Yarn, Ho!

Playing catch-up

2009-09-28T10:03:00.003-04:00

*blows dust off the blog*

I suppose since I haven't posted a darn thing since May, that I ought to do a little catch-up posting. What exactly have I been doing the past four months? A brief run-down:

-- Spent a little time learning that, when something you really, really want fails to work out, the best way to deal with it is to cut your losses and move on.

-- Spent a little more time discovering that being a caretaker requires patience of a divine nature.

-- Finally exposed myself to Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

-- Unofficially joined the Bible study that my mom has been attending.

-- Delved deeper into the foods and ideas associated with veganism and have enjoyed every minute of it, including attending a local Vegetarian Expo and testing out numerous amazing cookbooks.

-- Acquired another guinea pig, named her Abbey, and subsequently discovered that Zivah was not, in fact, a girl. No further guinea pigs resulted, but Zivah did have to be neutered and was subsequently re-named McGee. (Why yes, I am an NCIS fan...why do you ask?)

And, of course, I've been knitting. Not as much as I would like, but still an appreciable amount. This is a good thing, considering the NY Sheep & Wool Festival is fast approaching, and I still have a bunch of yarn and fiber from last year that hasn't yet seen the light of day.

I did some more sample items for the local yarn shop:

Put It All Together gloves from Kristin Knits, and the Keath scarf from Oceanwind Knits. I really enjoyed doing the gloves, which I think is unusual for me. I prefer to knit gloves with DK or even fingering weight yarns, and am completely unused to adding details with duplicate stitch, but it all worked out in the end. The scarf, too, was perfect; knit in Duo (100% acrylic, which doesn't feel a thing like 100% acrylic) on big needles with pattern changes occurring just often enough to keep my brain interested while still being a great mindless knit.

I finished Stricken:

and moved on to Poseidon, which has been my pride and joy as of late.

I'm currently working my way through the dolphin pattern on sock #2, and am determined to finish them before Sheep & Wool. Why? Because this kit's been sitting in the stash since last year's Sheep & Wool, and my budget-conscious self can't justify buying another of the Tsock Tsarina's amazing kits until I'm done with the one I already have.

(Well, okay, I probably could. But I'd feel a lot better about myself if I had these done before another kit made its way into my stash...)

And that, dear readers, is what I've been up to these past months. I will be trying to work blogging back into the equation somehow, though there will no doubt be more activity over on my other blog once I officially re-launch it for the Vegan Month of Food.

Yep, Vegan MoFo is nearly upon us. And I love food. So you can see where that will be going...

Mood: apathetic
Music: The Swell Season - Paper Cup (live @ NPR)

Time is still marching on...

2009-05-19T19:05:00.003-04:00

I haven't yet given in to the ribbed tank, if only because life has exploded (in a good way) to the point where I can barely keep on top of eating and showering, much less knitting!

Which is not to say I haven't been knitting, just that I haven't been doing so very quickly. And that, my blog friends, is because this happened:

After months of planning and learning the necessary business steps as I went along, I finally did something I've been wanting to do for ages. I became my own boss.

Long story short: in 2005, a coffeehouse called Slow Jed's Mud House opened in a town very close to where I live. Being the eclectic sort, I fell completely in love with it and practically lived there until it closed in early 2008. And since '08, it just sat. And sat. And sat.

When it became apparent that nobody else was going to go in and reopen it, I got the crazy idea that maybe I should. And it wasn't an easy or fast process, but I managed it. I now run the very place I loved as a customer for two awesome years. It's completely exhausting, but rewarding as hell.

Now, of course, most of my not-quite-so-rapid knitting gets done during lulls at the cafe rather than at home, but I am moving along with my two pairs of socks!

One plain old sock, done save for grafting, in Plymouth Yarns Sockin' Socks. (Can't remember the colorway right now, but it's a departure from my predominantly blue sock collection!)

And Cookie A's Stricken, in progress, in KnitPicks Essential Kettle-Dyed. It was the Spruce colorway, but it looked too green to me and was subsequently overdyed to a color more my liking.

The plain socks are better for cafe knitting, since I don't need to cart a pattern around and I can stop and pick back up with relative ease. But I may toss Stricken in my bag tomorrow for a bit of a challenge. We shall see if I can keep up with it between pulling espresso shots and steaming milk for lattes!

Mood: tired
Music: The Airborne Toxic Event - Innocence

It never rains, but it pours

2009-05-04T08:45:00.002-04:00

It must be some sort of variation on Murphy's Law that knitters get startitis at the most inopportune times.

Like now. The past week has been one of the busiest of my life, and yet my brain continues to clamor at me to cast on new projects. It doesn't seem to care that I'm already working on Stricken (after messing it up three times); or that a recent trip to my LYS yielded a beautiful skein of Plymouth Yarn's Sockin' Socks, which is now being worked up into a pair of plain vanilla socks, ready to be picked up in the rare moments of downtime.

No, for my insistent brain, regular life business, a stack of library books, and two ongoing projects is not enough! It is now demanding that I cast on a ribbed tank, the very same ribbed tank that I once tried to knit before gauge and I had become friends (and therefore failed at miserably). It craves the mindlessness of k2p2 on large needles, and it just plain won't take no for an answer.

I haven't given in yet. But the six skeins of blue-purple ribbon yarn in the stash are calling to me.

Watch them not be enough.

Music: Harry Nilsson - Everybody's Talkin
Mood: antsy

More stitches, less introspection

2009-04-24T10:59:00.002-04:00

In the spring, a knitter's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lace. (Unless you're me, whose knitting mind is nearly always fixated on socks, but as I often tell people, I pride myself on being a freak of nature.)

Needless to say, the Print O' the Wave stole is done! (Yarn used: Maple Creek Farm Merino in colorway "Tucan Sam".)

I took it on a quick jaunt yesterday, but as it's not yet quite warm enough here to be going without a coat, it only saw a little time in public.

I really am excited to have it done. I just never know what face to make in "modeling my own FOs" pictures.

Next up, Cookie A.'s Stricken. (It was going to be the Sourwood Mitts from knitty, but for once in my life, my insanely tight knitting did not conspire along with the weight of the yarn to help me get gauge. I may be forced to pop down to the LYS later and get something that will work better...)

In other news, I've realized that, in reading other knitblogs, I've sort of "gotten to know" people via the bits of their daily lives they care to share with the blogsphere at large. And I've realized that I don't really blog a lot about myself here. That used to be because I was rather active over on LiveJournal and babbled about everything there, so once I was done with that, all that was left over was the knitting talk. But LJ has since lost its charm for me, for whatever reason, and that leaves this blog as my "main" blog, so to speak.

I'm not one to go divulging my deepest, darkest secrets to the internet (as if I even have any, lol), but I'm wondering if it might be time to start talking about myself at least a little, outside of the bits of my life that involve yarn.

This ought to make a tentative start, at least:

A more recent picture of my dear Zivah Faraday, who is growing quickly and amassing enough fur that my fingers tend to disappear in it when I pick her up. She has also, thank goodness, started to learn that biting me does not make her food appear faster, nor does it make holding her any easier for either of us. In other words, she's growing up!

(Also, that orange stuff is bell pepper. She adores it even more than hay, which she sucks down like it's going out of style.)

That's all for now. I know I say it all the time, but--I'll try to post a little more often in future. This month-between-posts stuff is insane!

Mood: productive
Music: Paramore - I Caught Myself

Introspection

2009-04-21T07:35:00.001-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me, as humans, the sheer amount of information we fire off on a weekly, daily, hourly basis.

We Facebook and Myspace and Twitter. We YouTube and blog and instant message. Many of us are in a near-constant state of connectivity thanks to portable devices and wireless networks.

And yet, for all of this, how much do we really say? How much of what we shoot off into electronic space is real communication? In utilizing all these massive sources of information, are we simply creating a shield behind which we can hide and only reveal exactly what we want other people to see? Are we lulling ourselves into a false sense of security so thick that, when one of us chooses to reveal something a little more personal, a little more serious, a little more adamant...no one can handle it? Have we opened the door to a forum that requires us to constantly pretend, or otherwise be ripped apart by our peers--or worse, by people we don't even know?

By using these ways to "connect", have we simply exacerbated an existing problem? Have we amplified the flaws in our species ability to communicate?

I wonder all these things when I look at the electronic community at large, but then I think of sites like Ravelry, and of networks like the knitting blog community. I marvel at the way people of so many different backgrounds, religions, political affiliations, etc., etc., can suddenly push all of that aside--push aside the things that so regularly tear people apart--and become one truly caring community. I'm continually amazed how one common denominator, one shared hobby, can unite people as different as night and day.

And I wonder...why can't it always be like that, with all people?

Mood: conflicted
Music: Mutemath - Spotlight

"Here's Davy Jones singing 'It's Been Lonesome in the Saddle Since My Horse Died'!"

2009-03-11T08:30:00.002-04:00

You know those times in life when absolutely everything that can go wrong, does?

Yeah, I've been going through one of those times lately. In fact, I've been feeling rather like Everything That Can Go Wrong showed up at my door like an uninvited houseguest, barged in, put up its feet, and has been eating me out of house and home.

As I'm sure many of you are aware, when this state of affairs hits, it can be hard to concentrate on anything for long enough to make decent headway. You get half a row into the shawl you're knitting, and suddenly Everything That Can Go Wrong is bellowing from the recliner that it needs another beer and, damn it, don't you get any decent sports channels?

But I have been persevering. Between determination and startitis, some good things have been happening on the needles.

The Twisted Flower socks are done! I've been wearing them here and there, and boy are they comfy. They look good, too, for which I'm glad. It's the second pair of lace socks that I've knit in superwash yarn, and I was a little worried that the pattern wouldn't look quite lacy enough, but once they're on, I think it pops. Plus I adore Trekking XXL. It's become one of my sock yarns of choice.

And this is a result of my startitis; the Print O' the Wave stole by Eunny Jang. I'll readily admit that the bug bit me when I saw the finished product on Franklin's blog. Despite all the concentration that lace takes compared to other things I could be knitting, I had to get this on the needles. So I pulled out the lovely Maple Creek Farm yarn I've had sitting in the stash (waiting for the perfect project) and cast on.

(The colorway is called "Tucan Sam". I don't know about you, but it does remind me of the original Froot Loops, back when they only had three colors.)

One distraction from this lovely pattern arrived on Saturday.

This is Zivah Faraday, "Zeeves" for short. With nods to two TV characters and a scientist, I realize it's a pretty big name for a guinea pig to carry, but out of all the names I looked up to consider, Zivah was the one that stuck.

Except for a rather skittish day yesterday, she's quite amicable and loves to sit in laps. She also loves to baffle me by completely ignoring the wooden chew sticks I bought her and electing to chew on the cage instead.

Now, I am not a "small, furry domestic animal" person. I've always had a rather distant relationship with dogs, cats, etc. I get along better with animals of the fiber-bearing sort. (Big surprise, right?) So, of course, I never intended to have any pets more demanding than fish. But on Saturday, my mom and I were at the mall and she wanted to make a trip into the pet store to look at rabbits. And wouldn't you know it, on one side of the rabbit pen, there were three guinea pigs: two a more camel-colored brown, and Zivah. Something made me want to hold her and, once she was in my hands, I knew I couldn't leave without her. And now that I have her home, I've found her nothing less than enchanting...except maybe for that moment yesterday when she tried to climb inside my shirt.

Two of the funniest things she does so far:
1) Runs around the cage in glee after I put her filled food dish in the corner.
2) Purrs at the sound of rock music. (I kid you not!)

That face. How can you not love it?

Oh my, I'm gushing. I think I'd better go work on the stole.

Mood: annoyed
Music: Tom McWatters - Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy

Visually uninteresting

2009-02-22T06:39:00.000-05:00

I often hesitate to make a post here without any pictures, which is sort of strange, since I blogged like a fiend on LiveJournal for years without worrying about anything but words. Granted, that was a personal blog and this is more about knitting, but I still probably shouldn't be worried about whether or not every single post is visually entertaining.

I'm posting now because I just spent a bit of time catching up on blogs via my GoogleReader feeds, and as I read one of Franklin's recent posts, I realized something. Something sort of depressing. I realized that it's been a long time since I last knit something that truly captivated me.

Now, I love knitting in general. I love shopping for yarn, choosing patterns, knitting up patterns...everything except finishing, which I think just about everyone harbors a secret (or not-so-secret) grudge against. And it's not that I dislike what I'm knitting now--far from it. I have thus far found it quite impossible to dislike a sock designed by Cookie A. It's just that I feel like I've been working on my WIPs forever, even though I haven't and there are only two of them. It's knitting ennui; I want to try something new and exciting.

By "new and exciting", I mean new yarn, as well. My stash is a good stash. It's a servicable stash, with some real gems hiding in it, some of which I know exactly what to do with and some of which I'm still trying to decide on. But in going through it recently, I haven't touched upon a yarn that screams, "Knit me now!" For someone on as tight a budget as I am at the moment, this can be a bit of a problem.

I have decided, however, to say screw budget this one time, and to buy myself some brand-new yarn to knit this beautiful cardigan (the Saddle Shoulder Aran by Meg Swansen for those of you not on Ravelry). I've been eyeing it for ages, and it's time. It's time to knit something a little bigger than a pair of socks (much as I adore socks), something that's going to give me not only a new garment to layer up with, but also the satisfaction of seeing a large pattern come together. The satisfatction of knowing that yes, I knit this, I had a good time, and I'm damn proud of it, thank you very much.

I've also been eyeing larger lace projects, but I'm not sure if I ought to dive into one of those yet. I must be having a more wicked case of startitis than I thought.

Mood: impatient
Music: They Might Be Giants - My Man

Late again

2009-02-13T08:35:00.003-05:00

I've gotta knock off this month-between-posts stuff. My online presence has been far too lacking lately! This is due in part to being rather sick and spending half my time sleeping that off, and also in part to the fact that my laptop is off for repairs, so therefore I can't laze around on the futon while simultaneously using the computer.

I can, however, knit!

First Twisted Flower sock, done!

I also made these for one of my mom's very pregnant co-workers:

Because, come on, how can you resist little Converse booties? I hear they were well-received. Hopefully I'll get pictures of the little recipient wearing them once he's born!

Other than that, I'm afraid there's not much to report. Life has been slowed to a crawl with the illness-and-resting bit, leading me to watch more House and play more Facebook-based Tetris than is probably healthy.

On the upside, all that time on Facebook led me to discover Paperback Swap. How cool is a site that lets you get rid of the books you never read (or bought in error...yeah, that never happens to me *innocent whistling*) in exchange for ones you actually want? It's like a library, only far, far more vast. Very cool, in my opinion.

Now for more of that "resting" stuff. Illness does go away at some point, right?

Mood: tired
Music: Iron & Wine - Naked As We Came

Arctic knitting

2009-01-16T08:21:00.002-05:00

It's 8:15am, it's freezing ice cold out, and I'm curled up on the futon, drinking Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper. I realize that, given the weather, this may be a tactical error, and that there are much warmer things like coffee and tea at my disposal, but man...cherry vanilla.

I have also finally been jumped by the cold that's been trying to get me for weeks, and have thusly been rendered lazier than usual. Alas, after I post this, I'm going to have to venture out into the arctic air to do the grocery shopping, because it's very hard to eat food that we don't actually have.

But, as I was saying to a couple of friends last night, I knit, therefore I have wool things, and thank God for that!

Speaking of wool things, I am once again on a sock kick. Trystero is done:

And I've begun Twisted Flower, which is a simply gorgeous pattern:

(The yarn is Trekking XXL in color 329. Nice, no?)

Also on the needles is a pair of Broadstreet mittens for my mom, but given the pattern's tendency to run large and the fact that I'm substituting a yarn with a different gauge, it's mostly trial-and-error at this point (i.e., I did the ribbing, convinced that I had all the stitch counts right, and it turns out I need to rip it all out and go one size smaller with the needles).

So there's wool on the needles, wood in the stove, and blankets easily at hand. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to try not to freeze while buying produce and such.

(P.S. Is anyone else massively excited about next Wednesday?)

Mood: cold
Music: Ani DiFranco - Napoleon (Canon version)

What are you doing New Year's Eve?

2008-12-31T12:40:00.002-05:00

I haven't a clue how it got to be after Christmas already. Surely some sort of quantum weirdness--a freak wormhole, perhaps--is responsible, because there is no way that 2008 could possibly have passed this quickly and shuffled us all into the tiny space between Christmas Day and the dawn of a new year.

I understand that some people like New Year's. I don't. When it comes to a new year, that "brand new start", I am not a glass-is-half-full sort of person. I am a "how the hell did the old year go so fast, and how did I do such massive amounts of nothing?" sort of person. I think part of the problem is that it's a human tendency to look at other people's accomplishments and measure our own against them. This is, of course, one of the greatest follies of humankind, since what we accomplish is unique to each of us, but I think a great many of us do it anyway.

Maybe that's why we take stock at the end of the year. The advice to count our blessings may not be as cliché as it sounds.

In lieu of any sort of "this was the year, this was what happened, wasn't it grand?" sort of blogging...let's move on to the knitting.

The cardigan is finally, finally done!

I checked my Ravelry queue...that thing had been on the needles since July. July! I knew I'd taken a few little breaks here and there, but I had no idea that it had been quite that long. But it was worth the wait. The yarn is great, the adaptations I made to the pattern worked out just fine, and it looked perfect as it was sitting there, blocking.

After blocking, it fits like a dream. It's rare that a women's pattern has the proper armhole and sleeve sizes for me, but between the pattern and the cooperative nature of the yarn once it was wet, everything worked out great!

Modifications: only one, which is the obvious one...no hood! I was using this yarn for another pattern at one point and, due to a miscalculation of gauge, ran out before I finished. I was afraid of the same thing happening with this, so instead of adding the hood to the left and right fronts, I bound off, then added cabled edging around the neck, picking up stitches as I went. It was the first time I've ever knitted an edging onto a finished piece that way, and I think it worked out well!

All I have left on the needles is the second Trystero sock, and then I'll be ready to pursue new and exciting patterns! And also make a pair of Broadstreet mittens for my mom, because she loves mine and thinks it's a great idea.

For those of you who can manage it better than I can...Happy New Year. :)

Mood: disappointed
Music: Savage Garden - Promises

Personal accomplishments

2008-12-06T09:51:00.002-05:00

Holy foop, I can't believe that I haven't posted since Rhinebeck! I guess I haven't been in a bloggy mood. That, and my body has been demanding more sleep than I feel is strictly necessary, so my usual online night-owl activities have been kind of lacking.

But I'm back now! I am here, I am alive, and I have been knitting!

First, though, one other reason that I haven't blogged much: this year, I once again participated in the insanity that is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. And I wrote about...wait for it...knitters! Well, knitters and quantum physics, but knitting was a big part of the story. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with it, but I am proud to say that I worked hard enough to be able to display this here:

I feel strangely less accomplished than I did last year, maybe because I wrote a great majority of my novel in bizarre chunks using Write Or Die, an online application that gives you a variable grace period after you stop typing before it starts playing annoying sounds at you. Yep, annoying sounds like squeaking violin practice, noisy goats, and Hanson singing "MmBop". It's amazing. If you suffer from writer's block at all, I highly recommend giving it a try. It gets you typing, and I found that I was more inclined to roll with my crazy ideas rather than spend inordinate amounts of time debating about whether or not they would work.

Now for the yarny stuff. Remember that multicolored merino I got at Rhinebeck?

The blue stuff is yarn now.

I think I've mentioned that I love spinning merino. I'm a compulsive predrafter, so once I'm done with that, the roving practically spins itself. This spun up into a beautiful blue-purple two-ply with occasional slubs of yellow.

And, due to a silly incident that wasn't comical at all and which left me with only one glove, that yarn became these:

Broad Street, from the young days of Knitty.

I gave them a test run last night, and I have to admit that I don't miss my old gloves at all.

(They're less purple and more blue in real life.) I'm still not sure if I'll sew on a button to keep the mitten flap down when they're open, or just skip it. For now, they seem to work well without one.

Other things that have been giving me those little moments of joy lately: the Twilight soundtrack, hot cinnamon spice tea, and Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot. Plus I'm knitting another sample for the local shop, and finishing the mittens gave me a big boost of energy with which to attack my other WIPs. All in all, knitting and life are good right now.

Mood: decaffeinated
Music: Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth

Defying (financial) gravity

2008-10-19T21:09:00.003-04:00

Remember how I said something about probably not being able to go to the Sheep & Wool Festival because of budget?

Well, I was industrious. I spent weeks not buying anything that I didn't need, and letting things that could wait, wait. And today I brought home a nice haul from Rhinebeck (for a relatively small amount of money)! I rode out with the lovely Stephanie and her friend, Tomi, and we had a wonderful day.

First, the non-fiber stuff:

Eucalyptus, chai tea, and choco-mint soaps from Merriweather's handmade soaps. Holy cow, do these smell good! I love natural, hand-made soaps.

And, though I missed Franklin's book signing because I couldn't go yesterday, this

miraculously turned up in the hands of someone I met while futzing around the author building. He was just browsing, and kindly handed the book off to me to buy. Dude, I owe you one! This book is a gas.

Now, for fiber! Yes, fiber. I tried to stay away from yarn this year mainly because I still have yarn from last year that I haven't gotten around to, and my stash is fast outgrowing its plastic tubs. I figured that I couldn't go wrong by procuring some stuff to spin, since I don't spin a ton but get a great amount of enjoyment out of it when I do.

I wish I could remember which vendors all of this came from, but alas, I don't have cards from all of them. So here it is, in all it's fibery glory. And to all you fiber dyers/sellers out there, you rock!

Six ounces of pretty, solid-color merino. I'm not sure exactly how I'll handle it when I spin it, but I thought the colors would go nicely together.

Multi-colored merino! I looked at a lot of this stuff today, but finally decided on these two. Blue and blue-themed colorways are usually what I go for (in case you couldn't tell), so I added the brownish one instead of another blue one I was eyeing. I thought it'd be fun to mix things up a bit and spin something in a color I don't already have tons of in other projects.

The "I bought this, want to touch it? You know you want to touch it," item of the day: bamboo! I was too afraid of messing it up to buy more than a couple of ounces, but it is so, so soft. You know how kids imagine clouds should feel? Yeah. That's what this stuff feels like. It might be destined for the drop spindle, after it's served some time in the stash, being petted at random intervals.

And yes, I did buy yarn. I'll admit it. But the yarn I bought is all...drumroll please...sock yarn! Yes! Yarn I might actually use up before next year's festival, yarn that won't sit in the stash until I'm 105 because I couldn't find the time or the right project or the stamina to use it up!

I treated myself to some Socks That Rock in lightweight (Basan) and medium weight (a nice dark colorway, one of their Rare Gems):

And I picked up the Poseidon sock kit by Tsarina:

It took a while of looking at display socks to decide on this one. I was initially drawn by the Vintage kit, but this caught my eye even more. I love the dolphin pattern on the leg!

I also picked up three patters by the astoundingly talented Cookie A.: Trystero, Stricken, and Twisted Flower. I've been eyeing the Twisted Flower one for ages, and snapped it up when I saw it. I have a feeling that I'll be having a lot of fun with these!

And last, but certainly not least, the social stuff! Because there most definitely is a lot of that going on wherever knitters and lovers of fiber gather.

I waited in line to get a book signed and say hello to the ever-amusing Yarn Harlot again this year:

and was privileged to meet and hang out with geniuses of Ravelry at the Ravelry meetup.

I met and hung out with a bunch of other fun people, Ravelers and non, and had a wonderfully relaxing day. It never ceases to amaze me that, despite my hatred of big crowds and being around tons of people for long periods of time, there is always a certain peace to being in a place where everyone loves the same thing. There is always a common ground, always something to talk about, and always something to learn about each other and people in general. It's a great way to disconnect from all the craziness that goes on in the world every day, and reconnect with the way the world ought to be.

So that was my day at Rhinebeck. If I met you there, hi! If not, hi anyway, and I hope you had at least as much fun as I did.

Mood: fibery
Music: The Frames - Denounced

Comfort food

2008-09-27T09:58:00.003-04:00

It seems that, like on a real diet, a knitter on a yarn diet craves "comfort food".

I'm on both, and it sucks.

I've been on the food diet for 10 days, and it's going okay, except that counting calories is driving me nuts. Due to lactose intolerance and other various factors, I'm having a hell of a time 1) getting enough calories every day, and 2) getting the right balance of calories. Adding healthy fats without being able to consume much dairy has been an interesting challenge.

I've been on the yarn diet (mostly) since June, when I bought that KnitPicks lace sampler. I've bought a bit of sock yarn here and there since then, but have made no significant yarn purchases and have been knitting solely from stash or working on UFOs. And now...I'm sick of it.

I want to buy a bunch of nice, comforting worsted weight--since all I've been working with is lace, fingering, and sport--along with a nice, comforting pattern, sit my ass down, and just knit all day long. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, I can't afford to do any of these things, so it's back to the UFOs while startitis stalks my brain.

In this quest to tackle knitting without actually buying yarn, I did finish the socks Glen Hansard lent his awesomeness to:

I love the colorway (Berocco Sox 1426) and would have no problem knitting with it again in the future. I've already made some very tiny socks from the leftovers as a dangler for my key chain. 18 stitches on size US1 needles makes for one adorable little accessory.

As far as comfort knitting goes, I'm in the mood for something big, warm, and cabled. Something like the Dickinson Pullover, or the Must-Have Cardigan. (I'll admit to being in love with that cardigan ever since the Yarn Harlot blogged her way through knitting it a while back.) Even Camden is looking pretty good right now. I just want something that feels comfortable to knit, looks great to wear, and is just plain fun. The macaroni-and-cheese, or mashed potatoes, or big-bowl-of-ice-cream of the knitting world. (I haven't had any of these foods recently, either. Mac & cheese makes me sadly ill, mashed potatoes are a bit out of season, and even with a calorie count leaning toward "not enough", I haven't managed to sneak any ice cream in.)

Alas, I crave all these things without the current budget to support them. I'm still wondering how I'm going to manage the Sheep & Wool Festival this year (hint: it's looking like I won't be able to). Although I suppose it's all for the greater good. Ending a diet with a binge isn't that great of an idea, right? Even a yarn diet.

Right, I'll try to justify it that way.

In the meantime, Anne Shirley is looking promising as something that could be satisfactorily knit from yarn I have on hand.

Mood: decaffeinated
Music: Gillian Welch - By the Mark

Necessity

2008-09-13T18:54:00.003-04:00

In pondering life, I occasionally come up against something that seems impossible to resolve without causing a paradox when its principles are applied on a broad scale. No matter what angle I look at some things from, it seems that there's no way to settle on an agreeable explanation that makes sense in every situation. So often is the case with important matters.

In the midst of this, I've come to one definite conclusion: there is only so much that each individual person in this world can care about. And yet, in realizing this, it's also important to remember that, just because we don't all care about the same things, the things other people care about are not less or beneath the things we care about. Everyone cares about a different subset of things because there has to be a balance. If we all tried to care about everything that needed attention, the world would come to a screeching halt.

The point of saying all of this is to declare that I'm going to try my hardest to stop feeling guilty about the things I care about. I'm going to try and appreciate the time and energy that goes into and is required by the things that are important to me. I'm going to stop minimizing myself.

And one of the things I care about greatly is (big surprise) knitting. And yarn.

My first attempt at using Jacquard acid dyes! I was going for more balance between the yellow and green, but I'm still quite happy with the way it came out. It reminds me of early-to-late spring when the new leaves have just come, and everything is getting green again.

I dyed this at my grandmother's house, which is in much more of a city setting than I'm used to. I'm a country girl at heart; I grew up and still live in a place where it takes ten minutes to get to the post office and longer than that to hit a grocery store. My grandmother, on the other hand, lives a hop, skip, and a jump away from just about everything, from banks and grocery stories to soft-serve ice cream and Chinese takeout. It's interesting to spend any length of time down there. It's a really different world for me.

Her house also has a couple of things mine doesn't that make yarn dyeing that much easier: 1) a full basement with surfaces on which to lay out yarn and other materials, surfaces that have never and will never be used for food prep; and 2) a giant, two-sided metal sink with its own taps, perfect for wetting out and rinsing out yarn, and also for hanging yarn to do its initial drip-drying. I had a great time dyeing this yarn and hope I can do some more in the near future.

Because of the colors and where I dyed it, I've dubbed the colorway "Springtime in the City". It's for sale over at my Etsy shop if anyone's interested!

Now that I've waxed personally philosophical, and rambled about yarn in true knitblogger fashion, I'm off to play with the new Sims 2 expansion. And knit. 'Cause Sims is awesome like that.

Mood: depressed
Music: Michael Nesmith - Back Porch and a Fruit Jar Full of Iced Tea

2008-08-18T16:15:00.004-04:00

I've done some blog-worthy things over the past few weeks.

I made a hat:

(An important hat. More on that later.)

I made a pie:

(An unusual pie. More later.)

But I'd say the most amazing thing that happened (possibly in the whole of the summer) was this:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Glen Hansard.

GLEN. FREAKIN'. HANSARD.

WITH MY SOCK.

Needless to say, knitting socks at the Saratoga Music Fest was a very, very good idea. Glen's music, with the Frames and with Marketa, has had such a huge impact on me over the last year...meeting him was wonderful. I can only hope I didn't make too much of a fool of myself.

I am now eternally indebted to the Yarn Harlot for starting the "hold my sock" thing. I suppose you can only hope that the person you ask to hold your sock is a good sport--and Glen was. He didn't even ask why a sock, or "You want me to do what?" He just held the thing. And, as a friend pointed out, it kinda matches his eyes.

This picture is now 8x10 and is on my wall. Framed. Is that silly? Because if it is, I'm silly and proud of it.

I really hope I can find some audio or video from the performance yesterday. Technical and sound issues were, regrettably, cutting into people's set time, none more so than Glen and Marketa's, and it really upset Glen. But then he covered Van Morrison, which he does so well that he actually manages to be better than the original recordings, and just rocked the house. He made more noise with just himself and that wonderful guitar with the extra hole in it than the entire, full band that had played before. It was truly a moment that captured the essence of Glen and what he means to me musically.

