Further Adventures of the Secret Yarninator

I know (hangs head)

2011-06-29T08:52:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but I had an excuse — I had to get over The Need to Frog. You know how that can go. Sometimes you need a deep breath and a big drink to get over it.

See, you'd think I was doing really well on my Joanie sweater, and so did I. I swear, I did try it on as I went, and it seemed okay.

Until I started the sleeve... and realized I had knit a straitjacket.
Excuse the dreadfully unflattering photo. It was early morning. The key here is, I can't lift my arm any further than I'm lifting it.

The problem is that the yoke is just too deep:
Going by the photos in the pattern, the ribbing should stop just before the peak of the bust, but on me it starts at the end of the bust. Now, some of this is because of the fact the buttons aren't on so it's hanging slightly lower than it normally would, but not 4" of it.

I need to rip back the whole body and about 2-3" of the ribbing, and make the yoke the length indicated for size medium. This should not be a surprise to me, since I am short and stocky, but I just didn't realize the yoke was too long until I had armholes as reference. In my defense, I have never knit a yoked sweater before.

Well, as you can imagine... I started knitting something else immediately!

Progress on self-indulgence

2011-06-11T19:20:00.001-07:00

A while back, I realized it was kind of annoying to have to pull on well-worn, slightly-stiff sweatshirts when I wanted a layer of warm around the house and, for whatever reason, wanted a pullover instead of a cardigan. I normally choose a cardigan because I don't like to feel things against my throat, but sometimes I just want that pullover warmth, and loose-necked old sweatshirts has been my only option for a while now.

An excellent excuse to knit myself something.

I've planned two pullovers. One's for winter and will be wool; one, for transitional seasons and cool summer evenings, will be a cotton/silk/nylon blend. Specifically, the latter will be Joanie, a recent Knitty favorite, in Classic Elite Classic Silk in a gorgeous cranberry color which is of course impossible to reproduce in a photo despite some fiddling in iPhoto:

Not only can I not show you the color properly, I can't share with you the absolute yumminess of this yarn. Knit into ribs for the collar, it's cushy and irresistible. I've actually already washed and blocked the upper part of the pullover (to check length), so I can tell you that the ribs hold up and it's beyond squishy. I can't wait to be done. It'll be hard to take off.

My health's been getting me down a bit lately, so it's nice to have something positive going on.

Cute but irritating / cute and fun

2011-05-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Knitted toys can go either way. I knitted up a couple stuffed animals for my tiny friend Zoe the other day. One was knit from a vintage pattern as published in Vintage Knits for Modern Babies [Ravelry link here],which is a darling book with lovely patterns that have various errors in them. There are no published errata, but I figured out the errors in this one relatively quickly. However, there is no denying it was a bitch to knit. Traditional knitted toys aren't really designed around the pleasure of the knitter.

It is cute though:

I am constitutionally incapable of creating a pompom. By constitutionally incapable, I mean that I begin to scream and rage after the first disastrous attempt and become physically unable to try again. I proved this yet again on this fellow, and then decided to do a sort of woven-over-stuffing tail which worked out all right, if not awesome:

But then there's the other sort of pattern. The kind your fingers itch to knit, the kind that makes knitting pure pleasure. Ysolda creates that kind of toy pattern, and I have made several hedgehogs from her darling "Smith" pattern [Ravelry link here].

I know I'll be making more, too. Crazy fun to knit, and the only sewing is the embroidery at the end. Highly recommended!

Hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Day weekend. I had a great time during the first half of it and have been basically fallen over during the last half, but I have no regrets.

Been gone so long...

2011-05-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that. I tore some ab muscle tissue in early March. Resistance to proper diagnosis on the part of my doc led to resistance to strange referrals (I didn't want invasive tests!) on my part, which led to reinjury.. it's a long story. Mostly, though, I've just been in a lot of pain, especially when sitting, and hence not using my laptop much in my spare time (and missing some work and social life, too). I'm still hurting, but having a proper diagnosis and a plan for healing is giving me a skoche of energy to update the blog.

I've missed you.

I've been doing as much knitting as I can, some of it while horizontal. I have several things to show you, but let's start with this because I am wildly in love with it.

It's Helena [Ravelry link], done in two colors of Debbie Bliss Cathay, one of my favorite yarns for knitting for babies because it's cotton/rayon/silk (and sooooo soft and silky), has a lovely sheen, and is MACHINE WASHABLE. Crazy. Anyway, knit for a friend's baby, not yet blocked.

What have you been up to? Please say you're still out there!

Try, try again

2011-02-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

You'll probably remember the vest I knit that didn't fit me. Fortunately, it fit Earin's husband Dick, but I really did want and need a vest!

I decided to try designing my own.

I dug out some cheap yarn my aunt had found in a thrift store. I measured myself. I drew pictures. I did the math (lots of triangles and geometry). And took a deep breath, and knit. I tried to trust the math. It made me nervous. I couldn't believe it would end up fitting. It just all seemed like a leap of faith.

Trust the math.

It fits! Ok, my husband says it is "okay to wear to work if you don't mind looking somewhat barrel-like". I think that's partly owing to using a heavy aran-weight yarn, thicker than I prefer. But it is comfortable, generally follows my curves (I could have made the waist smaller and I will do so next time), and keeps me warm. Plus I really love what I did with the neckline (growing the trim out of the cable).

Hurrah!

Spurred by success, I decided to tackle my demon — Fair Isle. Dunno why I'm so afraid of it — I guess mostly because I'm not comfortable yet with yarn in my right hand, and yet for the life of me can't manage to knit with both yarns in my left hand. So I picked a simple project (Ysolda's Cotton Reel Mitts) and dug out some scrap sock yarn (leftover bits of a Kaffe Fassett color extravaganza and a plain light green), and cast on. It is actually going all right...

It does seem the floats are a little odd over the needle changes but I have hopes it'll block out okay. Here's the inside, cuz I know how you knitters are...

I can tell you one thing. I'm going to run out of yarn. (Good thing it's just for practice and I don't care if the mitts match...)

I have no idea what I'm doing.

@#$(@$(#@*$(@#!!!!

2011-01-25T16:33:00.001-08:00

I mean seriously. I think I've had an error on pretty much every row of every lace section in this silly blanket. I started this in July 2009, intending it for one baby; quickly realized I wasn't going to finish it in time, so I thought, okay, it'll be for this other baby... yeah, that didn't happen either. I'm not going to curse it now by determining what baby it'll be for. Maybe it'll be for me, in my dotage, to warm my ancient bones when I turn 99 or so…

The sad thing is how tired and uneven my stitches look when they've been ripped and reknitted 85 jillion times. Hoping it gets a bit better in the blocking:

Anyway, got the dratted thing straightened out again for the umpteenth time and we'll see how it goes.

You know what I love? I love these socks:

Charade by Sandra Park. Utterly fabulous, addictive herringbone pattern (shown here sideways):

Wouldn't it make the handsomest man's scarf, too? I have managed not to make any booboos on these so far (knocking on wood now!), and I have a feeling I'll make several pairs (as I did with the lovely Conwy socks) because they're so mesmerizing and wearable. Plus a nice 64-stitch sock for my loose-knittin' fingers.

Tub saga

2011-01-17T13:07:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year all! It's been a while. I didn't knit as much over December as I might have liked. I don't really know why – I even had two weeks off of work — but I seem to have spent the time off differently than by knitting. While I was doing whatever it was I was doing, workman came and removed this:

Ok, I admit that looks pretty reasonable in that picture, but if you looked closely at the surface of the tub, you'd see the whole thing actually looked like this:

and if you stepped in it, you'd find the soft spots, and if you stepped in the wrong spot you were going to go through to the kitchen. I knew where this wrong spot was, and avoided it, but guests didn't, and I really didn't want guests raining into my kitchen over the holidays.

So the postman first delivered this:

I was quite excited, but it turned out to be cast defectively and had to be returned. Sadly, the old tub was already removed by the time we discovered this, so I was tubless for, in the end, three weeks. Fortunately we have a stall shower in our master bathroom. But I missed my baths.

It took a while, and the guests had to use our shower in the end because the tub wasn't done, but now I have this:

I'm pretty happy :-) The bathtub has a lovely, comfy sloping back and I love the little gold tiles I picked out to decorate the otherwise plain white.

I did finish this pair of socks for a friend recently:

They're Cookie's Hedera socks, done in Cookie's leftover yarn (she destashed it and I bought it). For some reason I had a lot of trouble somewhere in the middle of these, so it took me a few YEARS to finish them. Poor Pat was waiting a long time for her socks, but hurrah, they are done and fit!

I do have a couple other knitting triumphs to show you, but I'll wait for another post :-)

Oh, honestly. Sometimes…

2010-11-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes none of your projects are working. All at the same time.

This one — well, I lost the notes for the first sock, and I didn't follow the pattern at all, so I've had to re-engineer sock #1 (knit 4 years ago) as I go. And I'm lazy.

This one looks done, but actually I knit two different lengths so I could find out which one fit the recipient. Alas, the one with the lifeline is the one that fits. So I just have to thread through some needles and rip back and lengthen the one on top. And I'm lazy.

One project I can't find at the moment.

One (unphotographed) piece is off by one stitch, and I need to figure out why.

So is this one.

One (also unphotographed) needs a whole bunch of math before I start the arms.

There's nothing actually wrong with this one, but you know how lace is -- you just can't work on it during all activities. And frankly, it'll look like a pile of purple vomit until it's done.

So. You know how it is. I cast on this:

Frankly I don't think the color combo's working that well.

One dratted skein...

2010-10-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

So as I discussed a while back, my aunt Grace picked up a skein of Filatura Di Crosa Gioiello [Ravelry link] yarn when she was in Italy, and asked me to knit her a scarf from it. There were just two problems:

1. This yarn looks like puke knitted up into anything but stockinette.
2. Knitted into stockinette, there was not enough yarn to make a scarf.

Not insurmountable, surely? Well, I tried a few different patterns, and they did, indeed, look awful. Finally I decided to chart a very simple lace pattern that would look chiefly like bands of stockinette separated by some dropped stitches. There are a number of these. What I ended up with was this:

I'm not 100% thrilled — obviously there are still problems with this yarn knitted up (too bad, it looks lovely in the skein!), but I am pretty happy with the end result. And the scarf, using all the yarn save maybe a meter, is a perfect size.

Of course I think this would have been nicer with a different yarn, but even so, I may write up the pattern in case someone else has a single crazy skein of fingering-weight yarn and needs a pattern that will work for it...

Losing track of what I've shown you and what I haven't!

2010-10-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

I think that means I've been doing a lot of knitting.

Anywhere, here are a couple of recent triumphs:

Judy Alexander's Bavarian Tulip Mittens from the most recent (Fall 2010) Interweave Knits. I accidentally knit the top in stockinette instead of reverse stockinette, but I think I like it better this way -- the tops match the thumbs -- so there. This is in one hank of Sundara Worsted Merino (Blue-Green over Yellow). It's a perfect application of the Sundara yarn, so if you have a single skein of it in your stash, you might think about these lovely mittens!

These are for my friend Becca. I hope they come close to fitting... I haven't seen her in years!

My friend Sandra has been begging me for a pair of fingerless mitts for several years now. I don't know why, but having someone ask me for something makes me slower about making it. Which is really stupid. I basically improvised this pattern, including charting the simple braided cable, and it took me less than 24 hours to knit from Elsebeth Lavold Chunky AL (leftover from Rob's pullover). Hopefully these will fit — she has tiny hands. These are wet and blocking:

Should dry fast, we have a Santa Ana rolling in. Hot desert wind.

I've got more sinus surgery on Monday, and will be home for a couple of weeks. That'll slow knitting down at first, then probably speed it up, for a while.

Time to cut my losses?

2010-10-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've been surveying some of my unfinished projects and one of them is this Mariner tunic, which I started way back when I first learned to knit, in 2006:

This sat around for a long, long time because I couldn't remember whether I'd used long-tail cast-on or Twisted German cast-on (which effectively adds a row), and I wanted the front and back to match.

I took it out to look at the other day and realized I have another problem now: this thing is not going to fit. For one thing I'm a slightly different size since I first started knitting it. It is coming out about 46" (well, the front is coming out about 23"). You've seen the vest I recently knit, which was 45" and just doesn't fit me. This is not going to fit either.

I'm rather tempted to frog it and start over. Or leaving the front intact while I knit another one, so I can actually see the difference in sizes before I have a happy little frogging session.

There's the secondary problem that this color is just a little too bright for my tastes. When I first started knitting, as is true for many of us, I was horrified at the cost of yarn, so I was buying yarn on eBay a lot. I was buying the exact same yarn each pattern called for, except that I generally bought whatever color was cheapest. I like magenta, but this is a very bright, crayon magenta.

Still, I think I'd wear it if it fit. But I think I need to knit the next size down.

Hrm.

The biggest problem may be the lack of desire to knit this project at all, right now.

Yeah, baby!

2010-09-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

Of course, the cat has to help. Or is she claiming this for her own?

Details:

This is for the two-year-old daughter of a friend. I'm pretty pleased with it, even though either I or the pattern made a mistake and there was an even (rather than odd) # of eyelets, so I had to skip one. I also am hopelessly unable to make pompoms, so I crocheted these bobbles instead. But I like the bobbles.

I finished another thing this weekend — my "Hey, Teach!" cardi. All that was needed was for me to redo the buttonhole band, which had a little too much slack in it. I need to take some new photos of it to show you — the ones on Ravelry are pre-reknit.

Old dog...

2010-09-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

…new trick!

I learned a new seaming method this week. A pattern I was knitting called for "flat seams" and I wasn't sure what to do. I knew mattress stitch produces a bulky back seam, and this garment is for a little girl who would not appreciate such abrasion. A little googling produced several links to what is variously called 'flat seaming', 'invisible seaming', 'woven flat seam' and 'Bickford seaming'. Clicking the links here will take you to the three pages I found most useful in learning to do this kind of seaming. It creates a very small ridge on the back side of the garment:

and a near-invisible seam on the right side:

This helped me to put together a Hooded Capelet [Ravelry link] for my friend Fiona's two-year-old. It's not done blocking (pic below is pre-soak), cord isn't done and buttons aren't sewn on, but it is otherwise done:

Little Red Riding Hood here we come!

Not-fitty-ness

2010-09-16T18:31:00.001-07:00

As expected, I finished the lovely V-neck vest and blocked it, and it is a color I like, and it is much softer once washed, and drat it, it does not fit me. It doesn't even sort of fit. It just plain doesn't.

