A little bit of lace.

Writing and shawl

2011-12-02T14:39:00.001-05:00

Non-Knit

I find this quote from Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda really interesting. He is, for those who weren't wildly geeky net denziens in the mid-late 90's, the founder of Slashdot. It was (and is) sort of a collection of stories, commentary and so on for the hardcore computer geek crowd. A bit of news, a lot of nerdery, forums and social media before anyone knew about social media. I still own a /. shirt, even though I admit, I don't read it much anymore. Anyhow, on to the quote. (Full interview here.)

"I still shun the term Blogging just as I shun the term Tweeting. It’s all just writing. It’s like trying to subdivide Novelist, Columnist, Blogger, Tweeter. Words are words. It’s not really interesting to keep slicing and dicing and sub-categorizing to me. I just write some stuff or share some stuff. Distinguishing between “Journalist” and “Blogger” is a waste of time. I’m all of those things and none of them."

I find it fascinating as I regularly refer to myself as 'not a writer'. Yet I journal (750words.com for the win, even if I haven't in a while), I do online text based gaming (Yes, I'm a MUSHer. Have been for coming up on 17 yrs this coming Jan.), I even took a stab at NaNoWriMo this year. (First time. Failed horribly. 8K words is nowhere near 50K)

But yet I maintain I'm not a writer. It's interesting how we put such stock in labels. I am a knitter. I'm not a writer. I am a larper. I am a gamer. I'm not a whole lot of other things.

Anyhow, you're not here for the writing (or at least I hope not, or we're both in trouble), you're here for the knitting.

Neverending Shawl

It's probably unfair to stick such a label on this shawl just yet. I've only barely started it (Nov 22 says my notes) and it /is/ a laceweight shawl designed to be somewhere between huge and ginormous. The smaller size is a mere 177 rows, and the larger size is 237 rows. I'm not a small person, and why yes, I am selfish enough to make it for me, so I expect I'll be going the 237 rows. Which makes the excitement of having done 72 rows.. well a little flat.

Gwendolyn by Stefanie Bold

The relevant details are that it's Gwendolyn (rav link), by Stefanie Bold. I'm working it in random 'had it forever' blue laceweight on a cone that is probably some flavour of poly-cotton and I'll worry about blocking later. 3.0 mm needles, and I think that photo is from row 61, not row 71. Imagine another 10 rows of the same thing. I only manage to work a pattern row or two a day, so it will look much like this kinda forever.

At least I'll always have something to blog about.

Colourful

2011-11-30T14:31:00.001-05:00

I am a colourful person. Even if I tend to err on the side of caution a touch too often. (More black/brown/drab in my wardrobe? Awesome!), at heart.. I'm a colourful soul. I'm drawn to the brights, the variegateds, the splotchy, the stripes, the spotted. I'm not much for patterns, per se, I'd rather random globs of colour here and there, drawn around by the design.

Like my recent mittens.

I happily break the 'rules' on lace and do doilies in variegated thread, or coloured thread. I dye like a colour blind monkey with a paint brush.

I just, only a few hours ago, put in a Knit Picks order, full of rich reds, eye popping yellows, hot pinks, and then I was reading blogs later and it happened. A moment of yarny twinged regret.

The Yarn Harlot (who is awesome, but that is rather besides the point), posts today about a scarf.. and the scarf is lovely, but along with the scarf is a pair of mittens. And those mittens are much like the heavens opened and there was a song of angels and I went 'oooh!'.

And they were neutral on neutral. Go look here. See?

I don't own neutral yarn! AIEE!

Hopefully it passes quickly. I've hot pink on it's way!

Almost there..

2011-09-10T11:47:00.000-04:00

The parasol has firmly hit the almost there stage of completion. A mere eight more beads (out of 72), and then I have to decide if I'm patient enough to wash and block it or if I'm tossing that sucker straight onto the frame to call it done, Done, DONE! I was very tempted to nip off to the KW Knitter's Fair today, and I still keep having urges to jump in the car and just go. But with flying to New Orleans on Wednesday, the time to finish costume bits (like the parasol) and the urge to conserve knee cranky is strong, so I am going to be good, and do errands and sewing and beading instead. There's always next year, right? More pictures when I finally finish the parasol. I promise.

Obsession

2011-08-25T12:22:00.000-04:00

Not the song, although to be fair, it's a pretty good song.

But a sock. A deliciously challenging, full of twists and turns and surprises sort of sock. Colourful, a bit of a pain in my arse, and compelling to see how the hell it all fits together. I decided, you see, to cast on for Skew, and it's sock origami.

Much like the baby surprise sweater, you knit along with utter blind faith, and find little ah ha moments along the way. This blind faith knitting, well it humbles me. I'm a rookie designer, I think of myself as being reasonably adept at knowing the hows and whys of patterns being put together, and this? Well. It takes what I know, tosses it on it's ear out the door and kicks it to the curb. In my generous moments of strong self esteem, I am inspired by the flexibility of knitting and of the human brain to consider such a thing, and on the bad days I stare in baffled awe at my knitting and think 'Well, no use /me/ designing anything, it's all crap comparatively'.

So behold my obsession, and the parasol? Well it will get washed and blocked and beaded. Just after this section. I have to see how it goes next!

Camp Loopy 2011, number 2!

2011-07-15T14:03:00.000-04:00

Wow, summertime and the living is /busy/. It is as if all of my hobbies have combined into one giant sleep depriving mass of enjoyment, that starts being less enjoyable when you're still awake 6 hrs before you have to be at work.

But! Today is the day that knitters near and far are casting on for Camp Loopy Project 2. This time we need to do mittens, socks or gloves with a cable in them. It doesnt say all over cables, just at least /a/ cable.

So I am torn. Do I do nice cozy mittens in patons classic wool to match the Mariah I still need to finish? (I have wool left over, and I'm quite certain sewing in a zipper is not going to take more than 100g of wool. It'll take no wool in fact.), or do I 'accidentally' forget the cable requirements and knit my larp character a pair of lacy white cotton gloves, so that I can manage to outfit her lace bits all in handmade stuff.

I /do/ have a whole month for this (amongst GenCon and parasol knitting and sleeping off irc events), the potential for both exists.

Oh the choices, the choices!

As I dont have any pretty pictures of my chosen yarn, nor have I considered patterns for mittens or gloves, you will have to make do with a parasol in progress picture. 21 repeats done.. only 51 remaining. This could be a while.

More knitting than writing

2011-06-24T12:04:00.000-04:00

I think I've written this post in my head about a half dozen times, but every time I consider opening up blogger, I tend to pick up my knitting instead.

There is something to be said for the instant gratification of big thread, big needles and fairly quick moving projects. Usually I'm working in size 30 cotton and 2 mm needles and a week's worth of work requires a magnifying glass to locate. Currently my projects are size 5 cotton and dk cotton. It's such a difference!

So the parasol is currently at this state:

The middle section is done (63 stitches per repeat, 8 repeats around, 504 stitches per round), the border has been test knit and charted and now it waits on the second ball of Clea. Which I'm picking up tomorrow on the way to a wedding, because knitters are awesome. Even during a postal strike, a ball of yarn was found local enough for me to go pick up. The fact that it's half an hour away from the out of town wedding we're going to is just gravy.

So in that pause, I had to start my Camp Loopy shawl. Now, this might be cheating. The requirement was a two colour shawl or scarf, and I took 80's peach yarn (remember 80's peach? Yes, I had flashbacks too), and dyed 3 of the 5 balls a denimy blue/purple/pinky splottered varigated sort of haphazard colour, and the last 2 balls a solid (ish) blue/purple that's in the varigated.

To me? This is two colours. I think. Close enough, I'm working from stash anyhow, so I dont qualify for any prizes or anything, but I can knit along!

DK cotton + 5.5 mm needles = fast moving moose lace.

I've never had to increase lace along the edge of a shawl before, and while there may have been some /words/ and a lot of ripping when I realized I'd managed to extend the lace, but also managed to quit increasing.. 5 rows back. Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I'm kinda chuffed to bits with myself.

I have some vague thoughts of beads on the edge, but that might take it away from denimy casual shawl to trashy. But sometimes, a girl wants a little bit of trashy. *grin*

Just keep knitting..

2011-06-16T15:30:00.000-04:00

I do feel a little like Dori in the Finding Nemo movie, the lace has hit the never ending stage. Except for one little detail. Before, I was toddling along on the whole 'oh yeah, I'll know when I've enough'. And then I did the math. And then doing the math became doing a bit more math, with a pencil and graph paper and ended up looking liks this.

And then as a reward for all that spiral knitting, I decided to do the hunt for an edging. I wanted wide, but not a leaf pattern, something that evoked the feel of the spirals, but everything wasn't quite right. So I took two that were close, smushed them together and added a few more holes. I think that's what goes on behind the magic curtain of design, actually. I then tried it out on some size 5 cotton in blue, as well.. the state of my size 5 Clea is a sad one indeed.

I'd hoped for about 3", this is about 6" wide. Which means I can stop knitting spirals about 3" earlier! Huzzah!

I have found more Clea 5. Yay!

In the UK. Okay, still yay-ish.

Canada Post is on strike. (Lock out technically). Decidedly not yay. The progress of the parasol may, at some point, come to a crashing pause while I wait on yarn.

Then I'll just have to toss together a shawl for Camp Loopy, which has also been rattling around in my head for a while.

But for now, back to much more of this.

Wall of lace.

