and I can read the warning label on that can of crazy

This is where the sweater stands:



The yarn is what's called for in the pattern: Naturally Harmony 10-ply. And, if it weren't right there in the name, I'd have no idea this is a 10-ply - it feels as though it's felted. Not at all what I was expecting, but it's nice and light, sproingy, and not splitty at all. I think I'm about ready to start the part of the pattern with cables, and have temporarily abandoned this to tend to the roving bands of socks stalking the house. And re-find the issue of IK that the pattern's printed in.

My goal is always to have several socks at different stages of completion, so I can pick things up to fit the time I have. In reality, I end up places like here:



Start-o-rama = graftastic. I like grafting, though, so it's okay. I grafted (graft? grift? Wha?) these three toes today, and started each pair's mate. Also started the Tanzanite Silkie Uptown Boot sock for Mom, which is just ribbing at this point. Here's the Tanzanite, though:



The silk strand stands out more than I'd envisioned, but I like how it's knitting up just fine.

And to get philosophical about socks for a second, I've been thinking about toes recently. And realizing, now that I'm wearing these socks I knit up over the summer on a regular basis, that I don't really like the typical toe. It's pointy, and my feet are so not pointy - or, rather, the pointy part is not in the middle. I've taken to starting the decreases later and then leaving more stitches to graft (14 or so), but even that isn't really the shape of my foot. I think I'll try the short-row toe soon, but even that gives the same basic shape.

What my brain keeps veering toward is the idea that my feet are not identical, so why should my socks be identical? Hence, why don't I make a Righty and Lefty sock?

I'm already a bit - specific, let's say - about my socks, in that the left one always goes on first. I considered it a big step when, after knitting my first pair, I was able to put one on the left foot and one on the right foot without checking to see which one had a smidge bigger blue stripe at the top, which meant it was knit second, which means it belongs on the right foot. (See how uncrazy?) So the knitting two different socks seems like it might be a step down that slippery slope.

How do your toes fit?

...in fact I may be smooshing it a little bit right now

Ho-kay, so, Dream in Color Smooshy*? Is freaking awesome. If I didn't have four (FOUR) socks on the needles - and not a one of them second socks, all first socks - I would be casting on some of this right now. Recently I've been finding myself more drawn to semi-solids - or perhaps I just mean unusually frustrated with variegateds - and both the November Muse and Giant Peach colorways have such a pleasant, gentle color variation. My general attitude is that life is too short for solid-colored socks, but the variegated yarns are probably actually making my life shorter at this point, so semisolids it is. (My head knows that there are some really good uses for solid-colored yarn, but my heart says zzzzzzzzz...)



Over the weekend I made some good progress on the OSU house scarf (while AT an actual sports bar with my parents, watching the Buckeyes win - if that's not injecting good karma into the scarf, I don't know what would). It looks about the same as it did.

*Oh nooo... as I was linking this, I saw they've added new colors. Chinatown Apple, I want you! Deep Seaflower and Beach Fog: will you be mine?

Socks that what? Socks that ROCK.

Oh, Socks that Rock. First I had no socks in you and now I have three socks in you. Perhaps I could use to learn some moderation.



Here we have Uptown Boot Sock #2. Or the beginning of Pair #2, so Sock #3. Hopefully soon you will be seeing some Uptown Boot Sock #5 and #6 action too, because I've got some Silkie Tanzanite winging its way here to become a Christmas gift for my Mom, who love-love-loves purple. I'm ready to turn the heel of #3, but didn't have the book with me today.

Here, in kind of a weird shot, is Dreidel Pomatomus. In repose.



Dreidel Pomatomus, aside from a minor setback in which I completely just did the pattern wrong on the row to pick up gusset stitches and then proceeded not to notice for five more rows (for I am smooth), is going well.

(The third is a plain stockinette sock in Calico, Awesomest Colorway Ever.)

My main knitting problem right now is that I don't have time to knit, despite carrying my projects with me wherever I go. Every morning in my sleepy haze, I imagine some freak scenario that will give me no possible way to actually work (as in "my job, the one that pays the money") and hours of time to knit. Like... I have no idea. But remember when those people got trapped in their cars for like 10 hours when it snowed in Pennsylvania last year? My first thought was like, damn, that's a sock right there.

I am being disciplined and working at least a couple rows of the Buckeye House Scarf a day, although it's not going to go traveling with me any time soon. If you've ever worked with Cascade 220 Superwash, you've probably learned that the balls really need to be re-wound, despite looking all pretty the way they come. I didn't re-wind, and the ball exploded into a tangle of almost-knots and loops in my project bag, and I'm coaxing a few feet at a time out of the angry yarn nucleus.

