AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

easy as pi

(which is apparently not easy, because I wrote ip twice)

I started the pi shawl last night, when I was hanging out with friends.  Now, Emily Ocker and I are definitely not friends.  I must have started that shawl more than 10 times.  Now with a thicker yarn, maybe a smoother yarn, we could get together for some tea, or on a bad day a nice hard lemonade.  Lace weight alpaca?  Not so much.  So, I started this with the Magic 8 cast on.  10 stitches on the needles, decreased down to 9 before the first increase round.

And because I wasn't home very much yesterday, I completely failed to finish the toe of my socks.  Maybe today around pod stuffing and condo cleaning I'll finish that off, do another round of increases, figure out if I'm going to embellish the project in any way (I had bought 4 balls of the Misti Alpaca Lace for Serrano... so I have a fair amount of yardage to work with for the pi shawl). 

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!)

of course, I was looking for something else

I was looking for the Avenue Q Votes piece that was done around the same time as the first Kerry-Bush debate. Well, I found it (I want them to do one for Barack Obama and John McCain), but this is funnier.

a cold one

I picked up the most recent copy of Craft magazine late last week after resisting for a while.  It's got a lot of good information for a beginner at weaving, including making your own loom.  Of course, while I want to try all of the fiber crafts, the thing I gravitated towards first was cold brewed coffee.  I'm still packing lots of stuff up, so I'm trying to figure out what appliances I really need to keep.  I love kitchen gadgets, so there is a fair amount of stuff that can go into storage for a few months and not be too terribly missed.  One of those is the espresso machine, which really doesn't get enough usage. 

The idea of cold brewed coffee is pretty simple.  Like making ice tea, you mix your grounds with water and just let it sit.  I have a French press, so I ground my coffee to a medium-course grind (I might have gotten more coffee flavor if I had ground it a bit finer), put it in the bottom of the press, added water and swirled it around a bit.  I let it sit for almost 24 hours (mostly because I didn't need to drink any coffee last night at 7 p.m.) and then I used the press to separate the grounds and the water.  I had some this morning, diluted 1:1 with skim milk with a teaspoon of vanilla sugar blend.  Because I used a half cup of coffee, one batch won't last quite as long, but I don't tend to make coffee at home very often.  I always feel like it is a lot more watery than the stuff I buy when I'm out.

Particulars:
0.5 cup coffee beans, ground (medium-fine would be a bit better)
1.5 cup water

My vanilla sugar blend is about half granulated sugar and half Splenda with a third of a spent vanilla bean cut in the mix.  I hardly ever have ice coffee, because I find that it always tastes watery.  This wasn't watery at all, and had a decent coffee flavor.  The rest of my coffee is in the fridge, and I'll probably set another batch to brew tonight.

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!

Action potential -- or choosing the next project

Apologies to the actual scientists in the group...

I feel like knitting projects have their own forms of action potential (which is the closest phrase I can think of to describe the likelihood that a project will move from a pattern in a book or on the web to an actual finished project).  The first form of action potential is what drives people to put a certain project into their queue (a phenonmenon that is a lot more measurable given Ravelry) and the second is the action potential associated with taking a project either in the queue or not and starting a project.

I decided to try my hand at making a decision matrix for my next knitting project.  I took a few random projects I had either queued or had been thinking of queueing and calculated the cost of each project.  The goal (normally) is to pick a lower cost, highly portable and wearable project that I won't find boring.  In about that order too.  Of course, there are plenty of other criteria that I could have used (including a simple yarn in stash or a fluffy 'top of the mind' type criteria) that might change the complection of this project a bit. 

Unsurprisingly, the socks ranked high on cost and portability (and wearability, because I will wear hand knit socks with almost anything). 

Knitting Decision Matrix

Project Name	Project Cost (as written or subbed) 5	Ease of Yarn Substitution 3	Portability 4	Design Interest 2	Wearability 5	Total Score
Little Blue Sweater	High (1x5=5) / Med. (2x5=10)	High (3x3=9)	Med.(2x4=8)	Low (1x2=2)	High (3x5=15)	44
Estes Vest	Med. (2x5=10)	High (3x3=9)	High (3x4=12)	High (3x2=6)	Med. (2x5=10)	47
Footlights Cardigan	Low (3x5=15)	High (3x3=9)	Med. (2x4=8)	Med. (2x2=4)	High (3x5=15)	51
Abigail Tee	High (1x5=5)	Med. (2x3=6)	High (3x4=12)	Low (1x2=2)	High (3x5=15)	40
Lissajous Socks	Med. (2x5=10)	High (3x3=9)	High (3x4=12)	High (3x2=6)	High (3x5=15)	52
Hanami Stole	Low (3x5=15)	High (3x3=9)	High (3x4=12)	High (3x2=6)	Med. (2x5=10)	52
Knotty or Knice Socks	Low (3x5=15)	High (3x3=9)	High (3x4=12)	High (3x2=6)	High (3x5=15)	57

Project Cost is inverted in priority (Low=3, Med=2, High=1).

But if I don't want to knit another pair of socks?  I do have a few sweaters on the list and then wearability comes more into play.  A sweater is only really wearable to me if I can wear it at work.  If it shows too much tattoo, then even if it is gorgeous it won't get worn as frequently.  Can't offend anyone's delicate sensibilities after all.

So, what will I be knitting next?  First, I'll be finishing Picovoli and probably a pair of socks this week (I'm on sock 2 of a plain picot pair).  Then I have a vest that I should have finished last month, which has side seams and the edging to do.  Heck, I even have a couple of projects from last month or older that I never got around to blogging.  Once I'm done those, I'll decide.  Logic would say that I should make the Knotty or Knice socks, and I might do just that.  Or I will have forgotten all about this exercise and have chosen something completely different.

i finished something

My nike sportband arrived in the mail yesterday and I got to work setting it up (not calibrated yet, but everything else) and this morning I took Yarn-a-Go-Go's instructions and made a pouch to attach the sensor to my shoe.  Double win, because it is done in time for my run this morning!

I've been missing a lot of running lately, and I'm hoping that the sportband will help me remain motivated as it will be easier to track improvement both during runs and over the long term. 

panda pr0n

I must be a teen.  I just spent much of the last 15-20 minutes giggling as the Olympics coverage spread to the Super Stud panda and his videos of a boy panda meeting a girl panda...

At least I was in good company as my hubby wasn't much more mature than I was.

And now I'm going to go back and watch a little more swimming before bed.

nearly done

Picovoli could have been done on Sunday, but I decided to combine reading with Olympics (and while I enjoy watching it, gosh I'm running out of energy).  It wasn't so much a conscious decision as much as the book was the first thing I picked up. 

Picovoli has about an inch of knitting left, and then I get to make a decision about the sleeves.  I have been making the picot edging, which is fine and dandy but I decided to make this top to use up my 4 skeins of Jaeger Trinity.  Right now the top looks like it will take about 3 (including the swatch).  I really don't want to have an entire skein left, so I am thinking things through.  I'll probably slide all of the stitches back onto the waste yarn once I'm about ready to do the picot row and make sure it is long enough.  I tend to like my tops a little long (probably from a misguided sense of needing to hide my middle), so I will probably end up adding another inch after trying it on.

I'm sure that there are plenty of Picovoli tops with three quarter sleeves, so I just need to go to Ravelry most likely and see what people have done to change the top around and see if I can find any good ideas.  Worse comes to worse, I'll leave the sleeves on the waste yarn when I start knitting the sleeves and if I don't like the results, I'll rip back.  Life is too short to not like what I'm doing after all.

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.