Long time no... type

I'm sorry about the long hiatus since the last real post. It's been an interesting few weeks. First, my friend and his girlfriend came to visit. More importantly for kitty, their luggage came to visit.

Then I went to the doctor a few times. I'm doing fine, but the cardiologist did find a few heart defects. If they're the kind of defects that take over 25 years to find, then they're not really the important kind. This did, however, coincide with an attack of the intestinal flu that's been going around Boston (either that or a lot of us have been eating the same tainted food, since I just thought I had food poisoning) and then the death cold that put me down for the last week. If I passed either on to anyone else, I apologize profusely. I haven't been knitting in favour of lying down and groaning occasionally, but I did finish up a few things for my inlaws.

Ah, blocking lace. I just love this Prime Alpaca. Frankly, I think everyone loves the Prime Alpaca. I'd never knitted anything in "feather and fan" so I made this little scrap of lace for my MIL.

I swear, blocking lace has got to be the most fun finishing technique of all time, bar sewing mattress stitch seams.

There it is: a soft little warm hug for my MIL. I really hope she likes it.

Yarn: Prime Alpaca in Mist Grey
Needles: Size 6 Denise
Pattern: Two repeats of feather and fan. Repeat until scarf-sized.

I also made a (much bigger) scarf for my FIL. I hope this will successfully replace his worn out golfing scarf! He likes bright colours, so what could be nicer than Noro in entrelac? (If someone knows of something he'd like better, perhaps I could him something else... knitting for other people is a bit of a shot in the dark for me.)


Yarn: 4 skiens of Noro Kureyon in colour 164
Needles: Size 8 Denise

So fly off, my little scarfies. I hope they'll be loved. Otherwise I think I might go kidnap them back (and replace them with something the recipients like better), because I certainly like them.

Quick update

I'll have some finished presents for my inlaws soon (gotta keep them warm up there in Canada!), but in the meantime, here's a short list of things I learned this week:

1. The inside of my heart looks really cool on a screen.
   
2. Tiny bubbles inside my heart look really cool on a screen.
   
3. Tiny bubbles don't feel so small when you have tiny veins.
   
4. Cardiologists have the strongest adhesive known to humankind and apply it wherever possible.
   

In a blatant attempt to distract you from my lack of pictures, go and look at kitten fluff and contemplate spinning it into yarn.

New scarf and renewed desire

I finished a scarf! It's just in time for the freaking wind of the arctic that's decended on Boston. My husband says it's not so cold. My husband's been working from home and not walking to work at 8:30am. My husband is full of it.

I wandered into Poor Little Rich Girl today while killing time after work. This vintage/consignment clothing store has an interesting (in a nice way) selection, including this lovely suit for $40 in my late grandmother's favorite colour.

I almost bought it, until I rememberd that I could knit my own with bust darts and waist shaping. I am way too excited about this. Given how badly hemp turned out for my poor fingers, I think some Euroflax is in my future.

Our houseguests are amusing kitty to keep him off my yarn, since he was all annoyed that we cleaned the house. Yes, we took the crap off of the floor and put it in... containers on the floor. It's a good thing kitty hasn't figured out the door handles, or he might try to smother us in our sleep. Instead he'll watch and wait...

I don't know about you, but I'm scared.

Yarn: Fleece Artist Baby Alpaca, a wonderful gift from my parents-in-law, in a burgundy colourway
Needles: Denise in #8 or #9
Pattern: Garter stitch on the bias, slipped stitch edging

Officially sponsored elevator

Attention! Private elevator for the sole use of St. Joseph! All others will be fined... one SOUL! insert evil cackle here


As only one person guessed what the strange beverage was, she wins a yarny prize! May LittleLixie be further touched by His Noodly Appendage. As it turns out, she guessed something that I haven't even heard of, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't right. That drink was actually OJ, with sour cherry juice put into the bottom one straw-ful at a time. No, I have no idea why. My sister claims that cream cheese spread on graham crackers tastes like Oreos, so I suppose it could be worse. Lixie, email me your address and I'll send something fun off to you.