Oh, yes, and with Christmas coming up and me being a kindhearted, generous knitter and all, I've decided that the time has come...



...to attempt knit myself my first sweater.

FO: Uptown Boot Socks

Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock! Merino
Pattern: Uptown Boot Socks (From IK Favorite Socks)
Needles: KPs 2.75mm, Brittany Birch 2.75mm
Modifications: Made the leg a little bit shorter and heel flap a little bit longer - nothing major.



Once I decided to cast these on next, I dragged my feet a bit - they for some reason felt onerous and complicated to me before I started them. Once I got going, though, I loved them. The repeat is a nice four rows (eight, but four if you consider that the one cable row is just offset every other time), which makes it a nice I've-got-20-minutes-to-knit project. The fabric it makes is just delightful - you can't really see the pattern until you put it on (no amount of stretching your hand out inside the sock makes the cables pop the same way).

The toe of this pattern fits better than any other toes I've knit.

I didn't really like the Lisa Souza Sock! Merino - It's thin, doesn't take frogging too well (and really, if you happen to be my sockyarn, you need to take frogging well), is splitty, and isn't horribly soft, at least in the skein. These needles were probably too big for the yarn, because if you look closely at the sock, you can see right through it. I'm wondering how it's going to wear, too.

I think Lime 'n Violet mention that one LS Sock! is a lot better than the other, and it must be that the Sock! is better than the Sock! Merino. Leave it to me to guess wrong.

Anyway, I'm really really happy with how these turned out, and I'm hoping they'll hold up.

fight the team across the field

This is a take on the Year 3-4 House Scarf from Charmed Knits. It's for my brother, who, the DAY before Christmas last year said casually to Mom, "I sure hope [orooni] knit me a scarf." This while I was in the middle of knitting a pair of Fetchings for my other brother, screwing up every possible part of the project and eventually presenting him with Fetchings about 3 sizes too small, which he seemed to like because they looked more "hobo" like that. ("Hey, pretend to warm your hands over a fire in a barrel. Yeah, there you go.") I also gave him a scarf, which actually did fit and didn't imply that he lived under a bridge.

But, so, Middle Brother wants a scarf. Middle Brother happens to be fanatically obsessed with the Buckeyes, so picking colors is never difficult.

I'd been kind of dreading 83 miles of single rib, but really, it's nice to be able to completely zone out. It's four moves: yarn back, forward to knit, yarn forward, forward to purl. Which turns out to be a great 1-3 kind of motion. Slap on an iPod, slouch a little, and voila, there goes my lunch break. Since my socks, which are supposed to be my meditation projects, are giving me lots of trouble right now (I'm looking at you, Koigu P1052), this is perfect.

I may be able to finish the Uptown Boot Socks tonight... with such a long gusset I've found myself surprisingly close to the toe. Here's hoping!

Start-o-rama, it's start-o-riffic

Uptown Boot Socks!



Pomatomous!

I've felt a bit like a jerk, noting in Ravelry the difficulty level of each of my projects, not a single one of which has broken the medium-easy mark. WELL.



It's not purling seven together through the back loop in chunky weight, but it takes just about all the concentration I've got. And there's little in life that's more fun than sitting in a coffee shop, zoning out for 45 minutes (or maybe that was 3 hours... hard to tell) with your iPod on and digging in to a 22-row repeat. Well, okay, little in my life.

Koigu Socks!



Koigu is nice. I'm hatching plans to try some more in solid colorways.

And to bring up the rear in this cast-on-a-thon, I now have a big stack of Cascade 220 Superwash in scarlet and gray. For a year 3-4 house scarf for Brother #1. Pictures of that tomorrow.

Three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three

Start-o-rama it is! I am holed up with yarn and a laptop, and almost done with Uptown Boot Sock #1. I would show you a picture, but I have no camera with me, or way to get existing pictures onto the computer, so, no pictures. Just words today. Maybe pictures later. Crappy incandescent-light pictures. Maybe.

