04.13.08

The Bubble Pullover

Posted in knitting at 9:28 pm by wendy

Last month I finally finished the Bubble Pullover (Ravelry link) from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan.

I used roughly 7.5 balls of Superwash Cascade 220, and as I am a loose knitter, went down a needle size from the recommended to get gauge.

Because the pentagons, the shape, the color create a very tortoise-y shape, I used pewter tortoise buttons I bought from Lori’s Frames Fibers & Frills in Alpine, CA.

I guess this is really a snapping turtle, even more apropos for me, but the backward flippers kind of freak me out. And make getting ‘em through the buttonholes a bit of a bugger.

This was a super easy project and I can absolutely recommend it for a new knitter who’s not afraid to pick up new skills. You basically knit the same pentagon over and over, knitting from the outside in (so you’ll definitely know how to use circs and dpns at the end, see the difference of a right and left leaning decrease) and pick up stitches along the last one to knit the next one and cast on some new stitches to join in the round. The construction is lovely, and if you knit the sleeves in the round as well, the only finishing you have to do is sewing the sleeves to the body. Then comes the tedious ribbing. Bleh. Everything else went fast with this but the ribbing was dull and I kept wandering off to do other things.

I love this sweater though; it turned out so comfy and warm, and while I’ve already made it all pilly and covered in dog hair, I wear it all the time when it’s cool enough.

When the collar is unfolded, I can cover up to my eyes. I feel very awesomely Yertle.

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04.04.08

D’oh Deux

Posted in d'oh, knitting at 9:05 pm by wendy

This is what happens when you write a post that says “knitting is so easy and simple blah blah.” The gods of carelessness and blithe misjudgement rise up and smite yo’ ass.

D’oh.

Sigh.

One advantage sewing has is that it is so quick (perhaps if I had paused and used my brain instead of grabbing an idle passing fancy of misguided impulse I would not have sewed my teabag shut) that a mistake can be made, realised and remedied in the space of minutes.
I would be embarrassed to admit how long this took me before I thought, “uh, hey!”

In mitigating circumstances I am retraining my knitting style to be the two stranded knitting norwegian purl and english style instead of my incredibly inefficient (but fast, still pretty fast) throwing style. So that was all good practice I guess, and I’ll get faster and faster. (I hope.)

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11.22.07

Turkey Day.

Posted in food, holidays, knitting at 10:36 pm by wendy

This year we celebrated the holiday at my grandmother’s in Coronado with my uncle, aunt and two cousins. I made the turkey, creamed onions, sweet potatoes, and bittersweet chocolate pecan pie here at our house and then we jaunted off to enjoy them with family. (all of these recipes are from Gourmet’s November 2007 issue, lazy me)

I’d make the sweet potatoes and the pie again (definitely the pie) but the spiced turkey was more trouble than it was worth and the creamed onions weren’t anything special. Pretty easy though and they did taste good, if you ever have to make creamed onions.

I wussed out on making my own pastry crust, I just bought a frozen one from the grocery store. Good thing too, because the night before, I’d picked up a crumb crust. They were out of dark corn syrup so I knew I’d have to come back in the morning for it after they’d put the load up. So I came back with dark syrup and the frozen pastry crusts and saw this…

Oops. Nothing edible can be left anywhere within five feet of the floor. I know this, but forgot. I was glad I had the backup crusts.

I love that she had pieces of the label stuck to her and only wish I’d been able to snap a pic of the expression on her face when I came home. It was the very picture of “d’oh! caught redpawed but please don’t take it away from me”ness.

You can’t really see the stem and it’s not made for a head as fat as mine, but you get the idea.

I knit this hat a year or so ago, with the stem at the top and single crocheted around the hem, and meant to finish it off with some curly icord and leaves. But my google fu failed me and I couldn’t find a curly icord and didn’t like the leaves I knit so buried it in the stash.

But a while ago, I picked up a copy of Epstein’s Knitting On the Edge, which has both curly fringe and dangly leaves, so eventually I was able to dig the hat out of the abyss to finish it. I knit the curly fringe according to the instructions and it looked just awful. So instead I made my own after all.

curly fringe/ curly fake icord:

row 1: cast on a bunch of stitches.

row 2: knit two together, knit two together, knit two together….etc. ’til the whole row’s been knit.

row 3: (bind off row) knit the first two stitches together, then knit the next two stitches together. Then lift the stitch from those first k2tog over the 2nd, binding off. Knit next two stitches on left hand needle together, lift 2nd k2tog stitch over the new stitch…etc. until the process has been repeated all along the row, and you’ve fastened it of as normal.

