Stream of Consciousness

Now it’s time to say goodbye to all our family

2007-11-05T15:46:00.000-06:00

Last spring I made the decision to give up this blog. I thought I would time my departure to coincide with either the public opening of Raverly or the completion of Morrigan—which ever came last. Well, both took longer than I imagined they would. I don’t want to wait around for Raverly to open up at this point. And ending the blog with Morrigan is a ending on a great high note. (Considering this blog began about the time I started work on the Reversible Rib Shawl, it’s only fitting that I should end with a similarly beautiful piece.)

I have had this blog for nearly three years now and I love some parts of being a blogger. For example, I love the way that my blog has connected me with people from around the world. I have “met” many other bloggers who I consider my friends even though I haven’t actually seen them in person. And some of my old friends have re-connected with me after finding my blog. I also loved receiving comments. I truly appreciate every comment that I have gotten on this blog. So a big “Thank you!” to everyone who has ever left a comment here (except for the spammers, I’m not thanking the spammers).

But what I didn’t like about keeping a blog was the pressure. All bloggers are under pressure to produce: “Be witty!” “Be informative!” “Be consistent!” “Be interesting!” As a blogger, I know that to maintain readership, I have to give in to those pressures.

Of course, the pressures have a different level for me as a knit blogger. I have chosen to include very little about my personal life on this blog. So in order for me to have blog material, I have to KNIT something. For the first 2.5 years of this blog’s life, I happily produced knitted object after knitted object for my enjoyment and as well as for blog fodder. But things have changed. Thanks to repetitive stress injury in my left hand, I can’t knit as much as I used to. The injury is making knitting less enjoyable and the added pressure of the blog makes knitting more of a chore these days. So I’m slowing down on the knitting, and giving up this blog.

But I am not giving up knitting OR blogging completely! If you want to keep up with what’s going on in my knitting life, you have several options.

Raverly, for those of you who are Ravelry enabled. (My Ravelry name is MiniLaura):
http://www.ravelry.com/people/MiniLaura

Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/minilaura/

And a new blog:
http://www.houseofwoolrepute.com/

The House of Wool Repute is my new online home. It is a group blog and the “group” factor will hopefully reduce the pressures on me. The wonderful women contributing to the blog are all knitters, but most of the others dabble in other crafts. You can expect to see knitting, spinning, and dyeing on a regular basis and there will probably be many cute animal photos (Scout!) and some foodie talk. Please come visit us! We’re just getting started up, so please stay tuned! It should be fun and entertaining to read.

Oh, and I’m not going to delete this blog. I’ll leave it up and I will answer any questions that you have, so feel free to email me or leave a comment!

And with that, dear friends, I am signing off. Thank you so much for reading and for coming into my life!

Peace Breaks Out

2007-10-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

(A more accurate representation of the color can be found here.)

A peace treaty in the War of Morrigan was signed on Saturday October 13, 2007. The war lasted about 6 months. Battle was difficult because Morrigan fought dirty with chart errors, non-errors, and ambiguities (discussed below). My battle plan was further complicated by row-gauge issues that I never discussed in this blog. Those gauge issues resulted in much math. In the end, I was victorious having knit, purled, cabled, and calculated the pattern into submission.

The war was not without injuries, though. The tendonitis in my left hand has gotten significantly worse since I started Morrigan. It progressed from occasional stabs of pain in the back of my left hand to shooting, long-lasting, whimpering-inducing pain in my hand and forearm. It was particularly bad during the last few days of knitting when I was feverishly trying to finish.

At times, I completely abandoned my fight, preferring to work on projects that either used larger needles, consumed less yarn, or required less mental effort. In the time between cast-on and finishing of Morrigan I finished:

1 vest for Peter (started before I cast on for Morrigan)
2 baby-sized super secret projects for Kristen
1 adult-sized super secret project for Kristen (not blogged or even photographed)
1 pair of adult socks
1 lace shawl
1 crocheted cap
1 baby sweater and hat set
1 bunny
1 mouse
1 bear
1 sweater for me

The Stats:
Pattern: Morrigan by Jenna Wilson in No Sheep for You, size small
Yarn: Rowan Calmer, 75% cotton, 25% microfiber, color 462 Chiffon, 11 balls
Needles: 2.75 mm and 3.25 mm (US sizes 2 and 3)

Modification 1: I changed the depth of the armholes because my row gauge was too large. The wonky row gauge meant that my sleeve cap would be taller than it should be. I couldn’t modify the sleeve cap, so I had to modify the armhole. (Why I couldn’t modify the sleeve cap and how I calculated the correct depth of the armholes is a long story. Email me for the gory details.)

Modification 2: I lengthened the sleeves by 4 cm. When my arms hang down at my sides, the cuffs cover the base of my hand. But when I stick my arms out straight, the cuffs end perfectly at my wrist. That’s the way that I like my sleeves.

Comments:
I’ve already made a lot of comments about this pattern. Why not add a couple more?

1) Forgive me Amy Singer for what I’m about to say. If I could wave a magic wand, I would change the yarn in this sweater into fingering- or sport-weight 100% merino wool. I think the pattern would have been easier to work in wool and I think the end result would look nicer in wool. Calmer is a wonderful yarn, but I think I’ll stick with wooly cables from now on.

(Notice I said, “If I could wave a magic wand.” I didn’t say, “If I knit this again” or “If I could do it all over.” As wonderful as this sweater is, I will never, ever knit it again.)

2) And a final word about the pattern. The instructions for the sleeve bind-off is a bit ambiguous. You work four short rows and then the instructions say to bind off all stitches loosely. Well, when you finish the short rows, a little more than half of the live stitches are on the left needle and a little less than half of the live stitches are on the right needle. You can’t just bind off the stitches.

I worked across the stitches on the left needle (hiding the wraps on those stitches), turned the work to the wrong side, and bound off all the stitches (hiding the remaining wraps). I emailed Jenna to confirm that that was what I should do she said that it was just one of three alternatives.
Alternative 2: Break yarn after the short rows, put all stitches on the left needle, join a new yarn at the beginning of the right-side row and bind off all the stitches. This alternative would work fine, but you would have more ends to weave.

Alternative 3: After the short rows, place all stitches on a piece of waste yarn, and GRAFT (not sew, graft) the live stitches to the shoulder seam. This, in fact, was what Jenna intended but it was changed to a bind-off by the book editors. I did attempt this, but after grafting ¼ of the stitches on the first sleeve, I decided it was too aggravating for the raw and harried state of my nerves.

Parting words of thanks:
A big THANK YOU to Jenna Wilson for all her help with Morrigan. I sent her many emails and she always answered in a gracious and timely manner even though most of my emails were pointing out problems with the pattern.

Thank you also to Karen Frisa, the tech editor of the pattern, for her willingness to comb over the intricacies of the pattern with me.

And finally, thank you to everyone who has cheered me on through this long journey. Your words of encouragement helped motivated me to keep pushing on.

Aperture and Depth of Field

2007-10-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

Teaser Trailer:
Coming tomorrow (assuming the weather cooperates for the photos): The end of the Morrigan Saga. Yes, she's finished.

Featured Presentation:
This week's lesson: Use aperture to change the depth of field on photos.

Assignment 1: Use a large aperture to isolate a subject by making the background blurry. I'm thinking about trying some Scout photos, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I did head to the garden center to try some flower photos. The one shown below is my favorite, though it may not be the best of the bunch. The rest can be seen on my Flickr page.

Assignment 2: Use a small aperture to show a large (deep? long?) depth of field. The class instructor said to have something "interesting" in the foreground but also have things in focus in the background. I thought the alligator below would make a good photo, but was a bit disappointed when I went for the photo shoot.

I couldn't really get a good angle on the alligator. I couldn't move to the left because there was a large utility box there. If I went to the other side of the utility box, the background became less interesting and the huge Starbucks logo became visible.

If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I'll head out to a sculpture garden. I should have gone there in the first place, but I remembered that it existed only today. And it's raining today.

A Picture Worth . . .

2007-10-12T18:11:00.000-05:00

. . . much more than 1,000 words.

Playing with Shutter Speed, Week 2

2007-10-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

This week's assignment was to use long shutter speeds in night photography. We didn't have any other specific instructions. So I decided to do one "traditional" shot and one showing moving lights.

On the way home for class last week, I spotted the fantastic neon sign shown below. I went to the restaurant three times to take photos. (The sign wasn't fully lit up the first night that I went out.) Thankfully, no one came out of the restaurant and told me that I couldn't take photos.

For the second photo, I wanted to get Houston's downtown skyline in the background with streaks of light from car headlights and taillights in the foreground. The challenge was finding a place to take the photo. I knew I had to find a bridge close to downtown that had a sidewalk large enough to set up a tripod and didn't have an obstructed view. Unfortunately, I don't know the roads around downtown very well because I don't like to drive there. But fortunately, I found this photo on Flickr and was able to blatantly rip it off. Here's another version where I got more headlight streaks than taillight streaks. The headlights are a bit too blown out.

More Morrigan Errors

2007-10-06T09:44:00.000-05:00

Another quickie, photoless post.

Morrigan is in the home stretch. I've finished the sleeve increases and am working toward the sleeve cap.

I found two more errors in the pattern.

1) After completing the sleeve increases, the pattern says to repeat rows 19–24 or 7–12 (depending on size) of charts R3 and L3 until the sleeve is the right length. You should repeat rows 17–24 or 5–12 to keep the pattern correct.

2) Row 23 of chart L3 is missing a cable crossing. The position and type of the cable crossing should be obvious to anyone who has gotten that far on the sleeve.

A yarn for all the Eph knitters out there

2007-10-03T10:17:00.000-05:00

Most knitters know Webs--the huge yarn store and mail-order wearhouse near that other college. Webs has its own yarn line called Valley Yarns. The names of Valley Yarns are taken from towns and cities in Massachusetts. For some time now I've been pouting because there wasn't a yarn named after Williamstown. Pouting time is over. This is how Webs describes the new yarn:

Williamstown takes it’s name from the college town in the Berkshires that tourists and natives love for the quaintness of its buildings and greenery, and the happy surprise of the sophistication that is found in those buildings. Our yarn is much the same, a seemingly straightforward wool/acrylic blend with little surprises of color in each strand. Take it with you for vacation knitting as you tour colleges or go leaf-peeping.

As soon as I find a pattern to make with this yarn I'm buying a bunch. Sadly, none of the yarns are very purple.

Playing with Shutter Speed, Week 1

2007-10-01T14:47:00.000-05:00

This week’s assignment: show motion by adjusting the shutter speed. A three-part assignment.

Part 1: Use the panning technique to show motion.

Reason #3,948,023 that I love Peter. Peter generally prefers to run in the morning before the sun comes up. And when it is hot outside, he doesn’t wear a shirt or a hat while running. But this weekend, he dressed in the clothes that I picked out and went running in the park so I could take panning photos. My wonderful husband ran back and forth on a path in the middle of the day while I took his photo over and over again. And he never complained once. He even said he’d go out again if I didn’t get a good photo.

Part 2: Use a short shutter speed to freeze motion.

My original plan for this photo was to have Scout jumping for one of her toys. She and I “practiced” for days. Unfortunately, our “practice” sessions consisted of me throwing the ball in the air and Scout watching it and swatting it once it hit the ground. So I had to go the dog park. I’m not sure which dog photo to take to class. The one shown was the one that was the most in focus. But this one seems to tell a better story because you can see the toy that the dog is jumping after. Plus, the dog made a splash when it jumped.

Part 3: Use a long shutter speed to show motion with a blur.

I’m in agony about this one. I took a nice photo the first night I went out, but it was overexposed and grainy. The next time I went out I got a better exposure, but the composition of the photo was not as good (photo is shown). I took daytime photos as well. I’m seriously thinking about going out there a fourth time tonight to take MORE photos. (Technically, night photography is the next lesson, but the daytime photos are simply not as dramatic.)

More photos can be seen on my Flickr page.

Finished Object: A Tribute to Valerie

2007-09-25T14:20:00.000-05:00

I always accuse Valerie of copying me (because she does!), but in reality, she and I simply have similar taste in knitwear and yarn. We are of one mind. I decided that instead of her trying to be me and me trying to be her, I should just WEAR her.

Pattern: Val from RYC’s AM to PM booklet
Yarn: RYC Baby Alpaca DK, 100% alpaca, color 200 Blossom, 10 balls
Needles: 2.75 mm, 3.25 mm, and 4.0 mm (US sizes 2, 3, and 6)
Comments:

• Another sample knit for Yarntopia. They wanted something relatively simple and none of the stockinette patterns jumped out at me, so I picked this one. I’m very happy with it. Such a lovely stitch pattern—the parts between he eyelets look braided to me. It was a quick and easy knit. (I could even working on it while watching movies with subtitles!)

• But just because something is easy doesn’t mean you can’t make it technically challenging. First challenging feature: tubular cast on! I have practiced the tubular cast on, but this was the first opportunity that I’ve had to use it on a garment. Boy is it pretty! However, the version of the tubular cast on that I used isn’t as stretchy as I would like. I the future, I will try other methods.

• Challenging feature number two: Tubular bind off! First time that I’ve ever done it. Again, very pretty. It took me a bit to figure out how tight to pull the yarn during the bind off, so the first bit of the bind off is a little more sloppy than the rest. But I’m still happy.

• Challenging feature number three: Shortened sleeves. I’m sure that doesn’t sound very challenging, but let me explain. The stupid schematic made it impossible for me to easily find out the finished sleeve length. So I didn’t know if the sleeve was going to be too long or not. (Past experience with RYC patterns tells me that either I have abnormally short arms or British models are mutants with abnormally long arms.)

To determine my correct sleeve length, I measured from the back of my neck to my wrist and measured some well fitting sweaters. I needed a sleeve about 76 cm long from the back of my neck to wrist. Next, I had to measure the shoulder length of the completed back piece and subtract it from the back-to-wrist length to find the total sleeve length: 76 – 17 = 59 cm.

THEN I had to count the number of rows in the sleeve cap, multiply the number of rows by the row gauge to find the length of the sleeve cap, and subtract the sleeve cap length from the total sleeve length: 59 – 18 = 41 cm.

So 41 cm was the length of the sleeve before the sleeve cap shaping. Lo and behold, the math worked perfectly. The sleeves are the right length!

I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I’m not wearing the sweater in these photos. Trust me, it fits well. I tried doing the self-timer thing and no amount of good lighting, good focusing, and good photo composition can make up for awkward poses and goofy facial expressions. So I had to resort to Scout-modeled photos.

(In case you are wondering: Getting Scout into the sweater was not a problem at all. She liked it! Her own alpaca sleeping bag! Getting her out was not as easy. She didn’t want to leave. No, she’s not a stuffed cat.)

A good thing, a bad thing, and an other thing

2007-09-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

A Good Thing

Furry, fuzzy, pink yarn! Sarah sent me some amazing pink angora. “Vintage!” she said. Apparently it is from stash that she inherited from a relative. It came in a little box and I really want to play with it. But it looks so nice in the box and (as evidenced by the messy looking ball in the lower right corner of the box) I’m unable to put the yarn back into the box as nicely as it was before. Thank you so much Sarah!

A Bad Thing

I knitted another sweater for Yarntopia. That’s not the bad thing. The yarn is yummy, the sweater is well designed, and the pattern was clear—all that was good. The bad thing was the schematic. What’s the point of this schematic? It doesn’t contain any information to make it useful! All the measurements in it could be read of the pattern. But to make a bad thing even worse: That’s not the sweater in the pattern! The schematic shows nice, feminine waist shaping. The sweater has straight sides. Sigh!

An Other Thing

I’ll bet that you thought “An Other Thing” was a typo. It’s not. My other thing is that I’m pursuing a new hobby. This week, I went back to school to take a Basics of Photography class at the Rice University School of Continuing Studies. I want to know how to use all those manual settings on my camera. I want to know how to take better photos.

As a result, I think my knitting and certainly my knit blogging will slow down over the next few months. However, I will be uploading feeble attempts at completing my class assignments on my Flickr page. I even created a new collection for the class. Each assignment will go in its own set. I can only show two photos per assignment to the class, so comments on the photos posted are welcome, appreciated, and desperately wanted.

A Really Long Post

2007-09-07T10:08:00.000-05:00

This post was originally twice the current length. Seriously. Apparently I thought I was so important that I needed to say much more. The first version of this post was a description of all my trials and tribulations with Morrigan (so far). But I decided that it would be too boring for anyone not making Morrigan. I considered not publishing the post at all, but thought that those 15 or so of you who are knitting Morrigan might actually want to read what I have to say. So I present a two-part post: Part 1 is general interest and Part 2 is obsessive compulsive ramblings about Morrigan.

Part 1: Finished Object: Baby Bobbi Bear

Pattern: Baby Bobbi Bear published by Blue Sky Alpaca
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Sport Weight (100% baby alpaca), natural white, 3.5 hanks and scraps of natural light tan
Needles: 5.5 mm (US size 9) DPNs
Comments:
• Drew gave me the kit to make this bear. I love love love the bear, the yarn, the pattern—EVERYTHING!

• Like S t a c i before me, I ran out of yarn. S t a c i had graciously offered her extra yarn, but I didn’t take it because I wanted an excuse to visit Twisted Yarns. I had never been to that store before and I thought that it was time to go. While I was there I picked up yarn for another Baby Bobbi Bear (did I tell you that I love this pattern?) and I stumbled upon the most gorgeous shade of Silky Wool that I had ever seen. (Click the link! See the pretty yarn!) I bought it with the intention of making the Twisted Yoke Cardigan from the latest Interweave Knits, but now I think it is destined for something else.

• I have not yet determined if the cats are a threat to Bobbi. I haven’t had the courage to allow Bobbi to sit out unsupervised. So far Scout has attacked Bobbi’s ribbon and Cleo has licked Bobbi. Was Cleo getting a taste of Bobbi for future feasting? I don’t know and I don’t want to find out.

Part 2: Morrigan “Errors”

Things happened as I was knitting the body of Morrigan. Everything worked out fine for me, but I went through a lot of charting and mathing and thinking and discussing and waffling to finish the body of the sweater. (This is the real reason why it took me so long to get from the armpits to the shoulders on Morrigan.)

After all that, I was pretty sick of Morrigan and I jokingly said that I was thinking about turning Morrigan into a vest. I really had no intention of making a vest. In fact, I’ve started the sleeves. But anyway, onto the business at hand.

If you are looking for tips, hints, or errata for Morrigan, you have two choices: Easy or Convoluted.

Easy:
Other than the teeny-tiny error that I found in Chart B, the instructions for the body of Morrigan are completely correct. Do not follow the correction to the side chart that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Convoluted:
Part 1: The Side Chart “error” and its ramifications
I posted the Side Chart corrections on the No Sheep for You KAL. It just so happened that the person who tech-edited the pattern saw my post and commented on it. Apparently, the “error” was in the original pattern but the tech-editor didn’t realize it was an error. (Which is completely fine, the pattern still works, the error really is just a matter of esthetics.) But here’s the rub: The tech-editor worked out ALL the stitch counts from the armpit up with the “error” in there! What’s the problem? If you correct the “error” in the way that I posted your stitch counts will not match the stitch counts in the pattern.

Okay, I’m highly math enabled. I can rework stitch counts, no problem. Thankfully, I decided that I would work out the stitch counts BEFORE I started any “error” correcting. With the help of math, a diagram that I built in Excel, and a careful study of the photos in the book, I noticed something interesting about the “error” and my possible correction. Look at the photo. Along the shoulder seam there is a column of twisted knit stitches. Very elegant, don’t you think?

That column of stitches is Chart F in the pattern. If I corrected the “error” I would not have that nice, strong column of stitches next to my shoulder seam. Instead, Chart C (that pretty cable next to the column of stitches) would be right up next to the seam. So I had a dilemma: Fix the “error” as my anal retentive side said or ignore it to please my artistic side. I chose to ignore the “error.” (gasp!)

Part 2: The error that both there and not there
I should pause for a moment to tell you that as I was working through all these error/no error issues, I was corresponding heavily with the tech-editor. She’s a saint. I think I love her.

In our email conversations, she noted that when you finished working all the armhole and neck shaping, you would have three more stitches on the back shoulders than you would have on the front shoulders. However, one must have the same number of stitches on the front and the back to do a proper three-needle bind-off. So, Ms. Tech-Editor told me, she had worked in decreases on the back shoulders to get rid of the extra stitches. I checked my math, confirmed what she said, and went on my merry way.

But then I got an email from someone else who was making Morrigan. Janis had surged ahead of me during all my mathing and charting and futzing. She was up to the shoulder shaping already and had a question about what she believed to be missing markers. Somewhere in the back shoulder shaping, the instructions say something about knitting to a marker and turning. The marker indicated one side of the back neck shaping.

What Janis didn’t realize (or forgot) was that the markers for the back neck shaping were placed on the VERY FIRST ROW of the pattern. Janis had placed markers all around her Morrigan and didn’t realize that back neck shaping markers were different from all the other markers on her needles. Anyway, I didn’t email Janis back immediately because she emailed me at night and I didn’t check my mail until the morning. So she emailed Jenna, too.

So by the time I did check my mail, I had the original question from Janis and a forwarded correction from Jenna in my in box. (Jenna also took the opportunity to point out that someone was beating me on Morrigan.) But wait! It gets more exciting!

Jenna ALSO didn’t realize that the back neck markers were already placed! So in her correction, she added a line right before the back shoulder shaping instructions saying to place markers X many stitches from each side of the back. BUT what I immediately realized was that the originally placed markers were not X number of stitches away from the sides. In fact, the original makers were X+3 stitches from each edge.

You see what’s happening, don’t you? The whole time Jenna meant for the number of stitches on the shoulders to be the same. The markers placed in the very first row are placed in the wrong place! Each marker should be placed 3 stitches closer to the center of the work.

But if you do this, you should not do the decreases on the back that get rid of the extra stitches because the extra stitches will not be there! If you move the markers to the corrected positions and do the decreases, you will end up with 3 fewer stitches on the back shoulders than you have on the front shoulders. (Whew! did you follow that?)

So what did I do? I moved the markers and didn’t do the decreases because it made much more sense to work it that way.

If you managed to read all of that: Congratulations! Sorry it was so long, but you know what it says at the top—I use too many words to describe what I’m doing.

Purple Mountain Majesty

2007-08-24T18:25:00.000-05:00

Hey Williams knitters! I know you're out there because every now and then one of you emails me and says that you read my blog. Here's your chance to actually leave a comment on my blog.

Have you seen these?

The pattern is from Sweaterscapes. I really want these socks. But it's a combination of two knitting things that I don't like: socks and intarsia (I think. It could be stranded, but that doesn't improve things that much.)

I want them so much that I'm tempted to say that I'll buy the pattern and the yarn if someone else would knit them for me. Tempted. Very tempted.

Doily!

2007-08-20T14:58:00.000-05:00

Pattern: Doily by a doily designer
Yarn: A doily-appropriate yarn. Seems to be 100% cotton. Dark Green
Needles: Doily-size needles. Something small. Maybe US 0 or 1.
Comments: Okay, you caught me. I didn’t knit this doily. Monkee did. When she finished it, she threw it at me. She said I could have it if I wove the ends, blocked it, and blogged about it. So here it is: ends woven and trimmed, blocked, and blogged.

