I'm listy today

1. Rogue is off the pins. I love how the yarn changes after a washing. The change with Clasgens is the most drastic post-washing change I've seen with any yarn. Okay, I've only been knitting garments with 100% wool yarn for about a year, so my experience isn't all that varied yet, but I'm still impressed.

In the past, I've seamed sweaters by sewing the sleeves onto the body first, them actually sewing up the sleeves. The directions for Rogue said to sew up the sleeves first, then sew them onto the body, so I decided to give it a try. It's not that I'm a slave to whatever the pattern tells me, but I figured that it would be worth trying out this order of seaming, to see how I like it. Plus, it lets me do the easy stuff first, which is nice. I know I should get the difficult stuff over with first, but who really wants to do that?

So I spent the bit of time I had before work today seaming up one of the sleeves. It was easy as pie, which wasn't a surprise. The only thing I was unsure of was what to do about the hem. The pattern says to sew the hems up after the seaming, so I figured I'd do that. I wasn't sure whether I should seam up the hem, or leave it split. I decided to leave it split. I figure better that than seaming up, and finding later on that that makes it harder to sew in well. Plus, I was afraid that seaming it would not allow the seam to bias the way it wants to bias, causing problems later on.

After all of the seaming, sewing, and weaving, I plan to re-block the top of the hood. I exaggerated any "ears" that were there by the way I pinned it out the first time. My goal in the first blocking was to add a bit of length to the hood, which I achieved. Now I need to reshape the top, which I think I'll do by laying it out folded the other way, and smushing it into shape. I have played around with the fabric, and I think it will work to my liking.

2. So maybe I'll have a finished Rogue after the weekend. More likely, early next week. I should also finish the lace socks fairly soon. I have 2 (I think) pattern repeats and a toe left, in addition to washing and some blocking. The socks are for an exchange on a LiveJournal community, and the person I'm exchanging with has decided to delete her LJ account. I emailed her, and she's still in on the exchange, which made me happy.

3. Another LJ knitting community is having a contest next month. The prize is a book I've really wanted for a long time, and the entries are to be reviews of yarns, books, etc. I have a few things I feel comfortable reviewing, and may repost here what I put there.

4.Things to look forward to next week:

• finished Rogue!
• finished lace socks!
• a book review or two, and more thoughts on Clasgens yarn (after I get to actually wear it, and maybe give my swatch a stress test)
• progress on fair isle mittens and/or me coming to the realization that I really, definitely, am running out of a color for the vest
• And of course, 3 of the 4 of those means pictures pictures pictures! (Too few pictures lately. iPhoto feels abandoned, I'm sure.)

5. I just closed the deal on trading that blue/grey Wildfoote sock yarn for beaded stitch markers. I'm psyched. I think I've now rid myself of all the yarn I wanted to rid myself of, and I'm finally getting my grubby little hands on beaded stitch markers. Yay! And now that I've atoned for my past yarn purchase mistakes, no more buying stuff I don't have projects for. What I had was in no way excessive, but it was more than made me comfortable. I don't like to have stuff I don't want to use.

6. My site finally has been added to the knitting blogs ring. (After me posing as a member with that button in my sidebar for a couple of weeks.) It sounds like they're super backed up, so I consider 2 weeks pretty darn impressive. I noticed after I saw that I had a gazillion new hits from the ring webpage. Gotta love statcounter! So hello to anybody who finds me through the ring. Remember to come back week if you want instant finished project gratification. :-)

good little things

1. It's got to be fate. Right as I'm finishing up Rogue and seriously deciding on what will be next, someone goes and starts the Colors of Autumn knitalong. I obviously joined. This will be great motivation to actually finish the vest (or finish it as much as I can with one color running out), and braving stranded colorwork on DPNs for the mittens.

2. I just looked again at the LYS newsletter I got at the knitting group last week. I had remembered that there's going to be a tent sale on the 8th, but looking at the newsletter, I saw that it includes "all types of yarn". Yay! I hadn't noticed that before. I think this means I'm going to finally buy a skein or two of the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn I fondle every week at the knitting group.

Rogue is blocking (pic)

It's about time. For some reason, the last stretch of knitting was really hard on my right hand. I've developed a nice callous on the inside of my right middle finger, which is strange, as I've never gotten a knitting callous in that spot before.

For the record, I finished up the hood grafting by using half kitchener and half general seaming techniques. I wasn't quite sure what to do, as half the stitches were live and half were just an edge of knitted fabric. I did some searching, and although it was hard to find answers, that's one that I found. It worked well enough. Right now the hood is blocked out for lengthening, but I suspect I may have to do a second blocking, maybe stuffed with something, for shaping.

The soaking went well, but there are no pictures. I figured blue mush in a dark basement may not be as pretty as I thought. The washing machine frustrated me a lot until I remembered that I had to close the lid before it would spin. Whoops. But once I figured that out, all was well. The yarn feels so much softer, now. I'm sure part of it is that it's still damp, but I know from the swatch that the yarn will be permanantly softer than it was pre-washing. I also turned the rest of the last ball I used for knitting into a small hank, carefully tied, for washing. That way I can seam with relatively clean yarn. I haven't gone through it to pick out all of the vegetable matter (a lot of which really needs to be picked out, and won't be gone from a soaking and spin cycle), but it's better than nothing.



click to biggify

It's so darn hard to get things squared up just right without a grid in the background. It's close enough, though. I haven't bothered to pin down the hems. Should I do that? Maybe I should go back and use the rest of the pins for it. I guess it will make sewing them in a bit easier later. Even if my pin pushing finger is red and sore. (poor, poor, unfortunate me...)

I do wonder if I'm going to want to do a partial blocking on the side cables of the body. I kind of folded them in half for the current blocking, but I wonder if that will squish them in a funny way. I may end up spot spraying them later to help them relax into a normal shape, depending on what they look like after this step.

Rogue will probably be untouched for a while. I don't trust it to be fully dry tonight, and tomorrow night is knitting group. Maybe I'll play around with hemming and seaming on Saturday. I don't know if the yarn I used will be good for the hems, as it's kind of thick. I guess it will take some experimentation. I've never sewn in a hem, so it should be a nice adventure.

&@##@$%! allergens

No pictures today, but I will report that my sleeve is well on its way to sleeving. I have about 20 rows to go before I start the sleeve cap. It might, just might, be finished tonight.

I'm almost positive, now, that the yarn is making me sneezy. A bit itchy, too. This whole allergy thing is very new to me, but the connection is hard to miss. One reason I want to finish with the sleeve as soon as possible is so that I can finally give all the pieces a good soak and wash, and do a final vacuuming of the living room to get rid of offending vegetable matter that has sprung from the yarn. I think I'm going to even wash enough yarn so I can seam with unoffending yarn. (Well, the yarn isn't the problem. It's the allergens carred within it, directly from the farm. I hope. *achoo!*)

If I can finish the sleeve tonight, maybe I can finish grafting the rest of the hood before work tomorrow, and set the pieces soaking in the washer until lunch. Then I can pin it all out during lunchtime, work on finishing the lace socks tomorrow and Thursday evenings, and start seaming this weekend. It would have been really awesome if I had managed to finish the sleeve by Sunday night, because firing up the wood stove made the house super dry. If I could have blocked on Sunday night, the pieces would have been dry in no time.

