Blog Avoidance

Wow, it's been exactly 5 months since my last post. How much do I suck? In case you are curious, I am not dead. Nor do I have any other good excuse for my shameful lack of blog posting. I have, however, been knitting. But I still haven't attempted to fix that shawl (is anyone really surprised?).

In an attempt to get back into the swing of blogging, I have updated my Gallery. I have listed every single stinking pair of socks that I have ever knit (cuz I'm anal like that, in case you haven't noticed). Anyhow, it contains several things I have never blogged about, so you may want to check it out.

Here are some teaser pics from the Gallery:

Chipman's Block Mittens

Cashmere Fingerless Gloves

Silk Garden Ribbed Hat

Cascading Leaves Socks

Ugly Purple Sockotta Jaywalkers

Manly Greenish-Brown Trekking Socks

6-ply Regia Socks

Cabled Bearfoot Socks

American Girl Doll Socks
(made from Trekking, of course)

Lacy American Girl Doll Socks

Simply Lovely (or not so lovely) MISTAKE Lace Socks
(Trekking XXL again)

Crazy-Patterned Opal Socks

More Trekking Socks
(Apparently I am addicted to Trekking XXL. It's like crack.)

Mother/Daughter Socks
(click for cute stuffed bunny picture)

Strange Blue & White Opal Jaywalkers

Plus some oldies from several years ago:

Brown & Natural Stranded Socks

DK-weight Purple & Green Socks

Crazy Furry Socks

And much more in the Sock Gallery.

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Oh, and if you are looking for some entertaining blog reading, go check out my friend Rachel's new blog, Diary of a Mad, Mad Housewife. It is a wickedly funny look at the trials and tribulations of a slightly paranoid "Suburban Mommy". It's good stuff.

Shawl Fixes, Austrian Mittens, and Bacteria

Thanks for the supportive comments about my shawl problem. You gave me some good things to think about.

As Cattycorner pointed out, since the shawl is circular, I would probably wear it folder over. However, I'm thinking that I would like to wear it not quite doubled, but with the top 12 inches or so folded down -- I like the look of having the center of the swirl in the center of my back. And I think I will be annoyed if every time I go to wear it, I need to arrange it so that the stupid error isn't falling right smack on my butt (thereby drawing unneeded attention to that part of my anatomy ;)

franticom suggested that I try to hide the mistake under some embroidery, which is an interesting idea. However, my embroidery skills are sorely lacking and I think I might just totally mess that up.

SJ suggested that I do some creative blocking to make it LOOK like there are yarnovers in that row. I'm really intrigued by this suggestion and I think I'll try it. I'll let you know how it works.

I'm in the process of making a test swatch for the kitchener fix, just to see if it works. If it turns out to be too difficult or annoying, I will just leave the shawl as is. The mistake does kind of blend in and look like a variegation in the yarn, especially when seen at a more normal angle (and against a darker background).

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Well, enough about my shawl. In an attempt to give you something interesting to look at, I am finally posting pictures of some mittens I finished a couple of months ago (during my blogging hiatus).

Austrian Mittens

I made these mittens after taking a Strickmuster class with Candace Eisner Strick at Webs, back in October. This was a great class, in which we learned all about Austrian twisted stitch patterns, including some of Candace's special adaptations. Candace gave out the pattern for these mittens as part of the two-day class, and I started them on the 2nd day.

Here are the details:

Pattern:

Austrian Mittens, designed by Candace Eisner Strick (provided as part of her Strickmuster class)

Yarn:

Reynolds Whiskey [100% wool],
color: 16

Needles:

US 3 (and US 4 for the i-cord at the bottom)

Gauge:

7.5 sts/inch in stockinette, about 9 sts/inch in pattern

Modifications:

My gauge with this yarn was a little tighter than that specified in the pattern, but I did not change the number of stitches for the hand since the mittens made from the pattern (which Candace brought to class) were a little big on me.
I started with the i-cord edge, but I kitchenered the i-cord together at the ends, instead of having extra i-cord hanging down (kind of like tassels). Also, I did not want to include the gauntlet part of the cuffs, so I cast on just enough stitches for the hand of the mitten. I widened the thumb and knit the inner part of it (the part toward the palm) in reverse stockinette, instead of twisted ribbing.