Twist the curl like you like it, like it wants to be, baybee.

I knit the leaves as instructed, although I slipped all the edge stitches, because the leaves look raggedy as written. One had a bit of icord, the other was no stem. I’m really happy with the way it looks, I think it looks dead cute. It’s for my flight instructor’s son–while I wouldn’t normally give a knit gift to a Normal (that is, non-knitter, and not related to me ;)), my instructor loves pumpkins (the things you talk about while flying around in a pattern) his son’s birthday is the same as my mom’s (next week), and he’s taking off to teach at another local school that has twins and will be able to get him closer to his goal of being an airline pilot, so it’s sort of a thank you for getting me to solo stage, being fun to fly with and good luck, best wishes present.

Other than that little bit of finishing on that hat, I haven’t really been knitting anything. For some reason I have really been wanting to knit the Bubble Pullover from Gaughan’s Knitting Nature. I had kind of a “meh” reaction to it in the book, but it looks awesome here and here. I just want to knit that, and nothing else rings my bell.

I even went to Michael’s to pick up enough Paton’s Classic Merino Wool to knit it, since I heard they were having a $3.50/ball sale. But, they weren’t on sale and there weren’t enough in the colors I wanted in the same dyelot, so I took that as a celestial smackdown.

I am after all a handspinner with a huge personal stash and shop inventory which needs to be whittled way the hell down before we move. And I had resolved that we’re not buying anything new until after our move. We are so lucky, we need absolutely nothing. But it’s a hard habit to break.

One goal for the next year is to pare the stash down to pretty much nothing. No more buying skeins just because they’re pretty with no specific project in mind. I have a maddening stash, with two balls of everything. I have enough yarn to make a million scarves, or hats, or wristlets or whatever. So hey, that’s great, if I was into it. It’s just blah knitting. I crave sweater knitting, at the moment.

Speaking of cravings:

Mmmm…oatmeal…

Frankly, I have so many things I’m thankful for, if I’m to recount them here I need to put them in a separate post. And you’ll need an hour and a cup of tea. Just fair warning.

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11.08.07

The Hat so Nice I Knit it Thrice

Posted in knitting at 12:44 pm by wendy

I spaazed the first two times.

I interpreted the customized directions to work 20 rows as directions to wrap 20 stitches (it makes no sense to me now why I thought this).

(twice as many wraps, whoopsie.  hard to tell, even close-up, just too long a line of wraps puts the shaping too close to the brim)

First I thought I had just messed up where the shaping ended up, because no way was it going to end up right, so I ripped it. Then I redid it, expecting to find my mistake, but did it the same. Still impossible.

Ripped it and asked myself to ignore the pattern and just find the mistake. What did I need to do to make it look like I thought it should look to get what I wanted. Ah, fewer wraps. Then I saw where I was being stupid and misreading the pattern and forgetting that each wrap=2 rows.

Duh. Lazy brain methane.

Anyway, I knit it right the third time and love it, even though I look crappy in hats.

The Noro’s color blocks are too long for a seamless fade into the same color (at least for my size). But it’s kind of a neat jester/left brain-right brain look.

Great stashbuster, really perfect for handspun, I’ll definitely be knitting this again.  Used perhaps a hundred yards of worsted weight yarn, since this was a ball of Noro Silk Garden that I’d already used a bit of.  But a hundred yards for a garter stitch hat seems impossibly little.  Anyway, 7″ depth, 20″ around, knit on US size 8s, with a row gauge of 4sts & 8 rows to the inch.  Superquick knit.

 

Schmeebot’s Zeebee kicks @ss! 

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10.31.07

Knitting

Posted in knitting, socks at 11:22 pm by wendy

I have been.

Also, I got my copy of IK Winter 2007 today in the mail. Yay. Nice lines, simple, a good article on sleeve cap shaping design. The designs remind me of the ones I find flipping through the vintage mags, so that might be a reflection of Eunny Jang’s tastes, but I like it. Why spend all that time knitting something that’s out of trend by the time you’re done?

Also, all hail the full figured models! Or, if not full, well-equipped. Yay dirty pillows!

