It doesn’t look like much, does it? (Although I’ll tell you I don’t know what possessed me when I thought this design really needed a bit of stranded colorwork… knit flat. Purl-side stranding? Way arduous. I’m sure I swore never to do it again a few years back.) But every stitch of it is lever knit. It has a sleeve now, too, which I lever knit on two circulars. Whether it will fit an actual baby remains to be seen; the math for the yoke just didn’t want to play nice and even after four rounds of increasing by a third I wasn’t convinced I had enough stitches for a body and two sleeves. I ended up casting on 20 to rejoin at each underarm and then increasing six more beneath for extra body fullness. But I think I can finish it before the closing ceremonies, and while it doesn’t feel like my most amazing accomplishment, it’s been something entirely new for me in terms of technique. I’m choosing to equate it with competing in curling rather than in the cross country marathon or aerials — it’s about precision and focus rather than unbelievable strength and stamina or derring-do bordering on insanity. At least it’s no more underwhelming than snowboard cross.

Oh, and the little stripey sweater? It’s going to be called Okoboji, thanks to Mia having reminded me of our dear sailing roommate, Kate, and her charming Iowa hometown and its lake. I’ve almost finished writing up the pattern notes to send to those of you who volunteered to test knit. Thanks, guys!

This is everything I accomplished at Madrona. Not a lot to show for myself, is it? On the spindle is a small quantity of really softly spun Cormo and CVM 2-ply, and on that loooooong straight needle is about 20 ridges of garter stitch in really yummy Jacob/alpaca DK from Toots LeBlanc.

But I can now tell you what cop is (the yarn you’ve made that’s wound around the spindle), I can use the drop spindle standing up (a really good idea, as I’ll explain later), I can do a thigh twist to start the spindle (standing on one leg, even), I can kick start it when it’s near the floor, I can fix thick spots in the yarn and do a better join when I need to “edit” a thin spot, I can keep twist out of my draft zone by back-twisting with my right hand just a little bit, and I can ply out of my bra.

Yes, you read that right.

Turns out a good way to ply two or more strands is to wind them together onto a crumpled ball of paper, pop the resulting ball down your cleavage, and wield the drop spindle pulling the strands from between your buttons. If nothing else, this is certainly more eye-catching than my old method using the chopstick apertures in my two rice bowls.

And I’m darn proud of my 40 rows of garter stitch, because I achieved them by lever knitting. That means the technique for knitting that relies on one needle being fixed under your arm, in a belt or sheath, or wherever you can comfortably plant it and then bringing the knitting to the fixed needle tip rather than fishing after it. I’ve read about it — this is how the Shetland knitters made their beautiful jumpers on long, long double-pointed needles before circulars were invented — and now I know (in theory, at least) how to do it. It feels just as clumsy as whatever knitting method you use felt when you first tried it. Stephanie assured us we would all suck, and she was perfectly right. This tiny girl is clearly beating me around the block:

This photo is from the Shetland Museum Archives and is proof I will always reach for in the future if I need to argue that small children are capable of intellectual focus and remarkable dexterity… and of not poking their eyes out with tools. This tot’s grasping a set of needles that are longer than her legs, and she’s already knit half a sweater with them. Awesome.

Anyway, Stephanie challenged us to practice lever knitting just a little each day for 30 days. And since I can’t back down from a challenge, I vowed I’d lever knit a baby sweater in that time. Hence my 20+ ridges. Which I’m going to add to right now while I watch the men’s downhill. Next time I’ll tell you about my final Madrona class, Knitting Happily Ever After.

I picked up a handful of sample skeins of Happiest Girl! Dyeworks sock yarn at Knit Purl’s Sock Summit party back in August. Those little skeinlets are like mini-cupcakes — so cute and brightly irresistible. But what can you actually make with them? Since the dyer was at the party and encouraging us all to take as many as we’d like, I grabbed a pair in several colors with this pattern in mind. And it turns out I was exactly right: one sample skein = one Blue Steps Bootie with just enough left over to weave in the ends! I can’t tell from the internet whether Happiest Girl! is still in existence, but this is the colorway “Parrot” and the resulting socklet does, indeed, make me very happy.

I’ll finish the second one on the train to Tacoma this evening. Madrona, here I come!

So I’ve finished a wee stripey something:

I would be cuter on a baby, if only one were at hand for modeling sessions.

Behold, a tiny gender-neutral pullover! It features a semi-solid background color (“Burnt Ember,” from A Verb for Keeping Warm; this is their Annapurna cashmere-blend sock yarn) with stripes of a bright solid, although you could just as well go the other way and use a neutral background to show off stripes that change color, as in Whitney’s adorable Stripes! design. It’s my riff on the classic white and navy nautical sweaters, down to the boat neck and overlapping shoulders:

Yes, I’m planning to write up the pattern, so what I need right now is help thinking of a name for it. It should be a gender-neutral name (and no, we’re not calling the sweater “Pat”), something playful and bright and maybe even sailing related, and I just don’t have any good ideas. If you do, won’t you leave them in the comments? If you’re interested in test-knitting it, I’d love to know that, too. All you need is one skein of sock-weight yarn, remnants of a contrast color, and two little buttons. At this point it only exists in one size — I’d say for a three-to-six-month baby, depending on the girth of your little cherub — but I’ll be working up some math for a couple of larger sizes. I knit mine in pieces, just for the heck of it and because I liked the way the semi-solid was behaving in my “swatch,” but picked up the sleeves at the shoulders and worked down, so there are only two real seams to sew plus a bit of tacking at the shoulders. It would be very easy to adapt it to work mostly in the round if you prefer.

Oh, you want to see the chicken buttons? Of course you do:

Sorry I didn’t get a real close-up of the chickies. I bought them ages ago because they were so darn cute, and it turns out they’re the ideal colors for this project.

Switching gears, who am I going to see at Madrona? I can hardly believe it’s this week already. I’m taking the train up on Friday evening so I can attend Amelia Garripoli’s “Productive Spindling” on Saturday morning (I sure hope she’s tolerant of self-taught beginners!), Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s “Knitting for Speed and Efficiency” on Saturday afternoon, and Carson Demers’s “Knitting Happily Ever After” on Sunday afternoon. This is the first time I’ll be staying overnight at the hotel instead of just zooming up and back or staying off-site with relatives. I’m hoping that means I’ll have more time to hang out and meet people and practice what I’m learning. If you recognize me, please do come and introduce yourself!