Unseasonable photographs of handknits

Apparently it was unseasonably warm yesterday. Every time I say to a Bostonian that the weather seems unseasonable, they rush to assure me that it's normal for Boston. It doesn't matter what the weather is; I think they'd claim this if it were literally raining cats and dogs. My coworkers are starting to admit that highs of up to 70 degrees are perhaps a trifle unusual in January, given that we are not, in fact, in California.

My husband and I missed the lovely weather entirely, though, as we're both sick. He has a cold. I seem to have picked up a bit of food poisoning (or rather, I have no other explanation for the force and duration of my symptoms). Probably because I'm a vegetarian, I haven't had food poisoning since... well, over 10 years ago, when I wasn't a vegetarian. I think I'll stick to the "no food poisoning" plan in future. Kitty's not allowed outside, but he got as close as feline-ly possible when we opened the windows.

I traded off moaning and staring at my abdomen to see if some alien was making an appearance with knitting various things, so I finally finished my RFC-making socks. Here's the best shot I got of kitty modelling them.

I've given up on that for the time being, as kitty doesn't seem to be as pliable as Krista's dog, so here's a shot of my new socks investigating their new home. If you're looking for manly sock patterns and colours, my husband thoroughly approves of these. I think this means something coming from him, considering that he owns no non-black socks.

Yes, my ankles are small, but part of the giant boot effect is the fact that these are several sizes too big and require giant socks. (My new Bearfoot socks, while thicker than Lorna's Laces, are not thick enough for these boots.) Now I just need to figure out what makes good, thick socks. The Artyarns Supermerino I've used for thick socks in the past is great stuff, but not quite as thick as I need, even knitted on size 3 needles. I can wear any colour socks, since they sit inside my boots, but I really could use some more thick wool socks.

Pattern: Ringwood stitch pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks applied to one of my stock sock "patterns"
Yarn: Mountain Colours Bearfoot in the Red Tailed Hawk colourway
Needles: Size 1 Comfort Zone bendy plastic DPNs

Progress in toyland

I haven't finished anything new (or rather, I haven't finished anything new that is dry yet), so I wanted to show you all my new toy. My friend got me something that's been lurking on my wish list for a long time: what Claudia calls a drug dealer's scale. I don't think any drug dealer worth his or her snuff (so to speak) would be using a scale that's accurate only to 1/10 of a gram, but yarn does have a certain crack-like quality. I've been wringing my hands yet again, worrying that I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish my current pair of RFC-reading socks. It's a little close this time, but I'll make it. (Four plastic needles weigh only 3.4g.)


I think this calls for a spree of stash-using, mixed yarn socks, once I finish these and the next two pairs waiting for me. What can I say: I owe my mom some nicer socks than the last ones. She was the recipient of the first thing I ever knit. Let's just say that my socks are nicer after a year of practice.

Here's a preview of my tailored cables sweater. It's grown, but it's still in the "wet" pile. I'm trying to write the shoulder shaping by hand, which should be an interesting exercise in applied mathematics. Thank heaven for bust darts, where the math is much more simple!


And just for kicks, this is my husband's favorite drink. A yarn prize to anyone who correctly identifies it!

An honest-to-goodness finished object

Kitty and I have been lazing around all day

but I did get a bit of knitting done.

Here's my husband modeling his new string market bag filled with cans and other tasty food items.

Pattern: Market bag with the following mods: picked up radically different number of stitches for top of bag, then did trim and strap in stockinette instead of garter stitch.
Yarn: Valley Yarns Winsor
Needles: Denise transformer robots-in-disguise tree trunks (#15) and tree branches (#10)

My row and stitch gauge turned out radically different from those (not) specified in the pattern. I put the bag together anyway, to see how it'll work out. (I'm sure it can still carry OJ, which is what my husband goes out nearly every night to buy.) I'm not sure the stitch pattern is sufficiently dense to keep things from falling out. I'm not sure it is sufficiently structured to do much carrying of heavy objects. It's certainly worth a try, at least, but I won't be using the pattern in this form again.

