Less than 70 degrees

I think this might be the first day since Spring that the temperature didn't go above 70°. Normally I hate to see the warm weather go, but more and more I'm finding that I rather like the month of October: gorgeously colored leaves, apple picking, pumpkin carving, and, of course, knitting. I sadly neglected it during the abnormally hot and sticky Summer but now I'm wishing I sucked it up and at least finished a hat.

Since I have little to show, here's a failed attempt from last year:

Ravelry project page: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/lgleo/lucky-7-hat

Ravelry pattern page: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lucky-7-hat

Pattern: http://knittywhipped.blogspot.com/2008/01/free-patterns-one-and-all.html (scroll down a bit)

Modifications:

Crown rounds 1 and 13: changed k2tog to ssk to match the direction of the cables.

Detailed project notes:

2009.12.06 CO 84 sts on size 5s; worked 10 rounds; tried it on; it fit ok, but stretched too much leaving non-wind-resistant gaps; ripped it out.

2009.12.07 CO 96 sts on size 5s (enough for 8 cables). As expected, this is too loose. Need to figure out a happy medium that still allows the ribbing to flow into the cables.

2009.12.08 Trust the pattern. Back down to 84 sts and size 7 needles. Yeah, typically ribbing is bigger that most else, but the sts seem even enough in the pattern photo and it fits ok. Plus, I’m impatient and really want to make this now with this yarn. After 18 rows of ribbing, I finally finished the left overs from Evangeline and began the second skein.

2009.12.11 Finished up through the noggin; on to the crown.

2009.12.13 Finished all but the last row of the crown, put in a lifeline and pulled tight, tried it on, and didn’t like it. I guess either my row gauge is way off or I have a bigger head than I realized because withOUT folding up the ribbing it fits. I want to fold it up for extra warmth. Ripped out the crown and will try adding another cable repeat.

2009.12.14 FROGGED I’m not happy with the fit so I’m stopping now because I know I’m not going to wear it. It’s short and tight. After following the pattern as written, if I fold the ribbing up I’d lose ear coverage. If I fold it up and pull it down, it’s tight and stretched and won’t be any sort of wind resistant in the upper half. It’s not a bad pattern and I like the hat, it’s just not what I was looking for right now.

I checked out others' projects and they seemed to run into sizing issues, too. It's a nice hat and I'll probably try it again someday (maybe with chunkier yarn?), but it's not going to be warm like I wanted. Of course, neither is the lacy beret currently on my needles, but that's another post...

Joining the Ranks of Sock Knitters

I finished my first sock!

Rav: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/lgleo/anastasia-socks

In progress photo:

I love it and I loved knitting it. The Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino hand-painted yarn is a bit, well, more colorful than I'd usually wear, but all the different colors and frequent changes made it much easier to see what I was doing on the short row toe and heel.

I started out with a different pattern (Leyburn) but didn't want to be so worried about tension on my first pair, plus I wanted a bit of openness. I found Anastasia after much Ravelry hunting. I could've saved myself a lot of time just by looking more into Leyburn's creator: pepperknit.com designed both!

Rav notes/timeline:

2010.03.21 I’m getting pretty good at making sock toes. Maybe this will be the project where I finally make it to the heel…

2010.03.24 Halfway through the foot. This is a much better pattern for this yarn than Leyburn.

2010.03.25 Took a break from knitting for a bit to weave in the toe end. I didn’t skim the sts yet, just wove it a bit. Must remember to finish this before washing.
2010.03.26 7.25”, 4th spiral is at the end of the needles, beginning the heel with a purl row. Stop wrapping when 10 sts are live (6 wrapped sts on either end).