I measure myself before I knit things, and I knit with the right size and right ease, and yet often, when I'm done, things don't fit. I might need to rethink the amount of ease I want with my garments. Or maybe bust size isn't the best way to measure, for me. I'm just not sure.

In any event, if you have somewhere in the vicinity of a 45" bust (this measures 45"), like greenish-brown tweed, and would like a nice simple Australian wool vest, please let me know! I'd love to give this to someone who reads my blog. I'm very very sad I can't keep it, but there's no point.

We all know what to do when we experience a disappointment of this type, right?

Catkin Stole from the Baltic Lace kit from KnitPicks.

Samey

2010-09-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling slightly bored with my knitting lately and it's easy to see why:

Okay, I admit the baby socks are cute, but you have no idea what a misery they've been. I started them in MAY, and I have had to rip them back about 20 times for stupid errors, dropped stitches, pretty much any stupidity you can make. For such simple dratted socks they have been a pain in the rump.

But really, what stands out about all this stuff?

Stockinette, baby. Stockinette.

Well, you know I like to have a lot of things on the needles at one time. But a lot of different things. Right now, most of the active projects are stockinette. Now, it's good to have a couple of easy-peasy projects that you can work on while watching a complex movie, talking with friends, or just stressed out. But that can't be the only thing I have going.

I think I need to get something going in colorwork, or I'll forget what I learned with my first project. And I've never knitted lace with actual laceweight — only with fingering weight. I picked up the KnitPicks Baltic Lace Kit for myself a couple of weeks ago. And I should always have a pair of socks going — not baby socks.

And not dratted stockinette.

DANG this is cute.

2010-08-31T18:06:00.000-07:00

You gotta admit it. Fiona and James' new baby is going to be a very sharp-dressed boy:

I was really pleased to come up with an embroidery method for the eyes that was both simple, effective, and still child-proof:

I'm still working on chopping down the total number of in-progress projects. I think it was 16 when I first started. It's 14 now. But of course a lot of things have gotten started and finished in between there. I'm letting myself start a new project for every two I finish, except when I cheat. :-)

Progress!

2010-08-27T07:24:00.001-07:00

I'm making a little owl vest for my friend Fiona's upcoming baby. Just like last time, the baby's late and I think he's waiting for me to finish. Almost done:

I've been knitting a vest of my own, but it's miles and miles of stockinette and I'm bored silly…

…something for me to keep in mind next time. It's one of the few occasions I've made a 'product knit' (where I cared more about the end product than the knitting process) and I think it was a mistake. Worse, I think it's going to be too big. My barrel chest means my correct bust size often leads to a garment that's huge in all other areas, even if it was knit with a mere inch of ease. I need to learn to take the leap and size smaller, remembering that knitted fabric stretches. Either that or knit it larger over the bust (which is odd, I'm really not that busty) and smaller over the lower chest and waist.

It's been almost three years...

2010-08-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

I started Rob's Spartan Pullover in November, 2007. It was my first, and so far only, colorwork and it was challenging for me. I tried hard to keep my floats loose, but they tightened more than they should have. Then there was the knitting-a-total-of-six-arms thing, and the running-out-of-yarn thing. And. And.

And now it's done. Blocking:

20 seconds later:

Cats just have to help block. It's in their contract.

There were a number of lessons learned on this — for example, I still have to find a way to make my floats looser, because when I blocked, the color that is meant to punch out (the 'Dune') got pulled back, so its stitches get lost in places. There just wasn't enough give. Rob thinks once the alpaca 'blooms' and fuzzes in wear, no one will notice, and he may be right.

Another lesson is that Rob will really look better in a set-in sleeve, not a drop shoulder. Too bad I'm already 3/4 way through another drop-shoulder pullover for him :-/ But, he loves this anyway, especially how soft it is (I did say alpaca), so that's a plus.

Finally, I probably should have gone down two needle sizes rather than one on the seed-stitch trim, because it's just a little too big everywhere, and that makes a slightly wonky neckline and a flippy-uppy hem. We'll see if enough blocking + steam helps, but next time…

However. I am VERY DARNED PLEASED with this thing. It is done!

Of course I immediately cast on for a new project even though I have a dozen other things on the needles. Because that's how I roll.

Some other things recently knitted

2010-08-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the nice comments on the afghan! I haven't made a huge amount of progress in writing up the pattern yet, but I will, I promise. I'm going to knit a second one, so I'll even have a chance to test it, though that may take a little while.

I've been ill again lately and it's cut down on my posting energy, but I have actually knit a bunch of other things. Here are a couple of them:

This is another Vintage Pixie Cap [Ravelry link], made in the same yarn (different dye lot as it happens) as the one for my friend Lou's daughter. This one is sized larger, 1-2 years, and I can't remember who I made it for yet, so hopefully I'll remember soon and send it to them. I knit 99% of this in Australia but seamed it and put the button on just last week.

I also went back to poor Rob's first pullover (the Spartan Pullover, last seen in great pain). Perhaps you're wondering what happened to it. Well, I re-knit both arms, and sewed one on, and had Rob try it on, and...

The arms were still too crazy darned short.
And I was out of yarn.

I looked. And looked. And LOOKED. But I could not find any other source of the right dye lot of this yarn (Elsebeth Lavold Chunky AL in Merlot, in case you are curious). The only person on Ravelry who had it was not willing to part with any, as she'd bought the bundle of it for a sweater herself, and I don't blame her.

I wrote to various retailers to ask their dye lots. I postponed the problem. Fewer and fewer places even carried the yarn.

Finally, I realized the problem was getting worse rather than better. I ordered a single skein of wrong-dye-lot Chunky AL from a gal on Ravelry , two skeins of a different wrong dye lot from another location, and what turned out to be two of the same different wrong dye lot (did that make sense?) from yet another retailer. I figured I'd use whichever one was closest.

The single skein turned out to be closest. In a way this is good, because it means I'll have 4 of the same different dye lot left, so I can make some other project with it.

I pulled out the sleeves and started over, this time alternating knitting 5 rows from the old yarn, two from the new.

Sleevie!

Now, if you look at this closely, you can see the faint striping or 'beat pattern' of the alternate yarn:
But it's not normally so noticeable. And I think it's going to be FINE. I'm almost done with sleeve #2 (would be done but I made a booboo about 12 rows back, so I have to rip/redo) and then I will sew them in and then ROB WILL FINALLY HAVE A PULLOVER.

And it is about time.

Finished the afghan!

2010-08-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

I don't have very good photos, but I've finished the Red Heart super cheap acrylic yarn afghan I've been working on for a while now.

Here's a closeup of the pattern stitch:

I will have to take some better photos for y'all, because I really love this afghan to pieces (hopefully not literally). I'm going to write up the pattern ASAP and make it available, but be warned: it requires both knit and crochet skills. The brown sections are crocheted, the beige are knit. The really great thing about this design (she says, patting herself on the back) is that it's so easily memorized and so portable while you're making the strips, so you can take it anywhere and do it while doing other things, like watching TV or chatting with friends. Then you assemble it all with crochet, which to me is easy. And it looks perfect on my couch! Next time I'm home during the daytime I'll take some indoor shots so you can see what I mean. (Don't like beige and brown? Imagine it in blue and black! Or pink and purple! Or cream and dark green!)

Go me :-)

I think orange buttons worked out really well!

2010-06-30T21:24:00.001-07:00

Thanks all for weighing in. I know some of you preferred the silver ones, but I like the cheerful ribbon of contrast.

The random number generator has spoken...

2010-06-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

...and it has selected The Transmogrifier! Magazine will be on its way shortly.

Thanks all for offering your opinions! I couldn't show you more buttons of each type, as I'd only ordered a couple each for the decision (ordering 34 each of all these buttons would have cost a fortune :-) ). I could have zoomed out, true. But by the time I was done with the process I was pretty sure I was going with the orange buttons. They have now been ordered from Europe and are on their way to me.

The pullover is trimmed in blue, and I think the orange ring is going to make a nice contrast to it. If I really hate it, I'll go for the silver ones many of you picked as a second choice — they don't have to be ordered from as far away so I can get them quickly if needed.

Here's what the owls look like right now, buttonless:

It grew a little in the wash, and I think this'll be a little long on my friend K., but hopefully too long is better than too short. It'll get one more bath/reshaping before it travels, too. I love how yarn softens up when washed (carefully, obviously). I'll also attempt a little duplicate stitching at the back of the place where the blue trim meets the grey on the cuffs, so that if the arms are too long, K. can fold back the cuffs and have it still look all right. I'm a little worried about the underarms being tight — will just have to cross fingers on that. It's my first yoke sweater and I suppose everyone worries on their first one.

Final three buttons, and a contest!

2010-06-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

The other sample buttons arrived. Here are the final three!

What do you all think? Take a look at the buttons in both the last entry and this, and let me know what your favorite and second favorite are -- and I'll enter you in a drawing for a recent copy of Yarn Forward magazine. Not a knitter? Don't worry, I have a non-knitter's prize too. I just want your opinion!

I need the opinion fast, too -- so please respond by Tuesday the 22nd, earlier preferred.

Thanks guys!

All eyes on owls!

2010-06-17T17:03:00.001-07:00

I'm working on selecting buttons suitable to be eyes on the owls pullover I've made. This is challenging, because there isn't a huge selection of buttons in the 11mm size (+- .5 mm) that best fits these owls. Here are a few I tried this morning:

I know owl eyes are yellow, but I'm not sure I like the look of yellow or gold on this grey pullover, and at the moment I'm leaning towards the blue ones as being less "starey" than the other options. There will be a total of * 34 * eyes on this pullover! The owls aren't that big. A few more options should arrive in the mail soon, but I think they are going to be too big. Thoughts?

Welcome back, Internet! I missed you.

2010-06-13T13:45:00.001-07:00

I disappeared to Australia for a month or so, as some of you guessed (didn't announce impending absence online so as not to invite burglars, though I did have a live-in housesitter).

While there, I could check text-only email a couple times a week, and twice during the month I had 'real' access for one hour. It's not usually that bad, but the phone line at my mother-in-law's house (she lives out in a rural area) has deteriorated to the point where our old AirPort couldn't keep a connection anymore. Next time I get one of those newfangled 3G modems or some such!

(I know, for an IT professional I am a really Luddite.)

I did a lot of knitting while in the land of Oz, though. We were driving back and forth from Perth most days, a two- to three-hour round trip. I actually ran out of knitting projects and had to go shopping!

As you probably suspect, I don't hate yarn shopping. But there's an interesting problem in Australia, though — a dearth of what they call 10ply (5spi) yarn. I can find plenty of 5.5spi and plenty of 4spi, but nothing in between — yarn store folks told me that they are being phased out in Australia. There also aren't too many good yarn stores in Perth, probably because of the climate and remoteness. After an hour of burrowing, I finally found some genuine Aussie yarn with which to make a simple vest from a pattern I'd brought. I'm nearly done with the back:

It's a greeny-brown, but a little warmer tone than I normally prefer. But there was very little choice, and I'll actually get some wear out of this. So that is okay.

I struggled all month with a hat I'm working on for my friend Paola. Several failures were dismissed. When I got home, I found the Cossack Hat pattern in Folk Hats and thought it might work well for Paola. I wanted to use the same great purple yarn that I used for Ronise's hat, but it had nowhere near the gauge (this is a superbulky pattern). I tried stranding it with some silver yarn I had; no dice. I tried adding a second strand of purple; still too small. Finally, in a stroke of inspiration I added a strand of Alyson's handspun blue that I used to trim my friend K's owl pullover. Success!

I'm using non-boucle yarn, so the effect I'm getting is more of a "tall pillbox" than a fur hat — which is exactly what I'd hoped. This is blurry, but shows the colors more accurately.

I knit a few other things this month — I'll show you more as the week goes on.

Still here and still knitting!

2010-05-21T02:11:00.001-07:00

For various reasons, I won't have reliable Internet access until June 6 or 7, but I am still knitting. I finished a hat and a pullover, both for friends — sadly I have no photos to show you yet — and started a matinee jacket for another friend's new baby. This is all there is of it so far:

That color's wrong, it's actually a lovely magenta, but hey... I'm distracted anyway.

Sometimes the magic works...

2010-05-01T08:16:00.001-07:00

...and sometimes you still need to frog.

I definitely get a tighter gauge when I knit in the round. That shouldn't be surprising, most people do, but for a long time my gauge in the round was the same as my gauge on the flat — over time and with more knitting practice, it changed. So I knew this, but I still swatched on the flat for this sweater I'm making, and then kept trying to convince myself that 4 spi was going to block out to 3.25 spi.

Finally came to my senses. Frog pond!

Yep, I'm knitting it right off the old one!

I do realized I've started and not finished a number of other sweaters, and really shouldn't start another. But this is a special one, for a friend who treasures crafts and has never had anything knit for her. She has also had a rough spring with harsh medical treatment, and could use a hug. Since I can't be there to hug her, I am going to send an owl pullover to hug her for me.

Yep, knitting o w l s! (I haven't gotten to the actual owls yet though.) And yes, those are wooden needles you see there. I don't like wood needles, but when you desperately need a 24" in US 10.5 and the only store open only has Clover... well, you buy 'em. I'll live.

Frogging isn't all bad. Sometimes when you frog, you get ideas. The grey yarn will suit the owls (and my friend) well, but it needed a little spicing up. And I had this lovely skein of Alyson's handspun, all merino and starfire, staring up at me. It's fingering weight, but doubled it works perfectly in this bulky-weight design. I'm using it to tip the waist, wrists and collar.

While all this was going on, I discovered that instead of buying the number of meters of yarn the pattern called for, I'd bought enough yards. Which, you know, is NOT enough meters. Oops. Even though I'd bought the yarn just a week ago at Webs, it was on sale and of course is gone now. I tried a couple online sellers and no luck, but then, someone on Ravelry had one ball of the right dye lot and wanted to sell it! She promised to post it tomorrow. So I am saved, yay. Ravelry rocks. (Try saying that ten times fast, though. Not so easy!)

Finished a hat for James!

2010-04-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

I'm really backed up on requested hats and things for people that aren't or haven't been well. One is a hat for my friend James in Melbourne. He wanted a warm hat to wear to the footie in winter. I needed to finish it before seeing him in a month. It is done!

