I Can't Knit

There is a mistake in the socks I am currently knitting, about 10 rounds back.

Kid Silk Haze is not for middle-aged eyes. Except in direct sunlight, I can't see what I am doing, much less how to correct something I should not have done.

And I tried playing around with the Sea Silk, experimenting with different patterns, but nothing seems to work.

At least this dishcloth turned out okay. The pattern is called "Chinese waves" and may be found here.



As large and open as the last one turned out, this one is small and dense.

Despite the frustrations listed above, I am itching to start on something BIG. On Saturday I saw a woman wearing a pinwheel sweater sans sleeves (which makes it a vest, I guess), and I have the yarn for one myself, but it doesn't seem very springlike. But then the weather is not very springlike, either. Maybe if I start something warm and cozy, the weather gods will shake things up a bit, just to spite me.

Black Swamp Spinner's Guild Market Day

When we stepped into the building at the fairgrounds in Bowling Green, OH, I was nearly overcome by wool fumes. Or so I thought. Later on I realized that wooly-headed feeling was actually from the handmade scented soap near the door. That did not detract from my excitement, though. Yarn! I barely knew where to start.

I meant to do some homework beforehand and find patterns from my pattern stash that are in need of yarn, but neglected to do so. That left me reluctant to pick out a sweater's worth of skeins. But sock yarn doesn't count as stash enhancement, does it? I found some semi-solids and could not make up my mind over which color, so I bought all three that were whispering my name.



These were at a bargain price because they are the first attempts at hand-dyeing of the woman whose name I neglected to get. She is planning to offer them online, though, so keep an eye out for YarnDaze.com.

When I go to fiber fests, I like to buy something unusual, so I picked up this skein of Sea Silk by Hand Maiden.



It's 70% silk, 30% Seacell. Seacell is developed by Smartfiber and they make a lot of claims about this fiber, including that it will enhance one's feeling of well-being. We'll see about that! The yarn came with a scarf pattern, and it will look great with a deep purple summer shift of mine.

Other items I picked up:



I can't seem to locate my little pair of Fiskars, so I bought these from a vendor selling re-enactment do-dads. (I can't find the sheet listing the vendors - sorry!)

Wooden buttons from the same vendor.



Pewter buttons from the same vendor. I'm starting a button collection.



There was also a lot of roving and homespun and spindles and dyes and pattern books, etc. I fought off the temptation to invest in some spinning supplies because, although we watched the demos, I just don't quite get how it works. I think there is a spinning guild here too, so I will have to try to hook up with them so someone can teach me one-on-one. Besides, with summer coming (yes, it is - really!) I'm a little hesitant about taking on one more activity.

While we were in Bowling Green, we decided to check out the LYS's but it was not to be. Both the Loving Traditions Yarn Shoppe and Kathy's Quality Yarns are no longer in business. I had found these two stores through Google and one is still listed at KnitMap, so I guess the lesson learned here is to call ahead. Not that we begrudged seeing downtown Bowling Green - it looks like a lovely town - but we might have made other plans if we had known.

Knowing I would be gone most of the day today, I took yesterday off to do my usual Saturday chores. But now I can't shake the feeling I should be going to work tomorrow. Time to chill with some knitting.

A Few Random Things

While having the oil changed in my car, I was knitting (of course) on socks for the son-in-law. And still having second thoughts about my color choice.



I was going to ask the man sitting next to me if he would wear such green socks, but I noticed he was not wearing any socks. He looked like a snow bird who flew north a bit too soon.

One thing I will miss when the temperatures finally heat up (and they will, won't they?) is wearing my handknits. Not only do I wear my handknits, I display them in my cubicle, draping the scarf-of-the-day around my coat and laying out the mitts and hat next to the monitor. Maybe I need to work on some summer knits.

This Saturday my SO and I are going to take a road trip to Bowling Green, OH, to check out the Black Swamp Spinner's Guild Market Day. I was originally thinking I might find some nice homespun there, but later it occurred to me that the target audience will be spinners. I may be bringing home some rove and a spindle!

