Welcome...

To everyone poking their noses here from MasonDixon! And everyone else, for that matter. ;)

It may appear that I am a poor knit blogger because I have very few pictures up, and none of my knitting. There are reasons for this! My digital camera is as dead as Marley (choose one), and the household budget is too slender to acquire another. Rest assured that I do in fact record my knitting (when I think it's worth it.. socks comprise most of my knitting, and much as I like them, I don't usually bother photographing them), and when I get a chance to develop the roll, I'll get them on disc so I can post! Because I want proof of my awesome knitting's existence, too. ;D

Project updates: I'm about 5" down the leg of Jaywalker #2. Josh thinks they're very warm, and isn't impatient for them before the weather gets cool, so they're not a high priority. My Print o'the Wave is... on hiatus, sorta... I'm very distracted by my Monkey! Plus baby alpaca isn't the most fun to knit with in high summer. Did I mention the distracting, addicting Monkey yet? Maybe I should say some more about that. I did 8 repeats down the leg instead of the recommended 6, turned the heel, and am mostly done with the gusset. I'll prolly have that finished by tonight, especially since I'm going to a BBQ with a lot of people I don't know and I hate being social with strangers. Knitting's great for hiding behind!

Why, you may ask, am I subjecting myself to this social indignity? Well, it's not for Josh's work. I'm a volunteer for the Gentle Birth World Congress, in the hopes that doing work trade will actually let me go. Tonight is a BBQ to meet other volunteers and (I think) form committees.. not sure on that last part.

*sigh*

I finally got a spam comment.. so I'm enabling some moderation. I hate it, but I don't want to be all excited about a new comment and then have it be spam.

And yes, Peggy, Monkeys really are all that.

Still not dead! Honest.

Anyone have any idea what can cause you to suddenly develop sciatic aches on both sides (not to mention what to do about it)? They've made my last 4 nights (and days, too, to a lesser extent) rather suck. I am pretty much an achy mess the last couple of days in general, from my wrists/elbows (too much cotton lace *cry*) to.. well, pretty much most of the rest of my body, one way and another, mostly probably attributable to hormonal stuffs. I hate this part of the month anyway, but this time it's ridiculous!

Anyway. Finished my latest Waving Lace socks; they feel *wonderful*. No pics still, but I posted details on Ravelry. Started the second Jaywalker on Josh's pair, too, and then (I'm so bad) I finally succumbed to Monkey on the way to dropping my brother off at the airport yesterday (hi Tom!). I'm most of the way through the first cuff, according to the original directions, but since I'm using smaller needles (1s vs. 2s) and I like my cuffs longer anyway, I'm going to go for a couple more repeats. Why didn't anyone warn me how addictive this pattern is?! So easy. So fast. So satisfying. They could easily take over my life.

On the excitement front, I finally got my Super Sox Box Swap package yesterday!!! Many very cool goodies: Almond biscotti, Toblerone, Orange Earl Grey tea. Cute-yet-handily-sized bag for sock-knitting-on-the-go. Merino/cashmere sock yarn. Pink and purple point protectors. Cute-as-a-button sheep picture. AND (this is the part that made us laugh) Canadian memorabilia in the form of a keychain and coaster! My buddy was Canadian... I suppose now would be a bad time to mention the part about how often we make Canadian jokes. Awesome package, though! Well worth the long wait.

House sweater

I had a couple of queries about what I meant when I said "House sweater". I took a look on Ravelry, and hardly anyone has posted about it... but I did find one here. The project is in Charmed Knits - it's a sort of standard conservative school sweater with Hogwarts House colors in discreet bands edging the ribbing at wrists and hem. In HP5 the Movie, they had them in a very dark, almost black charcoal gray, as opposed to the much lighter gray she suggests in Charmed Knits. I think I liked the darker gray better... I'll have to see what I can find when I'm in a place to actually buy yarn.

HP5

Just got home from seeing Order of the Phoenix. I know, I know, I didn't think I'd get to see it til video... but circumstances changed, and Josh and I were treated to it.

