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.

Mostly words this time

Okay, all words. I have nothing picture-worthy, sorry to say. Or maybe they're picture-worthy but I just don't feel like taking their pictures, *I* don't know, hell, blah blah blah.

The crosshatch lace socks are coming along. I bit the shortrow-heel bullet and got the second one done (in a not-quite-identical way to the first) on Sunday and am making good progress on the feet. I'm realizing that I should have made the cuffs about an inch longer than I did, even though six cuff repeats felt like a lot.

My evenings are once again freed up, so progress should pick up. I've been foolishly splitting time over three different pairs of socks, but am now all crosshatch all the time until they're done.

Wow, that came out a lot more boring than I'd intended. More vim and just... more, tomorrow.

if I knit any tighter, my elbow will burst into flames

ITEM 1: Summer of Socks Summer Socks.



These are the Summer of Socks 08 socks in Maizy, colorway Hibiscus. The Maizy was interesting to work with -- it's not wool, so it should be cooler than wool (one would think) in the summers, but to me it ended up actually seeming kind of bulky. Or at least not as relenting as wool is. Does that make sense? I don't know.

At any rate, these socks were kind of a disaster. The cuff is downright baggy, although it wouldn't be if they would stay up, stretched all the way, but they're just not going to do that. I added a crochet chain right above the heel, which minimized bagging when the cuff is slouching down a little, but which ends up buckling the cuff when it's slouching altogether. Which in the grand scheme of things doesn't really matter much. And on top of all of this, they're incredibly, incredibly biased. So. I'll probably wear them, but blegh.

ITEM 2: Crosshatch Lace Socks.



I've been looking forward to these ever since I decided to put this yarn with this pattern, and I love how they're coming out so far. The yarn is Sunnyside Ellen (on Etsy) Louet Gems Fingering Something or Whatever, in the Kaleidoscope colorway. They're looking different than I'd imagined, because I was thinking that there was much more of the lighter minty color, but this is good too.

Hooray for Crochet! Partly because that rhymes, and partly because it's awesome.

So me and a couple buddies learned how to crochet yesterday. I've just gone through the rigmarole of photographing and posting my socks, so I won't show you my O HAI IM A NOOB swatch, but it is cute and awesome and I am proud of it. I also went on a queueing amigurumi projects tear this morning, and you really really should check out the projects tagged with "amigurumi" on Ravelry. WOW.

I seem to have added yet another job to the schedule, which blows my plans for Summer of Socks all to hell*. I'll keep my goal of finishing at least (ahahaha) a pair of socks every two weeks, to be eligible for those drawings, because winning sockyarn represents about 70% of my sockyarn acquiring possibilities these days. But finishing a pair every two weeks just got more difficult.

Here is Maizy in Wendy's Summer of Socks 08 pattern:



Going good so far, but the ssks are annoyingly easy to split the yarn on.

Did I show you these?



Monkabiddies, I love them.

Flickr embed!



Did it work? These are the Earl Grays that it took me forever and ever to finish. And of course I way overshot the second toe and could have finished them much sooner if I avoided knitting and then frogging an extra inch and a half. Other seems to like them and doesn't seem to have keeled over from an allergic reaction to the wool content: double win!

And finally, in contrast, the fastest socks ever:



Sportweight. My secret weapon in SoS 08. Now if I can avoid finishing the two socks 10 months apart, we'll be in good shape.

*but it does wonders for my "eating and being in graduate school at the same time" plans, which I will grudgingly admit may take precedence here

exacerbating sleep deprivation to remedy yarn and sock deprivation

I have been in distant lands, exploring the deep mysteries of the evening shift and conquering WIPs at every turn, except for my sweater's sleeves, which turned out to be completely the wrong shape and it may have had a lot in fact to do with the fact that I put the word "each" in the wrong place in the sentence and lo 90 rows of sweater sleeve later, in a few-minute break between training sessions, a little tiny slip of time that is not nearly enough to behold the fact that you've just completely effed both the sleeves and the plan to have the whole shebang seamed and steamed and ready mere hours after summer of socks 2008 started, it was exactly that that I had to behold, which really really sucked.

Socks. FOs. Maybe some crochet. These are the things that I will tell you about when I remember how to end sentences and fix on the sock knitting, which I have missed terribly.

sock sock funtime

This:



is monkabiddy - Monkey in Chickabiddy. It did that thing that I love in the twisted ribbing, alternating the same colors over two rows, which I believe also happened in my Dreidel Pomatomi. Love that STR + Cookie.

Also, how is it that Monkey socks seem to knit up faster than plain stockinette?

I abandoned the Quill Lace in Maizy socks. After finally getting the pattern going, it was biasing like crazy and looking otherwise unhealthy



-- I think the pattern might be better suited to a slightly more wimpy/relaxed/something like that yarn. I had been pretty determined to get those done before Summer of Socks starts 6/21, and found another pair with lots of holes to try out, but then came upon this perfect solution -- the Summer 2008 Socks that Wendy is designing for SoS 2008. So I'll wait until then. Signups are open until May 15, so if you've been meaning to sign up and also want a really really holey sock pattern, get thee over there!

the quill lace, it is killing me.