I kinda like the tweed! I will write the pattern up (with a few mods) for an average-sized head (this is extra-large) at some point. Meanwhile my Ravelry project has the basic recipe if you want to mess around.

I got Ronise's permission to post a photo of her in the chemo cap. It suits her *much* better than it suited me:

Another chemo cap for my friend Paola is in process. This one will be a bit more challenging... wish me luck!

Louise's baby is due in less than two weeks.

2010-04-21T21:12:00.001-07:00

The YoYo was shutting down her Etsy store owing to having too little time (baby and all). So I ordered four skeins of sock yarn from her:

She was generous enough to include two mini-skeins of sock yarn, and a pattern for baby socks. I knit the orange socks above from one of these:

Color's not quite right on that — the ball on the right is more subtle green.

She also sent some gorgeous stitch markers:

Alyson is always awesome. I'm sorry to see her Etsy shop go, because she's a talented color-dancer, but I'm sure she's talented at raising Wynnie too!

Simple baby knitting

2010-04-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a little simple knitting is very good for the soul. This little cap, the Vintage Pixie Cap from Hadley Fierlinger's "Vintage Knits for Modern Babies," took less than a skein of Debbie Bliss Cathay (cotton, viscose and silk — machine washable!) and one darling button and it was very satisfying.

I seem to be working on a lot of different things at the moment. Knits for two babies, hats for two adults, the afghan. Meantime all the unfinished projects jeer at me from across the room. I put some of them in the garage just so they'd shut up.

DUDE! The blocking worked!!

2010-04-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, it really worked miraculously this time. Except you can't tell it from the photographs because I am lousy at before and after photos. The before ones look better!

Before:

Taken late at night (hence the glasses), just before I dunked this thing in wool soak and stretched it over a bowl, then went to bed.

What you can't see in this photo: The hat is squeezing my head like a vise. My smile in the bathroom mirror is a CHEERFUL LIE.

After:

Let's avoid talking about my incredibly dorky expression at the moment. I have one of those face-detector timers on my camera and I was posing around, trying to figure out where the camera was pointed, when it surprised me by taking this. But I also look ten pounds heavier AND the hat looks SMALLER.

But it is not. It's quite comfortable and soft now, and much larger (actually a little large for me, which is what it should be, as Ronise's head is bigger than mine). I hope it will fit her, but if it doesn't, I can block it out even larger. Blocking is magic.

However, I have said for many, many years that cloches do not suit me, and I stand by that assessment. (I realize you may be swayed by my incredible personal magnetism ;-) and try to tell me that this looks just fine, but I will know.) Fortunately, cloches suit Ms. Ronise to a T!

There is no substitute

2010-04-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

Actually there often is, but you have to be a little careful.

For example, Manos del Uruguay is not the same thing as Malabrigo. I think I could be forgiven for assuming they were similar. They're both aran-weight wool. They are both from Uruguay.

But Malabrigo is Merino, and Manos is a mix of Merino and Corriedale. Corriedale is a firmer, less soft yarn, and it wears better. But it also — I know this from knitting a beret out of it a while back — isn't as compressible. It's stiffer and kind of fiber-y.

Another hint is that the yardage isn't the same. Malabrigo has 210 yards in 100 grams and Manos has 138 yards.

Well, I didn't take these hints. I thought "Uruguayan wool, aran weight, both can be knit at 4.5 spi" and tried to knit Mary Keenan's Not-Just-For-Chemo Reversible Cloch e with some lovely Manos del Uruguay I had.

And worse, with the wrong kind of needles. I used US #3s for the brim, but I needed size US #4 dpns once I got past the linen stitch, and I had very short Inox ones or long Comfort Zones. Comfort Zones are great needles, don't get me wrong. But they are not a good choice for fibery wool when you are trying to knit at a gauge considerably firmer than that for which the wool was designed. They catch the yarn constantly on their tips, they make a horrible scratchy sensation every time I go through a stitch, and they got very bent, because I was trying to make them force the yarn into submission.

Anyway, this was a hard knit. Worse, I screwed up the brim several times and had to start over. But I promised Ronise a chemo cloche from this yarn and so I was damned if I was going to give up!

It's actually getting close to done now, and there is just one problem — it's coming out too small. I am hoping to hell I can block it out to fit her, because I am just NOT going to knit this again. Very, very cute pattern. Linen stitch brim: big pain in the butt.

Buttons, crochet and music

2010-03-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

I've been strangely monogamous to my afghan project, which is not what was meant to happen. This was meant to be a project I take out when I'm worn out from more complicated projects, or when I have friends over and can't concentrate on complex knitting. But it's just so satisfying to knit that I've been knitting it straight through. I'm on the fifth out of six panels, and the other day I bought some more yarn (because I won't have enough of the panel color) in a contrast color to put them together with. I decided to single-crochet (I think that's a double or half-double to you Brits) around the outside, using a G hook and taking 2 stitches to every 3 holes on the verticals, 3 to every 4 on the horizontals. The trim yarn is the exact color of chocolate frosting.

I will attach the panels by crocheting them together, then make a wide crocheted border around the whole thing, maybe with some bobbles and scallops for fun. As you can see, it looks like it'll match my couch fairly well (we have two couches actually but neutrals go with both of them). I get a lot of use out of afghans to snuggle up with in the evenings, as we don't like to use our central heat and even in the summer, nights can be a little cool.

~

I have a beautiful cardigan that my grandmother made. She made it for herself, I guess — but I think it is either rather old, or it was too small for her. And for some reason, though it has buttonholes, it had no buttons:

It's a little snug on me but I love it, so I poked around in my button collection and was delighted to find a perfect match for the blue-and-grey yarn. I've sewn them on (no photo, sorry) and now I have a complete garment, courtesy Grandma. yay.

Finally, I took some time yesterday to work on music and, though I'm not completely happy with it, I finally got this song that I wrote back in 1994 recorded. (I've written nearly 400 songs and most of them aren't recorded.) It's a start, anyway.

Oops, forgot to announce!

2010-03-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

The random number generator gave the winner of the last drawing as Pandora! Pandora, I hope you read this and will drop me email at valerie [at] grasslimb [dot] com with your mailing address so I can send your mag off to you!

I have been knitting, but it's all on the afghan, which is boring. However, I did try 'killing' some acrylic and I thought you might be interested to see, especially if you've never tried it!

Swatch before death:

It's lofty, cushy, and a little bit scratchy. As you can see, it looks more cabley than lacy.

I dampened the swatch, put a wrung-out wet towel on top and a dry one under it, and pressed it with a hot iron:

It's now smooth, drapier, less lofty/warm-feeling, and, as you can see, it looks like blocked lace. I dried it by popping it in the dryer.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm going to kill the afghan. I think I'll trade the slight scratchiness for the loft and cushy sensation. But it could be useful for things in future. Have you ever killed anything? Er, anything made out of yarn?

More magazines soon!

Another magazine!

2010-03-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

The next mag up for grabs is Yarn Forward, a British knitting magazine in A4 format, issue 7. You might be able to see some of the contents here.

To enter this drawing, leave me a comment telling me what plant you expect to leaf out earliest where you live. If you're in a warm climate where it never gets too barren, look for things that start getting lively in the spring. (If you left a comment on my last post you're already entered.) Everyone gets one entry only and I'll do the drawing next Monday morning, March 8.

I haven't been knitting quite as much in the last few days, but I have been taking a lot of walks. The weather here has been gorgeous.

And the winnah is...

2010-03-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

....Ms. trek! Trek will get a copy of the February 2009 Knit'n'Style magazine in the mail shortly.

Thanks all for entering... I found the responses fun to read. And I'll be posting a contest for another magazine in the next day or so! If you want to get in an early entry now, just leave a comment on this page telling me what plant you expect to leaf out earliest where you live. If you're in a warm climate where it never gets too barren, look for things that start getting lively in the spring.

For me, the most notable leaf-out of springtime is my grapevine:

No new knitting to show because all I've had the patience to work on is my afghan, which is same-ity same same same. I'm trying to resist casting on for a vest for me. I really should finish ONE of the two pullovers for Rob first…

Reverse-engineering (literally) and a contest!

2010-02-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

As you know, I've been knitting an afghan out of lace panels:

I'm planning on a 6-panel throw, and it occurred to me it'd be nice if three of the panels slant the other way, for symmetry. I might even pair them. But to do that, I had to reverse the lace pattern. As well as putting the yos at the end rather than the start of the first row, and progressing right instead of left, the decreases (on both sides) had to be changed, so they'd slant nicely.

Fortunately for me, the original decreases were a skp and a p2tog-tbl. That made the reverses of them k2tog and p2tog — the easiest two (imo) to execute! Because the yos aren't reversed, there is a slight difference in the appearance, but honestly I think this is not too bad so far (note it is stretched out here, because still on the needles):

As for the contest: Leave me a comment telling me one challenging thing you've attempted with a craft, and I'll enter you in a drawing for a copy of the February 2009 (click here for an overview of that issue) Knit'n'Style magazine. I'm destashing five magazines over the next couple of weeks so you'll see more of these opportunities. I'll draw a name next Saturday, February 27 morning so get your comment in by Friday! But don't worry, more mags being offered soon.

Words probably not necessary.

2010-02-20T21:09:00.001-08:00

I do still maintain I have a gift of picking awesome buttons.

I finished something!

2010-02-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Stop the presses! Although... to be fair, it's not quite finished. It's blocking at the moment, after which it will get buttons. But.. 95% done!

That's Carson's, er, Christmas sweater. Oops. Starsky Jr. is the pattern, knit with US size 5 (3.75 mm) needles on Cascade Superwash. I made the arms a little extra-long, adding most of the length in the ribbing, so it would be easy to fold back for now and then wear a few more years, I hope, by rolling down the sleeves.

But I had one problem I didn't think of — on which side do you seam the arms? I did it the same way the whole length of the arm, but now when you fold back the ribbing, you see seam. Of course, if I did the ribbing with the seam out, then when you didn't fold it back, you'd see seam. If I were knitting this again I'd probably knit the sleeves in the round, at least for the length of the ribbing.

I had a lot of trouble with the shawl collar/short rows. I have a rather haphazard method of picking up wraps — I use one method sometimes, another method others, and sometimes I randomly pick up what look like forgotten wraps. I think that last was the problem — there are weird little blobs or whorls around the collar (that sounds attractive, but they are not) which I cannot fix with duplicate stitch. And I am far too lazy to do it again, so whorly they'll stay.

In other news, some things think it's spring here:

And does anyone know what this bulb is? Faintly scented, very tall and pretty:

Sometimes the work doesn't show for a while.

2010-02-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

I'm knitting, but I haven't got much to show you! Here's what I do have:

Carson's Starsky Jr., supposed to have been done by Christmas. I'm actually further along than this because I've also mattress-seamed the arms, so I just have to plug 'em in. Easier said than done of course. I love mattress-seaming (as you all know by now) but I *hate* setting sleeves. Oh well, I will get around to it...

You are supposed to fold back the ribbing on the arms, which should have meant that I seamed them inside-out for that part (so the seam wouldn't show), but I'm not sure how far she'll be folding them back, and if she keeps the sweater for a few years (she might), she'll need to flip the ripping back down again, so I just seamed it normally and for now, the seam will show. I couldn't think of another way to do it but if I were making this again, I'd do the sleeves in the round to avoid the problem.

I've also gotten 2/3 way through another afghan panel, but, let's face it: it looks identical to the first one. It's excellent mindless knitting. But I do need to get back to some mindful knitting, because the things I've promised various people are starting to add up!

Mostly I've been busy getting Grasslimb to the printer and starting to prep envelopes and labels to ship it out. It's late as always so I want to make sure I'm ready to roll when I get it back from the printer. Maybe you should subscribe?

I haven't got much else so here's a little 'critter' that Rob made out of his Buckyballs. Best toy evah!

Another new project

2010-01-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

We were going over to a friend's house a week or so ago and I realized that I wanted an easy knitting project that I could do while chatting, drinking and watching TV. Frankly, most of my projects right now require careful attention or counting or otherwise don't lend themselves to casual knitting. So... I cast on again.

I had a bunch of acrylic yarn in the garage that I'd started a Tunisian crochet afghan with. There were a couple of things wrong with that -- I was getting a lot of RSI from doing Tunisian crochet, and a whole afghan's worth was going to take forever; and Tunisian crochet, being very dense, uses a LOT of yarn. There was no way I had enough for a Tunisian afghan.

I hadn't done very much -- about two panels out of a planned five or six, and they hadn't been edged or joined. So I decided to start over and knit the afghan.

I really wanted the look of cables, but I knew I didn't have enough yarn for that. So picked a simple lace pattern that, unblocked, has something of the look of cables. This is acrylic, so it's not going to block out. It would look different blocked, and I might try that sometime with wool, but frankly I like it just like this:

I have been naughty.

2010-01-17T14:33:00.000-08:00

Good thing it's not near Christmas or Santa would yell at me! I have been casting on new projects without finishing old ones. There is so much to show you that I keep neglecting to show it all in blog postings. And I won't fit it all in this one either.

One fast knit was this little hat for my friend Ronise, who's undergoing chemo. This is the kind you can wear a scarf under, but it's also alpaca so very very soft if it wants to be next to the skin.

My aunt gave me a beautiful ball of Filatura di Crosa Gioiello that she bought in Italy, requesting I make it into a scarf for her.

Well, 200m of yarn isn't much, so I knew it would have to be lace of some sort. I decided to make Red Skies at Night [Ravelry link], and I'm enjoying the knitting process — it's a nice lace pattern, just complicated enough to keep your attention, but easy enough to relax a bit — but I am not liking the fabric at all.

I'm thinking I need to use smaller needles (these are US #4s) and maybe a more-stockinette pattern, something like a small version of Clapotis. Just not sure. Any opinions? This just doesn't seem like it's doing justice to the yarn.

More new stuff in the next post!

Welcome to the Teenies!

2010-01-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

And Farewell to the Noughties*, at last. A decade I am really not sorry to see the back side of.

I know it's been ages since I posted. First I went on a little road trip and visited The (sadly blogless) Grace, and Earin and her menagerie. Why no photos? Because when I got home from the trip, my nearly-new 8gig SD card had a corrupted directory sector. In lay terms, that means your computer or camera can't properly read the disk, even though your data is still on there. Rob is working on some sort of computer program to pull out the photos but in the meantime, I can't share with you. Earin has some photos on her blog, though.