And if you read all of that, you got to this paragraph, which contains something very cool. That would be cabled crochet. And not lame faux cables in crochet (which I've seen and been relatively unimpressed with before), but actual stitches twisted in front of or behind other stitches, to make cables like you see in knitting. It's very cool, and the swatches she knit actually look a lot like they were knit. Check out one of the comments, where she posted a picture of multicolored crocheted cables. I'm impressed.

So here's to tomorrow, which might contain:

• less itching
• less sneezing
• more sleeve
• pictures of all the fun pieces
• bonus soaking in machine picture (I always love submerged yarn pictures)
  

Not promising anything, but if I knit my fingers off tonight, tomorrow will be splendid.

Rogue (pic!), socks, Ingeborg, and bleeding eyes

Rogue
True to my word, Rogue sleeve 2 now exists. Yay! It's not done, but I have finished the chart section. That means 50 rows, plus the 7 rows of hem.



It's sitting on top of the completed first sleeve. (The first sleeve looks skinnier because it's more curled. I haven't done a thorough size check, but there's no reason to believe that they're not close to exactly the same size when uncurled.) The skein of yarn to the left is the one I'm current working from, and the 6 on the top of the first sleeve are what I have leftover. When I was working on the body, I had this irrational fear that I was going to run out of yarn. I ordered more than enough, and the store that sold me the yarn rounded up from that generous amount I ordered in the first place. (The yarn is produced at a small mill, and they sell it by the ounce, not in prepackaged skeins. Still, they didn't need to be that generous. they rock.) I wondered if I had miscalculated what I'd need. Now it's plainly obvious that I have way, way more than I'll need. After the sleeve is done, all I'll need is some yarn for the finishing work. Don't know what I'll do with the extras. It's pretty rough stuff, so I don't think it's scarf material. It might make good hats. As it doesn't felt easily, I might use it for some sort of charity knitting. The hats wouldn't be the softest ever, but the yarn does get a bit softer with washing. And since it's not easily felted, it would be good for people who may not get special care instructions with the garment.


Sock Stuff
I haven't worked on the sock exchange sock since last week. It will get done - probably this weekend or early next week. So while I haven't been thinking about those socks a lot, I have been thinking about socks in general. I wore some of my toe up sock this weekend, and find myself more pleased with the wrap short rows than I was when I was knitting them. I think my biggest complaint about them is that one side of the heel or toe looks different than the other side. That bothered me a lot more while knitting them than while looking at the finished product long after the knitting was done. I inspected some socks at the sporting goods store this weekend, and I think that their short rows use the wrap method too. It's hard to tell, since the gauge is so tiny, but I think it looked like my heels do. I should go exploring in my sock drawer, to see what I find.

I briefly experimented with a figure 8 cast on. It was easier to start than I thought, though definitely fiddly. I had a lot of trouble tightening up the beginnings of it. I think the problem was the inherently splitty nature of sock yarn. It was hard to tighten the strands because it was hard to separate them accurately for good tugging. I might work on it some more, and I might also try the "easy toe" method. That one uses a short provisional cast on, which in my opinion is better than a long provisional cast on. (I hate picking up stitches from a provisional cast on. This is why I'm looking for toe-up methods that don't use one to a large extent.)

My other sock lesson from this weekend is that I think I'm going to not knit plain stockinette socks anymore. They look nice, but my pink Lorna's Laces socks shifted around way too much on my feet. They are snug enough on their own, but I think the lack of elasticity from the lack of ribbing really made them move around a lot more than they should have. I think that my "plain" socks are going to have a completely ribbed leg and a ribbed top of foot from now on. I think negative ease - even a considerable amount of it - can only do so much for a snug fit.


Ingeborg
I want to say thanks for the Ingeborg input. I think I'm going to stick with my original decision to go with the cream and black main pattern. If I decide I'd rather have a more subtle colorway, I can always make another one, right? ;-)


Things to Fear
A.'s mom gave me a bunch of old knitting catalogs this weekend. A couple of Knitpicks, a couple of Lion Brand, and a couple of others I hadn't heard of before. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the Knitpicks catalogs. I find their website annoying to navigate, so it's nice to have pictures and descriptions of all of their yarns in print. And for the most part, their pattern suggestions weren't too bad. When I have the money, I think I'm going to order a bunch of skeins for swatching. There are certain things about the company that make me uncomfortable, but I'm still curious about whether I'd like their yarns.

The Lion Brand catalogs, on the other hand, were scary scary scary! I've never seen a collection of such horrenous patterns all in one place. Some of them actually made me gasp. Does anybody really wear that stuff? I can concede that my tastes obviously differ from the tastes of other people, but I really think the design and yarn choices for most of the garments in there were piss poor. Ugly, impractical, expensive (novelty stuff is pricy), and almost comical exaggerations of trends that I think aren't that flattering without being coated in plastic fur. I used to get their catalog many moons ago, and I know the designs weren't as bad as they are now. They weren't my style back then, either, but at least they didn't make my eyes bleed.

a non-update update

Thanks to the people who poked me. I will indeed cast on for the 2nd Rogue sleeve tonight.

I haven't knit since Thursday. It's been a busy (mostly in a good way) weekend. No knitting since Thursday? Yeah, my hands are shaking a bit from the withdrawal. ;-)

(Actually, I wasn't really feeling the knitting mojo last week, so no withdrawal. Just going with the flow.)

It's chilly here. Very, very chilly. I slept outside in a tent last night, and can attest to the fact that it is very chilly out there. We're thinking of breaking in the wood stove tonight, and the weather is certainly inspiration to knit. In fact, I'm wearing my Coronet hat (which I think I've neglected to put in my FO gallery) right now. Yay! Hopefully this week's updates will be a bit more exciting than last week's, which were mostly me blathering on about random stuff. Oh fer cold weather.

So time to take a shower and throw on some lovely Koigu socks, so I can be ready to knit through Football in half an hour. (They always replay the good stuff anyway, so why not knit through it? Just wait for the cheers and jeers to look up. The perfect knitting sport for a cold night spent in front of a wood stove, dontcha think?)

Dale drooling (opinions needed!)

My copy of Dale 126 arrived yesterday. Actually, I didn't find it until this morning, as it was between the front doors.

