Still here.

I meant to post last Saturday, after having a blast at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Fest, but I got my pictures all wibbly (trying to post them, not the pictures themselves) and gave up from exhaustion. I keep meaning to post.. I do have pics, both of the stash I acquired and of the people (including the lovely and brilliant Peggy and her adorable boys), and someday I will post them! I promise! But this week I've had some life rear up and grab me, and it has been both distracting and fatiguing, so I have not done so yet. Maybe I'll just post the pics to Flickr and post a link here...

Spun out...

How is it that time slips away so fast when you're trying to figure out what to do with yourself? It's almost 10 days since I last posted, and I feel like I've done nothing in that time. That's not true, of course - just look at my pile of F.O.s and almost F.O.s.. I'm almost done with my Celtic Swan socks;just need the toe on the second, and I suppose I should see about washing and blocking them - as much as I ever block socks, that is. I made a hat out of the gorgeous Merino/Tencel I won in that MasonDixon contest, and I'm almost finished with a Scholar Collar-type scarf out of the rest. I figure I"ll just use the rest of the ball on the scarf, and it'll be nice and snuggly.



I promise, it's much longer now!



I've been haunting the spinning section on Knittyboards lately, and this morning dug out the basket with my spindle and wool. After pulling out a section of the last fluff of a chunk of sliver I had, and reminding myself how to spin, I got the carders out as well as the random fleece I was given... um... musta been at that Stitches about 4 years ago? I'm not sure what kind of wool it is, but I"m beginning to suspect merino, given its softness and the shortness of the locks. I carded three rolags and spun them, and really surprised myself with how much I"ve picked up about controlling my draft and such.





I'm really looking forward to going to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival next weekend. While the monies are low, I'm kinda hoping to pick up a couple of tools - like a nostepinne, and maybe another spindle or a Viking comb - and some spinnables.

Hot Diggity!

I am such a good cook. I say this not because I'm bragging (much), but because I am. For dinner tonight I made Leek and Potato soup, with flatbread (made from homemade pizza dough) on the side. YUM! a big bowl of soup for each of us later, and I had enough left over to put TWO containers in the freezer!

It's really too bad I don't have the energy (mental, physical, whatever) to cook like that every night. I wish I did. We would eat so much more healthily if I did!

Amy Carpenter's Round Dishcloth. A very easy, pleasant knit, even when I found I needed to make seven sections, not six or five, to make it lie flat.

I am so enjoying having a camera again!

Knitting story for Peggy

I’ve known how to knit most of my life, but what got me going as a KNITTER was my first pair of socks. I was at Stitches West four and a half years ago (wow, that long?!) and found some yum-tastic Louet Gems Merino - fingering weight, not sport - in a gorgeous dark purple. I met my first Brittany Birch needles there, too. Anyway, I made Mom buy me the yarn (poor college student b(^_^) ) and rushed home and opened my copy of Knitting Without Tears to see what EZ had to say about socks - and haven’t looked back. Those socks weren’t very well made; the gauge was awful, I made an accidental YO right under the ball of one foot so that they had a huge hole in just a few months, but I loved them.

I would attribute my continuing passion to two books. The first is the Twisted Sisters’ Sock Workbook, and the second is Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks. I still refer to both.

Cross posted from my comments here.

Soooo Cuuuuuuuuuute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was just taking a couple shots of my current socks (for the nice lady at Celtic Swan Forge), and mah kitteh had to come investigate.

Peppar likes to investigate; here she is investigating my dear friend's baby Megan. Megan is styling my very first BSJ; this picture was taken two months ago, and I doubt she can wear it anymore!

Flickr Pics

Took a few more shots, posted on Flickr here.

Yay Camera!

I haven't posted in a while, but I've been knitting a lot! I finished my Monkeys (no pics of them yet, but soon, I promise!) and cast on for a pair I'm going to trade to the nice lady at Celtic Swan Forge for a set of spiffy hand-forged dpns.

Even more exciting, though, is that I finally have a digital camera again! So if you go check out my Ravelry listings, you can now see some pretty pics of the projects I've been working on recently! I'm very excited to finally be able to do this again, and the camera is a very nice one, which is even more exciting. :)

First Sock Syndrome?

Most knitters have heard of Second Sock Syndrome - where you make a first sock, and then when it comes to making the second, you're bored or frustrated or whatever so you can't stand the thought of making it. Startitis is another common ailment, where you're so excited about starting things you don't get around to getting past the start of several or many projects. I've been known to have a mild case of startitis now and again, but I've never really had much of an issue with SSS.

Well, I don't have either of those, but I keep re-knitting first socks over and over. The Harlot would say, why worry, it's all knitting, and with my limited stash, knitting a first sock 3 or 4 times with the same yarn keeps me occupied for weeks without using up precious yarn. I'm a perfectionist, though, and frogging and reknitting so many times is.. distressing.

