Finished things?!

Yesterday I decided it was Finally The Day I was going to work on the green sweater. Finally get those extra stitches worked out.

Plan 1:
Drop the stitches down, combine two right above the ribbing, pick up the stitches, re-graft. Again. Oh, grafting.

The drop:


The pick-up:


Conclusion:
Failure!

Plan 2-50:
Ungraft a bit, move the k2togs to under the arm aways, re-graft (ARG).

Something weird had happened with the beginning of the graft (AGAIN), and so finally ended up with this:



BRAIN EXPLOSION.

Conclusion:
Close enough.

And!



Not ideal, but yay socks!

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.

The yarn for Karen's comissioned halloween socks showed up. She'd requested orange and black stripey socks in a size seven, and I said sure!

Because I am delusional.

TURNS OUT, orange and black stripey sock yarn? Seriously hard to find. At all. Ever.

But I found this:


It seemed halloween...ish, and I sent the link to Karen, and she liked it, so I ordered a skein and waited.

I was finally able to pick up the yarn the other day, and set about casting on the picot edge and went for a while and... oh... there are some problems.

1. It's less "halloween" and more "autumn-ish." Karen was okay with this, so oaky.
2. It's not really "autumn-ish" so much as "hunter's camo colored." Lots of dark olive green which I'd thought was yellow.
3. It's only got 270 yards. The website says that'll give you a pair of socks on size 3 needles. I'm using size 1.
4. Size 1 needles gives a firmer fabric than I thought it would. I tried 2s, but it seemed a little loose.
5. I can only hope they fit. They fit ME, but I wear a size 9 and the swap buddy wears a 7. How much do ankle/heel sizes vary? Not much, right? Right?
6. Even though I'm getting refunded, it was kind of expensive.

But hey! On the plus side,
1. It's lovely yarn. Not so much the color, but the yarn itself is nice.
2. It's going pretty quickly.



It's more vibrant and there's more orange in it than this... But not much more.

Hoo boy. I think I'll just tell Karen that if she thinks they're too ugly for words she doesn't have to buy them.

And here's the progress on the purple picot socks for me, which are on hold until the camo halloween socks are done.



Oof.

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.