little liza jane and a yarn crawl

This is the progress I’ve made on Little Liza Jane, which I’m making for my cousin. Her baby is due a couple of weeks before mine. I’m making the 6 mos. size for her. It will have to be worn over other clothes, since it will be cold out when her baby is the right size to wear it. I made kind of an ironic discovery, which is that the Cotlin feels a lot (to me) like Debbie Bliss’ Cathay yarn, although obviously without the slipperiness of the silk and rayon that’s in the Cathay. What’s ironic is that I have six skeins of the Cathay in an extremely similar color and another six skeins in orange.  I guess that just means I could make more dresses .

pearl buck guardian

The cat is a slave driver. I could swear that even from 80 miles away she’s breathing down my neck. So last night I finished the left front of the pearl buck sweater. Because it’s not blocked, it keeps rolling up and it’s hard to photograph.

let me count the yards

Ravelry, how do I love thee? Let me count the yards.
I’m determined that my stash will shrink this year in terms of number of yards. The important fact though is that in my accounting system, I can’t count any skeins as out of stash until the project is finished. So even though the back has been done for two years, the balls knit are still “in stash.” This means that finishing old projects is worth more yardage credit than I actually have to knit to complete.

In 2007, I knit 9, 758 yards. So this year, I can’t buy more than 9,758 yards of yarn, unless I’ve knit that much to begin with. This is subject, of course, to budget considerations. So far this year I’ve knit 450 yards from the Dream in Color Bells and Whistles Socks. (It doesn’t matter that there’s yarn left over. The point is that I made the project that the yarn was bought for.)

The Pearl Buck Sweater is worth 1,233 yards! Can you see how this encourages me to finish up old projects? The biggest problems? The Saffron Cables Blanket is 2,538 yards (141) done, while Juno Regina is worth 1,000 yards (none done) and the Katharine Hepburn sweater is worth 1,575 yards.

A Beached Cat or Monkey See, Monkey Too

My second pair of Monkey Socks.
Yarn: Koigu
Yarn Source: Needleworks Unlimited
Needles: Size 1 1/2 Addi Turbo DPN
Pattern: Monkey Socks by Cookie A (available from Knitty)
Finished: June 14, 2007

Spartacus among the saffron

Spartacus among the saffron

Originally uploaded by moiraeknitting.

Maybe a skein a day is a tad ambitious. My slogging has come to a dead halt. See why? Maybe she’ll do a few rows for me? That would be great! The row I’m on, 27, is a doozy.

feet, yarn pr0n and cake

Some feet for Jen La’s contest.

fustration nearly saved by yarn pr0n

After messing around with yet another sleeve on the Huntington Castle pullover yesterday, I realized some more things about sweater design, sleeve changes and whatnot and decided I really hate the entire thing. I sewed the shoulder seams first and tried it out. I’m not happy with the length. I’m not happy with the width. I hate the dang sleeves and I’m going to redesign the whole thing…..someday. I’m going back to my Pearl Buck sweater for now. I still have high hopes of finishing it by my birthday next month, so I have to pack it for my Christmas vacation.

modifications to the sleeves of the pearl buck jacket

These are notes primarily meant for me, but feel free to try to follow along and watch me struggle through the knitting math involved in modifying the armholes to fit my non-model arms for the Pearl Buck Jacket shown in the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. I have never done this level of pattern modification before, so if you are also new to rescaling patterns at least wait to see how it turns out before following my lead. If have some more experience in this area, please chime in with any suggestions you might have.

today is a good day for widdershins

Topday is a good day for Widdershins socks. Sort of. First, my husband found my keyboard in the computer box. It was under the foam. I’m guessing my computer box got turned upside down during the move and so I didn’t see it when I unpacked my machine. Second, the weather is a little better (it’s 90F, feels like 91F as opposed to 92F, feels like 107F). And third, my house looks more like a category 4 than a category 5.

Here are the Widdershins. Those cables were more irritating than I thought they would be, but I enjoyed using the toe-up cast-on.

Pattern: Widdershins from Knitty
Yarn: Trekking XXL, probably Trekking 100 .
Yarn Source: digs
Needles:3.25mm (US 3) Clover and Brittany birch DPNs
Gauge: 7 st/inch over stockinette stitch

I promised that my next socks would be something risky and self-designed, but I’m beat and it’s hot, so either I’m going to knit some plain cotton socks for a little bit of a breather or I’ll work on my adaptation of the Lotus-Blossom Tank. I really did want to do some socks using Euny’s pretty cables from her amazing pink Twisted Stitch Sweater. I would also like to make her new socks as soon as she posts her new pattern. They are pretty close to what I had in mind.

Here is what my cat had to say about the air conditioned room.

Here is the state of my house.

roughing it

The Widdershins socks are made with a very interesting heel. I’m not sure exactly what I was supposed to do with the wrapped stitches, but I tried to follow the directions and I appear to have a rather nice looking sock heel. I think the Widdershins pattern looks great with the Trekking XXL, don’t you? (Spartacus included for scale. No animals were harmed in the taking of this photograph.)

Knitting in the new apartment is done on the floor, in a folding table, or on the air mattress. Our furniture is still with the movers in Denver and hopefully it will be here Tuesday or Wednesday. We only had an air mattress to sit on for a few days, until some of my husband Josh’s colleagues graciously lent us a few chairs and a folding table. Practically, this has translated into two chairs for the cats and two chairs for us. I suppose we could have people over and put the cats on the bed, but we’re not really set up for entertaining at the moment.

We’ve bought a number of survival items that we were unable to pack in the car. This included a new toaster oven (which we needed anyway), some cheap silverware and dishes from Ikea, dishtowels and potholder. The cups were $0.50 each, the silverware was $1.99 for a four pack, the steak knivers were $1.99 for a six pack and two plates and two bowls totaled $6.00. The one thing I did pack in our gear was the wireless router. After all, the router is smaller than a toaster oven and not covered with rust and grease.
We’ve been cooking in our toaster oven and microwave. We’d use the stove, but we haven’t got any pans! So we’ve had a lot of packaged food (microwavable Mac N’ Cheese and some packaged Indian), sandwiches and a bunch of fruit. One thing we made in the toaster oven was sausages with green peppers and onions. What do we care if we can’t roast a chicken? It’s brutal outside and we’re not accustomed to humidiy

In the meantime, it’s pretty hard to keep entertained and that’s why I’m knitting socks like mad. I’ve got lots of sock yarn, a couple of books and occasionally I get to login to the web and hunt for a job. My main job search will begin in August after we get back from London and I’m determined to find a good job It’s either that or give up buying yarn.

completed sock

Does something about this picture look familiar? I did the kitchener stitch and then I finished the first sock! It’s a bit loose around the foot , but I think the fit is pretty good!

Here is the completed sock, drying.

Also, I just want to show you a picture of the most shameless cat ever. No knitting involved in this one.