Not disappeared!

Nothing like a holiday to make you stop writing. Anything. To anyone. Ahh, relaxing. But now I'm back in my office and it's e-m-p-t-y. There are a few lawyers meandering around, but most of the support staff is off doing whatever it is they do in their off hours. Adult things, I'm guessing. Like vaccuuming. Dusting. Making hors d'oeuvres. Doing their taxes. I don't know.

An office this empty is both exciting and cause for worry. It can go one of two ways:

1. With so few people here there will be no work. For anybody. This is not terribly different for me than most days, but it's always nice first day back.
2. With so few people here any work that DOES come in will go to me, including things that I don't generally do because I don't know how.

Gratefully it's tending towards that first one, and I'm lazing about, enjoying my free Diet Dr. Pepper and catching up on blogs and news and comix, oh my.

On the ride up I spent the night with High School Friend Russ and his girlfriend. We celebrated Chanukkah, which was excellent -- it's not often I get to be part of an Actual Ceremony instead of my family's tradition, which is more "light candles for the first night or two, sing something about the Chanukkah bunny, hand out the traditional Chanukkah flashlights, call it a night" and less "praying".

Arrival in Philadelphia involving happy parents and dogs and some last-minute weaving in of ends. That's right, I waited until 11pm Christmas eve to weave in the very last ends on mom's mittens. I had this fear that once I snipped them they'd fall apart and I'd end up giving my mom a bag of crinkly wool. Merry Christmas!

All was well, and mom loved the mittens:



And said they were just like the ones she used to have when she was young. Ooh, that felt good.

(It's a bit of a silly face; she was mid-word).

Dad loved his hat:



I got a nice knitterly haul: VK's Stitchionary (vol. 1), a knitting-pattern-a-day calendar, 2 skeins of hand-spun, hand-dyed 2-ply wool/mohair that is lovely and which I have absolutely no ideas for, and THANK YOU GOD, a swift!

Finally! A swift! Not using knees! This is unbearably exciting.

The only thing is that it's table-top, not clamp which -- well, I'll see how it goes. And there aren't strings linking the arms so you have to pull them out one by one, which seems awkward. Still. Swift! Oontz! And it's a pretty one, too.

And pups had a good Christmas, too. Right, noodlies?


Hmm? Skritchies?

(I swear Scamp is made of jello).


*crunch crunch crunch*

And chew toys were chewed by all.

Sometimes,

slow as I am,



things get finished.



And it's good.




(Next question is: do I want to add a lining to the hat? (Dad's sensitive to itchy wool, and Andean Silk is full of pokey guard hairs). I have some Knitpicks baby alpaca laceweight, but it's blue, which is iffy with the red hat... hm...)

Now I have 1-4 weeks to finish the baby hat.

And then? The knitting world is MINE again!

Progress? Yes!

I finished the top of the second of mom's mittens and started work on the first thumb. Three times.

#44. To save on lots of grief (and ripping), remember that using a pattern makes a project go much faster! It's worth the money. Seriously.

Shedir 2.0 is finished! And... oh. It's a little short. AGAIN. It leaves earlobes out in the cold! I did 3 base increases instead of 5 because I measured it and darnit it seemed like it was going to work! I have a few options:

1. Rip back the crown, do another repeat of the lower cables, re-do the crown (ack!).
2. Carefully undo the cast-on edge and do some more ribbing (wouldn't look stellar).

I guess I'll go with option 2, though, as always, not optimal. It's far more exciting than ripping back the crown, though, because doing cables with splitty worsted yarn on size 1 needles? Ow ow OW ow ow. My wrists. Ow. I am actually astounded that my needles aren't permanently bent out of shape.

Pictures? No. But soon!

In the meantime, look! Loch Ness!


Aw. I miss Scotland.

The Hubris Avenger strikes again!

There I was, knitting and knitting on the second mitten, cruising right along, feeling all pleased with myself at how fast it was going. I was mentally writing the entry about how good I'm getting about "reading" my knitting so I didn't have to use the excel graph of the pattern, and boy howdy aren't I cool!

I mean, observe!



