Prehistory

When I was in college, I took a course called Prehistory. I was fascinated with the idea of a history course about things that took place before recorded history.

I started this blog about 10 months ago, and as I knit new stuff, I post about it here. But I've been knitting for two and a half years, and there are some "prehistoric" items that, perhaps, should be brought into the light of day. I've been adding some of these project to my Ravelry page, but for the benefit of my legions of readers and the great unravelled, I thought I'd introduce a few of them here.

This is an Alpaca scarf that was the first project I ever gave away. I made it about a month after I started knitting. My sister-in-law, Jenni, was along with me at the local yarn store when I bought it, and since she's always showed such enthusiasm and support of my knitting obsession, I gave it to her. It's the only think I've ever made from Alpaca. I loved the way this felt (as in past tense of "to feel" -- I didn't actually felt it). Just a basic 2x2 ribbed scarf. She looks lovely in it.

My littlest niece, Gracie was born a few months before I learned how to knit so I didn't have any little booties or other newborn paraphernalia ready for her when she came into the world, but I cranked this out when she was about nine months old. This is the first project that I knitted in public -- somewhere in the C concourse at Houston Intercontinental airport. We were on our way to visit our friends in Pennsylvania and to attend my first (and so far, only) Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. The pattern is the Big Bad Baby Blanket from the first Stitch 'n Bitch book. It was made by holding two strands of yarn together while knitting, which was new to me. I wasn't too keen on the color (it was the only baby-ish color of koigu I could find in my LYS of which there were 8 hanks), but it grew on me and turned out fine.

Little nieces are the perfect target for uncles who are honing their knitting skills. This is a sweater for Gracie, too. The pattern is called Double Scoop and it's from the Spring 2006 issue of Knitty. This was the first intarsia project I ever tried. I've looked at some others' attempts at the sweater on Ravelry, and it looks like I wasn't too far off the mark. I wasn't really pleased with the colors changed, although I wrapped the yarns when I changed, like one is supposed to. I remember doing this whole thing in something like two weekends. It was pretty easy to do, although sewing up the sleeve seams so that the stripes matched up was a bit of a pain. I seem to remember that you had to be one stitch off on one side in mattress-stitching the ladders so that when you pulled the seaming yarn taut, everything lined up. The pattern warned that this was a bit of a crop-top style, and to add a few inches for more modest toddlers. I wish I had done that. But she looked cute in it nonetheless.

I'll see about digging into more prehistory later. Lunch hour is over!

One Sleeve Down

I got up my nerve this morning and dared to take a cabling project to my Saturday knitting meetup today. I usually only take socks or something simple -- certainly not anything that requires a pattern. But today, I was close to finishing the decreases on the sleeve and I felt brave. It went well -- I was able to concentrate and still gab at the same time. I did neglect a decrease right toward the end, but I was able to fix it on the fly without tinking back, at the encouragement of my meetup fellows.

I really enjoy my meetup people. They're always interested in so many various projects and yarns and techniques. I always learn something and everyone is so encouraging of everyone else's projects. Such a fun way to spend a Saturday morning!

I'm a little concerned about the circumference of the cuff of the sleeve. Most of the sweater is knit on size 4 needles, but the waistband and cuffs (and probably the collar -- I'll have to check), are knit on size 2 needles. Yet, they look like they're going to be even wider than the rest of the sleeve! Maybe it has to do with the ribbing effect of the main pattern? Maybe I can fix it in the blocking or the sewing.

Another slight concern. The pattern says to do a bunch of increases, and then knit until the sleeves are 22 inches long. By the time I finished the required increases, this sleeve was closer to 23 inches long! Not too bad, vertical gauge-wise, but still... Normally, I like my sleeves a little on the long side, since I have arms like Charlotte Greenwood. So it's all good.

Only one sleeve, and a bunch of sewing, and the collar to go. Woo-hoo!

Ravelations

My Ravelry number finally came up today, fittingly, while I was at my Saturday morning knitting meetup. I'm in!

I've been sitting in this same spot since nearly 12:30 today (that's 6 hours!), adding projects, entering information about books, adding friends, attaching projects to blog posts, and generally going nuts. I haven't even gotten to anything having to do with stash or queuing up future projects.

I spent a big chunk of time deleting a batch of photos in Flickr. They were among the first I'd ever entered. When I first set up my Flickr account, it was flagged as violating some policy about posting pictures from other people (which I assure you, gentle readers, I was not doing). Could it be because I used she-who-must-not-be-named's name as one of my tags? I'm not sure. But the pictures entered at that time weren't showing up in my sets, and I couldn't get at them from Ravelry. I had to open up all the individual Flickr pages so I could keep the descriptions (18 tabs open) and copy them once I'd re-uploaded the pictures. Then I had to go back to my blog's earliest posts and re-connect to the new versions of the pictures. Has any one else had these kinds of issues with Flickr photos? Regardless, all seems well now.

Now I can stop obsessing about getting into Ravelry and actually get some knitting done. I added a few rows to my TOFUtsies 732 socks at the meetup this morning. And in the past week I've gotten a little more work done on the Branching Aran Guernsey. I've finished the front now, and I've gotten a good start on one of the sleeves. They go so much faster since they only require two pattern repeats across the row rather than the five required for the front and back.

Oh, and on Friday night, I went to my first yarn store opening. I was driving to work on Thursday morning, and heard that my local public radio station, KUT, was being sponsored that morning by Gauge, a new knitting shop. The spot gave the address and invited the community to come by their grand opening on Friday night.

It had a DJ, drinks, food, a hip crowd -- everything except those giant swirly spotlights. Actually, the might have had those, but Jeff and I left before it go dark. That's right. I dragged Jeff along. It was kind of funny -- several people from my meetup were there with their long-suffering spouses. What troopers!

There were too many people there to really get a good sense of the place, but it did have some lovely stuff on the shelves. And they were arranged by, what else, gauge. Someone pointed this out at the meetup this morning -- I couldn't figure it out for myself...

Labor Days

My Ravelry number is 342. That's it - three hundred and forty-two people between me and knitting organization nirvana. So, to keep myself from going crazy and checking my place in line every few hours, I kept myself busy this weekend by, well, knitting.

I finished the front (yes, really the front this time) of the Branching Aran Guernsey a few minutes ago. Whew! Here it is pictured lying on top of the back.

The neck and shoulder decreases drove me crazy. Just like the back, I really had to map things out. The instructions said to knit to 23.5" blah, blah, blah. But I decided to count backwards from the number of rows that the back had taken to make sure I would have the same number or rows on both sides.

Rather than breaking the yarn and knitting up one shoulder and then doing the other, the knitter is instructed to add a second ball of yarn and keep knitting back and forth using both balls. When the neck decrease instructions direct one to decrease "at each neck edge," they really mean decrease the beginning of each neck edge, not on either side. I couldn't figure this out until I drew a diagram. I stressed about it all day, and it looks okay, but I'm still not sure I did it exactly right. We'll see when I pick up stitches (one of my less skilled knitting maneuvers) around the edge of the neck for the collar.

I didn't make it to my knitting group this weekend, and I sure could have used it. I stayed home, planning to take care of some chores like replacing my burnt-out car brake lights (successful) and getting my lawnmower to a lawnmower repair shop to get fixed (unsuccessful -- closed on Saturday? -- what's up with that?). I'll do my darnedest to get there next week.

Just checked. Still number 342. Oh, right -- holiday. Grrr. I'm gonna go cast on for a sleeve...

Austin to Austen

While I was away this summer, I got an email from someone about knotted fringe. She had seen my blog posting about knotting fringe (see the bottom of the July 2007 archive page) and had a question about it.

When I responded, I got a quick reply from Laura Boyle at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England. The Centre, which promotes Austen-related activities in Bath, has a website that publishes articles about Jane and the world she lived in. At some point, her brother Frank,a naval officer, was visiting at home and made himself useful by knotting some fringe for the drawing-room drapes.

The website wanted to supply some instructions and went to the web to find something. Just like I did. Among other sites, they found my blog posting, and asked if they could reproduce it in their article. I was very flattered and glad to help. Of course I said yes. Here it is: How to Make Knotted Fringe.

Imagine, Frank Austen and I both knotting fringe for our sister/sister-in-law (shh!-- it's a secret!). As Jane wrote in Mansfield Park, "What strange creatures brothers are!"

1,067 and Counting...

That's how many souls are in front of me in line for a Ravelry invitation. I can't believe I didn't sign up for this when I first heard about it. I would have been among the first 5,000 to sign up and I'd be in by now. Grrr. The number has been dropping by about 100 a day for the last few days (oh, I've been checking!), so hopefully my number will come up soon. Here are the numbers from when I checked today:

• You signed up on June 27, 2007
  
• You are #11308 on the list.
  
• 1067 people are ahead of you in line.
  
• 17313 people are behind you in line.
  
• 35% of the list has been invited so far
  

At least there are more people that were slower than me to sign up than were faster than me. That's got to be good, right? Right?

In the meantime, I've been keeping myself busy. While still in Oregon, having finished the socks for Ed, I immediately cast on for this pair of socks for myself, also in TOFUtsies. I already have a pair of socks in a yarn that is visually similar, but I wanted some TOFUtsies for myself, and I wanted dark, subtle, simple me colors. This is in color 732, which, as far as I can determine, doesn't have a name.

I didn't manage to work on the sweater while in Oregon, but I did lug it up there and back, along with three balls of yarn. It's a miracle it didn't get mangled somehow. Since returning I've done three repeats of the 32-row pattern, and I think I've got two more before I start decreasing for the neck. I think it's looking pretty good, but it's getting big enough to cause menopausal symptoms as I work with it draped across my lap. That's the irony of me knitting in Texas. If I wait until it's cool enough to be comfortable knitting great wads of wool, I can't get the thing done before it warms up again!

I just checked my Ravelry position again. I'm no closer to the front of the line, but there are already 5 more people behind me. Heh heh heh.

Knitting-related schadenfreude is an ugly thing.

Happy Birthday, Ed!

I'm back from vacation in the fabulously cool Northwest. I didn't do much knitting, but I did manage to finish the TOFUtsies Footsteps socks, which I sneakily tricked the recipient into trying to make sure they would fit. Here, Ed is modeling them on the mini-balcony on the front of his townhouse in Portland, Oregon. We had such a great time up there. Thanks, Ed, for everything. A dozen pairs of socks couldn't thank you for all the great things you did for us as our host.

I managed to go to one knitting shop, as you can see from the previous post. I sent that from my cell phone, so it's pretty much just picture and caption -- not much room for more. Still, it's kind of cool to be able to blog from the road.

I took the sweater but didn't work on it -- although I should have at Crater Lake with evenings in the upper 30s! I kind of don't want to look at it right now. It was a bit of a shock getting off the plane -- and it's not even THAT hot. I've got to go back to work on Monday and I'm just not ready for it. Oh, and that two-weeks-worth of grass growth isn't going to mow itself.

But it's good to be back.

Me in front of Knit/Purl in Portland

Frack

Fans of the updated re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica will recognize the title of this post. Frack is a curse word from a galaxy far far away -- a five letter substitute for a four letter expletive with many letters in common, but one which can't be uttered on basic cable.

This word can also describe the first complete side of my Branching Aran Guernsey. I was under the impression, right up until the last six rows, that I was working on the front. Every other sweater pattern I've made (admittedly, only four -- and one of those was knit in the round), started with the front. But this one starts with the back. I was getting a little alarmed at how long it was growing before the neck and shoulder shaping, but I still didn't clue in until the last minute, due to an annoying process I resort to when I'm confused about a pattern.

Here's what I do. When I get confused, I have to read the pattern aloud to someone (Jeff) in hopes that verbalizing it will make the pattern make sense to me. In this case, I was confused about the decreases on the outside edges and on the neck edges. I had to diagram the directions I would be traveling with the two pieces of working yarn and talk the process through out loud. It doesn't seem to work in isolation -- I have to have someone present. Poor Jeff. He sits there patiently and nods at the right moments, even though he has little idea of what's going on. As usual, it worked -- I figured out how the decreases were supposed to work, and in the process realized that I was talking about the back instead of the front.

It's a little disturbing that I worked on this thing for a week and a half thinking I was on the front of the sweater. In fact, it's frackin' scary.

But on the other hand, I have the largest piece of the sweater done already. Everything else will be smaller. That's pretty frackin' awesome.

Celebrity Sighting

Last night, Jeff and I went to have dinner at a local eatery, the Kerbey Lane Cafe -- the one on South Lamar. We had just finished ordering and were leafing through copies of The Austin Chronicle, when I noticed that a woman in the booth across the way looked familiar...

It was none other than TV's Vickie Howell, knitting goddess and host of DIY's and HGTV's Knitty Gritty. How exciting! She was there with her husband and two sons. So I kind of gawked for a while, and then got embarrassed because I was gawking.

I waited until she finished her meal, and then politely approached her table, asked if she was Vickie Howell, and then introduced myself. I told her I loved her show and that it meant a lot to me because it started up about the time I started learning to knit. She was very gracious, saying thank you and introducing me to her family. I kept it short, and when they left they waved bye to me.

She was so incredibly nice. Like I knew she would be.

Branching Out

I started work on the Branching Aran Guernsey a couple of days ago. I've found it kind of hard to stop...

This is a really interesting pattern, based on an algorithm. As the designer, Nora Guaghan writes, "every time a line splits into two branches, one continues on the same path as the original line and the second veers off at about a 30°angle." This might seem awfully complicated and at first glance it is, but I'm amazed at how fast it's been to knit.

First of all there are only four cable combinations in the pattern. One is used only 3 times in the 32-row repeats and another is used only once. One is quite easy to do without a cable needle. The fourth and most complicated cable stitch involves holding five stitches to the back, knitting two and then knitting and purling the five off the cable. I tried doing this without a cable -- it was possible, but because I knit tightly the stitches got stretched. I'm using the cable needle on that one now.

Secondly, there is basically just one 36-stitch line repeated five times with a little laddered stitch separating. Not so bad when compared with the Irish Moss sweater I started last summer. It had three different panel patterns to keep up with. Plus, it involved twisting stitches on both sides of the fabric. Funny thing about this -- it's been well over 9 months since I've worked on that sweater, and I still started knitting into the back of the stitches during the cabling automatically.

So while I may not be able to read the pattern as easily as the last Aran sweater I worked on, I still think this one is going to go faster.

Because the branching can be hard to decipher with my lousy photography, I marked up the picture above, outlining the paths of the branches. The overall effect will be more striking once a few more 32-row repeats are completed.

Oh -- and all of this was done with less than one ball of yarn. I'm still going to worry about whether I have enough (because that's how I roll), but things are lookin' good.

The Chitin Runner

The first TOFUtsies Footsteps socks is done. In contrast to the fiber content, I'm decidedly un-crabby.

Well, maybe just a little crabby. This ball had a knot tied in it about 3/4 of the way down the foot of the sock. I hate this. Especially when the yarn is patterned. It threw off the striping a few rounds before the toe decrease. But otherwise, this stuff was fun to knit with. I went to Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe yesterday to return some yarn I didn't need, and looked for some more of this yarn, but they only had really bright blues, purples, pinks and reds -- sorry, Jana -- I just couldn't do it!

Now, to cast on quickly before second-sock syndrome sets in.

The postman brought me some yarn today -- 12 skeins of Wendy Guernsey yarn in the color Shale. I got this online at a pretty good price. The pattern calls for 11 skeins, and this place had 12 left.

This pattern is going to be unusual for me, because I rarely use the yarn called for in patterns. It's always horribly expensive or a color I can't stand. But I really liked the look of this in the picture. This pattern is from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature, as was the Hex Afghan I finished a few weeks ago.

Why is it that many of the yarns used in widely-read knitting books disappear from circulation? Knowing that a well-publicized book with patterns featuring your yarns is about to come out, I would think that manufacturers would keep those lines available. But I have absolutely no grasp of the economics of yarn manufacturing. I should just be happy that I have the 12 skeins I need.

I'm going to need to do some serious swatching.. .

I Got Crabs at My LYS

It's not as fun as it sounds -- but still pretty fun.

Yesterday, I took a field trip out to Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe in Cedar Park. I've had a link to this place in my sidebar ever since I heard about it, but hadn't made the trek out to visit. I'm glad I did. The staff (whose names, of course, I didn't get) were friendly and helpful, asking about what I liked to knit and pointing me towards interesting stuff in their store. I bought some cotton yarn for a place mat idea that I had (doesn't look that's gonna work out), and three skeins of sock yarn, one of which is being turned into this sock.

This yarn is called TOFUtsies and I got the color Footsteps (737). It's made of an unholy union of superwash wool (50%), soy fibers (25%), cotton (22.5%) and chitin (2.5%). For the curious, chitin is the stuff of which shellfish exoskeletons are composed. This is supposed to make them tough. This likely also makes this the first non-kosher yarn I've ever knitted with. I'm not sure how this chitin is collected. The yarn is made in China, though, so I'm hoping poisoned crab chow wasn't involved in the process. All that aside, the chitin is supposed to make this yarn extra tough.

That may be, but for all its toughness this stuff is surprisingly soft. That's one of the things that attracted me to it. I was also attracted to the colors, which are kind of Burberry-like and remind me of some tube-socks I had as a kid. These were totally white with one black and one tan stripe near the top -- very 1960s.

I also wanted to try and knit outside my box. I wanted to try some new fibers from the usual superwash. This is a little strange to knit with -- kind of floppy is the way I'd describe it -- but still nice. The ball band called for knitting this on size 2 needles, and I even tried that. But I decided I wouldn't look good in fishnet socks. Seriously, there were holes you could stick a pencil through. Who knits socks like that? So I stepped back into my box with one foot and switched to good old size 0s. Much better.

Also, over the last few days, I've resurrected my project of knitting little mini-mittens out of the scraps of yarn left over from previous sock projects. My plan was to do this as I went along, but you know how that goes. These had been backing up for quite a while. You may recognize, from top to bottom, the yarns used in the Gentleman's Fancy Sock, the recently completed Vinnland Socks, the Gentleman's Sock in Railway Stitch, and the Cedar Socks.

Vinnland Complete

I finished the second of the two Vinnland Socks today. In my typical, uneven, start-and-stop style, the whole pair took two months to make. Seven weeks to make the first one, one week to make the second. Special thanks to Julia for telling me that stitch chart had been corrected at the AntiCraft. I really thought I was going crazy, thinking that the "make one"-s and "make one purlwise"-es seemed to be quite random at the bottom of the stitch pattern. Once Julia pointed out that I was indeed not crazy (at least on this issue), I was soon on the way to having the pattern memorized.

I'd definitely recommend this pattern for those who want a challenging toe-up pattern. I did change it a little for myself, most notably using a wrap-stitch short row heel, rather than the short-row method outlined in the pattern, which called for a system using yarn overs. I did this out of laziness and fear -- I already knew how to do the wrap-stitch method, and I was freaked out about the complicatedness of the stitch pattern without wanting to worry about learning something else new. I sought a middle ground which made these do-able.

These socks were fun. They have a heavy, northern look to them. I think it's a combination of the vine-like pattern and the way the pattern weaves around both the front and the back of the sock. I also like how they appear cabled, but aren't.

And I like that I dyed the yarn myself.

Fringe Benefits

My first-ever large blanket-sized project, the Hex Afghan, is complete!

I knuckled down his weekend to get this finished. I knew that working the fringe was a step that I could quite easily postpone indefinitely, so I made myself sit down and just do it. As mentioned in earlier posts, I'm not entirely sure this fringe is structurally stable, but there is small chance that little fingers will worry the edges, so I'm trying not to worry too much myself.

The edges are not as fuzzy as they are in the pictures of the original pattern, but the book called for knitting this in an alpaca blend that I didn't think would be very easy to care for. I was shooting for something a little more carefree, hence the superwash. This choice meant that the fringe was a little flat, but I'm glad I attempted it anyway -- it's a nice touch. And, if it ever gets too wonky, it can always be removed.

This was a fun project. Another one in which the 'stages' were uneven. Knitting the thing itself only took a few weeks. Doing the fringe took several more.

I'm pleased. The title is apt, I think -- it's composed of little hexagons and it is rather bewitching.

The Anxiety of Freedom

I managed to finish the first Vinnland Sock today. I love it, I had fun, and most importantly of all -- it fits. I'm so much happier this time around and really glad that I stuck with it. I'm even starting to get the pattern semi-memorized so that I don't have to consult the pattern sheet quite so often.

I took this picture out on our deck this afternoon. Two things you should be aware of concerning this deck. First of all, it's dry. For the first time in two weeks. As of this writing, the last time it rained was 24 hours ago. We haven't gone 24 hours without rain in weeks, which is very freaky (as my niece and nephew would say) for this part of the world at this time of year. The second interesting fact about this deck is that it is slated to be replaced by a much safer and hopefully less rot-prone version. Can't wait for that.

One of the great things about toe-up socks is that you have the freedom to knit them as long as you want. With top-down socks, once you've turned the heel, you are committed on the length of the cuff. You're locked in. Not so with toe-up socks -- you just knit until you're happy with the length, you get tired of knitting, or you run out of yarn.

But this toe-up freedom breeds another problem: How do you know when to stop knitting the first one so that you have enough yarn left for the second one? Weighing the yarn would seem to be the answer. One of these days I'm going to get one of those really fancy electronic scales that drug dealers chemists use to weigh things by micrograms, so that I can split a ball of yarn exactly. But I don't have one -- just a kitchen scale that weighs ounces to the tenth of an ounce. It works okay, but it doesn't measure finely enough, and it doesn't do grams. I need something that does grams.

This time around I stopped knitting about where I wanted to. Actually, I wanted to stop earlier, thinking I had already used half the yarn, but I forced myself to keep knitting until the cuff was at least as long as the foot. I then tossed the sock onto my non-metric scale: 1.8 ozs. Would the remaining ball of yarn weigh more or less? I held my breath, put the ball on the scale, and breathed a sigh of relief: 1.9 ozs.

One of these days my luck will run out. But not today.

Oh, and I ordered some yarn today to make a sweater. For me. It's gonna be crazy cabley.

Vinndication

I was right. I was having major gauge issues the first time around with the Vinnland Socks. I didn't post a picture of the ill-fitting mess I made a few weeks ago, but trust me, it was bad.

Repeat after me: Trust the pattern...trust the pattern...trust the pattern...

Here's a picture of my first Vinnland sock with the short-row heel just completed. The pattern covers 16 rows, and rather than stop at 4 pattern repeats before turning the heel, I did 4.5. The only thing I had to remember was to start the back of the calf on row 8. Yes -- once you get past the heel, the pattern is on the front and back of the sock. Good times!

I also had to do a little decrease on the left and right sides after the heel, so that the 2x2 ribbing pattern would continue correctly around the circumference of the sock.

I'm very pleased with how this is working. And, because I know everyone out there can't resist the charms of a well-turned cankle, here's a picture showing the short-row heel in a little more detail. The orange strand is just temporary, holding all the little stitches in place while the sock takes a short vacation from the needles.

The Lunatic Fringe

I managed to block the Hex Afghan yesterday. It turned out lovely. And now to the fringe.

The instructions in the pattern rather obliquely read "...knot Fringe as shown in diagram." I am then presented with a picture of knots. But not how to knot the knots. It appears the author either thinks this is very apparent or something that any knitter should have picked up years ago. I'm not one of those knitters.

I started by doing square knots. I didn't want them to slip. I even made little cardboard triangle and diamond-shaped space holders to knot the yarn around so that I could get some consistency. Unfortunately, the two ends didn't drape together after knotting. Rather, they stuck straight out, looking like little Pippi Longstockings.

So I undid them and found a web site with instructions on how to make knotted fringe. This is the method I decided to go with. I'm still not entirely happy, because one strand is being knotted around another, but the other strand is just there -- it's not incorporated into the knot. Hence, the knotted strand, unless pulled tightly, can slide up and down the other strand like a ring on a shower rod. But, it does allow all the strands to hang straight down after the knotting, so I'm going to go with it for now. And, surprisingly, I've been able to eyeball things enough to keep the knots in a nice little row. Let's hope that keeps up.

Here's what I'm doing -- illustrated with rather murky photographs.

Step 1.

The right-hand strands are stretched the left, the crochet hook placed over them, and then the left-hand strand are draped to the right.

Step 2.

All the work is done with the left-hand strands. Here they are pulled under both the right-hand strand and the crochet hook, and then pulled to the left.

Step 3.


Then, the strands are draped to the upper right and caught by the crochet hook to be pulled back through the loop that has been formed.

Step 4.

Finished!

I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants here, folks, so if anyone wants to chime in before I get too committed to this method, please speak up. Until then, I've got to put in 80 strands of fringe, and make 320 knots...

Return to Vinnland

After a month of no sock mojo and weird Anglo-Sox-on dreams, I've decided to get back to some sock knitting.

When we last left our frustrated sock knitter, he wasn't able to get a Vinnland Sock, which he had poured hours of work into, over his heel.

At the time, I blamed the pattern. I had this idea that it was written in women's sizes and that I had not done the translating. But this is absolutely not so -- the pattern is clearly written in inches of circumference. I had followed my usual circumference for my foot (10") and it was still too small. What was wrong? I'm sure the more experienced of you knitters out there have guessed already.

Gauge.

I hadn't closely paid attention to the suggested needles (Size 1), because I at some point made a decision which has since become gospel -- Thou shat knit socks on needles of size 0. I read 1, and immediately thought, "Hell no, I'm knitting these on size 0." And the hubris kind of went on from there.

My apologies to the designer of this lovely pattern, Becca Compton, for thinking cranky thoughts about her pattern. It really is a great pattern. I'm just an inattentive, and somewhat stubborn knitter.

So now I'm starting over with a new attitude and knitting one size up on the chart. I think it's already looking better than it did the first time. One thing I am doing differently is using Charlene Schurch's wrapped short row method for the toe (and later the heel) rather than Becca's method of using yarn-overs (yarns-over?). I'm only doing this because I'm more familiar with it.

Wait -- could be this be another initial assumption that will later torpedo the project?

Nah. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts...

The Hex Files

Where have I been? Working on this Hex Afghan.

Life has been awfully busy lately. My contract year at work is winding down and I'm trying to get a lot done in what little amount of time I've got left. We've been busy with chorus functions and trying to get some work done around the house -- both inside and out. Precious little time for knitting. And the best time of year for knitting big wads of warm toasty wool? -- not summer.

But I've been able to put some work into this afghan little by little, and I'm pleased with how it's turned out. It was a pretty uncomplicated pattern, yet it still looks cool. My favorite kind of thing to knit.

But not my favorite kind of thing to knot. Which is where I am these days. The instructions call for long fringe to be attached and then knotted in a kind of two-row lattice pattern. You can kind of see it on the cover of the book from which I got the pattern:



I think I've figure out how to do it, but I'm a little unclear on how to get the lattice even. I'm thinking of using a glass or some other object to knot the yarn around so that I maintain some kind of consistency. And there is still some blocking left to do. But since our spare bedroom -- the official blocking chamber -- is scattered with materials for fixing cracks in drywall, it may be a while before I get to that part of the project. I really do think I need to block it before I add the fringe. I want to jump the gun, but I'm sure I'd regret it.

Here's another closeup detail of the knitting so that you can see the bifurcated hex pattern.

I really want to get back to some sock knitting. I haven't knitted a stitch on a sock in over a month and I'm jonesin'.

Her Majesty's Socks

I've not been feeling well today and really should go to bed...but...I had the oddest, knitting-related dream last night and I just remembered it.

Jeff and I were part of a massive group of people fleeing some sort of natural catastrophe. I had the feeling that it was a swarming infestation or a type of contagion. I'm not sure which. But it felt more like small crawly insects were involved. We were in a car, driving down a road. People were on the road with us, most of them walking, carting their belongings in wooden wheelbarrows. The atmosphere was one of general confusion and fear. Oh, and Prince William was in the back seat of our car.

For some reason, we were responsible for getting him somewhere safely. We ended up in a small house. It had furniture from houses like old ladies lived in when I was a kid -- lots of blandly upholstered furniture with doilies on the headrests. The three of us, and my friend Tom from college who happened to be there, just sat around chit-chatting, waiting for something.

The door rang and it was Queen Elizabeth and a driver, arriving to pick up her grandson. As they left, I looked down at her ankles for some reason, and saw that she was wearing the ugliest handknitted socks I had ever seen. They were ankle-length, knitted on huge needles for socks, and made out of this swirly purple/green/blue yarn. The gauge was all over the place and they were very saggy. And she was wearing them with those royally comfortable shoes she always wears. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.

Maybe it was a sign that I'm ready to get back to sock knitting? Or perhaps a sign I should stay away for a while longer?

Interpretations appreciated.

Hex Afghan

I got bad sock karma, people.

Let's just say that when I read "size 10.5" on the chart for the Vinnland socks I was working on, it never even crossed my mind to ask where this was a men's size 10.5 or a women's size 10.5. I can't get the sock over my heel. So I'm going to either frog it and start over, or find someone with a 10.5 foot to give this to. I'm not sure what the deal is, but both of my Kool-Aid-dyed sock projects are really sapping my knitting mojo.

To get it back, I decided to knit something from one of the myriad books I got for Christmas. I'm really intrigued by Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature, but a lot of the sweaters are awfully complicated and let's face it -- my hips just can't rock a knit skirt. But there was this cool afghan project which is not awfully complicated, but looks quite elegant. Things will get complicated when I get to the lattice-knotted fringe at the end, but I'll cross that bridge later.

It's quite satisfying knitting. Just mindless enough to be able to knit while watching the tube, but still needing a bit of attention now and then. The pattern is made of alternating rows of hexagons in a 10-stitch pattern. Two rows of hexagons are 16 knitting rows tall, and then a 24 row pattern is thrown in, just to shake things up and keep it interesting.

