Goals Report

It just occurred to me that I never reported on February goals. I need to set some March goals, too.

1. Finish pink socks.
Done! Already have worn them with my favorite pink cotton sweater, which is definitely not warm enough for this time of year. Don't care. Sick of winter. Maybe if I start wearing my spring clothes, the weather will take a hint.


2. Two balls on Catherine Parr.
Done! Actually, I knit two plus maybe a quarter of a third ball.


3. Finish orange felted clogs.
I ended up frogging these because I was unhappy with the way the yarn looked. I bought a beautiful multi-variegated Mountain Colors yarn that looks like a fall forest. It has to be knit double-stranded, and there was only one skein of it, so I picked a complementary orange Cascade 220 to knit with it. The orange swamped the other colors, so I ended up frogging it. (But I did find a felted slipper-boot pattern that will let me use both skeins, so there will be a second go at this yarn.)



Hmm. March goals. I'm knitting more regularly than I have been, but I still find myself knitting in spurts and snatches between other duties. It's hard to judge how much real knitting time I'll have. So this is a shot in the dark.

1. Finish the Socks That Rock Sapphire socks.
Easy enough. It's plain knitting, so I pick away at them while I'm reading.

2. Finish the Malabrigo hat.
It's about half done now, maybe less. It's a fast knit, but the pattern changes in almost every round, so it takes some concentration.

3. Finish the current ball of yarn on Fulmar.
I just started a ball, so this is a lot of knitting. Each ball is a touch over 300 yards of yarn.

4. Knit Catherine Parr to the armpits.
That's about another two inches. I think I can manage it, as long as life cooperates somewhat! Once I have this to the bottom of the armscyes, I intend to put the body on stitch holders and knit the sleeves.

So there we have it. My two big projects should advance some more, and I have a couple of little things for variety. That out to get me in like a lion and out like a lamb!

What about the rest of you? What are your plans for the month?

SSS, Here I Come!

This is the Socks That Rock Sapphire Mediumweight. All I have to do is kitchener that toe shut, and it's on to Second Sock Syndrome.

Actually, there will probably be no SSS for me on this one. This is my plain sock du jour, which I keep on my desk to knit while reading submissions. By my last count, I have just under 50 manuscripts to read at the moment, and I'd like to knock through them in the next week or two. A lot of reading time equals a lot of time for plain knitting equals a second sock which ought to come together fairly quickly.

And even though my pictures must all be unedited until I figure out why in the world my software won't let me save any edits, I have made enough progress with this new computer and software to be able to post photos again. So I thought, you know, this being a knitting blog and all, I might as well post some progress pictures of knitting. Imagine that.

In the blurry bad picture, you don't see all the gradations of color in this yarn. It's very subtle and pretty, bits of teal and turquoise winding through that royal and sapphire blue. Of course, this being Socks That Rock, I don't expect those colors to remain true after the first washing. But they please me during the knitting! So that counts for something.

Of Course There's a Spreadsheet For That

I'm trying to focus on finishing existing projects and cut down the number of projects OTN. I've even started a spreadsheet to track my yarn in and yarn out for the year. Go ahead. Roll your eyes. Yes, a spreadsheet! I do love my spreadsheets and databases.

All I'm doing is marking yarn in grams -- and I'm not bothering myself about leftover bits and dabs of yarn. So the Lorna's Laces self-unknitting Penelope socks count as 100 g out, because that's what you have to buy to make a pair, even though I probably have about 30 g leftover.

And a project has to be finished before it goes in the "yarn out" column. So the several balls I've knit toward Catherine Parr don't count yet, but they will all go in that column when the sweater is finished.

At the moment, because of the recent Malabrigo purchase, I have 126 more grams in the "yarn in" column than in the "yarn out" column. But half the hat and half the scarf are already knit, so this will soon re-balance itself.

My only goal is to hold the yarn in and the yarn out roughly equal over the course of the year. This is because I'm running out of storage options, and I have enough yarn to knit, and I keep forgetting about lovely yarn I've already bought. And if there's one thing I learned in the December work frenzy and the January flu, it's that huge quantities of yarn only make sense if we are doing a lot of knitting. I didn't have to fret about the 100+ skeins I bought at Stitches last year because I knew I'd knit through them pretty rapidly. But slow knitting means slower accumulation, or at least, it should.

This is what I tell myself, anyway, as I open the winter issue of VK and stare longingly for the ten-thousandth time at the cabled turtleneck with the gusset sleeves -- pattern number ten, and it is SO ME -- but I don't have a single lot of sweater yarn in the stash that will work for that pattern. If I want to buy the yarn for this pattern (IF? ha!), I have to finish a sweater's worth of yarn already in progress.

We're into March, by the way, so two full months into the spreadsheet, and the yarn in/yarn out thing is working better for me than anything else I've ever tried. This might just be the winning system.

