Coffee and Cables

Limited, maybe...

2007-08-03T11:26:00.000-04:00

So, I've been knitting instead of updating. It happens. The coupling socks are almost done, but I'm still only on Clue 3 of the Mystery Stole. Turns out, though, that being so far behind is a good thing, since if I were on track I'd have to rip back a bunch of rows.

I guess 'disappointed' is kind of strong, since I love what I have now, even with a couple of holes where I dropped stitches and wasn't completely successful in knitting them back up in pattern. I love the color and the sparkle of the beads. But I can't stand asymmetrical knitting; I will never find it lovely, and I won't waste time or yarn in knitting something that I can't bear to look at. Call me aesthetically limited, but there it is. So I'm just going to knit the first half again to do the symmetry thing. Wing? Yuck.

(I do hope whatever happens with the border works on the version I'm doing; I do dearly love me a frilly, feathery border. But if it doesn't, hey, I chose my symmetrical bed, I'll lie in it. Comfortably, and without feeling like my head's unbalanced every time I look at it.)

Progress?

2007-07-05T21:50:00.000-04:00

Working on Coupling, in STR mediumweight "Red Rock Canyon". Fun! I'm turning the heel now.

Socks go really, really fast when you knit them at 8 sts/inch. Also when you get stuck filling in in the mailroom for a day even though you're a HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONAL and have spent the past decade honing your skills to get out of the damn mailroom. But I'm not bitter. And I did get most of the foot done waiting for the phone to ring, so there you go.

Also still going with the shawl; I'm on repeat 9, which looks like almost halfway done, except when you start looking at stitches and realize that it's more like 30% done. Still, it's going relatively quickly. Except I hadn't worked on it in a few days, and when I pulled it out, there was a dead baby cucaracha in it! Ew ew ew ew ew! I mean, I don't think they eat wool, so it's not the end of the world (I hope?) but still. Ew. Dead baby cucaracha. In the mohair.

Yeah, have fun with that one, I'm going to go do the dishes now.

Ruffley Wristlets

2007-06-20T18:38:00.000-04:00

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Mediumweight, color "Hot Flash" (1 skein will make at least 3, or a pair of child's socks + these wristwarmers)
Gauge: 24 sts/10cm (4") in st st
Needles: US size 3 (or as needed for gauge) DPNs or 2 circulars
Size: One size. (Shown on 4 year old model, fits up to largeish adult wrist, easy to resize)

Note: wristlets are worked in the round; pattern assumes basic in-the-round knowledge. Edging is adapted from "Scalloped Edging" by Judy Gibson.

Arms:
CO 35 using cable, ribbing (3x2), or other loose cast on; join without twisting
rnd 1: *k3, p2; repeat from * around
repeat until piece is 6.5 cm (2.5ish") long, or desired length

Increase for Ruffles:
increase round: *kfb 3 times, pfb 2 times; repeat from * around. Total sts: 70
next three rows: *k6, p4; repeat from * around

Ruffles:
rnd 1: *k1, k2tog, yo, ssk, k5 ; repeat from * around
rnd 2: k around, working (k1, p1) in yos.
rnd 3: *k1, k2tog, (yo, k1) twice, yo, ssk, k3; repeat from * around
rnd 4: purl.
rnd 5: *k1, k2tog, (yo, k1) 5 times, yo, ssk, k1; repeat from * around
rnd 6: *k1, p11, k3; repeat from * around
Row 7: *k2tog, yo, k 11, yo, ssk; repeat from * around
Row 8: bind off loosely

Weave in ends and wear fluffily!

Raveled

2007-06-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

So, I finally got into the Ravelry beta! I haven't gotten a chance to check it out very much yet, but it looks pretty slick. There are some pretty big holes - it seems like you should be able to do things that you just can't. But of course, it's BETA. Good chance you will be able to do them at some point. Still, overall, I'm impressed. Especially since it's just two people in their spare time.

I finished the wristlets that match the socks. I'm still messing around with projects and stuff. I tried to wind a skein of yarn last night, but failed utterly. Tonight I guess I'll try to finish that. Yeah. (Nobody said excitement, did they?)

Spiral Socks

2007-06-14T20:43:00.000-04:00

When I was little, my great-grandmother crocheted me a pair of tube socks. They weren't very comfortable, being bulky acrylic, but I loved them and wore them from before I can remember until high school.

I found a better way - these are spiral socks. They are STRETCHY. And I used the STR to make a pair for the kiddo. Lest you doubt their ultimate stretchitude...

On the just-turned-four-year-old:

On my size 10 feet:

Knitting Math

2007-05-15T21:43:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about the geometry of the knit stitch, and how needle sizing affects that. (My commute is very boring.)

First off, for this discussion, let's assume that yarn size and the tension on the yarn are perfectly constant. Makes life a lot easier. Here's a picture of what a size 0 (2mm) needle cross-section would look like next to a size 2 (3mm) needle, if they were enlarged to where 1mm=100 pixels.

A stitch is formed by wrapping the yarn around the outside of a needle, so the circumference is the important thing, even though needles are sized by diameter.

So we all remember that the circumference = pi*r^2, and r=.5(diameter). For a 2mm needle (what I usually use for socks), the circumference = pi(1^2) or 3.14 mm. Which is a handy, base reference number. The size 2 needles I bought today are 3 mm, which makes the circumference 7 mm. Three isn't a lot bigger than 2 (only 50% more!) but 7 is a lot more than 3 (125%). (Oh, and there's some rounding going on there, but y'know, close enough.)

So the difference doesn't seem like much because of the way needles are sized, but it's really pretty important. The difference between an 8 and a 10 (5 and 6 mm, respectively) is almost a centimeter in circumference. Multiply that by howevermany stitches you have in a piece and you can see why needle size matters.

All this is, of course, the verbose version of "I spent $30 on needles today."

Yarn Reference - MDSW 2007

2007-05-10T19:51:00.000-04:00

This year I am SMART, because I am taking pictures and labeling everything so I know what it is when I finally get around to knitting it up. Last year I lost all my labels when I wound the yarn into balls. Dur.

This is from - Shelridge Farms their Soft Touch Ultra in Handpaint (#SU07-1003; they don't seem to have the handpaints on their website). I should try to get a better picture - it's not, in fact, blue. It's a mix of purple and brown and blue and green and all sorts of beautiful all mixed up. I loved the yarn I got from them last year and made a special effort to hit their booth this year. (Of course, there are two skeins of this, but I only took a picture of the one.) It is machine wash, dry flat.

This is from Blue Moon of course - the first Socks That Rock that I picked. It reached out and grabbed me by the throat, and I didn't even try to resist it. But I did try to counter the overwhelming power of the Beautiful Blues by trying something new (below). All the STR is machine or handwash, dry flat. This is Azure Malachite:

And this is Hot Flash. It's not for me, thank goodness. Why can't I find any of these colorways on their website? Could they be discontinued? If so, I feel awfully special. And I see that I must purchase some Sherbert STR, if only to have it lying around the house and looking beautiful. Anyway, Hot Flash, for the kiddo, which seems odd but she loves it.

And this is my foray into non-blue-green-purple. It's scary out there. But with this holding my hand and leading me into the wilderness, I think I'll do ok. It's Red Rock Canyon, and I adore it.

This is from Ellen's Half Pint Farm, and it's 50% Merino, 50% Bamboo. It's the first bamboo yarn I've bought. And look! No purple, blue or green to be seen. SH0XX0R! (It's not on their website at the moment, but I'm going to assume hand wash/dry on it.)

And this... wait for it. It was $40, which is actually very reasonable for what it is, which is 8 oz and 1000 yards of hand-dyed brushed mohair (10% nylon) in "Florida Sunshine". I saw it and it made me happy in my heart. I looked at the price tag and winced, since I'd already blown my budget on the things above. I said, ok, I'll go away, and if it's still there when I leave, it's meant to be mine.

It was. It is.

It's from Kid Hollow Farm. It doesn't seem to be on their website. Alas. It screams out to be made into a circular shawl, but I worry about having enough for the border. I may wind up doing geometry. (I didn't give up on math until after Multivariable Calculus, but geometry and I... well, we never got along.) Anyway. I'm not sure any picture would do it justice, but here you go:

Happy!

And speaking of things that make me happy, here's my $1.50 coleus garden. Every time I look at it, I smile. (Not knitting, or related in any way to knitting, but hey.)

MD Sheep & Wool, pt. 1

2007-05-10T19:33:00.000-04:00

One of the very best things about MD Sheep & Wool is that I met the person behind Ravelry.com. I didn't think much of it at the time, because all she said was, "This is my website, want a button?" and I thought, "ok, generic blog" and said yes just to be polite. Then when I got home and saw what it was, I DANCED WITH GLEE.

Stupid useless Blogger, your days are numbered. Tremble with fear! At least, I dearly hope that this will be the case. I'm not in the beta yet, but I did sign up for it.

However, seeing as how I'm stuck here for the time being, how about some pictures? I left what I thought would be plenty early, but didn't factor in the fact that the last 2 miles take 45 minutes to traverse due to an unfortunately brief left-turn signal. So when I raced to The Fold, I saw this:

Doesn't look too bad? Here's a better shot:

So I spent half an hour in line just to browse, then another half an hour in line to buy. But it was WORTH IT. (Yarn pics in next post.)

I had another festival to go to in the afternoon, so I didn't get to browse as much as I wanted, but I did spend way, way too much money. Perhaps it's best I didn't have more time. I'm bummed that I didn't get to see the sheepdog stuff or any of the demos - next year I'll plan my time differently. And leave at SEVEN, not 8.

Mr. Adorable Alpaca:

Goat? I'm a city girl. They're all fiber on legs, as far as I know. But this one was especially cute and fluffery:

This one I know. It's a sheep, for sure. (I meant to write down the breed and everything, but got distracted. I thought he had a thoughtful face, though.) The next one is sheep too. But different sheep.

Next up: What I Spent Way Too Much Money On.

More Socks!

2007-04-07T11:56:00.000-04:00

Wow, I hate Blogger with the flaming heat of a thousand suns.

Which is good. Maybe it'll melt some of the snow.

That said, hey, socks!

The pattern is from Sockulator V (I've found I like the heel better than the other one - but we'll see how it holds up) and the cuff pattern is from Crusoe. I would have actually just used Crusoe's pattern if I didn't prefer 10 sts/in. I even tried doing the math, but gave up on the heels. Anyway, they're lovely and wonderful and hey, that yarn is from the MD Sheep & Wool festival, which means I've FINALLY used all the yarn for that. Just in time for this year!

But I'm working on something even more fun than socks right now. Secret!

Socks!

2007-01-23T21:38:00.000-05:00

It took, technically, less than a year:

Merry Christmas!

This is not a hat...

2006-08-28T22:23:00.000-04:00

Well, never mind then. If Blogger isn't going to upload photos YET AGAIN, there's not much point to this post, is there?

Such a hippie...

2006-08-24T23:52:00.000-04:00

My goodness. Just hours ago, this was a small woman's sweater, sitting happily on its little rack at Goodwill.

Now it's yarn. In a few days, it'll be a pair of felted slippers, since they don't wear shoes in Kira's new classroom.

(Score! Sweaters were 50% off. So I got 4 for $11, including a silk/cotton one for Kira to actually wear, and a super-soft angora one that I was going to felt and make a pillow out of, but decided it looked nice on me. So I'll wear it until it's ratty, and then felt it and make a pillow out of it.)

Kool-Aid Dyeing: So Easy, A Three-Year-Old Can Do It

2006-08-18T18:45:00.000-04:00

Seriously. Kira just Kool-Aid dyed a skein of Knitpicks Bare superwash sockyarn.

Which reminds me.

Dear Knitpicks:

In the future, please inform me in advance when you are going to be carrying new product, especially if you're going to do so right after I place an order.

Love,

Me

They're carrying Jacquard Acid Dyes now, which is what I order from Dharma Trading and I really love 'em, but dang, that shipping gets expensive. (Generally doubles the cost of dye. Phoo.) KP doesn't have as many colors as DT, but that's ok. How many do you really need?

(I asked that rhetorically earlier, and Kira answered, "four". Which is true - red, yellow, blue, and black. But I think she was just guessing.)

But back to the kool-aid dyeing. I prepared the yarn by washing it in synthropol, rinsing thoroughly, and letting it soak in warm water with a glug of vinegar for about 20 minutes. Then came Kira's part.

First, we empted the packets into cups of warm water (ok, I did prepare those too, but she could have done it, no problem). We used cherry (red), watermelon-cherry (pink), and grape (purple), and Kira mixed them up into some different combinations.

Stirred carefully...

...and drizzled the dye over the yarn. We did the skein about a third at a time, so it would have different patterns and stuff on it.

Then we kept it warm for about 20 minutes, even though the dye was exhausted after about 5, I think. I actually did this part covered, but it wouldn't have made a very good picture.

Then I washed it in synthropol again, and rinsed a whole bunch, and now it's outside drying on the rack. More tomorrow, when we see how it turns out...

(Also, I feel compelled to point out that Kira has lily-white, unstained hands, while mine are a Pollack of red, pink, and purple...)

The best laid plans...

2006-08-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

By Monday? Not so much. But I will finish them tomorrow, and then start the baby sweater, and I will still be on schedule, if no longer ahead of it. Probably. See, Kira and I have plans to play with Kool-Aid dyeing tomorrow night, so maybe I'll start the baby hat/booties with that, but then again, that yarn'll take time to dry, so maybe not. I have to get both projects done at the same time anyway, so it doesn't so much matter which one I do first.

The socks! (Kindly modeled by my mother-in-law, who has smaller feet than I do and can actually put them on.)

I know some people won't, but I really like the bull's-eye effect around the heel. I've decided not to enter them in the fair, though, for a couple reasons.

1) Just today I found a SPLIT STITCH way way back just above the toe on one sock. I'm going to duplicate-stitch over it with the same color to keep it from falling apart and it should look fine, but it's not going to be fair-worthy.

2) A design feature I chose didn't work out as well as it did inside my head. It's a 76-stitch sock, and the feather-and-fan takes 72 stitches. I didn't want to lose those four stitches - it's tight as it is - so I did a four-stitch rib on the inside ankle part. On the left sock, it's great, since it also serves to disguise the row-jog, but on the right, not quite so clever. Next time, I know how to do it better.

3) The ankle is too tight. I'm not sure what to do about that, except make it bigger next time. Dur.

Anyway, they'll still make a lovely gift, except that the person who's getting them reads this blog, so I'm not sayin' who it is. Surprise!

Part of why the socks aren't done: I started a wedding lap throw thingy in Knitpicks Suri Dream. The idea is that the center square will be blue, and then it'll have a cream, knitted-on border. It's easy, and it's nice to have something quick and furry on big needles. Except that it's August, and what was I thinking? ANYway...

9.5 Stitches to the Inch, Now THAT'S Love...

2006-08-09T22:01:00.000-04:00

Got halfway through the heel turn today - these pics are from yesterday. The socks aren't looking as different as they did, which is good. Not that it matters, really.