Does the fact that I have a pink phone surprise anyone?

[Note: the following is a change in topic without any type of transition]

LOOKIE!!!

(Can I tell you how tempted I am to do the neck edging, add edging around the armholes, and call it a vest?)

Boing! Thump!

2007-08-14T08:24:00.000-05:00

Did you hear that? That was me jumping on the bandwagon. What prompted this fit of unoriginality in me? Well my friend M and his wife H surprised me by having a baby. Now I say “surprised” in the most tongue-in-cheek way. M and H have produced kids like clockwork: every two years in June or July a new addition to their family. The first four kids are a girl, a boy, a girl, and a boy. Last fall, I was talking to M on the phone (they live in Austin) and I jokingly asked if H was pregnant. He said yes. Then I teased that baby #5 would most certainly be a girl. (M and H never find out the gender of their children in utero.)

Well, M and H had baby #5, a girl, in mid-July. From their track record, I knew that this would happen even before H got pregnant—it wasn’t a surprise at all. But for some reason, I chose to ignore the impending arrival. When I heard the news about the new baby, I realized that I needed to knit something. Fast.

So for M and H’s newest bundle of joy, a February Baby Sweater and a Vine Lace Baby Hat.

Pattern: Baby Sweater on Two Needles (actually, I used only one circular) by Elizabeth Zimmermann and Vine Lace Baby Hat by Sandi Wiseheart
Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK, color 520, 3 balls
Needles: 3.75 mm (US 5) for the sweater and 3.5 mm (US 4) DPNs for the hat

Comments:
In complete lemming form, I paired the hat with this sweater after seeing it on Guro’s blog. It just reinforces the fact that I could not think for myself on this project.

The sweater pattern is not difficult. It should have been knit in a few hours with no problems. However, this is me. I made an easy sweater hard:

* After knitting four or five rows, I decided that the front edges would looks so much better if I used a slip-stitch selvedge. So I ripped and started over.

* After knitting a few rows past the first increase row, I decided that the increases looked better on the wrong side of the work. So I ripped back to two rows before the increase row and increased on a wrong-side row instead of a right-side row.

* Apparently, my mind decided to take a vacation when I started the second sleeve. The sleeves start by casting on 7 stitches on each side of each sleeve. I managed to do this properly on the first sleeve. But I cast on stitches only on one side on the second sleeve. That’s right: I followed the directions correctly THREE TIMES and then screwed up on the fourth time. Rip, rip, rip.

But all in all, I’m happy with the project. Despite all my foibles, I still managed to finish the two items in three days. Cute, fast, and PINK! Thanks for having a girl, M and H!

I’m such a dabbler

2007-08-10T10:27:00.000-05:00

Some time ago I teased you with a photo of a craft that I had recently tried. For some reason (laziness), I never got around to blogging about it. The photo I showed back then was an example of origami tessellation. Last month I took classes at a local store during their origami festival. I took two tessellation classes from Joel Cooper. (Please click on his name to see his amazing work. Look at his Masks and Tessellations sets. I cannot describe how incredible his work is.)

I learned a lot from Joel by my work is not quite up to his level. If you want to see more of what I’ve made you can go here. Sadly there isn’t a book from which I can learn more about tessellations—it appears to be a try-it-and-see type of craft.

And speaking of other crafts that I do (good segue, huh?), I decided to answer the craft meme seen on Grumperina’s blog. I segregated the crafts listed under #3 because, apparently, I’m quite a dabbler.

1. I have no interest; complete lack of creativity in this area.
card making, cartooning, collage, decorating, doll house making, etching, gift wrapping, lucet, shibori, spinning, stamping, straw marquetry, string art,

2. Would love to try it.
flower arranging, glass bead making, glass blowing, graphic design, millinery, tatting, quilting

3. I do or have dabbled in it.
As an adult (college or later):
crochet, designing/pattern writing, dyeing, entertaining, felting, gardening, lace making, origami, sewing, scrap booking

Special geeky cases as an adult:
* balloon animal making (I got a balloon animal kit to make tetrahedral models for a science textbook photo shoot. Then, I played with the left over balloons.)
* paper making (as part of a science project in college)
* soap making (as part of a chemistry class)

As a dabbler young ‘un:
appliqué, basket weaving, beading, book binding, calligraphy, candle making, doll or toy making, embroidery and cross-stitch, jewelry making, macramé, mosaics, needlepoint, painting or drawing, papier-mâché, poetry, pottery, rug hooking, story telling-acting-stage work, weaving, video/film making, wood carving

As an obsessed young ‘un:
music (piano, clarinet, harp, trumpet, recorder)

4. Love it! This is my thing.
baking, cooking, knitting, pattern editing, photography, writing

And I have plans to start this up again: music (cello)

WHEW!

I was a very crafty kid, wasn’t I? When I was younger, I was very interested in arts and crafts. Between my artistic dad, my crafty mom, The Best Elementary School Art Teacher in the World, and my many years as a Brownie and a Girl Scout, almost every art or craft whim that tickled my fancy was indulged. My parents’ house is still filled with some of my more successful (but still childish) works of art.

A parting photo
Guro asked to see Morrigan again. So here she is. I’m mere inches away from finishing the body. I’ve shaped the front neck and divided for the front and the back. In a fit of insanity, I decided that I would knit the two fronts and the back at the same time. So I have three balls of yarn attached to the project.

I had hoped to finish the body by now, but my fingers are currently busy working on another super-secret project for Kristen. I was refraining from blogging about Morrigan because there were some interesting pattern developments that I didn’t feel like writing about. I will do so as soon as I finish the body.

Finished Object: Bunny Blanket Buddy

2007-07-27T17:02:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you are sick of working cables on both right-side and wrong-side rows using 3.25 mm (US 3) needles? Well, you make something out of fluffy novelty yarn on ginormous needles, of course!

Pattern: Bunny Blanket Buddy or Blanket Bunny Buddy or some combination of those three words. Available for “free” from the Lion Brand website. (Actual retail cost: the personal information that you don’t want Lion Brand to have)
Yarn: Plymouth Heaven, 100% nylon (and 100% fluffy!), color 12 (yellow), 2 balls. Plus scraps of Rowan 4-Ply Cotton for embroidery
Needles: 6.5 mm (US 10.5) and 5.0 mm (US 8)
Notions: A little polyester fiberfill
Recipient: someone’s baby

Comments: I chose this pattern because it looked easy and kinda cute. But, much to my delight, I discovered that the pattern is very, very clever. The bottom part (from the neck down) is pretty straightforward. The most exciting bits are when you cast on and bind off for the arms. (More on that later.) But once you get to the neck—hold onto your hats!—all cleverness breaks out.

The head is double-knit! You knit the front and back of the head at the same time, creating a “pouch” to stuff later. The ears are shaped and attached to the top of the head using short rows! After stuffing, the top of the head is gathered like the top of a hat! So there is NO seaming at all. How nifty-keen is that?

I’m so pleased as Punch about this toy. I thought it would be boring and mindless, but it turned out to be an interesting knit and super cute. I knit up the toy in a couple of hours and then spent almost as much time embroidering the face. Artistic I am not.

Helpful Hints:
• The pattern doesn’t say to WRAP AND turn when working the short rows. So I didn’t. Bad idea. Wrap those stitches to prevent holes. You don't even have to bother picking up the wraps because they will just disappear in the fluffiness.

• This kind of fluffy yarn is quite bulky and does not have much stretch. Therefore, when you cast on and bind off for the arms and ears you must choose your methods wisely. Traditional cast ons (like knitting on or the cable cast on) and bind offs can yield very stiff edges. I used a backward-loop cast on and a lace bind off and my edges are soft and flexible.

More Cosmic Twinness

2007-07-25T09:08:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple of years, Rachel and I have gotten to know each through our blogs, email, and gmail chat. In that time, we have been surprised at the many things we have in common. Rachel says its cosmic twinness.

Because we know each other so well, it seemed perfectly natural to me when Rachel told me that she was going to come to Texas and wanted to visit me. She would be visiting friends in Austin and San Antonio and then would swing by Houston for a brief stay. “Sure I’ll pick you up at the bus station, let you sleep in my yarn room, and then take you to the airport!” I told her.

Now let’s step back a minute. Pretend that you aren’t a knitblog reader or a knitter. Pretend that you are ~~normal~~ a safety-conscious person. What would you think if a good friend of yours told you that someone who she met over the Internet was traveling halfway across the country to visit her and that she would be picking up said Internet friend at a bus station in a highly dodgy neighborhood and then letting this “friend” stay overnight at her house? Well when you put it that way . . . .

Luckily for me (and Rachel), we discovered that we had even more things in common. For example, neither of us are axe murderers, sex offenders, or sleezy men who created innocent knitblogger personas with the sole purpose of luring an unsuspecting knitter into a friendship so that they kidnap her and steal all her money. Whew! Are you as relieved as I am?

Sadly Rachel could not fit her Starsky into her luggage so we couldn’t do true Sweater Twins photos, but she did manage to click a few other photos.

I'm such a geek

2007-07-14T18:10:00.000-05:00

Seen on Roxy's blog:

I scored 100% with no cheating--I even got the questions in life science (my weakest science subject) right.

In which I appear to be copying Rachel again, but I really didn’t

2007-07-11T08:57:00.001-05:00

One of the many things that Rachel and I have in common is a complete lack of interest in pursuing other fiber arts and/or crafts. We don’t want to spin or sew or dye or what-have-you. However, Rachel recently delved into the dyeing world. And believe it or not, so did I. I swear we didn’t talk to each other before we did this.

Last fall during the International Quilt Festival, I picked up a shiny hank of silk laceweight from the Habu Textiles booth. I wasn’t so happy with the white color, but the person in the booth assured me that it would dye easily. I particularly wanted this yarn because it is reeled silk rather than spun silk so I bought it figuring that I would worry about dyeing it at a later time.

Then, last month I was shopping at KPixie and happened upon some natural colored cobweb-weight “pashmina.” Twelve dollars! One thousand yards! Click the “add to basket” button! (I don’t know if they carry this anymore. I can’t find it on their website now.) In the photo, the silk is on the left and the pashmina is on the right.

Now that I had a second hank of blah colored yarn, I had to do something about both. Hey Kool-Aid! (That’s from a commercial, in case you young ‘uns don’t know.) I went to the store with the intention of buying pink and red Kool-Aid. I’m so predictable. Well, there are a lot of varieties of Kool-Aid including a handful of pinks and billions of reds. So I grabbed several hoping to find colors that I liked. I settled on Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi for the pashmina and Cherry for the silk.

At first I tried the microwave method—you know, shove yarn in a Mason jar and nuke. That resulted in splotchy yarn. I was not happy. I decided that the pink pashmina was done well enough and I was worried that if I tried to dye it again, it would felt. (It threatened to felt after the first dyeing process and I really didn’t want to chance it.) However, the Cherry silk needed serious help. So back to the store for more Kool-Aid.

FYI—When you use those self-check out things at the grocery store, after scanning something you have to put the item on the scale thing on the end so that it can make sure that you’re not stealing. The self-check out freaks out if it doesn’t detect an item being placed on the scale thing. The scale thing CANNOT detect individual Kool-Aid packets. If I ever hear, “please put the item in the bag” again, I’m going to scream.

The partly red silk and additional Cherry Kool-Aid were cooked in a pot on the stove—not crammed Mason jar this time. I wanted the yarn to swim. The results are perfect. Now I have to figure out what to do with my new pink and red yarns.

Foreshadowing things to come

The title of Rachel’s latest post implies that she will be showing more things that she doesn’t normally do. *cue Twilight Zone music* I am also planning to show something else that I don’t normally do. It’s entirely possible that Rachel has been working on the same “art” that I am. I worry that she’s going to beat me to the punch again. So here’s a sneak preview of my extra-extra-curricular activity:

Finished Object: Katherine (Sal Crochet Cap)

2007-07-06T10:07:00.001-05:00

Pattern: Sal from Rowan 31, one size
Yarn: Rowan 4 ply Cotton, color 120 Orchid, less than 1 ball
Hook: 3.75 mm (US size F)
Peter’s Comment: I don’t think that’s going to keep your head warm.

My Comments: I think it’s a cute cap, but I’m not sure it’s cute on me. Sort of hippie chick. But as Drew says, it will be good for bad hair days.

I tried very hard to get a good close-up photo of the cap on my head, but it was not working. All photos were either poorly framed or out of focus. So I had to find a better model. First, Scout was recruited. But despite her best efforts, she couldn’t pull it off. The hat was simply too big for her. Plus, she put it on inside out. Silly cat can’t dress herself properly.

So I had to construct “fake Laura head” out of a tripod, an inverted bowl, and one of Peter’s black running shirts (don’t worry, it was clean).

I actually finished this cap more than a week ago, but didn’t get around to blogging about it because of an insane work schedule. Though, it turned out to be a good thing that I didn’t blog earlier. I think the hippie-chick hat may have prevented me from earning a . . .

Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award

Whoo Hoo! Rockin’ Valley Girl Agnes nominated me because I’m a scientist knitter. Who knew that geekiness could turn into Rockin’-ness?

Now it’s my turn to nominate five more bloggers for a Rockin’ Girl Bloggers award!

How could I not nominate Rockin’ Rachel? She’s my sweater twin, my Best Blog Friend (according to her), and the co-founder of the Apathetic Sock Knitters Club.

Then Superhero Sarah gets the tap. Sarah is a mild-mannered archeologist by day and Microfarmer Sarah by night (and weekends). She has 5 cats, 2 dogs, 1 llama, 4 goats, 12 chickens, and 6 SHEEP! She’s going to adopt me so that I can live on her farm.

Next up is Über-creative Elizabeth. I love Elizabeth’s blog because she allows us to peek into the mind of a knitwear designer. And she’s a great nature photographer—but watch out for the bug photos if you’re easily creeped out like I am.

Of course Biker Debby is rockin’. After all, she has a PINK bike. Debby is also co-hosting this year’s Tour de France KAL in the most fun way. Compete for jerseys! Learn about the Tour!

Last but not least is Mad Scientist Jeanne. Jeanne has been conducting experiments in her kitchen as she dyes with natural dyestuff. And she does math during these experiments! What could be more rockin’?

Red Alert! Error in Morrigan!

2007-07-01T09:14:00.000-05:00

Okay, so it's probably not a major red alert seeing as I'm probably one of about 10 knitters worldwide who are knitting Morrigan. (I found 3 others started on the web, I'm not the only crazy one.) BUT it is a major error.

I emailed Jenna and her entire response is below. The error is in the number of times that rows 69–76 of the Side Chart are worked.

Crap! you're right! That should have been 4 times. I checked back
through all my drafts, and I had written it as 6, (6, 8, 8, 8, 8)
throughout, but obviously the math doesn't work that way!

Because I used AppleWorks (since uninstalled and I don't know what we
did with the install disks), I can't check the spreadsheet notes to
figure out where the mistake originated... all my text notes show
that I miscounted, and evidently thought that rows 77-84 of the side
chart were only 6 rows, not 8. The tech editor must have done the
same thing, too!

So, the Side chart should indicate that the repeats of rows 69-76 are
4 (4, 5, 5, 6, 6). Here's the logic:

Total rows before bind-offs according to Chart A count: 140 (140,
156, 156, 164, 164)

Side:
4 rows of foundation pattern (chart rows 1-2)
8 rows of patt (chart rows 3-10 x 1)
32 (32, 40, 40, 40, 40) rows of rep (chart rows 11-18)
50 rows of patt (chart rows 19-68 x 1)
--at this point, we've worked 94 (94, 102, 102, 102, 102) rows; 46
(46, 54, 54, 62, 62) to go before bind-off--
32 (32, 40, 40, 48, 48) rows of rep (chart rows 69-76 x 4 (4, 5, 5,
6, 6))
8 rows of patt (chart rows 77-84 x 1)
--this adds 40 (40, 48, 48, 56, 56) rows; another 6 rows to work
following rows 85-92 as necessary--

Thinking about it, I'm positive I kept counting rows 77 to 84 as 6
rows, because I recall I thought that it would end neatly with row 84
for the smallest size, and then I must have incorporated that set of
rows into the repeat count by accident. You could, if you wished,
treat this as a 5x repeat, which means that instead of working rows
77-84 before the bind-off, you'd only work rows 77-82; on the bind-
off row, you'd integrate three double decreases. This would make the
cable pattern fill the underarm all the way up to the bind-off,
rather than leaving a 6-row gap of reverse stockinette across those 9
rows. [edit: she means "those 9 stitches"]

Well. Considering the complexity of the pattern, I'm grateful that
you found only this and that symbol in row 1 in Chart B...

Thanks for forging on ahead!
Jenna

Finished Object: Flower Basket Shawl

2007-06-29T19:31:00.000-05:00

Pattern: Flower Basket Shawl from Interweave Knits
Yarn: El Coyote Ranch 100% Mohair, one hank
Needles: 4.0 mm, US Size 6
Finished Size: about 50” wide and 27” tall
Comments:
1) Yet another little shawl. Apparently, I am incapable of making an average-sized shawl. Either I make enormous shawls or I make small shawls. I thought about making this shawl larger, but I didn’t want to start the second ball of yarn.

2) The reason why I didn’t want to start the second ball of yarn was because I wasn’t very trilled about the yarn when I was knitting it. The yarn was rather scratchy and I didn’t care to keep going with it. But, after washing and blocking, the fabric softened up nicely. It’s still a bit scratchy, but not as bad as I thought it would be.

3) I think the shawl will make a nice scarf. It seems sort of “rustic” to me, so I wouldn’t wear it to anything dressy, but I could see myself wearing it with jeans.

4) I really wish I had used a centered doubled decrease instead of s1, k2tog, psso, but I didn’t think to do that until after I and knit a couple of repeats. The yarn is just sticky enough to make annoying to frog easily. So I just lived with it. If I make it again, I would change the decrease.

And a Thank You

Thank you everyone for your compliments on my new hair. Believe it or not, I’m still getting used to it. Similar to people who have had limbs amputated, I’m suffering “phantom hair.” I still try to flip my nonexistent hair and I’m always moving invisible hair out of my way when I put my head on a pillow.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

2007-06-14T22:44:00.000-05:00

Jo took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose, for all her abundant hair was cut short.

“Your hair! Your beautiful hair!” “O Jo, how could you? Your one beauty.” “My dear girl, there was no need of this.” “She doesn’t look like my Jo anymore, but I love her dearly for it!”

As everyone exclaimed, and Beth hugged the cropped head tenderly, Jo assumed an indifferent air, which did not deceive anyone a particle, . . . rumpling up the brown bush and trying to look as if she liked it.

--Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Ever since I first read that passage as a young girl with waist-length hair, I’ve wanted to sell or donate my hair for wig making. The last time that I went from very long hair to very short hair, I inquired about donating my hair, but could not find information about it. (That was before everything-you-need-to-know-and-some-things-you-don’t was on the Internet.)

BEFORE

AFTER

I did not cry, though my heart was racing and I was trembling when I felt that first cut of scissors. My agony was prolonged because the hair was cut in three fat ponytails which each took the hairdresser a long time to hack through. It did not help when the hairdresser in the next station looked over and yelled, “OH MY GOD!!!”

And the hair? It’s on its way to Locks of Love.

Finished Object: Birthday Socks

2007-06-12T19:06:00.000-05:00

Pattern: Started as Alison’s ankle socks, changed to Laura’s intuitive socks, and finally morphed into variations on a heel by Joanna
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM in unknown colorway, 1 hank
Needles: 3.25 mm (US Size 3) DPNs
Comments: I had 10 g of yarn left over, I suppose I could have made taller ankle socks instead of these little footie-style socks, but I didn’t know that until I finished and by then I wasn’t about to rip the socks (again).

Who wears wool footies? I guess these seem terribly impractical, but I’ll probably just use them as bed socks.

You can see the pretty short row heels and toes here.

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

It all started when Valerie showed me Cookie A’s socks. Now, as you know, I don’t get excited about socks, but I do always appreciate a beautiful knitting pattern—even if it’s a pattern that I’m not likely to knit. So was the case with the Cookie A patterns—I loved them.

A few weeks later, Tania mentioned that she could get printed versions of the Cookie A patterns at a discount through a co-op. “Hmm,” I thought, “printed patterns.” I don’t have a color printer, so I don’t like to purchase patterns that are primarily available as downloadable PDFs. So, I asked Tania to buy the Millicent and Twisted Flower patterns for me—just so I could have them and admire them. Certainly NOT so I could knit them.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago. A package arrived bearing enough RED sock yarn to knit Millicent. Apparently, Valerie and Sarah have decided that I must start knitting socks. They are ignoring my constant “ho-hum” attitude toward socks. They are obviously conspiring against me. I’m sure they hate me. Okay, maybe they don’t hate me. If they hated me they wouldn’t have sent such luscious yarn in the most perfect shade of red. I love the yarn. Thank you Val and Sarah!

Don’t worry Debby, despite all this sock and sock-yarn action, I’m not going to abandon the Apathetic Sock Knitters Club! Knit on! er… Apathy on!

Look Ma, No Needles!

2007-06-08T08:52:00.000-05:00

For a few years now, I’ve been coveting Sal—the lace cap in Rowan 31. (However, I hate that name. It needs a prettier name like Katherine or Amanda.) But Sal, henceforth to be known as Katherine, is crocheted and I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to read a crochet pattern. Enter Drew aka The Crochet Dude.

Drew, S t a c i , Jeanne, and I have a slacker breakfast SnB. Slacker because we meet during “work hours” and breakfast because we eat breakfast (obviously). This week at slacker breakfast SnB, I asked Drew to teach me to crochet. Drew is an awesome teacher. Within the first few minutes of our lesson, I learned the following gems of wisdom:

• “Blue” is not a proper designation of crochet hook size.
• You can’t pick a crochet hook because it is cute. You have to pick a hook based on gauge.

I wonder if those tips are generally included in crochet books or if they are special techniques that Drew has developed. Anyway, I’m now making a hat. I’m not very far along because I haven’t had much time to work on it (and because I keep ripping the dang thing out), but I hope you can imagine this stringy thing turning into a hat.

Meanwhile—I’m sure there is a large portion of the viewing audience who has been impatient for a Morrigan update. I know, I’ve been such a tease. First I had a big build-up leading to me casting on for the sweater then one measly photo of progress. But there’s a reason for it. Let’s review the facts.

1. There are 300-or-so stitches on my needle.
2. I’m working on 3.25 mm (US size 3) needles.
3. Every round of the pattern includes cable crossings.
4. On the odd numbered rounds, the longest I ever go without a cable crossing is about 4 stitches.
5. Each round takes me approximately 20 minutes to complete. (And I’m supposedly a fast knitter!)
6. After about 2 hours of knitting, my hands HURT.

So you see, progress is not so swift. However, I finally do have something interesting to show. One of the most nifty-keen things about this sweater is that all the shaping is done in a cable pattern. The photo shows the side cable with all the decreases for the waist shaping completed. A couple more rows and I’ll start increasing. Are you as impressed as I am? Jenna Wilson is just brilliant.

Science Geeks Unite!

2007-06-04T09:42:00.000-05:00

We have a winner!

