I am not a Pharoah, but I am king of the Tut tuts.

I interacted with Wendy Johnson. She was really nice and actually responded. Of course it was mostly nice things I was saying. I am trying to keep with that nonsense where no one ever says anything negative. Of course I was inspired to write because I discovered the errata page which affects the socks I have on my needles right now.

Honestly, if the book had been printed correctly, I would not have bought it.  That is what irritates me about knitting pattern books, they always have mistakes, and frequently the mistakes are crucial.  Wendy Johnson’s patterns were the ones where I finally “got it” in terms of making socks. As much as I like having all the techniques consolidated in one place, and as much as I like the stitch motifs for several socks in the book, I would not have bought the book if I had known there was extra purling required.

I am going to be frogging my (modified) Serpentine Socks.

But I said nice things about her book, including that I had bought my own copy after looking at the library’s. I said I appreciated the errata page, which I do; I just wish it had been up months ago.

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Today I was investigating the Simple Faroese Shawl (supposedly by Cathy Chestnut, but it has the same formatting and layout as things I get from Susan at Susan’s Spinning Bunny). The pattern normally sells for $1 (but I seem to remember it costing more). It is a single side of a single page, and it is exactly a garter stitch triangle shawl with a paragraph about making selvage edges. Now, it has one row of fanciness (yo,k2tog;  just like how it looks in the picture) so it does not actively violate a copyright, but seriously, where does anyone get off selling a pattern to a garter stitch triangle?

[eta: I am not the only one who thinks this, I found a generic shawl recipe while looking for real Faroese shawls: http://wendyknits.net/archives/613 ]

What irritates me is that it is claiming to be the shaped kind of shawl that will actually stay on your shoulders, but there is no possible way that is true. I have made a number of triangle shawls (Lion Brand’s Homespun yarn had it on the wrapper when I started knitting, the same type of shawl, starting from the center neck even, though theirs had a lot more fancy rows and was stockinette based.)  Triangle shawls do not stay on.

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I mentioned to Wendy Johnson that I usually made triangle shawls with extra center lines. She is now knitting 4/6 of a hexagonal shawl. I had not realized there were hexagonal shawls. I bet that would actually stay on. I hope that I was an inspiration. Her idea is definitely original. My apparent muse tendencies might be coincidental, but I am egotistical enough to think I shifted her paradigm by sending an email.

I wish I trusted pattern designers to actually do their jobs. Since I have not bought a stand-alone pattern ever, I find myself wondering if they are as riddled with errata as the books are. It is difficult to tell whether the patterns I received as part of this fiber club have errors, since I have had very little interest in knitting them.  I can say that the layout and detail has left a lot to be desired though.

I really do not want to buy one of these download patterns. So far 100% of all the knitting patterns I have made from patterns in books have had errors. It appears that almost all designers of stand-alone patterns require payment via Paypal.  I can barely print at home.  Overall that seemed like a bad combination: potentially dodgy product, known dodgy payment service, having to sit in front of my computer to use the product.

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I finished the tam/beret I was making. It looks horrible. Flat, smooth top; nice fabric drape for a hat; nice stitches throughout the field; colorful, non-pooling, easy-to-knit yarn. When I tried it on, the hat stands straight up. It will not flop over.  The colors, which look like a mountain meadow over-filled with wildflowers, ended up looking more particolored. Basically it looks like a bursting cylinder of circus-colored vomit.  I have not yet decided whether to frog or find someone whose skin will tolerate adjacency to a stomach full of mustard and cotton candy and “grape” bubblegum.

I will most assuredly post pictures.

Wp, fiberclub, Lambtown.

Weird problems with posting. All these posts that I have written this week were still in the drafts folder even though they had been “published”. I apologize for the burst of posts. It looked okay from here, so I did not notice.