As for the yarn, it's great for this project, since I don't care about it being knocked around/pulled on/stained, but it's probably too randomly tuft-y and rough for me to choose to use it in an actual garment. I like the texture, but there are spots where it just breaks down and becomes a big poof.

Happy new year to all and sundry. I think kitty and I will be asleep before then!

In which I distract you with cute kittiness

I've made some progress in scarf-land, but I've been lazy about blocking. In an attempt to distract you from this fact, I have kitty with my current WIP and kitty with his holiday present.

See! Cuteness!

Anyway, my MIL was sweet enough to get kitty a catnip mouse. Perhaps he'll play with it instead of my knitting. I'm not holding my breath here.

Kitty has been trying to "help" with my first knitted item ever for my husband. No, it's not a sweater. According to my knitting group, the sweater curse is still active until three years after the wedding, and we're closer to three months. In a purely technical sense, my husband doesn't want a sweater. He doesn't want anything knitted. I've been racking my brains for something he might need; I think I've finally found it.

A string market bag in Valley Yarns Windsor cotton. I'm not sure this is really the right pattern for the job, though: I'm ending up with a long, skinny bag that was a real pain to sew together.

The side seams don't seem to add stability and are a pain to sew, even in whipstitch. I'll finish this off and see what happens. I know a certain someone up in frozen-land who might want something like this, so I'll have the opportunity to knit a refined version. (That certain someone might want to let me know whether she cares about the colour before I go look for yarn.) I won't be touching it for a while, though. The size 15 needles are driving me bonkers! I want my nice comfy size 1s (pictured for comparison) back! I'm thinking of knitting an all-over colourwork sweater in fingering weight just to get my nice tiny needles back into my nice tiny hands.

What on earth?

Dear Lea,

What could this possibly be? A post? From Krista? My goodness.

And not just a post? But a finished object?

Yes. During my first semester of law school, I knitted about 1/2 of a scarf and about 1/2 of one sock. During the first part of my winter break, I finished the scarf - my first FO in SIX MONTHS! SIX! Law school is not conducive to knitting. You'll recognize this yarn as the Manos you bought my husband for his birthday last summer. I used one hank for this scarf, in a pretty basic mistake rib - he wants a long hat with earflaps and a tie from the other skein. Norton was happy to help with the unpinning.

I couldn't get a good close up of the ribbing, but here's the whole scarf:
It's been such a mild winter that I don't feel pressed to start on the hat right now. Instead, I'm going to make something from the Arctic Lace book that you bought me for MY birthday (you're so generous with the knitting related gifts) ... so look for pictures of that in another six months or so :)

Have a wonderful New Year's, everyone!

Krista

A life changing experience

Lucy told me to get wool long underwear. She said they'd change my life. That's exactly what I was scared of when I got the package.

The model wearing the long underwear is obviously very cold, so the long underwear isn't helping her out at all. In addition, the long underwear may have given her the bad boob job. Better safe than sorry; no top for me!

Lucy is right, though. Mmmmm... waaaarm. For the first time walking to work wasn't an experience in being stingy-frozen-cold from my boots to my thighs. Moving to somewhere snowy is a continual lesson in how wool is the wonder fabric. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a wool-wearing contest: wool hat, pashmina as a scarf, wool coat, wool sweater, wool pants, thick wool socks. Long underwear is just going to give me another leg up when someone holds that contest. I'm sure it will be any day now.

Food is good

Insert food here.

First insert this.

Then insert this. (I was somehow too full for this step.)

The happy abdominal snowman says hi!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Misogynist

How did I never notice before how misogynist the movie "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" is? A sampling of actual quotes:

• "We'd better get the women back to Christmastown."
  
