Monday, April 10, 2006
Koigu yarn, all wound up
So I'm a little late to the party, but better late than never. The winder is to a knitter like the Kitchen Aid is to the baker. Why did I wait so long to get one why?
Spring is in the air you guys. I can almost smell it, I can almost taste it. I was just out on the town (buying this winder and having sushi for lunch, yum) and there are daffodils in places where there was just dirt, and pink magnolias on once barren trees, and in my own backyard, the fluffy heads of peonies making a showing. Woooooooo. I am in a grand mood at the prospect of nice weather, that it has prompted me to devise a What I Will Do This Spring/Summer List, 2006:
- Go to at least 5 Red Sox games.
I'm totally into baseball this season, don't ask me why. I don't usually start following or caring in earnest until around August, but this year I've already watched/listened to all six games so far.
- Have a clambake.
Or at least, boil own lobster in kitchen.
- More weekdays lounging at Singing Beach.
- Knit a three-quarter sleeved cardigan using Mirto yarn, in a chevron pattern.
I've been thinking about this one a lot. I want to use Mirto yarn again very badly.
- Go biking on Carriage Road in Acadia National Park, Maine
- Go sea kayaking.
- Go strawberry-picking.
- Bake a strawberry banana cake.
- Attend at least one Tanglewood concert.
- Plant more mint for mint juleps and mojitos.
- Throw at least two barbeques.
- Eat more peaches.
Speaking of peaches, I'm headed to Georgia for an extended stay at my parents' at the end of the month. They are (possibly) putting the house on the market by the end of the year, and I thought it would be nice to hang out in my hometown for more than a couple of days like I usually do. You know, just relax, cook, knit and sew (?!?) with my mom, garden with my dad, go to a Braves game with my high school friends...And I'll still be able to work from my parents' house. While there we're going to make sidetrips to Savannah and the GA islands. I haven't decided which. Mmmm, Spanish moss...bumblebees...azaleas...magnolias...warm southern rays...
Filed Under: General Knitting | Life
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
The bad news is it's snowing, the biggest, fluffiest snow all year. Hi it's April.
The good news is, I have heel, and it's a short row heel!
I had been following this pattern for the toe-up Jaywalkers. I was 2 rounds into the gusset directions, when I thought to myself, Blah blah blah so much instructions for the heel. Must I have a gusset/turned heel/heel flap? Just because the original pattern had it cuff-down, must it be mirrored toe-up?
'Course not! I'm a rebel!
So I ripped back the two rows, and using these great instructions for a generic toe-up pattern, started a short row heel. It turned out great, fit great, and was so EASY I couldn't stand it. Hells yeah I'll do another short row heel! Give it to me! No more finagling with heel flaps, or picking up stitches.
However, I didn't much like knitting the wrapped stitches - TWO wrapped stitches really - which you do when you start increasing back to your original number of stitches. Knitting three stitches together was a pain in the ass and didn't look all that great. I still had little holes.
Gappy short row heel.
I quick search on the Internet and I found another short-row method called the Sherman Heel that works for both the toe and the heel, and involves only 2 wrapped stitches. (There's another tutorial here, for knitting cuff-down.) I'll see how it works on the matching sock.
La la la la I love you short row heel!
Elemmaciltur called it way back when, he did, when he said that I would unevitably be bitten by the sock bug. I really doubted it, but I underestimated just how big and virulent this bug would be. So OK YOU'RE RIGHT I ADMIT IT SOCK ARE FUN YOU HAPPY NOW?! Hee hee. And no I haven't increased my sock stash any more. I did trade in the two skeins of lavender Koigu I bought last week for two skeins of CORAL Koigu. It's lovely and the color is so strawberry-daiquiri edible.
OK I have got to get back to work. The sock has been banished to the next room to avoid distraction and temptation...
Filed Under: Socks
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
It's a dreary spring day out, but inside it looks pretty cheery, with my vase of daffodils, and new Jaywalkers, toe up!
I wanted to see how the Regia crazy color would knit up, and just had to try the toe up method, so I set aside starting my second Pomatomus sock and casted on my first provisional cast on for the toe. What fun! Before I knew it, 4 episodes of 24 had passed and I had nearly an entire foot.
