Tundra

I've finished the Tundra Socks.

Not much to report about these. Just good, mindless (mostly) knitting -- the kind of thing I've been needing to do lately. I did my standard recipe for a sock that fits me: cast on 72 stitches, work 2x2 ribbing, work a slip-stitch heel with a 3-stitch garter border, consult the chapter on four-stitch sock patterns from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks to get the stitch counts for turning the heel and getting the gusset pickup count (still don't quite have that memorized), and then it's on to the toe, with another quick glance to remember when to stop decreasing.

I've not been knitting as much as I'd like to be the last few weeks, but these were nice to have around to pick up and work on during the odd hour here and there. Dark, calming colors, interspersed with little bits of brightness. Just what I needed.

What's next? I've got two things looming.

First of all, I need to take a repair day. I need to unweave and knot the ends on the part of the Piano Cushion I've finished so far. I need to repair the zipper on the Cobra Sweater -- the bottom end came loose the last time I wore it. And I need to stretch out the Perfectly Plain Vest to get a little more length out of it. I thought I might just take a day this weekend or next to attend to these things. I need to get that cushion finished, and if I don't attend to those sweaters now, it won't happen until it gets cold again (if that ever happens!), and then I'll be mad at myself for not having taken care of things sooner.

Secondly, I need to knit a baby blanket. Most of my friends don't have children, and those that do have quite young ones. But my roommate from college, Bob, has been a step-father for some time, and he is soon to be a step-grandfather. He's been a great role model in his step-daughter's life, and I want to make something really special for her soon-to-arrive little boy.

I'm thinking of making Staci's Renee Baby Blanket (scroll down after clicking) in a nice blue or green. What do you think? Would this be appropriate for a little bundle of boyjoy?

Muskeg

To while away greenroom time at the fundraiser I participated in last week, I got a new pair of socks on the needle. Just a basic 2x2 ribbed pair, with sizing and shaping based on the four-stitch rib chapter of Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. Kind of my fall-back sock position, and the place I need to be right now.

The yarn is Zitron Trekking Hand Art in the colorway Tundra, so I'm calling these Tundra Socks. This yarn is quite sturdy and comes in a generous hank of 462 yards. Lots of dark, murky browns and greens, with acid-bright splashes of lichen-like greens and oranges. I titled this post "muskeg," because on a sunny and warm late winter day like this, I'm having trouble conjuring frozen, treeless tundra and am thinking this yarn reminds me of the tundra's slightly-more-southern sibling, the swampy, earthy muskeg. Which I suppose I should have even more trouble imagining here in drought-plagued central Texas, but I gotta try.

I spent a few hours this morning getting some weeds out of the front yard. After landscaping a few years back, the mulching has impeded most weed growth, but early spring always brings out some die-hard invaders. Being out in the cool morning and digging in the ground was good therapy for me. And we just got back from the world's shortest Mardi Gras parade led by one of our 2-year-old neighbors and 20 or so of her closest friends. It really lifted our spirits.

Thanks to all the kinds words and thoughts sent our way this past week. They've meant a lot.

Silas

This is a picture of our dog, Silas, taken on his last day, a few hours before we took him to the vet to be euthanized yesterday.

Silas came to live with us on Easter Sunday in 1998. A professor of Jeff's from graduate school told him that an acquaintance of hers was trying to find a home for a dog that had been abandoned at a local dog park. This friend was often the first one to arrive at the park in the morning, and one day, there was Silas. Someone had slipped him into the park with a note around his collar saying that he had been found wandering around Town Lake, but that his rescuer's landlord wouldn't allow keeping him. We met Silas at the park a few times, and decided to try a sleepover Easter weekend. That sleepover lasted nearly 11 years.

He loved all people, especially kids, but other dogs not so much. He liked the idea of chasing cats outdoors, but was cowed by any that he met inside. He was never a cuddly animal. He liked to be nearby, especially during thunderstorms, but was content to sleep a few feet away. He snored and chased squirrels in his sleep. He adored Jeff's father. He had no interest in fetching anything tossed on dry land but was absolutely compelled to retrieve anything thrown into a body of water. He was quite skilled at catching food tossed to him. He loved going to the groomer's and the vet's office and seemed to be very popular at both places -- he could really turn on the charm when he wanted to. He loved to ride in the car and was known to jump into strange cars if the doors were left open. He had a very accurate stomach clock that announced mealtimes to the second -- but mercifully, it was flexible on weekend mornings. Whenever we came home, he was always waiting to greet us at the top of the stairs.

Last fall, after some unusual accidents in the house, we took him in for a checkup and some test results warranted further investigation. An ultrasound confirmed that he had a rather large and seemingly fast-growing tumor on one of his adrenal glands that was also impinging on his aorta and causing symptoms of Cushing's syndrome. Although usually treatable, the form that Silas had was not, and due to his age, Jeff and I decided take a course of making him comfortable and waiting. We knew that we would have to make a tough decision when the time came. This past Sunday evening he stopped eating and he became increasingly wobbly over the next several days. So we made an appointment with the vet for last night. It was very difficult, but very necessary.

He was a good dog. We are really going to miss him.

The Gloves Are Off...

...the needles! I finished them last night. Thought I'd take advantage of all the sun to take some quick pictures and squeeze in a quick post during my lunch hour, since I had the luxury of starting my work day with a meeting not far from my house.

I re-knit the first glove from the base of thumb up, starting Sunday. The fingers really don't take much time -- the main issues I had concerned fit. I had a really hard time gauging how long to make the fingers. On size 3 needles using sport weight yarn, a row or two can really make the difference between webbed fingers and floppy tips.

As mentioned earlier, I made some modifications, which I'll detail on the gloves' Ravelry project page soon.

I wouldn't hesitate to make gloves again, although my next pair will probably be with fingering (sock) weight yarn. These gloves are really heavy. I wore them around the house last night and my hands almost got too hot. I'd like to try something with stranded knitting for a little variety in color -- I can hear some readers snorting in disbelief already. But I'm very happy with these gloves, especially since they represent branching out into a new garment, but also because I got this awesome yarn at a swap. One knitter's unused stash is another knitter's treasure.

I got them finished just in time to photograph them on my back deck in a short-sleeved shirt and 82-degree weather!

In the News

Several weeks ago, a woman from Texas Student Media at the University of Texas at Austin came by The Knitting Nest to take some pictures while I was there knitting with some friends. She told us that they were doing an article about knitting for a campus publication and that it would be available in mid-February.

Well, a few weeks ago it came out and I finally got to see a copy. I found out about it when Stacy emailed me a picture she'd taken of the article from her iPhone -- definitely one of those in my future. Of all the pictures of the photogenic knitters there that day, they chose this one of me. I'm not mentioned in the article at all which you can read if you click here for a larger version. I'm just the eye candy.

It's actually a pretty good picture of me. It looks posed, but really we were just hanging out. I was working on the first (and more deformed) of the Men's Heavy Gloves, though that's hard to discern in the photograph. It has a weird formality to it that kind of appeals to me. But read the article -- it's not about me. It's about my favorite award-winning Local Yarn Shop and the wonderful things it does for Austin knitters. Like the awesome Ravelry festivities that took place yesterday, and which I had to miss. Check out these photos of all the fun I missed!

Fixglove

This may look like a pair, but it's not.

The one on the right was finished three weeks ago, the one on the left, last night. As I was knitting these gloves, I learned a few things -- too late for the first glove, but just in the nick of time for the second. Uncharacteristically, I thought I could make some alterations that could make these gloves a little more wearable. Yes -- I actually made changes to a pattern. Two of them were pretty easy, but the other was a little more complicated -- and I figured it out all by myself!

Below is a diagram of what I did:

Starting at the bottom with the green line, I stopped the base of the thumb four rows earlier than the pattern called for. Things were looking just a bit too webby on the right glove, and I thought that this might help. It did! I don't think this is a pattern problem, just a personal anatomy issue. Apparently, I'm an ape.