• "You can't do this; this is a man's job."
  
  

Notice also that Donner's wife has no actual name; her name is "Mrs. Donner". One good thing did come out of watching this movie, though. My husband's belly has a new nickname: it's the abdominal snowman, because it's hairy and white.

While I'm up on my PEI yarn run (I did find some yarn, but I'll post pictures of that later) I've been working on a pair of Latvian Mittens for my SIL. She picked out the pattern and happened to like the colours of Baby Ull I had with me. The yarn is all kinds of soft, though processed-feeling, but I have to wonder how well it will protect against the weather and stand up against snagging. It's rather slick; I just pulled an inch of a ply out by brushing against some velcro!

The dark blue cuff is a lining for the cuff to make it fit more snugly around her wrist. Unless I've missed something in the book and pictures, Latvian mittens do not traditionally have the refinements of their Nordic cousins like thumb gussets and border stitches (to hide the jog at the beginning of rounds). It may not be historically accurate, but I think my mittens are going to look like a hybrid in future.

Dale of Norway certainly has some impressive designs, even besides the cutest baby designs ever.

Now if they only sold patterns for them instead of $300+ sweaters, I'd be in business. Here are my famous last words, right up front: how hard could it possibly be to write a pattern for that?

For those of you who celebrate a holiday today, OH OH OH

Merry Dog!

Fleece Artist/Handmaiden run

I'm on my most long-distance yarn run ever: I'm on Prince Edward Island looking for Fleece Artist and Handmaiden. We were apparently so determined to get here that we drove directly through the water

and drove right by an incomparable opportunity to wash puppies.


Unfortunately, it looks like everyone else in North America got here before me, because Great Northern Knitters (believe it or not, it's also a yarn store) is out of pretty much everything but a few sad, disconnected skiens of BFL, cashmere, qiviut, and thrummed sock kits. I had a fun conversation a few times:
Yarn store person: Can I help you?
Chialea: I'm looking for any sock yarn, sea silk, or 900 yards of DK wool and a matching 700 yards of mohair.
Yarn store person: We have a kit for thrummed socks here.
Chialea: I don't think those will fit in my boots, somehow. I'll come back some other time of year.

At least I got to pet the qiviut and dream about buying a skien for mitten liners. (I was too scared to try on the $600 qiviut sweater.) I'm not sure I'm quite that extravagant, but this has reinforced my desire to get my hands on some nice yarn. I'm also rethinking the "sweater with mohair" idea; it's the first time I've touched that stuff and it sheds worse than my cat! To that end, I'll be heading to the farmer's market later today to meet the woman who knit my wonderful thrummed mittens.

It's holiday time!

I finished my holiday knitting early (who'd have thunk it?), so I'm on to knitting something for my MIL. It's lace, so I hope she likes it. Currently, it's all crumple-y, but it is very soft and warm and squishy. Everyone likes soft and warm and squishy yarn!

I think I might need to make another one of these for myself. I also hope she likes the prospect of blocking on the carpet or the bed or something, because I don't think there's any way I'm going to finish it before I get there. I promise it won't bleed!

My poor mother spent her birthday at the hospital with her father. He pulled through the surgery fine, and we're counting on his incredible stubbornness to keep him on the track to recovery. Sure, he calls me stubborn, but I just don't know what he could possibly be talking about. As a bithday treat for her, I'll let her peek at the present I knitted for her. She asked for more knitted presents, which she'll recieve after I track down satisfactory yarn for them. (It's hard to track down specific colours of hand-dyed yarn during the holiday season!)

Ever environmentally conscious, my husband and I wrapped our presents to each other in our shirts and opened em last night. He didn't get me any yarn/needles this year, under the theory that I'll buy them for myself anyway. Instead he got me a Pimsleur language course to work through with my dad, the book of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (all praise his noodly appendage), and some great CDs that I'll listen to the moment this multi-day migraine goes away.

Let's just say that kitty was very pleased with his present, too.