I grabbed four additional sets of DPNs on way way out the door, and not a damn one of them is what I need for pomatomous, which is what my Dreidel has decided it wants to try to be. (I do, however, have three empty sets of 2.25mms. Want some 2.25mms? I am your lady.) However, I really want to cast on for Pomatomous, and my brain figured out that my Uptown Boot Socks are on 2.75mms, which is what pomatomous needs. I am not crazy enough to take a sock off the needle, unfinished and mateless, in order to cast on another sock. I *am* crazy enough to be carrying two extra (wooden) 2.75mms around with me, for use as cable needles. (I found that one under the desk in my bedroom. How it got there from the couch, I haven't quite pieced together yet. Perhaps it was one of the dogs.)

Soooo... I could use the wooden 2.75mms as stitch holders and co pomatomous with my 5 KnitPicks dpns. Or I could bust a serious move and get UBS #1 done, and cast on with a slightly cleaner conscience. That would require pouring it on, and, as you may have surmised, I'm typing right now rather than knitting. Hm. But, I'm well past the abnormally-long gussets, so that might be possible.

I also plan to use one of my many 2.25mms to cast on a plain sock.

In my defense, last night I finally finished the broken garter stitch socks in my Watermelon Tourmaline Silkie STR. Wove in the ends and everything. Un-did the co of the first sock, bound it off a little tigher and everything. Much time and cussing that took, but it's better - not as floppy - and I'm very happy with how the yarn performed. (Oh, and also? It was 90 freaking degrees today. It got down to 60 last weekend, and I took my Meilenweit Mega Boot Stretch socks from awhile ago out for a spin, and I love them.)

Also in my defense, the plain socks are a looong-term project.

For the prosecution, the second those were off the needles last night, some Koigu jumped on. And, to go off on a bit of a tangent here, did you know that Koigu is not magic? It is nicely spun, sproingy, with a bit of backbone to it, and richly and complexly colored, but is not immune to flashing. Why did I decide it was? Why isn't it? Grrr. So I'm pulling from both ends of the ball. We'll see if this time I'm able to figure out how to wrap the yarns around each other in such a way that there's not a seam. Which is possible, right?

Pulling from both ends renders the Koigu socks something less than the mindless stockinette it was meant to be, but oh well. No flashing for me, not this time.

friend activity, like the stock exchange

What I hope is the last order of Job Distress Yarn arrived today. (I changed jobs in the middle of last week, which might very well put BMFA out of business -- you guys should probably help pick up the slack.) And because I got home from class and the grocery store having gone from Relatively Cheerful to Ready to Bludgeon Strangers, it was very nice to sit for the last hour typing and kind of unconsciously clutching three very nice skeins of lightweight.



For all of my crazy ordering, I've never actually *used* lightweight, so, ah, I sure hope it's nice.



I've used the medium weight (in the Chevron Scarf that Will Not Die) and the silkie (pictured below) and like them very much.



I also recently ordered my first Koigu. When I was first starting to knit, I made the baby blanket from Stitch 'N Bitch, which suggested a Koigu handpainted yarn, if I remember correctly. I remember being floored at the idea of an $80 baby blanket that you couldn't even machine wash (though I realize now that it was probably superwash...) and ever since, Koigu has seemed to me to be a little too extravagant.

But, doing the rough math, it's little more than any of the other sockyarns I'm buying so voraciously, so I decided to poke around on Ravelry. And would you know, the people in the Koigu group like Koigu? And recommend it?

So, here is yet more yarn burning a hole in my stash. I'm resisting start-itis, although I've been seriously contemplating renaming it Start-a-rama and just going to town. Still might happen.

Uptown Boot Socks

In the process of knitting this sock, both a (second) wooden size 2 dpn (being used as a cable needle) and my metal yarn needle (being used as a backup cable needle) have managed to slip through some kind of knitting wormhole in the universe. Seriously, I do not understand where they could have gone. They were right there. I suppose they must be buried in the couch, yes, but after having searched the non-nether parts, and then enough into the nether parts to have found a poker chip from at least the early '90s (the couch used to be my parents'), it seems impossible that these things could have gotten further into the seams than something that has been there for FIFTEEN YEARS.

So, I grafted the toe of this sock:



with one of the gigantic blue plastic yarn needles from the learn-to-knit kit Mom & I got four years ago. And that was not a good idea, but in the name of knitting progress, it was either that or a safety pin substitute for a needle.

The top of this sock is a little loose, but I'm liking the silkie yarn very much, for both the texture and color. So much so that I'm considering buying more of the silkie in the same color way. Is that weird to do?

