Ziggy! Zaggy! Read all about it!

Sooo, here's what the bag looked like when dry and after several hours' worth of shaving:



That thicker red part of the strap in the upper righthand corner is the cellphone pocket.

And I guess somewhere along the line I decided to keep it, because I did this to the lower left-hand corner of the flap:



This photo also happens to illustrate where the last 7" scrap of yarn went. Seriously. I cut off many 2" tails after felting and aside from that am officially and thoroughly out of this yarn. None left.

I decided to keep it mostly on the basis that if it took me two and a half years to muster up the necessary energy to make (and prioritize) this bag, it would probably take me that long to do it again. And I'd like a messenger bag a bit sooner than that.

Now I must regroup and work out plans for a lining and inside pockets. I still use the Pouchy Thing to hold the three essentials (cellphone, keys, and wallet (also a knit pouch)), so I would like some sort of place to stow that where I put it every time I use the bag and where I can get to it quickly. It's a little bit too bulky for an underside-of-the-flap lining pocket, and I didn't have enough yarn for an on-the-outside-of-the-body-but-under-the-flap knitted-on pocket, which would have been my first choice. So now I'm considering doing a slice cut in the front of the bag (under the flap) and making that open into a pocket that is separate from the main section. Having a zippered closure on that would also be ideal. This option is the most appealing theoretically, although it also would require the most stretching of my fake-it-'til-I-make-it sewing skills. Much potential disaster lies in that direction.

For the inside lining, I'd like one end to be sectioned off to hold a water bottle, and some flat pockets in the lining, perhaps along the back wall of the bag, also won't hurt. I've recently brought my sewing machine home (long story), so the only thing holding me back from working on it is my foot-dragging.

While the bag has been sitting there waiting for me to care about it again, I've been hard at color work. My Ziggies are done and I couldn't be happier with them.



Well. I suppose I could be happier with them if I'd followed my gut and removed that long section of yarn where the yellow transitions to black. But I'm still mostly hugely happy with them. They fit fine, although they're difficult to get over the heel, and they were very fun to make.

I substituted a shortrow toe for the one called for in the pattern (magic cast-on, I think?), and then substituted afterthought shortrow heels (over 39 stitches instead of 33 to make the heel deeper and hopefully easier to get on). I like shortrow toes and hate shortrow heels. That makes no sense at all, because they're essentially the same thing, but there you go. I'm not really in the market for learning a toe-up gusset at the moment, because I don't really love toe-up all that much.

Perhaps someone has thought of and written down good directions on how to manage the stitches above the afterthought heel, but I haven't found them. Mostly because I didn't look. So just take this as a warning: before acting on that seductive thought: "Oh, I'll just do an afterthought heel!" you might want to look into if it's possible/how to handle those above stitches neatly. This is what you might be faced with if you don't:



Well. You'll be faced with that anyway, but if you have a plan then it might not seem so alarming to you that what is one stitch in one direction is two in the other.

Every time I do colorwork, I'm immediately seized by the desire to do more colorwork. I've decided to go with that and declare 2009 the Year of Colorwork -- which basically means the Christmas of Colorwork* -- which means that I now have an excuse to pour over colorwork patterns and plan a long list of colorwork gifts and start knitting some colorwork right now in the name of Being Ready for Christmas, Dammit.

I've cast on some Dippers in STR lightweight Thraven, which I had earmarked for another pair of Pomatomi but I think of what remains in my stash, it's the best fit for the pattern. Which, actually, in some ways is similar to Pomatomus -- lots of twisted stitches, an undulating look.



Yeah, you really can't see it well, and there's not a lot to look at anyway. Nice yarn, though, eh?

*Except you, Mom. You are getting a gigantic knitted dinosaur. There may be fun fur. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Rrrrr! Hulk felt!

Felted the messenger bag today. It's drying, and I think we've made peace with each other, but I'm going on record now as saying that I will not be using Cascade Pastaza ever again, for anything, ever. At the height of the battle, I told it that I was going to finish it and sell it on Etsy, but I'm going to let it dry and reassess.

(last photo pre-felting)

Pastaza wasn't terrible to knit with -- a bit sheddy, and so prickly that when I was holding the work on my lap, it would poke me through one or two layers of clothes -- but felting it was just awful. I did it by hand, partly to have more control over the process and partly to not spend money on wash cycles, which cost $1.50 a pop in this building. It didn't shed so much at first, but once it started shrinking, it just shed and shed and shed. Brown and red fibers sticking to my wet hands, over and over again. I came upstairs and grabbed the drain protector we'd gotten for giving the dogs baths, and that seemed to work pretty well overall to collect the fibers. I think that sucker could have easily clogged up the pipes of a washing machine about three times over.

