finally, some knitting!

For a blog with the word "knitting" in the title, I sure haven't posted much about that lately! Haven't been doing much knitting lately, but there's enough to scrape together for a post to prove that I haven't completely abandoned my needles.

Sooo, let's go back. Waaay back, to shortly after the Christmas Knitting Marathon. As we left off, Jason's big stripy blanket was steadily growing bigger and stripy-er. I've actually kept up a decent amount of momentum on that, and am now more than halfway done with the striped portion of it. Then it'll be relatively fast to use up all the leftovers on a quick and easy dc border around the whole thing. Jason seems to like it so far, and I'm rather pleased with the progress.

New year's resolution re: The Stash is, erm, going. I've been mostly good about not adding to it. There was a point in late January when I did buy a little yarn. I scored two skeins of Dream in Color Baby yarn (in Happy Forest and Blue Lagoon) which I'm very excited about. At 700 yds of laceweight each, I'm pretty sure I can squeeze a pair of lightweight summer cardigans out of them. The third skein I didn't really have an excuse for other than I wanted it. Tosh sock in a lovely bronzy orange colorway aptly named Copper Pennies. I'd been eyeing it since the beginning of December and had heard such lovely things about Madeline Tosh that I had to give it a go. I'm planning to make an Age of Brass and Steam kerchief out of it, and that'll be one of my next projects, right after I finish my current kerchief/shawlette thingy.

I'd wanted to start using the Tosh Sock right away, but it was just before the Super Bowl and I'd already committed to going out to a bar with friends to watch. A bar that allows smoking indoors. So, it's perfectly understandable that I didn't want to take my lovely brand new skein of not-even-wound-into-a-yarn-cake-yet sock yarn into a bar where it would become stinky with cigarette smoke. Instead I rapidly wound up my two skeins of Knitpicks Imagination in Mermaid Lagoon, snagged the easiest pattern I could think of, and ran out the door.

The result is this partially-finished Baktus. Pattern is dead simple and works rather well for showing off the variegation of the yarn. I like how it's coming out, and really need to get it finished up so I can actually wear it.

As you can see, the colors are quite pretty. They're a bit more jewel-toned in person, but this is a decent shot of them. And aside from one patch of fairly unattractive pooling, they're spreading themselves out fairly evenly.

The other thing I've been working on is a hat. You may recall me whinging back in January about a hat. Yes, we're still dealing with that. After starting it over twice, because the designer couldn't be arsed to list a fucking gauge on her fucking pattern, I sat down and did the math on adding another column of cables. The numbers came out right, so I knit the brim, increased the extra 6 stitches to get up to the right number for cabling, and knit on. I didn't bother to try it on because I DID THE MATH. And the numbers I got told me that the hat should fit. SHOULD, of course, being the key word there. When I was halfway through the crown decreases, I went and tried it on.

AND THE HAT DOES NOT FUCKING FIT.

It's still too tight. Not uncomfortably so, but just enough that if I wear it for a little bit it begins to ride up and make me look like I've got the most gigantic oblong head ever. How do I know this? Because I've knit another hat that was just a smidge too tight and I don't wear it any more because I hate having to tug it back down every five minutes. (Also, I botched part of the lace on it, but that's neither here nor there.) I don't want another hat that I don't wear because I don't want to tug it back down every two minutes. And this one will be every two minutes. Why? Because, despite having six stitches less (at my gauge, that's just over an inch) than the body of the hat, the ribbed brim is, quite inexplicably, too loose.

So I give up. That's it. Obviously the universe does not want me to have this hat. So out came the ball winder, and I frogged that sucker with a vengeance.

The yarn is now in timeout so it can think about what it's done.

I'm next going to start on a sweater, since, ya know, I've committed to knitting 11 sweaters this year and (surprise!) haven't even started one. I'm going to take another crack at a top-down raglan and actually try using a pattern this time to see if it helps. And using the Top-Down Raglan Pattern Generator, which makes up a pattern based solely on math, hopefully will end up with a finished project that actually fits.

FOs, WIPs, and plans

So here we are, a little over two weeks into the new year, and so far things are going well. Work is nice, no drama has exploded in my personal life, and I've been pretty productive knitting-wise.

I've even got a FO already!

I got to meet my little brother's girlfriend when I was home for the holidays. I pretty much expected her to be a sweet girl, based on comments from my Nani and parents, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she (like me!) is a great big Harry Potter nerd. We talked a bit about the series, and our favorite characters, and when I found out that her fave is Hermione, I knew I had to make her this hat. Still need to mail it off to her, but I think it'll be a great surprise to get in the mail. I'm looking forward to hearing her reaction to it.

