Winter Is Coming

Or so the voice of Sean Bean as Ned Stark that currently seems to be living inside my head tells me. And surely someday, hopefully?

As imaginary Ned intoning dramatically has got me to finally pick up the needles again I won't look to hard at what having an imaginary Ned might say about my mental health. Yes, take encouragement where I can find it, that's me.

Have finally finished the purple sweater vest. Well, sort of. I'm not too happy with the applied i-cord edging, the bottom still rolls up a little. So, at some point I'll rip that out and go for some ribbing magic. I just couldn't face it straight away, it had already killed any yay finished buzz I might have had and I didn't want to look at it any more.

I would let you look at it, but it looks stupid when it's not on me and on me it shows off my panza. And I'll do many things, but putting my belly on display for all of the internet is just not one of them.

Instead of actually finishing said vest I cast on for my second ever sweat. It'll have sleeves and everything! Very exciting.

Also, it's a pretty warm gray which means that when winter does get here (imaginary Ned would never lie to me, right?) I'll be wearing the hell out of it.



The pattern is Gavotte, the yarn Caron Spa, their bamboo blend. Definitely can't beat it for the price and I wish my lamp light didn't photograph so yellow so you could see this color properly. So in love with it. As for the pattern, I'm pretty in love with that too. To the point where I'm giving serious thought to making it again straight away out of wool for the three days of actual cold weather, not just what central Texas calls cold weather.

I'm also trying to keep a pair of socks on the needle, but it seems the world has other ideas. First, I was all set to cast on right before my trip to Vegas* when it dawned on me that as a person of brownness, taking the sometimes ok sometimes not knitting needles through security would lead to me in Guantanamo. Mostly because I'd be a giant jerk about it.

I packed them with me, but I really don't know when I thought I was going to knit while in Vegas. I'm not entirely sure I actually slept and as someone who would medal if sleeping were an Olympic event that's seriously saying something.

Got home, started making pretty good progress on the first when one of the needles mysteriously snapped. I really don't know what happened. My best theory is that somehow it's structural integrity was weakened after being x-rayed, pawed by the TSA and then subject to rapid air pressure changes. Or it got knocked around a little too much while in the checked luggage. Something.

I do have a spare set but they're just a touch too short for me to use comfortably. The very pokey tips, which I would usually adore, dig quite irritatingly into my palm. Of course, this means a trip to the yarn store tomorrow and that's something I'll never ever complain about.

The current set of fosters (the furry piranhas of the last post, now returned from the babysitter) think they've discovered heaven with all this yarn out and about. But I've discovered that if I put them in the hood of my sweatshirt they'll happily play with my hair/bandana instead.



It gets a little tricky if I try to wedge all three in there.

* Oh yeah, I went to Vegas. It was Vegas-y and I really don't know what else to say about it. Other than my feet are all busted because of an unfortunate shoe choice (ballet flats! I thought I was being sensible!) and while I very much appreciate the bosses putting us up in the Venetian (oh so swank!) if I ever hear another song from Phantom of the Opera, which they had on loop, my head will actually explode. And it's a damn good thing there's not a Sugar Factory here because I could seriously spend all of my money there and never eat another vegetable in my life.

Finally

I try not to keep too many projects on the needles at once mostly because, like a Skinner pigeon, the positive reinforcement of a completed object keeps me pressing the lever. I mean knitting. Or something. Well, that simile got away from me.

Usually socks are my go to quick project to keep me chugging along on the longer stuff. But the pair that I'm currently working on, while not particularly difficult, are taking forever. I'm looking forward to having the finished pair, but for whatever reason I'm just not feeling working on them. I've been carrying around the yarn and needles to start the second of the pair but it hasn't happened yet.

Soooo taaaallll.

Here's the first of the two. I think next time I make socks they'll be super plain stockinette anklets, because blarrrrgh.

Another thing I'm still working on is that purple sweater vest I started ages ago. It got put away during the renovations and I've recently pulled it out again. The stitch pattern is simple enough that it should be a relatively mindless tv-watching-project, but since I'm not following a pattern, or drafting one so much as making it up as I go along it's making me think morer than I'm comfortable with.

What can I say, thinking is hard. In happier news, I finally managed to take a photo that's relatively true to the pretty pretty color:

Definitely not a neutral.

I picked up a couple of skeins of a super bulky novelty yarn on a whim yesterday and, despite really wanting to finish up what I've been working on, cast on for a scarf immediately.

The original plan was to make a little triangular kerchief but it just didn't hang right with the weight of the yarn, so a regular old rectangle it was. I'd like to try again for the kerchief in a more appropriate yarn with the same stitch pattern.




Since the 'novelty' part of the yarn didn't show up in that photo have another.

Tiny sequins yay!

The elongated stitches helped move it along pretty quickly and two Harry Potter movies later I was all set for a winter that, in the midst of months of 100+ temperatures, I'm pretty sure will never show up.

Living in an almost literal lake of fire isn't exactly conducive to a knitting habit, but damn I try anyway.

Being able to knock out a scarf in one evening, almost twice if you count the original triangle satisfied my need for finished project warm fuzzies and I've gone back to plugging away at that vest. Once I get that done, I've got a sweater's worth of yarn in a pretty warm gray (back to neutrals, no one is shocked) that's calling my name.

Maybe I'll get a pair of socks at some point in there too.

The Monkey

While summer is still eating my face (soooo hot. Why, Texas, why?) the best bit has to be summer vacation.

Not mine, though. Sensible!resa hasn't won the argument that going back to college and studying something not completely and totally useless is the best idea, so lazy!resa is still content to spend too much time with cats and syndicated television.

No, my niece is off for the summer and while her gramps can watch her most of the day in his semi-retirement, the semi bit means that she spends a couple of hours in the morning with me.

This is FANTASTIC. And not just because it gives me an excuse to drink juice boxes.*

She's six which means she's finally getting to the age where kids are kind of like tiny people only with weird and random ways of thinking that are just endlessly amusing.

I mean, she was a pretty cute baby and all, and toddlers are fun if completely exhausting, but, as she'll proudly remind you, she's six and a big girl now. That's why she has blue painted toe nails and awesome light up shoes with laces (that she can't quite manage to tie yet) and can play dominoes.

Even if it is a set with pictures instead of numbers. And SpongeBob themed. Soon, Monkey, soon, you'll be shuffling the bone pile and yelling 'domino' like a boss.

And now she finally likes to color. Before school she did a bit, but it wasn't exactly her favorite way to spend time. Now she's 'the best colorer' and likes to point out that auntie resa's box of crayons has 96 but hers has 120 and that's more.

Another new found common ground has been knitting. When I first started learning crochet I thought that having a niece would be a pretty safe bet as far as keeping me from having a surplus of toys in the house, just sitting around and taking up space and never being played with.

I was mistaken. Lumpy T was thoroughly rejected, as was the tiger ball:



Octavio was a hit though, especially after being introduced to the game, 'flying Octavio, the super quadropus':



Knit or crochet garments were a total non starter though. I don't think I've ever seen her in a hand crafter article of clothing since she was an infant and none too good at pulling off the hats Mater made her.

Not even tempting her with purple, 'the best color,' worked.

I'm not sure what changed, but on a lark I asked her if she wanted me to knit her some socks like the ones I was wearing and after years of saying no she thought about it and said yes.

A trip to the store immediately followed where she picked up every skein of sock yarn that had a decent amount of purple in it. After being assured several times that really, it would turn into stripes, she settled on a favorite and I cast on.



I'm not really sure why if I wanted a picture of her in her new socks it had to be like this, but I don't care because it's hilarious. Seriously. I know I'm biased, but it cracks me up ever time I see it.

