Yipes, seven days!

It has been too long since I posted. I am sorry. I would prefer all my favorite knitbloggers posted about three times a day, so posting once a week is not exactly keeping up my end of that implied bargain.

The weather is a lovely spring gray and may stay like this for a while, so it's not really worth photographing any of my partially-complete WsIP anyway. If you're dying to see them, imagine that the bamboo sockscarf and the basketweave Plymouth Encore scarf below look exactly the same only longer. Ditto for Ufserud. I've also finished knitting sock #1 in some Claudia's handpaint (plain stockinette), and cast on for a stretchy cotton hat in black Cascade Fixation for Other.

I have been getting together with a friend (yes, sorry, should have warned you - I do have a friend) to knit and drink beverages. There has also been ice cream afterwards, which really cannot hurt the goodness of any day that includes knitting in public.

FO: Roza's Socks

Yarn: Brooklyn Handspun in "Minty"
Pattern: Roza's Socks by Gumperina
Needles: size 1 Crystal Palace bamboo dpns
Modifications: substituted stockinette between rib and pattern rounds (because the garter makes it look a bit unfinished or inside-out, which is fine, but my wardrobe tends dangerously in that direction on its own)
Why the Weird FO Shot: I'm taking a page from the book of Ashley, with the "requisite pattern shot" thing she did with her chevron scarf. And this is similar enough to the pattern photos to be recognized as an homage (anyone?), and I already had the lacy white skirt, and so why not?

I bought the Minty from Brooklyn Handspun before I had a pattern in mind, and then Grumperina's post about the socks she had designed inspired my first purchase of Interweave Knits. Which I'm probably going to have to subscribe to here soon.

I'm very happy with how they turned out. I'd been looking for a green like the green in my first socks, and hadn't found anything close to it until Minty. The color is complex, with bluer parts and yellower parts, lending some nice interest to what are basically solid-colored socks.

You might be able to see this a tiny bit here:



So I'm 4 for 7 of having a week's worth of handknit socks. Onward!

Ufserud In Progress

I will updated later with some pics of a finished pair of Roza's socks. For now, though, here is a shot of Ufserud. You can actually see that there's a pattern! And yeah, I'm aware that that's the point of stranded knitting, but I didn't have much faith in my ability to actually make it do that. And the knitting isn't the most regular I've ever produced, it's okay and might be getting better.

May you never find your own handknit lying in the road.

This entry is back-dated because I couldn't get the picture uploaded when I originally wrote it, and didn't post it until a few days later.

I have a problem with bags. I carry around a 32-oz water bottle, small sterilite container (with knitting project, usually a sock), digital camera in its (small) case, my journal, and occasionally a course notebook. My hemp messenger bag is the right size, but it's falling apart, not easy to get stuff in and out of quickly, and not good at holding anything but the aforementioned items.

Which is, I believe, how one of my Hurry Up Spring armwarmers ended up spending several days in the road/parking space that I found it in. I was aware that righty was not with lefty, but, because I'd gotten worried several times recently only to find an armwarmer jammed under my camera case, water bottle, or knitting container, I decided not to worry about it. If not for the telltale bright bits of color, I wouldn't have recognized the soggy lump at all.

At first glance Mr. Armwarmer looked pretty bad. But even though I find the Noro Kureyon to be pretty scratchy and think that in anything but direct sunlight the darker colors are indistinguishable from one another -- and also kind of think that the nice branch/leaf pattern, rendered in this yarn, makes me look like my arms have Hulk veins running up and down them -- I wanted to at least try to revive him. This was my first project on double-pointed needles, and also, I believe, my first project using cables. They have served me well in the chilly office many times.

So I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed both of them ("gentle squeezing" - I've felted with Kureyon many times, and know how fast that can go) and then, once the mitt was no longer giving up road dirt, dust, and bits of leaves, gave them a nice Eucalan bath.

And as far as I can see, feel, and smell, they came through just fine.

Yarn!

From left to right: Cascade 220, Claudia's Handpainted (in Bearded Iris), Naturwolle (in 116 Gloria), variegated Karabella (color 11), Rowan All Seasons Cotton (in a discontinued color that I would love to find more of), and Jo Sharp in light and dark brown.

I wish I could knit all of them right now. But instead I'm about to start the heel flap on Roza's Sock #2, and still plugging away at the scarves.

Sock & Sun

*

I should finish the toe of this bad boy tonight, and have been doing an average of one row of Ufserud a night. Both scarves-in-progress are coming along, and looking like more of the same, so I have no dramatic progress shots.

*Also, if this looks lumpy and weird, it's because the reskeined component of the yarn containment system is jammed inside in an inaccurate approximation of my foot.

Taking pictures of yarn and not dead things since 2005

I'm knitting away on Roza's Socks. I've decided that if knitting keeps me from wanting to go to bed at night, it might also be able to get me up in the morning. And that's kind of working. If I could somehow remember that I want to get out of bed to knit a bit before work a little earlier, then I could partake and still be on time, rather than 10 minutes late, which is anyway better than the 40 minutes late I usually am. So, yeah. Kind of working.

The archives of licketyknit have been keeping me entertained these days. The ongoing drama with the penguin, it kills me.

Anyway, Lickety (heh) mentioned at some point how much she likes seeing beautiful pictures of knitting on blogs, and I really do too. And of late, my pictures have been sucky, despite the fact that I have no fewer than four lights pointing at whatever I'm taking the picture of. Really, though, if I waited until I had good light to take pictures, you could expect them about once a week, and then at the peril of weather and motivation. So, apologies.

Today I made an effort to get outside before the sun had set too much, and so the picture seems to show the color pretty accurately. And it shows my positively idiotic system for dealing with 415 yards of yarn, which is to wind most of it into a ball, reskein the rest, and only work on it at home until there's enough used up that I can wind all of it. Because I would rather do this than cut the yarn and weave in more ends than is absolutely necessary (which for a single sock is two).

We all make our choices.

Anyway, I got good light but have no nice kinds of background to speak of. You got concrete instead of swampy backyard, dead garden, cheapy beat to hell lawn furniture, or dead bird.