I give knitting toe up a big toes up. See how I did that there? Heh heh. I like being able to try the sock as I go along, but most of all I like that I'm starting right off the bat with the actual "socky" part of the sock when knitting toe up. Part of my problem with knitting socks, besides the toothpick needles, is the ribbing for the cuff - so slow and boring - and then working down the leg when I all want to do is get to the heel, foot, toe already. The juicy meaty parts of the sock.
Changes I made to accommodate using 6ply yarn and size 3 needles: I casted on 24 stitches and short-rowed to 8 for the toe. For the sole I have 24 stitches and for the instep I have 26, which means I work chevron pattern over 13 stitches. When I reach the cuff I plan to have 52 stitches total.
So far it fits well. Actually it fits amazingly well, considering I dived right in without nary a swatch, heh heh. My approach for better or for worse is that while I modify every pattern I do - yarn change, needle change, width change - I never swatch before I do it. I eyeball a little, guestimate a little, scratch out some algebra a little, then jump right in a lot, and the end results almost always come out fine. That is my one little knitting superpower :)
I am approaching the gusset now. I might have knitted the foot too long before getting to this point but we shall see. And we shall really see if my haphazard pattern modifications hold up. If all goes swimmingly I will have a MATCHING pair of socks in record time, and might even begin to admit that I enjoy knitting socks, heh.
In case you're wondering about the progress of Cate, there hasn't been any. At all. Sad face. Soon Cate soon.
Filed Under: Socks
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Not a matching pair, but a pair.
The toes on the Pomatomus sock is a little crazy. It's very pointy/triangular and I've got dog ears. Hmm. These socks were looking real good and I was feeling great about them until the toes. Oh well, practice practice. I'll do less toe decreases with the mate.
I might give these away to my sister-in-law (who is a general sock lover) for her birthday and make one for myself in a solid color. Still not totally into the variegated colors, even for Pomatomus.
It's been a beautiful Spring weekend. Friday afternoon we went biking on the Minuteman Trail and I did my usual pit stop at W!ld & W00ly, which is just off the trail. I traded in the one skin of Regia Miniringel in that hideous rainbow bright colorway you see up there, for another Miniringel in a much less controversial colorway. They only had that one skein, but it'll be enough for a pair of low cuff socks.
Also tomorrow I think I'm going to exchange that lavender Koigu I purchased for one in greenish-yellow. Or something else. I have too many purpley/bluey yarn.
And tomorrow since I have to go into the office for a meeting, I will be 3 blocks away from Winzdor Bu++ons. Oh I know all about the WB. I think their yarn selection is starting to rival their button selection. Very impressive.
Filed Under: Socks
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Clearly something has happened and I now love socks, right, because how else do you explain this little pile, this little pile that some might call the beginnings of a stash, of sock yarn?
Regia Crazy Color in Bonbon and some Koigu
At the same time, why do I find myself again straining to finish the rest of my first PotamtowoasjfsPochahontas sock? (Maybe because I can't ever friggin remember what it's called??)
Look at my pretty pretty scales.
For whatever reason I am just determined to make a pair of socks. It. Must. Happen. Truth be told I'm enjoying Potomac quite a bit. Thumbs up on the merino sock yarn (so soft), love the twisted ribbing, love the scallops. My problem seems to be when I turn the heel, I feel like I'm on the home stretch, woooo yeah a finished sock is in sight! but really the party is only getting started. One is in for the long haul when one finishes the heel and the gusset, and is faced with finishing the rest of the foot. That part is murder on my psyche. It's where I am now.
But I will finish I will I WILL.
So what's up with the yarn stash, you ask. Well for one, I am super obsessed with self-striping yarn. Even though I'm not 100% about knitting socks, I am 100% about self-striping sock yarn. I approve of the concept. That you see up there is Regia Crazy Color in Bonbon! which I got on sale at littleknits.com. The good thing about this yarn, aside from the color which is like hundred million gazillion times better than the first sock yarn I bought, is that it's 6 ply. Yes my friends, read it and weep. I can knit fun socks in well-mannered stripes using #3 or #4 needles and my knuckles will be happy.
