Slow & Steady as she goes.

Holy smokes! It's been two weeks since I posted last. I can't really say that I've had that much going on, so I'm a little surprised so much time has passed. Anyway, I've made good progress on my Rafters cardigan: I've completed the waist shaping and only have the bottom border to do before I can start on the sleeves and the collar/buttonband. The cardigan doesn't really have any ease right now, but I think that once the button band is on and I can get the whole thing washed and blocked, the cables will loosen up some and I'll end up with about 1.5" of positive ease. I'm still in love with the color and I can't say enough about how soft this yarn is. I just want to pet it all day long. The cat is still in love with it too. Today he was rubbing his face on it and licking the bag I store it in. He's a strange little beastie.

I've also made progress on Dan's Scylla socks. I finally turned the heel this week, and now only have the leg to finish. The great part of that is that the stitch pattern knits up quickly, without a whole lot of thought. Since Dan's so tall, I'm just going to knit until I run out of yarn. We'll see in a hurry whether I divided the hank evenly.

So it's a short post tonight, Friends. Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and there's a chance I'll get to see the Yarn Harlot when I'm home in Fort Wayne for the holiday. I'll probably limit myself to the Saturday night lecture and skip the classes. I'll post pics if it happens. Until next time.

WIP it good.

All my WIPs continue apace. I seem to be a little all over the place lately with my projects, but somehow, bit by bit, they're progressing.

This week I managed to get to the halfway point in the Hanami stole. I'm really happy with how it's coming along. I like that the beads have given it some heft (as hefty as seed beads can be on an alpaca/silk lace stole) and I think it's going to drape beautifully once it's finished. I hope I have some occasion to wear it. Maybe I'll get invited to a wedding. Or maybe we'll go to the ballet. Or something. Of course, I'm not sure I have anything to wear with it, so I'll have to get on that.

Knitting. Tasty, tasty, knitting.

I've also made progress on my Rafters cardigan. Just this morning I completed the front shaping and now I'm ready to get everything all joined up for some progress on the body. It looks a little small right now, but I think that's because so many of the sweaters I've made for myself have turned out too big. Even if it's a bit small now, I'm pretty sure that blocking will relax some of the tightness in the cables. So long as I get gauge on the sweater as a whole, I'll have about an inch of ease.

Since my last couple posts I've frogged the blue socks for my friend, Dan, and started a new pair for him. I'm doing the Scylla pattern again, this time with a skein of Mountain Colors Crazyfoot I've had in my stash for awhile. In the skein, the yarn looked a lot more brown than it's knitting up. In the socks, I'm seeing more jewel tones, but I think it's still masculine. I hope he'll be cool with it. This is my commuting-and-waiting-in-line knitting and it's moving right along. I've probably got another two weeks with it before it's finished.

Of course, with three projects on the needles (four, if you count my unfinished Halloween costume), it looks like I'm not going to be doing any Christmas knitting. There just won't be any time. I have a feeling I'm still going to be baking up a storm, but it's already too late to be in time for Christmas. I will, however, be scouring my house for just the right contribution to our family's Dirty Santa exchange.

On that note, I'll sign off for now. Until next time, Friends.

Knitting keeps me humble.

Seriously. Every time I get even a little bit cocky about my ability to do something knitting-related, knitting puts me right back in my place. Case in point: effing cables.

I've made plenty of things with cables: socks, gloves, hats, sweaters. Lots. Of. Stuff. Then I started on the back of the Rafters cardigan.

It's kind of hard to tell, but the braids on the left have a mistake.

See this picture? Take a good look at the cables on the left side. Notice they're a little different than the ones on the right side? Yeah. I messed them up. I seem to have repeated a row without noticing for like three rows.

Here's a closer look at my lesson in humility.

I didn't want to unknit the cables I'd gotten right, so I decided that I'd just undo the 6 stitches down 'til I got to the mistake and fix each cable individually. It worked pretty well, I think. It only took me 30 minutes or so to fix, which wasn't so bad. I just had to apply myself.

Left braid fixed, center & right braids up next.

Once I got the cables uncrossed I was able to fly right along on the back of the sweater. I'm about to start the increases for the underarms and then I think I'll get to start the fronts of the sweater pretty soon thereafter. It's really starting to cool off here, so another lovely, soft wool sweater will be great to put into rotation.

That's all the yarn, & the heels aren't even turned.

Another lesson in humility was this pair of simple vanilla socks that I'm making for a friend. Who happens to wear size 15 shoes. When I looked at the yarn in the ball, I thought I had plenty. If I'd looked at the project page for my husband's aran-weight socks, I'd have seen that I used two balls of this yarn to make his, and he only wears a size 11.5. So I've contacted my friend to see if he'd rather have the thick socks, for which I'll need to order more yarn; or thinner socks, the yarn for which I already have in a quantity to make a pair. I guess I can start winding the yarn for the thinner socks. I have a long work-related meeting tomorrow, so I'll need something to work on that won't require too much attention for a little while.

Well, that's all I have for now. Until next time, Friends.

Too many things on the needles!

It finally feels like fall here in Kentucky, and with the change in the temperatures, I've found myself casting on lots of projects. Since I last posted, I've swatched for and cast on Rafters, made one bad "chain mail" hood/cowl, and completed an acceptable "chain mail" hood/cowl.

I've been making good progress on my husband's Java socks, with just about an inch or so to go before I can do the toe decreases and sew the ends shut. I'm still very happy about the colors - they're gorgeous -and I like how the variations in the colors are distributing themselves around the feet. I can't wait for my husband to have another pair of toasty hand knit socks!

As for the Hanami stole, the progress is a lot slower. Here, I've been plodding along, doing a few rows here, a few there, generally trying to get through a set of beading or two before I set it down. The stole is beginning to look more like the pattern and I like how the beads are giving a little weight to the fabric. I'll be glad to get though this section though, and move on to a zippy stretch of stockinette.

My new sweater project, Rafters, is from the current issue of Twist Collective. I'm using the yarn I bought while I was in Michigan this summer, and I love what I've knit up so far. I had to go down a needle size to achieve the required stitch gauge, and though my row gauge is a little bit off, the designer has kindly written the pattern to specify lengths, rather than numbers of rows, so I should be just fine. I'm probably not going to use this project as commuting or meeting knitting, as the cables will require my close attention, especially since I'm doing the first two charts at the same time.

Lastly, now that it's October, I've been thinking about Halloween, and what I should do for a costume. In years past I've been Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas and Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls, making both costumes myself. I hadn't really planned on dressing up this year, but since I was invited to a party, I thought it would be fun to have something new. One of my favorite movies of all time is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and my favorite Python is Michael Palin, so I decided that this year I would dress up as Sir Galahad the Chaste, complete with chain mail, tunic, sword, and shield.

So far I've only gotten the hood/cowl completed, and only after having made a really bad one out of a too-bulky acrylic. I used the Utah Shakespearean Festival pattern that I found on Ravelry. For the first one I followed the pattern closely, knitting it flatas directed, but I used a yarn much too bulky to look like it could be chain mail. It's pretty lame. For the second one, I used a cotton worsted-weight yarn (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton DeLux) generally intended for washcloths, but which I thought might drape a little more like metal than an acrylic or wool would. Using a thinner yarn made such a difference! The fabric is much more open, and if I can add just a hint of metallic color on top of it, it could look a little like tarnished metal. At least from a distance, anyway.


Well, that about catches us up for now. I still have to make myself a tunic, shield and sword in addition to some chain mail sleeves in time for Halloween, but it should be simple knitting and simple sewing, so I'm not all that worried. The shield and sword will take a little more doing, but I have access to lots of cardboard at work, so I just hope to be able to make those without too much trial and error. I'll post as I have more progress. Until next time, Friends.

MUCH better, thank you.

These new socks are coming along a whole lot better than the other ones. I mean, A WHOLE LOT BETTER. The pattern is the Java socks from the Winter 2011 Knitty. I'm sure a big part of why these socks are coming out so well is that I'm actually following a pattern as written, but I think another reason is that these socks have an 84-stitch round. It's only 4 stitches more than the other socks, but there's a world of difference in how the colors are pooling. Like, almost not pooling at all. It's very subtle.

I still have a few more inches to go before I turn the heel, and the pooling will definitely change as I work on the gussets, so there's that to look forward to. I'm not especially worried about it, but I like the way the legs are coming out, and I hope the foot will look as good.

So tonight's post is a short one. I hope I'll have more to tell next time. Until then, Friends.

These socks are fugged up.

So I'm starting over.

I had gotten the heel turned this afternoon, and when my husband got home from work he tried them on.

They were awful! The fit was poor, and I have no one to blame but myself. I noticed that the row gauge on the soles was different than the tops of the feet, but I soldiered on. I made a mistake on the gussets, but I kept going. The heel flaps were actually alright, they just didn't work. I cut my losses. I ripped them out.

The only positive about this project is that I love the colors of this yarn, so I'm just going to try a new pattern. I've cast on for the Java socks, which I hope will come out right and look good in this yarn. We'll have to cross our fingers. My husband would have worn the fugly socks, but he deserves the best socks. Ones that fit. And look good. And ones that I won't be embarrassed to admit that I made.

I hope to have better news the next time I post. Until then, Friends.

My first attempt at beaded laciness.

I've been home from the lake for about a week, and what a week it's been. More changes at work, but at least it was only 4 days long since it's Labor Day weekend here in the US.

I took the yarn, beads and pattern to make the Hanami Stole with me to Michigan. I've had the Silky Alpaca Lace in my stash for what feels like ages (I've had it for two and a half years), and it's been intended for this project the whole time. I bought the beads for it while I was in Indianapolis in April for the Carmel Sprint Triathlon, perfectly matched to the cherry blossom pink of the yarn. Once I'd had a little time in the water, and a few cocktails, I decided the time was right to finally cast on.

The pattern called for a beaded cast on, which is something I've never done before. It also said to make sure I had a crochet hook small enough to fit through the bead. Luckily, I have my mother's set of teeny, tiny steel hooks that she brought with her from Japan when she came to the United States in 1970. Before she married, she made lots of doilies with crochet thread. I think she still has them at her house. I had to use the size 8 needle, which I understand has a .90mm hook. It looks a lot like the torture devices my dental hygienist uses when I go for a cleaning. What's even scarier is that I have two hooks even smaller, with .75mm and .6mm hooks. I'm sure I don't want to see the thread appropriate for any of them.

Anyway, I got through the beaded cast on alright, but I realized that I'd bought way more beads than the pattern called for, and that I wasn't ever going to use them for anything else. After reading the pattern through at least twice, I decided that I'd use beads in the "basketweave" section of the stole, placing one for every place that I had a centered double decrease. Adding these beads every so often certainly slows down the knitting, but I think that the stole will be prettier for it in the end. I got through two chart repeats while I was on vacation, but since I've been home I've gotten through exactly 4 rows. This is going to take awhile, I think, especially since I'm not about to work on this on my way to work. I'm just glad I don't have a deadline!

So, that's it for now, Friends. Until next time.