2011-06-13T09:04:00.000-04:00

Runners, and I suppose most exercise enthusiasts, talk about the wall. Where at some point things get hard and slow and frustrating and discouraging and you push through anyhow because you are a strong athlete and a warrior and home is 5km thatta way, so either you push through or you suffer the indignities of calling for a cab mid-run. Well at least that's my guess, exercise and I have the sort of relationship where we flirt and talk good, and then someone doesn't call, and then there's accusations and pain and a lot of not talking and it's all downhill from there until the next optimistic reunion where 'this might be the one!'.. and you get the picture.

Anyhow, lace knitting has that wall. 42 stitches per repeat. 8 repeats a round. That's 336 stitches per round, and it increases 8 stitches every other round. It's currently got a radius of about 9 inches. I'm aiming for about 15 inches before the border, which means about 6 inches more before a border. (Borders take forever and use unthinkable amounts of yarn, I'm going to worry about that later.)

Currently I'm getting about 8 rounds an inch, so 48 more rounds. 8 more stitches, every other round.. another 192 stitches. It should be 528 stitches per round by the time I'm starting the never ending edging.

Perhaps I shouldnt have done the math.

13 days

2011-06-06T11:04:00.000-04:00

I have long wanted to knit myself enough lace for a parasol, as this fair skinned redhead might be solar powered, but prefers indirect light. I finally scored the perfect umbrella frame at the dollar store on the weekend. Light, not too flimsy or big, white handle and tip and the 'fabric' is perfectly clear plastic. I dont even necesarily need to remove it!

Unfortunately I have no already knit lace in stash that's big enough. My largest current pieces are about half the size needed. Whoops.

A little under two weeks from now is Faery Fest locally, and I suspect we'll be going to it on the Sunday. I'd really like to at the very least. Last year, I baked and broiled in the unrelenting sunshine. This year, well. See the above mentioned parasol plan.

Which gives me 13 days to knit an umbrells sized lace piece and figure out how to attach it. GO!

I decided to go with Spiralen in the centre until I'm so sick of it I can't think, and then either edge it with a good wide edging, or crochet off, or feather and fan, or something else that I'll decide when I get that far. For the moment, a nice big spiral.

Attempt 1 with mystery blue poly-cotton, and 2.5 mm needles up to round 12 and while the mystery yarn has a lovely soft drapy hand, it's awfully thin and this is a structural piece. Soft super drapy hand is actually not a feature here.

Attempt 2 is with Clea 5 and 3 mm needles. It's much bigger and a bit more solid, which is probably good in an umbrella. Especially one that I want to finish in less than two week.

And here they are side by side, to get a sense of the size difference between them. This is the same pattern, knit to the same row, but different thread and needle size.

I apologize for all the crappy iphone photos, I don't usually bring the big camera to work, and that's where I do most of my photographs. Ah well.

The next big puzzle is what to do when I run out of Clea 5.

Mystery Shawlette Clue 2

2011-05-30T15:07:00.000-04:00

While I might be smack in the midst of knitting through clue 3 of Wendy's mystery shawlette, I haven't yet shown off clue 2, and my procrastination can be interpreted as keeping the mystery and suspense.

Or something.

Clue 2 was another super short one, only 12 rows, coming up to 2 rows of border and 24 rows of pattern. Just easing us in gently before 72 rows of clue 3.

I have learned, however, that doing the long rows while you're high on the new project fumes? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I may need to try and figure out how to do all the boring parts first, although perhaps that will just end in my getting bored on something else, but for this little thing? Brilliant. Each row gets shorter than the last, in direct contrast to my usual circular knitting where it rapidly gets huge.

I was going to add another picture, a close up of the first two clues here, but apparently I am incapable of taking a clear photo of it even with a quite nice camera and a monopod. I am that inept, clearly. So have a blurry one and just squint so that it's supposed to look blurry, or something.

It's a gorgeous day out, I think I might have to do some knitting on the front porch this evening.

Lace Knitting to Philosophy

2011-05-26T13:21:00.000-04:00

Based on the mouseover for this xkcd comic: Extended Mind, one can get to the wikipedia page for philosophy from.. anywhere. So of course I had to try it.

I started at Lace Knitting and passed through such topics as Matter to Knowledge and Mathematics to get to Philosophy in 18 steps.

An amusing way to spend 5 mins of curious clicking, certainly.

As for actual lace knitting, I'm slowly plugging away on Frosted Ferns (Rav link, sorry about that.. although if you're not on Ravely, why not? You dont need to talk to people, but it's terribly handy for keeping track of your own stuff). It's a Niebling. It's more accurately, my first Niebling.

I am not a novice lace knitter. I have enough hubris to recognize that, I can cope with just about any pattern dropped in front of me, and I've knit a helluva lot of lace. This keeps my attention. Almost too much sometimes. I can't just go on autopilot, and let me tell you, that's pretty rare these days. I am rarely active challenged in my knitting, and I like that. I just wish I liked more of his pieces, but ideally I can eek out enough of his that I do like to keep my needles and thread happy for quite some time to come.

I'm on round 75 of 122, which is not more than halfway it's only 38% completed. Area is a far more accurate measurement than plain row count when you're working from the centre of a circle out.

Basic specs: 2mm needles (currently knitpicks metal circulars), size 60 Oren Bayan cotton in ecru, which is turkish and very nice. I found 5 balls of it at the thrift store for some piddling amount, and I'd guess I'm not even halfway through the first ball of thread.

Less than halfway by area, I am going to be at this for quite some time to come. At least it's reasonably scenic along the way.

Not dead yet.

2011-05-25T14:53:00.000-04:00

Alright, mostly dead.

But I am knitting, and as awesome as Ravelry is for letting me keep track of what I'm working on. (How /did/ I manage to keep track of what I was working on before ravelry? Oh right. A little orange notebook I lost a lot.)

Currently in progress is the Summer Mystery Shawlette by Wendy of Wendy Knits. It's adorable, it's like eating potato chips, and if you want to jump in, we're only 24 rows in and they get shorter with each one. Go for it! I only have clue one photographed (and badly at that), so if you don't want spoilers, close your eyes.

Okay, you can come back now. Isn't it adorable? Relevant info is 4.5 mm needles, KnitPicks sock yarn in a tweedy russet. Just yum. In theory, it will only take two balls. I hope that theory pans out, even with the larger needles.

Tomorrow, or later, I will show you the Neibling I'm working on. Call it incentive to come back. If there's anyone still reading, that is. *laugh*

Fair isle bag

2010-08-23T06:47:00.005-04:00

Somewhere, I think in an email somewhere, I spotted a bag. Fair isle, bright colours, felted to some degree. I thought 'Self.. we can do that'.. alright so perhaps it was more 'ooh! I can do that!' and a rush to the stash to go digging. All wool. Check. Bits and pieces as it was stripes and prime for using up bits. Check. Solids and handpaints. Check. A bit of handspun too, my first successfully navaho ply no less. Go digging for some fair isle patterns and find a booklet of fair isle sweaters that are woefully too small for me, but that I've always been fond of. Perfect!

Patterns are for suckers, so after some experimentation (aka ripping out the bottom twice) I settled on 2 strands and 9 mm needles for the bottom, single strand for the colourwork on 6 mm needles.

For the lace worker who is used to size 30 cotton and 2 mm needles? This is like speed crack. Each row actually adds length! Noticible length! I worked two patterns and it started to look like a bag. (I also started thinking that attempt two on the size of the bottom was probably a better choice, rather than hugely too big, but that's besides the point).

Now I need to actually finish this and felt it and decide on what to do for a strap.

The sock continues

2009-02-26T10:45:00.001-05:00

green sock, originally uploaded by Jazmin_.

It really is hard to be creative about describing more sock. Woot. More sock! Although I'm knitting along, turned the heel, working down the foot and that little ball of yarn is getting awfully little. Awfully awfully little. Hrm. Might I, for the first time ever, run out of yarn before I run out of sock? I'll blithely keep knitting along and hope for the best. If need be, I'll either have a funny coloured toe, or rip some off the top to add to the bottom. Or something.

Airplane socks

2009-02-18T14:33:00.001-05:00

photo, originally uploaded by Jazmin_.

Alright so it's not the best photo, the colour is far more mossy in real life and well real life is far less blurry. My iphone is not a great camera and post bloodwork shaky hands aren't exactly ideal either. Still! Having half of Guelph turn up to get bloodwork this morning meant that I had plenty of knitting time. This is the current drag around everywhere sock, started on the flight from London to Toronto, which is why it's missing a pretty picot cast on. I forgot to pack two sets of needles, so it got a boring ribbed start, that I can do in the dark with no elbow room. As I proved. I'm not a small person, but economy seats sure are. And they cruelly walk you through the decadent first class seats on the way to your little cubby of hell, I think if they accepted credit cards on the plane for upgrades on the spot, they'd make a mint. Anyhow, let's see if I can get socks knit before winter ends.

No internet, 4 TV stations.

2009-02-13T12:45:00.002-05:00

Apparently that's what it takes for me to actually get off my lazy arse and get going on projects again. An unexpected trip to Scotland in Jan. resulted in me (sensibly I'd have to say) bringing 2 stalled projects and nothing else. It got dark at something silly like 4 pm, halting sightseeing, and well, no internet and 4 TV stations. No MUSHes, no WoW, no blog reading. 3 adults expressing TV station opinions and a TV smaller than my laptop screen. I arrived with 6 repeats done, and left with something like 26 repeats done.

photo
Originally uploaded by Jazmin_

I have fears that it's going to be too short, but the proof on that is in the blocking. Someday I'll remember that not only am I larger than most (to say the very least), but I'm long through the torso as well. Too short is just a shawlet, right?

