Frog Pond City

I've cast on for Grumperina's Roza's Socks, in this issue of Interweave Knits, which I ran out and bought on the day it hit newsstands.

I like how it's working up in this "Minty" superwash sock yarn from Brooklyn Handspun. Unfortunately, the yarn is on the thin side, and while I've never used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, which is what the pattern calls for, I suspect that it's different enough to be the reason why this is coming out a teensy bit too snug. So in the way too long amount of time it took that picture to load, I have frogged and re-cast on in one size bigger needles, of which I have slightly the wrong number of needles and which also kind of sucks because I bought the smaller ones specifically for this project. D'oh. Oh, and also I have to remember not to put these needles in my mouth, because they have been dropped on some terribly disgusting floors, and this, people, is sadly harder to remember than you might think.

Other was kind enough to send in my eight hats to the Muppethead contest, and they are on schedule for an under-the-wire arrival of today. I'm proud to have done my part to have Boston (or Boston's postal service workers, at least) groaning under the weight of several more skeins's worth of fun fur hats.




This:


is the beginnings of the sock-weight stockinette stitch scarf that I achieved this past weekend. Its sole purpose is to be mindless but pretty, and it's doing a great job.

I used to wonder at the Yarn Harlot's need to knit a few rows to "take the edge off," as she says, but today I was positively jonesing. That's why I've used uploading pictures to my knitblog as a puny excuse to put off driving for awhile so I can sit somewhere that isn't my house and read a textbook that I really honestly do not have any desire to read, and sit and knit some instead.

Okay. Everything's up. Sigh.

FO: Belize Socks

Yarn: Regia Bamboo
Pattern: my own
Needles: Crystal Palace size 1 dpns



These socks were started in July, when I flew to Belize. They're simple stockinette with ribs of different lengths at the top, picked up here and there for months. I liked the unexpected sheen of the bamboo yarn.

FO: Casey's Coat

Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash
Colors: olive-y green and dark turquoise
Pattern: Casey's Coat (from Stitch 'N Bitch Nation)
Needles: size 8 boye straights, size 8 clover circ, and I think there was a size 7 in there too
Modifications: none on purpose, although I didn't end up with the right number of stitches after the series of decreases (had significantly more than I should have) and couldn't figure out where I'd gone wrong (and also checked the errata, which didn't mention any such problems), so I just threw in a few more decrease rows.

I've avoided seaming dilligently up until this point, so the seam on this puppy is both crappy and the result of my third or fourth attempt.



Mr. Bunny so lacks the right proportions to pull this off, but I had to put it on something and the intended recipient is 2 hours away.



And, finally, I cast on for the basketweave scarf:



which grew by a couple repeats as I waited for all of these pictures to load.

FO: My so-called scarf

Yarn: Malabrigo Kettle-Dyed
Color: Verde adriana, 117
Pattern: My So-Called Scarf
Needles: Brittany Hardwood dpns, size 11, with a rubber band on one end
Modifications: CO a bit fewer stitches, BO

I bound off as normal, and it looked really bad. So I bound off in purl, still looked really bad. Then I slipped the first stitch, *k1, bo1, k2tog, bo second stitch, k1, bo the k2tog. Worked very nicely.

Calorimetry

Yarn: Artyarns Supermerino
Color: 136
Pattern: Calorimetry
Needles: Size 8 Crystal Palace bamboo circs (not the type called for, but whatever, it worked
Modifications: no purposeful ones



Because of my own staggering inability to estimate or count, getting this going took forever. First I got toward the end of casting on and ran out of tail to cast on with. Then I cast on for two fewer stitches than were called for, and realized it at the end of the first row. Then I couldn't execute a double rib to save myself. Once I got past the first two rows, it was fine, but that took way too long. The pattern itself is clever and easy to follow.

The pattern calls for a yarn that will happily bounce back into shape. And while I read every day about the behavior of specific yarns, I really had no idea what kind of yarn to choose for such a goal. So I went with the Artyarns Supermerino, in a colorway I'd had my eye on for a long time, and it turned out to be a really great substitution. This is like no yarn I'd ever worked with before - it really has a mind of its own, by which I mean it was rather stiff (while still being soft). When I was trying to count my cast-on stitches, some fell off the end and sproinged right out of the loops. (This might be why I ended up two short.) There was no pooling, flashing, or any other variegated-yarn-problems.

I wore it all day today (I work in what might as well be an iceberg), and though I felt a bit silly sporting any kind of fashionable anything, it did keep my noggin nice and toasty. It's not as warm outside as a hat would be, though.

If I ever knit this pattern again, I will probably cast on fewer stitches and adjust the number of pattern repeats accordingly.

Mom's Disaster Scarf

This is Mom's Disaster Scarf, v.2:


Specs:
Pattern: My own (co 168 st, double rib, change colors after 3 rows)
Yarn: Lion Brand Homespun, held doubled
Needles: Clover 13" bamboo circs

This scarf started out as "Mom's Scarf." She pointed out to me a scarf she had seen on one of the soap operas that she watches (this one mostly for the knitwear, as she's not finding the storylines too compelling) and asked if I could make it. It was very long, and looked like it was made sideways in a double rib pattern. So, over winter break, I got down to work.

My conception of a side-to-side scarf is that the basic limit is on the length of the scarf, and this one needed to be long. So, I should cast on as many stitches as I possibly could. Cleverly, though, I was able to just about double this number by taping two 29" circular needles together. Mom helped. We held the tips of the ends of each needle together, overlapping up to where the point stopped, then wrapped them up together in saran wrap. Then we taped over it, keeping saran wrap between the tape and the actual needle. It was not elegant, but it worked.

I cast on about 250 stitches. I didn't count or anything - why should I for a scarf? The idea of a swatch didn't even cross my mind. Again: scarf.

So I knit and knit and knit and knit. Simple pattern. It went pretty fast. When I sat down to cast off, it took forever. Oh man. I would look down and think, okay, about a fourth done. Then I would look down and think, hmm, that looks good about right there. And then cast off some more. And think, hmm, it would be good if the scarf stopped right there. Wow, there sure are lots of stitches left to bind off. And then: GOOD FREAKING GRAPES HOW MUCH MORE DO I HAVE TO CAST OFF? That was after about an hour.

And, surprise: the scarf was twelve feet long. I am not kidding about how long the scarf was. I could hold it at the mid point with my arm stretched as far into the air as it would go, and the ends would brush the floor. While this would work for someone who is 6'3", neither of us is 6'3". When Mom wrapped it around her neck twice, the ends dragged. D'oh.

Hence v.2. Using the original twelve-foot scarf as a gauge swatch (oh, that hurts), we determined that the ideal number of stitches to cast on for the length Mom wanted was 168. It probably only took a couple hours of knitting.

I know I could've steeked the original and chopped the extra length off, but really the idea of knitting an entirely new scarf was much more appealing than the idea of trying to use a sewing machine to make a hacked-off end look presentable. And of course, because it was knit side-to-side, there was no way to tink back to any sort of acceptable length.

Moral: don't underestimate super-bulky yarn in double rib for a side-to-side scarf.