on the needles in 2009

Hmm. Looks pretty similar to what was on the needles in 2008.

In Bag #1:

Big Brother's Cobblestone, which was supposed to be the first of three sweaters I would make the kids for Christmas. Whoops. It's nearly four inches into the yoke, practically done, for Pete's sake. As the holiday drew closer and I knew there was no way the kids' sweaters were getting done, I put it down in favor of the smaller projects I had to finish. This will be the first thing I pick back up.

In Bag #2:

The Bubble Pullover. I've got just one more pentagon to go, then the sleeves, collar, and the ribbed section at the bottom. Man, those pentagons were getting boring. I remember writing when I first started this sweater that it wouldn't ever get boring. I've been betrayed by the Bubble. Or my own attention span. Whatever.

In Bag #3:

Oh, man, the seamless hybrid. I cast this on in - wait, let me check - holy crap, last January! That's just sad. If I remember correctly, I'm somewhere on the second sleeve. So I need to finish that, join everything together, and hopefully remember what the hell I had planned for the yoke.

And speaking of my short attention span, I've got a couple of new projects going too. The first is, well, another cowl. They're like a disease, I swear.

Pretty, though, isn't it? It's Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande I got for Christmas (thanks, Nancy!). The pattern is this Spiral Cowl, with a couple of mods. Besides changing the gauge, I also substituted a regular hem for the picot hem, and kfb increases for the yarnovers. Both changes make it a little simpler and less lacy (though it is beautiful and not at all fussy as is), which I like better with the bulky yarn.

Lastly, I've also got a mystery project going:

I can't share this one just yet, but I'm putting it in for the sake of completing this public shaming project inventory.

And, well, I know I wasn't going to make any New Year's resolutions, but here goes: These will not still be on the needles in 2010!

random bits

It's been a heck of a week. Busy. Excuse me while I attempt to pull out any bloggable bits and then make fervent promises to post more often. And comment on other people's blogs more often, and reply to comments more often, and, well, you get the idea.

I went to the dentist this week. Twice. First for my regular cleaning, and second because of course they had to find something dreadful. Involving wisdom teeth - again. Back in July they only pulled out two of my wisdom teeth, partly because that's all I could afford, but also because one of the bottom ones has a scary root that is shaped like the letter U. The surgeon said he'd prefer to leave it where it is, and when I was there Monday, a hygienist literally looked at the x-ray and said, "Holy crap! Imagine pulling that out!" It's a caveman tooth, is what it is. And apparently if the bottom one is staying, they'd like to keep the top one too - don't ask me why. My top one had a ginormous cavity in it (wisdom teeth are nearly impossible to keep clean, I'm told; that's why they usually yank 'em), so they did a filling with some kind of medication in it. It tasted like cloves. As she was getting started, my dentist says, "Since it's kind of a big one, I'm going to drill it without using the cold water. You might smell something - don't worry about it." Well, smell something I did. Like she was burning toast in there. And she did not mention that I would see smoke rising from my mouth as she worked. Dude, smoke. Thankfully she's very good with the anesthetic and it didn't hurt at all.

It's starting to feel like it's thawing out around here. Thank goodness. I do like winter, and I'm not looking forward to the summer heat and humidity, but the arrival of spring is very welcome. Yesterday afternoon the kids and I even got to walk the bike path a bit. I missed the bike path! Soon enough the mornings will be warm enough to resume my morning walks with Baby Sister. Although if yesterday is any indication, they'll be a bit different. She rode for a bit, but mostly she wanted to walk herself, stopping every now and then for an impromptu round of "Ring Around the Rosy." There's also a tunnel on the path, running under some train tracks. The local junior high painted a mural in the tunnel, and Baby Sister did not want to leave it. Can't blame her - there's bright colors, and animals, and a cool echo. Eventually she tripped and scraped her hand, and in the ensuing holding and comforting I was able to take her out of the tunnel. I'm thinking there's probably a better way, though.

I've been knitting, too. I'm on the second sleeve of the sweater, and I'm starting to entertain the notion that it might be possible to finish it in time to see the Harlot on April 27th. Possible for me, I mean; I know it would be possible for most people. I've probably jinxed myself saying out loud, though. Or in print, whatever. I also started some socks for Little Brother, out of leftover Cascade 220. I put in a cable pattern so I wouldn't get too bored.

I like them. I let the boys go stash diving to pick out yarn for their socks, and I think this was a good choice - you can't go wrong with Cascade 220. Big Brother, on the other hand, picked out my leftover Lush (50% wool, 50% angora) in a light purply-blue color. Although I have no personal objection to purply angora socks for a ten-year-old boy, I can't help but think they'll be full of holes in about five minutes. We may have to have a yarn-choice discussion.

Hmmm . . . what else is going on? Well, we're doing this.

Not with any real result, but you gotta start somewhere.