Joanna is the winner of the Oh! Science! contest. She was one of only eight people who got the first question right. The reason why the bottle was crushed was because of differences in atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure decreases as altitude increases. I drank almost all of the water in the bottle during our hike up a mountain and then I closed the bottle thereby trapping low-pressure air inside the bottle. We then hiked down the mountain, got into our rent-a-car and drove to an even lower altitude. (I think we lost about 3,000 feet in altitude.) At the lower altitude, the atmospheric pressure outside the bottle was much greater and it squished the bottle.

The other people who got question one right were Janelle, Beth, Tania, Paula, Aimee, Laurie (Etherknitter), and Terby. (Forgive me for not linking to all of your blogs.)

The answer to the second question is that I got excited about the bottle because I am a complete and total science geek. I accepted any variation on that theme as correct. Pretty much everyone who got the first question right also got the second question right. (Is that because only science geeks answered that question and can relate to my geekiness?) Joanna's name was pulled by a random number generator, but as you will read, her winning sock yarn from me is eerily appropriate.

And finally, the caption “I didn’t hear any oboes playing” on the photo of Peter and the Duck is a reference to the piece of orchestral program music by Prokofiev called Peter and the Wolf. In that composition, different instruments represent different characters in the story. The Duck is played by an oboe.

Meanwhile—there has been knitting. I just haven’t been writing about it.

Last year, Jennifer sent me some beautiful Koigu for my birthday because her husband and I share the same birthday. When I left for my Colorado trip, I didn’t want to drag Morrigan along. So I decided to make Birthday Socks using the birthday yarn. I figured that I would easily finish a pair of socks by my birthday (yesterday). No such luck.

I started the socks using this pattern and short-row heel tutorial. I finished the first heel before I got on the plane to Colorado. Just minutes before the plane was to board, I decided that my short rows were ugly and ripped out the heel. (Imagine me trying frantically to get the yarn and needles in order before they called my row.) Then, on the plane, I had to start the heel again—without any instructions on how to do a different short-row heel. Oh sure, you expert sock knitters are probably scoffing at me now, “What do you need directions for? It’s just a short-row heel.” Okay, how many of you made your first short-row heel without directions, hmm?

I inferred how to do a wrap-and-turn short-row heel on the plane. It worked okay. At least it looked better than my first short-row heel attempt. I finished the sock the next day and was not exactly impressed with my handiwork. Although one side of my heel was passable, the other side had rather large gapes—not holes—just gapes. At this point, I could have started the other sock and finished it by the time I got home, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to cut the yarn. So, there was no more knitting for the rest of the trip.

After I got home, I read about Joanna’s magical garter-stitch short-row heels: no purling, no picking up wraps. I emailed Joanna and asked her for instructions. (Now that I had regained Internet access, I figured that I should use it to my advantage.) Armed with the new instructions, I produced ONE birthday sock yesterday. I’m not sure when the other sock will be produced. Maybe it will be a week-after-birthday sock. But look! Pretty heel!

There’s iron pyrite in them thar hills!

2007-05-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

This past weekend Peter and I went to Colorado to attend the wedding of one of my oldest and dearest friends. “Oh, did you know Jeanine in college?” I was asked by other guests at the wedding. No. I went to high school with her. When I think about that, I’m amazed—it’s been 19 years since Jeanine and I were in school together.

Thankfully for Peter, we did more than just wedding stuff over the weekend. On two days, we went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. The weather was brilliant and we had a great time even though my heart and lungs—spoiled by oxygen-rich sea-level air—had a hard time when we went up some of the steeper, rockier trails.

We found ~~gold~~ iron pyrite in a stream.

We fed some aggressive animals. (Seriously, they were aggressive! A chipmunk climbed on my lap because I wasn’t feeding him fast enough. [If you click on the duck photo you read see a description that I added. Raise your hand if you understand the reference.])

We hiked to a waterfall

and a snowbound lake.

And Science happened!

The Science that happened inspired me to run a contest. It’s a two-part quiz, whoever gets both questions right will be entered in a drawing for this sock yarn.
1) What happened to the bottle above? (Explain in detail—no partial credit if your answer is iffy, I’m not counting it correct.)
2) Why did I get excited enough about the bottle to take a photo of it?

Send your answers to ScoutP(at)gmail(dot)com
Scout will be judging the correctness of the second question.
Answers accepted until noon Central time on my birthday (that's Sunday for those of you who don't stalk me).

Many Words on Many Things

2007-05-24T10:27:00.001-05:00

I’m taking a cue from S t a c i and doing a fast-changing topic Thursday. (She does Fast-Changing Topic Fridays, but I suspect that that’s a trademarked phrase.)

Groveling, Travel, and Email
First of all, I’ve been lame again and haven’t been answering my blog comments. Very bad me. And now I’m about to go on a four-day vacation and I’m not taking my computer (gasp!)—on purpose (double gasp!). So, don’t hate me if I haven’t responded to your comments. I also having problems finding the email address of people who leave comments so even when I do try to answer them, I can’t. :(

Monochrome
Debby once asked me to take a photo of all my pink yarn. I finally got around to photographing my stash and realized that I didn’t have as much pink yarn stashed as I had imagined. I guess I knit up pink yarn so fast that it doesn’t really hang out in the stash for long. So for you Debby, my pink and red stash. Because you had to wait so long for it, my pink and red finished object gallery is shown below, too. Click on the mosaics to get details about each photo.

Graceful Self-Striping Laceweight
Darling Thomasina and Sweet Rachel both think that I should make the Forest Path Stole with my Graceful yarn. Amy, on the other hand, expressed doubts about whether that pattern would be appropriate. I have doubts about the stole, too—but only because I worry about the fiddliness of the pattern. But really, FPS is one of the patterns that I considered—self-striping yarns and entrelac are a magical combination.

Terby suggested the lovely Hamani Stole—which I LOVE—and that is a contender, too.

The last contender is one that goes against one of the pattern qualifications that I set down because it has a knit-on border. However, I like the pattern because the body of the shawl is a simple repeating lace pattern that I think will show off the self-striping yarn to a great advantage. It’s the Myrtle Leaf Shawl for Victorian Lace Today. Amanda is working on this pattern right now.

Oh and for those curious: Kristie has some photos of a different colorway of Graceful knit up.

I’m a swinger! part 2
Yes, I did get search engine hits from people looking for swingers.

Super-Secret Knitting
The knitting for Kristen is done and has been sent off. The second project involved cables.

Seven Random Things
Apparently, most people were only interested in two of my seven things. Either that or they just read the first thing and then were immediately distracted by the photos on the last thing and skipped all the stuff in the middle. Except for Rachel. Rachel loves me and reads everything that I write. (Cordelia read the stuff in the middle, too, but I have to set Rachel apart because Rachel may turn on me if I don’t.)

Oh and I don’t play my pretty cello anymore. I’m considering taking lessons again—you’ll know when I do because I’ll suddenly stop knitting. Can you find me in the photo? Click the photo for a biggie view and the answer.

And delayed tagging for the meme: I tag S t a c i (okay, I tagged her last week and she's already done the meme) and Drew.

Seven Random Things

2007-05-19T11:00:00.000-05:00

Debby and Amanda both tagged me with the "seven random things" meme. I'd better answer the meme before I get more tags!

1. I'm irrationally afraid of bees*. And I do mean irrationally. I know that bees won't bother me if I don't bother them but that knowledge is not enough for me to cease freaking out when a bee is near me. I don't get spastic or anything--I just completely freeze up. I won't move because if I don't move, the bee can't possibly think that I'm bothering it and it won't bother me, right? If the bee doesn't move along quickly enough, I'll start to cry. Luckily, most times that a bee is near me, Peter is also near me and he knows to shoo the bee away or to stand between me and the bee and drag me away. Every time Peter does this, he gets exasperated with me and lectures me on the lack of bee danger. Hello Peter?! You've known me for nearly 15 years, you know that I'm never going to get over it. What part of "irrational" don't you understand?

2. I've never been stung by a bee. (Did I tell you that my fear is irrational?)

3. I got married in Disney World. I'm not a Disney fanatic--in fact, neither Peter nor I had ever been to Disney World before we went there to get married. I picked Disney World because it was easy and cheap and the honeymoon was included.

4. My brother is 1 year, 1 day, 20 hours, and 5 minutes older than I am. However, when we were growing up, many people thought we were twins. I hated that because if we WERE twins that would mean that either he was smarter than I was and got put ahead a grade or I was really stupid and got held back. It was a no-win situation for me.

5. My first pet was a dog whose official name was Winston Churchill III. I always assumed that Winston Churchill "the first" was THAT guy, but I could never figure out who Winston Churchill "the second" was.

6. I told my Modern Physics professor that I didn't believe in quarks. I can't remember what prompted me to say that, but I do remember his reaction. I expected him to blow off the comment or to laugh at me (as did the other students who were in the room), but instead be was very fascinated by my claim. The professor and I then proceeded to have a conversation about why I couldn't accept quarks as real but I "knew" that protons, neutrons, and electrons were real. I earned an A– in his class even though I did not buy into one of the fundamental theories of the class.

7. I have a pretty cello.

I don't know who to tag. Let me think about it :)

* For me, the word "bees" means wasps, hornets, yellow-jackets, honeybees, bumblebees, and all other bee-like insects. Don't click that link if you are squeamish about seeing close-up photos of bugs.

I’m a swinger!

2007-05-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

(I wonder what kind of search engine hits I’ll get with that title?)

When I began Morrigan, I had every intention to be monogamous to her. For better, for worse, until finished object do us part. Just before I started Morrigan I had begun a Flower Basket Shawl. FBS has joined Lotus in the “who? what?” pile in the yarn room because of my undying love for Morrigan.

But then something happened to cause me to be unfaithful to Morrigan. It’s nothing bad—Morrigan understands and is being patient. She’s not angry with me for doing a little ~~wife-~~ project-swapping.

Months before I met Morrigan, I had promised the delightful Kristen that I would do some knitting for her. The knitting is somewhat time-sensitive and well, it’s a job of sorts, so work before play for me. I’ve finished one of my projects for Kristen—both are super-secret so I can’t show you very much. But I will say this much about the first project: It involved pompoms.

I have started the second project and hopefully it will go as fast as the first. And then it’s back to blissful harmony and cable crossings on every row. I miss you Morrigan!

Meanwhile:

Yarn happened.

I won—or rather Scout won—a contest over at This Kitten Knits and Jacque sent me the most delicious prizes. RED yarn and PINK stitch markers. How in the world did she know that those were my favorite colors? Is it obvious? Do I use those colors a lot? The yarn is from HandpaintedYarn.com and is wonderfully soft. It should make a good hat for someone who likes red. Hmmm...I wonder who that could be? Thanks Jacque! I love the yarn and the pretty markers.

I bought some interesting laceweight when I was in Austin last month. It's Yarn Palace Graceful. Check it out! Self-striping laceweight! I was quite excited when I bought the yarn. But now I'm having conniptions over what to make. My feeling is that the self-striping nature of the yarn will be a feature of a shawl but could possibly be distracting as well. Triangular, circular, and square shawls are all out because the number of stitches increases, which would make the stripes irregular (more narrow as you go along). A long, rectangular sampler shawl (such as the Song of Hiawatha shawl) wouldn't work because the stripes will interrupt the beauty of the differing horizontal lace patterns. A rectangular shawl with a knitted-on border will be problematic because the stripes in the border will not match up with the stripes in the center. *sigh* I do have one candidate, but am still looking for other options.

Then Kristen sent me three hanks of Fleece Artist Bluefaced Leciester yarn in Raspberry. It’s my payment for the super-secret knitting. Each hank is as big as Scout. Yes it’s extremely pink. I didn’t think it would be so…well…bright. But hey, I still love it and will still revel in its softness. (Note to self: Laptop monitor makes colors appear less bright. Always check colors on desktop monitor.)

And finally, because blog entries sometimes need a good animal photo: I always thought that opossums were some of the ugliest creatures known to man. But OMG! CUTE! Baby opossums are pretty adorable. Even Scout thinks so.

Ravelry!

2007-05-02T10:09:00.000-05:00

The secret is out! Ravelry is here and open-ish for business. What is Ravelry? It's a knit and crochet community that's amazing. Thanks to S t a c i , I was privileged enough to be one of the early beta testers. I could go on an on about how wonderful the site is, but well, Rachel beat me to it. I told her about it, she joined (of course, she's copying me again), and now she's telling the world so that she looks way more cool than I am (perhaps because she is, but for now I can complain a little). Anyway, you can read Rachel's wonderful description of the site on her blog.

As for me, the only coolness that I can share is this:

Yup. that's me. For now, the #2 Raveler.

To join this great community go to this page to sign up!

Short on words, long on photos

2007-05-01T13:15:00.000-05:00

I went to Austin at the end of April. I had a class with the fabulous Jillian Moreno.

I watched Amy Singer knit with silk and steel.

I schmoozed with Amy. (Yes I stuck my name tag to my chest. I wasn't going to stick it on my silk top!)

I met Ana for lunch and got more stitch markers.

I played with my in-law's dogs Max

and Sophie.

I knit on Morrigan.

I also owe a lot of people emails. You will be hearing from me soon!

Finished Object: "Gray" Cabled Vest

2007-04-24T17:17:00.000-05:00

Pattern: ~~Gray~~ Blue Cabled Vest from Men Who Knit and the Dogs Who Love Them, size 46-inch chest + added stitches to make a size 48-inch chest
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, double stranded, 65% wool, 35% silk, color 10, 9+ hanks (I think I could have finished it with 9 hanks if I had ripped out my rather large swatch)
Needles: US size 8 (5 mm) and 10 (6 mm)
Recipient: Peter
Cat: Elly
Errata: Okay, there are a lot of errors in this pattern. I emailed my corrections to Annie Modesitt but she has not yet placed all of them on her website. So, I’ll detail the mistakes that I found here.

Chart Errors
1. Charts A and C have several rows outlined in red to indicate that those rows are worked twice. The corresponding rows on Chart B are not outlined in red but they should also be repeated.

2. Charts A and C have two sets of rows marked 1–2. The first of these rows are set-up rows for the cable pattern. Chart B does not have similar set-up rows. If you work the set-up rows in Charts A and C, be sure to add set-up rows for Chart B. Or you can omit the set-up rows in Charts A and C. However, if you do work the set-up rows remember that you do NOT repeat the set-up rows when you repeat the rest of the cable pattern.

3. There are empty boxes in Chart A, set-up row 2. The stitches are the same as the stitches below them.

4. In Chart C, Row 56 there are four stitches that are marked as purl stitches that should be marked as knit stitches. They are in the 7th, 8th, 11th, and 12th boxes from the left.

Pattern Errors
5. Front Neck Shaping: The second instruction says to “BO (#) sts at neck edge every row 3 times.” You can’t do that. You’re working back and forth. So you can only BO stitches at the beginning of every other row. (The next instructions says to “BO (#) sts at neck edge every other row,” so the first instruction is not just a typo.) To correct this, I took the total number of stitches to be bound off on the three rows, divided that number by 2 and bound off the resulting number of stitches on the next two alternate rows.

6. Front Shoulder Shaping: Instructions say to begin shoulder shaping when the fronts measure “X inches” from the start of the armhole shaping. Unfortunately, “X inches” is not equal to the measurement where the back shoulder shaping started. The value for X is wrong. I used the measurement value from the back.

7. Buttonhole Row: The number of stitches don’t add up for the two sizes that I checked. I simply made evenly spaced buttonholes.

Comments: Despite the errors, I really liked knitting this pattern. The cables are great—each cable “repeat” is 96 rows tall. Yes, you read that correctly: ninety-six rows. Here’s a photo of the back after I finished the first “repeat.” I put repeat in quotes because the repeat is never fully repeated.

I would say more about the vest, but this post is already insanely long thanks to the errata.

But hey, designers could you avoid put colors in the names of your patterns? We all like using different colors. It’s annoying to hold up a blue vest and say, “This is the Gray Cabled Vest” and have people look at you funny.

Scout eventually needed to get into the photo action. I love the expression on Peter’s face.

In defense

2007-04-22T16:59:00.000-05:00

In the comments of the last post, a couple of you expressed shock and displeasure over the Jenna Wilson's quote. In defense of Jenna, I want to set a couple of things straight.

First, in my email to Jenna, I asked her advice on the impossible. I am between two sizes in the Morrigan pattern. After reading the pattern, I realized that there was pretty much NO HOPE of ever resizing the pattern. If you read the pattern you will understand why. The sweater is entirely cabled. There are no stockinette panels to play around with. All the shaping in the sweater is done by changes in the cable patterns. Jenna created the different sizes for the sweater by playing around with the number and arrangement of cable patterns.

Second, the quote was only the first sentence in very lengthy email from Jenna. Although Jenna did not have a super secret way to easily resize the sweater, she gave me a lot of information about the fit (ease) of the sweater and instructions on how to lengthen the sweater. She was extremely helpful and kind.

Third, the fact that Jenna has not knit the sweater is not as unusual as you might think. Many knitwear designers, particularly big-name full-time designers, simply do not have the time to knit every single garment that they design. Most of these designers employ sample knitters—skilled knitters who make the garments that you see in books and magazines.* If you lose respect for a designer simply because he or she has not knit one of his or her garments, then I suspect that you will be losing respect for designers such as Fiona Ellis, Norah Gaughan, Annie Modesitt, and many others.

I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for Jenna Wilson. She created a beautiful and amazingly complex sweater by swatching and using math. The fact that she was able to do this without ever handling the garment is a tribute to her skill and ability as a designer.

Coming up soon:
Peter’s vest—finished and modeled!
What I did this weekend. Hint: It involved math and two people named Amy and Jillian.

* Also note that sample knitters are different from “test knitters.” Test knitters are knitters of any ability who are given the pattern to test. Sample knitters are experienced knitters who are paid to produce a perfect garment.

Declaration of War

2007-04-20T10:20:00.000-05:00

The objective: Morrigan

The weapons: 80 cm Addis in sizes 2.5 mm, 3.0 mm, and 3.25 mm, row counters galore, and Entrelac no-dangle stitch markers.*

The ammunition: Calmer

The battle plans: Colored pencils to color code the cable charts as necessary.

The enemy: None. This is knitting. Nothing can be evil.

Expert commentary on the war:

“If only the sizing has you worried, then you are braver than I... after all, I never actually completed this sweater!” –Jenna Wilson, the designer of Morrigan, in an email response to my question about sizing

“This [pattern] makes experienced knitters cry.” —Amy Singer during a television interview for a Canadian morning news program

Outcome of the first skirmish: Victory! I got gauge with 3.0 mm needles, though the swatch with the 3.25 mm needles was only 0.2 cm wider. I may consider using the larger needle in hopes of “upsizing” the sweater slightly.

* Apparently Ana’s stitch markers are all the rage now, with all the cool kids blogging about them. I will now smugly inform you that I have owned these stitch markers for nearly a year—since before they were sold on Etsy. Ana gave these markers to me after I expressed extreme jealously of the markers that she gave to Monkee.

Love, Love Changes Everything! *

2007-04-12T14:15:00.000-05:00

I am overwhelmed! I can’t believe how many comments Scout’s sweater received. I tried to thank each of you personally for your comment, but I couldn’t find blogs or email addresses for all of you. So, if I haven’t thanked you yet, THANK YOU! Scout thanks you, too.

I’ll now confess that part of the reason why I knit a sweater for Scout was that I had lost almost all desire to knit. It was all Lotus’s fault. I felt like I needed to finish it, but I couldn’t bear to knit it either. So I didn’t knit anything and I was sad. Scout’s sweater was intended to be something to lift my knitting spirits. I think it helped me on the road to recovery. Lotus is hereby banished to the “deal with it later” corner of the yarn room.

But still, I needed something to get me really excited about knitting again. And then it happened. I saw THIS:

I first saw it on Wannietta's blog and nearly swooned. How could I not love that sweater? Cables, cables, and more cables. And it looks so HARD. Seriously, my heart started racing when I saw that photo for the first time. Moments later, I ordered the book (No Sheep for You) and began shopping for yarn. Happily, I found some pinky lavender Calmer on sale at Janette’s Rare Yarns. But hmm…that’s still a lot of money for one sweater.

So I did what I always do before I spend a lot of money: I called Peter for “permission.” (I’m not really asking for permission, because I’ll still spend the money if I really want to, but I feel better if Peter knows about my big purchases before I make them. So don’t think I’m some sort of oppressed woman who isn’t allowed to do anything without her husband’s stamp of approval. In fact, Peter has told me that I don’t have to check in with him all the time. I do it more for my peace of mind than for his.)

Anyway, as usual, Peter laughed at me and told me to go ahead and get the yarn even though it was for another pink cabled sweater. (At least he’s learned that one can never have too many pink cabled sweaters.) However, he said, I had to make HIS vest first. Oops. Forgot about that. Some time ago, Peter had picked out the Gray Cabled Vest from Men Who Knit & the Dogs Who Love Them and I had recently purchased the yarn to make said vest.

So what does a knitter who is obsessed with pink cabled sweaters do while she’s waiting for her pattern and her yarn to arrive? She knits a vest for the man she loves:

Well, it’s not done yet, but it’s getting there. You’re seeing about a week’s worth of knitting. I’d say that I got my knitting mojo back, wouldn’t you?

* Bonus points if you know where those words are from.

Finished Object: Scout Sweater

2007-03-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

What can I say? Knitting blog readers have discriminating tastes. With so many blogs out there to read, it’s easy for one to ignore boring blogs. So I’ve noticed.

So, as a desperate attempt at lighting a fire under my blog readership and as a pathetic plea for new readers, I present the following:

Pattern: ~~Doggie’s~~ Kitty’s Soy Silk Sweater from Men Who Knit & the Dogs Who Love Them, size XS
Yarn: SWTC Karaoke, 50% Soy Silk, 50% wool, 1 ball, color 281 Bloom
Needles: US size 8 (5mm) and size 9 (5.5mm)
Modifications: Obviously, I used only one color of Karaoke instead of the three specified in the pattern. The mod that I should have done was to shorten the length of the collar. The collar doesn’t lay flat on Scout. I’ll keep that in mind for the next sweater that I make for Scout.

Pattern Errata: In this back view photo you can see that there are four distinct sections in the sweater: ribbing around the neck, an eyelet section, a reverse stockinette section, and a long ribbed section. This is identical to the sweater shown in the book. However, the instructions do not include the reverse stockinette section. Instead, it has a panel of stockinette set off by purl ridges. I could have made the sweater either way, but I thought the reverse stockinette added more visual interest.

The chest area of the sweater has some lovely shaping between the legs. If you follow the shaping instructions in the book for the X-Small size, you will end up with a front that is much too long. To correct for this, I omitted six of the eight plain rows that are knit before the shaping starts.

Comments:

Before any of you start accusing me of drugging Scout or having a stuffed cat, look! She moves! Here she is playing with a purple bunny toy. Not the greatest photo, but it proves that Scout is alive and alert. I would never hurt my baby Scout. Scout loves me. She loves the sweater that I made for her. She is more than happy to wear it and have her photo taken.

I started knitting this on Thursday night and finished it on Friday afternoon. While I was knitting it several people questioned my sanity and doubted that I could ever successfully put Scout in a sweater. And when I say several, I mean several.