Cool!

And so, naturally, I was punished by the knitting goddesses! You'd've thought I'd've learned my lesson.

So the ribbing was a little longer in the second mitten (same number of rows = longer cuff? How?!), blocking would fix, surely! Look at me go! Zip zip!



Notice anything missing? Anything at all?

I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with "thumb gusset."

I cursed. I complained. I glared at the lack of thumb. And then I got to share with a friend the joy of frogging a knit. I picked up the stitches and handed it over with instructions to pull the long strands of yarn. Yup, just pull 'em.

I like letting my friends frog things. Paige frogged something for me at one point and she sat there and giggled, ripping out row after row.

Merely forgetting something so trivial as the THUMB and having to rip 12(ish) rows was only the beginning. All yesterday evening I found wrong stitches: blue where white should be, white where blue should be, increases in the wrong row, lost crochet hooks, and so on!

But it's still going, though quite slowly as I've been trounced by my hubris. Again.

I'm not really such a grouchy knitter, it's just that whenever something really good happens then I screw up mightily before I can get the joyous entry into my blog.

And then what did I see this morning? A primer for two-color Norwegian-style mittens by Eunny. It's great! So much excellent information!

That I really could've used back in, oh, September.

Aw.

I also learned that the cuff I "made up" is called corrugated ribbing. Now, knitting has been around for waaaaay too long to presume that there's really anything "new" -- particularly something so, well, intuitive. (Once you hit fair aisle it seems only natural that one would go on to two-color ribbing). Still, though, it's nice to have a few days in which you think that maybe you've done something at least a LITTLE original.

Dear Hubris Avenger,
I am sufficiently humbled. Really. I won't forget this time. Thanks.
Love,
Emily

In other news, I was thinking about making my dad a scarf for Christmas. Nothing too fancy -- chunky baby alpaca in fisherman's rib (which is the only way to go with chunky baby alpaca). Thing was, it's kind of... boring. Lux, yes; but still boring.

My folks have a farmhouse with some land attached, and they love working in the fields/woods/yard, and it being PA, it gets cold. A scarf would work, but baby alpaca is too nice for such things.

So yesterday I graphed out a hat that compliments mom's mittens. Aw. ("Merry Christmas, dad! I got you a sweater! It's from Banana Republic.")

#38. Sometimes I just never learn. But it's still fun!

Curses!

Work's gotten really busy so I haven't been able to write any knitterly anecdotes about how I frogged something else (or even finished talking about SAFF!). Then I went to Atlanta for a dance weekend (where, if I'd had free time, I would've hollered to the Atlanta knitters for a meet-up, but I had zero unscheduled time. Oof. But grand!

The first mitten is finished [except for the thumb] and after battling with some serious Second Mitten Syndrome I took the yarn and needles to Atlanta and during drinking-in-the-hotel hours I cast on for the second. I haven't gotten very far. It's not terribly interesting at the moment.



I'm telling you -- I'm so NOT a morning person that even my camera can't focus.

Over thanksgiving my grandmother (who originally taught me to knit AND
taught me to wrap the yarn around my finger which, ah-ha, made knitting way faster) is coming to visit. She wrote to say I should bring some ideas for knitting. This makes me giggle with excitement, and also... not have any ideas. I can show her the mittens, but beyond that? Sizzle's not really her thing (too low cut), I'm not working on socks, the scarf I started is pretty boring...

So perhaps I should start something new? (something else new). But what? I could bring the blue tweed, but that'll just be a stockinette sweater. New socks?

Okay. Honestly? I want to show off a little bit. I'll be bringing the lace leaf pullover with me, so that's something, but I want to be working on something. Y'know? Hm.

Oh, the scarf? It's coming from two skeins of Noro Blossom that I bought ages ago. Simple k2p2 ribbing -- I really needed a brainless project while I took a break from the mittens. The thing about the blossom yarn, though, is that it looks a little... ratty. The fabric has zero body. What keeps me going, though, is the stripes. Mmm, stripey... I might could give it away when I'm finished if I decide I don't like the fabric, but darnit I need more handknits. For me. Me me me.