Whenever I travel out of town, I look up likely yarn stores to visit. While doing that today for the trip to Bowling Green, I found this site. It's a mapping tool for yarn stores. It looks like anyone with minimal info about a store can enter data. I had never heard of this site before. Have you? The two LYS's closest to me are not in it yet. Are yours?

Once Again...

... I have picked up the lace top from Glamour Knits that I promised my daughter so long ago. The problem is that Rowan Kidsilk Haze. Well, that and my knitting skills. This time, instead of the body, I started on a sleeve.



This strategy has several advantages: 1) fewer stitches, 2) the sleeve is in ribbing instead of lace, which gives me a chance to reacquaint myself with the yarn, and 3) if I do the sleeves first, the whole thing is more likely to get finished.

I'm not sure what to do with what I have knitted so far on the body, which isn't much but Kidsilk Haze is nearly impossible to frog. The stitches are 'way too tight, though, so once the sleeves are done, I will restart the body once again. I think this will be the third time, so hopefully it will be the charm.

Think Spring!

Yesterday I stopped at Knitting Off Broadway to buy some sock yarn, and were they happy to see me! Apparently, Easter Saturday is not a busy day at yarn stores. The woman who taught me to knit socks was there, so we chatted a bit, and I received a lot of help picking out yarn. It was a little overwhelming, in fact. I wanted "manly" sock yarn, but everything they suggested, while beautiful, looked so sober and dull. I wound up selecting this Opal, just because it shouted "Spring!"



It's one of their Rainforest colorways, and it is called "Veronica die Wilde." Last night, I cast on and under the Ott light, the colors looked a bit fluorescent, and I was having second thoughts about my selection. But this morning, in the light of day, they looked much calmer, shades of green from lime to forest, plus gray.

Meanwhile, I finished the Blue Lagoon baby blanket.



When I rediscovered knitting a couple of years ago, I went overboard ordering yarn from Lion Brand, and bought enough to do three of these blankets, in three different color combinations. The first one was Sweet Cherries, and this is the second; one more to go and that yarn will have served its purpose. While the blankets are cushy and soft and colorful, they are also acrylic, which means they are machine washable but also not flame retardant. Wool, on the other hand, is naturally flame retardant, so I am starting to switch to that for baby blankets (superwash, of course). But waste not, want not - by God, I am going to use up that Microspun one way or another!

Don't They Shrink?

At work I attended a general meeting about retirement benefits (wishful thinking on my part) and took along some knitting. On our way out, a (female) co-worker asked what I was working on and I said a dishcloth. To which a (male) co-worker said, "A dishcloth?!? Don't they shrink?"



Well, no, do your towels shrink? He wasn't sure, but he did know that he had never heard of knitting dishcloths.

• Pattern from 2007 A Pattern A Day Calendar, June 25, "Lickety Split Cloths and Towels" FYI - The instructions for the items in this pattern are a little vague and general.
  
• Yarn: Lion Cotton "Sagebrush" - I stopped when I had used half the skein, which is why the dishcloth is a bit rectangular
  
• Needles: I use US5 for worsted weight cotton because the yarn is so inelastic; I cast on with US7, then switch to the US5 and knit loosely.
  

Look, Ma! No Wires!

Finally. Finally, my laptop and I are wireless, and all it cost me was a homemade pot roast dinner. Last night my son-in-law found the magic key that unlocks the door between my router and modem and the Internet. Now I can actually hold my laptop in my lap while I blog. I would give him my first born, but he already has my second born. Maybe I should knit him a pair of socks that actually fit.

I Know What You Can Make Me

Have you ever heard that phrase from a loved one? My SO delivered it last week. I have already told him that sweaters are out (the boy friend sweater curse, you know), but I was a little leery just the same. Turned out all he wanted was a cover for his camera lens. At first, I pooh-poohed the idea, thinking that wool would make things quite linty. He has been using the eyeglass case I knit him, though, and that is made from bamboo, which is virtually lint-free. So I said ok.



I was afraid it was going to end up looking like a short, stout condom, but it looks more like a thumbless mitten. I used the same US2 needles and cast on the same number of stitches as I did for the eyeglass case, but the colors pooled much differently.