The hexagons are divided down the middle with knit stitches on one side and purl stitches on the other. Two trapezoids are meeting up on their long sides to make the hexagrams. I see the trapezoids easily, but kind of have to squint to see the hexagons. I think the 2 5-stitch patterns make a kind of ribbing, so unless it's stretched out, it's hard to see.

I'd say I'm somewhere between 1/3 and halfway through -- and I've only used 3 of the 10 balls I bought in a lot on sale from Webs. I'm thinking I'll have enough left over to make a scarf. Gotta love Cascade 220.

Knitting Heritage

This weekend, I got to delve into the needle arts in my family. My mother never knit much. She and my aunts and grandmother were quilters. My grandmother, Granny, did a lot of needlepoint. But as far as I knew, knitting wasn't big in the family. We lived in Texas, after all. But in a phone conversation a while back, my Aunt June told me she had some things to show me the next time I came to visit. During the break between semesters, Jeff and I headed down to spend some time with her and her grandkids. She fixed us a wonderful lunch, complete with the family favorite, fig preserves. And, she brought out some treasure to share with me.

At the right is a picture of my great-grandmother, Grace Mae Adams Adkins, known to her grandchildren as MaMa (pronounced maw-maw). She was my mother's father's mother. Born in southern Iowa in 1889 and growing up mostly in central Nebraska, her family moved to the Texas coastal prairie in the spring of 1900. A few years later she met my great-grandfather, another mid-west transplant, and they married in 1907, about the time this picture was taken. She was 18.

Although she knew how to knit, she was more of a crocheter. She and her sister Gladys crocheted a lot. Although MaMa died some months before I was born, I have memories of Aunt Gladys in a nursing home. She and her roommate had covered nearly every surface in their room with crocheted cozies of all kinds. I don't remember her not crocheting.

When my aunt and mother were little girls, MaMa knitted them some sweaters. Aunt June still has hers. It's in a mustard-y yellow color and was probably knit sometime in either 1942 or 1943. It's cabled and has a little button at the side of the collar. It looks to me like the gauge of the body of the sweater and the arms is very different. The arms seemed abnormally long. Aunt June's theory is that they got stretched during cleaning. The sleeves are kind of cool. We tried the sweater on Aunt June's granddaughter, Sarah, and she looked like a little red-headed Joan Crawford -- very puffy shoulders! Aunt June remembers MaMa telling her that she couldn't remember how to do cables when she knit this sweater, so she had to go down the road to consult with a neighbor.

Aunt June gave me a bunch of old needles and crochet hooks that used to belong to MaMa and Aunt Gladys. They're kind of a mish-mash of sizes and conditions. I really like the large wooden knitting needle, although there is only one. One of the wooden crochet hooks looks quite old and has a whittled-looking end. The small white one looks like it might be made from ivory. You can also see a set of Boye aluminum knitting needles that got crunched at some point! I'm going to put these together in some sort of shadow box. Aunt June also gave me a set of interchangeable circular needles that she had back in the early 1970s. It's not complete, but each size is a different color of anodized aluminum. Really cool.

What a treasure. Thanks, Aunt June!

The Vinnland Saga

All this sock yarn isn't going to knit itself...

I saw this pattern, Vinnland, in the Beltane 2007 issue of The Anticraft. What an awesomely quirky thing this is. It's not all about knitting, and I can't claim to get everything it offers, but it's always worth a look. Not for the faint of heart. These socks caught my eye. Since they needed to be green, and since I had my Kool-Aid-dyed Absinthe yarn sitting around, it seemed like a match made in, er, Valhalla.

The pattern is complicated and I haven't quite figured out how to read it so that I'm not constantly glancing at the chart. But I like how the ribs seem to weave and intertwine in a Norse-ish pattern. When I first saw this I thought it was cabled, but everything is done with increases and decreases. The most difficult thing is that the increases don't seem to follow a logical pattern as to whether they're made purl-wise or knit-wise. I'm sure there is some sort of rhyme and reason to it, but I'm not seeing it.

Not sure what's up with these pictures. I wanted to skip the flash so that the images weren't washed out, but they seem washed out anyway. Later pictures should show the green-ness better.

I like these already.

Skol!

Pair Some Wine With This Pair

I'm not sure what wine should be paired with Gorgonzola. Probably something sweet, which isn't the sort of thing I would usually reach for. But the Gorgonzola Socks are done. I seem to be tearing through the languishing projects this week.

This was a pattern that I took from the opening chapters of Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. The pattern called for casting on 60 stitches, resulting in a sock for a woman's size 8 foot. I knew that the number of cast on stitches had to be a multiple of four, so I cast on 76 (close to my ideal circumference of 78) and ran with it. Everything worked well, except for the special toe, which was highly prescriptive. I just did a regular flat toe and left it at that.

The Welsh heel was also interesting. It pairs decreases at either side of the center heel with decreases at either end of the row -- with a few yarnovers thrown in to keep things from shrinking too quickly. I don't know that I'd ever do this again. Because of the variegation in the yarn, the yarnover holes are all but invisible. If I could see them easily, they would drive me nuts.

So, most everything is tidily taken care of, knittingwise. I think I'm going over to Hill Country Weavers this afternoon. You know, just to look...

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah!

Wonderful feeling, wonderful day! The ZimmerZipper Cardigan sweater is officially finished. Here's a little trivia for those of you playing at home: It took me 15 days to knit this thing. It took me 90 days to figure out how to sew and cut the steek, get a zipper and install it.

You may recall my frustration at trying to get someone to put in a zipper for this sweater. I have zero (or, one might say, "zip") sewing skills. My mother was a former home economics teacher who taught me the importance of attractive plate presentation and making sure that all cookies were uniform in size. However, when it came to sewing, I didn't ask and she didn't tell.

So I ordered a custom-made zipper, which took several weeks to arrive. It got here on Friday and I started in on installing the zipper myself this weekend. Since I'm off for a bit between semesters, I've been able to devote a LOT of time to this. Lots of dark brown thread on dark brown zipper tape. I basted it twice before I got it too look pretty good. If I say so myself, and I do, it doesn't look half bad. It zips up fine and the fabric lies flat like it should. Everything is satisfactual.

I had a little problem with the bottom part of the zipper, which is kind of leathery. How are you supposed to hand sew into that? I'll ask at the knitting meetup this weekend. Thanks to all who helped me with this, especially the knitters at the meetup and my sister, Susan, for machine-sewing the steek. I couldn't have done it without you.

As I finished this afternoon, the temperature was 91 degrees Fahrenheit. Time to pack the sweater away until January...

T-Shirts for Tortillas

The 2007 T-Shirts for Tortilla exchange is complete!

Last week, our good friends and Sharon and Janelle attended the 34th annual Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. They braved long lines and spent precious fiber fondling time to get us t-shirts from this year's festival. Thanks, girlfriends!

Jeff and I went to Sheep and Wool with Sharon, Janelle, Kristina and the Natter family two years ago. I had just started knitting then and found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. I can't wait until the college's academic calendar and the festival calendar align once again so we can head back. My fondest memories:

• "Stalking" the Yarn Harlot -- which meant just getting a picture of me with her in the background -- I was too shy to try actually speaking to her.
  
  
• Having people ask me the age of Sharon & Janelle's son (whom I was carrying around) and not knowing. The shocked looks!
  
  
• Janelle helping me buy my first hanks of sock yarn and helping me cast on for my first pair of socks.
  

It was a great time and these t-shirts really make me nostalgic for that wonderful weekend.

In exchange, we send them a boxload of HEB flour tortillas. Their boys love them, and the ones they got when they were down this winter have already disappeared. For good measure, we threw in a care package of bootlegged Knitty Gritty episodes.

Enjoy!

Baste Not, Want

Finally, my zipper from ZipperSource arrived. I ordered this thing nearly three weeks ago. It's perfect.

So I spent the afternoon trying to get started on it. I'm following these instructions from Claudia's Blog. I pinned the zipper in about how I wanted it, and then I basted along a column of stitches, trying to get both sides pinned straight without causing bunching and gapping, and generally getting everything to line up. It was a bit of a challenge, because when I basted the steek stitches under the selvedge edge several weeks ago, I ended up with the left edge being a column of knit stitches, and the right edge being the gutter between two rows of knit stitches. You can't see it unless you're squinting, but it meant basting was different on each side and that threw me off until I figured it out.

After I got it all basted, I tried it on. I was mostly happy with it. Everything was lined up, but a little too much of the zipper tape was showing. I want to be happier with this, so tomorrow I'll start over. A little disappointing, but also encouraging, because now I can see this is doable. The end is in sight. Which is good, because it's starting to get too hot to even imagine wearing a sweater.

Still working on the Gorgonzola socks. I finished the heel flap and turned the heel while at the knitting meetup this morning. It was my first time there in nearly a month, and it was good to see everyone. I wore my new Sheep & Wool t-shirt which arrived in the mail yesterday. Thanks, Sharon & Janelle!

Who Moved My Cheese?

Long time no post.

The usual reasons apply -- busy end-of-the-semester work stuff, evenings taken up with extra chorus rehearsals, and a general spring knitting ennui.

I'm pretty proud of myself for adapting a pattern to fit. The first sock fits great. The Welsh heel was fine, although it has weird little yarnovers in it. They don't show in this yarn, so they don't bug me too much.

I did a cable cast on, which I probably won't do for a sock ever again, and, which I indeed did not do on the second sock -- it was cast on with the tried and true long tail. I was wanting a different cast on, figured out how to do a cable, which I thought would be great because I wouldn't need to measure out a bunch of yarn -- which I always get wrong. I read the word "firm" as "super stretchy and elastic" in some instructions I had, and ended up with a combination sock/tourniquet. It's not that bad, but it is, shall we say, snug.

My new Knitpicks size 0 dpns are disappointing me. While knitting one evening, I saw all kinds of glittery sparkles on my tshirt. The coating is flaking off and now, instead of being all shiny and semi-surgical, they look like chunks of old coat hangers. Ick. And they're all bent. This, of course, is from my too-tight knitting. This could be genetic -- more about that later.

And the ZimmerZipper sweater still languishes. I ordered a zipper nearly three weeks ago and I've heard nothing. I need to follow up.