"Why do I dance? [which detracts from knitting]



Why do I breathe?" - Someone (that's me in the black)

Silver lining

I was running through the mitten-top decreases, and... it just didn't look right. But far be it from me to stop when things look wrong. Surely blocking will fix it! Maybe if I keep going it'll be okay!

And I was so close to finishing... [one mitten]... [except for the thumb]...

And it sucked. So frog-tacular!

Just the top, though. And the silver lining? I'm getting really good at picking up stitches and ripping back to them.

One step forward,



a third of a step back.

Let's play "spot the mistake"!

Who wants to guess how many rows ahead of the mistake I am?

Just desserts

hu‧bris  [hyoo-bris, hoo-]
–noun excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.

The mitten was frogged, and the pattern totally reworked with 8 fewer stitches, keeping in consideration the 6spi gauge, so sayeth Knitpicks, which I recalled was what I'd gotten when I did a swatch at some point, giving me a solid 8.6" circumference. Peachy keen!

Knitting recommenced, making sure to give a decent tug at the gaps between needles so as to avoid ladders. (Things that I know now were a tip-off to trouble #1: it took me an entire evening to cast on in an attractive and fully functional manner. Twice I'd get the cast on, start knitting, and then drop a stitch. I don't know how to re-cast-on a dropped cast-on stitch. Magic loop was attempted and failed). And even still the cast on doesn't look as good as the first one. Arg. Anyway, no ladders!

In fact, all the stitches were tighter. But still, pattern confidence! (Can you hear the chorus warning me yet?). Worked through the cuff and started the mitt. Felt smug at the speed of knitting. Worked the first bit of the thumb, which I'm fairly sure I'm doing correctly. Even tried it on, and felt only mild concern that it might be too tight now. It's not snug, but it's... tighter.

Put aside worry! Barrelled on with confidence! 6 spi! The Chorus moved into their dance number!

In the bleary, bleary morning I took a picture of the mitten progression in all its glory as I started flying closer to the sun showing how it was, indeed, smaller! Tape measure added for scale!¹ Observe!



(I apologize for the blur -- it's impossible to focus at 8am).

And then this morning, as my brain cells started to wake up a bit I realized that something seemed off about the measuring tape and the mitten configuration.

On a whim, I pulled up the picture and -- just for fun! -- counted my spi. You know, to confirm my inherent knitterly clever-itude. With the 6 spi. Beware the ides of pattern-making.

Count count count! And -- HEY!

It-- it... 7.5-8 spi? But that's WAY more than 6! And according to the tape measure it's a 6.5" circumference!

Oh, expletives and rage and SAD.

Well, it fits over my hand and mom's hands are smaller, so maybe it'll work... I hope... I guess I'll find out. I won't frog just yet.

Dear gods of knitting: I am sufficiently humbled, thank you. Never again, with the ego.

If you need me from now on I'll be the one rolling the giant ball of itchy, itchy wool up the mountain, or on alternate weekends I'll be strapped to a rock having my insides pecked out by addi turbos.

#27. Hubris isn't exclusive to the ancient Greeks.

#28. Don't base a whole pattern on the yarn band's spi. Caveat swatch-free knitter. (And the worst part? I knew that).

¹ Har!

Aw...

Before:


After:

Oops...

So Hello Yarn's mitten pattern suggests a women's small/medium mitten size is about 8" around. In 6 s/in that would be 48 stitches. Okay!

I checked my pattern, and, lalala, six stitches to the inch, and I have, let's see, one, two, three... doop de do,

eighteen, nineteen, twenty... dum te dum,

fourty-one, fourty-two, fourty-three... dee-tee-dee,

fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty six... I -- oh crap.

Sixty?! A ten inch circumference?! No wonder it feels huge!

But... how on earth did I decide on sixty? I don't even know!

Heep! How am I going to lose... carry the one... twelve stitches from the pattern?! Okay, less because of ease, but STILL!

Crap. I think the frogging has been confirmed... But at least now I can fix the ladders which are all "HERE WE ARE! LOOK AT US! UGLY UGLY UGLY!!"

