Big Bend

We're back safe and sound. I'm sure you've all been waiting for this with bated breath -- a picture of the vicious beast that we encountered on the Boot Canyon Trail in Big Bend National Park.

Here's how it happened. We were about 4.5 miles into what turned out to be a 13.5 mile hike through the high Chisos Mountains. A hiker headed in the opposite direction on the Boot Canyon Trail said there was a bear up ahead. So we carefully kept our eyes open, expecting to see a bear off on a hillside somewhere. We passed another gentleman who had been camping in the area -- he was looking for the bear, too, having been alerted by the other guy. We just kept walking along, having just passed an old corral, when...

ROAR! It was about 15 feet up a tree right next to the trail, and it wasn't interested in letting anyone walk nearby. We watched for a few minutes (the two of us, the camper, and the first guy, who ran back at the sound), and heard it making some strange guttural sounds and every once in a while chomping its teeth. We were very nervous about cubs being nearby, but we couldn't see any. This was definitely a full-grown bear. I couldn't get a good picture so I went back to the corral and down a little hill to see if I could get a better view -- the picture above was the best I could get. One more load roar, this one complete with projectile bear saliva, convinced me that our hiking plans had changed. So we had to make a bit of a detour. Luckily, it only involved a short backtrack, but it did ultimately add a mile and a half to our day's walk.

Later, we ran into a hiker near the South Rim that we had passed on the trail before the bear encounter. He ran into the same bear, but sat down a ways off and waited it out. Eventually, it climbed down and ambled off. Hearing this, we figured we could hike back along that trail, and before we knew it, we were under the very tree where it had been earlier. No sign of the bear anywhere, except this.

The rest of the trip was much less eventful, but no less interesting. A selection of pictures from the trip can be found here -- or in a slideshow format. We got to see large parts of the park that we didn't visit last time we were there. And it was a perfect time to go -- right at the end of their busy season. It was getting hot along the river, but still quite pleasantly cool in the mountains. And we went on several hikes and side trips where we didn't see a single soul.

If you like visiting national parks, definitely give this one a try. It's unique. We won't wait so long before we go back again.

Oh, and because this is a knitting blog, I must report that I did some knitting.

Vest Out West

Finally figured out a wireless connection in the park. Today, we walked 13.5 miles and several thousand feet in elevation. But the most exciting thing that happened today? Getting surprised by a very snarly black bear on the trail! We're both intact although still a little shaken...

Traveling Stitch

Not much to report this week. Steady progress continues on the Herz & Baum vest. I've made a few mistakes, but I caught them early and was able to fix them quickly with my cool green combination crochet hook / cable needle that I got at The Knitting Nest. Quite the lifesaver! It's in that cool anodized aluminum that I always associate with knitting needles and a set of tumblers that my grandma used to have. They looked kind of like these.

Went to knitting this morning. There were only four of us, but we had a grand time. While we were there, it started just dumping rain. Man, did we need it. And now I don't have to mow the lawn today. Woo-hoo!

As you can see, the vest continues. I'm keeping up with my spreadsheet, which hasn't been as difficult as I'd first imagined. I would never have been able to keep track of my progress and where I'm supposed to go next without it.

Monday, Jeff and I head west for a brief vacation in the lovely Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. I first visited here 19 years ago (!) and haven't been there in well over 10 years. It's a long day's drive, but worth it. Big Bend is one of those national parks that doesn't get loved to death like Yosemite or Yellowstone. It's not on the way to any place that a lot of people want to visit -- you've got to want to go there. I'm going to take the vest and try to make some major progress on it. I should have plenty of time and few distractions. I'll try to post some pictures from the road, but this area of the country has sparse to non-existent cell coverage. Just lots of silence -- nice, no?

After a long semester, I'm really looking forward to this.

Time Whiner Cable

I love knitting cables. Especially cables involving only two stitches -- so easy to do without a separate cable needles. I love seeing the little lines twist and weave themselves over and under their neighbors into beautiful patterns. It's quite magical.

But it takes freakin' forever. The circumference of this sweater is 304 stitches, which is quite a few, but I don't think it's the number of stitches slowing me down, it's the unevenness of complexity amongst the cable charts and the fact that they will never line up(see previous post). No single round on this entire sweater (besides the waist, neck and arm bands) is identical. I haven't even finished one repeat of the largest chart yet.

One row might have only a few cables in each chart with many purls and ktbls, making the round fly by in only 15 minutes. The next round might take an hour as I try to read the charts, twisting stitches constantly, and getting distracted by podcasts/music/TV. I'm not complaining. Okay, I am complaining -- but I complain because I love. This is turning out quite nicely so far. I would estimate that I'm about 1/4 of the way to where the neck steek begins. Then things should really get interesting!

It's getting large enough that it's making me sweat while I knit it. Our heat index is in the upper 90s, today, and I have to take breaks every once in a while even though the AC is blasting. I should still be working on this when Jeff and I head out to Big Bend National Park for several days of hiking and general end-of-the-semester decompression -- oh, and knitting. I just checked their forecast, and it looks like the high Wednesday (about a week before we'll get there), the high is predicted to be 108. Woo-hoo!

To Infinity and Beyond

Okay, I'm exaggerating -- but only a little. Let me explain...

To the right, you see the beginning of the Herz & Baum Vest. The pattern was originally printed in Knitters magazine in the winter of 1993, and reprinted in the book Guy Knits released last year. No one in Ravelry has tackled this (or at least no one has fessed up to it), and I can only find one archived mention of someone's stab at it back in 1998. A saner knitter would have taken note of the lack of traffic.

Don't get me wrong. The pattern is quite striking. I even began to see the little hearts and trees that are the pattern's namesakes while poring over the charts this afternoon. But as I looked at the charts, I started getting nervous when I realized that the patterns never seemed to line up and end on a common row. I went to a little calculator on the internet to try and figure out the least common multiple of 4 (chart A), 8 (chart D), 18 (chart C) and 26 (chart E). Do you know what that is?

Nine hundred and thirty-six. This vest is only about 150 rows long, if that. I'd have to knit this for the Jolly Green Giant for all these charts to realign at a common starting point! This is going to be a row-counting exercise like no other. So, I need to figure out a way to follow my progress..

This is what I came up with. I used Excel to make a chart that groups all the ranges of rows for each chart pattern surrounded by bold borders. So now, in theory, I can start at the bottom, and each time I've finished a row, I can cross it off the list. As I work my way up, I should be able to tell at any given time which row I'm on. That's what I'm hoping, anyway. As you can see, I've completed the first 4 rows. Woo-hoo! Of course, row 5 is where things start getting interesting...

And just to keep things even more interesting, I'm knitting this on the recommended needles without doing a gauge swatch. The gauge is figured "over Chart Patterns." It doesn't say which one. But this pattern has cabling on every single row, unlike some patterns where you have a row where you coast. I didn't want to try to knit a swatch flat and have to figure out how to translate the cables, and I didn't want to do the thing where you drag the yarn across the back of a flat swatch -- I just didn't think it would be that accurate. So the only think I could think to do was get started.

Which I have done. I got some laughs at my knitting group yesterday while my fellow knitters watched me cast 304 stitches of worsted yarn onto a 24" size 3 circular needles (yes, the pattern calls for this), but I managed. Now that I'm past the ribbing I'm on the larger needles and things fit a bit better. I'm going to knit the first 26 rounds (end of Chart E for those of you who have been paying attention so far), slip it on a cable and pray real hard that it fits around my tummy.

I hope I don't sound too cynical about this pattern. It's really quite beautiful and I love the yarn. I'm just trying to relax myself by making light of what promises to be a very challenging project.

Gone to the Dogs

I found myself in a strange position this morning. I went to my knitting group with the supplies to get started on that vest I mentioned in my last post. But turns out the yarn won't be here until Monday. No problem, I thought I'll just work on my socks. But I hadn't brought the socks. I was at my weekly knitting get-together with no knitting! I really didn't want to buy yarn to start something, so I concentrated on hanging out with dogs.

For most of the morning, I got to hold Alison's Maude on my lap. Maude is the awesomest Chihuahua on the face of the planet, right up there with Ren Hoek. She sat there patiently in my lap while I stroked her fur and pretended I was an evil genius. Maude wasn't really behind that plan, but she did leap into action when I dropped a few crumbs of Snowden's yummy key lime treat in my lap.

I also got to hang out with Hank, my favorite yarn store dog. He's getting heavy! But still oh so cute and lovable. I really enjoyed just listening to the conversation and hanging out with the canines. It was a good thing.

Speaking of Snowden, the knitwear design genius of the decidedly NOT evil variety, she's working on a little design and she's going to use ME for the example/model. I'm quite excited. Don't want to say too much because I don't now how much she wants to reveal at this point, but she'd like to make it out of this.

Great things in the works!

Spring Fever

Work continues on the Morning Roast Socks. I'm making these on 4 dpns rather than doing the magic loop method, which has been my favorite recently. I'm not sure why. I'm pleased with how these are turning out -- no pooling at all. Stephi did an awesome job dyeing this stuff. I think I'm at a point where I'm ready for my brother-in-law to come by and film me working on this sock for the small screen. Don't want to say to much more about this, because I don't want to jinx the process. Stay tuned.