I'm pretty optimistic, and it takes a lot for me to go from thinking that something (a person, kind of yarn, particular experience, etc.) is great to thinking that it really sucks, so if all the awfulness of the felting experience yielded a perfect bag, then hey, whatever, it's good. But I couldn't get the damn bag to the point where all the stitch definition was gone. That's supposed to be possible, right? That's the point of felting?

Maybe it will look better when it's dry. That's going to be awhile, probably, so I'll have time to cool off and go over my options of what to do. Thoughts of a nice felted messenger bag in Wool of the Andes were dancing in my head, though, as I took my best shot at felting the bejezus out of this one.

Now it's time to try to figure out how to proceed with the Ziggy socks I'm casting on next. Actually, I've already got a solid black short row toe all ready. I'm planning on knitting both of them at the same time, as I normally do, on separate sets of DPNs, so I was going to split the skein into four equal-sized balls, but then while I was winding it, I found a break that leaves 40g on one side and 70g on the other. And it's not one of those breaks that continues the color progression. So, I've been waiting for some clever way of dividing up the balls for minimum joining and maximum color awesomeness. Hasn't come to me yet, but something's hovering out there, I just have to find it.

Ahhhhh...

This is another of those all-at-once-ers. I've been wanting a more open-looking template, so that my pictures don't crash through the teeny-tiny middle section. This seems to fit the bill the best, despite its "harbor" theme. Hey, I like harbors. They're cool.

So, what have you been working on obsessively?

I intend to answer that. But first: new socks!



These are my Comfort Socks.

Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multy (I swear it says Multy on the tag, even though this looks more like a solid)
Pattern: Party Socks for Little Girls, from a Patons pamphlet from 1968
Mods: knit over more stitches, using my own heel and toe and using 4x2 rib (I think) instead of 1x1 as called for in the pattern.

I think I neglected to blog about it last year, but for my birthday, my awesome husband compiled a gigantic binder of vintage patterns, many of which are sock patterns. I was casting about for a sock to start, and came across it again on my bookshelf. This pamphlet was the first one I pulled out, and the Ranco Multy seemed to go with it pretty well, so off I went. Normally I work off a list of pattern-yarn combinations that I've had going for many years at this point, so I should go through the rest of the vintage patterns and make sure some of them make that list.

The pattern was interesting in that it called for a sl 1, k1, psso left-slanting decrease, which I'd never done and which doesn't seem to be so common anymore. It makes a more visible decrease, I think, and I like how it looks paired with yo-s.

Here's a somewhat better shot of the pattern:



Next up, cabley socks for Sock Knitters Anonymous's May Knitalong.



Yarn: Oceanwind Knits Merino Sock in the Sweet Sheep colorway
Pattern: my own, a 4-cable x 2-purl plain sock

Oceanwind Knits is just incredibly wonderful. The plies are very plump, and I think I've used the word "nubbley" to describe it in about four different places - probably with different spellings each time - and I will continue to use it, because it just describes it so well. The colors are complex and interesting, and to top it all off, it's soft. I can't wait to wear these, but, along with the comfort socks, they've gone into a drawer until Autumn comes back.

And again:




New socks on the needles, because I probably should knit my summer sockyarn while it's still summer:



Panda Cotton, using the Broad Spiral Ribbing pattern from More Sensational Knitted Socks. Started with Nibblets, but the pooling was too much for me. This pooling is okay.

And for the main act: the Knitting for Peace messenger bag!

Several/many years ago, I made my mom a small felted purse. It's pretty beat by now, and also she's learned to knit in the meantime, so she asked if I would help her make one herself. We quickly got down to planning, and all the talk of felting suddenly precipitated a desperate urge to cast on for this messenger bag, which I've been planning on making - and had the yarn for - for a couple years.

I started knitting last Saturday, and here's where we are so far.


That maybe doesn't look so impressive, so here's my hand for scale:



Whoa, right? Right. (Please tell me right, this probably represents about 15 hours of knitting.)

This project is also exciting because it gives me the opportunity to dig out my fabric stash to make a lining. I don't really have much red that has the same bluish tint that the cranberry-colored yarn does, so I'm considering going with browns or tans.