Also, I'm pretty sure my first pair of glasses were dark purple plastic frames too. Clearly she's my nerd padawan.


*They just taster better than a regular glass of juice, ok? Don't ask me how nostalgia works.

AMAZING

Top down sweaters that I can try on as I make them have changed my knitting life, I can't even.

I've already admitted that I don't make sweaters because they confuse me and take too long and I forget about them and all of the other reasons that I use to rationalize my laziness. I say that while wearing my ill fitting sweater beast that was supposed to be a Mrs. Darcy Cardigan, which is about to lose it's coveted spot as the coziest damn thing I've ever made.

While packing up all my stuff for the renovations I found yarn that had been squirreled away in the monkey box that Mater bought for me the first time I went knitting nutty. Which was years ago, and it was way past time for me to do something with it.

Does not contain actual monkeys.  Does contain wonder.

First up was the now discontinued Skacel Contrasto, a silk nylon blend in a taupe color.

I figured I only had enough for a sweater vest (something that's always been on the list of things I should make but hadn't gotten around to), found the Bramblewood Vest and went to town.

Well, after making gauge swatches because I have finally learned.

I assumed this was going to fall prey to the usual downfall of all my crafty projects that I can't finish in one sitting, namely, I'd forget about and start something new and shiny. But no! I actually sat down and worked on it almost constantly, mostly because every time I could try it on I got all excited and it was awesome again - pushing me through the, 'god, will the stockinette ever end?' phase.

So, here's the obligatory super classy bathroom mirror shot:


I turned it into a v-neck, omitted the back cable and decreased for the waist rather than go down a needle size as per the pattern.

And I'm so in love with it, it's a little sad. If I could wear this every day I would, but it's April in Texas so not so much.

Since I can't wear it every day and admire my handiwork, I've dived into another sweater vest. Because clearly, one could never be enough for someone who wears as many button-down shirts as I do.

The monkey box provided some Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk, the Vogue Stitchionary provided a dimpled stitch pattern and all I had to do was provide the magic sweater math. Since I've successfully knit two garments that fit as they should I'm clearly some sort of sweater master. A veritable Obi-Wan Knitobi.

If I'd stopped to think about my history with any sort of math, let alone magic math I'd have realized that perhaps the above list of assembled ingredients for the alchemy of sweater design was lacking a critical component. After some pretty pathetic attempts to extrapolate how many stitches I needed to cast on in order to cover me but not drown me in alpacasilky goodness were less than successful I went with the tried but certainly not always true method of 'eh, that looks about right.'

So far I seem to be doing all right, even if it's verging on sausage casing territory. The promising news is that it looks as though I may have enough for short sleeves, so that I don't have to wear it over a shirt. Which would be a definite plus because as close fitting as it is, layering might not work out so well for me.

And as the yarn was a gift from Mater it is an actual color.  An egg-planty purple which is refusing to be captured by the iPhone camera and The Boyfriend has absconded with the real one.  But if it fits (which, my god it had better, because really) I will wear it to pieces*.  Once December rolls around, naturally.


*I may mean pieces literally, unfortunately.  While the yarn is ridiculously lovely right now, all soft and shiny, I'm afraid that said softness may lead to a sweater that's covered in fuzz and pills after a wearing..  We will see.  I may go ahead and invest in a heavy duty sweater shaver right now because oooh, it's so soft..  It's gonna be mad cozy.

Where Are They Now?

And day four (2KCBWDAY4) with this prompt:

Whatever happened to your __________?
Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

It took a little bit of digging because most of my winter wear has been put up (and to be truthful, I don't pull this out much even then) but I have found my very first finished object.

Not pictured: All the giggling I was doing because taking photos of myself feels so silly.

Blog friends, people shouldn't be allowed onto the internet as teenagers.  They just shouldn't.  Not to protect their delicate sensibilities, but to spare them the embarrassment of going back ten years later to find the blog post they wrote about learning to knit.

The post itself isn't too bad (though I seem to have had an interesting relationship with spelling and grammar, my god) but having to go through all of My Very Important Adolescent Feelings to find it was horrifying.  Like, kid, some day you'll have bills to pay, stop whining about your English teacher being useless.*

I tried to clean up the typos and some of the grammar, though I left the frenetic run-on sentences because I still haven't grown out of those.  Here's what my seventeen year old self had to say about learning to knit:

I feel like Penelope, only I'm knitting instead of weaving.

Let me explain. 

Sometime today I decided I should learn how to knit, so I went to Michael's bought some yarn and needles and a how-to book and all afternoon and evening I've been learning how to knit. So I practiced casting on, until about three hours ago when I decided that my edge was good enough to start actually knitting so, I started knitting (while listening to "My Evil Plans" *heart*) and of course I keep pulling the entire thing apart over and over again so I can continue practicing. And my hands hurt from me making them move like they're not used to moving.

But all this pain, frustration and infernal clicking later what do I have to show for it? A slightly frayed length of yarn and an empty pair of knitting needles. That's right, I've undone it all. So this is where Penelope comes in. I work all day and carefully undo it at night, so I have nothing to show for my labors.

*whacks head on table* Somebody just kill me now. I haven't even tried to learn how to purl yet.

Shortly after learning how to purl I made the above scarf.  I remember it was Caron on 5mm needles and I hadn't learned the magic of tinking yet, so that when I made a mistake I oh-so-cleverly pulled out the needle and frogged back until I was past it.  Then I carefully put the needle back in and kept on keeping on.

Unsurprisingly, it has some quirks:

I've helpfully labelled my cast on edge (where I was still clearly in the 'ooh, knitting is hard' stage) and a row of twisted stitches where I yanked out the needle to fix a mistake.  I don't actually remember it, but I think it's safe to assume I was feeling pretty good about having this knitting thing down only to catch a mistake, curse in every language I could think of and then chuck it across the room.

Here's something I didn't notice until months later and I know I should probably fix (especially as I do still wear this from time to time) but I leave it out of a goofy sense of nostalgia:

Well, that was a fun trip back in time.  If only there were more DeLoreans and less teenage angst.

*Obviously he was if I was seventeen and still confusing 'their' and 'they're.'  Even if it was informal, off the cuff, internet-y writing.

Skill + 1UP

And it's day two of blog week (2KCBWDAY2) and the prompt is:

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

 Hmm.  I rather wish I was better at keeping note of what I've made so that I could do a proper job of this prompt.  Frankly, I'm probably more curious about the answer than anyone else.

Pater's hat that I gave him for Christmas was both the first bit of stranded color work I did in the round and managed to keep even tension with so it didn't pucker and look strange.  Here's Pater's hat, what you can see of it because he liked it pushed back on his head:

I also bought a copy of Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard which has know convinced me that I can make sweaters that actually fit me in the way they're meant.  I haven't shown you a finished picture of Slinky Ribs (Ravelry link) here on the blog yet because it's still technically unfinished.  I still have the sleeves to do.  But, I know it fits and fits well because I might have worn it as a vest once or twice.

Ahem.

I've also learned quite a bit about shaping knitting when it comes to making toys.  I got the hang of making various geometric shapes (like Cezanne, I see toys as basic geometric solids that simply need to be put together in the correct way) and so have gone from Monkey Mark I, who I made after quite a few improvements when it came to thinking three dimensionally in knitting, I should add:

to the more appealing Monkey Mark IV (it was apparently quite the learning curve):

On the crochet front, I've finally jumped on board with granny squares.  It's not that I didn't like them, it was that it took quite a while to power through my mental block about crochet.

My great aunt made me this granny square afghan out of bits and bobs and it's one of my most treasured possessions.