At least they are to me.

That's right, my knitting talks to me. You be quiet.

#25. When planning mittens and accounting for gauge, and you happen to have a tape measure and, oh, I don't know, your hand, it's a good idea to measure your hand, dopus!

#26. Der.

#24. Fair aisle really is addicting. Knitting 2 blue, 1 white, 5 blue, etc. a bunch of times and watching a pattern grow is super neat.

I'm definitely enjoying knitting mom's mittens.

The back:


And the front:


The thing is, though, is that it's looking a little, um, big. In theory the alpaca lining will be tighter and therefore a looser outer mitt will be okay, but... well. I guess I'll find out. I'd be so sad if I had to frog the whole thing though. And also, I'm sort of making up the thumb pattern as I go along. Hee!

It's so pretty...



But there are two slightly-too-wide white ribs and ooh they're annoying. I guess they're ladders -- they were at the bit between the needles... How to fix?

In conclusion, I wish I knew CSS as well as I know knitting, because this formatting thing is driving me batty.

Conclusion addendum: yay beer.

I had a free weekend for the first time in a long time (and for the last time for a while), so I made some fierce kind of progress.

Let's explore!

I finished the first halloween/camo/mess of concerns sock. For some reason I neglected to take a picture of it. It looks like a sock. And the color... is okay. It's not so much "HEY, HALLOWEEN-STYLE!" as "Oh, you say this is halloween-themed? ...Okay, okay, I could see that."

I'm still a little concerned about the size. I didn't like the information about foot size I found on the internet, so I thought I'd find a size 7 and get a measurement. I asked a bunch of friends what size feet they had, and since I hadn't talked to most of them in ages it was a little awkward.

Me: Hi! How've you been for the past three years? Um! What size feet do you have?
My friends: ....?

But I got a decent estimate for sock length. However, look at the unfinished sock as compared to the sock for me (remember: camo sock = size 7, purple sock = size 9):



Yeah... Oh dear. Well, it's a little too small for me, length-wise, so it'll be okay, right? ...right?

I have to wonder, though, after all this work and worry, will the receiver of socks even appreciate a hand-knitted item? Will I even find out? Does it matter?

I cast on for the second sock at Scott's house last night, and it took me all of The Royal Tenenbaums (including the credits) to knit up just the picot edge (which included making a crochet chain by hand and praying that it was long enough). Still, though, I thought for sure I'd make it to the heel.

Don't have a picture of that either. Heh.

Hanyway. Because I am Single-Minded and Noble in the Gifting of Socks I definitely did not work on other projects, because I am Totally Unselfish and Need Not the Garments for Self. My only concern is the Woolifying of Others! Noble. Yes.

So you should realize that all the following pictures are hypothetical progress. You know, as if I were so Rude as to work on something other than the Socks this weekend. These are all Photoshopped. Yes, that's it. I am a master of Photoshop.

First up, a blur-tastic shot of my re-working of the hideous grafting start/end point:



It took me all of an episode of "Sex and the City" to figure that one out. It looks like I'm decreasing two stitches, not just one. And while it looks like a proper decrease now (without holes! This is a serious victory) it's still a decrease in the middle of stockinette and stands out like a black person at a republican convention (zing!). (Joke survey: Tasteless? Hilarious? Discuss).

So it's still ugly. I think what I'll do is drop the stitches all the way down to the ribbing, do the decrease there, and then chain all the way back up. I'm a little worried that the new, chained stitches will be loose, though. And that it'll pull the ribbing in a weird way. Well, only one way to find out.

I also wove a large number of ends in. It's possible I got a little lazy at the end and started wondering if anyone was really going to check the inside of my sweater for unwoven-in ends. I mean, I don't care if there are loose ends. And none of my real friends will care either. Ahem.

In similar news, here's how it looks these days:



(It was incredibly tilted on the hanger, so I tilted the camera. It's artistic. Shut up).

I also definitely did not work a few (and I mean a few -- like 2) rows on my purple sock, but if I had, it might look like this:



My first pair of socks (which are less "mistake rib" and more just "mistake;" see Thing I've Learned #12) got a hole in one of them, and now I'm desperate -- desperate! -- for socks.

