Plays With Yarn

I am a weak, weak knitter.

I have some advice for y'all. Trust me, I am just trying to save you money here. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, ever, EVER touch Touch Me. For this is what will happen:

(On an unrelated note...how ugly is that wallpaper?)

On my trip to Purl Diva, I succumbed to the joy of the Touch Me. What shall it be? Why, Vintage Velvet from Scarf Style, of course. I'm going to cast on as soon as I finish this post. It was expensive, but I am going to enjoy every minute I spend knitting it. Happy birthday to me.

But I'm not just drooling over yarn...I've finished a couple of things in the past couple of days (with another one coming up as soon as I felt it)

Pattern: Lady Eleanor Stole, from the aforementioned Scarf Style
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, color 84, 9 skeins if I remember right

I couldn't get a good closeup of the entrelac...I'm still learning my new camera, and the flash always gets the silk too shiny. This stole has gotten a lot of use lately, because our house is old and drafty. I didn't block it overly carefully, or do any finishing on it at all because I kind of like the slight waviness of the edges of the entrelac. I need to pay more attention to my tension on the set-up and final row of triangles, because the ends flare out a bit. Oh, well, next time.

Pattern: Beaded Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, 70 stitches, toe-up, short-row toe and heel
Yarn: Opal Rainforest in Parrot

These have been in my WIP pile for ages, and finally I was sick of looking at them and just decided to get them DONE already. They wound up being a bit narrow for my monster feet, so I gave them to Kelly. The minute I handed them to her, they were on her feet. I guess she likes :-)

I'd wanted to post pictures today, but my camera batteries are dead already. I think I got 20 pictures at most out of that set of batteries. Grr. Next camera I get is going to be rechargeable. There's problems with that too, but I've never had any problems with anything I've had with a rechargeable internal battery (Palm, iPod, etc.) Yes, this was an inexpensive camera, but eventually buying so many damn AA batteries isn't going to be cost-efficient. (Along with the irritation of having to change the batteries so often.)

(Yes, Natalie, that was the Trekking you bought me. I love the way it knit up!)

Seems I have way too many projects going right now, and I'm still planning new ones. I just need to finish something first! I want to make a baby blanket for a friend (still deciding what yarn to use...I'll probably buy some Shine from Knitpicks or some of the new Cotton Ease), Icarus (I have two laceweights in stash to choose from, but I'll probably end up using the Spunky Eclectic one I just bought), two hats, one for me and one for my best friend, since we both bought new coats and neither of us has a hat that matches, there are probably 4 or 5 sweaters from Big Girl Knits that I want to make....seriously. The list keeps going. (Not to mention all the socks I want to make. Even though I have 3 pairs in various stages of progress right now.)

Goal: To not start anything else before I finish at least one project.

Yeah, right. We'll see if that happens.

Plans for the rest of break, and knitting goals for the year

One of my blogging goals: come up with wittier entry titles :-)

Break is one more week, and I want to finish up some projects. I have a pair of socks going that I'm already sick of (the yarn is really sort of ugly, and I'm sick of looking at it), so I want to get those done before school starts again so I can put a more attractive sock in my bag for the bus ride to and from work. I'd also like to work on the sampler stole I started last March, and make a couple more hats for the winter that refuses to start. (That just means that when it finally does show up...whoa, Nelly!) I also finished a scarf last night that needs blocking, which with any luck I'll do tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll also post some pictures if I'm lucky, as it seems my camera is on its way out of this life. I should probably think about getting a new one soon. I've heard good things about Nikon and Canon.

Goals for the year:

1. Make myself a sweater
2. Assign a project to every bit of yarn in my stash, and stop buying yarn for the sake of having yarn (I've noticed I tend to collect for the sake of collecting, in many facets of my life, and that's something I'd really like to get under control, in the hopes of simplifying)
3. Knit something for a friend who is having a baby in July
4. Finish the sampler stole
5. Learn Fair Isle and (possibly) intarsia

Well, off to do...something. I will either work on the ugly sock, wind the yarn I bought to make a Calorimetry out of, or (maybe, since I'm sort of tired) work on the Sampler Stole.

There hasn't been posting...

...because there hasn't really been knitting. I promise I'm going to be better, because the semester is getting busier, so I'll need the destressing that knitting brings me.

I'm having a variation of SSS on the two pairs I'm working on right now. The second socks of both pairs have been started, but I'm having problems forcing myself to work on them. I told Suz the other night that I can't get myself to work on them, but I'd feel really guilty about starting yet another pair of socks. It doesn't help that I keep breaking the needles that the stockinette socks are on. Note to self: size 0 Brittanys? Not the best idea in the world.

