Again? Seriously?

Last Tuesday I ran out of yarn for my Plum Shawlette. So I weighted the whole thing (104 gr), I frogged until the increasing part was 50 gr (to leave myself some wiggle room), and I re-knit all of it.

And again ......

And the weather report was lying

Not a drop of rain yesterday in San Francisco, cool weather for a quick trip to the city: Artfibers, lunch at Mixt Greens, naturalization interview, and back home.

Everything well but I ran out of yarn for the Plum Shawlette:

The day I have to go to San Francisco

Snow in Rome

My Facebook wall is floored with photos of Rome under the show. With 35 cm (less than 14") of snow, the whole city has come to a screeching halt, quite understandably it was the first time in 26 years.  As we say, a Roma nevica ogni morte di papa ("in Rome it snows every death of a pope"- not translatable, similar to "once in a blue moon".)

Anyway, what I do not understand is the complains. Blocked at home? Pull out your knitting ...... in solidarity of my Roman friends, I plan to finish my Plum Shawlette today:

6th annual World Nutella Day

The kids think it is really serendipitous that this year the World Nutella Day happens the same day as the Superbowl: Nutella is such a nice contrast to all the junk food they will be eating.



Usually when 3pm approches on Superbowl day, I withdraw into my room, close the door, look for something more interesting to watch on tv (and this category is pretty broad), and knit or spin until it is safe to go out. This year this perfect plan has been derailed by my kids extending invitations to watch the Superbowl with to several friends, including some friends of mine. My daughter decided that we need to introduce our recently moved year friends from Italy to the Superbowl. I am just hoping that they will not take it as a reason for running back home.

The Predictable "2011" Post

Finished Projects 2011, a set on Flickr.

From my handy Excel spreadsheet, here are the 2011 stats:

Yarn knitted: 16,377 yards and 43 projects
Yarn swapped out or gifted: 6,647 yards
Incoming yarn: 18,654 yards

Balance: -4,370 yards (negative number is good, it means that I actually manage to consume more yarn than I acquired.)

Interesting facts:
- in 2010 I knit about 16,000 yards as well;
- at this rate, I have 5 years worth of yarn in my stash.

Check your math

Actually, the exact title for this post should, "Check their math."

Version #2 of my Short Sleeve Swirl Cardi (the first one went really wrong too but we won't talk about that):



Since the demise of the first version, I decided to use a pattern from the DROPS design website. I really like almost all their designs, even if the English translation of the patterns are sometime, how should I say this? Interesting, meaning I cannot understand what the heck they are saying. But that was not the problem, the problem was the math, that, I believe, should work the same all over the world.
I looked at the pattern and I decided to make the size XL - 110 cm = 43".
First mistake: I did not notice that in the schematic it was indicated that the XL has a bust of 43" and hips of 130 cm = 52". Now, my hips are not 52", they are actually narrow than my bust.
Second (huge) mistake: I did not check their math. For the XL size I was instructed to cast on 288 sts: at a 5.25 sts per inch, that gave me 55" circumference for the hips and, at 6.25 sts per inch, 46" circumference for the bust.
Uhm ...... to the frog pond (again!)
My dilemma is now this: do I re-size correctly this pattern that I like (most if it, I changed the sleeves because they were coming out really weird and I made them raglan style) or make something else entirely?
In the meantime, I made a hat with some handspun of mine: