"But it looked so pretty on the website!"

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

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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!

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

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