Good news!

Not dead! Still going!

With the trip and getting stranded in Miami on the way home and having people staying in my apartment this past weekend and some... life craziness, I haven't been able to write (well, knit-based writing, anyway).

I haven't knit much, either.

To come: I did some extreme knitting while I was away, and why you should always bring a picture of a pattern when traveling with WIPs.


(this picture is Definitely Not Staged at All).

Impending radio silence

The socks... are still going. More accurately, the sock is still going, and let's not even talk about second sock syndome, pls.



I increased a bunch and am now working through the decreases (and please do cross your fingers for me) will end right about where the heel starts, which would just be too keen (cue impending knitter god wrath for my Wicked, Wicked Pride¹). It's still a little tight, but not boa-constrictor-esque. The sock's partner isn't going to be a perfect match (at ALL), as I'm increasing/decreasing every 3ish rows.

Here's a 2 stitch increase that I "made up" and used to fix the fact that I forgot to cast on in a multiple of four:



In the same stitch: knit, knit into stitch AND STITCH BELOW, knit. If you use this a lot and/or the stitches are stretched it can result in a little hole that's quite pretty. No idea why it didn't happen here, but I'm not complaining.

At the same time the Mystery Pattern finally arrived:


(click on picture for link to store)

(I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with the service. It took a week for her to let me know wht my first order didn't go through, and then another 8 days to get to me -- good thing I wasn't too anxious. Also, I got charged $1.50 for shipping when it was actually 87¢, but maybe the extra is for the envelope or similar?).

Thing is... I'm not sure I have enough yarn. The merino/silk I have is dk and the pattern calls for worsted, and the largest size of the pattern requires 630 yards (including underdrawers, which I'm not making), and I have 540 yards (which is what's called for in the next smallest size.

I was thinking that since I'm using smaller yarn I'd make the bigger size (to be double-checked when I do a swatch), but I don't know if it'll work. I may replace the knit straps for ribbon, though, which would free up... YARDS... of... yarn... I hope?

I wish it came with a picture of the back.

ANYhoo, I've also been working on figuring out a sweater pattern. Work, until today, has been really slow and offers plenty of time to sketch and even do some maths. It's a design I saw on a woman in a restaurant, and have never seen anything like it before or since (though it's a tricky search). I've been prototyping with some crap yarn, and hopes are high.

Mysterious? Yes! But I would like to, um, maybe publish it if I can ever figure it out. You understand.

In the meantime, most-if-not-total radio silence is going to occur between this-and-next Thursday because I'll be here:



for this.

St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Tropical Dance Vacation. A week of contra dancing, tooling around the Caribbean, and rum.

It's my first island vacation without my family, which is going to be strange. I'm staying with a couple of friends, which is brilliant. Scuba diving, snorkeling, getting sun burnt beyond recognition, rum, and diet smashing (rule: only break the diet for something Really Worth It, e.g. biscuits. Or cake. Or -- I should stop).


¹ Hey, have any of you seen "Wicked, Wicked Games"? Isn't it awful??

Poll

What's your favorite way to join yarns? I haven't found one that I really like.

Opinions?

Long strong of expletives

Dear sock:

I hate you so freaking much. It's SO not my fault that I cast on a number of stitches that isn't divisible by four. I don't WANNA start over again!

You are a big dumb jerk.

Hate hate hate!
Emily

How am I going to fix this? It's a good thing I like them so much, because otherwise they'd be a... a... pair of mittens or something. And a hat.

Erg.

When will I learn? The only path to successful knitting is through COMPLETE HUMILITY. There is no room for pride in my knitting room (which is also my living/dining/rumpus room).

I'd figured that one of the reasons I'm such a slow knitter is that I always modify (if not competely invent) patterns. So with the Arch-Shaped Socks I settled into the safety of Following A Pattern Exactly (not the same yarn, but Exact Gauge!). Corrections in hand!

But oh. Oh. Y'all, this is so much work! These socks aren't made for curvy-calved people and do I really want to rip them out completely AGAIN? All the decreases have to be changed because otherwise they're compression socks. Then I have to figure out if it's going to fit my foot if and when I reach the ankle.