FO: Picot Storybook Socks

Yarn: Gypsyknits (on Etsy) BFL fingering weight in color Storybook
Pattern: basic stockinette (co 72 sts)
Needles: Size 0 Crystal Palace bamboo DPNs



This was my first attempt at shortrow heels, and while I will not go so far as to say that they were fast, they were no slower than heel flaps. And without entirely grasping the physics of it all, I remembered reading somewhere that doing the heel on more than half the stitches creates a deeper heel and thus a better fit, and I did, and it did.

The BFL is nice and soft, though with a different kind of softness than merino has. But after a day of wearing these socks, the heels are pilling badly, and the whole bottoms of the socks have a dirty kind of halo. Admittedly, socks would have to be made out of unicorn mane and pixie dust not to have some dog hair problems after being worn around my house, but compared to my other handknit socks, this is definitely more pronounced.

And then there was this:



Not being a spinner, I do not entirely understand what this is. But I kind of don't think it's good.

So the verdict on Gypsyknits BFL is: it's pretty! Make a scarf with it!

In which I knit through the pain

I subscribed to Interweave Knits at the beginning of August. If you're the only other person in the world who hasn't subscribed to Interweave Knits, know that the first issue will take 4-6 weeks to reach you. That's why I've been checking the mailbox hopefully for the last three weeks, and why I can keep checking it hopefully for another one. (Oh, that and the massive boxes of yarn I tend to order during moments of emotional distress at work. I'm not saying it's healthy, but it sure makes getting the mail fun.)

New finished socks tomorrow!

Uhhhhhhhhh.... hi.

Oh, wow. Okay, so I turned on the comments -- mostly because Ashley told me to, but also because I've been feeling like comments work kind of differently in the knitblog community than in the regularblog community. A lot differently, actually - that's one of the many things that is very very cool about Ravelry - everyone is so freaking nice. And helpful. And by everyone, I don't even mean "you know, the 95% of people who don't view the internet as a place to be mean to strangers because your family's stopped speaking to you" - I mean really everyone. The fact that two people just decided to dedicate their waking lives to creating a community like that forms the basis for this overwhelming niceness.

So, please. Say hi. Point me to your blog. And be nice, because honestly, and I acknowledge that this is ridiculous, but honestly I'm a little afraid of you.

FO: Montego Bay Scarf in Cornflower. Corn. Flower.

The finishing, fringeing, blocking, and dragging Other out to the nearest cornfield finally came together today, and I show you: Montego Bay Scarf.



Some other knitting stuff is happening, but it is not so very interesting. Although I will say, Lantern Moon DPNs are an absolute dream to cast on with. Light and grippy as all hell.

tink tink tink

I was all recovered from my utter inability to do fishnet lace in a halfway reliable way, and then I don't know what happened, but I've had to frog about 6" worth in the last two days. Just now I noticed that several rows down, I just skipped about 4 yos right in a row. No more yos. Perhaps it's the early-morning knitting. It's getting me out of bed and to work on time, but in terms of actual progress, I'm getting nowhere. Perhaps the stockinette socks would be a better choice.

Also, I'm going to have to block the living crap out of this thing. My stitches are completely wonky-looking.

The Watermelon Tourmaline burning a wooly kind of hole in my stash became broken garter socks:



I'm liking them. Not so sure about the Silkie yarn, though - it's a lot fuzzier and more loosely plied than I was expecting it to be. Maybe could use a bigger needle than size 1...

Oh good Lord I'm back down to 42 stitches on this thing. I'm going to bed.

celebrate with yarn

My freaking awesome husband came home today with a set of Lantern Moon size 1 DPNs. As a kind of "congratulations on the new job/sorry your day sucked" kind of thing. Nothing about the day that handcrafted Rosewood needles can't make feel a bit better, especially considering that Tuesday was such a good day that if it hadn't come back around, I'd be really worried right about now. It's all about the balance that the Yarn Harlot talks about -- and this being August, which, not to be superstitious or anything, is the month of evil and bad tidings for my family -- if today hadn't sucked I'd be convinced that the new job couldn't possibly be a good thing.

For now I remain cautiously optimistic.



I've been itching to cast something else on, something... Silkie... and now that I'm over the picot hump of my second sock



(this, by the way, is the first sock at about the same stage as the second one is now. in the interest of full disclosure.) I figure I can cast on with impunity. I'm a two-socks-on-the-needles-at-once kind of person. This very second I'm trying to download Cider Moon's Colonial Rib sock pattern, because that's what the Watermelon Tourmaline Silkie wants to become, but alas - my adobe acrobat reader is older than the moon. I'm surprised my browser hasn't even crashed yet. So Silkie may just become more Monkey socks or whatever pattern I happen to get my hands on in the next 20 minutes.