But I bought another card when I got home! So I can at least show you the yarn I bought on the trip, just a little bit of Mini Mochi (which I'd heard about and not seen before):

Really the operative phrase is "not touched", because this yarn is mind-bogglingly soft. I bought two balls of each of the colorways above. The ones on the left are for socks for my friend Pat; I don't know about the ones on the right, yet. It was just too pretty to leave behind.

Rob got some nasty bug — either a really bad cold or swine flu — followed by a sinus infection, but he was over it in time for us to have a great New Year's Eve party.

We had three sets of house guests, including Becky, Mike and Jen, and Jess (all the way from Australia). Here is Becky at the wheel of our friend Greg's awesome Tesla:

And here is Jess admiring her investment in a pair of Jimmy Choo's:

I've managed to come down with my first sinus infection since the surgery. I'm pretty down about it, but I am getting a little bit of knitting done. I finally finished the mitts for James in Afghanistan:

Though I've just heard that (1) he's coming home early, at end of February and (2) he has to work in a room he refers to as "the boiler room" because it's so hot. So I'm not sure how much use these will be to him, but I might send 'em off anyway. I don't know what else to do with them — they certainly don't fit me!

Hope your Teenies outdo your Noughties!

-----------------------------------------------
* – a book by my friend Tim which is really worth a read

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... (plus, sewn bind-off)

2009-11-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

I did run the ties through on Hey, Teach! but I haven't redone the buttonband yet, so will wait until I'm done to show you 'after' pictures. Meanwhile I haven't been idle! I finally picked up Rob's socks, which you last saw back in March. I had finished one sock, determined that it fit, and then never started the other one. Well, it's actually a bit nippy these days and Rob could use those socks! So I got about an inch into the ribbing on sock #2 last night. These poor socks were started in 2006 (!!!) so it'll be a wonder if I can even make the 2nd sock match the first given the weird way I take notes. We'll see...

I also snuck in and knit a pair of Debbie Bliss' Two Tone Baby Socks. They're very cute but SO many ends to weave in for such a small pair of socks! Then again, it's not like a baby's going to make a lot of miles on these things.

Finally, I'm making progress on Rob's gansey! After some screwups, I finally got the neck done, so it is a complete sleeveless vest at the moment:

The pattern said to bind off neck in pattern (that is, 2x2 rib), but that looks so messy to me, so I decided to do a sewn bind-off. If you haven't done this before, it's really easy. You make a tail 3-4 times as long as the area to be bound off, then put a needle on it and do this:

1. First, pass the needle and yarn right to left (purlwise) through the first two stitches on the needle and snug up (don't pull tight);
2. Then, pass the needle back left to right (knitwise) through the first stitch only and snug up;
3. Finally, drop the first stitch off the needle.

Repeat until you have bound off. It makes a really stretchy bind-off with a lovely look, much nicer than binding off in rib.

Pre-adjustment "Hey, Teach!"

2009-11-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

Just so you can see what it looks like pre-adjustments:

I'm wide, but not quite that wide at that spot. And you know how it is — you never want to look wider than you are; as wide as you are is PLENTY. So I think I'm going to try a ribbon through the ribbing (need to go buy some fabric ribbon first) as some of you suggested. And I'm definitely going to redo the buttonhole band. Somehow, even though I count the same # of rows on the left and the right fronts, I ended up having WAY too many stitches on the buttonhole band. And I tried cutting it down, but did the math wrong -- so it's still more stitches on the buttonhole band than the button band. That's only part of why it's gapping, but still -- having them the same would help. Then I might put some hooks on the back of the buttonhole band in between the buttons, to help smooth out the connection.

Yeah, I know I have one more button to sew on. I'm lazy.

And now, a trip back in time

2009-11-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

Only a few weeks back. But I just realized I forgot to show you pictures of Hedgehog #2, now safely in the hands of Elinoire the Hedgehog Keeper and her Dastardly Companion, Sylvie!

I'm totally in love with Ysolda's ingenious design. What a great way to use up small amounts of yarn of any size!

Progress!

2009-11-11T12:16:00.001-08:00

I have only one sleeve remaining to be sewn in on my Hey, Teach!

OTOH, some of you know that sewing in sleeves is my least favorite part of knitting (I love mattress stitch, but sleeves are hard -- no matter how many times I count stitches and work the math so it'll go in evenly, somehow there's always more stitches on one side than I had counted). So it could take a few more days!

I also think I'm going to reknit the buttonhole band, which came out WAY looser than the button band. Unfortunately the whole back of the sweater is also more tightly knit than the front, but I think that'll block out. Or it'll just look slightly shorter in back. I'm not a perfectionist, just a pragmatist ;-)

I love this already (I've been trying it on as I go), but I wish the ribbing in the middle drew it in more. It makes me look more like a refrigerator with a head than my already more-than-chance resemblance. Middle age has left me without pretensions to a waist, and though I've lost some weight recently (lots left to go), I still have a thicker waist than I used to at the weight I'm at now, if that sentence parses. So having a sweater that sort of flies out widely right under the bust is perhaps less than ideal. I still love it, but some internal elastic may be beneficial.

Oh! I also finished a second pair (smaller size) of mittens from the pink monster yarn.

I can't decide whether they should go to Carson or go to Afghans for Afghans.

Duh...

2009-10-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

My "Hey, Teach!" is coming along nicely...

... except for one little thing. I seamed up the right side (left side of the photo), and then I took a closer look at the shoulder:

Whoopsie! Yep, folks, that would be a twist. Almost a Möbius shoulder. Not exactly the world's most useful style (though it can be done on purpose, and does look lovely in an evening gown), and, at any rate, not what I was looking for in a sweater :-) Tee hee.

It's easy to fix, though. I closed the shoulder with a three-needle bindoff, so it'd be fastest to undo that and redo it rather than redo the seam.

What are you guys up to? I'm all ready for Halloween!

In a hurry

2009-10-18T18:38:00.001-07:00

Afghans for Afghans has an emergency call for mittens, socks etc for 7-14 year olds! The trick is that they need them fast. They have a shipment going out in a week or two — they don't have the final date yet but close to end of October is the most likely time. So if you have a spare ball of wool (wool only!) in your stash, please consider knitting up a fast pair of mittens or socks to send. There's info at those links with the address, etc.

I used it as an excuse to cast on, even though I'm making great progress on Rob's gansey and on my Hey, Teach! I had a ball of pink Araucania Magallanes burning up in my stash, and I bet some pre-teen girl would go crazy for a pair of mittens in these. So here I go. Shouldn't take more than a few days and I can pop these in the mail.
To encourage you to at least check out A4A, I'm holding a contest. Just leave a comment on this post (you don't even have to commit to knit anything) and I'll enter you — drawing on Friday morning for this booklet that I got with a copy of the British magazine Knitting:

New and old...

2009-10-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

I really do get itchy to cast on new things, hence the "Hey, Teach!". But cotton is hard on the hands, and my carpal tunnel's been yelling at me, so I needed something wool to trade off with. Rob's feeling cold lately (he's dieting), so I figured I'd haul out his felted Old Way Gansey and work on that.

The brown's actually much deeper than that, but I can't get it to photograph properly. At least you can see the lovely pattern here. It's going well (middle body is done, both sides; nearly done with the upper back, and then I'll finish the upper front and start the sleeves) but it's scarily huge. That, of course, is because it's due to be partially felted and this yarn shrinks a lot when felted (according to my swatch, anyway). But it makes me very nervous. And of course I'm also nervous I'll over-felt it and turn it into cardboard. It's so lovely and soft right now. But at the moment, so long it'd cover his butt. Not a manly look.

"Hey, Teach!" is not forgotten, though. I finished the back:
and started the left front. It's such a fun knit.

And to top it off, I finally bought buttons for Ysolda's Tiny Shoes. Sadly, these Shoes are now far too small for the baby for whom they were knit -- and may have always been, they really are preemie sized -- so I'll hold onto them until there's an appropriate neonate on the horizon. They're awfully hard to photograph so I tried stuffing them with napkins (serviettes for you UK and AU types):

Getting well means... less time?

2009-10-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

It does seem like somehow I have even less time to blog since I got well, but I think that's because I'm putting so many other things back in my life at the same time!

I am knitting, though perhaps not as much as I was before because I'm not just sitting around every evening -- so that is good and bad :-) No regrets about getting well, though.

Thanks for the comments on ripping the star blanket. I totally agree and I don't really mind ripping it. In a way, I hoped everyone would say 'rip' because I was not at all happy with it. I'm a process knitter and I'm rollin' with it.

I am almost done with this hedgie -- I haven't photographed it in a while but I'm sewing on the eyes now.

And I started a "Hey, Teach!" on the 19th. I know I've got a lot of in-progress projects, but I wanted one that I could work on while chatting with friends and watching TV. The lace pattern on "Hey, Teach!" is pretty easily followed just by reading your knitting, and there's lots of stockinette. I'm really enjoying the knit, even though I'm using cotton and it does stiffen the hands. It's shocking just how many people on Ravelry are knitting or have knit this, but it's no surprise -- it's really a fun knit. No idea how it will look on me and I don't care -- if it doesn't suit me, I'll find someone who likes it!

What're you up to with your fall knitting?

Ok, tell me REALLY.

2009-09-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

BTW, I realized that of course the reason I didn't take a picture of the eyes-on-butt hedgie was that I didn't have a working camera.

Dude. I am a little slow sometimes.

Okay, so here's the story: I fixed the star on the star baby blanket by dropping down and adding the extra stitch.

And then I found that WAY on the other side of the blanket... I had a star with one too many stitches.

I dropped down and fixed that too. But I think they both look like doodoo. And there's about 2 1/2 feet of knitting in between them:

I am really inclined to rip back and redo the stockinette at this point. I just don't think this will block out. What do you think?

Hedgies

2009-09-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

There are so many things to blog about after not having a camera for a while! I think I'll try to do them one at a time...

As you know, I recently knit Ysolda's "Smith". Now you can see him (or her):

At first, like at least one other person, I thought I was knitting it front to back, and couldn't figure out why the spikes were going the wrong direction. Then, I thought I'd knit the eyes on midway through, and I knit them on the butt!

I really wish I'd taken a picture of that. It makes me laugh just typing it.

I had trouble with the French knot eyes, because it's been years since I've done embroidery and at first I made too many wraps, and the eyes looked like caterpillars hanging off the poor fellow's face. Fortunately I then looked it up online, realized my mistake, and redid them.

Whew.

Got the camera!

2009-09-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

It's late, no time to really post right now. But the camera is awesome.

I'll be back soon!

2009-09-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

My camera died, and it seems impossible to post a reasonable blog entry without photos. Since I spoke to you last, I've knitted one of Ysolda's wonderful hedgehogs, and fixed the problem I was having with the star blanket. I did end up dropping only two stiches all the way back, restoring the missing yo, and crocheting back up the three correct stitches. It's super-tight over that area, despite my yanking the knitted fabric around a bunch to try to even it out, but hopefully blocking will help (we'll see — it's a superwash wool, Lanett Superwash).

I also knitted part of the second glove, accidentally placed the pinkie finger in the wrong place, pulled it out, fixed it, and started on the ring finger :-)

I've ordered myself a Canon PowerShot SD780 Digital Elph, a camera that I've wanted for a while now. Aside from good Consumer Reports ratings, it boasts excellent low-light photography (ASA 1600 instead of the 400 of most digital subcompacts) and it has an optical viewfinder in addition to the screen, which is helpful in bright sunlight. I find that most of my knitting photos get taken indoors and I don't like to use flash, so the 1600 is good, and many of my people photos are outdoors in bright sunlight, where the optical viewfinder will help. I was going to wait a bit longer to buy a new camera, but the death of the old one pushed this up a bit. It should arrive next Monday.. and my posts will become more interesting again :-)

Glove love!

2009-08-23T10:52:00.001-07:00

I think I've fallen in love with knitting gloves. Even more fun than socks! Fast, so you get that instant gratification thing. And so clever. I'm making the gloves from the 'red section' of the latest Vogue Knitting. I think they look even better in the sheeny grey of Sundara's "Lenten Rose" than they did in the mag in red:

The puppeteer effect is because I, personally, have very short fingers and I, personally, live in San Diego, where gloves are rarely required. So these are going to end up as gifts for someone who lives a bit more north, and has more normal-sized hands. I knit them with slightly long fingers, and I'm going to ask a local friend with a normal hand size to try them on; then I'll adjust the fingers as needed before sending them off.

These are really satisfying to knit (I'm partway through glove #2), and I heartily recommend the pattern. This issue of VK, as I mentioned, and the previous one both have things I'd want to knit, which is really, really weird. BTW the Vogue Knitting site has a video preview of this issue in case you want to see if you want to bother buying it.

Note that I haven't fixed my missing-stitch star yet. I am resolutely ignoring it. Don't worry, I'll fix it eventually. But glove love has me fixated for the moment.

Argghity argh argh argh

2009-08-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not that bad. But I knit 22 stockinette rows past the last row of lace on the first set of stars on the Star Light, Star Bright blanket and only now do I realize that one star ended with only 20, rather than 21, stitches. Oops.

You can't tell anything at all from that photo, especially since it doesn't show the part of the blanket that has the missing stitch. Well, 22 missing stitches, since I'm short every row of the stockinette section.

I could just leave it and no one would notice (just increase one row before starting the next star), but it bugs me, so I'll probably rip back just this section and see if I have enough slack yarn to fix it. I bet I do. I'm a loose knitter and hey, it'll even out in the blocking, right?

Let's hope ...

Of course I got furious and picked up a new project instead. I mean, this realization happened halfway through a DVD episode of Bones! What was I expected to do? Can't get through a TV show without knitting!

I'm knitting the Lace Panel Gloves from the latest Vogue Knitting, in some Sundara Sock in Lenten Rose (a gorgeous luminous pinky-grey). I don't know what's going on with VK and Interweave Knits, but the last three issues of VK had things I actually wanted to knit, and the last three issues of IK didn't. If that's not one of the seven signs I don't know what is.

Okay but you have to admit they are ridiculously cute.

2009-07-18T19:18:00.001-07:00

I did get distracted. Now I have more WIPs than before. I am naughty, but I'm using the excuse that I needed distraction as I healed from my second sinus surgery (which was last Monday, and went fine -- ~6 months for full effects, though, so I can't say if it worked or not yet).

