Lull

We're having a lull in chuppah knitting at the moment although maybe not such a lull at Kimberly's house. Her's is the last section to be finished and, unfortunately, Patience and I got about a two week head start on her.

Doria's been over here twice more working on ends. What a trooper!

Meanwhile, I've been knitting a few things that aren't actually a chuppah. I know. Weird, huh?

Right now, I'm working on this:

It is most of the body of a cardigan for me and has a leaf theme. It's a bit of a homage to how much I've been enjoying the chuppah's leaf pattern. I have this and parts of about three other sweaters that I need to finish for myself. All of my sweaters are starting to look a little bit tatty and disreputable. Can't have the yarn shop lady wearing ratty sweaters all winter. One of the things the chuppah project showed me is that if I really knuckle down and knit, I can get a whoooole lot done in a fairly short amount of time. So time to knuckle down!

Sewing in the Ends

Progress on the chuppah continues. This is the sainted Doria sewing in ends. She has sewn in every end on 2/3's of the chuppah. I think we all would be going crazy right now if it weren't for her.

Doesn't she look a little like Betsy Ross sewing the flag?

The edging is almost completely done. I've saved the last leaf point for Guido to do. It is his project after all.

After that, all we need is Kimberly's section which is currently half a leaf away from glory.

Now I'm headed off to the eye doctor for a much needed check up. My glasses have just not been up to the challenge lately!

Chuppah Fitting

The chuppah is now this big:

I added Patience's piece on Monday and Tuesday just in time for the chuppah fitting at the florist.

This is the first time that it has been all laid out and measured. We figured out that it is going to be 7' wide and 6' long which, fortunately, is going to fit the frame perfectly.

We also checked out whether the trellis netting was going to work as a support which it will. Without some kind of support this thing would sag something awful.

The other thing we figured out? The pattern looks really cool from a distance as well as close up!

So what's left? Kimberly and Guido's sections need to be attached. The edging needs to be finished, the ends need to be sewn in and then it needs to be block just a bit.

I think my dog is part cat!

I realized that I haven't put a Wanda picture lately. Well, Wanda comes through again. Look what I walked in on the other day! Just like a cat on the back of the couch. Check out her little back legs stretched out behind her!

And for those looking for a chuppah update:

The chuppah is now this big.

I've got Patience's section which I am going to graft to this piece in time for the chuppah fitting tomorrow. When that is done, it will probably be as tall as I am. It's getting so big, it's starting to scare me a little....

Kitchener, kitchener, kitchener

The grafting seems to be going pretty well. If I can stay relaxed and keep the stitch tension right, you shouldn't be able to see where it was attached!

I'm really glad I changed the row I was going to do this on. Just kitchenering in knit and purl is making my brain smoke.

I can't imaging trying to do yarn overs and double decreases as well. Thank goodness this pattern has a nice plain row to do this on. Another big nod to Lucy Neatby for designing it and Guido and P. for picking it!

Chuppah, chuppah, chuppah

Those of you who know Guido and his Pumpkin know that they are getting married in a couple of weeks. Since they are both knitters, they had decided to knit their own chuppah. They spent the winter looking for a pattern, doing test swatches and choosing the yarn. Guido, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the actual knitting started around April. Unfortunately, they are both super busy all on top of the fact that they are getting married. By about mid-August they’d figured out they were going to need a little help getting this project finished. Enter Team Chuppah.
Now, Patience, Kimberly and I are all helping them get the chuppah knit. Doria, bless her for a saint, is sewing in all the ends (my section alone used 13 skeins of yarn). Since I’ve got the most available knitting time, I’ve been helping with finishing up Guido and Pumpkin’s sections as well as doing the edging and grafting all the sections together.

You may be thinking that this sounds like whole lot of work and it is but it is also a joy to work on. The pattern (Lucy Neatby "Falling Leaves") and the yarn (Web's house brand alpaca/silk blend) are both a delight to work with. On top of that is the satisfaction of being able to help out two dear friends with their wedding!

So here’s where we are so far:
My section is done.

Pumpkin’s section is done.

I’d removed the lower edge of P’s section and grafted on the leaf edging.

This was good practice for grafting the mains sections and convinced me that I wanted to graft on a different row than originally planned so last night I removed about two rows from the bottom of my section and today I am planning to graft it to Pumpkin’s section.
Patience’s section should be done any minute and so I will do the same row removal and grafting to that section. Kimberly’s section should be done by next weekend by which time, I should have the remaining half repeat of Guido’s section plus its leaf edging done. That means, that we may have a finished, grafted, ends sewn in and blocked chuppah to present to the happy couple a few days before the wedding! Wish us all luck!
I’m hoping to have Patience’s section grafted by Tuesday evening when we are having a “chuppah fitting” at the florist. This is when we all come to grips with the reality of setting this thing up on the chuppah frame. It cracks me up that we are having a chuppah fitting. You think of having a dress fitting before a wedding but a chuppah fitting?
BTW, Guido is going to do a podcast on Sunday about what it’s like to do a big project and about working on the chuppah in particular.

Oops, more in Seoul!

Hey, I know I haven't written in a while. It's been on my list of things to do, really it has.

Anyway, I forgot one of the funniest parts of my time in Seoul! I decided to sit out in public and do some knitting. This is something I do all the time around here and can pretty much count on people ignoring me. Not in Seoul! I practically stopped traffic. All kinds of people stopped to talk to me whether they spoke any English or not!

This lady actually stopped and started painting.

This fellow talked to me a little bit about Buddhism (he saw the mala on my wrist) and in return, I got him to hold the socks.

You can tell that he thinks I'm out of my mind but is being a good sport none the less.

One of the reasons I've been so busy lately is that I've been working on Guido's chuppah. I'll give you a big update on it's progress tomorrow.