Hey, guess what kind of sucks? Casting on in Maizy. Also, casting on in Maizy for the fourth time sucks even worse. Also, I have just learned, does the fifth time.

I'm on try #5 for Quill Lace, and while each frogging after #2 has me deciding to use a different pattern, or start a completely different project instead, I keep coming back. This is one of the simpler lace patterns I've ever tried. It's a centered decrease, 2 yos, and 3 knit stitches. I should be able to handle this, so by God I'm going to handle it.

LOST: Month, 30 days. Responds to "April," white star on its forehead.

Hey yo. What happened? My head is still spinning. In four-ish months, we will move to a city that before two weekends ago, I had never seen. Where things cost double what they cost here. In related news, I haven't bought yarn for over a month. But that is neither here nor there, this here is a knitting weblog, and there has been knitting.

My sweater has been resurrected, and the back is done, and I'm partway through the cabling on the front.



I worked on it in the back of the rental car as we drove all over tarnation looking for an apartment to rent. Here are the ways in which I screwed it up:

1) I placed the first of the three cables wrong. Frogged: about 15 rows.
2) I skipped a couple rows, thereby making the cable circles too squat. Frogged: about 24 rows.
3) I BO on the wrong row, then the wrong row again, then too many, then switched the cables around, then etc. Over and over. Tink tink tink.

The mitered squares are coming along. Have I mentioned this here yet? I'm going to make a big snuggly sockyarn afghan from leftovers, a la everyone else in the universe, and yay is it fun. It's not especially attractive at this point, but I'm planning on lining all the squares with black, and in refusing to plan ahead this will probably take a crochet hook, an undetermined amount of black sock yarn, lots of creative swearing, hours of frustration, and the invention of a new kind of stitch/join that hasn't ever been invented for a reason.



I'm excited.

Finally, the Embossed Leaves are coming along slowly but surely. Counts against them are that I need to concentrate on the pattern, I like to work on them with enough time to complete an entire chart repeat, preferably for both socks, and that the 2.75s I'm using are Knit Picks metal and thus clinkey as hell, which drives Other shouty crackers. So it's a miracle I'm making any progress at all, and I am itching to get them off the needles so I can cast on some summer socks.

Oh, and I signed up for Summer of Socks, because summer is coming and I will be knitting socks. Woot!

Je suis belle et ça ne demande aucun effort.

A lot of people have said a lot of things about the Clapotis. And sometimes people can say that they do not like something while simultaneously implying that everyone who does is a simpleton with poor taste. The Clapotis is popular, and inevitably with things that are popular, a percentage of people will sniffily say that they don't get what all the fuss is about; they don't knit things just because those things are popular.

Really, does anybody choose to knit something they don't genuinely like just because it's popular? I don't know anybody who does that. (Um, I mean, I do spend a lot of time alone, so a survey of my knitting buddies does not a good sample make.) People might take a second look at something because it's popular, wondering what attraction they missed the first time around, but I can't even imagine someone picking out yarn and casting on something, saying "Well, gosh, I hate wool-silk blends and wrappy scarf things, but it's popular, so..." It seems just as silly to refuse to knit something you genuinely like just because lots of other people have.

So, jeez, anyway, here's my Clapotis:



I really like it. News flash: shawls are warm in a different way that scarves are warm! And once again I need to learn from experience something that women have known for hundreds of years.



When I first saw this pattern, which must have been pretty early in my knitting career, I thought it looked nice but had no desire for a massive worsted-weight wool scarffy-wrap thing. This feeling persisted until it started to get chilly in the fall, and on my way out the door one evening I found myself wishing I had a Clapotis to grab. That was all the incentive I needed for this puppy.

Midway through it, I wanted nothing but to be done with it, and now all I want is to cast on another. Luckily I don't have 3-4 skeins of any yarn that would be remotely appropriate, so I can turn to other things.

FO: Super Easy Totally Soft and Warm Legwarmers

Yarn: Cascade 220 Quatro and Crystal Palace Yarns Kid Merino
Pattern: Super Easy Legwarmers from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Needles: Size 8 dpns
Modifications: None whatsoever. Oh, except I made them shorter.

Turns out when you make these 15 3/4" long, you can get a full pair out of one skein of the Quatro with about a foot of yarn left over. That was an exciting finish, made slightly less exciting by the fact that I'd gotten two skeins of it. I'd been hoping to make the Mrs. Beetons out of my leftovers, but it seems silly to break into a skein for them, so that's on hold for now.

In other news, I cast on for a Clap-oh-sweet-Jeebus-is-this-thing-seriously-not-finished-yet? and it's coming along nicely. If slowly. It's currently about 50" long from the end to the middle of the (slanted) working row. Here are the specs:

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, colorway Deep Seaflower
Pattern: Clapotis
Needles: size 4 Addi Lace
Modifications: yarn sub, shooting to meet pattern schematics with a different gauge



This is the same Smooshy that my Endpaper Mitts are made out of, and it is very, very ocean-y, blue with hints of purple and green.