*sigh*

If I started over I'd:
1. CO 82(ish) instead of the pattern-suggested 80.
2. Increase to 84 (or 86?) after the top band.
3. Knit to where my own personal calf starts to get smaller, THEN start decreases.
4. Do 2 decreases every 4 rows instead of 4 every 7 rows (decreasing stripies on the back of the sock instead of on either side like in the pattern)(maybe).

I think that's all. I guess. But I've already started the damn thing twice; the thought of doing it again is pretty dispiriting.

In the meantime, fifteen of these just arrived:



Edit:
I started over. I had to. It's just one of those things. So. After some whimsical math involving the supposed strechability of the stitches* I'd need to increase 12 stitches... I can do that...?

These had better be some damn comfy socks.

Edit the two:
Damn. I measured stretchability for corrugated ribbing when I need to do it for stockinette. Foiled...

*If 82 sts fits around the 14" below the knee, and the gauge indicates that 14" at 7 spi means 98 stitches, so there's a stretch of 1.14% or something like that, so 112 sts (widest part of my calf at 16") divided by 1.14 (or whatever) means that a comfortable number of stitches should be 94. Ish.

I totally pulled that out of my ass. Let's see how it goes.

By popular demand...

The roving is from Hello Yarn in her dried flowers colorway. It's luscious...

I've been tagged for the first time by Kiwi Knitter! Yee haw. As a result all you unsuspecting folks get to learn:

6 Weird Things About Me!

1. Most of my friends are older than me. Ranging 1-20+ years. Generally, people my own age drive me crazy. It also has to do with the fact that my main source of entertainment (outside of knitting) is contra dancing, and the median age of the dancers in my area is, oh, 45. Ish.

2. I firmly believe that salad is a finger food. Maybe not dressed salad, but I prefer to have the dressing on the side and use my fingers to dip leaves. Trying to eat salad with a fork is unnecessarily difficult.

3. I prefer lovers to boyfriends. I have no intention of settling down anytime soon and with my travel plans (back abroad in Septemberish for... some months) it seems futile to initiate a relationship with an expiration date. Besides, I like my time alone, and I like jaunting off for the weekend without clearing it with someone else (not that I'd have to, I'm just sayin'). Also, I'm too busy for a relationship, I l-o-v-e flirting, I'm wild about my lovers, and I get all the emotional lovin' from my friends.

4. I create wild scenarios in my head all the time. One cross word with someone and my mind goes off on an imaginary argument with them, sometimes making me even more annoyed than I already am. Or I'll hear a creak in my room late at night and all of a sudden I'll be envisioning a guy with a hatchet or similar, and I'd ponder what I'd do -- play sleeping? Jump up and scare him? Sneak my phone under the covers and call the police? And sometimes I'll see someone cute and my mind really takes off.

Maybe I should've stuck with writing fiction...

5. I'm the only person I know who can go on a diet, follow it (fairly) strictly, and gain weight. Yeah. THAT feels good.

6. I can't remember names. I have some kind of freaky mental block where I barely even hear the names anymore, it just comes out "Hi, I'm KSSSHHHHHH." And I'll smile and say, "I'm sorry, what was your name again?" and they'll say, "It's KSSSSHHHHHHH." And I'll smile broadly and never use their name again. I have a lot of conversations with my friends that go as follows:

Them: Is Martin single again?
Me: Um! Which one's Martin?
Them: That one, [pointing to someone I've danced with for years].
Me: ...His name's Martin? Really? ...huh...

Same goes for place names. Street names. Dates. Birthdays. Even things I've known forever gradually leak out. My best bet is to associate that person with someone of the same name. If their name's Brian then I'll associate them with my friend Brian, or with the dog from Family Guy.

This was actually kind of difficult because everything I do seems normal to me. I had to keep reminding myself that just because I do it doesn't mean everybody does it.

And since this is a knitting weblog,

7. I buy roving even though I don't spin. Yet.

More errata than you can shake a magic loop at

By some stroke of unbearable brilliance I managed to remember to check for pattern corrections BEFORE starting the arch-shaped socks (I never remember to do this). I clicked into the Vogue Knitting website, found the right issue, and lo and behold, errata!

"Replace entire pattern."

...oh! Okay.