If I weren't so damn bored with these socks, I'd take and post WIP pictures *yawn*

In the mail last week, I received a package from a man who posts to the AppleAddict forums who knits. He and his wife had recently become vegan and had a bunch of wool still in their stash, and he offered to send me some. I expected a few balls, but what I got was a 12"x12"x12" (approx.) box stuffed FULL. It contained things like Kureyon, Baby Cashmerino, Regia sock yarn (!), and enough Wool-Ease in mushroom to make a me-sized sweater. I know I don't usually work with Wool-Ease, but this is one of the heathery colors, so it feels softer to me. I'm swatching tonight for the Purple Haze cardigan from Knit Wit. It's a basic long-sleeved buttonless cardigan with optional belt. It looks quite basic and cozy.

So the stash has gotten bigger, again. One of these days I'm going to have to really prune, again.

I think Rosedale is going to be frogged. I'm just not excited by the combination of that pattern and that color of Silk Garden. I think I'm going to end up putting together something Klaralund-inspired with it.

Vacation!

So the hardest part of packing for a vacation is deciding what knitting projects to bring along, right?

I have a couple of possibilities...one is Kelly's Soleil. I got the yarn the other day, and since it's only 6 skeins of Knitpicks Shine, it won't be too heavy or take up too much room. I thought about bringing Rosedale, but I'm having enough problems knitting it here where it's only been about 80...it's forecast to be in the mid 90s down in Missouri. Besides, the quicker I get Soleil done, the quicker Kelly can wear it...even if I finished Rosedale tomorrow, I couldn't do anything with it.

I'm also thinking socks (of course), but those take a little planning, because I'm not going to have net access down there *cry* and thus can't look up a random pattern when I decide to make some socks. I have a couple patterns assigned to certain sock yarn, but of course those patterns are in the largest sock pattern book I own. Of course, it's highly likely I'll make it to campus before I go, and thus can photocopy said patterns. Yes, I'm an idiot sometimes when it comes to things that are common sense to everyone else. Also, socks don't take up much room either.

I thought about dishcloths too, but I did those on my trip to San Francisco. I need something different. (I might take some of the many I've made and leave them there for my aunt. We're not going to use them all in a million years.)

I'm hoping to have the Dublin Bay socks and Tychus done by then (Tychus especially is good knitting-while-reading, and DB will be when I get to the foot, I'm nearly done with the heel flap now), so those aren't even options.

Any thoughts?

*emerges from the ashes*

Yep, it's been almost a week since I've posted in the blog. I don't have anything earthshattering going on...I still haven't sewn together and felted my bag, I have to keep restarting the Dublin Bay socks (once to modify the pattern for a 64 stitch cast on, once because I keep forgetting the last YO on the lace panels), and I've given up on using the gray Encore Chunky for a sweater. It's just too...well, chunky. So it's going back up on my destash page once I get home and get some pictures off the camera. I've also been spending a lot of time reading lately...gotta brush up on the Harry Potter before HBP comes out next month!

I did, however, go through the stash and find the yarn I'm using for the Sockapal-2-za pal. Koigu. I don't have a picture online currently, but it's fairly similar to #315L on this page (3rd from the bottom, left column). It's a bit warmer and has a few more non-khaki tones in it, but that's the idea. So I need to find a really good pattern for it. I'm thinking some sort of traveling rib stitch or something similar...perhaps the Diagonal Rib Socks from the IK subscribers only content. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any! Toe up would be preferable so I can make sure I use as much of the yarn as possible, but I can attempt to rewrite the pattern that way if it's cuff-down. Of course, I've never made socks with Koigu, and I don't want to waste it by swatching, so I'm at least glad it frogs well.

I also received the motherlode of Candy Blue Cotton-Ease from Natalie. 12 skeins, most likely enough for Alison's NBAT *and* a Sitcom Chic. I traded with her for some Summer Tweed that's been languishing in my stash forever, and just feeling the yarn I'm totally in love. Damn Lion Brand for discontinuing it! Turns out there's a Tuesday Morning in So. Portland, which has it from what I've heard around the blogs, so I've asked the Boy to go in there and check for Sugar Plum and Vanilla. That will become either a Tricot or possibly an Audrey (from Rowan 35). I'm having him get 9 skeins of the Sugar Plum if he can, so there will be plenty of yardage for pretty much anything I could want.

Stuff and nonsense.