I'm a bit torn on Ingeborg. I still want to knit it, but I'm wondering about colors, now. Although it didn't appeal to me at all before, I've taken a liking to the more subtle colorway - with grey instead of black. What do you guys think? you can see pictures of the various colorways here. I'm not using the same yarn, but was hoping to get close to the colorway in the bottom picture. (That shot is a lot brighter than other shots I've seen. Hmm.) But I'm so tempted by the colorway in the top picture, now. Is it too subtle? On one hand I like it, on the other hand it looks faded and kind of like something printed on a grey sweatshirt. Oh, and for the record, I have no intention of doing the ruffly edgings. That would be a bit much for my tastes.


I showed the pattern book to A., and he really likes Bjerk, as do I. Of all the patterns in the book, I think it's the one that suits me best. (Definitely in the red/orange colorway, although the other one is pretty, too.) I'd knit it first, but I love Ingeborg, too, and want to knit it for the challenge as much as anything.

I was surprised at how much I like Empire. I'm not sure how it would really look on me, though, and it's definitely not a style I've ever worn before. I like how it looks on the model in the bottom picture, and in the red in the top picture, but the shot of the white one in the top picture is not to my liking at all. Do I dare think about making it? Would I regret the bell sleeves and huge collar? Probably, but who knows.

Oh, and Jessimuhka, the women at the knitting group really like your sock pattern. I'm emailing one of them the Knitty address, because she's never heard of it before.

Edit: My LYS is going to start carrying Malabrigo worsted soon. I think this is the stuff from handpaintedyarn.com that they don't sell anymore from their site. The stuff that I used for BPT. Knowing how pilly it is, I'm wary to make another sweater from it. However, I think I'm going to have to buy a hank to make a warm fuzzy hat. Go ahead - twist my arm!

They'll also have Silkroad Aran Tweed. Isn't that what's used in that wonderful short jacket in the Fall '05 IK? I think it might be. In fact, I saw the bags by the register as I was leaving yesterday. This could be dangerous. Very dangerous. (No, I probably won't buy. But the desire will hurt a lot.)


Notice all this talk about future projects instead of reports on current projects? I just can't get myself to cast on for Rogue sleeve 2. I need some prodding. It would be nice to wear it, if it's chilly enough, when Ms. Ksubnaught (who should get a knitting/quilting blog) visits in a week or so. Poke me with sharp sticks, please!

humiliation within!

No pictures today, but lots of blabbing. So I figured I'd start by humiliating myself, because that's got to be nearly as entertaining as pictures, right?

things I'm ashamed to admit I like

• boxy sweaters - Okay, this is a lame way to start the list, but I only had 2 really bad things, and thought I'd need 3 for a real list. I do think I like boxy sweaters more than a lot of people. I don't think they need to be unflattering - especially if it's a cardigan worn open over a more figure flattering shirt. I like that boxy sweaters can be an un-futzed-around-with palette for creating a gorgeous textured or colored fabric, which sometimes looks its best without shaping making it any fancier. Not that I don't love things with shape, but I like boxy, too.
  
• jelly yarn - I just saw the link to this stuff yesterday, and am in love. Yes, I know it's impractical. Yes, I know that it's probably hell to knit with. Yes, I know that it's probably much more expensive than it's worth. But it really reminds me of being a kid in the times of jelly bracelets (before they had sexual connotations) and jelly shoes (even if they butchered my feet). It tickles my inner 12 year old, and I like that.
• fun fur scarves - now, don't close your browser window quite yet. I don't want to knit one, and I don't want to wear one. I don't particularly want anybody else to knit or wear one, unless they really, truly want to. But have you ever played with one? They're all furry and fun to pet, and the fabric stretches in really cool ways. They're very fun to fondle. In fact, that may be all they're good for. But that's good enough for me. If I had one, I'd keep it on my office, and take it out whenever I needed something furry to play with. As I don't want to knit one, and don't want to purchase any of the yarn, I don't see this ever happening.

So that's my current list of things I'm ashamed to like. In fact, I should ammend that to say things I should be ashamed to like, but like anyway. 'Cause I shouldn't have to be ashamed, right?

And to get on to more serious topics, I received a wonderful package full of books and magazines yesterday. The stuff from the trade. All wonderful stuff!

The sock book has several designs I really want to knit, including heavily cabled/textured knee socks. I may use my natural colored Kroy for these, as the pattern calls for exactly the amount of that I have in my stash. There's also a gorgeous lace pattern that uses a toe-up toe that I've never tried before. Is it merely a coincidence that the socks in the book are orange? I think not. My orange Kroy longs to be those socks, methinks.

The aran book has some nice stuff in it, although there are no charts, and the photography isn't great. (Lots of the pictures of the cables look overexposed.) It will still be useful, though.

I also got two issues of IK - Winter 99/00 and Winter 00/01. My impression is that IK used to have a much higher percentage of advanced traditional patterns than it does now. This may be a biased impression, as these issues were recommended and sent to me after I told the person I was trading with of my knitting preferences/style. The Winter 99/00 issue includes a gorgeous Jade Starmore cardigan. I've already figured out that it should work great in Brown Sheep Naturespun sportweight, which seems to be my default yarn. (I used it for Elizabeth I, am using it for the Nordic mittens, and plan to use it for Ingeborg.) I haven't swatched yet, and won't let myself swatch for it yet, but the gauge looks similar to that for Elizabeth I. I think my preferred stitch gauge for the yarn might be a teeny tiny bit tighter than the pattern gauge, but as the smallest size is close to 40" around, that may work out just fine for me. (And yes, the cardigan is very boxy. Somewhat of a surprise, because I thought it was Alice who was the queen of boxy designs, not Jade, who seems to know a thing or two about shaping. But I still like it.)

In the Winter 00/01 issue, there is a really pretty cardigan with Nordic designs. It has waist shaping, which looks great o the model, who looks like she's shaped kind of like me. Always a good thing when that happens! Too bad I think it's knit flat, which is just the silliest of sillies. If I ever knit it, I'm going to have to convert it to a steeked pattern. And if I do that, I may also go through the trouble of changing the sleeves to faux set-in instead of raglan, like the Betts Lampers Autumn Color Cardigan in Sweaters From Camp. (Which I'll surely knit before this sweater anyway, so I'll have a chance to really learn how that shaping works. I think it incorporates short rows at some point, but I'm not sure.)

I really lucked out in this trade. While the person I'm trading with certainly isn't getting a raw deal at all (especially since I left it up to her to decide on the final terms of the trade in terms of how many issues of IK to include with the books), the value to meof what I received is higher than I could have imagined.

one sleeve to go

Sleeve 1 is done! That sleeve cap went by really quickly. It was such a pleasure to get near the end and realize that I had 4 straight rows in which I got to bind off 5 stitches. Gotta love it when the end of plain stockinette comes more quickly than you thought it would.




It's not actually blocking, but as it's very curly, I wanted to see what it looked like uncurled. That necessitated pins, and I figured I'd snap a shot while I had it splayed out like that.