The hat was a quick and easy knit. The pattern actually calls for a DK weight yarn, but I used worsted instead since I do tend to knit a bit tighter than average and I figured it wouldn't affect the finished hat overmuch. The end result is a pretty dense fabric that is very warm. I used Cascade 220 superwash in the colorway Ridge Rock.

In keeping with my New Years resolutions I used up the leftovers from Jon's scarf. Unfortunately, as with most well-intentioned things, it didn't work out quite as planned. I ran out of yarn just shy of the end and had to go buy a second ball to finish it off. So now I've got more grey yarn in the stash than when I started. I'll probably make another hat out of it or something. We'll see.

And speaking of New Years resolutions, I'm working on a lovely blanket for Jason. He liked the zigzag throw blanket for the sofa so much that I'm making him a larger one. Using Lion Brand Homespun (awful, splitty stuff, but it does make a soft squishy blanket -- plus, hey, it's cheap!) for it. I'm crocheting stripes, then will use whatever leftovers that aren't enough to make a full stripe as a border. It's working up pretty quick, and is mindless. Perfect for tv crafting.

Of course, the minute I laid it out on the floor to get a picture, all the cats instantly gravitated to it. Like furry little moths drawn to a warm and fuzzy flame. So, sorry, Jason. It looks like I'm not actually making the blanket for you.

And then just seconds after obligingly lining up for a nice picture, Yarneater (background) tried to make off with the remains of the skein, Kleptocat (center) began a valiant effort at eating the safety pins securing the pieces together for easy sewing, and Nuisance (foreground) flipped out for no discernable reason and rolled over while holding fast to the corner with his claws, thus turning himself into a kitty burrito. The blanket is recovering from this ordeal in its plastic WIP tub.

I've also got a project in the works for me, though it's not going at all as planned. I've been doing quite a lot of crafting for other people. First Christmas knitting, which was followed by the Hermione Hat and the epic stripy catnip blanket. I wanted something for ME. So, I browsed through Rav for a hat pattern, busted out that one lone skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky I've had sitting in the stash forever, and started knitting. What could go wrong? said I. Bulky yarn works up quick and the pattern is easy!

The pattern is indeed easy. However, the designer didn't list a gauge. Meh, I thought to myself, I knit a bit tighter than average so I'll just go up a needle size and it'll be fine! After the first pattern repeat, I thought it was looking a bit small, so I put it on a circ and tried it on. Damned thing wouldn't even fit over my head. Ripped it, increased the number of cast-on stitches and added an extra purl stitch on either side of the cabled columns. That should be fine, right? Yeah. I got up to the decreases and decided that I should probably try it on again just to be on the safe side. Well, it fits. Mostly. But it's pretty snug. Almost uncomfortably so. After some hemming and hawing, I just ripped it out a second time. What's the point of knitting a hat if it's something I won't end up wearing because I don't like the end result?

Quickie project has now taken me three days and a load of frustration. I'm going to reknit it AGAIN because I WANT THIS HAT DAMNIT. I'm probably going to add another cable column instead of more purl stitches, but need to sit down and work the math on it to make sure that I'm not going to be knitting this frigging thing a fourth time. I am irritated that I have to do this. The point of using a pattern to knit something is so I don't have to do the math myself, and all of this could have been avoided if the designer had just taken two frigging seconds to sit down with a ruler and her finished hat, and say "I got X number of stitches to the inch" on her pattern. Because the only way she could have gotten an adult-sized hat out of the numbers she posted is if she's an abnormally loose knitter, which would have also been nice to know.

In the meantime, I'm setting this aside because I can't look at the yarn without wanting to hurl it across the room. Probably later this week I'll go back to it.

I'm also doing one of those yearly challenges that pop up on Rav. Last year I kept seeing the 10 in 2010 shawlette challenge, and wanted to get in on that but didn't find out about it until late spring, by which point it was too late because I'm not that crazy all the time. Well, this year I joined up with the 11 Sweaters in 2011, because I need more sweaters. Of course, I haven't started knitting any sweaters yet, but hey, it's only the third week of the year, I've still got time. I have lots of plans for sweaters, so that's something, yeah?

I'm also planning on doing 52 books in 52 weeks this year. I've always wanted to do it, but back in college I was going through a book to a book and a half per day so 52 books in a year wasn't even remotely a challenge to me, so I never bothered. And then after graduating, I pretty much stopped reading at all (for shame!) so I didn't do it then. Well, this is the year, and I'm actually on track with that so far, so I think I'm going to post them on here just to keep myself motivated. But in separate posts. Yep.

Ravelympics: Day Whatever

So, I've been a bad blogger. I intended to update more about my Ravelympics project, but I ended up getting so frustrated with the damned thing that I could barely stand to keep working on it, much less tell others about it.

So, here's where we're at now:


Pretty decent progress, yeah? I anticipate knitting most of the remaining lace section today, and finishing it up along with the garter stitch border along the bottom by tomorrow (or Tuesday at the very latest) which leaves me most of next week to do the sleeves.

I feel very confident that I can finish it, especially considering that I lost three and a half days of knitting time to my own stupidity and lack of reading comprehension skills. I guess I should start at the beginning...

So, using my own bizarre logic and reasoning, I somehow came to the conclusion that knitting size XS at my smaller-than-specified gauge on my larger-than-suggested needles was indeed the right thing to do. In my defense, I knit tightly so I do generally have to go up a needle size or two to get the correct gauge. Well, clearly I miscalculated. After dividing for the arms and knitting a few inches, I tried it on. And crappity crapfuck, if I'd kept knitting I wouldn't have been able to give it to my mother as planned; I would have had to find someone whose arms are the same width as their torso. Needless to say, that doesn't fit a human being of any proportions, so I had to rip back.

I then spent the next day and a half ripping, picking up stitches, knitting for a bit, realizing I immediately divided for sleeves instead of knitting more, ripping, picking up, knitting, realizing I forgot to place third buttonhole, ripping, picking up stitches, etc etc etc ad nauseum.

Finally got it back on track by Thursday, after creating the strange lovechild of sizes XS and XXS and have been happily slogging through the mindless repetition of the torso. I really do enjoy this pattern and would love to make another one for myself. The lace is pretty but easily memorized, the sweater itself is coming out warm and squooshy, and even though it's a pain in the ass to switch skeins every two rows, so far the Malabrigo hasn't thrown any drastic color variations at me.

For the first time since I started this thing, I'm beginning to think that (barring me being an idiot and screwing up again) I'm actually going to finish this on time! Fingers crossed!

my knitting hates me

It's the only conclusion I have reached after the events of the past several weeks. I'm not sure what reason it has to hate me, but hate me it does. Suddenly and violently and all over the place.

Let's review.

There are my January KAL socks. Which, two months past the deadline, I still have not finished. I was knitting away at them, still very much within my self-imposed deadline, when I reached the toe decreases. What possessed me to stop and count my stitches, I don't know, but I did. And I discovered that somehow when I was decreasing the stitches for the gussets, I decreased too much. the sole of my sock was six stitches short because I, apparently, am an idiot who doesn't know how to count. I tried it on, and yep, it's noticeably tighter than its mate. I frogged the entire foot.

But I was not discouraged. I valiantly started knitting away at it again. An inch and a half later, I realize that I ripped back too far, and now it's hasn't been decreased enough. Because I'm an idiot who still doesn't know how to count. I ripped back again.

Frustrated with the sock, I put it in time-out. Then I went out and bought myself a skein of Malabrigo in the colorway Stonechat and cast on for a hat. I'm about halfway through the first lace panel, when I realize that I somehow, and I have no idea how, screwed it up. Ripped back. Put the hat in time out as well.

Moved on to my goofy orange hat. Screwed up the decreases, but luckily I caught the mistake three rounds in. Ripped back and reknit because damn it I was going to bloody well finish something. The rest came out all right.

Empowered by my recent victory I went back to the Spiteful Lace Socks of Hatred. Knit the foot, obsessively counting the stitches every other row. Ended with the correct number. Knit the toe. Realized that the toe of the first sock and second sock look very different. Consult the pattern. Realize that the pattern says decrease every other row. And, yep, I decreased every row. I'm an idiot, and somehow I managed to not catch it before I cut the yarn. Very nearly pitched the whole thing across the room in a childish temper tantrum. The sock is in time out again.

Considered going back to my stonechat hat. Remembered that my stonechat has already expressed its hatred toward me. It's still in time out. Cast on for my sweater instead.

I've been putting off this sweater for a long time. I was disappointed in it before I ever started it, because the yarn looked different online than in person. I thought I was ordering grey and brick-red yarn. Instead I was actually getting grey and brownish-red yarn. But after knitting it up, the color combination has grown on me. It's still not something I would have chosen intentionally, but I think that it works well. Take a look!




I'm almost done with the back, and while at first I thought I had broken the string of evilness, I was wrong. The stripes are supposed to be 20 rows wide. I've been knitting them 24 rows wide. Where I got 24 from, I have no idea. But I didn't discover that my stripes are too wide until I was halfway done with the back. The hell with it, I said, I'll have wide stripes. I don't care.

Then I discovered that not all stripes are 24. The first two after the ribbing were 24. The one after that was 28, and god knows how many the one after that would have been. Probably 38457298734 if I'd had my way about things. I ripped back. All stripes are 24 now.

I also just discovered (and may or may not have hurled my knitting away from me while swearing violently at it) that despite counting and re-counting and re-re-counting, I still cast on an incorrect number of stitches. Four too few. I just fudged the increases so at least the top half will have the right number. Did I mention I apparently suck at counting? I think a kindergartener could count better than I can. It's kind of pathetic.

But that's not true. It's just what my knitting wants me to think. It wants me to think I can't count and can't read a pattern to save my life. It wants me to doubt these basic skills I've mastered since grade school. To what end, I don't know, but it clearly has some clever, evil plot.

So, you see, my knitting hates me.

But that's okay, because right now I hate it back.

arrgh

I was at the LYS again today. In an uncharacteristic show of self-control, I walked out of there with nothing more than the size 8 dpns that I'd gone in there intending to purchase.

UFO month is, erm, coming along, I suppose. After my victorious FO on the second, I haven't really done much of anything else. I'm rapidly approaching the heel flap on my mother's socks. I've also fed the BTWNE anothe skein or so of yarn, though you wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at it. It's like there's some yarn-sucking black hole hidden somewhere within its row upon row of mind-numbingly, eye-crossingly, soul-crushingly boring "3dc, ch1 ad nauseum." I am so so so frigging sick of this blanket that I'm sorely tempted to toss the damned thing out the window and just be done with it. I won't, though, because I am a stubborn little brat and no afghan will ever get the best of me, no matter how evil it is.

I may have cheated on my UFO finishing just the tiniest bit. But, as I ever so cleverly rationalized to myself, presents for other people don't really count. So I finally frogged my failed beret and reincarnated all that lovely soft baby alpaca goodness as the Binary Cable Hat for Jason. Except the lovely soft baby alpaca goodness evilness was having none of that. After some minor gauge issues and some half-assed pattern recalculations, I sat down to knit, and three wasted rows into the hat I discovered that the damned yarn is so fuzzy that it completely obscures the pattern. Probably for the best. My calculations were probably off anyhow. They always are.

I don't know if it was only trying to keep me from deviating on my path of UFO decimation or what. I can hear it chastising me now. "No, Leandra! No more projects until December! That's only three weeks away - can't you even make it three measly weeks without starting something new???" That might just be my conscience - that voice I occasionally hear that tells me that I don't need any more yarn. I generally don't listen to that voice.

But so far this yarn is 2 for 2 in failing to become hats. Maybe it doesn't want to become a hat. Or maybe it thinks it's above being knit - after all, it is by far the most expensive yarn I have. Or maybe it's just evil. Well, it better get its act together, or so help me I'll make mice out of every last scrap of the stuff and give them all to my kitties. You hear that, yarn? You better shape up or you'll spend the rest of your miserably existence being slobbered on, clawed up, and getting lost under the sofa.

Tomorrow is probably going to show me breaking my yarn diet. The LYS is having a sale (whee!) and now that I've got the binary hat on my brain, I need appropriate yarn for it. And some more sock yarn because that doesn't count as stash. And appropriate needles. And, um, stuff. Yeah

Anyhow, look forward to yarn pr0n tomorrow.

ketchup!

Ketchup post! Stuff has happened, I haven't blogged about it, so here we go. This'll be quick, stay with me.

1. Twisted Maiden gloves are being sent to the frog pond. Got up to the thumb gussets on the first one, and decided that it's too tight, I did the math properly for figuring out if it would fit me, but neglected to take into account that armwarmers shouldn't fit like a second skin. Will be redoing them in a larger needle size at some point.
2. Finished one of my second attempt at socks, and it actually fits! Hurrah finishing something and it fitting correctly!! I've been putting off starting the second one because I have to make the yarn start in the same place on both so the patterns match. First one ended just after where the second should start. Other skein of yarn starts in *almost* the same place, but I'm going to have to take some yarn of skein A and splice it to the end of skein B to make it long enough to cast on with, and that involves pulling it out to see how long the pink and white section actually is and blah, I'm making this more difficult than it has to be. I could just cut it at the start of the next pink section, but I hate wasting things.
3. Finally got a good start on the blanket I'm making for the future in-laws for Christmas. I'd done the foundation chain, did half the first round and lost interest. Now I'm about twelve rounds in and though it looks more like a placemat than an afghan at this point, I like how it's coming out. Good choice in colors, go me!
4. My birthday present from aforementioned future in-laws came in!! They bought me the set of Harmony wood sock needles, and of course I had to use them right away. That's how I ended up finishing that sock. Oh, they're so lovely and I'm so happy and in love, and it was all it needed to convince me to go ahead and use part of my birthday money to order the set of 14" straights, and enough yarn to finish my Calorimetry. <3 <3 <3 I placed my order on Thursday, I'm hoping to get them by the end of next week. *fingers crossed*
   

blaargh, sickness

Yep, so I'm sick today. Luckily, I wasn't scheduled to work today, so I ended up spending the day crashed on the sofa with some knitting. I spent the afternoon swatching* and knitting up my calorimetry. But Leandra! the more astute readers will say, You don't have a calormetry! Well, I do now. Or part of one, at least...

*Where swatching means casting on the required number of stitches, losing interest a few rows in, measuring it anyhow and going "eh, close enough" when it comes up a quarter of an inch short.

Now, I bought only one skein of Shamrock yarn in Beckett, and when it got here I thought to myself, Gee, self, this looks awfully small. But I shrugged and assumed that I would have been smart enough when ordering to check the amount of yarn the pattern called for and ordered accordingly. After all, I'm the one that always orders on the side of caution and picks up an extra skein so if I thought one was enough, well dagnabit, then one's enough.

Turns out I was only half-smart when ordering yarn. I ordered the recommended 50g of yarn, but the yarn used in the pattern is 93yd. Mine is only 82. Fuck fuck and doublefuck. Ah well, I thought. I knit a little tighter than the average knitter, and my gauge "swatch" came out a little short. Should be fine. So I knit. And by the time I got to here:



and the ball had decreased by a somewhat disturbing amount, I was forced to admit that, yes, I do not in fact have enough yarn. *sigh* Note the lovely, lovely way the colors of the contrasting strand are knitting up. Focus on that and not the paperclip stitch marker I've got sticking out the top of it.

The way I see it, I've got a few options. I can:

• A - Keep knitting and pray that I've got enough.
• B - Frog what I've got so far, cast on less stitches, do fewer repeats in the middle and pray that I'll have enough.
• C - Buy more yarn and pray for the same or a matching dyelot.

Option A is clearly silly and will end in me investing a significant chunk of time in knitting something that will inevitably be frogged.

Option B is less silly, but could quite conceivably have the same end result.

Option C makes the most sense, but will inevitably end up in me buying more yarn I really don't need. Plus I've had my eye on those oh-so-lovely Harmony straights, and my mother just gave me check for my birthday and it really would make more sense to do that because then I'd get the free shipping and - no no no! Bad brain! Do not need!

So what am I sitting here doing now? Well, obviously I'm blogging. But why am I blogging? To avoid starting yet another project. See, when the calorimetry failed, I eyed the lovely stack of Swish DK and thought perhaps I should swatch it for my Sesame sweater. But I've fallen into that trap before. Swatching is only fun for the first few rows. Then the novelty of playing with a new yarn wears off, and I wind up starting the project. And I certainly do not need to start any more projects, as clearly evidenced by my Ravelry page.

See, Ravelry shows that I have five WIPs. Nine if you count my hibernating projects, most of which are hibernating just because I don't want a billion WIPs listed. Then throw in the other three smaller projects (amigurumi and a granny square) that I felt were too small and would be finished too quickly to warrent calling them WIPs, and of course the calorimetry I just started. And we might as well add to that the bag that I haven't woven the ends into and lined so I can't actually use yet (aka: it's not done, aka: WIP!), and the beret that's too big to fit a human head and I still need to try to salvage with a few rounds of decreases but I went ahead and listed it as completed anyhow because it was mostly finished and that's close enough, right? And what do we have? A grand total of fifteen. I have over a dozen projects I've started and not yet completed, and I'm wanting to start ANOTHER one?? What is wrong with me???

Even now, that seductive little voice in the corner of my mind is whispering, go ahead, just swatch it! that doesn't really count as starting...

Except I know where it would go! Bad brain, stop trying to lead me into knitting temptation!

I'm going to go keep working on my socks. Maybe if I finish another project in the next few days, I'll reward myself with just one little eensy swatch. That can't hurt, right?