I also didn't do more work on my mom's mittens.



But if I had, I might note that holy hell I love this texture:



(I found the super-macro button on my camera! Hellooo, super close-ups!)

And the last thing I would do, because this would be too slimy for words, is swatch with some scraps of Classic Elite Princess for the Rebecca Wrap With Sleeves.

.

Really, I would never do such a thing.



(Extreme close-up! Whoooooaaaaaa! Whoooooaaaaaaa!).

My grandparents sent me a very nice check for my birthday, and so while I am an Adult who does Mature, Responsible, Adult Things and plan to put some of it towards one of those Funds that will become Important Later, I also feel it's my duty to spend some of it on me towards awesome self-related things. Maybe to an Amazon gifting, or to a sweater's worth of Classic Elite Princess, because I love that yarn so hard it hurts. I don't know if it's Rebecca Wrap Sweater material, though. Hence, theoretical swatch.

Theoretical.

#19: When making socks, only measure feet when sock-receiver is standing. There's a giant difference between sitting feet and standing feet. Trust me.

Well damn. I wasn't going to have a blog. I can't even keep up the three (THREE) that I have already. Not to mention I'm the world's slowest and most distracted knitter and will NEVER update, will NEVER get the pictures on the computer, etc. But it seems like a solid place to keep up with my knitterly projects, and work IS slow, and it seems like an addiction that's getting worse rather than going away, so maybe it'll happen. Or something.

So. An introduction, so you can see the mess I'm dealing with!

On the needles (and actively being worked on, if only occasionally):

1. Knitty's Tubey, made with alpaca from eBay; modified with 3/4 sleeves; size 3 needles, because eBay LIED and there is NO WAY that fabric would be anything but netting on the recommended size 6 needles. The arms are knit and need their ends woven in (and the seed stitching on the ends of the sleeves probably need to be ripped and re-done because it's a fierce kind of wonky). Am currently on the body, which I used to carry with me and work on while bored, but it's gotten a bit too big for my bag. Also, not encouraging as even with fresh yarn it looks like a rag. Also, k3p1 takes an ETERNITY.



2. Lace Leaf Pullover in Classic Elite Princess doubled, on DAMNIT I FORGOT WHAT SIZE needles. I was so close to being finished! So close! There was DRAMA, with the being SO CLOSE to finishing and then RUNNING OUT OF YARN. I bought the yarn on SALE for $4 and then had to buy one more for $10. It was a sad, sad day. There was pouting.

And then I decided that the body was too short and I UNgrafted the middle and it's now waiting on my chair to be knit more, then REgrafted, at which point it will be summer and I will have to turn my air conditioning to "Canadian winter" just so I can wear the damn thing.

The real tragedy is that it was actually going really fast until I started running out of yarn.




3. Scott's hat. I'd bought a skein of Knitpicks' Decadence in Twilight to see if it was anything like Plymouth's Baby Alpaca Grande. And they ARE, in that they're both yarn. Beyond that, no. No they aren't.

But Scott wanted a hat! I will knit you a hat, I said, for I am a knitter, and no self-respecting knitter will let a friend BUY a hat. Alas, I have no pattern/plan/ideas yet, because I've been distracted by all the knits listed below. I did cast on while on a flight to... Stockholm? and knit one row, put it in a bag, and haven't touched it since. The leaves are starting to fall. I need to get my butt in gear.

It's not even worth a photograph at this point.

4. A baby hat with Blue Sky Alpaca's bulky in polar bear. This pattern, actually. But I haven't bought the pattern because 1. it's super simple, and 2. patterns are for suckers. But I have until about January, when Miss Kat's baby is due. It's on the wrong size needles, though ( 10.5 when 13 is recommended), so it needs to be frogged. Since it hasn't, though, and since it's on a deadline, it still qualifies as being on the needles.



5. Knitty's Baudelaire socks, made with hand-spun brown alpaca from Ouray, CO; size 2 bamboo needles; modified for knee-highs. My first successful toe-up attempt. I'm not confident that this yarn will hold up to wearing in a sock-like manner, but here's hoping. The other problem is that the yarn has a bit of a halo and doesn't show the pattern very well.



