Project Spectrum Feb/March FIRE

I haven't talked about Project Spectrum much, although I have been thinking about it a lot. Especially since half of my February was spent traipsing around the red desert of Australia, which might as well be the element of FIRE in physical form. The way I've ended up interpreting FIRE is more emotional and visceral than in color. First of all were the red colors, the heat and sometime humidity of our visit Down Under. What I didn't realize about the heat, not being used to it--(it was about 35 degrees in NYC when we left) was not only the heat itself, but the sun glare, and the attendant air quality (moist and oppressive in Brisbane, lip-crackingly dry in Yulara) leaves one exhausted. Seriously, after a couple of hours of sun exposure, you will need a long nap to recover.

The other thing about the trip was how I found myself re-evaluating all my life choices. Spanky and I fought about little things, but we had so many experiences that the good definitely outweighed the bad, and I wouldn't have wanted to be there with anyone else. So I would say that my feelings were all FIRE(d) up. I had so many huge experiences in such quick succession that it was hard to process everything.

My list of projects for Feb/March included 1 pair of socks for myself:


I knit one down to the heel, and then stopped (this was before we left) because I forgot what to do next! I need to go over how to turn the heel again, since it's been a while, and I am not really following a pattern at all. I'm just doing short little ankle socks, plain, so that the color really is the focus of the sock. The colors to me are what make this yarn special. They do look like fire, but like the fantasy, Arabian Nights, Harry Potter phoenix kind of fire--bright, glorious, perhaps not really that hot, just colorful and exciting.

I got this yarn as part of the Socks that Rock Sock Club for 2007, and at first I tried the pattern that came with the yarn, but it was a slip stitch pattern, and I found it incredibly fiddly and the results less than satisfactory. While I appreciate all the effort that goes into designing and knitting socks like that, I find myself automatically judging people wearing overly designed hand-knit socks as smug, somehow. And I didn't think I would ever finish the socks if I knit them using that pattern. Mind you, I knit the Lombard Street socks, and I'm in the middle of the Rainy Day socks from MagKnits, so it isn't patterning on the leg or foot that I'm talking about. I just think anything that involves too much fiddliness on needles that small is not for me. I'm not that kind of knitter.

Anyway, I also had two sweaters I wanted to start, both planned from stash yarn, which I had envisioned taking with me to Australia, before I knew about the "no knitting needles" rule on Australian airlines. Whatever, I didn't even have to take off my shoes in security, but knitting needles? Well, they're not allowed. Anyway, I don't think I have quite enough time to tackle either of those sweaters yet, because of a project that just barely qualifies as FIRE.

I give you the Mary Maxim horse sweater, which I've gone on and on about here, but have never shown a picture of. Do you know why? Because all I had done were the arms and the back--plain stockinette in bubble-gum pink. But now, I'm on the front, which is where the going gets a little rougher. Like Grumperina, I too am doing the intarsia...



Here is the full chart, with my pathetic, rather desperate attempts to keep track of where I am. I have the fear that I'm going to royally screw it up by losing track of something and have to rip it all out. I did make one mistake by using the wrong brown (there is brown and DARK brown, and they look exactly the same, except the brown is shiny and the DARK brown is not) on one horse's mane. But I don't think you can tell...



At first, I was making the 6-8 year old size, but then I realized that my neice a) is turning SEVEN, and b) lives in Florida, so probably won't get to wear this until next year anyway, so I ripped it out and am now making the 10 year old size to make sure she gets at least one season out of it before it's too small.

Every time I finish a row, I mark it on my row counter and highlight the finished row. It doesn't matter so much that I'm writing directly on the chart because I can tell you with all certainty that when I get this monster done, I'm never going to make the same thing again. I do like the intarsia, and I think that unlike Grumperina (scroll down to March 10 entry), I have been using the bobbins to great effect. Look how neat this looks:



Sure, there are a lot of strands there, but they're all hanging neatly where they should be. I started out just cutting lengths of yarn for each piece, since I read that is what Nikki Epstein does, but the strands ended up all tangled like Grumperina's picture. The bobbins keep them all straight--the trick is to keep them up against the knitting tight until you need to use that strand. The downside, of course, being that you can't go very fast down the row, but if you're thinking you can do intarsia fast at ALL, you must not care very much about doing a good job. There is too much to worry about to make this a speedy technique. Yet I find it really cool to see the picture forming, and I'm sort of enjoying it, although I really would like to move it along in terms of time. I'd really love to be able to knit at least one of those sweaters before the next element pops up. Perhaps I'll extend fire for just a while, since I ended up with two other FOs to show for my trip that don't fall within the color scheme of Project Spectrum and were not on my list of things to accomplish. But more on that next time...