I think I'll try to do the hem of the second sleeve tonight.

I decided yesterday that I had enough money to spend on new knitting stuff. Not a lot, but I finally ordered Dale 126, so I can eventually knit Ingeborg. Order placed late yesterday afternoon and shipped this morning. Nice turnaround!

I didn't feel rich enough to order the rest of the yarn I need, so that will wait a while. I plan on using Brown Sheep Naturespun sport, and already have all the red and cream I need. I just need to order the black. I didn't find a shop that had both in stock, so I figured I might as well go and order one bit of the package separately. That way I can at least swatch with the yarn I have, which will also include the leftovers from the fair isle mittens.

I have such a fair isle craving right now. Also, a craving to knit lace that's bigger and a bit more complicated than the socks I'm working on. Might I start on the mittens before Samus? Hmm...

transaction complete

Yay! Yay yay yay!

My sock pal got the socks! Even better, she likes the color, and they fit. *phew*

It's so weird to see a picture of them posted by someone else. I finished them so long ago that I've been used to seeing them in my house, not on someone else's feet. But it's a good kind of weird.

I sent them out late Saturday morning, and judging by the timestamp of her post, they arrived yesterday. That's next business day, and I didn't spring for Exress mail or anything. Whoa! And I was impressed when the socks sent to me only took 2 business days to arrive. I guess my post office karma is turning around.

Hopefully she'll get my email today. I was a dork and forgot to include a note with the socks. d'oh.

On a completely different topic ('cause if I'm going to post more than once a day, I better make them somewhat meaty posts), I'm worried about the fair isle vest. I re-wound and weighed the remaining yarn yesterday, and am very nervous about running out of one of the colors. I'm not sure what I'll do if I run out of that one color. I have a feeling it will last through the armhole edging, but I'm doubtful about it making it through the button band. I suppose I could leave it out of the button band, and sub it with a different color. Or I could figure out if someone out there has some extra they'd be willing to give to me, sell to me, or trade for something else.

Of course, I'm secretly happy about this. I should finish the vest after Rogue, but I want to work on the mittens next. If I were unable to finish the vest, but got a good start on the finishing (armholes), I'd feel good about putting it aside for a bit while waiting for more yarn, and working on the mittens.

And let's not even get started on the topic of buttons. I haven't seen appropriate buttons at my LYS or the bead store in town. It's possible that I missed some, and as the bead store owner is a regular at the knitting group at the LYS, I may be able to kill two birds with one stone if I ask about button resources this week at the meeting. I strongly doubt that any of them will have J&S to give/sell me, but since KBTH looks like it's not dead after all, I may be able to find someone with appropriately colored scraps there.

a rare stash picture, +

1. Thanks to Jessimuhka for your comment. I did going with less stretch (or more knitting) for the sock foot. Also, I wanted to clarify that I'm glad I had an excuse to try the YO short row method, even though I didn't like it. It's always good to try stuff out, to see how I feel about it. I'm tempted to try it with socks knit at a tighter gauge, to see if I'd like how it looks more in that situation.

2. I finished the sock! It's the right size, and everything. No pictures yet, though. I'm going to wait until I block it, which I'll probably do when both socks are done. I've never blocked socks before, and am still deciding on how I want to do it. Rather than buying or making a mold, I might just pin it out. I don't think I'll want to do much to the foot, but I will want to pin out the leg.

3. I cleaned out and took a picture of my sock yarn drawer. It's emptying out rather quickly. Espeically when you consider that I think the purchase of the blue/grey Wildfoote (all 4 skeins of it) was a mistake, given the types of socks I like to knit. I'll try to trade or sell it at some point, so I'm not really thinking of it as part of my sock stash anymore. And there is one skein of yarn in that picture that is now out of the drawer, and becoming the second lace sock. Those of you who looked at the pictures should know which one. I need to find the right pattern for the orange Kroy, and I'm thinking that I may find a fair isle pattern to use with the single skein of blue and some of the "natural" colored Kroy. And then there are the leftovers, which will wait until I have some great inspiration. Or maybe they'll just become fodder for provisional cast ons and swatching.



clicking makes it bigger

4. In addition to finishing the sock, I also worked on the sleeve yesterday. I ended up doing a few more rows to make up for some tight row gauge, and then got started on the sleeve cap. Hopefully I'll finish that tonight. Sleeve caps are great because of the ever decreasing row length. Yay! (I'm concentrating on keeping things a bit looser for the sleeve cap, because just adding rows to fix tight row gauge doesn't work as well here. If that doesn't fix it, I'll just block them a bunch.)

Look at these beeeyooouuuteeeeful socks!

I just took some sock pictures! First, the exciting Sockapal-2-za pictures - one flat and one on my foot:







They were knit just for me by the wonderful Ms. Swim. I love her blog, and was so excited to see that she was the one who knit my beautiful socks.

I couldn't get a photo that showed the true richness and beauty of the colors, but believe me, they are great. And they couldn't be more me. Rich reds and purples, with some oranges, greens, and pinks thrown in. I don't think there's actually any brown in them, but they give the impression of having some brown in them, which is a pretty neat effect. I think I'm going to have to hunt down this Koigu colorway and buy a truckload.

My sock pal's socks went out on Saturday, along with some nylon needles, which had to be one of the last KBTH trades. *sniff* (I can't tell you how bummed I am that KBTH went *poof*.) The needles and socks were for two different people, and although I checked the addresses about half a zillion times before addressing and stuffing the envelopes, I'm still paranoid that my sock pal got the needles and the needle gal got the socks. I'll be happy when I hear that the package recipients did get the right stuff.

On to other things - namely, the advanced_knit lace socks. Beieve it or not ('cause nothing surprises me with this lace sock fiasco endeavor anymore), I ripped them out. I decided that I really, strongly, intensely disliked the yarnover short row method. It was easier to screw up than the wrap method, and I thought it looked sloppier and less sturdy. Maybe it was because I'm knitting the socks at a looser gauge than I usually do, but I was just not at all happy with the way the toe and heel turned out. I was going to tolerate the toe, but when the heel looked so vulnerable to wear and tear, and so sloppy, I just pulled out the needles and ripped my heart out.

I decided to go with the same basic pattern, but to do top-down instead. I was thinking of doing a wrap short row, learning a different short row method (maybe that Japanese method, with safety pins), or doing my first figure-8 toe and putting off the short row decision until the heel. But I just couldn't bear the thought of another provisional cast-on (I can do them just fine, but find them very tedious), and was watching a movie that required too much attention for me to try a new method. (And the only reason I allowed myself to rip was because I knew I had to cast on again immediately, to try to thwart this lace sock curse.) So I went for the tried and true, and am a good way into the foot of the first sock already.

Links to pictures:

• This is how it looks unstretched
• This is how it looks with the cuff stretched. The lace pattern is extremely stretchy in the vertical and horizontal directions. I didn't make the cuff as long as I was planning because 1. This yarn and this pattern is, in my opinion, more suited to a short showy sock than a long sock meant for warmth, and 2. I'm going to block the cuff to be as long as it is in this picture.

I'm trying to figure out what to do about foot length. On one hand, I've seen that the lace stretches a lot vertically, and looks very good like that. On the other hand, with the foot, there is lace on the top and stockinette on the sole of the foot. Stockinette doesn't want to stretch nearly as much as lace does. This means I either end up blocking the stockinette to within an inch of its life, or leave the lace relatively unstretched lengthwise. I think I'm going to to for the latter, but any suggestions? (This question directly aimed at the lovely woman who designed these socks, as she surely has experience with this already. :)

With all of this lace sock knitting, I got absolutely no work done on Rogue. The only time I touched it was to clear it from the living room, as it was distracting and cluttering. I'm at the point where I need to figure out when to stop working on the sleeves, which is fiddly and exacting business. Maybe tonight, although it will be tempting to get the first lace sock out of the way. Once it's done and kitchenered, I'll feel more assured that I'm not going to rip it out, burn it, or feed it to the giant spider who lives in front of our living room window.

my feet have died and gone to sock heaven

My Sockapal-2-za socks arrived!

I remembered to check between the outside aluminum door and the inside real door today (about 5 hours after the mail came), and there was the padded envelope. I about had a heart attack from the excitement. (Socks people, socks!) I ripped open the package, and pulled the most gorgeous... wait, I'm not going to tell you. You know they're socks, but any guesses as to which? 'Cause believe it or not, they're a pair that was once linked in my weekly sock lust linkage. I'll give you the hint that it wasn't last week, but some time within the last month.

They fit absolutely perfectly. They're warm and gorgeous and hug my feet with their lushness. I'll post pictures and reveal which socks they are (and which lovely woman knit them for me) in a day or two or three.

swatching and trading

Here's a picture of the Samus swatch. I can never seem to photograph this yarn so the color shows up correctly. I think this was my best effort, but it's still not quite right.



It turns out that the swatch did expand a bit more as it dried. I think the gauge is spot on now. It may even be the tiniest bit loose (we're talking fractions of stitches of here). It's close enough. I'm planning to make the 36" size, which is only 2" of ease, so if it ends up a tiny bit wider it will be perfectly fine. Anything between 36" and 38" final size will be fine for me for this sweater. If anything, I'm afraid that it will be hard to resist the temptation to really tighted up on the cables, which I tend to and like to do. I'll see what happens, and maybe will decide to do an extra full or partial pattern repeat if I do that. No biggie.

In more exciting news (because I know you're all about to pass out from boredom after reading about swatches), I finally found someone to trade my 7 skeins of Patons Classic Merino with. In return for sending her that yarn, I'm getting Socks Socks Socks, The Complete Book of Traditional Aran Knitting, and some really old back issues of IK. Schweet! I've been looking to get rid of this yarn for a while, and the books sound interesting and helpful, so this is a great trade for me.

Samus swatch

I couldn't help myself. After reminding myself of how pretty a purple the wool was, and after receiving the needles in the mail, I just had to do it.

I just traded (or am in the middle of a trading process) needles with someone from KBTH. She's getting 2 pairs of nylon circs, and sent me some bamboo circs in return. The nylon circs were discussed a few weeks ago on the list, and although I don't really like them, a lot of list memebers seem to long for the day when you could easily find them in the store. I picked mine up at a yard sale in Northfield. I think it was actually the same place where I picked up my copy of The Celtic Collection.

So I had these size 8 29" Bernat bamboo circs sitting around, waiting to be broken in. I swatched for Samus with them. I love working with them. They've got a more polished finish and sharper points, like Crystal Palace needles, but with a more secure and less buggy join, like Clovers. The cord is still annoyingly curly, but that won't be difficult to remedy. I think they'll be just right for Samus. My swatch hasn't dried yet, but unless it puffs out drastically from its half dried to fully dried state, it will work out fine. It can puff out a tiny bit, as my row and stitch gauge was just the tiniest bit tight - as in less than a stitch or half a stitch over 4", which is something that can be fixed by blocking, with both hands tied behind my back.

I don't plan on knitting Samus until I'm done with Rogue. The cabled hems and cuffs will be nice and interesting, but the stockinette body will be less than exciting. So maybe that will be something to work on in conjunction with projects that will take more concentration, like finishing the vest and the mittens.

Or, I could just forget about it all and knit everything on this page instead. That's incredibly tempting...

sleeve is sleeving

Things I learn from the Gilmore Girls: Lauren Graham looks great in a shrug. So few people do (in my opinion). But I guess Lauren Graham would probably look good in a burlap sack trimmed with fun fur, so maybe this is a moot point. (I don't think it was knit, but in general I love the choice of knit items worn on that show. There have been more than one that I've really wanted to make. I want to know who their wardrobe person is!)

And now for sleeveness. I'm into the boring stockinette section. Already doing the countdown - "only" 30 more rows until I start looking at length and/or start the sleeve cap, which is still stockinette and boring, but seems more interesting due to more frequent shaping and decreasing of row length. This isn't the most color accurate photo I took, but it's the one that shows the cables (and lovely rowing out) the best. Dunno why it looks so shiny. The yarn is not shiny in the least.



click to biggify

Oh, and sorry to all the people finding my blog by doing Google searches for arisaig knitalongs. I don't know if there is one yet, but if there is, I don't know about it yet. But *wave* anyway.

Tuesday is for sock lust

Socks that I want to be mine (and since they're probably not, socks that I want to knit in the future):

• yummy yellow ylace
• beautiful blue blace (Koigu!)
• I love these in both white and blue! (more mlace)
• more blue Koigu (I really need to get that book back from the library. Major swooning over this pattern. wuh.)
• I can't tell you how much I hope these orange Koigu socks with contrasting heels and toes are for me. I'm on an orange kick now, and those are fabulous. (I hope that lots of socks are for me, of course. But these are near the top of the hope list.)

My socks are probably going to go out in the mail on Saturday, as it's hard for me to get away during the week. (Well, not that hard, since I work from home and have a relatively flexible schedule, if I want it to be flexible. But the car is with the guy during the day, and the P.O. is probably a mile and a half a way, which would mean a lot of work to make up in the evening, which I don't want to do.) I'm incredibly excited to receive my socks. There are so many that I love from the photos, and even more I'm sure I'd love in person, and which I may not have even seen photos of. There was a pair I was sure was mine a few weeks ago, but now I'm doubting it, so I think I'm really going to be surprised.

I feel like it's my birthday. I'm loving it!

(Oh, and I just had a sneezing fit and think I injured my wrist. I kid you not. I'm a total spaz. But if it turns out I didn't cause massive internal wrist damage due to limb flinging while sneezing, there may be a sleeve picture tomorrow...)

pictures! (Rogue, supah seakrit soks)

I managed to snap some photos this morning, so you can see proof of my progress. Success!

First, we have the Rogue hood. Now, it's not done. First of all, my row gauge was ever so tight, so I'm going to block it to be a tad longer. (For all the parts of me that are short, I have a decent length neck.) Also, I haven't finished all of the grafting. I still need to do the horizontal grafting, which I haven't thought out yet. I'll do it eventually, but I might want to read through the yahoo group kntalong archives first. Or maybe I'll just wing it, but either way, it's not done yet.



(click to make bigger)

And here is the meager beginning of a sleeve. It's just the hem, plus the first 3 rows of the chart. how unexciting! But for my own personal reference, I will give my hem notes: The hem is shorter than the body hem. 7 rows of twisted stockinette, done on size 5 needles, starting and ending with a purl row. Hopefully I'll remember to look at this post when I start sleeve 2, 'cause I'd like to have identical sleeves.



(click to make bigger)

(By the way, Blogger is being a complete ass about uploading pictures in Firefox, which is the browser it recommends for my OS. So I have to start a post in Safari, upload the pics, then copy the HTML here. What a pain. They haven't responded to my second help request on this, either. Nice going, Blogger!)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I also got a good deal of work done on the advanced_knit sock exchange sock. I came across a pattern that looked yummy, and decided to give it a go with sock yarn that gave me trouble in the past. Ya know, with all the lace sock trouble I was having, it made total sense to use troublesome yarn. But miracle of miracles, it worked! I used a new short row method, and I'm not sure whether I like it, but I'll stick with it for the rest of the pair, for symmetry. You can see the pics by clicking this link. (So if you're the person who is receiving these socks, don't click, as I know you don't want to know what they look like yet.) They look big to me, but they're for feet that are significantly bigger than mine, so I suppose this is okay. Still, this makes me nervous. Note that the color in the second pic (the one without my hand in it) is a lot more accurate.


"The Chef" asked me about when we're going to see the fair isle vest again. The answer is that I don't know. When I finish Rogue, I should either finish that, or finish the fair isle mittens. Which I finish first depends on how virtuous I'm feeling, and how much I feel like tackling fun fair isle vs. tedious moss stitch fair isle edging. There's a good chance that it will happen within the next month, but I'm not sure.

BPT, comment stuff, and a plug

I was making a list of the stuff I wanted to blog about tomorrow, and realized that it was a fairly long list. Instead of a very long, boring post tomorrow, I decided to break it up into two posts. Actual current knitting pictures should appear in tomorrow's post. (Tomorrow is probably going to be a busy day for me, so this is speculation. Hopefully I'll have some time early morning and/or during lunch to do the blogging. Otherwise, it may have to wait until Tuesday.)

First, I wanted to say how immensely happy my BPT made me this weekend. It's really getting chilly around these parts. It's nice and warm (in the 70s) during the day, but I heard that it actually got into the 30s last night. Chilly! That time of year when you start to pull out the warm, cozy clothing. This morning I curled up on the recliner (after managing to tip it completely backwards after I first leaped into it a bit fast) with a great book, wearing hand knit socks and my BPT with my pajamas. It was true delight. BPT was the second sweater I made. I used worsted weight merino from handpaintedyarn.com. I'm sad to say that the yarn itself pills like crazy, but it's still super soft, and the colorway (burgundy dash) is still one of the more gorgeous I've ever seen. Beautiful autumnal colors. Here's a picture, taken right after I finished it, last year:




It fits great, and is still soft as sin. Yum.


Next on the blogging agenda is a plug. Sweetgeorgia knits and spins beautiful things. She's just started selling some of her hand spun and dyed yarn. I think what she put up for sale is all gone, but I bet she will eventually spin some more, for our purchase pleasure. So, you know, bookmark her store, and buy some yarn. (We're talking about the real thing. Like, not amateur handspun with koolaid dyes. Really nice looking stuff, in gorgeous non-koolaid colorways.)

And lastly, I want to thank the folks who have left comments for me - both the folks just stopping by to say hi, and the people who have helped me answer questions. I'll echo Jessimuhka's recent post about it being difficult to figure out how to respond to comment in this format. I appreciate them all, though! (I even set up a new Gmail account just for them. Not that there are a lot, but I like to keep them in a special place, so I'll have a chance of ever finding them again.)

Okay, I think that's all for today. On the agenda for tomorrow:

• picture of lace socks for the Advanced_Knit exchange! I'm almost done with the foot on the first sock. Believe me, this surprises me as much as anybody else.
  
• Possible Rogue hood picture, along with possible sleeve picture.
• lots of blathering about the above
  

mostly just ramblings

The Rogue hood is so close to done, I can taste it. I got up to the part where I separated the left and right cable panels, and have completed the right panel. 7 rows to go on the left side panel, and then comes the grafting. I'm hoping that will be crazily easier than I think. Let's ignore other, less pleasant possibilities for now.

In other good news, I have wonderful inspiration for the LJ advanced_knit sock exchange, in both yarn and pattern. I'm afraid to be too optimistic, given my past failure, but I have a good feeling about this.

I also have renewed interest in finally finishing the fair isle vest and in getting started on the fair isle mittens again. I've been doing a lot of single color knitting, and the color bug is tickling again. Working on the mittens will be great practice for Ingeborg, as I still need to get the whole colorwork on DPN thing down.

Unfortunately, I think Ingeborg will have to wait longer than I wanted. I hoped to start on it in October, but money is a bit tight, and I should knit with yarn I already have, and patterns that I already have or can obtain for free. This is why I've joined the Samus knitalong. I've found myself obsessing over this sweater increasingly over the past day or so. It's fairly simple (well, except for the cables), but so gorgeous. I took a peek at my Peruvian Highland Wool that's been sitting around forever, and it's less bright purple than I remembered. I was remembering it as this bright jewel tone, but it really is more subdued than that, and I think it will look lovely knit up as Samus. Let's hope I don't have too many gauge issues. (I'm thinking there's a possibility that I may knit at a tighter gauge and go up a sweater size, but we'll see how the yarn behaves.)

I've also been thinking more about Arisaig. It didn't really call out to me at first, but I think it may be a perfect little wrap for those times when I'm stuck in a cute sundress in an over-airconditioned restaurant (i.e. every restaurant between the months of June and August). My first thought about it was that it wasn't all that flattering, but I think it is, in its own way. It's not meant to be a fitted, shape revealing top. It's meant to be an elegant but somewhat cozy cardigan you throw on top of a more fitted, shape revealing top. It will probably be a long while before I knit it, but I wonder if Elann's Baby Silk would be a good match for that pattern. In terms of gauge, it looks to be perfect, but I do worry about whether 80% alpaca will be too warm for Arisaig. I've really wanted to try out that yarn, ever since they came out with it, and this might be a good excuse to eventually buy some.

New Knitty!

Impending cold weather really does bring out the best in knitting designers. I was extremely impressed with the newest issue of Knitty. I'm not going to go over every design, but here is a roundup of some of them. (I know I'm not the only person in knitblog land doing this, and I may be the only person interested in what I have to say about the designs. But it's my blog, and if nothing else, it's fun and will be a good reference for me.)

• Samus is very similar to another sweater pattern that has become popular over the past week or two, but I like this one better. The overall shape is nicer, and more flattering, in my opinion. I really dig the orange, too. I know I'm not a big Lamb's Pride fan, but this may be the right project for that purple Elann Peruvian Highland Wool I have sitting around. Too bad it's purple, not orange, because this is the second orange sweater I've fallen for in the past year or so. Orange my be in my future. This design also gets props for using a really nice type of cable chart. It's iconic! Yay!
  
• Cinxia is very cute, and I think it would look great on me. Too bad I have no patience for knitting through the back loop. It's nice to see something with a different design element, even if it's not something I'd want to do with my own hands.
• I love Josephine, too. How does a a free pattern in an online magazine do what IK failed to really do in its last issue - present a long knitted jacket that looks good and comfortable? It does remind me of some cheesy 70s patterns I've seen, but this one works. Too bad, as Lauren pointed out, us petite folks may just be devoured by this coat. It would overwhelm me, given my height and body type. Too bad. :-(
• It's not my personal style at all, but I like Revolution a lot. One change I'd make is to maybe apply icord edging to the bottom edge, and to the split edge on the back. It looks a bit unfinished and curly at those points, but I think it would be greatly improved with something like an icord edging.
• Leaves in Relief is also wonderful. The sweater and the photos remind me so much of Carleton. The sweater itself because it was at Carleton that I really started to play around with textured patterns like that, although in swatches, not on sweaters. Also, Ariel just looks like someone I might have been friends with there. The poses, the hair - so Carleton. Can I rename this the Carleton sweater? If I make it, I think I'll go with different sleeves. I really like the sleeves on one the guy is wearing in this article, but I'm not sure if those would look good on me or not. Maybe just plain sleeves, or plain with one or two leaves somewhere. Also, I can't wait to read that article.
  
• I like the patterning on Ella up close, but am not so big on the object as a whole, from a wider view. Maybe it's the yarn?
• Jessimuhka comes through with gorgeous socks. They look great in solid (maybe for my orange Kroy?), but I really need to get my hands on some Koigu...
• I still haven't been hit with an urge to knit a teddy bear, but I still think Bubby's pose in the top picture is hilarious.
• Very cute hat, very weird timing.

It's very likely that I'll knit Samus and Jessica's socks. I might knit Leaves in Relief one day, too, but as I said, there are some tweaks I'll think of making first. Such a good issue of Knitty!

As for my own knitting, I got a bunch more done on the Rogue hood while watching Dead Man Walking last night. I had to stop knitting towards the end, though. I'm guessing the hood will be done some time this weekend, so more exciting pictures when I get there.


edit: Oh, and this picture makes me happy beyond belief.

hood picture, and why sneezes are fun

I flew on Rogue yesterday. I was so eager to get past the part that I ripped out that I did it in a day (or night), plus some. (And a few rows today.) Here's a closeup of the left side of the hood, more than halfway done!

knitting news of note: This yarn makes me sneeze. I suspect it's because it's a little, um, "rustic". It's got bits and pieces of dried vegetable matter in it, and I'd suspect a good deal of dust or dirt, too. I was never an allergy person, but I've been noticing more sniffling and sneezing this year in general. I suspect the pollen and vegetable matter outside is finally getting to me, and whatever is living in the yarn is doing its bit, too. But since I have this unnatural affinity for a really good sneeze, I'm not complaining. Just noticing.

(Did any of you ever read the book Where Do I Come From when you were a kid? It was an illustrated kid's book about the birds and the bees. Some highlights are the explanation for why people don't have sex all the time if it feels so good (answer: it's like jumping rope. Fun, but you get tired and bored if that's all you do), and what it feels like when the sperm come out of the man ("like a sneeze"). I really hope this is not why I like sneezes so much. Freud would have a field day.)

Tuesday sock lust

First, some blogkeeping business - I've changed the settings so that only partial posts should appear in Bloglines, the LJ feed, etc. I know some people don't like this, but decided to do it when I saw that my images weren't reliably showing up in those feeds. I know I'd rather be able to read posts in bloglines instead of clicking through to the blog, but I find it even more annoying when I can't tell whether there are pictures or not, and have to click through anyway. If Blogger weren't being so silly about images, I probably wouldn't have done this. sorry :-(

Second, I haven't yet started working on the Rogue hood again, yet. I need to get around to printing out the charts again, as I was checking off each row, and want a fresh sheet. We watched Groundhog Day yesterday, and I was so tempted to work on Rogue then. It would have been very appropriate to knit the hood a second time while watching that movie. I opted for the socks, though.

And now for my weekly meta-blogging, in which I drool over socks. (Yes, I'm still a sucker for fair isle and lace socks.)

• more fair isle socks. I think this is a sign that I need to give this type of sock a try at some point. I've been unsure about things such as toes catching on floats on the way into the sock, but maybe I should just forget that potential problem.
• I dig how these look like one thing (striped) from far away and another (lace) close up. Neato.
• This color makes me extremely happy.
• More fair isle! These are incredibly gorgeous. Too bad her feet are too small for the socks. That probably means they're not for me.
• Dark green lace is just about as pretty as dark red lace. Yum.

I need a hug. Please?

I just wanted to let you know that I've spent the last 10 minutes carefully ripping back from hood row 37 to hood row 14. I think I was past row 14 of the hood on Thursday, when I last worked on the hood. The rest of the progress represents work I've done today.

Unfortunately, I confused the last cable on page 18 with the first cable on page 19. They're very similar - they just cross in different directions. The thing is, this style of cable notation looks like gibberish to me. I can follow the key, but I find it far from iconic and easy to follow, like the beautiful and unbeatable IK cable charts.

I should have paid more attention. Too late. I briefly considered trying to rip down only those 5 stitches, and re-doing 20 + rows of cables on each side of the hood. Then I realized that with all of the intervening cables, it would be incredibly difficult, and probably take as much time as just re-knitting those rows from scratch. Plus, re-knitting, I know I won't screw up, as I'd likely do if I tried to just drop those 5 stitches and figure out how to re-create all of the stuff that happens in that group of stitches. And I'd have to do it twice. And it would take so much concentration that I wouldn't be able to do other enjoyable things, like watch TV, or listen to the radio. So I ripped.