The red line shows that I started the pinkie finger a few rows before the other fingers. I put the pinkie stitches on a holder and cast on in the gap between the fingers, much like the thumb. Look at your hand -- your pinkie probably starts lower on your hand than the other fingers. You'd think I would have a basic grasp of my own anatomy, but Staci actually pointed this out to me. Some patterns take this into account, others don't. I did misread the pattern (forgot I was going in the opposite direction on the opposite hand), and I cast on 4 instead of 2 stitches between the fingers, but I knit them together when the time came to work that finger. No problems.

The blue line indicates that I knit the fingers just a few rows longer. Again, webbing issues on the first glove. I thought they fit perfectly, but when someone with shorter fingers than I tried them on and noted they were too short (thanks, Stephi) I realized that I'd been deluding myself. This time I paid more attention and added a few rows. A few times I had to tink back after finishing the finger because it was too long or too short, but I think I got each one just right.

Now that I know what I'm doing, I'm hoping I can get the right glove back into shape quickly. I'll have to frog back to the middle of the thumb. I have enough yarn -- it might just be easier to start over.

Block Your Socks Off

The True Love Socks are blocking as I write this. I took Janelle's advice and made my own sock blockers. I basically took a finished sock, laid it out across some cardboard, cut it out, traced it to make a second one, and then wrapped both of them using GLAD Press'n Seal® Wrap. Voila - sock blockers. And yes, one leg is longer than the other, but that doesn't really matter.

My only concern is that I made the blockers a little smaller than I actually traced them, thinking that this might make them smaller (I think these look a little large), but being superwash wool, I don't think I'm going to get shrinkage. Unlike George Constanza, superwash wool was designed to NOT shrink in cold water. Go figure. Eh -- if they're too big, some drag queen can always snatch them up, right?

So I washed the socks, rolled them up in a towel to squeeze out the excess water, and then put them on the blockers. They're drying on out kitchen counter right now. It was really easy!

Still dithering about pricing...

Also, I got back to work on the Men's Heavy Gloves some this weekend. I've made some alterations to the second glove (and taking careful notes), that I'm hoping will make for a better overall fit. For instance, it was pointed out to me that the gaps between one's pinkie and ring fingers start lower than the gaps between the other fingers. I'm keeping my, er, fingers crossed that everything works out with these changes. More later.

♥ Think Pink ♥

I finished the True Love socks this evening. The first sock took me twenty days to complete, the second, six. Pretty standard for me.

I feel like I branched out making these. First of all, they were pink. Very, very pink. Like Angela on The Office, one of my favorite colors is charcoal, so let's just say I was a wee bit out of my comfort zone. But I was knitting with Lorna's Laces, a sock yarn I ♥ to knit with, so that was some small comfort.

I also got to work on some laciness, which I haven't done much of. It definitely requires concentration. The front lattice pattern was a 2-row pattern, and the sides were a 10-row pattern. But for both of these socks, I didn't get the patterns to ever start on the same row. Both patterns had all knit stitches for the even-numbered rows, but they didn't line up. At first this I hated this, but it dawned on me that it was a great way to help figure out what row I was on, so I learned to ♥ the alternation.

I also ♥ the toe-up construction that doesn't look toe-up. It was a very interesting and easy heel that I might try again the next time I do a toe-up pattern. I think it looks better than my attempts at double-wrapped short row heels. I did use Cat Bordhi's method of hiding the stitch wraps, which I ♥ more than Charlene Schurch's method.

I may have mentioned that these socks are destined as silent auction items for a fundraiser for the chorus I sing in. The yarn cost me about $20. What do you think I should set the value of these at to get the bidding started? I thought at first I'd set it at the yarn cost, but Jene says that's ridiculous. Any thoughts or suggestions?

In the meantime I need to wash them and figure out how to get them blocked to women's size eight feet. I'm thinking of trying something with a coat hanger.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

A Very Merry Unbirthday!

Yours truly is one lucky knitter. Today, my knitting gang got together and threw me a surprise birthday party!

Most of the people in our group have their birthdays in the spring -- I'm kind of the odd man out -- in more ways than one. My birthday was back in the fall, and I was happy to let it pass by quietly. But the ladies outdid themselves today. Meg hosted and made some rockin' cakes, Melissa brought a delicious eggy/sausagey/cheesy breakfast casserole, Abbe brought cheese & crackers, we had mimosas, Wii-ed all over the place, and had our usual great time. Plus, the Ladies of Knitting (those above plus Stephi, Staci, Allison,Snowden, Kristin and Jene) got me a gift certificate to my favorite LYS. Who could ask for anything more?

Here a few pictures from the festivities. Meg's Flickr set for the day can be found here.





I also managed to finish the first of the True Love Socks that I'm going to make for a silent auction. I like the pattern. It's neat to learn some lace knitting techniques -- an area I haven't explored and for the most part and am enjoying (k4t, anyone?). But I've had issues. Like forgetting to put in a lifeline. And getting the directions that M1s lean confused.

I also had a problem with the suggested tubular bind off. I'd heard of this but never tried it. For those unfamiliar with the technique, you basically take 1x1 ribbing and then alternately slip the purl and knit stitches on four rounds to turn the ribbing into what is essentially a few rows of double knitting. Then you Kitchener stitch the two rows together. A little fiddly in the round, but I figured it out. My main issue was that this bind off was extremely rigid. Maybe it was just the way I did it, but I couldn't see how anyone could their legs into the sock. I ripped it out (no mean feat), and just went with Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off. I think it looks fine. I like the hearts.

Now I just have to finish the second one by Valentine's Day. I'm already a couple of inches up the toe.

[Post scriptum 2/1/09 -- found some more picture from other attendees at Flickr. They're added at the top of the post]

Boy Hat

I wanted to make me a boy hat, but I'm not a boy. My apologies to Book of Love -- I couldn't resist. That dang song was going through my head the whole time I was knitting this thing. Meg made one for her boy, and it looked so great I thought I'd try my hand. I think I like the striping of Meg's hat better than what I came up with, but overall I'm pleased.

I bought the yarn Sunday, and that night I had it finished. Except it was a tad too short. I have one those heads on which tube-shaped object either fit fine around the back of the head and the brows, or around the ears, but not both at the same time. It was just too short to cover my ears, so I frogged it back to where the decreases started, added an inch, and then re-knit. I finished it last night.

And none too soon. I woke up to 64 degree weather, but it's since turned nasty. In typical Texas overreaction to frozen participation, I'm thinking the college might even be closed in the morning.

No worries. I'll be warm.

[Post scriptum 1/28/09 -- College open as usual. I was wrong!]

G-Love

For a long time, I've been obsessed with the idea of gloves. Not as obsessed as MadTV's Dot here, but keen nonetheless. They look awfully complicated -- like socks with toes, but with all the increasing and decreasing in different places. Recently, pattern and yarn plopped themselves in my lap and I got to work.

I'm using a pattern called Men's Heavy Gloves, a 1945 Beehive pattern reprinted in Retro Knits. It calls for DK weight yarn, but I recently fell into some chocolaty Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport (see previous post), and I thought it might work on bigger needles. So far, things are looking good. The body of the glove has a cool texture that appeals to me.

I did have some problems in the space after the thumb hole is done but before the fingers are started. The instructions read "P1, CO 4 sts, sl next 16..." And my poor feeble brain read CO to mean "Cast off." Of course, this made no sense in context, but I couldn't see that this meant "Cast on" for the longest time. I haven't made that many patterns that cast on in the middle of the work, and it just wouldn't compute. You should have seen the weirdness that resulted. I tried five or six times, not understanding how the mess I was making could become wearable. Finally, it clicked.

Unlike the nice quiet bamboo needles. It's been a long time since I've used dpns, and I'm enjoying it. Just wish I had some slightly shorter ones for the fingers. It's hard to juggle all that wood around 16 little stitches.

S.W.A.P.*

*Stash Weeding and Procurement

This weekend, I attended a yarn swap, brainchild of fellow knitter Staci. The idea was that participants were to dig through their stashes, find stuff they didn't want any more for whatever reason (ugly, tired of looking at it, really ugly, only one ball of something leftover from a project, hideously ugly, etc.) and bring it to the swap. For each item one brought in, a numbered ticket was drawn from a bag. Multiple balls/hanks/skeins of the same thing were considered one thing for purposes of the swap. Numbers were called in order and when your numbers came up, it was your turn to take something from the pile.



It was immediately apparent, considering the enormous pile of fiber on the table, that this could be a lot of fun or get really ugly really fast. Turns out we all played fair, we were all civil, and no blood was drawn. Who knew?

I was a little nervous about the swap, mostly because I didn't think I had much of a stash. But turns out digging through one's entire pile of yarn is an excellent organizational reality check. I came up with 18 things to donate, from zebra-stripe sock yarn that I just couldn't bring myself to use, to leftover yarn from Jeff's British Checks Sweater, to leftover scraps of Cascade 220 from any number of projects. It was fun to see people's faces light at up at balls of yarn that no longer held any interest for me.



I've never been one to buy yarn for yarn's sake. I kind of need to know where I'm going with it before I buy something. But I think I got some fun stuff. I got some sock yarn (of course) and some brown worsted that might become a scarf and some brown sport weight that might become a pair of gloves. And some crazy red wool/recycled silk stuff from Tibet that I grabbed in a moment of panic.

Good times! I hope we do this again.

Investiture

I finished my Perfectly Plain Vest late Thursday night. It was one of those finishing experiences where, despite fears of making fatigue-induced mistakes, I just had to finish it that night. Luckily, things went off without a hitch.

I love this sweater -- it's warm, it's light, it's comfortable. The KnitPicks Elegance yarn from which it's made seems to change colors slightly depending on the angle and intensity of the light. Although it appears to be dark brown, there's a surprising amount of redness that pops out from time to time. The little wispy strands of Alpaca that work their way loose over time don't even bother me. I haven't worn a sweater vest like this since 1976, when my family moved to Texas from the Pacific Northwest. Nerdiness never felt so good.

I can heartily recommend this pattern. It knits up fast, and it's very uncomplicated. I was a little concerned that the body was knit on size 6 needles, while the edging was done with the same yarn on size 3 needles. I thought this would bunch things up, but this yarn seemed to handle it quite well.

I did have a bit of trouble picking up stitches around the armholes. The pattern called for picking up 175 stitches, but I could only find 162. I also wish that maybe I had added an extra inch before the armhole decreases. I've only steam-blocked this (and that fairly lightly), so I'm wondering if a full-immersion blocking might not allow me to stretch an extra inch out, even though it's already been seamed up.

I've made a little progress on the True Love Socks that I'm knitting for a silent auction. I already have the pattern across the instep memorized. One of the M1 moves is hard to execute, but I've managed so far. And the pinkness is no longer searing my retinas. Seriously, the first time I closed my eyes after knitting with this yarn, all I could see was pink. My biggest challenge will be to remember that the pattern is written for a women's size 8 and not for me.

At the risk of sounding like a perv -- are there any women with size 8 feet out there who wouldn't mind sharing with me how long their feet are? The pattern just says "Continue in pattern until foot measures about 3 ¼” less than the desired length." But I have no idea what that would be.

Follow-up note, 1/18/09:

Janna suggested that I check Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks for a foot sizing chart. It tells me that a woman's size 8 foot is about 9¾" long. Does this sound about right?

Pink Bananas

I know some of you are going to need to sit down. Comfy? Good. Yesterday, I bought the sock yarn you see to the right. I'll give you a moment to recover.

It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in "Pink Blossom." Yes, that's right -- your monitor is functioning correctly. If your eyes aren't hurting, you're not human. The chorus I sing with is presenting its Sweetheart Cabaret next month, and I want to make a pair of socks to donate to the silent auction fund raiser that we hold that evening. I'm thinking of using a free pattern I found through Ravelry, True Love Socks. Totally unlike anything I would normally make, but totally appropriate for the event. I'm sure that some philanthropic soul that evening will be willing to help out the chorus for the privilege of having these lace numbers on her ( or his?) feet!

Also, just for kicks, here is a picture of a dessert that Jeff and I are only minutes away from digging into. It's a Banana Cream Layer Cake, a recipe in the EatingWell Comfort Food Made Healthy cookbook that Jeff got for Christmas. The house smells wonderfully banana-y, and it's not all that bad for you at only 300 calories per slice.

Assuming you're going to eat only one slice...

Vestige

I've finished the back of the Perfectly Plain Vest. As you can see, it's, well, plain. But I love it. It's lighter than air and extremely soft. I don't even mind the little flyaway fibers of alpaca-ness. And I got gauge right off the bat -- and I kept it. Still don't know what's up with the size. The pattern has instructions for sizes S, M, L, XL, 1X and 2X, and by measurement, I'm making the M. I am not, nor have I ever been, M. In the meantime, I am knitting and crossing my fingers (figuratively -- it's not very productive to try and knit while one's fingers are crossed).

As you may have noticed the "Blue Tiger Socks" have disappeared from the "On Needles" section to the right. Long, complicated story, the gist of which is I knit the business end of these two socks about six weeks apart. There are 10 (or, "J") measurements in this pattern -- Coriolis sock knitters will know what I mean. I didn't write down a one of them. A few I remembered, but many I didn't. I figured I'd get the same numbers if I just remeasured all my parts and re-did the calculations. Right? Wrong. I ended up with two socks of very different sizes, neither of which fit well.

I don't blame the designer. I'm a little put out with the editor or whoever made the decision to make a book from which one can't knit a garment without flipping to dozens of different locations to get numbers, methods, etc. But the fault lies with me. I should have done the little class sock from the front of the book (as advised by the author!) in order to fix the "big picture" in my brain. And I should have written down the measurements. Ravelry projects have a notes section for each project where I could have written these numbers down. Note to Self -- remember Notes.

We will not speak of this again. I've got some frogging to do.

Investment

New yarn arrived in my mailbox today.

My most generous Uncle Cliffy gave me a gift certificate to Knit Picks for my birthday a few months ago, and I recently decided what I was going to do with it. I spent some (but not all) of it on 9 balls of Elegance in the color Redwood. It's destined to be a sweater vest, a garment I haven't worn since elementary school in the 70s.

I'm using the Perfectly Plain Vest pattern by Julie Gaddy. It originally appeared in Winter 2001 issue of Knitter's Magazine, but is reproduced in Guy Knits, part of the Best of Knitter's series. I got this book and Retro Knits: Cool Vintage Patterns for Men, Women, and Children from the 1900s through the 1970s from my in-laws for Christmas. Lots of cool stuff to mull through!

For reasons that Uncle Cliffy would appreciate, I chose this yarn because it is a nice Alpaca(70%)/Silk(30%) blend. And even though the wool comes from Peru, I'll think of Sir Francis in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, singing to Lorelei...

It's delightful down in Chile
Where the nights are nice and chilly,
And the golden moon is hanging low, oh.

I've already rushed a swatch into production and I'm right on target for gauge. We'll see if that holds out. In the meantime, I'm excited about nerdy armless warmth streaming forth from my new Addi Clicks!

Cobra

Call me Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, 'cause I've vanquished this Cobra.

I went to Jo Ann's and got a zipper and spent the afternoon putting it in. I'm crappy at sewing and never really feel like I know what I'm doing with a needle and thread. But it looks presentable. One minor problem -- the green stripes on the collar don't quite match up when it's zipped up. I'm going to wait a while and see if this still bugs me.

Had to get these pictures taken quickly while we still had some daylight. Poor Jeff -- having to put up with my art direction and complaints about shadows, how big my tummy looks at certain angles and the burning of daylight. I don't know why he puts up with me sometimes!

Sewing in zippers is not exactly fraught with peril. Get things lined up right and it's hard to go wrong. But how does one actually get started? Do you tie knots? What is the back supposed to look like and does it matter? What do you do with the extra bit of zipper tape at the top of the zipper? I folded it down and sewed the hell out of it to try and get some reinforcement in what is likely to be a highly-stressed area. Right now I'm just happy that the zipper goes up and down smoothly without catching on anything. Which is probably the point.

I had gotten it into my head that the collar was quite tall, hence the name of the pattern. Not so. In actual fact, it's a rather inconspicuous 12-row collar that's barely there at all. Turns out it's not named after the animal, the federally mandated insurance program, or, as I'm sure my friend Tom might think, a 40 oz. bottle of malt liquor.