I mean, usually you'd be seeing them from this sort of distance:

It's just that I'm usually knitting them from here:

Or inspecting them from here:

So it kind of magnifies, in my mind, what their differences are. But they're pretty, and that's the important thing. And soft! Also important. So soft... I didn't finish the heel turn because I was too busy putting my hands in them to feel the inside. Oh, and rewinding the yarn, because one of my balls fell into an utter tangle. I've never had that happen before; it was very strange. I spent more than half an hour of precious knitting time making butterflies. I was going to rewind a center-pull ball from them, but they're working fine, so I'm not going to bother. (They're consecutive butterflies - it's not like I cut the yarn or anything, just made them smallish in case they decided to tangle too...)

I'm surprised that while they may have thousands and thousands of stitches, they're going pretty quickly. It helps, I think, that women have smaller feet than men. Go, women! Yay! If I stay on track, I'll be done by Monday, which will both put me a full five days ahead of my project schedule and clear my OTN projects just in time for my Knitpicks order. I may even have time to squeeze in the wedding afghans before Christmas, but let's not hold our breaths here.

Speaking of weddings... nothing to do with knitting, but my goodness, the kid is cute.

Dear Knitpicks;

2006-08-03T18:16:00.000-04:00

Please stop putting out new yarns now. My bank account thanks you.

Love,

Me

Seriously. I'm going to get some of the dyeable sock yarn. Which means I'll also be buying dye from Dharma Trading. Probably nothing else that's new. But still, for awhile there, it was like every day, a new yarn! I'm going to invest in some color cards, at the very least.

I've been testing out the needles, too. Nothing to add that everyone else hasn't already said - they're sharp, they're sturdy, they're slick, and they don't have the dratted sizes marked on them. I'm using the 0 circulars. Wish I'd gotten a shorter cord - I always think I need a longer one than I actually do. Oh well, it's not the end of the world. The main problem that I'm having with them is that they're very slippery - there's no friction on the cord, so I keep dropping 'em out of the sock. I'll adapt, though.

And while I admit that they may well be twice as heavy as the next needle, I didn't notice a difference. I guess it's worse if you're using DPNs - 2g * 5 needles is more than 2g * 2 needles. Probably less than 2g, since I think the circ points are shorter than DPNs.

The thing I really like is that they're so much sturdier than the bamboos. Haven't snapped one yet, even doing a bunch of k2togs. Yay!

I finished two projects (the hat and mittens) and I got two CDs. I like how this is working out! (Even if it turns out that the CD I wanted I didn't like as much as the CD that wasn't on my list. I know I like DeVotchKa, maybe just not this particular CD, so that's all right. And I did not know how much I'd like the Reverend Glasseye, so I win!)

Now I'm starting the socks, and I've actually ordered a third CD but I didn't realize that their "standard shipping" is media mail. I mean, I'd have picked it anyway, because I'm cheap like that, but it was a little sad when I realized. But it would be cool if it got here at the same time I finished the socks.

Where was I? Oh, right. Socks. Swatching for socks.

This is Beth:

I made her for Kira's... second Christmas? Yeah. She was too young to appreciate it, really. My mom made her wardrobe.

She's modelling my mini-swatch that I'm using to decide what to do on the top of the sock.

From right to left, since that's the order I knitted it in:

1) Some stockinette, just to double-check my gauge.

2) I forget what this ribbing was. Oh, Ripple Rib, from April 21 of the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year calendar. It looked like it was going to be nice, but after two rows I determined it was way to fiddly for a 76-stitch sock. (That's 152 stitches for both of 'em!)

3) I messed up converting the eyelet ribbing into the round. Oops.

4) What the eyelet ribbing is actually supposed to look like. I can't decide if I like it or if it's too messy in this yarn.

5) Some 1x1 ribbing, to test for stretchiness. The eyelet ribbing is stretchier. Aaron thinks I should use this for the sock's cuff, but I disagree.

6) Feather and Fan. I like it. But from anywhere beyond about 6" away, it's too tiny. And really, how much time do you spend 6" away from someone's ankles?

So it is a dilemma, indeed. I should pick what I'm going to do BEFORE I knit the socks, or there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and ripping out of hard work). But I haven't found what I need yet. I wonder if you can double F&F? Hmmm...

(And don't you love the yarn? I do. It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Georgetown. So pretty! And I didn't think I liked it in the skein. Psht.)

Sock Yarn is Little...

2006-08-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

It's much more scared of me than I am of it.

(Stupid Blogger isn't doing photos AGAIN today. Boy, I'm so glad I went to the trouble of taking some. Well, tomorrow's would be better anyway. I think I'm just a mite tired. I was looking at the neatly balled yarn and thinking, oh, this really needs natural lighting. So I started to go outside for some. You know, at 10:00 at night. No, I don't live at the North Pole. I used the flash instead.)

Anyway, I now have two freshly-balled skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Georgetown for my State Fair socks. Woohoo! It's much prettier in real life - more colors and while not exactly deeper - they're still pastels - more... colorful colors? Dunno. Still. Pretty.

Once again, I had the choice of either finishing the current project and having nothing to do tomorrow or balling yarn and not getting the current project done. I went with winding. It does make sense - it's going to take the same amount of time to get both done anyway, and it doesn't make sense to waste a whole day's knitting time - but it still feels like eating dessert first.

Also, I need to find something else to do while knitting. There just aren't that many more movies that I want to see and there's NOTHING on network tv. Except complete-lack-of-talent shows. Tonight I watched Last Comic Standing. It wasn't as bad as the ten minutes of One Ocean View (or whatever it was) that I watched last night, but that's not saying much.

And now I'm watching Law and Order, which I try not to do. Hey, I need those brain cells!

Felted Vase

2006-07-30T21:01:00.000-04:00

Three cousin weddings in eight weeks. Did I mention? Anyway, bridal shower today. Didn't even think about getting a present until yesterday, when I discovered that I either hated or couldn't afford everything on her registry.

So I made this:

It was a skein of Patons Classic Wool and... Twister? I think. Anyway. I think it came out fairly cute. Her wedding colors are pink and white. And it holds a glass vase - or not, my original idea was to put potpourri in it, but I couldn't find any that didn't smell ick, so flower vase it was.

Now, back to the mitten that I STILL haven't finished. Well... it goes, anyway.

Progress!

2006-07-27T22:10:00.000-04:00

So this is what I've been doing for the last two weeks:

One hat, that still needs to be sewn up, and one mitten. I'm actually pretty happy with my rate of progress, since I planned on two weeks for each project and this counts as two. I'd just better find the time to finish up this weekend, that's all.

For such simple patterns, I've been having a lot of problems. Partly because these need to be above the standard galloping horse level of well done, partly because... well, I don't know. I made a change to the mitten pattern because I didn't like the way she closed up the cuff, and it took about twelve tries to get it right. Well, maybe five. Still, a lot.

(What I ended up doing was putting a ribbing panel between the cast on and off, attaching it like a knitted on border, except on both sides. (So it was (1) P1, K1, P1, K1, P2tog; (2) K1, P1, K1, P1, K2tog. Mostly. Except that sometimes it was K(or P)3tog. And when it got to the cable, it was always three instead of two. Which took some experimenting to discover. Anyway, I like the final result, and it's nice and stretchy and all, so there you go.)

They look kinda weird all floppy like that. First off, I made them a weensy bit larger, since they're for a man, and second off, the cuffs come halfway up to the elbow. I mean, they're supposed to be like that. They really do fit, they just look weird without an arm in them.

Then tonight I watched what is possibly the worst movie ever made. (And this comes from someone who happily watched Rock and Rule last night, so you know it has to be bad.) I think it melted my brain a little bit. Actually, I switched over to the Office after about 45 minutes of this travesty, but since it was my least favorite episode and everything else on was a complete-lack-of-talent show, I went back to the terrible, terrible movie. At least some of it had passed while I was flipping channels. So bad! So very, very bad! My head asplode. No words remain to describe how awfully bad this movie was. I passed Gigli at Blockbuster this afternoon, and now I regret not getting it. That's how bad it was.

Anyway, it means I got halfway through the cuff of the second mitten, which is a good thing. The mittens are fast, really.

By the way, here's the link to the Pinwheel Hat. It rawks. Aaron likes it so much that he asked me to make him one, but I dunno if someone who LOST his Baby Ull on size 0 needles watchcap gets another hat. Ok, I lie. I'll make him one. But he has to buy the yarn!

The Master Knitter swatches? What swatches? Oh yeah, those swatches. They've been done for awhile, I just haven't had a chance to block them. And tonight I did. So they're drying now. I won't get to mail them this weekend, though, but definitely sometime next week. Yay!

That'll teach me?

2006-07-19T16:16:00.000-04:00

Well, probably not. I seem to be stubbornly resistant to this whole "learning" thing.

I'm halfway done the pinwheel hat, and I'm going to have to rip the whole thing out. Why? Because I didn't swatch. I know better than that. I don't know what I was thinking. Crazy lady. Anyway, it's a quick knit - I should be able to get back to where I am now by the end of this evening, I think. I found mittens to match, too, although I'm not sure if they're too girly. Links to both, later.

Disorganized

2006-07-18T11:13:00.000-04:00

First, I had patterns and yarn, but no needles, or needles and patterns, but no yarn, or patterns but no needles or yarn. So I placed a couple of orders, and of course, to save on shipping, you get everything at once, right? Now I'm drowning in projects, help, help!

I'm having a race between the two sweaters - the baby sweater that I only work on at home, and Kira's sweater that I only work on outside the home. They're about tied, I think.

I'm not much of a listmaker - or rather, I am, I just never look at them again - but I think it'll help organize things a bit if I look at what I need to get done. And while I'm at it, I'll make a list of CDs I want to pick up, because why not? Stupid Denver, making me spend all my money on music when there's still all this yarn to buy.

Project	When	CD	When
Pinwheel hat	before 9/1/06	Munly – Jimmy Carter Syndrome	October (? - Whenever remaster released)
Mittens to match hat (need to make pattern)	before 9/1/06	Munly – Galvanized Yankee	October (?Remaster release)
baby 1 - sweater? (need pattern, yarn)	by 9/1/06	DeVotchKa - Curse Your Little Heart	whenever
baby 2 - hat + bootees	by 11/1/06	DeVotchKa - How it Ends	whenever
sock1 – AP	by 12/16/06	DeVotchKa - Super Melodrama	whenever
sock2 – MP (need yarn)	by 12/25/06	DeVotchKa - Una Volta	whenever
sock3 – Me	whenever	Denver Broncos - TBD	when released
sock4 – KH – BC (need yarn)	by 12/25/06	Tarantella	ASAP!
cscarf – RM	fall	16HP – TBD	whenever

Old?

2006-07-10T19:26:00.000-04:00

I just got today's mail. Two mailings from my retirement fund, a package of knitting needles, an ad to subscribe to Knit Simple, and a free sample of really smelly dental floss. (Seriously. It's on the couch, and the fan is blowing the smell away from me, and it's still overwhelming my sinuses.)

Yup. It's official, I'm an old lady.

Anyway, I'm really psyched about the needles. One set of 00's and one set of 0000's. Woohoo! I'm thinking I really shouldn't have gotten the 8" ones, but it seemed to make sense at the time. What do I know? (It's scary how much I'm charmed by the 0000's. I neeeeeeed to knit something on them! They're so tiny and... just... lurve!)

And after opening the needles, I had to laugh at the Knit Simple ad. 'Scuse me, do you offer subscriptions to Knit Complicated? Thanks.

(It's not that I'm a particularly advanced knitter - see "can't even weave in ends," below. It's just that it takes things well above my skill level to really interest me. What can I say?)

Stupid ends.

2006-07-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

There. I finished weaving in all the ends on my swatches. Yes, it did take me longer (in days) than the actual knitting of said swatches. Pitiful, I agree.

On the plus side, I did finally figure out how this end-weaving-in works. About time, I know. On the minus side, I didn't figure it out until I'd done about 10 of the 16 swatches. And I am an idiot, so I snipped the ends off. Should have waited until after I blocked, at least. Well. Things always go faster the second time, right? And I'll only have to reknit, say, 14 instead of all 16 swatches... bah.

So maybe I'm going to try to block tonight. We'll see. I don't know how I'm going to keep the swatches straight - do them one at a time? I don't know, that seems awfully inefficient.

In other news, I LOST the pattern to the ballet cardigan. Don't know what I'm going to do about that - I really don't feel like paying for a back issue of a magazine I already own, for a sweater that wasn't really that great to begin with. But I've done the whole back already...

Yes, I did learn my lesson about always working from a copy of the pattern.

I just don't understand how this could have gotten lost - it's very perplexing. It's not like I take patterns that many places... well, without the project, anyway, and I can find that just fine. It's sitting right there, mocking me with its done-enough-to-not-ignoreness.

Anyway, going to keep working on the pullover until the pattern turns up. I'm thinking about buying Square Dance by Doris Moore and making that for the actual baby gift. (The pattern only goes down to size 2, but I'm sure it can't be too difficult to resize. I mean, it comes with a spreadsheet!)

I'm also thinking about booties. Hmmm...

Baby Sweater Proceeds Apace...

2006-07-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

Yet another "learning experience." I didn't have the right size needle, but since it's a "fun" project that I didn't want to fuss too much over, I used a smaller one. Like, a lot smaller. (It called for a 4, which for me means, "use a 2." I had a 0, so I used that.) I really liked the fabric I was getting, so I went with it. I swatched and calculated, and joy of joys! The next size up (using my gauge instead of the suggested gauge) worked out to the same measurements as the size I wanted.

I didn't think about the fact that the lengths are listed in inches, so I should still use the smaller measurements for those. But hurrah! I did think of it when I'd only knitted one extra row. Purled another one after that so I could end on the correct side, because I didn't feel like tinking and at 14 rows to the inch, what's 2 rows in length?

And of course, it was only as I was binding off the last stitches for the button thingy that I realized - hey, this fabric's really firm, and while it's exactly what I want in a sock - for a sweater that's supposed to go around a squishy baby? Not really so appropriate.

So it may just wind up as a dolly sweater. Like I said, I'm not crazy about the colors anyway, although I do like them more now than I did when it was just ribbing. And, again, Learning Experience. Now I can make a real baby sweater with many fewer mistakes.

Of course, I want to find one that involves steeking... can you steek superwash wools? We shall find out...

Having come to my senses...

2006-07-05T17:39:00.000-04:00

...I've scrapped the baby blanket. It was somewhere after casting on 165 stitches and knitting for an hour to have a 1/2" project, then realizing that the number of stitches was going to go up to 270. And become ribbing. And slightly before I ran screaming into the night.

So I decided to do a sweater instead. I'm using the Knitpicks Last-Minute Stripes Pullover and Lion "Magic Stripes" in Jellybean. I'm really not in love with the color, and I know that the mother-to-be will hate it.

On the other hand, I'm enjoying knitting it and it is going quickly, and I'm sure someone I know who will like the color will have a baby at some point, so I'm not trashing it.

Unfortunately, I only have colors *I* like in my sockyarn stash. Well, and this Jellybean, don't ask how it got there. (I think it was on double-discount sale, or something). Anyway, none of it is appropriate for a baby sweater. I don't like Knitpicks striped yarn, either. Couldn't find anything at Elann or Webs, so I'll probably just get some Dale wossis... er, Ull, and make something not stripy. But still a sweater. I may also wait until the end of this month, when she finds out the gender. I'm glad I didn't find out before Kira was born, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to take advantage of the situation if someone else DOES find out about their baby. Especially if they're of the traditional, pink-and-blue, I'm-not-buying-any-clothes-until-I-know-what-it-is mindset.

