Knitterary

Sheep! Baby Sheep!

2011-11-24T18:30:00.002-06:00

It was my pleasure to test knit this pattern for Knifty Red, a/k/a Kris Carlson, a/k/a designer extraordinaire. The pattern is now live an on sale at ravelry (ravlink to pattern). I had one skein each of Paton's Beehive acrylic in the 4-ply fingering, which seemed more sport than fingering to me. It knit to the right gauge, so it's all good. The yarn is durable acrylic, a little splitty but nicer than your average acrylic. I had a half skein of each color left over, but they're big skeins.

The picot hem was fun, and the added weight of the doubled fabric there makes the woobie drape nicely. The instructions were very easy to follow. I chose to make mine in blue and white because all the other test knitters were using brown and gray, and I wanted to see how it would look in a color. I think the result is cute and playful in a muppety way.

It knit up in no time at all. I spent two weeks on it, but I was also knitting around on other things, and I didn't have a lot of knitting time during those two weeks. If you're one of those people who knits an hour or two a day, I can see this being done in a week. The final bits -- sewing the ears and curly hair to the head, embroidering the face -- took longer than expected, but the rest flew off the needles, so it balanced out.

The head swallowed up a shocking amount of stuffing. But the end result is great -- really, I can't say enough good about how this came together. It's going into the poor box at church for the Christmas toy drive. It will make some baby out there very happy, I hope!

Tofu for Carnivores

2011-11-18T22:55:00.002-06:00

This is the tofu dish I make for meat-eaters. Even people who claim they don't like tofu end up raving about this one. (I suppose you could use chicken or fish in place of the tofu, but I've never tried it!) Warning: Not diet friendly!

Ingredients:
1 pkg extra-firm water-packed tofu
1 package Thai-style flat noodles
2 c chopped mixed veggies (pea pods, carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts -- dealer's choice)
3/4 c chunky peanut butter
1 small jar satay sauce (found in Asian food aisle)
2 T peanut oil
2 T toasted sesame oil
2 T soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
generous dash of Sriracha chili sauce ("Rooster" sauce) to taste

First, squeeze the tofu of excess water. I do this by layering paper towels on a plate, with the tofu on top, and another plate on top of that. Put something heavy like a can of soup on top of the top plate to weigh it down. Give it ten minutes or so to press -- I usually chop the vegetables and assemble the other ingredients while the tofu presses. After the tofu has pressed, discard the paper towels and cube the tofu into bite-sized pieces.

Boil the noodles in salted water. Drain and set aside.

In a wok or deep skillet, heat both oils, soy sauce, and vinegar. Add the tofu and stir-fry until the cubes take on a golden brown hue from the sauce (about 3-5 minutes). Add the brown sugar and let it melt into the tofu and sauce. The sugar and sauce will begin to bubble and look thick after just a minute or two. Not to worry! This means it's carmelizing, which is what you want. The tofu will begin to take on a crispy look around the edges (about 5-8 minutes), and when it does, add the vegetables, peanut butter, hot sauce, and satay sauce. The peanut butter will take a bit of time to melt into the other ingredients (about 2-3 minutes). That's okay. Just be patient, and stir frequently so that the sugar doesn't burn.

Put the noodles into a large serving bowl, and dump the tofu-veg mixture on top. Toss to coat and blend. Serve immediately with lime wedges to garnish and spritz. It's also good reheated, but it might need a bit of liquid to freshen it up -- a splash of soy and vinegar will do it, or a bit of vegetable stock, if you have it.

Serves: 4 hungry people
Calories: A million billion. But who cares, when it tastes this good?

Goodbye, Gypsy Girls

2011-09-25T13:59:00.002-05:00

It would be fair to say I have worn these socks to death. As soon as they came out of the laundry, they were on my feet. And they held up beautifully, but about six months ago, the color began leaching out of the yarn at a shocking rate. After each washing, the former electric blue faded closer to powder blue, until only faint traces of any blue at all remained. The jet black? Jetted far away. I knew it was only a matter of time until the socks were goners.

And when I pulled them on this morning, I ripped an inch-long hole in the back of the heel. Just, pfft, the fabric tore like wet tissue. No point darning them when they're practically disintegrating already, so these got pitched.

I'm going to have to do some serious sock knitting pretty soon. I think I've tossed about six pairs since my last crazed bout of serious sock knitting, and I'm willing to bet a few more pairs are going to be following the Gypsy Girls to sock heaven soon.

Reinforcing Knit Seams and Edges

2011-09-18T13:10:00.002-05:00

Long before I became a knitter, I was sewing my own clothes. Here's a dress I just finished made in a two-way stretch fabric. (Bear with me. This does pertain to knitting.)

It looks much better on me than on the hanger. The wrapped bodice and A-line skirt give it a very sexy shape on the body. I look forward to wearing it to the ballet when the new season starts next month. But for knitting purposes, I wanted to talk about this fabric and some of the finishing techniques we use in sewing knitted fabrics. The fabric is basically stockinette at a super-fine gauge, cotton with a dash of lycra. It would be appropriate for swimsuits or dance costumes because of the high degree of stretch on both the horizontal and vertical grains.

So, knitters know what happens with this kind of fabric along the edges. Curls like whoa damn. This particular pattern didn't call for facings (which would have added bulk and might have interfered with the way the fabric moves) but for rolled hems at cuff and bodice edges. But we know from knitting that these curly edges can be made to lay flat by adding an edge with a slightly different pattern. So I decided to use cross-grain binding pieces at these edges to make them lay smooth. Here's the bodice. You can easily see from the print that the piece was cut at a ninety degree angle to the bodice. This isn't the true cross-grain because the bodice pieces are angled, but they're at right angles. It works.

And the cuffs, also on the cross-grain, but on the true cross-grain, meaning that the binding pieces are cut with the grain running horizontally. (This is the opposite of the way pattern pieces are usually cut, on the vertical grain. Weavers will be thinking about warp and weft right now.)

See how nice and flat those edges are? No rolling at all. (By contrast, the skirt hem, which is a narrow rolled hem, tends to flip up along the stitching line because it doesn't have a special finish. Which might be changing in the foreseeable future, because I don't like it.)

Knitwear designers incorporate details like this into sweaters for the same purpose. But one thing they don't always do is stabilize the shoulder and neck edges during finishing. I think this is an important finishing detail with knitted fabrics, which can stretch out of shape along the shoulder and collars if we don't stabilize them. Here, I used a bit of seam tape (purchased at the fabric store in the notions section near buttons and zippers) to stabilize the shoulder seam. (I had to flip the seams inside out to show you -- so it looks funny, but you can see from the first picture at the top of the post that these seams lay very flat and smooth.)

Well-made ready-to-wear will also have this stabilization along the neck and shoulder seams. Here's a fleece jacket I bought in the late 90s from Lane Bryant, well constructed and still perfectly suitable for wear to the gym. They used a grosgrain ribbon instead of seam tape. Either will do -- the main thing is to find something that doesn't stretch.

These kinds of finishing details are becoming increasingly rare in ready-to-wear as manufacturers cut corners. One of the benefits of learning to knit and sew is that we know what to look for in quality garments. I doubt I paid more than ten or twenty bucks for this fleece jacket, but because it was made well in the first place, it has held up beautifully to hard wear in the gym. There's some pilling on the fabric's wrong side, which is the only side of wear so far. Without the stabilization ribbon, though, I'm sure this would now be stretched out and shapeless and ill-fitting now. I have knitted shirts far younger that are ready for the rag bag because they weren't as well-constructed.

Moral of this story: Knitters, stabilize your shoulder and back neck seams, and your beautiful garments will last longer.

The Tammi Cowl

2011-07-20T15:24:00.003-05:00

So, our friend Tammi cleaned out her stash and gave away some of her yarn, including this gem. Malabrigo Chunky. Mmmmmm-malabrigo!

This pointed cowl knit up in about 3 hours, but it doesn't look like the sample pattern on ravelry. (Kerchief Cowl by Adrienne Krey) It was one of those things. You know, those knitting things where you know something is off, and you count and count and read the pattern over and over, and you can't find the error so you just keep knitting. That kind of thing. In the end, I decided I liked it, even it it's totally wrong. And I'm keeping its wrong self and I'll wear it in a wrongheaded sense of pride.

If you want to know the wrong way to knit this pattern, it all starts with deciding it doesn't need to be knit in two pieces. Cast on at the lower point (2 stitches) and work the pattern for that section backward until the triangle part is done. Then cast on enough stitches to match the pattern requirements for the cowl part, join, and knit in pattern -- well, actually, not in pattern, because I decided to spread out the decreases over the sections instead of working them every other section. Then, when the cowl is long enough -- well, I can't rightly (or wrongly) explain what happened at the top there. It's short row shaping, sure enough, but it ends up in the wrong location, and flipped backwards to boot. To cowl. Whatever.

I don't care. I like it, and I'll be wearing it this winter. The end. And thank you, Tamalama, for a gorgeous skein of yarn.

Momma's Got a Brand New Bag

2011-07-18T17:58:00.002-05:00

There's been very little activity on this blog because there's been very little knitting activity in general. That's been changing lately. The knitting is picking up a little steam, and I'm getting ready to do some sewing, too. And while I have kept my ravelry project page updated, it recently occurred to me that websites go down, servers crash, accounts vanish, and, you know, shit happens. So maybe I should start using this blog for some record-keeping again, such as it is.

I officially finished this bag last night, except for weaving the ends, which happened today. So it took about a month from start to finish, which isn't bad for one skein of Euroflax sport weight when a person's wrist will only tolerate knitting linen for so long before the cramps set in.

I started with a free pattern, the Ilene bag by Hannah Ingalls, from ravelry. (ravlink) However, being the headstrong domiknitrix that I can be, I changed the pattern. Basically, my gauge through the mesh was much denser than the pattern called for, and so the recommended number of pattern repeats gave me a 6" bag (unstretched) instead of the 8" bag the pattern indicated. I didn't want a shallow string bag, so I changed things. I continued knitting in pattern until it was about 7.5" unstretched. That was the first modification.

Second, see the ribbing along the opening of the bag? The pattern recommends sticking to the same stitch count but dropping down two needle sizes to make that ribbing a little tighter than the lace mesh body of the bag. By this time, I was worried about the amount of yarn I had remaining, so I stuck with the same size needles but cut the stitch count.

I did this by identifying and marking the four "corners" of the bag. (The bottom of the bag was knit as a square, so I used that as my base.) I placed a stitch marker at each corner, and on alternating rounds, I decreased two stitches on either side of the stitch marker. I knit 8 rounds of ribbing (four of which were decrease rounds) and the resulting shape seems to work pretty well. My only regret is that I didn't use a stretchy cast-off, because that linen is rather unforgiving.

I also narrowed the shoulder strap (from 25 stitches on small needles to 10 stitches on bigger needles) and knit it longer than the pattern recommended.

The bag is roomy but not huge. If you look closely at the picture, you can see four large summer tomatoes (each about the size of a small grapefruit) in the bottom of the bag. It's the perfect size for the farmer's market. And the pattern is so nice and easy that I'm already contemplating making it again. (Hence my desire to preserve the pattern mods so I won't forget them later.)

Simplicity at its Finest

2010-09-21T15:13:00.003-05:00

One scarf.
One skein of yarn.
One 4-row garter-based lace pattern.
One enormous mess.

Look at all those ends. It takes real talent, I tell you, to knit a one-skein scarf and end up with TWENTY MOTHERFUCKING TWO ends to weave in. But it's my own fault for trying to be clever. I was innocently knitting this Crazy Zauerball through the color changes -- sky, green, violet, navy, all very charming and rustic -- when I came to a large block of solid, flat black. I mean, a large run of black, so much so that I would have ended up with a good 4" of scarf in dense, dead black.

So I clipped it out. I figured I could find a spot in the ball where the color more or less matched the piece before the yarn transitioned to black. And I did, too. In the middle of the ball.

So I clipped it in the middle and started knitting, and next thing you know, I'm clipping again to avoid a lifeless bit of gray. And again to match the colors pre- and post-gray. But that becomes a problem because following the post-gray is a color that duplicates the pre-pre-gray. If you follow.

Well, even if you don't follow -- the upshot is that I had that entire Crazy ball reeled out through my living room and I basically repatterned the color changes through the last 14" of scarf. Crazy ball, you so crazy-making! I had to rip and reknit the end of this scarf four times to get it right.

In other news, The Foxy Redhead would like it to be known that there are chipmunks on the back patio. Or, there were chipmunks a day or two ago. She'll continue to keep vigil in case they return. This means she'll be unable to mind the fireplace a/k/a the Magical Bird-Producing Box for more pigeons. Please inform her at once if any birds should appear there. She would really, really hate to miss them.

Travel Knitting

2010-08-02T16:26:00.002-05:00

And the winner of the "Which Yarn Gets to Travel This Summer?" Sweepstakes is...
::drumroll::

The Crazy Zauberball!

This is a really terrible picture. In true life, the yarn colors are a saturated purple and green with hints of gray, navy and black, but my orange-ish kitchen table always throws off the colors in my photos. Darned if I can figure out how to fix it. I suppose that's the punishment for having an orange-ish table in the first place.

The yarn? Eh. Splitty. Like, bad splitty. The lovely, textural, rustic look is achieved by a loose spin and loose plying technique, so even though the finished fabric is very pretty and intriguingly textured, the knitting is a bit tricky. Even with this extremely simple lace pattern, the k2togs frequently are more like k1.5togs.

The pattern? The lacy baktus, a freebie found via ravelry. The pattern is so simple that it hardly rates as a pattern. It's an 8-row garter stitch repeat, with 1-stitch increases on one edge in rows 1 and 5 and lace (yo, k2tog across) in row 7. Then, after the scarf is about as wide as you want it, you work decreases instead of increases in rows 1 and 5. It doesn't get any simpler than this, which is in part why I chose this for travel knitting.

I've knit about 18 inches so far. Maybe more. Would have definitely been more if the flight home had been more, shall we say, peaceful. It was a very stormy evening. My flight was delayed, and the in-flight turbulence was dreadful. It was hard to even read a book, let alone work with a very splitty yarn like this. I ended up ripping about two inches because of a dropped stitch, but it's my own damned fault for trying to knit on that flight in the first place.

I thought about taking Mendocino because I love it so much, but in the end, I didn't want to pack it. I'm already on ball 5 and it's growing -- would've required a good-sized chunk of suitcase space to pack it. That will be fine for Stitches when room and luggage restrictions are not an issue, but for business travel, it just wasn't going to work.

The trip itself was lovely. I accomplished a surprising amount of work for someone who spent so much time in the bars and parks. Many stories to tell, but none of them, alas, suitable for print. ;)

Danger Boy Dances in His Underwear

2010-07-24T13:56:00.001-05:00

Testing out my new video camera. It's blurry. Or we're all drunk. Take your pick.

Taking It To the Mats

2010-07-18T17:14:00.002-05:00

This picture makes my blocking look crooked, but it's really the picture that's wonky. I was standing on a chair with the camera held overhead, and the angle is funny. (Proving once again that I am a genius with a camera.)

I thought I would talk a little about the blocking process because I do things a little differently than some.

First, I soak the pieces for 30 minutes in cold water with a good blob (1 or 2 tablespoons) of hair conditioner dissolved into the water. Dissolve the conditioner in the water before you add the wool, or you'll get uneven distribution. The conditioner will soften the wool dramatically. It won't hide all the crunch in a rustic yarn, but it will mask the roughness and let the blocking go a little more easily. Cheap conditioner works just as well as the expensive stuff.

Next I insert blocking wires on the straight edges of the garment -- in this case, the side edges of the body piece -- and use those to stabilize the fabric as I pull and smooth and squoosh it into shape. The actual shaping can take a few minutes, but inserting the wires will shave a lot of time off the total. Pin the straight edges first, too, because those make good reference points for shaping the rest of the piece. (My mats have grid lines scored into them, so I can use those to make sure things are straight, too.

Not everyone uses conditioner and wires to block pieces like these. The other tools I use -- a straight-edge ruler and tape measure -- are pretty ordinary.

In this case, I wanted to block the sleeve to the body piece to make perfectly sure that the saddle was blocked to the proper measurements. So I'm doing one sleeve plus the front now and the other sleeve plus the back later.

There's still quite a lot of finishing work on this sweater before it will be wearable. Not just seaming, but knitting the braided bands at the collar, cuffs and hem. The bands are knitted on sideways. I'll post pictures of those as I do them, because it's kind of a cool technique that could come in handy if you ever need to lengthen something.

Special Note To An Interested Person

2010-07-16T14:42:00.003-05:00

This is my desktop wallpaper. Don't have some stinky boy in the house to complain about it, neethur.

Scenes from a Train Window

2010-07-15T22:02:00.003-05:00

Okay. So here's the story on this picture. I told Tricia I would help her catalog the yarn leftover from the closing of Nana's Knitting Shop. She promised to duly reward my with episodes of season 4 of the Tudors, featuring my boyfriend Henry who I adore. And who adores me. Or would if he ever knew me. (Humor me.) Wait -- let's all admire Henry for a moment so we can understand better the rest of the story.

You see that? He could distract a saint, right? So we had ten episodes of the Tudors featuring my boyfriend Henry pictured above. And we had about 6 hefty bags full of yarn to catalog and photograph. Naturally, we decided to do a bag or two between episodes, which meant we were working really, really, really fast. I would dump out a bag, sort it quickly, and pass it to Tricia. She would make notes on the inventory records and snap the photo. Then I would scoop it up and stuff it back in a bag -- very quickly, because Henry doesn't like to wait for things like yarn indexing. He's impatient that way.

So we got through about half the total yarn and about half the total episodes, though sadly, many of the pictures are sort of insane. (Sort of? The one above looks like it was shot from a train window.)

But Trish, if you let me come back and watch the rest of the episodes, I do most faithfully promise to control my raging lust a bit better and let you take a proper photograph without rushing. Cross my heart. It won't be easy to keep a man like Henry waiting, but it will be a good exercise in discipline for all of us. ;)

Been a Long Time

2010-07-13T19:35:00.003-05:00

It's been a long time since I put a big new project on the needles. For a year now, at least, it's been all little bits and dollops, scarves and socks, hats and baby mittens. And ripping out old, failed projects. And working on existing projects that seemed they would never, ever be completed.

So this feels like a real milestone, a real leap of faith that the corner has been turned and it's safe to tackle a big new project. le sigh

The project I've chosen is Mendocino, from Starmore's Pacific Coast Highway. It's a simple cardigan with some simple cable work on the bodice, but like most of Starmore's designs, it has that little something extra that makes me long to knit it. The way the cable is set into the shoulders, perhaps, or the beautiful collar, or just the cozy look of it.

As an added bonus, it ought to clear out about 20 balls of Sublime from the stash. Stash reduction is about to become my battle cry, not merely stash dieting -- details will follow.

In the meantime, happy knitting. (I know mine sure is.)

Miscellany

2010-06-29T12:50:00.002-05:00

Nana's Knitting Shop's last week was a sad, bittersweet, angsty time, but I wouldn't have given up one moment spent at that back table. Not one. As sorrowful as the mood was, the chance to spend time there was something I'll always remember with pleasure. It was sort of lucky, actually, that I quit my job and destroyed my wrist (deQuervain's tendonitis, ew) during the final days. It meant there was little I could do beside hang out at that table and talk to people.

On that note, a few promised links regarding our far-ranging conversations of the past ten or so days.

RE: the Globe's recent production of Macbeth, which we gather was staged like a horror movie aimed at teenagers:
The Times of London
Telegraph
Official London Theatre

RE: You can't make this stuff up. It's too perfectly ironic.
Jesus being struck by lightning.

RE: Shetland-spun yarns
Jamieson's history, with emphasis on the difficulty of machine spinning Shetland wool
Shetland Wool Council's discussion of the breed

I'm hunting for the travelogue with the photos of the Jamieson's mill. It discussed the particular carding technique used with Shetland wools. If I can remember which blog that was, I will post the link later.

D. O. N. E.

2010-06-20T11:09:00.004-05:00

Presenting Ishbel the Third. I think this might be the prettiest of the Ishbel trio, but we won't know for sure until next year when my friends and I gather in Los Angeles and show them off. Meantime, this white Ishbel will wing to Australia, and the Blue Skies Ishbel will journey to Kansas, with my love and friendship for the recipients.

I thought I would easily finish this Friday afternoon during open knitting at Nana's, but I stupidly miscounted my chart progression and suddenly realized I had a whole 'nother chart to knit. As lace knitters know, those last rows are always killers because they take a billionty times longer than you think they will. And I had 8 more than planned. Do the math, and this took eight billionty times longer to finish than I thought it would. And there went my fond and foolish plan to finish it Friday afternoon. Good thing I like knitting, eh.

So after the horrendous storm killed Chicago for a few hours, and after it was safe to drive home from Nana's (dodging tree branches and cursing broken traffic signals the whole way), I came back here, popped a Poirot video into the DVD player, and watched it almost twice through as I finished the shawl.

Which brings me to a question. Do any of you watch these Poirot movies? What do we think of them? This is my first exposure, and I'm ambivalent. It was fun -- the look of the series is beautiful, the acting was good, and it moved quickly enough on the first watching to slide right over all my objections at the leaps in logic. But on the second watching, I started analyzing the script -- a dangerous occupation -- and found myself calling out, "Objection!" to every bit of hearsay or other bad evidence. (Proving once again, you can take the litigator out of the courtroom, but you can never really take the courtroom out of the litigator. I haven't tried a case in 9 years, but I tried the crap out of that movie.)

That might be a personal problem. What do you all think? Thumbs up or down on Poirot?

Three's a Charm. Or So They Keep Telling Me.

2010-06-15T13:23:00.006-05:00

The first time I knit Ishbel, I was a bit annoyed by the pattern directions and convinced it was actually a much easier knit than its behavior indicated. The second time I knit Ishbel, the pattern made sense and the process felt fast and light and lovely. And now, the third time...

I'm more than a little bored. Don't get me wrong -- the yarn is lovely (Dream in Color Smooshy), and the pattern and yarn play very well together. And the recipient will be happy to get it when it's finally shipped off to her. Certainly, there's joy for me in knowing she truly wants this. But really, the Ishbel thrill is gone. This isn't a pattern anyone needs to knit three times. I'll be happy when it's done so I can get back to the sleeves for St. Brigid, which are about a quarter done now.

And I also look forward to knitting my new lovelies.

On the left, Handmaiden Sea Silk for a Montego Bay shawl (purchased from Broad Ripple Knits in Indianapolis, a lovely new shop within walking distance of my favorite Indian restaurant, which provides further evidence to prove my theory that God loves me and wants me to eat curry and buy yarn).

On the right, a Zauerball from the same shop, which must be knit into a shawl because any socks would be fraternal, and we can't have that. (Chrissy, can I get an amen, sister?)

In the middle, a pair of Ella Rae Lace Merino skeins, which for some reason insist on photographing red when they're actually a fuschia/purple blend. I bought these at Nana's Knitting shop during the first week of her store-closing sale. (cry) (sniffle)

I've also bought a stack of patterns and a few sets of Addis, but I've been holding off on buying much yarn. For one thing, I'm in total denial that the store is actually closing. Yes, I've known about it for a long time, and in theory anyway I've had ample time to wrap my head around the giant hole Tricia's departure will create.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

And really, I don't. Not one bit. I was in the shop three times last week, and each time, there were more empty cubbies and more sad faces. The vultures are definitely picking the bones clean over there -- and more power to them, because every knitter loves a bargain. God knows I do, and plan to spend a little more before it's all gone.

But that still doesn't mean I like it.

In fact, I hate it. I hate that the back table, my refuge and my solace for the past several years, will be moved to Cory's house where I'll probably never see it again. I hate that the friends I've made there over the years will likely scatter, only to be seen at intervals or on ravelry instead of at our weekly knit-ins. But mostly, I hate that I won't have a friendly place for instant yarn therapy.

You know what I mean. You're knitters, too. You know what it's like to have a knitting place filled with people you're always happy to see. You know what it's like when that pressure builds and you absolutely must, no excuses, no delay, play with wool until calm is restored. You know that the smell of wool and the touch of cashmere can change your mood, and the clicking of the needles can change your life.

Trish and I will always be friends -- God knows, I have to keep her close just so I can be sure she doesn't try to run off with my boyfriend Henry Cavill from the Tudors. That greedy hussy. We all know she'll skip off with him if I turn my back for a second, so yes, I plan to keep a permanent eye on her.

But the shop. I hate losing the shop.
(sob)

Something Finished, Something In Progress, Something New

2010-06-07T14:32:00.004-05:00

Ishbel 2 is off the needles, blocked, and ready for shipping. Ishbel 3 is presenting a challenge because I can't find the right yarn for it, but the quest continues. If anyone knows of a fingering weight (3-ply) yarn with a slight halo and a natural aran color, I'd be grateful for a tip.

Meanwhile, I finished the front of St. B and started the sleeves. The sleeves should go quickly now they're on the needles.

My other big news -- last week I went out of town an editor, and returned home a publisher. That's right! I quit my job at the publishing company and opened my own! You have no idea how excited and terrified I am of this entire project, but what the hell. You only live once, so you might as well live your dreams.

The new company is called STAR Guides Publishing -- STAR is an acronym of our initials. I'm acting as publisher, and we'll be publishing a series of books on the craft of writing with plans/hopes to expand beyond that. We'll also be conducting online workshops and mini-clinics on a variety of craft and business issues. And we have more plans besides, but for now, this is enough to get started. The web domains have been purchased but we have a long way to go before we'll be able to claim that our website it built -- right now, we just have placeholder pages there, but that's temporary.

I'll be taking on more freelance editing and book doctoring work to keep the money flowing in the meantime. (I've already booked enough work to cover two months' pay at my old job, if you can believe it.) So I'll still be pretty busy, but not like before. Now I know I'll be getting paid a fair rate for all these hours, or I'll be working for myself.

Sign me,
Full of Hope

Catherine de-Parr-ted

2010-06-02T10:38:00.003-05:00

Buh-bye, Catherine Parr. Your colorwork was wonderful, but your shape and fit sucked dog paws.

The yarn will be gorgeous in some other project, I'm sure. I have a few patterns in mind. A leading contender now is Knots and Bark by Fiona Ellis. Here's a picture swiped from ravelry, chosen because you can easily see the color breakouts. I was thinking the dark green for the body and sleeves and the light green for the bodice, but then I will need a third color for that accent work at the neck and bodice. Anyone have any suggestions? Would a creamy white work?

Winding Weekend

2010-05-23T13:49:00.002-05:00

Pictured from top to bottom: Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn, Chuckanut Bay 10-Ply Aran, Cascade Eco-Wool. We thought the Chuckanut made enormous balls, but check out the size of that Eco-Wool. I plopped the Colinette on top for comparison purposes. Most of us know what a wound skein of sock yarn looks like, size-wise, so that ought to give you an idea of just how enormous the other two are. So enormous that my ball winder -- gimpy even on a good day -- nearly expired from the effort of holding it.

Now that the Kauni shawl is blocking, I turned my attention to what's next. "Next" meaning not just what's next to be cast on, but what's next to claim my knitting time.

I have these things on the needles:

The blue Ishbel. I've finished the body and three of the six lace charts. This one could be completed within the next week or two.
The Oskar Loves Ishbel socks. On the heel of the first. Nice to knit, but not compelling. I keep them on my nightstand for sleepless nights.
The purple Smooshy socks. These are my carry-around knitting. I like to keep something portable and patternless in my purse, and these are it. I'm a bit more than halfway through the first cuff, and that's all the result of picking at these in stray moments.
Fulmar. Stalled because my brain was needed for other things. It's not a difficult pattern, but it does require a certain amount of focus.
The Afghan for Danger Boy. Stalled because it's crochet and my wrist has been swelling here and there.
Catherine Parr. Probably will be frogged.
St. Brigid. Stalled because I needed to wind the next ball of yarn.

Three small projects, three big projects, and one disaster. Also, the lace skater's top is on hold until I get some better needles. The points on the Addis just can't handle this pattern, and I'm making a total hash out of it as a result.

On this list, the one that jumped out at me was St. Brigid. It's reason for being stalled is the most east to overcome. This would be fairly quick and easy to finish. The blue Ishbel will be done soon because I really want it off my knitting list, and there's little time involved. So after that, St. B.

Hence, the winder came out.

And you know how it is. Once you wind one ball, you want to wind the rest. But if I wind it, I might cast it on, and I want to finish some things before I start new things. So my compromise was to wind one ball of the Eco-wool for a Starsky (or possible for the Shirt-Tail Cardigan -- still debating which pattern I prefer), which will be the next sweater after the St. B is finished.

After Ishbel is finished, I might try to finish one of the pairs of socks before casting on another small project. I'm eyeing two other scarves for the summer -- light, small projects always being better for hot days. But I don't think I need to have a mountain of small projects on the go at one time just because the days are warmer. In a perfect world, I would keep my knitting list down to four projects at a time. But this isn't a perfect world, and I'm sure not a perfect knitter.

What are your summer knitting plans?

Kauni Northern Lights Shawl

2010-05-22T13:08:00.003-05:00

Hooray for finishing things! So much better than letting them hang around inside knitting bags. Cast on to bind off in 29 days. Not bad. I also knit half an Ishbel and half a sock in the same time period, so I think it's safe to say my knitting is picking up speed again. Not like the old days, but still, it's on the calendar every week.

I'm so in love with this Kauni yarn. Yes, it's rustic, but not unbearably so, and the color changes are magnificent. Almost hypnotic. Imagine if Shetland yarn and Noro had a baby, and that's about how the Kauni is. Less raggy than the Noro, less crunchy than a Shetland but with a very similar hand. Plied like the Shetland, dyed like the Noro. I would knit with it again in a heartbeat.

In fact, I'm already dreaming of Stitches and debating whether to buy enough for a stranded cardigan. I'm thinking Kauni in the black/gray/cream colorway paired with a solid bold color like red.

Yeah, and given the state of my stash, I'll put it on the knitting schedule for around 2025.

(Even knowing that, I still want the yarn.)

Yarn at a Writer's Conference

2010-05-03T21:52:00.002-05:00

This is a very kind, very goodhearted author, Nathalie Gray, wearing the white hat she deserves. Forgive the picture quality. The window behind her made the lighting difficult, and I assure you her face is flushed from my camera and not from any other factor. The photo was taken at the North Market, just before we indulged in a bowl of delicious Jeni's Ice Cream -- OMG, the best ever. Go to Columbus and eat ice cream. You won't ever regret it.

Here we have another author friend, Lyn Cash, who tried to make off with Ishbel. Heh. Ain't gonna happen. Ishbel did enjoy being the center of attention, though. (Notice how Lyn is trying to look all innocent and stuff. We're not fooled.)

Yes, there was yarn shopping. I think my stash-wagon habits are really starting to take hold, though, because all I bought was some laceweight (25% off, so who can blame me!) to make a cardigan. Isn't it pretty? The colors make me think of a winter storm. I don't know why -- gray sky, brown landscape, and everything faded by the low light, maybe.

My self-control is even more shocking when you realize that the store we visited was FREAKING AWESOME. Look! They have AISLES. It's hard to tell from this picture, but there were four whole entire aisles of yarn! And the staff was super nice, too. My favorite moment, though, was walking in with Rachael Herron (yarn-a-go-go) and watching the clerk's eyes widen as she recognized her. Awesome. I love shopping with a knitting rock star. They were incredibly nice to us and even used their computer to look up pattern details for us. Knitting Mercantile ("the Merc" to locals) -- well worth a visit if you ever get to Columbus.

Off the Needles, On the Wires

2010-04-23T09:03:00.002-05:00

Look what fell off my needles and onto the blocking wires. Ishbel! I decided to finish it because I want to wear it at my conference next week. I put my zebra bag in the photo frame so you can get an idea of how I plan to wear this scarf. Black trousers, black turtleneck, Ishbel, and that zebra patterned Liz Claiborne tote. Normally I wear business suits to conferences, but in this case, given that this is the "party conference," I can get away with something more casual as long as I still look pulled together. And that combo of scarf and bag are pulled together without being all matchified. I hope the resulting look will be slightly Euro/urban, which works better for a business casual atmosphere than just your ordinary pants and shirt.

I love this yarn, the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock. Lovely stuff, very soft, almost furry. It was wonderful to knit, too. I've heard some complaints about splittiness, but that was not my experience.

I did, however, have one slight problem with it. Look in the photo at around 5 o'clock, on the blue mat. You should see a fuzzball there. I can't tell you how many of these worked free from the strands during the blocking process. Granted, this is going to happen a little while handling a wet, short-staple yarn. But even so, even allowing for wet handling, there was a lot of shedding. I hope it stops after the yarn dries, but just to be on the safe side, I'll be spritzing that shawl with hairspray before I remove the pins and wires. That should cut down on the potential for shedding.

My only other news to report is that I decided to cast on another pair of socks to travel with me next week. I want something simple that won't require a lot of thought. And lo and behold, right on top of the sock yarn heap was a skein that mimics the Ishbel yarn. It's sort of splotchy with black and cream, but where Ishbel is tinted slightly blue, this sock yarn is tinted slightly green. It's an Opal yarn, and I can't read German to save my life, but the word "Oscar" appeared on the label. So I'm dubbing these socks "Oscar Loves Ishbel."

We're Seeing 2FOs!

2010-04-21T17:27:00.002-05:00

Look up in the sky! What is that? OMG -- brace yourselves! We have 2FOs!

This is the pair of Mountain Colors Bearfoot socks in 2x2 rib I started last October. I used to knit a pair of socks about every two weeks or so, every ten days if I really tried. These? Six months. But at least I'm knitting again. That's a big happymaker. (As is my crabapple tree. It's spectacular this year. Warm springs do make a difference.)

And here's the finished hat for the Good Guy. This one took a month to knit. Very easy pattern, lovely result, but I have to say that the best part was the yarn. Cascade Lana D'Oro -- a little on the dear side at about $9 per skein or so, but it is really, really lovely stuff.

Ishbel is also off the needles, but not yet on the blocking wires. May I say what a pleasure it is to be finishing up objets tricoteuses again? After about a year of chaos (13 months since my car wreck, which started the whole tailspin of crazy), things feel far more normal and controlled again. I'm still not knitting every day, but I am knitting at least a couple of times a week, and that feels huge. There's still a lot of room for improvement in my daily schedule, but that's okay. There's always room for improvement, isn't there?

My World In Color

2010-04-12T15:35:00.003-05:00

You would think that I hate this house what with it being broken in half and everything. (New crack discovered in bathroom wall yesterday. Cry.) But really, I love this house. And here are a couple of reasons I love it despite its deeply flawed foundation.

Hot purple rhododendrons blooming by the wrought iron garden gate. This shrub dazzles me every spring.

The forsythia hedgerow along the east side of the house. The early morning sun shining through those windows turns everything gold from the blooms.

Of course, the bushes are even prettier with yarn in them. These are my two precious new babies gained via a dispensation at the Beverly Hills Art Center yesterday. On the left, STR Silk Thread II in color Lunasea. If you look closely, you can see the very subtle variations in the color. On the right, Roxi by the Grinning Gargoyle, a super cool indie dyer who I plan to stalk until she agrees to be my new BFF. This yarn is spectacular. Her color work is beautiful, but the quality of the yarn and the friendliness of the lady herself was what really won me over. I might have to cast this on next. Or right now.

Prepare for a Shock!

2010-04-04T22:07:00.004-05:00

I caved. Spring fever got the best of me. There's no vaccine for startitis.

This is the mandatory Ishbel. Mandatory because every knitter on the planet apparently must knit it to retain knitter cred. I'm not a big fan of groupthink in any form, but even I can't resist the pull of mandatory knitting. (See also, mandatory monkeys, mandatory clapotis, mandatory jaywalkers, etc.)

My general response to mandatory knitting is to resist until the initial craze is over. Makes me feel like less of a joiner somehow. So everyone else knit their Ishbels last year, but I'm just getting to it now.

Cathy asked to knit this with me. She's interested in learning lace, and this was one of the two easy patterns we picked out together. I figured I ought to look at the pattern before she and I tucked into it, and next thing you know, I'm almost halfway through the easy stockinette portion of the pattern. I won't go too much farther without Cathy casting on, though. So now that I've started, I might just tuck it away until she can catch up.

The yarn is the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock, and I adore it. It's pooling in an almost zebra-striped way, and this will inevitable make me want to carry my oversized zebra bag when I wear the shawl. The scarf is just off enough to avoid being matchy matchy.

The Kittawake Hat

2010-03-30T21:03:00.003-05:00

In case you haven't already seen it, here's Panera Erik wearing his woolly crown. Well, he says it's his gangster hat for when he wants to rob places, but we all know it's impossible to feel like committing felonies when wearing Starmore designs. Or misdemeanors. Bad language, on the other hand, can still flow pretty freely. Ask me how I know.

He's been very good to the knitters, and, well, we all know how knitters show their appreciation.

Aleta took this picture and I swiped it from her.

And that's about all I have to say about the hat.

Spring Fever

2010-03-23T16:34:00.004-05:00

I've got the worst case of startitis. Making myself even crazier than usual. I've spent hours and hours this past week browsing ravelry and my extensive magazine collection. (Side note -- hey! Did you know you can log your magazines on ravelry now? I've already logged two out of my nine boxes of magazines and have added patterns from them to my favorites list. Love it!)

So, to begin at the beginning of my almost crippling case of startitis, one week ago tonight I was struck with a wicked urge to start something new. Never mind that I have lots of great projects already OTN. I finished something on Monday, and therefore my crazy knitter gene went into overdrive on Tuesday.

I spent most of the afternoon staring longingly at a couple of bags of yarn clearly visible from my desk. They're stashed behind a piece of furniture, so you can't see them from almost anywhere in the room except my desk.

I stared at pink yarn for a bohus.

Silvery blue yarn for the Mendocino cardigan by Alice Starmore.

Shetland yarn for the Fair Isle cardigan by Veronik Avery.

Stared and stared.

By 7 p.m., I was ripping apart my bookshelves in a quest for patterns. I think if I could have found the bohus pattern, it would have been on the needles. Took me two hours to find the copy I made of Mendocino, and by that time, to be candid, I was overwhelmed by the urge to cast on every single pattern in my collection. I was almost paralyzed by it.

I decided to stall and keep working on the OTN patterns for a little while longer. I knit a few rounds of the lace blouse, a few inches of a ribbed sock leg, and a few more rows of St. Brigid. The more I knit, the more the urge to start something new faded. I saw this as a good thing.

Then two funny things happened. Two people did something unexpectedly nice for me over the weekend. Without getting into detail, one involves someone who really helped my family in a way I'll never forget. My family has been in turmoil for months, and this woman -- who knows nobody in my family except me -- has blown me away with her kindness and generosity.

She needs a white hat. Good guys always wear white hats, right? So back I went to the startitis frenzy, until I found this gem of a pattern in ravelry. I already have the right yarn in my stash, and so this will get cast on as soon as I can locate the yarn. It's here somewhere! But seriously, how adorable is this hat?

Eye Candy and Brain Food

2010-03-13T17:06:00.002-06:00

Dear Tricia,
You can look, but you can't touch.

That's the Eye Candy. Now for the Brain Food. I just heard of something really wonderful started by a pair of college girls who are tired of bad behavior being left unchallenged. They want to make a difference in this world, and they've found a way to do it. It's called Nickels for Change, and in their words,

Every time we hear something sexist, rape-defending, victim-blaming, or flat-out misogynistic (an also just plain prejudice - whether it be sizeist, classist, racist, ableist, or anything else), a nickel goes into Our Jars. We plan on doing this for a year. At the end of the year, the money will go to a charity that works towards ending violence.

This sounds like a fine idea to me, and I've already added two nickels to the jar. The first is in honor of our friend Catherine who, as I heard it, responded to an anti-gay rant with grace and dignity. The second is due to the comment on the blog where the Nickels for Change initiative was announced. You'll know the comment when you read it. It's the one that says Indian men would stop raping if they got laid more often.

In other news, I spent the afternoon knitting the lace skater's top at Nana's with a table full of people I want to see more often. Great time. Any day now, I should be able to actually share knitting content. Shock, right?

This Has Little To Do With Knitting

2010-03-09T14:38:00.004-06:00

My parents returned from their winter residence last Thursday. If there was ever any doubt that my dad is awesome, that doubt was firmly removed when he handed me this little care package.

These are Norman Love chocolates direct from the artisan's shop in Florida. Those of you who are Food Network afficionados might recognize his name from the Challenge series. He sometimes judges the confectioner's challenges.

And trust me, these handcrafted chocolates taste exactly as you'd expect. They were made by the guy good enough to judge everyone else. They're decadent and delicious and make Godiva (which I love) taste like Barbie chocolate from the toy store.

My dad is awesome. Clearly. And how much does he love me? A ten-piece box much. That's a lot.

With their return came a flurry of events. First my sister took over the kitchen to make a clutch of princes and princesses out of sweet stuff. The dresses are fruit roll-ups, yo. Best part? Watching her try to roll out yellow starbursts to make the crowns.

Then we set fire to a cake in honor of my niece's birthday. Good times. There was also a cousins' slumber party at my house, complete with a wii tournament, sledding in pajamas, and chocolate chip pancakes.

In the midst of all this birthday shopping, Danger Boy scored a new ripstick. He's managed to ride it several times without ever drawing blood. Benefits of maturity?

I show you all this in lieu of showing off my knitting. There has been knitting. I just can't show it off now. Someday I'll explain that. But also not now. :) The kid is due home from school in mere moments, and family madness has claimed my life for the moment. As Martha would say, it's a good thing.

Ravelympics Countdown!

2010-02-12T11:35:00.002-06:00

Marking my starting point -- I'm about halfway through the fifth pattern repeat of the front of St. B. The back is done. And that's all we have of that.

We'll see how far I get between Opening and Closing Ceremonies. :D I'm very excited to be able to say that my knitting will be a regular part of my day for the next couple weeks. I've logged a lot of extra hours recently to make that possible. I'm ready!

PS. My camera is toast. I need a new one. This one can't be fixed.

February 2010, Taking Stock

2010-02-01T09:36:00.002-06:00

I signed up for the ravelympics. There's been a little more knitting time lately even though I don't always have the inclination for it. This isn't the fault of knitting. This is the fault of overcrowding and other people wanting to sit in the knitting chair, plus the noise and disruption associated with all these new bodies in the house. It's not that they're being bad or awful -- they're not. It's just that the second I get into the knitting chair, the dog wants attention. Or the boy. Or the sister. Knitting is my quiet time, my time for contemplation and unbroken rhythms. Or I want it to be that, anyway.

In any case, I'm on ball three of the green afghan, and I'm making progress on the second sock of the burgundy bearfoot. I would gladly show off some pictures, but my camera lens has broken. I think it can be repaired but I haven't had time to deal with it yet. I just keep forgetting. This will have to be repaired before the ravelympics, of course, because they want photos.

So far, the only project I've designated is St. Brigid. My hope is to finish the back and get a good start on the sleeves. That would be a wonderful accomplishment as it would represent a big chunk of time set aside for knitting.

It's possible. Not easy, but possible.

My urge for the past several weeks has been to take stock of my routines and schedule and try to get some better routine and balance. This is merely a function of the chaos around me -- I'm searching for some sense of control, and not finding it. But I'm within a few hours of finishing a major, major project, something several months in the making, and once that is off my desk, I have the sense that a routine will be possible. So this has been much on my mind. What I wouldn't give to be able to block out a rough schedule for each day -- so many hours for this task, then an hour on that, then an hour on that, and so on. That's how I function best, and that's beginning to feel within reach.

And the ravelympics may be a great motivator to reestablish that kind of daily rhythm. I'm looking forward to it.

So what about the rest of you? Who has signed up, and what events will you be competing in?

Made It! Whew!

2010-01-03T18:08:00.002-06:00

Back at Stitches in early September, Adrienne and I made a yarn diet vow to each other. Shook on it and everything. I vowed to buy no yarn at all, and she vowed to buy no yarn other than a special dispensation for her trip to Ireland. (Overseas travel should come with an automatic dispensation, right?)

We agreed our deal would last to the end of the year. Perfect, because The Fold's New Year's Day sale would be the ideal feast at the end of the diet.

I was perfect. I bought a couple of magazines but not a speck of yarn. And when our annual trip to The Fold came around, I was ready for it.

Funny thing, though. I got up there and didn't really want to buy anything! I fondled dozens of gorgeous yarns and put them all back. We must have browsed an hour before I snapped out of it and realized this sale comes around once a year. Plus, Adrienne and I had already vowed to extend the yarn diet from January 2 to April 30. So with the realization that this would be my only chance to buy yarn from September through April, I decided to splurge a little.

Even so, I came home with extra cash in my pocket. Quite a bit. Which strikes me as the perfect balance, actually, because I felt like I splurged and still managed to feel virtuous about under-spending.

In the picture above, you'll see three skeins of baby yarn on the right side. I bought enough in these three colors to make a winter set of hat, gloves, and scarf. I've been browsing my Latvian mittens book, trying to pick a pattern. Kris helped me pick out the colors -- I never would have selected that orangey red on my own, so I'm very glad she helped me because these colors really pop against my black coat. I can't wait to see how they knit up.

In the front are two skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn in semisolids. I need some plain, dark socks to wear with my closet full of black turtlenecks and sweaters, so the charcoal and cream Opal and the charcoal Malabrigo will get lots of use.

When will I knit it? Only time will tell. I've been picking at the green afghan for Danger Boy in the spare moments I have available for needlework -- an increasing amount of time, but still not enough to really make any headway on existing projects. Nevertheless, it's an improvement, and I do feel that with the New Year, I've turned a corner and am heading for a sunnier field.

Spooky Cuffs

2009-12-17T15:02:00.002-06:00

I've been wanting to show these off for weeks, but my camera wasn't working. Or so I thought. Turned out there's a switch that does things I didn't know about. Pays to read the manual, right? Anyway, now I can take pictures again.

These cuffs were a gift from my batty friend DisGrace as part of our Secret Spook exchange for Halloween. She knit them. Lovely, aren't they? And they fit perfectly. Danger Boy says they're good for superheroes and punching things, and that they make Wii work better.

Over the years I've accumulated a lot of bats as a result of my involvement with this bat writing group, and my nieces and nephews are fascinated by them. I think it's because it's so unusual to have an office decorated with bats. I mean, who does that! Well, I do. The kids have named most of the little bats sprinkled all over my writing and editing corner. There's Batscot, Stretchy Uno, Sparkles, Nocturna, and a few more whose names I can never remember.

The kids are currently debating names for the bats on these cuffs. I voted for Bam! and Pow!, but I think they've about resolved on Scritch and Scratch. They say it's because the of the wool, which feels like a good Shetland wool, very sheepy and a bit crunchy. (Well, they don't know that it feels like a good rustic wool -- but I do.) It's not ruggy, not too coarse to wear, but it's rougher than the cheap acrylic gloves from Old Navy which these kids usually wear. So to them, this is a hallmark characteristic of the mitts and Scritch and Scratch might end up being the winning names.

Which leads me to an important question. How will I ever get these mitts back to myself? lol

Half a Hat, Now With Bonus Ladders!

2009-10-26T12:38:00.002-05:00

Bleurgh. Look where the needles join. See the vertical ladder line in the fabric under the join? Bet you don't have to look very hard. (sigh) I never get ladders. I can knit with all sorts of yarns and dpns, and I don't get ladders. EXCEPT...

With very slick superwash wool. You know the kind I'm talking about. It's the stuff that gives superwash a bad name. Feels great, but handles strangely. Gauge might wobble, fabric might gain inches during blocking, ends won't stay put.

And in my case, ladders.

I reckon I'll have to use my crochet hook to turn those ladders into stitches, and then use a k2tog on the live stitches to get rid of the extra one. But that will come when I'm just about ready to close the crown. No point in "fixing" it too soon.

This is the Kittiwake pattern by Alice Starmore, btw, from Aran Knitting. Except I changed it a little. (Shocking, right?) I wanted more of the braid, less of the rib, so I shortened the ribbing section by an inch (leaving it still long enough to fold in half), and am adding another repeat of the braid cable. It's a slow knit, fiddly, and I will never, ever do it on double points again.

After the hat is finished, I get to knit this:

Details will follow. :)

Silence is Golden

2009-10-10T16:46:00.003-05:00

I have the house to myself this weekend. Even the dog is gone. This is because, clearly, God loves me best.

And s/he wants me to have the knitting chair.

And s/he wants Panera Larry's baby to be warm this winter.

And s/he wants me to have the pride and satisfaction of finishing something. Anything, really.

Hooray for God for being smart enough to arrange all this.

The stats:

Pattern: Chevron Baby Lace hat (ravelry freebie) and my own baby mitt pattern
Yarn: Dale Baby Ull, what else ;) About 80% of a skein for the set
Needles: US2 dpns

Notes:

The crown of the baby hat is a bit fiddly, and I'm not sure the end result was worth it. But it will do.

To make the mitts, co 30 and join, leaving at least an 8" tail. Work k1 p1 rib for 1.25 inches. Increase to 40 stitches and switch to stockinette. Knit plain until mitt is 3.25" and then k1, k2tog on alternating rounds until you have just a handful of stitches left and can draw the yarn through the loops to close the circle. (On non-decrease rounds, just knit plain.)

Break the yarn and knot it to the 8" tail at your cast on edge. Slip a crochet hook into the cast on stitch next to the tail -- this will be the base for a chain. Chain stitch along the knotted tail until the chain is about 26-28" inches long when unstretched.

Using your final loop in the crochet chain as your slipknot, cast on 30 and make the second mitt as above. When you wind in the ends from the knot in the chain, weave them in opposite directions. to hide the bulk. And yes, it's best to knot this. You need a strong connection. Don't worry -- it's invisible once it's woven in.

This will look like a fairly large mitt, but it really isn't. Newborns tend to curl their fingers, but you want the mitt to leave them room to stretch.

Now, onto the hat for Panera Eric. He deserves something good, too.

New Math

2009-10-04T10:58:00.003-05:00

I wasn't going to cast on any new socks. I thought that if I resisted that lure and focused on sweater knitting, I'd have a chance of finishing St. Brigid fairly soon.

Which would be true in theory, but doesn't quite work in practice.

I pulled out St. Brigid yesterday and went to sit in my big green knitting chair. Some of you know, I've recently gained some new roommates, courtesy of a bastard sonofabitch asshole piece of shit my sister very wisely, and at long last, is divorcing. (Not that I have formed an opinion of this man's character. These statements are all totally objective and based on clinical data. Ahem.)

So there I am in my big green chair, hunkering down for a spell o' knitting while watching the Purdue football game. And here's what happens --

-- The kid wants to watch cartoons. There are three other televisions in this house, but he wants this particular one. And this is the only one with a good knitting chair nearby. He whines when I tell him no, which is not too terrible to take, except that the whining is competing with the game.

-- My mother, currently in town again, decides to vacuum this room, muttering all the while about how there are two adult women living in this house and neither of them vacuums to her satisfaction. I wouldn't give a shit -- I have long practice in ignoring this sort of muttering -- but the noise was interfering with my ability to hear the game commentary. Vacuum + muttering mother + whining kid = starting to be a problem.

-- As soon as my mother leaves the room, my sister wants to complain about my mother's complaining. Mom's vacuuming other rooms now, and still muttering. Now we have Vacuum + muttering mother + whining kid + complaining sister = Goddamn, would you people shut up and let me watch the game and knit already.

-- Enter my father, who tolerates me watching football because he likes football quite a lot. But he wants the remote, and he wants to talk. A lot. He wants to talk about the game, which is a good thing, but I can't answer his questions about why the refs are making the calls they're making because I can't hear the commentary at all any longer. Also, he tends to change channels during commercials and replays, so we're missing quite a lot of commentary anyway.

Still with me? The end result:
Vacuum + muttering mother + whining kid + complaining sister + chatty father + constantly changing channels = mis-crossed cable in row 11.

Also, game? What game?

So I'll be saving St. Brigid for SnB nights, and when I need to knit at home, a simple sock will have to do. This one will be a 2x2 ribbed leg and instep out of Mountain Colors Bearfoot, a yarn I purchased about a thousand years ago from Nana's.

Worth noting: When I sat down at the kitchen table this morning to cast on and browse my Sensational Socks books for a leg pattern, the kid came in to play video games "with" me (a/k/a he plays and shows me the screen at intervals), my sister came in to complain about my mother, my mother came in to complain about housekeeping, and my father came in to talk football. The only difference from yesterday? Different room, no vacuum, and we were talking Bears instead of Boilermakers.

So I closed up the pattern books and opted for a simple ribbing.

Because sometimes, the best answer is the simplest one.

Ball One

2009-09-21T13:13:00.005-05:00

I've been working on this afghan while watching Mad Men. (By the way, those of you following Mad Men, please read my editing blog and help me figure out whether there's a connection between Grandpa Gene and the dead snake. Or between baby Gene and the mouse.)

This is the first super-saver supersized skein of Red Heart, and it got me 8" of blanket. I bought twelve skeins. The future owner of this blanket, Danger Boy, is large for his age, and most growth charts peg his adult height at around 6'5" to 6'8". So the blanket needs to be large, too. Maybe ten skeins for the body, one or two for the border? We'll see!

The Curse Has Been Broken!

2009-09-19T18:41:00.003-05:00

I spun around in a circle three times, clicked my heels, threw salt over my shoulder, and---

--broke the antiknitting curse that some fiendish devil put on me.

The socks are done. I'll never be able to wear them without thinking of the last six months. The car wreck, all the trips to the pain clinic with my grandmother, the endless work hours, and all the other distractions, both good and bad.

I'd say that I'm happy to have them -- and this time in my life -- finished, but the truth is I'm more relieved.

I'm not going to cast on another pair of socks just yet. Next, I hope to finish the baby hat for Panera Larry's soon-to-be-born son. That's a small project, and I'm still just skittish enough to want to keep things simple. There's always the temptation to cast on something new, but practicality must prevail. Even without the hat, I still have three sweaters and a t-shirt on the needles. That's more than enough for now.

Post-Stitches

2009-09-15T23:02:00.004-05:00

Got home from Stitches mid-day Sunday. Within hours, my parents had arrived in town, my sister left her husband and moved in here with her child and dog, and my life
changed dramatically. I've had to empty closets for her, just at a time when I wanted to reorganize my stash and spread it around a bit so things might be easier to find. Oh, well. Family comes first, even ahead of stash (though it is a very, very, very close second, lol).

Abbreviated Stitches report:
I bought some yarn.
I took some classes.
I enjoyed the uninterrupted company of knitters.
I ate amazingly good Indian food. Twice.

The best part was the company of knitters. There hasn't been enough of that lately, and I cannot begin to express how lovely it was to get away from the stress and chaos and just be with friends in a fun and relaxing environment. Big hugs for all my friends. You guys are the best!

The second best part was the Advanced Finishing class with Margaret Fisher, who is my new idol. Everyone should take this class. She'll blow you away with how much she manages to jam into a three-hour class, and all of it is useful. Plus she's adorable and very nice. And she agreed with me that my kitchener is weird, and she might have even pinpointed the problem. We'll see. I've spent years unable to figure out why my kitchener grafts always look grotesque, so if nothing else, there's comfort in knowing an expert also sees the same problems I see. It's nice to know I'm not imagining things!

Yarn. Yeah, okay, I bought some. Not as much as I had budgeted for -- I came home with a couple hundred (and then some) left over in my annual Stitches set-aside. The market was underwhelming this year. Many of our regular fave vendors were not in attendance -- the rainbow button lady, the antique button lady, The Fold, Black Water Abbey, Shelridge Farms, Jojoland, Manos, and this is but a partial list of missing vendors. The market was easily 20% smaller than in past years.

So there were some disappointments, but honestly, I'm not disappointed overall. I was able to get some new indie yarns and a few things not available around here. A skein of Kauni for a shawl, some cones of laceweight that were a real bargain -- don't have a clue why the laceweights are calling to me lately. I'm not a lace girl. Or maybe I am but didn't know it before now.

What's that? You want to see? Oh, okay. I guess I can understand that. ;)

The pink is an alpaca laceweight, about 800 yards, from Webs. And the other is the Kauni. If you could see through the layers of the Kauni skein, you would see all the colors of a rainbow. It's very bright and colorful. I really can't wait to knit it, and am torn between two patterns.

End/Begin

2009-08-30T13:37:00.005-05:00

I was profoundly moved on Wednesday to learn of the death of Ted Kennedy. My father's family is Irish Catholic, and though many of them scorned the idealism of the liberal left, they honored the Kennedy family for its great accomplishments in the face of religious and national-origin discrimination. For many of the old cranks in my family, the 1960 presidential race was the one and only time in their entire lives at which they voted for a Democrat. They were proud that "one of their own" was voted into the highest office, much the same as today's African-American population is proud of President Obama. It took an Irishman in the highest job in the land to erase the pain of "Irish Need Not Apply" signs in job placement offices.

Like many Irish Catholics, my grandmother hung a picture of JFK in her house right under that of the Pope. He was a martyr in her eyes. When Bobby was assassinated, many in my family were sickened with grief and dread. If "they" could do this to, not one, but two Kennedys, what hope remained for the rest of us? What would stop "them" from picking us off, too? Such were the fears engendered by the second Kennedy assassination.

But Teddy remained. His was a long life scarred by tragedy, and if there's one thing an Irishman loves, it's a good lament. Even though many of my family members abhorred his politics, he became almost emblematic of the best and worst of us, a symbol of all we had gained and lost. And through it all, he endured. He avoided the assassin's bullet. He retained his high status. He sang, he roared, and despite his many great accomplishments, he failed to achieve his highest goals. There's something both tragic and beautiful in his life.

I had few qualms about his politics and agreed with him on most matters of social justice. I respected all that he did for the arts -- my community lost one of our strongest champions on Wednesday. Now that he has fallen, who will catch the flag? There is no one left in politics who cares about arts the way the Kennedys did. Instead of appealing to our highest humanity, today's leaders settle for the basest greed. Money is all that matters now. Greed is good.

His death marks not just the end of a life, but the end of an era.

Throughout the course of the week, those of us who watch the news were reminded again and again of the great care Teddy took of the next generation of Kennedys. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, about how he made sure that Bobby and Jack's kids were always a strong part of his life.

This is why, during the funeral yesterday as I listened to the speeches and songs and even cried a little, I started the next afghan for my nephew Dylan.

Bless you, Ted Kennedy, and thank you for inspiring so many. Eternal rest grant unto you, and perpetual light shine upon you.

Yarn Crawling, DC Style

2009-08-26T10:33:00.004-05:00

Those are some happy knitters. On the left, in the black and white dress, is Rachael, who blogs as Yarnagogo, and whose first knitting mystery romance will be released early next spring. Believe me, you will all hear from me when her book comes out. She's a terrific writer and I've done what I can to mentor her along the way. She repaid me last year in San Francisco by introducing me to Kyoto, a truly fantastic mohair and silk worsted yarn.

In the middle is the glowing-with-pregnancy ninja knitter, MB, who blogs as Merry Gentlemen. She is also the entrepreneur who has brought us Rock Creek Yarns. That's another brand of crack to add to your collections. Gorgeous stuff, and if you need proof, it's at the end of this post. MB was a Chicago knitter until she became a DC knitter, and she was kind enough to play hostess for our little band of writer-knitters during the DC conference. She did a marvelous job of enabling our addictions.

On the right, wearing the uber-cool shades, is Tara, who blogs as Random Ranter. She's a writer in the early stages of her career, and a knitter of many talents. I don't get her love of cotton, but hey, she can have my share of the cotton if I can have her share of the shetland wool. Check out her blog for a really interesting multicolored cotton scarf that's so cool it makes me want to give cotton another try. And that's saying something.

We spent a lovely day touring the Maryland side of DC. Our lunch was in a little French bistro with outstanding spinach and brie crepes, which adds another line item for my theory that it's impossible to get a bad meal in DC. (Have I already mentioned that my hotel was across the street from the Lebanese Taverna? This is the best middle eastern restaurant I've ever visited, in DC or in any other place.)

Enough about the food. Let's talk about the important stuff. The yarn.

At the first shop we visited, which I think might have been in Bethesda, I bought this gorgeous pink laceweight merino and some wonderful Jojoland sock yarn. I have no idea what I'll do with the laceweight. There are about 1400 yards on that skein, so options abound.

And this is the rest of my haul. This is the indie-dyer portion of the adventure. Left and center are sock yarns from local DC dyers purchased at a shop in, if memory serves, Hyattsville. Charming shop on a charming street. I fell in love with that blue at first sight, but fate alone knows when I will ever be able to knit it.

On the right is a skein of MB's wonderful silk laceweight. I love her color sense. This one feels like the color scheme you would find in a wild, modernist or impressionist painting of irises. The color manages to be both saturated and pale by turns. Very appealing stuff.

Another One Gone

2009-08-09T11:44:00.002-05:00

This is the cabled cardigan back piece. Or I should say, WAS the cabled cardigan back piece. I was, as the guys in the trades say, balls-on with my gauge. The finished piece was four inches narrower than the pattern specs called for, though, even after I tried to block it wider.

So I spent a pleasant half-hour last night trying to rework the pattern schematics to come up with a garment that would go all the way around me. But this is a very tailored, fitted piece, and I gave up without even fighting too hard.

Check out the kink in that frogged yarn. I wound it into loose round balls to let the yarn relax a bit, and then will wind it into cakes in a few days or so.

My list of KIPs is shrinking, and I must confess, it feels good to ditch things that aren't right. It's liberating. Not sad or depressing at all. This is my mindset when I stare down Catherine Parr, still laying on my kitchen table in all her botched glory. I still haven't decided what to do about this one. It's the toughest call on the list.

Goodbye, Times Three

2009-08-08T14:02:00.002-05:00

Goodbye, fair isle bag. We like your colorwork, but the design (by me) needs a bit of refinement, and the needles were awful. You'll be knit again some day, but on different needles and with a better thought-out design.

Goodby, Kyoto Banff. Nice pattern. Lovely yarn. But when you put them together, meh. The fabric just wasn't working for me. Kyoto, you'll be knit again someday. Banff? Maybe not.

Goodbye, Snicket socks. You drove me crazy almost from the second I cast you on. Yarn is lovely and will make a beautiful pair of socks, just as soon as I find a new pattern.

An Unholy Mess

2009-08-07T14:02:00.003-05:00

This is my knitting. I have reached the turnaround point in my stress saturation level -- bottomed out, beginning to climb back up into the land of the normal -- and I know this is the case because I am suddenly possessed by the urge to clean out all my closets and drawers, empty all my bags, reorganize my filing cabinets... you get the idea. When I get busy like I've been since last winter, I can't stop to think about how my life is organized. I just shove things in drawers and cabinets and hope for the best. Then when things begin to calm down, I wake up and realize that my home and office aren't quite where I want them to be.

So today I started the Great Knit Reclamation Project, which begins with emptying out all my knitting bags to see what, exactly, might be hiding in them. Now it is all on my kitchen table. As you see.

The pictures are dim because it is dark and rainy today -- really, the perfect day to start this sort of thing during the lunch hour. Starting with the dark green yarn in the lower left, and working clockwise, we have--
1 - St. Brigid in olive green, about a third done
1 - a cabled cardigan in marine blue, about a third done
3 - two cones of purple Kyoto, swatched but never started
4 - three balls of cream bamboo for a scarf
5 - purple crack in a bag for a lace tee
6 - a disgustingly huge pile of notions, notepads, and medications left over from pneumonia
7 and 8 - two socks in the middle, the green snickets and the plain Malabrigo socks

Starting again with the green St. Brigid yarn, this time lower right and working clockwise, we add,

9 - the fair isle bag of my own design
10 - Catherine Parr, inches from completion
11 - Fulmar, about half done

I have to make some decisions this weekend, not the least of which will be what to do with that Catherine Parr. I hate the lower band on it to the point where I can't bring myself to complete the project. I need a solution that won't disappoint, and that might mean ripping and reknitting.

I think the Snicket socks are done for, too, because I'm just not digging the pattern. And the marine blue cardigan -- despite perfect gauge, the finished piece is several inches narrower than the pattern claimed it would be, and my attempt to block it wider has failed.

Somewhere in my closet is that purple Lady Eleanor. My radar is picking up its vibe now, too.

But these decisions will have to wait until tonight. I have quite a bit of editing yet to accomplish this afternoon, and once that's done, it will be time to figure out the knitting. I'm anticipating a fun Friday night. Just me and my yarn. I can't wait. After I sort through my works in progress, I'm going to pull the yarn from my closet and figure out what I've bought since the last time I logged onto Ravelry for more than five minutes. There isn't much new yarn, but there's enough to keep me busy for a bit. Busy in a happy way. The kind of busy we like.

The Saturday Curse

2009-08-01T12:25:00.005-05:00

So, last Saturday was a big day. I spent a good part of the day in a tv studio out in the western suburbs, taping a talk show about writing and publishing. Cool stuff. When I got home from that, I thought I would have an hour or two to knit and unwind.

No such luck.

We have the worst golfers on our course. I swear, it's like they give a special rate to anyone who can't tell a nine iron from a tire iron. As I was changing out of my tv clothes and checking email and so on, I heard a crash. Thought a golfer had probably hit one of the contraband tomato pots on the patio and shattered the planter.

They hit something a little north of the planter.

There went my knitting time. I had to go to the golf clubhouse to report it, where that nasty woman who works in the golf clubhouse amply demonstrated why all the residents refer to her as "that nasty woman who works in the golf clubhouse." It took forever, got me nowhere, and I'm still annoyed over how difficult she was.

But that was last week. This week, I thought I would get an hour or two of knitting time on Saturday after I finish up some line edits and a revision letter. But I woke to the sounds of an unexpected visitor who was imitating Santa Clause and coming down my chimney.

This poor little morning dove has had quite a difficult day. It got its foot caught in the mesh that hangs over the glass windows, finally worked free, and took a rest on the kindling. Thanks to all the facebookers and twitterati who gave me tips on how to get it out of the fireplace. As you can see, opening the fireplace doors didn't persuade it to leave. It just sat there and watched me for a while. It seemed very dazed.

So I got an old towel and thought I would wrap the bird in the towel and carry it outside. Of course, it took one look at the towel and freaked. Me, it would tolerate. The towel? OMG, utter terror. It flew up the chimney, then somehow out the fireplace door, all over my house, into the ceiling a few times (ouch) and finally came to rest on an umbrella stand in the front hall. You would think with all it's blind, frantic flight, it might have accidentally managed to go through one of the doors I'd opened, but no such luck.

While it was on the umbrella stand, I was able to get the towel around it and carry it outside, where it sat on my railing for a good hour and a half. I was afraid it might be hurt, so I sat out there and talked to it and put out some bits of bread. Me, it tolerated. But as soon as it saw the bread, it flew to the roof. It's still on the roof, but I figure if it could fly up there, it should be okay. Just needs a bit of recovery time.

Anyway, that's two Saturdays in a row where my hope for knitting time was dashed by odd occurrences at the house. Wonder what next Saturday will hold.

One Is a Lonely Number

2009-07-23T14:09:00.005-05:00

This is the one and only thing I've knit since February. It's a sock. My feet can take turns wearing it.

(sigh)

It's not lack of interest keeping me from knitting. It's lack of time. Things are improving in that department, though, and I expect to gradually add knitting time back onto my calendar over the next several weeks.

It's either that, or turn into a superstressed renegade rogue killing machine.

GOD DAMN, DO I MISS HAVING TIME TO KNIT.

Look, Ma! No Holes!

2009-06-02T17:29:00.002-05:00

So, we could sum up the last six weeks as: construction, car wreck, employee issues, sick grandma, major national conference, and way, way, way too much work. It has been chaotic and at times stressful, but there have been a few good things, too. Notice what's missing in the picture above? Anyone who has been in my backyard the last, oh, two years or so has seen the giant holes next to the foundation. There were another several days of muddy boots tramping through my house and loud noises sloshing the coffee right out of my cup. But in the end, they must have run out of ways to waste time and make messes, because they filled in the holes.

Does that mean the foundation is repaired? Uh. Maybe.

See what else is missing? No more bobcat! No more day-glo orange safety fence! No more lawn, either -- the damn thing was parked there so long, the grass has died and disintegrated.

There hasn't been much knitting. Less than two pattern repeats for the front of St. Brigid, less than a gusset for one sock. But I did cheer myself up by breaking my yarn rules and splurging on some new sock yarn.

That's Lorna's Laces Mixed Berries on top, some Regia on the left, and some Fortissima on the right. I picked them up at Ivelise's yarn shop in Benton Harbor, Michigan, during Memorial Day weekend. Isn't it pretty? I wonder if I'll ever get to knit it.

The Back Is Off the Needles

2009-04-14T22:14:00.004-05:00

Well, gosh, that only took ten weeks.

There's one mistake. Can you see it? I think it's totally obvious.

A Sad Story With a Happy Ending

2009-04-09T22:34:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time, there was this knitter, and she mostly went about the business of living and working and knitting and being a smartass without much trouble or interference.

But then this knitter got sick and things got pretty shaky, and between the effects of the illness and the cure, her brain shut down. Couldn't read charts or instructions or her live stitches. Couldn't count past three. Couldn't look at math she'd done in the past for pattern alterations and understand her instructions to herself.

She cast on a very easy lace scarf, knit a few rows, fucked it up spectacularly, and ripped it all out. Six. Times.

She tried to understand her snicket socks, already in progress, but no amount of staring could help her find where she was in the charts.

She even tried casting on a simple, plain, dull-as-dust sock. Made it through less than half an inch of cuff before giving up because, no shit, she was too weak to hold up the yarn and needles.

(Yes, this is a scary story. Terrifying. We're talking about a knitter with a couple decades of experience here. Ponder, if you will, what it must be like to suddenly be unable to remember which way to wrap the yarn for a yarnover. Have you ever felt too weak to hold sock yarn? Eek!)

So she put her knitting aside, slept 20 out of 24 hours, and occasionally thought about how much she missed things like breathing and her voice. Went to the doctor a couple more times. Work piled up all around her and her knitting collected dust.

Four different drugs later, she could no longer remember which project was in which knitting bag.

But she felt a lot better, and she was working like a demon to get caught up after all the time away, and this meant no knitting time. Still. Employees went on vacation, employees resigned, cars broke down and were fixed. iPods developed mystery playlists, DSL spasmed, light fixtures failed, and a string of repairmen concluded that, yes, there is something mighty wrong with the house's foundation. Somebody better get a bobcat out here right quick.

Three, four, five days at a stretch, she would go without touching her knitting. When she did risk a half hour for knitting here or there, it was always a row on St. Brigid. Others around her finished their St. Brigids. But she couldn't even complete the back.

Weeping hot tears and raging at the heavens, our knitter concluded that her knit-fu had abandoned her.

But then....

It came back.

The mojo cometh, and the mojo goeth away. It is a fickle bitch. But it's back. And I'm gonna duct tape it to my stash boxes so it doesn't ever get away again.

(Pictured above is the plain sock, actually not dull as dust but quite gorgeous in person. Malabrigo sock weight, color Persia -- imagine jade smoked over with charcoal, and you'll get a feeling for the depth and complexity in this deceptively simple yarn. The camera can't capture the hints of green and teal accurately.)

More Durable, My Ass

2009-03-22T14:18:00.002-05:00

I knit this big poncho out of Lion Brand Cheap 'N Chunky (or whatever it's called -- the rope-like version of wool-ease) around four, maybe five years ago. It was one of those soopah bargains in the clearance bin at JoAnn's, so I thought, what the heck. Might as well give it a go on the needles. See whether the reputation for durability and quality is deserved.

Answer: no.

I'm not a big fan of ponchos in general, but this one came in handy at the old house for lounging in the cold basement. And since we moved almost three years ago, it has lived in the back den, also a very cold room, where I cozy up under it while watching tv. Regardless, at the end of the cold weather season, I would wash it (cool water, gentle) and spin dry it. For a yarn that is nearly all acrylic and rumored to be durable, this should be no problem at all.

That means this is its fourth washing. Maybe it's fifth.

And look at it. The heathering fibers are separating from the yarn. You see that fine gray haze over the whole fabric? You see the gray pills forming? Grr....

But that's not the worst of it. It shed all over the few other items I washed with it. Look at my cotton turtleneck.

Very frustrating.

Take Two Stitches and Call Me in the Morning

2009-03-14T10:21:00.003-05:00

Back to the doctor yesterday for the never-ending chest infection. I am now on my fourth different medication. Because nothing we're doing seems to cure this, I decided a little home remedy might be in order.

New knitting. Just what the knitdoctor ordered.

This will be the skater's overtop from the Veronik Avery book. This was my birthday yarn last year. I want to knit it before my birthday this year because I'm convinced this will somehow make me feel less guilty about my stash.

Also because I'm addicted to this yarn and have spent the past ten months fondling it and dreaming of casting on. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so here I am, starting something new even though all my something olds still linger.

Special thanks to everyone who has pledged wool for the Bosnian refugees. I will be sending my friend Kate a big box sometime around March 27, so there is still plenty of time for you to round up your remnants and get them to me. If you can't make it to one of our knitting events, please let me know and I will be happy to come collect your donation. It's for a good cause!

ETA: If you want to see the Bosnian knitters and some of their work, go here. Kate tells me she hasn't updated the page in ages, so don't believe everything you read there. But it will give you some idea of the work they're doing.

A Call to Action

2009-03-10T19:58:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine volunteers with the Bosnian refugee community in Massachusetts. These refugee women have survived a kind of hell that most of us have only seen in tv newsreels. They support themselves by weaving rugs and knitting socks and selling them through a cooperative effort. It's pretty cool stuff, grassroots activism, people helping people in the most fundamental kind of way.

My friend tells me they're running low on yarn and on cash, and they have several orders to fill. They're coming up with a short term solution for their most pressing needs, but I promised her to tap my knitters for donations.

Please go through your stashes and cull for any leftovers or other lots of yarn you won't use. The only catch is that they need wool or wool-cotton blends. I'm going to send her my sockotta and all the leftover bits of sock yarn, and probably all the yarn leftover from Lady Eleanor, and anything else I can find for them.

If you bring whatever you can donate to SnB or to Open Knitting on Thursday, I will arrange to get it to Kate so she can distribute it to the refugee women.

Thanks in advance -- I know my knittas will come through on this one.

Half Back

2009-03-06T13:29:00.002-06:00

Here are four pattern repeats of the back piece for St. Brigid. I love the way this pattern unfolds, and I especially love how quickly it happens.

Laying this piece out for a photograph helped me reach a decision about something. The original design calls for a fringed hem, and I'm not a big fan of fringe. But something has to be done to even out that hem. I mean, look at it, wobbling and jiggling up and down like that. Ugh. I know others have managed to go fringeless and have a nice, even hem, but it appears I am not one of the fortunate few.

So I'll be attaching a banded border of some kind, probably of the braided rope cable, to give a neater edge there.

The meds are beginning to knock out the chest infection I've been fighting for the last few weeks, but I'm still a bit like that lower hem edge -- raw, weak and wobbly. S'ok. It will pass.

Goal

2009-03-03T21:25:00.002-06:00

Knitting Goal For March:

Knit one hour each day.

That's it. You'd think that would be an easy goal to reach for an obsessive knitter like me, but not so. All year I've had to fight for knitting time. Between working two jobs and illness and family obligations and other demands on my time, I've completely lost control of my schedule and my routine.

And you know what I've learned from all this? Sweaters don't knit themselves.

Imagine that.

So I made a good start on my March knitting goal today by knitting 4 rows of St. Brigid, which is just a bit over an hour's worth of knitting, while I was watching a bit of tv. I only watch about 3 hours of tv a week, so that tv knitting time is pretty precious. And lately, I've been sacrificing it to the laptop, dealing with routine email and filing tasks while watching my shows.

But no more. I'm allowed an hour a day for knitting. Allowed? Required.

Why I Am A Bore

2009-02-27T15:52:00.003-06:00

Secret Knitting + Crap Virus = Boring Blog

The good news from my corner is that the secret knitting project is off the needles. As you can see in the picture, it is still in sore need of blocking. I don't know when I will get that done -- my house is under construction again, and the dust isn't so good for wet yarn laying around. But there's no rush on blocking it. I have time.

The good news, part two, is that yesterday we finally found a remedy that is helping with this horrible, hideous, body-wrenching virus. I'm not over it, not by a long distance, but it's better today, thank god. I managed to work a half day yesterday and a half day today, with hope that I will log in another couple hours yet. With any luck, I might even get my voice back in another day or two.

Side question: Why is it that doctors are suddenly all about the OTC meds? Dude, if advil and robitussin had been handling this damned thing, I wouldn't have come to you in the first place.

Who Could Resist?

2009-02-22T09:45:00.003-06:00

Take a good look at that picture and imagine...
The top color is the body of a sweater.
The bottom four colors are a bohus-style yoke.

That's a pretty picture, isn't it? The yoke colors are Cascade Indulgence, a merino-angora blend perfect for a bohus yoke. The body color is Dale of Norway Tiur, a DK wool with just a soupcon of mohair to give it a slight halo effect.

And the best part?

All this yarn was on the 75% off shelf at this weekend's sale at Nana's Knitting Shop.

Here's something else to imagine. Imagine me in that store for the last, oh, two or three years, eyeballing that Indulgence and knowing it's just right for a bohus yoke. Imagine me doing the math in my head and reckoning that this sweater would easily cost over $200, without even trying too hard. Out of my reach for a single garment, especially now, with money being so tight. Imagine petting the yarn over and over again and daydreaming about yoke patterns, poring over the details on the bohus stickning website, and yet still never quite believing I would ever break down and get the yarn.

When I saw that it had been deeply discounted, I knew right away I would be buying it. How could I resist? I made an inspection of the rest of the store to check out the rest of the sale items, but even as I looked, I had that yippee feeling inside over the bohus yarn.

What would have cost $280 cost a few pennies under $70.
Yippee!

Shhh.... Secret!

2009-02-13T14:05:00.002-06:00

It feels like spring this week, and we all seem to be suffering from spring startitis. I'm not immune to the seasons!

Super Krissie has been knitting something fabulous lately that requires one skein of crack and one of Ritratto by S. Charles Collezione. The Ritratto has that pretty metallic shine, and crack, as we all know, makes everything look soft and warm and happy.

Put the two together, and you get an almost magical fabric. Hazy clouds of mohair and glints of bright metal. Almost sinfully soft, but sparkly. This is one where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

This is intended as a gift for a dear friend who knows about this blog but probably doesn't read it. I feel safe showing this little bit above, but I probably won't blog much about it on the off chance she might come over here to see what's happening. We don't get to see each other often, but when we do, she always asks to see my knitting. Hers is an honest interest, the same kind that leads me to ask after her cats even though I'm allergic to them. It's not about self. It's about other. She doesn't care about knitting, but she cares about me.

She doesn't have a birthday or any other event coming up, but after decades of friendship, I don't feel I really need a reason to give her something that makes me think of her.

Yeah, I'm a bit leery of gift knitting again after the Infamous Incident Regarding The Crib Afghan. But if anybody can help me recover, it's a friend like her.

St. B-eginning

2009-02-09T16:02:00.002-06:00

This is just a smidge more than two chart repeats on St B. So far, so good.

The pattern is far from intuitive, though. I have to consult the charts frequently on every right-side row. I keep thinking there has to be some kind of logic to these charts, some kind of rhythm to the cable crossings that will make itself apparent. So far, not so much. This may be one of those charts that you just have to memorize. Or keep in your lap while knitting.

Things are still pretty busy with work here, though I can definitely feel the tides begin to shift. I'm contending with fewer emails now -- under 200 so far today, definitely more manageable -- and fewer of those emails contain problems that need immediate attention. In other words, it's not January anymore! Woo hoo!

Nothin' But a Plain Pink Pullover

2009-02-06T12:53:00.003-06:00

I have this odd affinity for pale pink v-neck sweaters. I've always got at least one in my closet. The one in the picture above will be folded and shelved right next to its near twin, a store-bought model in cotton with a higher rest on the neckline.

I still have a few minor ends to weave, and then I'll set the seams and neckband, but this one is pretty much in the done column. I love the way it fits. It's very loose and cozy through the body and arms, but the shoulders are exactly right and the length is perfect.

The Specs:
Yarn: almost ashamed to admit that it's wool from Joann Fabrics bought on sale for under two bucks a ball. The brand is Sensations Tesoro, and I must say, this is a really, really nice wool. I had expected to knit a vest with it, but was pleased to see that I had enough yarn for a sweater. Just enough. Just barely enough. There might be ten or twelve grams left over out of the 650 I started with.

Pattern: My own, adapted from the Ann Budd "Handy Book of Sweater Patterns." I started with her template, but shortened the arms and tightened the armscyes. The change to the armscyes was crucial for good fit. The body fit is very loose and fluid, oversized and drapey. I always think that when you do that with the body, the arms and shoulders had better fit properly or you'll look like a little kid wearing her mommy's clothes.

That's 650 g into the "yarn out" column of my stash minder, and I can already predict people will get sick of seeing me wear this thing.

A Baby Snicket

2009-02-04T16:21:00.002-06:00

This is the result of last week's third grade basketball tournament. I swatched for St. B again, and then cast on the Snicket socks and made it this far. This is 19 rows of p2, k1b ribbing. I have one more round to go before I can start the pattern.

The yarn is Cascade Heritage, and I must say I'm in love with it. OK, yes, I say that about a lot of yarns. But this time, I mean it extra. It's so smooth and fluid, and the stitch definition could not be better. It feels almost silky, except the hand is all wool, not silky at all. If it holds up to wear and washing, this might very well be the perfect sock yarn. Fingers crossed.

Knitting on size 1US, but I can see dropping to a size 0 for a slightly denser fabric. The yarn is about as thick as Lorna's Laces sock yarn -- in fact, it's a near clone of Lorna's Laces, but without the slightly stringy feel. Don't get me wrong. I love Lorna's Laces and think the hand is excellent. But if you can imagine LL with a bit more spring and a little more slickness, you'll have a good idea of how the Heritage knits.

Fulmar Sleeves, Creeping Toward Completion

2009-02-03T15:56:00.002-06:00

On September 23, at the end of my self-declared Summer of Sleeves, the Fulmar sleeves measured to about 6.5". I put them away then and didn't touch them again until just after Christmas. In a month of sporadic but somewhat concentrated knitting -- that is, not a lot of time for knitting, but what little I had went to Fulmar -- the sleeves almost doubled in length.

Kind of makes you wonder what I might be able to accomplish here if I actually, you know, tried.

With St. Brigid on the needles now, I doubt I'll be working on Fulmar much in the near future. New toys are so much fun! But knitting the Fulmar sleeves in January reminded me of how much I really love this pattern and yarn. This sweater deserves to be finished, and I have a feeling that will happen sooner rather than later.

It's On!

2009-02-02T16:40:00.002-06:00

Aw, wookit the cute widdle baby sweater! When it grows up, it will be St. Brigid!

I had to cast on twice. The first time, I missed a major cable crossing in row 3 -- I believe I was looking at the wrong chart when that happened. The charts for this are a bit confusing at first. Not dreadfully so, but enough that it would be pretty easy to look at the wrong chart that early on, and not realize what was happening. So that's my theory on that one.

Anyway, botched cable crossing on row three, discovered the problem on row four. Ripped and reknit and got to row eight before taking this picture. I hope to get a little knitting time in tonight, too, and have even rented a movie in a most optimistic, non-Monday fashion. (Pineapple Express, in case you're wondering. I'm told it's very silly and funny, which seems like just the right thing for the day.)

I got a gauge and fabric I liked on size 6 needles, by the way, but am wondering if I might not end up ripping and reknitting on 5s. I've heard other people complain that the gauge swatch was no accurate predictor of finished size, and almost all of them gained inches and inches in width. I figure I'll knit through a few more rows, just to let the cable crossings draw the fabric in as tightly as it is likely to, and then measure. But right now, with only 8 rows knit, this thing seems wicked wide.

Destroyed by a Basketball Tournament

2009-01-29T14:37:00.003-06:00

So, today is the "March Madness" tournament for Danger Boy's third grade basketball squad. (Yes, I know, but the gym is booked up for March, and "January Madness" doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?)

I promised, cross-my-heart promised, a really-really-really-mean-it promise, that I would go to this tournament. And just for extra oomph, I called Miss Seven and my godson to ask them to come along. They're pretty excited because their alternative plans for this evening would have been playing in the kiddie care room at the racquet club while their parents get in a game or two. Sugar highs and cheering for little boys who can't dribble, pass, or shoot -- yes, I can see where that would be the better alternative.

So I'm all set. I have little snack bags packed with blue jelly bellies (leftovers from the winter blues party last weekend), Capri Suns, tissues, advil, pirate bandaids, single dollars for the concession stand, notepads and colored pencils and stickers (in case of boredom -- theirs), and -------

Crap. I don't have any socks on the needles.

I can't take the Fulmar sleeves because they're too complicated for that environment. Ditto the Fair Isle bag, which requires charts. I haven't cast on the sleeves for the cabled cardigan, and I need to find my notes on how to do the flippy-uppy short rows in order to even think about it. Branff -- I need different needles. The pink sweater is at the seaming stage, no good for working in bleachers. And the Catherine Parr is too heavy and cumbersome to work on without good supports under my elbows.

That leaves St. Brigid, which I want to re-swatch on 6s. I can do that. It will take me through maybe the first period of the first game. And then what????

No rational knitter would expect any other rational knitter to get through an entire third grade basketball tournament without knitting, would you? Or, to speak the lingo of the day, can I get a by on this one? How about if I promise, really-really-really-mean-it promise, to finish the pink sweater on Saturday before casting on St. Brigid Sunday?

(Ahem. Note to Mr Puffy and other interested persons: I'm thinking snickets.)

That's Two

2009-01-28T15:10:00.005-06:00

One of my goals is to cut down on the number of OTN projects this year, and I figured I would accomplish that by not casting on something new until I finish two items. Easy enough, right?

So, I have finished two pairs of socks this year, which gives me permission to cast on St. Brigid on February 1 as planned. Yay! Well, except that now there aren't any socks OTN, and I'll have to finish two sweaters in order to cast on another pair of socks. Which doesn't seem to make much sense somehow. Clearly, I will need to think through my rules a bit more carefully for next year.

Here are the deets:
Yarn: Filatura di Crosa Maxime Print
Needles: Size 1.5US Crystal Palace double points
Cast on: 11/16/08
Cast off: 1/27/09
Pattern: A simple 2x2 ribbing all the way down.

I really like this yarn. Very nice, very cushy and springy and round, much like Dale Baby Ull. I made the legs very long so they could be cuffed and give an extra bit of warmth at my ankles and lower calves. Each one of the color stripes is about an inch thick, so each leg is a notch under 10" long when unfolded. (They are identical in length, to the eighth-inch, but I bent the unfolded leg in the picture to get it to fit better in the frame.)

Now, with that little bit of business out of the way, I must confess why I'm so intent on discussing my "2 projects done before casting on" rule. I just realized today that I have all of the yarn I need to knit the Veronik Avery Fair Isle Cardigan. I promised myself I wouldn't start that until Fulmar was done, and I've been pretty diligent about knitting Fulmar when time and my wobbly knuckle permits. The sleeves are over 9" long now. That's progress. But not enough!

So I'll be good and do what I set out to do, no matter how tempted I am to start the Fair Isle Cardigan RIGHT THIS SECOND.

Speaking of Bastards....

2009-01-27T09:46:00.002-06:00

We interrupt this knitting blog to bring you yet another rant about (nim)Rod Blagojevich.

Lookee what the US Congress inserted into the economic stimulus package legislation.

SEC. 1112. ADDITIONAL ASSURANCE OF APPROPRIATE USE OF FUNDS.

None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless (1) the use of such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State after the date of the enactment of this Act, or (2) Rod R. Blagojevich no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois.

The preceding sentence shall not apply to any funds provided directly to a unit of local government (1) by a Federal department or agency, or (2) by an established formula from the State.

In other words, if the Illinois General Assembly fails to convict the bastard on his impeachment charges, Illinois doesn't get to participate in the economic stimulus package. My sense is that, in that case, the state's share of the money will instead go directly to counties or munies. The last sentence leaves that open as a possibility without requiring it. Except that I think it would be unconstitutional to apply this clause exactly as written -- not sure, but it smells like week-old fish to me.

But we'll never know for sure if it's constitutional or not, because it ceases to be an issue the moment (nim)Rod is convicted. Which they damn well better do. Fast.

Go, General Assembly, Go!

Kismet

2009-01-26T16:47:00.004-06:00

This is my swatch for St. Brigid, which a few of us in my local SnB plan to start on February 1. I swatched it last night, for the fourth time, and I'm still not sure if I have gauge. The first three times, I measured the wrong number of stitches in the swatch and couldn't figure out why my gauge was so wild. This time, about halfway through the swatching process, my knuckle started to act up and my gauge changed. I was on gauge before my knuckle started swelling. But I lost a stitch per four inches after it began to hurt.

So do I assume I will get gauge as long as I knit with a healthy hand?

As I pondered this question, I googled St. B, and here are a few fun facts about her.

* She is the patron saint of bastards. Which seems appropriate, somehow.

* Her saint day is February 1. The same day we picked to cast on the sweater. Cue the Twilight Zone music.

* She was sort of famous as a child for giving away stuff to anyone who knocked on her father's door, which was a source of considerable strain between Brigid and her father. At first, she mostly gave them milk. But when she gave her father's jeweled sword to a leper, her father put her in a convent.

* Eventually, she founded a convent of her own, and as she was being consecrated as its Abbess, the priest accidentally made her a bishop instead. For about 500 years after this, all the Abbesses at this convent had the rank of bishop.

* Some say she never existed at all, but that early Christians swiped existing Celtic legends about a goddess Brigid (or Brid, pronounced breed) and stamped Christian ethics onto the existing faith. This was a very common conversion practice, but it seems pretty likely that she may have lived, seeing how there's a tomb with her name on it.

So there you have it. We all now have permission to mutter "Bastard!" whenever this pattern irritates us. And I think I'd better wait until February 1 to cast on. It is, after all, her day.

Things I Am Heartily Sick Of

2009-01-14T14:53:00.005-06:00

I'm heartily sick of shoveling my walk. We pay good money to the homeowners association to have this taken care of. As you see, that is money well spent.

Words can't describe how sick I am of having to brush and scrape my car. Do you think we could have just ONE MEASLY DAY where we don't have to do that? Is that too much to ask?

And the bobcat. Oh, the bobcat. Yeah, I'm sick of that, too.

And don't even get me started on Catherine Parr. It has been living quietly in its bag for weeks, taunting me with the knowledge of how close it is to being finished. But even after my knuckle returned to normal human proportions, I couldn't bring myself to take CP out of the bag. Sick of it. Sick of everything.

Luckily, there's a cure for the winter blues. Throw some hot cocoa into the mix (spiked with something medicinal, of course), and we've got the recipe for a new and improved mood.

Why Brains Matter

2009-01-11T12:21:00.002-06:00

This is what happens when you have killed your brain. You try to do something simple like sew up some shoulder seams, and end up with -- well, good god, I have no idea what that is. A mess. And not only did I totally screw it up, but I managed to screw it up in two completely different ways. See on the right side of the picture, where the seam has a row of bumps sticking out? That's because I sewed the seam in the wrong place and left half the cast-off sticking out. And see on the left where -- well, I'm not sure exactly what happened there.

All I'm saying is, good thing I can unpick that seam.

I'm taking the day off today. Well, "off" meaning it's just gone past noon, and I've only worked an hour this morning, and probably won't work more than an hour or two later today. The last two days, about everything I've tried to do has turned out like that seam, so it's obviously time for some R&R.

I'm going to try for a little knitting this afternoon and see how the finger holds up. And I'm going to lay on the couch with the clicker for at least an hour. Maybe even take a nap. Naps are good.

And by the end of it, maybe, just maybe, I'll remember the right way to sew a shoulder seam. (sigh)

First FO of the New Year

2009-01-08T20:38:00.003-06:00

All I had left to do on these socks was the toe of the second sock. Not a lot, not more than an hour or so of knitting. I can't knit much right now, but a round here and a round there, and before you know it, your socks are done.

This is the Alpaca Sox yarn. So soft, and the finished fabric has an almost velvety feel. We'll see how they wear and launder. I have a feeling the yarn might be tender.

I've sewn the shoulders together for my pink sweater, but I don't have the right circular needle for the neckband, so that's on hold until I can get to the knitting shop. That might be a while. Work is pretty demanding right now.

How to Not Knit

2009-01-04T11:45:00.003-06:00

So far, in the quest to rest my index finger, I have:

Blocked the pink sweater. I did it in stages, and the final stage was the sleeves, which you can see here. They look like they're two different sizes, but that's because of the funny camera angle you get when you stand on tiptoe with your arms way overhead.
Wound off about eight skeins of yarn. I have to do that slowly, with long breaks between skeins, because the crank irritates my knuckle.
Put loose patterns into plastic sheet protectors in binders.
Spend eleven million hours browsing patterns on ravelry. I've been in the habit of storing patterns I like in my favorites folder. And then one day, my favorites folder was suddenly empty. I've spent some time trying to recreate it -- ha! as if that can ever happen -- and printing loose copies of freebie patterns I'd like to knit.
Found a sock pattern for some green Cascade Heritage sock yarn to match Catherine Parr. I wanted a diamond-like trellises that mimicked the Catherine Parr cable chart without actually being that chart. Because I'm sick of knitting that chart. The answer arrived in the form of Snicket socks, formerly of Magknits and currently a ravelry download.
Reorganized my knitting bookshelf. Knitting books are so oddly shaped. They never line up in a pleasing fashion.
Read my Harmony guides and other chart books for substitute cable patterns for my FLAK, which I expect to cast on in two weeks or so. I'm currently leaning towards a summer motif -- a trellis cable up the center, some vine and leaf cables on either side.
Stared dolefully at my knitting, wishing I could touch it.
I tried to make a pot of soup, but can't chop vegetables with a wonky index finger. Pizza!
Moved all the yarn for knits-in-progress out of the back room dresser where I so cleverly put it for safekeeping. Thank goodness I found it.

The swelling is going down, and the pain is fading. I knit a half a round of the gray socks last night, trying it out, but the knuckle started to twinge almost immediately. A couple more days rest should do it.

Also, movies are way more enjoyable when you can knit through them. I don't know how non-knitters can just sit there and stare at the screen. I kept wanting to make popcorn just so my hands would have something to do. But I watched Duchess, the Keira Knightley/Ralph Fiennes adaptation of the Amanda Foreman book. It was very good. I didn't expect to enjoy it because Keira Knightley annoys me, but she was restrained enough to be watchable. Shame it wasn't a faithful rendering of the historical character, who was far more interesting and quirky than the movie would have you believe.

And I watched Burn After Reading, which was about as good a Coen brothers movie as I've ever seen. Definitely worth renting.

Emergency! Help Needed!

2009-01-02T13:28:00.003-06:00

I have a four-day weekend. My plan was to go to The Fold yesterday, go hang out with with friends this afternoon, and spend the rest of the time knitting and reading at home. (Yes, "days off" doesn't mean I stop reading submissions. I never stop reading submissions.)

I rented four movies to put the cherry on top of the weekend, and last night, as I was knitting a sock gusset and watching the first movie, I got a little twinge in the knuckle at the base of my right index finger. Within an hour, it had swelled to the size of a small plum.

Ice and aspercreme have helped the swelling go down a lot, but it still hurts. I can't knit! Why, why, why does this have to happen this weekend?

So tell me, before I tear out all my hair from frustration -- if you had blocked out some knitting time, and then couldn't knit, what would you do instead?

ETA: My house is already clean. And I don't want to work more than a token amount, maybe just 3 or 4 hours a day. I'm looking for fun stuff, preferably knitting related, that won't strain that knuckle. (cry)

Happy New Yarn!

2009-01-01T15:52:00.002-06:00

Starting a stash diet for the new year is an utter impossibility when you live two counties away from an amazing yarn shop, and that amazing yarn shop has its annual blowout sale on New Year's Day.

Today, three carloads of us wound our way up to The Fold, about a 75 minute drive in good traffic with good road conditions. It's worth it even when, like last year, a blizzard slows down the driving.

Last year, I gave myself a stash exception for this particular sale. 30% off all yarn, 40% off all books, and some super discount yarns marked as low as 75% off? I'd be a fool not to take advantage of a sale like that, right?

This year, though, I didn't give myself an exception. I could shop, but within the stash rules for the new year. I wanted to find something for St. Brigid -- see the khaki green yarn -- and I thought I might find a little something in the super discount bin. I didn't, but I fell in love with that chocolate brown undyed Shepherd's Own from Fibranatura, and picked up 3 skeins. Amazing stuff, soft and rich, and my only regret now is not buying more of it.

So I'm starting the new year with 1500 grams added to the plus column. But it could have been much worse, given all the yarns I fondled but left behind.

My stash goal for last year was simple. I wanted to knit as much yarn as I bought, an even grams in / grams out measure. Sock yarn was exempted, and if you leave sock yarn out of the tallies, I ended up knitting 83% of the yarn I took in. (9536 grams in, and 7910 grams out.) If you leave out the yarn I received as gifts, and factor in the pink sweater, which is off the needles but not quite a finished item yet (still needs seams and a neckband), then that number climbs closer to 95%. It's not perfect, but it's not bad, all things considered. Too bad the pink sweater isn't a finished object yet! Or that great yarn hog, Catherine Parr!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Change of Course

2008-12-30T17:42:00.002-06:00

They say the devil lives in the details. Not that I would know anything about that....

On Friday, I realized I was within two rows of dividing the front of Catherine Parr for the neck shaping. As this is a crew neck, more or less, that means there's very little knitting left to do. I did some rough math and realized I could probably finish the sweater before the end of the year.

And then I also realized I would need a second ball of yarn to knit from, once the neckline is divided into two pieces.

This isn't the kind of detail that would normally pose a problem. Normally. I had wound off several skeins of the dark green Cascade 220 and put them in a sack in my knitting bag for just this moment. Er, better make that the previous moments when I finished skeins. All the pre-wound balls in my bag have been used.

Again, not normally a problem, right? Just haul out the swift and wind off another cake. So out comes the swift, out comes the winder, and both are clamped in place. Then I went to my storage closet to get a skein, and that was when it hit me.

I had no idea where the rest of the yarn might be.

You might remember that a couple of months back, I photographed and catalogued most of my yarn in preparation for moving it to a storage location. At that point, I tried to also reorganize it more neatly -- like yarns together, every bin filled, and so forth. Somewhere on that journey, I decided to remove the "knits in progress" yarns from their usual home in the stash closet and put them --

Somewhere else. Somewhere really clever. Somewhere, I'm sorry to admit, that I couldn't for the life of me remember.

While I tried to remember what my brainstroke had led me to do, I grabbed the pink sweater and cast on the sleeves.

Because I'm not sure there's enough yarn for full sleeves, I decided to do a provisional cast on at the widest part of the sleeve, just below the sleeve cap shaping. You can see the gray waste yarn of the provisional cast on in the picture. Then I knit the sleeve cap in usual fashion (bottom up). Then I picked up the stitches at the provisional cast on, and will knit down until the sleeves are done or the yarn is gone, whichever comes first.

I've used this "middle out" sleeve construction technique in similar circumstances, and it's the best argument in favor of knitting the sleeves last. Do both sleeves at once, and you won't end up gimpy-armed if your yarn runs a bit short.

About the Sock Yarn

2008-12-28T10:55:00.003-06:00

In one corner of a tightly packed closet, atop a narrow bookcase teeters a stack of storage boxes filled with enough yarn to make 63 pairs of socks.

63. I know. I counted.

And that doesn't include the several yarns in the fingering to DK range that could eventually be made into socks. That's just the stuff that was bought expressly to make socks.

I made 9 pairs of socks this year. So at my current rate of knitting, I have enough sock yarn to last me seven years.That's assuming I continue to knit socks at the same rate, which is by no measure a certain thing. I'm planning more sweater knitting, which means less sock knitting.

Three years ago, before I started hoarding sock yarn, these bins held the yarn for sweaters-in-progress. They held needles and notions. Now, to make room for the sock yarn, all those things have been crammed into nooks and crannies on bookcases, which are bowing under the weight of everything I ask them to hold.

2009 will be the year I stop collecting sock yarn as if it doesn't count towards the stash. I'm sure I'll still buy some here and there, and I've "budgeted" to allow myself to purchase new sock yarn after I've completed three pairs of socks. After. Not before. The storage closet has no more credit to extend.

Last year, I granted myself two exceptions in my personal rules. I said that sock yarn didn't count, as long as I paid cash for it from my weekly pocket money allowance. And I said that the rules didn't apply to Stitches and to The Fold's annual New Year's Day sale. This year, sock yarn counts, whether I pay from my weekly allowance or from gold that rains down from the skies.

Will there be an exception for Stitches? Still debating that one. I may leave it an open question until I see just how many pairs of socks I manage to knit between now and September. But my usual splurge mentality for the Stitches marketplace has started to come under heavy scrutiny, too. So we'll see, I guess.

Goals: Not Just for Soccer Anymore

2008-12-27T09:29:00.004-06:00

I love goals. I love planning things -- setting the vision, crafting strategies, breaking a process into pieces. I love thinking about what's possible, the big dreams, and then trying to imagine ways to turn possibilities into facts.

Yeah, and I love New Year's resolutions. Let's face it. The new year is a great excuse for making goals, and not just for people like me with our daily, weekly, monthly and annual goal lists. January 1 is the one time of year when the whole world gets in on the game. Fun times.

That's a snapshot of a week in my planning book. I developed a numbering system for the things I want to accomplish every day, day after day, and use that as a shorthand in my book. Some of these numbered things may seem silly -- for example, one of my daily goals is to clean something in my house for 15 minutes. But I have to put that on the list because if I don't, I might not ever get up from my desk. I tend to get sort of stuck here. Wrapped up in my work. One of the challenges of working at home is balancing the whole life/work thing -- you never leave the office, you know. It's always here. My goals have to reflect the ways I struggle for balance.

And then there's my project wall.

Each white card is a manuscript which I've acquired. Again, because I'm a bit of a freak, I've developed a notation system to help me track where each manuscript is in the development and production process. The best ones are upside down with an X through them, because those are the ones I'm done with. They're not out of production yet, so they can't come off the wall, but I can more or less ignore them.

The delightful Miss Seven loves my office -- what little girl wouldn't love a room filled with colored note cards and pencil sharpeners and scissors? Two of the notes on my project wall were placed there by her when she was playing office with me. One reads, "everyone loves you well ... and people also like you very much." The other reads, "Hi TT, I (heart) you and I know other people do to." I think those notes will probably stay on the project wall forever. Just cuz. Y'know.

So, now that you've had a glimpse into my ordinary world of lists and planners and notation systems, maybe my decision to make some knitting goals for 2009 will seem more understandable. I'm a driven person, and knitting is where I usually let all that drop. I just forget it all and make my stitches, one after the other in soothing rhythms, confident that eventually I'll wind up with a garment. No deadlines. No obligations. No plans or goals.

Yeah.

So that's how I came to have project bags hanging off every doorknob, and I'm up to my ears in stash. Because I didn't worry about when I would knit different things, or where I would put the yarn. I just figured I'd get to it eventually, right?

That's not a system that works particularly well for someone like me.

So I'm crafting knitting goals for 2009. I have a rough draft of them posted on the sidebar of my blog. Still pondering them, and some of those goals may change between now and January 1, but they're starting to take shape nicely. I'll be focusing more on garments and less on socks. Finishing what's already been started, knitting what's already been bought.

What about you? Any knitting resolutions for the new year?

The Best Gifts Are You

2008-12-25T10:29:00.003-06:00

So, at the holiday party at Nana's Knitting Shop on Friday, in between collecting bribes to buy me a senate seat, Tricia gave us all these lovely kits.

I say Tricia gave them, but actually it was her husband The Prince, dressed in a beautifully knit red sweater and a custom knit white beard. (Yes, Trish, the sweater is beautifully knit. Forget about that teenie row error on the back. It's a design feature.)

This is a kit with instructions to make felted cherry blossoms as pictured on the pattern card. I love the yarn -- Cascade Lana D'Oro -- and have decided it's far too soft and decadent to felt. It wants to be a neckwarmer. Or underpants. It's that soft.

Then at the SnB annual holiday shindig -- a party for the oldtimer SnB crew, many of whom don't make it to our weekly gatherings any more, but all of whom are still definitely part of the team -- we did our annual gift swap. This year's swap was supposed to be gag gifts and white elephants. I had a neatly wrapped package sitting on my dresser and walked out of the house without it. Pout! So I thought I wouldn't get to play along as Knifty Red read her little story about Mrs. Purl Right knitting gifts left and right. (It's one of those stories where you pass the gift to the left or right every time the word left or right is used, and it's really fun.)

I wasn't the only one who forgot her swap gift. Two of us forgot our gifts, and by coincidence, two people brought extras to compensate for the boneheads among us. Ahem. So I got to play along, and look what I got!

That's two precious, shiny skeins of Knit One Crochet Too Souffle -- perfect for a drapey scarf -- and a skein of Fannie's Fingering -- or as we think of it now, sock yarn for dirty girls. Did you know that in certain parts of the world, "Fannie" refers to a woman's girly bits? Fannie's Fingering, indeed.

But the best thing I got for Christmas this year, without question, was the chance to enjoy the company of my knitting buddies. Twice. When I first moved back to the creative wasteland known as "my childhood neighborhood," I knew I would have a hard time finding like-minded people around here. Creative class members are in short supply in these parts. And always have been. People like me tend to run away from places like this, you know, and congregate in areas where like-minded people won't scorn work that's done for something other than money. (Or worse -- activities done to improve the work that's done for something other than money. Try explaining that one to an accountant sometime.)

So I thought I was in for a few years of loneliness when I came back here. Family reasons drove me to do it, and I dreaded it in many ways. The first few years were every bit as isolating and frustrating as I expected.

And then I met the knitters. I was shy of joining this group at first. I knew about it long before I came to that first meeting, but I hesitated. I was afraid I would find nothing more than a group of crafty housewives -- you know the type, the women who do these things because their friends are doing it or because they heard about it at the mall. They are driven by different needs -- the need to be part of the group, to be popular, to fit in. And that's fine, but that's not what drives me.

But I took a chance and went to a meeting and found a mix of people that really does feed my heart and soul. And from there, I met some more knitters, and some more knitters, and pretty soon my weekly calendar was formed around knitting events with two different overlapping groups of people, all of whom delight me every time I'm in their company.

I love yarn. Jeez, everyone who knows me knows how much I love yarn. But what I love even more than yarn are the people around me who also love yarn.

Happy holidays to all of you.

When Looks Deceive

2008-12-21T09:17:00.003-06:00

These may look like rather ordinary, lumpy cookies. But the taste is really something special. Several of you who participated in the cookie exchange asked for the recipe. It started off as a recipe ripped from a magazine, but -- this may come as no surprise -- I tend to tinker with recipes. Yeah, that's right. I cook the same way I knit. Recipes, like patterns, are never made as written. I may only fool around on the margins, but I always read a recipe and think, "Ooh! That sounds good. But it would be better if...."

In any event, this started off as a recipe for a sandy cookie with jelly swirls. And now it is...

::drumroll::

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

5 T butter
1/3 c dark brown sugar
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c raspberry jam
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 generous cup dark chocolate chips
1 1/4 cup chopped pecans

Cream butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Add egg and mix well. Add vanilla and raspberry jam. (Jam will be easier to stir in if you nuke it for a few seconds. Be careful not to overheat it, but just warm it slightly.) Add flour, baking soda and baking powder and mix thoroughly. Mix in nuts and chips.

Drop by spoonfuls onto well-greased cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 9-11 minutes. Don't overbake. Allow them to cool for just a couple of minutes on the pans before transferring to racks. They need a bit of a rest before handling.

Just fwiw, I like the Girardhelli 60% dark chocolate chips. They're nicely shaped and have a good flavor and are very easy to find. The combination of tang from the raspberries, sweetness from the pecans, and richness from the chips is a real treat.

Hence, the Name

2008-12-17T09:40:00.002-06:00

Here is the craptastic, crapalicious, craparrific crapghan. If you put on sunglasses, you might be able to look at this picture closely enough to see that I'm just beginning to apply the border. Warning: Viewer beware! I won't pay your medical bills if your corneas are burned.

This is a Red Heart afghan for my oldest nephew, The Teenager Who Drives. He's military-mad and his bedroom is decorated in American flags, video game boxes, dirty clothes, and White Sox paraphernalia. So, when it came time to make his special blanket in grandma's "single" pattern, we picked out this insane variegated yarn named, appropriately, Stars and Stripes. I hate the yarn -- there are too many imperfections, too many variations in spin and thickness and loft and color -- which gave rise to the nickname. Crap + afghan = crapghan.

My grandmother crocheted bed-sized blankets for all of us -- her kids, their kids, and in some cases, their kids. In 30 or so years of crocheting, I'd be willing to bet she made 150 of them. When she ran out of beds to blanket, she started making enormous "throws" (actually, also twin bed-sized) for the backs of couches. She also made a good number of crib blankets, but she preferred the bigger ones because they would take her longer than ten minutes.

If you were reading the blog this spring, you know I pulled out her special "double" pattern to make a crib blanket for my uncle and his wife, who had their first baby this July. That double pattern and the single pattern I'm using for the crapghan were the only two patterns she ever used to make afghans. No granny squares for her! She taught me the patterns one day sitting at a picnic table in her backyard, under an enormous old oak that we all referred to as "the shady tree." Many of my happiest memories developed under the shady tree, and that's certainly one of them.

I get wicked nostalgia whenever I think about this, and making the blankets is a way of honoring her memory. The crapghan is number 3 of 5 for the nieces and nephews. Number four will be a forest green one for Danger Boy, but I'll finish a sweater or two before I cast that on.

And it looks like this one will be done in time to pass it off to the teenager at a family gathering on Sunday. Whew!

Getting Closer!

2008-12-15T16:40:00.002-06:00

Today I finished knitting the back yoke of Catherine Parr. This was knit in the round to the armholes, split, and the yokes are knit separately. I've already threaded the live front stitches onto the needle, and it's ready to go.

My original hope was to have this done by the end of the year. But I've also been working hard on the crapghan -- I'm into the last 6 oz. ball on that, and believe me, 6 ounces is nothing when the whole thing tips the scales at 84. Yeah, that's right, it's a seven-pounder. I want that thing done so bad I can almost taste it. It's too big and heavy to lug from room to room, so I keep ducking into the back bedroom, where it lays on the couch in all its eye-killing glory, to add a few stitches.

If I can finish the crapghan this week, I still have an outside chance of finishing Catherine Parr before the end of the year, which is another one so close to the finish line that I can hardly stand it. Much depends upon my job. We keep having these odd production issues due to technical/software problems, and every time that happens, I lose several hours trying to repair things. And I don't have spare multi-hour blocks of time laying around just waiting for a technical disaster to claim them.

Take Saturday. Case in point. I rarely take a whole day off -- I'm almost always reading or editing for at least a few hours each day. But I planned to take Saturday off and wrap gifts, do some cooking, and, of course, play with my yarn. I'd bought a new movie some weeks ago and still hadn't watched it. (Marie Antoinette, the "new romantics" version.) And you know, a day off once every few months or so doesn't make me a slacker.

But then one of our books came back from the typesetter loaded with major errors due to this technical glitch, and I spent 10.5 hours in my chair, fixing the manuscript. Pissed me off.

I'm starting to give some serious thought to goals for the New Year, and much of my thinking now revolves around time management. Change begins with me. It may affect others, and they may resist it, but I have to initiate it or it won't happen. And you know, I'd like to actually wear Catherine Parr someday.

One of my favorite time management tricks is the kitchen timer. I keep one on my desk. Set it for 45 minutes or however long, and buckle down on a project. Then when the timer goes off, I stop. No matter what. I get up, walk around, refill my mug or water bottle. Throw a load of laundry in the machine, wash the dishes, anything that keeps me on my feet. I usually set the timer for between 5 and 15 minutes during this stage, and when it goes off, I stop, return to my desk, and dig back in to my task for another timed sprint.

It may sound counterintuitive, but it's a technique that can keep me fresh throughout the course of a day, alternating desk work (in long sprints) with short bursts of physical activity. And there's something mentally satisfying about portioning out my tasks -- so many turns of the timer for editing, so many for submissions, so many for management tasks. As an added bonus, I always know exactly how much time I've put in on any particular project. (It's an old lawyer thing -- tracking time per task and project for billing and productivity purposes.)

So do you have any time management or productivity tricks that you can recommend?

Nom Nom Nom

2008-12-08T17:59:00.003-06:00

I've had a frustrating day, one of those days where bewildering things pile on top of you all day long. My windshield wipers wouldn't work this morning, but started working again on the way to the mechanic. My neighbor had a flat tire, and I helped her change it and got all dirty. Euw. The family business has been slammed with annoying paperwork, and another neighbor, not the one with a flat, inexplicably told me that I have the voice of a five-year-old. WTF?? My doctor's office billed me for tests that I paid for the day I was in the office. I tried to cancel my old dial-up service (which I was keeping strictly for use at the lake house), and the very kind gentleman from Whatthefuckistan kept me on the line for twenty minutes insisting that I need some other package which would be free for the first 30 days only. Every time I told him, "No, thank you," he would go right to the top of his script and start reading the whole thing over again. Every. Damned. Time. How much you wanna bet it shows up on my bill?

Oh. And a check I've been waiting for -- I did some extra freelance work a while back -- still hasn't showed up. Every time I follow up with the payor, she tells me, "I just mailed it today." I wouldn't normally fuss over delayed payment, but she's going to screw up my taxes if she doesn't cut the check in this calendar year.

So I knit for a while, but it wasn't quite taking the edge off.

I needed something more ninja.

I needed to use a knife. A sharp one.

So I made my trusty stir-fry, an easy and dependable dish I've been making since college. Everyone who's tried this very easy recipe has raved about it. Well, it's probably a stretch to call it a recipe. More like a blueprint.

You'll need:

3 c. or so chopped fresh vegetables, dealer's choice (The above was made with cauliflower, broccoli, and red radishes, but really, there are no bad choices -- this is a great way to use up leftovers)
equal parts toasted sesame oil (or peanut), soy sauce, and rice vinegar (roughly a tablespoon or two of each)
a few of drops of tabasco
a generous dash of five spice powder, maybe around an eighth of a teaspoon, or to taste
a good sprinkle of garlic powder, or one clove minced
1T sesame seeds (I'm out at the moment, so there aren't any pictured)

Put everything except the vegetables and sesame seeds in a deep skillet or wok and stir to mix. It won't mix perfectly because of the oil, but it's better if you mix the spices to dissolve them a bit. Heat the sauce until the garlic is just starting to sizzle. Add the hardest vegetables first and let them cook a bit before you add the softer ones. (Soft ones cook faster -- asparagus, radishes, summer squash, eggplant, and the like -- so you want to give the hard ones a head start.) Cook over a high flame, stirring frequently, until all the sauce is absorbed and vegetables are at desired tenderness.

If you're using sesame seeds (strongly recommended), dry toast them in a nonstick skillet for a minute or two, then sprinkle them on top of the vegetables before serving.

Leftovers reheat beautifully. Serve with rice or noodles. If you don't have any aggression issues or time for chopping, you can use the precut bags, baby carrots, canned water chestnuts, even frozen (though the texture will be different). You know those salad and dip platters you get at the grocery store for parties, and then have mountains leftover? Now you know what I do with mine. Into the wok!

My mom uses leftover cooked beef and chicken when she makes it, adding the meat when she adds the soft vegetables. My sister uses uncooked chicken or shrimp and adds it with the hard vegetables to cook thoroughly. Really, it's an anything goes kind of recipe. The sauce is both basic enough and versatile enough to dress up just about anything.

And all that chopping sure does restore a gal's equilibrium. Or if it doesn't restore her, it at least arms her.

Pondering January

2008-12-06T11:48:00.003-06:00

Oooh, look at that purty purple. So yummy. Torino feels every bit as soft as, say, Malabrigo, but it's plied and perfectly round.

Round enough for good cabling?

Thanks, Knifty Red, for the reminder in the comments. Honestly, I've been so focused on other things -- like finishing other knitting, and creating that interactive e-book, and let's not forget the mumblety-mumble holidays and the way they hoover up huge chunks of life -- that I'd completely forgotten about our new team project set to start in January.

We're knitting St. Brigid. And I think mine might just be in the purple Torino.

I purchased this Torino several years ago at Kool Knits in Naperville. I think this predates the opening of Nana's Knitting Shop in my neighborhood, because Nana's carries Torino and if Nana's carries something, I buy it there.

I'm actually getting much better at self-control while breathing that delicious nectar of yarn fumes at Nana's. Used to be, I couldn't get out of there for less than $100. These days, it's often under $50. Rumor has it that I've been witnessed leaving after open knitting with no new purchases. But my stash closet doubts the truth of these rumors.

Financial self-discipline has become a pressing concern for me lately. I have enough money to live on, but I'm very worried about the economy, as are most people. This past week, though, in back-to-back explosions known around the publishing world as "Black Wednesday" and "Gray Thursday," the axe fell on many heads at many houses. Editors, artists, sales specialists, managers -- at one house, I hear an entire production department was laid off.

Publishing is a small industry and requires a specialized skill set. It's not enough to know where to put the commas. You have to also be able to predict the future and know what people will want to read a year or two from now, which cover graphics will be more appealing, which topics will be hot. It's not guesswork, though gut feelings do come into play.

The people who lost their jobs this week, a staggering number of people, have demonstrated abilities to both predict the future and get the commas in the right spots. They were smart, talented, capable people, folks with track records of creating best-sellers and prize-winners.

And now they're out of a job, and frankly, this is probably just the beginning of an whole-industry contraction in publishing.

My job is safe. For now. And for the foreseeable future. But, to be perfectly candid, I can foresee less of the future than I used to. And in a job that requires a fortune teller's ability to see the future, this troubles me more than I can express.

I was going to use the purple Torino to knit a FLAK aran according to Janet Szabo's instructions. I bought extra yardage to allow for all the sample swatching she recommends, and if I use this yarn for St. Brigid, I'll have around 500-600 yards leftover.

But, with the future so uncertain, I might just hang onto my cash and use the stash. It's a tough decision.

What do you all think? Have you changed your shopping habits even though your income is unchanged? Am I being overly panicky?

2008-12-04T20:38:00.002-06:00

There has been a bit of knitting. Not as much as during a typical week, because work and the holidays shook up my schedule, but there has been knitting.

On Sunday, I read submissions and finished this sock. The second is cast on, but barely so.

And here's the latest view of Catherine Parr. I'm knitting the back yoke now. It's at roughly 6 inches, maybe a touch more. Once it reaches ten inches, I'll probably put it on stitch holders and knit the front. Or maybe -- brace yourselves -- I'll take the time to figure out just what I'm going to do about the neckline before knitting the front yoke. My current thinking is V-neck with colorwork bands to match those at the sleeve cuffs.

My second choice might just be a turtleneck with no colorwork.

Then again, that colorwork is nice, and it would feel so toasty warm around my neck, and it would be easier if I didn't have to do any math. So maybe I'll just follow the pattern.

(Yeah, right.)

Yet Another Sock

2008-11-28T18:43:00.003-06:00

I don't know why I feel compelled to have two pairs of socks in progress. You'd think one would be enough. And yet it's not. I like to have one pair of plain socks on my desk to knit while dictating and reading submissions. And I like to have another in my purse so I always have something with me to knit. Comes in handy for doctor's appointments, long queues at the bank, and other assorted inconveniences.

So this girly thing is my purse sock right now. I have barely started it, as you can see, and it will probably live in my purse for a while to come. There's no rush to finish it. Its purpose is to live in my bag for random knitting moment, not to be wearable by any particular date.

I love the yarn, Filatura di Crosa Maxime Print. Very spongey and soft. In the ball, it squeezes like a high-end stuffed animal, compressing more than you expect and then springing right back into shape. My only gripe with this yarn is that their colorways tend to be outside my tastes. But for that, I'd probably own more of it, because it's very nice to knit.

Pushing It

2008-11-23T18:18:00.005-06:00

I've got a lot of projects OTN again. And I'm pretty darned sick of all of them. Not because they're bad projects or boring or not something I'd wear, but because they have been hanging around FOREVER.

All week long, I've been dwelling on that. It's not good to have pleasurable things take on the shape of a burden.

So I've been talking about not casting on any new projects until I clear all existing projects off my lists. Socks are the exception to that rule, of course, because I need mindless desk knitting and something portable for my purse. But, not including socks, look at what I have OTN:

1. Catherine Parr.

This was cast on November 2007, one year ago. The sleeves are done. The body, knit in the round, is done to the armholes (where the fabric divides), and another three inches of the back is done above the armholes. This one is probably 80% done, except for a little knitting and some math for the neckline.

2. The Crapghan.

Remember this butt ugly thing? It's 2.5 balls away from completion. It's crocheted, and crochet hurts my wrist, so I can only work on it in the tiniest increments. Takes a long time to crochet a bed-sized blanket in five minute increments.

3. Fulmar.

I'd rate this at about 30% done. And you have no idea how much I wish that number was larger. I love this project, but it requires thought, and I can't always think about my knitting.

4. My Husband a/k/a the Cardigan.

The back is knit. That's it. I got stalled by the sleeves, but after a Stitches class this summer, I have a new way of short-rowing the cuffs so that I ought to get a decent result. I hope. 30% done.

5. The Fair Isle Bag.

Love the colorwork yarn on that one -- Plymouth Outback Wool. Nice wool, great colors. I wanted a true black yarn to go with it, and ended up with some Berrocco single ply that irritates my skin. So like the crapghan, I can only work on this one in short time increments. Maybe 10% done.

6. The Pink Sweater.

Started out as a vest, but I have enough yarn to make sleeves. We'll see how long those sleeves end up. Should be at least bracelet length. I'm nearly done with the front, so we'll soon discover just how long the sleeves will be, as that's all that remains to knit. Around 60% done.

7. The Kyoto Sweater.

I cast it on. I knit a few inches. I realized I would need to rewrite the entire pattern. And there, I stopped. Sometimes I get tired of not being able to knit patterns as written. Not even 5% done.

So that's four sweaters, a cardigan, a bag and an afghan. Catherine Parr, the pink sweater, and the afghan are all in the home stretch. I could conceivably finish all three before the end of the year. I thought about trying to knit my dad another vest in January, but now it looks like it will be Fulmar all the way, with the Kyoto (after I rewrite the pattern) for braindead days.

And even then, there will still be the cardigan.

Sheesh.

Definitely time to ignore the call of new projects. I may not achieve perfect completion of all these items before casting on something new, but if I push it, I can clear out a lot of them and make substantial progress on the rest.

Analyze This!

2008-11-21T17:50:00.002-06:00

I found this over on Jennie Crusie's blog. Some company has come up with a way to insta-analyze your blog and give it a Myers-Briggs rating. (If you don't know about Myers-Briggs, it's a personality evaluation survey used by psychiatrists to help with treatment and by writers to help with character development.)

Here's the rating for this blog:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves. They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

When I first saw my result, I waved it off because it's almost a perfect opposite of my actual personality -- only three of the four letters match my own Myers-Briggs inventory.

But then I read a bit more on the website about the way the blog analyzer works, and one of the things mentioned was that different blogs written by the same people can yield different results. It's not the writer's personality being inventoried, but the blog's.

And then I realized something else. Knitting is where I escape. Hard for me to be a manager? Shoot, I'm a manager at two different companies. My default position is telling everyone else what to do, delegating, making everything around me run smoothly.

But knitting is where I escape all of that. Or try to, anyway.

Live in the present moment and don't like to plan ahead? People make fun of me for being so hyper-organized. I have a plan for how to plan my plans. But in my knitting life, I do my best to keep that urge at bay. Yeah, okay, so I gave into my natural urges and invented the monster database of patterns cross-indexed a dozen different ways. But I don't know when I'll pick up my needles again, and when I do, I don't know which project I'll choose. I knit by the seat of my pants.

I could go on, but I guess the point is that this blog analyzer showed me a few truths about why knitting is so important to me. It's not just a pressure valve, not just a place to blow off steam, but a place where I act so different from my usual driven self that the steam never has a chance to accumulate.

The Pink Sweater

2008-11-17T13:53:00.003-06:00

Maybe I should have titled this post, "Why I'll Never Be One of the Cool Knitbloggers." The proof is in the picture. I thought I'd be all clever and such, and lay out the sweater back under the sweater front to demonstrate how far along we are in this project. It was such a great idea in my head, and believe me, my imaginary photos are more visually magnificent than that curly, bunchy mess up there.

Anyway. I'm past the armhole shaping for the front, and within maybe four rows of splitting for the V-neck. Precious little knitting time these days. Luckily, this project is so lickety-split fast that it makes up for the scant time I'm spending on it. Yesterday, during 90 minutes of Sunday morning new shows, I knit about3.5" of the front. Fast knitting. With only an hour a day, it's possible I could wear this thing to Thanksgiving dinner.

Yeah, right, like I'll get an hour a day for it.

I'm using one of the Ann Budd "Handy Book" charts for this sweater. If you haven't seen these books with the sizing charts, you're missing out. She gives precise instructions in chart format for standard patterns in a huge range of sizes. You pick the finished size you want along the top of the chart, pick your yarn's gauge along the left side of the chart, and she tells you everything you need to know: how many stitches to cast on, how many inches to knit, how to work any shaping -- it's all there in the charts.

Of course -- and this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows my knitting habits -- I can't just follow the charts. I have to change them. God forbid I should knit a pattern as written.

I decided I wanted a little less armhole depth, so I cobbled together chart instructions from two different sizes on the chart. If you think about it, we knit sweater pieces in two dimensions, height and width. I preserved the width of the body pieces, and preserved the height between the hem and the lowest point of the armscye. For all that, I followed the charts for my true size.

But for the armscye, I switched to a smaller size spec so that I will have a neater fit under the arm. This means I also have to knit the sleeves to a smaller size on the chart, so that the sleeve cap matches the shaping of the armscye.

This is an incredibly easy alteration. And the Ann Budd book makes it even easier. No math, just plug-n-play with the charts. Anyone can do it. Heck, I can't even take a decent photo, and even I can do it.

Buh-Bye Now

2008-11-15T13:09:00.003-06:00

Do you see what I mean about this yarn? The colors work together so much better when they're not pooling.

I haven't decided what to do about this yarn. Thanks so much for all the great suggestions. Changing the gauge would also change the fabric density (and would therefore change the durability and wearability of the socks), so I don't think that would work in the long run, even if it would certainly disrupt the color pattern.

But a pattern, that might do the trick. With the help of ravelry, I've identified several patterns that might work better. Anything that breaks the tendency to pool the colors would do it. At the moment, I'm leaning toward entrelac of some kind. Either that, or I might bag the idea of socks altogether and do a scarf of some type.

Truth, though? What I really want is a finished fabric that looks something like the picture above. Because the colors don't pool, the eye sees them a bit differently. File this under "Yet Another Longed-For Impossibility."

For now, we're going to let this yarn rest. I won't bother trying to straighten out the kinks from having knit it, but winding it back onto the ball and ignoring it will help it relax. In other words, I have a great excuse for avoiding a decision on this yarn for a while.

And let's face it. It's not as though I'm hard-up for knitting material. I'll just knit some of my other hundred thousand yards of yarn.

It Looked Good in the Hank

2008-11-12T11:43:00.003-06:00

I don't have a picture of this Schaeffer Anne in the skein, and I regret that now. I regret it because, as knit, this yarn looks like an entirely different creature than it did when it was looped and twisted and on the shop shelves. It was mostly steel blue-gray, with a strong shot of rich purple, and just a dash of teal and yellow. Based on the color changes, I suspected it would knit to a purple/gray body with shots of hot color, maybe with a resulting pattern something like this:

As you can see, though, the Schaeffer Anne doesn't look anything like that. It's barberpoling, which is like a pox on my house in any event. Me and the barberpoles, we don't see so much eye to eye when it comes time to knit the second sock, which never, ever manages to stripe in an acceptable manner.

But the bigger problem in the barberpole is the way the green and yellow come together. Separated, they looked like nice shots of color waking up the darker shades. Together, they make an odd, jarring splash between the purple and the gray. The green takes on a kelly cast, where it's actually more of a hunter-teal shade on its own.

I'm also disappointed with the way the gray is pooling. It's flat and a little dead-looking. The other stripes in the barberpole are shaded and intermingled with at least two tones. The gray is all gray.

Right now, I'm debating whether to keep knitting in the hopes that the pattern will grow on me. Option two would be to rip it, wind it back into skeins, and just overdye it some dark color. Like black. Black would wipe this mess right out of existence, right?

I don't know. Anyone have any better ideas?

Easing Back Into My Rut

2008-11-09T18:16:00.004-06:00

I'm slowly -- very slowly, I'm sorry to say -- reclaiming a normal routine. Things continue to interrupt that process, things such as the phone company guy who spent hours at the new shop on Friday trying to arrange for our phone number to ring on our phones. This was more difficult than anyone anticipated, and I spent many more hours at the shop with him than I had planned.

And then there's the shoulder, which continues to ache intermittently, but is getting better. It's very strange to me to read submissions without working on a plain sock. The two things go together so much that I almost don't want to read if I can't also knit a sock. But my shoulder won't tolerate a lot of movement, so I'm learning how not to multitask again. Except, to be honest, it's hard for me to sit still and just read. Without that sock in my hands, I find myself popping out of the chair far more frequently, so instead of getting caught up on submissions, I'm just sort of picking at them. But at least there's forward motion in that department, too.

Anyway, with a few fits and starts and interruptions, normal life is resuming again. For the most part, I'm at the shop for a few hours in the morning. For the most part, I work at home in the afternoons and evenings. The mountain of laundry which grew during the move is back to manageable dimensions. I even have groceries in the fridge again.

And I have these:

Two skeins of yummy new Malabrigo sock yarn. I've cut way back on my yarn shopping in the last two months or so, but I made an exception for these. Soft, luscious, with a depth of color and intricacy of shading that's hard to see in pictures. The skein on the left, for example, is steel gray shot through with a dark teal jewel-tone, and once I started looking at the way the colors threaded together, I got sort of lost in the yarn. It doesn't show at all in the photos, no matter the background I used, the photo doctoring, the lighting -- nothing can capture the subtlety of the colorwork in this yarn. It's almost kaleidescopic in person.

So I'm happy with these new purchases, even if it felt like the worst kind of self-indulgence to buy yarn when I can't even knit. And when I'm in stash-busting mode, on a personal quest to minimize the cubic footage of my stash. But the way I look at it is:

a) It's Malabrigo.
b) After the hell of the last three weeks, it was either buy yarn or eat a mountain of chocolate. I've lost six pounds in the last six weeks and would like to keep them off, so yarn is better.
c) This puts me two skeins closer to completing the sock club thingie at Nana's.
d) Did I mention that it's Malabrigo?

Change

2008-11-05T08:29:00.004-06:00

Last night, I stayed up very late to watch the election returns. Yes, this one was called pretty early, but I wanted to witness the moment that Indiana turned blue. I lived in Indiana most of my adult life. I never thought I'd see the state cast its electoral votes for a Democratic president. The state is too stoically self-reliant to go in for all that Democratic social-justice stuff.

It's like a miracle. A skinny black sou'sider turns Indiana blue, and now there's a chain reaction of other miraculous change happening in my life this morning...

... Money we've been waiting for for months and months at the family business arrived this morning. (This was big money from a fat cat oil company -- they had no reason not to pay, except for being jerks.) But, get this. They actually apologized for the late payment. WTF??

... We were supposed to have another foundation inspection this morning at 9. Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang at 8:15 and it was the repairmen themselves. They decided to stop arguing about details and just fix it already. They're down there banging around again. Still no word on whether they need to re-excavate the backyard.

... When I called my dad to tell him the repairmen were here, he told me the city inspectors are on their way to inspect the new place. I can't describe all the reasons this is good news. The building failed the first fire inspection, but that was before we took possession. The new place was a shambles when we moved in, and we've been busting our butts with an eye toward new inspections.

... Best of all, I actually get to go to stitch and bitch tonight. I might be late, but I still get to go. I might not get to knit much because of my ouchie shoulder, but I still get to go. :D

It feels as though the whole world is coming unstuck this morning. It's not even 9 o'clock yet. The new day is just beginning, and already I'm being greeted with smiles and miracles everywhere I turn. A friend sent me this quote from Daily Kos:

It's a great day for Democrats and Republicans alike. For Democrats, Barack Obama was elected President. For Republicans, there was finally dancing in the streets and Americans greeted as liberators.

I think I'd better go buy some lottery tickets. What the heck. Today it feels as though anything is possible.

Sign me,
An Inspired Swing Voter, Grateful for Change

ETA: Holy Crap. A couple of months ago, around the time of the conventions, I entered an election pool with some old buddies. I just got an email letting me know that I nailed the popular vote split to the tenth of a percent. Yeah, time to buy lottery tickets.

Hello, Life? Please Come Back. I Miss You.

2008-11-03T12:52:00.003-06:00

Today is the first semi-normal day for me in weeks. I still have to unpack a gazillion boxes, and the phones at the new shop still don't work properly, and we're a loooooooooooong way from being moved in. But I've put myself back on a regular schedule as of today, so we're definitely drawing closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. The "all hands on deck" phase of moving the family business has officially drawn to a close, and now we're at the stage of "where the *&!@ is the (_insert lost item of choice_)?"

Fortunately, that isn't a phase that concerns me much.

Unfortunately, there will still be no knitting.

Remember the day it snowed last week? Was that Tuesday? It's all a blur. Whatever day that was, I was carrying a load out to the wagon, and I slipped on some mucky, snowy leaves. Because my hands were full, I couldn't catch my balance and went flying. Landed badly. Ouch.

I was pretty torn up from that fall -- bleeding palms and knees, sprained left wrist, sprained right shoulder. But the old, heavy typewriter I was carrying, well, I managed to save that. It landed on my legs. Don't ask me how. I still can't figure out how I managed to scrape my knee and land on my ass all in one fall.

The scrapes have healed, but when I tried to knit a row last night, I couldn't do it. Shoulder is still too ouchy. (pout, pout) I was really looking forward to knitting again, too, after the insanity of the last couple of weeks.

But it will heal eventually, and in the meantime, it's good to be back to a more normal routine. Every day gets a little bit better. In all departments.

Road Trip

2008-10-14T14:27:00.002-05:00

Last week my mother asked me if I wanted to go to the Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County, Indiana, for a long weekend. We used to do this every year with a group of women, including some of her high school girlfriends and their daughters. In recent years, what with mom's health concerns and my travel schedule, we haven't been able to manage it.

Anyway, it sounded like a fine idea to me, so away we went for a long sunny weekend of shopping, eating, chattering --

-- and driving. We put 600 miles on the car, about 200 of which was at night. But the daylight drive time was sufficient for me to finish the HPYC socks pictured above. My feelings about this yarn haven't changed. Great dye job, lousy base. The finished socks feel a bit flimsy.

Luckily, I brought another ball of sock yarn just in case I finished the HPYC socks. This is Alpaca Sox on size 1 needles. This yarn is lovely to knit, soft and springy and responsive to the touch. It's fuzzing a little already from the alpaca content. We'll see how they wear over the long run. Using size 1s instead of my ubiquitous 1.5s ought to minimize any pilling.

The editor in me is compelled to say this....
As you're listening to the news these days, regardless of your political slant, try to keep one thing in mind. The difference between "voter fraud" and "voter registration fraud" is much like the difference between "lightning" and "lightning bug." Get upset if you want to, but know what it is you're getting upset about.

(apologies to Mark Twain for that one)

A Friend Sent Me This Lovely Poem

2008-10-06T10:30:00.001-05:00

All Over The World

women are knitting
in Ireland they are knitting thick
cream cables each with their special stitch
so when their man is dragged out of the sea
with his face bloated purple
they will know him

in New York they are knitting on subways
with bright orange yarn stitch after
stitch and folding up their needles
tucking them into the plastic bag inside
a flowering tote
in time to the train wheels as
the subway stops and they get off

in England they are knitting in airports
not only the English the Indians
the Pakistani the Americans they are
all sitting in Heathrow Airport knitting
long indecipherable scarves for persons
unknown

in Italy they are knitting black sweaters
for the saints with the methodical care
they perform upon their rosaries

women in Wales are knitting the dawn into
peat bog afghans girls in Ghana are
knitting tribal chieftains into unimagined
legends women in Chile are knitting
blood into the stockpile of tourniquets
waiting for the next round young women
in Istanbul are knitting far into the future
which is a replica of the past and it keeps
shrinking the closer they move into tomorrow

women in Iran are knitting insignias of the
oil companies to be sewn into the
covers of the coffins women in Ethiopia
are knitting green and white and red ribbons
to be worn around the heart of those who
will not recognize the outcome

women in Russia are knitting peaceful parables
that will win the Nobel Prize
with long Slavonic colours of melancholy
and heart despair

women in Kansas are knitting according to the
latest catalogue in yellow and white
they are knitting strands of wheat into their
needles and they will
fill their kitchens with the abundance
that smiles because Kansas has not been bloody
since the time of the fierce old man John Brown

women in Amsterdam are knitting blue and white
porcelain doilies that are brittle and break
quickly unless purchased by tourists
their daughters are knitting with the
precision of an etching deep brown
quilts to cover themselves and their
lovers against the piercing sky

women in Paris are knitting bright Picasso
sweaters that they will never wear because
even now they do not know what makes them
choose those colours

women in the swamps and rivers of Indochina
are knitting the reeds and nettles into the
steel of machine gun bullets that will
explode with warmth into the bodies of
the men that are cold with the ignorance
of trespassing and longing for comfort

girls in vacant towns
inbetween cities inbetween rivers on
maps are knitting their hopes in
small stitches echoing into each other
like muffled mirrors the needles
click smoothly in the language all
of the same word over and over
that no one can read the
same word over and over

Christina Starobin.

Pink Things, and Why I Love Australia (Even Though I've Never Been There)

2008-10-04T18:10:00.002-05:00

Here's the back of the pink wool vest. Seven inches into the armholes. 4.5 to go. Also, that ball in the upper right corner is only ball four. I have thirteen. Which means this vest might end up with sleeves.

Blah blah blah, enough of that. Look what the mailman brought!

Yes, I have Tim Tams. No, I won't share them. Mine! All mine! (And a clever viewer might note the package is already open.)

Tim Tams, for the uninitiated among you, are like the Oreo of Australia. Two chocolate wafer cookies, sandwiched with chocolate cream, and the whole lot drenched in milk chocolate. Dude. These cookies make me happy. Big happy.

Other good things from Australia:
-- Violet Crumbles. Imagine a crunchy honey pillow coated in chocolate. (Imagine, because I won't share these either. Heh.)
-- Chocolate koala bears filled with caramel. Like a chocolate Santa, only Australian style. (These didn't make it into the picture because my dad made off with them. The candy koala rescue posse will be meeting in the front hall in five minutes. Bring weapons.)
-- Wool. Of course! I didn't put it in the picture because I was wearing it and forgot to take it off, but Bron knit me a lovely buttoned scarf. That girl can knit.

Best thing of all from Australia:
-- that book!!! Hot diggity day-umm! I was going to read submissions all weekend, but screw that! I want to read Bron's book! It's not available in the US yet, and I feel downright special for being able to get an advance look at this book from "a thrilling new Australian voice." :D

So, if any of you are looking for me, I'll be the sugared-up reader clutching candy wrappers and turning pages as fast as I can read them. Oh, yeah, baby, that's what I call the makings of a great weekend!

Happy September 29!

2008-09-29T14:06:00.002-05:00

I MADE IT!

I went two solid months without casting a new thing on. Not socks. Not slippers. Not hats or scarves or mittens or sweaters or vests.
Not.
One.
Thing.

*snoopy dance*

And of course, I celebrated by casting on two things.

This is some pink worsted-to-bulky wool which has been marinating in my stash for, um, well, let's see.
*gets out calculator*
*performs complex math*

Yeah. Forfreakinever. That's how long. 13 skeins, 87 yards each, taking up a lot of space. All I ever wanted to do with this was a simple stockinette vest. No frills. Just knitting.

So I cast it on, and with a gauge of 4 stitches to the inch on size 10s, it whips up quick. That's about 2.5" of the back, knit this morning while I loafed for as long as it took to watch last night's Mad Men episode on demand. (Roger's an ass. I hate Jane. Pete is mean.)

This project will live on my desk for a while. Here's my theory on this one. I've been keeping plain socks on my desk, and socks in my purse as my travel knitting. With only one sock OTN now (woo hoo!), I'll carry that in my purse and leave some other plain, simple knitting on my desk to work while I dictate revision letters and read slush. And I need to clear out drawer space currently occupied by this pink wool. Hence, a new desk knitting project is born.

But you know what I've really been longing to cast on....
---drumroll----

The Kyoto!

Oh, baby, how gorgeous is that. Look at that sheen, that halo. I think I'm in luuuuuurve. This yarn feels like a dream.

I cast on the sleeve, ignoring the directions -- well, not ignoring them precisely. More like, I looked at them, said, "Nope. Not doing it that way," and cast on something different. So I did pay enough attention to the directions to decide to throw them out. That's not exactly ignoring, is it?

Right. Semantics. Now that I've knit three inches of the cuff, I reckon I'd better go figure out what I'm doing here. I don't want to get caught in my usual cycle, which as we know goes like this:

1. Scorn the pattern with much harrumphing.
2. Knit blithely without doing any math or planning.
3. Realize what a disaster I'm making.
4. Keep knitting anyway.
5. Realize the disaster is failing to magically self-correct.
6. Frog it.
7. Do just enough bad math to have to repeat these steps indefinitely.

But not with this yarn. This yarn has a high mohair content. I'd forgotten what that meant until I started knitting with it this afternoon. So now that I've remembered, three inches into my knitting-on-the-fly highwire act, I'm going to pause and redraw the pattern and calculate my increases, and all that good stuff, and then I'm going to double and triple and quadruple check my numbers, because DANG it I DO NOT WANT TO RIP THIS BACK. EVER.

(Bonus points to anyone who remembers those pink needles.)
(No, I haven't found my addis yet.)

FO: Sockotta Socks

2008-09-27T10:15:00.003-05:00

Take a close look at those toes. There's just the thinnest slice of green there, where I kitchenered the toes closed. It's a perfect match on the stripes, in fact, and even the jogs in the striping come in exactly the same spots all up and down the socks.

And yes, the length of the legs and feet is identical, to the eighth-inch.

That's the best thing I can say about the Sockotta. Crissy, if you're out there, I bet you would also appreciate the striping in this yarn. You share my obsession with matching feet.

I have another skein of Sockotta in Christmas red. I've decided that eventually, when I get around to it, I'll double the yarn and knit dish cloths as Christmas grab bag gifts. This yarn would be great for scrubbing pots. It's got that stringy, kitchen-cotton feel to it.

So that's another FO in the 2008 column before my self-imposed ban on new projects ends. I'm debating my weekend knitting. Fulmar's sleeves have an error a few rows back -- and, remarkably, I managed to duplicate the error in both sleeves. So I may tink that. Or I may try to finish the last pair of socks currently OTN -- the Hand Painted Yarn Co socks. I'm on the second sock, but not far into it, so finishing is probably not within reach.

Anyone else fighting massive allergy attacks right now? I can't hear or breathe. Thank you, Mother Nature. Allergy medicine seems to improve things only in that it knocks me out so that I'm no longer conscious of how miserable I am. I'm having a hard time focusing, and this may turn out to be a knitting weekend if only by default because any other activity feels beyond my reach.

Farewell, Summer of Sleeves

2008-09-24T12:03:00.004-05:00

I blinked, and the summer was over.

This was going to be the summer of sleeves, the summer in which I dedicated myself to knitting six sleeves on three sweaters-in-progress. I declared it so around the end of May, and then promptly set about knitting two brioche berets, two pairs of mittens, some socks, a vest -- just about everything EXCEPT sleeves.

Is it any wonder that my driving determination lately has been to recapture my focus? I've been living a butterfly's life, flitting from task to task with no plan and little comprehension of my own personal butterfly effect. This is highly atypical behavior for me. And I can't say I like it.

But the truth is, I hadn't even realized how bad it had gotten until we were at the editing retreat in August, and one of my friends made a gentle joke at my expense about unfinished manuscripts lingering on my desk. Dammit, she was right. My lack of purpose and plan has led to lingering, unfinished business in every corner of my life.

These things don't happen all of a sudden, of course. It's not like one day you're driven to succeed and the next, you're coasting. Instead, I found myself jiggling my schedule to make room for things like tv -- and that should have been a big warning sign in and of itself. I bet I haven't averaged five hours of tv a week over the course of my life. So why would I suddenly need to stop everything to watch American Idol, of all ridiculous things? And why would I skip a trip to the gym in order to do so?

I know why I did that. There were reasons. We all go through times when the urge to play ostrich swamps other concerns.

But since returning from Goat Rock, I've been taking stock and pulling my head out of the sand. Just as the change from focused to unfocused didn't happen in an instant, the return to focus is also taking some time. I started by reprioritizing my workload. I took inventory, set up a schedule, made goals. I created ways to hold myself accountable.

And I knit some damn sleeves.

Anyway.

So what's next? Right now, I'm working on finishing the Sockotta ribbed socks and the Fulmar sleeves. On Monday, I get to cast on something new, and that "something" will be a sweater from that purple Kyoto.

By that time, I expect I'll have finished the Sockotta socks -- or they'll be very close. That will leave me with one pair of socks OTN, and that's where I'll keep that number. I'll keep one plain sock on my desk, as always, to knit when I'm dictating or reading. My other knitting time will go toward finishing things in progress and toward Banff.

Banff is an easy sweater which won't take a lot of thought. Knitting the Veronik Avery halter vest this summer reminded me how much I enjoy making simple fabrics with just a bit of design interest in the shaping. So I'll have Banff, and Catherine Parr will be wearable before the end of the year, and Fulmar will continue to be the project I knit when I have time for something a bit more challenging.

I'll finish Catherine Parr, the Fulmar sleeves, and the new Kyoto sweater before the end of the fall. And that means we've moved from the summer of sleeves into the fall of finishing.

Oh, Snap!

2008-09-20T00:13:00.003-05:00

Someone out there is shaking her fist at this picture right now. Heh. We're not racing or anything, but I know she wants to finish her Catherine Parr sleeves, too. So we'll call this photo extra motivation.

I'm really glad to have these sleeves done. Cascade 220 is a dependable, reliable yarn, but it isn't all that glamourous. Now that the sleeves are done, I'm going to knit something softer for a while to break up all that Peruvian crunch. The skin on my fingers needs a rest. I'm starting to develop a callous on my index finger from the yarn, and no amount of lotion seems to help with the dryness.

Still churning along in my no-new-projects groove. I left for San Francisco on July 29, and that's also the last day I cast on something new, a pair of plain socks perfect for the airplane. The embargo is in effect until September 29, two months later.

And I feel like this is a worthwhile experiment. I'm making progress on outstanding projects despite not having a lot of knitting time. I think I'm down to 6 projects OTN, which is as low as it's been in quite a while. And of those projects, I have two pairs of socks, both of which are on the second sock now, and neither of which is all that exciting. Catherine Parr, which now just needs a yoke and some reknitting on the hem. Fulmar, a forever project, and the cabled cardigan which has been in almost perpetual time-out. And the felted bag, which is rough felting wool, irritating to the touch, which I almost have to bribe myself to work on.

In other words, I'm not feeling that any of the current projects are at the top of the queue, yearning for my attention, for various reasons. But I will chug onward until the 29th, because these are all projects I'd like to finish.

And then on the 29th? I have something planned for that gorgeous Kyoto. 'Nuff said.

Holy. Crap.

2008-09-16T17:13:00.002-05:00

I haven't counted up all the yarn yet. I've merely counted up everything I can reach -- minus the organic hand-dyed homespun that was a gift from author Nathalie Gray, which I can't count properly because I don't know the yardage.

There are at least two more boxes of yarn that I can't reach. As far as I can remember, anyway. I know I have some raspberry pink boucle that's in there somewhere, and some natural aran wool -- I'm dead sure they're not packed together, which means at least two more boxes of yarn yet to count.

And without those two boxes, my current yardage total stands at

::drumroll::
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
92,519 yards

FO: Dale Olive Socks

2008-09-13T18:56:00.002-05:00

I kind of like this new focus on finishing things. I like it that I now only have two pairs of socks OTN. Really, one is enough. But I can live with two.

Yarn: Dale Baby Ull in Olive Green
Needles: Crystal Palace 1.5US double points
Pattern: One of my favorites, the ribbed baby cable from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks.

Notes:
Not much to say that I haven't already said. This yarn is wonderful. One of my perennial favorites for socks -- durable, colorfast, washable, and incredibly comfortable to wear.

The Stash Logging Project

I've photographed every bit of yarn in this house. I've made notes about all of it. I've uploaded maybe a third of it into Ravelry. It's a start.

I don't know how much more yarn I have in storage, but I'd guesstimate that I've processed about three-quarters of the stash so far. The rest is in unreachable boxes and will have to wait until it's time to move. My plan is to pull out the yarn and set it aside as I'm loading the truck to move. I have a couple of boxes of wool sweaters that are too small for me now, and I think I ought to pull those aside, too. I just want to bag all the wool with sachets to protect against insects. You know how those storage places can be.

I have to start repacking the yarn tomorrow, or maybe tonight. It's EVERYWHERE. The hard part will be deciding what to keep close to hand, and what to send to storage. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around that decision now! It's like freaking Sophie's Choice!