Knittyheads Valerie, Barbie, Theresa, Miko, Sarah, Karen, and Bean* all called me crazy and gave me strange looks. (As much as one can give strange looks over the internet.) Of course, some of them started by encouraging me to make the sweater, but as soon as I actually started it, they began saying that I was insane. I think they wanted me to make a fool out of myself. I showed them!

Houston SnBers Meredith, Kelly, Amy, S t a c i, and Drew* all doubted that Scout would stay in the sweater for very long. But as you can see, Scout wore the sweater for THREE different photo shoots. (The first photo shoot was before I weaved the ends in. I asked Scout to try on the sweater before I cut the yarn. She was so obliging.) And in fact, after the second photo shoot, she wore the sweater for 45 minutes before starting to try to squirm out of it.

Getting Scout into the sweater is not very difficult. Getting her out of it is much more of a challenge. The difference may have something to do with the fact that I put the sweater on her when she’s sleepy, and by the time I take it off, she’s wide awake and a little bit annoyed. Or perhaps she just doesn’t want me to take off the sweater. Maybe she really likes wearing it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

*Note another ploy for getting people to pay attention to my blog: linking to lots of other blogs.

Random

2007-03-28T17:40:00.000-05:00

Poor neglected blog! Poor neglected knitting! I have no excuses. Well, I do have one. My parents were visiting. But that only accounts for 5 days in the last two weeks of very little knitting and very little blogging or blog reading.

During my parents visit, I went to the Hong Kong Food Market #4 for the first time. I'm still kicking myself for not having a camera with me. Where else would I find an aisle marked "De-Ter-Gents and House Holds?" And what about that gallon jug of yellow food coloring?

A lesson learned:
People are not impressed with ummodeled knitwear. Either that or people are not impressed with stockinette. So a big, hearty THANK YOU to those of you who did comment. And thanks for all the suggestions on ways to modify the neckline. I like the idea of frog closures or clasps, but nothing will be done until I get the sweater back. If you want to see Tori modeled by something other than a hanger on a doorknob, you can look here.

Fun Fact:
Ima Hogg really, really liked azaleas.

Odd Fact:
There is a petrified tree stump in Ima Hogg's garden. I suspect that it was placed there (i.e. the tree did not originally grow in that spot), but it seems very out-of-place in the finely manicured, formal gardens.

Finished Object: Tori

2007-03-15T15:40:00.000-05:00

Pattern: Tori from Rowan Bamboo Tape Collection, second size
Yarn: Rowan Bamboo Tape in Tissue (I think), 9 balls
Needles: US size 8, 5 mm
Comments:

1) The astute observer will notice that I am not wearing this sweater. It’s not because I don’t like the sweater. It’s because I didn’t want to be bothered with the self-timer this morning. Also, the sweater will be traveling to Yarntopia soon, so I don’t want to mess it up. However, the sweater is amazingly comfortable. I love the fabric and most of the fit.

2) Maybe yellow ribbons were not the best choice, but it was better than the other ribbon I had.

3) The neckline is funny. It’s very, very high and rather small. (Do I have a fat neck or something?) The construction of the neckline is a bit odd and I was worried about it when I was knitting it. Had I not been making this as a store sample, I probably would have modified the collar a bit. At this point I’m trying to decide if I should rework the neckline when I get the sweater back.

4) Instead of reworking the neck, I could find a different way of closing the “slit” in the neck. I’m thinking lacing it up like a corset and letting the top edge “gap” a bit so that the silt forms more of a V-shape. Decisions, decisions.

Blabby Technical Notes That May Bore You:
As I worked the body shaping and the armscye shaping I decided to use invisible increases and decreases as opposed to fully-fashioned increases and decreases. Fully-fashion increases and decreases are visible and are often used in decorative ways. But I generally prefer to use invisible decreases in my garments.

When I started the right shoulder panel, I realized that my choice of invisible increases and decreases was going to be problematic. The right shoulder panel has an increase on every row. Not every right-side row. EVERY ROW.

My invisible increase of choice is make-1—right-slanting on the right side and left-slanting on the left side. When I use a make-1 increase on every row the resulting fabric is butt-ugly. The stitches around the increase were horribly uneven.

So I had to experiment with different increases. Some increases were not invisible—yuck. Some increases couldn’t be used on every row—darn. I finally settled on the cast-on increase from Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook. This increase has the same structure as a make-1 increase, but it is worked differently. This difference was enough to make a startlingly big difference in the appearance of the finished fabric. See how pretty? Click photo to see notes.

Yarn Review: Rowan Bamboo Tape

2007-03-09T11:18:00.000-06:00

Once again, thanks to Amy and Sheryl at Yarntopia, I have a chance to knit with some delicious new yarn: Rowan’s Bamboo Tape. As you can probably guess by its name, the yarn is made from bamboo and it’s a tape yarn. (Yes, Valerie, it really is a tape yarn!)

Bamboo Tape is delightfully soft to the touch. It’s very smooth and silky. In fact, it has a slight sheen to it that is somewhat similar to the sheen of silk. But not exactly like silk, just similar. I was actually surprised by the extreme softness of the yarn. I’ve never worked with bamboo before and I guess I expected it to be somewhat similar to cotton. But Bamboo Tape is not similar to cotton at all.

The yarn is a tube of woven threads that is pressed flat. This construction give the yarn a bit of resiliency and springness that is usually absent from yarns made from plant fibers. As a result, the yarn is easy to work with. People who complain about working with “stiff” cotton yarns will not have an issue with this yarn. The construction of the yarn also prevents splitting. I occasionally catch the yarn with my needle tip and the needle just stops. The needle doesn’t go through the yarn and doesn’t distort the yarn very much.

The resiliency of the yarn is evident in the knitting fabric as well. The fabric feels squishy and is stretchy. It has a fairly nice drape—somewhere between the drape of silk and the drape of wool. I think the yarn will be wonderful for summer knitting. But be very careful when you are swatching with this yarn. I promise you that the yarn will grow when wet. And then it will grow even MORE when it dries completely. So wash and thoroughly dry your swatch before measuring!

At this point, I’m not sure how the fabric will wear. I’m not ready to abuse my swatch because I’m not sure if I will need to unravel it to finish my sweater.

Now that I’ve sung the praises of this yarn, I have to admit that there is a down side. This yarn is heavy! Not thick-heavy, but weight-heavy. Even before I finished knitting the back of my sweater I was surprised at the weight of the fabric on the needles. But I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised. A 50 g ball of Bamboo Tape contains a mere 82 yards of yarn. Even the smallest size of the sweater that I am making requires 9 balls of Bamboo Tape! And the pattern is a simple a short-sleeved “T-shirt” (it’s Tori shown on this page). At about $10 per ball, even a small garment will be pricey.

Yarn stats:
Rowan Bamboo Tape
100% bamboo
Approximately 4.75 sts/in. (worsted weight)
50 g balls (82 yds/75 m)
And despite what the misprinted label says, it should be knit on about a US size 8 needle

A Tale of Two Sockies

2007-03-05T09:23:00.000-06:00

(I guess this is really a Tale of Two Pairs of Socks or a Tale of Four Socks, but neither of those titles is as punny as the one I picked.)

Our story begins one afternoon in the autumn of 2006. That day, Susann was treating the people in KnittyChat to photos from a German knitting magazine. Among the photos that she was flashing was a photo of the cutest socks ever (click here to see Susann’s version). I admired the socks and told Susann how much I loved them. Susann kindly offered to translate the pattern for me, but I told her no. For as much as I liked the socks, I didn’t think I would knit them. (Yes, I have a great appreciation for handknit socks. I even have a list of socks patterns that I’m considering making because I like them so much. However, my appreciation for socks is not enough to make me knit socks.)

Fast forward a couple of months. Susann, having learned that I was in possession of sock yarn that she really liked, proposed a trade. (Yes, I have sock yarn! It finds it way to me, I can’t help it!) Susann offered to knit me a pair of the cutest socks ever in exchange for sock yarn. What a deal! I accepted her offer immediately. The trade with Susann came on the heels of the greatest trade ever—the trade in which Rachel sent me cashmere laceweight in exchange for a lace shawl. Because of the similarities between the two trades, I told Rachel about the arrangement I had with Susann. Rachel agreed that I had made another great trade.

Susann proceeded to knit the cutest socks ever in the cutest sock yarn colorway ever. Aren’t they adorable? The moment I saw these socks I had an impulse to buy lots of yarn in the same colorway just to have it. (And you know, maybe, if I ever got around to it, perhaps, I could knit socks with the yarn.)

These socks are fantastic in every way. They fit perfectly and just look at how perfectly the stripes match up. Susann did this because she knew how obsessive I am about making my OWN knitting perfect and she felt that she needed to be obsessive with my socks, too. (I didn’t know it was contagious.)

Anyway, around the same time that Susann’s socks arrived, Rachel wrote a post in which she apologized to me for abandoning the Apathetic Sock Knitters Club. In a comment to that post I wrote, “I have to admit that I actually want some wool socks this winter. . . . However, I’m trying to find ways to have socks knit for me rather than having to knit them myself.” I was, of course, referring to the socks that Susann had knit for me. Don’t try to read between the lines, I wasn’t asking Rachel to knit me socks.

But Rachel took it upon herself to knit me socks as a token of our friendship. And what a pair of socks! Purple with pink and CABLES! Happy cables with the cleverest cable transition at the ankles! Rachel knows me too well—picking color and a pattern that I liked without assistance from me. These socks were packaged in a very funny sock sleeve that made me laugh out loud.

I adore both pairs of socks and I bow down to the sock-knitting prowess of both women. I appreciate their kindness and generosity. I will treasure these two pairs of socks forever. Thank you Susann and Rachel for the socks and for being you!

And for those of you who came over here to ogle the person who was slanderously mistreating Rachel, rest assured that all of the teasing that goes on between Rachel and me is good-natured fun done with affection and respect.

Finished Object: Starsky

2007-02-27T10:16:00.000-06:00

When I moved from suburbia to the big city, I knew it was a compromise. I knew that I was giving up things that I loved, such as my rose garden, my built-in bookshelves, and my sunny window seats. But I was gaining a better location, fancy-schmancy floors, and shiny new kitchen appliances.

However, it never occurred to me that I would be losing some other important things when I moved. For example, I don’t have a front yard or a back yard anymore. So I have no place to take outdoor photos. I don’t even have a driveway in which to take cheesy hey-look-at-my-cute-car photos. AND I don’t have a photographer anymore. Peter has been taken away by an alien species that calls themselves a “law firm.” He’s allowed to visit me briefly in the evenings before it’s time for bed, but by then there isn’t any good light for photographs.

So bear with me with my finished object photos. I’m still trying to locate a good location to take photo and I’m trying to master the art of using a tripod and the camera’s timer.

Pattern: Starsky from Knitty, size small
Yarn: Berroco Pleasure, 66% angora, 29% merino wool, 5% nylon, 130 yards per ball, 10-ish balls
Needles: US size 10.5 (6.5 mm) for the body and US size 9 (5.5 mm) for the belt and the belt loops

Comments:
1) I was between sizes for the sweater and I knew that I should probably size up, but I was my usual ultra-paranoid self and worried about running out of yarn. Technically, I had enough yarn for the medium size, but I still worried. I worried even more when I realized that I wasn’t even close to getting the right row gauge. Instead of 18 rows in 4 inches I was getting 23-ish rows in 4 inches. So, I reasoned, I would need to knit more rows than the original sweater. More rows = more yarn used. Did I make the right decision? I think so, I have less than a ball left and I don’t think it’s enough to make up the size difference.

2) As a result of my size choice, the sweater doesn’t fit quite the way I thought it would. I thought it would be longer and more jacket-like. But, oh well, it still fits and I still like it.

3) I must have incredibly short arms. I had to reverse-seam much more of the cuffs than the pattern said to.

4) Because my row gauge was so different from the original row gauge I had to rework the armcyes, sleeve increases, and sleeve caps. I started using math and being a good girl, but then I ended up winging all the shaping in the sleeves. Luckily it all worked out.

5) I made this sweater in 12 days, beating my previous record of 14-ish days for Grace.

6) My new lack of a driveway made it impossible for me to do the traditional shooting with the finger gun from behind an open car-door pose. (Yes I suppose I COULD do this pose in my townhome complex's common drive, but I'm not ready for my new neighbors to think I'm crazy. Yet.)

7) I put on this sweater today despite the 75-degree weather to be long-distance sweater twins with Rachel—even for just a few minutes. Hi Rachel!

BTW--does anyone know why the leading (i.e. the space between the lines) in my posts always gets smaller after I place a centered photo? How do I stop that from happening? I don't like scrunched up text.

Yay fixed! Thank you SuzannaBanana and Joanna!

For Rachel, with Love

2007-02-16T10:24:00.000-06:00

When we last saw Lotus, I had finished the body and had been lured away from all that stranding by SHINY RED! As soon as Shiny Red was finished (which was last week), I cast on for a Lotus sleeve. I was a little sad about it because I had just come to the realization that I couldn’t knit both sleeves at the same time. Oh sure, I could do that “two socks on two circulars” trick but I know that four needle tips and four balls of yarn plus the need to keep track of the colorwork pattern would have driven me to the insane asylum. So one at a time. Drat.

After I cast on and knit a couple of inches, I did what I seem to be doing a lot of with this sweater. I frogged. I started the sleeve doing the magic loop and it was just not a pretty sight. I couldn’t keep floats loose enough particularly when switching from one side of the loop to the other. And fiddling with the loops? UGH. So I started again. This time with double pointed needles (DPNs).

The DPNs made me happy until Rachel happened to mention somewhere in this mammoth post that her gauge on DPNs was a full stitch smaller than her gauge on circular needles. I fearfully stared at my sleeve. I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to approach it with my Knit Chek®. Would there be more frogging? Would this be the first project that ever truly elicits tears from my eyes? The answer is: No, not yet.

If anything, my gauge is off by about 0.25 of a stitch over two inches. Changing needle sizes won’t help that. Plus it will block out, right? (This is what I’m telling myself, don’t spoil the illusion.)

But the use of DPNs was still going to cause me problems—soon the work wouldn’t fit on my needles. I have stubby little 6-inch DPNs because, for some reason, I thought I liked short DPNs. I knew this impending doom was fast approaching and I knew that I wanted to get the work on circulars as fast as possible. So I ordered some 12-inch circulars. Well, the 12-inch circs aren’t here yet. What’s a girl to do? Cast on for another project, of course.

For months now, Rachel has been hounding me to start Starsky. I’ve been threatening to knit it since the pattern came out, but it never seemed to make it to the top of my knitting line up. But Rachel just won’t get off my case about it. “Knit it! Knit Starksy!” she says. The wheres, whens, and hows of me starting the cardigan have been dominating my conversations with Rachel because she can’t seem to let go of this obsession. Rachel claims that she wants me to knit Starsky so that we can finally be “sweater twins,” but I suspect that she wants me to knit the sweater so that she can lord the fact that I’m “copying her” over me at any time.

Despite my worries about Rachel’s true motives, I decided that it was Starsky’s time. I grabbed my bag of discontinued *sniff* Berroco Pleasure, knit a swatch and cast on. That was Wednesday. By Thursday night I had finished the back and started the fronts.

Why am I showing you this and giving you a timetable of the events? Yesterday, in an email conversation, Rachel indicated that she was jealous that I knit half a Starsky back in one day. So, naturally, I had to finish the back by the end of the day. In other words, I wrote this post with the sole purpose of driving Rachel insane with jealousy over my knitting speed. I have to do something to get to Rachel now because once I’m finished knitting this sweater, I’m going to have to endure Rachel’s taunts until kingdom come. What are friends for?

Don’t Tug on Superman’s Cape

2007-02-14T13:49:00.000-06:00

When I was a young kitten, not much older than Scout is now, my mother sewed a cape for me. It was made from red wool felt and lined with red satin. It had three buttons to keep it closed—red with white polka dots. I loved that cape. I wore it whenever I could. Even though the cape didn’t have a hood, everyone called me Little Red Riding Hood. Ever since I out grew that cape, I wanted another one. And now, I finally have one.

Pattern: Karis from Rowan 36, modified
Yarn: Kid Silk Night (67% kid mohair, 18% silk, 10% polyester, 5% nylon) in Dazzle (Shiny Red!), 3 balls
Needles: US size 6 (4 mm)
Modifications:

1) Obviously I made this into a cape rather than a poncho.

2) I worked the edges and the center similar to the way that many shawls are worked. Each edge had 2 garter stitch stitches followed by a YO increase on the right side rows. In the center, right side rows were worked YO, K1, YO. In order to do this modification, I had to add a stitch to each edge and decrease a stitch in the center.

3) I worked a single crochet edging along the front edges to neaten them up.

4) Added a button to close the front, but I didn’t make a buttonhole. I just shove the button through a YO close to the edge.

One more thing:
SHINY!

Feeling the Handspun Love

2007-02-02T12:55:00.000-06:00

Remember when I went to Alaska and came home with some fiberly goodness? Well, I asked spinner extraordinaire Sarah of Morg to spin the fiber for me. Sarah—in her complete amazingness, spent months working on my fiber. It wasn’t the cleanest fiber in the world (that’s an understatement) so she had to do a lot cleaning and prep work before she could spin it.

Thanks to Sarah’s hard work and dedication, I now have over 300 yards of lace-ish-weight qiviut! It’s the ultimate souvenir from my Alaska trip: fiber bought in a fishing village from a local artist and spun by a dear friend. Sarah also sent me a copy of Arctic Lace aka The Qiviut Book. Soon I will use my lovely yarn to knit one of the patterns from this book. But for now I’m enjoying petting my skein of fluffy softness. It’s so light—holding it is like holding a cloud.

And as if all the hard work Sarah did wasn't enough, she decided to send me some more of her handspun yarn. The purpley pink hank is yarn that she spun from some Spunky Eclectic roving. I think it will make a nice contrasting trim on a sweater someday.

Thank you SO MUCH Sarah—for everything.

For you yarn p0rn addicts, gaze upon the fantastic photos that Sarah took. The photos show off the incredible spinning job that she did.

Red Hot Seduction

2007-01-26T11:02:00.000-06:00

The day after I finished the baby blanket, I picked up Lotus again. That afternoon, I made a decision. I hated Lotus. Well, not exactly Lotus—just the knitting of it. I guess I just don’t like doing colorwork. I’ve known for awhile that hate intarsia, but I thought I liked stranding. Maybe not. Or at least I’m not a big fan of doing so much stranding.

Boy was I grumpy those first few days back working on Lotus. Then I fell into a nice two-handed stranded rhythm and I was happy again. Lotus was growing quickly. “It’s not so bad after all,” I thought. Then WHAM I hit the neck shaping. Dale of Norway sweater patterns are often written such that the body is worked back-and-forth (rather than in the round) after the neck shaping. I know that there is a way to work the neck shaping without casting off so that you can continue working in the round. However, I don’t know how to do that because I know precious little about steeking. I didn’t take the time to learn because I just wanted to finish up.

Normally, when I’m working a sweater, I’m very excited about starting the sleeves because I feel like I’m almost done. This time, I cast Lotus aside and started something new. Something that has been calling me. Something that has been tempting me. Something that I had to have the moment I saw it. Kidsilk Night in Dazzle, also called SHINY RED!

Shiny Red Kidsilk seduced me into buying it without a pattern in mind. I usually don’t buy yarn unless I know exactly what I’m going to use it for. That way, I get the right amount of yarn and I’m not building up too much of a useless stash. When Peter learned that the yarn was an impulse buy, he scolded me for becoming “one of those knitters who just buy yarn to have it.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that I have always told Peter that he should be happy that I buy yarn with projects in mind and that I’m really saving him money buy doing so, blah blah blah. It helps me justify spending so much money on yarn.)

As a result of my impulsiveness and Peter’s stern looks, I had to find a pattern for the yarn and fast. I looked at various shawl patterns and various KSH patterns until I saw the Karis poncho from Rowan 36. The photo in the magazine is terrible (out of focus), so I started Googling to find photos of completed Karises. I found some beautiful examples and I learned something interesting: Karis is knit flat and seamed in the back!

What I really wanted to make from this yarn was a cape, but I hadn’t found a cape pattern that I liked. From the photos of Karis that I saw, I felt that I could knit the pattern, not seam it, add a button or ribbon, and wear it cape style! Yes, it could be so. Right after I had my little revelation, I found that E had made her Karis into a cape! I emailed her to ask her how Karis worked as a cape and she said that it looked good. We emailed back-and-forth for a bit and I mentioned that I was hoping to find someone who had the pattern because I didn’t want to buy the whole magazine just to get one pattern. E kindly offered to let me borrow her pattern! I was so amazed and thankful.

Because I’m working this as a cape, I decided to “pretty up” the front edges. This involved some fiddling with the stitch count, and changing some of the unspecified increases to yarn overs. I also had to chart the pattern because I hate reading lace patterns that are written out. But it's working out and it's knitting up quickly. Yay me! Yay E! Yay Shiny Red!

Edit to add: Amanda the lurker who left a comment on the last post--please tell me your blog url. Email me (address in side bar) or leave another comment. New blogger seems to have lost your identity. :-)

Finished Object: Pinwheel Afghan II

2007-01-22T20:41:00.000-06:00

Pattern: Oat Couture’s Pinwheel Afghan, DK weight, solid color version
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (80% Pima cotton, 20% Merino wool, 215 yards) in Alpine Lilac, 6 skeins
Needles: US size 6
Recipient: Allison and Greg’s baby
Modification: I did a provisional cast on and grafted the first and last row together.

Comments: I finished this baby blanket a week ago but didn’t get around to writing about it. As it turned out, procrastination was a good thing. Peter and I gave the blanket to the parents-to-be last night and I received the most enthusiastic response to a handknit gift that I have ever gotten—and it was from the dad-to-be, not the mom-to-be.

Allison unwrapped the gift (she knew what it was because Peter told her when I was knitting it—bad Peter) and was very happy and excited when she saw it. But Greg was fascinated. He kept studying the blanket and trying to figure out how it was made. At first, I gave a pretty general description of the construction, but he wanted to know more. He kept grilling me until I had explained how short rows worked and how to make lace.

After Greg understood the construction of the blanket, he suggested that the blanket could be made with different colored wedges. That’s right—a guy who knows basically nothing about knitting suggested a modification that is actually included in the pattern!

THEN, he suggested to Allison that the two of them learn how to knit. :) Allison didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but Greg was serious. He really wants to learn how knitting works. (I wasn’t sure if he wanted to learn to knit or just learn how the knitting changes yarn into fabric.) So, I suggested that he visit knittinghelp.com and look at the videos. I also told Greg that I would teach him to knit if he wanted.

Scout Happenings
Those of you who have sharp eyes may have noticed the chicken wire that now graces our stairwell railing. We have not taken to raising chickens in the house. (Though the idea of having fresh eggs is very appealing.) The wire is, in fact, known as Scout wire. Soon after we moved into our new home, Scout discovered that she could go outside of the railing and walk along the four-inch wide ledge—the four-inch wide ledge over a one-storey drop above a slate floor. Then, Scout learned that she could RUN along the same ledge. After watching her do this a few heart-stopping times, Peter installed the Scout wire.