Ankles we have turned on high

Yesterday, I walked up a mountain and then back down again. Actually, since quite a lot of the "walk" is up rock faces, I climbed up a mountain and slid back down on my butt. Unsurprisingly, it's cold up on the top of a mountain in mid-December, though it is quite pretty. Note that this picture shows the hiking trail, not the side of a cliff.

As the title of this post might indicate, my ankles are either indicating their displeasure at this outing in specific or the state of my holiday knitting in general. I still haven't found the perfect buttons to finish off a pair of gloves, started a cotton washcloth, or started on the second fuzzy mitten. All of these things are being shipped out Tuesday morning, so I need to get on top of this!

One down: my aunt's socks. She has tiny feet, too.

Yarn: Cascade fixation
Needles: #2 crystal palace bamboo DPNs (hands-down, my favorite bamboo needles are from Crystal Palace)
Patten: Toe-up socks using magic cast-on and short-row heel on 64 stitches with rolled cuff

I was planning a more refined top, like a picot hem, but was thwarted by the hiking. I don't know if you can see this well in the picture, but each ankle has a rather impressive swelling on it. Given the amount of rock clambering, they're doing fine and will be back to a normal size soon. However, a normal size is absolutely necessary to check the fit of socks for my slim-ankled auntie! I hope she'll like these anyway.

To keep me laughing through the deadlines, I'll be watching Dildo Diaries. It's a documentary about some rather odd anti-sex laws and how they came about. Watch this hilarious clip of the movie, then run out and watch the whole thing.

No more David Lynch

I saw "Inland Empire" the other night. I'm pretty sure that's going to be the last Lynch movie I see. I don't do well with creepy movies. I don't do well with movies where things jump and scream. I do not like that kind of violence. I really don't like watching it for three full hours. Still, all of that might possibly have been forgivable, but this is beyond the pale:

Two dropped stitches! I've never dropped stitches when knitting in a movie before. I'm almost done fixing them in this picture, but my extremely tight creepy-movie-induced gauge made it extremely annoying.

In more cheerful news, I'm shopping for yarn for my next designer-inspired sweater. I'm thinking of trying out Silky Wool in colours 9 and 20. What do you think? They may be too close in shade. I don't want it to look like I had a dye lot accident; I want it to look like the sweater contrasts interestingly.


One advantage of the non-matching sleeves is that when I inevitably wear out the elbows I can replace the sleeves!

Turn the gifting crank

If you're related to me by blood, stop reading now. Then again, if you're related to me by blood, you're rationalizing to yourself right now that continuing to read is the moral equivalent to peeking in the corners of a package. My family has a long and glorious tradition of peeking, and they're probably feeling deprived of this since I'm so far away. So be it; surprise is in your hands.

My knee is oh-so-attractively modeling my sister's scarf in the "it's so cold I'm strangling myself" configuration. I tried to get the cat to model, but he was a bit disturbed by the amount of yelling I do when I watch Jepardy. This scarf is everything my sister asked for: big, fluffy, pretty, and soft. It's also geeky: if you look closely, you can see that I've used Fibonacci numbers as the basis for the striping. The number of ridges of Silk Garden in each stripe are {1,2,3=2+1,5=2+3,3,2,1}.

Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran and Noro Silk Garden
Needles: Size 10 Denise
Pattern: Cast on enough stitches for length of scarf. Knit garter stitch until scarf is wide enough and/or you run out of yarn. Cast off loosely.

I have a surprise for a certain member of my family who kept fondling the same yarn every single time we went to the yarn store. I've been hiding this in my stash until now, when it begins to realize its destiny as mittens.

You can't convince me that Sinsation is for anything other than mittens. Why use that fuzzy yarn on anything other than your hands, where you get to actively feel it all the time? Seriously, I think Yarndex is insane when it suggests that sweaters would be an appropriate use of this yarn. (If I'm off base here, send me a picture.) First, it's thick and heavy, so it'll stretch out terribly. Second, it's thick and plushy, so it'll make you look like a caterpillar just before entering the cocoon. Babies look cute in sweaters like that, so I'll make an exception for them.

