slow socks

For what it’s worth, I finished my Conwy socks. Aren’t they gorgeous? They are also the best fitting socks I’ve made to date. I want to thank Stephen at the Yarn Garage, who helped me master the stitch back in July. I have a couple of other completed pairs, so don’t be surprised if more finished objects surface before the end of the week. After that I should be able to get started on the speed knitting, that I so want to do. I wonder, would the RPM sock work as speed knitting? Can you believe the amount of left-over yarn? Anyone got more or need some of the Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Wildflower?

misty chunky ribs and ruffles scarf

That went quickly and that’s one soft yarn! I kept touching it over and over again.

Pattern Name: Misti Chunky Ribs and Ruffles Scarf by Misti International, Inc. and Nancy Kleiber. The pattern came with the yarn.
Yarn: Misti Chunky Baby Alpaca, 108 yards per 100g skein (wierd on Yarndex. com it says 50g)
Fiber Content: 100% Peruvian Alpaca
Color: Aquamarine (#3317)
Yarn Source: Knitter’s Palette
Finished Size: ~ 4″ x 53″
Project Price: $13.80
Time for completion: Less than Season 1 of Battlestar Gallatica, not including the two hour mini-series. I’m guessing 6-8 hours. I started last night after Episode 4 and finished this afternoon during some of the DVD extras.
Needles: Size 13 / 9.0 mm by Aero
Notes: The pattern says to stop when you have eight yards to go. I measured it out when I thought I was close and this worked really well. After binding off I had enough of a tail to go almost all the way across the ruffle. I used a long-tail cast-on and wished I had been a little more careful with the yarn there as I probably could have gotten four or five rows out of the two yards I chopped off.

a finished object

I finished a dish cloth! I still want to take a creative shot for the Hilltop blog contest though. (Okay, I still need to weave in the ends. I can’t find my sewing needle vial!) Doesn’t it look just like the one in their photo under Ball Band Wagon update?

Finished 10/16/2006
Yarn: Made with Sugar ‘n Cream
Source: Needleworks

my woolly death

I am now among the fallen. They are a nice fit, but they were really cold when I put them on. I guess they sat in the mailbox for an hour or so. My feet are warm now, but it was cold going outside to photograph the socks. I guess revenge is a dish best served cold. They are a little darker than in the picture, but I love how they look black or blue in different light.

Killed by Vautrey77 on October 12 at 2:45 PM. I’m not entirely sure whether the yarn came from Sunni or not, but Yarn: Jo Sharp DK Wool. 100% wool.

She also sent me a nice California magnet, which is now on my fridge with a few other magnets that I have gotten with yarn purchases. How’d she know I needed a magnet? Lucky Vautrey, the yarn your next victim has will be really nice to work with and your assassin is TurtleKnits. Go get your next victim, I’m rooting for you.
I’m really happy that I got to knit two pairs of socks.

Here’s a little statistical information for you all.

Sock Wars Participants	no status	26	dead	389	living	241	deserters	25

baudelaire socks, needles & saffron cables

Baudelaire

Let me start with the Baudelaire socks since they’ve driven me crazy six ways of sideways. I was having some trouble again and I decided that the yarn has been reknit a few too many times. So, I wound the other skein and started over on that one. I will “refurbish” the old yarn by unraveling it, wetting it and hanging it to dry with a weight, as recommended by Vogue Knitting. It’s just been stretched too many times from the frogging and I’m afraid my socks won’t match unless I do this. The new sock is going well.

In the proces I realized that some of the trouble is due to the fact that I was using my Addi Turbos for these socks. Now they say they are US #2 on the package, but they also say they are 3.0 mm. My Brittanys are 2.75 mm and the pattern calls for 2.5mm. All of which claim to be US Size #2.
I actually have never really considered this before because I do gauge swatches. As long as you do the gauge swatch it shouldn’t matter. It just means more tools in your arsenal. FYI, US #2 knitting needles are 2.75 mm, 3.0 is nothing in US and I think Cookie & Knitty just dropped the 7 in the 2.75mm.