Someone mentioned on a blog once that using light-colored fabric for lining makes it much easier to see down into the bag when you're looking for something, so right now my plan is to use the lightest fabric on the far left to line the inside, and then the brown and white flowers on the right to line the flap. The bottom one also matches well, but there's only a fat quarter of it. I'm strategizing for pockets in the lining and maybe a flat one on the inside of the flap, but don't have a solid plan yet, and probably won't until I felt it.

I'm getting a bit nervous about my supply of yarn, but I don't think it's a matter of not being able to finish. It's more a matter of having a short-ish strap and maybe not enough to add pockets on to the outside part of the bag under the flap. Outside pockets would greatly increase the usability, though, so here's hoping I have enough for all of that.

Okay, enough of my jibberjabber. Have a great fourth celebration, if you're in the US, and a great fourth if you're not!

Crochet!

You know how you go along thinking, oh man, I wish I had a pet ferret? And how it would be so great, and she would live in my apartment, and I would name her Daisy and we would watch TV together? And then you get a ferret and name her Daisy, and then about a week later you realize that Daisy the Ferret eats a *lot*?

Starting a gigantic crocheted afghan is exactly like a few very specific parts of that. Crochet takes a lot of yarn. I thought I had a lot of yarn to use for this particular crocheted afghan, but it turns out that most of my leftovers are actually fingering weight, and there is another Crazy Ferret now living in the house to deal with that.

After accidentally staying up really late getting this sucker started, I've done a row a day of the Vertical Vintage Stripes afghan.



aaaand I'm pretty much out of yarn for it, at least that's easily handy and not slated for some other project.

This gives me a good excuse to haul out the rubbermaid bins that hold everything and reassess. I really want to keep working on this, and there's got to be stuff that I'm not remembering that's left over from other projects. And there's a bunch of yarn I got pre-Ravelry that's not in my Ravelry stash that I'd like to put there.

Here's a question for any readers*: ought one combine superwash and non-superwash yarns in the same afghan project? My instincts say no, because when it inevitably gets thrown in the washing machine, half of it will felt and render the whole thing trash. If the whole thing felts, it'll become a floor mat or dog blanket, and if the whole thing doesn't, no problem at all.

The other half of me suggests that it's silly to think that it will ever be thrown into the washing machine to felt, because I wouldn't do that and thus far my husband has successfully employed the "Ask Before Washing" rule.

Erring on the side of caution and making two leftover blankets, one all superwash and one all plain wool, seems prudent here. However, it will take a really long time for either of those blankets to get finished. Hmm.


*Ireally do appreciate the answers I get to my various questions, even though asking a question seems to informally result in whatever the project is getting put aside for about 5 years.

Socks as fast as I can wear them

I have finished things!



Here we have my Smooshy Dreams socks. Dream in Color Smooshy yarn, November Muse colorway, Sweet Dreams pattern (also from Dream in Color). This yarn and pattern have been in my stash for a looong time, and I'm glad I finally got to them. This was my entry in Sock Knitters Anonymous's April Knitalong (which ends at the end of May). One of April's themes was "underappreciated patterns," meaning patterns with less than 15 projects. I cast on for these as the 15th project on April 1st, then put them aside for a while.

The pattern was very easy, and I like the big honking cables paired with lace. My eyes have some trouble, when I look at the sock and pictures of it, making out what the pattern is - I wonder if that's just me.

Finally, November Muse is the wonderfullest brown I've ever seen. Lovely.

Next up are my Peaseblossom KAL Mad Color Weave socks.



These also fit wonderfully, and the pattern is excellent -- the only mod I would suggest is knitting an extra repeat or two of the cuff pattern before starting the heel. I knit one extra one and had enough yarn left over that I probably could have done two. It came close to hitting 90F the last two days, and because we're back down to 60F today, I can at least wear them around the house once before washing them and putting them away for next year.

The Yarn Harlot recently wrote about her favorite point in a project being when it's almost done and about to really come together. I've been thinking about what my favorite point is, and I think maybe what I've come up with is the decision of which to do next. I love planning projects, to the point where thinking about what sock yarn I have and what pattern I'll make with each one might have actually risen to the level of a coping strategy. I love imagining all the possibilities.

Right now I'm at a point where it's time to make a sock blankie square out of the leftover Peaseblossom and pick what sock pattern I'm going to cast on for next. I've got 24 empty dpns within six inches of my hands as I type this, and I can't wait to fill them up again.

Have you heard of the Swallowtail Shawl

I stayed up



so freakin late



last night



to finish this shawl. As of yesterday morning, I had eighteen rows of chart and three rows of bindoff prep and bindoff to do. I made a few little mistakes here and there, but nothing so major I had to frog, and I went to bed with it pinned out to block on the floor. As of this writing, I haven't spotted a mistake, so if you see one, please don't tell me.