A closer reading of the pattern reveals that it was named after a British sports car from the 1960s. That makes sense.

I'm really going to enjoy wearing this.

All Over But the Zippin'

I've finished all the knitting on the Cobra Sweater. I just need to order the zipper and sew it in. I ain't scared.

Yesterday I sewed up the shoulder seams and attached the sleeves. Attaching sleeves always spooks me a little. The seaming is not one-to-one like the shoulders are, and instructions like "pick up on or two bars on the selvage side" are a bit too squishy for my taste. I don't like instructions with the word "or" in them. As someone who teaches people about the difference between "and" and "or" for a living, the word "or" conjures frightening visions that end with opening cans of Pandora's worms. Or something like that.

All in all, I'm pleased. Using the XL size for all lengths (measured in inches) and the Medium size for width (measured in stiches) worked better than I thought it would. I'm not actually a medium by any stretch of either the imagination or of knit fabric, but my gauge was a little on the outside of what as called for, so all came out well in the end. The sleeves roll a bit where they're seamed to the body, but I'm hoping steam blocking wll alleviate that to some extent. I'm not doing a full-on Baptist immersion to block this sweater like I usually do with garments that have more sins to atone for. I'm planning on puffing the iron over it.

Knitflix alert:

Last night, Jeff and I watched "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (1967), despite our Uncle Cliffy's dismal assessment of it. I have to say it wasn't all that bad. Interesting in that the movie was cast almost entirely by the actors in the original Broadway production (with the notable absence of Charles Nelson Reilly)-- a rather uncommon practice. The songs are kind of there, and the producer sure didn't get his money's worth out of Bob Fosse for the choreography, but the sets were very 60's stylish and the things they did with color were amazing.

Anyway, the boss of the company (Rudy Vallee) featured in the movie is a closeted knitter. J. Pierpont Finch, (Robert Morse), being a cunning up-and-comer in the organization, pretends to knit, too, in order to have an "in" with the boss. Here's a still I took with my camera from the TV. The boss is very proud of the magenta and gold chenille sweater he's sporting. Too bad you can't see the yellow be-pom-pommed golf club covers he's made!

Blacksleeves, or What Gauge is This?

I could feel this coming for several days. You know, that sinking feeling that maybe there won't be enough yarn to finish your project? I have no idea why. I bought enough yarn for the largest size in the pattern, although I'm making the medium size for widths and the XL for lengths. Should still work right? I mean, I'm getting gauge, yet I could tell I was still going to come up short.

Oh -- and did I mention that I know my LYS doesn't have any more yarn in the color from the same dyelot because I cleaned them out? The more I knit this thing, the closer and closer I got to a point where I had to make a decision -- either start over, or be creative. Call me creative.

First, I checked Ravelry. I found two hanks of the Cascade 220 Heathers in Jet in the same dyelot, but they weren't up for trade or sale, and they looked like they'd been used. I didn't have the patience or nerve to track their owners down and go through all that.

So I went to The Knitting Nest and got the last hank of Jet, but in another dyelot. But, to disguise any possible striping, I'm using it above the fennel-colored stripes in the sleeves only. I can't see any color shift at all. If there is one visible, it will be where the sleeves, join the main part of the body. And maybe that won't look bad, right?

Back to knitting...

Then, something clicked...

I had to get them. I knew you'd understand.

Koolhaas & Starbucks

A friend of mine turned 40 a few weeks ago, and I wanted to knit her something for her birthday celebration slated for New Year's Eve. I needed to do something fast and it needed to be out of yarn I had.

I dug around in my basket of leftovers and found a nearly complete hank of purple Cascade 220 (is there nothing it can't do?) that I'd used to finish up a pillow a few years back. I can't imagine I would use this for anything else, and I wanted to try another Koolhaas hat from the 2007 Interweave Knits holiday knitting issue. I made it in something like two days. Knitting into the back of those twisted knit stitches and trying to cross them without a cable needle takes a bit of deftness that I had trouble calling forth, but it's worth it. It looks nice if I say so myself, and I think Shannon will like it.

I tried it on myself and found that I liked the way this women's size fit on my head better than the men's version I knitted back in the spring. I might try this just one more time so that I can get one that fits a bit better. I have some leftover Cascade 220 (what else?!?) from yet another pillow in a nice rusty brown color...