For my own information, I received the September fiber club shipment today, October 2, 2009. The last shipment is (it was a 10 month “year”) is this month’s. The fiber is 2oz of falkland and 2oz angora+merino (no percentages given) in a solid purple color. It came with the Simple Faroese Shawl pattern. I like that pattern. (Not enough to pay someone $6 for it when I can buy a whole book of patterns for $13 on sale. But enough to be glad that was one of the patterns sent.) Pictures later.  I have liked most of the fiber sent. A lot of it is specialty fiber that is difficult to order as an individual. At the same time, I doubt I am going to do it again. It was not fun. I felt pressured to finish before the next month arrived, and the Rav group was not a vibrant and supportive community. (Signing up for the Rav group got me spammed with invites to swap groups.)  It was like having a bookclub where the book is assigned, but no one shows up to discuss it. Pointless from a social perspective.

I am not going to Dixon Lambtown. I am irritated that they have no vendors listed and they do not know the difference between “schedule” and “calendar”. I understand this makes me elitist and prejudiced, but I really do not want to spend $10 going to something and have it be as confusing and disorganized as their online presence indicates they are. My stash is full anyway. Eventually I will make fiber-liking friends who chivvy me along, but probably by then I will have decided to take up the cello or hang-gliding instead.

A hatful of jumbled thoughts

I am working on a knitting project and it distracts me from posting. It is a hat. I am making it with the “leftovers” from the slipper knitting. The 75% ball of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted. It really is a thick worsted yarn, similar to what acrylic worsted yarns are like and vastly different (superior) to Knitpicks Swish Worsted. I think if I used the Swish bulky, it would be similar to what I consider a worsted to be. But the Lorna’s Laces is a lot tighter ply and more solid. It knits up much closer to the effect I prefer.

One of the few comments I have received on my handspun is how “overplied” it is. But I like that.

However, I have a secret, I prefer knitting with commercial yarn. I like the yarns’ colors and fibers better from handspun, but the knitting has always been fraught with issues. Especially gauge issues. I find it extraordinarily difficult to get an accurate sense of gauge on handspun yarn. With the exception of my “Moss in the Dark” yarn, which is astoundingly consistent, even across all four balls of 300+ yards each.

I am attempting to make a tam/beret. Not sure what the difference is between those. Found a generic beret pattern based on the one given by the HK teddy bear calculator one.

But before I forget, I want to say that I really like TechKnitter. This, most recent, post was great. http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2009/09/some-ideas-just-make-you-say-wow.html
I do not haunt the Knitty site waiting for changes. I do not want to join their mailing list. (They should have RSS like normal people do. Mailing lists are lame and it means when I want to stop reading, someone has to notice I no longer like them. It makes changing your mind about what to spend your time reading into this personal crisis and insult balance.) And I find the Knitty format to be extremely opaque. There is no way to page through the whole issue. There is no way to get a decent preview of all the patterns. The articles are often blurbed to make them seem even less interesting than they actually are. Such is the case with Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. I have some issues with some of TechKnitter’s techniques, especially the tubular cast-on (which I tried 3 times and it totally did not work at all so it was frustrating.) But most of the ideas presented there are phenomenally well documented and illustrated. They explain things in the kind of detail that actually substitutes for having a master knitter available for questions. Really brilliant work.

Yes, I do know I need to update my blogroll here. It would be so much easier if it would just automatically tie into my Google Reader. But then I might have to admit to all food blogs I read and you could see that I am a dilettante in the fiber world.

Eight Days A Week… too bad that was only a song.

(Watch me be irreverent!)

The Alpaca Direct people are apparently more than just an online store. The guy who runs it posted in several local Rav groups indicating that they had a knit night and that people were welcome to visit the store. I sent him a PM saying, “Thanks!” because I had assumed they were not local. The guy replied with a link to the Google map to the boonies and said they were open 6 days a week.

I wanted to reply and ask him whether they were closed on Mondays like yarn stores or closed on Sundays like everything in red areas.

Now I am wondering if yarn stores in rural areas are closed on both Sundays and Mondays. What about yarn stores owned by Jewish people? Or co-owned by a J and a C? Would that just never be open when people with jobs could go? Or would they work on each other’s holy day?

As a city-dweller, I tend not to shop at stores which are closed on Sundays. Most stores need more shopping capacity, not less. It seems criminally wasteful to have stores which close at 6pm weekdays and which are not open on both weekend days. Obviously they do not have lots of people who show up 10 minutes before closing and leave disappointed. But it has been my experience that small boutique shops are not open when people who have money have free time.

If I owned a yarn store, I would be open from 4pm to 10pm on whichever weekdays and 11am to 8pm on both weekend days. I might have an extra early-open day if there was a call for it. But most yarn stores are situated places with very, very little parking surrounded by other boutique type stores which are open exactly the same hours. I would really love to drop by the yarn store after putting my name on the waiting list at a restaurant. But I cannot, because they are always closed.

I wonder if the new place out in the boonies has parking?

I would probably be willing to drive that far (my car is air conditioned, unlike my apartment) if they had parking and were willing to recommend somewhere fantastic to eat. “Come shop for yarn, we have plenty of parking and when you’re done, be sure to stop at Billy Bob’s Grilled Beast which has the best BBQ west of the Mississippi.” Because, honestly, the barbeque in urban areas really blows, and that is if you even feel comfortable going into the restaurant given the location and clientelle. Or even if they could promise, “We have a sweater’s worth of everything in the store! Come in for the selection, leave with the product! No special ordering necessary!” I could probably search online for restaurants.
Here is what I did not reply, but wanted to: “I usually feel unwelcome in the urban LYSs here because I do not have 800 piercings and tattoos. Are you far enough into the boonies that you check church membership cards and require all women to show their babies at the door to be allowed in?”

Sadly, this dichotomy is prevalent throughout all the fiber world and I really hate being a regular person who fits neither extreme because it makes me ashamed of being a knitter and spinner.

chock full of news and updates.

For once, I have lots to say.

In reverse order, I went to a new LYS. It.. um.. does not suit me.  The people working there were pleasant and they had a nice range of yarns. But everything was very jumbled and crammed— and yet! they did not have enough range in the particular items that caught my eye. I would have bought 5 skeins of Cascade 220 if they had them in the same painted colorway, but when I asked if I could order more, I was told I must speak to the owner. I did not do a double-take about that, but I wanted to.  A lot of stuff was hidden away behind other things, so someone else had to dig through and hand me things one by one. Really nice people since they were willing to do that, a complete contrast with the store here in Oakland— the one everyone else loves. But even this new store,  for all the disarray and apparently random organization, they have MSRP+ prices.

I do not mean to constantly disparage LYSs, but it obviously is not something that is well suited to an urban environment, though this one is in an obscure suburb and has parking.

–

I successfully cast on for the sleeve to my Leuca sweater. (That is not the pattern name. I am using the generic wireframe “Round Yoke” from Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’s Knitting In the Old Way. And like BrooklynTweed, I heartily endorse this book.) I have decided to go with a provisional cast-on, and ( finally understand the whole crochet chain business because there was a really useful explanation and diagram in Wendy Johnson’s Socks From the Toe Up book. I bought Wendy’s book even though there was nothing really novel in it, I found the collection of techniques I always have to look up online to be extremely coherent and usefully organized, which made it worth the sale price.  Plus I liked several of the patterns even if they are vaguely derivative.)  started at just above the elbow. Elbow-length sleeves are sort of the minimum length I can tolerate and this allows me to conserve yarn until after the body is completed. There might be color transition issues, but sometimes you just have to make a choice.

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I have been working on my Serpentine Socks (from the Wendy Johnson book), but progress is slow because I do not seem to work on them often enough.

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There has been no change in the spinning department. I did not order the musk ox from RH Lindsey.

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I now have a crockpot for dyeing. Cost to me, $free. I found it in a closet. I plan to do some Koolaid dyeing in it this weekend. (Starting with food-safe things in case I change my mind about the repurposing.)

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Not quite fiber related, but I am in search of new glasses. I can no longer knit with my glasses on, and cannot watch the TV with them off. I might splurge and go somewhere with interesting glasses options, because I got treated badly at the two big  chain places recently.