I love how it turned out. In the middle of the semester I'd thought about making a gift of it to the person who has been my supervisor this year, but the project fell by the wayside and I kind of by default decided not to. Then our last lab meeting fell through because of a horrible tragedy for my supervisor and we postponed a week, which turned out to be enough time to get it done -- I wrapped it up and gave it to her tonight. The firm and close deadline was a big motivator, and I feel very much like the finished object is in the right place.

Also, it turns out I love nupps. I've got another skein of Malabrigo Lace, in cognac, from a swap, and it may be in line to be another Swallowtail.

Focusing so intensely on a single project and finishing it has actually recharged my knitting batteries a bit. The internet was down today, so I finished the cuffs of two of my April SKA KAL socks. My Socks that Rawk Q2 KAL socks are moving along as well, but those aren't due to be finished until June-ish or something maybe, and the April ones need to be done by May 30. My plain socks otn at the moment (out of Regia surf cotton) have a deadline of "I want to wear them now," so those are moving quickly too.

I frogged Wicked because I was pretty certain that I wouldn't have enough yarn for it. Instead, I'm working it up into a Two-Tone Shrug from Fitted Knits that might end up only being one-tone. We'll see. I might mash that up with Wicked, actually, and do a couple repeats of the cabled rib instead of the big dramatic double ribbing cuffs. It's meant to be something to pull on when the air conditioning gets ridiculous during the summer, but really, I don't think it will match a single other article of clothing that I have, much less look good over it, so I don't really know how that's going to work. Hmm. This seems ill-fated in at least three different ways. Oh well!

Our new semester starts tomorrow. The last one ended Thursday, and also totally sucked from end to end. So I'm going to try to get enough sleep for once, if I can tear myself away from this heel flap.

Making Good

I have been on the receiving end of the generosity of lots of knitters, and am finally able to show my appreciation by knitting all this lovely yarn up.

First off, here are my Anastasia Socks in Fred Flintstone, which I bought from a lovely Raveler ages ago, when it wasn't available on the site (though it is at the moment).



These are my first toe-up socks, and while I liked the short-row toe, I'm not wild about short-row heels or worrying about how stretchy my bindoff will be. To me, grafting a toe is way more fun and stress-free than binding off the top of a sock.

I *love* how the yarn striped/spiraled, and even though the gauge ended up being ridiculously tight for medium weight yarn, the socks fit well and I would do it all again.

These little cute things:



are for my coworker who is due in July. The yarn was outright given to me right before I moved by a local knitter who had seen in the group activity pages for our LYS that I had favorited some Panda Cotton. She found it too splitty to work with, and I must agree that this skein was especially splitty, strangely moreso than the skein of Panda Cotton I used to make these:



which were given to another coworker who had her baby a couple weeks ago. These are Christine's Baby Booties, and they are wee and cute. (One mod I made: when knitting the instep stitch together with the side stitches, I switched their order on the needle, with the side stitch crossing over top of the instep stitch -- I think this helped avoid holes.)

And, finally, one of my first actions on Ravelry way back in August, 2007, was to come across the BMFA Peaseblossom colorway and ask if anyone had a skein they would like to trade. A lovely club member hadn't knit hers up and traded me for it, and I am finally, finally using it.



This is Mad Color Weave, which I'm making as part of the Quarter 2 Socks that Rawk Knitalong. The base yarn feels different than more recent STR -- more like Koigu, seems to me.

Progress on Apres Surf is continuing, but slowly -- I did rip and re-knit, and am in the increase part of the body. I'm giving most of my attention to socks right now, but I'd like to be able to wear Apres Surf this spring, so I should be working on it more. I'll try to find the piece of paper that I was keeping track of increases on and get back to work on it.

Questions for Knitters

Hi Knitters,

Here's the sweater I'm working on now:



It's the Apres Surf Hoodie.

I'm as far along on it as this photo shows, and have just realized that I've been putting an extra knit and purl row at the end of the pattern repeat. Doh.

So my question is, do I rip and re-do? Do I keep making this mistake throughout the rest of the pattern and keep knitting happily along? Do I stop making the mistake, but not rip anything, hoping that nobody will notice the discrepancy?

I'm inclined to just keep adding the extra rows and forge ahead. This is not feeling like one of those times where this is going to bother me enough as I go along that instead of ripping right away, I'll get the whole back done and then rip, thus wasting lots of time and knitting.