After a frustrating adventure trying to find some stupid yarn I settled in with some friends on a lovely MLK day.

It starts with k1p1 ribbing in black (actually green, but looks black) (I'm not ruining their pattern -- you can find it here; it just doesn't have the colorwork graph). Then you switch to corrugated ribbing¹, but it said that you start with p1k1 which... didn't make sense. More than that, it said the purls were white which, stylistically, struck me as being... wrong. Since the white stands out wouldn't you want it as the knit stitches for smoothness? And what was with starting with purl instead of knit like last time?

So I checked the picture. I looked. I looked again. I looked closer. I confirmed my suspicions with Kate and Andrea. They agreed.

The socks in the magazine are different. Not only from the pattern, but from each other. You can almost almost see it in the pic I posted yesterday: on the left sock the top white stitches are purled. On the right they're knit.



I thought of Elizabeth Zimmerman and her instruction that patterns are not always set in stone (though I, personally, wouldn't want to fuss much with, say, a lace shawl), and decided I knew what I was doing and ribbing smibbing. After the first row I slipped the first stitch from the left needle to the right so I could still start with p1k1 as the pattern inexplicably recommends, and the white (or, in my case, purple) stitches got knit.

So neener neener neener!

I knit away, using magic loop for the first official time. It's okay, this magic looping, but I have to work harder to keep ladders from happening.



I could see how it'd be excellent for travel, though. I'm forever dropping dpns. With the basic socks I tend to knit dpns make it easier for me to know where I am in the pattern. Anyway!

When I got to, say, two inches of knitting I tried it on. A problem with the pattern is that there's one (oh yes one) size. And if you were to look at the model's calves and then look at my calves you might notice that mine are, say, bigger. Curvy! And what's a curvy girl to do?



Why, add to the stripey section! I added four stitches total which will maybe be enough? The two black stripes closest to the back of the sock were changed to 2 sts wide instead of 1. Here's how it went:



That's much easier than describing it. If I were interested in frogging I'd just add another black-and-white stripey to each side, but I wasn't. Interested.

On again! I followed the colorwork graph, feeling all clever-style, and then realized that I'd screwed up. I'd continued diamonding when I should've started wide-striping. I'd have to tink back. Oog.

After some Kate-and-Andrea consultations I decided that it was a Design Element, it was Inspiration, and I Liked It Better, which I actually do. Tink shmink.

THEN I got to the calf decreases and realized it doesn't tell you if the decreases are done in black or white. Turns out it's black. I'm not sure if I agree with that, but it's what I'm working with, so that's the way it'll be. Unless I really do frog and do it all from scratch, knowing what I know now. But considering all the problems it might be better just to finish, THEN decide if I want to start over (at which point the answer will be "HELL no! You think I'm crazy?!").

It's a sexy, sexy sock, though. Problems and all.

UPDATE:
I tried it on. It's too tight. Aw. Frog pond time.


¹ Corrugated ribbing is ribbing where knit stitches are one color and purls are another.

Full of knit

I finished the socks! They lost a lot of their sheen when I washed them, though. Picot edging, sock was over my usual 80 sts, slip stitch heel.



Claudia Handpaint in Just Plum. 100% Merino. Size 1 needles (I think...).

Neck warmer that needs buttons (inspired, of course, by Brooklyn Tweed).



One skein Blue Sky Alpaca Bulky in polar, size 13 needles, though I probably could've gone up a size or two.

Potential Handkerchief:



Less than half a skein of KFI Patagonia Nature Cotton, fisherman's rib, size 5 needles.

AND! The socks!



Delicious... The purple is actually a bit deeper than that, but whatever whatever.

If I keep this up I'm going to have to renounce my title of "slowest knitter."

Ridiculous

So I've knit up 1.5 potential handkerchiefs with Nature Cotton. I used fisherman's rib because it's cushy and seems like maybe absorbent? We'll see how it goes, but I'm cautiously, moderately optimistic.

I've been floundering a bit lately because I'm fighting to get a sweater's worth of Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed, and let me tell you, it's not as easy as it seems.