Now, once I'd thought I'd gotten the hang of crochet one of the first things I did was make a basic granny square, so I can't say that this is much of a step up.  It just took me a while to get there.  But I think that I finally understand granny squares, enough that I can stop following patterns to the letter.  Now, I don't want to say that I've come up with an all new afghan block, I used motifs from several existing squares to get where I am now.

Unfortunately, all the finished squares have been packed up because of the impending new floors, but I can show the center of one of the squares:

Sorry about the dark photo, the red was making my camera have a nutty under the lamp.

If you could just imagine the usual granny square dc 'shells' in white around it until its about seven inches, then a black sc border, I'd appreciate it.

And that's all I can think of.  Aside from learning that I should use the project notebook on Ravelry more frequently because I like the time capsule into my crafting that it provides.  But as that's a lesson I didn't learn until today I don't think it should count.

Oh Dear

The holiday season was much crazier than I anticipated.  It ended up being an almost entirely hand made Christmas on my end, which ate way more of my time than I thought it would.  Thus, I fell out of the blogging habit.  So, not dead, just forgot how to internet.

But, new year, new start, or something.  Yay?

First things first:  Christmas card swap.  Here's my totally awesome card that I really should have posted about as soon as I received it from Sarah.  Thank you so much!

Front!

Inside!

And then on the back she included the first verse of a German carol along with the translation.  Again: totally awesome.

Here's a few of the things that have been keeping me busy.  Not all, because I'm relying on the cell phone for photos at the moment.

Here's the tote bag I sort of made for the Boyfriend's mother.  I say sort of made because I cut out the pieces, got grumpy, toodled off to raid my parents' kitchen (which was as delicious and de-grumpifying as always) and when I'd stuffed myself stupid returned to the dining room to find my mom had pretty much made it.  So, 'sort of' is a bit of a stretch - it'd be more accurate to say I had an idea and then didn't end up having to do any of the work myself.  Except the running upstairs to do the ironing which I don't think really counts at all.  Thanks Mater, you're the best!

I also decorated a friend's school bag.  Which was one of those things where I could see what I wanted in my head but had difficulty actually making it happen.  This isn't the completed bag, but an in progress photo.  The finished bag had some rather blobby starfish-like flowers because the white paint pen kept not working, then changing it's mind and exploding.  We covered them up with some cute little buttons though, so I don't think she was too disappointed.

But the majority of the winter time crafting was spent on hats.  So many hats.  I don't know if I'm going to be able to even think about making another hat for a while.  I think the total count was nine, eight to be given away and then one for me, because I decided that I needed a hat too, to prevent me from stealing the ones meant for gifts.  I'm a little overdue for a hair cut and frankly slapping a hat on is way easier than spending several hours trying to convince my hair to stop acting like a Rorschach blob.

I would like to say that I made Mater's gift all by myself.  She never once saved me from my own ineptitude, yay!  Though she did seem pretty amused about the fact that the internet would know Mater's face since I had to show it off.  Pattern is Atarimae Beret (Ravelry link).

And here's the hat I made for Pater, since he was coveting my chullo.  Not pictured is the long bow that Mater gave him for Christmas, which if I had been thinking would've been the greatest illustration of our usual Christmas time ever.

There were more hats, obviously, but I don't currently have pictures of them.  But I will bother the recipients to let me take photos of them for great justice the blog.

There.  That's me back from the dead.  Maybe this is the year I can learn to stop being quite so useless about self imposed commitments.  Probably not though.

Getting WIPed*

I have a tendency to obsessively throw myself into a new interest- living, eating and breathing whatever has currently caught my attention.  Sometimes the interest lasts (like pen and ink drawing, knitting, politics and activism, baking) but usually I'm quickly bored and forget that I was so desperate to learn everything I could and spend all of my time with whatever it was that intrigued me.  Like scrap booking, bead loom bracelets, watercolor, Russian, swing dancing, linoleum print making, embroidery, nearly every thing I studied in college, college in general, now that I think of it.... All of these were abandoned, and I have the half finished projects to prove it.

