-on for the cuff.  At some point I hope to write up how to do this cast-on.  But it is hard to explain in writing.  I'll have to make sure to include lots of photos.  It's a very easy cast-on process, once you do it a couple times. And it looks amazing.  It also maintains its shape, is very stretchy, and doesn't cut-off circulation in your calf.  It does use more yarn and it takes about 4 times as long to do it than any regular cast-on.  But the end result is worth it. I also use this cast on whenever possible for cuffs for sleeves, sweater bottoms, and hats.

OMG, Y'All, the Mayans May Be Right

Because I finished the fucking pinwheel sweater! AW YEAH, BITCHES!

Nearly four and a half years after I started, it is, indeed, finally done.  I wandered around the house while wearing this for about 20 minutes contemplating the idea of not having this unfinished project looming in the back on my mind somewhere.  It was very bizarre.  I felt like Frodo after the ring was destroyed in Mount Doom.  To put it another way: I cast this on when George Bush was president, m-kay? 

I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.  I think the concept of knitting a giant circle with sleeves was intriguing to me at the time.  I was a much less-experienced knitter then, and this project had no shaping, no seaming and it was knit on large-ish needles (size 9).  Looking back, this really needs some shaping.  Unless you have a perfectly proportioned body---and I don't mean like a gorgeous, photogenic body (though that would help), I mean mathematically perfect---this thing will not fit correctly.  And I have neither of the aforementioned.

The yarn (Lion Brand Cotton-Ease) was great to work with.  It's very soft and the end result is a very comfy sweater.  BUT---there is always a but, isn't there?---it was not the best choice for this project.  Because of the cotton content, and the vast amount of yarn required to make this, AND because there are no seams to help with the structuring of the garment (see, knitting a garment without seaming is truly a double-edged sword) this sweater is very heavy and a little droopy.  I didn't block it because it doesn't need any help stretching out.  Just picking it up from the shoulders I can feel it pulling down and stretching the knitting.

Another problem I have is with the sleeves.  There doesn't seem to be a good, fool-proof method for making the sleeves for this sweater.  I haven't revisited the pattern instructions for this area in years, but whatever method you use for making the sleeves, they are still done in between YOs, which causes giant holes at the shoulders and back of the armpit areas of the sleeves.  I am actually wearing this sweater today.  It was cool enough this morning to warrant something, so I figured, why not?  It looks fine, but I am extremely peeved about the holes.  As the day is progressing, I am noticing that the stockinette around the holes is expanding, probably due to the natural pulling of the garment down from my shoulders (and as I mentioned above, the yarn is helping this right along).

 See?  RAGE.

At first I thought it was because the sleeves were too tight, but they are actually pretty loose up there.  I've got something like 3 inches of extra fabric around my arms.  So that's not it. I don't even know what to do about this.  Do I try to stitch it together somehow?  Mattress stitch, maybe?  Do I care?  Meh.  I'm totally open to your suggestions.