Queue

I have my next project picked out. The queue is a little confused.

• holiday project A,
• (project V is completed and the picture post is set to publish 12/25)
• holiday project D
• Pillow – Maragheh (needs 2 more rounds tinked)
• Leuca Sweater (stalled on sleeve 1, still need sleeve 2, yoke, finishing)
• socks in a swirly pattern that was “Serpentine Socks” by Wendy Johnson until the errata irritated me. I need new woolly socks though, so I might just do another pair of Jigsaw ones. I am never buying the Knitpicks Imagination yarn again… the alpaca makes it felt.
• Rainbow mobius (yarn spun, waiting for knitter)
• Plain socks with the overdyed bamboo+ yarn. (halfway through sock one. bored. hate yarn.)
• hand things so I can use my new laptop which has one of those hypersensitive touch pads.  No idea where the old ones have all gone. Possibly Lorna’s Laces blue/tan sport weight yarn.
• cardigan vest from CMF BFL “Black Sun” (unspun, but in stash)
• textured vest from black Wensleydale (no design chosen, just that is clearly what the yarn is meant to be.)
• blue/purple vest– wanting it sort of swirly (no design chosen, no fiber in stash)
• skull thing for husband ( who does not know what kind of thing he might use.)
• and… the new thing!   leg warmers from the aran weight BFL yarn I spun from CMF “12th Planet”.

Queue the stunt rabbit!

I have successfully tinked 2 of the 4 lace rounds on my pillow. (Please insert cursing and animal noises here.) This was needful because of the error-riddled pattern which lacked corrections. Since I was the one who added it to Ravelry, obviously I cannot expect someone else to have annotated the problem there. [I did pause here and add an errata notice to the description of the pattern.] But I certainly did expect the publisher or author to have a modicum of pride and to acknowledge the mistakes.

Thank you to everyone who responded to my plea for actually useful patterns. I have collected them and added them to my projects list. (Not the queue on Ravelry, I find that too frustrating to use until I have started something.)

Since then I have started on making a stuffed rabbit starting from this: http://bunnikins.livejournal.com/47512.html . It is not a complete pattern since it references: http://geobabe.livejournal.com/227621.html for assembly instructions. I knitted half the body and then frogged it because it was going to be too large.

It looks like I will be making a new sample project for my knitting group, make a rabbit from a square. A friend shared the instructions, which basically say to baste a triangle onto a knitted square, gather it, stuff this as the head. Sew the body seam most of the way closed, stuff, and use a crochet hook to pull a tuft of stuffing for the tail. (The triangle is oriented as if there was a diamond inside the square.)

That was what inspired me to look for more rabbity rabbit patterns.

New Project, pillow

I had not realized how much I rely upon Ravelry. One of the patterns for the fiber club, was Uyvonne Bigham’s “Spiral Star Pillow”. The book it came from is listed on Ravelry, but that pattern is not. Uyvonne Bigham does have patterns listed on Ravelry, even ones from that book, just not this one. [ETA. I added it. When I added my project to Ravelry, it asked me, so I filled out their form and it is right there now.]

The pattern is actually available as a PDF from free-knitpatterns.com which requires you to give them an email address. However someone kindly added a listing to bugmenot and I used that. I would not necessarily recommend them. The PDF is chock full of ads for Creative Knitting. I guess that will be a magazine I will never buy.

On the whole, that makes me a little disgusted about the supposed value-add of a pattern inclusion to the group shipments, knowing that one of the few patterns that was not just an accounting exercise was actually free despite the copyright notice at the bottom. It was, however, much much more difficult to find because of the lack of Ravelry listing. No one in the group made this pattern and linked it.

I am making it out of Silk Road yarn in a sort of green-gray color. It has been surprisingly easy with the exception of the cast-on. I finally just did a faux-round cast-on and left a longer tail to embroider a nice decorative element that will coincidentally cover any weirdness. The project is named after the yarn and the “spiral” and “star” aspect, Maragheh Pillow. (That is an astronomical observatory in Iran, which is a Silk Road country. It was chosen at random from appropriate astronomical terms because I liked the name.)

The pattern claims that you need a skill level of 3 out of 4. But it is explicitly written out, there is no purling, and it only uses knit, yarn-over, k2tog. If this is a level 3 project, then you must need to be a super-genius to make a BSJ (well, actually that might help since the BSJ does not have any step-by-step instructions, just general advice.) Seriously this has been much easier than expected.