I've been experiencing a kind of knitting restlessness this week. I've got a few things queued up in Ravelry to tackle, but the time didn't seem right. I felt sweater-ish, but the lovely weather just wasn't calling to me. Then I remembered a vest pattern that I'd considered from the book Guy Knits when I decided on the Perfectly Plain Vest. So, another vest, this time Herz & Baum (I assume the ampersand is pronounced "und") by Diane Zangl. Although this model looks decidedly librarian-y, up-close he's a little frightening looking, and I don't think the little earring works for him, either. The pattern is intricate, and it's worked in the round with steeks (eek!) at the sleeves and neck. It won't be boring, that's for sure.

Mine will be made from Cascade 220 Superwash in a color called Turtle. I can hear Jene laughing as she reads this. I've got it on order at The Knitting Nest, and hopefully, I'll have it by next week.

More social knitting this weekend with several long-distance out-of-town guests. Several friends brought cameras and snapped pics -- really, it was kind of like being on the red carpet at the Oscar's at one point. They're starting to show up on Flickr. Melissa took this one. I don't know what I was laughing at, but I sure was having fun! I don't think I got much knitting done, but I did get to eat my fill of breakfast tacos and cake balls.

Knitting Social

I just love getting together on weekends with fellow knitters. Sometimes we knit at yarn stores or various eateries. Sometimes at our homes. Jeff and I hosted this weekend and it was a blast.

Everyone brought a little somethin' to chow on and we ate and drank our way through the morning, discussing everything from knitting to anatomy, pets, drug use, television, you name it. Rarely do I get together with the Ladies of Knitting that I don't laugh so much that tears stream down my face. Today was no exception.

Sometimes I wonder what brings us all together. Our ages span two decades. Some of us are married, some not. Some are cat people, some are dog people. Some straight, some gay. But what we do have in common is a passion for knitting (and crocheting!), a quirky sense of humor, and an endless capacity for listening to each others' triumphs, gripes and problems. What more could you ask for?

Getting together with these women is one of the highlights of my week. I was so glad to have them over. There were a few who couldn't make it -- moving is a pretty good excuse -- and I hope to see them soon.

And to top it all off, I still have a few cookies left over...

C is for Cookie

And, C is for coffee. Delicious and oh-so-medically-necessary coffee. Here we have some new caffeinated socks that I'm making, using Spinning Colors sock yarn in the colorway Morning Roast, hand dyed by my knitting buddy and talented artist Stephi. Isn't this stuff awesome? This hank of yarn has given me the jitters -- in a good way!

I started to do a fancy pattern from the newer of my two Charlene Schurch sock knitting books, but after a dozen or so rounds, I realized I was once again making my classic sock knitting mistake -- coming up with a pattern that competes with the yarn. So I ripped back and decided to stick with a k4p2 rib. The perfect combination for showing off the cool dye-work and keeping the socks from sagging down around my ankles.

These socks may be destined for the small screen, so I'm very excited about them as a project. Stay tuned for more details...

In the background, and featured here in all their beige beauty is a batch of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. In my opinion, nature's perfect food. I just use the recipe for Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from inside the top of the Old Fashioned Quaker Oats box. The only change I made was grating in a little nutmeg. I'm expecting guests on Saturday, and I whipped these up this evening as part of the preparations. I just hope a few of them last until then.

Spring Knitting

I seem to have shaken some of the cobwebs out of my knitting and made some real progress. Yesterday morning I got together with some of the gals for breakfast tacos, fried chicken, waffles and knitting. Don't laugh 'til you've tried it. I did the tacos, but I'm thinking of waffles next time. Man, they smelled god. Many of the women I knit with are accomplished photographers as well as knitters -- Meg took this picture of me. I thought it was quite flattering, and since I can never take a good picture of myself, I'm including it here. It was a wonderful way to spend the morning.

Afterwards, I got some serious yard work done that needed doing. Leaves were raked, blown and sucked, weeds were whacked, edges were edged and grass was mown. I could barely move afterwards, but it was necessary. It was terribly windy last night and today too -- so it doesn't look any leaf removal took place yesterday. Sigh.

I finished Johnathan's baby blanket this morning. Here it is pre-blocking, looking kind of lumpy. Staci has extra stitches bound off from within other stitches to mirror the pointiness of the cast on edge. A little tricky at first, especially since it involved purling into the back of stitches, which I don't think I've ever done, but I got the hang out of it -- toward the end of the row, of course. Of course, the cast off edge doesn't look quite like the cast on. I bound it off pretty loosely (or so I thought), but it's still a bi more "uptight." I don't think the difference is too detrimental to the overall effect.