Trepidation and Excitement

2006-06-22T11:10:00.000-04:00

I'm having a hard time finishing my Master Knitter swatches. I think it's a combination of fear that they're all going to be returned with big red X's all over them (figuratively, of course) and the fact that they are so easy - I have a problem with finishing things in general, and to finish one thing every hour - very difficult!

And I'm suffering Extreme Design Paralysis with my box of Palette. I'm waffling between two different strategies. A) I've always said that if I ever won the lottery, I'd put it in a CD for 6 months while I decided what to do with it, so I wouldn't be tempted to go all stupid. This may be the strategy I adopt with the yarn, so as not to be pressured into using it and then deciding later that I really wanted it for something else. B) Individual balls of Palette are really not expensive. I should just dive in headfirst, and if I decide I want the yarn for something else, I'll just order more.

So those are my ridiculous knitting neuroses. On to the thrills!

I'm unreasonably excited about these needles from Knitpicks. Like Addis, but sharp? If so, bring on the smelling salts, I'm feeling faint. If not, oh well, I'm out $5. Definitely going to add some to my next order, whatever the case. I only wish they came in sizes smaller than 0 - I'm definitely getting to the point where I'm feeling the need to knit on needles the width of a human hair. What is that urge, anyway?

Functioning Computer!

2006-06-20T17:11:00.000-04:00

Yay! We upgraded to XP. Yes, I know, welcome to the 21st century. Finally broke down and did it because I KNOW I don't want Vista, and I found XP for 60% off, which was nice. Anyway. It's been awhile since the computer and the camera have wanted to talk to each other. And now there's a GB of RAM, which is so much nicer.

My friend liked her shawl, even if it is technically a baby blanket the whole family can pile under. More on her liking it later.

The socks came out pretty spiffily. My friend (the toe-almost-losing friend, not the baby-having one) is going to send me a picture of himself wearing the socks, but until then, here are some last-minute, oops-they're-not-going-to-be-dry-in-time shots.

First, the inappropriately girly ruffle - unfortunately, I didn't manage an in-focus picture before I ripped it all out:

Then, the finished socks, drying:

And now, back to my friend liking her shawl. At one point, I'd sent her an email that had my bloggy-sig at the bottom, and she clicked on it to see what it was. I mentioned saving up for the Knitpicks Palette sampler. So she got it for me, as a very generous combination thank you/birthday present. Wow:

Woohoo! It was all I could do not to pull it all out and roll around in it last night. I promised myself I'd finish all my current projects first, though. (Stopped doing swatches because I RAN OUT OF YARN. But then I saved up enough for another ball and another Addi Turbo, so I can make socks again, too... it is a world of choices out there!)

Socks done, no swatches

2006-06-01T14:45:00.000-04:00

Well, I did finish the socks, and they came out well, I think. Very soft and fuzzy and full of such tiny stitches! But pooh to those needles - ANOTHER one pulled out of the socket, right when I only had 1/2" of ribbing left, not even on the same pair so I can't even say it was a manufacturing defect on that one set.

So I can't make more socks until I buy another US0 Addi. Well, won't, because really I COULD, but I don't feel like suffering through a whole pair of socks with bendy, grabby, catchy-join, stitch dropping, out-of-the-socket-pulling bamboos.

And I don't have that kind of cash.

So I'm trying to finish up a few things that I have the materials/equipment for, if not the motivation. I've gotten half of my Master Knitter swatches done, but it's REALLY hard to motivate for them. Like, it's ridiculous. Know why I'm posting right now? Because it's avoiding making another swatch. Dunno what's wrong with me there. It's not like they're hard, and I do want them done - I just can't make myself want to do them. I like finished products, I guess, and little squares just don't do it for me.

I think next, I'll put some time in on that sweater for Kira and maybe finally do the sleeves for the Skully I started, what, almost a year ago now? Yeah.

And then... SOCKARAMA, BABY! WooooooT!

(And after I save up for a new Addi, I'm totally starting a fund for the Palette sampler from Knitpicks. I've dabbled in cables and lace, now it's time for COLOR!)

No, of course they're not done.

2006-05-24T18:44:00.000-04:00

Still no socks. As I'm getting ready to start the 2x2 ribbing, the needle PULLED OUT of the cable! GAH! Dropped stitches everywhere. Manged to get 'em all, though. I glued the needle back in and used a teensy bit of teflon tape to deal with the gap and they're fine now, but damned if I'm using these needles again. Socks = Addis. Crystal Palace bamboo = delicate little lacy nothings. Anyway, I was busy letting the superglue cure last night, so not knitting. Started a clapotis, sort of, we'll see if that goes anywhere or gets frogged.

I was annoyed with those needles anyway. The joins caught every single stitch. Yuck.

And today I was busy. Plus there's something strange going on with my eye, so I'm probably just going to bed tonight instead of trying to get anything done. Socks washed, blocked, and dried by Friday, I hope.

Close...

2006-05-22T15:52:00.000-04:00

The socks are almost done. At least, I'm almost out of yarn, which kind of means "hurry up and start the top ribbing, already!" I haven't decided if I'm switching to 2x2 or 1x1. Probably the former. Anyway, I'm going to try to squeeze out another inch of regular leg and then hopefully get an inch of top ribbing, although those numbers may be adjusted depending on how long the yarn holds out.

I'd take a picture, but I'm redoing the computer. So... well, I'll probably take a picture anyway, but it won't get posted until later.

I'm also trying to find a babysitter who takes handknitted socks as payment. WTF happened? It's not like I sat that long ago, and back then it was a less-than-minimum-wage job. Now they want $15 an hour, which, just... no. Somehow this CPR certification thing lets you demand college-graduate wages? It's just babysitting, not rocket science. I don't need Super Nanny, just someone to make sure the kid doesn't jump off the roof or set herself on fire. I guess it doesn't help that I live somewhere that gentrified. (You know it's a bad sign when all the useful shops get replaced by antique malls and the corner grocery becomes a real estate agent.) Probably people around here think that $15 an hour is a perfectly reasonable wage for eating snacks and watching Dora videos. Anyway, I can't go to this wedding if it's going to cost over $100 in sitter fees, but it's not too late to un-RSVP if I can't find someone who works on a barter economy.

Drat

2006-05-19T13:10:00.000-04:00

I forgot to get a sweater shaver. I tried a disposable razor, didn't help. Next?

I did, however, get yarn for the co-worker's baby blanket. Because, of course, as we all know, I need more yarn. (But it's for a project... Yeah, whatever.) I'm going to make the third variation of the Hoover blanket from Knitty, in Bernat's baby coordinates - one side orange-and-white-striped, the other side and border in plain white. And she's due in December, so if I start now and keep it around as my mindless knitting project, I should get it finished by then no problem.

And I'm almost done turning the heels of the socks. (Does it still count as "turning" if you use short-row heels? Well, whatever.) I could, if I pushed, finish them this weekend, but I wouldn't be able to wash/dry/gift them by Sunday night, so I might as well relax about it.

Baby Blanket Blues

2006-05-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

The thing about life is that you're supposed to take experience and base your future actions on it. Ha! I have a co-worker who's expecting, and I want to make her... yes, a baby blanket. You'd think I'd learn, but you'd be wrong.

Who knew Berrocco had such nice patterns? I'm in love with Meenie. Or I was until I figured the yarn'd cost $100. Um. I like my co-worker, but... no. Also Endora, but again, price, man. Although I think that one will be easier to find good yarn substitution for. Maybe. Haven't found anything for Plush so far, but haven't been looking that hard, either. Time for a trip to AC Moore!

I have to get fray-check anyway. All the ends are behaving themselves very nicely after washing/drying except one - the one in the very center worked totally free. And of course I've already snipped it too short to do anything useful with it. I am totally never using this yarn again or recommending it for anything else, though. (Lion Microfiber sport) Even though I'd read about how well it wears, my shawl looks like it's 10 years old. The middle is badly fuzzed and completely ratty looking. I'm going to pick up a sweater-shaver-thingie too, and hopefully that will help, but still. Disappointed. I mean, otherwise it's fine - but that's a pretty big problem.

Sock Progress

2006-05-17T18:18:00.000-04:00

Well, the socks proceed apace. It's weird - sometimes I'll knit and knit and knit and make no measurable progress, other times it seems like an inch pops up without my even noticing. It's still slow, of course. I should be able to start turning the heel tomorrow, I hope. Heels. That's one thing, for all the slow it is, at least I'll have two socks when I'm done. Neat!

2006-05-13T17:22:00.000-04:00

The shawl, she is finished! I can't figure out how to get a good picture of it, though. I need a shrubbery. Anyway, here's the best I could do:

I figured out what happened to that other ball of yarn - I knit it into the shawl. Dur. So the total was fifteen balls. I like to calculate how much I'd charge for things if I were making a fair wage - I hope my friend enjoys her $800 shawl.

Then again, that's one of the reasons I knit - to have unique, valuable things that I otherwise couldn't have. Or gift.

Oh, and that, "I'm about a quarter ball short?" Yeah. Here (on the left) is what was left of the last ball. On the right is the snipped-off ends after I wove them in.

And here's one of the socks. Or its toe, anyway.

Surprised?

2006-05-12T15:44:00.000-04:00

Well, ok. I'm not done the shawl yet. I've got a really good excuse, though! Well, good in my book. And it is, after all, my book. Er, blog. Whatever.

I'm down to about an hour of knitting left on the shawl. And I had about three hours of knitting time today. If I'd finished the shawl, I wouldn't have had anything to knit today. So I figured I'd start on the socks, but to do that, I had to wind the yarn into balls. Of course, I managed to drop one of the skeins, leaving it looking like a visitation from the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It took more than an hour to untangle/wind. And then I had to do the other skein, but I figured out the trick of winding from your own arms without tangles. (Use both arms, keep the skeinned part taut.) So then I was so excited with my new technique, I had to wind up the skein of Aaron's sock yarn, which is the next project in line after my Master Knitter swatches. I'm a little bit in love with the yarn I got for him. So smooth! So shiny! So pretty! I understand why people describe yarn as "yummy" - I really just wanted to take a big bite of it. But, y'know, didn't. I'm not that crazy. Anyway, I finished winding yarns and went to bed. The shawl'll get finished tonight. For real, this time.

(My favorite part is how friggin' huge it is. Baby blanket? This thing covers me from head to toe. With my toes stretched out. Apparently the "thought process" (for lack of a better term) that went into this was, "swatch? It's a blanket, who cares if it's to gauge?" which, ok, fair enough. The part that I really can't understand is the bit where I thought I'd use bigger yarn on bigger needles and somehow get a product that was... smaller. Um, what? Anyway, I hope she likes it. One hundred and forty hours of work, to my best estimation. Whew! The next kid gets booties.)

So I did start the socks this morning (2-on-2-needles, toe-up, short-row toes and heels). I'm also really digging this sockyarn. It's from Shelridge Farms - their Soft Touch Ultra wool/nylon fingering weight in "opal". (I don't think the direct link works, but you can find it on the site, although the picture doesn't do it justice.) It's really soft. Which is funny, because at the festival I was really torn between it and the all-wool, which is much softer and I was bummed at how rough the "with nylon" was, because I really wanted nylon. So, yeah, that 100% wool yarn must be really soft, because this stuff? Very soft. And in the picture and when you first meet it, it looks like a sort of greeny-turquoise color, but when you knit it up, it gets these spots of purplish haze... kind of a peacock, I think. And re-reading my description, it sounds kind of gross, but it's beautiful. Which in a way bums me out, because why aren't there more manly sock yarns? Why are they all so feminine? I mean, yeah, more women than men knit, but some of us knit for men, and we like options, y'know? (I did find someone on Etsy who sells manly variegated sockyarns, but now I can't find the link and I've blown the sock yarn budget for the near future anyway.)

Anyway, I think it's manly enough, as long as I don't do it in lace. I still haven't decided if I'm going to do little cables or anything on the leg, but I've definitely decided to keep the in-the-shoe part smooth. (I really want to do a picot edging, but I'll wait until I do my own socks. I mean, really, I complain about manly colorways and then try to give the poor guy doilies for his feet? No.)

So I'm liking these short-row toes. Never done them that way before. Not that I've made that many socks. For the record, I used the Sockulator III to calculate the pattern, although obviously I adjusted it to be 2-on-2. Not that that's not falling-off-a-log easy, I'm just mentioning it. I will never again make socks one at a time. Too easy for me to make the second one a half-inch smaller, and once I finish one I REALLY REALLY don't want to do another. I was happy that this quarter's Cast On talked about that method, although a little disappointed that they didn't do toe-up, which I also think is vastly superior to top-down.

My only complaint is that I wish I'd bought another Addi instead of another Crystal Palace. Need slickness, and these bamboo needles bend alarmingly when dealing with all those wraps... (Then again, would I even be able to pick up those wraps with ~~Stubby McBluntnose~~ Addis?)

Paging Mr. Zeno...

2006-05-11T16:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm halfway done from where I was this morning. Actually more than halfway. But it's getting to that point where every 8-row repeat I refigure what the "halfway" point is from there... Unfortunately I already figured out all the mathematical shortcuts in this pattern, and it's almost done, so I'm running out of things to calculate.

(I know I'm not the only one who does this. I do it on road trips too - I'm at mile X, and I'm going Y MPH, so I should get to my destination at Z o'clock... And the less thinking I have to do, the more I recalculate. Now that I've got this edging pattern down, and I have to do it howevermanyhundred times, there's a lot of pointless math going on in my head... Oh, and all that miscalculation? I never said I was good at it. But I really and truly have about an hour and a half left to go. On the edging. And what, an hour to weave in ends? Give it two, I'm slow and don't know how I'm going to do it yet. But I will finish this. TONIGHT!)

Also: HULK SMASH!. I had to go buy ANOTHER ball of yarn. But not because I miscalculated - because I lost one. I just know as soon as I get this finished, it's going to turn up. What am I going to do with a ball of Cherry Red Lion Microfiber Sport? NOTHING. I'm tired of knitting with it. So there. PBLBLBLT. At least I got the same dyelot as at least one of the other dyelots in this thing, not that it's seemed to matter at all. I can't tell a difference, anyway.

And I ordered yet more sockyarn, because WEBS is having a closeout on Regia Strato Color and I can't pass up $6/pair of socks in wee little stripes. I bought five balls. And that's it. No more! Hopefully once I've used it all up the STR craze will be over and I can pick some up on the cheap. (Ha ha, I made a funny!)

Sheep and Wool Addendum

2006-05-08T14:04:00.000-04:00

All righty then. I'm catching up on my various knitting lists, and every other post is about either buying twelve bags of sock yarn or how vendors were selling out 800 skeins in an hour. And these are all people who were waiting at the gates at 9. So the answer seems to be, no, you can't get there at 10:30 and expect to get any sock yarn. Which is in some ways reassuring - I was a little worried that I'd gotten picky beyond all reason, but now I know that no, it really was the case that only the ugly yarn that nobody wanted was left by noon. Whew!