The stitch count is even the same. Chalk it up to my erratic knitting, I guess.

The Gift Drawer

Do you always knit for someone? Or do you sometimes knit with no specific recipient in mind? I do both, and the latter projects go into my gift drawer. Most of the gifts-in-waiting are baby items - bibs, burp rags, blankets, kimonos - to have on hand should the need arise for a little something for parents- or grandparents-to-be. There are a few "grown-up" things there as well.

A while back, I knit this neck warmer and these arm warmers. Last week they each left the gift drawer for new homes. The neck warmer went to the neighbor across the street who repeatedly cleared my driveway this winter. The arm warmers I gave to a young woman who was canvassing the neighborhood; she absentmindedly forgot that, once the sun went down, it would get cold (ah, to be 18 again!)

I guess we always knit for someone. Sometimes who is a surprise.

RDA

Do you have a Required Daily Amount when it comes to knitting? I find that, if I knit less than three hours a day, my fingers get itchy and I need a mini-marathon of stitchery to get over it.

The second best cure to a lack of knitting is a yarn purchase. I took my 40%-off-one-item coupon to Joann's Friday and bought a big spool of crochet thread. I wanted enough to play with unhindered while I learn the (literally) finer art of filet crochet, aka thread crochet. It's more than a little frustrating and hand-cramping, and I'm not sure whether it will become a new needle art in my heart, but it's always fun to try something new.

Meanwhile, the Jaywalkers are finally finished.



I don't know why I had so much trouble with this pair. I have made the pattern before, in the same yarn. The only difference is I made these larger, per the pattern instructions. I am glad to be done with them. I am also glad to have them on my feet this chilly morning.

Pattern may be found here. Yarn is Austermann Step (mit Aloe Vera und Jojoba). Needle size is US1.

In other knitting, the blob of powder puff pink is growing bigger. I seem to have plenty of yarn, so I am increasing the size of the shawl by two 10-row repeats. And I have been hacking away at the Blue Lagoon baby blanket. I would have pix but right now I am lacking AA's for my camera. I think it is time to switch to rechargeable batteries.

Online vs. Brick-and-Mortar

I like shopping for yarn, online or in stores, but each have their pluses and shortcomings. Online you are more likely to find exactly what you are looking for, in the colors you want, in the quantity you need, but the colors may not be accurately rendered on your monitor or the yarn may not live up to your expectations. Conversely, at your LYS you can see the yarn in daylight, feel it, sniff it, rub it against your cheek, but the variety and quantity may come up short.

If you are buying a single skein of hand-dyed superwash for a pair of socks, a lot of these differences disappear. Or if you like surprises, you may not care. But if you are looking for sweater quantities in certain colors, well, good luck.

I purchased some yarn from Elann recently, enough for the pinwheel sweater and the sun ray shawl. Being color challenged, I decided to go with the colors on the model for the pinwheel sweater except I didn't like the looks of the grape heather, so I substituted garnet. The switch looked okay on my monitor but not so much in real life. In fact, my color consultant (daughter) suggested I should stick with the original.



Likewise, yellows make me look jaundiced, so I substituted dusty rose for the shawl, but in real life the pink looks kind of flesh-colored. Sometimes colors knit up better than they look on the skein, so I think I will stick with my choice... for now.



I don't blame Elann for my color choices. After all, I have purchased yarn in an LYS, knitted it up, and only later realized that it is not the colors I thought. But this is an example of why we need both online sources and LYS's.

That's not the end of my whining, though. There is good news and bad news about the Jaywalker socks. For one thing, my daughter eyeballed them and declared them too big for the son-in-law (this is bad news for him but good news for me because now they are mine!)



But I ran out of yarn. I knit them in the larger size, which requires more stitches around but (surprisingly) fewer rows. As they are now, the toes are way too big, so I am going to rip them back far enough to decrease the toes and give me enough yarn to finish them properly.

A little more whining: I decided to pick up the lovely powder puff pink shawl I started a while back and make some progress. The problem is I can't count, which means I have to count more, over and over, while I figure out where I went wrong. This is very frustrating.