Unfortunately, this project has been cast aside for:

6. Top-down, picot edge ankle socks from Wildefoote's sock yarn in Symphony that I picked up (and apprently dearly overpaid for) last Saturday. Plain stockinette, first picot edge attempt, as learned from Purlwise here. The new carry-everywhere project. The colors shown here are hilariously off. It's much darker than this. I thought sunlight was supposed to encourage color accuracy! Curse you, brain, and your lies!



But this, too, has been tossed aside at home for:

7. Norwegian mittens that I am designing myself because work gets kind of boring sometimes. They're for mom, for Christmas. Yes, I'm trying to start early. This is good because I always make things SO MUCH MORE COMPLICATED than I ever anticipate them being.

Me, pre-project: Designing my own Norwegian mittens? Easy!
Me, during project: Now... wait. That doesn't work. Hm, that either. Hoo! That's ugly! Etc!
Me, Christmas: Merry Christmas, mom! I burned you a cd.

During slow days at work I researched Scandinavian mittens, guessed at gauge, and excel'd a basic pattern, praying that I'd get 6s/in. When I was really sick of researching yarns (about a day) I ordered me some Telemark from Knitpicks in alpine frost and cream, and a skein of Alpaca Cloud in stream because I have this notion that these mittens deserve a baby alpaca lining, the inspiration for which I can't find, but I am confident that I'll be able to figure it out ("Look, I also got you a book!").

There's actually a baby mitten (possibly knit by my grandmother years ago?) that would be BRILLIANT to reproduce in an adult size, but of COURSE it's at my parents' home in Philadelphia, where I won't be until Thanksgiving, and who wants to wait that long to knit something exciting? I mean really.

I started the other day, and have this Idea for a 1x1 ribbed cuff (the straight cuff seems like it'd be less good for keeping out the cold), with the blue and white alternating. Blue, knit, white purl. Right?

WELL. I couldn't find a two-color cast-on online OR in my Vogue Knitting, so I just made one up. The first time I tried a slip knot in blue, then a slip knit in white, then CO a blue, then CO a white, etc. This makes a really small cast on, AND I realized, as I started working it with the white in front and the blue in back, that I'd just taught myself double knitting. Non-interlocking double knitting. Failure.

Attempt 2, interlocking double knitting. Nope, not quite, though I'm kind of keen on the double edge the cast on creates.

On attempt 3 I just made a slip knit with the blue, tied a half-hitch with the white around the top of the blue, then did a long tail cast-on with the blue, switching the yarns clockwise after each stitch. Turned out it's very

similar to this. Oops.

It's interesting, though. While casting-on the bottom is really open. I liked the way that looked. And then when I started knitting it closed up. Strange!

It's my first Real intarsia fair aisle project (everything I did while using acrylic doesn't count) and boy do I hate knitting with my left hand. I'd read about yarn dominance and thought it meant whatever color you held in your dominant hand would be the dominant color (subtlest styling EVER), but it turns out it's whatever yarn is carried underneath. So now I feel less bad about having the dominant color (blue) in my left hand, because by god I can't purl with the left for my life.

Unfortunately it's still so slow that they'll be done by the time hell freezes over. And with global warming that's not going to be any time soon.



Also, 8. I have more sock yarn heading my way. My sister-in-law, Karen, has commissioned me to make a pair of stripey halloween-style socks for a swap she's doing. I'm planning on the same picot-edged stockinette footies that I'm working on when I'm not totally submerged in the mittens.

My mom has promised that there's a package headed my way -- another birthday present. I'd sent her a list of mostly knitting related gifts. I hope it's sea silk, but more than that (what with that huge list of projects) I hope it's a swift. My knees/15lb dumbbell/doorknobs/chairs just aren't cutting it.

And I may be comissioning a friend to make a nostepinde! I've been using empty toilet paper tubes, and while handy and free, they're not very attractive. On the other hand, nostepindes look like dildos. Ah well. Six of one.