MD Sheep and Wool (W00L?)

2006-05-07T22:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I didn't mean to be up this late, but since I already uploaded the photos (yes! Camera is finally fixed!)...

Of course I forgot to take the camera to the actual festival. Dur. I wish I had - there were so many things I would have liked to record. (Deep-fried Twinkie included.) Alas, I'll have to follow Kira's lead and use my imaginary camera.

I did have a really good time, even though I was disappointed. I brought $100 with me, thinking I'd have to make hard decisions, and only managed to force myself to spend $60. Here's the grand total of my purchases (not including the book, the finger puppet, or the twinkie):

(Go, on - guess which sock yarn's for whom - my husband, myself, my friend. If you said the one on the right is for Aaron, you win! The one in the middle's for me. And the one(s) on the left are for my friend. Yay, socks!)

I don't know if I'm picky or jaded or it really just wasn't my year. First off, I was looking for sock yarn particularly. Possibly I just failed my "spot sock yarn" check. (DC+10 for having a 3-year-old with me. And, this being the Internet, I promise that this is not the only blog to mix D&D metaphors with knitting.) I'd find these beautiful, luxurious yarns - in heavy worsted boucle. Or thick-and-thin plied with a glitter strand. All very lovely, but not anything I'd ever use. Georgous hand-painted colorways - in bulky mohair. And then I'd finally find some sock yarn, and it'd all be some weird olive/fuschia/mustard/turquoise combination, and just - yuck. And then I'd find stuff that was ok, but that was it - if I'm just getting "ok" yarn, I'm not driving an hour and a half for it and paying five times as much as Knitpicks. (Not that I'm against paying for quality - but that's just it, I wasn't impressed by the quality of most of what I managed to find.) Possibly I needed to get there earlier - maybe someone with a sockyarn fetish and the same taste as mine got there at 9 and bought it all up. No idea.

But although it sounds like I'm awfully whiny, I'm really glad I went. I had a great time. The kid had fun. Everyone was very nice, and we saw lots of neat stuff (like alpacas and llamas and goats, oh my!) I'm happy with the yarn I did get. And I picked up a few cards from shops whose yarn I liked but wasn't what I wanted right then, which I think was a good idea. I'm definitely going again next year, but I think with different expectations. And possibly another kid-wrangler along. (Really, she was great, but it would have been nice to do some shopping without having to navigate a stroller through the barns.)

In other news, I completely missed my self-imposed deadline to finish the blanket before the baby gets here. He's coming tomorrow. The blanket will be done... Wednesday, maybe? We'll see... Also I have to figure out what to do with the ends. But here you go, pictures of it "nearly" done. (I ought to call it the "Pi=2" shawl for the number of times I've miscalculated something about it. Also, I can't find that last ball of yarn and I'm going to Hulk out if I have to get yet ANOTHER one...)

Sock Yarn Blues

2006-04-29T15:33:00.000-04:00

Well... I went to Knit Happens to see Wendy, but I didn't introduce myself or anything because I felt stupid saying, hey, I'm not buying your book now because I have to save my pennies for Sheep and Wool, but love the blog! Well, turns out she'll be at Sheep and Wool, so if I get over feeling stupid, I can say something then.

I wasn't crazy about the sock I'm making. Too girly. And it was the least girly yarn I could find. Of course, then I discovered a hole in the toe - apparently I managed to knit the wraps together without the actual stitch. Now that there's a hole, they're the BESTEST MOST BEAUTIFUL socks I've ever seen in my whole whole life, and I'm saddened beyond all description that this hole exists. I've got the stitches on the second needle now, and I'll sew them up next time I get a chance to work on it. Anyway.

So, socks = too girly. I figured I'd go see what kind of sock yarn Knit Happens has. I'm a Springwater Fiber girl myself, and I keep forgetting that KH exists. I found out what kind of sock yarn they have. Beautiful! Amazing! Drool-worthy, lust-inducing, georgous, perfect sock yarns. That cost more money than I have in a month to spend on yarn. For enough for one sock. Oh. I mean, I love my friend, but I just can't spend that kind of cash on socks for him. Especially since I already bought yarn. Which is looking better and better by the minute.

So I left without buying anything, and apparently I'm really confused by this turn of events. I keep wanting to swatch my new yarn, or get it out and look at it, or at least check and see what kind of pattern might look good with it. But the "new yarn," she does not exist. No skeins have entered my home in the last week. It's a weird, phantom-limby feeling. Actually, last night I dreamed that I was sleeping. It's a lot like that.

Smarter

2006-04-25T15:04:00.000-04:00

Darnit, the kid's getting smarter.

"What's an alpaca?"
"It's kind of like a llama."
...
"What's a llama?"
"It's kind of like an alpaca."

For months, this has been an acceptable explanation. The other day, she went, "heeeyyyyyy..." So I'm bringing her to Maryland Sheep and Wool with me. Which may be crazy, but I think she'll have fun. Oh, and in the evening, we have to go to the Scottish Festival, so it's going to be a very busy, very sheepy day.

Other good stuff - MS&W is about a month before my birthday, so I'm taking as much money as I think I'll reasonably be able to cover with birthday checks. Hooray for family who'll support your habits! I'm going to try to concentrate on patterns and books, I think - I Have. Enough. Yarn.

I'm also taking the stroller. I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid.

The baby blanket continues. I'm on the edging now. I miscalculated. It should take about 24 hours to do the whole edging. I've done less than 2. GRAH! BE FINISHED ALREADY!!!

On a positive note, I learned to knit backwards. It's so much easier than I thought it'd be, I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. I don't know that it saves that much time, but it's more fun than turning and purling, anyway. (And, I mean, even if it saves only one second per row, that's... um, over 17 minutes saved total!)

I also cast on for the socks. I have 1/4 of 1/2 of the toes done. But, y'know, no hurry on those. I'm doing two-on-two-circs, and man, speaking of things I wish I'd done before... Love it. Want to spend my summer making socks now.

Actually, I'm thinking I'm going to make kilt hose for the stepfather. (See above re: Scottish Festival and needing to go.) He's sensitive to wool, so I could probably do him up something nice in wool-ease or something like that. He can have one for Christmas and one for his birthday. (I mean, considering that each one'll take me probably over 40 hours of work, I don't think this is unreasonable at all. Plus, it'll be funny to get one sock for Christmas. His birthday's only 12 days later.)

And this is why I need to update more often...

2006-04-20T13:48:00.000-04:00

I have too many things to put in one post. Let's see if I can be brief:

1) The sweater is limping along. I realized I read a number wrong and the back should be 3" longer than I thought. Luckily, I realized this before binding off, but it's still a kick in the teeth. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that the only place I'm knitting it is in the bathroom. (People without toddlers: "Eeeeewwww!" People with toddlers: "Hey, what a great idea!") It helps with not trying to do too much anyway - my hands start to hurt somewhere between four and five rows, so there you go.

2) The baby blanket is being dragged kicking and screaming to completion. Much like pregnancy, I'm in the last couple of weeks and really wishing it were all over already. I'm a little scared of the border, I think, and that could be why I'm dragging my feet so much. On the upside, I've decided I do really like the lace I substituted for the outermost ring, and I'm glad I chose it. I'm down to the last 15 hours worth, anyway - go finish!

2b) I miscalculated. I actually need a third more yarn than I thought I did, and while I tried to deny it for as long as possible, I'm on the last ball and still have one repeat and the border to do. I bought 3 more, in a different dyelot, of course. I'm going to try alternating rows to mix it in, but it's hard to gauge when the rows are so very very long. (Let's see... one row is 1/12 a ball... now, thinking of it that way, the math isn't so bad at all. I guess I'll start doing it about 8 rows in? Sure.)

3) A friend of mine ran over his foot with the lawnmower this past weekend. They managed to save the toe, which is really good, and I'd like to knit him a pair of socks in celebration of that, but my husband thinks it'd be tacky to give a man in a foot-cast a pair of socks. (Well, he's not really in a cast and by the time I had the socks the bandages would be off, probably, but still.) I think I'll make the socks anyway. I'm sure they'll be received in the spirit given. (Pretty sure, anyway.) But I want - shock! horror! gasp! - sock yarn that doesn't self-stripe. And I may just put my own darn stripes in. (The overwhelming urge to knit complicated patterns on 0000 needles, we'll talk about another day.)

Vital Information

2006-04-07T20:26:00.000-04:00

And by "vital" I mean "completely trivial". Just got back from ~~stalking~~ following around and enjoying some shows from Slim Cessna's Auto Club. May still be a bit loopy (but not quite loopy enough to head up to RI).

Did I mention that I am a complete idiot? I had two balls of the orange laceweight. Dur. Should have rewound them separately before knitting that scarf. Well... I don't know that it would have involved less tangling/work. But it certainly wouldn't have been more. Again: Duh. Now I'm debating making laceweight gloves... hmmmmm...

And today, in the mail, I got a flier for The Knit & Crochet Show. (Why does it relate? Well, I stayed with a friend when I saw SCAC, and noticed while driving around that he lives all of five minutes from the convention center where this thing's gonna be held. So... if I could talk him into putting me up again, that'd save $109 a night - neat!) I'm a little interested in going - even though, like at all conventions, they take all the sessions I'm interested in and put them at the same time. How do they manage that? At any rate, I can't shake the mental image of gangs of knitters roaming around, throwing down with their rival crocheters, flashing gang signs and shivving each other with DPNs. Um. Maybe I need to get out more. (Or less? Something, certainly.)

Two Bad Things

2006-04-03T11:23:00.000-04:00

Yes, I did two bad things this weekend.

1) I broke our camera. Our brand-new, super-awsome, beloved slimline camera. Three days before I really, really needed it for a couple of shows I'm going to. Alas, I'll have to rely on my memory. Also, no pics for the blog until we dig out the warranty stuff and have it repaired, and who knows when that will be?

2) I cast on something else. The baby blanket is going well, but I'm heartily sick of working on it. If I push, I can probably finish in two weeks, maybe three. The baby is due in 6. Which will come first? Who knows?

I'm not super-happy about the project I cast on for, either. Well, I'm not sure. It's a ballet-wrap kids' cardigan from... possibly Creative Knitting a few months ago? Ripping magazines apart is great for pattern organization, not so great for knowing where you got them from. It's supposed to use hand-dyed yarn, but I thought that was kind of ugly, and Kira picked out pink when I was taking her to get yarn. (Are you sure? Look, they have green! And blue! Purple? No? Drat.) So, the pros and cons of this project:

Pros:

It's moss stitch, which I like the look of. And even though it's the exact same as ribbing, for some reason I don't mind knitting it nearly as much as ribbing.
I swatched and measured, which means it's actually going to fit the child.
Total yarn cost: $6.24.
It's cute.

Cons:

It's moss stitch, which may be better than ribbing, but is still a big old pain in the rear.
I swatched and measured, which means it will fit the child until her next growth spurt. Which kinda seems like now - she's eating like she's having one, anyway. And it's rapidly rocketing towards summer here, which means by the time it's cool enough for her to wear it again... who knows?
It's cotton, which hurts my wrists. I never really realized it before, but yes, it is definitely the yarn, not the needles or pattern or anything else.
It's pink. Will knitting this vast sea of pinkness drive me blind and mad before I finish?

Swan Scarf - Pics!

2006-03-23T17:19:00.000-05:00

(Click for larger photos.)

35 hours of work and this is what I have to show for it? A crumpled rag.

Even better - now it's a soggy, crumpled rag.

Now, this looks promising. (This was my first attempt - I totally repinned the whole thing after taking this picture.) Note fancy blocking board!

And finally - wrapping and boxing it. Did I mention the card? I wish I had taken a picture of the card. Ah well.

I just thought this picture was cool:

Whew!

2006-03-23T11:20:00.000-05:00

Ok, I feel a little better - I had completely forgotten about knitting Mr. Charity Bear. So now staying up 'til 3 this morning to finish that scarf a) doesn't make me feel nearly as guilty for wasting time and b) makes a lot more sense. The whole thing didn't take more than 40 hours, why did it take me so long? (Well, obviously, I remember now. But I had been beating myself up over it, and I now have my permission to stop.)

Boy, I'm really happy with how the scarf came out. I wish I'd had more time to pet and photograph it. But it's winging its way to Hungary right now... ok, well, it's probably more like in the car on the way to the airport right this very second, but close enough.

I'm just so excited having finished it! It was my first time blocking with wires and pins, and I think it came out pretty well, although I certainly learned things for next time. It took me until the seventh wire to figure out the best way to put them in. (The first seven took 45 minutes, the last 5 took 15, I think.) And I wish I had stretched a little more aggressively. But oh, they were right when they talked about the miracle of lace! From crumpled rag to so, so pretty! I think I fell in love with it a little bit.

The color did bleed a little when I washed it, which worries me a bit. Then again, I'm giving it to a man who wears nothing but orange... and it was only a teensy bit of dye. And it should be hand-washed separately anyway. Even if he gives it to someone who wears other colors. (Which I fully expect him to do. It's part of why I was so relaxed about this project, I think - I know that it will wind up with the person who should most have it. Which is... well, a good feeling, I guess.) I do have a vague fear that someone'll stick it in the washing machine on hot. Not so much because I worry about it being wrecked - if it's yours, it's yours to wreck - but because I don't want someone to wreck it accidentally and then be sad about it. Which may be silly, but there you go, I never claimed to be rational about these sorts of things.

Pictures of the whole process to follow - like I said, I was up with it until 3 this morning, and then got up again at 6 to photograph/wrap/pack it. So I haven't really gotten a chance to download pics or anything. I worry a little that I'll find some huge glaring error in the photo that I didn't see live, but see above re: too late now.

Also also, I got a free blocking board, which rocks. I was going to pick up a piece of styrofoam insulation from the Home Depot to use, but didn't realize that it only comes in 8' sheets (which don't fit in my car even a little bit). I happened to be visiting my mom at the time, and she said, oh, you mean you need a piece of this stuff? And pulled out half a board of it, which she gave me. I mean, buying it would have only cost about $9, but free is even better, AND I didn't have to get Aaron to go pick it up in the Jeep. Yay!

FOB!

2006-03-18T13:43:00.000-05:00

Friend of Bear? Finished Object - Bear!

Dropped him off this morning. Well, technically afternoon, I guess. Now I just have to finish that scarf - ack!

Bear and Scarf

2006-03-16T23:26:00.000-05:00

Right then, looks like things are working again. I hope. Anyway. This is what I have so far of the bear that needs to be dropped off at Knit Happens tomorrow. First picture was about the middle of the evening, second was at the end. I've also started a second one, trying to convert the pattern to double knitting, but it's not going to be done in time, which is a bummer. Still, there are lots of uses for bears, I'm sure.

This is the scarf in all it's crumply glory. I meant to stretch it out and take another picture, but I got sidetracked chasing my husband around with the bear on my hand threatening to eat his head. (Were there jokes about my right to arm bears? Do you even need to ask?)

The green circle is the "design feature" I cleverly worked in by doing rows 1-6, then starting a new repeat instead of finishing the one I was on. I am very, very glad I'm working both tails at once, it does look on purpose. Ish. And I really, really don't have time to reknit it. So, hooray! (I think I'm giving up sleep in favor of knitting this weekend.) Although now that I look more closely, I didn't actually get the circle in the right place. Well, we'll all get to see when it's blocked.