The only thing that would stop me from doing that is if I really thought it would make the pattern look worse than what it would look like if I were doing it right. And I know that I'm really terrible at spotting mistakes, so that's why I'm asking your opinion on this.

Also...

Sockyarn Blanket is coming along!



My question for knitters here is, how much variation between square sizes is okay? The smooshy and risata (peachy and blue squares in the bottom left) are rather huge compared to the other ones. And, gauge being the sticky wicket that it is, just about none of the squares are exactly the same size, even though I've been faithfully casting on 48 sts. I'm not ready to go and do something crazy like measure the squares or anything, but I'm considering ripping the obviously-huge-squares and reknitting those.

Opinions?

Sweater the Second

I am working on Wicked in some Twisted, colorway Lunasea, which my mom got me for my birthday a few years ago.



While I like how the fit is coming out, and it's doing lovely-ly non-pooling things, I just feel like I'm going to run out of yarn. I'm horrible at eyeballing these things, but also have the bad habit of using denial as a handy tool to keep knitting when I really, really shouldn't. I can make the sleeves really short and leave off the kangaroo pocket (though I love kangaroo pockets) and maybe have enough.

I guess my next step here is to frog back to where I stopped decreasing and throw in a few more decrease rounds, which would help the fit a little and give me some more yarn to work with. But that involves finding a safety pin to mark the center with before I start frogging, and that hasn't really happened yet.

More gift yarn is at work here:



This is Firebird STR lightweight, pressed into service in a seed stitch scarf. CO 42 sts, slip the first st of every row, knit until you run out of yarn.

Firebird has got to be my most favorite-est colorway EVER. And I don't toss these designations around lightly. In the skein, I liked the light orange and light electric purple parts the absolute best, but knit up I like all of the colors, especially together. There's an electric red in there too, and wow, I am so happy when that comes up. I'm a bit burned out on socks at the moment, and didn't really want to hide this gorgeous yarn under shoes and pants, so the scarf was an obvious choice.

Looking at the blue moon page, there doesn't seem to even be any purple in that skein. Although the light is not nearly as good, here's my Rav stash picture of it. Glory be.

Oh yes, and I finally finished Ufserud.



And a closeup:



Blocking really does make a difference, thank goodness.

So, yo, happy Valentine's Day, and happy knitting!

a thrower, a flicker, and sometimes a picker

Let's start from the end, shall we?

Most recent FO: Ufserud. I know, right? Where the hell did that come from? Well, it came from my UFO pile, and the motivation for it came from a good solid two weeks with highs below freezing and reports of an upcoming low of -18F. -18! Foliage is lovely, yes, but wind cuts right through it, so yeowza, we need a wooly stranded hat, stat. I took pictures of it, but have no FO pics yet, as it's not quite finished blocking.

Holy cow, I haven't even written about Foliage yet. This is going to take awhile.

Leyburns

I flew back here on Christmas Day, and needed plane knitting desperately. I was the lucky recipient of three skeins of some BMFA lightweight, and cleverly used my Traditional One Present On Christmas Eve pick to select the most yarnly-shaped package available, so I was able to wind this up and have it ready to go for the plane.

Those crazy Ravelers in the Socks that Rawk group were just starting a Leyburn knitalong, handily saving me the need to make any kind of decision regarding what pattern to use. I hadn't intended to use my Highway 30 so quickly, but this just fell into place.

After knitting most of a cuff on the plane, I decided that the ribbing and pattern sections were both too big and pool-y, so I frogged the whole thing and started again. Oh well, at least it kept me from spending my time trying to smoke in the lavatory.

The KAL's open until the end of March, so if you have some STR and want to make Leyburns, get thee over there! It's a good read even if you don't want to play along.

Ruby Wristers



A classic from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, these were a very quick knit. I used my uber-score single skein of Road to China -- uber-score because I bought it on sale and with a store credit reward, paid like $6 for it -- it retails around $20. Unfortunately, getting the history-making discount was probably the most exciting part of this process. It feels great to knit with, and it's utterly gorgeous, but apparently the alpacas weren't baby enough to prevent the inclusion of guard hairs in the yarn. After spending more hours than I'd like to admit tweezing them out, these are definitely wearable, but man, these are a great reminder of the lesson I already knew: put down the alpaca. Just put it down. Stories with alpaca in them don't end well.

Oh, and the final nail in the coffin of this project was that after dividing the skein as evenly as I could, one mitt ended up half a 4-row repeat shorter than the other. Noticeably shorter. Doh.