Right now, the shawl looks like most lace projects, a little blob of yarn. But it's a pretty blob of yarn, and I am getting better at counting.

Needing something simple to work on, I knitted up this neck warmer yesterday.



I found the pattern here - not that a neck warmer really needs a pattern but I was uncertain of how many stitches to cast on, plus this pattern provides a nice staggered ribbing. I used a 50g skein of Nashua Handknits "Snowbird," a wool-alpaca blend, on US8 needles but I ran out of yarn after about 5 inches. This seemed plenty big, though, unless you like your neck warmers scrunchy. Very quick to knit and you have to count to only 3. (Note: Use a sewn cast-off or something equally stretchy.)

And we enjoyed a little sunshine this weekend.



Time to start making preps for spring. Really!

It's Snowing Again?!?

February is asserting itself with another snowfall, making sure we know it is Leap Year and not March yet. Now that I have other plans for tomorrow, there will probably be enough snow for cross country skiing. This year I just can't win.



This is the house of one of the neighbors who did not blow my driveway after the last snow. Neither did my next door neighbor. I shoveled a bit, enough to get my car out of the garage, but have not had the time nor the energy to finish the job. Both these neighbors have been very helpful this winter, but I guess even they have their limits. I'm home sick (the usual: sore throat, headache, runny nose, etc.) so I'm not going to tackle it today. Maybe tomorrow afternoon, if it doesn't melt first. One can always hope!

Meanwhile, I needed something bright and cheerful to work on, plus I am out of "expectant grandmother sets," so I knitted up this Mason-Dixon Knitting baby bib and burp rag.



They are in Peaches & Cream on US 6 needles. I like how the "Daisy Ombre" colorway pools on the bib but not the burp rag. All I need to do is add a button to the bib and they will be ready to go.

The other night, I had to try my hand at filet crochet, so I worked up this pattern from Filet Crochet.



It's in Red Heart Sport (not the best choice), on a size 00 crochet hook, and it took about two hours, including time to figure out what the heck I was doing and to undo some mistakes. The square is about 8.5 inches on a side and took 20g of yarn. It was kinda fun, so I'll probably do more in the future.

Meanwhile, I got this out of the library:



I have to admit, this Harmony Guide is kind of disappointing. I don't know if it is the photography or the yarn, but the pictures are not very enticing. The other Harmony Guides I have looked at were lacking charts, but this book has charts... for some of the designs. I wonder what the editors based that decision on, besides cost.

Well, sick or not, I am washing the dishes. Otherwise I will have no pots to cook supper in. Then it is time for a nap.

P.S. The spell-checker is back, but Blogger is balking at uploading photos today, so I have resorted to using Flickr. The template seems to be chopping off some of the pix, though. *sigh*

In Stitches

Does anyone out there have experience with filet crochet? Me neither. I picked up a book on it at the library, though: Filet Crochet, by Betty Barnden.



Basically, you crochet mesh squares, filling in some of them with extra double crochet stitches and leaving some open, to create a design or pattern. And you don't have to use teeny tiny crochet hooks and finer-than-fine threads. Any yarn and an appropriately sized crochet hook will do. It doesn't look difficult. I might give it a go some night, with some leftover fingering, just to see what it is like. (Just what I need, another yarn craft!)

Other books I have been getting out of the library as they come available include the new releases of the Harmony Guides. Apparently, many other knitters are also looking for them because the only two I have seen so far are Knit and Purl and Lace and Eyelets.



The surprising thing about these books is they do not include charts. Instead, the stitch work is described row by row. Personally, I prefer charts. At least, that is what I am used to.

As far as content goes, I can see myself making use of Knit and Purl, but not so much Lace and Eyelets. I do enjoy some of the names of the patterns, though, like "Lawn Hyacinths" and "Papyrus Lace" and "Raised Tyre Track Panel".

Despite my good intentions, I bought more yarn last night, online from Elann.com. The Pinwheel Sweater is on my list of things to knit this year, so yarn for that is okay, but I included yarn for the Sun Ray Shawl as well. This is my first order with Elann, and that is a lot of yarn to buy sight unseen. Fingers and toes and knitting needles crossed, that I like what I bought.