I also recently bought Koigu sock yarn. I will admit this was more of a "charity" than a gotta-have-it purchase. Sigh. Do I even want to get into this...? OK, long story short, I was out walking on NewburyStreet and decided to duck into N3wbury Y4rn$. (Sorry for the f'ed up typing but I don't want this page to come up on a search. Because I might say some sad things about the store. Henceforth I will refer to it as NY)
I go in this store, praying that there is at least one other patron in there so that I don't feel totally guilty if I walk out of there empty handed. Does that happen to you? Go into a tiny store, two pairs of eyes watching you, wondering what you'll do next, and you feel obligated to make some sort of move that will ultimately involve an exchange of money? Or am I the only sucker here?
95% of the time I go in, NY is devoid of patrons but stocked to the ceiling with yarn. On this day, the store was empty save for the owner, her daughter who was at the table planning her wedding, and her mother who was knitting. The owner's on the phone with a supplier, telling supplier to "hold my order on such-and-such because it has been so slow and I'm not moving inventory. I'm sorry to have to do this to you again."
A little family business without any business! It makes me upset.
So there's the Koigu sitting in my stash.
Seriously I don't understand what she's doing wrong. But something is amiss. W00Lcott & Co in Harvard Square isn't much bigger, isn't any better stocked than NY. But there are always people in there. I'm actually not a fan of W00Lcott because they never have what I'm looking for, and most of all, their inventory/cash register system is a bloody nightmare. Lady spent 20 minutes once trying to process a return of a single ball of yarn because she couldn't find it in the system, and this for Cashmerino Aran.
She's like, "I'm sorry, people just enter yarn names differently and so I'm having trouble finding it." I'm like, WHERE IS YOUR LASER BAR CODE READER? Why is there SO MUCH TYPING?
Anyway, what is NY doing wrong? Aside from arranging her yarn by color so it's hard to find shit? Can that be its only downfall? It's in a great location, center of town, steps away from the subway, coffeeshops, antique shops, and other fine stores like...Cartier and Burberry. Is that the problem? All the people roaming up and down Newbury won't give a little knitting store even a single glance, among all the 'glitz'?
Whatever the case, I'm not married to any one local yarn store in my area, so I might as well try to go to this one more often (I have definitely said this before). And curb the online purchases.
Maybe you area knitters could patron NY a little now and then too? You know, before your lunch date at the Armani Cafe?
In some fun, positive, feline news...Kitty has finally gotten with the program and started writing about her knitting endeavors on her blog. Check it out. It seems like just yesterday that she showed me a picture of her wobbly stitches, and now she's already making her first adult-cat sweater. And some other cool stuff. You just know that as a kitten she was the first in her litter to climb to the very top of the tree. Makes a mama cat proud.
Filed Under: General Knitting | Socks | Pomatomus
Friday, March 24, 2006
I'm a little sickly. Sniffle sniffle. I'm also a little bit riddled with ADD. I've only been doing a few rows of Cate per night. This should be a fast knit but the black yarn is putting me to sleep.
I haven't given up on socks just yet, trying out Thuja with some left over yarn from Cabled Toad on size 5 needles. This one was super quick. I also barely knitted a cuff. I was feeling good about knitting socks but alas, I became lazy and bored at the end and did a 3-needle bindoff instead of grafting the toes. There is only one Toad Sock.
Then I decided to do some stitch swatching from my Japanese stitch book. This stitch pattern always catches my eye.
 
Tufts of Grass Stitch (4 stitch repeat): k, k3tog but do not slip stitch off needle, yarn-foward, k3tog into stitch again.
You knit 3 together, but before sliding the stitch off the left needle, you do a yarn-over, and then knit into the 3 stitches again. The resulting stitch looks like a tuft of grass. I separated each of the grass pattern with a knit stitch, worked the next row straight, and then repeated the grass pattern again. It creates a nice sort of beveled diagonal this way. I also tried knitting more rows between the stitch pattern row. A different look, but also very pretty.
Maybe I'll use this stitch for a sock someday. I tell you I'm serious about getting my sock groove on. Check out my newest sock endeavor.