Since the installation of the Scout wire, Scout has been keeping busy in other ways. Lately she has been reading Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields, a biography about Harper Lee. Scout was named after the main character in To Kill a Mockingbird—one of my all time favorite books. Mockingbird (the biography) was published last year. My parents went to hear the author speak and bought an autographed copy of the book for me. As Mr. Shields was inscribing my book, my mother casually mentioned that I named my cat after Scout Finch. So Mr. Shields added a little something for Scout. Now Scout thinks it’s her book.

Contest Results

2007-01-13T19:16:00.000-06:00

I swear it wasn't rigged.

Contest 1 Answer: Hiawatha, Iowa. (And the knitting connection is the Song of Hiawatha Stole--one of the big lace projects on my to-do-someday list.)

Twenty-two people sent in the the correct answer. Good job everyone! I numbered the correct entries 1–22 based on the order in which the answers were received.

Contest 2 Answer: 9 years

Five people guessed the correct answer, but a lot of you were very close. Again, I numbered the correct entries 1–5 based on the order in which they were received.

This random number generator gave me two numbers:
5 and 4

And the winners are:
Contest 1: Rachel
Contest 2: Stoat

A Double Anniversary Requires a Double Contest

2007-01-10T10:56:00.000-06:00

Somewhere in this month is my blogiversary. And today is my wedding anniversary. So it’s time for some contests.

When considering sponsoring a contest, I’m always torn. I’d like to get tons of entries like the contests that require the entrants to do nothing but leave a comment but I think a “contest” should involve more than drawing a name out of a hat (or a random number generator as the case may be). To solve my dilemma, I’m going to have two contests: one low-effort and one higher-effort.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The two contests have two different ways of entering! Please follow directions or your entries will not count.

Contest 1: Put a little effort in, in the nickelodeon
I went to visit my parents back in November. One of the purposes of the trip was to collect some of my stuff that’s been hanging out at their house. One precious object I retrieved was my first and only weaving project. I made this when I was in 4th or 5th grade using a loom that belonged to my elementary school. It has some mistakes (the biggest mistake is not my fault—someone screwed up when he or she warped the loom) but it’s a good beginner effort. You can see that I was already partial to pink at that age.

The elementary school that I went to had the same name as my hometown. And that leads us to the first contest: Name my hometown!

By hometown I don’t mean where I live now. I mean where I lived the first 18 years of my life. I have named this place in a post somewhere in my archives. My hometown has an unusual name and that name has a knitting connection.

To enter Contest 1: Send an email with your answer (city name AND state) to ScoutP (at) gmail (dot) com (Yes, that’s Scout’s email address, don’t abuse it!) A winner will be drawn from all correct answers.

Please forgive Scout’s grumpy expression, she just came home from the vet.

Contest 2: Take a wild guess
Another precious object that I took from my parents’ house was my wedding gown. It’s been living in this box since I got married, supposedly “preserved.” However, I notice that the veil and headpiece are turning funny colors. So much for preservation.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to have my wedding gown back in my possession. I’ve forgotten how pretty it is. I almost want to take it out of the box to wear again. And thus, the second contest: What anniversary are Peter and I celebrating today?

I’m fairly certain that I’ve never stated how long Peter and I have been married anywhere on this blog so you’ll just have to guess the number of years. You can take a wild guess or attempt an educated guess. I’m not giving any hints.

To enter Contest 2: Leave a comment on this post with your guess. A winner will be drawn from all correct answers.

Prizes!
I supposed you want to know what you’re playing for. The winner of Contest 1 will get his or her choice of the three prizes shown below. (Yes, three prizes for two contests, I can count, I just wanted to give the winners options. Only two prizes will be awarded.) After the Contest 1 winner selects a prize, the winner of Contest 2 will select a prize.

Prize 1: A slightly used copy of Vogue Knitting Accessorize. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I bought this book. I don't usually knit accessories. It does have some very nice patterns in it, but nothing that I'm dying to knit.
Prize 2: Yarny surprise! At least 4 full balls/skeins/hanks of yarn mostly left over my past projects. You know that I like to knit with natural and good quality fibers, so that’s what will make up most of the yarny surprise. (No, the yarny surprise is NOT in that bag, I was too lazy to pull out the yarn from my stash and that was the only plain brown paper bag that I could find.) I will say that Brown Sheep and KnitPicks will be represented in the yarny surprise.
Prize 3: Jewel-toned cotton yarn. This yarn was partly used then frogged from sweater that I never finished. I planned to use this yarn for knitting toys, but I’ll never get around to it.

Deadline: Have your answers in by noon CST on Saturday January 13, 2007. Winners announced soon after that.

Edit to add: I have enabled comment moderation for the duration of this contest. So don't worry if your comment doesn't show up immediately. Remember to follow the rules for Contest 1!

You all are . . .

2007-01-08T16:33:00.000-06:00

. . . too kind
Thanks for the comments on Gathering Intentions. The sweater has already gotten a great deal of wearing time—and even endured it first stain. Lucky for me, the chocolate ice cream came out in one wash. Yay, for machine washable sweaters.

. . . too funny
After I expressed my desire to knit something simple, some of you recommended knitting socks. hahahaha! Ok, I could knit socks. I even looked at some of my stash sock yarn and considered knitting socks, but something much better came along.

A friend of mine (ok a mostly a friend of Peter’s) is expecting a baby. Peter had told me that said friend was due in February. Over the summer I completely ignored the impending baby, thinking that February was so far off and that I had plenty of time to knit up a baby blanket.

Of course, now it’s practically February and I just learned that the friend’s doctor now thinks the baby will come early. Eep! So I began a baby blanket a little over a week ago. It’s Oat Couture’s Pinwheel Afghan again. Once again I must say that I LOVE this pattern. I could rave about all of its great qualities, but then I would be repeating myself. I said it all before.

I took this photo last week when I thought I was going to blog. But then I didn’t. I’m now nearly 5/8th of the way finished with the blanket. With any luck, I will finish this week and the blanket will arrive at the friend’s house before the baby does. This baby blanket is a dusty lavender color. I was going to knit a pink blanket, but Peter talked me out of it reminding me that the friend’s next child might be a boy. Oh well, everything can’t be pink.

Oh, and the blanket is being display on part of our new sectional. What do you think? It’s big and fluffy. The dark brown bits are leather (not the dark brown pillows) and the cushions and pillows are microfiber. It’s my attempt at finding furniture that the cats can’t completely destroy.

Tune in next time for a contest. Yes you heard right. You too could win yarn! Or at least something yarn related.

Finished Object: Gathering Intentions

2006-12-27T09:39:00.000-06:00

Excuse the wonky colors in photo. The colors in the photo below are more accurate.*

Pattern: Gathering Intentions from Inspired Cable Knits, smallest size +
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease (50% cotton, 50% acrylic, 100 g) in pink, less than 7 balls used. Yarn was a gift from Barbie.
Needles: US size 7

Modifications:
1. I wanted something between the smallest size and the next size up, so I added a few stitches to the fronts and back. Then, I adjusted for the extra stitches in the shoulder shaping.

2. I did the set up rows as described for the back on the front and both sleeves. I asked Fiona Ellis (the book author) why she didn’t include the set up rows on the other parts of the sweater and she gave me a wholly unsatisfying answer. If you want to know the details, email me.

3. Instead of making two I-cords for the hem and sewing one to the inside and one to the outside, I made one long I-cord and threaded it through the knitting. I did the same for the I-cord tie at the sleeve.

4. Adding stitches to the front and back and using short-row shoulder shaping created a mess at the shoulder seams. Normally, I decrease two stitches across cables when I reach the end of the cable, but this didn’t look quite right. After much messing around, I ended up doing cable crossings on my 3-needle bind-off row. The word fiddly is an understatement. I needed to grow at least one more hand. Unfortunately, the nuclear radiation from my smoke detectors was not enough to cause a spontaneous mutation and I had to forge ahead with just two hands.

Bone-Head Move: As you can see, only the left sleeve has a tie. I knew that I wanted to put the tie on the left sleeve because I’m right handed and a tie on my right sleeve would be sure to end up in any food I ate or cooked while wearing the sweater.

Naturally, when I started setting in the sleeves, I didn’t bother to look at the sleeves because, as we all know, sleeves are interchangeable. That’s why most patterns say, “make two.” You see the flaw in my logic, don’t you? I did a great job sewing the left sleeve to the right side of the sweater.

General Comments: I love this sweater already. Wearing it is like wearing a comfortable old sweatshirt. (The ties are reminiscent of the shredding cuffs and hem of the sweatshirts that I refuse to throw out.) A cotton sweater is much more practical in Houston than wool sweaters. However, if I did this sweater again, I would make the body a bit longer.

* It's interesting that this photo looks greenish on one of my computers but looks okay on the other computer. And the sweater looks practically fluorescent on the first computer and just find on the second. Oh well. It's not a scary pink sweater.

The Good, The Bad, and . . .

2006-12-22T08:09:00.000-06:00

The Good

Bliss had a contest recently. It was one of those contests that I like entering (just leave a comment!) but ~~never~~ rarely win (random drawing). Amazingly, my named was picked. I think it was fate. The prize was sock yarn, but not just any sock yarn. No! This sock yarn is the exact same yarn as the yarn with which I made my only pair of adult socks. Does this mean that I have to make the same socks again? I hope not.

Anyway, my prize arrived yesterday and it made me squeal in excitement. Bliss sent more than just the sock yarn! She sent a little pattern booklet, a Pop Top needle holder thingy, and chocolates! I had to take this photo right away because I wanted to eat the chocolates. *burp* Thank you so much Bliss!

The Bad

Last time I was here, I promised to do some complaining. You see, lately, I haven’t had much desire to knit. At least I haven’t had much desire to knit the projects that are currently on the needles. Perhaps ripping Lotus three times was starting to get to me. Perhaps knitting pink cables is starting to get boring. (That can’t be true!) Who knows why I have the knitting blahs? For days I’ve been poking at Lotus and Gathering Intentions hoping that they would either magically finish themselves or magically turn into something that I want to knit.

The sad part is that I don’t know what I want to knit. Or at least I didn’t know what I wanted for days. Just the other day I realized what I want to do—I want to knit some plain boring stockinette. That’s right! I want to knit without looking at my hands! I want to knit without thinking about what I’m doing! I want to knit something so quickly that it amazes everyone around me!

I think this is the first time I’ve ever wanted to knit nothing but stockinette. And that, my friends, is a problem. I have yarn for a couple cabled sweaters. I have yarn for a couple of lace sweaters. I have yarn for a few lace shawls. I do not have yarn for a stockinette sweater. In fact, I don’t even have any stockinette sweaters in my “to do” list. Sure I could find a nice stockinette sweater pattern and the buy the yarn, but my stash is so out of hand right now. It needs to be knit down.

Sigh.

I can’t abandon my current projects. That would not be good for me. One of the biggest motivations in my life is the act of finishing things. And I can’t start a new project. With two large works in progress, starting a new one would drive me batty. So I’ve decided that I have to push on and finish up Gathering Intentions. Perhaps finishing something will give me a knitting high.

Since the last time you saw this sweater, I’ve finished the front and most of the sleeves. I already attached the front and the back together because I was messing around with the getting the cables looking good with the shaped shoulders. FYI—cables, short-row shoulder shaping, and the 3-needle bind off is not a good combination. Much fiddling happened. (Perhaps that’s why I’m not so thrilled about this sweater anymore?)

With any luck, this sweater will be completely finished next week.

The No Longer Ugly

I ripped and reknit the offending rows on Lotus. Then, I duplicate stitched the flowers. I know some of you thought the previous flower didn’t look so bad, but don’t you all agree that this flower is millions of times better?

Rip, Rip, Rip Little Stranded Sweater

2006-12-13T17:00:00.000-06:00

First, listen to this. (At least the beginning of it, okay?) That’s where the title came from.

Well, I was sailing along on Lotus for a good while. Naturally, that fact meant that I was due for another session of sweater ripping. I had reached a point where two not so good things were happening. First, the spaces between the brown stitches were getting long. In other words, the brown floats were getting long. Secondly, the pattern required me to use three colors in a single row. And to paraphrase what Theresa said here, knitting with three colors is much harder than knitting with two colors.

So I came up with one of my brilliant-in-theory-but-ugly-in-practice solutions. I would do a quasi-intarsia-stranded knitting thingy. (“Thingy” is a very technical term. It is similar to that other highly technical term, “stuff.”) The idea was that I would cut a strand of the brown yarn, use it to knit the narrow brown section, drop the brown yarn, knit around the sweater repeating the process. Then on the next row, I would carry the brown yarn backward from the end of the brown section back to the beginning of the brown section and knit across again. Brilliant, no?

I reasoned that these “backward floats” would not look much different from the regular floats AND, if I was successful in keeping the floats loose, the knitting would look no different than regular stranded knitting. I was correct on the first point, but not correct on the second point. Although my backward floats were sufficiently loose enough, the knitting looked weird. A little pinched. See? (Again, if you don’t see it, just pretend that you do.)

Now I know that it’s not THAT bad, but I can tell and if I leave it that way, I will forever glare at that section of the sweater and will always imagine that it is much more pinched than it actually is. So the offensive section has to go and I have to decide on how to rework these rounds.

My options are these:
1. Duplicate stitch those brown sections.
2. Have long brown floats AND somehow make 3-color stranding work for me.

I’ve decided to go with ~~the easy way~~ option 1 first, particularly because I already have strands cut to the duplicate stitching. Also, if I decide that I don’t like it that way, ripping out the work will be a lot less painful. If I were to do option 2 and then NOT like the way it looked, I would be cursing loudly as a ripped each and every triple-stranded stitch out.

Tooting my own horn

By the way, did you all see my “Extreme Weaving” in the most recent Knitty? Scroll down! That's the wrong side of my Moni. I believe that Theresa thought I was a bit touched in the head for doing that much weaving. But then I give everyone lots of reasons to think that I'm touched in the head. Why should this be any different?

Tune in next time when Laura complains about being in a knitting funk and attempts to resurrect the stalled out Gathering Intentions.

A Partial Meme

2006-12-12T10:58:00.000-06:00

Barbie and Valerie did a Christmas meme and I thought I’d join the cool kids and play along, too. However, as I was considering the questions, I decided that one question in particular would make a much more interesting story than the entire meme would. So here’s my answer to:

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:

(Well maybe not a “favorite” memory, but certainly a very memorable memory.)

When big brother and I were young, we played a lot of “let’s pretend” games. One of our favorite games was Fort. We didn’t have a permanent playhouse or anything like that, so we had to construct a Fort every time we played the game. Our Forts were sometimes two chairs with a sheet over them, sometimes the space behind the couch (with the couch cushions pulled up to provide extra walls), sometimes old boxes, and sometimes the tree in the front yard that we liked to climb. Basically anything that we could get our hands onto could become a Fort.

Like all forts, our Forts were in constant peril. Occasionally we had to defend our Fort from heavily armed unnamed attackers. Other times we had to survive a long brutal winter on meager supplies. Or perhaps we had to fight off wild animals while exploring the surrounding wilderness and living off the land.

One afternoon in December, big brother and I were left alone to amuse ourselves. Dad and gone out somewhere and Mom and gone to lie down because she had a headache. We were instructed to stay inside the house and keep quiet. (No, don’t call CPS on Mom, we generally didn’t get into trouble.) Big brother decided it was a good time to play Fort. I was either four or five at the time and big brother (as always) was a year older.

Back then, our family had an artificial Christmas tree. It was one of those old style trees with branches that had to be inserted one-by-one into the tree “trunk.” If you’ve ever seen one of those trees, you know that they weren’t full and lush like the artificial trees that you can buy today. You could see through that tree.

You know where this is going, right? Well, big brother took one look at the Christmas tree and declared that it would be our Fort that afternoon. We were rather small, there was a gap between the tree and the wall, and lots of space under the tree—it was perfect. Soon we were well established in our Fort and began the daily chores that residents of all Forts had to perform. We were cooking and cleaning and repairing the crumbling walls of our Fort.

Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. TIMBER! We surveyed the damage: the tree had landed on the coffee table, the lights and the paper chains were still on the tree, but tinsel, paper “snowflakes,” and odd-shaped ornaments made by childish hands were scattered all over the floor. Some of the tree braches had even come out of the trunk. We were horrified. No only did we destroy our Fort, we destroyed Christmas!

I started to cry. Santa would never come now! Where would he put the presents? Why would he even bring presents to a pair of bad little children? But big brother grabbed my hand and bravely marched down the long hallway to Mom and Dad’s room. We crept in and climbed on the bed. Big brother nudged Mom and said, “Mommy? Mommy? A disaster happened!” (Yes, those were his exact words according to Mom.)

I don’t really remember what happened after that. Mom probably helped us clean up our “disaster.” I’m sure we were scolded and punished. But Santa came anyway. Perhaps he knew it was just an accident.

I'm Stranded

2006-12-05T20:51:00.000-06:00

Believe it or not, I’ve joined another KAL. But don’t worry, I’m not becoming a joiner. Like the other KALs I’ve joined, this KAL is one that happened to coincide with my knitting schedule. I’ve joined Stranded: The Colorwork Challenge. So here’s the first bit of KAL-age:

What are your projects for this knitalong?

Dale of Norway Lotus. I think that will be enough of a project for me. After all, I’ve frogged the entire thing once and frogged back several rounds a second time.

The second frogging incident was a result of my laziness. I had read all about yarn dominance and began my project with the yarns held in appropriate hands: the background pink in right hand and the dominant white in my left hand. All was right in the world. Then, I reached a transition point in the pattern—white becomes the background color and pink becomes dominant.

Of course, this transition doesn’t happen in one round. Oh no! That would be too easy. The transition happens over about five rounds and in those five rounds, part of the pattern repeat has white dominant and part of the pattern repeat has pink dominant. To keep the appropriate colors dominant, I would have to switch the yarns back and forth in my hands several times as I worked the rounds. Naturally, I found the switching annoying and didn’t do it. I simply picked a round in which to switch hands “once and for all” and knit on my merry way. Bad choice.

You can plainly see where I switched hands. Looks bad, doesn’t it? Okay, I know you’re all thinking that I’m being crazy and seeing things again, but humor me. Tell me how awful it looks. Don’t worry, I’ve frogged the offending rows and reknit and all is right with the world again.

Is this your first colorwork project? If it isn't, what was your first, and has it survived the test of time?

My first colorwork was also my first knitting project ever—a Sweater Curse sweater. I have no idea if the sweater is still around. I’ve done other colorwork since then, but Lotus is my first project involving steeks.

Random Knit Blog-age:

The fate of the Swallow Tail Shawl has been decided. Rachel offered to send me replacement yarn in exchange for the shawl. I’m sure it’s no secret that I’m a process knitter. Why else would I knit a gazillon wool sweaters that are horribly impractical for life in it’s-too-hot-here-Houston? So, I jumped at Rachel’s offer. Weee! Now I get to knit with cashmere AGAIN! To show my gratitude to Rachel, I won’t link to a goofy photo of her (like I did here) or remind her about how she’s a failure at being an apathetic sock knitter.

Cat Blog-age:

I never quite understood why so many of you accused me of having a stuffed cat (or a drugged cat) whenever I showed a photo of Scout mugging for the camera. That is, I didn’t understand until now. I went to my parents house for a visit at the end of last month. While I was there I tried to take a photo of my “other” cat, Sam. Sammy was my cat until my mother decided that she liked him and wouldn't let me take him to Texas when I moved here. Considering the fact that Mom has never liked any animal before Sam*, I allowed him to stay with Mom. While I was home, I tried to take a good photo of Sam. I particularly wanted show off his pretty blue eyes. He didn’t seem to understand what I wanted.

Yes, his eyes were open and he was looking at the camera each time I pressed the shutter button! After chasing him around with a camera for a couple days, he had enough. But anyway. See the bit of blue carpet next to Sam? That’s the color of his eyes. Although Sam and the house were obtained separately, they are a matched set. I tried to talk Mom into letting me take Sam this time. Dad was ready to pack him up and toss him on the plane with me, but Mom said, "Sam is used to being an only cat." I guess that's a no.

* Mom has to be in the running for the Best Mom Ever for her tolerance of all the pets that big brother and I had. Mom really doesn't like pets at all. When big brother and I were growing up, she wouldn't interact with our pets and flatly refused to touch them unless absolutely necessary (such as when they were bothering her). Officially, big brother and I had one dog, two cats, three rabbits, two hamsters, two chicks, and a bunch of fish. Then there were the countless number of animals that "followed us home." These "foundling" animals were usually dogs but we ocassionally found cats and I once found a feret. (The feret was immediately sent packing by Mom.)

FO: IK Swallowtail Shawl

2006-11-29T08:34:00.000-06:00

. . . and I'm back! Okay, I came back home last week but I've been extremely busy since then. As a result I have lots to say, but I'll limit my blatherings to knitting.

Swallowtail Shawl

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits Fall 2006
Yarn: Belisa Cashmere in pink (100% cashmere, 500 yards/ball), less than one ball
Needles: US size 4, 3.5 mm
Finished Dimensions: 57 inches wide, 25.5 inches tall

Comments:

1) I cast on for this project because I needed airplane knitting. Lugging big sweater pieces on airplanes was not my idea of a good time. Plus, my sweaters are on long metal circular needles, the possession of which would have marked me as a terrorist when going through TSA security. If I hadn’t been flying, I probably wouldn't have made this shawl at this time.

2) I’m not terribly excited or pleased with the way the shawl turned out:
• I still have 9 grams of the original 50 grams. That means a whole 90 yards of this delicious cashmere is going to waste.
• The gauge is a bit too big for the yarn. But going down a needle size would produce an even littler shawl. Plus, I only have one TSA approved set of knitting needles and they are size 4!
• The shawl is pretty tiny and it’s bigger than the dimensions given in the pattern! Scarf would be a better name for it. Here’s a size comparison between the Shaped Triangle Horse Blanket and the Swallowtail Scarf. The Horse Blanket doesn’t even fit on the bed. The Scarf, on the other hand, is a good size for a Scout Blanket. (In fact, Peter calls this shawl Scout’s Shawl.)

3) Is the Swallowtail Scout Blanket destined for the frog pond? Maybe. Probably. I’ll keep my eyes out for a better pattern. I know what I’m looking for now: a rectangular lace scarf that has a very short row repeat and no border so that I can use up every last bit of cashmere goodness. Yes I’m serious about frogging it—I didn’t even trim the ends so that I could pick them out when the time comes.

See you soon!

2006-11-17T17:43:00.000-06:00

I'm going on a short vacation starting tomorrow. Internet access may be spotty. I'll answer emails and such when I return at the end of next week. Scream at me if you want special attention.

Happy Turkey Day to all!

Paying penance for sins against the Fair Isle gods

2006-11-14T14:19:00.000-06:00

For give me Fair Isle gods, for I have sinned . . .

Some of you may remember that I purchased a kit for the Dale of Norway Lotus sweater waaaay back at the beginning of the year. I had intended to knit that sweater during the spring and summer figuring that it would keep me occupied during my long “no buying yarn” months.

Right.