Felt Clogs on Parade



This was my Felt Clog Christmas. You should have yourself a Felt Clog Christmas asap, because they are fun and awesome. Except the part where you spend Christmas day checking the washing machine and wrangling soggy lumps of wool in and out of pillow cases, but even that's not so terrible. I think the family likes them.

Oh, and also! If you are in possession of five skeins of Wool of the Andes in Blackberry and are kicking yourself because you really wanted Lullaby, pm me! Because I did the opposite thing of that! And would like me some Blackberry clogs.

Oh, yes, and my final comment about all of these is that I found WotA to felt slightly better than Cascade 220. Them's might be fightin' words over on Rav, but here I can say it with impunity. Ha.

Oh, yes, and a postscript to my final comment: WotA in Dove Heather, the light gray in the clogs second to the left is just lovely. It's certainly sweater-worthy. It's the only Heather I used, but boy is it soft and nice. Maybe the others are too.

Lace Ribbon Scarf

This sweet puppy is the Lace Ribbon Scarf in Sheep Shop 3. I cast on 35 sts (I think) after some kind Raveler who said she'd done the same thing and looked to have the size I was going for. I used basically the whole skein, and it's the perfect wearing-during-the-day length.

Sheep Shop 3 is just wonderful - it's got a great sheen, and the colors were very entertaining.

Foliage



There -- imagine that done, and you have the idea. The lace pattern is pretty strong, so you can kind of see the leafy shapes despite the crazy color changes. It turned out to fit me a little more loosely than most people find it, so the lace isn't pulled open when it's worn. I really, really like the way it looks, and am thinking over some sort of cowl-y deal with the leftover 37g.


Monkeys!!!


These were Mom's other Christmas present. Purple Rain STR lightweight. Made the cuffs shorter than I needed to because I was afraid of running out of yarn.

Invented Rib!



These were Mom's birthday socks. Knit Picks Risata, 60 sts, 2 1/2" or so of 3x2 ribbing and then alternating 2 rounds of 3x2 ribbing with 2 rounds of stockinette. Bingo bango!

Oh man there is yet more.

Rings o' Jupiter! Socks

More STR: lightweight, Space Dust, RPMs with the modification detailed in Stariel on Rav's project page. (You take out one stitch after the ribbing, if I remember correctly, and then you don't have to jog at all? Not jogging is better than jogging.)

To my pleasant surprise, this is my second most hearted project. Why? No idea. But I'm glad people like them.

There is more -- how have I not blogged about my sweater yet? -- but moan, groan, thrash, I am done for the evening. I hope all y'all's holidays were awesome-o and that you've settled happily into post-Christmas knitting.

It's faberdashulous

Still Christmas knitting away, but I've been meaning to post this forever and now I've finally remembered to do it at a time when actually doing it was convenient:

My mom and I have opened an Etsy Shop, called the Faberdashery (what else?) where we are selling hand-dyed baby clothes and bibs. Here's an example of one I just put up today:



They look much cuter when they're actually on children, and if anyone wants to volunteer a six-, twelve-, or eighteen-month-old to model, well, that would be great.

We've had reports from relatives that the bibs are extra-awesome because they go over the head like a t-shirt instead of velcro-ing on, which makes it much harder for contrary babies to remove.

So, yeah. Etsy shop. Woot!

Knitting Underground

Heyyo. Sorry for the radio silence, it's just that you're not going to hear about a lot of what my needles have been up to until about Dec. 26. That's right, I'm pretty on track for my Christmas knitting. Also, my computer monitor is on its way out after many years of dedicated and non-seasickness-inducing service. It has good hours and bad hours, and the bad hours are starting to seem like they might actually cause seizures, and wanting to post pictures of your knitting doesn't seem like a good reason to risk a brain disorder. I'll see if I can catch it on a good hour, though, and post pics of my new sweater (which can be found on Ravelry if your curiosity is insatiable). I owe my new cowl a love letter post as well, so I'll see if I can't get on that.

Right now I'm using Other's computer, to write a paper actually (hi!), so I should get back to that. Grumble.

lace literacy, secret socks

About six minutes before it became available through much easier means, I bought the back issue of IK with the Swallowtail Shawl pattern in it. In a moment of weakness a long while ago, I'd gotten a teeny, pretty little ball of Malabrigo lace in Emerald. I've been on a real sock tear, and noticed that I missed having bigger projects on the needles, so without really planning to, I sat down and cast this on.