First there were these — Ysolda's "Tiny Shoes" from her first book of patterns (a darling little book which you should pick up, it's full of cute little somethings):

They only qualify as 95% done because I don't have buttons that fit them yet, and they're not blocked. But they are to be a gift for a coworker who recently had a baby girl. They took very little leftover sock yarn — they seem a great way to use such scraps up.

But another coworker had a baby boy recently, too, so I had to knit these — Yarn Hugger's Sneaker Booties.

I'm just about done, though I might do some fooling around with i-cord laces. Seriously, aren't these hilarious? I knit them out of acrylic yarn so they won't block — I may have to do another pair out of wool. They make me laugh every time I look at them. (Another pair I have to try are Xalleykatx's Converse Booties.)

And that wasn't enough. A very dear old friend had a baby boy a couple of months ago (I'm a slacker) and he warrants a Star Light Star Bright baby blanket (of wonderful Sandnes Lanett Superwash). I admit my friend Sandi was an inspiration on this pattern choice — she's knitting it too right now. It's going slowly because it's fingering weight, but it'll be lovely when finished.

And I haven't forgotten my brown socks! I've been knitting dutifully on them, after having to frog the entire gusset because I messed up the decreases. But they are not far from on my feet! (Well, in this 95-degree heat maybe they ARE pretty far from on my feet.)

What are you all up to?

She prefers wearing it with her tutu

2009-07-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

Carson had her 4th birthday the other day and we partied. In addition to the T-shirt, I gave her a tutu for playing dress-up. She felt these went well together, and even better with her Snow White high-heeled shoes. She is probably correct.

The T-shirt fits all right — as I suspected, it's a little wide. The arms just fit; when she grows a little more, I'll pull out the sleeves and crochet around the armhole and she can wear it as a sleeveless top.

I finished one of my pretty brown Conwys:

I know brown seems like a boring color for a sock, but I wear a lot of brown socks to work. On the days when I can wear a handknit sock, I feel very happy. I'd love to wear nothing but handknit socks to work (that won't actually happen, because some of my shoes are a little too snug to accommodate a handknit, but it's a nice fantasy).

The best part of this sock is the calf shaping. I've never knit a sock with calf shaping before and man does it fit well!

Now I have to cast on for #2...

Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July!

2009-07-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

It's also my mom's birthday, so Rob is making a Key lime meringue pie and we are trekking over there for a few hours to hang out. It's our house guest's last day, so we drive to LAX tonight.

I hope you all are celebrating to your satisfaction (if you're an American) or just having a great day (if you're not).

Meanwhile, some progress:

Carson's top is done and blocking. It looks far too wide, the armholes too small, and the arms distorted, but we'll see what happens when she puts it on — sometimes these things are deceptive. If it doesn't fit, I'll either fix it or make her another. The nice thing about making things yourself is you can change them, too.

When I finished the Kraftie socks, I immediately had to start another pair of socks. I don't know why, I'm just in one of those moods where I have to have some socks on the needles. I decided to do Conwy correctly this time, and picked a simple brown yarn (these will be work socks), Lang Jawoll Color. This is one of those yarns that comes with reinforcing thread — my first time using such a thing. I used it on the heel flap and turn, but I think I'll stop now (on the gussets) so I don't get extra bulk at the front of the sock. Ideally I would have it reinforced on the bottom of the heel too, but the heel turn is always the worst part so I should be okay. I might reinforce the toes too; there is enough thread. This yarn is really fabulous to knit with, soft and supple, even if it doesn't look exciting:

Sorry it's blurry. I am the queen of camera-shake. Kind of like being the queen of maracas, but less musical.

You are the proud mother of... fraternal twins!

2009-06-28T18:23:00.001-07:00

These guys are seriously fraternal:

And I don't mind a bit. I love them. They are absolutely gorgeous. I was feeling a little badly that I hadn't made a shoulder shawl with this lovely yarn, but the honest truth is that I won't use a small shawl (there's not enough yarn for a big one), and I will use and enjoy the hell out of these socks. They are beeeeeyewtiful. I don't know which one I like best. I like them both best.

There's quite a lot of yarn left — actually about 30g:

My friend Yvonne (who's visiting from Australia) suggested I make a third sock and see how it comes out... I nearly have enough for that. (But not quite; I used 85g for these two.)

Inching along...

2009-06-23T18:54:00.001-07:00

Making progress! We have a house guest and I have been on the tired side, but things are coming along:

I don't know about these sleeves. I got them to at least approach fitting, but they don't seem to fit in very gracefully (see the lilt up to the right on that sleeve?). To be fair, I did opt to do the garter stitch edge rather than the specified rolled stockinette, which probably makes more of a flare.

I'll finish up and we'll see how it fits Carson. I can always redo the sleeves if I need to. Though I'm going to be pretty close to out of yarn when I'm done with this. Her birthday is the 10th of July so I need to be speedy!

Finished the first of the socks with Kraftie's great handspun:

Is that not gorgeous? Her handspun is amazing, so even and lovely and soft. It's a pleasure to knit with. I still feel so honored to be using it. The sock fits like a dream and is very soft. Merino-tencel is a great combination. THANKS Kraftie!

Soooo close!

2009-06-16T20:52:00.000-07:00

Took that photo this morning. Wove the ends in this afternoon. All that's left is to sew on the frogs... I've tried once and will have to rip it out and try again. May take me a few days. I think it'll be the most irritating part.

The exciting part: this cardigan fits me better than any sweater I've made myself yet. Whoop! However, I'm afraid to wash it; I think it will GROW. Alpaca-tencel, not much memory... So for now, I'll wear it as is.

Meanwhile the sock continues beautiful. I realized I'm not exactly doing Conwy; I'm screwing up the twisted baby cable. I always get confused when they say "knit into the back loop of the second stitch" — do you go around the first stitch, or insert between the first and second? I did the latter, and I think it's wrong. I don't get the braided effect, this way. But I don't really mind; it's still very pretty and suits this gorgeous yarn well.

Socky.

2009-06-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

I'm really liking how Kraftie's handspun knits up in Conwy. Even if, as seems likely from this photo, my two socks are going to be very different from each other. I could do something about this (e.g. knit alternately on two socks, or rewind the yarn), but I kind of like the unexpected and I have no problem with "unmatchy" socks. I'm ready to accept what the universe gives me, handspun sock-wise.

I don't have any other knitting to show you, though I'd better finish SOMETHING soon because I'm itching to cast on "Hey Teach" in some dishcloth cotton I have exploding out of the stash. So here's some garden stuff instead.

I mostly garden in pots these days. I decided to try planting up some pots with more than one kind of plant, you know, like they show in gardening magazines. This is my first attempt, two months in. I'm pretty pleased, though I expected the black grass hiding on the left to grow a bit more. But, yay, the creeper crept!:

Many things are blooming in my garden at the moment. There have been roses:

Gardenia and startlingly orange hibiscus:

And one absolutely stunning epiphyllum:

Not quite.

2009-06-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I tried again on the sleeve, adding four extra rows, but it's still not quite right. And then I suddenly realized why it wasn't right.

There are three reasons, and they have nothing to do with the pattern!

One, I am not getting row gauge. I knew this, but let myself forget how it might affect the sleeves. I am getting many more rows per inch than specified (even though this is Sublime yarn and a Sublime pattern and all that). I adjusted the main body of the garment, but not the sleeves.

Two, I forgot and used the wrong size needles on the whole sleeve. I used size US#3 for the garter stitch and then forgot to swap back to #5s.

Three, I get tighter gauge in the round, so I should be using #4s and #6s.

I mean, ya know. Like. Duh.

I have started again (actually started again twice — first time I accidentally started with #6s and switched to #4s. WHERE IS MY BRAIN?).

In another batch of not-quiteism, I think I mentioned I was working on the socks with Ashley's handspun when I realized two things (I'm into counting today):

One, 80 stitches was way too much. Even with #0 needles my gauge ain't that high.
Two, this boring ol' rib wasn't doing Ashley's lovely handspun justice.

I mean, if you're going to knit with handspun it should be special. So I pored through my books and have cast on for Nancy Bush's "Conwy."

I think this is going to be better.

Something is wrong here.

2009-06-07T10:29:00.001-07:00

And it's not just me. I swear it isn't. I've read the pattern a bazillion times.

I knitted up the front of Carson's Honesty T, and seamed the sides...

Check it out. There is something wrong with the arm. This sleeve just CANNOT fit into this sleevehole (and yes, according to the instructions the sleeve is ready for cast-off).

This pattern is from one of the Sublime booklets (#611 I think), and there are no errata for that particular booklet, -- but I don't have the pattern in that booklet. I have it in a booklet called “Knitting Brings You… Kids Knits April 2008." I'm thinking possibly this booklet repro has a missing bit of the pattern. I looked on Ravelry, and three people there have knit the sleeved version of this top, and I emailed all of them to ask. But I think I can easily fake it if I can't find a correction.

Yesterday I finished my intentionally-fraternal green socks from the yarn April sent me. They are possibly my best-fitting socks EVAH and I am in love.

I love the color, the fit, and how well they go with my pajamas.

I was irked enough by the problem with Honesty that I cast on a new pair of socks right away, rather than waiting until I finished 2 projects, breaking my own rule yet again. But this is Kraftie's merino-tencel handspun, and it is SO beautiful. She sent it to me in September 2007 and it's taken me a while to be ready to cast on. It's 80 stitches on #0 needles; I started with 2x2 rib and have just broken out the 4x4...

Ahh. I feel better.

I got distracted :-)

2009-05-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

I know — what's new? I cast on again. But I've still only got 14 projects on the needles (down from what, 16 before?) so I think that's okay. Just no going UP!

I had an excuse, or so I thought. Carson's (that's my niece) birthday is coming up on July 10, and her party'll be on the 11th, and I go in for yep, more sinus surgery on July 13th. So I really have to finish her now-traditional summer T-shirt on time. She's turning 4, and I thought a slightly more 'grown-up' shirt would be fun, so I'm knitting Honesty (Ravelry link) by Sublime. Instead of the plain cotton DK, I'm using Sublime's Soya Cotton DK (50% soy/50% cotton). It's a little sheenier, and a little softer, and drapes beautifully. And of course, in deference to a little girl's favorite color, it is purple:

Why do I say "so I thought" I had an excuse? Well, I knit the entire back in just a few days. So obviously I don't need an entire month to knit this little shirt :-)

By the way, I won that beautiful little yarn holder from Knitters for Knockers this year. It's made by Elizabeth Hsu, and if you like it, check out her Etsy shop.

I know, I should be seaming up the Khaki Cables. I had a little setback on that - I seamed up an arm, pulled the seam to stretch it to make sure I hadn't seamed too tightly, and broke the seaming yarn in two places. You know how it is — that made me grumpy with it and I have let it marinate for a week now. Don't worry — it will get done. I have too many other things I want to cast on!

Two of the things on my needles are probably going to be frogged. The fuzzy pink baby cardigan in the bright pink Star yarn was for a baby born about a year and a half ago, now — and I have just always hated the project. Rosminah asked me for a pair of boy shorts and this is perfect yarn for it. As soon as she sends me her measurements I'll frog the cardi and start the shorts. And those Sockotta socks for my mom have long been replaced by a pair I finally finished for her in Fixation. I don't really like how they're going as cuffed socks and I think I'll start over and just make some normal socks. I do want to try out the Sockotta — and maybe I'll try it out for me. I'm so greedy ;-)

Looks nearly done, but...

2009-05-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Sadly, they ain't. I figured out — right when I was adding up stitches for the toes — that I had missed one decrease on the gussets, so I have two more stitches in the body of the foot than the first sock. That's enough that I'll notice it and it'll bug me when wearing them, so I am going to frog back to the end of the gusset. No real worries, though — foot bodies go fast.

I don't really hate frogging that much, honestly. There's always the moment when it hits that I'll have to frog, and then — usually — I take a deep breath and go do it, and it doesn't feel so bad when it's over. I really am a process knitter. (But it's hard not to be overdramatic about frogging on the blog!)

On the other hand, I'm lazy, too, as you'll see below...

I'm getting close on the Khaki Cables cardi! I'm really excited about this, the more so because I just tried it on (with the help of some clips on the uncompleted seams) and it looks like it is going to fit. Going to have to be careful about blocking it (and washing it in future), though, because I suspect it is likely to grow (alpaca-tencel). I might steam-block it for now.

There are a number of booboos involved here. Some are mine, some are the pattern's. For example, the ribbing doesn't match up at ANY of the seams — I'll show you in a couple of days — and honestly, it's not that hard to get it right; I don't know why the pattern writer missed this, unless she calculated it for her size and didn't compensate for the other sizes. I didn't notice (wasn't really thinking about it) until I'd finished the back, one sleeve and one side, so there was no way I was going to go back and fix it. That's the pattern's fault.

Then there's the fact that the first front panel I knit has one fewer rows of ribbing than the rest of the sweater. That would be my fault. Guess what, I am not going to fix it! I actually realized it when I was halfway through the second front panel, at which point I was too eager to finish the darn thing (that was the last panel) to care. I figure I'll block it to be a little longer and no one will notice unless they look closely.

One step forward, two steps back...

2009-05-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I've used that as a blog post title before!

I got some nasty virus on top of my long-running bacterial infection this week, so I was home and just FLAT for three days — barely touched the computer (I know, shocking!). But yesterday afternoon I felt a bit better, well enough to finally knit, and I pulled out my old Khaki Cables project, which has been stalled for too long. I really need to free up some size 5 needles, and this puppy is.. er, WAS .. so close to done... just needed to finish up the right front, seam, and knit the button band.

The hardest part of finishing this darned thing has been figuring out where I was and how many rows I needed to knit. I had done a poor job of keeping track of my hatchmarks (my oh-so-sophisticated method of row counting), so I wasn't sure which pile of them referred to the left front, and I had to figure it out to make the sides match. I go through about 45 minutes of thinking and figuring every time I pick the project up again. Finally I thought I knew where I was (and I was right, at least), so I picked it up and knit about 14 rows. Then I realized that somewhere along the way, I'd dropped a stitch in the long cable, so I dropped that whole 20-stitch cabling section back 11 (!) rows and reknit it with the picked-up stitch. (By the way: it is MESSY to do that.) And I continued knitting until I'd done 27 rows.

And something felt wrong.

I did a lot of counting — of sets of cables, of stitches, on both the finished and unfinished fronts. And it was indeed wrong. On the buttonband/neck edge, I was too far decreased for the distance I'd knit — by about two stitches. Doesn't sound like much, but in this very charted pattern, it was going to be brutally obvious. I knew I had to rip back, but how far?

