AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

earning my way

I'm going to Rhinebeck this year (I forget whether or not I mentioned it).  One of the local yarn shops (I now know I mentioned it) is organizing a day trip, and so I'm trying to save up some spending money.  No yarn shopping now and using up enough yarn to have room for the 6-8 skeins of yarn I'm hoping to buy.  I'd like to buy enough for a sweater, but I'm more likely to buy enough yarn for 6-8 pairs of socks.  Sock yarn is just too much like candy.  Brightly colored, one skein projects that don't take up a lot of space.  It's a perfect formula even if you decide not to make socks with them.

So, Saturday I decided that it was time for me to finish off the pair of socks I started in August.  All I had was the grafting on one toe, so it was really ridiculous that I hadn't finished them already.  Between other projects, I pulled out my tapestry needle and did the deed (after looking through all of my remaining source books for Kitchener instructions - I should just remember it, but my brain doesn't seem to want to retain that information).

Yarn: Regia 4Ply, 2 skeins

I did a plain picot hem with a short row heel.  My heels were a little wonky.  When I fold the first sock it is apparent that the heel is off centered, but they fit just fine.  I wouldn't want to show off this work to a knitter, but for wearing in my shoes at work they are perfect.  And really, my theory in this regard is the same as when I was active in the SCA.  If they are looking that closely, then they get what they deserve.  Don't overly examine these heels.  Don't examine my hems. 

The biggest problem with the hems is I think I needed to make the picots a little deeper somehow.  They just don't feel very pointed.  Not bad, just not as defined as they are in the other things I've made with a picot edging.

As for the heels?  I was using Laura's tutorial to make the heels, and while it worked just fine the very first time I tried it, I think I was trying to use an alternative method for the weird purl 3 together with the double wraps.  All I know is I pulled out the first heel of this pair at least twice, and they still ended up with a little row of holes and offcenter to boot.  But like a lot of things, the placement of the heel isn't quite as critical as one would think as long as it isn't completely opposite its intended position.  The second heel was much better, but at that point I couldn't bring myself to go back to the first foot and completely redo the heel.

Another sock picture?  Sure!

Can't hate the socks even though they're the most poorly constructed ones I've made, because hey they're blue!

going toe up

I finished these socks over a month ago, but never got around to taking photos.  Thankfully, my hubby found some time to use the camera and I have bounty! 

I made the Little Shell Socks from Knitters Book of Yarn using two skeins of Dorchester Farms sock yarn I had in my stash.  I love how the stripes are a little wavy because of the stitch pattern (which shows up better in the other photo) and I loved starting a pair of toe up socks without using the magic 8 or similar start.  I can do that start, but it always feels a bit fiddly especially for subway knitting.

Things I didn't like so much.  Umm, the heel used in the pattern produced what is on my a very deep heel.  You can see it  in this picture, where the heels definitely appear to have a right angle and more in the other picture.

Also, I don't think I have ever had any issues with binding off loosely enough, but you can see how tight the binding is in the sock on the left.  Wooee.  I might at some point undo the binding and rebind it with a larger needle, but right now I'm just operating under the silly hope that the yarn will stretch and relax with use (but not in the heel, because that is already more than loose enough).

I've been packing like a madwoman, so all of my knitting books (except one or two stragglers) are gone into storage.  I might be able to make another pattern from the book, but I'm now mostly relegating myself to patterns from the Internet (thank goodness for Knitty, Popknits and MPMK), my magazines, and interlibrary loan.  I have some stash yarn that I have wanted to make the Vortex Stream Sweater with for ages, but I packed the pattern before I was smart enough to copy it out.  So, I have requested it from my local library.  I'm hoping to finish one of my newer starts before then first!

Oh my God!  Look at those pointy heels.  Maybe she's a witch!

at home with the knitter's almanac

I've never really gotten into the Zimmermania.  It wasn't because I didn't want to or that I thought that Elizabeth Zimmerman had nothing to offer.  I just didn't know.  I saw the wonderful sweaters and socks that were made using her patterns and techniques and I knit a ridiculous amount of icord. 

I went to the local library on Monday, hoping to borrow Knitting Nature.  Alas, no Knitting Nature (and so I have to wait until my books are out of storage to make Vortex).  But squirreled away amongst the old and new knitting books was Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac.  I took it out and finished it this morning.  I have seen some wonderful renditions of these projects: the February Lady Sweater, Brooklyn Tweed's Pi Shawl Blanket, and the hundreds of Baby Surprise Jackets (which isn't in the Knitters Almanac). 

I loved reading it. 

She's sensible, but not too sensible.  Quirky without being impossible to follow.  It was almost like reading a letter from a friend.  You know all of the players, and it is just about catching up on the times.  If a useful technique or an interesting pattern are mentioned along the way so much the better.

So, I have a pair of virtually finished socks (and just before month end too), just need to kitchener one toe.  I have wanted to make a shawl for a while.  It's still a toss up between Hanami (I bought the pattern a couple of months ago) and the Biased Stole and the Pi Shawl.  Maybe I'll start more than one of them.  It's not like I don't have a ton of lace weight yarn.  (and with the socks, pictures on Saturday!)

finished: picovoli

I finished the Picovoli top on Wednesday, sewing the hems in place while watching the Olympics.  I didn't bother to block it or anything.

I wore it to work on Thursday and received a fair number of compliments.  The color works well with my skin and looks like it perfectly matches the dress.  I found another person to teach to knit at work (she couldn't believe I had made it), and generally I was happy as a clam.

My hubby took the pictures that night once we'd gotten home (and I need to remember that a front shot is often more flattering), and I folded it away. 

The top is nearly the perfect length, just skimming the top of the hip crease, so it doesn't feel like it is so long that I'm trying to hide myself but not so short that I feel like I'm wearing a crop top.

And the project was relatively thrifty. It took about 2.5 balls to go from swatch to finished top.  Of course, while I want to work on one of the projects I mentioned in my last post, I find that I am looking for a project that I can use the remainder of my small amount of Jaeger Trinity.

Yup.  Jaeger Trinity (I think it is discontinued) was yarn I bought with a gift certificate a few years ago from a yarn shop in Boston.  I love the yarn and I'm grateful that my friends thought to give me the gift certificate, but I still sort of wish that it had been for a different shop.  This shop was so overpriced that the yarn was nearly $30 after the gift certificate. A nearly 100% markup on the MSRP.  Gosh, thinking about that shop still burns! 

So, if you have any suggestions for a pattern that uses stripes or something to extend my remaining yarn, please sing forth.  Right now, I'm leaning to Runway Bolero.  Not that I've finished the last bolero style project I started, but hey maybe this time it will work!

during the Olympics I am not an athlete

For as much of the next 2 weeks as I can manage, I will be sitting on my butt watching the Summer Olympics.  I will revel in the swimmers (and bemoan the lack of good swimming holes near where I live), look at the runners with amazement and envy, and be thrilled by the contortions of the gymnasts.  And I will do this all with my knitting in hand.  Unlike the last Winter Olympics, I will not be trying to gamely finish something in the two weeks, though I probably will manage to finish a pair of socks or Picovoli.  Heck, with some luck, I'll even manage to finish the last two or three FOs that are still waiting for their time in the sun, an item in surprisingly short supply this summer.

I will save up my pennies and I will buy a knitting pattern (I know which one I'm going to buy from the Twist Collective first) and the yarn to make it.  And when the Summer Olympics are over, I will go back to my gym schedule and pounding my body flat and trim for the 10K in October.

As for that knitting:

Picovoli is just around the bust mark.  I moved it all onto waste yarn and tried it on.  I'm knitting about another inch and then proceeding to the next step in the pattern.  I might have been done already if it weren't for the Chocobo game and the Star Trek novels.

My most recent pair of socks is still in the middle of the first sock.  I probably have 3 or 4 inches of knitting before I can move to the toe, so I should be able to finish this without too much effort provided I can drag myself away from the game and the novels.  The Olympics are actually going to improve the quantity of my knitting for the forseeable future, because I won't be embroiled in one of two other time sucking hobbies that preclude the use of my hands for knitting.  And a good thing too, because I queued about a half dozen patterns today from the latest IK and the Twist Collective.

proof that I knit, even if I don't photograph

Happy 4th of July!   The fireworks will be on in an hour or so, and then, hopefully, it will be the New England Revolution kicking LA's butt all over the place!  Soccer knitting is at least as much fun as movie knitting!

Today I finished making my ice cream experiment.  Initial thoughts:  could have used that pinch of salt and probably a mix of fat-free half and half and regular.  It's not really ice cream at less than 2 grams of fat per serving (more like a sherbet), and it needs to be out either at room temperature or defrosted in the microwave to make it scoopable.  I'm pretty sure that next time I'll add one more tablespoon of tequila to the mix (I think a fair amount of the alcohol was cooked out of the bananas).  Hopefully that will make a more ice cream-like concoction.

So, earlier this week I decided that I couldn't sew up Vestish while watching something, so I started a pair of socks.  I didn't get very far that first night, but I'm making decent progress!

I'm about 2 inches away from the heel, and then I'll get into the more interesting lace portion. My feet are a little longer than the 8 inches that is the small size for the pattern, but the larger one would make socks that are too wide for my feet so hopefully I'll have a happy medium and not run out of yarn before they get as long as I want them to be.

90 minutes of soccer should get me firmly into the heel turning, and plenty of commuting time should be enough to get me to the lace (and maybe finished? they feel like they're pretty fast, but probably not that fast).  Tomorrow is the Aquarium, where I will look at the fishies and the pengies and generally be happy and mentally about 5.  Or 15 if there is a huge bout of "panguin wrassling" like there was last time I went.  Yeah!

movie knitting

Yesterday, I watched March of the Penguins (again... I love this movie and I love adding silly dialog to the different penguins even if whole scenes are just penguins saying, Food?  Food?), when I sort of ran out of knitting.

Vestish is done with the main knitting portion.  I need to sew up the sides, so I can do the edging.  I didn't do it today, and I certainly wasn't doing it during the movie.  Instead, I started a new project.

I'm working on the little shells socks (I think that was what it was called, but I am way too lazy to check) from The Knitters Book of Yarn.  It's so far looking like a good fit for my last 2 skeins of Dorchester Farms sock yarn, and the start for these socks isn't very fiddly feeling for toe ups.  I'm speeding my way to the heel, and hope to get to the lace portion sometime this weekend.

I'm embarking on a new ice cream experiment.  I made tequila sautéed bananas in the slow cooker, which I'm planning on pureeing with lime zest and lime juice to make a tropical margarita ice cream.  That will be finished tomorrow.  I needed the bananas to finish cooling before I added anything to the ice cream maker.  I've made banana 'ice cream' before, so this should work at least as well as that recipe (which is pretty much take 4 ripe bananas, puree them and then toss the puree into an ice cream maker... really cheap dessert).  We'll see.  I am a little behind on my ice cream making for the summer, so maybe I'll make another one this weekend as well.  It's either that or go to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream sometime when I'm in Boston.

Maybe I'll do both.

The view outside my window

 A few days off and the world just throws you for a loop. 

Last week I bought yarn for my birthday (and gave away the lime green sock yarn to Miss G!).  Of course, buying yarn for my birthday was only supposed to be the yarn for the Butterscotch Cardigan (which I will probably start in a week or two) and the yarn to finish Vestish, but I decided that the Frog Camisole would never be finished if I continued with the cotton.  So, a frogging and a shopping I went.  Currently, I'm knitting it with a combination of the Kureyon sock yarn (thick and thin sock yarn is very odd) and leftover Trekking (I had 40 grams leftover from a pair of socks!).  The original gauge for the pattern produces a garment about 29 inches around (just mathing here) for a 35 inch bust.  I figure my rejiggered numbers should work just fine for my measurements.