Couldn't resist

2008-10-10T11:02:00.004-04:00

see more puppies

I'm still knitting a little, mostly I'm just keeping up with life. Still, I couldn't resist sharing with anyone who might still peep in now and then.

Circle-ish

2008-02-14T16:01:00.000-05:00

I decided today to pick up the needles (sure fire sign that the winter blahs might be letting up a bit), and cast on a wee bit of a thing to use as a coaster. Possibly to plunk in etsy as a set of coasters, but I digress.

Alright.. spiral design.. I like spirals. I dont want huge chunks of plain.. no problem, I'll add in some extra lines of holes. Piece of cake. Only a 4 needle set. Well.. I'll cast on 9 instead of 8.

Well it'd break the line to decrease on the first increase of a new line. That's okay. It's just one extra stitch. No problem, it won't make sooo much difference.

Well. If you can't be a good example, at least you can be a horrible warning.

If you increase too fast, you do not get a circle. See? You get.. oh.. 130% of a circle. Which is not a flat coaster. Well. Damn.

Warm ears!

2008-01-25T14:12:00.000-05:00

I actually finished something! Started and finished in just a couple of days. Alright, so it doesnt look like much laying on a keyboard (the only cool place to photograph FO's).

In hindsight, a tighter gauge would be better against the wind, and it's a shade large. Apparently I have a small head, or something. Probably more accurate to remember that knits tend to stretch. If (when?) I knit another, I'll probably drop down to 3.75 mm needles. Here, let me give you another photo of the fabric, so you can admire the dye job. (All this and modest too!)

It's classic merino, formerly in a sad insipid baby blue dyed with kool aid haphazardly. I used 4 mm needles. Quick quick knit, that's for certain!

Ah ha!

2008-01-09T09:18:00.000-05:00

I've been musing on what to knit next. The Baby surprise jacket that I'm sooo close to finishing is in Time Out while I debate how to solve the 'I need more yarn' issue. I've got some UFOs laying about that.. well.. if I was all hellfired up to work on them, they wouldnt be UFOs, now would they?

So! New Year, new cast on. (Yeah yeah yeah.. only yesterday I was saying how I was going to finish things. Shush.) I need to work out of stash because well.. yeah. We did the budget for January and it took me 9 days to realize we hadnt accounted for pet food in it. (Right about when we bought cat food. Whoops.) Nor had we accounted for yarn. Yes.. that's right.. the budget has no 'yarn' category. AIEEE!

Deep breath. Deep breath. The craft room overfloweth with yarn (and fleece and fabric and thread and patterns and and and..) Surely too goodness I can keep myself amused for weeks.. months even.. out of it.

Now.. I have long hair. I wear my hair in a ponytail.. well more often than I probably should to pretend like I'm a professional. Enh. Oh well. I live in Canada. It gets cold in Canada. Ponytail + warm hat = looking like an alien is trying to emerge from your skull under your toque.

Enter Calorimetry. I remember seeing it last year and going 'oh yeah.. I should knit that'.. but apparently it didn't stick until Kat knit one. See? Isn't hers pretty? I am inspired. Now I just need to go stash digging to find something to knit it out of. I don't figure that will be /so/ hard to come across.

I also surrendered, and found batteries for the old camera, rather than magically try and wish the photos from the new camera onto my computer. Or magically wish the new card reader to read the right sort of cards. Maaagic. Now I just need to have something to take pictures of. Here. Have a cute cat photo.

Looking back, looking ahead...

2008-01-08T11:29:00.000-05:00

I started in 2006 keeping a list of FOs for the year. (or trying to at least.. I'm sure there's stuff that got forgotten) Looking back at 2007... wow. I got very little accomplished.

5 doilies of various sizes

2 dishcloths

3 suncatchers

1 scarf

1 baby sweater

2 pair of socks

That's it. That's really sad. It's made more sad by the (at least) 2 big projects that will hit the 2008 list by virtue of being.. nearly done. Mariah is all knit. It just needs sewing up and a zipper, and it has for months.. I'm not quite sure why I'm loathe to not just finish it. (Okay, other than the firey hate I have for sewing up, and the not entirely unreasonable fear that it might not fit) I'm also.. 30 rows from the end of another baby sweater.. and I know I'll be out of yarn. I need about another 1/3 or 1/2 of a ball of Mission Falls 1824 wool, and I'm not sure if I want to scour my stash (I've already looked.. now it's scouring), use a colour that looks /awful/ with the others, or beg for more yarn. The budget isnt really keen on shilling out for another ball. December wasn't pretty.

(Pretend like there's 2 of them. And that it's not an old picture. I've got the old camera at work.. with no batteries. I've got photos on the new camera at home.. with no card reader for the new memory card it takes. We're all imaginative people. We can make do!)

So! 2008! Looking forward. More finished things. I'd like to finish stuff. I think that'd be keen. I think knitting out of the stash would be keen. And paring the craft room down to where I can walk in it. That would also be keen. *grin*

So hopefully I'll have a whole lotta new stuff to show off as this new found push to productivity gets going. (or dies a horrible death like resolutions everywhere.. oh wait! Positive thinking!)

Goldielocks...

2007-09-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

Alright so I'm a redhead rather than a blonde, and its knitting needles rather than porridge. [1] Work with me here on the comparison.
I've got size 30 cotton and a doily pattern that's caught my eye. (Yes more size 30 cotton. Sue me, it's my favourite lace thread.) 2 mm needles arent giving me the love anymore. The plain section is too dense for my liking.. perhaps I'm just uptight (Yeah yeah yeah.. I've heard it), or perhaps I should switch to decaf (Uhh.. full time tech support. As the button I got at GenCon says: I drink coffee for your protection. Not going to happen.), but I think my gauge has gotten tighter. Well. Damn. Okay, no problem.. I've got some 3 mm needles in my bag. (No project they go with, just a zippy bag of needles. Yeah, my life is like that.) 3 mm is way too big. The thread has no structure, no stitch definition. 2 mm is too small, 3 mm is too big.. where's my just right! 2.5 mm you say? Do I dare take those needles out of the sock in progress?

Yep, that's the sock in process no longer on 2.5 mm needles, but now on 3.0 mm needles. I really don't think one round of funky gauge in the ribbing is going to be the end of my socks' world as we know it. And I get the startitis under control. Uhh.. no I give in to it. As I always do. I am weak. *hangs head* See?

Salient points for the detail oriented: J&P Coats size 30 mercerized cotton, size 2.5 mm bamboo needles, one of the patterns out of Gloria Penning's compilation of Rachel Schenlling's patterns. Pattern 5 on page 3 for anyone who has the book.

[1] No porridge, but I do have a bear:

I'd claim it's blurred for the privacy of whoever that is sitting in front of the bear, but no.. really it's a photo out of a moving vehicle pre-coffee. The bear sits in front of the gallery next to where I work on campus. It is regularly dressed up for events or at the whim of university students.

Baked and half baked.

2007-09-26T15:17:00.000-04:00

Nothing like mixing and matching my geeky pursuits. Sitting around at office hours for the vampire larp at UoW, bump into a D&D player that we game with in Toronto and work on casting off the doily. I think that moment perhaps quantified all that is geeky in my world. This damnned doily has given me no end of grief on the thread front. First the knots, then the running out, then the non mercerized. Grrrrr. It is done. Done done. Not blocked, but done.

I also finished the first of the dayglo socks. Jaywalker pattern, Regia sock yarn. These are the travel socks, so they dont happen quickly. I've cast on for the second one already, so hopefully that will keep SSS at bay. The fit's pretty good, and while I haven't weighed the ball of yarn remaining, I'm easily going to get the pair out of it and probably could get a pair of kids socks as well. Yay small feet. (Something about me is actually small. Hands and feet.. hey, I'm taking what I get here.)

Now I just need to decide what next. Perhaps I'll surf my Ravelry queue and see what leaps at me. I'm slowly getting the hang of Ravelry (a networking site for crafts.. sort of. It's a great big gawk fest at what everyone else is doing really). I wasnt sure of it to start with, but I'm a slowpoke at everything. Focus is for oth.. oooh! Shiny!

Poor old camera.

2007-09-25T16:55:00.000-04:00

My poor old camera doesn't cope with shiny well. It doesn't cope with little well either. Have mercy on it, it's (in the scheme of digital) ancient. (which means a few years old. I'm so glad humans arent ranked on that scale of ancient). Anyhow, that being said, here's some beaded shiny (little *and* shiny.. oh yay) that I did in class last night.

Class was with the Guelph Needlecraft Guild (comment if you want more info), and it was downright heavenly to sit down at a class where I wasn't one of the people who knew what was going on. I tend to take classes that I could be teaching and end up being a resource for other students, but beading.. I'm a mook like everyone else. Here's a closer picture.. isnt it pretty!

If all goes well this evening, I might even have a knitting FO soon. Wouldn't *that* be novel.

Argh! Pink!

2007-09-22T16:51:00.000-04:00

Problem. My usual. Using vintage thread, run out before the end of the doily. We won't get into the 'you never blog' problem, let's just pretend it never happened and move on. Okay? Okay. Right! Out of thread. As usual. This time about 9 rows from the end, which is at once better and worse than 2 rounds from the end. Varigated pink in size 30. No problem. I've got pink coming out my ears (me? Pink? Why!? I've no idea, I think it breeds). Seven different balls of pink cotton come out to the back deck with me. Natural light is the only way to go for matching.

Every last one.. mercerized. Nice and crisp and shiny. Doily? Not mercerized. Soft and faintly fuzzy and definately not shiny. Well. Damn!

Vintage cotton is nearly always mercerized. I'm up a tree here.. but wait! I did a little tiny doily out of this very same cotton thinking 'I've got lots! No problem!'.. I'll go find it, rip it out (Eeep!) and have plenty more cotton.

I can't find it. It's in the house somewhere, but damnned if I know where. In the hunt, I pick up a ball of white and put it down. And pick it up again. Size 30.. not mercerized. Well I'll be hotdamnned! Whoo!

Varigated middle, white edge.. nearly becoming my trademark.

Why do I have this much pink!?

Ding! Ding! Round 2.

2007-03-15T14:14:00.000-04:00

By some miracle, I've ended up in Round 2 of the Knit Off, and the pattern comes out Sat am. In a moment of sheer bad luck, I'm paired off against the fastest knitter from round one bar none. Hopefully Paula just kicks my tush, rather than trashes me so soundly it's embarassing. If the gods of fate are shining, perhaps she'll.. uhh.. sleep through the pattern release and it'll be lace and.. yeah. It's an honour to be in the top 16. Really.

Knitting my face off will be a nice change in stress from my Gryphcon stress. It's about this time every year that I swear up and down and left and right that I will never do this again. Ever. It might even stick this year.

I have, however, been knitting. The flare up in my elbow has eased to a dull roar (just in time to see the specialist.. aint that always the way), so I've got a pair of mini doilies unblocked and a sock at the heel. We're going picture lite today so close your eyes. Picture a blob of pink crochet cotton. That's one doily. Now picture a blob of yellow cotton. That's the other doily. Remember the sock from here? Well picture the second one down at the heel. See? It's good to exercise your imagination and not rely on photos all the time!

So that's where the colour went!

2007-02-26T16:28:00.000-05:00

I'm giving knitting another try.. shhhh, don't tell the elbow that it's supposed to be upset by this. I am, however, also trying to mix it up and do other things. Including digging out the dyepot and cotton. Prompted, I must admit, by a momentary panic as I remembered I'm teaching at the Needlecraft Guild a week today. Clearly this requires not class prep, but a dye weekend. Clearly.

I'm teaching a lace doily class. Doily = cotton. Therefore dyeing cotton is class prep. Right? Right!? How about taking seriously ugly cotton

and some el cheapo cold water dye from the fabric store in blue and my trusty dye crock pot (turned off, we're talking cold water dye here). Voila.

I am more pleased with this than I really have any right to be. I mean I took fugly cotton and dunked, but hot damn it turned out well! I also *cough* over estimated how much dye one ball of cotton would need. The dyepot didn't even vaguely change shade. I couldn't leave it like that! Poor lonely dye. Sooooo...

became...

The big ball of white stuff is acrylic (I'm pretty sure) and I only balled off a wee sample that stained a little. The bizarre varigated on the bottom right came from a ball of ecru cotton still balled up tightly and thrown in for good measure. I decided not to skein off the ball of pink cotton, my arms were getting sore by then.

Sore arms, and still a deep blue dye bath. I was out of cotton things I wanted blue. I mean I like blue and all, but there is only so much blue cotton a girl needs. Especially a girl who is not currently knitting (much). So in a moment of 'enh, what the hell', I dumped a healthy glug glug glug of vinegar in it, had a moment of 'I am so smrt'(1) with the ph measurement and tossed fleece in. Heated it up (wool likes being warm. And acidic.), let it cool and...

Well I'll be damnned. Apparently I did get it acidic. Now I just need to develop a fondness for all things blue.

(1) pH testing by it by strip or by drops of indicator into a water sample relies on colour to determine the pH. My dyepot already had the dye in it. It was a lovely deep blue. This makes it hard to determine the lovely pale shade of colour that tells you the pH. I am so smrt!

Where did all the colour go?

2007-02-22T10:05:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning to a white paw in my face (alright, that's not so unusual), and once I got reaquainted with my glasses and got Dalla off my chest I looked out the window to this.

The entire outside world had become white all of a sudden. Whammo. Very pretty, even if the drive in was sloshy and slippy and miserable. Definately a boot day, not a croc day. (Note to all: Crocs + slush = Very Cold Feet. Take my word on it, even the most fantastic hand knitted wool socks will not help keep your feet warm in near freezing slush. I've tested this theory empirically.)

Fortunately waiting on the kitchen floor for me was an exhausted dye pot. (Alright, so I felt pretty exhausted too, but that had less to do with the lack of colour and more to do with needing an adjustment on the vader mask. Which I suppose is a whole different lack of colour in the all black look.) A couple nights back I decided I needed more orange in my world. Everyone needs more orange, it's a law or something. So I balled up a chunk of reclaimed wool. (New ballwinder, still makes me squee. It's downright fun.) Plunk in dye crock pot. Add a glug of vinegar and 2 packets of orange kool aid. And half a packet of colourless. It was handy, it was more citric acid. Fake watermellon kiwi smell + fake orange smell + vinegar is not something I think Kraft was aiming for as a marketing technique. Just saying. I let it cool in the pot and *cough* left it another day to um.. cool. Fully exhaust. Something. This morning I came downstairs to this little bloom of colour.

I'll be interested to see how far into the cake of yarn the dye went. I may be redyeing the interior bit to have some colour to it. It'll be something for post dental hell tonight. (Only one of the weeny layers of hell, just a check up and annual lecture about flossing. I still hate hate hate HATE going. Childhood trauma. *shudder*)

Plan B

2007-02-21T15:56:00.000-05:00

One might argue that 26 hrs of being in a car (over the course of two different days spaced 4 days apart) with only the scenery and one's knitting is an image of heaven. It slips into a layer of hell when you realize that you cannot knit for any length of time without pain and that many hours in the back seat causes the knees to compete with the elbow for one's attention. So. Plan B.

I can, apparently, still spindle spin. I did a little bit of wheel spinning a few weeks back when the elbow first started acting up, but I find my Ashford Traveller, while compact, a little bulky to fit in the back seat of the car along with 3 gamers worth of crap. Fortunately, my toy wheel spindle travels well. I started these singles driving down to GenCon a few years back, and it seems to tag along with me for back seat craft potential when I've had enough of (or can't) knit. The fleece is from a dye exchange equally a few years back now, and spins up to be this really neat mottled yarn. I'm spinning fairly thin, and I'm thinking I'm going to najavo ply to try and keep the colours vaguely together, although the colourways are so short, I'm not sure it will matter much, and if I only two ply it, I'll have more yardage. Decisions, decisions. So the hoodie might be on hold for a little while (probably a good thing as my elation at being 'nearly done' was shattered by reading along in the pattern 'continue pattern as set for 14 inches'.. 14 inches.. aieee! So much for nearly done!), and the fleece stash might see the light of day for a change. I wonder if embroidery bothers the arm.. sewing.. bobbin lace?

Oh the choices...

2007-02-08T15:00:00.000-05:00

Mariah is coming along nicely, arm pain nothwithstanding. No marathon sessions anymore, just little bits and pieces here and there. Fortunately, little bits and pieces add up. I'm on the hood, which is fewer than the 400 million stitches that the body was, and with luck, I should have an FO in the next few days.

I did learn, in a fit of grumpy last night (y'know those days where you could be handed a box of zero calorie chocolate truffles with a winning lotto ticket inside and somehow your brain could make that a bad thing too? Yeah. Grumpy.), that spinning hurts in all different ways. Apparently that was good enough (Change is as good as a rest? Perhaps not.) for me to dig out my wheel again and go back to working on the never ending spinning project. I expect it might end sooner if I worked on it more than say an hour every six months or so. (If any spinners are reading, mystery wool roving, slightly felted (hey, it was free!), ashford DT traveller, scotch tension.)

Yes, I know, it's a damn good thing I knit better than I take photos. I blame the camera, it hates close ups. My camera is claustrophobic. That's clearly it. At least on my monitor, the colour of the yarn is pretty close to accurate. I'm plying it up as two ply, to call it consistent would be generous and I have no clue what I'm going to do with it at the end of it all. I did a little bit of spinning on a drop spindle this morning, that too hurts in different ways but it's a good hurt (?). The whole 'these muscles have forgotten that they move this way' hurt. Depending on how long it takes the arm to heal, I may get more spinning then knitting done for the next little while. Of course, getting near the end of Mariah has me dreaming of what project comes next. Will I be a good kid and dig up a UFO? I can think of two shawls that fall into that category, or will I cast on something new? Something from stash? Lace? Another garment? More socks? Toys? Baby stuff? (Don't look at me like that, no I'm not spawning, just everyone else I know is.) Oh the choices!

Cable needle, we don't need no stinking cable needle!

2007-02-07T13:56:00.001-05:00

I'll preface this with the commentary that my very first knitting project (beyond acres of garter stitch and a little stuffed penguin) was a cabled sweater. The friend who taught me how to knit operated on the principle that if you really want to do something, you'll learn how on the way. So I picked out a cabled hooded cardigan and she helped me buy needles and yarn and a cable needle never once giving a hint that this was supposed to be Difficult. That sweater never got finished.. by the time I'd upsized it enough to fit me, the drop shoulder design was absurd and I detested it and ripped it all out. I still have the yarn. I did, however, learn not to fear anything in knitting in the process of that sweater. Cables? Sure! Lace? No problem. It's all one stitch at a time, if you follow the directions logically it all works. So I've been doing cables since day one, and somewhere along the way I read a passing comment about cabling without a cable needle. There was no description of the technique, just an off handed comment. So I thought about it a moment and went with how I thought they meant. Exactly as it says, no needle. Turns out that they mean some odd twisting of the stitches and putting them all back on the left hand needle in the new order before you knit it. I think. I still don't have that method down pat. I do, however, like to live on the edge apparently and I just don't use anything but fingers. This works better with smaller twists, 1 or two stitches being moved. You can hold three or more, but it gets messy. Oh yes, and pardon the pretty awful photos, me and the 'I don't do close ups' camera on delay and a 100 cd spindle case did our best.

Here we are, arriving at a spot where we need to cable. Eek! It's a two over two cable, nothing too scary.

The two stitches at the start of the needle need to come to the front and look! There they are, dangling in the breeze. (They're the fuzzy green things in the middle. Trust me.)

Alright, squint with me and pretend that the horrible focus is normal. I hold onto the stitches with the tips of my fingers. Really, with a thumb nail and the pad of my finger, the fingernail holds them better, but wool is sticky enough that they don't really want to travel. This next photo is of a different stitch, one stitch held in back rather than two in front, but is (miracle!) slightly clearer.

It does take a bit of dexterity to knit while holding stitches, but a smidge of practice and it's not so bad. And it's only for a stitch or two.

Stick those (fuzzy again.. dammit!) held stitches back on the left hand needle and away you go. Not a cable needle in sight, and after the first few, it barely throws a pause in the stride of my knitting. Perhaps not the best plan for very slippery yarn, but then you just need to be more careful to hold onto them tightly. I tend to do most of my cable work in wool or acrylic, both hold their stitches pretty well. Only three more pattern rows to the end of the sleeve cable! Whoo! The end is in sight, and I need to fiddle for some changes I made earlier. Drat.

Withdrawl

2007-02-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

Well I'm still not really knitting. I think I've managed about 1 sweater row and 1 sock round in about ten days. Slowly, very slowly, the arm is responding to the happy shiny anti-inflamatories, and while I haven't been specifically prohibited from knitting, the common sense of 'Gosh, it hurts when I do this' apparently still functions in my head. I might work in tech support, but I really do have some lingering aversion to pain.

So, what's a girl to do when she can't (or really shouldn't) be knitting? Stash re-org. Or more accurately stash dig through and pet and *gasp* even a little bit of inventory. A few conclusions were drawn after half a lazy Sunday spent poking amongst bins of yarn.

I really do not own nearly as much yarn as I think I do. Sure, it's contained in about 4 rubbermaid totes, which seems like a lot I know, except that I keep up on the knitting list. My stash is but a drip.

Nearly all of my stash are one ball of this, two balls of that, half a ball of this other. Scraps and bits. Enough to do a project larger than mittens is a rarity at best, and I'm not size XS.

For someone who loves colour as much as I do, my stash is mostly really boring colours. And a hellish amount of green. Wow oh wow do I love my green when shopping. While I can appreciate that a nice foresty green looks good on someone with my colouring, this is a little excessive.

I own enough crochet cotton (size 10 and smaller) to knit a doily the size of Ontario. Oh. My. Goodness. I have got to start looking into ways to knit the size 10 and larger into something other than lace doilies. I prefer those in size 30 and smaller thread. Which I also have copious amounts of. If I ever buy more cotton, smack me.

I have both less sock yarn and less lace weight wool than I thought. I was sure I had plenty of sock yarn tucked away, but apparently it's all in little bits and pieces.

So while I considered participating in the various Knit from one's stash endeavours running around the net, in retrospect, I expect I'd just be annoyed. I'm not quite at the must buy to start a new project stage, but I'm not so far off as I thought I might be.

Next time I hit the cataloging bug, fabric stash. Or pattern stash. Or embroidery stash. Or or or...

Pretty colours!

2007-02-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the pause in posting, I finally did something obnoxious to my elbow (aching is normal, sharp pain is not) and it has ground knitting to a halt. Actually it's ground a good many things to a halt, including work while I spent the afternoon yesterday in various waiting rooms (Dr office, lab for blood work, x ray place, pharmacy, bus rides to and fro.. blah.). Without my knitting. Women's magazines (by and large) are really insipid and I should get more games for my palm. While there was no specific prohibition against knitting, everything hurts which makes the attention span even shorter than usual. So, in lieu of awesome sweater photos, I went digging in the photo stash for something else. (I have no illusions that anyone's here for the writing.) *grin*

Back in November, I was off work a day and got the idea to try using up some Crystal Lite drink mix for dyeing. I wasn't entirely sure how the fake sugar would affect things, and as I won't drink the stuff and my husband's moved on to different fake flavours in his beverages, I figured on using the the last of it in the dye pot. This is, for the record, that single serve in a water bottle sized packets. I use a crockpot for nearly all my dye work. I really /like/ being able to walk away and know it's at a constant temperature, and it equally helps me keep my dye pot separate from food pots. My only wish.. that it was bigger. It's a 4 litre (quart?) pot, and doesn't hold nearly enough for anything but healthy sized samples. Fortunately, I tend not to be aiming to dye enough for big projects and am very fond of colourways rather than uniform colour. Alright, so a couple packets (This was 3 months ago, I don't remember specifics) of Raspberry Ice into the pot, a dollop of vinegar and (purposefully) balled up reclaimed yarn.

I left the yarn in balls specifically to get different depths of shade from the dye penetrating the ball of yarn. I did mention that I'm not much for uniform colour, right? The absolute worst part of this experience is skeining wet wool on my pvc niddy noddy such that it actually can be properly rinsed and dry all the way through. Ew ew ew yuck yuck. The next batch was uhh.. tangerine? Some orange flavour, and therefore, orange colour. This one, for whatever reason, did not want to penetrate the ball of yarn. Just would /not/. Three times I dug it out, skeined some off onto the niddy noddy and plunked the rest of the ball back into the dyepot. As I recall, I dumped some wiltons in to get vaguely the same colour as I just did not have enough packets of drink mix to get it all dyed to any sort of colour.

Yes, I know, even food safe dye should be careful with other clutter on the counter. I live on the edge. Welcome to the clutter of my kitchen, it matches nicely the clutter everywhere else in my life too.

After far too long skeining wet wool (ew ew ew), these are three of the final skeins drip drying away on a dining room chair covered with tea towels (and with a tea towel on the floor. I should have covered the entire floor, skeining wet wool seems to send water everywhere, whodathunkit).

Someday I'll even decide what to do with the skeins. Perfect for felting, I'm quite sure. Oh.. and as always, I toss a handful of fleece into the dyepot at the end to pick up the last of the colour, I've something against tossing a not completely spent dyepot.

Green green green

2007-01-30T09:31:00.000-05:00

It has long been a running joke at the Needlecraft Guild (alas, useful websiteless), that everything I do is green. It's not (entirely) true, I mean I do tend to work in green an awful lot, but I really do use other colours! At the moment, however, my world is a sea of green. Green motherboards and computer components that need replacing at work, a sad little green plant...

If anyone happens to know what this poor little thing is, exactly, I'd be grateful. It's but a pale shadow of it's former perky upright self. I don't think it much liked sitting next to the very cold and drafty window once winter hit.

The most green, however, comes from the sweater. I promised pictures, here's pictures. Look at the sweater, do not look at the messy messy desk under the sweater. Messy desk is a sign of creative productivity, I'm sure of it. I heard it on the radio.

It really is starting to look like a sweater. If it's a sweater that will fit me, that's a whole different kettle of fish, but I have hopes. I should sew up the sides and try it on, but I'm chicken to know the awful truth. Even if it doesn't fit me now, surely it will eventually, right? Here's a bit of cable porn for the sleeve junkies.

Hrm, that might get some really unexpected hits and surprised people. Hee hee.

Tweak? Design?

2007-01-25T14:28:00.000-05:00

One of my email lists recently asked 'Are you a designer? Do you ever want to be a designer?' as their Question of the Week and I had to ask.. So what /is/ design? Where does tweaking end and designing begin?

It is a good question, and one that comes up often on the knitting lists. Especially in the context of how many changes do you need to make on a basic sweater to call it your own and be able to claim intellectual property of it. There really are some basics that don't change from one piece to another.. is changing the colour a design choice? The yarn? The gauge? The fit? Adding short rows? A little pattern instead of knitting it plain? Enough of these changes and you'd never think it was the same sweater or shawl, but how many is enough?

I don't know the answer. I don't think of myself as a designer, but I equally don't feel obligated to knit a pattern as written. I take it, I make it my own. I've often wondered how this is different from say.. a pianist who plays Mozart. They take someone else's music and puts their own mark upon it and it becomes their own. They are an artist.. by common words.. But that's a whole different rant. *grin*

I did, however, spend the weekend playing D&D and knitting. And knitting and playing D&D. My paladin is level 4 and I'm down to 290 stitches in a row. I need to get to 218 (ish.. see comments about tweaking). 9 more decrease rows. Wow. That's a reasonable number! We will see if it's long enough at that point, there may be a couple more rows tucked in. No picture today, too tired to fight with it to get a good one, and I stopped mid row. I will try and have one for tomorrow, I promise!

Poor broken body..

2007-01-25T09:32:00.000-05:00

Have mercy on my poor broken body.. it's a (mis)quote from (in my mind at least) the Muppet Christmas Carol by Rizzo the Rat, as all the good quotes are really. Today, the quote comes to mind because of this.

Look closely.. see how the needle tips are twisted the wrong way from each other? I grant you, they've been doing that for years, but finally, the little connector from needle to cable is starting to break. *Sigh* Broken enough to catch every other stitch. I finally surrendered and knit the green sweater of doom onto a different 4.5 mm needle, but it's not an Aero. Yes, I'm an Aero snob. I like my knitting needles to have points that can be used as the weapons that all the paranoid people on planes think they are. (If any of them think I'm going to get blood all over my knitting by stabbing them, they really just don't know knitters.) This needle has been with me nearly since the beginning of my knitting career.. it's been the default 'I have aran/worsted/kitchen cotton, lets swatch with 4.5 and see'. It's like a favourite pair of jeans, just when you've gotten them broken in nicely, fitted to one's curves.. it means they're on the edge of death.

So goodbye my favourite knitting needle. It's a good thing Len's is open late tonight.

Paper clips and ball point pen caps...

2007-01-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

A conversation about cables this morning devolved into a litany of what sorts of things I've used in lieu of cable needles over the years. Everything from the cap to a ballpoint pen, dpns, earrings (the dangly fish hook ones, not the little stud earrings), pencils, nothing at all and my miscellaneous tool of choice.. paper clips. *Wistful sigh* Paper clips. So may uses, knitterly and in my other life as a techie. I mean they move seamlessly from Disk Extraction Tool to stitch holder to stitch marker to cable needle to marking a place on the pattern sheet to.. well I think that's enough for the poor little paperclip, isn't it? A knitting tool I am never without in my little box of goodies.

For the record, the little box is about 10 cm (4 inches) long. Measuring tape, paper clips, stitch markers, tooth picks (also excellent cable needles), wool needles, tapestry needles, emery board (for both my nails when catching on wool and my wooden and bamboo needles), and as always a little bit of yarn.. just in case. So what do you keep in your knitting bag with useful bits in it?

Neverending green...

2007-01-23T11:44:00.000-05:00

Happy National (alright so not my nation, but I'm willing to co-opt) Pie day. This is a holiday I can get behind, even if thanks to my currently aim to have less of me ultimately, I don't think I will be celebrating by baking a pie. Have some pie on my behalf!

Anyhow, yes. Neverending green. I came to the realization today that my two never ending projects are both green. There is the sweater of doom.

See that little bit of connected knitting under the stitch marker? That's where it went from pieces to rows of doooooom. 402 stitches currently, should be 394 by the end of lunch hour. *yawn* I am eternally grateful for the continued cable up the sleeve or this project would be yet another UFO.

The other green project that is stalled is the fir cone shawl that I'm doing in green laceweight. It is quite so stalled that I don't even have photos of it. A triangular shawl that is at the long rows and memorized pattern stage. *yawn* I really don't have the attention span for this. Green green green. Green green green. It's not easy being green you know.

434, 426, 428...

2007-01-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

I suppose I should be grateful that unlike most of my work, the numbers are going down rather than up. Raglan shaping takes 8 stitches out on every frontside row and unlike my usual from the centre out lace, every other row is just a few less to work. I have no photos today, the sweater looks very much like the last photos of it. A big heavy blog of blue-green wool. Unless it's green-blue wool. I never really have worked out what the difference is between the two. I think it is the never ending rows of sweater than has caused me to lose my mind.

Knit off 2007. Because somehow in getting slaughtered mercilessly in Sock Wars, I've decided that I should be a competative knitter. I knit slowly and I'm easily frustrated with the attention span of a ferret on pixie stix. This should be amusingly brief.

Month late and a dollar short...

2007-01-19T10:33:00.000-05:00

Or something like that. I do hate this time of year, there is something about Jan/Feb that is instant blah for me. Which means a lot of sitting around staring blankly and not doing anything. I have, however, momentarily shaken off the blah and dug out some photos of things I've been working on when I dredge up the attention span to do anything.

Finally I am making progress on Mariah. I've finished the bits in pieces and am now doing the join it all together on one big circular to do the shoulders and yoke. It has gotten unwieldy and distinctly not photogenic. See?

I'll provide a little sleeve cable porn just to appease folks that there really is more to the sweater than greenyblue blob of yarn. Isn't this just lovely? If I do say so myself?

Nothing like keeping track of sleeve shaping and cable patterns with distinct repeats that aren't all the same all that same time. I did most of the sleeves in Scotland at my grandmother in law's dining room table with papers spread out everywhere to keep notes. I expect every time I look at the sleeves I'll remember the quiet, the smell of the coal fire and have a wee bit of Scotland along with me.

When I haven't been working on the sweater, I've (of course) got a sock on the go. This sock yarn is to die for. Apple Laine fingering weight yarn, 50% merino, 20% silk, 20% kid mohair and 10% nylon. Yum. Yum. Yum. The silk and mohair takes the dye and makes the colours just glow. Honestly, I think I knit this just to pet the yarn. I'm knitting Apple Harvest sock pattern with the Sea Breeze colourway. Even better, the yarn company is based just outside of Ottawa, where I grew up. It might not be local to me anymore, but it still feels local. I've only just started the second sock. I should (thank you having little feet) have enough for a second pair of ankle socks. Maybe. Pretty darn close at least.

Best laid plans...

2006-12-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

Apparently posting regularly is something I just can't manage. So anyone who actually reads this is going to have to cope with my sporatic and erratic self. Granted, most people who read this already know this little tidbit about my personality quite well indeed.

Two weeks in the UK without internet was very good for knitting time. Two weeks home with net connection and right before Christmas is very bad for knitting time. The best laid plans of 'no knitting for presents' was shattered by a little Gosh wouldn't new hand knit socks be nice, I wear the ones you made for me every night comment from my mother. A week before Christmas. *sigh* So I'm madly knitting socks. Which can't be too tight, and must be plenty long enough (I am not grafting the toes until after I've given them and she tries them on). Thank goodness for worsted weight mohair blend that knits up on big needles. They should go fast if I ever sit down to actually work on them.

After the socks for Mom then I can return to my UK knitting. Mariah. Back is done, sleeves are done, one front is done. Well one front needs ripping back to where I want to put in short rows to let my fitted sweater fit my curves. Straight sweater + curvy figure = poorly fitting sweater.
I got on a roll and just knit right past where the short rows should be and I've been balking at ripping. I know I should, but really, I'm just being lazy. I'm good at lazy.

For anyone who's local, we're having a holiday open house on Saturday the 23rd. Email, comment, phone, whatever for details if you're interested in stopping by. Low key I promise! Come for 5 mins to escape the family if you like. *grin*

You gotta wear shades.

2006-11-07T09:35:00.000-05:00

I did promise a photo of my brand new sock yarn and I did warn it was dayglo orange. Alright, so it's really orange and pink and red and yellow, but the overwhelming colour that most pull away from it is screaming ORANGE! A friend asked, after seeing all my socks on my blog, what it was with funny coloured socks. I like colour. I like bright zingy happy colours. I like stripes, I like varigated yarn. I like all the things that would make my ample self look like a circus tent designed by a colour blind lunatic if used in a garment. I'm a pretty confident fat person. Hell, I wear electric blue without blinking twice, but stripes are (nearly always) right out. I do not need to visually make my already wide self look twice as wide. I do, however, have these nice skinny little feet. Which get shoved into shoes. Hot diggety! Perfect spot for stripes and varigations with an added bonus of if the stripes are really ugly, well it was only a sock or two. Not a deep profound commitment of yarn and time. And you can just wear them in boots. Then no one has to see your shame but you.

The lace saga continued. The very next row after yesterday's photo was, to put it mildly, fubarred. 26 stitches on the needle. 24 stitches required for the next row. I know my math can be a little creative without sufficient coffee, but even I can spot that 26 != 24. Well. Damn. So lunch hour looked like this.

The one on top with crayon is my original rechart. (Hey, I cross off rows as I knit them, and during the train game on Sunday, all I had was my crayon. I'm always blue in train games. Just like I'm always SpinBot in RoboRally.) The one underneath is yesterday's rework of the last 6 pattern rows. I kept with what I figured was the original intent of the piece, but what the doily looked like and what the original char looked like had very little to do with each other. Yes, I did make sure that my original chart was correct from the website. Faithful copy. The little wee doily comes in at a mere 6.5" across, as blocked with push pins on a mouse pad.

Next post (whenever that may be), the never ending green shawl. 10 repeats down of 13 (it still looks awfully short), and then edging. Edging generally goes on forever.

Little hit of lace...

2006-11-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

Hello, my name is Jazmin and I'm a lace junkie. Chorus of voices Hello Jazmin.

Shawl be damnned (why is it, exactly, that my lace shawl doesn't feel in my own bones like real lace? I think it's the purl rows.), I needed a doily. Just a little one.. take the edge off the lack of crisp cotton and teeny needles that has been my life. I'd say 'I can quit anytime', but I'd be lying and you all know it.

For scale because I stupidly left out the ruler, it's only 3.25 inches across at the moment. Just a little wee hit of lace. It's Bellflower, and I'm working it on 2 mm needles with size 20 cotton. A little smidge of my beloved six strand Coats and Clark vintage cotton that is long long since lost to this world. Crisp and sharp and lovely to work with. *Mournful sigh* That's 28 rows into the 38 row pattern. It will be itty teeny. I recharted it (badly I will add) because the original chart made my eyes cross.

Before I caved to the lace side, I did finish my socks.

I am going to give these some walking time to see how I like the fit of the short row heel and toe with my foot. So far, not bad, but so far I've only walked from house to car, car to office. Not exactly much of a stress test on socks. It doesn't help that I'm trying them in clogs, which equally isn't much of a stress test. Stuff these suckers into running shoes or docs and see how they cope then. Ha!

I stopped by our newest yarn store on the weekend (finally!), to have a wee look around. High end stuff, which actually is a feature and sensible. We have a discount store that has as much red heart and patons and bernat yarn as you can stomach and the wall of slaughtered muppet yarn is more than most can stomach. Trying to compete with slashed discount prices is retail suicide. You cannot, however, get Koigu or Noro or Debbie Bliss yarn or Philosopher's Wool (Yay local supplier!). I am glad to be able to have somewhere to go pick up high end yarns. It's a good compliment to the staples. In honour of a new yarn store, I felt a little more sock yarn into my stash wouldnt go amiss. I mean how can you go wrong with an extra ball of Regia in dayglo orange? I forgot to note the colour number, I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. Or just start it into socks. :)

Nothing grows in the shade..

2006-11-03T09:28:00.000-05:00

I sat down at my desk this morning at work and thought 'Well, that whole post a day thing didn't last long, now did it' followed shortly by 'I meant to post about my killer socks' and a little bit of 'mmm, new to me boots'. So while mumbling to myself (It's a good thing I'm the only morning person in the tech alcove) and flipping the page on my page a day quote calendar I read this:

"I have little feet because nothing grows in the shade." - Dolly Parton

Well. My day is full of feet. Socks and boots and quotes, oh my! It's a common refrain in my house that I have small feet. I don't really, they're a fairly standard north american women's size 7 ish (like everything clothing for women, sizes are really only a vague guideline. But that's a whole other post). This is hardly ancient foot binding small, but when put next to the snowshoes that my best beloved tromps around the world on (size 13 mega wide), well they look pretty little. Little and covered in killer socks. Yes, it is true, after over 2 weeks in the loving *cough* grasp of Canada Post, my Sock Wars socks finally arrived.

I am finally dead, but dead with warm feet. And I got the socks I knit (I know! No pictures. Bad Jazmin, no biscuit.) into the mail before I died. Life doesn't get much better for a sock warrior than that. In honour of my death, I am working on my cotton socks. Because nothing says 'you need cotton socks' like snow waiting on the ground in the morning.

8 repeats of feather and fan down, 7 more to go. In theory, shouldn't be too much longer. I might even manage to finish today depending on if I get a seat on the bus or not.

Yes bus. Home again to wait for a furnace repair guy to come and not be able to install the part that I do not think will arrive today as it sure didn't arrive yesterday (as it was supposed to). At least we're starting to get furnace people to arrive. That was a challenge earlier in the week, and we do have heat currently, even if the furnace drains into a bucket rather than condensation getting pumped to where it's supposed to go. Heat is a Good Thing (tm).

A bribe..

2006-10-30T09:34:00.000-05:00

Perhaps a cute cat photo will serve as apology for 2 months of silence. Whoops. Dalla was positive that we folded up the blanket and put it on top of the rodent cage in the living room Especially For Her. Then again, she's a cat. Everything in the world is Especially For Her.

I've been in a handwork slump of late, creativity slumps when I'm busy, and I've been busy doing.. not much of anything. Online game things, rattling around having my creativity in storytelling rather than handworking. I really need to find a way to have a second set of hands so I can type and knit simultaneously. Or spin, or embroider, or or or.

I did, teach a dye class at the Needlecraft Guild in late September. I totally forgot to get pictures of my sample skeins, hopefully tonight I can get some photos of my student's work if they remember to bring them. Pictures later this week. I promise. Kick me in the shins if I forget!

I did participate in Sock Wars, although my socks are MIA and this is, as best I can tell, not entirely unusual. I've sent mine off (*cough* perhaps a touch late on the mailing *cough*), but of course, I forgot to take a photo. Whoops. This is the story of my life. I make a terrible blogger. No photos!

I did dig out a sock that had been languishing and got back in gear on it. Alright, so perhaps the morning frost has been enticing me away from bare feet, but that's besides the point. A day of family reunion (my husband's) with other knitters (who think it's normal to dig out one's knitting when sitting around after supper eating cake) got me this far on a toe up sock.

I need a few more family reunion days to actually get this sucker done so my toes stop freezing. Amusingly enough, my sister in law had on socks from the very same yarn as I did. Ahhh, nothing like a family of knitters.

Malkie has the right idea...

2006-08-20T12:04:00.000-04:00

We're home from GenCon and a week later, I think we're both finally not exhausted all the time. It was a blast, but damn it's tiring. We worked our tushes off, shopped 'til we dropped and in the end, Malkie is quite convinced that the box our swag came in was clearly brought home just for him. Dalla could take boxes or leave them, but they are Malkie's one true love. At least for the moment.

The handwork hasn't done much while I've been away. The shawl is not getting far, I worked on a sock in the car.. of course somehow I decided to do a sock at 8.5 spi, so it's slow going and will be bulletproof eventually. I finally went with the shortrowed feather and fan sock by Wendy. The toe was interesting enough, perhaps not ideal for working on in the back seat of a car moving at 80 mph on bumpy highways, but it seems to have survived. Photos when my knitting and the camera are in the same place at the same time. Tomorrow perhaps.

Honest.. I do knit..

2006-07-25T10:29:00.000-04:00

I've even been working on my shawl. Still the 3/4 Fir Cone shawl, it's coming along in that 'looks just the same but bigger' sort of way. I'm 7 and a half repeats through the 13 suggested. More than halfway by the numbers, but every row is longer than the last. Go back a few posts.. look at the shawl.. squint until there is more muted green yarn scrunched up and that's what it looks like currently.

I have, however, continued on the ooh shiney side. I've forgotten the earrings I've done at home, but I do have yesterday's necklace.

Ooh! Shiney!

2006-07-14T11:46:00.000-04:00

Alright.. I'm a knitter at heart, but as I've commented to any number of people.. I have all the ooh shiney factor of a ferret on pixie stix. I like sparkley, shiney, glittery and colourful. So I suppose it was somewhat inevitable that I ended up coming to the bead side. I mean compared to lace, this stuff works up in a blink of an eye! I've done some stringing already, and I put that on the 'brain dead monkey' skill level. Armed only with bits of wire and some needlenosed pliers, I decided to get all the way to the 'raw beginner' level and play with little wire loops. These were my first try (that left the bead bin that is).

Last night I decided to knuckle down and do some more experimenting and came out with these. Now, this is on the order of a garter stitch scarf or 'hello world' in the beading scale of the world, but I'm still pretty pleased with myself.

Thank you thank you to S. for taking the photos for me. My poor little camera just couldn't cope at all.

Rambling into the breeze..

2006-07-13T14:54:00.000-04:00

I realized as I was nattering heel and toe shapings to a (very patient) non-knitting friend, that I have this lovely blog that claims to be about knitting (nominally), and rambling there about potential projects would likely reach people who wouldn't necessarily need to draw upon reserves of patience to endure it.

I have projects coming out my ears. I was (briefly) a one at a time gal.. but that phase appears to have vanished as abruptly as it arrived. In the WIP queue currently is a green shawl for myself, and a pink (quit laughing all those who know me well) ladder yarn (yes, even out of novelty yarn. Go on, I'll wait for you to pull yourself off the floor.) top.

I pause here to reflect on a cruel cruel twist of fate. I am a large person. Big Girl. Ample Woman. Fat. Choose your phrase, they all fit as well as any. By extension, my clothes are large too. (Not too large though, big girls.. you listening? Sacks are for potatoes. Skim.. just skim.) To accomplish that skim principle, you need fine gauge knits. Bulky yarn skims much like a buffalo on ice skates. Ain't gonna happen. What happens when you combine a lot of square footage with a lot of stitches to an inch? That's a heck of a lot of knitting to get anywhere. Process knitters dance with glee, project knitters go back to socks.

So I decided to have a look through the sock patterns I've collected over the years to try out that cotton wool blend sock yarn I picked up on impulse in Ottawa. By a miracle, in spite of 3 days in my mother's house, the poor ball of yarn does not smell of smoke. Regia Cotton, Tip and Top Color for those keeping track at home. The two top contenders are Wendy's Toe Up Feather and Fan Sock or Lacy Scallops Socks. One is top down (Scallops), one is toe up (Duh. Did you /read/ the names?). One has a cute little picot top (Scallops), but Wendy's has short row toe and heel shaping which I've always wanted to try. I can also do feather and fan in my sleep. Which considering socks are usually my in car passenger knitting, is a feature, but having a look at the scallops, it's a simple simple repeat that I should have down pat in no time. Thoughts? Comments?

I did discover today that I can work on lace weight yarn while sporting an anime look at the eye Dr's office. Apparently I do work as much by feel as sight. The fir cone shawl comes along slowly, it would come along more quickly if I worked on it more. I've already got it memorized, and I'm on repeat 5 of 13 repeats before the edging. Like everything I seem to do, every repeat is long than the one before it, so to call me 1/3rd of the way through is laughable. Here's the obligatory photo for those of you who've skipped all the words up until now and just hunted for the pictures:

It's about 6.5 inches unblocked at the moment, and yes I sat it upon the side of a computer case to take the (blurry) photo.

What every office needs...

2006-07-12T09:25:00.000-04:00

An office cat. This is Murphy. He's the cat of one of the deans (ex dean I suppose.. close enough) in our college who happens to live very very near campus. Murphy has claimed all of north end of campus as his own and today in the rain.. my office. He's chewed on my spider plant, investigated the fridge and made himself at home. I think we need an office cat all of the time. *grin*

The end is near..

2006-06-29T11:59:00.000-04:00

Well really the end is already here for some things, near for another and a long long way away for the last. But 'The end is near..' just made a much better title than all that.

I'll start with the finished object. We are, on the Charting Lace list charting a pattern from Nurhanne's site. Very descriptively called Small Doily, it's a good place to start playing with charts. I wrote up my chart on Saturday and then decided the best way to find all my errors was to knit it up. So, that's what I did Saturday afternoon.

I knit the pattern almost exactly as written (there was some oddities in row 21-23 that I went with what I thought they wanted, not what they'd written down), and if I was going to do it again (don't hold your breath), the purl rows on the outside would be gone. I knit in the round to avoid purling, not do 6 freaking rows of it in the round on dpns. Fooey on that. The poor little doily needs a proper blocking and a wash. That will happen eventually.

The nearly finished are the socks that have been my portable project forever. Thanks to meetings at work, I'm up into the ribbing (I work from the toe up). We will not discuss how much more sock yarn I have when I knit socks so very very slowly and go barefoot 9 months of the year. *ahem*

Finally, as with the doily done I was laceless and the Mystery Stole 2 doesn't start 'til the 7th, well.. I decided to start a shawl I've had my eye on for a while. Fir Cone Three-Quarter Shawl It's a lovely shawl, simple and all that good stuff and I really like the shape of it. I got it started on Monday and as of today I've gotten about this far. I need to knit like the wind to have it done in time to start the Mystery Stole on time!

I really do finish things..

2006-06-05T15:53:00.000-04:00

And of late, it's been a flurry of finishing up things. Little things I grant you, but wow it makes my productivity look just great. :)

That dishcloth that was barely a few stitches a few posts ago is all grown up. Just needs the ends woven in. It will be sent off in an exchange shortly, once I get an envelope. It's a good ten inches across, which seems to me to be a huge dishcloth, perhaps I'm just skinchy.

I was in a foul mood the end of last week and my pi doily ticked me off for the last time. So I cast it off in a huff. For having caused me no end of grief all the way through, it's not a half bad little piece. Yes, I did use 2 different colours, and no it wasnt on purpose, and yes I am planning to overdye it. This is unblocked and unwashed and undyed and basically fresh from the needles.

In a moment of girly, I cast on for a top for me. Twice. *blush* Three times if I'm being brually honest. Swatches are for sissies, hunh? Well no. Swatches are good. Swatches are great. Swatches tell you when you need a smaller needle as not to produce a see through too big t-shirt. Even fat people can wear clothes that are too big. A lot of 'em do, and it just makes 'em look bigger. I'm not talking shoving into something a size too small.. no sausage casings.. skimming. Just float over the bits that don't need highlighting. Anyhow, now I know that a 3.5 mm needle is much better than the 4.0 mm needle the pattern asked for. This pattern to be specific. With short sleeves and a lack of fun fur edging. Even if I'm oddly fascinated by the fun fur edging, I want a summer top and fun fur + 35C + 100% humidity = EWWWW. No fun fur.

How does my garden grow?

2006-06-02T12:41:00.000-04:00

My garden grows in a way that would make a druid's heart sing. Which is to say a wildly chaotic tumble of natural. Paths? For wimps! I do, however, have some blooms around the house and thought I'd prove it with pictures. I braved the killer mosquitoes to get these photos, I hope you all appreciate it. *laugh*

My irises, I can't get them to grow where I want, so I just accept that they're tucked in with the lilies.

The spiderwort is trying to take over a shrub rose. I think the rose is largely winning.

The primroses are nearly finished for the season. Poor things did not cope well with the recent heat wave.

I think these are call Jacob's Ladder.. I don't have any clue what the latin name might be, or even if that's accurate.

The poppies are just starting to open, and soon I'll have a sea of them going. These ones are tucked in at the side of the house.

And this is the first of my peony blooms to open, feels a smidge early to me, probably thanks to the heat wave.

Blah and double blah

2006-06-01T13:43:00.000-04:00

I'm not quite sure why I'm all grumpy blah snarky, I'm going to blame the weather. It's a good excuse, but anyhow, a grumpy day needs mindless knitting. I forgot the sock at home *gasp* Yes, I forgot the sock, but I have the dishcloth.

Mindless, in my world, apparently translates to in the round lace. Hey, it works for me. It'd work better for me if I had a fifth needle, I'm out of space on these four. Oh well, only 3 hrs 'til hometime.

The pi doily got cast off in a huff last night, after the edging choice ticked me off. I'll get a photo tonight, ideally. Why yes, I was in a grumpy mood then too, how ever did you guess? :)

It's all Stef's fault..

2006-05-31T09:16:00.000-04:00

Yep, I've been crocheting. Any who know me, knows that I declared ages ago that it had to be a damn fine crochet project to tempt me away from my knitting, as it generally bothers my wrist. Well apparently 5 or more years of rest does the wrist a world of good. So Stef tempted me by sending me a doily pattern. I'm a doily junkie, this is a well known fact and suddenly I find myself working out how to read a crochet chart again, with french explinations. Took me just about exactly 2 weeks to do, and if you can find where I fudged a pretty big error, I'll give you a gold star. :)

See?

2006-05-30T14:54:00.000-04:00

You didn't believe me Stef.. well proof is in the photo.

Yes, that is my monitor and desk in it's messy glory. :)

A blast from the past...

2006-05-16T14:05:00.000-04:00

Well in the interest of keeping the wrists happy and in yet another misguided attempt to finish some things, I've picked back up a cross-stitch project. Embroidery is a whole different motion than knitting, so it provides variety for my hands and wrists. All good in the ever vigilant crusaide agains carpel tunnel.

I started this project in probably late 1995, although the actual date is lost to the annals of time. As you can see from a page of my webpage, (http://www.uoguelph.ca/~hbogart/craft/stitch/medieval.html)
the words 'I will finish this!' has come up often. So here I am again. I will finish this, although as I commented to a friend today, perhaps not until 2010 at this rate!

I've started dragging it in to work to put a stitch or three in over my lunch hour, and you can see the current sparse progress.
In 2003 it looked like:

Now as of today:

Not much of a change, but it's coming. More photos as I get more done. In theory.

Springtime and a girl's fancy..

2006-04-17T16:19:00.000-04:00

.. turns to starting all sorts of things. This time of year seems to just breed the impulse to start start start and not so much the finish finish finish. I do, however, have incentive. The local Needlecraft Guild has its annual Open House in early May. If I want to sumbit things, I gotta finish them. So the race is on!

Anniversary Pi shawl

Started this in January, you saw it a few posts back. I'm on the last ball of yarn. *yay!* Finally. It feels like this sucker has gone on forever. I've done about 140 rows all told (I'm 40 rows into the section with 576 stitch section. In an ideal world, I'll finish all 96 rows of this section with this ball of yarn. Yeah, I'm laughing too. It ain't going to happen, but a girl can dream.

Mystery Pi doily

Well, alright, so it's supposed to be another shawl, but how many shawls does someone who doesnt wear shawls need exactly? Ergo with the choice of skinny cotton and skinny needles, it's become a pi doily. I'm not sure, exactly, how blocking will work out, so it's got some experimentation coming on that front. We got 4 choices for clue 1, so I rolled a d4. Got a 2, so choice B it was. Even if left to my own devices, I'd of picked something different. I shall leave the choices with the fates.

Good morning sunshine!

2006-04-07T09:23:00.000-04:00

This is how my mornings nearly always start. Open eyes and see Dalla at that sort of distance. Isnt it cunning how I managed to take the photo so blurry to reflect my own atrocious eyesight? *snicker* I didn't capture the proper amount of licking that accompanies a calico at this range, or the tickle of whiskers on one's nose pre-dawn. If I didnt know better, I'd think she was in cahoots with my office to get me up in the mornings. :)

Pi shawl

2006-04-06T08:56:00.000-04:00

Someday, I really will have it all together and be wonderfully organized and scheduled and all the rest of it. I think that will also involve being composting in a pine box.. so irregular and sporadic updates will just have to do.

This is my pi shawl as of the end of March. Pi shawls, for the uninitated are an unvention of Elizabeth Zimmerman, the knitting guru of all knitting gurus. The shaping of the shawl is based on the fact that the circumference of a circle doubles as the radius doubles. Which in knitting terms means you've got chunks of no shaping and then a round of increases. In those chunks, it just begs for some lace.

I have since moved into the next increase section (576 stitches per round.. takes for damn ever), and a new lace pattern. It has to finish sooner rather than later, I only have about 70 grams of yarn left.. this is a finate thing! It will be done! Probably just in time to start another one. For a person who doesnt wear shawls, I seem to knit a lot of them.

2006-03-23T12:53:00.000-05:00

See? I'm not dead. I figured opening with cute cat photos was a good bet. That's Malkie on top, Dalla curled up into the bottom on their new cat condo thing. Malkie does not fit inside, no matter how much he would love to shove his 15 lb self into it.

I'm giving this new blog a try. I think it might have better photo options and well, I'm lazy. :) See how this first photo and post goes and we'll see from there.