Comments:

I really enjoyed making these mittens, although it did require me to pay a lot of attention to the chart. Once I got about halfway through the first mitten, all of the manipulation of the stitches started to come more easily, and the project moved along more quickly.
I really like the way this pattern had you start with an i-cord edge and then pick up stitches from the side of that to start the hand. That makes a nice, clean bottom edge for the mitten.
I used Reynolds Whiskey for these mittens because it was one of the few yarns then available at Webs that was the right fiber content and roughly the right gauge for this pattern. It really doesn't show off the stitch pattern to its best advantage (a lighter color and a smoother yarn would probably have been better), but my choices were limited and I do like the color. I would definitely use this yarn again for a different sort of pattern.
I love these mittens and they fit great. I intend to make another pair of them sometime, but using a yarn like Louet Gems Merino (the recommended yarn for the pattern).

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Oh, and I wanted to let you know about one last thing. I was just on the website for the Boston Museum of Science and I stumbled across a very interesting bit of science news. Apparently, some new research has shown that the amount of certain types of bacteria we have in our intestines may help determine how fat we are. Check out the museum's podcast about it -- fascinating.

Cowgirls and some FOs

Do you know what these pictures mean?


Why, it's a semi-surprise cowgirl birthday party for Melissa, of course.

Here's a picture of the birthday girl herself, contemplating the number of candles on her cake. Wait a minute -- aren't there a few missing?

It was a fun celebration of "all things Melissa", with great margaritas to boot. I discovered that I suck at Pictionary (or, at least, I suck at drawing chicken- and baseball-related clues).

Daughter#1 managed to get a halfway decent picture of Sister#1 and me at the shindig. I'm the one without the cowgirl hat -- unlike Melissa and Sister#1, I'm not even a small part cowgirl.

For a laugh, go check out the funny picture of Daughter#1 caught eating wasabi peas at the bar.

In knitting news, I finished those Franklin socks for Melissa's book. I really like the yarn. It's not splitty at all, and it holds up great to lots of ripping (ask me how I know).

Here's a picture of the chutney color. It looks very different when knit at 72 sts (on the left) than it does at 60 sts (on the right). I really dig the diagonal flashing the yarn does when knit at 60 sts around. Too bad that size doesn't fit my foot. :(

I have also finished a pair of Trekking socks for my dad's birthday. These are color 62, done on US1 needles. I'm getting a little tired of Trekking yarn -- these are my 7th pair, I think. Yet, for some reason I just started another pair of Trekking socks for Uncool Guy. He has recently put holes in two pairs of his handknit socks (these and these), so I need to whip out some more for him.

Here's another FO that I need to mail off to its recipient. It's a pair of handwarmers/fingerless mitts for Sister-in-Law#1. This pattern is from Interweave Knits Fall 2005, in the Yarn Spotlight section. The yarn is Peruvian Collection Sierra Aran, used with US8 needles.

This is the fourth pair of these I have knit (see the others here). It's about time I tried a different pattern, huh? Well, last year Sister-in-Law#1 saw the ones I made for Mother-in-Law#1 and decided to knit herself a pair. However, she did not finish them before she decided to give up knitting (SHOCKING -- yes, I know), so I told her I would finish them for her.

I have a lot of other finished objects to show, but right now I need to get away from this computer and ride my bike. I can feel my butt expanding as I sit here...

Sugar Rush

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. I'm running on very little sleep today, since I spent a lot of last night trying to install my new blogger template (more on that later).

