UFOver

Today is the last day of October, meaning it's also the last day of UFOctober. Here's how I managed to perform on my goals:

1. The #$%(! Jailwalkers. I wanted to figure out whether it was worth knitting the second sock. It was not. The first sock went into the garbage where it belonged, and the second skein went to a friend with small children who enjoy wearing handknitted socks.

Status: Goal met.

2. The SOS07 Gypsy Girl Ominous Skies socks started for the Summer of Socks '07. Much tinking and frogging, and one or two practical jokes played by my yarn, and these are in the FO column. I've even worn them twice already, and am getting close to forgiving them for their obstinacy.

Status: Goal met.

3. Jojoland Cashmere blend socks/Bears socks. My goal was to finish one or the other pair with the ultimate goal of having only one pair of socks OTN again. Well, the Bears socks were frogged. The Jojoland second sock is living on my desk at the family business, where I knit it in fits and starts when I can be roused to go into the shop in the first place. Because I forgot to rescue the Jojoland from my dusty, barely used desk, and because the Bears sock was frogged, I ended up taking different sock yarn on the airplane to Denver. I knit the cuff and part of the leg, and haven't touched it since. The Jojoland needs to be finished first. Also, the Bears sock yarn is being reincarnated as a clapotis for my mother. It's on the needles, but just barely.

Status: We're going to have to call this one a draw. Not a complete failure because I did work toward the ultimate goal. But certainly not a complete success, either.

4 and 5. Secret knitting parts one and two. The secret baby yoga pants and the secret baby cardigan are done. (Romance authors reading this are giggling over the names of these projects -- "secret babies" being a hackneyed but omnipresent plot device in romancelandia.)

Status: Goal met.

6. The crapghan. Well, I managed to purchase another hook to replace the one Miss Six hid in an undisclosed location. I pulled out the crapghan and found the remaining three balls of Red Heart a/k/a Dead Fart yarn and crocheted less than a full row before allowing myself to wander away. My definition of heaven? A place where cheap crappy yarn evaporates instantly before it can pollute the environment with its awfulness. And Grandma, I'm sorry, but if you're in Heaven According To Me now, you'll be able to grasp why I resist this little part of family tradition so much. I will do the afghans in your pattern and your yarn to honor you and continue the afghan tradition. But I won't like the yarn.

Status: Goal met. Very grudgingly. I've got to figure out a way to finish this damn thing.

In addition, I knit the aran watchcap and 8.75" on Fulmar. Which makes for a pretty durn good UFOctober. Thanks again to Heather for organizing this. It really motivated me to make some progress on KIPs that might otherwise still be stuffed in the bottoms of bags.

FO: Another Hat Bites the Dust

The aran watchcap is finished but for some weaving -- you can still see the needles holding the last crown stitches up top. I'll knock that out later today, and then this one will officially go in the FO column. Dreamsweaver, that speedy little prodigy, finished her red version of this hat almost two weeks ago. Hers was knit very loose, and mine was knit with my usual death-grip tension, and I hope to have side by side pictures soon to show you the difference gauge can make. The two hats are equally beautiful, but different. Hers has a lacey, feminine look to it. Mine is definitely a boy hat.

But the best part of all? She learned how to do cables and how to read a chart, and even though there were moments of frustration, she has one textured knitting project under her belt now. The first one always feels hardest.

Anyway, here are the FO stats:

Pattern: Aran watchcap from Charlene Schurch's "Hats On!"
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash, one full skein. There are maybe three yards leftover.
Needles: Size 3 Addi Turbos. This is a small needle for this yarn, but I wanted a sturdy hat.

Comments: Great, easy pattern. The finished hat is dense enough to keep winter wind out, but doesn't have that bombproof, inelastic feel you sometimes get when you drop down a few needle sizes. The fabric stretches but doesn't drape, if you know what I mean.

If I had to do it all over again, I might use size 4 needles instead of 3s. Also, I would do the crown shaping differently. The pattern has you do 4 rounds of p2tog and nothing else. I might work some preliminary decreases into the seed stitch panels first, maybe also in the cables, and then do the final rounds of p2tog. Or perhaps in k2tog or ssk to avoid the purl bumps on the right side of the fabric.