Knitting stuff first: lots and lots of very cool knitted things, from Umbridge's infamous fluffy pink sweater to awesome Weasley hats, scarves, and sweaters. The item that really caught my eye was the cabled vest Ginny was wearing at very end. I wanted to see Hermione knitting... but I understand that they had to *sniff* cut most of the subplots, just to be able to fit the main storyline (barely) into a standard movie length.

I thought they did a pretty good job of shoehorning the main storyline into a standard movie length - no way could they get the leeway Peter Jackson did, with a 4-hour RotK! Which is sad, because there's that much and more they could easily have done. It never really felt rushed, but it never got to slow down, either - except in the spots where it did for a few seconds, which then you knew had to be important, because the pace of the rest of the movie was so frenetic. I also liked just the few very subtle touches of shots that lingered on someone's face for just a split second - significant if you know the next book, not very noticeable if you don't. Interesting imagery; who says what when and how, and in what setting (give me credit, I'm trying not to give spoilers here!).

I remember coming out of the second movie speculating about how very attractive our characters were going to be when they grew up. I have not been disappointed! Wow. Even Neville, oh-so-Norman-horsefaced Neville, is... wow. Really handsome.

In reading HP5, I always have the most trouble coping with Umbridge, but in the movie, I was distanced enough that she wasn't too bad. The thing that got me where I live was Kreacher. My grandmother was... a very... special... person. Not the kind of special you want to deal with. There was a shot of him (in the Tapestry Room) where for a moment I was wondering how they got my dead grandmother on film. Kreacher looked like her, sounded like her, acted like her... very disturbing, and I'll leave it at that, but I hope, dear reader, that you get the picture.

I did find out that they have the same director on board for Half-Blood Prince, which is very exciting.

Anyway, off to try to finish this book so I can read Half-Blood Prince again by Friday - and to dream about the House Sweater I've been wanting to make!

Still not dead.

Just not much to blog about.

It's actually being quite hot here in Oregon - well, one day was. Day before yesterday it got to over a hundred... if you don't live here, you should know that it rarely gets higher than the mid 90s! Fortunately the weather's appearing to be ashamed of itself, and has reduced itself to more usual temperatures since.

Given the heat, not much knitting going on! Although I'm thinking hard about picking up my Waving Lace again... Silk/wool will be better to knit in heat than wool alone, right?

Yay!

Got my Ravelry invite. Now I have to learn to use Google Reader finally..

In other news, I finally finished Jaywalker #1 this morning.

Stuff.

I know, I know, I suck for not having posted in a while. I just haven't had much to post about.. not much going on right now that's postable. Knitting is going slowly - the Jaywalker is back about to where it was when I frogged it, I frogged the Sweet Pea (which was too tight as written) to work on later, and the PotW has a few more repeats on it. We've been playing a lot of FFXI lately, which has been a lot of fun, but definitely eats into the knitting time!

The last few days we've been reaming out the apartment and rearranging what's left to make room for my brother and his partner moving in tomorrow. I hate housework. And I hate moving. Happily, I'm not the one shifting domiciles this time! But it's been really good... getting rid of garbage that we've had hanging around through multiple moves, and sorting through and reorganizing the rest has been invigorating, despite my detestation of parting with anything. Not only do I hang on to things I think will be useful, but I'm also very sentimental, and keep things that remind me of events or people. Josh, on the other hand, takes a very bare-bones approach - if we don't need it right now, and it's cheaply/easily replaced, toss it! Lots of garbage, lots of loads to Goodwill, even an item posted to sell on Craigslist... and the bedrooms look almost like we've barely moved in. The front of the place shows two years' occupation, but there hasn't been all that much to edit, just a little reorganization (needs cleaning, too. did I mention I hate housework?).

So that's what's been going on chez moi.

Is sewing the new craze?

Over on MasonDixon today, Kay talked about a fancy new sewing book that a favorite blogger of hers wrote and just had published. Yay for people getting published!

I've seen a lot of cute little books about sewing little bags and things coming out lately, and a lot of knitters picking them up and beginning to sew things from them. Cool, more people sewing, that's good. What's bugging me is that these books are picking up the "hipster crafter" vibe all over again - you know, the annoying "Not your mother's ". Well, I've been sewing a looong time, much longer than I've been knitting seriously, and you know what? It is my mother's sewing. It's my mother's knitting, too. I don't make cute little totes, either, I do complicated period costumery, and believe me, as long as I've been sewing and as experienced and skilled as I am at it, I'm very much still the apprentice at it. Well, ok, maybe more like a journeyman - but by no means am I a master, and I probably never will be, just because I have neither the resources nor the interest to pursue it that deeply. I don't need to do the primary research on my chosen areas of interest - I'm happy to reap the fruits of other people's work. I sometimes feel like I'd like to be able to do more of the heavy-duty research, but I also know that I never will.

I could make cute little totes if I wanted to. But they're boring! Here's a few things that inspire me to sewing:

The Tudor Tailor: absolutely the bee's knees on making and wearing Tudor-era garments.
The Medieval Tailor's Assistant: fantastic instruction on making high medieval garments from the skin out.
Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd: I own this. Somewhere. Primary research at its most amazing.
This lady from my costuming forum. She gets paid to *do* the primary research!

I could go on and on, but I won't. I will try to have patience with all the knitters discovering the delights of sewing, much as I have patience with all the people discovering the delights of knitting. I think it will be much harder, though, since sewing is my foundation.

Can't Sleep, Clowns will Eat Me.

Bleh. Too warm and too wired to sleep. Note to self: large mugs of even mildly caffienated tea in the evening do not sit well anymore.

Presented the Monk Socks today, to much approval by the presentee - he promptly put them on and (to my knowledge) has not yet taken them off, despite it being a warmish night. Yay, the recipe worked! He will doubtless get more along those lines in the future, as budget and knitting time permits.

Frogged the Jaywalker today as well. It was only about halfway up the foot, and I suddenly realized that I did not know if the tight gauge (the yarn seems to want larger needles, for me) and mostly stockinette would even work on his foot; when checked, it did not. So I frogged it, and I plan to restart on a size larger (2s instead of 1s), possibly with a slightly smaller stitch count to compensate, possibly not. Maybe I'll like the yarn a little better at a different gauge; I hope so, I was starting to hate it at the gauge I had been working in. I can't start these until I finish getting the baby sockies off the needles, tho, as I only have the one set of 2s; however, all I have to do on sockie #2 is graft the toe. Yes, I thought grafting would look cute and not be too much trouble, for some wierd reason. No, I don't know what I was on when I decided this. Maybe I'll do it before trying to sleep again.

The season's Knitty came out Monday if you didn't know; it took me all of 24 hours to fail to resist starting these. I had a skein of Cherry Tree Hill in a very orange (but it has purple and red and yellow and stuff too) colorway that was just begging to be used, so I spent the time while my lunch was cooking on Tuesday winding it, and had the pattern memorized by the time I hit the pool before DH was home. Just lovely, I can't wait to be finished!

Yesterday was very productive as well; I finished and felted (fulled?) the bowling bag for my swap buddy. It just needs to dry. Well, and wait for payday to get a zipper and be shipped... details! I have all the bits I'm sending her ready as well, and I know the pattern I want to point her towards; I'm just not sure how I'll do it. Maybe I'll do what my pal did and email it when I let her know it's all together/in the mail. I sure hope she likes it all... I definitely thought about things I would like to receive when I was shopping, even if I couldn't get absolutley the exact items I would have preferred. Speaking of my secret pal, she emailed me to say my package was going into the mail in a few days about 3 weeks ago, but I haven't seen any trace yet; I'm beginning to suspect she must be international! Either that or realized that she was going to make the rest of us look bad by being so on top of things. :-P Having an international pal would be exciting, though.

Must try to sleep nows. Tired and stuff.

Baby Sockies part next

The sockie I have on the needles atm is aimed to fit a ~2-3 month-old with long feet. I said 'daringly' because I usually hate #2s for socks (I think the fabric they make is too loose and rough, but it seems to be not so rough in the Lorna's, and in a baby that's not even crawling yet, the soles aren't going to see much wear)but I wanted a looser fabric for these than I get on #1s. For your (Peggy's) little guy, I would say, do the standard sock-fitting measurements and go from there. I don't know how much is left on your ball(s), but I would guess you can get socks for him. After all, your feet are almost certainly smaller than mine. ^^;

Two books I found invaluable for learning to make socks: The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook and Nancy Bush's Folk Socks. Twisted Sisters I only look at occasionally anymore, I've absorbed all the sock wisdom out of it I need at present, but Folk Socks sits easy to hand at all times, and I still refer to it frequently, for both technique and patterns, and this is 4+ years into my sock-making obsession. Nancy Bush's other socks books are, of course, also great, and I want to own those I don't already, but I think Folk Socks is best for sheer basic technique.