2010.03.27 Scratch all that. They don’t fit. I measured the ball of the foot as suggested in Socks from the Toe Up, did the -10% thing, etc. and it fits the ball fine. Where instep meets ankle, however, is about a full inch larger (8.5” vs. 7.5”) and the pattern gets very stretched and distorted trying to accommodate that. (Don’t think that changes my view on that awesome book--it was, after all, my fault for not measuring that in the first place.)
Option A: Rip out completely and start over with more sts. Currently, the toe fits (actually it’s a little big on the pinky side; apparently I have a big, big toe but that’s an issue for another sock) and the ball fits, and I don’t think either would fit if I upped the number of sts from the start.
Option B: Switch to a larger needle. I don’t currently own any other size dpn until going up to size 5. I already checked LYS availability for a 1.5 circular to switch to magic loop and found that the closest one is already closed for the weekend. I’m not willing to wait. Plus, I like my gauge as-is and think another size up will be too loose.
Option C: Do some math and increase somewhere in the middle. Then exactly repeat everything for the second sock. The most difficult to execute is, as usual, my favored option (wonder if I do that on purpose…).

2010.03.29 Finally got around to ripping out the heel and half of the foot. Slowly working my way back up, increasing 4 sts in one row (one per spiral, including future leg spirals) so right now I have 8 sts between spirals. Might do one more increase round like this.
Increase Round: To be worked on round 14 of my chart (maybe I should upload that…). At the end of round 13, M1 st on the sole. Round 14 instep: k2tog, yo, K1, M1, K5, (k2tog, yo) twice, K5, M1, K1, k2tog, yo. Round 14 sole: begin with a M1 and then k around as usual.

2010.04.02 Made it to the heel. Stopped at about 10 rows after the 3rd spiral, with 5 St sts at the beginning of each instep needle before the eyelets, and 4 pairs of eyelets completed for the 5th spiral. It fits much better this time.

2010.04.02 (later) Finished the heel. It still fits much better. Picked up 2 sts between the heel and the instep to close the gap, began knitting the instep in pattern and realized I messed up somewhere because there aren’t the right number of sts between the spirals. I’ve been tinking any mistakes made so far, but in this case it would mean undoing the heel to get to the rest of the instep. Or I can drop sts in lace work. Either way, the first order of business is finding out where it happened. This oughta be fun…
2010.04.03 Tried to fix the problem without ripping out, I really did. I can fix knit sts no problem, k2tog wasn’t hard to figure out, but even with techknitter’s guide to moving increases, I can’t figure out the moving yo’s and mixing those with the k2togs. I spent more time trying to figure it out than I did making the heel in the first place, plus the yarn’s starting to fuzz and stick together, so the heel is no more. Now my problem is with picking up a row of sts, which I surprisingly had no trouble with the last time I ripped out. I’m hoping a bit of sleep will help before attempting this again.

2010.04.04 Fixed the extra eyelets, re-knit the heel, started up the leg, and forgot to start making spirals on the back. At least I don’t have to rip back as far this time.

2010.04.08 Now that the heel’s done and spirals started, it’s moving along quite swimmingly. I’ve got a couple inches up the leg and seem to have enough yarn to get a good ways up the calf, if not all the way to the knee! May want to make an increase round or two before getting that high, though.
2010.04.10 Ok so maybe thinking I could make them knee-highs was a bit excessive, lol. I think I might take a break from the pattern to knit a cuff to see how much yarn it’ll take. I want to use up as much as possible on these.
2010.04.11 Save 40 feet for the ribbing

2010.04.21 Back on track. NOTE to self: there’s a lifeline after heel eyelet 49. If I need to rip out to there again, do another patt repeat as usual, then do the increase row.
2010.04.23 On to the ribbing! Trying TechKnitter’s slipping technique / Cat Bordhi’s hungry stitch at the end of each dpn.

2010.04.26 Bound off! I own a complete, hand-knit sock! Now to start all over again to make its mate.

Über Yarn Pr0n Available Now on Ravelry

[2009.08.05] UPDATE: You can check out the winners here!

Well, yarn pr0n has always been available on Ravelry (click here* to start drooling), but this is just insane. I'm not usually swayed by the yarn page nearly as much as the pages for patterns or finished projects, so to say that I'm glued to the screen is a big deal. What's got me in a tizzie?

It's Sock Summit's Dye for Glory contest! They have a dozen categories with so many beautifully dyed yarns in each. The catch? You can only vote for one in each category. If you're already a Ravelrer go vote now! If you're not but are a knitter, crocheter, dyer, or just yarn appreciator sign up and vote now!