I finally finished the Cedar Creek Socks–the dragging of the project only indicates my crapulence in time management (and maybe a little of the size 11 on US size 1 needles) and have assembled almost all the ingredients of the apologies for being so late package they’ll be journeying in.

I really love the stitch pattern & the cute picot edging, although I think I’d follow your own numbers for lengths on the heel flap and toe shaping.

I used chart D of the Rogue pattern repeated 3 times for the body of a hat I made for my second cousin. (The son of my cousin). I sped up the decreasing of the pattern toward the end. Don’t worry, it doesn’t look conehead on and it fits him perfectly. (shot below is of me though, he was fussing when they tried it on him).

I stopped by Two Sisters and Ewe and snagged some of their Lana Gatto’s Berroco Suede lookalike that was on sale and paired it with their other yarn (the name escapes me) that mimics Berocco’s Plush but with longer fringe and a higher pricepoint, and made some Uggs. Don’t ask me why. I think they are cute on babies.

It’ll be a while before they’ll fit the recipient, but hey, they’re Uggs. (whatever that means)

While I was supposed to be studying for my FAA written exam, I knit this:

Marnie Maclean’s Halley Comet Hat.

I love the top, but it totally looks like crap on me. You need long hair (or at least enough for a little flip out the bottom) to look good in this. But it was nervous avoidance random holiday gift-knitting anyway.

There’s been other knitting, but I don’t have piccies.

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07.22.07

Hmmm…sockapaloozer.

Posted in books, knitting, socks at 8:38 pm by wendy

I have to admit, I haven’t been following the Tour. I’ve checked the paper every once in a while, but I’m not seeing much around, not like last year where it seemed the Tour was everywhere. I guess the lack of Lance is a biggie for the networks. Or I’m just oblivious. Equally likely.

So, I took my rest day yesterday, and the day before was a slacker day, maybe only a half hour of spinning. Instead, I started on my Sockapalooza socks. I cast on on Sunday, knit the picot edging Monday, and here it is Wednesday:

I haven’t felt like I’ve had much knitting time, so in my opinion, I’ve been whizzing along. As of writing this sentence (the above was written Wednesday, at a cafe with wifi, & now we’re back home with my wonderful own broadband wifi) I’ve finished the heel flap and am picking up stitches for the gusset.

I love this pattern–it’s the Cedar Creek Socks designed by Kaci Kyler Hayes, and it’s the perfect pattern for variegated yarn. Simple enough you memorize it quickly so it’s good take-along knitting. But between the four row repeat and the variegation in your yarn, it’s still not a dull knit. I’ve not done a right twist slant the way this pattern has it before, it’s ingenious and creates a wonderful depth and texture–and flexibility.
I originally took this yarn with me to Oregon as my only knitting. Carefully I packed the yarn, the needles, made a photocopy of the stitch repeat I wanted to use on the toe-up socks I planned…and left the the 16 row stitch pattern behind. So on the plane, at 9am, making reassuring mooing sounds to the alcoholic bull next to me from Kansas City, I tried to decide on a new plan. I was wearing my favorite cabled sweater, so I mimicked those in the sock after making the requisite increases. Meh. Cables are not as flexible, and flexible is important when making socks for a stranger. But ribbing is blah. And then I was there, and present in the moment and…
So I started my Sockapalooza socks for reals this time on Sunday, the 15th, and they are due August the 2nd. I am hosed. Other knitters would be fine, but me, yeah I’m hosed. I’m still going to try, and August 1st, I will contact my sockapalooza partner again and let her know that I am a lame-o, but just a slow sock knitting lame-o, not a swap finking lame-o.
Not like my Sockapalooza pal, who sent hers early–I got these beauties in an envelope from Canada:

It looks just as cool inside out. (sock on left is inside out)
So between this and Harry Potter (I’m done, but no spoilers here, since I bought a copy for Nick too we now have a spare–if you’re local and you want it, holla), I stopped caring about the Tour de Fleece. Whoopsie. Still, in tribute to my fallen goal, when I spin, it will be the merino-possum, and I won’t spin anything else until it is all spun up.

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06.09.07

“Today we continue part four of the agonizing pain that is my life…”

Posted in books, dogs, entertainment, knitting, spinning at 10:35 pm by wendy

A week ago, I stepped off the curb while unloading the car and managed to put my left foot wrong. It did a crazy 90° angle to the leg thing and went CRACK! Fast trip to Nausea City and later, Cankle Town. Whee.