Update replies!

Peggy asked about my baby sockie recipe. No clue how much yarn (by weight) my baby sockies take. I usually go by numbers, and I don't have a scale that'll do yarn (but I want one!). I just take what's left when I'm done with adult socks, and cast on a bunch of stitches - 32 on my current, on standard sock needles. I'm going daringly big this time on #2s. Then I work down the ankle for as many rows as stitches I cast on, turn the heel, do the foot for the same number of rows as the leg, and then do a toe. Depending on the yarn, I can get 2 or more pair out of the end of a ball; Koigu not so much, as my socks out of Koigu take nearly the whole skein per foot. I usually can get a partial sock - each leg or so - out of what's left from even that tho! With this Lorna's Laces, I'll bet I can get a couple pair out of this skein-end. For one thing, it was socks for Josh, and his feet are shorter than mine (big surprise), and for another, skeins of Lorna's are ENORMOUS!!!

No pics of Yarn Harlot (or anything else) until I finish the roll and get it all developed... which will be the beginning of next month at the very soonest (payday, dontcha know). I know, I'm a tease.

The Great Harry Potter re-read has me up to just starting Goblet of Fire. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll end up reading them yet again in July... but hey, I've been running low on reading matter. :(

Uh.. the Oxfam sweater: being that I'm tired of knowing no one here, I decided to take a class at my LYS, to be able to meet a few people and maybe make a friend. Sadly, I'm way past the skill level of just about any of the knitting classes offered anywhere around here (that I know of). However, the free (yay free when you're on a small budget!) class to make a sweater for Oxfam sounded like a good chance. Well.. it turned out I was of course miles beyond the other students in skill, which mostly meant that the instructor had an unexpected teaching assistant. When I asked about classes in advanced techniques, she said, well, nowhere around here, really, but suggested that I practice something on the sweater, since she wants everyone to walk away from the class having learned something. Since I've been wanting to learn entrelac since forever, she suggested I try it out on the sweater, which I did. I think it looks horrible on the sweater, but what can you do, it's acrylic? But I learned entrelac. Now I have to finish the sweater in a relatively timely fashion. >.<

Updates...

The Monk Socks are done. I should photograph them before they go off to their monastic home. I'm still not confident that they'll fit... but that's only because I didn't have their intended feet in front of me. If they work well, I can use the recipe again. :D I actually found (when I sat down in front of the latest disk of House to finish them the other night) that the second sock was exactly the right length, compared to the first one. So I cast off and enjoyed sarcasm and medical oddities without distraction. And ate chocolate.

I need to spend today working seriously on my Oxfam sweater. I need 9 inches of body length before class this afternoon, and I have 7 1/2, if measured generously. This is a trial because the yarn I selected feels like it was made from saran wrap - great for keeping food, crapola for knitting. But I learned entrelac! Pretty much everything else is on the back burner until my homework on this is done.

My Jaywalkers for Josh and my small-gauge Waving Lace are progressing slowly... they both got a couple inches this weekend. But they're definitely low on the priority list right now. I also started a new pair of baby sockies; my dear friends brought their 2-month old to visit from New Mexico. It was raining, and chilly, and I couldn't let them leave without trying some of the baby things I've made out of ends of sock balls over the years. The Baby Surprise Jacket (Koigu)? Perfect. The sockies (random German or Italian self-fair-isle-patterned)? Great fit, yarn was too scratchy. So, I assured them that the socks would soften with washing, grabbed the end of some Lorna's and had cast on for a new pair of sockies practically before they hit the freeway north to the next set of relatives. I may be able to get them posted before my friends head home; we'll see. First I have to stop distracting myself from the Oxfam with blogging (and laundry, and my other Monday chores...).