As all of you probably noticed, I did not knit the sweater over the summer. In fact, I didn’t even take the yarn out of the bag until this past weekend. What took me so long? Well, honestly, I was a bit fearful of starting the sweater because I did not want to swatch for it.

Normally I am a very dedicated and compulsive swatcher when it comes to working on pieces where size matters. (When size doesn’t matter, I pretend that I don’t know what the word swatch means.) I knit good-sized swatches, I wash them, block them, and then measure them. If a swatch is not up to snuff, I repeat the process.

Now that I have sung my own praises about my excellent swatching technique, I have a confession to make. I don’t swatch in the round—not even for pieces that will be ultimately knit in the round. I know the swatch police would like to arrest me for this practice, but they shouldn’t. I have learned, through experience, that my flat-knitting gauge does not differ from my in-the-round knitting gauge. So no problems! Usually.

Lotus is obviously a Fair Isle sweater and, like all Dale of Norway Fair Isle sweaters, is knit in the round. Now I may think that I’m the most perfect even stockinette knitter in the world, but I am not foolish enough to think that my gauge knitting Fair Isle flat is exactly the same as my gauge knitting Fair Isle in the round. On the contrary, I know without even trying that my gauge knitting Fair Isle flat will be drastically different from knitting it in the round. That’s why I didn’t start Lotus sooner—I didn’t want to swatch Fair Isle in the round.

But over the weekend I bit the bullet. I started swatching for Lotus. And I really, truly tried to swatch it in the round. I tried the long-float-across-the-back method and the knit-tube-to-cut-open method but both methods were so fiddly for me that I was sure that I wasn’t going to get an accurate gauge measurement anyway. Plus the swatches looked like crap. So the swatches were frogged and I knit the dang swatch flat. Shame on me.

I know that I was asking for trouble but I felt that the troubles that I was inflicting on myself for knitting the swatch flat would be equivalent to the troubles that would happen if I depended on the gauge from an ugly swatch produced by an overly fiddly method. And, I reasoned, at least if I knit the swatch flat, I wouldn’t be irritated making the swatch. I’m sure many of you would tell me that doing Fair Isle on the purl side is rather fiddly as well, but at least it’s a fiddliness that I have dealt with before and that I can manage without wanting to throw the knitting across the room.

So I knit the swatch flat. Initially the gauge was a bit tight, but a nice bath and overnight air drying caused the swatch to bloom to just the right size. I cast on with only minor anxiety.

I knit the bottom border. Hmmm. Seems a bit too wide. Oh well, you can’t really measure a narrow piece like that on the needles. La de da. After knitting the border, I measured the length of my needle—it’s supposedly a 40” Addi, but it’s really a 38.75” Addi. Cheaters. But at least that explains why the piece will fit on the needle when joined in the round. Perhaps the piece isn’t too wide after all. La de da. I started the Fair Isle bit. I knit and knit and knit. 270 stitches + 6 cutting stitches every round is a lot to knit.

Then, for some reason, I felt compelled to measure my gauge. It is TOO BIG. Imagine that. It’s off by one lousy stitch over four inches, which is close, but as my junior high history teacher always said, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” One lousy stitch over 270 stitches is 1.5 inches. That’s 1.5 inches of extra ease on something that will already have about 3 inches of ease. Also, that gauge was measured before washing and blocking so the final gauge is probably off by more than one lousy stitch. Nope. It isn’t going to work.

It shall be frogged. I will go down a needle size. I will measure my gauge again and hope and pray that it will be right.

One shining point in my sad trip to the frog pond—I’ll be able to replace the ugly, curling mesh border pattern with a simple, sturdy, non-curling garter stitch border.

What does one do after she’s offended the Fair Isle gods? Go pay homage to the Cable gods, of course!

Baby Aran and Ruffles: Two FOs for the Price of One

2006-11-10T14:50:00.000-06:00

I finished two projects last week but never got around to blogging about them. I guess I was distracted by the bobblectomy. Without further ado, I present a sweater and a scarf:

Baby Aran

Pattern: Heirloom Aran Baby Set (but just the sweater, not the hat) from Interweave Knits Spring 2004, size 12 months
Yarn: Rowan 4-Ply Soft in color 370 “Whisper,” 100% merino wool, 191 yards per ball, 3 balls used
Needles: US size 3
Recipient: Nephew Loganberry
Comments:
1) I didn’t do any modifications to this sweater. I didn’t even use a 3-needle bind-off for the shoulder seams because the sweater has saddle shoulders.

2) You’ll notice that Scout is not modeling this sweater. Putting a cat into a pullover and getting her to pose for photos is much harder than draping a cardigan over her back. Unfortunately for Scout, I still tried to get a ~~torture~~ modeling photo anyway. Yes, that is the only photo that I managed to take before she started trashing around. I had to get the sweater off her FAST.

3) I still need to find some good buttons to put on the button placket. However, I find the button placket position to be a bit weird.

See button placket.

See saddle strap covering up entire button placket.

Uh, aren’t you supposed to sew buttons onto the button placket? If I did that, the saddle strap wouldn’t sit straight. I’m confused. Should I sew the buttons right where the placket meets the front of the sweater? Is the placket there just so that one doesn’t have to sew the buttons right on the top edge of the front?

Ruffles

Pattern: Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Handmaiden Silk Maiden in Berry, 50% silk, 50% wool, 300 yards, 1 hank
Needles: US size 7
Finished length: 56 inches, a decent length for a “decorative” scarf
Cat: Scout (I love it when she cocks her head like that)
Peter’s Sarcastic Comment: “Wow, it looks so warm!”
My Comment: I washed the scarf and now I wish I hadn’t. The yarn became much more drape-y and my nice tight fusilli spiral is now floppy. *sigh* But I still love it because it’s soft and curly and red.

Bobblectomy Tutorial

2006-11-08T14:50:00.000-06:00

Instructions on how to remove unslighty bobbles.

Remember my bobble-ful Serenity sweater? I threatened to cut off all the bobbles when I got the sweater back from Yarntopia. Well, the sweater is still there, but I decided to try some practice bobblectomies to see how annoying it would be.

So here it is, just for you, my first bobblectomy!
(click photos for biggie versions)

The starting swatch. I made a few practice bobbles (just in case I screwed up) and then started the Serenity cable pattern. I'm using some very bright, leftover Encore.

First, anchor the stitches above and below. This will prevent the stitches from dropping and will give you some guidance after the bobble is gone. Leave the stitch markers in place until you're happy with your work.

Put a stitch marker in the stitch below. This bobble was started by k1, p1, k1 into one stitch. So here's a marker in that stitch.

Put a marker in the stitch above. Note that the marker goes through both legs of the stitch above! This bobble ended with sl1, k2tog, psso. The big-ish stitch below the marker in the photo was the last stitch of the bobble.

Find the middle stitch of the bobble. I put a marker in just to show the stitch. You don't have to find the stitch exactly in the middle, but you should be close. CUT one of the legs of the middle stitch.

Unravel both ends. The bottom will unravel easily, but the top will need to be picked out. When you're done, you should have one end on the right of the hole and one end on the left.

Now you need to replace the bobble with a stitch—in this case a knit stitch. I'm starting with the end on the right of the hole. First, thread the yarn up (from back to front) through the stitch below (your stitch marker should still be there to help you).

Next, thread the yarn through the stitch above—go through both legs of the stitch! Again, use your stitch marker for guidance. (Your needle will go down through the right leg and up through the left leg. Photo shows both happening at once.)

Finally, thread the yarn down through the stitch below.

Tada! A new stitch where the bobble used to be! I removed the bottom marker but left the top one so you could see where the new stitch was created.

Now thread both ends to the back of the work and weave the ends in opposite directions. The end that was to the right of the hole should be woven to the left, and the end that was to the left of the hole should be woven to the right. Use this article by the s'wonderful Theresa for help in weaving ends.

Weave through a few stitches in each direction, making the back of the work nice and tidy. Trim ends.

And here's the cable pattern with one bobble removed. I followed the same technique that I showed above except I replaced the bobble with a purl stitch.

The whole process worked as I anticipated it would, but I'm not sure I would want to repeat it so many times for the sweater. Plus, the thought of cutting all that beautiful yarn into short bits makes me cry.

Happiness is . . .

2006-11-03T11:33:00.000-06:00

. . . meeting your friends for the first time.

Last night was a spectacular night at the Central Houston SnB. I finally met two Houston knitbloggers who I have been dying to meet: Drew The Crochet Dude and Elizabeth of a Mingled Yarn. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me to take photos. Perhaps I’m not a dedicated enough knitblogger. Some day I will learn to drag my carmera wherever I go.

Drew had a surprise for me: he brought the final proofs of Men Who Knit & the Dogs that Love Them so that I could see them! The book is amazing. I can’t wait to get my own copy—I’m sure that some of the dog sweaters could be made Scout-sized.

. . . Fuzzy Feet!

Pattern: Fuzzy Feet by the fabulous Theresa available at Knitty
Yarn: Patons SWS in Natural Plum (70% wool, 30% tofu), two balls
Needles: US size 11 DPN
Comments: I purposely tried not to have matching stripes on the slippers. I figured that if I tried to make them match and they didn’t match I would be much more annoyed than I would be if the stripes didn’t match at all. But look! The stripes tried as hard as they could to match up anyway.

The texture of the felted fabric looks sort of like I knit with boucle yarn. I suppose it’s the unfelted ~~tofu~~ soy part of the yarn. The soy part certainly didn’t interfere with the felting process. This stuff felted fast!

Some random photos:
Prefelting:

On Scout:

Yes, her paws are really in the slippers. After the last post of Scout some of you to accused me of having a stuffed cat and/or drugging poor little Scout. However, neither is true. Scout just helps me out with these photos. Sometimes. She didn’t want to put on the Fuzzy Feet at first.

“STOP it Mommy! I have teeth
and I’m not afraid to use them!”

An Announcement and a Reid FO Report

2006-10-31T11:47:00.000-06:00

Recently, my ~~old~~ former college roomie took up knitting. I have been watching her progress with great interest and have been quite pleased that she never stooped to knitting a garter stitch fun-fur scarf. Anyway, she just produced her first ever sock. See it here and tell her what a wonderful job she's done. She even grafted the toe closed!

Reid

Pattern: Reid from Knitty, 2 year size
Yarn: Patons Grace in pink (4 balls) and blue (part of a ball)
Needles: US size 5 and 6, crochet hook of an appropriate size (Size gray in my own personal crochet-hook sizing system. I can never remember the real sizes.)
Recipient: Niece Eva
Cat: Scout

Modifications: I started working the picot edging as specified in the pattern: work a round of single crochet then work a round of single-crochet picots. But when I finished, I thought that the edging looked too clunky—it needed something more delicate. So I ripped the picot round and tried a slip-stitch picot round. The combo of single crochet then slip-stitch picots looked nice, but alas, I found doing the slip-stitch picots very awkward. So I ripped out all the single crochets and did a single-crochet picot round directly onto the sweater. I think it looks good now—and it’s a lot faster.

(Don't let all this fancy-schmancy crochet talk make you think that I know something about crochet. Everything I know comes from the big fat Vogue Knitting book.)

Oh and I did a 3-needle bind off for the shoulder seams. Do I really need to say that again? Maybe I should just tell you when I DON’T do a 3-needle bind off.

Oopsie(?): I knit the sleeves as directed (“work all rows of upper sleeve chart, etc.”) and I probably shouldn’t have. Or I should have dry-blocked the sleeves to see how long they were after working the sleeve increase chart. But I didn’t dry block and when I actually blocked the sleeves to the size specified in the pattern after binding off, I didn’t think that the lace pattern was open enough. So I made another one of my brilliant snap decisions: “I’ll just make the sleeves longer! That way Miss Eva can wear the sweater for a longer time.” Um, yeah. Perhaps if Eva is part Neanderthal she could wear it. (No, I’m not saying that my brother or my SIL are Neanderthals. It’s a joke about having long arms. It must be a bad joke if I think I have to explain it.)

General thoughts: Overall it was a nice, quick knit. The lace pattern is easy to memorize and the results are cute. Just dry-block those sleeves to check the length, okay?

A Nip in the Air

2006-10-29T14:59:00.000-06:00

Well, grumpy blogging didn’t go over too well, now did it? I’m over my whininess and am bouncy and cheerful as ever. Now I’m just busy as heck with work--I have a “another freelancer flaked out on us and this was due two weeks ago so could you bail us out now” project. Yes, much fun. But at least it’s work. Anyway.

The other morning, I woke up and felt cold. “There’s a nip in the air!” I told Scout. So, Scout and I scurried down the stairs to look at the thermometer. Burr--54ºF! Is it really true? Obviously, it must be time to make some winter accessories. (For now, we’ll forget that it warmed up to nearly 80ºF later that day and then went back to summer for the rest of the week.)

So what’s on deck in my knitting line up? Well, I have some nice yarns in the stash that have been waiting to be knit up. First up, Some beautiful Silk Maiden (50% merino 50% silk) in the Berry colorway from Handmaiden Yarns. I bought this yarn a few months ago from Yarntopia with a plan:

Yup that’s the much overdone Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style. Yes, I’m well aware that it’s a bit of a cliché and that it’s boring as all get-out to knit. But I’m knitting it anyway because I always wanted a fusili scarf. Something about the corkscrew that’s so whimsical that I can’t resist it. Sure it won’t keep me warm, but who cares? It’s cute and I live in Houston. At least I’m using my knitting backward technique to save myself some aggravation.

Next, a furry hat that will clash nicely with the curly scarf. I guess I won’t be able to wear the two items at the same time. I’ll be making Wendy Bernard’s Last Minute (not) Purled Beret with this pink fluff. The pink fluff is the 100% bunny yarn that Valerie sent me earlier this year. I’m not going to turn the hat inside out because I don’t want a purled hat. I want a knit hat.

I’m hoping that this project doesn’t turn out to be a disaster. First of all, angora is not known to be a resilient fiber so it may not have the “spring” needed to make a good hat. Second, I don’t have that much yarn and frogging is not so easy. But I’m going to try anyway because I don’t know what else to do with the yarn and I want a beret, dang it! However, if it’s not looking good for the beret team after I work the ribbing. I may abandon the project.

Finally, I need some new Fuzzy Feet. The first pair that I made wore out and my feet are cold. I have some Patons SWS that I think will be perfect for the pattern. I knew that this stuff felts, but I wasn’t sure how much. Being the brilliant person that I am, I knit up a swatch, carefully measured it, and tossed it in the washer. Still being a brilliant person, I decided to let the swatch go for the whole cycle so that I could see the “maximum” felting. I wanted to be able to figure out exactly how big to knit the Fuzzy Feet so that I could have well fitting, THICK slippers when I was done. So what’s the “maximum” felting that can be done with Patons SWS? More than you would ever want for a pair of slippers. Believe it or not, that wad used to be a 5 x 5 inch square. Now it’s a blob x blob inch square. Uh. I guess I’ll just have keep an eye on the felting process. Let’s hope that I don’t screw that up.

Why wasn't Scout in that last photo? Because she was too busy playing with her fish from MonkeeMom! "Hi MonkeeMom!" says Scout. "Cleo really loves the chicken-feather toy that you gave us!"

Call me a loser

2006-10-20T01:14:00.000-05:00

Hi! Remember me? I'm back from reclusing myself away from the knitblogging world. (I know reclusing isn’t a word. I’m following the great American tradition of creating verbs from nouns by adding “-ing”.) I'm touched by the concern that some of you expressed over my recent lack of blogging. Nothing is seriously wrong over here--just a case of the blahs and a bit of a writer's block.

I had a cold a couple weeks ago and, as usual, I sat around and felt sorry for myself. I'm such a baby when it comes to being ill. As a kid, I didn't get ill very often (perfect school attendance from 5th grade until high school graduation!) so I got the short-end of the stick when it came to the attentions of Dr. Mom. In fact, my parents didn't believe me the few times that I actually was very ill. And yes I vividly remember being dismissed as "lazy" and "bratty" when I complained about not feeling well.* So now that I'm an adult and don’t have to wait for a parental unit to declare me sick, I milk it for all it's worth. "Pity me, I'm sick!"

Knitting-wise I've also been a loser. I started working on my Christmas gifts: Reid for niece Eva and Heirloom Aran for nephew Logan. Now you can see that Reid is basically finished. Seamed together, pink yarn ends weaved, picot edging worked. But notice that the ball of yarn for the edging is STILL ATTACHED to the dang sweater. It's been in that state for a week now. Pathetic. I'm just pathetic.

While the nearly finished Reid languishes in my knitting bag, the Heirloom Aran is clicking along nicely. What is it about working cables in fingering-weight yarn that I find so attractive? I was mighty disappointed to discover that I had to go up to a gigantic size 3 needle (3.25 mm for you metric types) to get gauge. There was much grousing when I put away the size 1 needle (2.25 mm). Suddenly the entire pattern was less interesting, but I cast on anyway. What else was I going to do with the yarn?

The back and the front of the aran are finished and I just started the sleeves. But now I don’t want to work on it simply because the sleeves have increases on the wrong side of the work. That’s right, I’m being crabby about having to increase on the wrong side. Why? Because not only am I a pathetic loser, I’m a whiner too. whine

So now you’ve gotten a dose of me in a foul mood and you can see why I didn’t feel like blogging. I’ll keep working on hauling myself out of this slump. A visit this weekend from Monkee and MonkeeMom should help with that.

*(The incident most deeply burned in my memory happened during a family vacation to San Francisco. We were in Chinatown shopping. At that time, Chinatown was very exciting and important to my father because Chinese Anything was impossible to find in Iowa. I started feeling bad. I told my parents. I could barely stand and couldn't bear to be inside the stuffy stores. My dad yelled at me. Called me selfish. After an hour or so of moping and yelling, he dragged me and the rest of the family halfway across the city to eat at a non-Chinatown restaurant because he thought I was complaining about being in Chinatown. But I just wanted to sit and do nothing. I couldn't eat the sandwich that he bought for me. More yelling. Finally, they took me back to our relatives’ house where I promptly began showing the less-pleasant symptoms of the stomach flu. Of course, my brother came down with the same illness the next day and my parents had to spend the rest of the vacation tag-teaming over who took care of the kids and who got to go sightseeing. Thankfully, I was nearly well by the time we had to fly home. Big brother was not so lucky.)

I could be famous if I knew who these people were

2006-10-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

As seen on Elizabeth's blog:

Who are these people?! I've heard of Marcia Cross, but that's it. And only one Asian? What's with that? I thought I looked like Lucy Liu.

That's more like it. At least I look like a chess grandmaster and two different mutants.

Regular knitting blogging to return next week, I hope. I haven't felt like writing recently.

10 Knitterly things that you didn’t know about me

2006-10-06T09:55:00.000-05:00

Before I launch into my list, I want to thank all of you for your kind words about Serenity and the Shaped Triangle Shawl. I was pleased to hear that so many of you thought that the shawl still looked good despite the variegated yarn. At the moment, I’m still trying to figure out how to wear the shawl with style. (First lesson learned: A huge variegated shawl does not go with shorts and a T-shirt.)

Now on to the 10 Knitterly things about me!

1. I love the look of colorwork: fair isle and intarsia look so interesting and intricate to me. However, I can’t stand doing colorwork. I particularly hate doing intarsia.

2. I drool over handpainted yarns, but I rarely buy them because I never know what to knit with them. My recent foray into handpainted lace is a result of a moment of weakness. I now have to take the “no handpainted/variegated yarn” pledge.

3. After learning to knit and producing three sweaters, I stopped knitting for 12 years or so. But since I picked it up again, I haven’t stopped.

4. I first learned to knit English-style but switched to Continental after learning how to knit with both hands. But when I re-taught myself after my 12-year break from knitting, I started knitting English-style again.

5. I have difficult verbalizing knitting instructions. I’m a very visual learner and am a big advocate of learning by doing. So when I “teach” someone to knit, I show him or her what to do rather than explain what to do. When I try to teach someone who isn’t a visual learner, I get frustrated and so does the student. Because of this, I have decided to stop teaching classes, though I will help people informally if they ask.

6. Don’t own and have never owned a single pair of straight needles. The only times that I have knit with straight needles were when I was teaching someone who happened to have straight needles.

7. I love seaming sweaters so much that I once considered offering finishing services for money. Then, I realized part of the reason why seaming my sweaters is fun is because I plan ahead for seaming. If I seamed someone else’s pieces, I’m sure I would be irritated by the lack of nice selvedges and properly placed increases and decreases.

8. Sometimes when I’m knitting the back of a sweater, I’ll start a new ball of yarn in the middle of a row. But only the back. And only near the bottom of the back.

9. I want to knit a sweater for Scout.

10. My nonknitted wardrobe is very simple: solid colors, clean lines. So I’m also drawn to simple knits—you know the kind—stockinette sweaters. But when I really think about knitting those sweaters, I usually decide against it because I can’t bear the thought of knitting that much stockinette. I think that’s why I knit so many cabled sweaters. The cables keep it interesting but everything is still done in a solid color. But dang, those cables take a lot of yarn!

Shaped Triangle Blanket

2006-10-02T18:43:00.000-05:00

Pattern: Shaped Triangle ~~Blanket~~ Shawl from A Gathering of Lace
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Helen’s Lace in Iris Garden (50% silk 50% wool, 1,250 yards) 1 hank
Needles: US size 4
Finished Size: 47” from “neck” to bottom point, 76” at widest point
Cat: Scout
Comments:
1. It’s HUGE. When I put it on with the top edge of the shawl against my neck, the bottom point lands midway between my knees and my ankles.

2. I did not finish all of the instructions because I was running out of yarn. However, using my handy-dandy spreadsheet and my digital kitchen scale, I knew that this would happen. Also had figured out a good stopping point: I omitted the edging along the top of the shawl. According to the instructions, after working the edging along the bottom, you’re supposed to pick up stitches along the top and do a 2-row edging that didn’t seem to add much to the shawl. By omitting that edging, I didn’t run out of yarn and I avoided binding off 436 stitches. (Scout shows how much yarn was left over.)

3. Is lace in variegated yarn successful? No. Up close it looks good, but from far away it doesn’t do it for me. I have learned my lesson. I must resist all urges to buy handpainted yarn—no matter how pretty it is.

You want a modeling photo? Scout is happy to oblige. The color of the shawl is the most accurate in this photo.

Close ups:

Blocking photo shows the true shape of the shawl:

Serenity Now! A finished object report

2006-09-29T08:39:00.000-05:00

As I knit this sweater, I couldn't help thinking about George and Frank from Seinfeld screaming, "Serenity now!" So this is my Serenity Now sweater:

Pattern: Serenity from the RYC Classic Style book, second size
Yarn: RYC Silk Wool DK in color #307 Velvet, exactly 15 balls
Needles: US sizes 3 and 6
Comments:
1. I love this sweater. The yarn is soft and cozy and the pattern is attractive.

2. You're not going to see an outdoor photo of this sweater any time soon. It's still in the 80s in Houston. A wooly turtleneck is not my idea of summer-wear. (Yes, I'm wearing shorts in this photo!)

3. I'm not certain that I'm going to keep the turtleneck part. I doubt that it will ever be practical in Houston--it's even a bit much in overactive air conditioning. But because this sweater is going on display at Yarntopia, I knit the collar as written in the pattern. But I also left the collar ends long so that I could pick them out and frog the collar at a later time.