More scarf, more of the time

2006-03-10T15:00:00.000-05:00

Well, the lace scarf is going... slowly. Doesn't help that I forgot to bring the pattern with me today, so can't do anything on it. Wish I had remembered to take a picture, too, but that seems to be pretty standard.

Also unhelpful: Addi turbos. Blunty McNopoints and I are not getting along at all. It takes two hours for me to finish one inch of lace. For contrast: Tubey (which had four and a half times the number of stitches in an inch*) took 50 minutes/inch.

So I asked the wonderful and helpful husband if he wouldn't mind running to the LYS to replace my bamboo needles for me. No problem, he said, just send him what I needed. And I did! I was very careful to specify that I needed US size 2, not 2mm, and to ask the clerk if he wasn't sure of the difference. And he very nicely brought me home a lovely Clover bamboo circular, size US2. When I go to knit onto the new needles, they're huge. What size am I actually using? US0, aka 2mm, of course. Well, he wanted to get out of the house anyway, right? (He went back again last night, but see above re: no pattern, so I haven't actually knit with them yet.)

I did find a very neat solution to the knitting-both-ends-at-once thing. And it was completely by accident. When I was going to knit the other scarf, I chickened out on the laceweight and decided to use it doubled. My solution to that was to stick both ends of the hank in the winder and wind them simultaneously towards the middle. (Don't try this at home without at least one extra pair of arms.) Now I'm knitting single-stranded - but both ends are at the center of my center-pull ball! I've been going slowly, true, but I haven't had any real twisting or tangling issues, so I think it's been a success and it's definitely something I'd do again if I needed to work from both ends of a length of yarn.

*Not actually true, upon reflection. This is 14 rows/inch and Tubey was... 7, I think. So only a bit more than two times as many stitches, but it still took less than half the time, and I still feel justified in saying, "lace! GAH!"

Maybe not so bright...

2006-03-06T11:35:00.000-05:00

Well. I'm up to the part where I have to double the stitches again on the pi shawl/blanket.

But!

The scarf I need to make is... complicated. The recipient isn't going to be in this country this year. So I wasn't feeling the pressure to get it done, which is bad. Then it turns out that a friend is going overseas to visit him, and she's leaving at the end of the month (need to find out exactly when). A deadline! Hooray!

And I decided that the Matthew is... beyond my abilities. Well, beyond my current abilities to get it done by the deadline, anyway. Which is kind of a bummer, but that doesn't mean I can't knit it later. Maybe next year. Nothing wrong with that.

My brilliant plan, though? Design and knit a lace scarf of my own! Yes! Genius! (If by "genius" I mean "misguided and mentally flawed".) I'm swatching furiously now. It's a... learning experience, certainly. I have learned a lot about lace. But I'm not particularly closer to getting this done. It'll be a seaman's scarf, anyway, so it should go fairly quickly once I get it sorted out. The lace, though... why did I pick an asymetric pattern for the central panel, again? Gah. Oh, and I plan on doing it bottom-up both tails at once, so that's good too.

And I had bought a Crystal Palace bamboo circular just especially for this project. I got it out of my knitting bag and one of the needles was SNAPPED! Grr. I never even got to use it, and that wasn't a cheap needle. Luckily (?) I have an addi turbo in the right size, but I really didn't want to use something so slippery for a laceweight alpaca lace project. Well. It should be fine. I'm sure.

Ten Things Tubey Taught Me

2006-02-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

Finished! Early, actually. It was washed, blocked, and being worn to a party on Saturday. But I didn't get a picture until today, because... well, I have no excuse, I just didn't. I should try to get a better one, but probably won't.

Ten Things Tubey Taught Me

The Joggless Jog. Although I'd call it the less-jog jog, I think, my sleeves look better than the picture on Knitty, and I should have taken a closeup but I didn't. Definitely worth doing, anyway.
Color matters. I may actually rip out the entire body and reorder the stripes, because right now it does a fantastic job of minimizing my breasts and enlarging and drawing attention to my waist. I mean, yeah, I'm shaped like that, but there's no reason to emphasize it.
Horizontal stripes do not flatter. Even if they look good on the model.
I have boobs. Twenty-eight years of being small chested has led me to disregard any instructions for the busty. The sweater is four inches shorter in the front than the back, leading to weird bunching and just... oddness. Next time, short rows.
I don't have to slavishly follow a pattern. I'm short-waisted, and I made the sweater what, two inches shorter than the pattern called for? Something like that. And it's a good length. Yay! (Now, be confident enough to add those short rows).
The norwegian purl is hell on the wrists. Not worth bothering with.
3x1 Ribbing isn't really that bad, and it keeps you from dropping stitches 'cause it's like tiny pattern repeat markers every four stitches.
Weaving in ends, however, really is that bad. And I'm terrible at it. I didn't trim the ends in case I do rip out and reorder the stripes, but even if I don't, I think pulling them out and redoing them isn't a bad idea.
AC Moore Luxury Aran is a very soft, pilly yarn. I've heard the same thing about the Cashmerino that the pattern calls for, so I'm not too fussed about it. We'll see how it looks after a few washing/shavings.
I can finish a sweater. Quickly, too. Now I have no excuse.

I had a bunch of yarn left over (including an entire ball of teal) so I started on a bonus: some Custom-Fit Fingerless Mitts. Super fast - I finished most of the first on the metro - and seriously easy. I should have the second done tomorrow, then I can weave in ends, wash, block, and have a custom accessory for my sweater. Nifty!

(Picture including my extraneous third leg:)

Progress Pics

2006-02-27T18:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I meant to be posting these as I went along, but I was too busy knitting! So this is like the stop-motion version of my Tubey progress?

Valentine's Day (with help from sweetie):

Feb. 20 (getting close!):

Feb. 22 (done enough to try on):

Closer!

2006-02-22T13:44:00.000-05:00

I know I haven’t updated – too busy knitting! I have some pictures, but since the husband took the camera one night, I totally got out of the “picture every day” thing. Which is totally a bummer, because a daily record of this project would have been neat. I’m up to the last colored stripe on the body – except I’m going to add one final, tiny stripe, so sort of not. I didn’t follow the pattern too closely. For one, I have three CCs instead of 5, and for two, I didn’t feel like fiddling with tiny scraps of yarn. I was impressed with the last teal stripe I did – I looked at the yarn left in thte ball and said, oh yeah, that’ll do me one more row. And it did. With 5” left. Just enough to weave in!

Ugh. Weaving in. I did a few ends while watching Murderball over the weekend, but yeah, that was one sleeve worth. Not looking forward to that. I should look up end-weaving, see if there’s a better way to do it than I do. Hates it.

But, there’s a party on Saturday, and maybe I’ll have this sweater done for it! Wouldn’t that be fun? (Hope it doesn’t look horrible. There’s still a chance of unravelling and reknitting the sleeves...)

Tubey Lurve

2006-02-14T13:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm bummed I didn't take a progress pic last night. I finished the stripes on the first sleeve. Today's goal is to finish the rest of that sleeve (only 1 more inch!) and get up to the stripes on the second sleeve. Probably no pictures until tomorrow, though, what with Valentine's stuff going on and my mother-in-law leaving town and all.

In the community spirit, I went through and checked out all the Knitting Olympians who had signed up with Tubey. Here's the final list of participants I got who mentioned they were actually knitting it. I know it's not about the competition... but I am! I need motivation, so there you go.

Of course, towards the end of that list, I finally found the Team Tubey I'd been looking for. And I joined. Neat!

I wish I'd looked at it earlier. My sleeves are definitely too big - next time I think I'd just make the size S sleeve with the size M body. Or something. Must check to see how other people are handling this.

And in other bad news, my office becomes Monkey Central starting tomorrow. Could be worse - it was supposed to start today. But it means I can't knit. And the other part of my job, where I have to sit in a little overheated room and do nothing for an hour three times a week? Printer's out for service, so that's cancelled too. Baaaaah.

Tubetastic!

2006-02-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

Boy I'm glad I'm past the flat part. Hooray for knitting in the round! I'm using the short Denise cable, which seems to be fine. Much easier than digging out the dpns, certainly. Did I mention I had to go down to a US6 for this pattern? I think the biggest DPNs I have are 5's anyway. Well, and 15's. Either way, not very useful.

It's actually longer than this now, and I'll do a few more rounds tonight, but I had to stop to take a picture ANYway, so went ahead and captured the sleevelet in all its tubey glory.

The picture I had to take? Esme finding herself a pile of handknits left to dry after playing in the snow today (note both scarf AND hat):

Blog? Oh, yeah.

2006-02-11T13:47:00.000-05:00

Well, I hadn't posted because all I had to say was "finished five more rows on the pi shawl" over and over, which seemed kind of dull. I'm up to the last row of the second lace bit (using the pattern from Best of Knitters). It will never, ever be done. It's a good thing this baby isn't due until... um... later. (Keep forgetting to check! Bad friend.)

I'm about to double the stitches again. Woe!

(The giant mutant strawberry... er, pi shawl:)

At any rate, it's a good thing this Knitting Olympics thing is going on. Gives me a good excuse for a break! I just hope we have a cold March, so I get to actually wear this sweater.

But not yet, I'm thinking:

It's kind of neat. I'm using Lion microspun for the shawl/blanket, which is very smooth and slippy and thin. (And fuzzing, in the center. Should it do that? I've heard good things about how it wears, which is why I used it. I'm hoping washing improves it - if not, it will be an enormous lace dishrag, and if so, oh well.) So switching to the knockoff Cashmerino is like knitting with squooshy soft rope.

By the way, so far, so good - I've been using my 40% off coupons to buy balls of the AC Moore Luxury - $3.75 (including tax) a ball instead of what, $9 for the Cashmerino? Mom's been helping, but HER AC Moore never has black in stock, so there has been quite a bit of color-swapping shenanigans going on. And then there's the predicted snowstorm (which so far seems to be rain), which meant that I swapped some of the black I had for some colors that mom has, and will do the reverse next week.

But think of the savings!

Indecisive

2006-01-22T13:38:00.000-05:00

I'm having a hard time getting anything started. That's part of why I signed up for the Knitting Olympics - without the eXtreme pressure of Christmas knitting, it's hard for me to get motivated. Plus, you know, life. Pssht.

So instead of the scarf that I'm just resisting for some reason, I went ahead and cast on for the Pi shawl/baby blanket. I really need to stop doing projects that grow as you do them - they're very psychologically discouraging. I need to do top-down shawls or something. But the Pi's fun so far, anyway. I'm using the version from Knitters Best of Shawls and Scarves, and it really is easy. My friend (whose baby the blanket is for) is having some problems, and it helps me to send her positive thoughts. Anyway - here it is, up to the first lace chart:

Olympic Knitting!

2006-01-17T12:12:00.000-05:00

I've entered myself in the junior sweater competition. Yarn Harlot has a new challenge up, and it sounds like fun.

I'm going to knit Tubey. Probably. Depending on where my other projects are at the time. I may go with the lace baby blanket instead, but I'm almost certain I can do that in 16 days, and the Tubey I'm not so confident about.

I did buy my first ball of yarn. I hope I like what I've planned for the colors - I'm going with that AC Moore Luxury stuff, in Sky, Denim, Magenta (or was it Plum?), Brown, and Black. And my mom lives somewhere with a Michael's, so she's in charge of procuring the black - she can get two balls a week at the 40% off. So that's my plan.

I finished my first MK swatch, and am most of the way through the second. The plan was to work on it this morning, but Stuff Came Up (tm). So hopefully I'll get to finish it this afternoon. These swatches are harder than they seem like they should be. I've learned two different new cast-ons, and I now know three ways to purl. I'm going with combined on the swatches, but I can't really tell that it makes a difference. (Well, maybe. I should do one swatch "regular" to see, but I feel like I don't have time.) For some reason, there's one visible line in the stockinette part of this swatch. I don't know why. I may rip and redo. Blast!

FOtopia!

2006-01-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

First, the scarf. Did I even mention I was making this? I got the pattern here and it's the two skeins of Kureyon my knitswap buddy sent. I should try to take another picture - it really does have colors, not just black blobs. And it took me like two days to make and then two weeks to weave in the TWO tails. I suck. But I get to wear it tomorrow!

This is the cabled hat. I should have taken a picture on a head, but this was like ten seconds before I ran out of the house to give it to the recipient. He didn't like it. Too girly? Dunno - I thought it looked better on, but I can definitely understand thinking I'm a freak for making it. Originally got the yarn for the Lion costume, but it was too orange, so no great loss. The pattern was really fun - of course I waited too long to write it out, so now I'd have to refigure it all. I remember it involved casting on 42, and the cable is 9 stitches wide and 1 for the turning (purl) row and the short row part goes from 32-16 and back. Should be enough to recreate it, I think. Oh, and the yarn is Plymouth Encore. Don't remember what size needles - probably 7 or 8 US?

The "Batman Begins" shawl(ette). Finished it this afternoon. The total stitch count was 140ish, I think - I had enough yarn to go one or two repeats bigger but got bored. It's a nice little shoulder wrap. And it makes a nice full-size working shawl for the 2-year-old!

The shawl, again. On. Demonstrating why I am not, in fact, a shawl-wearer.

Dear Internet: Please Work Better

2006-01-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

Ok, I think I cleaned up the weird triple-posting thing.

I also found the errata for "The Best of Knitters: Shawls and Scarves". It's here: http://www.knittinguniverse.com/books/bookscorrections/shawls/shawlsscarvesweb.pdf.

And... what was the other thing? Oh, I'm trying to get to this pattern: 3 Hour Hug but it seems to be gone. And the Wayback Machine doesn't seem to be working. I just can't figure it out, and it's bugging me.

No actual knitting news - today's late opening for the LYS, so I'll get my needle/crochet hook tonight, and THEN I'll have something to say. I hope.

Hey, lookit that

2006-01-11T14:21:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm glad I did take a little trip out to AC Moore last night. Turns out their "Luxury" is only $6/ball, so with the weekly coupon, that's only $3.60. Well, and gas. But I head out that way at least once a week anyway.

So. Now my problem is figuring out what colors to use, since they have different ones. I'm thinking two shades of purple and... something else. That's the tricky bit. I'd say green, but they don't have the shade I want. Then again, they were out of black when I went, too - maybe there are more colors they were just out of. They don't have it on their website and searching for "luxury" is pretty fruitless. (I mean, I didn't JUST search for "luxury". But adding the word to searches about yarn really doesn't help.) And it's not listed on any yarn review sites that I could see.

Oh no! More yarn shopping is called for! Alas, whatever shall I do?

I also wonder what a "knitting and crochet party" is. It's advertised at all their stores, but I haven't seen anywhere what that means.

Anyway, the other reason it was a good trip is that I got The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns with a 50% off coupon, so yay! I'm not sure if I'm regretting it or not. For a long time I've wanted Folk Bags which they sell there. And I was going to get it. But it's back with the knitting stuff, and I thought, oh, I'll look and see what they have in the book section. And they had the Handy Book, so I got that instead, being too lazy to go all the way back to the back of the store again. Dunno that I'll ever use it, but it's a nice reference to have, I think. Someday. For some reason, I was under the impression that it had more options than it actually does. And I don't even make sweaters! What was I thinking? Well, maybe it'll make a nice gift for a knitting friend.