Uncool Guy has continued his customary Valentine's Day generosity and has showered me with flowers (tulips) and candy. These are the most wonderful fruit jellies from the Harbor Candy Shop in Ogunquit, Maine. Man, are they good. Plum is currently my favorite, but that could change because they are all just so lovely. If you are ever in Ogunquit, be sure to stop in at this store -- it is a chocolate/candy lover's haven.

In knitting news, here is the completed bowl that I showed you the other day. It came out pretty well for my first felted item, I think. I had a little problem with the edge though. I kept stopping the washing machine every 5 minutes or so to check on the progress of the felting, and I didn't notice until it was too late that part of the edge had started to curl in. By the time I noticed it, the edge was already too firmly attached in some places to unfold it. So I tried to curl the rest of the edge all the way around and felted it some more. It sort of worked, but the edge came out lumpier than I would have liked.

I based this bowl on the mancala pattern at Knitty, but I doubled the yarn and used bigger needles. Here are the specs:

Pattern:

I followed the instructions for the Large Bowl in the Mancala pattern at Knitty

Yarn:

Manos del Uruguay [100% wool],
color: 38 (dark purple), which I got from Windsor Button last year

Needles:

US 15 (used with the yarn doubled)

Gauge:

who knows?

Finished Size:

3" high by 6" wide

Comments:

I felted the crap out of this bowl and it came out pretty thick and sturdy. Interestingly, the felted fabric seems to have a sort of "boucle" surface. I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that this is a thick & thin yarn. I'm guessing that the thicker yarn sections turned into the boucle "bumps" when felted. Anyway, it's a cool effect.

I shaped the bowl by stretching it tightly over a glass bowl. The bowl had slight vertical ridges on the outside and a sharply defined bottom ridge. It's funny that I can kind of see the ridges in the dried bowl and I can definitely see an indent from the bottom ridge in the bottom of the bowl. So next time, I'll have to find a different bowl for the shaping and drying.

[Updated to add: It has been brought to my attention that the bowl in the mancala pattern has an attached i-cord edge. I did not make an i-cord edge on my bowl, because I, apparently, cannot follow directions. Anyhow, I bet if I had made the i-cord edge, it wouldn't have partially curled in like it did. I'll try that next time.]

Oh, and Daughter#1 made this little shrinky dink tiger for me the other day. Isn't he cute?

Discos and Fibonacci Stripes

Happy 2007, everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I know I did. I was so busy there was not much time left for knitting, but I'm not complaining

We finally got a little snow on Dec 30th and Daughter#2 managed to scrape enough together to make this cute little snowman.

too cute

Unfortunately, he melted yesterday in the rain, but he did survive long enough to help us ring in the new year, which we did disco style. We set up a little discotheque at Chez Persnickety and had a dance extravaganza. In fact, I'm still sore from all the dancing.

I forgot to get a picture that night (too many Cosmopolitans?), but here's a picture the next morning, looking up at he ceiling of our "disco". Just imagine it with more balloons, strobe lights, and the disco ball going...

I just love to hang stuff from the ceiling.

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I did manage to get a few knitted items finished in December. One of them was a pair of socks that I made for myself with some leftover Yarn for Sox.

I usually hate stripes, but after reading an article on Fibonacci stripes in the Fall 2003 issue of Cast On I decided to give them a try. [The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers that starts with 0, 1, and then every following number is the sum of the two previous numbers. So the sequence is: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.]

Apparently, there are many, many ways you can make use of this sequence in knitting. I decided to use just two alternating colored stripes, but to let the sequence determine how many rows of each color to knit (up to a max of 5 rows). So my pattern went: 1 red, 1 blue, 2 red, 3 blue, 5 red, 1 blue, 1 red, 2 blue, 3 red, 5 blue (repeated).

Fibonacci-striped socks

To add even more interest, I used a two-color corrugated ribbing at the cuff, and I made one sock with a red cuff and toe and the other with a blue cuff and toe. Here are the specs:

Pattern:

my own

Yarn:

Accessories Unlimited Yarn for Sox [80% wool, 20% nylon],
color: Red Mix and Blue Jean (<1 skein of each)

Needles:

US 4?