Lantern Moon! Silkie! Woohoo!

it's a multiple of 36, what's not to like?

Okay, knitters, what's our stance on knots in skeins? I mean, I know we hate them - but are they morally wrong? False advertising? Do they pose an ethical quandary? Or do I just hate weaving in ends an abnormal amount and need to suck it up?

I have cast on for the Montego Bay Scarf from Interweave Knits Summer 2007. And while in a lot of ways I love it (e.g. "shiny"), in a lot of other ways it's sucking out my soul, canning it in its own juices, and selling it three for a dollar at the corner grocery as part of their biannual sale on exotic pizza toppings. I finish, without exaggerating, about one in three rows with the wrong number of stitches. Somehow.

Oh, but wait - that's not even the full story. The full story is that I initially cast on the wrong number of stitches, but my gross misreading of the stitch pattern - a pattern that could literally be typed out in its entirety on the back of my hand in 14-point font (and maybe should be, I guess) - caused my mistaken cast-on to go unnoticed until I could no longer escape the fact that this was not looking like the picture.

So the simplest, boringest non-stockinette pattern in the known universe has me concentrating painfully and counting. Every row. Out loud.

Also! I finished the flutter-bys:



And would do a number of things differently if I were starting over again (which I am so not.)

1) I normally lengthen the heel flap by 3-4 repeats, because I must have high arches or something because normal patterns seem to stretch unappealingly over the first few gusset rounds. So I did that with these, and they DID NOT LIKE. They stretch kind of weirdly horizontally. Which will be hidden in my shoes, but still.

2) Non-stretchy pattern + non-stretchy yarn = non-stretchy sock. Go figure.

3) What is with the toes? They are weird. Must find a new toe.

4) The pattern calls for purling back three on the first purling row of the heel turn. That struck me as being too pointy, which: guess what? It was! But I did it anyway and regret it. Note to self: follow gut. Purl back 5-6 stitches.

This is not to say that I'm unhappy with them. I happen to think that the 2.5 inches of sock that peek out from my mary janes are smashing-looking. I really like the colorway with the pattern.

FO: Pouchy thing

I'm pretty happy with this little guy. The lining and zipper actually worked out really well - it's flat and snug and I love the cheery yellow against the blue. I'm hoping this pouch, which is made to hold a smaller pouch (in lieu of a wallet - working on finding a good small one), keys, and a cell phone, will be convenient to use all the time. Because I go between a backpack, a messenger bag, and knitting tote bag, and inevitably one of those three items gets left behind.

I may post more details on the process, for anyone interested, over the weekend.

grouse grouse grouse

I'm in the kind of mood that you see 10-year-old boys in at the mall, when their clothes are a little too baggy, cuffs hanging down over their hands, and their whole bodies are limp and they're dragging their feet and draping themselves over benches and m o a n i n g. Except instead of saying "let's go hooooome," I'm saying "I just want to fiiinish sooomething."

Chevron Scarf: I have been knitting it for the last six forevers, and it's noooot doooone. Flutter-by is coming along, but I'm going to have to rip the toe of the first one, I can't trust myself to do more than two 4-row repeats of the eye-of-the-partridge heel in a row because it all starts to run together, and it's going to be at least couple more nights' worth of solid knitting. The pouch I'm designing is blocking, and it's noooot dryyyy, big surprise, I soaked it



a mere hours ago. Plus there's the zipper to contend with, and I hope you will forgive my language when I say that zippers are vicious little bitches. Although I can usually wrestle them into submission, I come out of the tangle a bit worse for the wear, and then spend most of the life of the knitted, be-zippered object eyeing it warily. I will say, though, that even when I've hand-sewn them in, they've tended to stay put. I guess I just don't trust their kind.

I suppose I could get the lining ready, but that requires getting the iron set up, and I doooon't waaaaant tooooooo. But, if I do, I could have a FO tomorrow.

Grouse grouse grouse.

WIP: Flutter-by

Well, I finished the first Flutter-by. I didn't try it on for the last couple of inches of toe, because I'd done the math and my feet were not in the ideal condition for trying on a precious handknit at the time. So it's about an inch too long. I'll rip back once I'm done with the second sock, which is not quite halfway done.

FO: Memory socks

Yarn: Claudia's Hand Paint, Toast, two skeins
Pattern: sock from memory
Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo 1s



Unless there is the implication of blueberries, I do not see what is so very Toast about this colorway. It does, however, blend very nicely with the concrete. Should be Concrete & Blueberries.