All in all, though, this was a good knit. More interesting than your usual hat, but still a hat -- easy, speedy and fun.

Fulmar Progress

Yes, the blue really is this vivid. I love it.

This is a very slow knit, but oh-so-satisfying. What we have there is three pattern repeats of the ribbing, topped by two chart repeats of the body cables, measuring around 7.5" in length. That's a whole lot of hours of my life there, folks. Some of the back rows only take 15 or so minutes, but row 5 with all it's crosses can take as long as 50 minutes. That's for one measly row.

Of course, there are 262 stitches in a row, so maybe "measly" isn't the word we want to use here.

At my current rate of knitting, this sweater will take around 9 months to complete. I'm hoping to pick up the pace now that I have the pattern more or less memorized -- I still have to check the charts sometimes, especially for Chart C which is the saxon-braid-ish thing in the center and which is the hardest to work with it's three-over-one crosses. For the other charts, I can usually just look at the rows below and know what I'm supposed to do.

Chart C is the troublemaker in other ways, too. Last week, I noticed I had moved a column of stitches in the wrong direction and couldn't work the next cable cross. So I decided to ladder down that column -- it was only two rows -- and reknit just those stitches. This is a fix I've worked on other patterns with some anxiety but little real difficulty. It just takes time and courage.

Except for in this case.

I laddered down and knit back up, and things looked a bit too loose on the needles. So I counted my stitches and realized I was short a purl. Hmm. Checked the back of the work, and there was my lonely little dropped purl, now about three rows lower than the point of the original miscross. Working with that section had caused it to run a little.

So, not being a quitter, I laddered down again (further this time) and reknit the column a second time.

At which point, I realized I had somehow managed to drop two other stitches, a different purl plus a knit.

After much bad language, I called it quits on this particular fix and placed the two dropped stitches on safety pins so they wouldn't run. Then I tinked back, stitch by painstaking stitch, to the point where I could pick up the safety pinned stitches. Then I reknit all those rows.

Tinking and reknitting those rows took four hours. I watched "The Godfather" on A&E, with commercials, while reknitting those rows. That doesn't include the time I spent on the original "fix" a/k/a mess.

All of which is to say, Chart C is not currently my bff.

Skinny-4-Stash

I've been dwelling on two facts lately. One, the knitter's conundrum, that I have plenty enough yarn but still enjoy buying more. Two, that after over a decade of medical problems resulting in tremendous weight gain, I've been finally given the all-clear to go on a reducing diet.

Seems I'm not the only one dwelling on this pair of thoughts.

KniftyRed came up with a great idea. We're going to get skinny for stash. We're setting diet and workout goals, and get to "pay" our stash budget for each goal met. And we get to pick our goals and our payouts. Not a bad plan.

So here goes.

I, Knitterary Gargantua, to further the goal of becoming Knitterary LaPetite, will take the following measures.

1. For every day that I stick to my food plan, I get to add a quarter to the stash jar.

2. For every day that I avoid animal fats entirely, I get to add a bonus quarter to the stash jar.

3. For every mile walked on the treadmill, I get to add a quarter to the stash jar.

That's it. Simplicity. In the course of a week, I have the potential to add ten dollars or so to the stash jar. No gimmicks, no complicated plotting or scheming. Just eating right and exercising, which is at the heart of a good reducing plan.

Some others are tying their goals to pounds lost. I thought about doing that, but that's when reality jumps up and pokes me in the eye. I have a metabolic disease. In the past, I have gained weight on 700 calories a day. We think that my body can tolerate this diet now and won't go completely fucking haywire again. But we don't know it for sure.

But independent of the ultimate goal to lose weight, this eating plan and exercise plan is a good thing. The diet takes into account some new science about the way our metabolisms work, and I probably should be following it (or something close to it) regardless of total calories taken in. If I put my focus there instead of on the scale, I will know that I'm doing right by my body.

I can't control the outcome, but I can control the process. So that's where my focus will be.