I found all the decreases in the left front and marked them with split ring markers, then found all decreases in the right front and did the same.

Lo and behold, turns out that two rows BEFORE I was supposed to start the neckline decreases, I'd inexplicably, randomly decreased two stitches. I have no idea why. I had made no note of this.

I ripped back.

FIFTY-THREE ROWS.

Just sayin'. :-)

I have an idea.

2009-05-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

I have a hangover from playing Rock Band (for the first time) with some friends last night. It was a special occasion, or I wouldn't have gone out and yelled for hours, but it was a lot of fun and worth today's uselessness.

I haven't been doing much knitting. My wrist's been a little sore, as happens sometimes, and I know when to back off a little. I did manage to finish the first sock of the new pair a few days back

So I started to have an idea about all this leftover sock yarn (I don't like my socks very tall, and my feet are a pretty medium size, 9, so I always have leftovers). I was thinking about a sock yarn blanket, but the problem is that I didn't actually really love the ones I've seen — I like something just marginally more organized. Plus, I really hate knitting mitred squares (admittedly, I've only knit one or two, but I already hate them).

I thought about entrelac, but it didn't seem like it'd please me either. It's just too many colors all slammed together for me. Plus, I think it'd spoil what's for me one of the appeals of entrelac — the woven effect. I considered alternating multicolored sock yarn rows with single-color, but again — no woven effect. But that made me think of one more, almost too simple thing — strips.

I was thinking that maybe I can knit strips of varying lengths, piecing them together side by side like wood flooring. I could alternate multicolored and single-color, for an overall cleaner effect, or not -- might have to fool around for a little to see what I think. I'm sure this has been done before, but I haven't seen it. It seems like it'd be more pleasing to my eye, and less irritating to knit — in fact, the endless stockinette and small amounts of yarn at a time could make it a really good portable knitting project. I'll have to think how I want to connect the strips — possibly with crochet, as there's a way to crochet strips together to make a fairly nice-looking decorative flat seam, and maybe that's how the solid colors would be used — to connect the multicolored strips. But maybe it'd be better to knit the strips the wide way and just change colors when needed. Hmm,.. decisions. Input welcome.

Kiera's sweater is done!

2009-04-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

This thing took over four long months — and may still need adjusting if the arms are too short. I don't blame the pattern exactly; it just wasn't the right pattern for me. Still, it came out cute:

The yarn softened up really nicely in the blocking, and the shape improved. I knit this extra-long because Kiera is tall, and I added to the sleeve length too, but they might still be short. We'll see. (I also think it's too wide for her, but that isn't really a problem.)

I do love this yarn — Naturally Magic Buttons. It's great for kids' stuff — washable and fun.

Just don't try to seam too much with it! Next time: top-down raglan.

In the mail!

2009-04-25T14:22:00.001-07:00

I sewed the buttons on Angela's little cardi this morning and I think I'm in love with my own knitting:

And you know how I feel about buttons. These ones make me really happy:

It was fairly tough to wrap this thing up and put it in the envelope, but it won't fit me :-) I hope baby Angela enjoys it (well, or that her parents do). This is a family that has been really appreciative of my hand-knits — almost every photo they send me of their son has him wearing the cap or sweater I knit him. They are awesome. So they totally deserve more.

I had huge fun last weekend with my house guests — thanks Earin and Becky! It was pretty tiring, I admit, but it was so nice to have a sort of normal weekend for once. I felt really well throughout. (I've had a couple of bad days this week but most have been 'medium'.) I've kept a low profile this week, but I did manage to stop by the button store on my way home, as you see, and my brother came over to hang out and watch a video with us last night (we saw "Charlie Wilson's War," which was rather extraordinary). My big challenge this weekend is not eating all of the delicious almond macaroons a friend baked for me. Life sucks, eh? ;-)

Yarny visitors!

2009-04-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

I had a treat this weekend — Earin and Becky traveled down to San Diego to visit and craft with me! We had a wonderful time. We did a lot of knitting, a lot of hanging out and a decent bit of eating: Thai food, pizza, and Dumpling Inn Chinese dumplings (mmmmmmmmm). Plus some chocolate here and there. A few local friends helped with the crafting as well. I probably did a bit too much — I'm fairly wasted at the moment — but I was feeling extraordinarily well this weekend. I crashed this afternoon, after everyone went home, and ended up lying on the couch like a blob for hours, not even knitting! But that's okay, because much knitting did get done:

This is the little cardi I was knitting in Debbie Bliss Cathay for the new daughter of a friend, all ready to be washed and blocked and to get some nice buttons! I can't wait to finish it completely. Cathay is lovely yarn (if splitty, like many cotton/silk combos) and I'd use it for an adult sweater in a minute.

I also finished, at long last, my Maizy Reversais...

I did reknit the foot of the second one — but not the leg. And it is, indeed, shorter:

But not enough for me to care enough to reknit the sock. I am so done with these! I love the Crystal Palace Maizy yarn, and I love how the Reversai's stitch pattern looks, but these socks weren't the greatest of successes for me. As you can see, the heel really doesn't fit. I'm glad I made the feet smooth (and didn't make reversible toes), because they'll work better for me in shoes. I'll plan to use the Maizy again in the future, but probably for a sock of my own design.

I didn't really mean to, but I cast on for a new pair of socks!

These are Ann Budd's "Undulating Rib Socks." I discovered after about 20 rows that the pattern has an error at the very start of the sock, and decided the heck with it, no one is going to notice but me or another knitter, so I am leaving the error in. It's only evident at the transition between the initial ribbing and the first twist (should have been k1, p1, k3, p1 rather than k3, p1, k1, p1 ribbing to start). Of course this means I'll have to make the other sock matchingly wrong, but that's okay.

The yarn I'm using is DGB Confetti Superwash. I'm not completely sure where I got it, but think it may have been a gift from April. It's really pretty, but I was startled to discover it was self-striping (even though there's a photo on the label, which I totally missed). From the name, I thought it was going to be speckled! I like the colors, though.

I /did/ cast on anew

2009-04-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

Got a baby to dress, just born in northern California... I'm making her a Provence Baby Cardigan [Ravelry link] using Debbie Bliss Cathay, a machine-washable cotton/rayon/silk blend that just shines. I love being able to use a decadent yarn on a baby — machine wash makes all the difference. The color is great too, not sure if you can really see the 'old rose' nature in this shot:

I've completed the back and I'm about to start the sleeves. (I usually try to go largest piece to smallest piece, to make the last part seem really fast — I play these psychological games with myself :-) .) It's a simple but classy-looking pattern. Can't wait to see how it comes out.

I've finished all the bits of the purple child's pullover and am working on the last of the hemming and seaming. With good luck, I'll finish it this weekend. It's amazing how much faster it went with the pinning trick. I would have done a provisional cast-on for the picot hem, and just k2tog to attach the hem when I got there, but this yarn is too thick for that and it would have bulged out at the seam, probably flipping the hem. So this was really the only way to fly.

I had a pretty nice, quiet birthday on Thursday. I took the day off work and in the morning bought myself a few plants at a favorite nursery. Then I had lunch with Rob. Then I was tired, so I just rested before the Seder at my parents' house. I had hoped to do more, but when you're ill you have to go with what you've got, and I did enjoy the day. The day before, Elinoire brought cupcakes to work, which was great fun and very cute.

For my birthday, Rob has ordered me a cedar chest from an Amish furniture-maker! It should arrive in a week or two. I'm very excited to have a home for my hand-knits. He overheard me bemoaning some holes in some socks and decided to get me the chest. He gets points for a good knitterly gift :-)

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it!

Progress! thanks to pins.

2009-04-06T13:08:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I asked about some troubles I was having sewing up a picot hem. Thanks for the suggestions! I adapted trek and twistle's suggestions — I put pins in the spaces between the picots so I could line up with them (though I didn't actually pin the hem shut). Whew. It made it go MUCH faster and I was able to make a lot of progress on the dratted hems. I rewarded myself with some mattress seaming, so I'm here:

Still knitting the final arm, and then I'll get the rest of the finishing done. Yay! Maybe before the intended recipient fully outgrows it, even.

In other news, Earin won the drawing for the copy of Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts. But I discovered I actually had two spare copies! So, I put the names in the hat again and this time drew Becky's name. You'll both get a copy of the magazine.

Stay tuned for more giveaways... I have other magazines, yarn etc to slowly destash.

Boring Brown Socks are done.. and comfy

2009-04-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

Finished these this morning. I used a Dutch heel, which I think is too deep for my heel (odd, because most heels are too shallow for me). But it was interesting to try a new heel.

I did a wedge toe just for the heck of it, but ended at 11 stitches and pulled the thread through all the stitches and tied off, because why Kitchener? I think I will probably stick with the French Toe, as it really fits me better, but again, fun to try a new method.

I used Sunbeam St. Ives 4 Ply Sock Wool, which I stumbled over in some LYS somewhere. Really liked it — very sproingy, and the color is full of depth and complexity. These really are green and brown plied together, and that gives the socks a subtle, changeable nature that I really like. And used US size 1 1/2 dpns, if anyone is keeping score.

Technically this means I can start a new project — by my own rules, as I've finished two recently. And I do intend to cast on for a cardigan for my friend Matt's new little daughter, but I am going to spend some time on another WIP first. More on that soon.

Another FO!

2009-03-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

Remember: you can still leave a comment — through Tuesday night the 31st — with your favorite animal on the previous posting to be entered in the drawing!

After literally years, I've finished "my so-called scarf". I always thought the name was funny because, you know, it is a scarf. I think the "so-called" was meant to modify "my" ;-) Anyway: I knit it in the originally specified Manos de Uruguay in Wildflowers, using US size 10 needles and two skeins of yarn. It's currently blocking on the floor of my study, but here are some pre-blocking photos.

I tried binding off the usual way, but it splayed the end of the scarf; this stitch has a tendency to draw in. After some experimentation I did an Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bind-off on the reverse side, pulling it fairly snug as I went. I'm pretty pleased with the result. It doesn't exactly match the cast-on end but it's pretty close! Can you guess which end is which?

Okay: down to 15 WIPs. That's not really that impressive, is it. Gotta knock down a few more before I let myself cast on again :-)

More prizes! For you and for me!

2009-03-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

First: Who'd like to win a copy of Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts 2008? If you would, leave a comment and mention your favorite animal. (If you want to leave a comment but not be entered in the drawing, just don't mention animals :-) .) I'll pull a name next Wednesday for the prize.

Second: Johanna is TEH AWESOME — she actually thought of me while on vacation in Japan and sent me a gift. You have to see the hilarious postcard:

The gift itself is a very amusing craft kit that has you make magnets that look like doughnuts. The whole concept cracks me up. I don't know if I'll be able to figure the instructions out, but I'm going to try.

Third: I'm finally done with the brown stockinette portion of Rob's gansey. Only just done, so it's still not terrifically exciting, but it's much more fun to knit!

Fourth: It's Spring! Hurrah!

Gauge issue

2009-03-22T22:12:00.001-07:00

I'm halfway through toe decreases on the bottom sock. Notice a slight size difference?

I knit the first sock mostly while surfing the Internet. I knit the second mostly while watching spy thrillers.

If I finished the toe up, they'd be over an inch different in length; they are also different in circumference, so much so that the second sock hurts my foot. Oopies. I think the ankle and heel are okay (at least, I'm going to pretend they are even if they aren't), so I'm going to rip back to the start of the foot and try again. But not right this second.

I've also been trying to finally finish this lovely little scarf, the classic "My so-called scarf":

Gorgeous, isn't it? But it turns out that knitting it is really hard on the hands. I don't know why exactly, but my hand completely cramps up when I'm knitting the purl rows, right between the knuckles at the base of my third and ring fingers. So I'm taking this one a little slower so I don't mess up my ability to knit entirely.

There's also miles and miles of brown stockinette, but there's no point showing you that!

I'm still ill, and this past weekend was worse than it has been, but I managed to get more done despite that than I'd feared: spent a good solid eight hours on the research paper I'm writing with my friend Louise, worked on the taxes a bit, worked on Grasslimb a bit, did a bit of knitting and read some more of Bleak House. But I missed two parties :-( On balance, though, it could be worse. I hate weekends when I don't get anything done.

Free yarn!

2009-03-15T15:36:00.003-07:00

EDITED TO ADD: Juli has won the yarn! But there will be more to come, I am sure.

I'm going through some of my stash and deciding to part with things I know I'll never get around to knitting with. This Berroco Mohair Classic is a case in point. I have four skeins of a merlot color, one of a just-off-white.

This is heavy worsted weight; label says it should get 4spi and 5rpi using 5.5mm (US 9) needles. Each skein is 43g and 85 m (1.5 oz and 93 yds). I think this should be enough for a scarf with occasional creamy stripes, or a pair of mittens and change, or some other accessory. Makeup is 78% mohair, 13% wool and 9% nylon.

Would you like it?

If you would, leave a comment saying what you think you'd probably use this for, and I'll put all the names received by Wednesday morning in a hat and draw a winner.

I'm doing a bunch of knitting, but it's mostly boring. I am working on the brown stockinette portion of a pullover and brown ribbing for a sock, neither of which I'm going to bother showing you because they are very similar to past photos :-) I am making pretty good progress on Rob's sock #1, at last, though, and it's semi-photogenic (although you can see what a slob I am. There are magazines and lemongrass all over my kitchen table):

I'm also close to starting the heel on my not-quite-Reversai sock #2. This picture is great because you can really see the three-dimensional quality of the pattern:

As you can see, I now have SIXTEEN WPIs listed in the right-hand sidebar. I am determined to finish at least a couple of these before casting on again — but man, it's hard to resist!

I know I know I know I know I know. But.

2009-03-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

But I'm sick, so doesn't that give me license to knit anything I durned well please?

This is, I admit it, a New Sock, when I haven't finished several old socks, including another pair for work (the Reversais) — so it's not like I can claim "I need to knit some work socks." I mean, I do, but I could finish the pair I already started. I am currently claiming that I am addicted to my new US size 1.5 dpns (and I do love 'em, not exactly sure why).