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I am considering buying a fancy new phone. I would like it if it could display knitting charts. Any recommendations for apps or phones?

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I am planning to go to the Dixon Lambtown October 3, but not for classes. If you wanted to meet up. Send an email or leave a comment.

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ps. I do not have pictures of the August fiber club shipment. I might take pictures tomorrow.

I am the metal band.

I did get the August fiber club shipment, um, Friday August 21. It is an unknown quantity of 100% cultured silk in a pinkish-orange semi-solid color. Luckily it looks more “tropical sunset” and less “vomit”. Orange is such a finicky color to do well.

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I started a Serpentine sock from Wendy Johnson’s book. The book gives the pattern in sport weight. I checked my gauge and did my own math, but it feels a little worrisome as yet. Socks usually do until I get to about the arch of the foot and can really tell how it is going to fit.

I have not worked on the sweater instructions. I need to refer back to the book and annotate the wire frame diagram. I am planning to spell out the instructions as well because I know myself well enough to know I will be antsy about it otherwise.

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I am on a fiber diet. I am not buying much of anything. I looked around and realized I have not been spinning. I have several tubs of fiber that want spinning, and I want to spin those more than I want to buy new stuff. I am sometimes tempted by sock yarn, but I need to actually finish at least one more pair first.

I am planning to make an excursion to Dharma Trading and buy dye. If/When I do that, I will probably order some fiber and maybe a couple skeins of sock yarn.

However, there is one thing that is tempting me. RH Lindsay is doing pre-orders for musk-ox down top for $12.50 per ounce. That would be Qivuit/Quiviut, which normally sells for $45-75 per ounce. They charge $5 in handling for small orders (less than 10lbs) and there is unspecified additional shipping. I know I would like this. I just have not convinced myself to spend the money. If I was sharing with someone else, which would optimize the shipping and handling, I would talk myself into it.   Non-shrinking, non-felting super-warm all-natural fiber? I really want to try that.

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I did find another local Rav group, maybe there will be regular people when they get together. It does not sound like they are regular people to me from their posts. Everyone is squealing about drinking lots and lots of alcohol. Since these things are area-wide, most people are driving a long ways to be there and it just seems like the activity should include something less intoxicating.  I think we know why I do not get along well with most groups. I hate children and hate alcohol-parties. The only way to exclude children at an event is to have it be alcohol-centered, so I am never going to be happy.  I am absolutely sure there are people who love knitting and fibery things but who are not 23 and single nor too sproggy.

There is a line in “Walk Like an Egyptian” which I always heard, “like the punk and the middleman”. [It is really, "They like the punk and the metal band." ] But knitters seem to be punk or moo, there is no middleman.

My progress, and someone else’s rapid slide into evil.

I have been knitting on my Leuca sweater. I joined my next ball of yarn tonight. I have 4 balls total and got about 8 inches of body from the first ball, so I am fairly well pleased with the potential sleeve length.

Yesterday I swatched with the Barefoot (by Mountain Colors) yarn. I am displeased so far with the swatch. On (real) size 1 needles, the fabric is too loose. I am getting about 7 stitches to the inch, possibly less. I am going to do some all garter stitch and see if it tightens up. Hopefully that will account for the difference between flat and in-the-round. My row-gauge is about 1.5X, so if I got it to 8 stitches per inch, it would be the sock-regular-average of 12 rows per inch.

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Tonight I saw one of the most disgusting avatars on Ravelry. I was so offended that I not only hid the avatar, I opted to ignore the user. [Severely edited because this is not a place for my rantings.] It was a completely naked picture of someone’s baby.  I think it is beyond the line of good taste to use immodest images of other people to represent one’s self.

I worried about my cartoon-y avatar with the voodoo imagery. I chose it because it accurately resembles me using DPNs and the kind folks at vivavoodoo.com said it was eligible for use with credit. I did everything I could to credit them, though it often does not appear here, it is at least on my Rav profile.