The version in IK starts with a garter tab, which completely confounded me -- I couldn't conceptualize at all how this was going to work, but was eager to start. I had gotten the pattern for the Shetland Triangle a long time ago, and never cast it on because I couldn't understand how starting at the center neck worked. What did that mean? Huh? Who shot who in the what now?

So this is the part of knitting that is humbling but also completely awesome. You have no idea what it is that you're doing in the grander scheme of meaning, but following the directions step by step gives you what you're supposed to get. You have to just do it to see what it means. By the time I was to the end of the garter tab, I was with it enough to even make a modification and throw in an extra purl row in order to have the right-er-ish-looking side be the right side.

I'm enjoying the shawl at this point -- the emerald is mostly a nice medium green, but every once in a while will veer into an almost light-blue-ish light green or a dark, dark blue green. If the lace pattern weren't enough to keep me interested, that would definitely do it. The rows are feeling long now, and I still have at least three repeats of the first chart to go, so it may end up being a bit of a beast.




These are stockinette socks in Knit Picks Felici Firefighter (or -house or -dog, I can't remember). They are only being blogged now because they were a gift that has been given.


I am still completely in love with Felici -- it's soft, non-splitty, and very entertaining.

Christmas knitting has commenced, so a bunch of stuff will be under the radar for a while. I'll be sure to check in to moan about how I'm still working on the swallowtail every once in a while, though.

Oh yeah, knitting! I love knitting!

So. Hi. I moved across the country. Haven't sorted all of that out yet really, literally, existentially, metaphorically, whathaveyou. But! This is a knitting blog, and I can tell you the story of the knitting part of the moving across the country.

Apparently I was conceptualizing the actual trip as some kind of 18th Century sea voyage of many months, because that is how much knitting I pictured I would get done. I planned to do a great amount of the Woven Trellis Scarf. It is awesome looking but way boring with the small strips on dpns and six of them and they are long et cetera. So, I got in my head the crazy notion that the Soft Linen (Reynolds?) I was using would work up at a totally different gauge than the Classic Elite Lush called for in the pattern, so I selected two sets of dpns, each a size smaller than the ones called for in the pattern. But it turns out that a) the scarf is kind of on the small and narrow side as scarves go anyway, so going to a smaller gauge would be kind of stupid, b) the yarn I was using worked up to exactly exactly the gauge called for in the pattern, and c) oh but wait there's this thing you can do where you increase the number of stitches and therefore get a bigger object than you would with your current gauge! Genius! Sign me up!

And it's important to keep in mind here that my thinking at this point was a bit addled. I was on a many-month sea voyage on an average of about 4 hours of sleep a night for the three proceeding nights, all of which would culminate in a big, unfamiliar city with no established means of income and going into a new program that I was pretty sure was what I wanted to do and it god damn had better well be given the crazy debt and massive life-uprooting that was going into it -- which is relevant to the knitting in sheer terms of the amount of mental energy I had available for things like scarves on dpns. Which is to say, not much.

So all of this might have worked out with the thinking and misconceptions and linen, but I dropped one of the dpns of the first set and it fell into the crack between the foot-part of the floor (hey, so my vocabulary is returning slowly) and the kind-of-under-the-door-but-still-inside-the-truck part. Stopping to retrieve it was no kind of option, plus I had figured out the whole gauge issue, both the whoops, I have the wrong size needles issue and the hey I can add more stitches for bigger, woot! issue and also the bigger size that I had brought was actually the smaller size called for in the pattern, so I temporarily abandoned the smaller needle in the door crack, frogged, and cast on more stitches to bigger needles. (Rough, mind-addled math also indicated at this point that I had enough extra yarn that I could add stitches in terms of width and still end up with a scarf-length object rather than a potholder. I still think I'm right about this.)

We stopped for bagels, and as I was getting out of the truck, I heard the working dpn fall somewhere in the truck and after extensive, head-rush-inducing searching, could not turn it up. It is GONE. So I packed up the scarf and put it aside, because really, that was getting ridiculous.

I haven't unpacked it. It won't be terrible, it's not as if the yarn is in a monstrous tangle or anything is irreparable... I think... but I'm not ready to go back to it yet.

THIS pretty-pretty is a froot loop sock in Koigu. Haha funny story about the Koigu -- I originally planned to make this in a slightly darker shade but very similar KPPPM. My work buddy had admired said KPPPM in my stash photos on Ravelry, so as a goodbye gift, I stopped at the shop in my hometown where I'd gotten it, but of course neglected to write down which number it was. It's the purple stuff. Check.