Well, not if you're semi-cheap, like me. Observe the ridiculous:

Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed = Jo Sharp Silkroad Tweed. Same content, same colors -- it's the same stuff. What's different is that 1. Silkroad tweed is easier to find (i.e. Webs has it), 2. Kathmandu has more yardage, and 3. Silkroad is more expensive.

I -- hang on. According to the Jo Sharp website there are 104 yards/ball, but according to Webs it's 93 yards/ball.

...what?

Even if Webs'd mistakenly put yards when they meant meters they're still off by 3 yards...

I emailed Webs. Stay tuned for inevitable excitement (though it's looking like the correct yardage is 104).

REGARDLESS, Silkroad (retailing about $8.50/ball) is still stupid more expensive than Kathmandu (retailing about $7/ball). But! On ebay it's $5.75/ball, and they're ordering some for me, so danceity-dance.

(Quick secret: I am totally falling in love with white tweeds. Esp. kathmandu/silkroad in goose. I could chew on it with love. Nahm nahm nahm...).

(I should probably wait to buy more, though, since I'm already getting a sweater's worth in jewel. Right? Should probably wait? Maybe? Or maybe go directly to goose, bypassing jewel? A puzzlement...).

So I'm waiting on that, but got impatient. The one full skein of sock yarn I have wasn't inspiring me (I have a pair of socks made with that color already), none of my stash was Speaking to me, until I realized! The perfect pattern for the buttery, buttery, luscious pink/light brown silk/merino blend deliciousness I got at SAFF!

And I ordered the pattern online, but they're mailing it to me and I have to wait (but I want it NOWWW). This didn't much help me in the manner of "immediate gratification," so I went through my magazines and -- oh yes!



Arch-shaped stockings by Meg Swansen, VK Fall 2006.

I went with two of my local knitterly friends and learned the hard way that the yarn store near where I work -- well, it's not very good. Most of their sock yarn is Opal patterning (ick), the varigated sock yarn is expensive, their color selection isn't very good, and, well, they just don't have much.

I knew that already, but this was sad. I had a skein of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino which got gauge (7spi) on size 2 needles), but they didn't have any cream/white colors of baby cashmerino and they didn't have any regular cashmerino at all.

I had a beast of a time finding anything that might get gauge, and finally settled on Laines Du Nord Dolly something or other. Worsted. Whatever. So I picked up a nice deep purple and gray but then realized that the gray was more expensive by about a dollar.

What?

I asked the local yarn lady and she said it was likely that it was more recent and Laines Du Nord had probably upped the price, and so they had to as well.

This was annoying.

I ended up with black and purple which, while very pretty, doesn't show the pattern terribly well, but I was desperate. I'm really enjoying the pattern, even if it is a bit of a challenge. More on that later.

#45. I am so much happier with a long term project and a couple of short term projects than I am finishing a bunch of little things in a short period of time. And now I have 3 large projects: an impending sweater, knee-high socks, and the Secret Project.

BRILLIANT!

I have two skeins of Nature Cotton that I got as a dyeing experiment before realizing that I didn't feel like doing all that was necessary to dye cotton (seems that wool is much easier). So what to do with the cotton? I couldn't think of (or find) any good patterns, it wasn't enough for a tank top or similar, so it just sat. And sat.

Then I was skimming Knittin' Notes' entry for today in which she mentions a kerchief.

It -- I -- YES! Yes of course! Of course!

See, I get allergies in the spring. No namby-pamby sniffles here, this stuff is wicked. I was at a party last spring and a friend thought I was drunk because I was so wrecked with snurgling and space-y-ness. Seriously.

I always go through a ton of tissues (my freshman year of college I tied a box of tissues to my belt because I needed so many so often), and every year I think that I should get some decent handkerchiefs so I don't ruin my nose (as much) on paper tissues (even the ones with lotion grate on my poor shnoz after a while). And every year I forget.

BUT! This year I will knit handkerchiefs! The yarn is soft! Hopefully absorbent! It will be oh-so-useful!

I am excited.

(Does anyone have any reason why this wouldn't work? I figure it'd be good to know that now...)

Quick like bunny

If you want 12 skeins of Dale of Norway Sisik then you should act soon! The bidding ends around 1pm today!

Tonight...

Sock, demi-sock,



cold, and wine...



To all my web junkies stricken with winterly malaise (and there are a lot of us! Crikey), I hope we all get better soon.

