Sleeves (and other things)

Dear LuLu, I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. Did you know that I lost both my mother and grandmother to ovarian cancer? The last I inquired, researchers thought that those who inherit this cancer generally contract it in their 30's and early 40's. But at 48, right after Gilda Radner died and the medical community was just learning about inherited ovarian cancer, I had an öophorectomy (ovaries removed) just to be sure. It's a such a difficult disease to detect. Unfortunately, now we don't know whether my daughter is at risk, but she and I agreed it would be silly to take the chance.

While I thought about you and your sister, I cast on the first sleeve. Since this will be a museum piece and the cuffs are K1P1 ribbing, I tried "tubular cast on." What an odd process it is. I was going to try to describe the method here, but there are so many good tutorials on the Internet, my description would be worthless. (I noticed, when I searched, that there are lots of different ways to accomplish the same thing. I used the technique from "The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques" by Nancie Wiseman, a very useful little book that's spiral-bound--so it lies flat!)

More glorious colors! You can clearly see that I'm using 2 or 3 different colors at once. KF's favorite technique with this coat is to gradually change colors (AAB for a few rows, then ABB, then ABC)--and then abruptly change to a very different colorway. For example, the first two rows of ribbing have a purple strand in with two shades of red. In Rows 3 and 4, the purple is exchanged for a brown. Then the purple's back, brown is out and in comes fuchsia. Then what looks like a complete change, but it's the purple and brown again without red.
Here's a sample of the pattern for the panels I just finished. The repetition isn't obvious at first because the letters are alphabetized. But follow a letter like F or U (both red-burgundies) or X (brown) or N (purple) and see how they appear consecutively, then disappear, then reappear in an even different combination.
(My pencilled numbers down the left are the number of rows on that line of pattern, and down the right, the number of stitches I should have by the end of that line.)
And now for something completely different (I just can't resist using that old segue from "Monty Python"): I tried my hand at needle felting for the first time yesterday, following the directions in "Little Felted Animals" by Horvath & Boutin. There's a visual joke here: you can see the gray water and gray beach, and gray, gray sky in the background, so the possibility of such a brightly colored bird in this part of the world is nearly zero! I used dyed roving purchased last year at the Maryland Sheep & Wool. My teeny black buttons were too big for the eyes; I'll try french knots of embroidery thread. Cute for a first try, but I'll keep my day job...

A patch a day...

Buffy, my sister has just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the silent killer.  She has surgery tomorrow.

Yesterday she had a colonoscopy, her first at the age of 72, to make sure that she had no colon cancer.  She has quiet a bit of health insurance along with medicare, and I just can't imagine what kind of medical care she gets when she has never had a colonoscopy. Neither had she ever had a CA 125 blood test that is a marker for tumors and costs about $60 (before insurance.)

So this has been my personal cancer awareness week. I had both a mammogram and a CA 125 blood test, and I read a lot on the internet about ovarian cancer and its genetic tendencies. Every woman should be mindful of symptoms. They are numerous and nonspecific:  abdominal fullness or bloating, urinary urgency, persistent indigestion or gas, constipation, frequent need to urinate, loss of appetite, lack of energy, low back pain among others-- easily ignored symptoms that let the cancer grow until it is third stage and deadly.

The jug coat has taken a back seat to health concerns this week, but overall, much progress has been made. The first patch has proven the value of adding a single strand of silk cloud mohair to the mix. Although the strand is hard to discern in fabric, the patch is very soft to the touch with the smallest hint of wispy mohair, so much different from the hard bath mat feel before.

The spliced together magic balls of short stands of multiple colors of yarn are working well. Over a single patch, there are usually three main changes of yarn, each new color made up of three separate strands. I keep each color in a small tub, and as I twist the colors, one under the other at the color change, I also shuffle the tubs. This keeps the yarn from tangling while the spliced yarns present no extra ends to weave in.

You can see three separate strands leading to each of the bottom tubs. I'm about to splice on that skein of blue Paternayan persian wool to the short end of one strand where the knitting pause is. At the end of the row, I lay the knitting on the tray, and give all a 180° turn.

So the art of the project is finished, and now the craft begins in earnest. I noted on your Ravelry project page that you have indicated that 30% of your Romeo & Juliet is completed. How will I ever catch up?

You know how people cross their fingers for good luck? Some pick up found lucky pennies from the ground. Me, I'm going to knit: " A patch a day keeps the doctor away."

Two Romeo & Juliet panels completed!

LuLu, you can lift a glass to toast the completion of the first two panels of the "beautiful long red coat," as it's known on the Kaffe Fassett forum at Ravelry.com. Right Front and Left Back are completed and on their stitch holders.

I pinned them together for this photo, just to see the effect. But in the coat, they won't touch one another.



I've decided: I'm going to knit a sleeve next, just for variety. I think I can knit it in the round; you know how I hate to purl. The downside is that I'll be able to knit only one sleeve at a time. But I honestly don't think I can fit both of those enormous sleeves on one circular needle, even if I don't use the full complement of stitches.

I haven't cast on yet, so I'll accept advice. Two sleeves flat, knitted simultaneously so they come out exactly the same? Or one sleeve round and round, knitting forever?

WAIT: I forgot! Those ridges on the sleeves are achieved with a mixture of knit rows and purl rows -- and the sequence is totally Kaffe's. If I knit in the round, I'll have to reverse the directions half the time, and I'll get hopelessly confused. What a pain. Phooey. Well, that decides it: flat they're going to be.