The patterning of the socks did indeed turn out to be different, although they are close enough to seem like a pair. As I was knitting, I thought the second sock (above) had less light tan than the first, but together they seem about the same.

Hoofle Foofle, I love youfle

There was an incident. Involving KnitPicks. See, I was reading Lickety's (heh) post about Sheldon, the turtle pattern from Knitty, and then looking at Knitty's calendar contest, and honestly I don't have very much interest in participating. I've mentioned before that my available backgrounds for knitting & yarn photos are not ideal and I'm not so wild about being photographed myself, so, meh. BUT. Then I noticed that the grand prize is "a huge box of yarn." A huge box, you say? Of yarn, you say?

Hmmmm. I want a huge box of yarn.

To my account, I have: a finished pair of Monkey socks, a finished pair of Hedera Socks, a finished Calorimetry, an attractive brother who may be willing to model, and free access to a zoo. These things may work individually, but together, not so much. Oh, and also I now have some Sheldon-colored KnitPicks Shine Sport on its way. And some other stuff, like maybe a set or four of DPNs. And five skeins of sock yarn.

As I've noticed that many previous winners had spectacularly gorgeous backgrounds, I'm kind of wishing I'd heard about the huge box of yarn thing before I spent 10 days hanging out in the Costa Rican rainforests. Doh.

I promise actual knitting content and knitting pictures tomorrow, as while I was uploading and tagging and generally Ravelrying tonight, I finished the second Toast sock. It'll be up on Ravelry (username: orooni) later tonight, if Flickr finishes processing the pictures before I go to bed. In three hours.

Ravelry

As I was publishing that last post, my Ravelry invitation was sitting in my inbox. In related news, I have given in to Other's yearlong quest for reinstating cable internet.

Birthday Yarn

Woo HOO:



Socks that Rock in Hoofle Foofle, Silkie Watermelon Tourmaline, and Twisted Lunasea. I looked high and low (on the internets, that is) for projects done with the Twisted line of STR, and came up with nothing, nothing at all. It's a nice worsted-weight yarn, and comes in at a whopping 560 yards/skein. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Maybe once my Ravelry invite comes through I'll be able to see what other knitters are doing with it, if anything.



These are Lisa Souza Sock! Merino in Sage and Gendarme. I have almost no solid-colored sock yarn, am always instead taken with the variegated, and so the sage will do nicely for a lace pattern. I also got Favorite Socks, so I'll have a lot to choose from. I'd been thinking the Sage would be good for Snicket, but it actually looks a bit too dark in person.

This influx of sock yarn has made me both very happy and very motivated to keep the socks moving off the needles. So, yesterday and today I worked on the cuff of the first Flutter-by sock, in Ashabee's merino/tencel Sugar 'N Spice:



Because I'm a sucker for the variegated yarns, I've been giving lots of thought to how to make them work. Forgive me if this is obvious and I'm un-venting here, but it seems like the problems with pooling and all other unwanted patterning happens when the pattern of variegation lines up in a regular way with the pattern of the sock. So, when combining a very regular color pattern with a very regular stitch pattern, you need to find a gauge at which the stitch pattern won't match up with the color pattern to avoid all the vertical weirdness.

By "regular pattern," I mean a pattern that uses about the same amount of yarn for every row - stockinette would be the most basic, but regular ribbing and seed stitch would also count. The genius of the Monkey sock pattern, and patterns like Flutter-by, then, is the fact that each row uses a slightly different amount of yarn.

Helping even further with this sock is the fact that I can't seem to go three repeats without screwing up the pattern (knitting when I should be slipping, and vice-versa) on at least one needle. That goes a long way toward de-regular-ifying (sorry, English language) the yarn usage. But from the looks of it, I haven't wrecked anything to the point where you can find mistakes without close scrutiny. A good balance.

At its very best it's a bad idea. And yet...

Just about every set of DPNs I have is missing its fifth needle. Because it broke, or I dropped it at the food court and it got thrown away (and hey, it's not as if I've had a conversation with every single food court employee that begins with "what're you making?" and involves me turning the part-sock rightside up and includes observations about the teeny size of everything and often a joke about not having to by socks at Wal-Mart. Or anything.) or is just lost in the jumble of debris that I refer to as my room. And most of the time this is okay because I only use four anyway. Usually I can even plunder the sedimentary layers of junk on my desk and come up with the missing one.