These Boring Brown Socks are not as entirely boring as they seem. The flash above makes them look holey, but they're not really. They are taller than my usual weekend socks (for work, I like taller socks), and I started them on 68 sts and reduced to 65 after the 2x2 rib. Then I worked 4x1 rib for the rest (heel, sole and toe are stockinette). I decided to try out a new heel — the Dutch Heel, an old-fashioned heel with a slightly odd shape. It's supposed to fit narrow heels well — mine is somewhat narrow, maybe not as narrow as this recipe creates, but I think it'll be okay. I'm using Sunbeam St. Ives yarn, which I found in some yarn store somewheres, just a basic 80% wool/20% nylon sock yarn but I like the richness of the color. It looks like brown but up close there is lots of variegation:

Just to prove I haven't abandoned the growing list of UFOs (if you look at my gallery in Ravelry, you can see how my list of both FOs and WIPs is growing as I work through the old blog entries), here is Rob's sock. I pulled out the crappily-fitting flap heel and knit him a short-row heel. Now I'm back onto the foot part of the sock. Rob has very wide size-10 feet, but his ankles are of a normal slenderness, so I'm trying to make socks that will pull over his feet but still fit his legs, and fit his feet properly. If he weren't so tall I'd wonder if he were a hobbit...

I'll spare you the medical details that are dominating my life at the moment. But let no one deny the healing power of knitting — if it can't cure the bug, at least it's distracting. And in the absense of wellness, you can be sure I'll take distracting!

I finish things. (Unless they're illness, apparently.)

2009-02-27T16:43:00.001-08:00

I had just gotten over my flareup of the bacterial infection when I got a cold, and then of course the bacterial infection flared up again. So I've been home off and on and packing away the prescription medications. I've been too ill to knit very fast, but I have been knitting some, and I have been finishing things! For example:

My poor mom's socks, started July 2007 — all they needed was Kitchenering, if you can believe it. These look a little long because my mom wears a larger size than I do. These are in April's least favorite sock yarn — Cascade Fixation. I can understand not loving it, but it's really practical when you live in San Diego and can't wear merino year-round.

Then there's some merino — Sundara merino sock yarn, to be exact, in Bloodstone:

These ones are for me. I am still far from having enough handmade socks, though you wouldn't think so given my recent activity.

So the reason it looks like I have MORE WIPs than I did before — despite this bout of finishitis — is that I'm finally going through my blog and putting all my old projects into Ravelry. (I've just finished 2006, so I have a couple of years more to check through.) As I do this, I'm discovering some old WIPs that I'd kind of forgotten about. Hopefully this will inspire me to pick up the needles and finish!

I do not have second sock syndrome!

2009-02-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

I do have a bad cold that has kept me down for several days now. Much of the time I was too tired to knit (I've actually been staying in bed until midday, which if you know me is just wacky!), but some of it I wasn't:

Gotta love those great Sundara color blends. I tend to wash all my handmade wool socks by hand, even the superwash ones, dunno why, so I hope this will wear well. Then again I have a bad habit of going outside in them and tromping around on the bricks and concrete, which is probably harder on them than machine washing...

And this isn't very exciting to look at, but hey, I found my other skein of Maizy! I really, really like the results with this yarn. They use an interesting twist that, as a non-spinner, I don't know how to describe — it has thicker and thinner bits, but it's very even. You'd think it was a chainette if you didn't look closely. Maybe it's two two-ply pieces plied together. Anyway, it's not easy to work with — it is splitty — but the resulting fabric is beyond nice. It's outstanding. I think the effort will be worth it for socks that I expect to wear all the time to work.

I'm trying to pull out my in-progress and abandoned projects and complete or toss them, one by one. It took me about a half-hour to determine where I was on this lovely cabled sweater, made with the Elann Quechua (alpaca and tencel — it just glows) I got with a gift certificate from the wonderful April. There is so little left to go — finish the V-neck/armhole on the right front, then seam, add a collar, and set in the sleeves (though the sleeves may need length-adjusting — we'll see). And I could really use this cardi for work.

Making progress.. on the cardi if not the cold!

I know, I'm naughty.

2009-02-19T18:44:00.000-08:00

I have so many WIPs.. but just couldn't resist casting on another sock!

This is Sundara merino sock in Bloodstone. (Kraftie, you are the only person other than me who has some of this colorway on Ravelry. Great minds think alike!) I knit it with my new 6" US size 1.5 (2.5mm) steel dpns, which I picked up in Scottsdale. They're not always easy to find so I snapped them up. I love them for sock knitting — I knit the Kaffe Fasset ones with these as well. I get a tighter gauge than I do with the #2s I'd been using for Sundara yarn, so hopefully the socks will wear better.

Basic recipe here: Tubular cast-on (I used Ysolda's tubular cast on for 2x2 rib) 64 stitches. Work 2x2 rib for 15 rows. Knit one row. Work 5x3 rib (5 k, 3 p) for 50 rows (I don't like a super tall sock). Then K 37, do 3x5 rib over 27 for 7 rows (this adds some rows of stockinette above the heel). Then do a short-row heel over 35 stitches down to 11 stitches; I used Cat Bordhi's method for concealing wraps when they are picked up.

I also did a trick I learned in the first issue of INKnitter magazine — after picking up a stitch and its wraps, I then wrap the next stitch on the needle (a second time) before I turn. This makes for a beautiful heel with no holes. I didn't do this trick on the Kaffe Fasset socks and it has holes. You probably can't see the difference here, but just in case, I'm pasting in photos:

Then I just knitted the foot — K 37, do 3x5 rib over 27 — for 45 rows, knit three rows of stockinette, and did a Round Toe, as they fit me well and don't require grafting. I hate grafting :-)

And now I have one Bloodstone sock and one of the Maizey Bittersweet socks done. As soon as I find the other ball of Maizey I'll finish that pair...

P.S. The mittens have been blocked, but the problem was overtwisting the colors between the rows, so it made a lumpy raised line that wouldn't "block out". However I don't think they will be noticed much in regular wear because it's not on the inside!

I think from now on I'll only make one of everything.

2009-02-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, just kidding. I did go on and finish the other sock and mitten. But no matchy-matchy!

I love the Kaffe Fasset socks. To my delight, the two skeins were wound in reverse of one another, so the colors developed in the opposite direction. The feet are perfectly opposite, each starting the heel with the colors the other has at the toe:

I think it came out great. I did mess up a little on the second leg — I had two rows more before I started the perl bump row, so I finished the leg with two rows fewer in the last 2x2 set. I think no one will notice and the legs are the same length, so who cares? Certainly not me — it just adds to the funkiness.

These weren't made with a pattern — just a basic recipe. From my notes on Ravelry: Tubular CO 64; knit 1x1 rib for 10 rows; change to broken rib pattern: [rows 1-5 2x2 rib, row 6 P across]. Do 7 sets. 2x2 rib for 4 more rows. 5 rows stockinette. Short-row heel over 38 stitches down to 14 (I think next time I should do 34 stitches down to 12). Stockinette to 2” from toe (42 rows in my case). French toe.

They fit like a charm. Now I just need about 15 more pairs and I'm set... I really want to wear handknit socks almost every days.

The mittens were strangely hard! They are Cheryl Niamath's Handsome Mittens from IK. I had a tough time changing colors every row and each mitten has a slightly different set of imperfections because of my attempts. I need to find some clear instruction on how to twist yarns — maybe a YouTube because I am just not getting it right from written instructions. Also, my 1x1 ribbing is tooooo loose, as always. I need to work on that. Still, I'm proud of these lovely alpaca beasties. They are going to a friend whose hands are longer and slimmer than mine, so hopefully my compensation for that (I worked the width instructions for the Small size and the length instructions for the Medium size) will work out. They are softer than soft and knit with a great deal of love, even if they aren't perfect.

Argh spew bumblefrock.

2009-02-12T17:09:00.000-08:00

Not really. It's just that sewing up a picot hem is completely eluding me. Most of this knitting and sewing was done weeks ago — just haven't been able to bear to blog about it, or try again!, until now.

ADVICE WELCOME.

The Briar Rose is a sweet, sweet little pullover and the little girl it's destined for is very deserving. But the only way I've done picot hems before was with a provisional cast-on, knitting two together when I formed the hem and continuing up from there. This pattern has you knit from a regular cast-on and sew up the hem later. I didn't think that sounded too bad. But I should have tried it before I knit so much of the garment — because I'd have to start all over to do it differently!

So first I just tried to sew up the hem. It took about 1 second to realize it wasn't a good idea to use the body yarn, Magic Buttons, which has little lumps all through it :-) I didn't have any sock yarn in purple — not really a humongous fan of purple, I know that's sacrilege — so I took the closest I had, some Sundara in Lenten Rose. It turns out to be way different, kind of a pinky silver-grey, but oh well — it shouldn't show.

Hemming FAIL. I had no idea how to match up the rows of perl stitches on the back with the cast-on so the picots stayed aligned, and after only a few stitches they were out of sync. So instead of saw-teeth, they just looked like a blur.

Idea! I'll sew a running stitch in and out of the body, going around each stitch. I can see the two-stitches-per-tooth on the picots easily, so this should help me keep the count on the body part I'm trying to sew to. I used bright turquoise yarn:

It turned out to be challenging to see to 'gozinta' and 'gozouta's of the running stitch on the back...

but I plunged ahead:

And from the back it looked pretty good:

But from the front, as you can maybe see at the right side here, I was lapsing into blurry picots again. Somehow I'd gotten off count.

I'm going crazy. Is there a better way? I really do want to finish this pullover!

A new post and it's only been four days!

2009-02-07T09:24:00.000-08:00

Heck, I have photos enough saved up for about 5 posts. I think that's often what slows me down from posting — I don't have any pictures of what I'm up to. But now I have too many...

I finally, finally, FINALLY finished Madeleine on Weds., and posted it to England. It's five months late, and I hope it'll fit the little girl it's meant for. If not, I'll make her a new item and treat this as a learning experience: If you hate sewing on buttons with i-cord loops, don't put them in your garment design. I finished knitting this months ago. It was frustration with the dratted buttons and i-cord loops, which kept coming out and going on wrong, that made this take forever.

Whatever I have learned, I have not learned to sew in labels neatly. I really do try. I don't know why they give me so much trouble.

My cat really wanted to get into the photo shoot, so I'm indulging her.

I'm happy with many things about this design, but I also think I'll be changing it some as I try to make the pattern more generic and write it up. I don't think I'll stay with this "Madeline" style of button (it was originally inspired by the Madeline series of books, though I can't find a picture of her actually wearing this style of button-across button, so it may not have been from there in the first place). My aunt warned me it would break up the line of the garment, and though I still think it's kind of cool, I might pick something else — ties, or edge buttons, or who knows what.

Ideas welcome!

On another note, I know I said a few posts ago that I'd award a new knitting magazine to someone who guessed (not correctly, just guessed) what my rainbow splotches were from cooking (they were, by the way, sugar icing from marbled cookies — just powdered sugar mixed with rice milk and food coloring). The winner according to random.org is Johanna, so I'll be contacting her for an address to send on her magazine.

Back from Tempe, AZ

2009-02-04T17:05:00.000-08:00

I spent a few days at a great work-related conference in Tempe, AZ and now I'm back, having shopped at a couple of yarn stores while I was there — Tempe Yarn and Fibers and Knitting in Scottsdale. Both have great, friendly staff members and a decent selection — Tempe Y&F in particular has gotten better and better over time.

I bought Cascade 220 Superwash for a bright pink Starsky Jr. for my niece (probably for this coming winter, not for now), some lovely soft Plymouth Baby Alpaca worsted for some Handsome Mittens for a friend (you'll see pics soon), some Filatura di Crosa extrafine merino in a tweedy black and white for, I think, a Sweet Honey Beret, and finally some of the Kaffe Fassett Regia in "Clay" for some brightly colored socks for ME. memememe, my favorite person to knit for (I know, sad).

I have some stored-up old photos I have to show you later this week or next, but in the meantime here is some of what I'm up to right now.

Yep. I started another pullover for Rob. I am just so mad at the colorwork one right now I can't even swatch the new yarn I bought (in a different dye lot) to see if it'll have a hope of working. I'm vaguely grumpy at the designer, because the measurements DO match the schematic and there's still nowhere near enough yardage called for. Worse, though Rob does have gorilla arms, these aren't even close. I think as designed they'd be 4" too short. So, ya know. It is in the bag until I am ready to face it. Meanwhile I started Ann Budd's Old Way Gansey for Rob. The yarn, from Webs, is this decadent Shepherd 12-ply 100% Lambswool Felted (don't be fooled, it's 16.5sts=4", not bulky weight) in Bark, a lovely rich brown. So far it's just easy peasy stockinette. I did a nice fat tubular cast-on because I wanted a more elastic bottom, plus I wanted to play with tubular cast-ons. They are fun. Spring spring spring!

And then there is this:
Okay, it's not new. I started this poor Reversai in MAY 2008. I mislaid the pattern at some point and wasn't sure where I was, so I stopped. Then I found it and the tape had fallen off so I still wasn't sure. Finally I realized you can just read the pattern and figure it out, so I did. I may have made one or two errors but I'm not very picky, these are for me to wear to work, so I am ignoring that and keeping on :-)

Like Dave, I'm doing UnReversais. I'm doing the heel as written, which is dumb because I know it won't fit me. I need a 60% heel when doing short-row heels, at least, not a 50%. But I just felt stubborn so I did it that way anyway. I may have a little bunching in front of the ankle. Weirdly, I don't care. I'm doing a French Toe because I am lazy and it fits me well. I may actually finish this sock and start the next one.. but don't hold your breath.

Gotta say, LOVING that Maizy yarn. It's incredibly soft and my feet are happy every time I try it on. I think I may have to make more socks in this stuff, even though it's splitty. It's worth the splittiness.

Really it's better to knit in the summertime

2009-01-11T17:09:00.001-08:00

I know that sounds crazy — after all, in the winter it's cold (well, mostly cold), and we want warm things, and it feels good to have wool in our hands, right?

Bear with me.

As you can see, I have my little Ravelry ticker-tapes in the margin, now, and they show that I have a lot of projects sitting between 80 and 95%. And mostly this means there is some sort of a finishing thing left to do — generally a finishing thing that I dislike. As you know, I love mattress stitch — that's not the problem. No, usually it's some sort of sewing. Like Kitchener, which accounts for two of the UFOs. And I'm starting to fear that Kiera's sweater will have a similar problem because of sewing up the picot hem — I tried it last weekend, completely mucked up the first 4" (which took about 45 minutes) and will have to try again with more alcohol, or something.