* As of this writing, access to pages within Ravelry is still members only, but it's free to sign up and they really don't spam your email address.

Cleaning House

Tomorrow's Independence Day here in the U.S. To celebrate, I was hoping to paint my nails. Nothing fancy or time-consuming (like the flowers, hearts, etc. I'd paint on my nails years ago) but still keeping with the red-white-blue theme of the day. I dug out my many bottles of nail polish only to find that I don't have a good red anymore--the two I used to use are too congealed from heat and lack of use. It was kind of eye-opening to realize how little I've painted my nails in the past few years. I should work on this, starting with a trip to a drug store to pick up some red (and probably another color or two in the process, lol).

Even if that falls through, I'm hoping the day won't entirely lack art/creativity. I've got a blank SD card and a borrowed mini-tripod ready to go to capture fireworks. This'll be my first time trying to seriously photograph them.

Speaking of photographs, I actually documented something yarn-related recently:

This pile of Red Heart was donated to a lady who worked in the same school as my boyfriend (I think the fifth-grade school around here) in early May. There were a few other smaller, stray balls but this is the bulk of it. Some of them (e.g., the watercolor colorway in the middle) I was rather attached to but honestly I didn't have any projects in mind for them. I've been slowly moving away from Red Heart Super Saver; I don't like the feel of it for garments and lately have been knitting things designed to be placed next to skin. I also want to move away from worsted weight for a bit and try other other weights. I did keep a few very tiny balls that I wasn't sure she'd want; they make good stitch markers, lifelines, etc.

I'm learning to let go of things I haven't/won't use. This is good.

Healing nicely

Shortly after finding my dpn's two weeks ago, I developed a pain in my right wrist. It wasn't a dull, short-lived, maybe-I-had-too-much-to-knit pain; it was a serious, sharper pain occasionally coupled with a prickly feeling in my hand. I freaked and didn't touch yarn for a week but it still hurt. So I picked up a snazzy wrist brace, wore it most of last weekend, then just slept with it on every night since then and I'm feeling much better! I don't have any more pain at all and I'm feeling confident I can knit tonight at my weekly, two-person S&B without worry.

Of course, I couldn't go two whole weeks without touching yarn. The second week I broke down, but didn't knit. Instead, I dug up many of my partially used skeins of various Caron Simply Soft colors, measured them out (I'm starting to doubt the measurements, but more on that later), and wound them up with my makeshift nostepinde.

The seven yarns outlined in red are all new to my Ravely page this week (yes, a Cascade Venezia also snuck in there; again, more on that later). I'd still say it was a productive week, but I'll admit I am longing for my needles.

Also to compensate, I broke out my camera for slightly more artistic uses than merely documenting my new obsession with measuring yarn. I bring you, the Leaning Tower of Yarn:

Ok, not all that impressive yet, but at least it's not another straight-on, one-skein, one-color shot. (Ok, you caught me, now I'm actively trying to include more hypenated phrases in this post =P)

Still, can't wait to start actually knitting again!

Nostepindes and Resourcefulness

I'm getting ready for an exciting project (more details later). The person I'm knitting it for wants yarn that's already in my stash, I'm just not sure if I'll have enough. While I wait for her to let me know length, width, etc., I needed to find out how many yards I actually do have on hand.

My desk drawers are mostly opened with knobs, two of which are spaced exactly two feet apart, so I used those to measure out the yarn on the slightly used skeins. Since the knob is at the end of a skinny post, I wrapped a spare shoelace around each until the post was about the same width as the knob so I could wrap the yarn around them and be able to pull it right off when done.

I wrapped the yarn around the knobs 50 times, tied it off into a hank (without actually cutting the yarn, of course), and repeated until done. Then it was just a matter of some simple math to figure out the total yardage: # wraps * 4 ft per wrap / 3 ft in a yd. [I used this same method to figure out how much yarn I need by measuring, then ripping out a swatch and counting the yards used. It ended up being 1 yd per sq. in. of knit fabric--how convenient is that?]