Check out the blood pooling/swelling and bruising –

   The flash kind of flattens out the bruising colors but looking at my ankle made me feel really squicked out. Here’s what it usually looks like:    I did cancel what I had to do that afternoon, and iced it, but the next day there was too much stuff to cancel so I put it in a hiking boot.   It’s stiff in the morning, but otherwise fine.

Anyway, that’s my big news.

Whee.

If I was a better blogger I would have shaved my ankles before Nick took those pics. It’s definitely time for the waxer; it’s getting on bikini season and when I look down there I see this.
I’m pretty sure that’s not sexy. Nick is a real trooper.

Snuggly symmetry.

It’s The Big Bunny’s birthday today and we’re just taking it easy and having a mellow day. He had to work last night and has to work tonight, but today is a day for snoozly love.

Knitting and spinning

I’ve been in a bit of a knitting/spinning funk. I zoomed through pieces of Sophie’s Kai Cabled Sweater, but stalled out because of a Realisation.     Yes, the yarn shortage epiphany.     I’ve been making it longer, since she’s a baby Amazon, and I think that barring a miracle, I don’t have enough yarn to finish the other sleeve and collar.

I won’t be short by much, but I’m pretty darn sure I’ll be short…so I’ve stalled out, as if delaying it will deny it entirely.

So I’ve been knitting on a sock for my Sockapalooza pal. A bit. I’ve had a really good run of one-day books (you know, the ones you end up reading all in one day, sometimes even at stoplights) lately though, and strangely, my reading has been almost themed.

The Book Thief (the story itself is riveting, but the “Death” narrator kind of brings a big disconnect, breaks up the flow, and is kind of a cheezy melodramatic hook the story could have done well without). A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian–funny, charming, frustrating, sad, and utterly enjoyable, you can see everything. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress–gripping with beautiful imagery. And in here as well, various pickups and putdowns of Everything is Illuminated and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, which are certainly fun, but just haven’t managed to grab me like the others, haven’t been one dayers. In all of these, totalitarian regimes are nearly a character themselves.

I finally read I Married Adventure. Wow. What a charming book, and a bit of a time capsule. You know that part in King Kong with the scary natives? They lived that. (link is to Amazon and a version with a different cover. Mine is the cooler 1940 version. ;))
I picked up Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns from the library and cried my way through it on Thursday. It’s brutal and oppressive and frustrating like The Kite Runner, but there’s more hope, more love. And no anal rape. Yay.
Yesterday I read Water for Elephants, and that’s a great summer read, really fun, really sweet, but some heartbreaking parts, especially if you dwell on them.

I’ve spun a bit.

I took the Polwarth locks I bought over a year ago and carded them into rolags and spun them up.

There were a lot of pale colors, so I carded the pale like colors together for one bobbin, and the stronger colors for another bobbin. I’ve never carded more than one or two rolags at a time, never really enjoyed it before, but this was fun.

Maybe it was blending the colors, just letting it go as an experiment, so I didn’t care when my clumsy carding prep made for neps, and I spun thick and thin and let them stick out willy nilly to be tacked down later by the ply, but it was really enjoyable. I don’t think I have the discipline in prep to create consistent color blends in large amounts with handcards though, for that, I’m going to need a carder.

I spun and plied with a lot of twist (well, a lot of twist for me) but it doesn’t look like that much of an angle on the bobbin, because it is wound on under tension. (I spun the singles on my Victoria and plied with Heidi’s Joy, since my third bobbin is still with Elton the woodworker and I didn’t feel like winding off into balls.)

When released and wound onto a niddy-noddy, it looked like this:

Usually, to finish my yarns I just give them a quick wash and rinse and hang them up to dry.   Sometimes I’ll full them a little bit if I want a more durable yarn, but it’s been more along the line of reasoning of “beat the cr@p out of them now so they can take a lot of cr@p later” not any consistent logic based on staple length and crimps per inch.      But I read Judith MacKenzie McCuin’s article in the Summer 2007 issue of Spin-off magazine and thought I’d try out her theory (she specifically mentions Polwarth as being a weird exception to the staple length rule, so I thought it must be kismet).

So I beat the bejeezus out of this skein. Superhot water, lots of soap, cold rinses. I ended up reskeining it, because I think there was some shrinkage and some bits stuck together. Some dye came out in the water, but not much especially considering how hot the water was.