Now for the fervent promises: I swear I will blog more than a single crappy post in a week! I will knit like a fiend and share my results! I will visit all the blogs I read, the ones that have posted such well-written, thoughtful posts, and I will leave equally thoughtful comments! I will reply to both emails and comments! And then hell will freeze over!

What time is it? Crap, I have to get ready for work.

knitting update, with ridiculously lengthy discussion of shawl collars

Knitting time is at a premium around here, between work and birthday parties, but I've gotten a bit done. First, Baby Sister's socks:

They're not really anything special - plain toe-up socks - but the model's pretty cute. :)

I've also got something actually happening with the seamless hybrid! And it's only been on the needles a couple of months! (I am pathetically slow, I know.) Here's what it looks like now:


Can you see where I started the second skein? How about now?


It's pretty obvious to me, but there's nothing I can do about it, because a)after scrutinizing the ball band, I can find no mention of a dye lot, b)I got the yarn at the Webs post-holiday sale wicked cheap, it's probably gone, and Northampton is two hours away, and c)I had knit about three inches before I noticed. So I'll have to just get over it.

Hey - speaking of Webs, I'm going to see the Yarn Harlot there in April!! It's going to be great; my mom and my sister want to go, plus Jess and Amy and MadMad and lots of other bloggers too. I'm so excited to actually meet all these people!!

Okay, sorry for the Webs-induced hysteria. Where was I? My sweater. Right - so I want a shawl collar on this thing. I had originally planned to do it the way I believe they're usually done: bind off a section of stitches where the bottom of the collar will be, then afterward pick up stitches around the neck and knit the collar, probably in ribbing, so that its stitches are at right angles to the sweater's stitches, in the front anyway. Like this, except, you know, not on a guy:


But a few weeks ago, I was in a parent conference, and - though of course I was paying attention, I swear - the mom had on this terrific sweater with a really interesting collar. It was shaped like a shawl collar, but it was in the same stitch pattern as the rest of the sweater (cables, incidentally) and the stitches were in the same direction as the rest of the sweater. It looked like you just cast on extra stitches at the bottom of the collar, then start knitting back and forth instead of in the round, shaping the V of the collar as you go. Then you overlap the collar and sew the little seam at the end. I wish I could find a picture of this. If I'm not making any sense, feel free to send me a big WTF in the comments. Here, let me try this:


Anyway, I decided I had to have this collar on my sweater. I was pretty darn excited about this collar, too, as only you knitters will understand. But I wanted to see if I could figure out a way to do it without the little seam at the end. I worried about lumpiness, and also I don't care for sewing.
So here's what I did. When I got to where I wanted the bottom of the collar to be, I put markers at either end of the center 19 stitches, and I cast on 19 more stitches, to get the overlap. But in what at the time I thought of as my extreme cleverness, I didn't cast them on all at once, I did knit 1, make 1 across the stitches between the markers. Then I put the new stitches on a stitch holder. I gave myself a little pat on the back, because there I had it: two sets of overlapping stitches on the front of my sweater, just waiting to be shaped into shawl-y loveliness. Then I turned and purled around the back of the sweater.

Do you see where this is going? When I got back to the collar section, I wanted to have the stitches from the holder be on one needle and the original 19 stitches on the other. You can't really do that without pulling the overlapped part really hard and generally making a mess. First I tried doing it as some sort of double-knitting thing. Yeah - I can hear you laughing. I can't believe I tried that either. I ended up just kind of using the stitch holder as a third needle and moving things around each time I got to that section, until the two pieces were long enough to go on the needles without pulling. Voila:

It would have been easier to just sew the fricking seam. I should learn to stop with the thinking already.

projects

Amy asked yesterday if my family looks at me weird when I take pictures of, say, our breakfast. Actually, they don't much care as long as I don't get them personally involved, which obviously happens more often with knitting than with French toast. When I start saying things like, "Hold still so I can get a shot of your feet," or "Hmmm, that's not working, come stand over by this window," they maybe get a little annoyed.

Much better to take pictures of things by themselves; the yarn doesn't care (Actually, I think it kind of likes it, don't you?). Like these:

The latest yarns off my wheel. These are the two merino rovings I got for Christmas. The green I started spinning pretty much immediately, then I got sidetracked by all the January birthdays. As a result, it's pretty uneven. Also, I tried winding it into a center-pull ball, then plying the inside end together with the outside end, rather than plying from two balls or bobbins of yarn. I'd heard this is doable, and you don't end up with any leftovers if your balls aren't quite the same size (hee). I ended up with a tangled mess that broke about a jillion times. Through sheer force of will and my thrifty and sentimental desire not to throw out perfectly good, beautiful merino, I got it finished. But it's not as nice as I'd like it to be.

