2 Socks Done!

Hooray for finished socks! My first garment made for me...done! I'm debating wearing them to work tomorrow, but I've got to take care of the end from the cast on. I guess I could always just tuck it inside. tee-hee.

Whenever I knit in the round, everything ends up at an angle instead of straight up and down. Why is that? Does that happen to anyone else out there? Could it be a symptom of "tight knitting"? Or a symptom of not swishing the work around the needles soon enough and stretching to get the next stitch? This happens to hats, the socks I did, and I think maybe even to my french market bags, although, it seems to go away in felting and/or the wash. Maybe just blocking is the answer.

Instead of moving on to do one of the four projects I've got cast on, I went to work on a London Beanie for one of the monkey's friends. It'll be Emerald/Forest green with yellow stripes. I just realized that we've got an RGB set of hats - the beanie for the monkey was garnet colored with yellow stripes and the one for his other friend was navy blue with yellow stripes (red, blue, green).

I'm so pleased with the sock success that I've decided to knit socks (potentially the Padded Footlets from the Summer 05 Interweave Knits). I'm planning to make my mom the laptop case from the Fall 05 IK. I guess if I can find a pattern to make from each magazine, I'm getting my money's worth, eh?

I'm hoping to tear through this hat for the boy's friend so I can move on to something else (new, not the denim colorway sweater, seed stitch scarf for me, or feather and fan shawl for me, although there's something to be said for finishing one of them.) Maybe I'll finish my scarf first, then cast on for something else. I feel like I've got to get a lot of stuff done before it gets cold out (It's almost September already! ((it doesn't get cold here until after Halloween))) holiday/birthday gifts, and also before I need to start whipping out baby gifts for our former neighbor-lady, who is due in the spring. Plus, I've spent so much time thinking about these projects, that I'd like to get some of them done.

Sock Therapy

There's something to the idea of Zen and the Art of Knitting.

I was in the foulest of humors yesterday. I'm in a sick house - as La-la recovers from her stereo ear infections and wheezing, the monkey has some wicked bad allergies - so bad that he's sent home from school on Monday, and DH, it turns out, has an ear infection (and upper respiritory infection) himself. I'm fighting off either a cold or bad allergies. Luckily it hasn't gotten to the completely addled, I need to sleep this off phase, and I seem to be doing better. And then - one of DH's brothers calls in a crisis asking for crazy money. Our budget is tighter than is comfortable right now, the guy is old enough that even if he didn't have the money, it shouldn't have been a 2-days-notice-crisis, and he's lucky we aren't hitting him up for the cost of his mom's care. Harrumph. Even the Internet was making me mad.

I retire to our room and begin to work on my sock. I didn't even really want to work on the sock, but my next simplest project was 2x1 ribbing, and I didn't think I was up for that. So, the sock. Stockinette Avenger. I swear to you within the first round, I was feeling better. I'm on the straightaway between the heel and toe. I got about an inch or a little more done, and man, did I feel a thousand times better.

There are so many Zen things about it: There's the meditative qualities, which the more you practice it, the easier it is to fall into, and I believe this is based on many things - the feel of the yarn and needles, watching the pattern emerge, etc.

A story for another post is how the trials and tribulations of knitting create their own Zen riddles.

I can tell you, I'm looking forward to some more meditative knitting tonight.

Coloring Faces

The boys have their coloring faces on. I bought a box of shrinky dinks a while ago to make stitch markers for my secret pal. I finally broke down and did some experiments with them today. I got some data points, although, they didn't come out as I had hoped. I did figure out how I want to "bead" them, though, so I guess that's good. I made a second set of potential stitch markers during La-la's nap, and got DH and the monkey working on some shrinky-dinks too.

I must be over some kind of summer slump because I'm starting projects like this and I'm cooking again. Yesterday I made homemade ice cream (a WW recipe, so ice cream is kind of a misnomer - there was no cream and no actual sugar involved. However there was less fat cream cheese, sweetened condesned milk, fresh strawberries, lime juice, vanilla extract, lowfat milk, and egg yolks.) Today I made dinner ahead for tomorrow (Boy Scout troop meeting + Cub Scout parent's meeting.) Another WW recipe - Smoked Sausage soup, which we'll reheat tomorrow and make grilled cheese with it.