From there, I took the hanks and wound them into balls ...with an empty roll of toliet paper nostepinde! I followed the instructions at http://www.hatchtown.com/nostdir.html. I'm quite pleased with the results; even the first one looks much better than any other ball I've wound:

Cascade photo on Ravelry

A fellow Ravelrer asked to feature my photo of my Cascade 109 LE yarn on the yarn's page! It's not on the 'front page' of that yarn anymore, though, so you have to click on 'more photos' to see it. Regardless, it's still exciting. And it reminds me that I should get back into photography...

Yarn: check!

My yarn came in! And due to work I had to wait until the weekend to get it. [Side note: Starting tomorrow, my hours change so that I'll be working the late shift instead of mid shift--ideally to work less overtime. There's a small chance, if I get up early enough, that I can go yarn shopping before work during the week now. Assuming, of course, I can find my way there by myself, make my decisions quickly, and find my way to work from there (and it's not on the way at all). ...but I do have the motivation, lol.]

Work aside, I have my first "real" yarn! Cascade LE 109 (I think it's a super bulky) in a golden brown that should go well with my plethora of jewel-tone t-shirts (and blacks, and whites, and even the couple pastels I have).

It came out to a lot more than I was expecting--like, $40 more. When I checked out the Cascade price tag last time I was there, it was for the worsted 220, not the weight I bought which is more expensive. Plus the needles were a lot more than expected as well ...but they're Addi Turbos which, according to the Ravelry boards, seem to be pretty high quality so I guess they're worth it. I was a bit confused when she first told me the price, but I'm not going to guilt myself over this. Especially now that I'm working the late shift because I get a differential for that. The total amount spent at the LYS came in just under the extra bucks I'll get in my first paycheck for this shift, so it's not like I lost money yet, per se (last work reference in the post, promise).

It's way too hot and sticky to break out the camera, set up one of my make-shift backdrops, take photos, edit them, etc. I can't even stay on the comp long because that generates additional heat. So I'll post pix another time. I do finally grasp the concept of how yarn is seasonal: besides balling one hank, I haven't had much of an urge to fondle the yarn. It's just too gross out to play with heavy wool.

Actually, now that I think of it, turning off the comp sounds like an excellent idea. I'm off to grab a big glass of ice-cold water before going to sleep on top of the covers. G'night.

Real wool!

I have real wool! ...or at least I will in a few days.

I went to a LYS for my second time ever and was very satisfied with this shop. Lots of yarn and quite friendly & educated staff. Apparently brown isn't a very popular color, but she pulled out pretty much every skein of brown they had. But that wasn't enough so she pulled out books and such containing samples of yarn that could be ordered. Just like that. Crazy!

Since there wasn't enough yarn of any type for a sweater (6 skeins), I did end up ordering. Cascade... something or other (bulky? 109 or 128?) in a lighter brown than most of the others that she showed me. It was by the yellows on the card instead of the rest of the neutrals, but didn't look too much like a gross brown color. I had a goldish brown in mind anyway for Cherie Amour.

I'm still worried about getting the right sized needles since I'd like it to fit, making gauge important. When I said I needed needles too, she found the recommended ones and stashed them away for when I come back for the yarn. I have no idea if I'll need the recommended sizes, but I thought that was really sweet of her so I didn't want to say anything. I've gotten a lot better since high school, but I'm still quite shy.

Since I went in with the pattern in mind and showed it to her, she quickly jumped on Ravelry to find what others used for it. Still shy, I didn't ask what her username is, but I was able to find the group for her store! lol. I'll keep an eye on the boards and hope that anything special that goes on in the store takes place on a weekend since work is taking up more and more time during the week.

But back on topic, probably by this time next week, I'll have 6 skeins of wool ready and waiting for me to begin my first sweater! I'm still getting over the fact that it'll cost twice as much as my synthetic ones ($42 just for yarn), but the warmth factor should make it worth the splurge. Just think--an article of clothing that will actually keep me warm (if I completely ignore the fact that it's lacy, lol). That kind of logic, plus the beautiful examples I've seen on Ravelry are inducing an urge to knit socks. But that will be a contemplation for another day.