We have a bit of a clutter issue with the guest bed where I normally block things. A range of boxes, letters and other miscellaneous things have managed to take up residence there. So I had to get creative. Enter the dining table.

I knew I couldn't put pins in the dining table, but I figured I could use blocking wires and then find something heavy to hold them in place once I'd stretched the blanket out. For the most part, it's working well. Luckily, there were a few bottles of wine sitting around that could do the trick. I didn't know we had so many bottles in our wine rack. Looks like we got some drinking to do.

But not until the blanket dries. My next mission is to figure out whether the baby has arrived yet.

Not Knit

Progress continues with the baby blanket. As of today I've completed 11 of the 14 pattern repeats, so the end is near. I have to confess that I haven't been applying myself to the the craft like I should lately. I love knitting this blanket. I haven't looked at the chart in ages and it's a great project for learning to read one's knitting. It's almost getting instinctual. But I've definitely been feeling a lack of knittosterone.

I've also had many distractions. This weekend, Jeff and I went out of town and while in north Texas, we caught the exhibit Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Dallas Museum of Art. We both had a great time. There was a (tentative) genealogical chart at the beginning, so I was in heaven. About half the exhibit featured items from King Tut's tomb, while the rest was from the tombs of his father, grandparents and great-grandparents. I didn't know about Tutankhamun rolling back his father's monotheistic religious reforms, which was quite interesting.

Photography, of course, was not allowed, so no pictures here. But afterward, because it was raining, we ducked into the Crow Collection of Asian Art across the street. What a treat! The first floor had a collection of masks from Japanese Noh theater. I was fascinated by the more terrifying and hideous ones, although there were some that had more normal human features.





The second floor had beautiful galleries of art from Chinese tombs, a collection of Japanese snuff bottles, and some beautiful statues from India. But the most amazing thing was an exhibit on the third floor, Stitching the Seasons: Contemporary Japanese Quilts.

The exhibit introduction said that modern quilting techniques were taken back to Japan by the wives of Japanese diplomats and businessmen after seeing several quilt exhibitions during the bicentennial celebrations. The quilts in this exhibit were amazing. I don't know as much about quilting as I probably should, having descended from generations of quilters, but I could recognize some of the patterns.

I was blown away by a log cabin-style quilt done all in grayscale, with each "log" only about half an inch wide and maybe two inches long. The colors were placed so that the quilt created the image of the countryside during a snowfall. Beautiful. It was in an odd place and difficult to photograph

But I did get a picture of this quilt, Flower Festival by Noriko Masui (2006). This is only the center motif, but it gives you a good idea of the intricacy and detail in this beautiful object. You can see a Lone Star pattern in the middle, almost hidden amongst a profusion of leaves and blossoms. It's kind of a kaleidoscope effect, but softer. This is one of the most beautiful quilts I've ever seen.

The weather the past two weekends has been beautiful here in central Texas. It even rained a bit in between. We've taken advantage of the loveliness and done some hiking in the Barton Creek Greenbelt, not far from where we live. One of the nice things about living in Austin is that this picture was taken about 2 miles from our house -- about a 40 minute walk away. Note the tiny rock climbers at the top of the cliff to the left. I think I'll stick to knitting.

The Out of Towners

The baby blanket continues. This picture makes it look blurry, but look at the photograph in it's original size and you'll see it's not.

I'm enjoying it, except when I mess it up. Yesterday afternoon, I saw that one of my lines of diagonally arranged yarnovers was headed in the wrong direction. I thought I could just ladder down a series of four stitches and re-created them, but doing so involved a lot of traveling stitches and passing slipped stitches over and I got confused. Luckily, I'd thought to put in a dental floss lifelines at the end of the previous pattern repeat. With a sigh, I frogged back 6 or 7 rows.

Be advised that even though you've been thrown a lifeline, you're still likely to go through a lot of sputtering and coughing (and cursing). Although all the stitches in the row are on the floss, some of those little stitches still managed to pop their little heads down the rabbit holes in which they are nestled. Their a bear to get out. Just two of these had me in a fit for half an hour. But I got back on track and all is well. I'm nearly back to where I had been.

Today, Jeff and I went to Fredericksburg out in the Texas Hill Country. Just a little half-day trip so that we could say we went somewhere for spring break. The weather was perfect. Sure could tell that central Texas needs rain, though. Some parts of the hill country are starting to look like extensions of the Chihuahuan Desert. We took a scenic route through Willow City, and drove by Thousand Oaks Alpacas. It was kind of there and past before we knew it, so we didn't stop to nose around, but we met one of the owner's cousins in town while browsing through a shop, and she had a brochure about the place. Might be a fun thing to do with out-of-town knitting friends.