I've Been Spooked!

Well, lookee at all this batty stuff. I think I hit the motherload in the spookage defartment. Bookmarks and a book by some Melissa James type rioter, a horrid silver and turquoise wrist shackle, batty pumpkin toe covers, a spooky scrapbooking kit, chocorat drops, and -- gasp! -- two luuurvely garter stitch dishcloths from somebatty who thinks she has knitting talent. Show-off! Hang your head in shame right this minute! Not a single dropped stitch, the most even gauge ever, and one of them is (lowers voice to a whisper) pink. Those dishcloths might be too pretty to use, so therefore I will use them every day. Especially to wash my armpits.

There was also a rather large bag of pumpkin chocorats. I thought about showing you the crumpled wrappers. They were orange. The wrappers, I mean, not the chocorat, which can now only be seen by peering deep down my throat. See? U-u-u-u-urp. Ooops. Hexcuse me.

Crank you very little, Satire. I hate my spookage most thoroughly.
Bugs and hisses, blunder.

ps. It takes a bat to comprehend this post. Non-bats, please disregard. This blog will become comprehensible to knitfolk again soon. Or as comprehensible as it ever gets, anyway.

Buh-Bye, Bears Socks!

I've been knitting this sock with the intent to give a pair to my dad, a big Bears fan. The cuff made me happy because it wasn't a barberpole but a cool speckly pattern. And then I switched to straight stockinette for the leg, and poof! Like magic, it barberpoles. Or maybe that ain't magic so much as a curse. Because with me at the needles, you know this will never come out right.

Sure enough, every 3/4 inch or so, the barberpole cuts back in on itself and kills the spiral pattern. Curse? Totally in effect.

And all I could think was, oh no, not again.

I tried to make myself think other things. Really tried. Things such as, Maybe he'll like it. Or, It doesn't look *that* much like Cincinnati Bengals stripes. Or, Who says socks have to match anyway. (That final thought springs from my dead certainty that no matter what I do, the second sock will never match the first until I've knit it and frogged it a dozen times and absolutely abandoned hope of a good outcome. Curse of the barberpole and all that.)

I showed the sock to lots and lots of knitters in the hope that one of them would say something to convince me that everything would be okay. Most of them were sort of baffled, I think, by the intensely emotional way I shook my sock under their noses.

"Do you see this? Do you?" I would grit out from between clenched teeth while I tried to keep my eyes from popping clean out of my face from the stress.

"Um. Uh. Yeah. Lookit that," would be the response, accompanied by puzzled frowns and the sudden realization that they were late for something, anything, somewhere far away from me and my sock.

Some of them -- familiar with the profound curse I labor under, witnesses to the insanity provoked by other barberpole misadventures -- would try to soothe me.

"Don't worry," they would say. "It can't happen again. It just can't. Nobody's luck is that bad."

Ha. Yeah, right.

The sock has been frogged. Eventually, it will become a clapotis for my mother, who sometimes accompanies my dad to the home games. It's great yarn, really it is, and she'll enjoy the scarf it will make. Plus, like most of us, she has only the one neck, so I won't have to worry about knitting a second scarf to match the first.

This is a great relief. I feel liberated. But do you want to hear the real shocker?

This means I only have one pair of socks OTN. And :::drumroll::: all but one of my UFOctober goals have been met. That last lingering goal? All I will say is -- watch out, crapghan. You're next.

...edited to note that this post was written last week, but due to technical errors and time constraints, I couldn't get the damn thing to actually post before now...

Two Secrets Revealed

Today was Becca's baby shower, and her bump agreed to model the little outfit I made. Isn't that a gorgeous bump? Not to mention, a gorgeous mommy!

What we have up there are a cardigan and matching baby yoga pants out of Sirdar Dreambaby, a fingering weight and one of the few acrylics I've ever knit that I would willingly knit a second time. Yarn was purchased from Ivelise's in Benton Harbor, Michigan. It's a wonderful little shop with a great selection of quality baby yarns.