Onward to knitting!

The cute little red hat is the Emily Hat, a pattern I found via Ravelry's pattern browser. I made it for the one-year-old daughter of a friend of the family as a sort of cheering-up present. The poor girl is having absent seizures, and her family hasn't been able to get a concrete reason as to why yet. I wanted her, and them, to have a little bit of comfort, and I'm no good with verbal condolences, so I dug through the stash for some cotton yarn and made this.

As for the pie, guess what's in it. Go on, guess. I'll give you a hint: it's not fruit.

Give up?

Zucchini. For serious.

Now, I like zucchini in things like quesadillas, and as a side dish with pasta, but I had no idea it was possible to make a pie out of it. No idea, that is, until I bought this cookbook. I had flipped through it before, and decided to pick it up the last time I was at Borders.

I'm so glad I did! It has some amazing recipes for most of the vegetables my family grows in our garden, as well as things that are easily available at area farm stands. Zucchini is one thing that we always end up with far too much of, no matter how little we plant, so I was glad to find that the book has a large section devoted to zucchini-based recipes. Apparently, if you cook chopped zucchini in lemon juice and season it like apples for a pie, it makes a very apple-like pie.

Guess what? It really does. It's nearly impossible to tell that the pie isn't an apple pie. If you love produce, I highly recommend this book.

I am now off to try another amazing recipe: seasoned sweet potato fries, baked in the oven!

Mood: ecstatic
Music: The Frames - Your Face

It's not about that, is it; it's about you and me

2008-07-31T11:01:00.004-04:00

I'm not particularly happy about anything right now, which is a dreary state to be in at the start of what's left of the summer. But I suppose I--and many people--hit this point at some time during whatever season they find most promising. To me, late spring and early summer hold great promise, the promise of long days to come, of productivity and fun with friends. And it's not that I've done nothing this summer. I've done a great deal of things that have been a lot of fun. I just haven't done as much as I was hoping, and that always leaves me feeling somewhat depressed.

My knitting hasn't been at all cooperative or helpful on this front.

This will be the back of A Cardigan For Arwen. It's perfect mindless knitting for watching movies, knitting by the light of the monitor while RPing, or reading long books, but as a "sit down and knit happily away" project, this part is lacking.

As for the North Star scarf...

I'm rather tempted to dub it an impolite seven-letter word with the way it's been going. It was moving right along for a while at a pace I was happy with, and that was reasonable for the amount of concentration it takes. Now suddenly, as I'm approaching the halfway point, it has decided to rebel on me. Things aren't lining up, stitches are disappearing, and I often wind up undoing most of the progress I've made, trying to find where things went wrong. I'm beginning to doubt my decision to knit lots and lots of lace in the coming months.

These circumstances have conspired to start up the startitis again, and even as I knit these things, my mind is casting about for what to cast on next. I have some sock yarn that I bought at Knitting Needles in Newport last week, but that needs to be saved for the big awesome concert I'm going to on the 17th. (After much deliberation, I decided that, yes, the best thing to knit while basking in the awesome that is The Swell Season is, indeed, socks.)

Another unfortunate aspect of my current discontent is health. Mine isn't necessarily bad, more that I'm rather bad at managing it. I have trouble sticking to an exercise plan, because I just plain don't like structured exercise. I find it boring. And I love food. This, as you can imagine, leads to arguments with the scale over what it should say I weigh vs. what it actually says, which never end well. So it's back on the diet and exercise train for me, a train that I always wind up getting off of before my scheduled stop. Maybe it's time to start considering knitting as therapy?

Music: They Might Be Giants - Contrecoup
Mood: blah

Moving right along

2008-07-13T15:10:00.004-04:00

After being kept up until 4:30 in the morning by an RP thread that was far too interesting to abandon, today has been a decidedly lazy day. Pretty much all I've done is eat, poke around on the internet, and read through another life of Captain Bluebear. Knitting will no doubt figure into the day somewhere, but silly me, being away from home this week, only brought lace. Nothing mindless at all. Which means I watched a great deal of Teen Titans yesterday without having anything for my hands to do. A dangerous endeavor, indeed!

Remember how I said that I needed to have a talk with the stash? Well, that's begun.

The stash used to have a free reign of the closet, and of the corner of my bedroom that houses my book collection (which is another growing "stash" in and of itself). This was unacceptable, especially since the closet stash was beginning to cause my laundry hamper to launch itself out of the closet whenever the door got opened.

So the stash and I had a little chat, as part of my ongoing summer project to tame the mess in my bedroom.

Yep, this is the same stash. Same stash, same yarn, tamed and organized into a lot of Ziploc bags, grocery bags, and two clear plastic storage tubs, which are now stored in the closet and have made stash diving a whole lot easier.

The circus sweater is in there, too, albeit no longer as a sweater. I was finally forced to admit to myself that I couldn't live with finishing it, and into the frog pond it went. Which leaves me with a lot of dark blue DK weight and several single skeins in very, er, vivid colors. Kaffe Fasset, anyone?

In addition to taming the stash, I've done something that it seems most knitters vow to do, but never quite get around to: I've begun knitting from it. Well over a year ago, I started knitting Jarrett with some Schachenmayr nomotta Extra that I'd gotten on sale at Wool 'n' Word. Problem being, I didn't think hard enough on the fact that changing the gauge would also change the amount of yarn I would need for the project.

Feel free to laugh.

...

Okay, you can stop now.

Anyway, that sat and sat and sat, unfinished, one lonely skein in the bag with the project, waiting for partners to finish the sweater with. Partners I could never find, at least not in the color I needed. So Jarrett, too, eventually hit the frog pond.

Then I discovered A Cardigan For Arwen. Again, not something that's supposed to be knit in sport weight, but I have a couple plans for modifying the pattern which ought to mean I'll wind up having enough yarn to finish. Until I get to the bits with cables, this will be my mindless knitting. 18.75" of stockinette for the back! That'll get me through a lot of summer DVDs (Monk, anyone?) and summer reading! I'm sure it'll also prove extremely useful when my mom and I go on vacation next week. Yey oceanside knitting!

Off I go to track down some food and read more about the lives of Captain Bluebear. If you're looking for some interesting summer reading, Walter Moers rocks!

Mood: hungry
Music: Almost Awake - Third Street

The future of the blog...and socks

2008-06-25T17:38:00.002-04:00

It occurs to me that I ought to get more involved in this blog. I read plenty of other knitting blogs, and they're full of neat stories, amusing witticisms, and useful information. What do I do? Post pictures of knitting. Woo-hoo.

Now the core purpose of a knitting blog is, of course, knitting. Pictures of knitting, discussions of knitting, that cool things found on Ravelry, etc. But I've also discovered that, through knitting blogs, I've begun to get to "know" people in the online knitting community, great people whose existence I might never have known about otherwise. I see their knitting, but their blogs also offer little windows into their lives. What's up with their families, what cool things they've been doing and attending, what sort of knitting/spinning/dyeing techniques they prefer or have been trying...I learn it all through their blogs, and I'm happy to have those glimpses.

What do I post? Pictures of knitting.

I think it's time that changed. It has been changing at bit over the past few posts, what with my waxing lyrical about Elizabeth Zimmermann and talking about what books I've been reading to teach myself things. But I'm not sure that I've posted anything here that allows a potential reader to really "know" me. (Do I even have any readers? I wonder this at times!)

So, I vow to post more interesting non-knitting things along with the knitting things. I shall strive to babble occasionally about things that are happening in my life.

But, for starters...here's a picture of knitting:

The Monkey socks are done! I steam blocked them today and the lace opened up a bit and stopped trying to fold the socks into a 4-cornered flower shape. Great pattern. I'd definitely knit these again!

Mood: introspective & caffeinated
Music: The Frames - Finally

Just about everything from the past few weeks

2008-06-13T22:23:00.001-04:00

I've finally read my first Elizabeth Zimmermann book. I know, I know what all you seasoned knitters are thinking. "You've been knitting since 2004, and you're just now trying Zimmermann?"

I'll admit it, I'm Miss Modern, who started with the Yarn Harlot and am working my way back as far as humorous, opinionated knitting books go, but I do have a slight defense. Only slight. About a year ago, I got another EZ book out of the library, and was simply too overwhelmed by my schedule to have time to read it. (Okay, for all I remember, I could have been wasting time making Desmond icons, but the point is, I did get my hands on an EZ book before now.)

The book is Knitting Without Tears, and I find the iconic EZ to be rather astounding. It seems to me that the casual way she approached knitting, and the problems that may arise while working on a knitted piece, would scare the heck out of a lot of modern knitters, and possibly modern knitting book authors. There are so many books out there on new techniques, old techniques, traditional techniques, and what to do when they all fail you; but Zimmermann simply took it all in stride. Not enough yarn? Do a little stash diving and add a border. Completely genius, something you'd think we would occur to all of us, and yet...well, I know I don't approach knitting that way. Clearly, in EZ terms, I am far too much of a perfectionist.

The Phoebe Pullover is based on the seamless saddle shoulder sweater that EZ presents in this particular book. After having worked on the pattern for a while, seeing the casual way the construction is presented is extremely liberating. I'm finding myself dreaming up the beginnings of designs for yarns that have been sitting in the stash, just waiting to be used.

Speaking of, after venturing into my closet to grab a few things, I came to the conclusion that the stash and I need to have a little talk. A serious talk. A "this gigantic bag of yarn needs to become a much smaller bag of yarn before any more yarn is purchased" kind of talk. The irony of this is that I just bought more yarn in the form of a KnitPicks lace sampler. (I have a feeling that all knitters experience this irony at some point, or perhaps constantly.) But now I think it's time to reign it in, both for the sake of my budget and the sake of my closet.

Yes, it's time for...the dreaded yarn diet. We'll see how well that works.

Now let's see. As far as catch-up goes, I think I'll start with the spinning. A couple of weeks ago, I finally pulled out the BFL roving:

(Rufus Lupus colorway, from SakinaNeedles)

I wanted to try doing some low-twist singles, something I've been a bit too chicken to try in the past. So, I did a little Google-fu and scared up a decent tutorial. Despite clear instruction, though, I found that the technique involved was a bit like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. The differences in speed between treadling and feeding the fiber in are going to take some time to master.

Nevertheless, I'm not unhappy with the results.

I had a hat in mind for these, but I'm not sure there's enough. I'll get to swatching eventually to see if it's even appropriate yarn for the project.

As for knitting...a while back, I told myself that I had to clean up my small collection of UFOs. For someone who started out knitting only one thing at a time, diligently finishing each project before casting on another, having four unfinished projects on the needles was starting to feel a bit overwhelming. I promised myself that startitis wouldn't take over until all my needles were empty.

That went well, at first. I finished the socks with the Trekking XXL I got in PA. I finished the socks with the Kool-Aid dyed handspun. Then, I happily attacked the Phoebe Pullover once again.

And encountered the cruelest irony ever.

That sad sight is a sweater one ball short of being finished. That is a sweater for which I, the knitter who always has an extra ball of yarn left over, somehow managed to under-buy. That is a sweater that is laughing to itself as it sits stowed under the futon, awaiting one last ball of navy Andean Silk. It has blown a big raspberry at both my yarn diet and my spirited attempt to whiz through my UFOs. Oddly...I don't resent it. I'm more annoyed at the USPS for taking so long with one itty-bitty package. (Of course, I didn't just order one ball of yarn. I tossed the Yarn Harlot's latest book in the cart, too, to make it worth my while.)

There is, of course, only one thing to do while waiting, and that is succumb to startitis.

First in a pair of Monkey socks. I've had my eye on this pattern for a while, and it didn't take me long to see why so many people knit it. It has enough variation to be interesting, but is quick and easy enough to suspend with any lace-related frustration. The repeat is short enough to be jotted in a small notebook and carried anywhere. I whipped through an entire repeat during a car ride back from the bookstore yesterday.

The yarn is Plymoth Happy Feet that I picked up at Stephanie's a few weeks ago. The picture I snapped of the swatch gives a better representation of the colors:

I really like the subtle variation. It adds visual interest without detracting from the lace pattern.

That's it for now! I'm all caught up. Remember that tomorrow is WWKIP (World-Wide Knit In Public) Day! I'm heading over to Stephanie's to sit, knit, and enjoy the gorgeous lack of humidity. Perhaps there will be pictures, if I can remember my camera.

Colorful?

2008-05-25T22:37:00.002-04:00

I like colors. My wardrobe may offer examples to the contrary, as it is predominantly black, but there are several things I like colors in:

-- Socks. I'm a sucker for self-striping sock yarn (in case this wasn't obvious).
-- Nature. I've lived in a rural area all my life, and every year I am struck by how vibrant spring and summer can be. Trees, flowers, birds, fresh produce...it's all beautiful, and I look forward to all of it no matter how many times I've seen it before.
-- Guitars, particularly Gibson. 'Nuff said.

Despite this, I've never been very enthusiastic about experimenting or playing with color. I always felt that I didn't have an eye for it, a belief that the Circus Sweater drove home rather painfully. Lately, though, my thoughts have been turning to serious dye projects. Experimenting with Kool-Aid is great, but I want to be able to have more control over my dyes. I want more vibrant colors, in something that isn't going to leave my yarn smelling like lemonade and fruit punch. I want...a dye studio.

I know a have a lot to learn before a studio setting could pay off for me, so I've been doing the logical thing: reading up on dyeing and color! I recently perused several such books, including Deb Menz's Color In Spinning, Linda Labelle's The Yarn Lover's Guide to Hand Dyeing, and, most recently, Elaine Eskesen's Dyeing to Knit. I found the latter two especially to be great sources of inspiration. I've learned a lot about the color wheel that I never managed to pick up on before, and tonight I did some experimenting:

I had to darken the image a bit to make the colors stand out properly. It's still not exact, but it's close to the way the design looks in real life. It's in a book of black-and-white, color-them-yourself line designs I got when I was much younger, and I colored it in while referencing a small color wheel in Dyeing to Knit. I even laid the crayon colors out to correspond to the wheel, so the right colors would be easily within reach. I tried some work with complementary colors, color triads, and color harmonies. I think it came out good! I'd like to do a few more, both referencing the color wheel and freehand.

I'm finding some of the information hard to retain, probably because I've never been artsy in that sort of way, but I'm liking what I'm learning. It's fulfilling to feel like I'm finally getting in touch with a side of my creativity that was previously closed off. I'm beginning to feel a little more adventurous where color is concerned, and I think that's the first step towards being able to do the dyeing that I want to do in the near future. I have colorways in my head, inspired by everything from movies to books to RPG characters. I want to continue learning as much as I can in regards to color and dye techniques so that I can make these ideas a reality.

Also, I have discovered the work of Kaffe Fassett. Talk about delightfully insane...

Mood: tired & distracted
Music: Left Bank - Just Walk Away, Renee

The computer and the blog both need attention

2008-05-20T14:07:00.003-04:00

Here I am, playing catch-up again. I was doing so well for a while there! I definitely need to get back into the blog groove.