Nope. The yarn isn't going to work at that gauge. It's just too solid and stiff. I found a pattern in my collection written at 12 sts/4", and I think that just might work. Time for more swatching tonight. Or I might just pull something out of my copy of Handy Book of Sweater Patterns or just do a top-down raglan. I just want to make a sweater already, dammit!

I started a pair of Broadripple socks in Regia, and frogged them almost as quickly as I started them. The yarn was just plain ugly (and the roomie can vouch for this, if anyone doesn't believe me). It was a self-striping one in brown, rust, olive, mustard yellow, and (strangely enough) electric blue. Yarn that ugly deserves to be showcased in a plain stockinette. Later. I started the Dublin Bay socks in a different Regia (white, beige, lavender, sky blue, and medium pink variegated, #5025 on that page)

Still pondering Sockapal-2-za. I think I have some Lorna's Laces in the stash that will work quite nicely.

The Knit Picks reship came yesterday. A week is so much better than 2 1/2...I'm feeling better about ordering from them again (I need a Shine color card).

Socks socks socks socks socks (and talking about a sweater)

That pair of socks took 4 days. Granted, it was over a weekend, but damn! I should have modified the pattern to cast on more stitches, because they stretch A LOT over my big feet. The yarn looked more khaki in the ball, but knit up, the bluish-gray stood out more. Now what the heck am I to do with all these completely non-coordinated almost-full balls of Fixation?

Pattern: Pretty Comfy Socks
Yarn: Cascade Fixation, khaki/gray, just over 1 ball (grr)
Needles: sz 3 Brittanys

And the close up:

Got my Sockapal-2-za match yesterday. Just went and read her entire blog (she's only had that particular blog since January and posts fairly infrequently, at least compared to me, so it really didn't take that long), and found that she tends to use muted colors and textured sock patterns. I shouldn't have a problem knitting from my stash for this woman :-)

And I swatched for a sweater last night, but I'm reconsidering my yarn choice. I want to make the West Side Raglan from Oat Couture, and I want to make the bulky version, so I swatched up a yarn that had a recommended gauge same as the pattern (14 sts/4"). I got the recommended gauge first try with the recommended needle size (despite the fact that this has always happened so far, I must resist the urge to get cocky and never swatch again), but the fabric I got was...well, stiff. I bent it around a few times and thought, how can the ball band's recommended gauge give this fabric? I read somewhere that the ball band gives a recommended sweater gauge, go up a size or two for a scarf and down a size or two for socks. So I wet it down and laid it out to dry to see if it softened up at all. When I checked it this morning, it was still a bit damp but felt slightly floppier. I'll be fairly disappointed if I end up not wanting to use this yarn...first, it's from stash, which is a miracle for me. It's also gray, and I had a gray sweater that I absolutely adored and literally wore out, so I'm still searching for a replacement. We'll see.

Pondering

So I was just thinking, I have a bunch of novelty yarn on my destash page that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Understandable, I don't really want it, and I'm not really expecting anyone who reads this blog to want it either. So I'm wondering if it would sell better in scarf form, locally. Something to ponder anyway. I don't care if I make a profit, I just want to get rid of it and get something for it. I used to love furry yarns, now I'm getting more traditional, especially since I realized I'm such a fan of textured knitting. (Give me cables any day.) Any thoughts?

I didn't break anything....yet.

I decided that since I went to the trouble to put my blog database on a thumb drive, that I might as well actually carry it around and post from places other than home once in a while. But given my track record with technology lately, I'm not so sure anything good will come of it. But perhaps I'm just being a pessimist.

So I'm going to post a sentence that has already appeared once in this blog, and quite recently: Suz kicks ass. When she realized that I never received a scarf from the swap, she told me (I'd say she offered, but she said I wasn't allowed to refuse because she'd do it anyway) that she'd knit me a scarf herself. Rawk. Just a little bit of proof that people are generally good (there are just those few...) Suz, if you're ever in Maine, you can totally crash on my futon.

I'm really having a tank top attack. I ended up frogging the Victoria tank because I just can't keep track of a 9-stitch repeat on 270 stitches. I messed up the counting somewhere, found it, started tinking back, and somehow managed to make a mess of small blue yarn. Realizing that I was going to hate every minute of knitting that thing, I frogged it. Kelly's been eyeing Soleil anyway, maybe I'll try to make that or some modification of it (I love the design, but the lace pattern isn't exciting me as much as it could) I keep hearing that Shine is really closer to a DK than a sport weight, so that's a possibility.

(And can I just say, thank you, Alexandra , for accepting Paypal. I just bought two of her patterns, and my lazy butt appreciates not having to go and get my credit card out of my bag.)