The real trouble stems from the fact that this is a toe-up pattern in a yarn I’ve used before on Addi’s. I used the toe-up as sort of a rough swatch since I generally know how Lorna’s Laces knits up with Addi’s. But the toe didn’t really fit on the Addi’s so I did the toe on the Brittany needles. Oops. This explains a lot why the sock part seemed a little loose. Normally I use the Brittany’s to finish off the sock and if it’s a little tighter around the toe it doesn’t matter because I have little feet.

I’ve switched to the Brittany’s for this pattern and now it’s going much better. I love my Addi’s but from now on I’m going to be more careful.

Saffron Cables

I’m trying to do about 5 rows a day. I’m about fourteen rows behind, including today’s five rows. I’m at 6 1/4″ including the 3″ border (skein 3/18 and on row 19). I’m using a whole host of the stitch markers I made recently and they are doing their best to slow me up enough to recognize what graph I’m on. I’m sort of wishing I’d made some alphabet stitch markers so I could have an A in front of chart A and a B in front of chart B and so on. (Although, how would that work on the reverse side?)

The cables are going well now that the cable rows and seed stitch patterns are set up. I don’t have to look at the chart as often as I thought I would. This is because there are only three elements to these cables, all of which can be determined by looking at your work as you go. The cables are either four-stitch or six-sitch cables. They go either left or right. In the four-stitch cables the 1-sitch part of it is either a knit or a purl and you can tell this because the reason it’s either a knit or a purl stitch is because that fourth stitch is part of a seed stitch pattern. Finally some of the cables are part of an increasing/decreasing V and some are vertical. If you know what’s what, it’s not so bad.

In short it’s going faster now and I’m not unventing and redoing cables from previous rows anymore (fingers, toes and eyes crossed).

Another Shopgirl is also knitting Saffron Cables. We’re both crazy.

I hope my battery will be here next week. I miss being able to illustrate my blog.

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.

anti-clockwise

Some days it feels like life is going backwards or even anti-clockwise. I found out our belongings won’t arrive for yet another week. I’ve also found out that going two weeks without access to my computer, my books, all my knitting, and the television is tougher than I would like to admit. This has a lot to do with me not having a job and being married to someone who works all the time, whilst having the appearance of having the summer off. Normally, when I’m unemployed, I apply for jobs while trying to distract myself from being a housewife as much as possible. I’m lucky; I have a low-maintenance husband who cooks, does dishes and laundry. He even likes to do it because then he can listen to his audio books. A lot of people ask me how I avoid insanity. Now I know. (I am habitually unemployed because this is a by-product of being married to a professor without a tenure track job.)

Today, I finished a Widdershin sock and pitched a fit trying to do so. It is not my husband’s fault that he had the car and that he got caught up in work so that I ended up incredibly bored in the house. I was annoyed with everything and everyone and I only had two things I could do; I could either read a book or work on socks. (No computer, no job hunt.) After three hours of sailing away on the Widdershins sock, I started having a lot of trouble with the pattern. I couldn’t decide how long to make the sock and every time I tried it on to see how long it was, it looked like it had gotten shorter. So I’d tell myself, one more cable and then I’d be done. After a while of doing this, I suddenly found I couldn’t do a cable row properly anymore! I had been doing quite well up until about two o’clock this afternoon. At which point there was a kaboom and the universe blew up. Or maybe it was just me.

My husband came home and cheered me up by going with me to do some errands that included returning something to a store and going to IKEA for some dishes. (Of course, I forgot to buy the dust pan that I meant to buy there). When we got home, I finished my sock, no problemo.

The lesson is never knit cables while mad. Pick something simpler to knit while calming down.

