Peas and Carrots
I just spent a half hour while working out trying to sing the alphabet to Mary Had a Little Lamb. First in English, then in German. (Try it.. it’s harder than it sounds.)
Sociological Images was on a sex (as opposed to gender-roles) kick (may not be work-safe) last week. I’m still trying to figure out what I think about most of that.
In other news, you may be amazed that there’s progress on a knitting project:
The scary thing.. that’s not even one full skein of yarn. I took this picture yesterday morning before running out the door to work and then knit through Casino Royale (yes, the new one) last night. So there’s about another inch or so completed but not pictured, most of which was done before I attached the second skein of yarn. (Plymouth Galway, for those interested; pretty sure this is the Cobalt colorway, and yes, it really is that electric blue.) I have the pattern memorized - it’s actually very easy and mostly mindless - which makes it decent movie knitting. Which is good given the timeline I have in which to finish it.
KnittyOtters Getting to Know You Contest
I’ve a bit of a weakness for otters, so I couldn’t resist KnittyOtter’s Getting to Know You Contest in honor of her 200th post! Congrats!
(For pictures of recent knitting, skip below the questionnaire..)
1.)How long have you been knitting?
Hrm.. really, pr’bly around 8 or 9 years. I learned pr’bly 10-11 years ago but didn’t really start knitting regularly until I went to grad school.
2.) How long have you been knitting socks?
About as long as I’ve been knitting.. pr’bly a year or so less. I was a bit ambitious and decided that I wanted to do my first socks from cotton.. I know better now - both how better to do cotton socks and that wool is generally more forgiving for socks! I also learned *after* making a few pairs where the toes were twisted out of alignment from the heel that I was twisting each and every stitch, which caused the tube of the sock to spiral on itself. Yeah.. not so useful.
3.) What do you do with a problem like Maria?
Let her loose in those hills and lock the doors. She was terribly romantic, and didn’t really strike me as the survivalist type. At most she’d have made it to the first real Alpine snow fall.
4.) What is your all time favorite sock yarn?
I don’t think I have one, which might be sacrilegious. At the moment, I rather like the Trekking that I started working with.. hrm.. several months ago. Should pr’bly get back around to working on those..
5.) Toe Up or Cuff Down?
Either, both? I like the economy of toe up socks, but there are so many patterns that are cuff down that I can’t be bothered to convert, so I’ll just knit them as written.
6.) What’s your favorite color (this week or for all time)? Do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can’t stand?
Blue. (Which brings me back to that lovely Trekking.. really need to pick those up again..) For family or palette or whatnot.. jewel tones, fall colors.. deep, saturated colors. I’m not fond of visually striking combinations in most yarns - the pansy colorway I used for my Jaywalkers still sets my teeth on edge a bit - but I love it in nature. And I really love Ruth’s hand-dyed nature-inspired yarns.. they’re all just so gorgeous!
7.) Do you have a pet(s)?
Yes. One (old) little black dog, Jalapeño, or just Jali for short.
8.) Babies: Oven Roasted or Barbecued?
Grilled, actually, with a little garlic and butter. 
9.) Besides socks what is your favorite type of thing to knit?
Heh. Um, depends on my mood. At the moment, I’ve been stricken with the urge to start sweaters (see below for proof!), but I could just as easily pick up a lace project. *shrug*
10.) What’s your favorite scent?
Mm.. that’s a hard one. There are way too many. Rain. Ocean breezes. Coffee. Campfire smoke. Fajitas. Good wine. Warm skin. Clean sheets dried in the sun. Bacon. Fresh cut grass.
11.) What music are you really loving right now? Like a song or a band?
Went on an Ani kick this weekend while with several friends, but lately I’ve been rather taken with Matt Nathanson, Gaia Consort, and the Paperboys.
12.) How many pairs of socks have you hand knit?
Uh.. Well, I have 8 or 9 in my own sock drawer, and I’ve knit at least that many as gifts, so call it 20ish?
13.) What’s your favorite treat? Salty or Sweet?
Both. There’s a jar of trail mix on my desk that is my ideal snack - peanuts, cashews, almonds, raisins, and M&Ms. As a child, I was inordinately fond of ants on a log and one of my favorite oddities is melted caramel between saltine crackers (think s’mores, but.. different).
14.) What was the most interesting thing you smelled yesterday. Not good or bad necessarily, just the thing that stuck out most so that you actually took notice of it.
Hrm. Shampoo. I’m out of my usual brand so used whatever was handy and I noticed it all day because it wasn’t what I’m used to.
15.) Needles - DPN’s: Wooden, metal or plastic?
Wood or bamboo. Metal is too hard on my hands and plastic just feels wrong. I almost exclusively use Harmony needles these days.
16.) What is your favorite sock pattern that you’ve knit? What do you recommend?
I really liked the 9-to-5 socks, but was also taken enough with Baudelaire to knit it twice.
17.) The last Question: If you were stuck on a deserted island who would you want with you, what knitting would you want with you and would you ever want to leave?
Kim & Tori. And maybe a chef or two. And if the island had good grape stock and clean water, we wouldn’t even need to leave to get more wine.
Right then.. since I’m on the topic, thought I’d post a picture to prove that I actually was knitting this weekend past:
(As usual, all photos are clickable thumbnails.)
That is, in fact, the start of a cabled sweater! Yes, it’s mid-July, but I have hopes of completing it in time to be worn this fall. Given my knitting track record of late, that’s being fairly optimistic, but here’s hoping this is just the little shove I need to get back into the swing of things.
And just because I was out in the garden again last evening, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from there:
These are, again, the Hollyhock from the roses back by the garage, but I don’t remember having all four colors in bloom at the same time in the past, so wanted to be sure to capture it.
This is a blue sea.. something. I never remember the right name.. I just call it the Blue Alien Plant because that’s what it looks like. It’s in the front yard, between a couple balloonflowers which should start blooming any day now.
Random Thursday
As an Institutional Researcher, this is about 90% of what I do daily. Because Institutional Research is one of those more or less obscure careers - most people have no idea what it is, even a fair number of the rank and file in academia - there’s no predominant path people take to get here. In the three and half or so years I’ve been in this profession, I think that my background as a social worker has been far more useful than my background as a researcher or a statistician. Social workers are trained to see person-in-environment - to explicitly see the context of a particular set of circumstances. More than anything else I do, being able to set the context around any particular piece or set of data is by far the most valuable (and also most often overlooked by users of data). (If you want an example, ask me about the IPEDS Graduation Rate Survey sometime.. *smile*)
I apparently smell like jelly beans today. *shrug*
The Peterson’s Graduate Survey has become officially known as “The Evil Survey(tm)” by my student survey monkey. This amusing me for several reasons, not the least of which being that it is truly an evil survey.
I promised pictures of Ornette; here are a couple from when I hit the 3 inch mark a few days ago (row 36 or the 40 row cable pattern):
As usual, all pictures are clickable thumbnails.
I’m knitting the large size of the pattern and started with the right sock. I’m using Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino yarn on US1 needles. I thought I had a set of Harmony US1s, but I can’t find them so I’m using Clover bamboo needles, which are just not quite pointy enough for the cabling and causing the yarn to be splittier than I think it should be. Despite the heavily cabled appearance, the sock is fairly elastic - relaxed, it measures about 6.5 inches, but it stretches enough not to be tight or luck stretched out around my 10.5 inch lower calf. (I’d show you a picture, but it’s rather difficult to take a picture of your own calf, particularly when the interesting part of the pattern is on the outside!)
At Cookie’s request, I washed and blocked it this morning (I’m now through row 40, one full repeat of the cable chart), but apparently can’t take a non-blurry picture today; it also appears darker because it’s still damp.
The yarn did bloom a little in washing, but I didn’t lose as much stitch definition as it appears from the pictures. I might go outside at lunch and try to get some better pictures.
A caveat: I’m test knitting the pattern along with a couple dozen other folks, so it’s possible that the pattern I knit will be different from the final released pattern. There have been one or two minor revisions already, but for cosmetic purposes; the pattern is well written and easy to follow if you understand how to read charts. I’ve been doing the cabling without a cable needle, which is a bit of a new trick with the small gauge (and is another reason I’d really like some pointier needles).
Current Knitting
As hinted in my last post (which was, surprisingly, just this week instead of sometime last month!), I’ve been doing some, but not a lot, knitting. As expected, I finished the knitting for the Baby Surprise Jacket this morning in the car.
It took about two and a half skeins of Tahki Cotton Classic, one skein of the blue and a skein and a half or so of the red. The mom of the intended recipient is allergic to many animal fibers and they live in CA, so I figured cotton would be a good alternative. And as a bonus, it’s washable.
This is my first time doing a Baby Surprise Jacket, and it was kind of fun to see how it all went together. I wasn’t sure how the stripe would look as I wasn’t sure how the piece got folded up, but I think I like it. Something I never noticed in pictures of Baby Surprise Jackets is the increases across the back and at each cuff, which I think are certainly more noticeable in the photos above.
The cotton makes the diagonal increases in the second half (front) of the piece look a bit exaggerated, but I think a little blocking will tame them some. I may at some point try to figure out reverse engineering this so the diagonal decreases fall on the front of the jacket because they look a little neater. I may not, though. *shrug*
Also, as I tend to bind off too tightly, I replaced one of the ends of my circular Options needles with a larger needle and it worked like a charm - I bound off as I wanted too without worrying about trying to keep things loose and having it be uneven, and it looks neat and clean.
So, now I just need to figure out buttons, and which side of the sweater the buttons vs. button holes go on so that I can get it to the recipient before it’s too small for him!
In the mean time, I’ve been dabbling with some socks. I’ve fallen absolutely in love with the color of these (but can’t remember what the colorway is.. it’s Trekking, though) because it reminds me of the deep and varying blues of the ocean.
The pattern may be familiar, but I decided I wanted a pair of my own and to my eye the pattern works very well with the yarn. I’m into the gusset at this point and now that the Baby Surprise Jacket is done, these will likely become my car knitting.
And I’ve done a bit more knitting on Jack’s Panda Cotton socks, which are also into the gusset. These are a bit more tedious, though, both because it’s a solid black yarn and because it’s an intentionally simple pattern. I’ll keep plugging away at them, though and eventually he’ll get handknit socks.
I was also lucky enough to get in on the group of test knitters for Cookie A’s new pattern, so sometime in the nearish future, you’ll be able to get a sneak peak of what that will look like as she’s very graciously told us that we’ll be allowed to share photos of our progress in our blogs and on Ravelry. While we wait for the pattern, though, I’m trying to figure out a good yarn. I have some candidates in my stash, but I’m thinking I need a solid or a yarn with more subtle variations than most of the stuff I have. I’m also thinking that I’d like to support one of the many smaller hand-dyers out there, so if you know of some good candidates, pipe up in the comments.
Random Monday.
Would that it were really Wednesday already, but that would be very bad as Monday has gone by far too fast already for everything I have to do this week.
Right then.. bit of a brain dump, and no pictures, but I will talk about some knitting I have going and some recent yarn acquisitions.
I had an eye appointment a few weeks ago and my new eye doctor doesn’t like the 30-day extended wear contacts I have worn for the last three years. He’d prefer that I take them out more frequently than every 30 days (he’d prefer I take them out every night, but I *hate* taking soft contacts out), so he suggested I go to a 2-week extended wear one. I like the 2-week ones less, but they’re rather significantly less expensive (the 30-day ones aren’t covered by my insurance and are around $350 a year, all of which I’d pay out of pocket; the 2-week ones are about 2/5ths covered by my insurance and around $160 a year, of which I pay about $100). The things I don’t like are related to the fact that I think they’re a slightly thicker lens, so they get gummy more frequently and shift out of place more frequently. It’s just an annoyance, and I’ll get over it, but since I never had to worry about the gumminess with the old ones, I’m not sure which eye drops I could use to make it go away when it happens in the middle of the day. Thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
A few weeks ago, we went to visit friends in Green Bay and in addition to playing lots and lots of games and eating many very good meals, P and I went visiting a couple of her local yarn shops. I was mostly good - I only enabled her into some sock yarn so she could learn socks and only bought 4 skeins of Takhi Classic Cotton to use to make a Baby Surprise Jacket for some friends’ new addition and a skein of the new Austermann Step with the aloe and jojoba in it. I I also started a new pair of socks in the car on that trip and worked a bit on Jack’s black socks. I will honestly try to remember to take pictures and get them loaded either here or in Ravelry soon - the Baby Surprise Jacket is nearly done!
It’s spring, at least by the calendar, so we’re starting to gear up for some more work on the house. First on the to-do list is getting the squirrel’s out of the attic and making it so they can’t get back in. That will happen tomorrow, and while Dad’s up in the attic fixing that, he’ll also figure out if the wall separating the two upstairs bedrooms is load-bearing so that we can make the right plans for removing it. This will make our house only 2 bedrooms, but as none of the existing bedrooms is actually large enough to be considered a master bedroom (you can’t get a king-sized bed into any of the bedrooms and still be able to open doors and/or walk around) we think this will be an improvement overall. The two smaller bedrooms will become one larger room (which we’ll likely keep as a den, but which will get counted as a master bedroom if/when we sell the house) and we’ll create some better closet space for both bedrooms. It’s a big-ish project, so here’s hoping it all goes well!
Saturday morning cartoons
I used to love Saturday morning cartoons. I remember getting up and watching the Smurfs in my pj’s, back when The Monchhichis were the only Japanese-inpsired cartoon around (and none of us knew it at the time because it was produced by Hanna Barbera). The Flintstones, the Jetsens, Tom & Jerry (the real Tom & Jerry, not the new Tom & Jerry Tales I seem to have stumbled on this morning), and the Great Space Coaster were all weekday cartoons, but they were good too. There was a point in this somewhere, something about how Saturday morning cartoons these days all seem to be about saving the world from evil and having amazing special powers which just seems.. boring. *shrug*
Anyway, last time I mentioned I’d try to get pictures of the blue jeans handwarmers, so here you are:
(Pictures are clickable thumbnails; click them to load a larger version.)
It’s a little muted, but the flash washed it out so much it was no where near true. I’m holding two strands of the yarn together, which is making these a little stiffer than I think they’re intended to be, but I like them and I think the recipient will, too. Since taking this, I’ve finished all but the thumb on this one. I’m doing a modified version of Dashing (modified in that I made it shorter by leaving out one of the cable repeats in the cuff and two rows from the hand length), which should be perfect for the recipient.
And a bonus picture because I don’t think I posted it before:
This is some merino that I got from a fleece or spinning swap awhile back. The label is in a language I don’t read, but apparently merino is merino in that language, too. It’s really a joy to spin up and it’s been very fun to watch the color changes. I was a little worried about the brightness of the pink, but it’s much more muted in the singles and really works well with the blues and greens.
Radio silence.
Hrm. Yup. Been awhile. Stuff’s been going on, including some knitting and spinning.
On the knitting, I finished the DNA scarf:
No, it’s not really that long, but I wasn’t sure just the two end pictures caught it all. Not that it matters given how hard it is to see anyway, but c’est la vie. *shrug* These pictures were taken while I blocked it on the back of my mom’s couch the night before giving it to the recipient.
Specs:
Pattern - DNA Scarf
Author - June Oshiro, known in blogland as Two Sheep
Yarn - KnitPicks Swish DK in Coal
Needles - KnitPicks Options US size 4 16-inch circular (though I also dallied for awhile with a second circular)
Points of Departure - This scarf was knit for a friend in partial exchange for some sewing she did for Jack. Therefore many of the choices about it (color, etc.) are hers, and at her request it is not a fisherman’s scarf as I understand that creature to be (e.g., with a section of ribbing across the neck) but instead it is “reversible”. To achieve the reversible-ness, this is really two scarfs knit in the round and joined at the edges. I’ve tried to come up with a better way to describe that, but I can’t really, so if you can’t figure out what I did, drop a comment and I’ll try to come up with something better (though likely more verbose).
I liked this scarf - and the double-thickness gave it some substantial heft, which the recipient also liked (and has no doubt come in handy this week with the -20 weather in Wisconsin) - but I’m not sure I’ll ever make another. Mostly because I’m not myself geeky in that way and most of the folks I typically make gifts for aren’t either. *shrug* I will attempt to get an action shot of it at some point with the recipient that shows the reversible nature better.
On the spinning, I finished spinning the cashgora I got with Cate & Sara in St. Louis (or was that Kansas City? I always mess those two up..):
The rose/mauve bits are really understated in the singles, but I like that every now and again they just appear. I’ll eventually ply the singles, once I figure out if I want to try to 3-ply it to maintain the color runs or just let them fall where they may. While I decide, I’m working on spinning up the little ball of Clun Forest that I dyed with cochineal with my friend Carol:
It’s really quite lovely to spin and I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out. I have no idea what to do with it - there’s not very much of it there - but I’m contemplating writing up the documentation for the dyeing and spinning and entering it into an A&S (Arts & Sciences) display at an upcoming SCA event. We’ll see if I get around to that, though.
I also did some more Kool Aid dyeing earlier this week, but I think that may have to wait for another day..
Catalina
Just a quick update on Catalina.. I’m through the first repeat, with the handspun silk from Eilidh:
(Clickable thumbnails, as usual.)
The blue blanket wasn’t the best choice for a background, but it was convenient. The next repeat is a shade or two lighter, but it’s not quite as noticeable in person as it appears in these pictures. I’ll do a repeat in this yarn, then another in a still lighter aqua, then two repeats (which will be the center) in white before reversing and ending up again with the other skein of Eilidh’s handspun.
I have a few upcoming plane trips, so it’s possible that this will progress fairly rapidly. I want to get the DNA scarf completed by January 19, though, so maybe not. *shrug*
Too late for WIP-it Wednesdays.. must be FO Friday..
Or.. something. I’m sleepy and have been fighting a cold for the better part of what should have been a week of vacation, so this might be short and photo-laden..
(As usual, all pictures are clickable thumbnails.)
I have been thinking about making myself a new pair of fingerless gloves to replace the half-finger gloves I gave a friend last year for awhile. My sweetie gave me a swift for the holidays which prompted me to wind the two skeins of Chameleon Colorworks Evolution I had into center-pull balls and I decided it was soft and pretty enough (this is the Figgy Pudding colorway) to become fingerless gloves. I tried to do the Dashing pattern first, but the cable crosses made them *way* too tight, so I opted for a made up pattern for the cuff and tops and a basic glove pattern from a Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns for the hand. I like them. And they only took a day or so to knit up (yes, they’re both finished, even though only the first one is pictured).
Hrm.. this one’s a WIP..
An update on the DNA scarf. While it’s small enough in diameter to use a 16 inch circular, the tiny, tiny needles on the 16 inch Knitpicks Harmony needle made my hands hurt, so I’m doing what I think is pr’bly a bastardization of the two-circular method. It doesn’t make my hands hurt and I’m making better progress, so all is well. Hope to have this one finished and on it’s way to the recipient sooner rather than later.
A WIP that is now a FO..
These are another pair of Fiber Trends Felt Clogs, again just the uppers, made for my aunt Kathy, mom’s sister. This picture is while they’re drying, and, as with mom’s, they’ve got a bit of excess lint from the washer.
And two finished shots, but neither of them are terribly clear. The color is closest in the first one.
And finally, a finished picture of the Garter Rib Sweater, which was a holiday gift for my dad:
For all it’s plainness, it is pr’bly the first man’s sweater I’ve made that I really like. It fits well and looks very good on dad.
I’ve also made some progress on Catalina, but don’t have an updated picture because the battery in my camera is dying. I’m just about through with the first repeat, though.. well, maybe only 2/3rds of the way through.. I’ll take another picture once I change to the next color most likely.
One down, one to go!
Mom - if you didn’t follow the first warning, follow this one - GO AWAY! Come back next week. Love you!
Okay, so I’m back to just two knitted holiday gifts. I got a cold this week that helped tip the balance and I’m pretty sure I’m not up to anything more pressing than finishing the two that were really originally planned.
So here’s the first - Fiber Trends felt clogs with fleece lined suede slipper bottoms.
This is just out of the washer, still a little lint covered from the sheets they got fulled with. As usual, all pictures are clickable thumbnails.
And two finished shots.
I knit just the uppers, not the soles, from the Fiber Trends pattern, which worked pretty well. They’re a little unshapen, but they should work themselves out as they’re worn the first few times. I fulled them until they were about the right length, but still ended up having to do some forced shaping around the toes to make them fit the slipper bottoms. I think I like them that way, though, because there’s a little more room around the toes than there might have been if they’d been fulled to fit exactly.
And just to make sure anyone who stumbles across this doesn’t have to go digging, these were knit with just over a skein of Paton’s Classic Merino that I dyed with Tropical Punch Kool Aid using the Fiber Trends Felt Clogs pattern. I only knit the uppers - cast on the number of stitches you’re s’posed to have once you finish the sole and worked from there - and fulled them to the right size (I think it was four 15 minute hot wash cycles on our washing machine). I used more of the dyed yarn to sew them to the fleece-lined soles (purchased from Patternworks) and overlapped the stitches a few times at the toes to help reinforce them.