And, finally: the Sundara poll. I had actually been pulling for the scarf, but the socks took the early lead. So, I figured, hey, the internets knows what it's talking about -- socks it is. There's a decent chance that that particular color should not even be coming within five feet of my face anyway, because warm yellows tend to make me look like microwaved death. (I'm a Fall. Or Summer. Or whichever one can basically only wear dark blue.) But now, scarf is even with socks at three votes. Hmm. Maybe the microwaved death question will be the tiebreaker.

Sundara

In browsing through Ravelry and various other places, I found this lovely scarf (Rav link) and these lovely socks (see Socks of Kindness in Sundara s.y.). I had given up on the idea of the scarf in it, because it's only 400 yards, but smelinda ended up with way more than enough yardage for the pattern, so it's back in the running.

Given this yarn:



And given that I don't plan on buying very much Sundara s.y.(*cough*$$$$*cough*) and given that I want to have about 30 yards left over to make a mitered blanket square...

What do you think I should do?


Feel free to leave impassioned arguments for one or the other, alternative suggestions, or creative insults in the comments.

Stop! In the name of mymittsareawesome...

I totally love these. They were great fun to knit, fit very well, and are warm warm warm. The only problem I have with them is that I have to take my watch off to wear them, which puts me in deep ignorance of the time and at a big risk of losing my watch. It's from Target, not exactly a family heirloom, but I like it and really want to keep track of it. Anyway, stats:

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Deep Seaflower colorway (Warning: looks virtually nothing like the manufacturer's colorway pictures; check Ravelry for an idea of what it really looks like.) and Louet Gems in Cream
Pattern: Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang
Needles: 3.0mm KnitPicks Nickel plated (Medium size)
Modifications: None? None. I did use a different tutorial than the one she suggests for the tubular cast-on, because the one she linked crashed my browser on multiple attempts to access it, and so I left off the set-up rows for CO and BO. All else was done as the pattern said to.



Picture-taking had to be solo and the day was cloudy, so these are not the greatest shots. I wanted to get them done, though, before I wore them -- the Endpaper Mitts have lots of natural predators, such as the slightly torn steering wheel cover, the car keys, and the Overexcited Mutts Welcome Home Committee.



Anyway, I highly recommend this pattern and am plotting to make another pair soon, this time out of some nice Koigu. The Smooshy and the Gems did not come close to being the same thickness, and I was still working out tension issues through these, which makes them not quite as matchy as I would like. The next pair will be knit better, and probably loved about the same.

Moving On

After finishing the second ridiculously long single rib scarf in four months, my life became a desolate, lonely, empty wasteland. I became unsure about what my values were, and I felt my identity slowly melting back into the void. With the little strength and motivation that remained, I bleakly cast on for some Super Easy Legwarmers.



Ah! All better, tra la la. Sweet Single Rib eases the feeling of impending existential doom.

But for serious, I am loving these legwarmers. When I put the mohair (Crystal Palace Kid Merino) next to the Cascade 220 Quatro (color 5016) for the first time yesterday (terrible, considering I've had both for months with the intent to use them together) I kind of thought "ew." The mohair shade is a lot cooler than the kee-razy purple/pink of the Cascade. But knit up, it's pleasantly blendy and fluffy. These suckers are going to be warm.

I took Emily's excellent advice, and cast on some Endpaper Mitts:



And I'm loving them. I've done colorwork before - Ufserud is languishing, needle-less, in the UFO pile, though, so I've yet to actually complete colorwork. But, working with a yarn from each hand wasn't a completely new concept for me, and I'm getting more proficient at it. That's a really nice feeling.

This yarn is Louet Gems Fingering in Cream and Dream in Color Smooshy in Deep Seaflower. I got 3 skeins of the Smooshy with a Clapotis in mind, and expected to have enough left over for a pair of socks. The Smooshy goes really really far, I've found, so I still may get some socks out of it, too, once the Clapotis is done.

Funny that when the Clapotis and Endpaper Mitts came out, I liked them but had no intention of ever making them. Then in the fall, I woke up one morning and found myself wishing I had a Clapotis to wear. Surprising, but I went with it. Same deal for the Endpaper Mitts -- no desire to do such teeny colorwork, but then when my hands started freezing at work, they were all I could think about.

If you're looking for stuff to do on Ravelry, try the Endpaper Mitts gallery. The color combinations are endlessly entertaining.

Fee Fie FO: Gimme Scarf!

Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, 4 skeins black, 4 skeins orange
Inspiration: a scarf Keith Richards wears in Gimme Shelter
Needles: size 8 straights
Pattern: Yarn is doubled. Entire scarf is worked in single rib. CO 48 stitches, work with main color for 28 rows, switch to CC for 28 rows. Repeat until you have 9 sections of MC (8 of CC), bind off. Weave in ends, add 4" of fringe to each end (by which I mean, cut 8" lengths).



Keep in mind that this scarf is long relative to a 6' tall Other. It's 103". That's 43" longer than my tape measure. If you want a shorter scarf... stop sooner.