4. I have a 36 inch bust so I knit the size "to fit 36-38 inch bust." Then, I discovered (after all the knitting was done of course) that the finished size is 41 inches. Eep! I probably would have been better off with the smallest size that has a finished size of 37 inches. Next time, I'd better study the schematics BEFORE knitting.

Also note that the sleeves are way too long. Though they are the correct length according to the pattern.

5. According to the pattern, the size I knit requires 17 balls of Silk Wool DK. I stopped knitting the collar when I had used up the 15th ball of yarn. The total length of the collar is about 2 cm shorter than the pattern specifies, but because the collar is doubled over, the collar height is about 1 cm shorter. Not a huge difference and I saved a ball of yarn. Considering that this yarn retails for about $10 a ball, it was a wise decision.

I can't say for sure that the pattern completely overestimated the yarn needed--my row gauge was slightly off so that could have affected my yarn usage. However, if you're going to knit this sweater I suggest knitting quickly so that you still have time to return unused balls of yarn if needed.

Our house is a very, very, very fine house

2006-09-26T12:23:00.000-05:00

Rachel has chastized me for not having a full blog entry with photo up within 48 hours of moving. While I always aspire to reach Rachel's level of dedication and rabidness to blogging, I have to admit that unpacking, organizing, and sleeping were higher priorities for me. Sorry if I have disappointed all of you.

This past week has been another adventure in exhaustion for us. (Mostly me. Peter seems to have an incredible amount of energy and drive to “get things done” even when the clock says that hours past our bedtime.)

Barbie called this move “The Fastest Move Ever” and that is not an understatement:

• On Tuesday, the packers had our entire house packed in under 3 hours. (And within minutes of their departure we began to unpack because we discovered that we had forgotten to set some necessary things aside.)
• On Thursday, closing on the new house took about 2 hours. Thankfully, all the people involved were kind enough to send copies of all of the papers to Peter a few days before the closing. If they hadn’t we would have been sitting there for 5 hours or more as Peter read every word and asked 10 billion questions.
• On Friday, the movers had everything out of hour old house in 2 hours and everything into the new house in 2 hours.

However, all was not peaches and cream during the move. Our refrigerator delivery guy completely screwed us over. The fridge was to be delivered on Saturday. Delivery guy calls in the morning and says that he can’t deliver it because his helper didn’t show up and he can carry the fridge to the second floor by himself. Delivery is rescheduled for Monday. Delivery guy calls up again and says that there was some mix-up with the dispatcher and delivery has to be rescheduled for Tuesday. On Monday, Peter calls to find out what time the fridge is going to be delivered. Turns out that our delivery guy LIED and told the dispatcher that he attempted delivery but we weren’t home AND the guy either quit or was fired over the weekend. He also lied to us about when the fridge would be delivered because he never did call the dispatcher. The real dispatcher told Peter that the soonest we could get our fridge is Wednesday.

But we’re well on our way to being settled in. The cats are getting used to their new palace though they seem to think that standing on the top floor and yelling is the way to get us to go upstairs. Only once did Scout think that the best way to get downstairs is to go through the railings (Peter caught her while she was desperately trying to get back onto the stairs.)

Photos of our new house (complete with captions!) can be found here. Don’t miss the series of photos of the microwave oven that’s smarter than I am.

Be Back Soon

2006-09-24T17:10:00.000-05:00

Serenity sleeves finished.
Moved.
Mostly unpacked (books and decorative stuff remain).
Cats moved in.
Exhausted.

Photos soon.

Weaving in Loose Ends

2006-09-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

Serenity Sleeves
I have abandoned all hopes of finishing Serenity before I move. I’m nearing the sleeve caps, but see at least two more days of knitting ahead of me. Then, there’s the time I need for blocking, seaming, and collar knitting. I think this could have been another 2-week sweater if life hadn’t gotten in the way. The photo is rather boring. Scout was sleeping and Elly only felt the need to walk across the sleeves, not pose with them.

Bobbles!
After tallying up the pro-bobble and anti-bobble votes, pro-bobbles won by 4 votes. However, some of the pro-bobble votes were not so much “yay bobbles!” but more along the lines of “those bobbles aren’t bad.” I’m starting to like the bobbles but mostly because the more bobbles I knit, the less enthused I was about cutting them off.

However, the simple idea of a bobble-ectomy is very intriguing to me. (Thanks to Elizabeth for coining the new word) Oh yes I have to try a bobble-ectomy. Yes, I’ll test the surgery on a scrap, not the sweater. And yes I know that the bobble has to be replaced by a purl stitch (not by a knit stitch as some of you suggested). I just want to see if it will work!

Short-Row Shoulder Shaping
Some time ago, I promise Rachel and Laura that I would write an article about short-row shoulder shaping. It’s a technique that I use on all the sweaters I knit because I think it produces a much neater looking shoulder seam. Short-row shoulder shaping gets rid of the ugly stair-step effect and it sets up for a convenient 3-needle bind-off shoulder seam.

I started writing that article and planned to submit it for the Winter issue of Knitty. I had photos planned and everything. But when I set out to find a good tutorial for the 3-needle bind-off, I found that Knitty already HAS an article on short-row shoulder shaping. Bummer. I debated whether to finish my article and simply “publish” it on this blog, but eventually decided against it. The instructions in the existing Knitty article are clear, so I directly my loyal and curious readers to that article.

Good-bye Little House in the Suburbs
This is going to be another crazy week for me and I’m not looking forward to it.
Tuesday: Packers (from the moving company, not Green Bay) are coming to pack up our house--mostly packing the kitchen, the remaining books, and clothes. We also have the final walk-through of our new house.
Wednesday: The closing for our current house.
Thursday: Cats go to the cat kennel and we have the closing for the new house.
Friday: The movers move our stuff from the current house to the new house.
Saturday: New fridge is delivered, the appliance guy comes to hook up our washer and dryer, the lady who sells blinds comes to measure our windows, and the cable guy comes to hook up our internet service.
Sunday: Pick up the cats and hope that ~~they don’t~~ Scout doesn’t freak out in the new house.

I’m moving a mere 21 miles from the suburbs into Houston, but I’m a bit scared about this move into the “big city.” I don’t like cities. I was never thrilled about living in the suburbs of a big city but cities are where the jobs are. Perhaps some day Peter and I will be able to move to a small university town (our dream) or to a goat farm (my dream) but for now, I’ll make the best of the current situation. Being less than a mile from the largest yarn store in Houston won’t hurt either.

Yarn Review: RYC Silk Wool DK

2006-09-13T19:09:00.000-05:00

Judging by the number of comments on the last post, the results of my personality test apparently did scare some people away. I will try to be more agreeable and less neurotic from now on.

But this is a yarn review! Here it is, without further ado.

Silk Wool DK is a new fall yarn from RYC. It is 50% spun silk, 50% merino wool, and 100% luxury. From the moment that Amy showed me the little bits of yarn on the color card, I knew that I wanted to knit with this yarn.

What first attracted me to the yarn was the sheen of the silk. This sheen is so intense that the yarn appears to be glowing from a light within, a quality that is difficult to photograph. The appeal of the yarn is furthered by the extreme softness of the yarn. I can easily imagine this yarn being used in a slinky, skin-tight sweater for a special evening out.

The yarn is a tightly-spun, 4-ply yarn that has a springy, bouncy feel that initially reminded me of Karabella Aurora 8. In fact, Silk Wool knits up into a fabric that behaves and feels similar to the fabric knit from Aurora 8. Thanks to the wool content, ribbing is very grabby and cables pop nicely. However, the yarn also has a nice crunch to it due to the high percentage of silk. RYC has done a masterful job blending these two fibers such that the superior qualities of each are well represented.

The yarn texture is generally smooth, though the yarn does bloom a little with washing and friction. Thankfully, the sheen of the silk is not muted by the slight surface fuzz. Silk Wool is easy to work with and is not prone to splitting, but I have snagged a few stitches as I knit. When snagged, the silk fibers tend to pull out and create a fuzzy poof in the fabric that cannot be easily worked back into the fabric. So if you have rough skin on your hands like I do, be sure to keep your hands well moisturized when working with this yarn!

I am thoroughly enjoying my experience with Silk Wool. It has already gained a place in my “favorite yarns” list. If money were no object, I could think of many sweaters that I would want to knit with it.

Silk Wool comes in 50 g balls (100 m or 109 yds) and has a recommended gauge of 22 stitches and 30 rows in 4 inches. It is currently available in ten muted colors, which include pastels and rich, dark colors. I am working with “Velvet” color #307. The RYC Classic Style book contains 16 patterns using Silk Wool. The patterns include several pullovers and cardigans, two vest, three bags, and a scarf.

Don't let this scare you away

2006-09-08T09:08:00.000-05:00

I didn't really need a survey to tell me that I'm neurotic and introverted...

My Personality


Neuroticism	82
Extraversion	7
Openness To Experience	49
Agreeableness	15
Conscientiousness	45

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

MySpace Surveys, MySpace Layouts and hi5 by Pulseware Survey Software

Bobbles!

2006-09-07T12:50:00.000-05:00

I have been happily working on Serenity for several days now. I finished the extremely ribby back in a few days and started working on the front. However, before I could knit the front, I had to chart out the cable pattern. I can’t bear to read written out cable directions. Are cable charts frowned upon in England? Neither Rowan nor Debbie Bliss ever have cable charts for their beautifully cabled sweaters. Phooey!

As I was charting away I read this: MB. MB? What’s that? Turns out that it means “make bobble.” Ugh. I didn’t know that this sweater had bobbles when I picked it. I’m not a big fan of making bobbles or looking at bobbles. Even as I study the photos of the sweater online I can’t see the bobbles very well and I know where they are!

Now, if I were making this sweater for myself alone, I would certainly leave out the bobbles that seem to interfere with the lovely cable pattern. But because I am knitting this as a yarn AND pattern sample for Yarntopia, I can’t really modify the pattern.

So here’s the first repeat of the cable pattern with the bobbles and with the bobbles pushed in. Which do you prefer?

I’m seriously considering performing bobble-removal surgery on the sweater after I get it back from Yarntopia. I think that if I make a judicious snip in the bobble yarn and unravel the bobble, I will have two long tails to weave in. But I’m not sure how it will look after doing that and I’m not sure how annoying it will be. I would have to operate on a lot of bobbles...

Now with 100% more blog material!

2006-09-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

Whew! It’s been another crazy week in my life. So much to say. But because this is a knitting blog, I’ll start with the knitting first and then move on to the drivel about my life that may interest about five of you.

Thanks!
Thank you to everyone who voted for me in the Amazing Lace challenge. I appreciate all your support. Sundaes all around!

Knitting!
Progress! Now that I’m working on the edging, the Shaped Triangle shawl is starting to look more shawl-like and less blob-like. According to my handy-dandy anal-retentive spreadsheet, I am now exactly 83.06% finished with the shawl. I’m a little nervous because when I was 75% finished, I had used more than 75% of the yarn. I’m not allowing myself to panic yet as I think I can do a little fudging at the end to save yarn if needed.

More Knitting!
Peter and I happened to be near Yarntopia on Tuesday (see below for the reason), and he suggested that we stop by. (Yes, his idea, not mine. Isn’t he great?) As soon as I walked into the store, Amy said, “You didn’t waste any time!” Huh? What?

As it turned out, Amy had sent me an email earlier that day to tell me that the yarn and pattern for my fall Yarntopia sample knitting had just come in. For reasons described below, I hadn’t seen that email. So it was all a surprise for me! I’ll be knitting Serenity from the new RYC Style booklet using RYC Silk Wool in a luscious purple color. That’s 50% silk 50% merino. Yum. I’ve swatched and will cast on this weekend. Expect a yarn review soon.

Puzzle solved!
Monkee has been hounding me about whether or not I’ve solved the crazy clues that were sent to me over my trip. It was hard, but I did manage to decode the clues. Instead of making anagrams of the FIRST letters of the words, I had to make anagrams of the LAST letters of the words. As soon as I did, the answer was obvious:
Sherry Floyd.

Yes, Sherry Floyd. Who is she? She’s no one right now, but I happen to know for a fact Monkee plans to change her name to Sherry Floyd as soon as possible. Why does she want to use that name? Well, it’s because Sherry Floyd is an anagram itself for “fleshy or dry.” Monkee, being the die-hard Texan that she is, loves Texas barbeque. And like all good Texans, she’s picky about her barbeque. She likes her barbeque to be either fleshy or dry, but not both at the same time.

Ingenious isn’t it? That Monkee sure is a clever one. If that’s not the answer to the clues, the only other possible answer is that the words are completely random and designed to drive me out of my mind. But I’m sure that can’t be the case. Monkee wouldn’t do anything like that to me.

Drivel!
Last week, I informed you that Peter and I were planning on selling our house and moving. I even complained loudly about the stager who invaded our house. Just LOOK what she made me do to my bookshelf! Peter and I have six large bookshelves and four of them look like this now. (The other two have books that I use for my work and I refused to pack them up.) I wonder if people who come into the house think we’re crazy for having so many bookshelves and but so few books.

But that day with the stager was only the beginning of an eventful six days. Here’s the play-by-play:

Friday afternoon: Peter goes to our buyer’s agent’s office to sign an offer for the place that we want to buy. At the same time the stager is in our house driving me batty.

Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday: Peter and I work furiously to do the things the stager asked. Lots of packing and stashing boxes in the attic. The last half of Sunday is used to completely clean our house from floor to ceiling. Scrub, dust, vacuum, mop, touch-up paint, repeat.

Sunday night: We get a counter-offer from the seller of the house that we want. We discuss and decide it’s good.

Monday: Call buying agent tell him to find out a couple more details from the seller, but that we were happy with the rest of the terms. Meanwhile, our house officially goes on the market--property is listed on the MLS computer, sign goes up, keybox goes on door, photographer comes to take photos of our now perfectly staged house.

Tuesday: As we’re preparing to go to our buyer’s agent’s office to sign the official offer papers, we get a call telling us that the first showing of our house will be that afternoon. We tidy up (hide the cat toys and cat beds) and leave. We finish signing papers but there’s still more time to kill before the showing at our house is scheduled to be over. Peter suggests going to Yarntopia. We do. Yarny surprise! As we’re driving home Peter says, “Wow! This day has been perfect. We’ll get home and there will be an offer on the counter.” We both laugh.

As soon as we get home, Peter calls our seller’s agent to ask her a question. Before he can ask, she tells us that we have an offer on our house. For our asking price. Offer is sent to our house. Peter reviews it. It looks good.

Wednesday: Peter calls seller’s agent to tell her that we accept the general terms of the offer but want the timing of the closing adjusted. Our buyer’s agent calls and says that our offer on the new place as been accepted and signed and we are now under contract for our new home. CELEBRATE! Seller’s agent calls to say that our requests for the adjustment of closing were accepted. We sign those papers and now our house is under contract, too. CELEBRATE! And then fall down from complete exhaustion.

Thursday on: Now it’s time for me to worry about the actual moving process…

Amazing Lace! Please vote for me!

2006-08-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

Please vote for my Alaska photos here!

Pretty Please? With sugar on top? And a cherry? And hot fudge?

We Interrupt this Blog for an Important Stress Fit

2006-08-26T20:07:00.000-05:00

Knitting is happening, but not very swiftly. I am now working on the border of the Shaped Triangle Shawl and am 75.87% finished with the entire shawl. (Note to self: crochet edgings are much faster than knitted-on edgings.)

Craziness is happening at home that's making me stressed and scatterbrained. It’s also sucking up a lot of my time. So I haven’t been answering my emails or responding to comments or leaving many comments on blogs--it’s not because I don’t love you.

In fact, we are getting ready to move. We are looking for a new house and putting our house on the market. We had a "professional stager" come in yesterday. She’s someone who comes in and tells you how to arrange all your stuff so that it looks like a place ~~that no one lives in~~ that a person would want to live in.

Before she came, I made an effort to tidy up our many bookshelves and managed to get almost all of our books on bookshelves. Remember what it looked like before? We have since bought another bookshelf and a cleared off the few "trinket shelves." So I was proud of myself to have every book off the floor. What's the first thing that the stager says? "Too many books." She instructed us to pack away 3/4 of the books. Apparently, full bookshelves make people think that we don't have enough storage space.

She also changed everything in my kitchen so that it looks like no one ever cooks there. She was quite disappointed that I didn't have any "decorative food" to place around the kitchen. Sorry lady, I eat my food, not decorate with it. I also have an unacceptably low number of "pretty perfume bottles and pretty toiletry items."

The worst part was that she wanted to get rid of all traces of the cats.
Stager: Can you get rid of the cat tree?
Me: No. The cats are stressed enough as it is, I will not take away their "safe spot."
Stager: Can you move the cat tree to the garage during viewings?
Me: It weighs more than 200 pounds! It can’t be moved easily.
Stager: Do you really need 3 litter boxes? Do you really have to have a litter box in the master bathroom?
Me: If I got rid of any of the litter boxes, the youngest cat will use the rest of the house as her litter box. I assume that’s worse than 3 litter boxes.
Stager: Pick up all the cat toys. Put away the cat beds.
Me (through teeth): Right.
Stager: You have to put away all these cat photos. But the dog photos can stay there. They’re cute and everyone likes dogs.
Me (out loud): Uh, okay.
Me (to myself): What the *beep*?!

(The cat photos are snapshots that I took of my pound kitties. The dog photos are professionally taken studio photos of the purebred dogs that Peter’s family has.)

Regularly scheduled blogging, complete with photos of pretty knitting and cute cats, will return as soon as possible.

You Got to Have Friends!

2006-08-18T18:06:00.000-05:00

Although my trip to Alaska was my biggest adventure of the year (or of many years), returning home was not a let down.

First, I went to the grocery store and found Dark Chocolate M&Ms stocked on the shelves. I promptly celebrated and patted myself on the back because I’m certain that the appearance of this product is a direct result of my constant whining about the absence of it ever since the Sith/Jedi M&Ms disappeared a couple of years ago. Of course, my whines were obviously not specific enough because I really wanted Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms.

Then, I went to my mailbox and discovered that many Knittyheads were scheming during my absence from the chat room. Cards! Many cards! Even Christmas cards and a birthday card (though my birthday was in June). Some of the cards were for the cats and Sarah of Morg’s card even contained a cat toy for my kitties. I am quite certain that Monkee instigated this scheme and devised a way to drive me batty.

Each card contains a "clue" or "hint" and the hints don't seem to be related in any way (other than being odd). I'm been trying to figure out these clues, but my attempts are not yielding anything worthwhile. I've tried anagrams and other silly things. So let's see if you can do any better:
From etcgirl: Asteroid
From Barbie*: Armadillo
From Sarah: Hamustar (not Hamster!)
From Karen: Peach and Equal (2 hints)
From Valerie: Hamburger and Fluff Puppy (2 hints)
From Monkee: Bends, Before, and Any (3 hints)

The mailbox contained even more goodies the next day: Cotton Ease!** Yes, that's the Lion Brand discontinued Cotton Ease! Ten balls in pink from my beloved, newly blog-enabled Barbie*. She must have heard me sighing over the softness of Cotton Ease and wishing that I could lay my grubby paws on some. (I couldn't find any in the stores around here before it was discontinued.) I was giddy with happiness when I opened the box. I also knew immediately what the yarn will be used for--the sweater that Meredith is making from Inspired Cable Knits. (Peter says, "Won't it look just like that other pink sweater that you made?" I responded, "That was a cardigan! This is a pullover!" Peter: "I must have said something stupid.")

*not her real name

** I am highly embarrassed to be posting this today because Rachel just accused me of receiving yarn from other people "all the time" when in fact and rarely receive yarn from other people and when I do get yarn I'm very happy about it because getting yarn from others is such a special treat and I always wish that I had the correct send-me-yarn aura that Monkee seems to have because people send her really nice yarn out of the blue all the time and it's just not fair that the people who send out yarn to other people aren't sharing the wealth with people other than Monkee but never mind about Monkee for the moment the real issue here is that Rachel is spreading lies about me again and she still claims to be my friend even though she supposedly took away part of my soul.

Amazing Lace Challenge #6: Unlikely Model

2006-08-12T15:49:00.000-05:00

I took the Shaped Triangle Shawl with me to Alaska thinking that I would get a lot of knitting done. As it turned out, I knit more in the airports than I did during the actual vacation. But, the shawl accompanied me almost everywhere I went during the vacation. The shawl went on boat rides, bike rides, and on many hikes, popping out for photo ops whenever possible. Lucky for me, unlikely models were easy to find.

Some models were inanimate objects:

A giant ship's wheel and compass

A tower of flowers

A totem pole

A stump on the beach overlooking Kachemak Bay

The deck of the Kenai Princess Wilderness lodge. (Do you see the teepee?)

The top of a 3,400-foot mountain overlooking the Harding Icefield. (This icefield is larger than Rhode Island!)

Some models were animals that indigenous to Alaska:

The skull of a fin whale (yes, it's a real skull)

A fearsome bear

A giant salmon

A former Iditarod winner and veteran racer.

(Lest you think that this dog is a pet and is therefore disqualified, take a look at where he lives. These dogs are working dogs, not pets. They live outside and are not spoiled. They are well cared for and are not mistreated. You can see that I wasn't about to let go of the knitting or the dog when having the photo taken.)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

2006-08-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

I’m home and slowly settling back into regular life. The trip was excellent and far exceeded my expectations. Alaska is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

During the first part of our trip, we traveled with Backroads on their Alaska Multisport Trip. It was our first tour-group type trip and it was extremely well organized and well run. Our trip leaders were knowledgeable and were able to handle problems with ease and speed.

The big event of the Backroads trip was the hike up to the Harding Icefield in the Kenai Fjords National Park. This was the hike that I was most looking forward to and most dreading. Even the National Park Service calls the trail strenuous (in bold letters with an exclamation mark). Yes, I hiked up that 3,400 foot mountain! It was hard but completely worth it. The views were incredible and it was an experience that I will never forget.

Another great day with Backroads was the kayaking trip around Yukon Island. It was a wet and rainy day so I didn’t take very many photos. But we saw bald eagles, a seal, peregrine flacons, jellyfish, and otters--including several mama and baby otters. We got to use an extra-long fancy fiberglass kayak because Peter is extra-tall. (You have to click on that photo to make it huge. That otter is just too cute!)

The big bike riding day was not quite as much fun for me, but Peter really loved it. He was the only one of the group that completed the entire 33-mile trip. The day was very rainy and cold and I opted to be shuttled to the top of the mountain instead of attempting to climb it with the bike. I met Peter at the top and we rode down the slippery, steep, and scary mountain together. I ended up riding about 15 miles that day.

The day after our Backroads trip ended, we went on an amazing whale-watching trip. During the morning of the trip, we followed a pod of orcas around and during the afternoon we watched a small group of humpback whales. The boat that we were on got very close to the whales and I took a ton of photos. We also saw the one thing that I really wanted to see in Alaska--puffins! We saw both tufted and horned puffins. We also saw five volcanoes including one that was steaming. Then, to make our whale-watching day even more whale-filled, we saw another group of orcas swimming behind our hotel later that evening!

