Black holes

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

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!

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

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

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)

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

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*

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

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

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