My laptop has started sneezing on me every time I try to scroll through a large amount of files that are also of large size. Read: Explorer crashes. This is decidedly annoying, especially since I don't know what's causing it. It's making it quite hard to transfer large files between the desktop and the laptop. For now, I'm defragging the hard drive and letting Avast AntiVirus do its thing to make sure all's well on the software front. I'd forgotten just how long defragging takes.

While all of that is going on, and Pandora serenading me in the background, I'm going to bring this blog up to speed!

First off, the spinning:

This is one skein (approximately half) of the merino I spun a while back. Before I started some socks with it, I decided to do a little dyeing experiment. No pictures from that, but it involved five jars, some Kool-Aid, and a bit of steam! The colors didn't turn out as vivid as I wanted, but the result was a yarn with a somewhat tie-dyed appearance, so overall it was a good result.

The first sock, done toe-up to maximize yarn usage:

The ball of yarn next to my foot recently became the start of sock #2.

The yarn has more variation in thickness than I thought, and far too much twist in places, but it's knitting up fairly well. I may have to block the socks when all's said and done. It's a learning experience. As I knit, I find myself thinking about things I've read regarding spinning, and considering how to apply them in future spinning ventures. In my experience, this sort of learning takes a little longer and incorporates more trial-and-error than being taught in, say, a class setting, but it works just as well. I'm really enjoying learning new techniques and how to improve what I'm already doing.

Remember the Eastside Weavers roving? Here's what it became:

Thick-thin yarn, predominantly purple, of all things. I didn't realize just how much purple was in the color scheme until I started predrafting and spinning the roving. This led me to think (don't laugh) of Barney, of all things. Which, in turn, led me to think of the Garfield & Friends parody of Barney, Sidney the Pink Dinosaur (Season 7, "The Beast From Beyond"). Which is why this yarn is called "Sidney".

Okay, now you can laugh.

This yarn is available for purchase at my Etsy shop, The Casimir Sheep (formerly Northeast Knits).

Now, the knitting! Excuse the crappy webcam pics; I don't currently have my good camera on me.

I knit the majority of this pair while watching Lost and House, and got a bit more work in while reading extremely long discussion board threads on Ravelry and fighting the Morphing Bacterial Infection of Doom.

The yarn is Trekking XXL that I picked up on that road trip to Pennsylvania, colorway 312. As you can see, I made no attempt to make them match.

First picture of the elusive Phoebe Pullover! This is sleeve #1, attempt #3. The pattern isn't difficult, but it requires more concentration than a lot of what I've been knitting recently (read: socks). My brain keeps trying to convince me that it's mindless, really it is, and I believe it until I find myself three-quarters of the way through a round and realize that I have no idea what stitch I just did, or if it was the right one. I'll have to keep re-training myself to pay attention, I guess!

With the exception of what's on the drop spindle at the moment, that's it! Catching up has been achieved. I can only imagine the chaos that's going to bloom around here when I start on my next endeavor: stash reduction...

Mood: cold
Music: Jim Croce - Dreamin' Again

Twisty tales

2008-04-30T17:11:00.002-04:00

Oh hai, I've been spinning again.

I can tell you're not surprised.

On Saturday, my mom and I ventured to a small fiber arts/craft fair and sale in Clifton Park. The main thing I had my eye out for was a drop spindle, and sure enough

that's what I walked away with. The spindle is from Millpoint Emporium, and the fiber I'm spinning was from the table Eastside Weavers had set up. I also got this

from their table, and can't wait to spin it. I'm not usually one for purple, but I thought the overall effect of the colorway was very earthy and pretty. As you can see, I've already isolated the color repeats and am storing the fiber like that so it'll be ready when I am.

I really enjoyed the Millpoint Emporium table. I wish I'd been able to afford more! Among their other beautiful products, they had hand-turned nostpindes, as well as some lovely niddy-noddies. I could easily have bought half the contents of the table!

As it is, I'm loving the drop spindle. It's done its share of dropping, due to my being rather clumsy with the process, but I'm getting better! I've spun a fair amount of the black/red/blue fiber these past few days, mostly while watching the 50th Anniversary Collection of Perry Mason. (Incidentally, I thought I'd take a look yesterday and see if anyone writes Perry Mason fanfiction. Apparently so! Most of it is Perry/Della. How cute is that?)

And...it's starting. I barely have room for my yarn stash, and yet I've begun to amass a fiber stash.

Meet Ex-Parrot (100% Corriedale), and Rufus Lupus (100% Bluefaced Leicester), both from SakinaNeedles. I ordered these for two reasons. One, I like the colors, especially in Ex-Parrot. Two, both of them have, either in the name of the colorway or in the product description, references to British humor.

Ex-Parrot:
"For some reason, all the "weird" kids in my grade at school took Latin instead of Spanish or French. While we were all sitting around one day before class, we realized that with everyone having memorized their favorite scene, and everyone having different favorite scenes, our Latin class could collectively quote our way through the entire script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Rufus Lupus (this is from the merino version of the colorway, which I looked at first):
"My mom claims that I'm turning away customers with names like this because not everyone reads Latin. But I have faith in you. Most of you might not read Latin, and most of you may not have even read Thomas Hobbes, but I have noticed a distinct tendency among spinners to like Terry Pratchett."

If Rufus Lupus is still available in 2009, I'm totally bringing some to the North American Discworld Convention and spinning it while walking around. Stop looking at me like that; the idea wasn't the only reason I had for buying a drop spindle.

Seriously, it wasn't. Stop staring.

In addition to all this fiber acquisition, I've been reading up on hand-dyeing, both yarn and roving, in books like Deb Menz's Color In Spinning. Plus, I'm still working on the Phoebe Pullover, and have cast on a new sock to knit while watching things like Lost and House. How one pair of socks is going to last me until the end of the season for both shows is beyond me. I may have to cast on another before finale time rolls around!

No wonder I want to spend all my time doing fiber-arts-y things rather than working. I need to put some more thought into how badly I want to pursue the possibility of making fiber arts a paying gig.

Is that nuts? >.>

Mood: full o' ennui
Music: CCR - Who'll Stop the Rain

Patience has her perfect work

2008-04-25T21:40:00.003-04:00

Yep, more spinning talk!

These are singles spun from just shy of 5 oz. of merino that I picked up on a recent road trip to Pennsylvania. My mom and I were driving along 202 on our way to Blue Bell, and came upon Twist Knitting & Spinning. Seeing as we haven't ventured into PA since I was extremely young, and I'm a sucker for any LYS wherever we happen to be, we stopped and took a look around.

It's a really cute shop. They have a lot of well-known names in yarn, including hand-dyed/handpainted, as well as a diverse selection of fiber. I had the pleasure of sticking my hand in a bag of 100% cashmere, which was, unfortunately, far beyond my budget. There was also merino, angora, camel, and all manner of blends! I settled on the merino, it being both reasonably priced and amazingly soft.

It took me nine days of diligent spinning to get it all done. I spun the singles very thin, with sock yarn in mind, and Navajo plied them.

Then, with the help of a postal scale, I split the yarn into two skeins, roughly 2.5 oz/each.

I haven't swatched yet, but I think I managed to get sock yarn, or very close! I don't know how much it amounts to, yardage-wise. I really need to invest in a yardage counter, or something of the like.

Though it's very pretty as is, I'd like to dye both skeins at some point. Problem is, I've put so much work into them, that the blue and yellow Kool-Aid I bought yesterday somehow doesn't seem like it will do them justice. I'm pondering making concentrated dyes and hand-painting the yarn blue, yellow, and green, but I'm not sure. Having spent 30+ hours spinning and plying this, I don't want to ruin it with a bad or substandard dye job.

I have, however, been practicing dyeing techniques!

I had some KnitPicks' Bare Peruvian wool left over from making Inishmore, so I skeined it up yesterday and goofed off a bit with Kool-Aid and food coloring.

My original intention was to make a colorway with blue, black, red, yellow, and orange. A shortage of red food coloring and a miscalculation in color mixing had me end up with the blue, rose-pink, yellow, and brown in the picture. Despite the difference from what I was picturing, I like it! It's kind of psychedelic. I don't know what I'll do with it, but I'm thinking it'll become a hat for a baby and/or small child.

In case you're wondering, I hand-painted using concentrated Kool-Aid/food coloring dyes mixed up with water and a teeny bit of food coloring. Being unable to locate the sponge brushes I know I have, I ended up cutting a bit off an old sponge, cutting the end at an angle, and using that to dab the dye on. It worked quite well! Then I wrapped the whole thing up and steamed it for about 45 minutes in a strainer suspended over a stainless-steel pot. One thing I learned during the whole process is that I definitely need to hit the discount and thrift stores and get myself a full set of dyeing equipment.

In the near future, I would like to embark on adventures in dyeing with something like Jacquard acid dyes. Perhaps I'll get some practice in with that before I try to dye the merino. I know I want to do some more reading on the subject, especially on making self-striping yarn!

Tomorrow, I'm off to a local fiber arts and crafts fair. I think the world of fiber arts has truly eaten my brain, and I'm not upset about that in the least.

Mood: tired
Music: Michael Nesmith - Rio

I can has handspun?

2008-04-15T20:32:00.003-04:00

Yes, I can has handspun!

The picture's a little blurry, but the color is fairly true to life.

This psychedelic yarn started out as hand-dyed wool top from Uniquely Yours Design, in a colorway called Flav-Or-Flav.

The bits of red really caught my eye, and I was pleasantly surprised by the vibrancy of the colors when it came in the mail. I split it up into color repeats:

and split those further in order to spin stripes in succession.

The singles I made from this are the best singles I've spun to date, which makes sense, I guess, seeing as practice has a tendency to beget better results!

Speaking of, I thought about Navajo plying the singles, but decided to go for two-ply this time. I've only practiced Navajo plying once, and didn't want to risk screwing up the process and ruining this great colored wool. I went for two-ply, which resulted in the groovy, Froot-Loop-like effect in the final skein. Thusly, I'm calling it Fruit Loop! I'm not sure exactly what I'll be making out of it yet. I might just let it sit for a while and admire the colors.

I continued my adventures in color yesterday by taking the time to do some dyeing in the kitchen. A little while back, I spun the rest of the natural-colored wool into some two-ply:

Still kind of slubby, but a lot more even than the first batch! I took that, along with a recipe for food coloring dye from Linda Labelle's The Yarn Lover's Guide to Hand Dyeing, and went to work.

I was going for a teal, which turned out as a somewhat muddy green at first, so I tossed the yarn in a second dyebath that was just plain blue, and ended up with a neat ocean color.

If I had to give it a name, I'd call it Under The Sea. (That was always one of my favorite songs from The Little Mermaid. I mean, really, how can you resist a singing crab with a Jamaican accent?) It's destined to become a thick-and-thin garter stitch scarf. Boring as that sounds, I think it'll really show off the color, and the simple stitch won't suffer from the unevenness of the yarn.

The Phoebe Pullover is still underway. But I've really been in a spinning mood lately, so I think I'll wind up posting more about that than knitting over the next couple of weeks!

Mood: distracted
Music: Kate Blain - The Good Life

Felting and Fitzcarraldo

2008-04-07T20:42:00.003-04:00

I've really got to stop with these huge gaps between knitblogging. This has become my primary hobby blog, since my interest in Lost blogging has been replaced by extensive post-episode chats, and yet here I am, finding myself in catch-up mode after another month-long gap!

It's been a good month for knitting. I finished Inishmore, but have yet to procure a good photo of the recipient modeling it. I'm quite proud of the way it came out, and she loved like crazy. There's nothing quite like enthusiastic appreciation of a FO!

In the "knitted for friends" department, I present this adorable machine-felted market bag. (Pre-felting on the left, post-felting on the right). I love making felted things, but so rarely have any use for them that I don't bother to do many felting projects.

I especially don't need bags, which is a shame, because bag projects are quick, easy, fun knits. This particular bag only took six days from swatching to felting. A friend of mine knew exactly what sort of bag she wanted, and pointed me toward a pattern that replicated what she had in mind. The handles and bottom are stockinette, and the bag body is garter stitch in the round. The bottom is technically supposed to be all one color, but for some reason I didn't have enough black, and so had to improvise. I think it looks cute, personally!

The primary-colored socks are done, too, as predicted. They're fun socks, although one seems to be a bit too small. I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to pop the kitchener stitch, unravel the toe, and knit a few more rounds before the decreases. I've done that before with other socks, but it's always a bit of a daunting prospect.

Once the socks were done, I cast on for the Phoebe Pullover. I'm--gasp!--using the yarn recommended in the pattern: Andean Silk, except I went for navy blue instead of chocolate brown. Given my small budget, it was a splurge even at the very reasonable KnitPicks price. Totally worth it. Holy crap, is this yarn yummy.

The sweater interests me in several respects. The sizing is very flexible, meaning that, for once, I'll have a finished products that fits without having to make a bazillion little adjustments along the way. Also, everything is knit in the round. The body is done in the round, the sleeves are done in the round and joined to the body...everything. That means practically no seaming, which makes me a happy Sammie. Seams continue to be the bane of my knitting existence.

In between (and sometimes during) all this knitting over the past month, I consumed far too much Monster, co-wrote a massive Lost/Discworld crossover fanfic with a close friend of mine (more on that in future posts), and devoured several albums by the Frames.

My latest love? Fitzcarraldo. It is an amazing album. I can't stop listening to the title track; it's six minutes of pure awesome. If you love the Frames (or Glen Hansard), try and get your hands on a copy. If you've never heard them...start here. Seriously. I'm not plugging this for any other reason than the fact that I love it to bits. There is real beauty here, and not nearly as much of the anger that crops up on later albums like Burn the Maps.

I'm off to knit more on the pullover and probably make myself cry re-watching "Goodbye Radar", parts 1 & 2. I love M*A*S*H.

Mood: headachey
Music: The Frames - Monument

The semi-secret sweater project

2008-03-07T16:48:00.003-05:00

It's not actually a secret. It's Alice Starmore's Inishmore.

I'm knitting it for a fellow Wrimo who wants a big, comfy fisherman's sweater.

I officially started it (read: finally stopped screwing it up after the ribbing) on Jan. 26th and have been zipping along ever since. Well, for a given value of "zipping".

There are good things and bad things about this pattern. The good thing is, the cables aren't difficult to memorize and it's easy to start working with only a cursory glance at the pattern once you've knit a few repeats.

The bad thing is...the cables aren't difficult to memorize. Even mixing it up--back, sleeve, front, sleeve--the pattern starts to become tedious. I'm now about halfway through the second sleeve and am alternating between finding the speedy knitting enjoyable and wanting to throw it out the window.

I'm using KnitPicks Bare Peruvian Highland Wool, and oh boy. Never again, at least not for cable work. It had a terrible tendency to split or untwist when the stitches are moved, which can spell disaster for the look of a cable if the knitter isn't paying enough attention. Fortunately, I haven't had any mishaps that are 1) too hard to fix or 2) grossly noticeable.

Another good thing about the cable pattern? It's easy enough to work on while on the computer. Or, in my case, while playing the new Sims 2 expansion pack. What's not to love about Sims who go to a secret Arts & Crafts lot and talk about knitting? (They do, if you watch closely enough!)