The brown was my first attempt at spinning a singles yarn, with no plying. As a result, it is also, um, pretty uneven. I was going for a bulky single to make into the Yarn Harlot's Unoriginal Hat, except I was going to make an Unoriginal Neckwarmer, because I already have a hat. The cables, though, just didn't look right with the thick-and-thin yarn I ended up with. It was Just Too Much. So I frogged and made a neckwarmer in just stockinette, with a picot hem at the top and bottom.

It was. . . . a little big.

It was also quickly frogged, lest it become sentient and attempt to eat me. The third attempt is on the needles now, and I sure hope it works, because I've missed having a neckwarmer. It's a little bit of a change from a scarf, a bit less bulky (unless it is big enough to be a tube top, of course), and my old one is currently residing somewhere on the floor of Ikea.

I've also got a sock going for Baby Sister, from the leftovers from my mom's socks, which is going very slowly since it's pretty much traveling knitting. It hangs out in my work bag or my diaper bag, waiting for spare moments I don't often have. Don't worry, I'm making it big.

My other current knitting project is still the seamless hybrid I started a while ago. I've been working on it, I swear, but it is a little boring. It makes good tv knitting, but not particularly interesting photos, so I'll wait until something's going on with it before I show it again. You should look for it sometime in April. :)

Finally, once I started with the spinning wheel again, after a bit of a break in December and January, I can't stop. I'm working on this pretty merino I got at Manmade by Jonne:

Yeah, the colors are a little bright. J called it "circus wool." But after all the green and brown and the white alpaca I had worked on before, I wanted a bit of color. I'm thinking fun bright socks. Next on the wheel, once Jess gets it dyed up, will be the wool for her contest. (If you haven't seen her contest post yet, click the link - I can wait.) It's Shetland, and sooo soft. I think it's going to turn out pretty great, and I'm not just saying that so you'll click the link already.

So, yeah, I've kind of got my hands full. I guess I have a touch of startitis - I've always been prone to it. It's worse than it looks, actually, because there are other things done that are waiting for another post, and stuff that is destined for the frog pond because I suddenly had a desire to do something else and I'm going to need that yarn. There's always something more I want to try!

Man, I just love knitting.

*PS - Happy Birthday Magic Baby!!

knitting catch-up

With the holidays and birthdays over (for a little while, anyway), I've been indulging in a bit of selfish knitting. But first, I did manage to finish J's socks.

I used the Yarn Harlot's sock recipe from Knitting Rules, with the addition of a wafflestitch pattern (k2,p2 for two rounds, then knit two rounds). He says they are super warm. They ought to be, as they are made from leftover Berroco Ultra Alpaca - 50% wool, 50% alpaca. There, now he can't say I haven't made him any socks. :)

On to stuff for me! The first thing I finished was a pair of mittens, using the same Rowan Chunky Wool I used for Baby Sister's mittens. Because I am that kind of cutesy matchy-matchy mom. Anyway, I just kind of made them up as I went along, although I did rip off the peekaboo opening from this pattern.

I put a "wildflower" stitch pattern from a stitch dictionary I got for Christmas on the back, which I think is a very pretty pattern.

The pictures are misleading; I made these way too small. I swear, they looked okay while I was working on them, but they are actually ridiculously small. If I use the peekaboo opening and just pretend they're fingerless gloves, they work okay, though. I'll eventually make other mittens - I just didn't feel like doing the same project twice, you know?

I'va also started -gasp! - another sweater. I've really been much more of a small-things knitter, but I'd like to be more of a sweater knitter. I'm just pretty slow, and I lack the necessary attention span. I'm determined, though, because I bought this pretty color of Araucania Nature Wool at Webs, and I deliberately bought a sweater's worth. I'm making a seamless hybrid a la Elizabeth Zimmerman, using my own calculations (I actually did a real, good-sized swatch!). I'd like to try to add a shawl collar, but I don't think I'll have to worry about that for a while. At my pace, the collar is a couple of months away. Here's where the sweater stands so far - a few rounds past the hem.

I am rather fond of that hem, though. I used a little bit of the sock yarn I had dyed with Koolaid last spring, and I picked up the cast-on stitches at the appropriate point so I don't have to sew the hem down later. It is a joy to behold, if I do say so myself.

And finally, because I do love the small projects, I made my self a hat. It's the Tillie hat found here, and I'm a little bit in love with it. It turned out to be just the perfact marriage of yarn and pattern, although I did not use the called-for yarn. I used my Sheep Shop Sheep One, and I got gauge on the first try (holy crap! swatching again!), the yarn was soft and wonderful to work with, and the colors are just perfect. Best of all, it seems I've finally found a hat that doesn't look stupid with short hair.


Take a look at those colors again. You know you want to.

Aside from finishing the sweater, I think I'm going to fall back into a more evenly distributed gift/selfish knitting pattern now. Already I just finished some garter-stitch slippers for Little Brother. All I've got left is to felt them down to his size, so I'll post about those soon. Big Brother will be getting a pair too. Mmm, garter-stitch slippers, just like my mom makes 'em. :)