Givers and Givees

In a previous lifetime, I baked bread for my family. Four loaves a week, every week. (We also heated with wood and raised chickens and grew all our vegetables, too. Right out of Mother Earth News.) I didn't think too much about it; baking bread was just something I did.

A friend of mine decided she was going to bake some bread, too. She made one loaf and served it with dinner. The next day, her husband used a couple of slices for a sandwich, which just incensed her. That loaf of bread was something special and it shouldn't be used for something as plebeian as sandwiches.

I know knitters like that, who consider each handmade object a work of art, something to be stored in a drawer and taken out to be admired or worn only for special occasions. I doubt they would ever knit socks.

But I also know knittees like that, who are so impressed with the handmade thingy with which you have gifted them that they store it away for safekeeping. Example: I crocheted a baby afghan for some friends. They loved it and used it to bring the baby home from the hospital, where upon said baby pooped and puked on said afghan. It (the afghan) was cleaned and folded and put away as a keepsake. A keepsake made of cheap acrylic, stitched up in my spare time. Some giftees are reluctant to use even cotton dishcloths.

Few things make me happier than to know my knitting is being used for its intended purpose. I hear from my SO how his daughters found their cotton dishcloths to be particularly useful for particularly difficult cleaning jobs. Almost every time I see my daughter, she is wearing a pair of handknit socks. My stepmother wears her swallowtail shawl when she is out and about with her friends, and passes their compliments on to me (and I think the primary purpose of a swallowtail shawl is to elicit compliments).

And, to take gifting one step further, I try to detach myself from where an object may ultimately wind up. A scarf may get lost, but hopefully will still be used by someone somewhere. A pair of socks may be passed around until they find the right feet. An afghan may become Fido's favorite bed.

Whatever.

It's just knitting.

(BTW, this post is number 200!)

No Sheep for You

How would you like to own your very own sheep? Read all about it here. Unfortunately, the adoption site is in Icelandic, but with enough hits from us Yanks, maybe they will translate.

I took a mini-break from knitting, about as much of a break as I do, and have now picked up the Jaywalkers again (and yes, I am frogging the gussets). My son-in-law liked/disliked the Thuja socks - comfy and warm but they would not stay up on his chicken legs. So now we are playing musical socks - they will fit someone - and he will have a chance at the Jaywalkers. The colorway is blues and I don't think the stitchery is too girly.

Finally

It was so cold today that I fetched the red-red-red sweater from the guest bedroom and put it on. The fit is far from perfect, but I said, Screw it, I'm wearing it to work. So I did. But I did not show it off.



Details: I started with the "Miss Priss Hoodie" pattern from Schaefer Yarns but I used Cascade 220 instead, then eliminated the zipper, knit it in the round on US7 needles, added lace stitchery on the sleeves and front ("lace diagonal" and "snowdrop" respectively, from The Knitting Stitch Bible), and tried a couple different necks (including a snood) before settling on one that would increase the likelihood that I would actually wear the sweater.

If I had a do-over, I would increase the garter stitch rows at the cuffs and the hem, as they have a tendency to curl. And I would have made it a little bigger, as blocking didn't add as much width as I had hoped. And I might have chosen a yarn with more drape. But I like the color and I like the way the material breathes. It is both warm and comfy. So, even if I don't wear it out and about much, I will still definitely wear it. In fact, I have it on right now.

Time to put on all my wool and check on the lunar eclipse.

Small Accomplishments

My previous employer was big on diversity but we did not get MLK Day off, much less Presidents Day. The holidayless stretch from New Year's to Memorial Day seemed endless. Current job is the pits, but at least we get those two days off. So today was a do-as-little-as-possible day. My biggest accomplishment was eating the last piece of fruit from the citrus box I purchased from a co-worker at xmas (school fundraiser). Oh, and I got a haircut and brow waxing. Woo-hoo.

The red-red-red sweater cannot dry fast enough for me.