So, at the shop I quickly discovered that there was an abundance of a darker shade (426? Still I can't be arsed to look it up) and only one of this lighter shade, 263 (or something)! So after much scrounging and about 3 false alarms involving whatever the much more expensive part-silk or -vicuna or -whateverthehell Koigu, I found another skein of the lighter stuff! Yay!

And of course I get home and realize that what she originally admired was the darker stuff. So I gave her the darker stuff from my stash and am using the lighter stuff myself. It too is gorgeous, and after some frogging and cursing of dyelots (one sock has more of a grayish tint and is slightly less variegated), I'm to the heels. And since I screwed with the cast-on count, and the heel is carefully worked over a certain number of repeats, I haven't summoned the mental resources to deal with the heel yet.

Aaanyway, zomg I'm still typing, I finished a pair of plain socks during the voyage (I think, who knows, maybe they were done before. Oh yeah, they were, because they would have qualified for Summer of Socks but I didn't get around to posting them) or something blah blah blah. More knitting has happened but I don't have pictures and it might be done tomorrow anyway and I still need to shower tonight and have I mentioned the tired? It is big and heavy.

Acorn Stash Socks, FO'd!!

Done! I was not actually so wild about the Oregon Red Clover Honey STR -- I was expecting something very different based on the pictures from the Blue Moon site, more like separated red and yellow.



But, I do love how acorn-y the color is, and the gradation in color is just lovely. This colorway also looks awesome in Twisted, if the various photos on Ravelry are to be believed.

These were probably the hardest socks I've knit, mostly because of the insane number of stitches-into-one that forms the tops of the acorns. These became much more do-able when I realized that what mattered was pulling each new stitch out as far as I could, rather than starting with a really big stitch to make the other stitches into. That was a very good lesson.

And even though the stitch count varies from row to row, it's not actually that difficult to keep track of. I was paying tons of attention anyway, so if I needed a stitch that wasn't there, I knew about it right away.

The pattern was great, well-written and clear and way more complicated than anything I could come up with on my own. Oh, but if you're going to do all the repeats that are called for with STR, you'll need more than one skein. I think I did five cuff repeats, and didn't have enough left over for any more, but the socks are plenty tall.

And now I have spent way too much time playing on the internets and must get back to packing.

Can't blog.

Acorning.

Birthday Yarn

Woot!

Hedwig!!

Here are the next socks. Meet the new socks, same as the old socks. Insofar as it's from an indie dyer (Sunshine Yarns) and the yarn overs, they are plotting against me.

I spend a lot of mental energy on pairing socks with patterns, which is especially given my penchant for colorways with serious internal contrast. But sometimes I'll quickly and easily become fixated on one decision and that'll be it. The yarn that became the crosshatch lace socks could have been 15 other things, but this one was going to be waving lace from the beginning. My Smooshy Giant Peach Charades were the same way.

Anyhow, these are flowing nicely and I'm liking the feel of the yarn (Sunshine Yarns Twist). It's almost cottony or papery or something. If it wears well, I will definitely use it again.

effo: Crosshatch Lace Socks (24 hours early, too)

I've got to say, if I saw a thread on Ravelry dedicated to laughing at the accidentally-phallic nature of one of my designs, I'd be sick with embarrassment. Oh, Ravelry.



Aaaanyway, here are some socks! I have apparently taken it upon myself to knit socks that are bulletproof, and with these suckers got 9.5 spi (on the stockinette soles). On the one hand they probably won't wear through anytime soon, and on the other hand they might because that's some serious negative ease. They fit, they're fine, really, but I need to chill the hell out with the knitting.



I really like the crosshatch lace pattern, although I'll cry if I recall the number of times that I missed a yo or some other kind of stitch count screwery and had to tink. Crazy tension + time constraints + general distractability = serious knitting frustration. Oh, and I don't know wtf happened with the toes, but for the feet I had 36 on the top and 30 on the bottom (as a result of a serious lack of planning going into the heel). On the first sock I actually remembered to put stitches from the top onto the bottom so the toe would be even (but ended up fudging something anyway, I know not what), and on the second I didn't and was at the end with a whopping six stitches more on top than on the bottom. Over sixty that's not so many stitches; over twelve it really, really is. I'd love to say that I frogged the toe and fixed it from the beginning, but it just wasn't that kind of week.

Onward through the sock stash! Up next: Sunshine Yarns in Hedwig, Waving Lace. I cast on tonight. And it's 11:30, zomg, what happened to the evening?

ETA: Flickr, why must you default to the Original size? Who uses the original size? Sorry if I 'sploded your-all's feed reader things.