The second primary-colored sock is still on the needles. I finished the gusset during last night's Lost, and will probably end up finishing the sock sometime during the gap between the pre-strike 8 episodes and the post-strike 5, at which point there will be more pictures. (Does anybody else put their knitting down when something pivotal happens to Desmond?)

That's it on the knitting front for now. I shall return, sooner rather than later.

Mood: hungry
Music: The Frames - Sad Songs

Spinning, spinning, spinning (and socks)

2008-01-24T19:02:00.001-05:00

That crazy-colored wool I mentioned buying?

Spun like a dream.

Plied like a dream.

And made one really awesome-looking skein.

I'm so proud of this yarn, probably more proud than I should be. It's soft, bouncy, and looks much better than my first couple batches of handspun. I have plans for it to be a funny earflap hat, probably with a pompom. Whatever it ends up being, I'm thinking it'll end up on Etsy.

I ended up plying the plied yarn again because I wanted something thicker, and it made me realize that I need to learn more about plying. Thank God for libraries and Google!

On the knitting side of things, I've been making socks out of the Sockotta yarn I picked up in Kaleidoscope Yarns over the summer. It's been a nice break from all the color work, cabling, and general frustration I've had with my other recent projects.

I didn't like the extremely primary colorway at first, but the little flecks of white in the colors give the finished product a muted, heathery look that's grown on me. Plus, the heel flap on this one looks kind of like an ear of corn, which I found oddly endearing. Sock #2 is on the needles for knitting in lines, in the dark, and whenever Lost is on. (Is anyone else crazy excited about the season 4 premiere next week? Furthermore, has anyone else been playing with find815.com? It's like crack for Lost fans.)

Also on the list for knitting:
-- gloves for my brother, on the needles but the size needs checking
-- the Phoebe pullover for me, sometime in the future
-- a pattern as close as I can get to Marketa's gloves in Once
-- a super-secret design project
-- a semi-secret not-for-me sweater project

I'm about to be a very busy knitter!

Mood: hydrated
Music: Dan Fogelberg - Make Love Stay

Two birds with one stone

2008-01-17T21:23:00.000-05:00

Tuesday afternoon, I got to make use of Mike for the first time!

I made a brief sojourn to A Touch of Twist (during which it started to snow like crazy, but I was too stubborn to turn back), bought some fairly inexpensive white wool and some slightly more expensive crazy-colored wool, and returned to the house to spin!

I've only seen someone else use a spinning wheel up close once. The other times I caught glimpses were all through crowds at Rhinebeck. So, being the way I am and liking to teach myself how to do things, I got a stack of spinning books out of the library last week. Before I sat down with Mike and my wool for the first time, I spent a bit of time flipping through them and reading the bits that were pertinent for someone just starting out.

Of course, there's a lot I still don't know about spinning. There's a lot I have to learn and there's a very good chance that I'm doing something wrong. (Did I ever mention that I purled the wrong way for about the first year and a half of my knitting life?)

That said, I really enjoyed myself and produced this:

My first crappy handspun!

So then I had this handspun. It was white. It looked funny. What to do with it? Why, get some Kool-Aid, of course, and make it my first dyeing project!

I had to hunt around to three stores for the Kool-Aid I wanted, which is kind of sad given that I grew up drinking the stuff and every store used to have scads of those little packets. But I did finally locate the colors I wanted.

Lemonade and tropical punch, respectively. It only occurred to me after I made a complete mess of the stove that I probably should have suspended the yarn over the pan on a spoon handle or something. Ah well, live and learn!

After the obligatory rinsing and drying, the yarn miraculously looked less odd, at least to me. To me, it suddenly looked less like crappy, over-twisted first handspun and more like some of the deliberately uneven yarns on the market.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. I'm thinking a hat, if there's enough. If not?

There's always batch #2 from today!

Mood: accomplished
Music: The Frames - Your Face (live)

New Toy

2008-01-11T13:04:00.000-05:00

This is Mike.

Mike is an Ashford Traveller, purchased last week from The Woolery and assembled this morning with a little aid from Dad.

The decision to buy Mike was a fairly easy one, despite my dinky budget. I've found spinning fascinating for a while, having seen someone in the local Stitch 'n' Bitch spinning llama yarn, and watching a friend learn to use a drop spindle a couple years back.

But the thing that really caught my interest was reading Barbara Albright's The Natural Knitter. It was the first book I ever read that specifically discussed fibers and their characteristics, and one of the few non-fiction books I've ever read with enthusiasm. The focus on natural/organic fibers and dye processes fit with the mindset that my entire family has been moving toward in the last few years, and the idea of getting back to nature with knitting made me seriously start to contemplate learning to spin.

I didn't want to start small. I wanted to pull out the big guns, so to speak, and learn to spin on a wheel. Thus, after several weeks of frantic saving and budget readjustment, Mike was purchased.

I am so. So. Excited. As soon as I can, I'm going to go out and visit A Touch of Twist in Pattersonville and get my very first fiber. I know there are places on the internet that I could just as easily order from without leaving the house, but I want to be able to see and touch the first thing I'm going to spin before I buy it.

In other awesome fiber news,

the Red Sweater of Doom has been vanquished! Here it is, blocking a bit to even out the seed stitch. Seventeen months of agonizing knitting, frustration, and setting it aside and trying to pretend it didn't exist...and now it's done! I'm glad I listened to my whim and picked it up again. It's nice to have it off my back, and Mom will finally have her sweater. Honestly, that's the only reason I kept plugging along with it at all. Had it been for me, I would have given up and frogged it long ago.

A word on the yarn: unless you don't mind tough, non-elastic yarn that has a tendency to split, I suggest staying away from Saucy Sport. It has wonderful strength, I'll give it that, but it feels and behaves rather like twine.

As for the pattern...if you're a knitting masochist, give it a try. If you value your sanity, stay far, far away!

Onward and upward to other things! *bounces away*

Mood: excited
Music: They Might Be Giants - Feign Amnesia

The dawn of a new knitting year

2008-01-02T14:20:00.000-05:00

Here I am, back in the blogsphere after a whirlwind of a holiday season. I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that it's 2008 (where did 2007 go?); that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's have passed; and that my vacation is very nearly over.

You would think two weeks off from work would give a girl ample knitting, writing, blogging, and all-around goof-off time, right? Wrong.

Well, sort of wrong. Shortly before the start of my vacation time, I was cursed with what seemed like a winter cold. Said cold was annoyingly persistent, so my doctor put me on medication, which eased the symptoms a bit, but didn't kill them entirely. So I'm stuck with the remnants of the cold (or whatever it is), which include a nasty cough that has landed me in bed more than once doing little aside from chatting and watching unhealthy amounts of Jeeves & Wooster. So I haven't done much that's productive.

I did, however, work on the circus sweater--er, the Mirepoix--over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The whole steeking business has, so far, been easier than I thought it would be, albeit more time-consuming. (That's the front neck steek in the picture.) Cutting them open when the time comes still makes me uneasy, but since other knitters have been using steeks literally for centuries, I suppose I shouldn't be worried.

I'm finished with the armhole and neck decreases and am now on to the bit where I have to knit miles and miles of the exceedingly ugly circus colors until the armholes are the right size. On the upside, I have found someone who doesn't think the colors are deathly offensive, and so the sweater will be shipped off to her when all's said and done.

I'll probably knit the pattern again for myself at some point in the future, but definitely not any time soon. Fair Isle is fun to knit, and it's fascinating to watch the color pattern come together, but it also takes a really long time. For now, I'd rather knit something I can work on easily without having it take all of my attention.

And, *gasp* what's that? That's right, it's the Red Sweater of Doom, back again!

I got the weird urge to work on this last week, so I got out the size 5 needle tips and went to it. I haven't hit a point where I can't stand it yet, so I'm going to keep at it until I do. Hopefully the urge won't run out before the sweater is done.

I think this is the best picture I've taken of it so far. The color is a little lighter than the yarn looks in real life, but it's very close, and you can finally see the cables clearly. These are just the small ones; the leaf motif doesn't start for another 20 rows yet. I'm hoping to get to it today, or at least finish the little cables.

Best thing about this sweater (and the only thing that isn't "of Doom" about it)? The edges are all in seed stitch, so it'll seam in no time.

In other news, I finally got to see the acclaimed movie, Once, shortly before Christmas. I had read and heard so much about it over the months between when it was released in theatres and when the DVD came out, that I was practically bursting when it hit store and rental shelves. I had already fallen deeply in love with the soundtrack when I bought it back in September, and was well-acquainted with the music by the time I ran out and rented the DVD.

Guys...see this movie. If you love music or play music, see it. If you've ever completely lost track of time while doing something you love, see it. If you now or have ever loved someone who has music in their soul, see it. See it with them. See it with friends. And keep some tissues handy. It's different, it's bittersweet, and the music is amazing. The fact that Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova (the leading Guy and Girl, respectively) wrote and performed all the music on the soundtrack makes it that much better.

Believe it or not, there is actually a knitting-related connection here. There are some fun knitted things hiding in this movie, most notably (to me, anyway), Marketa's gloves. Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting has a cable charted that's very similar to the one on the back of the gloves, and I have plans to work out a pattern for them using that as a guide. When I do, I'll post it here so we can all knit cute mitts!

That's all the knitterly news for now. I'll try to be a little more consistent with my posting now that the busy holiday season is over!

Happy 2008, everyone!

Mood: sick
Music: They Might Be Giants - I Can't Hide From My Mind

"But it looked so pretty on the website!"

2007-11-26T10:36:00.000-05:00

I have come to a sad realization about the Mirepoix.

Although the knitting itself looks just fine, and the fair isle bit isn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be,

it's ugly as sin. This color scheme could not be uglier if a circus threw up on it.

It looked fine on the website. When I was ordering the yarn, the colors looked far more muted, like they'd blend into each other and create something close to what was in the original pattern, but in more of a fog-and-sky sort of theme.

As you can see, they're not muted. They're louder than a marauding air horn. I've been trying to tell myself for weeks that there's nothing really wrong with them, that it'll all work out because it's set against dark blue, but the plain, honest truth is that there is something wrong with them, and that something is that they are ugly, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Next time, I'm buying a color card first.

Mood: angry
Music: The Frames - Falling Slowly

Ho Meets Harlot, and other tales of Rhinebeck

2007-10-21T20:18:00.000-04:00

This was definitely the coolest thing about Rhinebeck today:

The Yarn Harlot and I, "making a statement with our shirts", as she put it. I'm not sure what statement she's making, but I think mine screams that I'm a big, geeky knitter and proud of it! Knitting and geekery, in my opinion, go very well together. (Said the woman who knits by the light of her monitor while RPing at 3am.)

This is today's loot:

Just shy of 2,000 yards total of lace weight of various compositions. The blue is kid mohair, red/yellow/orange is merino, grey is superfine alpaca. Basically, I showed little restraint until I came to the end of my limited budget.

Overall, a fun day. I'm incredibly exhausted now, and will probably sleep like a brick for about 12 hours. And next year I want to go both days?

Ahahaha.

Why is nothing ever my size?

2007-10-19T10:25:00.000-04:00

Behold, the start of Mirepoix!

Pictures will improve once I learn how to use the setting for closeups on my new camera.

It has been an age since I've done any mindless knitting. I think the last thing I worked on that required little or not attention was my dad's Father's Day sweater. Everything else I've done lately has had either cables or lace.

I know what you're thinking. "But Sam, Mirepoix has a freakin' huge fair isle section! With steeks!" I'm thinking it, too. But for now, it's lovely k2p2 ribbing for miles and miles. Knitting that can be done in the dark or by the light of a monitor screen is much valued during 2am RPG sessions!

Technical tomfoolery thus far: I'm using size US4 and US5 needles and DK weight yarn rather than the 3 and 4 with sport that the pattern calls for. I know myself; I knit very tightly. I just so happened to have some KnitPicks Merino Style in the stash and, on an impulse, swatched some up on a size 4. Yep, gauge. It's kind of sad how it took me three years to figure this out about my knitting.

Mild pattern gripery: Nothing, I repeat, nothing I knit in my bust size has armholes or sleeves the right size. Since we're all knitters here, I'll spill; I'm a 36". This means medium sizes, right? Right.

Except for armholes and sleeves.

For some reason, almost every single pattern I've ever knit from in a 36" bust size (or the closest size the pattern has) either has 14" or 16" armholes and 18" sleeves. Even with drop shoulders, neither of these is big enough for me. My arms? 21" from underarm to wrist. Hence the necessity to resize everything.

However, I've been thinking on Mirepoix and have decided that going up a bust size was, for once, possibly not the best move. Big, for this sweater, apparently equals bad. So I'm thinking of doing an equivalent of the increase row for the 35" size and knitting the fair isle section in that size. But because 1) I've put a lot of time into it already and 2) I am not itty bitty, never have been itty bitty, and don't have any illusions of being itty bitty, I'm doing the rest in the 38.5" size.

Methinks I'm going to need a highlighter.

Mood: contemplative
Music: Arlo Guthrie - The City of New Orleans

Revelate, revelate

2007-10-16T15:32:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a quick blocking job with the help of a high-powered fan,

it's done! The only thing I changed after taking the picture was to sew an inch or so of the neckline shut so that it draped better.

Complaints:
-- While the aran-weight yarn got gauge well enough, it's a bit light and so the shoulders don't always stay up properly.

-- The sizing on this pattern is a bit convoluted. I made the body at the closest to the correct bust size there was, and it's still a little big. The corresponding sleeves, however, were both too small around and too short. The sleeves for the modified armhole where the right size, but also too short. This is probably more of the fault of my broad shoulders than the pattern.

Likes:
-- The yarn is really soft. Yet another thing I wish I could afford regularly. (JoSharp Silkroad Aran, in case I forgot to mention it before.)

-- It's warm without being too warm, and nicely light. Also looks good with jeans. I'll probably be wearing it to Rhinebeck this weekend.

I am so excited for Rhinebeck! I really wish I could go Saturday, but I have a gig on Saturday night and walking around all day beforehand would not be conducive to putting on a good performance. So Sunday it is, all day long, in all its fiber-filled glory.

This has, however, turned out to be a good thing, in that I will finally get to meet the Yarn Harlot! I will try not to geek out too much, but it's always exciting to be able to meet people whose work you enjoy. I love reading Stephanie's books and blog, and I admire the way she can make me laugh at a regular, everyday scenario that has never before struck me as funny. I'd say she's well on her way to becoming the Terry Pratchett of the knitting world.

That's all for now. Next time, whatever progress I manage to make on Mirepoix!

Mood: way beyond tired
Music: The Frames - Revelate

Yey and Oy

2007-10-08T22:26:00.000-04:00

Yey for

finished Pomatomus!

Oy for

Cherie Amour.

Knitting Pomatomus has put me permanently in love with both Cookie A.'s designs and Koigu KPPPM yarn. When knitting with it, it doesn't seem to feel too different than other sock yarns I've used, but wearing it...merino on feet is delicious.

Cherie Amour...urgh. It's such a beautiful, simple design. The design and I are cool with each other. However, the pattern and I are waging all-out war.

A sample, taken from my Ravelry notebook:

9/23, 12:30am -- Just had to rip out two day's worth of knitting because every single decrease was *backwards*. This was due to my stupid inability to pay attention to charts rather than anything being wrong with the pattern.