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.

trekking widdershins & toe-up sock strategems

I started on the Widdershins socks from Knitty last night using the new Trekking XXL I bought at digs in Northfield, MN. It took a few tries to get a smooth cast-on and to get the right needle size, but I learned how to do the toe-up cast on using Judy’s Magic Cast-on for Toe-Up socks.

As Judy points out in her article, the toe-up cast on is great because you can try on the sock as you go. It seems to be that the toe-up cast-on is especially amazing when you using cables and lace in your patterns. Assuming that you do what I do and use your sock as your gauge, swatch the toe-up sock is your best friend.

This method is faster because you don’t have to do with the ribbing before you get to the pattern on your sock and because once you get to the pattern, you presumably are only going to be using pattern stitches on the top of the foot. The number of stitches in your sock depends on more on your foot than the yarn. Doing the toe-up sock allows you to be completely indecesive about what your sock is going to look like until you get the number of stitches that are appropriate for your sock. And I guess I should mention that you don’t have to bother with the kitchener stitch. Consider it mentioned.

So I’ve decided to knit my next pair of socks as I go without a set pattern in mind. It’s not as if I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m planning a lace or cable pattern with a repeat of 8 stitches. So I’ll start with a cast-on of 8 stitches, increase every round until I get to my pinky toe and then alternate increase and knit rounds until I get to the width of my foot. Then I’ll check the gauge and pick out a lace or cable pattern that suits and go forth from there.

But first I have to finish the Conwy socks.

welcome to dundas, mn

Obviously we finally got internet access. It’s speedy and I love it.

Dundas, MN

In July of 2004, the estimated population of Dundas was 748 people, which represented a 36.7% increase over the population in 2000. This means we can call Dundas a rapidly growing community. They are going to have to change the stickers on the sign to add my husband and me to bring the population up to a nice 750. Actually the sign coming into town says something completely different.

It’s a small town. We have two bars, a restaurant and a post office downtown. We have a couple of businesses in a strip mall that starts in Northfield. I think we have the KMart and the Menards, while Northfield has Target, Cub and McDonald’s. (No envy here.) The city even delivers the mail and pick up the trash. We were able to get cable and wifi installed with no difficulty at all. So we’re sophisticated and hi-tech. We have to go three miles to the nearest coffee shop in Northfield, but there are lots of coffee shops over in Northfield.

The nearest yarn shop is digs in Northfield, which sells a lot of things besides yarn. They have tea towels, furniture, fabric and assorted knicknacks. The yarn is very nice and they carry a lot of hip and trendy yarns that the stores back in Colorado didn’t have. This includes: Trekking sock yarn, Crystal Palace and some absolutely insane Japanese fiber. I’ve forgotten what it is called, but it comes on little grey bobbins and I’ve only ever seen it before on the web. I don’t think they have the best selection of sock yarn, but for that I can go off to the Yarn Garage. They do have lots of Brown Sheep Nature Spun, so I won’t be lacking for yarn.
The Yarn Garage place is crazy, but in a good way. They must have 11′ ceilings there and the yarn goes all the way to the ceiling and hangs from it too! They had lots of of great yarns and I can’t wait to go back again and see more of them. I got some solid color Lorna’s Laces there. I’d been looking for solids for a while because of my earlier trouble with the lace knee highs.

After several false starts on different socks that I tried on the trip here, I began a pair of Conwy socks (not mine) from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road. I’m using the Bearfoot from Mountain Colors in the Wildflower Colorway. I think it’s coming along nicely, but it’s slow going. These are size 0 needles!

The summer issue of Knitty is here! I am going to have to make either (or both) the Baudelaire socks or the Widdershins socks. Do you suppose the Baudelaire socks are named for Lemony Snicket’s characters? Nope, they are named for a decadent poet. I might make the Baudelaire socks in violet anyway. Tee hee.

countdown

Estes Park, Colorado

I should have started a countdown nine days ago. Tomorrow the movers come and take our stuff and hopefully show up with it sometime soon in Minnesota. My computer is going to go in the truck while my husband’s computer is coming in the car. He’s got a nice portable lap top and it has his life’s work on it so he gets priority that way… So this is going to be my last post for a bit. I’m not sure how long it will take to get internet access in the new apartment, but I’m sure I will get some knitting done in the sixteen or seveteen hour trip to Minnesota. (I added a couple of extra hours for eating and pit stops).