While in Fredericksburg, we ate lunch at The Peach Tree Restaurant. It's one of those "ladies who lunch" kind of places, but Jeff and fit right in. They have the most awesome quiche -- today's offering had Canadian bacon and green chillies in it. Yummy. Then we walked down to Rather Sweet Bakery and split an enormous slab of carrot cake. Awesomeness.

To top off this lovely day, we noticed that one of our Belinda's Dream Roses was blooming when we got home. there was just enough daylight left to grab a picture.

And today was the last full day of winter. Looks like it's going to be a lovely spring. If only it would rain some more...

Our Boys Need Sox

I've only knitted one 16-row pattern repeat on the blue baby blanket. Not much to report on that front. However, I did run across something during my web ramblings that's been occupying my mind. I thought I'd share -- 'cause that's how we librarians roll.

This picture appeared on The Shorpy Photo Archive this week and grabbed my attention. Click here for the blog entry and here for a much larger version. This always interesting blog features high quality scanned images of old photographs -- most in black and white -- culled from archives. They run the gamut of things people take pictures of -- ladies at dog shows, Civil War soldiers, newsies at the turn of the century, old buildings -- you name it. I enjoy scrolling the images in my feed reader, but this one really caught my eye.

The picture is of two soldiers and a nurse at Walter Reed General Hospital (now the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The date (1918) is from the end of World War II. And the guy on the left, with the help of the nurse, is making socks on some kind of contraption. I'm guessing this is some sort of occupational therapy, or perhaps a way to keep injured soldiers active in the war effort. That poor guy on the right looks like he needs all the help he can get. I can't imagine what kind of hell he's been through and I find it hard to look into his eyes. It looks like he's going to fling off that chenille robe and throttle the photographer. The striped garter-stitch thing to his right looks almost exactly like the second scarf I ever knit.

I'd never seen anything like this sock knitting machine before. I'm not exactly into the whole steampunk thing, but there is something kind of cool about these things, with their silvery needles and brass nameplates and chipped black paint. Maybe it's because they look like an old typewriter? I don't know. I kind of sort of want one of these.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not planning on giving up dpn-ing, two-circularing and magic looping. Handknitting socks is a joy that I don't plan to give up. But these machines are nifty. It's kind of like making ice-cream, I would imagine. Listening to the little clacks and cranking out a pair of socks in under an hour -- how fun is that? Plus, I imagine one would come in handy when we are in the grips of what my friend Tom calls "the monkey disease apocalypse" that he's sure is just around the corner. Surely people would let me into their bomb shelters or compounds if they saw that I could keep them in socks. Right?

Unfortunately, it appears that restored sock knitting machines seem to be on the steep side -- they're probably all being horded by survivalists. Still, I'm going to be on the lookout. I would love to see one demonstrated live and maybe take one for a whirl. In the meantime, I'll be scoping out this video made at last fall's Maker Faire in Austin.



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Blue Blankie

Yesterday morning I got started on the baby blanket that I mentioned in the previous post. I went by The Knitting Nest and got 7 balls of Dalegarn Baby Ull in blue. The pattern calls for eight balls, but The Nest only had 7 in stock. Having consulted the designer, I know that the 8th ball is for the fringe, and I don't care if it's a different dye lot, or maybe even another shade of blue.

This is a great pattern. It has five lace segments filled with a tidy diamond pattern, bordered by sections of seed stitch. I've gotten pretty good at reading the pattern in what I've already knit -- knowing how to intersperse the yarnovers is the main trick. I love patterns that look complicated but have a wonderful logic to them that makes them interesting without overtaxing one's brain. My brain does not need to be overtaxed these days.

I'm glad to have this project to distract me. I got back to the Piano Cushion earlier this week. I'm not sure why it's languished so long -- it just wasn't something I wanted to work on, I suppose. One evening I took it over to the piano bench to gauge my progress. It seems that I'm 2-3 inches to narrow from side-to-side. I think I may have noticed this earlier and thought that I could take care of this in the blocking. But this thing is made from linen. It won't stretch in blocking, will it? Especially sideways? I don't think so.

I'm facing the fact that I may just have to start over. I have enough yarn to do so (I think), but it's pretty demoralizing. I could get it done pretty quickly if I just knuckled down and applied myself to it, but I don't want to start over if I don't have to.

Thank goodness for the security blanket!

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.

♥♥♥♥♥♥