9/26 -- After about a billion restarts, I've got this going nicely again! It's not a bad pattern; I'm not really sure what my problem with it has been. Might be suddenly knitting on size 13 needles after doing socks for so long!

9/30 -- My goodness, this thing is a horror show. Right now I'd place the blame about 60/40 on me/the pattern...

I was briefly mollified over the weekend. Lulled, you might say:

10/6 -- Zipping right along! Finally, I feel confident about this thing.

Confident, yes. Still confident, in fact. But today I realized that confident little me got cocky and knit an entire sleeve without thinking of the fact that I resized the armhole. So confident little me got a sleeve measuring 14 inches across the top...for a 17-inch armhole.

Why is it that so many patterns assume that people with a 36" bust have arms that will fit in a 14" armhole? Or are sized for sleeves 18" long? I don't think of myself as big, but I am a broad-shouldered, longish-limbed woman. I nearly always end up having to buy a large in women's shirts and jackets because, even if it fits in all other respects, a medium will inevitably be too short in the sleeves or too tight across the back.

So along come patterns like Cherie Amour, or that ribbon-yarn tank top I knit a while back from a book of "hip" patterns and ended up having to rip out, that have measurements that I'm sure fit someone, but that someone is not me. And so I made adjustments, thinking myself clever and in tune with my knitting...and then I do something dumb like forget to resize the sleeve. The especially dumb thing in this case? 17" is an actual armhole measurement in a larger size of the Cherie Amour pattern. The directions are already there. If someone had been keeping score, I think this pattern would have trounced me a long time ago.

And that's the knitterly drama that's been going on in my life. I'll keep chugging along, but I think I'll give lace a rest after this.

Next up? Mirepoix Bodice from Interweave Knits fall '07. Currently eying a blue/grey/white/black theme. New stuff to tackle: large swatch of colorwork and *gulp* steeking!

TV, Knitting, and Moving Backwards

2007-09-26T13:10:00.000-04:00

The second Pomatomus sock is coming along nicely:

Unfortunately, the picture suffered from me trying to take knitterly photos after having had a can of Monster with breakfast. (I also had one last night, but what's the season 4 House premiere without a little caffeine?)

There is also this on the needles now:

Cherie Amour, from the latest Knitty. Not a bad pattern; very pretty, simple lace pattern with a ribbed waist.

My problem? It has a chart. For some reason, this was not a problem with the complexity of the Pomatomus, but the easy lace on this has kicked my butt somewhere around ten times. First time, I got to the neckline before realizing that I had done every single decrease backwards. That's right, I ssk'd where I should have k2tog'd every time. That was a bit of a setback, especially since I had grand visions of finishing the thing in three or four days. But, after a lot of frustrating cast-ons, accidental twisting of the round, and various other pain-in-the-butt problems, I decided to knit one round at the beginning instead of starting with the lacework as the pattern instructed.

And what do you know? Something so easy, so ridiculously simple that I should have thought of it the first time...worked. It's been zipping along ever since. I have to say, though, that I am glad to be back to my good KnitPicks needles, which I neglected to take with me when I went home this past weekend. The ones I was settling for just weren't cutting it.

Speaking of KnitPicks needles, someone in knitting group was in possession of a set of the Harmony ones. I have to tell you, they are beautiful. I want a set even though I already have an Options set. The look, the feel...oh boy. It creates knitterly envy, let me tell you.

And I'm blogging when I should be working, so off I go to do something productive! Well, financially productive, anyway.

Is someone going to pay me to do this?

2007-09-18T22:04:00.000-04:00

Zarking fardwarks, I love Ravelry. Love it. To death. (Here I am, in case you're a Raveler and want to look at the silliness that is my profile.)

I have seriously been on the site almost nonstop for two days. It's open in the background when I'm working on my computer, it's up at night when I'm chatting with people, and, of course, it's open when I'm knitting.

I love being able to poke around and see who's knitting what I want to knit. I love being able to post my stash and look at other people's. I love being able to friend total strangers who share an interest in some of the same patterns I do.

And I thought Facebook was addictive. Ravelry is like the Facebook of fiber arts. It's what deviantArt would be if it was only for knitters and crocheters. It's like...it's like the little social hotspot that your community has always needed and that has only just now opened and everyone is flocking to it.

Love. Love, love, love.

The Beatles said it's all you need. I'm inclined to agree, but I do have an addendum: yarn.

All you need is love and yarn. Yeah.

Mood: obsessed
Music: The Velvet Underground - There She Goes Again

Pomatomus #1

2007-09-08T01:35:00.000-04:00

The first Pomatomus sock, finished at around 1:15am:

Do not, I repeat do not attempt to knit these socks if you are in any way easily addicted to things. I mean it. I started this sock on Sunday and (barring a mis-guided sizing issue that required ripping out and re-starting), have been moving along ever since. This is a patterned sock record for me.

If you do knit them, splurge and get some hand-painted yarn. It's lovely to work with and to look at.

And the pattern? Is not hard at all. The worst problem I've had with it is losing a YO here and there, which is easily fixed. It only looks intimidating. In reality, it's hard to stop going with the 22-row lace repeat once you've started.

In conclusion, these are lovely and novel socks, and they have eaten what little life I've had over the past few days that Facebook didn't get to first.

Oh yes, and don't join Facebook unless you never want to sign out of it again.

Mood: accomplished
Music: Michael Nesmith - Tumbling Tumbleweeds

The Finishin' O' The Socks!

2007-09-02T16:17:00.000-04:00

Yes, they're done! Here are the finished Clessidra socks/stockings:

They are soft, comfortable, and very, very awesome. And I'm not saying that because I knit them. The pattern is brilliant. It's everything you could want in a sweater, but on a sock scale. I thought it would be difficult to keep track of, but there's quite a good rhythm to it once you get going. The leg takes a while with that back cable to do, but the foot zips right along.

Despite two mis-crossed cables that I decided not to worry about, I'm proud of them.

(The yarn is KnitPicks Gloss in Woodland Sage, if I haven't mentioned it before.)

I'm moving right along to...you guess it, more socks! Now that Clessidra's done, it's Pomatomus time!

The start of a Pomatomus in its natural habitat, pattern and all. The only thing I changed was to cast on one less pattern repeat, due to the original size being too large for my already big feet. The yarn is the Koigu I bought at Kaleidoscope Yarns.

I started the socks last night and am already loving the pattern. It looks intimidating, and I've seen a blog or two where they were referenced as being difficult, but so far I've found them to be fairly intuitive. The yarn overs have a habit of disappearing, but that's easily fixed.

The best part? The chart is easy to read and makes sense as the pattern emerges in the knitting. Like Clessidra, it has a rhythm. These are going to be fun socks.

And now, back to your regularly-scheduled weekend.

Time is Not On My Side

2007-08-17T11:38:00.000-04:00

The second Clessidra sock is coming along--slowly.

Why is that, you ask? Well, unlike Harry Potter, which can be read without too much emotional investment and generally doesn't elicit huge amounts of squeeing at the turn of every page (for me, anyway), Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series is quite another matter.

After a brief, post-HP rendezvous with one of my favorite Terry Pratchett novels, The Fifth Elephant, I immersed myself in an impatiently-purchased copy of Meyer's latest, Eclipse. And that, ladies and gents, was that for the evening knitting time. The draw of Edward Cullen, alas, surpasses the draw of merino/silk yarn turning from skeins to cables. It is a testament to Meyer's writing and storytelling abilities that a fictional character is able to achieve that.

Now, though, I'm done with the book (*sniffle*), and am taking a short break from the literary world to give the story time to settle in my brain, so my companion while I do my usual evening computer geekery and RPing is once again a Clessidra sock.

But I have a small problem. The startitis is starting to set in again.

My projects this summer have been, mainly, the Clessidra socks and the Red Sweater of Doom. Both have cables, which I like (or, in the case of the Sweater of Doom, can force myself to tolerate), but that means that both are fairly complex and require more of my attention than a plain vanilla sock pattern or easy sweater pattern would. My knitting energy has been greatly reduced by the amount of time needed for both of the projects, and I'm yearning for something new and exciting.

So I've been thinking that I'll treat myself to some Koigu next week when my mom and I venture to VT. It's already been established that we'll be visiting Kaleidoscope Yarns. (You may remember them from this Knitting Pirates post.) It's an incredible shop, and they stock a heck of a lot of Koigu and Cherry Tree Hill, both wonderfully wonderful sock yarns that I don't normally buy because of the price. However, vacation is vacation, and it's only so often that a knitter on a small budget gets to visit such a groovy out-of-town shop.

Once I decided on getting the Koigu, I started thinking about what to knit with it. It had to be a good pair of socks, one worthy of the amount of money out of my meager monthly salary that I'm going to be doling out for the yarn. This couldn't be your run-of-the-mill sock pattern that I make every time I get a ball of self-striping superwash.

No, it couldn't be plain. It had to be...the Pomatomus socks.

After how much time and energy I've already put into Clessidra, I must, must be insane to attempt these. I have a feeling that there will be much growling and ripping out of rows. I hope there won't be, but...

It has a chart.

I am insane.

Mood: tiredish
Music: They Might Be Giants - Withered Hope

Why the Week Wasn't Wasted

2007-07-30T00:05:00.000-04:00

So, like many others, I spent rather a lot of my time recently reading that book about a certain boy wizard. As usual, or at least as usual since the fourth one came out, I was massively disappointed by it.

However, the time wasn't entirely a waste. Why, you ask?

Sock #1 of the set is done! Just grafted the toe tonight, and I'm planning on taking a little break from the complexity to work on the second sleeve of the Sweater of Doom. Then I'm right back at it for sock #2!

These are going to be so awesome to wear come fall.

The Lack of Caffeine

2007-07-09T15:58:00.000-04:00

After staying up until sometime after 5am, I have determine that, while watching House DVDs into the wee hours of the morning can be fun, it's not conducive to actually accomplishing anything the next day.

However, before I retired to bed with laptop in hand to watch yet another hour of Hugh Laurie doing his sarcastic comedy thing, I did work on these:

One sock, two different views. These are the lovely and mind-boggling Clessidra socks from Knitty. At first glance, I thought they were going to be ridiculously hard and take a lot of concentration, but now that I've been through the cable pattern several times, I've gotten into the rhythm of it. These are going to be a lot of fun. I even ordered a pair of black Crocs in which to show them off when they're done.

Oh, and the yarn is KnitPicks' Gloss in Woodland Sage. 70% merino wool, 30% silk...it's the softest sock yarn I've knit with yet. I'm going to be so spoiled after this, it might be hard to go back to regular old self-striping!

In other news, check it out! The Red Sweater of Doom has a back!

I'm going to need to block the heck out of it to get the top and bottom to match, widthwise. I have a feeling that I should have done some decreases after the cabling, but since the pattern didn't call for them, I can only hope that it's meant to look a little whonky at first. Then again, with the way this sweater and I have been getting along, you never know...

Speaking of cabling, here's the leaf cable up close:

It is a very nice cable pattern, just about worth the time it takes to knit...but only just. I'm hoping that the front will take less time now that I have the entire chart written out.

Backtracking to sock knitting for a moment, Stephanie of Wool 'n Word fame is starting a sock club! The initial post about it is here; keep an eye on her blog for more details. I'm betting her sock club will be just as great as her shop.

That's all for now. Onward and upward to more sock knitting! (Oh yeah, and check out Ravelry.)

Black holes

2007-06-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

No, not the kind you learn about in science class.

The knitting kind.

I have been working on this on and off all day. It measured about 20" when I started.

I knit while on the computer. I knit while taking a break from working. I knit at open mike.

It still measures 20".

And to think I was trying to make peace with this thing. *headdesk*

Sweaters and Startitis

2007-06-17T22:07:00.000-04:00

I'm going to start this post with a picture of my dad's Father's Day present:

It's the Spartan Pullover from the Fall '06 issue of Interweave Knits. I know what you're thinking...a fairly hefty, black sweater in June?? I initially meant for it to be a Christmas present, but with one thing and another, I wasn't able to get the yarn for it until recently.

The only modification I made to the pattern was to pick up stitches at the armhole and knit the sleeves in the round. It saved on a lot of time and seaming (say it with me: YAY!), which is probably part of the reason why I was able to finish it on time. I used Caron Simply Soft Quick because 1) my mom's allergic to wool so I couldn't have my dad going around in a wool sweater, and 2) I know how tightly I knit, and worsted never would've gotten me anything close to gauge.

About 3/4 of the way through the sweater, I was hit by a bout of startitis and cast on these:

I've been knitting them at every opportune moment since then. I didn't keep the ball band, so I can't say what yarn it is, but I really love the color. It makes me think of earth, sky, and water. These are for me, to add to the collection of socks that I have yet to find a way to show off. (I've been thinking of getting some Crocs, but I hesitate to pay what they ask for a pair of rubber shoes...)

I haven't decided on what my next major project is going to be. The rust-red cardigan is on hold until I can locate more yarn for it. I have some ribbon yarn from Stephanie's last yarn sale that I've been planning to make a tank top out of, and since it's been so hot, I think that might be what I cast on next. Then again, maybe I should concentrate on the Red Sweater of Doom until it's finished.

*pause*

Hahahaha, seriously though, I'll come up with something over the next couple of days!

Mood: a bit tired
Music: Sims background

Heirloom Aran!

2007-05-16T17:29:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a really quick post, but it's big news.

What big news, you ask?

Well...

It's done! The Heirloom Aran is now well and truly finished, blocked, and all that jazz. The blocking evened it out a lot, and the yarn, as seems to be the case with superwash, softened up a lot. The seams are less stiff, the cables I had to correct are less ragged-looking...all in all, I'm happy with it.

Two months of very dedicated knitting. Needless to say, I'm working on something a lot easier now. Pictures of that soon.

Mood: happy

Pictureless progress

2007-05-05T22:12:00.000-04:00

The Heirloom Aran is coming along well. I finished the front a while ago and the first sleeve tonight. This is the first time I've done saddle shoulders, and I think they'll prove interesting when it comes time to sew the thing together. Sleeve #2 is on the needles, but my enthusiasm for it is beginning to wane.

Sleeve #2 for the Red Sweater of Doom is also on the needles. I put in a call to the pattern's publisher last week for assistance with the leaf cable chart and never heard back, so I'll have to call them again at some point.

Yarn for the sweater that was supposed to be Dad's Christmas present (and is now scheduled to be a Father's Day present) is here. Yey for acrylic that's actually soft! I'd make it out of wool if not for my mom's allergies, and cotton that size would have been rather more expensive than my bank account would like to contemplate.

Have The Prestige out of the library again, and am also in possession of the new Yarn Harlot book. Hopefully the Aran will leave me some time to read both of them!

Music: Three Dog Night - Shambala
Mood: hopeful

Progress and Regression

2007-04-11T21:45:00.000-04:00

Progress on the Heirloom Aran! This is the back, finished a couple of days ago after many, many hours of M*A*S*H, Perry Mason, Stitch & Bitch, and Red Dwarf. (I watch far too much television while knitting.) I'm proud of it and happy with the way it came out, with the exception of one tiny little mis-crossed cable that I'm not obsessive-compulsive enough to bother to try and fix. I doubt anybody is going to be standing in line behind me at the grocery store, looking for mistakes in my sweater.