#44. To a muggle colorwork is more impressive than cables. If only they knew (that both are similarly awesome)...

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!

Poll

Hat: too short? Decent length? And before you ask, no, I don't know how big my dad's head is.

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.

Oh, innernet

Thanks to SiteMeter I've learned that my site's been popping up on a lot of google searches for nostepindes¹, and so I thought I'd help a knitter out.

If you're in need of a temporary yarn-ball-making apparatus I highly recommend taking a toilet paper tube, cutting a slit in one of the edges, folding it in half longways, inserting the yarn end into the slit (for holding purposes!) and then wrapping around that. It makes a nice loose center-pull ball.

So, y'know, go forth, and, um, wind yarn! Or whatever.

I don't know. It's so boring here.

Me: Remind me again why the gym is a desirable place to go?
D: Because you feel so incredibly good when you walk out of there... Don't you?
Me: Not as good as I do with a beer, my knitting, and a good movie. I've never reached the "this feels great" stage of exercise.

#43. I pretty firmly believe that knitting will always trump exercise.

(Y'all! I'm in love with sitemeter. It's the stalkin-est voyeuristic toy ever! Not only do I know how many people visit, but I know what city, state and country they're in.

I know what kind of monitor and what operating system people use! I have no idea why that's at all necessary. It's creepy and totally wild.

Seriously, though! Holland! Finland! Canada! Korea (hi Beth)! Bulgaria (hi Lauren)! Germany! England!

It lists what people search for that brings them to my site. I want to help them with their searches! Nostepindes? Lace leaf pullover? Let's talk!

Also, frequent visitor from Sweden: drop me a comment! That would be neat!)

¹ I was also puzzling over why I was the first hit when googling fair isle, and then, heh, I realized it was because I'd spelled it fair aisle, which is wrong. Not many people spell it that way, with good cause(see: wrong). Ergo, I'm the first hit. Heh. Errg.

Near-ambition?

So. I was at the crown section of Shedir and tried it on (I'd been having some trying-on issues because if I stretched it that far then it'd fall off the needles, which, as we all know, = bad).

It's, um... well, look:



Yeah. It -- yeah. And do I know an teenagers who that might fit? More accurately, do I know-and-like any teenagers who that might fit? Big ol' no. So I'm not sure what to do. I could:

1. Rip that puppy because... well. I do that a lot. (Hat? What hat? I knit socks!)
2. Finish and donate... to... somewhere? I know someone going through chemo at the moment, but I don't know that it would fit her either...
3. Rip back to the body cables, rip back one repeat, do the crown, give to friend-having-baby? (Seriously -- without stretching this thing could fit a baby).

And I... dunno. And now I've spent lots of time on something non-Christmas, which makes for more of "HOLY HELL ONLY 21 DAYS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS OH CRAP OH CRAP" because really, that is what Jesus was all about.

So I rooted through my stash and nostepinned-and-swatched a couple of yarns and HI COULD NOT GET GAUGE.

Except with some leftover Plymouth baby alpaca worsted of which I have not enough. Then I thought about ordering it, but if I'm going to order more then I may as well order the recommended yarn, eh?

Instead I ran to the yarn store on Sunday when I was all kinds of pressed for time, where I found out that they're not open on Sunday which is, to me, ridiculous. Yarn stores should be open 24 hours. I will become president and make this happen. Just you watch.

So, being the resourceful (read: impatient) young knitter that I am, I packed a ball of Knitpicks' Andean Silk (sizzle? What sizzle?), pattern, and... size... 1 needles? or similar and took off for Handel's Messiah, which I wouldn't have attended if the lovely-yet-blogless Kate weren't singing in it. Because y'all, it's 3 hours long. That is a lot of long.

I decided it wouldn't be rude to knit during the performance because Kate said it was okay. That is reason enough for me. Also, helps with the focusing on the music. I was able to keep the needle clinking down to a minimum and only dropped a needle once, which was far (far) less disturbing to the audience than the people in front of me who 1. kept coughing, 2. slept, and 3. left early.

I hate audiences.