No real patterns for these items, though I did use existing patterns as jumping-off points. For the pants, I started with the baby cargo pants from knitty. I did a rolled hem, doubled the yarn for extra softness and warmth, and used an elasticized rolled-waist trick I learned years ago from a knitter in Indianapolis. Basically, you take 1/8" elastic and thread it through the live stitches as you would a lifeline. Sew it closed as you would a regular elastic waistband. Knit stockinette for one round, then bind off. The extra little bit of stockinette before the bind-off rolls over the elastic and hides it. Or mostly hides it. I used two rounds of elastic for extra security and I think the bottom round shows a little. But it still should be very easy to wear and comfy, certainly more comfy than a fold-over waistband when the yarn is knit doublestranded.

The cardigan was combined from two different baby cardigan patterns. I wanted a contrasting seed stitch border and a very loose shape through the body. Easy on, easy off. It's knit at about 8 stitches and 10 rows to the inch. You know how everyone always talks about how quickly baby things knit up? The exception to that rule is baby things knit at sock gauge.

The seed stitch buttonband gave me a bit of trouble. It's hard to increase seed stitch in pattern to round the curves formed by the V-neck. I fooled around with it a little and, because of one thing and another, ended up with a buttonband that extends a bit below the cardigan hem, almost like the point on a waistcoat. It wasn't what I was going for, but it looks good, certainly better than earlier attempts at the buttonband that curled inward from too few stitches at the curve.

Anyway, I fell in love with that cheerful, sunny yellow, so much perkier than your typical baby pastels. Initially, I intended to go for a green yarn -- Becca is a big fan of green for the baby -- but the yellow really spoke to me, so the yellow came home. Baby should fit into these items around February or March (if she's a big baby) or next fall (if she's a small baby). Just think how uplifting that yellow will be during the Chicago winter gloom. The little Froebe babe will be a ray of sunshine in more ways than one.

Trash, Meet Garbage

I washed it. The yarn softened and feels quite nice now.

But it shrunk -- yes, shrunk, dammit, as if I needed more problems with stubborn misbehaving sock yarn, shrunk by more than a half-inch in foot length -- and what was a very tight fit at the ankle now won't go onto my foot at all.

Done. (insert foul language of choice here)

Cross this one off the list. Do we need to eulogize it? Jaywalker, we hardly knit ye. Full many a jaywalker was born to blush unseen and waste its sockiness on the garbage pail. Or something like that.*

That's two projects off my UFOctober list. Three and four will follow within mere days after I can finally reveal the two secret knitting projects. Yay! Then that leaves ... er... have to go check, because I've already forgotten what was on my UFOctober list. (If any of you see my brain, please send it back to my skull with a stern warning to stop straying from home.)

* My inner English dork compels me to confess that this is a corruption of a line from a Thomas Gray poem, Elegy in a Country Churchyard. The actual line is, "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air." Gray deserves better than to be abused by the likes of me and my socks.

Howl

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix;
Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...."
-- Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the famous court case declaring that "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg could not be censored under existing obscenity rules because of its "redeeming social value." I put that phrase -- redeeming social value -- in quotes because it's a key legal term that explains a lot about the way freedom of expression is supposed to work.

In theory, anyway, speech is protected under the First Amendment -- and therefore, is not censorable obscenity -- if it contains some nugget of redeeming social value. Thus classic pornographic works like "Fanny Hill" (a story of a young Victorian girl who seeks her fortune in London and finds herself working as a prostitute) is not legally obscene because it contains a simple moral concept: Sex in a committed relationship is better than casual sex. Yes, the depictions of sex are graphic. Even titillating. But they can't be deemed "obscene" under the First Amendment because those scenes also contain the purpose of social commentary, and that's precisely what the First Amendment protects.

"Howl" drew fire when first published because of its content. There are a few lines with some fairly mild homosexual content, but the real shock in the poem is set up in those opening lines. Ginsberg seemed to be saying that the "best minds" belonged to drug addicts and other marginalized people. In Eisenhower's America, it was shocking, even revolutionary, to point a finger at the middle class and say in all candor, "yours are not the best minds." This bitter criticism of the norm and elevation of the marginalized was a big part of the reason this poem became the subject of obscenity litigation.

Flash forward fifty years.

We're so much more open-minded and tolerant now, right?

Well....

Yesterday, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this landmark ruling, a New York radio station planned to air Ginsberg reading his poem. Nice idea, right?

Problem is, there are a couple of swear words sprinkled throughout the text. And the FCC has become rabid about enforcing fines for using naughty words. Because, you know, our ears will disintegrate if someone ever says damn over the airwaves. And oh, heavens to murgatroyd, don't even get me started on how corrupted our precious youth will be if they have to listen to that shit.

Since this poem was published, our society has weathered Vietnam, the sexual revolution, women in the workplace, divorce and single parenthood by choice, gay pride parades, -- the list goes on and on.

But Big Brother would rather fine a radio station out of existence than allow it to destroy our moral fabric with a handful of four letter words. ::eyeroll::

Others have noted the irony of the poem's social commentary being less offensive than a few swear words. This in itself is intriguing social commentary. In our current society, we seem to blow right past the things that melted the minds of our grandparents and made them weep for the future. We ignore the content, and get hung up on the presence of swear words. This is the ultimate expression of style over substance -- we don't care what you say, as long as you say it without any shits, damns, or fucks.

Er, okay.

I mean, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe we've finally come to understand that we must allow the free expression of ideas that might illuminate some point about our society.

Or maybe we've just become a bunch of prigs that can't see the forest for the naught words carved in the trees.

Thank God for the internet, which is beyond the reach of the puritans at the FCC. We can still listen to this poem here. And maybe we ought to all go over and have a listen just to show support for those that would give us the option of hearing something the FCC would condemn.

Har Dee Har Har

My yarn thinks it's soooooooo funny. It could not stop playing practical jokes on me. Ha freakin ha.

The sock on the right is the first Gypsy Girl sock. This one knit like a dream. I fooled around a little with stitch counts between the leg and the cuff to get a decent barberpole going, but this was a pretty minor fuss considering what the yarn had planned for me.

The sock on the right is the one that was frogged and re-knit umpty-eleven times. The leg is knit from the same yarn as the first sock -- same ball of yarn, I should say -- and if you look closely, you'll see differences in stripe width and a weird color jag at the top of the cuff. Ha ha.

The second sock's foot is knit from the second ball, which tried to make me crazy in the head by pooling and blocking and doing everything but barberpoling. Tee effin hee.

But wait, you say. The foot of the second sock is barberpoling.

Yep. And that's the biggest practical joke of all.

Every. Single. Time. that I knit this yarn, it did weird blobby blocking things in the color. I knit from the inside and the outside of my ball, and got the Exact. Same. Results. This is the whole reason I knit the leg of this sock from the first ball and planned a yarn join somewhere around the point that the disobedient yarn could be covered by my shoe. I don't usually like joins in my socks. One of the advantages of socks is that you don't have to splice or weave. But I could think of no other alternative that would yield sorta matching socks.

After all the game playing, I had to rewind the second ball because all that knitting and frogging from inside and out had turned the ball into a child's crayon scribbles. I already told you about that. An hour and a half project. Sooooo funny, yarn.

And so, with the newly wound ball in hand, I set about to switch yarns just above the heel, and lookee there. Barberpole.

I didn't have to beg, cry, change needles, change stitch counts, or sacrifice any small farm animals to the knitting gods.

It just striped.

All by itself.

Very, very funny.

Ha.

Ha.

Momma's Got a Brand New Bag

Lookee what four measly dollars buys you at Tarzhay.

These are totebag sized, roomy zippered denim bags with two front pouches under flaps. I've lifted the flaps on the reddish one so you can see the pouches. One is zippered, the other is a quilted patch. They're lined with bright broadcloth, and the combination of broadcloth and denim ought to be enough to withstand knitting needles.

Given the recent explosion in the number of KIPs chez Knitterary, and given recent frustrations with trying to fit all these KIPs into existing bags, I was quite happy to find these el cheapos. Life is so much easier when you have one project per bag. I thought about getting one of those lovely Jordana Paige bags, but the truth is that one bag wouldn't have suited my purposes, and I wasn't about to fork over the cash for multiples of her bags.

I also have recently acquired two small fake suede pouch bags, maybe the size of a half-sheet of paper, which were gift-with-purchase bags for Cashmere Mist. (I love their hand cream. It's very thick and feels so soothing after working with wool for a while.) Each of these pouches is going to be completely outfitted with a variety of accessories -- clicker-counters, markers, tape measure, holders, crochet hooks for emergency repairs, all the usual detritus of knitting adventures. Right now all this stuff floats loose between various bags, meaning I can never find what I'm looking for. But with two little kit bags all tricked out and easily transportable, I can just stuff one in the knitting bag of the moment and have all that I need ready to go.

So there we have it. Now if only I had the time to sort through all my knitting bags and get them properly organized.

Yes, it would be easier to finish a few things and have fewer knits in progress. But for almost two solid decades, I was a very disciplined knitter with usually only two, maybe three, projects at a time. That has changed. I don't know why, and I'm not going to stare at my own navel long enough to try to figure it out. Or to find a solution to my sudden lack of self-control.

Instead, I'm going with my favorite motto: It's only knitting. No need to stress over it.

And really, if my biggest problem in life is the presence of a few too many yet-unfinished knitting projects, then I'm in pretty good shape.

Random Bits of Goodness

This has been a busy week, but busy in a good way. I've had several outings with friends which were long overdue and which broke me out of my work rut. I spent a day being poked and stuck and measured by my doctor, and the results were excellent. Actually, the official word is that I am healthier than I've been at any time since before the thyroid radiation treatments eleven years ago, and ::drumroll:: I've been given the greenlight to change my diet and try to take off some of this extra weight. Which is very good news indeed because it means that I have finally finally finally stabilized.

So all of you SnB ladies who threatened to join me in a little weight loss quest, all I can say is -- you're on!

Yay!

I'll be doing a low-fat, mostly vegan, metabolic diet. I say mostly vegan because there will be occasional butter on my toast. I'm not made of stone, after all! And I suspect there will be some egg white omelettes here and there, but never any meat, fish or fowl, and probably no dairy other than those butter splurges. Some of these changes will be made right away, but I don't plan to get really into the diet until I return from the writer's conference later this month.

So those are good things.

Fulmar. Love it. That's another good thing. I'll take a picture later to post, but for now, let me report that I'm about halfway through the ribbing and loving every stitch. This is a wonderful pattern. They should all be this fun and this beautiful!

Yesterday, heaven help me, I swatched for Catherine Parr. I won't be casting it on until next month at the earliest, but this already looks to be another deceptively simple and outrageously beautiful Starmore pattern. Mine will be in a deep forest green with pale green highlights. Trish of Nana's Knit called it fiddlehead green. It's almost silvery.

With all this going on, I still managed to clear close to 1000 manuscript pages out of my inbox this week. That's always good. And a huge problem at work looks to be solved (fingers crossed), and another one is moving closer to being solved. So things are good there too.

And it looks like I might even move a thing or two into the FO column before the weekend is finished. The second Gypsy Girl Ominous Skies sock is almost to the toes, and my secret knitting is nearing the finish line despite my almost lethargic approach to knitting it.

This is the kind of run of good luck that almost makes you look over your shoulder and wait for lightning to strike. But you know what? I've decided I'm not going to worry about when it will turn the other way. I'm just going to enjoy it for now.

A Book Report

I keep forgetting to report that I read Knitting: A Novel by Anne Bartlett last week. This is a story of two women, one who knits and one who appreciates knitted objects. The appreciative one wants to mount an exhibition, and she wants the knitter to knit the pieces.

That sounds very simple, and as far as plots go, this is a very simple book. But the characters elevate it to something approaching brilliance. Bartlett manages that most difficult of all writer's magic tricks, making our sympathies shift from character to character while keeping us engaged in the story. We may stop liking one or the other of these women at different moments in the book, but we never stop liking the book.

I don't want to give away too much, but in the end, Martha (the knitter) seemed to me to be the real heroine of the piece. Also, read this book just to find out what's in her suitcases. Though there are many reasons to appreciate and enjoy this book, Martha's suitcases were, for me, the cherry on top.

This is the second book in a row for which I can give a strong recommendation. And that's another good thing.

UFOctober

Heather over at Tinky McFrog is sponsoring a monthlong UFO-athon. The idea is that you pick a few of those lingering UFOs and make some progress during the month of October.

Sounds like a fine idea to me. I mean, do we even know how many unfinished objects I have anymore? Count me in.

I should start off by saying that we don't have to work exclusively on UFOs all month. We get to name exceptions. My exceptions will be Fulmar (of course!) and the clapotis, if I ever get around to actually casting on for it.

So here are my selected UFOs:

1. The #$%(! Jailwalkers. I will start by washing the one finished sock to see if that improves the yarn and the fit. If not, I'm chucking them. I'm about 90% sure that this will be the outcome because I just can't imagine washing will improve these enough to make them wearable. Which really sucks because I love the look of them. Oh well.

2. The SOS07 Gypsy Girl Ominous Skies socks. Summer of Socks '07 has been over for, I dunno, a few weeks. It's been a month or more since I lost interest. Would like to finish these and get them off my needles and my conscience. I've only got to knit the foot of the second sock, and these are in the FO column.

3. Ditto for the Jojoland Cashmere blend socks. Or the Bears socks. Either one. I'd like to have just one pair of socks OTN again. No need for a bajillion at once.

4 and 5. Secret knitting parts one and two. These have been lingering since July, knit in bits and dabs, and I really need to get them done. More than that I cannot say because they're a secret. Shhhhh!

6. Be nice to get a little done on the crapghan. Ah, yes, we remember that dayglo monstrosity. It's been stalled thanks to the ever-delightful Miss Six, who likes to hide my crochet hook as a little joke on me. We have this routine where she asks me to "knit with one stick, not with two," and then I know she hid the hook and wants me to go to my crocheting and exclaim over the missing hook. Many giggles ensue as I hunt for the hook. So fun. Except this time? She hid it, got distracted, never came to play the game with me, and now the hook is gone.

Yeah, I know. Cough up the cash for another size G and get the lousy crapghan done already. And, you know, that would be a really good idea except for the part about how I'd really rather knit.

So there you have it. If I can complete 4 out of 6 items on this list, I'll be ecstatic and my OTN list will almost feel manageable.

Which is a darn good thing, because I've allowed myself to be persuaded to knit Catherine Parr starting in October. This is shaping up to be the winter of Starmore!

October 1 Means...

October 1 means that the streetlights are still on at 8:30 in the morning, an hour past sunrise, because the sky is a thick gray blanket.

October 1 means that there's a hint of fall color in the trees, and everything is somehow wet even though it's not raining.

And October 1 means...




















Fulmar!

Like the total knitdweeb I am, I stayed up late last night studying the Fulmar charts and wondering how I would ever sleep. At one point, I looked at the clock and thought, 11 p.m. means it's October 1st somewhere, can I cast on now, can I can I can I?

And then this morning, I woke with all the anticipation of a kid on Christmas morning. It's here! OMG at laaaaaaaaaast!

Fulmar Day!

I leaped out of bed -- and dudes, trust me, it usually takes dynamite and a forklift to get me out of bed in the morning. But not today! Not on Fulmar day!

I cast on and started knitting with a big dopey grin on my face. Yay, I finally get to knit this sweater!

And then it hit me. This sweater used to scare the bejeepers out of me. I was terrified to knit it. Seriously, so intimidated that every time I looked at that page in the "Aran Knitting" book, I would feel my belly do a little flip. How gorgeous, I would think, and then almost in the next nanosecond, That's way too hard for me.

See how things change? All it took was a little thing like 91 other knitters in a KAL, a set start date, and a mountain of swatch knitting, and here we are. Eagerness has replaced terror.

October 1 is turning out to be a pretty good day.