It's Potato. I mean Hippopotamus. I mean Pomatomus. Whatever it's called, it's all the rage. The sock yarn is from this seller on ebay. I still much prefer self-striping sock yarn above all others but I think the pattern looks that much more scale-like in this sort of variegated color. Makes it look all iridiscent, as scales are. I already made a mistake on this though, by starting the 1x1 rib with a K instead of a P. So the rib isn't lining up with the scale pattern. Oops.
Hopefully I can get something finished here. I'm still on the lookout for my next sweater project - perhaps a little cotton cardigan for spring. Speaking of cardigans, Kim Hargreaves is like, buck WILD about cardigans isn't she. They're pretty, but at the same time, they're boring. Collection after collection of cardigans, zzzzzzz...and all of them are like a variation of another, sometimes a not so subtle variation. Like the this cardigan from the spring collection looks nearly exactly like this cardigan from the first collection. She puzzles me.
Filed Under: General Knitting | Socks | Pomatomus
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
(The scene: Kitty's boyfriend has just had several wisdom teeth wrassled out of his mouth. He is swollen and groggy.)
Kitty: HAHA I've just employed some practice knitting to hold his ice packs in place.
Me: Oh yeah?
Kitty: I made a nice little tube the other day, just the right size for his head and two bags of frozen cranberries.
Me: Take a picture PLEASE. Then I will put it on website for all to see
Kitty: I have to ask permission... he's a little grumpy right now.
Me: I'll black out his eyes to protect his identity.
Kitty: I just asked permission and he flipped me off. I'll wait until he's asleep.
A few moments later...
Kitty: He's asleep now. Maybe it's camera time.
Me: Heh heh do it do it. Turn the flash off. Shhhhh.
Kitty: Just did it.
Sends photo...
Kitty's Brace Holds the Crans in Place!
Taken without consent due to unconsciousness.
Me: HAHAHA!
Kitty: HAHAHA!
Filed Under: General Knitting
Friday, March 17, 2006
Remember this, my knitting muse?
 
Left: Blouse from anthropologie. Right: Beginnings of Cate in Kidsilk Haze
This is progress from the last 3 weeks. Whadya think so far? Kinda sorta like the original? I spent 2 of that swatching about a dozen different patterns for the hem, all of them some type of lace, all of them abandoned because I just couldn't make up my mind which looked best. It was hard to judge with the black yarn. Then I reminded myself that the reason why I was drawn to this blouse in the first place was because of its minimalist straight lines. It was settled: plain ol' stockinette and reverse stockinette.
For the reverse stockinette rows in the hem, I held yarn double for more visible stripes. Same for the thick vertical stripes in the body.
I worked the hem in size 3 needles, then switched to size 6 for the body, which I will make a little long, and no shaping. I want it to drape some over the hem/obi. I might make this a boatneck too.
It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. Honestly at the start, after finishing the hem, I was feeling rather unenthusiastic about it. But as the fabric grows, so does my opinion of it.
And I've named this Cate, as in Cate Blanchett. I love that actress and the name. Simple and clean. Normally I'd say that "Kate" looks better than "Cate", but "Kate" now leads me to "Katie" which then leads me to "Tom" which then makes me think "crazy wackjob" and my knit deserves better associations.
In other news, I just discovered through my referral logs that I am a member of some "Southern Knit Bloggers" webring. How odd, considering I never signed up to join and I am not southern. Not at the moment. Not southern geographically anyways. (I grew up in various parts of the Deep South: Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia)
I'm not politically southern either. Most definitely not religiously southern.
Nor linguistically, for that matter, although I did use to say things like "fixin' to," like "I'm fixin' to go to the store," but then I came up North for college and got laughed at.
Maybe I'm a little southern gastronomically speaking...but only for very NICHE southern dishes like boiled crawfish and beignets.
But Oh I'm DEFINITELY southern climatically speaking. Every single year around this time, when March rolls around, I begin hyperventilating because March up north heralds not the start of spring, but the start of THREE MORE MONTHS of cold, hard, barren and perhaps even snowy blizzardy weather. Spring is what, this Monday right? I'm going to be scratching my eyes out in 30 degree weather. Where are all the bees? Where is all the pollen? The wonderful faint scent of WISTERIA in the air? Not here my friends, not here. And then I threaten to move back south.
Sigh. If only Boston had Atlanta weather, or if only Atlanta looked more like Boston.
Filed Under: Cate
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