I'm calm. I'm trying not to dwell on the fact that a whole day's work is down the drain. A. was away today, and aside from a little bit of reading and housekeeping, my plan for my day alone was the lounge in front of my knitting. He climbed 7 mountains. When he comes home in a few hours, I'll have, essentially, made it just a few rows past where I was 3 days ago. All okay. Part of the process. Part of the process. Part of the process. (right?)

spork in the eye

The sock isn't.

I was a couple of inches into the lace sock when I noticed a mistake. I tried to tink. I screwed up. Compared to other things, I'm relatively inexperienced at lace, and there was no way I could recover without starting again. I ripped it out. Again.

So I'm going to let that silly lace sock stuff sit around for a while. I just can't deal anymore. I swear I'm not an incompetent knitter, but lace socks and I are just not getting along right now, so I'm not going to tempt fate for a little while. These socks aren't due for almost 2 months. Maybe I'll think about them in a few weeks.

I decided I needed something soothing to knit, so I went with my gut and cast on for another pair of Retro Rib socks. Retro Ribs were the second pair of socks I knit. This will be my third pair of this pattern. It's an easy pattern - to memorize and easy on my hands. I like knitting it. I had some GGH Marathon sitting around, procured a couple of months ago in a trade, and decided that it would be perfect. I think it would be too busy for my first pair of Retro Ribs, but by now I know and love the pattern so much that I don't much care. The pattern won't be as apparent as in a solid colored yarn, but a good deal of why I'm knitting these socks is for the feel of knitting them.

The yarn is a lot cooler than I anticipated. When it was in the skein, it looked a lot plainer than it is. As I was winding it, I saw that it really had a lot more variegation than I could tell before. I'm really digging it. It feels nice to knit with, too.

Maybe I'll pick up Rogue again this weekend. Until then, here is a sock picture (as usual, click for a bigger version):

mitten update

After a bit of lunchtime knitting, my wrists feel fine. I wonder if the weight of Rogue might have been an aggravating factor? I worked on socks during lunch, but may give Rogue some more attention this weekend. If it turns out that the weight of it is causing problems, I may temporarily put the hood on scrap yarn and work on the sleeves, instead. In fact, that may be a wise course of action regardless of wrist pain, as doing one sleeve before the hood and one after would help break up the sleeve monotony. Let's just see if I can listen to my own good advice. (The anal part of me doesn't like that plan, because it's so asymmetrical to have one sleeve done and to not at least be working on the second. I definitely have my Monk-like knitting moments. And don't get me started on the compulsion to center chess pieces. It's just kicking in, and it's not pretty.)


Also, I think I've made a decision about what to do with those fair isle mittens I started a while back. I was really leaning toward the option of ripping them out and never finishing them, as I do think the colors are a bit much for me. Now I'm thinking of finishing them, and donating them somewhere such as Afghans for Afghans. I might change the pattern so that there are only 2 colors in the hand, and make a fraternal pair. I think I'll keep the rainbow-like cuffs, though, since I already have one done. The site says they're looking for donations for kids, but some kids are 12 year olds with hands as big as mine. Plus, kids grow, and mittens that they can use for more than a year or two would be a good thing.

Jessimuhka, I think I might have asked you this before, but do you happen to know the approx. yardage you used in each color for one mitten? I'm wondering if one ball (minus what was used in the cuff) will be enough for the entire background on one mitten.

For the curious, this is the cuff. It's been a cuff for a long time. It's feeling lonely. (Or, more accurately, I'm feeling guilty. I'm getting on a "one project at a time, plus socks" kick, and I don't like having this unfinished stuff hiding in a drawer, and playing Telltale Heart with me.):




(Clicking it should show a bigger image, but who knows. Blogger has been barely functional lately.)

ETA: Do any of you use sitemeter? Right after I posted this, I started getting a whole slew of what I can only describe as sitemeter spam. Tons of hits to this blog, from a lot of random blogger blogs of people who I don't know. At least one had what I'd consider pornographic pictures in it. What's up with that? I know these people are not visiting my site. Is this a scam to get sitemeter users to click on the URLs of other blogs, or some glitch somewhere?

EDIT 2: Okay, I just got 2 spam comments. I guess that's what at least some of those visits were about. So I'm turning on that word thing, where you'll have to retype a given word before you comment, to deter spam. No, I do not need my, or any other penis enlarged. Stupid spam.

uh oh

Wrist pain. It doesn't happen to me often, but it hit yesterday. Blech.

When I was a kid, I took gymnastics classes at the local Y. One day, I hurt my wrist and never went back. I think that wrist has been a bit prone to injury, or at least pain, since then.

Yesterday, I was doing a tiny bit of work on the socks, and it came on all of a sudden. I stopped working on the socks. I tested a bit of knitting on Rogue, and that didn't hurt, so I decided to take it to the knitting group, and see if that painfree feeling lasted.

It didn't. Bleh. My wrist actually feels fine this morning, and I just did a tiny bit on the sock to test it out. I still have a raw spot on the skin of one of my fingers, from the needles rubbing against it, but the actual internal wrist pain is gone. I think I'll take it easy for a little bit, just to make sure it doesn't come back. I suspect it was aggravated because the cuff of the sock is a pain. Of course, if it comes back again, I may take a longer break from knitting, just to make sure that whatever is wonky has time to unwonkify itself. I don't want to get tendonitis or carpal tunnel. That would suck big time.

I was happy to learn at the knitting group that I'm not the only person who thinks the Annie Modesitt jacket on the Vogue cover is pretty cool. There's also some gorgeous lace in that issue. When I can stomach paying $8 for a knitting magazine, I think I'll buy it. (Not a bad price if there are several designs you'll definitely knit, but I don't think I'll ever actually knit that jacket. Plus, compared to IK, it seems really steep.)

Kathryn - I completely agree about your scarf assessment. If anybody is meant to be in that scarf, T. is!

duh

I'm so foolish. When I finished knitting the body of Rogue, I tried it on. It was difficult, as the shoulders weren't attached, so it was flopping down. If I had dared to read the first instruction for the next section, I would have seen that it was to sew the shoulders together. (And if I had been good and read that, I would have done a 3 needle bindoff instead. Would have been easier and quicker, and looked almost the same.)

Well, I have sewn the shoulder togther, and done a few hood rows. Now I can confirm for sure that the thing fits well. Yay!

I also cast on for the sock exchange socks. I'll post a picture to Photobucket next week, as I shouldn't post here, for secrecy purposes.

I'm sure most of you have seen the new MagKnits. Despite the fact that they still have the annoyingly information poor thumbnails and difficult to read girly font, I do like a few patterns. Fair isle, big wooden buttons, and weird, whimsical scarf. I wish I knew someone who would wear that scarf, because it makes me smile. A lot.

By the way, assuming this shows up in Bloglines, did any of you see yesterday's post there? I didn't. I tried doing a little edit to it, to make it appear. It still didn't. What's up with that? Let's see if this one makes it through...