But this isn't really about knitting.  Lately, my hubby and I have been taking pictures outside our windows.  We live slightly below grade, so many a morning is punctuated with cries of "Bunny!"  We have a regular bunny visitor and slightly less regular kitties who talk to our cat through the window.  We also have plants.  I want to do Norma's Garden-a-long, but I don't really have a place with light.  Occasionally I will say rules be damned and toss something out the window (usually it is trying to grow anyway).  And because photographing my knitting is much harder than taking random pictures out the window...

Our regular visitor taunts Saru-chan.  She is by nearly every day (or at least every morning I'm looking out the window).  Thankfully our cat is not like some I've heard of - she doesn't stare out the window with her mouth partway open and little bits of drool.  Thank goodness.  I am not sure I would be photographing her then.

The bunny was all over the area around our condo that morning, with my hubby and I looking at her from roon to room. 

We do have some things growing outside our windows... I'd need an expert to tell me, but I think this is an onion. If so, then I put it outside a number of months ago when I decided that three inches of green shoots meant it wasn't food anymore.  Can anyone tell me?

Of course, I am having a few issues with my image insertion with the newer Typepad interface (I'm just not used to it being so slow), so this image is currently stuck at its tiny size.  The top of the plant is a small bulb-like area covered with a large number of small white flowers.  If the powers of knitbloggers aren't enough, then I'll start with wikipedia and the sites like Burpee for the rest of my info!

red soxx...

I'm home really late (the kitty was fed before we left and twice more since we've gotten home).

The Red Sox beat the Orioles.  Much knitting was had, and I was reminded forcibly by the people sitting in front of us why drinking responsibly doesn't mean buying at least one beer an inning (until inning 7, when you buy 2 because they're going to stop selling).  Belligerent drunk people are not my idea of a good time had by all.

I worked on Abotanicity until about the 7 inning stretch.  I feel like the yoke increases are taking forever (last I counted I had 67 stitches between the first 2 stitch markers... I need to get to 105... *zzzz*).  I know it is going to be great once I get to put the sleeve stitches on the holder and better still when I get to the lace.  The getting there, however, is a lot slower than I want it to be.

is it finished if it isn't on the blog

Life has just been crazy busy at work and in the knitting trenches. 

A little recap:  Last week (it feels like forever since I posted even though it was only a couple of days) I sent in an order for the yarn I needed for Vestish.  Apparently it is not going to be 100% from the stash after all.  The yarn arrived last night, so I can get back to work on that momentarily.  My stashalong goals were to only buy yarn when I finished two projects or to finish a project on the needles.  I guess the yarn for Vestish falls under category B.

Of course, I had to order yarn for this week (it's part of finishing 2 things after all!), so I have yarn on order for the Butterscotch Cardigan and to try the Frog Camisole with a different yarn.  The Vintage Cotton is just very hard on my hands.

While I was waiting for yarn to come in, I kind of went crazy starting things.  I am about halfway through the yoke increases for Abotanicity and am nearly done the first sleeve in my GoLion version of the One Skein Wonder.  No pictures of those, but there are pictures because I finally gave my latest socks their blocking bath and dried them (I was going to show them on the sock blockers that I finally succumbed to, but they are acryllic and don't do so well with the flash photography). 

So, finally finished:

Pattern: Monkey socks (again)

Yarn: Umm, I believe this was some handpainted Opal yarn I bought in mumble-mumble from Woolcott before I had ever made a pair of socks.  I believe that I bought the yarn in 2004 (it was definitely before I got married)...

I love the yarn.  It is bright enough to feel extra special in my grey and black corporate uniform, but not so bright that I feel like my feet have taken center stage.  This picture doesn't do justice to either the yarn or the pattern. 

I didn't do any modifications on the pattern.  Probably because I enjoy doing the twisted rib, which is one of the reasons I loved making the Ripple and Weave socks last year.  I really need to make Potamus at some point, because it has all of the design elements I seem to gravitate towards in my fancier socks.

So, I do have another finished object to show off, but I haven't managed to take any pictures yet.  It's been done for at least two weeks (including blocking), but it is hard to find the time to take a nice proper picture.