The 2nd sock is coming along too. I'm up through the gusset, almost done with it, heading for the straightaway. I'm almost to the point in the feather and fan shawl where I can tell if I really like it. I need to cast on for the hat for the other of the monkey's friends.

Timer goes ding. Have to go.

Houston, we have a sock!

I finished my first ever sock yesterday! I was a little concerned because the toe decreases looked dorky - where the toe ended up being shaped like an inverted V almost. I tried it on, and it fit well. It felt really weird to wear a sock. I don't think I've worn one since February. Well, here and there, but not on a regular basis. The disappointing thing was that it didn't fit inside my penny loafer well, but it did fit inside my clunky, leather fake keds. That'll do.

Wound up the second skein of sock yarn and started sock number 2 today. I'm almost through the initial ribbing. I'm making the retro anklets from Socks Socks Socks! It seems to be going pretty quickly.

Also ripped out Clapotis last night. I tested out a feather and fan motif, as found in Little Box of Scarves. Changed needle sizes (went from an 8 to a 10 1/2), and decided to go with a 5 F&F repeats across + a garter stitch border, 3 stitches wide on either edge. Hopefully it'll turn into a nice stole style wrap. The colors of the yarn are fabulously harvest-y. Cranberry, gold, olive, blue, purple. Scrumptious. My only complaints are that I wish the colors lasted longer and that the yarn wasn't itchy. Part of the hazards of buying on the web. I think it'll be tres beautiful once it's blocked.

Today wasn't the day to start projects on unfamiliar territory. La-la has been up for about an hour every night (between 2:30 and 4). Took her to happy hour at the pediatrician's, and she's got a double ear infection. In Stereo! I wasn't having a lot of luck with the work I was trying to do from home (have you tried to build and test software with a toddler standing in front of you lobbying hard to get you to install a JayJay the Jetplane CD-ROM on the work laptop?) There is no pest like the illiterate pest with a CD-ROM. No offensement, La. She is working her way out of illiteracy though. My little monkey can recognize "her" letter (A for Amelia), and I think will soon recognize letters for other family and friends. I say, not bad for age 2 1/2 (she also knows her colors and shapes and can count to 13, perhaps higher on a good day). The peskiness, however, I see no signs of abatement. I think she learned it from our dog. :^) But back to the knitting - someplace during the first interesting row of the pattern, with (k2tog)*3 and (YO,K1)*6, I uncentered the pattern. I lost two stitches on the right edge, and had an extra one on the left. Go figure. I cheated and added/decreased as needed to get it to work again. I'm only on the 2nd repeat of the pattern (vertically), and can't wait to see how the fabric will be. I hope I love it, I really want to.

So, the deliveries last weekend went well. The hat recipient wore his hat pretty much the whole time we were there - and it was Tampa, FL in August. It was 93F/33C that day, although, air conditioned inside. The parents seemed to really like the blankey too. It was good. The little baby is 4 months old, rolling over and laughing. I think he's in the phase where blowing a raspberry is the best joke he's heard all day. The whole day La-la wore panties, and even used a "foreign" potty for the first time ever! Hooray! We may be entering a new phase with her, of the diaperless variety!

Speedy Delivery! Speedy Delivery!

Always the preschool television references, always.

We're going to Tampa tomorrow afternoon to deliver the garter stitch blanet and the blue and yellow hat to their rightful owners.

I restarted the sock with #3(US) needles, and it looks a lot better. Again, it's the retro anklets from Socks! Socks! Socks! I even stopped the K2P2 ribbing right around where the pattern said to do it. How's that for crazy. I may rethink the proportions of the leg part of the sock. We'll see. 4" just seems so long.

This road trip to Tampa tomorrow should take between 1 and 2 hours each way. I'm planning to bring the sock and the seed stitch scarf for working. I kind of wish I had brought home my garter sttich blanket from work, but I suppose I'll be starting another one soon enough (unless I make the neighbor baby a pinwheel blanket! How's that for crazy???)

You remember that sock?

That one where I was on the home stretch? I thought it was maybe a little baggy, and I was beginning to be concerned about how much yarn I had left? Well, it's now none of the above. I frogged that puppy. I was knitting away, and had a yen to figure out my gauge. Why now, when I was 3" from the toe??? According to my calculations, with my stitches per inch and the number of stitches, I would be getting a sock that was 10" around. Bear in mind, that I haven't measured my foot or anything trough all of this. I did the math with the prescribed gauge and number of stitches, and it the sock should be about 8 1/2 inches around. I'm thinking that an inch and a half is a lot of slack in a sock, a garment that generally doesn't have a lot of ease. Now I need to figure out how to shrink my stitches - I need to have 1 more stitch per inch, I think. I was using #4 US needles. I guess I'll try #3 next.

A snapshot of the craziness of the morning: I got out of the shower and was ready to help everyone get ready for the day in the kitchen side of the house. No one milked my MIL's cereal, so she ended up pouring coffee on her cereal. La-la did not want to eat breakfast, do her nebulizer treatment, and get ready for school. She wanted to paint. I do not do so well with so many crises pre-coffee. However, we ended up adding milk to my MIL's cereal (enough so that it was a workable amount of liquid for breakfast), and La-la painted two pictures, then was ready to get on with her morning routine. My day since then has been relatively painless.

The promised update

More to the gift:

My SP also gave me a book called The Joy of Knitting Companion, which turns out to be one of the best kinds of gifts. Probably not something I would have bought for myself, however, it has just the approach I had been craving in a book. (There might be some irony there.) It has a delightfully formulaic approach to many basic things (hats, mittens, socks, etc), including stock guideline measurements, and also places for your notes and graphing pages. Very neat. In looking for the publishing info, I found another neat feature - inside the flap (as if having flaps on a paper back book wasn't cool enough), there's a needle converter (US, English, and Metric) with the holes cut out for testing. I was just looking for a conversion from metric to US sizes too! I'll have pictures of the giftage in full effect soon. Thank you very much, my dear SP.

The Science Fair Project:

This is the project that I'd like to make my mother, either for Christmas or her birthday (both in December). It's the laptop case from the fall Interweave Knits. She doesn't have a laptop, but it looks like a good library tote.








These are the yarns I was testing to felt. The colors are Red, Blue, Red, Green, Tan. All but one were of unknown origin, and even the known one was only a suspected felter (100% wool, handwashing directions). The felters turned out to be Red #1 (the big skein!), and the green. The tan did turn out to be a nice yarn once it was washed. It and the second red held up to the hot wash pretty well, I guess that's also good to know. The blue got fuzzy and nearly felted, but not really significantly felted. Just enough to be messy and annoying.


These are some leftover wool yarns that are known felters. The pink was in in a French Market Bag, as was the red. The orange were the soles of some "felted" ballerina slippers for La-la. Sadly, the tops of the slippers didn't really felt. The reds are Cascade 220, the pink and orange are lamb's pride.



So, the Knitpicks order! I ordered new sock yarn for socks for DH in Grass. Yarn for the laptop case in: Wool of the Andes - Pumpkin and Spruce. Wool of the Andes in Coal and Mist for the canteen bag from Fall's Interweave Knits, and a whole slew of Shine to experiment with colors for a blankey for the neighbor's new bundle of joy (Butter, Apricot, Cherry, Green Apple, and Candy). The blankey concept I'm considering with the shine is two strands held together, garter stitch dishcloth pattern. There are a lot of combinations I'm considering - green & yellow, orange & red, yellow & orange, and Candy would work with most of the others, and now that I'm thinking about it, wouldn't orange and red look nice. I earned the nickname "Colorful Cathy" when I was little.

The Completed Blankey:



Project details: Cascade 220 superwash (green is color 850, special ordered from Little Knits, and the cream is color 817, also from Little Knits), two strands held together, a basic garter stitch dishcloth pattern, only scaled up to a 32" squarish baby blanket. It took 3 1/2 skeins of each color. Used size 11 (US) needles (32" circs) (I think. They're not labeled, and I just used the one that seemed right). The blanket is very soft and cuddly. I am a little concerned that it'll be too warm for Florida.

The formula for figuring out when to begin descending:

1. Get stitches per inch.
2. MaxStitchesInRow = StitchesPerInch x DesiredSideLengthInInches x sqrt(2); The half-square triangle is a 1-1-radical 2 base triangle.

Knitting Progress? I've got about 3 more inches before beginning the toe on my 1st sock. It's supsiciously wide, but I think they can always be house socks. I did some more work on the blue garter stitch dishcloth blanket at the all-hands meeting at work. The dads at the Boy Scout meetings seem to follow along with my knitting adventures - checking to see how much progress I've made or what I'm working on today. Same with my geek pals at work at the all hands meetings. I figure if the knitting keeps me from fidgeting and looking bored at an all-hands, how bad can it be?

I leave you with a gratuitious monkey shot:

Blog Preview

I have a few blog topics to discuss later - probably tomorrow when I actually boot up my "real" computer that has my pictures on it. Here are the topics to come:

1. A thank you & photos to my SP. I got a lovely gift today - 2 skeins of pastel-rainbow colored yarn (very Florida). They're "sock-sized" balls, Di-ve Cotton Club - 60/40 cotton/acrylic. It's very pretty. A turquoise chibi, 2 bent point jumbo tapestry needles, a slice of gourmet handmade soap (very pretty and a delightful smell), a Tea for Two set which looks like it has professional tea equipment and will make the professional tea from an earlier gift easier to use. It feels like I left something out, but if I did I'll get to it tomorrow.

2. I have photos of the baby blanket that I finished, and I'd like to do a "project report" on it.

3. I did a science project this weekend with felting. I want to make my mom the laptop case from the fall Interweave Knits, wanting to use heirloom, unlabeled yarn, I knitted a swatch and felted it with a load of towels. Two colors out of four felted. The other two, not so much. It was good to know that there was some hope for one of the ones that didn't felt, though, because knitting it was like knitting paste. Blech. But washed it was nice and soft and loveable.

4. That leads me to my Knitpicks order (Man, you really have to order a lot of yarn there to get the $30 order -> free shipping deal.) Also for my upcoming experiment for the baby blanket for my neighbor. My neighbor is newly pregnant - Yay!

The Napping House

Was going to write while I was the only one awake, but 'twas not to be. Now we've got La-la jumping around to Raffi music behind me. Oh, Lordy, Pick-a-bale of Cotton.

I made a good dent in my sock! I re-knit the heel flap, turned the heel, got through the gusset. Now we're on the straightaway before the toe. Hooray! I restarted Clapotis too. I decided to heck with the "twisted" knit through the backs. Fah. I guess we'll see what happens. I've made it through the first introductory section and am on the first repeat of the "increase" section. Also got some good knitting done on my seed stitch scarf at the popcorn meeting. I luurrve that yarn, as they say.

DH is doing some Cub Scout training this afternoon. I'm hoping he's back soon. La-la took off the rest of her clothes (panties and t-shirt) and has climbed into her stroller. "Boom-boom, ain't it great to be crazy?" as Raffi would say. La-la and I made some funfetti cupcakes, I tried out our new dishwasher, and have been using the heck out of the new dryer. Getting stuff dry in one cycle? How radical! Cupcakes are cool, gotta go.

Back and forth...back and forth

I turned the heel on my sock last night! Unfortunately, I also discovered that I did the heel flap wrong - In the style of stockinette, I was *sl1-k1* on one row, then I was *sl1-p1* {don't you just love how knitting uses regular expressions in the directions? Ahh. I love it when a good geekiness comes together} Unfortunately, the devil in the details and on the purl row, I was suppsoed to sl1-purl across. Doh! Made for a VERY TIGHT heel flap, and it was too tight to pick up the stitches for the gusset. You know I was going to try to avoid frogging it, right? The real directions are much more manageable, and now I understand the "turning the heel" concept. I was so excited that I knit a corner that I ran over to show DH. He, the architect, was suitably impressed.

I'm having technical difficulties in Clapotis. This knit-through-back-loop is getting me. All of my knit stitches are through the back loop. My knit stitch looks like this. From the other pictures that I've found of Knit through the back loop, which looks suspiciously like my normal knitting, it seems that my default stitch state is twisted. This is a little depressing, but even more so, is I'm having trouble figuring out how to make "untwisted" stitches. I may have to break down and knit a swatch and do some expirimenting with other strategies. I wish that the Clapotis pattern was written in the style of a for loop vs. line-by-line. I have so much trouble following that sort of thing. I want it to be:
k = 1
i = 4
while i <= 17 //i == number of stitches on needle.
if( odd(i)) //purl side of stockinette
{
sl 1, purl across to i-1, pfb stitch i
}
else //knit side of stockinette
{
sl1, for( j = 2; j < (i/2 - 1); j++) knit stitch j, ktbl, knit 1, ktbl, knit k stitches, kfb;
k ++;
}

After all of this whining and carrying on, I might be saying that I might not be really ready to try clapotis yet. I tend to have more trouble with patterns where you have to know exactly what line you're on (No lace for me yet, thankyouverymuch), and then that twisted stitch business. If anyone out there has any free advice on the knit-through-back-of-loop, I'll take it.

I started a new garter stitch blanket at the all-hands meeting this morning. It impressed my coworker, who it seems I often sit and knit near at meetings. I started from nothing and have a triangle as deep as my index finger now. That chenille. I'm having issues with it. For one thing, it's not much fun to knit, for another, it's hard to justify giving it to a charity (or anyone else in my circle) when it doesn't seem to be machine washable. So I brought in some Caron simply soft in a navy blue that I'd been thinking about for a Project Linus project because (a) I have a ton of it and (b) it really is very soft. I really like how the blankey is starting out, so that's good.

I finished it!

The garter stitch baby blanket is done! Just need to weave in some ends. It really did take 3 1/2 skeins each of the green and cream cascade 220 superwash. I'll have some after photos at some point - they're on DH's camera.

So what do you do when you finish one project? You start two more!

I started something else with my super-gorgeous purple wool/silk. Turns out it wants to be a seed stitch scarf. The wool/silk is very round and non-fuzzy. Sort of like embroidery floss, only thicker and stretchier. In fact, I think you could unravel it like embroidery floss. It took me several rows to realize that when you cast on an odd number of stitches and do k1p1 across each row, that means seed stitch. I was at the Boy Scout meeting and I was winging it. I tried making it into a drop stitch scarf, but my drop was too droppy, and I lost a real stitch, not a yarn over. Previous to tonight, it started life as Tie One On from Knitty, but it just wasn't knitting up like the pattern seemed to imply that it should. The fabric of it wasn't similar to the way the pattern sounded, and it seemed like I would run out of yarn with a quickness.

I also printed out the pattern for the ubiquitous clapotis, and I'll see what I can do with it. I think once I finish this post, I'll wind up some yarn for it.

I guess I like to have a mix of projects on the needles - something brainless, something challenging, something for me, something for a gift or charity. Once I get Clapotis on the needles, I'll have 3 things for me working (the red socks, clapotis, and a seed stitch scarf)- that never happens in real life for me. We'll see how it goes. After the scarf for me, will be a scarf for DH, and after the clapotis will be a baby blanket for project Linus.

In non-knitting news, everyone survived the first day of middle school. Sounds like there was little educational content, and the boy made it home and let himself into the house OK. I have to admit that I was getting a little panicky at 4:30 when I couldn't get a hold of him, and the bus was supposed to arrive at 4:02.