I mention this because I think my histamine response is the same way.  While the ragweed pollen is still in the air, my allergies seem to have petered out.  After the initial punch in the face, my immune system has decided it's bored now and is letting me live my life like a normal person again.  So, hurrah.

As a result my brain seems to have come back (not being totally zonked out on Benadryl probably helps) and I have an attention span again.  Which means I've actually been able to do something more productive with my time than watching Law and Order reruns and folding Kleenex into decorative shapes before stuffing it up my nose.

I've spent the last couple of evenings at my parents' to use Mater's sewing machine and have her hand hold me through my first ever pattern.  It was initially supposed to be for the epic Halloween costume of nerdiness, but after cutting out the pattern pieces Mater announced that it's construction would look stupid in the fabric we picked out.  We decided to give it a test run just in case, and rather than use plain muslin we raided her stash and picked out something that had enough yardage.  Which is how I came to be making the most hilarious dress ever.

Actual pattern pieces!  Also, I hate pinning.

Pinning can go right to hell if you ask me.  I understand the necessity, but my fingers definitely spent a good amount of time being quite hurty.  Maybe if I was a little less useless at doing it I wouldn't hate it so much, but here we are.  Also, ow.

Here's the half finished dress:

I'm holding the dress up, not doing the chicken dance, promise.

I know, the '80s have thrown up all over me.  It's awesome.  And it's vintage, which proves that I can't hop on board with the current resurgence of '80s fashion even if I wanted to because I was there the first time.  I'm just a little sad that I don't think I can ever really wear this because it is so outside my comfort zone even though the dress itself would be quite flattering.  But happily, we found another heap of fabric in Mater's stash that is within my comfort zone, so I'll be returning to this pattern and making a dress that I'll wear more than once.

Since Halloween is fast approaching the '80s dress of fluorescence is being put on hold so that I can actually have something to wear.  Went and bought a new pattern today and rather than actually work on it I ate my weight in pizza, watched Univision's coverage of the Chilean miners' rescue and played with my niece.  After several hours at my parents' I have this to show for myself:

I am a paper cutting champion.

I've also been working on a sweater for myself.

It's very pink.  I may dye it.  Because color freaks me right out.

Even though I have a veritable heap of things to be done for holiday gifts.  Progress is slow because of both the kittens refusing to not try and kill my wiggling needles and yarn and surprise moth damage necessitating me splicing every other row or so.

Yes, moths.  The majority of my yarn stash is in zipped plastic bags, so I'm not terribly concerned, but I have a large box of wool that was given to me by a friend that is unprotected.  The yarn I'm currently using came from that box, so I just know that there's an even larger tragedy lurking in it's depths.

I have a hard time being too concerned about not finishing knits for other people because, if I continue with my usual habit, I'll think it's too boring to look at in a few days and leave it abandoned for at least a few months.  Wait, this sounds familiar....

*Title courtesy of the Boyfriend.  Because, hee.

My Moral Compass Is Slightly Skewed

I have this hat:

Yay!

You've seen it before, but I like to show it off whenever I get the chance because it's pretty awesome.  But it's problematic.  I feel awful for buying it, because at the price I paid I know some poor Bolivian was royally screwed in the transaction.  Since I can't find fair trade chullos they're just going to have to come off the list of hand crafts I'll buy.  I'm not the best at not playing into an economic system that routinely hoses it's workers, but I make an effort.  I don't expect a cookie for trying to meet the basic standards of human decency, I'm telling you this to come to a point.

I'm really getting into making hats.  And I want to make chullos.  I'm a little put off by the cultural appropriation involved, but not enough that I will deny myself the chance to do colorwork alpaca motifs.  I could try and rationalize it by saying that I have Peruvian friends or it's an homage to Andean culture but really I'm just kind of an asshole.