But flutter-by calls for five needles, and I want to use my knitpicks (stabby, soooo stabby) ones, and I can only find four of them, despite several expeditions into the desk litter. Which I'm thinking means that I'll be using four metal needles and one bamboo one. Because walking around the food court knitting a sock with matching needles doesn't look ridiculous enough.

Here is my Costa Rica knitting:



I knit to the end of the gusset decreases over the day of travel that it took to get to San Jose and didn't touch the thing until I got home. (I had another day's worth of travel but somehow didn't get around to knitting. *coughHarryPottercough*)

But the rest of the foot didn't take too long, and I'm now halfway into the next sock, the colorway of which resembles the first colorway about as much as a fully-loaded 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee resembles an egg. Which is to say... not really so much. Okay, well, now that I get them out at the same time and compare (are you taking notes? I really should be charging you for these smashing insights) the difference isn't that striking. The colors are pretty similar, I guess, just in a different, though still random pattern. Why am I still writing about this?

In other news, my self-designed blue pouchy thing is coming along at a slow but steady pace. In a stroke of genius, I knit the turn for what will be the bottom of the pouch on a smaller pair of needles, because the gauge for garter was expected to be a bit bigger, but alas, have only switched one of the needles back to the bigger size despite being a solid inch back into the pattern stitch. Oh, and also I can't find the second bigger needle, so that's stuck until I do some more desk-diving. Maybe Mr. Straight Size 6 ran off to Jamaica with Ms. Size 1 Double Point Thang. I wouldn't blame them.

Monkey Socks!

I am off to Costa Rica for a week and a half. Plane Knitting: Claudia's Hand Paint, in Toast.

Dyeing & New Yarn

In addition to 15 meters of fabric, I dyed one skein of Buttermilk-colored Crayon cotton yarn from KnitPicks. I didn't calculate the yardage for stripes, so I have no idea how it's going to knit up. I'd like to make bibs for my new first cousins, but it's possible that it will produce bibs sized for 15-year-olds, so we'll see how that goes.



One Monkey sock is done, and the other is almost to the heel. I'll show those again once they're finished. For now, I'm content to dream about what will happen to these lovely skeins that came in the mail this week:



Left is "Dragonfly" from Sunshine Yarns, right it "Kaleidoscope" from Sunnyside Ellen, both of whom are on Etsy. This is my second purchase from Sunnyside Ellen, and I'm hopeful that this skein will knit up just as nicely as the first one.

Dragonfly is going to try to be Pomatomous socks, and Kaleidoscope is going to maybe be a pair of Monkeys or Flutter-by socks, which I found through the Sockapalooza knit plig. I'm also considering that pattern for the Ashabee's that didn't work as Monkeys.

Oh yeah, Trekking stripes

But I like the colors and it fits okay, so onward!



This pair I finished a few days ago. It's the Sunnyside Ellen in Sorbet in a basic 2x2 rib.

my cheeky monkey

My yarn came today, yay! I knocked off work at 4:30 and went to stand in line at the post office until the world ended, and immediately cast on with Rosalind (the brown/pink/blue/white in the upper right-hand corner) for my Monkey socks, denying all the way that this yarn was too thick (sport weight, even) for Monkeys. It was going to be great, it would be a Monkey in baby clothes. Pastel Monkey.



I didn't even finish the inch of twisted rib before I gave up. For I am stubborn and good at denial, but I'm lazy even more than I am stubborn, and no way was I going to waste more effort than I had to. (On 4 dpns, the ribbing was loose on my leg. Augh.)

So now I am casting about in desperation. I'll find a good pattern for sport weight stockinette socks for all the new sockyarn, yes, but (said through gritted teeth) I really want to make monkey socks.

Ashabee's is out. Clovenpine is out. I've asked for some Watermelon Tourmaline Silkie STR for my birthday, but that is still awhile away and as I've covered, patience is not my strong suit. I got some Lucy STR in lightweight, but I've stashed it deep because it's for a rainy day, a day far in the future when they've discontinued the colorway and I've got Important Financial Responsibilities (read: children*) and so can't spend money on sockyarn and I need a pick-me-up. (Also: Lucy Jaywalkers!)

Part of me wants to plunk down another $20-$30 for a skein of Fleece Artist Sea Wool (in Wildflowers, oooh) that will be specifically dedicated to Monkey socks and then if that does not work, just throw myself off a bridge. But that involves a) waiting (and I believe I've addressed that) and b) possibly throwing myself off a bridge. Over socks. So, Plan F:



Trekking XXL. For Monkey socks. Monkeys don't live in Trekking (like they do in Costa Rica), it's not pink and yellow, which is the color combination I'm currently obsessed with, it does not look like a monkey in babywear, but - and this is the important part - I have some right here.