The trip was not without some fiberly goodness. Although I was unsuccessful at finding some qiviut yarn, I did find some qiviut fiber at a tiny store on the Homer Spit called Local Showcase. I bought 3 oz. figuring that I could find someone to spin it for me. It’s so amazingly soft. If you’re interested, the store owner has more and I’m sure you could contact her to purchase some. (However, one has to wonder how 1 oz. could NOT be measured "by weight.")

More photos from my trip are here including two photos just for Monkee.

I thought I said that I was busy!

2006-07-29T10:14:00.000-05:00

Three posts in three days? How did I ever find the time? I have a lot to cover today so grab a beverage of your choice and get comfortable. Or simply skip reading this altogether if I’m boring you.

Topic 1: Thanks
Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement on my “help me!” post. I managed to finish all my expected work by Thursday afternoon and put out a small fire on Friday morning. So, I’m almost completely ready for our trip. I even have my knitting on my TSA approved knitting needles and a print out of the TSA rules just in case I have to convince a TSA employee that my needles are not weapons.

Peter also thanks you for all the good wishes that you sent. The bar exam is over and Peter feels confident in his performance on the test. Of course, I was not worried--this is the guy who got the second highest score in the nation on the CPA exam a few years ago.

And to those of you who got to my blog by googling “bar exam Alaska,” no one here took the Alaska bar exam. And even if I had, I wouldn’t be blogging about it.

Topic 2: More Thanks
Thank you also for your kind words about my Go With the Flow tank. I’ve worn it a lot and it’s very comfortable. I know that I knit it quickly, but I wasn’t knitting anything else during that time. And I realized that I wouldn’t be able to knit the tank while I was in Alaska because it was knit on non-TSA-approved needles. So, I wanted to finish it before we left. And heck, it’s mostly stockinette.

For those of you who asked about the shoulder seams, I’m planning to prepare something about it just for you!

Tara, cabling with this cotton did not hurt my hands. The yarn is so fine and the cables are so small that the cabling process did not seem much different from cabling with wool. However, Cotton Fine is very splitty and cabling with out a cable needle required extra care.

Topic 3: Flower
Here’s a flower for Helen. She’s getting married and wants to have a knitted flower bouquet--isn’t that a nifty idea? Helen has recruited fellow Knittyheads to help her with the flowers. She picked the Lilies pattern from Knitty for her flowers.

The flower is cute, but I found knitting it a bit fiddly. The pattern is clever, but the short rows were not fun for me. At least it knits up quickly. I have enough yarn for at least one more flower.

Topic 4: Bye!
We’re leaving for Alaska tomorrow! We will be gone for a week and a half. I’m not sure how much email access I will have during that time because I refuse to take my laptop on the trip. I want to be blissfully unconnected during my vacation. So, instead I’m looking forward to being buried under emails and unread blog entries when I come back!

While I’m gone, Monkee will be leaving the Houston area to begin her higher education in Dallas. I leave it to all of you to ~~tease her mercilessly~~ keep an eye on her for me. Make sure that she packs a toothbrush.

Amazing Lace Challenge #5: Where's Waldo

2006-07-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

For the Amazing Lace Challenge #5: Two lace projects are hiding in this photo. Can you find them?

Look Valerie! It's Finished!

2006-07-26T23:39:00.000-05:00

Just last week I was showing you a cone of yarn. This week I show you a finished tank top. Oh, I had planned on blogging in between of these two posts. I had the entry planned, photos taken, rough outline in my head…then I got busy and that particular blog topic never happened. And it probably won’t happen until I get back from my trip. It will be an odd post in which I talk about the yarn and the knitting of a tank that’s already finished. (That’s assuming that I still think it’s a good entry.)

Please excuse crappy indoor photo. My photographer is taking the bar exam and the sun refuses to come out.
Pattern: Go With the Flow tank from Inspired Cable Knits, second size
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in Pink-a-boo (part of 1 cone) 80% pima cotton 20% merino wool
Needles: 2.5 mm (labeled US 1 by Addi, which is incorrect. US 1 is 2.25 mm)
Cat: Scout taking a bath
Modifications and Notes:

1) Knit in mini knit along with Valerie. She’s making a pretty red one--go look! This also counts as an Amazing Lace project because of the lace at the bottom.

2) After following the Salt Peanuts pattern to a T, I needed a bit of a challenge. I decided, contrary to my normal beliefs, to convert the pattern to be knit in the round. This really is a big step for me because (a) I love seaming and (b) I believe that seams give sweaters structure. I decided to deviate from my hard-headed beliefs because this tank is knit out of such fine yarn that I didn’t think the sweater would need the seams to give it structure.

3) But of course, I couldn’t simply knit the thing in the round—oh no! I decided to try a new trick. I put in phony seams ala Elizabeth Zimmermann. Yes, I am “the absolute boss” of my knitting! I was going to take photos of me actually making the phony seam as part of the planned entry, but when seam time came, I didn’t want to stop. I’m quite pleased with the seam--it's subtle but it makes me feel so much better about not doing a real seam (since I am still quite hard-headed about seams)

4) And of course, short row shoulder shaping and 3-needle bind-off. I think everyone should do short-row shoulder shaping even if they don’t do a 3-needle bind-off. It just looks so much better: no stair steps, no odd looking rows--just perfect!

5) I made the tank with even ease because it’s mostly cotton and I expect it to get a bit baggy with wear. I’m happy with the way it fits around me but…

6) I feel kinda chesty in it. The problem (for me) is a result of the way the armholes are shaped. The armholes cut fairly far to the center. I think 20 sts were decreased on each side--that's a lot even in fingering weight yarn. Having the “straps” set-in and narrow make my shoulders look broader, which makes me look wider. I guess I’ll have to remember that I prefer my tanks to have wider-set straps.

7) Interesting construction note: the larger sizes add length in the bottom border rather than in the cabled part.

Random close ups

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

2006-07-24T09:05:00.000-05:00

No wait! They aren't pack and I'm not ready.

Peter and I are leaving for Alaska this weekend.

I have a mile long list of things to do for the trip, including getting the house and the cats ready for the house/cat sitter.

I have to finish all the work that is due in the next two and a half weeks.

Peter is taking the Bar Exam this week. (That's the test used to make sure people are competent enough to be a lawyer.)

Help!

The Best Laid Plans

2006-07-18T08:49:00.000-05:00

The day after the Yarn Focus Challenge came to an end I gave in to my yarn buying needs. I rolled out of bed on July 1st, went to the computer, and ordered a cone of Brown Sheep Cotton Fine with which I intended to make the Go With the Flow Tank from Inspired Cable Knits. Then, I sat back and started dreaming of its arrival.

While waiting, I was struck with a great idea for a blog entry about my lovely cone of yarn-to-be. I would compare my mountain of yarn with the mountain of ice cream that was in my freezer. I even had puns ready about ice cream cones and yarn cones. (By the way, I don't normally have that much ice cream around. There was a sale. Then, there was a coupon and the sale was still on. Then, another coupon and sale. Ben and Jerry's for $1.50 and $1.13 per pint is not something to pass up! I somehow managed to buy 12 pints of ice cream in a week and a half. Yes, I know that there are only 10 pints in the photos. You know where the other two went.)

My yarn finally arrived on Friday. I had seen cones of laceweight yarn before and they looked mighty huge to me, so I imagined that a cone of fingering weight yarn (oh so much heavier than laceweight!) would be ENORMOUS. Hence, the planned comparison to the mountain of ice cream. I ripped open the package and . . . huh? . . . what's this? . . . is this enough yarn? It's puny! Even runty Scout towers over the cone!

Now, I normally don't panic about whether I have enough yarn for a project as I always buy extra. But just two days before I got my yarn, Valerie, who is also knitting the same tank top, started getting nervous about whether SHE had enough yarn. True, Valerie is using a different yarn and knitting a different size, but she had planted the seed in my head that perhaps the yardage in the book was underestimated. So upon seeing the cone I immediately jumped into panic mode. Luckily Ana was there to assure me that cones of Cotton Fine weren't that big but they did have 1,000 yards. (Later I realized that the size I planned to make required only 800 yards and that I had much more yarn than I needed, so all panic went away.)

I've started knitting the tank. The yarn is great. Knitting off a cone is great. But did you know that fingering weight yarn is thin? Perhaps I am insane after all.

Lacey and Owie

2006-07-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

Thank you for you kind words on Salt Peanuts! As promised, some close up photos of the lace ribs in the sweater.

First, the bottom ribbing plus some stockinette to show the colors of the yarn. I am thrilled with the way the yarn knit up. The subtle shifts from pink to red give the sweater an interesting look and texture. Many people commented that this color looks good on me and Christina even said that I should wear red more often. Well, I do wear red quite a bit, but I don't seem to knit with red very often. Why not? Two reasons. First, I like to knit cables, and I feel that cables pop more when knit in light colored yarn. Hence, my obvious preference for pink yarn. Second, I'm very picky about reds. I dislike reds that have an orange tone to them or reds that are dull looking. Very few yarns come in a red shade that I like, but they almost always come in a pink or a purple that I find acceptable. So, no red yarn is bought!

This is the collar on Salt Peanuts. The collar shaping is ingenious. The collar is knit at the same time as the fronts and short rows are used to give it curves. The lace rib pattern is also reversed when the collar is worked so that it will show correctly when the collar is turned out. Of course, working the collar, the neck shaping, and the armhole shaping all at the same time made knitting the fronts quite exciting. I actually used tick marks to keep track of where I was. (Normally, I just remember what I'm doing or use a row counter and mental math to keep my place, but this time I was nervous about getting lost.) If you're thinking about this sweater, make sure you aren't disturbed while working this section!

OWIE!
Last week I decided that I would start riding my bike in preparation for my hiking/biking/rafting/dog-sledding trip to Alaska next month. I've been training indoors, but the nice, wide, cushy seats of the recumbent stationary bikes in the gym don't numb ones tush like a real bike seat does. So, I felt that I needed to get my tush in shape so that it doesn't rebel in Alaska. I strapped on my GPS watch, jumped on my bike, and started riding around my neighborhood. After about 7 miles with no tush numbing and no heat exhaustion. I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Then, a car passed me. I looked up at the car as it went by and then look down at the road again just in time to see my front tire hit a rut. Yes, I wiped out. So much for feeling confident. A woman walking her dog rushed up to me and said, "That was my neighbor's car that went by! I know she's a bad driver, but I hope she didn't hit you!" It seems funny now, but at the time I was too concerned about find a way to stop my knee from bleeding.

Salt Peanuts

2006-07-10T18:43:00.000-05:00

Pattern: Salt Peanuts by Veronik Avery, Interweave Knits Spring 2004 (also available as a PDF online to IK subscribers), second size
Yarn: Malabrigo in Vermillion (100% merino wool), 5 hanks
Needles: US size 9
Comments:
1) Another 2-week sweater for me! All that stockinette made the knitting fly by. Grace was my other 2-week sweater. I love this sweater as much as I love Grace. And I predict that this sweater will pill just as much as Grace does! Such is the fate of merino wool.

2) I LOVE the shaping of this sweater. It doesn't make me look like a frumpy log. The non-batwings sleeves help, too.

3) At first I thought that I was going to have problems making the collar lie flat. Elizabeth said that she had to tack the collar of her sweater down, so I knew that was an option, but I didn't really want to do it. So once I assembled the sweater, I arranged the collar and steam-blocked the heck out of it. To do this, I cover the entire collar with a damp cloth and held a hot iron on the cloth so that the iron was barely touching the cloth. I did not press down at all. Just enough contact to cause the cloth to steam. Now the collar lies flat without any additional help.

4) I think adding more short rows in the collar would have helped the collar lie flat. But it's not something that you can predict until you put the sweater together. If I were being anal, I would have ripped the fronts to add at least two more sets of short rows to each short-row section. But I decided not to be that anal...this time.

5) Yes it's an indoor photo. I'm not so dedicated to this blog to take a photo of a 100% wool sweater in 95ºF weather.

(Sorry no close ups at this time. The batteries in my camera died. I'll add more photos later. the lace-rib pattern is quite nice!)

Knitting First, Icky Afterward

2006-07-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

On Knitting
Smokey asked:
On a recent Chicago trip I bought some malabrigo for a turtleneck I'm planning. I would love some feedback from somebody (such as yourself!) who has knit a sweater with it. Are you alternating skeins of the yarn every couple of rows? The skeins I bought are sufficiently different that I think I'll get a stripe-y look if I don't. I would love to hear how you're handling this pressing issue of knitting!

I am not alternating balls of yarn in my Malabrigo sweater. When I bought the yarn, I tried to pick hanks that were closest in color, but some color variations still exist. The dominant red color is the same throughout, but ratio of pinkish-red and orangy-red varies from hank to hank. However, the color variations that I saw in the hanks (where the colors are all grouped together) are much less obvious when knit up (and the colors are dispersed).

I did consider alternating balls every two rows to even out the color variations, but when it came time to knit, I decided to live with the color variations. As a result, some parts are pinker and some parts are oranger. However, I don't think it will be terribly obvious to the casual observer because no distinct line exists when a new ball is added. The color variations help camouflage the line.

Also, the hanks of yarn are HUGE--215 yards, I think. That means that you can get a lot of fabric from one hank. I had to add a new ball only once when knitting the largest piece of the sweater (the back). So you wouldn't have to worry about several different shades appearing in any single part of a sweater--it wouldn't appear "striped" at all.

So my advice to you Smokey, is to knit up a swatch half and half with yarn from the two hanks that you think are most different in color. Hand the swatch to a neutral party and ask them what they think. If they can see a color change with no prompting, then perhaps alternating balls will be necessary. If they can't see a color change, knit away with one ball. If you're still nervous about doing this, pair up the hanks by color and use "matching" hanks when knitting any particular piece.

On Icky
Monkee, that odd knitter that I know, is celebrating her 2nd blogaversary with an odd contest. A two part-er, no less. One part is not icky but the other part is. But I'm doing the icky part because I don't think Monkee expected me to do it!

Take a picture of some food that you believe is disgusting, barf-o-licious, or flat out nasty but will willingly eat anyway. If it is particularly disgusting, no need to actually show you eating it. I’ll take your word for it that it’s edible.

Corned Beef Hash--raw. Corned beef hash may not be icky to everyone, but it's very icky to me because I hate beef. I won't eat the finest cut of steak. I think steak is icky. But I will, on rare occasions, eat raw corned beef hash because it's something that my father eats and eating it reminds me of him and of home. But it's gross. And raw. (When I bought this can for the photo I decided to read the label to see if it was okay to eat raw. The label didn't say anything about serving it raw. The ingredients say "beef and cooked corned beef." Does that mean that the beef is not cooked? I don't want to know. Do not leave a comment telling me that the beef is raw. Thank you.)

Scout seems to think that the corned beef hash is her food.

WIP it up

2006-07-05T18:14:00.000-05:00

A certain reader complained that I didn't show any in-progress photos of my last two FOs so this post is specially for her.

I have two new projects on the needles. I started both of the last week after finishing the Tiger, so they are still in their "infancies" as far as WIP go.

First up: Salt Peanuts using the lovely Malabrigo that I bought from Yarntopia. Salt Peanuts (for those two knitters out there who don't know) is a pattern that was published in Interweave Knits a few years ago and is now available for free online for IK subscribers.

I finished the back and the fronts and have cast on for the sleeves. It is knitting up wonderfully fast (yes I did all this in one week) and is looking great. I picked this pattern because I wanted a pattern that was mostly stockinette to show of the yarn, but I didn't want to do anything boring either. The funky collar shaping kept me happily entertained. I'm looking forward to finishing by next week.

Second: Shaped Triangle Shawl

According to my spreadsheet, I am exactly 4.96% of the way through this shawl. (Don't you love spreadsheets? I have knit 3,424 stitches so far. No, I don't look at my spreadsheet after finishing every row.) Quite different from my progress on the sweater. However, I don't intend on knitting on this very much until August. My big Alaska trip is at the beginning of August and this shawl is my travel knitting. I don't want to get too far into it before then so that I won't be working on insanely long rows and won't have a huge shawl to tote around.

Is the shawl working with the handpainted yarn? I don't know. I'm reserving judgment until after the thing is blocked. I do love the colors a lot and I enjoy having the colors change as I knit, but I'm not sure that it will all work out in the end.

Happiness is...

2006-07-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

...a thoughtful gift
A couple of month ago, when I was wasting time in the Knitty chatroom, Monkee showed off a map from this website. I don't remember which map she showed, but it was probably a map of some place in Texas. I started poking around on the website and found this map and immediately declared that I wanted it. I wasn't kidding either. I really did want the map. I even bookmarked the page so that I could order it at a later time.

Imagine my shock and delight when Monkee and MonkeeMom gave me this as my birthday present:

Honestly, I was speechless. I immediately looked for some of my favorite buildings on campus. First, I found Dodd, my old dorm--still the Williams Inn at this point, of course. Then, I started searching for my home-away-from-dorm (Thomson Chemistry Lab) and found that it wasn't there! In the photo at right you can see the future home of the Science Quad. West College and Morgan are both clearly visible, but none of the other buildings are there. What's more, a strange building labeled "Kellogg Hall" (at the end of the pencil) is in the Quad. I was also surprised to find no trace of the Freshman Quad (is it called the First Year Quad now?). I guess I had thought that Williams and the Thompson buildings were older than Morgan. Now I know that I'm wrong.

Since receiving this wonderful gift, I have been comparing the 1889 map with the current map of the college. I sort of wish that I had my old 1988 map of the campus so that I could see how much had changed since my residence in Williamstown. Some interesting things I discovered: The Congregation Church (at right) looked very different from the beautiful church that I admired every day, large building called "The Graylock" is located at the future site of the Graylock Quad, and Mark Hopkins lived in an area near Mission Park--not in the current President's house. Also, the mountain that I know as Pine Cobble seems to be labeled Smedley's Height. Or maybe I'm not looking at the map properly and Pine Cobble is Hudson's Height. Either way, it has the wrong name.

This map will be displayed in a place of honor. I adore it.

...goofy Japanese stuff
Not long ago, I stumbled upon JRS's blog while surfing around the internet. It was a case of good timing because the day that I found the blog was the same day that she was running a contest. The prize of that contest--goofy Japanese stuff. Now, everyone needs a little goofy Japanese stuff in their life, so I entered the contest. (How could I possibly survive without goofy Japanese stuff?) Apparently nearly everyone who entered the contest got the answer correct, so JRS decided to send all of us goofy Japanese stuff. That's the way to spread the love. Here is my little haul:
A Hello Kitty drawstring bag, Hello Kitty pasta (yes pasta!), chopsticks with lucky cats on them, socks with some strange rorschach test design, and--my favorite--a sushi eraser. The back of the pasta bag has some strange recipe on it. I think it says: (1) boil water (2) cook pasta (3) cover with soy sauce. Now that I have goofy Japanese stuff, my life is complete! Thanks so much JRS!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...

2006-06-28T08:18:00.000-05:00

...or just one tiger.

Pattern: Tiger Cub from The World of Knitted Toys
Yarn: Opal Tiger sock yarn obtained in a swap with Susann and Jawoll superwash sock yarn in ecru
Needles: US size 2
Notions: Polyester fiberfill and stick-on goggly eyes

Modifications:
1) I worked the legs, tail, and ears in the round to avoid seaming.
2) I made the tail much longer than the pattern stated. It looked too stumpy so I kept going.
3) I used self-striping tiger yarn instead of changing colors to get the stripes.

Comments:
1) I love the way the stripes turned out--especially because I didn't have to do anything to make them happen.

2) I'm not so happy with the way he looks. I think the legs are too big and the nose is too pointy. After working this tiger and the panda before, I'm very suspicious of the patterns in this book. I don't think the published patterns were used to make the models in the book. I think the models were made and then the patterns were written to reproduce the animals in the simplest way possible. Or I'm just very bad a finishing stuffed animals and making them look cute. But I like the reason in which I blame someone else for my disappointment.

Peter's Comment: It looks like Cleo!

So I tried to take a photo of the Tiger with Cleo. She was okay for the first few shots and suddenly:

See Monkee! The tiger that you rubbed all over your face last night had been in Cleo's mouth! And Scout's too, but I wasn't able to snap a photo because I had to rescue the poor tiger from her.

Loganberry Sweater #1

2006-06-27T08:30:00.000-05:00

(hee hee, you can see that I'm planning on making more than one sweater for Loganberry)

Pattern: Basic Baby Sweater by Elizabeth, smallest size
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Twist in white (2 hanks) and royal blue (1.5 hanks), also from Elizabeth. I think this is a discontinued yarn because I can't find any information about it. It is a worsted-weight 100% cotton yarn.
Needles: US sizes 4 and 6
Cat: Scout refusing to look cute for the photo. (Scout was very cute in one photo, but it wasn't a good photo of the sweater. Hopefully, Scout's vanity will not be hurt by posting this less than ideal photo of her.)

Comments: Quick and easy, down and dirty knit. I came up with the color-block pattern myself. I thought I was being so clever until I steam-blocked it. The blue ran a little bit into the white. Before I knit the yarn, I tested for colorfastness and thought that I was good to go. But apparently my test was not very accurate.

I need to wash this sweater before sending it off to Loganberry. Can anyone give me some hints on how to wash it without changing all the white to blue? How can I set the dye? (I hear vinegar in the wash water works, does it?)

Peter's Comment: Babies are small.

More Finished Objects!

2006-06-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

Thanks and Answers
I am overwhelmed by all the comments that I received about the Barbie Shawl. Thank you so much! I am happy that the shawl is done and I'm thrilled at how nicely it turned out in the end. There were a few questions of general interest in the comments, so I thought that I'd answer them here.

1) The yarn was Handpaintedyarn.com's Pure Wool Lace yarn. I had two hanks of the pink stuff, and I used about 1.5 hanks (or about 150 g or 1,275 yards). The yarn was not evenly colored, but it wasn't supposed to be. That's a feature of the kettle dying process. The shawl itself shows slight variegations in color, but the variegations do not distract from the lace at all.

2) The final diameter of the shawl is 52" (about 132 cm), so it isn't huge, but it's not exactly tiny either.

3) No you can't have it. If you send me your addresses and FedEx account numbers, I'll just throw out the addresses and abuse the FedEx numbers. You'll be amazed at how much stuff I send FedEx!

Now on to the Finished Objects!
But wait, you say, where are the photos? Other people posted them for me!

First, Annie Modesitt posted a photo of the dress that I knit for her. And here it is! She asked me to send the pieces to her and let her do all the finishing. I was a bit unhappy about sending it like that because it didn't look very nice that way. I would rather present a client with a beautiful finished piece rather than unblocked parts. But that's the way Annie wanted it. I'm so happy that she likes the finished piece and I'm thrilled that it "cleaned up nice."

Then, there's the secret project that I alluded to a few days ago. The project was a baby afghan, or Chatghan, for Shetha and her baby-to-be. I worked on this project with 10 other regular inhabitants of the Knittyboard chatroom who ~~I conned into contributing~~ ...uh, no... ~~were unfortunate enough to be in chat when I hatched the plan~~ I asked to help. The Chatghan is beautiful and I'm tickled pink that it was so well received! (I was going to write a big long blog entry about it to give credit to everyone who contributed, but Shetha took care of that for me!)