I finished the embossed leaves socks this afternoon while having the oil changed in my car. It’s always good to get a car with 169,000 miles on it tuned up before you drive it across the country. It’s not dead yet though, it’s a Honda Civic after all. For some reason the second sock took me longer than the first. I just kept missing yarn overs. They don’t match perfectly, but it’s close enough for me!

While out on Tuesday, I found some more Mountain Colors for my ostritch plume scarf/shawl and the perfect book for my trip, Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush. I haven’t picked out what to knit on the road, but I promise to show you what I did when I get computer access again.

The following lists contain personal opinions and I hope everyone takes them that way.

The Top 5 Things I will miss about Colorado:

1. All the new friends we made
2. 300 days of sunshine a year, beautiful scenery, incredible wildlife, and the lack of mosquitos.
3. Short driving trips to New Mexico and other places of scenic beauty.
4. Wonderful bookstores
5. Decent Mexican Food

The Top 5 Things I don’t regret leaving behind (Warning: Personal politics listed below):

1. The Christian Right, G.W. Bush Stickers on every other car, the fear of being political and other inflexible, close minded attitudes towards life, the universe, and everything.
2. The lack of water (which causes among other things dry, itching and flaking skin), rain, and foliage. Hail in July, high winds and other weather weirdness.
3. Insane drivers and other things that have caused accidents, near broken bones and other bodily injuries.
4. Large trucks parked in compact spaces. I’m talking about trucks with an extended cab and extended bed.
5. All the information I learned about helicopters, machine guns and everything technical I know about the Army (I hope.)

Top Five Things to be Concerned About in Minnesota:

1. Winter: “Forty below keeps out the riff-raff.”
2. Summer: The mosquito is often referred to as the state bird.
3. We know two people in the entire state.
4. It’s the Midwest.
5. I don’t have a job yet.

Wish us luck. Minnesota here we come.

socks, socks, socks, socks, socks

What would be a vacation without some sheep? These are Mountain School sheep. The school was selling some yarn, but in somehow in all the confusion, what with the dark (the power kept going out) and the talking with old classmates I forgot to ask whether the yarn they were selling was made from Mountain School wool. (Note: none if it was sock yarn.)

The completed Potomatomus Socks. Note that the colors are much better in real life; they are more red and blue. I hate to say it but they are almost Spidey like.

Finished on June 12th. Knit on Size 1 12″ Addi Turbo needles using Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted. The pattern comes from Knitty. That was the most challenging pattern I’ve worked on in a long time.

I bought some more Lorna’s Laces last week sometime in the Watercolor colorway. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with it yet. I could do the Straight-Laced pattern, but then I’d have to buy another circular needle. I like the pattern though. We’ll see.

Have you ever started on something that you think is just awful? I’m not sure how I feel about the Lace Knee High pattern from the Interweave Knits Winter 2004 issue inthe Cherry Tree Hill Green Mountain Madness. There’s something very loose about the entire thing and I’m not sure I think it’s appealing. Maybe this is something that shouldn’t be done in variegated colors.

Here is the picture of the Koigu I bought in Exeter at Charlotte’s Web. I’ve been playing around with the Magic Loop Method for the piquant Falling Leaves Socks (pattern available at Knitty). It’s kind of neat, although the Koigu is so dense that I find doing “p3togtbl” a bit tough. The question is will it pay off after I finish the toe?