3.3 oz, 216 yards

There was considerable plumping up and fuzziness, all told.    Parts that had more twist and were spun finer didn’t full in the same manner.    I don’t think this is a necessary way to finish a yarn spun, but is definitely another option to finish for a certain effect.

BTW, if you haven’t seen the new Spin-off, you should definitely check it out.

The Type As of the spinning world will find the Fractal Stripe spinning article appealing, plus I liked the Yucca fiber article(s), and of course, the aforementioned finishing yarns article.

But…the first thing I turn to is always the “Your Yarns” feature, and that’s missing.

Plus, no Spinning Basics article, which is probably the second thing I look for, despite being a relatively new feature. I know they recently did a poll, so maybe I’m in the minority, but I hope these changes aren’t permanent.

Speaking of a series, here is part one in Dogs Using Toys as Pillows:

Crivens with wheels behind her, Love Monkey beneath her.

Belu appeals to the power of the Internets. “Please don’t let them wash my dirty fluffy ball!”

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04.01.07

Random

Posted in books, entertainment, knitting, random at 8:36 pm by wendy

IMPORTANT

Did you know I’m a rumor monger? Stop eating anything with wheat gluten in it.

Contaminated pet food ingredient sold as “food grade” may be in human food supply.

And now for something completely different.

Google’s offering free broadband! And an awesome new option for Gmail!

And, at least Lion Brand admits their yarn is lame.

The things you find on flickr.  You know those Biore pore strips?  That pull stuff out of your pores?  Someone took a picture of theirs.  I can’t look away.

Mourning Update

I had a dream the night before last about Mom.

This is the fourth one that I remember, and while I had the “yay, you’re alive! but this is probably a dream and not the other way around, but yay! I don’t want to wake up!” feeling I still got to hug her and smell her again and it felt so real, so it’s all good.

The Road

One of my favorite books from this last year is now Oprah’s book pick. The Road is such an amazing book and has really stayed with me and Nick, one of the rare books this year I read in a single sitting. Believe me, I wanted to put it down.

It’s incredible and encapsulation would do nothing but mislead you, but it’s fantastic— but it definitely contains his bleak awareness of darkness, of evil, of selfish cruelty.

And the helplessness of guardianship of another life in a world full of this selfishness and cruelty.

Also joy and love and pride and fear and hope. So don’t let the sticker on the new releases of this book scare you, don’t be shallow like me.

The joy of trying to be a natural dyer in the disputed meth capitol of the world.

Despite every resource I read on natural dyeing assuring me that pool supply companies stock these chemicals, I get nothing but attitude and “NO! We don’t sell that here!”

I am using these chemicals in natural dye processes. I am careful & moderate in the use and disposal, no need for the hostile freakouts I’ve been receiving.

I’ve said what they are, I’ve said what I need them for…I mean seriously, if you don’t know what the hell sodium hydroxide or copper sulfate are, all you need to say is “I’m not sure we have that but I’ll look.” I guess pool supply and customer service are mutually exclusive. No need for the reaction I got the last time, her anger was so out of nowhere it was surreal, but it was consistent with the weird defensiveness of other pool supply store employees.

I think asking for the actual chemicals (even by the common names of lye or blue vitriol) instead of brand names makes them feel stupid. Maybe it’s all those chemicals that make them stupid. Hello? Who sells chemicals but doesn’t know what the hell they are? Only as brand names? Jeebus, these are things that children are swimming in!
But at least I fuckin’ know what their molecular structure looks like.

Yeah, like THAT means anything.
“I was eloquent! Shit!”

I guess I should start compiling lists of the brand names these chemicals are sold under. Or just tell the “help” to go away and let me look through everything myself. Boy, I read this and it seems so melodramatic and witchy–really, buying something from a shop shouldn’t be a big deal at all. I don’t know what’s up with this, it’s really odd.
Looking Forward

The Golden Compass movie! I pictured Lyra as grubbier, but okay. And I have to admit, the armored bears are my favorite part of the series. The very graphic part where Iorek rips Iofur’s jaw off made me go, “whoah? This is a kid’s book? Awesome.”

Link to preview on youtube

Also Captain Tightpants is Lord Asriel. Rawr.
I didn’t finish the sweater or the bicolor cardi.

I suck. I’m a knitting lame-o. I picked up Sherwood again too. So I can inch along on various projects and not finish anything indefinitely. I’m a genious.

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