Anyway, I made a mitten using "two" size 10.5 Denise circulars and one ball of Sinsation. As I only have two of each size needle tip, I used size 10s to hold stitches while I knitted off of them with the size 10.5s. My pattern, however, was a little loose: magic cast-on, then increase like for socks until they were big enough, then knit until they're long enough, then knit back and forth to make a slit for a thumb, then knit a few rounds, then pick up and knit the thumb from the other end of the ball, then knit until you almost run out of yarn while decreasing around the base of the hand, then use the EZ sewn bind-off. Note the complete lack of numbers in this pattern. I was so worried that one ball of yarn wouldn't be enough that I didn't bother to note exactly what I did. Given the six inches of yarn I have left over, reproducing this mitten may be exciting in the "what do you mean I need to un-darn ends on a thick chenille yarn?" kind of way.

Tomorrow I'll attempt to reproduce this mitten while on the way to hike up a mountain. I will point out that hiking up a mountain in mid-December was not my idea, but it does sound fun. I even get to wear the least flattering pants ever made! They make me look like my bottom half has suddenly gained 30 pounds in some bizzare experiment to graft different-sized people together. Perhaps if I wear my fluffy down jacket I'll look normal again.

Sneak peek

I tried on the beginning of my new sweater, so I thought I'd post a picture.

The stockinette portion has not been washed, so it's still thin and oily. When I wash it, it won't be see-through (like the lower portion).

My design theme for this sweater is faux-seams. The seams start in the lower portion of the sweater. Waist shaping causes ribs to come together and twist into cabled "seams" on the front and back. After I finish the bust, the front and seams will curve like on a tailored garment. I'm not sure whether they'll twist together at the shoulders or spread into arm seams (or both). We'll have to see where the muses take me.

Quantum sock coherence

I think I'm having trouble with sock coherence again. Can't I wave a quantum magic wand and make these a pair?

The pink/purple/blue socks are actually for my aunt, but they'll need to be partially ripped. It turns our that k1p1 ribbing in Cascade Fixation is bigger than stockinette. When I try on this sock, I can see daylight all the way around my ankle. Out they go!

After I finish these socks, I think my next will be of a rather odd design to satisfy my new boots. It turns out that walking on concrete a minimum of 1.5 hours per day makes one's feet hurt when one wears out one's shoes. It also turns out that one can wear out shoes at an astonishing clip. Anyway, I've gotten my first knee-high boots, so I need some warm ass-kicking socks to go along with my ass-kicking boots.

If anyone else has a pair of well-loved thrummed mittens, you can rejuvenate them instead of throwing them out. My MIL got me some authentic Newfoundland thrummed mittens several years ago (these and the Knitter's hand creme are my well-loved weapons against winter). This winter they suddenly seemed less warm and cushy than they had previously. On the bottom of the mitten you can see the reason why; they felted (and not in the good, warm way)!

A little work de-clumping the fleece is restoring them to their warm, cushy wonderfulness for now. (When I say "fleece" here, I'm not kidding. This is minimally processed wool.) I may need to learn to knit a pair or augment these next year, if I wear the lining down much more.

As promised, I am working on a new sweater of my own design. It's only knitted coned yarn up to the bust, so it's not particularly exciting yet. I'm extremely impressed with this $12/pound wool, though!

Sweater style emergency!

I've posted some math on short row shaping below, but I have an urgent request of all of you: should I finish and wear this sweater for a holiday party on Friday? I don't know the people there, and I don't know that I'll ever have to see them again, if that makes a difference. On the other hand, my husband works with some of them, so there are some limits I'll have to observe.

My husband doesn't seem to like this sweater, and I've spent so long knitting it that I don't have any perspective left. Should I finish it? Should I wear it? Should I burn it?




Should I hide out with the cat?