Can you say addicted to socks? Who’d ever have thunk? I don’t wear socks very often. Socks are for the gym, really snowy days, padding around the house and going to work in (if I can’t get away without them). Maybe I will want to wear them in Minnesota though. I’ve got small feet so these are speedy projects I should probably enter the Knitty 2007 calendar contest with my socks (assuming I finish the Knitty ones). Only…doing what?

The finished iPod holder will have to wait until tomorrow for display.

backyard leaves scarf

Here is the first completed Pomatomus sock. I will get to the second sock soon, but I needed a break to work on something a little less challenging.

 

 

The Backyard Leaves pattern isn’t exactly simple, but since I had finished the first piece already (the scarf is knit in two equal length pieces so that your leaves are the same when wearing your scarf) I knew I could manage the pattern. This is definitely one of those cases, where blocking seriously improves the overall look of the finished project. It also significantly increased the length. I probably should have blocked the first piece – I would have shortened the second piece somewhat. However, it will look terrific doubled up and will keep my neck warm in Minnesota. Or my sister’s neck if she wants the scarf.

Backyard Leaves was completed 6/2/2006 on U.S. size 8 Needles (5.0MM) and rendered in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in “Pea Green.” I think it took between 13 and 23 hours. I started it a long long time ago, but finished the second half of it this week in about 8 hours.

As a a reward, I got myself more sock yarn. Am I a glutton for punishment or what? Maybe just a glutton. This is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Green Mtn. Madness. Apparently I got 470 yards for $22.05 (US) and I have little feet. Not bad. It’s 100% Merino.

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.

more on pomatomus socks and other things

Oh my god was I sick. I started to feel a little better Monday night so I went out and got a little sushi with friends, but that just made everything worse. This is because I had stomach flu… I finally broke down and went to the doctor on Tuesday and he put me on a liquid diet for 48 hours. And then I could have soft foods (think tonsilitis foods, but no dairy). I had real food for the first time for dinner last night and I overdid it a little, so I think tomorrow I will take it pretty easy. At least I won’t overeat again. My stomach seems to have shrunk a lot. I lost at least six pounds, but I wouldn’t recommend this diet. It’s far too painful. And it will probably all come back by the end of the week.

Of course, I tried to knit during this time and proceeded to screw up the gusset of the sock over and over and over again. I think maybe the sick part was screwing with my concentration, but it was hard to resist getting knitting done. Anyway, I’ve fixed all my errors and have safely made it into the foot. There are some funky things you have to do to keep the lace pattern rectangular over the top of the foot, but at least I haven’t left them out this time.

I finally understand why row 1 of pattern B has a stitch that you don’t use the first time you knit pattern B. This is because pattern B results in an increase of one stitch.

I did one job application, so I was able purchase a skein for my stash! I got a skein of Cascade Pastaza and I plan to make the PDA holder in Alterknits. Unfortunately, my local yarn shop is really nice and they wind a lot of the yarn for you. So the photo is not of a skein and doesn’t show the color as well.

Today, I got an advance on my next application. It’s a skein of Noro Kureyon, but it’s not for anything exciting. I lost a mitten from a pair I made and so I’ll make a new one. Still I have a lot of things to finish in order to fulfill my promise of getting four of my incomplete projects done.

I also got some more yarn packed into boxes and selected a few things to go to Goodwill. I’m not sure if they’ll take yarn without the label, but it’s worth a try. I tried to throw it out, I really did.

 

pomatomus sock heel

On a personal note, still have a nasty fever and my stomach still hurts somewhat. I clocked the fever at 101.2 and I absolutely can not sleep because I’m too hot, despite some ibuprofen. That’s why I’m working on the sock and posting at 2am.

I finally got my sock heel together. I don’t think it shows very well, but I did the heel flap finally with the brackets in the correct order and then turned the heel on the same needle. Aah, such satisfaction. I’ve actually finished the gusset (that’s the easy part), using the technique of picking up the stitches by knitting them through the back loop. It looks good. Now onto the foot!