It started with my greenurple Lorna's Laces socks I finally finished a few months ago. It was a new yarn to me, and with two coordinating but mismatched skeins I had to experiment to find not only the gauge I liked with it, but also a pattern that would use the colorways to best effect. It took several tries! I started with a pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks, but decided it wasn't working so well for me, so I frogged that and tried again with the pattern I finally made them in... and because of the tight gauge, it took me a while to finish them (my poor damaged hands!).

Then I got some KnitPicks Gloss that I started making Nancy Bush's Chalet Socks with.. and got about halfway down the first before deciding the pattern was too much work for me, and I dropped that sock and started over with the yarn on a Waving Lace variation. Due to gauge issues, I frogged those about 3 times... so I really started that pair 4 times! I have yet to frog the started Chalet Sock, but I finally finished the Waving Lace a couple of weeks ago - 3 months! For a pair of socks! Ridiculous! Exclamation points!!!

At the same time I got the Gloss, I also bought some Memories in a couple of colorways, one for Josh, one for me. I decided to make Jaywalkers out of Josh's.. and ran into several issues with the first version. I started it on #1s (my standard needle for socks, as I don't like the fabric anything bigger makes in most fingering weight yarn). First off, I didn't like the feel of the yarn through my fingers. It felt almost plasticky, especially compressing it down to work on the #1s. Then I noticed that the yarn itself - made of several plies, not the two-ply I'm most used to after several years of working as much with Koigu as possible - was catching on one of the needles. What was happening was that the imprint on one of my beloved Brittany Birch shorts had cut into the wood just enough to barely catch on the yarn. Well... I could live with this. AND THEN... about halfway down the foot - the standard place I try socks on for length - I decided it was time for a fitting. This was the worst news yet! The fabric of this sock is almost completely stockinette, and on the bias, at that, which makes it far less giving that the lace and ribs I was used to. It was too tight! (Smart readers will have seen this coming.) I nearly gave up on the socks then and there, but my yarn budget is so slender that I really can't afford to not use any. So... I frogged and reknit on size 2 needles. Muuuuuch better. The yarn, allowed to be fluffier (the fabric on the #1s was too tight for the yarn), no longer feels plasticky, the colorway stripes better, and the socks fit! I'm still not in love with the pattern, and at this writing have only forced myself just past the heel on sock #2. I have them designated as TV knitting - when I'm curled up on the couch watching TV, those are what I'm supposed to be knitting, nothing else right now. I don't follow that all the time, but I do enough that the socks should be done by the time cold weather hits (well, cold weather as in fall/winter with the rain and the frost and the occasional snow, not merely a Pacific Northwest summer with fog and threatened rain).

This brings me to my current active socks (ok, the Jaywalkers are active, but they're not what I'm excited about, so they don't count. ;-P). I purchased a skein of Cherry Tree Hill - closest I can get to Koigu from my nearest LYS (and don't get me started on that place!) a few months ago, and it landed in stash until I a) figured out what to do with it and b) cleared some projects from my plate. I almost succeeded in that, but then the June Knitty came out and I fell in love with the Sweet Pea socks. Setting the Waving Lace and the Jaywalkers and the other projects I have going aside (non of which I've finished yet, btw, including the Oxfam sweater), I immediately cast on and dashed through to my standard try-on point, where I discovered that yes, 4 stitches less at that gauge really does make a difference. *sigh* RIP-IT! RIP-IT! Then I finished my Waving Lace... and Becky posted her Monkeys. I'd been considering the pattern for a while, and decided the time was right. So I cast on while we were driving my brother to the airport... worked eagerly all that week... and right about the time we were beginning to talk money at the car dealership (oh yeah, we had to buy a new-to-us car last week. Sux0riffic.), I had the foot finished up to the toe. Now, talking money at the car dealership is not a good time to pull your sweaty stinky foot out of your Birkenstock to try on your sock, so I had to wait until I got home to discover that - you guessed it - it was too tight! Disdaining the directions as written (I did mention my dislike for the fabric from #2s?), I had decided in my infinite wisdom that the pattern is lacy enough that I would be just fine with my usual #1s. Boy was I wrong! There is far too much plain knitting (and not enough ribbing) in the pattern for it to stretch over my size 11 heels when knit on my usual #1 gauge! I did manage to discover that I really liked the fit over my feet, though. RIP-IT! RIP-IT! And reknit.. with #2s on the legs and heel flap, swap to #1s on the foot, and I started sock #2 last night! This pattern I am in love with.. although I'm beginning to think that the Monkey referred to in the name is not the hairy primate, but rather the vicious Monkey Puzzle tree the Victorians so loved. Those things is dangerous!

To make this long rambling story short, I've been learning a lot about gauge, and getting a lot of knitting, out of it, but not so many socks.

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.