Gauge:

4.25 sts/inch at ankle, 5 sts/inch on foot (hmmm)

Finished:

December 2006

Comments:

I loosely carried the yarn along the "seam" for the narrow stripes, but cut the yarn when I got to the widest stripes. There were still plenty of ends to weave in, believe me.
I used this technique to try to camouflage the color jogs at the end of the rounds. I've used this method successfully several times before, but it didn't work as well with such thick, rough yarn. Well, I think it still looks better than not doing anything, and it's at the back of my ankle and the bottom of the foot so it doesn't really matter.
I'm not a big fan of this yarn. I like that it is a worsted weight yarn that is made with some nylon content so it will wear well when made into socks, but it's just too rough and "au naturel" for me. It has bits of vegetation still in it that must be picked out (but not as much as a Noro yarn). It sure makes really thick socks though.

I like funky socks.

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I'm still working on updating my gallery. I'll let you know when it is up and running. I'm focusing mostly on the socks for now. It's taking me a long time because a) I am anal and want to have every project properly documented and b) I have knit a lot of socks.

ETD 10:38 AM

The UPS guy had a package for me today, and, since I haven't ordered any yarn lately, you know what that means... I'm dead.

Socks of Doom received from my assassin, Mlle Udah

So, no more Sock Wars for me. Too bad, it would have been fun to kill more than one person, but with all the international mailing involved there was just no chance of that. Although this game was fun, I think the downside was that no matter how quickly you knit your socks it could not save your life. It was just luck of the draw as to whether you got a fast assassin or a slow assassin assigned to you.

I think it would be fun to have another sort of sock war where knitting a sock quickly would actually SAVE your life. I'll have to give that some thought...

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In other sock-related news, here is a pair of socks that I finished recently. I made them with the Socks That Rock that I won in the Sock-a-Month KAL. Here are the specs:

Pattern:

just a run of the mill top-down sock, but inside out

Yarn:

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, Socks That Rock, mediumweight [100% superwash merino],
color: Farmhouse

Needles:

US 2

Gauge:

7.5 sts/inch

Comments:

This was the first time I've used STR yarn and I have to say, I can see what all the commotion is about. This yarn is great. Very boing-y and soft. I wonder how it will hold up to wear though? It seems to be getting fuzzy rather quickly.
You may be wondering why it looks like my socks are inside out. Well, that's because they are. I decided I liked the way the colors mixed better on the reverse stockinette side of the sock, so I decided to make that the outside. I knit them normally (with the knit side out) and just turned them inside out at the end before weaving in the ends. All I did differently was to pick up the stitches on the sides of the heel flap as to purl instead of as to knit.

Which do you like best:

the interesting reverse stockinette side,

or

the boring old stockinette side?

There was a bit of color pooling with this yarn at the ankle (as you can see in this picture) but it doesn't really bother me very much.

Oh, and by the way, my index finger seems to be better now. Yay, back to knitting.

Persnickety Knitter, in the Office, with the Cleckheaton 8-ply

So, I did it. I killed someone today. My victim in Sock Wars just received her Socks of Doom from me and she is now officially DEAD. Here is the weapon I used.

Socks of Doom, made with Cleckheaton Country 8-ply, in size 9.5

I tried to lessen the pain of my victim's demise by sending her some hematite, crystal, and silver stitch markers that I made. Beading was my previous hobby, but it has been sorely neglected ever since I was introduced to knitting. If you think my yarn stash is crazy, you should see my bead stash. ;)

Before taking her last breath, my victim (in Georgia) was able to send off her finished socks to kill her victim (in England), so I will now be responsible for killing my victim's victim's victim (try to stay with me here). My victim's victim will not be officially dead until she receives her socks in the mail, and in the meantime she will be knitting socks to kill someone in Canada. However, since a little birdie told me that she hasn't started yet, I'm thinking she won't finish them before she gets her package of doom. So, all I can do is sit here and wait for my victim's victim in England to die and mail me her uncompleted socks.