After 2.5 hours I finished the ribbing (2.5 hours = 9 rows ribbing? Ouch) and post-dinner I went home, climbed into bed, did one section of the first set of cables (1/8 of the hat or 16 stitches) before putting it down so I could try to sleep. At 9:30pm.

The new hat, while not having gauge, SHOULD end up about 21.5", which is a solid hat size... I hope... So... still going on that...



And I did a row and a half on mom's mittens! Zowie!



A-mazing.

#40. I wasn't kidding when I said I was slow. Sheesh.

#41. Next year, nothing more complicated than a potholder for christmas presents. Seriously, self.

-----------------------------------------------

Me, at work: Hm. What to get for friend of whose tastes I am currently unsure?

I know, I'll knit him a scarf!

#42. I just never learn.

Since I don't have anything knitterly to post (Shedir¹ looks the same, just a smidge longer) and it seems to be required to post squeezy animal pictures on knitting websites, I present: Master Featherbottom! (I didn't name him. I called him wee one or ootie pootums (I lost any kind of grace I may possess while around animals)).

You may remember him from his previous yarn-hunting adventures. Here he is after escaping his cage (he wasn't fully house trained yet and had a big ol' cage to live in) (I was a little gun shy after one of the other cats I was briefly housing exacted revenge in a not totally unfamiliar sounding way), causing me to run around like a madwoman trying to catch him. Y'all, my apartment is 520 square feet. There's not that much space for him to run! Turns out my apartment is FULL of kitty-friendly nooks, including under my couch, and that big ol' hole under my cabinets (which, along with the giant hole under my dishwasher, has been since covered with duct tape which is klassy with a k).

Still, though, how hard can it be to catch a wee beast? AND YET, two hours later, here we finally (finally) were:


A-hee! Look, Big Kitty! I get out! I get out! I get out again! Eee!

I don't know if it's something with the camera or if it's a result of chasing the punkin around for two hours (after dancing for 3), but I look 50 years old here. Sheesh.

And that cat's trouble if I've ever seen it.


I get out again! Big kitty, I get out again!


¹ On Nov 1 I put a moratorium² on knitting projects that weren't destined to become Christmas presents (outside of extenuating circumstances like being around people for whom I'm knitting, or severe boredom). Shedir qualifies because it might be a Christmas present. That totally counts.
² Why yes I do work in a law office. Why do you ask?

I just got burned out on knitting at the worst possible time (pre-Christmas). I'm too tired to even think about knitting.

Doh...

It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that bling

I am cursed. It has become impossible for me to take a flight that leaves on time. Honestly. The weather gods mark my travel days in their calendar and start arranging major storms.

Because I'm cursed (seriously, there's no other explanation) I spent three hours sitting on a plane Wednesday evening (for a one-hour flight, yes indeed). At the gate I swatched for Girl From Auntie's Shedir. The yarn in question is Lang's Jawoll which was a part of my Prize! from Bridgette. Got on the plane and started ribbing away (that's right, ribbing is a verb. I rib, you rib, he/she ribs. That's right).

The thing, though, is that the pattern's a little weird. It gives a gauge commonly found in sock yarns (8.72 s/in), and yet the manufacturer gauge for Rowan's Calmer is 5 s/in. But what do I do when my spidey sense starts tingling?

BLINDLY BARREL AHEAD! That's right I do!

It seems to be going okay. Since the yarn's skinnier it's a looser fabric (it looks a bit better with the Calmer), but, you know, BLINDLY BARREL AHEAD! So I, um, hope it fits somebody. Like me. Or dad. It's not so much a man-hat, though, is it?



Before I left my apartment I looked at my stitch markers and thought, "Naw, I won't need those." I remember that exact moment. Naw, I won't need those.

I ribbed (totally a verb!) and got all keen on starting Wee Cable Action! And realized that hey! Stitch markers would be a really useful right now. Oh.

...oh.

I searched my bag and found nothing mini and round. I had a broken keychain, but I couldn't quite break the links. So I asked the stewardess if she had any paperclips. Safety pins? What did I need them for? Oh, my knitting. Anything small and roundish?

She frowned thoughtfully. "Soda can tabs?" she offered. Yes!

"...Really?"