Whilst running errands this afternoon, Jeff and I stopped by Starbucks to grab some joe and a treat. I saw these yarny decorations and I've been meaning to take a picture and post about them. What an interesting decorating idea -- wrapping Styrofoam balls with sparkly yarn and forming them into wreaths and such. They look kind of neat, and lord knows I'd never knit anything with yarn like that. Every Starbucks I've been in for the last few weeks has had these things -- even with the store closing they've been announcing, it must have taken tons of yarn to make these things for all the Starbucks in the country -- if not the world. Think of all the sparkly holiday sweaters that could have been made from this stuff!

A Throw to Bestow

I finished my one and only knitted Christmas gift this year -- the Garter Stitch Throw. I think the in-laws will like it. I also hope they've forgotten the address to this blog and will be surprised. It's comfy. It didn't come out as large as I imagined it would, but it's nice enough to keep one person snuggly warm whilst lounging about. Thank goodness it finally cooled off around here while I worked on the edging. There was no away around having this draped across my lap while I worked.

The applied I-cord went faster than I imagined it would. I-cord always does. You realize that you have to crank out 20 feet of I-cord and you want to scream, because your brain things 20 feet of knitting. But when you're talking fabric that's only 3 stitches wide, it really does fly by. None of my pictures really show the contrast well, but the border really is a different color. And I have a TON of it left over --okay, I exaggerate -- 7.6 ozs -- but STILL! I'm thinking maybe a hat for me?

Still working on the socks and the sweater (note to Self -- need to order a zipper). I've also just finished a gift for a friend whose birthday we'll be celebrating at the end of the year. I may post about it in a day or two, as long as you promise not to tell. Until then, a hint -- it's something that I knit for myself back in the spring and something that a certain friend of mine was planning to knit a short while ago...

I-Cord, Applied

I finally got the Garter Stitch Throw seamed. Crocheters out there are NOT allowed to make fun of my puckered seams. Sorry -- it was the best this crappy crocheter could do. This didn't take long once I buckled down and and got to it. I've got to get better at crocheting. I know too many great crocheters (hi, Steph and John!) not to let some of their talent rub off on me. I don't know what my block is. John and I laugh over how he understand knitting and can do it, but just likes crocheting so much better. I'm exactly the opposite.



I'm doing an applied I-cord for the edging. Basically, you do an I-cord and incorporate a picked up stitch from the edge of your knitted fabric. Not too complicated, but it took me a while to get Meg Swanson's added instructions in her mother's book, The Opinionated Knitter. Here's a little video that I made to show how I'm doing it. As you can see, the I-cord has three stitches. I knit two stitches from the pick up needle onto a dpn, slip the third stitch, do a YO, knit the picked up stitch from the throw, and then pass the slipped and YO stitches back over the picked up stitch. Slide all the stitches back over to the pickup needle, and repeat a gazillion times.

I've been working a bit on the Blue Tiger Socks -- I've yet again changed my mind on them. I'm doing a Coriolis pattern on them. They feel a little looser than most socks I'm used to wearing, but I measured very carefully. The next time I might adjust down a little. I find the pattern a little hard to read with all the page-flipping that's required -- I'm afraid I might get lost.

And, I've gotten more work down on the Cobra Sweater. I've finished the part of the body that is knit in the round, and I'm almost to the neck shaping on the flat part of the knitting for the back. I'm a little worried that I might not have enough yarn. I was looking at the opposite side a few days back and saw some weird bumps. They were pretty far back toward the beginning -- only a few inches above the ribbing. They bugged me enough that I wanted to fix them. I was afraid to ladder down that far (seriously -- dozens and dozens of rows), but I thought if I was patient, I could do it. I did this in three or four different places and managed to fix them, without any visible ladders afterward.

The problem? At some point I'd used a crochet hook to fix a missed stitch or some split yarn, and I'd gotten the lines crossed. Not terribly visible from the front, but it really annoyed me. One of the things I like about knitting is the lessons it has to teach about patience. I had to dig deep for this, but I'm glad I did.