With all the international shipping this could take a while, which is fine with me since my stupid right index finger STILL hurts. I am trying not to knit until it is better, but that is sooooo hard. [I'm sure you can relate.] In the meantime, I may be killed by my designated assassin who is in Utah. However, I emailed her on Saturday and at that point she had not started knitting and seemed rather unaware of the rules. So, who knows. What a confusing, but fun, game this this is turning out to be.

Some Catching Up To Do

Howdy! I'm back. My work should be over for a while so I should now have some more time to do things like reading blogs and posting to my own sadly neglected blog. I may not have posted much this summer, but I sure have been knitting. I've got a lot of FO pics to take and post about. Here are a few things to start us off.

First up, we have the Frost tank from Rowan 30. I made one of these last year for Daughter#2 (see pic in my gallery), but it was getting a little tight in the chest for her, so I decided to use up the rest of that yarn and make a bigger size. We passed the smaller one down to Niece#3 who seemed very pleased to receive it.

Daughter#2 and Niece#3 in their matching Frost Tanks.

Here they both are modeling their tanks which they wore to Tanglewood two weeks ago. We went to hear a violin concerto by Dvorak and Beethoven's 3rd symphony, but we got caught in the continuous POURING rain partway through the performance (we were sitting on the lawn). Luckily, we had raincoats and umbrellas ready, but still -- it was a drag. I got leg cramps from sitting all squished up under my umbrella, followed by a wet butt after getting up to stretch my legs and sitting back down again. Oh well, the music was great (particularly the violinist, Hilary Hahn) and we did get in a very nice picnic before the rain started.

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Next up, remember THESE annoying socks from early July?. The ones where my gauge was completely and totally off? Well, I ripped them back to the ankle and knit the whole sock on the 2.5mm needles (with LOTS of trying on along the way).

What did I learn from this experience? Well, let's hope I learned never to ASSUME that just because you are using the same damn yarn and the same damn needles that you will get the same damn gauge. [You know, it's stuff like that that just sucks all the fun out of knitting.] Anyhow, here they are finally, on Sister#1's feet. She seems to like them.

Trekking XXL, color 71, on 2.5mm ndls, with picot trim ankle.

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With regard to current projects, I am working on Meg Swansen's Super-Spiral Shawl from A Gathering of Lace. I'm using some laceweight yarn I got this summer from handpaintedyarn.com. It's their Kettle Dyed Pure Wool Lace Yarn in the color Paris Night, which is sort of a purplish-grayish color.

This is a circular shawl that's worked from the center out. In this picture you can kind of see the center (bottom left) with the spirals moving out from there. I love how it's coming out so far. Sure, it's super monotonous knitting, but that's what I needed for the summer. Something I could just pick up and knit, and knit, and knit, and knit, and knit without thinking about it. And this shawl seems to be the perfect project for that.

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Oh, and I received by prize yarn the other day and it is WON-DER-FUL! That yarn in the upper right corner turned out to be Artyarns Ultramerino4 (as a couple of you guessed). Also, Melissa wanted to know the color nbr of the Lorna's Laces. It's #18, Watercolor. And, no, I'm not trading it. ;)

I have already almost finished a pair of socks with the Socks that Rock, and I am loving that yarn. I've also started some socks with the Knit Picks Simple Stripes. The yarn is a bit splitty, but I really like the colors. Hopefully, I'll have finished pics of those next time.

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Well, that's it for today. I'll leave you with some pictures my garden (which I should probably go water).

One final thought: Don't these flowers remind you of fried eggs?

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Oops, one more final thought: I signed up for Sock Wars. I'll be on vacation in Maine that first weekend so I'm betting I get killed before I kill, but it should be fun anyway.