My son came up with the idea of blocking wool sweaters on plastic bags, but he placed his over an electric blanket turned on low. Alas, I have no electric blanket and my waterbed is long gone, but I could set up a fan, I supposed.

And for some reason, I just can't face the Jaywalkers. For one thing, I made a mistake on the gussets, and I'm contemplating how anal I shall be about it - the pause before the frog. Also, I need a break from US1 needles. So I pulled out the US6's and a cone of cotton for Mason-Dixon baby bibs and burp rags.



My SO made this turntable for my cotton cones. Slick, huh?

Good Day to Stay In

February may be the month with the fewest days, but this year it feels interminable. Today it was warmish (50 degrees) and rainy, but the next few days promise a return of wintery conditions. Many blogs that I follow contain similar rants against the weather. Will it never end? Those of us who garden need to smell some dirt!

To fend off winter's chill, I finished another pair of Maine Morning Mitts:



... so now I have a complete ensemble:



To refresh your memory, these items are the Math Geek scarf, Lark's Bubble Wrap cap, and from The Knitter's Book of Yarn, Maine Morning Mitts, all from two skeins of Cascade 220 Paints, all knit on size US7 needles. Each mitt weighs 26g and all that remained when I finished was 1g of yarn. That's calling it close!

The weather being what it was, I decided to spend the afternoon doing taxes. Not my favorite activity, but TurboTax makes it relatively painless. This year I am getting a refund :-) but only because I withheld more than usual :-(. But at least that task is out of the way.

While working up a spreadsheet of my charitable donations, I came across an old budget from 2006, which got me wondering how I spent my money this past year. I started working up a summary of 2007 and had to enter a separate line item for yarn. Yikes! Maybe I should practice more stash busting this year.

And tonight I am finally, finally blocking the red-red-red sweater. Hopefully it will be wearable, another layer of armor against the cold.

Popularity

I finished the Maine Morning Mitts at lunch today and showed them to a co-worker, and each person who happened by had to try them on, which led to ooh's and aah's and these are so warm and my wife would love these.



They may have a craft bazaar at work this fall, and these mitts are so quick and easy I was thinking of including them in my offerings.



But I would probably knit them in something friendlier (and cheaper). I loved watching the colors emerge in the Noro Kureyon, but the wool itself? Not so much. Although Clara Parkes includes this yarn in the single ply section of her book, I think it is actually two-ply, but a very stiff and inelastic and scratchy two-ply.



But, oddly enough, once knit up, the yarn felt softer. I expected the colorway to repeat but it did not, so if you want matching mitts, you will need to buy two skeins.

Oh, look, here is another FO: Lark's Bubble Wrap Cap.



I used Cascade 220 Paints and US7 needles, just like for the Math Geek scarf.



And, in case you missed it, the yarn is not maroon and black, but cranberry, berry, and navy.



Since there was still 50g of this yarn left, I started another pair of Maine Morning Mitts to complete the ensemble. Since the Noro mitts were a bit snug on my ginormous hands, I am increasing the row length by 3 stitches. The first one is almost done already. Like I said, they are quick to knit.

What an Ordeal

Tonight I decided to try entering a project into Ravelry and link in my Flickr photos. The linking worked just fine, but entering the project was something else, because there were six colors of the same yarn and, being the anal compulsive that I am, I entered them all, one at a time. Then Ravelry didn't have the pattern, so I tried to add it, which involved entering a link, but Lion Brand "forgot" who I was, so I could not get to the pattern. Then I kept clicking on something on the Ravelry page that would take me back to the beginning of the project entry and lose my data. And I had to find the blog entry, too. It just seemed like 'way too much work. But if you don't enter all the details, then Ravelry can't do it's linking thing, which is the whole point, isn't it? I don't know - I'm feeling like a Luddite tonight.

And I feel like I am getting behind on blogging, because I have an FO that I have yet to photograph, let alone post, and I started a pair of Maine Morning Mitts, and I have the tops of the Jaywalkers done. But tonight I had snow to shovel and yoga class to attend and dishes to wash, and now it is time to feed the bunny and take the dog out for one last pee before bed. The days are just packed! Who has time for Ravelry?