Remember my nemesis, the Red Sweater of Doom? I finished the increases on the sleeve I've been working on. I started knitting the straight part. I got to 17.5" of the 18" I'm supposed to have before binding off. Then tonight I measured it again and I somehow have 17.25". Not only is this sweater a major pain in the butt, it also apparently has some kind of shrinking powers designed specially to drive me crazy!

More soon. Now, time for Lost, and the continuing battle with my nemesis...

Yarn Sales Do Wonders For Your Wallet (or not)

2007-03-31T19:26:00.000-04:00

Before I go into detail about the stash I should not have acquired today, some project updates:

The Harvey Kimono for Girls from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms. I saw a picture of it in a recent KnitPicks catalog and just had to make it. So I dug into the stash for some wool and knit it up during some online chatting and way, way too much Jeeves & Wooster.

Some actual progress on my nemesis, the Red Cotton Sweater of DOOM. (Remember when I bought the yarn for this?) As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been knitting this when I need mindless knitting, such as during Lost or particularly confusing episodes of Perry Mason. It's also good for when I'm tired and want something easy to work on. Thus far, I haven't made any large amount of progress, but it's coming along. I won't discuss the messed up moss stitch row that required me to rip back several inches. Just another battle in the war I'm waging with this thing.

I had a battle with this, too (read: mis-crossed cables) that led to a couple of places looking a bit off, but I'm planning on fixing those when I block. This is the start of the back to the Heirloom Aran Pullover from KnitPicks. It has the largest amount of cabling of anything I've knit so far, and I'm really enjoying it. It's great to watch the pattern emerge, and I've been able to become familiar with it over the course of the first couple of full pattern repeats, so it's becoming much easier to work on it while doing other things and still have it come out right. I'm looking forward to wearing this when it's done, though it'll probably be finished and blocking sometime during the summer, so it may be a while before I have that pleasure.

As for stash acquisition...

The wonderful Stephanie once again brought out the knitters of West Sand Lake/Averill Park/Sand Lake by having a $2/ball yarn sale on a good third to half of her inventory. Needless to say, I went a little more crazy than I had originally been intending to and bought 20 balls of amazing yarn that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford.

Pictured above: Jo Sharp in both a mohair blend (in the middle) and a wool/silk/cashmere blend (on the left). On the right, a tape/ribbon yarn, the brand name of which escapes me, but which was pretty enough to attract my attention despite my usual wariness of novelty yarn. I have vague plans for all of them. Never mind that I have a huge queue of projects yet to knit! Yarn is yarn, right?

Note to Harlot fans and fellow knitters in general: Be sure to check out the Yarn Harlot's Represent tour. She's going to a lot of neat places, and I think it would be awesome for every knitter possible to show up at each of her stops.

All for now. Knit on!

Mood: tired but knitterly (again!)
Music: Michael Nesmith - Two Different Roads

Resurfacing

2007-02-15T21:08:00.000-05:00

Gasp! Who is this knitblogger sitting at the keyboard, typing away? Why, it's me!

Yes, after five months of no knitting blog entries whatsoever, I have returned! And rather than try to post a picture of anything and everything I've done, I'm going to make it easy on myself (read: cop out) and post links.

First pair of toe-up socks
Cute little hat as a gift for the grandchild of a friend of the family
Fun red & green socks for myself
Mom's Christmas present
Gloves made with sock yarn

I also worked on a rather groovy commission for my friend, Neko, but I haven't resized the pictures of that yet.

Here's what I'm working on now:

They're technically my brother's Christmas present, but, as you can see, I'm a tad behind schedule. I blame it on a combination of needing the gloves more (can we say "wind chill"?), procrastination, being busy with my second album, and the fact that the gauge is freakin' 9.5 sts/inch. Someone please tell me what I was thinking?

Future plans: something more challenging that's not knit on size US2 needles. Everything I've done recently except Neko's commission and that kid hat has been knit with size 1 or 2, and I think I'm officially sick of it.

I have my eye on KnitPicks' Heirloom Aran Pullover next. I've had the pattern for a while, and I'm ready to tackle a cable pattern right about now.

Also on the needles at the moment is the red cotton sweater I started for my mom over the summer. It's no secret that I hate that thing. It's a bit better now that I have a good, pointy set of needles to use, but it's still an adult-sized sweater knit in sport-weight cotton on size US5 needles, with a chart in the pattern. So that will be something I go back to intermittently, when I feel up to it.

I started a cardigan, too...I've never had this many projects overlapping before. I'd gotten utterly sick of k2p2 ribbing and needed some straight stockinette. It's the Jarrett pattern from Vintage Knits, adjusted a bit because I like my gauge better. Another adult-sized sweater on smaller needles, but I like this one better. It's mostly stockinette, and the yarn I got for it is a nice brick red color. (Pictures to come!) Very good, mindless knitting to do during, say, Lost.

Next time: Pictures of the Jarrett, hopefully finished white socks, and more babbling about yarn and such!

Mood: tired but knitterly
Music: Ain't No Mountain

hides

2006-09-12T15:33:00.000-04:00

No, it has not been 7 weeks since my last update. *looks around innocently*

I meant to update sooner. I really did. But, contrary to what Netflix and my Sims will tell you, I have been busy!

Since my last update, I've played 3 shows, gone on vacation, spent some time recording in the haunted basement, and started a new job. Somewhere in between, I've found time to knit some stuff! (I also visited yarn shops while I was on vacation.)

I have a disappointingly small amount of pictures, because I'm lazy. I'm sorry. Please don't poke me.

I finally finished the sweater from Interweave Knits' Peapod Baby set:

Hurray for JoAnn, which is where I got the buttons. I now have more adorable, colorful buttons for kid's clothes than I will ever need.

I also, finally, found a good use for the Lamb's Pride worsted I bought at Stephanie's yarn sale. (Yes, the first one, not the second one. This stuff has been sitting around for that long...)

Boat anchors!

The picture shows just the front of a small child's pullover that I designed with the help of the Knitwear Sweaters demo, and the absolutely adorable 1000 Great Knitting Motifs. Unfortunately, the yarn estimate was off somewhere (I probably used more than I thought making felted swatches for the bag I thought I was going to make), and I ran out of seafoam green about halfway through the second sleeve. So, that's on hold until I can either find another knitter with some seafoam green in her stash, or I overcome the fear of having seafoam green leftovers in mine for the rest of my life and just buy another skein of the stuff.

Also in the works is a cable-and-leaf motif sweater for my mother, knit in a nice sport-weight red cotton. Yes. Sport-weight, adult sweater. I'm seeing a finishing date of 2020 for the thing. It's a good thing I'm into M*A*S*H and have about 10 1/2 more seasons to keep me busy whilst I knit.

Seriously, though, it's a beautiful pattern, and with the way it's going, it will need only minimal blocking when I'm done. And the yarn I'm using is actually the recommended yarn for the pattern. My mom spotted the finished project at Kaleidoscope Yarns when we were there and we ended up buying both pattern and yarn on the spot. How often does that happen to a knitter on a budget?

Next update soon, with more pictures! I swear.

mood: overly jazzed
music: Meg Davis - On the Edge of the Forest

Big project #2

2006-07-20T17:50:00.000-04:00

Despite half a week of scorching hot weather, I managed to finish the shawl!

This shawl has been around, let me tell you. Several Stitch 'n' Bitch meetings, several open mics, two shows by the wonderful Bookdrop Bees, and one show by the equally wonderful Almost Awake, just to name a few. I watched a little too much TV while knitting it--mainly House and Becker--and it accompanied me while RPing in the late hours of the night/early hours of the morning.

Here it is before blocking. It looked kind of bunched up and scraggly.

Then, thanks to the amazing process that is pin blocking...

...it came out gorgeous.

I'll admit it, I'm pretty darn proud of this one. For a first excursion into lace, I'd say it came out pretty well. It took me a little over a month of dilligent knitting once I stopped having to rip it out. There are a few little mistakes, but they're only noticeable if you know where to look, which, honestly, I don't! For the edging, I had to re-learn a few crochet stitches, and I think it came out all right.

This was definitely an adventure, and I'd like to make more shawls in the future, but for now I'm going to stick with smaller projects. Stephanie had another yarn sale a couple of weeks ago, and I picked up enough Regia self-striping sock yarn to make three pairs of socks. I also have my eye on the Peapod baby set from the Interweave Knits website, which everyone's favorite Yarn Harlot has already knit quite beautifully. I have some pastel yellow and off-white in the stash that I think will do nicely for when I'm ready to knit it myself.

So, onward and upward to smaller things for now. As fall approaches (argh, don't even want to think about that yet!), I'll probably go back to sweaters and suchlike. But first, I hope I can get a little summer knitting into the short bit of warmth that passes for summer in the northeast!

Mood: tired
Music: Almost Awake - In the Past

Some progress

2006-06-27T16:33:00.000-04:00

Here I am, late again. *whistles innocently* I have absolutely no excuse for not updating last week, as I took the week off to relax a bit. Unfortunately, it took me until Friday to start relaxing. I seem to suffer from a terminal need to constantly be doing things.

Thankfully, knitting fulfills that sometimes! I'm back to working on one project at a time (though I really do miss having a sock in my purse). I figured I'd get more done this way, only having one thing to concentrate on, and not wasting time deciding what to knit. And so there has been much progress on le shawl!

I'm currently on round 75, putting me about halfway through. Tonight, I'll attempt to get even more done whilst watching two hours of House with a friend. As one of my AIM away messages used to say, House + knitting = OTP, once you get the hang of it.

Here's hoping that House + lace doesn't turn out to = disaster. It didn't a couple weeks ago, but you never know...

Mood: tiredish
Music: Oingo Boingo - No One Lives Forever

Another late update (are we seeing a pattern here?)

2006-06-16T20:24:00.000-04:00

I didn't realize how busy I was this week until I looked back and realized that today is the only day that I haven't gone out of the house. Of course, I took my knitting with me most of the time, but I still haven't made much progress.

This past week and a half has been more about ripping stuff out than it has making progess. The lovely "crazy sock" turned out to have suffered from a severe case of me trying to do knitting math with the TV on, and had to be ripped out. I haven't cast it back on yet, but I'm hoping to soon. I'm starting to go a little nuts with nothing to do while waiting for the sub sandwiches post-shopping on Thursdays.

I realized that I had to approach the bag differently because I'm not working from a pattern and don't want to run out of yarn before I'm finished. So I unravelled that, too, and started it again from the bottom instead of the top.

In more uplifting knitting news...THE BLANKET IS DONE!

This was it, the very last end! I was so excited that I stopped and took a picture.

And there it is! It's now on its way to the local chapter of Project Linus, where I hope it will warm and comfort a child for a long time.

My latest undertaking, which has already caused me much grief, is this:

It's KnitPicks' Rona Lace Shawl, and the picture on the pattern is absolutely beautiful. But, as this is my first shot at lace, I keep screwing up and have had to rip it out at least six times already. The furthest I got was round 35, at which point I realized that trying to knit during acoustic music open mics and shows is probably not the best idea, and had to rip out yet again. The picture above is of my most recent attempt, and I'm on round 27 right now. Here's hoping I don't screw up any more!

The wonderful Stephanie loaned me the 16" circular I'm currently using, which is a heck of a lot better than trying to squeeze over 16" of pattern onto dpns and having to watch and make sure stitches don't drop off the ends while also trying not to mess up the pattern. Hopefully this will contribute to a lack of messing up on future rounds.

Onward and upward to a scorching weekend (forecast is 92°F for Sunday! whew!) of working and knitting in the AC'ed upstairs!

Mood: want coffee

A Week Late

2006-06-06T14:52:00.000-04:00

Gasp! Last week's holiday weekend totally messed up my schedule, and thusly, I missed last week's update. But I'm back now, with pictures!

Progress on le blanket! It's been off the needles for a couple of weeks now, but the prospect of weaving in all the ends has been an overwhelming one. I've only been doing it at Stitch 'n' Bitch, and last night I got help from a friend, so there's a lot less left to do than there otherwise might be. It should be done next week!

The "crazy sock". I'm making this pair from the yarn that's leftover from the other crazy socks. I tried out a heel technique from Sensational Knitted Socks that makes lovely concentric circles without a lot of effort. It involved my first-ever attempt at a provisional cast-on, and I think it went pretty well. I may never knit heels any other way again!

This will, eventually, be a striped, felted bag. I'm using the Lamb's Pride I got at the yarn sale. I love knitting with this stuff! I test-felted a swatch, and, as I've been told, it felts great. I'm looking forward to having the knitting time to make some real progress on this.

And last, but not least,

more acrylic stash I don't need! I got it from a friend last night at Stitch 'n' Bitch...I couldn't resist free yarn.

I also finished knitting the cotton bag for my mom, but I have no pictures of it yet. I think I'll take some once I've lined it and put the handles on, so I'll have a picture of the finished piece. The colors all go well together, and I'm going to line it in black so they stand out.

Eek, this was kind of a boring, routine update. I'll try to be more exciting next week!

Mood: caffeinated

In the aftermath of a yarn sale!

2006-05-23T21:25:00.000-04:00

"The next knitting injury that comes through here, we'll be all over it like stink on cheese." ~ House

Project progress:
~ Garter rib socks are done, after claiming the lives of no less than four double-pointed needles, and are now with my mom to wear as she pleases!
~ Cabled hat is done (unfortunately, I forgot to get a pic), and gifted to my brother's friend's wife yesterday after her graduation.
~ The blanket is off the needles and, thanks to last night's Stitch 'n' Bitch meeting, two color blocks' worth of ends have been woven in.

Saturday, I inadvertently stumbled upon a sale at the local yarn shop. It was the first real yarn shop sale I've been to; all other yarn sales I've encountered were at AC Moore.

It took me about two seconds to realize that a local yarn shop yarn sale is as close to a craft store yarn sale as cashmere is to sandpaper. There was yarn everywhere. Stephanie's porch and living room were absolutely covered with baskets and bags of the stuff. For a moment, when I saw it, I literally stopped in my tracks. I had no idea where to start.

Finally, after looking, digging, feeling awesomely soft skeins, and running into people I know from Stitch 'n' Bitch, my mercifully small budget (not a phrase you hear often) allowed me to walk away with a decent amount of yarn, rather than buying everything in sight, which I inevitably would have done if I had more money to spend.

Le yarn! The top three skeins are destined to become a felted bag of some sort, and the bottom three will be two-color, cabled socks. Note how the small budget also allows all sale yarn to be accounted for in the form of future projects!

Today, I gave in and made adjustments to the toes of the crazy colored socks.

No matter what I told myself about the way the toes were, or how nuts it was to rip out perfectly good kitchener stitch, the original mistake I made on the decreases was driving me nuts. So, I decided to bite the bullet and fix it. Personally, I think they look better, and they're definitely more comfortable to wear. Now all I need is a pair of shoes that will show them off!