I asked for five and she brought me two, but damned if it didn't work. Ish. Add to that the broken keychain (which, in my impatiance, I managed to at least partly dismantle) (see? This is why I never throw anything away. You never know!) and my ring and I was set.

I would have an artistic recreation but all the soda tabs would pop off and so they're, um, still up in Philadelphia.

The hat, you see, was a red herring¹ for KAP (knitting around parents) and also because... well. The allure of a new project. You know. Turned out I didn't do any work on the mittens, nor did I even show them to anybody. Ah, well.

I tried cabling without a cable needle (I tried that first one) but it elongated the crossed stitches in an unattractive way, so I just used an embroidery needle as a cable needle and went about my business. Now that I know there are other options I may try them.

I went dancing on Saturday (12 hour dance, what what??) and during the half-hour breaks while the bands switched around onstage I would periodically pull out the hat. There were a ton of knitters there! It was very encouraging.

Also, I figured out how to fix a mis-crossed cable by dropping only one stitch! I am so clever. It's easiest with one-stitch crossings. If there's interest in a demo I can do a test swatch and document the whole thing.

For serious, though. Must finish mittens. Christmas is coming! (Christmas is coming! Run!)

#39. I think the internet has given me totally unrealistic expectations of how long knits should take from cast-on to cast-off.

¹ "This all has nothing to do with my disappearing nuclear physicist husband or Col. Mustard's work with the new top-secret fusion bomb?"
"No. Communism is just a red herring."

Brilliant!

Heather adjusted my photo! Thanks Heather!



The only thing that's missing is the low-level hum of radioactivity emitting from the wool. (Keep in mind that my clothing color of choice tends to be black, sometimes going as bright as gray). (You see why my knitting of the lace leaf pullover is therefore so perplexing).

(I finally found out how to get emails when people leave comments, so I'll actually know when y'all say something instead of finding it six weeks later! Yay!)

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!

Ooooh! Pretty!

How is it that I have no recollection of seeing this before?

I think it might have red-black-gray-pink yarn written all over it!

More SAFF-tastic stories

I wish this photo had captured the colors right. If I had to guess, I'd say this cable-ful sweater was made with only the brightest Noro colorways. Something like this:



It was... amazing.

-ly bright.

And there were animals! I swear this alpaca was smiling:



I could totally fit an alpaca in my apartment.



And, of course, bunnies:

both terrified...


and ready to chew your face off:


And the purple/pink roving?


Delicious.

I was heading past one of the more wheel-laden stalls when a woman stopped me. "You look like someone who could help me with this," she said, holding up her cell phone.

I laughed. Clearly I have "teh g33k" scrawled on my forehead. I helped her find a phone number lost in the depths of her "recent calls" list and continued on my way.

And finally, as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I saw this:



A man and his alpaca trying to cross the road.

Dear fibre fair,
I love you.
Love,
Emily

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)

Question-tacular

Okay. So I bought some luscious like whoa silk/merino fingering weight yarn in red and black (and pink and gray). I bought it with socks in mind, but I've been thinking, and Amy agrees, it's just too nice for socks!

So I put it to y'all: What do I do with 665 yards(ish) of fancy pants fingering weight yarn given that:

1. I don't really wear hats (I have short hair -- hats make me look bald)
2. I already have the same yarn (different color) set for a scarf
3. I don't wear shawls
4. Or vests
5. Or anything with more than one color, so much

Sooooooo... recommendations?

The yarn in question:

Heh

"Down from each project a few stitches must fall." - Me

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.

#37. Picking up stitches in fair aisle? Kind of a pain in the butt.

Let's play "spot the mistake"!

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

Over the weekend I had some request for a color palette generator. I'd been using it to custom-ify my blog (though I can't fix that one stripe of green -- arg!), but it was pointed out that it'd work really well for dying. These both bring out colors from a picture that you upload, and give the hex number of the colors.

So here's the word on the two best that I've found:

This one requires uploading from your computer. It allows from 9-27 variations, but doesn't always pick up all the major colors.

This one requires uploading from a URL. It offers 10 colors -- a set of 5 full and 5 vibrant. It's better at pulling the main colors of the picture -- no matter how small.

In the end, though, I used this one for my pink/gray scheme.

Hey, does anyone have a recommendation for a blog hit counter?