Peep Fondue

This is the Malabrigo Chunky, colorway Whales Road, that will become a hat and scarf for me. This yarn is positively decadent. I hope it holds up well, because it could easily be a new favorite staple yarn for me. It's that wonderful to knit.






















This is a blurry close-up of the mock I-cord that will be a hat band. I'm making the newsboy cap from Knitscene Fall 2006, the same issue with the Central Park Hoodie pattern. You start by knitting this non I-cord I-cord -- it looks like I-cord, but it's flat in the back and the stitch count doesn't work like regular I-cord. You start with 91 stitches live on the needles, and knit these back and forth bits that are almost like a cross between short rows and I-cord, and then you end up with 90 live stitches when you finish the row. Very cool.

Peep Fondue

Today was peep fondue day at Nana's. It all started rather innocently. A couple of weeks ago, we were chatting at open knitting about holiday candy, and I mentioned that when I was a kid, we did a peep fondue one time. One of my favorite memories of holiday candy. Seriously, it's delicious. Just melt a little chocolate and dunk the marshmallow peeps in -- ummmmmmmm.

So we peep fondued today with both dark and milk chocolate, and we all got giddy from the sugar, and now I'm remembering the downside of peep fondue. Major sugar crash. Complete with a headache. Bleurgh. Though I suppose I have only myself to blame -- if I'd only had one or two peeps, instead of the eleventy thousand I consumed, I wouldn't feel quite so woozy now.

Also. Peep fondue? Dramatically increases your knitting time. Try it and see how buzzed you get.

Penelope Socks Are Finished!

Once upon a time, there was a Queen named Penelope who loved to work with fiber. She could knit and weave and make the most gorgeous, intricate things. She also had a husband who didn't really understand what it took to be a good husband, but he went off to fight a war and then had some adventures on his way home from war, all of which were meant to teach him how to be a good husband. It took him ten years to get home. Like I said, the man had a few things to learn.

But Penelope understood what it took to be a good wife. Faith and fidelity are both very important ingredients, and she was filled with both. She waited and waited for her fool of a husband to return from the war, and everyone told her to give up waiting. But she didn't. She held fast.

Penelope was a queen in her own right, and plenty of power-hungry men would have been happy to marry her and become king. In fact, they showed up in her home every day and begged her to accept one of them as her new husband. After a few years of this ceaseless pestering, she finally made the men a promise. As soon as she finished weaving a new rug, she would decide which of them to marry.

She had no intention of marrying any of them, of course. So by day, with these men all around her, she wove her rug in full view of them all. And by night, in the secrecy of her bedroom, she and her maid unpicked all the stitches.

Eventually her husband -- whose name was Odysseus in some languages and Ulysses in others -- made his way home to her. So Penelope was spared the need to pick a new husband from her suitors and was at last able to finish the damn rug.

Now you know why I call these the Penelope socks. I swear they secretly unknit themselves at night when I wasn't looking. But they're done now, and let that be an important lesson to somebody. Maybe even me.

Yarn: Lorna's Laces sock yarn, colorway sherbet
Needles: 2.5 mm, size 1US DPNs.
Gauge: 9.5 stitches to the inch. Which might have had something to do with how long it took to knit them.
Pattern: Standard sock recipe. 1.5" 2x2 rib cuff, 7" total leg length, double reinforced heel flap, and I swear about 4,000 stitches per gusset round.

Also...did we notice there's an actual picture up there? I figured out how to reset the software so that I can transfer only new pictures from my camera to my computer. And they transfer into files which I have some control over. Not much, but some. Still having trouble editing, but it's getting better. Who knows, this might just turn into a real knitting blog again.

Mmmalabrigo

I wish I could show you a picture of the incredibly decadant Malabrigo chunky I bought last night. It has been in my hot little hands for less than 24 full hours and I've already wound it, knit most of a short scarf, drafted a hat pattern, and knit the brim for the hat.

That's love, baby.

That's obsession.

I can't stop touching this yarn! I can't stop staring at the way the colors melt together. Blues and purples and teals, each more gorgeous than the one before. I have a feeling the hat will be done before the weekend is over. (Assuming I did my math right, which is never a safe assumption.)

I'd show you, but I'm still having camera issues. Here's the problem. Maybe somebody out there will know what to do, because I'm stumped.

I can transfer pictures from my camera to the computer. Except the computer can't recognize new pictures from old. So every time I transfer, I have to wait for all 400+ stored photos to re-download yet again.

And the software won't let me save any changes to the pictures. It will let me get in there and crop and straighten and all that good stuff, but the changes all disappear by themselves. I've tried posting test pictures here, but it always uploads my crappy, blurry, unedited pictures with my thumbs and half a cup of tea in one corner.

So...any ideas?

In other news, I frogged the slippers. That's the second project frogged in the past month. But I have a feeling the malabrigo will bring back some good knitting mojo.

PS. I am Trish's knitting conscience. This is something new for me. Usually I'm the enabler!

Checking In

After a wicked bout of the flu -- you know you're sick when you're too sick to knit and too sick to read -- I'm starting to get my sea legs back under me. However, I have completely lost confidence in my ability to control my own life. I hope to regain my balance. I'm taking steps toward regaining my balance. Whether said balance is ever regained--well, let's just say this little tightrop walker would like us to leave the crash mats in place for a while.

I set some knitting goals in early January. Here's the update:

1. Get life back in balance so knitting is a part of the routine again. Working out, too, which leads to --
HA! I made it to ZERO SnB meetings in January. I made it to one open knit at Nana's in January, coming in just under the wire on the last day of the month. And that was it. Being sick for a few weeks has a way of undermining one's ability to socialize and relax. (pout)

2. Get back on the skinny-4-stash plan. Holidays + stress + change in meds = weight gain. This is not the result I want.
Well, the good news is that my insanely bad virus stripped off the weight gain from the holidays. Hello, cloud? Is that a silver lining?

3. Finish the clapotis. I'm probably two repeats from the decreases, so the end is near.
Done! Hot diggity damn! Not only done, but presented to the giftee who declared it "very nice" because it won't make her too hot.


4. Finish one pair of socks. I have three pairs currently OTN. Two is plenty -- one pair to sit on my desk, and one to carry along.
Done! Well, sort of. I finished the blue and green striped cashmere socks, which I would gladly show you if my camera and my new computer would ever learn to shake hands. However, in cleaning out a storage nook at work, I found three mystery skeins of yarn wound into cakes, no labels. All three are clearly sock yarn and one probably has some mohair. Naturally, I grabbed a convenient pair of spare sock needles (what? you don't all keep extra needles at the office?) and cast on for a pair of monkey. So I finished a pair of socks, but I still have three pairs OTN.


5. Frog the Butterfly.
Done! The yarn has even been rewound and is ready to knit again.

6. Make some progress on Fulmar.
Haven't touched it. I've finished the stranded border and knit about two balls on Catherine Parr since the last update, though, so there is progress on the Starmore set. I'm maybe four or five inches from the armoles on the body (knitting in the round). I have a hope of finishing Catherine Parr in the foreseeable future even at my snail's pace, and right now, that's a lot better for my ego than Fulmar.


7. Dye Lady Eleanor and her matching hat so that they actually do match.
Um. Right. I think I know where I put Lady Eleanor during the last cleaning binge. And the dye--the dye's gotta be around here somewhere too.

Actually, I did go online to read up on dying techniques, and I don't think my plan is going to work. I think I have to dye the whole thing flat black and forget about trying for anything else.


Februaary Made Me Shiver...

I have set knitting goals for February and I'm even making a little progress already. Small goals for a small month. Plus, I have to dig out of the work hole from the combined triple wallop of staff changes, holidays, and illness. So there will be much work and some knitting.

1. Finish pink socks.
I just picked up the gusset stitches for the second sock last night, so this is definitely in reach. This is a slow project -- Lorna's Laces sherbet peach and pink melty stripes, just beautiful, knit at 9.5 stitches to the inch. But it should be done before the end of the month. Which is good, because I promised myself I won't buy any sock yarn until I finish a pair. (Storage issues -- sock yarn turns into stash when you can't fit it all in the closet anymore!) And Nana's got some lovely new sock yarn, so I'm motivated to finish the incredibly dense LL pink socks.

2. Two balls on Catherine Parr.
I've already knit one, so we're halfway there.

3. Finish orange felted clogs.
This was a project I intend to give to my grandmother. I thought Christmas at first, but then life happened, and now she'll just get them when she gets them. I've only knit a couple rows, so there's a ways to go on these.

And that's it. Three wee goals. I'd also like to MAKE my camera and computer work together so I can post pictures again. But, you know, I dwell in the real world these days.

Ka-fluey

Just when you think you're getting back in the swing of things....

Just when you've wound off another ball for Fulmar....

Just when you're about to do the decreases on the Clapotis....

Just when you've gone to The Fold for their New Year's Day bash. (Hello? Classic Elite mulberry silk and cotton blend for a dollar-eighty-eight a skein????)...

The flu strikes. Not just any flu, either, but that weird flu that's got people in the hospital, the one that knocks people out for weeks.

I spent four days in bed, completely immobile. Couldn't even swallow water, but I forced myself to make the effort because the doctor said drink water or go to the hospital, and I didn't want to go to the hospital.

I sort of turned a corner yesterday. I can eat a little, and drinking is no problem. I sat up for about two hours in the morning and an hour in the evening. So there is improvement, but that's just to say that now I feel like I have the regular flu instead of some medieval, vermin-borne, wrath-of-god virus.

Improvement, but no knitting. I'm a little stronger today and hope to at least get through a row or two. Of something. Anything. Because I'm starting to get that stir crazy feeling -- today is day six, and there's only so much reality tv one person can doze through -- and I'm really out of patience for the not-knitting thing.