And I had a dream that Knitty's surprise was up, and it isn't. And I'm surprised! So I guess that works.

Last night I finally got around to watching Batman Begins. And I have two projects that need proper tools before I can start them, and take a lot of concentration. So I grabbed a skein of TLC Amore that I had bought like three years ago to make a scarf out of, cast on, and started knitting. The Batman Begins Shawl! It's even black. Quite appropriate. Anyway, here's the pattern so far, such as it is:

Materials: 1 skein TLC Amore
Size 10 US circular needles - I'm using my Denises and I just stuck on the longest cord, so whatever length that is.

(KFB - knit into the front and back of the stitch)

CO 1
KFB

Begin Increase 1:
KFB, Knit across

Repeat until you have 5 stitches on the needle, then complete the Dropstitch Bit

Dropstitch Bit:
Row 1: K1, *yo 2x, K1* repeating ** across
Row 2: K the actual stitches across, dropping all the YOs off the needle. (AKA K1, *drop 2 YOs, K1* repeat ** across)

Knit 5 rows of Increase 1 followed by a Dropstitch Bit until there are 40 stitches on the needle.

This is where I decided that it was getting too pointy, and I wanted to increase the width faster than I was, so I placed 2 markers so that the 20 center stitches were between them (leaving 10 sts on each side) and switched to...

Increase 2:
Row 1-4: KFB, K to last stitch before first marker, KFB, K across
Row 5: KFB, K to last stitch, KBF (yeah. I'm not sure if knitting the back loop and then the front actually makes a difference - I mean, I KNOW it doesn't in the black boucle yarn I'm using, but I wonder if it would otherwise - but at any rate, that's what I'm doing.)

And then doing Increase 2 followed by the Dropstitch Bit. I'm up to 60 sts on the needle - I plan on making it until the yarn runs out and binding off. Great TV knitting, and I mean, I'm only looking for something to throw on around the house, so it works for that. I wouldn't use it for a night on the town or anything.

(Ok, I totally lied about placing the markers - I'm just counting stitches. But it was the easiest way I could think of to explain where I was putting the middle increases. And placing markers WOULD be a good idea, I just don't have any on me right now.)

Procrastinating?

2006-01-05T13:56:00.000-05:00

I am not procrastinating. I just want to get this down to remember it. You know, I should just memorize the link to Tubey. I type it often enough. Anyway, I want to knit one. And my friend wants one too. But cashmerino is expensive. So the two ways I found around that:

1) WEBS has 25% off orders of $120 or more, so if we ordered the yarn for two sweaters, it'd be $6 per ball. Or if I were just making one solid-color sweater, Discount Yarn Sale has bags of 10 for $60.

2) AC Moore has a similar yarn, Luxury, for I think $6.50 (maybe $7, gotta check that). And they have 40% off coupons every weekend. So I just have to buy one ball a week for 15 weeks - if I got my mom in on the act, I could do it in 2 months. And it'll be at least that long before I have the free time to knit it anyway. Also, apparently, AC Moore will take competitor's coupons, so if you have a Michael's and/or a Joann's, you can get 3 balls a week. I don't, so I can't verify that, but it's worth looking into, I think. Dyelots? It's striped! Ha!

Now, back to that hat - it's looking MUCH better the second time around, and I'm glad I'm redoing it. Really.

Look, it's Orange!

2006-01-02T19:34:00.000-05:00

And - the final result! This actually has very little to do with the real color, but I thought it was a pretty picture. Also, see that background? Master Hand Knit Program Level I! w00t!

Lil' K wanted to help. Since we didn't let her help wind up the yarn, she insisted on holding it for the pictures - and, hey, the color came out pretty accurately in this one. It's a little less red than that, but very close. (Of course, that's on my monitor - who knows what it looks like on yours? Hey, if we all started calling "blue" "yellow", would anyone know the difference? Like, woah, man.)

So there it is. One teensy ball of more-or-less fingering weight yarn. (I wound the two strands together and will be using both ends of the ball to knit from. Please don't tell me I should have divided it - I know, I just couldn't figure out how.) I'm having doubts about it actually making a scarf - but it is 440 yards. And both skeins were exactly the same length. So... we'll see.

(And for the record, if you need to make something for your favorite Swami, Jacquard acid dye "burnt orange" is a good way to go.)

Now, for entirely my own reference - the projects I need to finish, in order. Ish.

Multidirectional scarf. I would have had time to do this if KnitPicks and Dharma Trading had been a little lazier.
The cabled hat. I'm going to start from the ball I have left, but I think I may wind up frogging the existing one. Or knitting directly from it. I am lazy. Needs to be done by Saturday.
Dr. Who Scarf repair. This was the first big project I ever did, for my husband on our first wedding anniversary. I don't even know how to fix motheaten knitting, much less when I'm going to get the time to do it, but I need to find out and then make time. Yeah.
The Matthew scarf. Which needs to be done by the end of February, to be on the safe side.
The baby blanket, by sometime in April, I should check on when exactly.
Master Knitting swatches. I did one of my written questions today! The LYS was closed for the holidays, so the husband will be buying me a skein of beige Cascade 220 tomorrow.
Thrummed mittens for my mommy. These don't need to be done before next Christmas, but it's good to plan ahead.

So there you have it. Sweater? What unfinished sweater? Bahhhh...

Dyetastic!

2006-01-01T22:16:00.000-05:00

Allrighty then. KnitPicks and Dharma Trading are out to get me. I ordered at lunchtime on December 28th. On December 31st, I had both packages on my doorstep, all snuggled up next to each other begging to be torn into and reveled in. Three days! Total! And I picked the cheap shipping specificially so that I'd have time to finish a couple other things before setting off on my journey into a neat new hobby!

Well, I guess I can't complain. Still. Three days! That's crazy. I have visions of picking the overnight shipping and having it delivered all Wiley E. Coyote style, before I even hit "confirm".

The yarn. It actually looks more like "sunshine" in the picture than it did in real life. I would have named it "sand", but then probably fewer people would buy it. (I did have a color card, and wonder if this was a weird batch or something - it looked yellower on the card, too).

A nice bath. Dunno if it's true or not, but one of the KnitList folks tipped me off to KnitPicks yarn sometimes having wossname oil (spinning stuff) or other random gunk in it, so I washed it first. Probably a good idea in general, even if it's not a specific KnitPicks problem.

I added the dye to the water...

...and stirred it up. The amount of dye I bought is supposed to dye two pounds of fabric, and I had about four ounces of yarn, so it was a total guess as to how much to use. (Well, I could have weighed out 1/16th of an oz., but I don't have a scale that's accurate for that small an amount.) The water turned a pretty orange, anyway.

I put in the yarn. The water was hot at this point, but not simmering yet. When it reached 180, I put in the vinegar. I kept it at about 190 for the rest of the time.

Not the greatest picture, but you can sort of see that the water is clearing at this point. This was after about 20 minutes of simmering.

A bath in Synthropol. I'm kind of scared of this stuff. I don't know that I'll use it again.

Rinsed out the Synthropol. I'm a little worried that the water still isn't running clear, but with every rinse I notice that the cotton ties I used on the skeins are lightening, so I hope that the loose dye is only coming from them. If there really is a problem, I should be able to fix it once it's knitted up. I hope, anyway.

Now I'm waiting for the laundry to finish so I can use the washer to spin out the yarn, and I'll lay it out to dry. If the color looks anything like I expect it to, it'll be perfect! (It was Jacquard Acid Dye "burnt orange". I suspect "pumpkin" might have been even better, but I expected the yellow to have an effect on the final color. Of course, it was so light, it probably didn't - we will see, I suppose.)

Book Review - Stahman's Shawls and Scarves

2005-12-29T21:07:00.000-05:00

Just before Christmas, the LYS called me up and left a message. "Stahman's Shawls and Scarves is in. We'll hold it for a week before sending it back." Indeed? Of course, the very next message was the same woman, very apologetically - "Oh, I see you put a deposit down. We'll hold this until you come pick it up." That's better. No sending my $30 book back! (Although I see Amazon has it for the bargain price of $50. Go with your LYS!)

In general, I'm happy with it. I'm not a shawl person, really, but I burn with desire to make one. Why? Dunno. The challenge, I suppose. And everyone says that this is THE book, and the stuff on the Faroese shawls seems interesting, even though I know I won't really understand it until I try.

But... I just don't think she's a very good writer. So it's kind of hard to get into. (Yes, I understand that it's mostly patterns. But the other stuff is important too, and that's what I'm talking about.) Anyway, when I do force myself to sit down and read it, I learn things. And if you want to knit this type of shawl, I think it's definitely worth the price.

The seaman's scarf parts - look, I've designed one before. They're not complicated. They're more... the exact opposite of complicated. But somehow, her description makes them sound a lot more bewildering than they really are. Which is a problem with a lot of "how-to" books - it's a lot easier to show someone than to tell them, and not everyone has the knack of telling. You get so caught up in teaching every detail, you make it sound ten thousand times harder than it is, and you just confuse your student. I did learn two tricks about seaman's scarves, at least one of which I will definitely try. So she definitely has information I don't - I just wish she disseminated it more clearly.

As far as I can tell (not having knit any yet), the patterns are well done, though, and that's really what you're paying for, right? The charts seem clear and easy to understand. I haven't searched for errata yet - ok, that's not bad. The Robert Scarf apparently has an error, but I wasn't going to make that one anyway. Of course, the one I am going to make is freely available on the web, but if I'd just used the pattern I wouldn't have all that other useful information.

Bottom line: if you want to learn to make faroese shawls, buy this book. Otherwise, a more general shawl book might be indicated. (I'm really happy with Knitter's Magazine's Shawls and Scarves which has a Myrna Stahman article/pattern in it but also has a lengthy errata page that I cannot for the life of me find right now. Definitely find it before trying to knit anything from it.)

Christmas Goodies

2005-12-28T21:41:00.000-05:00

Apologies in advance for the massive post this is about to become. Hey, I even broke it up some!

My wonderful knit-swap buddy sent me two skeins of silky wool and two of Noro Kuryeon, which is something I've always been curious about but have never had the chance to try. And it's like she read my mind about favorite colors, which is very cool. She also sent me a handy booklet thingy that has estimate yardages for a variety of projects - I always just use the display ones they have at the LYS, but it'll be more polite to have my own.

My mom apparently just went down my wishlist and gave me EVERYTHING on it. The six-skein knitter's tote (which is ENORMOUS. And quite heavy. So it's more of a storage system than a tote, but if I ever fly anywhere by myself, I've got it covered.) and the Boye Needlemaster set and membership in TKGA and a subscription to Creative Knitting magazine (I'm glad she didn't get me IK, I'm still mad at them) and and and... whew. And she got my aunts and uncles together to get me the first level of the Master Hand Knitting program, which is nifty.

My husband's grandmother sent me the Denise Interchangables. And she passed away between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So it's been kind of an emotional time for us (putting it mildly). And now I have these needles, and knitting with them makes me think of her. She was an amazing person, and while I don't think she'd actually like me getting all gooey over it, they really are special to me. I don't have the way with words I'd need to really express it properly, sorry.

I may be able to do a better job with explaining the next thing. My cousin gave me a gift certificate, which I spent on yarn to make a baby blanket for an expectant friend. (Dear Friend: I'm sorry, the obsessive need to document trumps surprising you. Please stop reading now if you don't want to find out more!) But hey, didn't you want to get that spendy alpaca handpaint? Well, yeah, but I also want to make this blanket. Am I regifting my Christmas present? I don't think so. I still get the joy of picking out a pattern and knitting the thing and using a yarn I wouldn't normally use (fiber snobbery be damned, baby blankets need to be washable!) and giving the present. Which is way more pleasure than I would get just making something for myself. Besides, I have UFOs I need to finish for myself - if I knit for OTHER people, I can start new projects guilt-free.

Speaking of other projects - I ordered KnitPicks' alpaca cloud to knit the Matthew scarf. But it needs to be orange. So I got the "sunshine" (which is much paler than it looks on the website) and some burnt orange dye and I'll be going to town. I've never dyed anything before, so I'm a little nervous, but I have faith that it will work out. (Alison Hyde was very reassuring about the whole thing!) And I was pleasantly surprised - I placed both of these orders at lunchtime, and by this evening I had both shipping confirmations in my inbox. These folks work fast! It is kind of a bummer that I'm spending almost as much on shipping as I am on yarn/dye, but even with that, it's still not going to be a terribly expensive project.

And I don't want them to go too fast - I need to finish Yet Another Hat before I get into another WIP. And at some point I'll probably yammer on about the Stahman book, but today I've gone on long enough, no?

Recycled Silk Hat

2005-12-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

FO time - The Three-Month Hat. (Total knitting time: what, like four hours? Sheesh.) It's yet another Tychus, of course. Like I've said before, the recycled silk just does not photograph well. The flash doesn't help, of course. But it's finished, and I like it, and I'm wearing it right now. Now - matching wristwarmers (original idea) or huge heavy scarf? It is a dilemma...

I'm not entirely sure why I'm posting this picture. Bizarre self-portrait contortions aside, you still can't really appreciate how neat this hat looks in person. It's also a lot bigger than it was last night. So I guess it'll be a good thing to have a record of when it's large enough for me and three of my closest friends.

Percy Protocol

2005-12-26T22:23:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me that this should be in a separate post, so hey. Here it is!

Ok, so I am completely lame and can't figure out how to post a gift pattern to the Knitlist so here's the slightly-more-verbose version of Percy:

Materials:
1 ball Bernat Disco (13sts/18 rows = 4") (shown in Aqua Velvet)
Small piece of fabric - I bought a 1/4 yard remnant of pink satin-ish nylon and had a ton left over. 1/8 yard is more than enough if you're buying off the bolt.
2 large googly eyes
scraps of felt
one purse handle - I had a random acrylic one, but you can get much nicer ones online.
miscellaneous: hot glue, sewing needle, thread, embroidery needle for finishing
Needles: US10.5 circular - I use a long one and magic loop, but whatever length you need for a 10" diameter piece.

Percy is 6" wide by 5" tall.

1. CO 40 sts, join (being careful not to twist)
2. knit in round until tube is 5" tall
3. BO 20 sts.
4. Knit remaining sts back and forth in stockinette for 5"
5. BO remaining sts.
6. Sew up bottom opening and turn inside-out (purl side is RS).
7. Attach eyes - cut small circles of felt, sew in appropriate place on flap. Hot glue eyes to felt.
8. Attach handle according to type of handle purchased. Because the one I had was not meant for this type of purse, I cut a very thin dowel to the width of the purse and sewed the handle to it through the fabric (dowel inside purse, handle outside). This gave it enough structure to support the bag, and the lining covers the dowel.
9. Line. I accomplished this by handing it to my mother, but if she's not around, cut the fabric to the outer dimensions of the purse and hem all around until it fits inside. Fold into thirds, and sew the bottom third to the middle third, making it the same shape as the bag. Then hand-sew to the inside of the purse.