Upon googling Trekking Monkey Sock, I have counted at least 5 people who are making Monkey socks and are making other socks out of Trekking, but no people who are making Monkey socks out of Trekking. Is this crazy? Is this the knitting equivalent of taking your cousin to the prom? Is Trekking that kid who you used to climb trees with and spy on the neighbors with, but who just isn't really prom material? Is Trekking meant only for stockinette?

At this point, if taking kin to the prom is wrong, I don't want to be right.

*far, faaar in the future, I said.

intractable monkeys

Fighting off my tiredness last night, I did the first repeat of my monkey socks. And I love love love how twisted rib looks in this yarn, where the dark pink meets up with the light pink. Love.



And I've heard over and over again how monkey is specially designed for variegated yarn - you think it'll pool, but it doesn't!

I was definitely optimistic - the internets don't lie about things like this - but yes, Ashabee's hand-dyed merino/tencel yarn in Sugar N Spice colorway does, in fact, flash when knit in the Monkey pattern.



D'oh.

I love the yarn, I love the pattern, but it looks as though I will be alternating weekends between their houses, because they cannot live together. So, I'll be trying out some other yarn in this pattern and trying to figure out what to do with the Ashabee's. Whatever happens, it will almost certainly involve twisted rib in some way.



This is some Patagonia Nature Cotton for a little design project - I've decided I need a little pouch. Something lined, to hold a wallet and phone and keys. Swatching begins now.

And finally, the socks on the needles:

I just want my monkeys

Today I was on the KnitPicks site, considering getting another pair of size 1 dpns (so slippery! so pointy!) so that I can knit both socks of a pair at once, not in the nifty one-inside-the-other kind of way, but in an alternating way, so that my gauge by the second toe is not entirely different from the first cuff, which seems to happen rather a lot.

On the site, I noticed two different size 1s, and raised my eyebrows at this system we have of labeling two different things the same thing. Seems kind of silly. And since I can't find the package my original 1s came in, and maybe had a needle-sizer a couple years ago but haven't really seen it since then, I closed the window and thought nothing else of it.

I have two sets of bamboo 1s, one of which is tainted by having been dropped on some very disgusting floors, one of which I just used to make the Hedera socks. Also, the tainted set I can't really find right now. I'd rather use the KnitPicks ones, but bamboo would work just fine.

So I figured I'd just use the size 1s that I can find and do them one at a time. I need to deny myself at least some knitting-related purchases because this has been getting a little crazy, and I'll just try to be conscious of my gauge.

When I got out the pattern, though, I saw that it called for size 2s, and hark! I just randomly bought some KnitPicks 2s to get over the $40 free shipping mark with all that baby blanket yarn. I got them out and figured I'd better check the mm measurement, because KnitPicks has two size twos, too.

And they're a full three-quarters mm bigger (3.0). No problem! I have a set of four (because I lost one) 2s from Brittany birch hardwood. Those are 2.75mm. But hey, that's okay because I also have a set of Crystal Palace Bamboo size 1 1/2s. Which... are 2.5 mm. Yay! Bamboo 1 1/2s it is for the Monkeys.

Looking at KnitPicks, it would appear that they call this a size 1. Anyway, all this blathering is to say: Down with the Needle Numbering System Below Size 4! I will do my part by listing with my socks from now on the size in mms. They already *have* numbers, their absolute measurements.

Who's with me?

Yarn in pottery

I finished my Hedera socks! And I took a picture of them with my 100% brand new camera phone! And probably I will never figure out how to get the pictures off of there, and so you can't see them, but it's okay, they were blurry anyway because I hadn't realized that there is a flash. Oh, and I gave them to my mom, which I why I don't just take a picture now with my camera.



Does this look good for some Monkey socks? Hell yes it does! The original plan for the Monkey socks was Sunshine Yarn (or Sunshine Handspun or something) in the Costa Rica colorway -- because monkeys live in Costa Rica (I still think this is genius, don't try to dissuade me) but then it went and sold out and I bought this stuff. It's merino/tencel, as I think I mentioned before, and I am ready to get this Monkey party started.

Make me frog you one more time and I'll make you both into socks, swear to God

After a fourth frogging, the Chevron Scarf is finally moving. YAY.

Also, I love a good heel flap: