Something Old, Something Blue

Here's the Jojoland Merino-Cashmere sock in progress. This yarn was purchased at Stitches Midwest for the insane bargain price of $6 a ball. At that price, I figured I should buy enough in every colorway to make a pair of socks (or anklets, in the case of the lone ball of pink-red-fuschia). And if the colorway doesn't satisfy, I can always dye them black.

I'm kind of wishing I'd bought enough to make a sweater. A nice, close-to-the-skin, cloudsoft turtleneck. I don't know how this stuff will hold up as socks, but I can tell you it feels like a dream when you're knitting it.

This is my carry-around sock right now. I'm not doing a whole lot of sock knitting right now this week because I am sick of socks. I am so sick of socks after knitting nothing but socks for two months that I literally can't stand to work the double points anymore. Even at stitch and bitch Wednesday, with my much-beloved STR -- a yarn which has the power to instantly drain my wallet and max out my credit cards -- I kept setting the needles down and just looking around.

I never put my needles down at SnB. Things have reached a pretty pass if I'm not knitting at knitting group!

So I started something new to try to counteract the sock doldrums. It started off innocently enough. I'll just make a gauge swatch, sez I, so I'm ready to hit the ground running when the Persuasion KAL starts.

Of course, once you get gauge, who can resist the urge to cast on?















This is the beginning of Butterfly, a Katie Himmelberg pattern out of the Spring 2007 Knitscene. I belong to the Jane Austen readers group on Ravelry, and we've decided to read Persuasion together and knit something a lady or an officer might wear. My first thought was to knit a red horseshoe lace duster with a sailor collar -- red coat, get it? I've had the yarn stashed for a year now and haven't even swatched it yet.

But then I realized...Fulmar. I've already got one very large knitting project on the calendar for this fall. Everything else should be simple, a pressure valve when I need mindless knitting and a break from the complexity of that very complex Starmore pattern.

So, Butterfly it is.

Butterfly is a simple short-sleeved shirt with an empire waist, a V-neck with a small 3-button placket, and sleeves that look like cap sleeves but are actually just the drops from the wide shoulders. It's a clean, simple, easy piece with Regency-inspired shaping. I think Jane would like it very much indeed.

This pattern has made me do math -- ick! ptooey! -- including calculating square inches and redrawing pattern lines to accommodate the yarn I have. The pattern calls for an amount of yarn which is clearly hypothetical. grumble, grumble....

Details on my adventures with the calculater will follow.

It's Raining, It's Boring

We Chicagoans are trapped in some evil weather vortex--even more evil than usual, I should say, because heaven knows the weather here is never any good. But as a result of recent exceptionally foul throwdowns-from-the-skies ~~

I have lost power at home several times. Even when I have power, the cable is usually out. (Because I am a big fan of watching/listening to movies while knitting, this is having something of an impact on my happy little rut.)

I was trapped in the mall yesterday. The tornado sirens went off (again, sigh) and the public safety officers sealed the doors so that nobody could leave until the danger passed. I'm not a fan of the mall to begin with, so this was annoying.

Everything is flooded, but not continuously. A road may be perfectly passable on your way to the grocery store, and underwater on your way home. This morning, they closed one of the interstates. This makes everyday commutes and errands an adventure.

Even when I have power, I don't dare use the computer or modem. My computer took a lightning hit last year. The same surge wiped out a neighbor's television, but my computer survived in a weakened condition. I won't tempt fate by using my computer when we're averaging 200 lightning strikes per hour.

Let me just say, I have officially reached the point where I'm bored with all these disruptions. I'm over it. I like my routine, and while change can sometimes be exciting, this kind of change for this long is just ... boring. I've run out of "special rainy day projects" and am falling way behind on my work. And I'm really sick of being awakened half the night by lightning and thunder loud enough to knock pictures off the walls. Do you hear me, Mother Nature? Enough, already!

A Few Book Notes

The same thing happens every year. I go to the RWA national convention, and everywhere I go, people give me books. For free. Piles and piles of them. You walk in the door and they hand you a bag with a half-dozen titles. You go to lunch and have to move the stack off your chair in order to sit down. You take a left instead of a right, and end up in a room where authors are signing freebies. It never ends. This is a very good thing.

There have been some years I have shipped home over 200 titles from RWA. This year, I exercised some restraint and took only 60 or 70. I've already distributed perhaps half of those titles to co-workers, my sister, my mother, other friends. And that leaves me three dozen romance novels on my shelves.

So as a result, I've been going through my annual post-RWA romance reading blitz just to clear my shelves. Honestly, I find it hard to edit romance novels all day and then read them for pleasure in the evening--usually I read anything but romance just to cleanse my palate. But I am reading them now, and if there's one worth mentioning here, I will do so. Every now and then I stumble on one that's really a cut above.

That hasn't happened yet with the current crop. I would describe all of them as solid, enjoyable, and unremarkable. The Madeline Hunter title is better than most, but the same could be said of all her books. The Candace Bushnell is pretty bad, offensive even, but it's not really a romance. I read an Eden Bradley that was a better-than-most example of female submission erotic romance, and that's a sub-subgenre that's very difficult to do well.

But this is why there haven't been any book reports lately. It's a temporary situation.

Sockgress Report

I hope to have pictures of socks-in-progress to post later. Probably much later. I will be watching the Wild Demon Boy this afternoon and this evening, which means most of the day will be spend arguing with him about the need to wear his sling and trying to keep him from breaking any bones. Any more bones, I should say.

And of course, it's supposed to storm later. (sigh)

Eleven!

Eleven socks.
Four pairs plus three single socks.
Sixty-one days.
Three socks currently OTN.
If I finish one more sock in the next month, I will have made my SOS07 goal.

This is the infamous jaywalker which I've been pouting over for the last few weeks. I love the way the pattern looks on the leg. I mean, really really love it. Every mating of yarn and pattern should be this perfect, this synergetic.

And as much as I love that, I hate everything else about this sock. I hate the weird way the ribbing puckers where it joins the leg. I hate the rough texture of this yarn. I hate the way the sock fits -- tight in some places and baggy in others. Getting the sock on my foot was a challenge. Once it was on, my skin started burning from the horrid rough wool, and I couldn't get it off fast enough.

So. My plan at this point is to wash this sock and see if the wool improves. If it does, I'll knit the second sock to match, weird fit and all. If the yarn continues to resemble steel wool, then this will be my first official failed sock. I even wear the first pair I ever made -- they're different sizes and full of holes, but they're comfy and I like them. And that ought to tell you how low I set the bar for my socks, and how truly uncomfortable this jaywalker is.

Fulmar

I've been trapped at my desk the last two days, dealing with a seemingly unending series of crises. At least that provided the means to set up the group loop for the Fulmar KAL. Invitations went out this afternoon. If you expected an invitation and didn't get one, please let me know. The mailer daemon bounced back a couple, and one of them might be yours.

I was surprised -- thrilled, really -- at the positive response to the Fulmar KAL. I hoped to get maybe a half dozen knitters involved. This is a challenging knit, after all, and not everyone would want to tackle it. From the small pool of knitters interested in knitting Fulmar, you know some won't have the time or will have other reasons for not joining in. All of which makes perfect sense, and that's why I was hoping for a half-dozen knitters.

I sent out 23 invitations today. :) And the list is still growing. I just can't tell you how thrilling that is to me!

Plus ... it's not socks. I'm really starting to lose my sock momentum here. So the thought of Fulmar is a shot of energy right when I need it most, at the end of a sock KAL that's starting to sputter.

Announcing Fulmar KAL

I'm starting to put the word out on some of my knitting lists and fora, and thought I'd also make an announcement here.

Knifty Red and I have decided to knit Alice Starmore's Fulmar pattern from Aran Knitting beginning October 1. This is reputed to be a challenging pattern -- La Starmore herself says it requires patience, and coming from her, that's saying something.

But we're up to the challenge. (We hope! If not -- aaack!) If you want to knit along with us, leave something in the comments letting me know how to get in touch with you or email me at knitterary at gmail dot com, and I will add you to my growing list of interested knitters. I'm thinking we might want to set up a yahoo group for this rather than a blog, because it's easier to ask questions and get feedback on a closed loop. Especially if we crash our knitting into a tree and it ends up looking like twisted, smoking garbage. (Hey. Just sayin. I'm sure we're all far too talented to need the privacy to admit the scope of our disasters, but just in case....)

If you want to see what a finished Fulmar looks like, go here~~
The Wendy's Fulmar

Aran Knitting is one of the less pricey Starmore titles. You can generally find a used copy for around $200-300. Luckily, two of my neighborhood libraries carry the volume. Check your libraries, because this is one Starmore title that manages to pop up in collections pretty frequently.

Ten!

Holy Crap! I'm in double digits!
That makes ten socks.
Four pairs, two single socks.
Four more socks OTN.
In 58 days!

MB asked in the comments about the Invisibility Cloak yarn. Here's a closer picture of it, but the picture really doesn't do it justice. The yarn is 60% superwash merino, 30% bamboo, 10% rayon. It's got a light rayon sheen from the bamboo but it's a little bit fuzzy like a merino. It's soft to the touch but yields a slight crunch when you squeeze it -- I bet it would show off a stitch pattern very nicely. The colors are amazing, palest silvers and blues and mints and creams, like staring into an ice cube. Utterly gorgeous.

I had to darken the picture slightly to get the colors to show up. The yarn is pale enough not to photograph true. It's on a white-on-white tablecloth, which looks a bit grey here on my monitor.

I haven't knit it yet, but I expect good things. After all, it came from The Fold, and Toni has a real eye for quality yarn.

Mackintosh Yarns is the maker. They have at etsy shop at
http://www.knittinghawkeye.etsy.com

I spoke to the woman behind the Mackintosh. She was helping Toni ring sales on Saturday. I didn't catch her name, but she was delightful. She has an enthusiasm for yarn that bubbles out of her, and that's something I can relate to. *ggg* She has a whole line of Harry Potter-inspired sock yarns, most of which are vivid and dark and bright. Invisibility Cloak was the only pastel in the lot. (I loved the one called Tonks. Might have to etsy that one into my stash someday.)

That's everything I know about this yarn! MB, I hope that gives you enough to go on.

Man of Steel Meets Woman of Yarn

So, here's the Stitches story. Better late than never, I hope.

Red picked me up B&E Saturday morning. Our plan was to arrive in Rosemont by 9:00. We spent the whole ride up there giggling like little kids on Christmas morning. Oh, the yarny goodness that would be waiting under our tinseled trees! tee hee! As we pulled off the expressway and came within sight of the convention center, we noticed hordes of people waiting to get in the building. First thought: dear god, how will I ever fight through that horde to get to the Socks That Rock? They'll pick Toni's booth clean and leave me with nothing!

And then, with great relief, "They're not knitters," sez I. "And the reason I know this is they're standing in a long line that's not moving, and not one of them is knitting."

As we got closer, we noticed that not only were they not knitting (imagine that!), but they were almost all men under the age of about 35. And, well, let's just say that these men came from a certain segment of that population group. Not, um, gym rats. And, er, not the kind of men who have style conversations with their barbers. Or who match their shirts to their pants. Or match their clothes to their socks. Or their socks to each other.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

"Must be some kind of comic convention," sez I. "Except, maybe not, because none of them are in costume."

I don't know a whole lot about comic cons, but hey, I watch Entourage. I know Johnny Drama wears a costume to these things, and so do many of the fans. Se we scanned the line as we were driving around to the parking garage. I saw a woman or two in the line, and lots and lots of graphic t-shirts, but no costumes. We were still mystified until we parked and started walking across the tunnel into the center.

And then we saw them. The costumes. Men wearing donkey ears, goat horns, and troll feel. Matrix black jackets. Plastic breastplates and shinguards tied on with faux-leather straps. Face paint. Helmets. Horse tails -- I shit you not -- tied onto men's butts. That's one fashion statement I still don't understand. "I'm not in costume, but my ass is!" Hmm, maybe I don't want to understand it.

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

We came to a fork in the habitrail tunnels and the crowd split in two. Men to the left, women to the right, each to their own brand of geekery. Red and I collected our registration packets, found our name tags, pawed through our class schedules. All that good stuff. And then, with a little extra time to kill, we decided to try to check in early at the hotel.

By this time, I was convinced that in order to attend a comic convention -- or whatever the hell that thing was -- you have to be a certain type of male. But we walked into the hotel, and the first thing I saw was this:



Swoon! Come to momma, you big boys!

I wish the pictures had turned out a little better, cuz let me tell you, Superman was that hawt! And Batman? Ooooh, hubba hubba! I don't care if every other guy at that convention was a troll, a donkey, or a horse's ass. These two superheroes redeemed the whole thing for me.

Also, I've decided that I like men in lycra. No further comment.

We weren't able to get into our room that early, but we did meet a very nice young desk clerk who was kind to us all weekend. And then we went off to the market, where we were probably about tenth in line to get in. In fact, we were in the part of the line *inside* the doors to the market. So we got to stand there and smell the yarn for a good ten minutes before we saw a single skein.

Y'all know what yarn fumes do to me. I get a little high, and giggly, and blissed out. I want my whole house to smell like that. I mean, really, who wants roses and lavender and eau-de-baking-cookies when you can have something sheepy with the barest undertones of dead silkworms? I could sit in that scent all day, happily knitting, blissfully ignoring the world and getting a little dotty from the fumes.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, either.

Later -- the Stitches experience, part two.

Fur U Nidders

You've heard of LOLCats?

Go check out the LOLVogueModels.

http://jezebel.com/gossip/maghag/lolvogue-scarves-silverware--scooters-290003.php

Oh. Hai. I got 2 nid that 4 sure.