I've bought yarn and I've been charting out common motifs found on chullos and playing around with the construction of the hat itself.  All is going well.  And then I get my KnitPicks catalog in the mail yesterday.  What should be on the back cover but this:

Wow, awful scan.  Sorry about that.

First impulse:  Something I'm doing is cool!  Yay!  Second:  I've done a hell of a lot of work when all I had to do was buy this handy kit.  Third:  Oh, this isn't cool.  Wait, then what makes what I'm doing okay?

My moral conflict is reaching the tipping point.  This hat may be more of a bad idea than I initially thought.  Maybe it's time to put down the needles and get a backstrap loom.  That way whenever the urge to make a culture specific garment strikes, I can do the crafts of my people.

Secret Shame

I've been knitting for quite a while now.  It sort of sneaked up on me, because I very much still consider myself a novice.  I've learned a lot and I've made a lot but there is so much more that I haven't.

Part of it is that I have such a short attention span.  More complicated and time intensive projects get ignored for years in favor of yet another pair of wrist warmers or socks.  I love knitted accessories, both to make and to wear and so, I have an embarrassing confession.

I don't knit sweaters.  I very much want to, there are so many lovely patterns and there are very few things I love more than a nice sweater.  I live in central Texas, a good sweater is usually all the winter wear I need for the year.  I've certainly tried to.  When I first learned to knit in high school, my second or third project was a sweater.  Despite having only just mastered the concept of knit and purl, owning one set of needles, having erratic tension and absolutely no concept of gauge I dove right in.  I bought three skeins of (the now discontinued) Lion Brand's Chunky USA, cast on an amount that 'looked about right' on 5mm needles and went to town.

I successfully made one of the densest acrylic squares (a term used very loosely) known to man.  Because I'm a compulsive pack rat I still have it somewhere, waiting to be reclaimed and the yarn used for something a little more reasonable.

After that I sort of broke up with sweaters, at least until I had some more skills under my belt.  A few years of an on again off again relationship with knitting I started developing an interest in something more complicated than garter stitch scarves.

I enjoy learning by just jumping straight in and making an absolute mess of things all the while hoping for a reasonable outcome so once I felt relatively confident I had the hang of basic shaping I cast on Mrs. Dacy's Cardigan. 

Now, this is a lovely pattern.  It should have produced a lovely cardigan.  But with me at the wheel, so to speak, it didn't so much.

Because I was working on it so infrequently it took ages to finish.  And my tension seemed to change every time I picked up the needles.  So that long ago gauge swatch I knitted when I was picking out yarn was more than useless.  I ended up with a baggy, oddly proportioned sweater beast that I can never leave the house wearing because my god.  

 At least it's at all wearable.

Despite it's problems, I have to admit it's one of my favorite sweaters.  It's ridiculously cozy.  I take this as proof that I need more hand knit sweaters in my life.

So, I'm currently working on Ivy.  It's been an incredibly frustrating experience because of my inability to follow directions and some random small tragedies (usually cat related.  Thanks for the help, guys.)  I've restarted it at least twice and am currently working on the left front.  Again.  The Boyfriend has suggested just making it a wrap vest because at least that way the end is somewhat in sight.  But it feels like if I don't finish this damn thing then the sweater will have won.

I will not be defeated by an inanimate object let alone one that I'm making.

And that's the story of my misadventures with sweaters.  The End.

 Or is it?

Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results?  I don't know what you're talking about, I would never.

Kelpbed Socks

Finally.

Finished my socks.  I'm pretty pleased with them, the yarn's color plus the leaf pattern reminds me of kelp.  Hence the name.  Aren't I terribly clever?  If I were to make this 'pattern' again, though, I think I'd make some changes.

Detail.

