Behold The Power of My Will

Remember when I said I wasn't going to cast on any more socks this month? Yeah. I remember that, too. Except, when I made that statement, I forgot two tiny details. First, I always want a plain sock on my desk to pick at while I'm reading submissions. And second, when it comes to statements expressing an intent to avoid knitting, I am a liar. I may say I won't knit this or that, or I won't buy yarn, or I won't cast on new things. But saying it ain't doing it. We ought to all know that by now. Me especially. Except somehow I don't understand this about myself, which makes me question just how smart I really am.

So I cast on the Sockotta sock above, thinking it would make an awesome desk sock. Except I hadn't knit to the first color change before I realized the truth about this yarn. It's about half cotton, meaning it's stable, not too stretchy, and it's knitting into a fine and dense fabric on size 0 needles. This means, for comfort's sake, I ought to make the sock ribbed all the way down to give it some stretch. Not plain. So this cannot be my desk sock. (And it will probably take nine years to knit it, given the whole size 0 thing.) (You'd think I would have learned a lesson from the penelope socks, which secretly unknit themselves at night. Curse of the size 0s and all. Again, me = not so smart about some things.)

Can we all see where this is going yet?



























Yep, those would be my new desk socks. The yarn is Sisu, and I love the way it feels. I can't wait to wear them. All I want to do is knit! And knit and knit! That's how lovely this yarn is.

And just like that, I have three pairs of socks OTN again.

Mean People Suck

One of my knitting buddies had a bad experience with a LYS owner recently. It's the shop with the dogs -- if you live around here, you know the place. They're very nice, lovely dogs, and I am a dog person. Just the same, I understand the many complaints about the dogs, because I also don't want my yarn to have dog hair in it. I find myself inspecting skeins in that shop very closely to be sure they're clean.

So I'm not a huge fan of this place to begin with, and my friend's recent experience made me decide never to shop there again.

My friend B makes the cutest little dolls and toys. She took them with her when she was yarn shopping recently, and the dog-yarn shop owner gushed and enthused and begged her to teach a class at her shop on how to make them. (It's an open secret that the dog-yarn lady is not much of a knitter herself. To put it gently. All of her shop classes must needs be taught by outsiders.)

So B thought it over, and agreed to teach the class, and went on ravelry to the dog-yarn shop forum and posted pictures of the finished projects. Sort of like teasers for the class, right?

And the dog-yarn lady immediately fired off an angry ravelmail demanding that B remove the pictures because the toys had not been made with yarn from her shop.

shaking head

Now, okay, I'll give you that some shops treat outside yarn like contraband. And I can understand their reasons for doing so. But really. This is too much. B was just trying to spark a little interest in a class that the dog-yarn lady is too incompetent to teach herself. That's my opinion, not B's. B's feelings were hurt by the nasty tone of the ravelmail, but I don't think she thinks of herself as a victim of the dog-yarn lady's incompetence. I'm the one who sees it that way.

I've had other bizarre experiences in that shop, such as the time the dog-yarn lady asked me, a perfect stranger, to explain to one of her other patrons how to fix a botched piece of knitting. She kept insisting, "No! No! She must pull it apart and start over from the beginning!" -- but I was willing to look for another solution. There was, and the problem stemmed from a technique error, but every time I tried to explain that, dog-yarn lady would interrupt me to insist that the whole thing should be frogged. I was so annoyed that I finally agreed with her just to end the conversation. (Can you tell I carry some guilt about that? The poor knitter is probably still making the same technique error, ripping and knitting the same yarn over and over, all because I got sick of trying to fight through the dog-yarn lady's mouthiness.)

I didn't buy anything that day, but I rarely buy there -- I rarely go there, and even when I do, I'm usually disappointed in her selection. That's a personal issue and one I'd be willing to overlook, but for the repeated instances of problems with the owner.

So that's it. I'm done with that shop. Never going back again. You can be rude to me, and you can stock trendy beginnerish yarns, but when you're mean to my friend B, that's where I draw the line.

Thank the good lord above for Nana's. Trish and Cory might be a couple of mouthy broads, but only in the best way. Love those ladies. Love them even more when I compare them to the other area shop owners. And would love them even if they didn't have a shop, because they're knitters through and through.

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

April Knitting Goals

It just occurred to me today that April is upon us. I made it through the entire day yesterday in a state of hyperawareness of potential April Fools gags, but somehow missed the fact that this meant it was also the first of the month.

Can't get anything past this sharp-eyed gal, can we?

My goals from last month were:

1. Finish the Socks That Rock Sapphire socks.
Done!

2. Finish the Malabrigo hat.
Done!

3. Finish the current ball of yarn on Fulmar.
Er. Half-done! Woot? I was going to decrease the sides for the sleeve modifications and knit the entire ball of yarn I started at the end of February, but then decided I'd better knit the sleeves first. So the back is knit to the point where I suspect the decreases will be made. Once the sleeves are knit, I'll be able to knit the sleeve caps to precise measurements instead of to my guessy math.


4. Knit Catherine Parr to the armpits. That's about another two inches.
Er. I did knit another two inches. But I mismeasured how far I had to go to get to the armpits, so I knit as much as I thought I would, but I'm still not to the armpits. This is also part of what motivated me to hold off on the armhole decreases for Fulmar. The reason for my mismeasurement -- a complete inability to accurately translate Starmore's metrics to inches -- made me worry about my Fulmar math. Better safe than sorry.

In March, I also finished the monkey socks and knit a scarf to match the malabrigo hat. Not a bad knitting month, overall.

This month, April, my goals will be:

1. Order the yarn for the baby blanket and get started on it.
Technically not a knitting goal because I will use my grandma's c-word pattern. It's tradition. The baby shower has been set for June 1, and I hate making anything to deadline. And I'd much rather knit than c-word. So this ought to be a bumpy ride. (For those of you who remember the crapghan, my other malingering c-word project, I can report that I've got only 2 skeins of Dead Fart super saver to go before I can attach the border and call this one done.)

2. Push Catherine Parr.
I'll be using this project to take the edge off my angst from all the c-wording. This will be my go-to project when the sight of the hook makes me want to cry.

3. Resist the urge to cast on everything in sight.
I've got startitis bad these days. But I have projects to finish! If I must cast on something new, I'll cast on the stranded mittens to match the malabrigo hat and scarf. At least that way, I'll be completing a set.

That's it! The crib blanket will be claiming a lot of my time until it's done, so I don't want to make too many goals.

As a Matter of Fact, They DO Rock

Here are the Socks That Rock Mediumweight Sapphire socks. I think it took me about two months to knit these. Of course, I knit plenty of other stuff along the way, too, so it's not as if the slow knitting was due to a lack of knitting time. I am still busy, but not busy like December. I just have too many things on the needles right now, and that's slowing down my rate of finishing things. A different problem altogether!

With these socks completed, that leaves only one pair of socks OTN. I think I may try to hold it at that for a while to give me some time to catch up on some other knitting. I have three sweaters on the go right now, and a big stranded bag project, and one pair of socks, and this is enough. I don't also need to be knitting multiple pairs of socks and hats and scarves along the way.

(Even so, why do I yearn to cast on something new now? It's a consequence of finishing something, I know, but still....)

I've also finished the scarf to match the newsboy cap, but I have yet to weave the ends and block it. Pictures will follow eventually. And guess what? With this wave of finishing, this means I have officially knit more yarn than I have purchased this year, by about 175 yards. This is a good feeling. It won't last. I have to order yarn for a baby blanket this week. But at least for a few days, it's good to know I'm in balance.

In other news

This morning, I got an email from someone I do business with on occasion. I giggled all the way through this email, which struck me as a brilliant spoof of a silly situation we've been dealing with at work. I thought it was an excellent April Fools joke and very nearly forwarded it to a half-dozen people.

It wasn't a joke. *facepalm*

Thank God I didn't forward it to anyone. Of course, its author was not amused when I emailed her my congratulations for such a witty prank. *headdesk*

Can I go back to bed now and call this day OVER?

Every Pot Has a Lid

This is my fantastic, awesome, gorgeous new hat. Which I love. Can you tell?

It only took three tries to get the brim right. No thanks to a certain designer whose initials stand for Annie Modesitt, and who created instructions for what is probably the weirdest hat brim ever in the history of knitted hats. So I ignored hers and made my own. Nyah, nyah.

The body of the hat comes from her pattern, more or less, found in knitscene fall 2006 (the central park hoodie issue). I started on size 8s and switched to 9s when I began the crown shaping. I used 9s for the brim, too. The yarn is malabrigo chunky, colorway whale's road.

I made the brim in basically the same way I would make a short row toe on a toe-up sock. I picked up stitches at the band across the forehead -- that was the hard part, to be honest, because getting the right number of stitches there took some trial and error. Then I knit short rows until I had a double-sided cup which, when flattened smooth, is exactly the shape and size I wanted.

I thought it might need some kind of buckram or something to stiffen the brim, but as it turns out, knitting chunky yarn on size 9s yields a fabric firm enough to stand on its own.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to block it. Anyone have any ideas?

Now All I Need Are Some Mystery Bananas

The mystery monkeys are finished! Whew! Seems like a long time since I posted an FO. We can blame Al1ce Starmore for that -- five more rows until I put Fulmar's back on stitch holders and knit the sleeves! Woot! -- but let's talk about the monkeys.

My best guesses in the "Name That Mystery Yarn" contest are Colinette Jitterbug and Socks That Rock Lightweight. STR is probably more likely, if only because I tend to stash it like crazy. But there is one key fact that makes me think it can't be STR. You see that tiny ball of leftover yarn in the crook of the ankle? My handy dandy drug dealer scale tells me this is 3 measly grams of yarn. STR hanks are enormous, and these monkeys are normal sized. I seriously doubt this pattern soaked up all but 3 grams of an STR skein.

This was a fun pattern, an easy and pleasing little knit. I doubt I'll make any more monkeys because I'm not one for repeating any but my standard sock recipe. But that said, I'd be more likely to make another pair of monkeys than another pair of any other sock pattern I've knit to date.

I used a single reinforced heel instead of my usual double, because the single is stretchier and I know that bias-knit items stretch differently from standard knitting. And I wanted to be able to, you know, wear these socks some day. The monkeys are tight, but wearable.

In other news, all of my favored teams are out of the tournament. Not the team I picked to win it all -- I picked UCLA -- but, you know, the teams I like to watch. I didn't get to watch nearly as much of the tournament last weekend as I'd hope -- blame the day job and the holiday! -- but I did watch enough to knit the second monkey, anyway, and a few more rows of Fulmar.

And for those of you keeping score at home, this puts my official tally for the year at 700 grams in, 474 grams out. I'm very close to adding another 400 grams to the yarn out side of the column, though, so the balance will soon be restored.

Tipping It Off!

The NCAA tournament starts in 21 minutes from now, and I can't wait! Every year, I am glued to the television while the tournament is unfolding. Love it.

And every year, as I watch, there is yelling and knitting in equal measures.

Some years I've started a new project on the morning of the first game, sort of like my own personal Olympic knitting project, except that it's college hoops. This year, I've decided to concentrate on meeting my March goals and finishing some existing projects.

That doesn't mean I won't start something new.

Any excuse to start something new, right?

I've got three pairs of socks OTN, and two of those pairs are on the second sock. I imagine I could finish both pairs in the next week, maybe even in the next couple days. That would leave only one sock OTN, and lawdamercy, we can't have that.

So I'm winding sock yarn this morning. Gobs and gobs of it. I brought boxes of it with me to the office. (I'm stuck at the family business until early afternoon.) (And yes, I brought a tv with me, too, so I could watch the games here.) (And no, I have no intention of actually working today. It's tournament day! Sheesh.) I brought my swift and winder. I'm alone here and enjoying every moment, winding yarn and anticipating tipoff.

I've about resolved on knitting some of the Alpaca Sox yarn next. I'm very curious about this yarn. It seems counterintuitive to have alpaca socks. It's not the most generous of fibers, and it lacks wool's elacticity. But the yarn feels like heaven, and it's got some wool blended in, so maybe it will outperform my admittedly low expectations. We'll see. I've wound off a hank that's all shades of smokey gray -- it looks like the ashes in a campfire pit, which is actually much prettier than it might sound.

Have any of you knit socks with this?