Socks are definitely my new knitting love. I thought I'd be cool with continuing on with my sweater-knitting plans, but somehow knitting sweaters was a lot more appealing in the winter. Right now, my knitting calendar is full of plans for socks, bags, stash reduction projects, and my first-ever attempt at lace.

Yep, that's right, lace. Feel free to call me crazy, but the alpaca yarn I bought at the NY Sheep & Wool festival last year needs to become something, and this struck me as just the thing. I'm hoping it, along with the cotton bag pattern for my mom, will show up in the mail tomorrow so I can get knitting!

Also did some stash management and sorting today. It's frightening how big a stash can get when you're not looking.

Mood: disoriented

First real, regular update!

2006-05-16T10:10:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it is Tuesday. What's so special about Tuesday, you ask? I'll tell you: Tuesday is now the official Yarn Ho Blog Update Day!

Yep, after coming across a knitting webring the other day (while shamelessly browsing this infamous blog), I discovered, to my mild dismay, that I don't write in here enough to qualify to join said webring. And so the time has come to give you, my nonexistent readers, something more to read about. Or not read about, as the case may be.

First off, I must admit that I'm not the first in my circle of friends to bear the title "Yarn Ho". In fact, the first to be called this isn't even a person; it's the little red car of my friend, Al. I believe it was our friend, Amanda, who originally dubbed the car "The Yarn Ho", and the name has stuck. 'Tis quite a fun name to bestow upon things that tote yarn (like Al's car), and people who knit obsessively (like...well, like a lot of people I know).

Okay, now that Photobucket has decided to finish uploading stuff, on to le pictures!

Garter stitch rib socks from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. I first saw the book in a KnitPicks catalog, and ended up requesting it from the local library system. The setup struk me as strange at first, but after knitting sock #1, I think I'm in love. The toe and heel constructions are pretty much the same as the ones on other socks I've knit, but these somehow came out neater and more attractive.

These are actually cotton socks for my mom, who is terribly allergic to wool. (Yes, you unbelievers, there is such a thing. She can't even hug me when I'm wearing a wool coat without getting itchy.) They've been my "desk project", so to speak; something small that I can work on while waiting for websites to load on our terribly slow dial-up connection, or waiting in line at the grocery store, or waiting for the lovely ladies at the local Jiff-E-Mart to make my weekly sub sandwich. Needless to say, these socks have been around a bit.

This is a more recent project (read: started on Friday afternoon) that's the result of a random yarn encounter. I was between doctor's appointments on Friday and found myself with about an hour to kill, so I popped over to AC Moore and started browsing yarn. Yes, I know, terrible me, cheating on my local yarn shop, but I was far from home at the time and desperately without anything to knit.

So, there I was, poking around at the recently-expanded yarn collection, when I came across this lovely, if you can believe it, 98% acrylic/2% rayon blend that's soft as a cloud and a pretty decent price. It has little flecks of color in it to make it appear tweed-y. I was in love. Due to my budget, I usually find a project first, and then the yarn, but this time was the first time the process has reversed itself. I saw this stuff and thought, "Sweater. No, can't spend that much. Baby sweater? No pattern. Hat! Yes, hat."

And so it is. Hats are something I can do without a pattern, and I'm hoping to give this one to my brother's best friend's wife as a graduation present. I threw in a few cables to make it interesting, and knit incessantly during the family Mother's Day gathering to keep myself grounded in the midst of my great-aunt talking about American Idol.

And this...is my baby. What started out as a stash reduction project has turned into one of the largest things I've ever made. This is the Hearts & Stars Blanket from Zoë Mellor's Adorable Knits for Tots.

See? Hearts and stars in moss stitch inside cute little stockinette squares, surrounded by moss stitch borders.

Technically, the blanket is supposed to be knit in all one color, but I didn't have enough of any one color in my stash to do that, so I thought, "Hey, intarsia would look neat." I, of course, didn't think this through and had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it's turned out quite nice anyway. This thing has been my baby since some time in early March, when I cast on and knit the first moss stitch rows at the Stitch 'n' Bitch group I go to on Monday nights. Since then, I've knit my way through the entire first season DVD set of House, MD, several new episodes of the same show, a couple episodes of Lost, and a viewing of Robots with my 10-year-old cousin. I've stuffed it in my knitting bag and toted it to Stitch 'n' Bitch every Monday without fail. Now, here I am, on row 29 of the last repeat of a 36-row pattern. Add to that the moss stitch edge and I only have 17 rows to go before I bind off.

Excuse me a moment. *SQUEEEE!*

Then I have to weave in all the ends. Ouch.

Once all that's done, this cute little (LITTLE?!) blanket will be making its way to the local chapter of Project Linus. Charity + stash reduction = a win-win situation for all involved. I wish I could see the little kid who gets it. That would be beyond adorable.

Whew, yet another reason why I should be updating this at least weekly: I won't need to go back and recap so much knitting! Not that I don't love yammering about my own projects, because, not gonna lie, I do. I shall return next Tuesday with more from the land of crazy knitting!

Mood: rushed

Thar she blows!

2006-04-21T23:46:00.000-04:00

Oh wow, just don't ask about the title of this post. XD It's getting on midnight and I'm just beginning to lose the ability to type and think coherently, and yet here I am, posting this!

Here they are, the slightly mismatched, two-yarn socks that look much more complicated than they actually were. I got the inspiration from the cover of the March catalog from Knit Picks, and headed over to the trusty local yarn shop to poke around and talk to Stephanie, the awesome owner. I ended up with some nice dark blue wool and a big-ass skein of some funky self-patterning yarn, plus two skeins of a denim-colored cotton yarn to make some socks for my mom. So much for making the stash smaller!

I seem to have a consistent problem with sock toe decreases. This time, I forgot to do the decreases on the second needle while making the first sock, and didn't notice until I'd already grafted the toe stitches together. Thusly, I was forced to make the same mistake on the second sock, because there's no way I'll pop a perfectly good seam and unravel an entire sock toe if the thing fits just fine, which it does.

Anyhow, I'm happy with the way that they came out, plus they're quite warm, which is good this time of year when the weather is completely unpredictable. Next project: socks for Mom!

(I'm still working on the baby/toddler blanket, mostly while watching DVDs of House, MD. I haven't gotten around to taking any pictures of it, but I promise there will be at least one at some point!)

Mood: wired
Music: Almost Awake - At This Point

Photos and Stash Projects

2006-03-23T09:23:00.000-05:00

Whew! I finally got around to taking pictures of finished projects. As far as I can tell, my closet has yet to thank me for using up some of my yarn stash, as I've only used a little of it and have somehow managed to accumulate other yarns in the process. Thus is, apparently, the nature of a knitter's stash.

Starting with the kid stuff:

These were gifts for the children of one of my mother's co-workers, who lost her husband before Christmas. Of course, I had vague intentions of finishing these things before Christmas, but there was really no way for that to happen. So I finally got them out to their recipients this week, and I'm told the reception was good, which makes me happy. I love knitting for myself, but I also love knitting for other people. There's something about having the ability, when faced with a crisis or occasion that you've hitherto had no appropriate response for, to come up with a project or projects that will show that you're thinking of the people affected by the event.

And now the stash stuff:

The hat is a tri-color version of the "Carrot Top" hat in Knit Hats! I'm not sure if it's supposed to be as long as it turned out, but it fits and looks decent, so I'm not complaining! I made it with leftover yarn from my previous sweater project, and the blue is from a felted purse I made over the summer.

I still had more red and black, so I made the gloves. For some reason, I'm in love with fingerless gloves. Maybe it's a style thing, or maybe I'm just a little too obsessed with the "dangerous" look of them. These have slightly longer fingers than the other ones I made, because my hands kept nearly freezing to the pump when I was wearing the other ones while gassing up my car. Thus, these are the "gas pump gloves".

Of course, in true stash fashion, I ran out of black wool while making the other glove and had to finish in a black acrylic of a comparable shade. Fortunately, it's hard to see unless you're looking for it. So, despite that fact, and the fact that I made a wee bit of a row counting error and the two gloves are slightly different lengths, I'm happy with them.

I still have small balls of blue and red wool left. Perhaps I'll make some blue and red socks? I'm not sure. For now, I'm working on a baby blanket, which I hope to post some pictures of this weekend. I'm not sure I entirely understand what I've gotten myself into with this one, but it's for a good cause and will also use up an appreciable amount of my stash.

(If you're wondering why the size of my posts suddenly grew, I've been reading books about knitting. I finished the first KnitLit a couple of days ago and just started The Yarn Harlot yesterday, so now I'm inspired to write more about my own knitting, even if I'm the only one who ever ends up reading it!)

Finished Sweater!

2006-03-11T14:51:00.000-05:00

The infamous Boyfriend Sweater from Hip to Knit is finished! Since I made it for me, I've affectionately dubbed it the "Without-a-Boyfriend Sweater".

Me, wearing le sweater and looking rather silly. I never know how to smile when I'm taking my own picture.

I finished this on Feb. 25th, and have since knit two toddler-sized hats for the kids of one of my mother's co-workers. I also knit a toddler-sized jacket a short while ago that needs to have a zipper put in, and I'll post a picture of the lot when I'm done.

Currently, before I dive into another sweater project, I'm working on making hats from the various yarns in my stash. First I'm making a couple from the book Knit Hats!, then I'm not sure if I'll keep with hats or do some gloves instead.

I'm pretty sure that my next sweater project will be the Tubey, though by the time I finish it, it probably won't be sweater weather any more. Right now it's about 42°F outside, blue skies, with the sun shining and trying very hard to make it even more springlike. So for now I'll keep knitting away at my "stash hats" and wait for the spring issue of Knitty to give me even more projects to add to my list!

Mood: content
Music: Michael Nesmith - Capsule

The Sock Saga

2006-02-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

I made my first pair of socks! Granted, I made a silly mistake with the position of the decreases on one of them, but they came out pretty good, and I'm proud of them.

Weird thing is, I never really thought about knitting socks, because I rarely wear them. In the summer, I don't wear them at all, and for the winter I keep one pair around to wear inside my boots. But I took a break from my current sweater project to knit these because I needed them pretty badly, seeing as the right sock in my storebought pair had evolved a gigantic hole in the back part just above the heel.

The pictures:

Sock in progress

Finished socks!

It took me about a week of knitting to finish them. I love the yarn; it's Simple Stripes from KnitPicks, in "Storm". And the pattern came from this really neat thing I found while poking around Google for sock patterns. It's called the Sockulator, and if you put in your foot measurements and yarn gauge, it generates an easy-to-follow sock pattern. I love it, and I'm finding myself wanting to knit more socks, though I can't imagine what I'd do with them!

Now, though, it's back to the sweater, which I'm getting really close to finishing! I have about two and a half inches left on the second sleeve, then I'll be ready to put the thing together and wear it, so hopefully the next entry here will have pictures of that finished!

Then it's on to...hmm, either the Naked sweater, or Tubey. I haven't decided yet.

mood: tired

Knitter's Wishlist

2006-01-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

I realized the other day that, even if I had four arms to knit with, I'd never run out of things to knit.

I have this thing for sweaters. Scarves and such are all right, and good to knit if you don't want to have to pay much attention, but sweaters are really my bag. I like making something semi-complicated that someone will be able to wear when it's done. I like browsing for yarn and thinking how comfortable the sweater is going to be when it's done.

Which is basically how I've gotten myself a list of sweaters to knit. It started with the one I'm currently working on (see the picture in the previous entry), and branched out from there.

Thanks to Al, I'm a rabid browser of Knitty. It's a great online knitting magazine with an issue for every season, and when the Winter '05 issue came out, Tubey caught my eye. I've never seen a sweater knit that way before, and I think it'll be a challenge. Plus the color possibilities, especially if I use Wool of the Andes, are practically limitless.

Also thanks to Al, I've started browsing knitting books whenever I'm at Borders. I found a great one called Vintage Knits a couple of months ago, and some of the sweaters in it are gorgeous and look very comfortable. Plus, there's a cardigan in it that looks like something Remus Lupin (of Harry Potter fame) would wear, and, rabid fangirl that I am, I'd love to make it.

Then KnitPicks sent me a catalogue, because I've started buying their yarn, and I found this pattern. I've wanted to do something with a lot of cables for a while now and, though I have a book of fishermen's sweaters, this seems like a better place to start. It doesn't have quite as many cables as the fisherman's sweater I've been eyeing, plus it looks extremely comfortable and fun to knit.

And last, but certainly not least, there's this:

(thanks to Mandy of Thewlis Rox for the screencap)

It's a screencap of David Thewlis as Johnny in Mike Leigh's Naked, which I've been rather obsessed with for about a year and a half despite never having seen it.

Ever since I started knitting seriously, I've developed the habit of looking carefully at knitted items that I find interesting, be they in films or real life. It took me a while to notice how neat this sweater is, because in most of the screencaps I've come across, he's wearing a coat that hides most of it. But I finally got a good look at it a few days ago and have been messing around with the demo of KnitWare Sweaters to try and generate a pattern for it.

I figure all of this will keep me busy well into the spring, at least. Plus there were a couple, smaller things that I was thinking of doing, like a fair isle hat and glove set to use the alpaca yarn I bought back in October. For now I'll focus on the sweaters and hopefully get them all done!

Mood: creative
Music: Heather Alexander - Last Mourner

Sweaters and such

2006-01-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I used some scrap yarn to experiment with felted joins, which Al was telling me about on Monday night. I like them (less waste of yarn, yay!), but I'm not sure I trust my skill with them enough to use them on my current project. I'll definitely use them in the future, though.

I finished the back of my sweater yesterday morning and started one of the sleeves:

It's from a pattern in Hip to Knit called "The Boyfriend Sweater", but since I don't have a boyfriend at the moment, I'm knitting it for myself. It's promising to be very comfy when finished. I'll try to post more pictures of it as I go along!

Mood: frantic

Greetings, fellow knitters!

2006-01-17T19:44:00.000-05:00

Hello to everyone out there in Yarn Ho land! This is my *cough* third blog, but, unlike the other two, this one's just for knitting!

Since this is my first post, I'll introduce myself. Pretty much everyone calls me Sam, so that might as well be my name. I've been knitting since late 2004, and have beeing making things almost nonstop ever since. I would try to make a list of finished projects, but I'm not sure I can remember them all.

I love making sweaters, both simple and decorative. I've experimented with intarsia and liked it. I love cables and want to make a fisherman's sweater someday soon. I haven't tried fair isle yet, but I have a bunch of alpaca yarn in my stash that's waiting to be made into something of that nature.

I belong to a local knitting group called Stitch 'n' Bitch of Average Park, along with my best friend, Al, who also has a knitting blog called Teh Knitting Wench. (Links for both are in the sidebar!)

Photos of several past finished projects can be found on my deviantArt account. In the future, I'll be posting pictures of both works-in-progress and finished projects right here on this blog.

And now, to round out the entry, and because I like them, a quiz!

You are interchangeable.
Fun, free, and into everything, you've got every
eventuality covered and every opportunity just
has to be taken. Every fiber is wonderful, and
every day is a new beginning. You are good at
so many things, it's amazing, but you can
easily lose your place and forget to show up.
They have row counters for people like you!

What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Music: 8 Stops 7 - Question Everything
Mood: RP-ing