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.

Happy New Year!

Did you think I died? Crawled under a rock somewhere and committed harikiri with some aluminum straights? Was kidnapped by yarn-hoarding aliens who smelled the sheepiness of my stash from twenty light years away?

Yeah. It was beginning to feel like that for me, too. The combination of work and the holidays really did me in.

There has been a little more knitting in the past few days. I'm grateful for that because it does help me stay on an even keel, and my stress level has been pretty high. I can't show pictures of my minimal knitting progress because my photo software and my new computer don't play nice together and I haven't had time to sort that out, but I have managed to knit most of the rest of a clapotis and part of a sock. So this past week saw more knitting than the three or so weeks before that combined.

I'm setting some January goals -- these aren't new year's goals so much as new month's goals, something I do routinely when I have my act together. Here is the knitting list for January.

1. Get life back in balance so knitting is a part of the routine again. Working out, too, which leads to --

2. Get back on the skinny-4-stash plan. Holidays + stress + change in meds = weight gain. This is not the result I want.

3. Finish the clapotis. I'm probably two repeats from the decreases, so the end is near.

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.

5. Frog the Butterfly. And how many times in life can we say that sentence? I've done everything I can to wiggle and stretch so that the yarn will be enough to complete the garment. But I'm officially admitting defeat here. I have maybe 50 yards more than the pattern calls for. I've altered the pattern and spent hours with a sketch pad and a calculator, but at some point I just became aware that no math in the world is going to make the yarn stretch far enough for this pattern. So I'm frogging it. It will be knit into a vest or something some day.

6. Make some progress on Fulmar. I think I've knit about four rows since Thanksgiving. I'd like to finish the front, but may not make it that far. But any regular progress would be an improvement -- even just one pattern repeat per week would be enough to satisfy me.

7. Dye Lady Eleanor and her matching hat so that they actually do match. Then weave in the ninety million ends and reblock the hat. It would have been nice to be able to wear this lovely heavy wool shawl over my coat today. (Current temperature: 7 degrees, with winds gusting and more snow falling. ...sigh...)

And I think that's enough for one month. Especially one month where my real goal is to get my life back in line.

Cr-r-r-r-r-u-u-u-u-unch!

Yep, I'm still feeling it a little. That crunch. That pressure. That OMG-what-am-I-forgetting-to-do panic. It's better than it was -- the transition and damage control resulting from the departure of a former disgruntled employee is about 80% complete -- but then the holidays hit.

I still have shopping and wrapping to do. I still have baking and cooking, and cleaning, and where the hell are all my gift boxes? My new computer still needs some set-up work, and for some reason my camera software and my computer aren't on speaking terms. I have to fight to get any pictures at all to load, and I just don't have the strength for that right now.

There has been some knitting. I'm maybe three rounds away from finishing the fair isle banded bottom of Catherine Parr. I finished a sock gusset -- the same sock I'd managed to knit half a gusset on during the worst of the work crunch a few weeks ago. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at that sock without remember this time in my life. Wish I could show you a picture of it. Someday!

I was going to take off work the entire week next week -- my big plan was to lay on my couch for as many consecutive days as possible with the clicker in one hand and a jug of wine in the other -- but it looks like I have to work at least a little.

But there will be knitting. Oh, yes, there will be knitting. And someday soon, maybe even pictures of knitting.