Shawl Sharing, Tiny Tychus

2005-12-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

Two pics of me modelling the finished shawl. Still haven't given it to the intended recipient yet, but oh well. I think it turned out fairly well - again, I'd do more repeats for less length if I were to do it again, but I still like it. And of course I can point to every, um, design feature in it.

Also, a quickie FO - on Friday, I decided to give my husband a hat for Christmas. I had made him a Tychus, which he claimed to like but also complained that it was too warm. So I had a leftover ball of black Baby Ull (and we all know my feelings about that, but I really like the guy) so I made another one using it. Cast on 60 sts. and short-rowed down to 32, which is a LOT of knit stitches. And I finished on Saturday. So now my shoulder kinda hurts AND he has a hat that looks like he got it for $1.50 down at the gas station! But it is 100% wool, so there's that.

FO! YAY! (Diamond Shawl)

2005-12-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am a Super Genius indeed. Of course I chose a pink background to photograph a peach-colored shawl on. Well, I didn't so much choose it as just not want to disturb it after laying it out to block and then thinking I needed a photo.

Anyway. It's done! Hooray! Now all it needs to do is dry. The person it's for does so much for everyone; I hope she'll take it as something nice for herself. Unless she doesn't like it. Or is allergic to alpaca. My goodness, I hope not. ANYway. As long as it doesn't end up as a carwash rag, I'm happy.

Interweave Knits = TEH SUCK

2005-12-21T14:57:00.000-05:00

All right. I just have to bind off and (two weeks after I wanted it done, a week after I thought it would actually be done) I'm finished the shawl. So I figured I could take 10 and finally update this silly thing.

And the very first thing I have to do is express how much I dislike Interweave Knits. I bought their stupid magazine, after waiting months, just because I wanted ONE PATTERN. One pattern that, even at the beginning of the month when I checked publication dates, they were still claiming they were going to print in their worthless rag. So I went to the bookstore - husband and baby waited in the car, I grabbed the mag and left. (Um, yes, I did stop and pay for it first. Sheesh.)

Did they publish the pattern? No, of course not. They put ONE SENTENCE about how you could see the winners of the Scarf Style contest on their website. No mention of how they'd been promising to publish them for a year.

So I figured, well, it's not a complete waste of $7, right? I'll look at the rest of the magazine. Ew, that's really ugly. That's awful. Why would anyone knit THAT? Oh, that's ok, but it'd look awful on me. Ugly, ugly, nasty, ugly, insane... hey, those socks are nice! Oh, they're only listed in one size? Well, they're not nice enough for me to get out the calculator, really. Ugly, ugly, icky, bleah. Advertisements. The end.

So I spent money I don't have on a magazine I don't want, and it makes me angry. I sent them a letter expressing my disappointment, but of course they haven't responded. Why should they? The suckering is complete, my cash is theirs, they don't need to have anything else to do with me.

And now I have to find yet more cash to buy the pattern I wanted. Whenever it becomes available. If it ever does. Anyway. If you'd like to see a really cool scarf that I will never actually be able to make, you can check it out in the designer's blog - http://redthreadsblog.blogspot.com/. (The Chinese Luck Dragon scarf.)

Five Ninths!

2005-12-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

The shawl is 5/9 done. A little bit more than that. If I were to knit it again (which I won't, not because I don't like it but because 80% of the fun of knitting for me is figuring out a new pattern and I've had this one memorized for awhile now) I'd make it a repeat wider across and then less long. Because it is coming out much more like a double-wide scarf than a shawl. I know, I know, blocking. But I don't usually knit big things, how can I not be nervous?

I can't wait to finish. There is a lot of upheaval in my life right now; knitting this thing is keeping me focused. But at the same time - one of the things I'm focused on is how much I want to give it to the recipient. I hope she likes it. I'm trying so hard to knit it detachedly - ego-free, I guess. It's hard. Really hard. But I guess it's an interesting mental puzzle. I've made measurable progress, though, which is pretty neat. I still can't get over hoping she doesn't give it away, though. More work necessary.

I haven't worked on anything else. In fact, for two days I couldn't knit at all - I had to tink everything I attempted. But I think today I'll be able to get some good time in. I hope to have it finished by the weekend and then maybe, just maybe, I will have time to do everyone else's presents.

Notes to Self:

2005-12-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

Two notes to self:

1) Bernat Disco is 13sts/18 rows = 4" on US10.5 needles. Percy is 6" wide by 5" tall. So, basically, the pattern is CO 40, join, knit in round for 5". BO 20 sts. Knit remaining sts back and forth in stockinette for 5", BO. Turn inside-out - purl is RS. Sew up bottom. Attach eyes - cut small circles of felt, sew in appropriate place. Hot glue eyes to felt. Attach handle. Line. I'll write that out better later, but I wanted to note it down while I could still remember.

2) Create pattern for Mommy Mittens. Yeah, in my ample spare time.

Percy

2005-12-06T20:18:00.000-05:00

Actual post to follow - just wanted to get the pictures up while I was thinking about it.

Stitch Markers

2005-12-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm bummed. I actually have a chance to knit, and I left the next ball of yarn at home. So. No more knitting. But I am one third of the way done, so that's cool. (Of course, I want to start another project - and I was really counting on using this afternoon to catch up on this one. Bah.)

So this pattern has a repeat of 12 stitches, and I'm using stitch markers after each repeat, because I can just about manage to count to 12, but 72? No, probably not. But there are three rows where the repeat is shifted, and there's a sl-k2tog-psso at the end so I can't just mentally shift the repeat over a bit. So whenever I'm moving the counter back and forth (because otherwise it would get buried in the k2tog) I get annoyed, and I think, why am I using stitch counters? It's wasting so much time! But then I remember, oh yeah, doing this little manouver three out of twenty rows takes way, way less time than ripping back every time I mess up.

So it's worth it. (But, see, I'm not making any drastic mistakes, because I'm using the markers, so I think, well, I don't make drastic mistakes, what do I need these silly markers for?) So I need to keep reminding myself.

Self? You need markers. Continue to use them. Thanks.

Home Again

2005-11-30T17:51:00.000-05:00

Well, back from Texas mostly in one piece. I'm about a third of the way done with the shawl - well, it will be a third once I finish this ball of yarn. So, ok, more like a quarter. It's a little panic-inducing with how crazy it's gotten at work, but I will definitely be able to finish it, if not anything else, for Christmas.

The lace wristlets are almost done. I need to finish them tonight since I think my husband will be seeing the person they're for tomorrow. And it would be nice to get them out of the way.

And I really want to finish my hat. But who has time for that?

The diamond lace is pretty easy. It's taken me up to this repeat to really *get* it, but I think I do now. I only have to glance at the pattern, and I think one or two more repeats and I won't even need that. There's one spot where I messed up the center of a diamond pretty badly, but I think once it's blocked, you won't be able to tell. (I guess not that badly, then. But it irks me, since I worked really really hard to fix it, and you can still tell where it is.)

So, here is my Christmas gift to you, Internet - a quick, handknit present for the random giftees in your life. Get one of those cardboard coffee cup insulator thingies from your local coffee shop. Knit a tube about that size - you can make it a little bigger than the narrow end and not bother with shaping. Enclose a gift card from said coffee shop. Hey, it's what all the people I can't think what to get are getting this year - quick, easy, uses up scrap yarn, and slightly more thoughtful than "just" a gift card. (What, some people don't drink coffee? Um, ok, you can make a bookmark to give with a book gift card? A cellphone cozy with a prepaid minutes card? Oh, the possibilities, they make my head swim.)

And that reminds me, I promised my husband I would knit him a camera cozy for our spiffy new digital camera (early Christmas present from the in-laws, whoohoo!) I wonder what color it would like?

Casting on

2005-11-18T13:59:00.000-05:00

Houston, we have cast-on! (Sorry, got carried away there.)

Anyway. I went last night to get some bamboo needles, since everyone said either those or the Denise interchangables were what I wanted for lace, and as much as I want the Denise, I didn't have $50 to drop for this particular project. Plus I'm hoping I get them for Christmas. Anyway - I was shocked - SHOCKED, I tell you - to find that my LYS only carried one brand of bamboo circulars in a US 7. So I got the Clovers. And I ordered Stahman's Shawls and Scarves which I probably shouldn't have, but, well, too late now.

But back to the needles - I am way spoiled by the Addi Turbos. Swatching with the bamboo was really, really weird. I'm not crazy about the chopsticky feel of them, although I have gotten used to how light they are. Something about the ridges bugs me. I'm sure I'll get over it. I'm not sure about the points, though - it's like knitting with nubbins. I never thought Addis were particularly pointy, but these - these are crazy dull. I'm hoping I didn't make a mistake here. Need points! (I wonder if they have Hobby Lobby in Austin? Perhaps I could take a trip with my mother-in-law. I should check if they carry Crystal Palace first, I guess.)

And I wish I'd get over that "longer is better" thing. (No snickering, please.) I'm dealing with an annoying, tangly 36" cord, and I would have been JUST FINE had I gotten the 24". What is wrong with me? I'm going to try dunking the cord in hot water, see if that helps.

I thought about modifying the pattern to use seed-stitch borders instead of garter. I'm glad I swatched. The seed stitch in this yarn at this gauge looks awful. And the garter is super soft and cushy. So. Garter it is, then. I'm halfway through the first border - only 68" to go!

Have I mentioned how much I love this yarn? All right, it's kind of mushy (ok, very mushy), and I tend to like a crispier yarn, but, oooooh. It's like knitting a kitten. Or a pussywillow. Or knitting a kitten made out of pussywillows. Something wonderfully tactile, at any rate. It's got a sort of mohairy halo to it, but isn't at all scratchy. Alpaca is my new best friend.

And thumbs up to KnitPicks customer service too. I don't know why they didn't just put the tracking info on my "we shipped it!" confirmation, but they were very nice about it when I called for the info. Order came on time, in good condition, everything present and accounted for. (UPS is absolutely convinced that my house is somewhere it really isn't, so they always "correct" it and I have to track it down and get them to put it back the way it was. So it's good to know when to call them and make a fuss.)

So hopefully I'll finish one lace repeat tonight, and then... tomorrow, the PLANE!

Yarn, Yay!

2005-11-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

Today I got my nine balls of this:

The color is actually pretty close, I think - it's maybe just a touch darker in the picture than in person.

Anyway. It's KnitPicks Andean Treasure 100% alpaca and it is so soft. I just want to pet it and pet it and pet it. And I can tell it's going to be warm. I have a good feeling about this.

(Why nine balls and not ten? I'm not going to do the fringe, that's why.)

I finished charting the pattern out. As soon as I stop being lazy, I'm going to contact the designer and ask if it's ok to post the chart. Or I'll send it to her and she can post it, whatever. But charted, it looks much less indimidating than written out. How did I survive so long without charts?

(By they way, if you want to make your own charts, this font is a handy thing to have.)

But. I MUST finish the gloves before I start this. I don't need to sleep, do I?

(Also, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month, which really cuts into the knitting time. But I found out - although I still have to verify it - that LuLu.com is going to provide a free book to anyone who wins, so now I have even more motivation to finish. Whoo!)

Point of No Return

2005-11-14T09:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it. I CHOSE A PATTERN and BOUGHT SOME YARN. See? See why stashing is so very useless? Anyway. The pattern is this one (PDF) (from the Woman of Many Faces - she has other neat patterns, go look) and I'm going to be using KnitPicks Andean Treasure in Peach. I am very glad I took the KnitList advice and shelled out for the color cards, for two reasons - one, I never would have chosen Peach because I have an irrational prejudice against that color name but seeing it on the card, I had to admit it's the exact color I needed, and two, I discovered that the Alpaca Cloud "Tidepool", which is just ok on the screen, is absolutely georgous in person. I covet it. Not that I'm a shawl wearer, so, you know, nevermind. I'll just have to be content keeping it at KnitPicks and petting my sample card now and then.
I finished the purse for Jo - and I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE! Argh. It came out really cute. Ed dubbed him "Percy" and I think the name has stuck. My mom did the lining for me, because my sewing skills are nonexistant. Still, I figured out how to attach the eyes, so I think I should get some credit for that. And the whole thing cost me $5. (Free ball of Bernat Disco, $2.50 purse handle, $2 remnant lining, $.33 eyes, felt and dowel "borrowed" from mom.) Anyway, I'll see if she'll send me a picture.
Started the second glove, about halfway done with the ribbing. I may wind up making three. We'll see. (Because I'm not 100% happy with the first one, and now I know what I want to change...) At the same time - I want to finish the shawl for Christmas. So the gloves, I think, will have to do. They do look good, but, you know, I can't leave well enough alone. May wind up making another "improved" pair for the cousin I drew in the family secret santa thing, I think she'd like them, but I know she's lost a ton of weight so have no idea what size they should be. Hm...
And I needed some sleepy/car knitting, so I cast on Tychus in the recycled silk. I didn't bother swatching, because I suck. No, wait, because I was pretty sure I had the gauge figured out from my previous experiments with the yarn. Anyway, I like it so far - almost 1/2 done. And it's going to be too big, but that's ok, I think - since I'm doing it in "one" color (well, so many colors they count as one, right?) it'll look equally good with the brim turned way up, and it should be very warm. And I think it'll take two balls, if anyone else wants to try. Then I'm going to make matching wristwarmers. You know, in my ample spare time. Ha!
I'm still in two minds about the silk - it's *so pretty* in the sunlight, or under a magnifying glass - but actual things made of it, meh. So I'm making my hat and will probably wear it, but it looks more like a raggy hippy-chic thing than an elegant silk hat. I'm working on "if it makes me happy (which it does) then I'll damned well wear it", but sometimes I lack the confidence to pull that sort of thing off.

My Stash

2005-11-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

Hello, my name is Katie and I am a fiberholic. (Hello, Katie.) I have come to the realization that fiber craft and fiber acquisition are two completely unrelated hobbies, and that I can support one or the other, but not both.

What's in my stash? A lot of junk, honestly. I have about a dozen skeins of acrylic inherited from my mother, now passed on to my husband who believes that if you learn on crappy tools, you become a better craftsman. (I disagree, but hey, it got the acrylic off my tally sheet, so I don't disagree too loudly.) I have the odds and ends from completed projects, waiting for me to find that website on moth-hole repair. I have some tangled masses that used to be sweaters but were reclaimed before I had the use of a ball winder or the brains to realize that it made more sense to frog the sweaters as I needed them, not all at once. Which means I also have a stack of sweaters that count as stash, but at least are stored nicely. I have a few skeins of this and that, pretty fuzzy stuff that I bought before I insisted on project-oriented purchases. (And before "Knitting Without Tears" ruined me for anything that isn't wool.) And then I have the skeins of nice stuff which should be projects, but were abandoned for one reason or another, usually involving a short attention span. Oh, and don't forget the enormous piles of "bargains", including the kilo of recycled silk accidentally bought off eBay. Nice stuff, but when am I going to get to use it?

So, I have stash that clutters and complicates my life. (Where should I put it? Where did I put it? How can I protect it?) And I have knitting, which clears my mind and inspires positive thoughts and actions. I know what I need to do, and yet those soft balls of fluff ceaselessly sing their siren call, bypassing my will and heading directly for my inner greed and basest desires.