And here's why it's better to knit — or at least to finish things — in summer. A week ago Sunday we had unseasonable weather, about 80°F and sunny and gorgeous (it's still like that this Sunday, too). The cat luxuriated in the backyard all day, rolling and rolling in the warm dust. And in the nice bright light, feeling calm and not cold, fingers supple and not aching, I sat down and actually finished something — that Green Summer T, originally intended for my niece, which only wanted Kitchenering on ONE UNDERARM.

Since August.

Okay, so the other requirement for me to Kitchener is peace and quiet and solitude, and to get all those plus a sunny, gorgeous weekend day, I had to wait until January. Sadly I think this may mean the T-shirt doesn't fit Carson, and will have to find another little girl. We'll see when she tries it on....

Clearly I'm going to have to time my projects better.

Justification #1.. er.. maybe #24 or so... of 2009

2009-01-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

I'm really great at justifying things. For anything I want to do, basically, I can come up with a reason why it actually has to be done, and done now.

This is, for example, how I somehow ended up lazily pasting stamp hinges on stamps, printing out pages for them from Stamp Albums Web (costs money to join, but cheaper than buying lots of stamp albums), and mounting them on printed-out custom pages today instead of working on Grasslimb, which is late as usual. After all, the stamps I'd been tearing off envelopes and saving had really piled up, and... never mind that the pile was only about 2" x 3".

So I wear boring brown or black socks to work, most recently procured from Eddie Bauer because they actually seem to stay up for more than 5 seconds, and though I've bought a lot of brown and black sock yarn, I haven't actually knitted myself any socks out of that, yet.

But on the weekend I wear more colorful socks. And most of my old socks look like the purple pair I wore this morning.

I believe this justifies the need to make myself some brightly colored pairs of socks in 2009.

Not that I've started any of them yet. I'm still clicking along on my small friend's pullover:

and my friend Elinoire's spring cardigan:

I'm also still trying to find spare yarn for Rob's pullover, but so far no one has the right dye lot of Chunky AL. I guess I'll just buy some random dye lot and try to mix it. But I'm far from happy or enthusiastic about the prospect.

Speaking of Rob, he had a tune-up on his Lasik yesterday and all went well; it fixed the slight undercorrection in one eye and he is happy.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't been idle. We've had three sets of house guests, and entertained lots of other out-of-town and in-town guests as well. We celebrated Rob's birthday, went to my mom's for Hanukah, had a houseful over for Christmas pizza-making, and threw a New Year's party. I baked holiday cookies, pizza dough and bread. And I even did a little knitting — with mixed results.

I finished all the pieces of Rob's pullover, with a few yards of yarn to spare. But when I sewed in one sleeve and had him try it on, the dratted arms are still about 2" too short. And no, I do not in my wildest dreams have enough yarn left to make them longer. They are also too narrow. (Sorry, I was too disappointed to take a photo. Though it would have been funny. But sad.)

In retrospect I should have made the next size up, because the body is snug (but manageable). But I had more than enough yardage according to the pattern for the size I made, so I think it's one of those "we did our best at calculating yarn use for the other sizes" situations.

I couldn't find anyone who was selling the right dye lot on Ravelry, but I sent a message to one gal who has two skeins of a different lot for sale. Maybe I can alternate rows when I reknit the sleeves and kind of blend it, if it's not too different. The sleeves are so tight they will have to be reknit from the wrist, anyway. Remember how I already knit four sleeves for this sweater? Darn thing is cursed!

So I'm distracting myself. I owe a small friend of mine (who is nearly 3) a purple sweater. I'm making Briar Rose from Knitty, using some Magic Buttons yarn (lovely stuff that I've used in the past for kid's items). Here's a shot of the back:

I started it Dec. 30. I know that's crazy when I had house guests arriving AND a party to throw on Dec. 31, but I wanted something easy to knit while we had company, and it worked. I'm nearly done with the back and 1/4 way up the front!

Edited to add: Okay, I'm very amused by all the guesses about the colored dots above. I'm going to put all the folks who guess in a hat and pick one to win a copy of a new knitting magazine.

Taking shape...

2008-12-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

You can see the leaves and vines starting to show up on the Spring Garden Cardi at last:

I think the acupuncture might actually be helping a little. I'm still trying to keep it to a few rows a day until I'm over the flareup. But this is fun to watch.

I realize I should be finishing Rob's pullover and I must admit the reason I haven't yet is I'm SCARED. I'm nearly out of yarn. Now, I realize putting it off isn't going to make me grow more yarn, but I keep hesitating to face the music. However, I'd better finish it before the cold weather quits for the year — after all, I started it before last winter!

A brief Thanksgiving note

2008-11-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving, just want to say that I am grateful for my blogreaders, perhaps even more so in the last few months as my postings have become sparse. You have stuck by me, always cheer me up in rough times, and share your wisdom, humor and experience generously. You guys are great and I can't wait to get back to blogging more frequently -- reading your blogs and commenting more often, too.

Hugs to you all.

For your entertainment, since I haven't been knitting (I have started acupuncture for the arthritis and nerve damage problems, though), here is a picture of me in 2nd grade. (I had glasses starting at age 4 1/2.) I was 7.

I know, I know. CRAZY quiet.

2008-11-20T22:24:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in ages. The reason is twofold: One, my job has jumped from your standard 40-45 hours/week sort of thing to well over 50. And as you know, I'm still trying to do a bunch of other things in my 'spare' time: mediation training, singing in a band, publishing a literary magazine, and doing Cog Sci research. Oh yeah, and knitting..

Amidst all this, we had a house guest (my aunt) for a few days, and then another (my brother) for a few days, and we helped my mom throw a 70th birthday party for my dad. And we have more house guests arriving for Thanksgiving. Great fun, but not conducive to blogging :-)

Then there's the other bit. Either my arthritis or the nerve damage in my arm (hard to tell) has been acting up this month, so I haven't been doing all that much knitting. The funny thing is that often knitting per se isn't painful, but everyday things like holding the handle of a teacup, or carrying a book, are, making me feel this weird reluctance to do any other 'hand' activities — even if those activities wouldn't hurt.

But the hand/wrist is easing, and I have done SOME knitting. And I'm still trying to finish Madeleine! Most difficult is the choosing of buttons. Here are the four options I was considering.

At first, I really thought I was going to choose the top coral ones here on the right, with the bottom purple ones as my second choice. I didn't like those little cut-lines in the top buttons, but I kept thinking they were the best color match. Of course, that was when I was holding up the buttons to the garment while they were still on their little white cards.

But when I took them off the cards and took these pictures, I realized the first ones weren't the best. I ended up picking the light pink ones on top here on the left. I sewed two on, realized button two was in the wrong position, cut it off again, and put the whole thing in a pile on the kitchen table — oops. I'm not terrifically fond of sewing on buttons. Must take it up again soon, before that baby outgrows the sweater!

I'm also back to working on this pink cardi for a friend of mine. It's made from this lovely, soft Jaeger Roma, which I have to really recommend for the pure heaven of the knitting experience. Plus I think it's going to make a really nice garment.

Thank you so much for the advice!!

2008-10-25T17:54:00.001-07:00

Haven't gone to get the buttons nor made the loops for 'em yet, but otherwise it is assembled, blocked and done. And a lot bigger than I had anticipated, as always — I'm infamous for making 6-month size clothing that is really closer to 18-month size. But wow! I'm so happy with it! And I couldn't have done it without you.

Here's a closeup of the neckline. Knittah and ampliflyer suggested picking up the stitches and either purling back or doing ribbing as an edging. What I did was pick up 1:1 stitches with a size 2 needle, knit 1x1 ribbing for a few rows, and THEN did 4-stitch i-cord. It still curled a little but blocked out great!

Here's a closeup of the bottom edge, where I used twistle's recommendation to knit a kind of gradual zigzag of stockinette into garter. This still flipped (and as you may be able to see, I didn't do a perfect job of knitting this zigzag), but it didn't flip as much or as hard, and a good blocking fixed it. Of course when it's washed by the recipient and probably hung to dry, I don't know what will happen, but I think it'll still keep the baby warm!

Thanks again for all the help. I'll hope to have a finished piece to show you in a few more days.

I got nothin' — so you get somethin'

2008-10-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

I have done zero knitting this week owing to Jewish holidays, the Henry Rollins show (w00t!), and other nonsense — like going to see Roger Reynolds' Sanctuary Project tonight at the Salk Institute, which should be interesting.

SO! Make a comment and tell me this: what would you do if you unexpectedly had an afternoon off work — or, if you're retired, an extra 4 hours in your week — but no money to spend on it?

I'll draw a random comment from all those received by 6 p.m. PDT on Tuesday night, and the winner will get my Spring/Summer 2008 copy of knit.1, featuring "natural knits", some cute amigurumi animals, and other stuff. I've read it a few times now, but don't want to keep it.

The photo below is from our road trip this past summer. We went to Salt Lake City, and saw this unusual sculpture on a city street near the Tabernacle.

Not the achievement queen this week

2008-10-05T11:11:00.001-07:00

Partly it's the Jewish holidays, partly it's a flareup of some hand/arm problems, but mostly I think I'm spending way too much time surfing the Web and not enough time knitting.

I appreciated all the suggestions on the curling edges. I'm trying them and we'll see what happens. I want to get this matinee coat done SOON before the baby is too big for it!

Speaking of which, I finished (finally!) sewing the buttons on Meghan's cardigan:

Yep, I went with the gold ones in the end. A tough call, partly made because of the ease of buttoning these. It'll be interesting to see, when I make a blue one of these with the same yarn, how the wooden buttons look on it. I think they'll both be nice.

I also made myself a washcloth using Tunisian honeycomb stitch. I make a couple of these a year, because I use them twice a day and they do wear out. Just standard dishcloth (Lily Sugar 'n' Cream, in this case) cotton and a size G Tunisian hook.

I love honeycomb stitch. Tunisian fabric is thick and stiff, and with the honeycomb texture it makes a wonderful scrubby washcloth. Tunisian crochet, especially with cotton, is kind of hard on the wrists, though, so I'm glad it's done.

Aarrrgh.

2008-09-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

Garter-stitch bottom edge?
Flips up.
i-cord inner band?
Curls in (you can't even see it in this picture, it's so curled. It's on the right edge here).

Advice? I know there's a couple of ways to knit applied i-cord. I used the way where the stitch you grab from the knitted garment is actually knit together with the last i-cord stitch. I know you can also pick up a loop of working yarn with that stitch and then do the k2tog, which might change the way it lies. You can also do it from the back (but I think that looks sloppy, and it flips to the front). There might be other hints...

Baargh. This is SO close.

Madeleine is getting close!

2008-09-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty excited about this. I did go a little longer than your typical matinee coat, because I loved the look and feel I was getting:

That's still on the needles, so you see a bit of a 'bloomer' affect on the bottom that won't be in the completed coat. Unfortunately, when I bound off, the bottom set of garter stitch flipped up. I tried knitting one of the garter stitch rows with a smaller needle and binding off with that needle, but it still flipped up, so I ripped all 6 rows and am redoing them in a smaller needle. Crossing my fingers it won't flip this time!

After this comes attached i-cord on the front opening/neck, and then something exciting with buttons. And blocking. I'm excited about all of it.

My sinus infection is not so exciting. I'm on triple antibiotics now and still have a dratted sinus headache. CT scans next week. I'm taking everything at about half speed.

You win some — I win some!

2008-09-15T19:29:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all the great button comments. I am still not sure which one I'll choose for this green cardi, I'll be making a blue baby cardi as well (same yarn) and will likely use whichever buttons are left on that!

I used the Internet Random Number Generator to figure out who won the contest for a copy of Yarn Forward, and it is Jae! Jae, if you'll drop me a note with your address via e-mail to valerie [at] grasslimb [dot] com, I'll pop it in the mail to you. Congrats on winning my first blog drawing!

And I won something too — I won one of the prizes in the recent Mainely Rat Rescue fundraising contest. It's a set of rat hammocks. I don't own a rat, but perhaps you do and would like these hammocks? Please e-mail me at the address just noted if you do! I'd like them to have a good home and they sound like great fun for some ratties.

The baby for whom I'm knitting Madeleine (note: the baby, to my knowledge, is not named Madeleine) was born a few hours ago, so I'm knitting like mad. Nothing to show yet, so here's a wildflower from this summer's trip, from Grand Teton National Park.

Further Adventures of the Secret Yarninator

I know (hangs head)

Progress on self-indulgence

Cute but irritating / cute and fun

Been gone so long...

Try, try again

@#$*(@*$(#@*$(@#!!!!

Tub saga

Oh, honestly. Sometimes…

One dratted skein...

Losing track of what I've shown you and what I haven't!

Time to cut my losses?

Yeah, baby!

Old dog...

Not-fitty-ness

Samey

DANG this is cute.

Progress!

It's been almost three years...

Some other things recently knitted

Finished the afghan!

I think orange buttons worked out really well!

The random number generator has spoken...

Final three buttons, and a contest!

All eyes on owls!

Welcome back, Internet! I missed you.

Still here and still knitting!

Sometimes the magic works...

Finished a hat for James!

Louise's baby is due in less than two weeks.

Simple baby knitting

DUDE! The blocking worked!!

There is no substitute

Buttons, crochet and music

Oops, forgot to announce!

Another magazine!

And the winnah is...

Reverse-engineering (literally) and a contest!

Words probably not necessary.

I finished something!

Sometimes the work doesn't show for a while.

Another new project

I have been naughty.

Welcome to the Teenies!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... (plus, sewn bind-off)

Pre-adjustment "Hey, Teach!"

And now, a trip back in time

Progress!

Duh...

In a hurry

New and old...

Getting well means... less time?

Ok, tell me REALLY.

Hedgies

Got the camera!

I'll be back soon!

Glove love!

Argghity argh argh argh

Okay but you have to admit they are ridiculously cute.

She prefers wearing it with her tutu

Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July!

You are the proud mother of... fraternal twins!

Inching along...

Soooo close!

Socky.

Not quite.

Something is wrong here.

I got distracted :-)

Looks nearly done, but...

One step forward, two steps back...

I have an idea.

Kiera's sweater is done!

In the mail!

Yarny visitors!

I /did/ cast on anew

Progress! thanks to pins.

Boring Brown Socks are done.. and comfy

Another FO!

More prizes! For you and for me!

Gauge issue

@#$(@$(#@*$(@#!!!!