Here's a close up of the lace pattern.  Not the greatest photo, but it turns out that taking a picture of the back of my own leg involves some contortions I'm no longer capable of doing properly.  I've also apparently inherited my dad's penchant for 'find the mistakes!' so all I can see is the wonky yarn over.  Pater and I own at Where's Waldo, so I suppose it has it's upsides.

Chart, woo!

Here's the altered chart I used for the lace pattern.  I went ahead and wrote it out for flat knitting just in case.  Sorry it's handwritten on practically invisible grids, if anyone wants me to type out the steps instead I can do that.

Getting Ideas

The ladies over at Deth Spïralz have been trying their hardest to get me into ice skating.  Unfortunately, I don't understand the Yankee witchcraft of 'frozen water' and so it's been difficult to get me onto the ice and the definition of awkwardness once I'm there.  What's not been difficult is to get me into watching figure skating.  I can do this comfortably in my pjs while sitting on the couch which is a requirement for a lot of my activities.

Here's Johnny Weir wearing thigh high legwarmers and a haramaki.  Because he's awesome.  I'm fascinated by the idea of haramaki, a Japanese belly warmer.  Even though I don't skate, I have, once upon a time, been physically active and can see the usefulness of something that would keep your core nice and toasty while leaving the majority of your torso unencumbered unlike a heavy sweater.  When I was still dancing I would have loved one of these.

Kate and Candice have always been willing to put up with my fiber-related whims and thus they are going to be on the receiving end of my first haramaki.

Here's a fast and dirty paint rendition of what I have in mind.  Have the top sit just under the bust and have the bottom hit the top of the hips, perhaps a little lower.  An inch or so of ribbing at the top and bottom and then at least a couple inches at the back for some simple shaping.  Some big crazy buttons and maybe some colorwork on the stockinette belly and I think it should do it.  Am debating adding a kangaroo pocket for extra fun.

Poor Impulse Control

Sadness.

Like a lot of people I've been watching the World Cup.  But because of my inability to just sit still and watch something on the TV (even for something as quick and exciting as a fútbol match) I needed a simple project that I wouldn't have to look at too much lest I miss an awesome tackle or a spectacular shot on goal.

So, I started a pair of simple toe-up socks.  Something I've done enough that I don't really need to think about it anymore and I can keep knitting at even while yelling for Brazil to get their shit together (spoilers: they didn't.)

Here's another personality tidbit: if I have the option of doing something that I've done before or changing it just enough so that it feels new I'm going to pick 'feels new' every time.

For these socks I decided that a very simple lace pattern up the back of the leg would do nicely for making it seem new.  Unfortunately, like so many things that I do, I didn't think it through all the way.  I tweaked the lace pattern so that it matched my stitch count because I am capable of thinking that far ahead, but didn't take into account that every example I'd seen of this pattern had a reverse stockinette or garter stitch border.

Turns out there's a reason for the border.  I noticed after a couple of repeats (because my eyes were only for Ghana v. Uruguay) that my lace leaves weren't looking very leafy.  After sitting and thinking for much too long about whether I could live with what I had or if I should rip back I ripped back.  Because I had this idea, see, and I wanted it to look like what I thought it would.

I need to find some way to reconcile my impulsiveness with my innate perfectionism.

Turning a Heel...

... is like magic.  Not rabbit out of a hat magic, but full on Harry Potter 'Heelus Turnus!' magic.  Or maybe Gandalf 'You shall turn' magic.

I don't particularly like doing it, it's fiddly and I have stupid fingers when it comes to needles smaller than about 3.5 mm.  But I still feel pretty awesome once I've done it.

Still flat....

Taking shape....

Presto!.


Yeah, I am that impressed.  On the other hand, I'm very rarely bored.

I'm using Paton's Kroy Socks FX for these in colorway 57210 (blues and greens.)  This is my first time using this yarn and I'm liking it so far.  It's itchier and a bit rougher than other sock yarns I've used but is more squishy than I would have thought.  If it wears well then I'll definitely be using it again because wow, is that a price I can get behind.