To remedy this, a new worldview: I Own All The Yarn. I just keep it at the yarn shop, because my house isn't that big. And when I really, really NEED (as opposed to really, really WANT) some yarn, then I can go to the yarn shop (local or otherwise, for I have many locations in which to store my stash) and pay the nice people there to get it out of storage for me. There is no reason to take it away from its friends and family prematurely; the yarn can enjoy its time at the shop and I will trust it to be there when I need it. Will it work? Only time can tell.

(This entry was written for and submitted to The Carnival Of Knitting.)

Bad Cat!

2005-11-10T13:46:00.000-05:00

You know how all knitting blogs eventually talk about their cat? Well, here you go.

Last night I had almost finished the first glove. There was a small child emergency, so we had to go upstairs and take a bath with one edging lace repeat left to go. Child put to bed, I come back downstairs to find... a ball of wool, no knitting attached.

?

Then I go into the kitchen, where I find... a size 0 circular needle, no knitting attached. Now I'm really worried.

Finally, I go down into the basement, where I find half a glove and a long tangle of yarn.

ARRRRRGH!

We were very close to having one less cat. The only thing that saved their furry little lives is that I don't know which one did it, and two of the three were acting totally squirrily. Probably one bit off the wool and the other dragged it around the house. Bad, bad cats.

Um, I mean, yay! I get to knit more without having to pay more for wool! Yippee!

(Well, I thought it was worth a try.)

Progress?

2005-11-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't given up on designing the gloves. Let's call it a "strategic retreat". If I spent any more time on them, I wouldn't be able to finish any other Christmas knitting. Luckily in the 2006 pattern-a-day calendar, there's a pattern for "lace wristers" that work nicely. I just did more lace repeats and a provisional cast on so I could do a picot bind off at the wrist. Although I seem to recall that it's possible to do a picot cast-on, but, hey, one thing at a time.

I'm glad I went with the pattern. It's taught me some important things about lace. The biggest, most important one of all...

I learned to read charts!

Whoo!

I can't believe how much easier it is than reading written patterns. I don't understand why. But I didn't make any mistakes after I started working from the charts, AND I got way faster. (I was finishing my pattern rows in less time than it took to do the purl rows. Granted, I purl slowly, but still.)

So, I'm really, really happy that I finally got that sorted out, and now I'm ready to try bigger and more complicated projects. It really helped that everything was written and charted - that way, I could go back and forth to double-check that what I thought I was supposed to do was what I was really supposed to do. I guess that's the best way to learn, really - if I had a dollar for every "how to read charts" article I've read, I'd be able to buy a new house to stash my stash in.

Anyway. Yay. Just have to finish the edging and sew up the first glove, then do the second. Should be no problem.

Next up: A lacy stole/shawl/wrap/thing for a friend. I ordered some color cards from Knitpicks, and I really hope they get here in time for me to order the yarn and have it delivered before we leave for Texas. Must have plane knitting!

GRR Gloves!

2005-11-07T11:15:00.000-05:00

I've decided these gloves are seriously cursed. It's like I've lost the ability to count to 36. I spent the entire weekend not succeeding in getting anything done on them. On Saturday, I cast on and ripped out - no joke - FOURTEEN successive times. (The first, oh, 8 or so were because I was stupidly casting on a number divisible by 8 instead of 6.) When I did finally get it right - on my third try on Sunday - I found that after switching needle size, I had the wrong number of repeats. So. Here I am on Monday, casting on again...

Plus, did I mention how Baby Ull and I are not pals? Size 1 needles are so not my style, either. At least I haven't sat on them, yet.

I realized an interesting thing the other day - I always knit with circulars, but I couldn't tell you the last time I actually knit the way you're "supposed to" with them. Everything's either straight, double-knit, or magic loop. Mostly economy - I can't afford to buy needles in every length, so I don't. But I seem to recall that just regular knitting in the round is fun and relaxing, so maybe I should start a project that fits the needles I have...

And I'm working on figuring out a shawl/wrap/thing for my friend. I've asked the good folks on KnitTalk for help. I've never done lace before, really. I mean, I made all those afghans whenever it was, but that was just openwork on big needles, I don't think it counts. I like the idea of a shetland shawl, but it may be too advanced for me.

Then again, one thing I've found with crafting in general, and knitting in particular, is that nothing's too hard - you just have to follow the directions very, very carefully. And swatch like a madwoman. Whatever I decide to do with this shawl, I'm going to make a dolly-sized one first with cheap yarn so I know what I'm doing by the time I get to the nice stuff. Plus, it'll give me something to do while I'm waiting, because we all know I just don't have nearly enough projects to keep me busy. Ha!

Ugh ugh UGH!

2005-11-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

Baby Ull and I are not friends. How can something be so small and yet so very, very splitty?

I'm sure it's me, but man. This stinks. AND I messed up converting my lace pattern to the round, so these gloves are getting frogged again. I think they're going to be back-burnered for the moment. After knitting that scarf, my eyes are begging for some color. Which is weird - I've always been a neutrals sort of person. But the black lace gloves are driving me to despair. (When I get the pattern right, I'm naming them the "So Goth it Hurts" gloves.)

At any rate, I'm going to frog that sweater and start on Jo's birthday present instead. It turns out I'm seeing her next weekend, not this one, so that should be enough time to a) make something up and b) knit it. Right?

FO! (Cabled Scarf)

2005-11-03T06:52:00.000-05:00

So, this is the yarn I was talking about. The eight unballed skeins, anyway. I've decided that it just doesn't photograph well. When I was looking for patterns, everything looked really ugly, but when I actually started knitting with it, it was a very "ah-hah!" moment. It really does look beautiful in person.

Aaaaaand... The Scarf! All done (well, in this picture I hadn't woven in ends or washed yet, but now those things are done and it's upstairs drying). I'm mostly happy with the way it came out, but apparently I need to learn how to Kitchener right - the seam is visible. The ribbing messed me up. Well, let's be honest, I didn't take the time to figure out what I was doing wrong and fix it. But I think it's unnoticable enough to a non-knitter, so I'm not redoing it.

(The texture doesn't really show up well in the thumbnail, so if you're really curious, click for the bigger version. It's still kind of hard to see, being black and all, but I think the recipient will really like the subtleness of it all.)

Scarf and things

2005-11-02T09:29:00.000-05:00

Well, it's just not in the cards for me to join a knitting group, I think. I did get an email from the Del Ray Knitters - their group met last night - and I did go up there. But once I got there, I realized - no, I don't really want to sit around with a bunch of strangers and knit in uncomfortable chairs. So I went home. Unfortunately, to cover for my embarassing retreat, I spent the last three dollars of my gift certificate on the absolute foulest concoction ever dreamt of by man or beast. (They advertise it as "chai", but that seems to be shorthand for "completely unlike chai in any way".) Bleah. I poured it down the drain, it was so bad, and I'm someone who will go to nearly any length to avoid wasting food. But it was that undrinkable.

Shoulda stuck with the coffee.

At any rate, I got very little done. I mean, I'm almost done with the scarf (wish I'd remembered to take a picture, I'm really happy with it.) I should finish it today or tomorrow. And I didn't have time to figure out the pattern for the gloves (although I dreamed about them all last night) so I didn't want to take them, so I gave myself permission to play with the Recycled Silk.

Now, night before last I was having some serious insomnia issues, so I balled up a couple of skeins of the silk. The first was way overtwisted, although only a couple of spots were so thin that I'll probably have to cut them. The second skein was mostly a good tension (or whatever you call it) with a few really loose unspun parts and one perplexing knot (I untied it, and it wasn't two pieces of yarn - just a random, but obviously hand-tied, knot.) The second skein was also very tangled, and took me over half an hour to ball, which was a bummer, but the colors... reds and pinks and purples and gold and really quite beautiful. I didn't notice a lot of foreign matter in either ball - a couple bits of hay and one small piece of plastic, but nothing like some folks have talked about.

So I pulled that out last night. Started a bag. Didn't like the way it looked. Frogged. Started doing it differently - liked that less. Frogged. Decided to try an openwork fingerless glove - miscalculated gauge and wound up with a few inches of something that fit in the wrist but ballooned to Godzilla-sized when it got to the openwork part. So. Frogged. Which means I knit for two and a bit hours with nothing to show for it except slightly more frayed yarn. Ah well. I learned, right? I'm going to change the openwork I did and go with the gloves on this ball. And do them in the proper gauge.

And then I'll still have 900g left over! Joy!

Memo to self: ask mom about scarf. Because it would be a really good idea to knit her a scarf for Christmas and a matching hat for her birthday. More cables!

2005-11-01T04:39:00.000-05:00

Cutest thing you've ever seen? I thought so. The hood is done with Cascade220 held together with Fizz, done in short rows, with ribbing in the back to hold it in. (I should have made it a little longer in the back, but oh well, we live and learn. The ears are double-knit - the Cascade 220 on the inside, Fizz on the outside. The cuffs are the same, with a just-Fizz ruffle around the hands, and the tail has a Fizz tuft. Mom made the suit out of fleece.

The very first thing I knit without a pattern! (Scarves and bags don't count.)

Happy Halloween!

2005-10-31T11:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I'll wait until I have the pictures from yesterday to post the Halloween costume, but it came out really, really good. I'm exceptionally happy with it, especially since I did all my parts without a pattern. (Mom made the suit from a Simplicity sleeper pattern. I can't sew. But I did the tail and collar, and all the knitted bits.)

I need to photo the scarf, too. I've got it half done - actually more than half done, because I wanted 7" of ribbing on each side, and the one I was working was 5", and then I knitted for "just one more row" and suddenly it was 8". Ribbing - much faster than cabling.

Oh, and I learned a very exciting thing - it's called a "Norwegian purl" (.pdf from Interweave) - I'd never heard of it, but you hold the yarn in back and do a fancy little twisty thing and get a purl. I haven't decided if I'm going to replace my normal purling with it or not, but I'm practicing now - even if I decide it's not faster than regular purling, it'll be a good thing to know, like holding the yarn in your right hand so you can knit two colors at once.

Also learned to knit while walking. Did the cables and everything, so that was cool. It's really easier than I thought it would be - I knit at about half speed, but it is getting knitting and exercise done at the same time, so hey, I win. Plus it showed me that I can knit without looking, so I tried it in the car and hey, no carsickness! Now I'm actually looking forward to taking the plane to TX. (The motion sickness has gotten so bad that I have to wait until the Metro stops to look at the system map. Seriously, it's out of control.)

Next design idea: I want to knit a kimono style jacket. There's a pattern knit in a horrible yarn that costs an insane amount - and the only way to get this particular pattern is "free" with purchase of the yarn for the project. No pattern's worth $175, so I'm going to reverse-engineer the damned thing. And as long as I'm doing that, I'm going to make it better. It occurred to me that I can make a dolly sweater as proof of concept AND Christmas present, so that's my current plan. (Last year I made a really awsome doll for my daughter, and I'd like to start a tradition of giving her something handmade to wear every year. The doll, not the kid - the doll isn't in the habit of outgrowing all her clothes every five minutes.)

Copyright!

2005-10-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

Ha-HAH! Some people on the Knitlist wanted to knit the Hexenhut pattern, but don't speak German. So I made a stab at translating it (although I realize I made at least one mistake) and sent it off. Got tagged by the Listmoms, saying it was a copyright violation. Hm. I don't want to violate anyone's copyright, so I wrote to the company and asked if it would be ok to post it. A very nice representative wrote me back and said it would be fine, so I posted my email to her, her email to me, AND my original translation. Too late for Halloween this year, but, well, there's always next...

Oh, crap?

2005-10-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

Oops. I just accidentally bought 1000 (yes, one thousand) grams of recycled sari silk off eBay. Um. How to explain this to the spouse? "Sorry, honey, I didn't think I'd win"? Well, it's the truth, even if it is horribly weak.

Um. Well. 10 skeins for the price of 2 (including shipping) - not so bad. No idea what I'm going to make from them. Perhaps small bags? I saw a kit on one website that was little bags with those tiny Indian bells on them - that'd be cute. I'd have bought the pattern if they sold it separately, but I'm certainly not buying more of this yarn just to get the pattern. It doesn't look complicated, I'm sure I can make up something equivalent.

(On the plus side - the whole reason I was on eBay at all was because I found a pattern I wanted for $0.79, and dude, you just can't beat that. Well, $2.50 after shipping. Still. I am a little worried that I'll get a photocopied or stolen pattern, but I guess that's the chance you take...)

Argh, too many inspirations!

2005-10-27T10:22:00.000-04:00

So, I'm knitting the Good Ole Cabled Scarf and it's going swimmingly. Only one mistake so far, and it taught me what the cables should look like after every row, so now I don't have any worries. (My very first attempt at cables. It really is easy! I had the pattern memorized after a couple of repeats.) Plus, I love this yarn. It was a $4 black Aran sweater from Goodwill with a big snag in the front, but now it's several balls of soft, warm, yummy wool. Joy!

A friend is having her second child. I want to make the new baby a baby blanket, but I thought it would be nice to make a "big sister blanket" for the current kid. Great idea - but it stops there. What would make a blanket say "big sister"? I have a couple of thoughts, but nothing solid enough to cast on yet. Obviously I'm going to do it in her favorite colors, and I was thinking about a few different intricate patterns, but... well, backburner that for now, I guess.

And I'm in the middle of designing a lacy pair of fingerless mitts for a friend - I'm really, really excited about them! But I have to finish this scarf! Argh! I need an extra 12 hours a day that nobody else gets.

Welll, maybe next time...

2005-10-26T08:47:00.000-04:00

So I thought I'd try joining a knitting group. It's hot, it's hip, I might meet some interesting, fun people, right?

I found a group that meets at St. Elmo's on Tuesdays, which is perfect. I email to see which Tuesdays they meet, and don't get any sort of reply. Oh well, it's rainy and cold, a perfect night to walk up and get a cup of coffee! Head on up, and there's two groups of knitters working away, so I go in, buy my coffee, and introduce myself to one of the groups.

No, they're not the Del Ray Knitters. They don't know who they are. They're The Knitting Group, and while I could sit down with them, wouldn't I feel much more comfortable introducing myself to the group on the other side of the shop? Really? And, you know, quicklike, we're trying to knit here and don't appreciate the interruption. Oh. Ok. Who's that other group? We don't know, we've both been coming here for months but haven't said hi. I was astonished, and said something about that being strange, which elicited the best line - "not like we're that kind of people" - yes! Yes you ARE "that kind of people", because the kind of person who would introduce themselves to a group that meets in the same place at the same time to celebrate the same hobby as you would have done it by now. Sheesh.

Right, then. I don't need any more high-school cliquery in my life - and seeing as how the other group had colonized the sofas and made sure to fill up the one available space uninvitingly with their coats and such, and I couldn't even get them to look up to introduce myself - I high-tailed it out of there and headed for home, where I finished the Halloween costume for the sprout and deconstructed a sweater to repurpose as Jimbo's cabled scarf. Sure I'd like to meet people who share an interest with me, but in Yuppidelphia, finding people who aren't crazy snobby jerks is hard, and really, I can meet crazy snobby jerks anywhere, I don't need to go out of my way to knit with them once a week.