Duuuuude...

..it was awesome. And I got to hold the sock! And I have photographic proof!

Which y'all will have to wait to see til I finish the roll and get it developed.

*gloats*

We're off to see the Harlot, the wonderful Harlot of Yarn...

*ahem*

I'm so smart. My digicam's still dead, but I remembered that my regular camera still works just fine, and while it was a few shots from the end (kitty and knitted things took care of that!), I did in fact have an untouched roll of film in my desk drawer. So I'll be able to take pics tonight. Yay!

Entrelac is fiddly but easy... why, I wonder, did I put off learning it so long? Oh, well, the learning swatch I'm making will have a place of honor in the sock yarn afghan I'll eventually make enough squares for. Maybe I'll make more entrelac squares, this one's been a good small project.. but horrors, that would take away from sock knitting time! Maybe now I knw why I never did any before.

Weirdly, it took me 3 days to finish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Such a short book would usually take me an afternoon or so... Maybe I was slightly bored from having read it so many times (although I did pick up a few significant lines this time that I didn't really notice before), maybe it's because I've been so tired this week I haven't really wanted to read! zomg! You know I'm really flattened when I don't want to read.

Anyway, enough blogging, back to my Oxfam sweater!

And so begins...

...the great Harry Potter re-read of 2007, in anticipation of book 7 coming out in.. a month and a half? Should give me plenty of time to drag through Book 5 and its teenage angst.

In other news, I am finally learning entrelac.

Super Sox Contest #3

Ok, ok, I'll bite. I think my ideal summer knitting right now would be MasonDixon's After-Dark Nightie and Robe in the suggested colors of Euroflax. Every girl (I use the term advisedly) can use another pretty slip/nightie/slinky dress, right? Plus I absolutely adore working with and wearing linen! Well, I've never knit with it.. and I'm pretty sure that its inflexibility would give my incipient carpal fits (that is, make it less incipient). But for linen, I would happily endure the pain!

Too bad I just blew my yarn budget (and then some!) on my buddy. BUT she will have the honor of receiving my very first felted object! I hope she likes the colors I chose... I promise to get pics! and get them developed! and post them! (After my buddy gets it, of course.) stupid broken digicam...

Ew.

I just wanted to state for the record that I think there's something really obscene about how the foot of a toe-up sock dangling while you knit the leg looks.

For Tay

Because you wanted proof.

Edit 5/31: For inquiring minds, my mother and I designed the dress (9 hours apart!) after the dresses Arwen wears in the Lord of the Rings movies (she's annoying, but her dresses are gorgeous!). Since I didn't really want to mess with silk velvet while afflicted with wedding brain, I asked my mother to make it. Besides, she's a better seamstress than I am.

Isn't it funny...

..how when you're happily hip-deep in knitting, with projects to finish and projects to start that all have deadlines, that you get caught up in completely non-knitting projects?

The weather is lovely today, so lovely that I began to think about pulling out and wearing one of my favorite medieval-styled gowns. It's (gosh!) nearly ten years old now, and much-worn and -loved. It's also probably not going to live another ten years, since it's made of handkerchief-weight linen, which is now starting to wear holes at some seams. Although it's starting to wear thin in the fabric, it's actually mostly intact. I've had to repair and alter it a few times - the different-colored gores and guards I put on it to honor my foster father, the patches where the sleeves started to shred in the wash, etc. Well, I pulled it out today, and put it on, and was startled to find that it no longer fits as it used to! I've added some curves here and there, but as recently as maybe a year ago it was loose in all those places still..

Well, I don't mind a few womanly curves here and there, and my husband sure doesn't, either. ;p So, I'm taking this as an opportunity to do some refurbishing I've been dreaming about for some time now. I've already taken off the sleeves and the band of black around the neck. My current plan is to drop the neckline a couple of inches (it was always maybe a bit too modest) and add new, shorter sleeves.. same weight linen, but yet another different color, probably navy (because that's the color of the scraps I saw while I was tooling around in those bits earlier). So the gown will end up faded orange (the original color), with faded black gores and new dark navy sleeves. I'm ok with that. It's meant to be comfortable, not fancy!