From pillow

My next new project is going to be a button-closure cowl.

From facts learned to weirdness shared.

I am working on my as-yet-nameless March socks. 

I have learned to read and chart bias-knitting textures. I understand how to get sharp diagonals and how to get smoother arcs. I understand that I can substitute an M1 (or M1b, or the Bordhi variants therein) for YOs. Assuming this comes out even tolerably, I will not be hurting for textures ever again.  I will definitely look into that “jigsaw” texture without the YOs. 

I kept looking at those brocades done with purl stitches and dreading that. The transistion between knit and purl takes as much time as a whole stitch. Then looking at the end result, it was still mediocre. 

The Schaefer Heather yarn in “Gertrude Ederl” is 3 colors and they form non-uniform stripes of about 1 row. This is giving me the effect of a self-striping yarn, so the motif should definitely skew the row height in some way, otherwise I might as well not bother since the colorway would overwhelm anything else. I think this yarn would look good in a ribbing, but I am not masochistic enough to voluntarily rib an entire sock without knowing what needs atonement.

—–

I am wearing my Raspberry Friday Socks today. They are very comfortable and attractive in my maryjane shoes. 

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I spun some more of the silk thread I am planning to use for plying the llama from February’s fiber club shipment. Then I started spinning the llama. I am going to buy more of this baby llama fiber in future, it is really wondrous. I would like to have a blended llama+[soft sheep wool]. 

I am starting to suspect that I will be buying a drum carder. 

—–

I could use some help on the naming of socks. (And yes, I do have that “Naming of Cats” poem in my head right now.) I think this is yarn is a “dark” variant on twilight. It reminds me, strangely, of Alice in Wonderland, only shadier. 

I made a joke tonight, while chatting with a friend, she said that at least my socks do not need three different names… but that is why they all have the same surname, Socks. I was deliberately misunderstanding the reference. 

I wonder if it will sound like I am mocking Indians (not from India) if I called this project, “Gertrude Looking Glass Socks”. I would like it to have a dark equating adjective without sounding actually evil (since I am going to wear these and I do not need to jinx myself.) Maybe like Marjorie? The villain from “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”. Frankly I am thinking this is getting too weird for most people.

Finding the blue something into the deep.

I am blocking my bent scarf today. First real “lace” blocking. Lace being a bit of a misnomer since I just swapped in needles that were 6 sizes bigger every 6th row or so. But that was more interesting than dealing with yarn overs. 

Sock progress has been slower than expected. I am a handful of rounds from starting the heel. But the slog from toe to heel took ages. 

I am looking into my next knitting project and fiber-related things for the year.

Spinning projects are pretty much set. I have that “Source of Gilgamesh” to finish spinning singles for and then its plying. With the fiber club shipment here, I feel some obligation to actually spin it so I can participate— but pink bamboo yarn and a kiddy sweater? Yeah, zero enthusiasm. Who makes unwashable things for children anyway? That has to be on par with giving a kid a one-man band. By the time I finish the SoG yarn, I might need to skip ahead to the February shipment though. I wanted to spin the January shipment and post about it to the Rav group so I could collect praise, but I do not want that enough to interrupt a big and dear project.

Knitting projects upcoming are:

• socks– possibly Leyburns but several people said the pattern is wonky and they had to revise it but I have not found a definitive source and I would like one. Monkeys come highly highly recommended but I just cannot seem to really enthuse over those. 
• Leuca sweater
• hat for me from “Cadberry” yarn — no real patterns in mind but I am thinking something more like a beret.
• neck/hood/capelet thing for me from “Source of Gilgamesh” yarn— I want a cowl thing to have around my neck, but I want it to be able to pull up over my head into a hood. I want it to go around my shoulders and I need it to fasten with buttons instead of being a tube that pulls on like a t-shirt. In other words, even my imagination does not have a good picture  of it. I think what I want is sort of a cross between Little Red Riding Hood’s cape and Romi’s “Ice Queen”. I could easily make the “Ice Queen” flare out and be longer, but it would still have to go over my head. Somehow, even if it was not lacework, I do not think it would fare well from steeking. I want it to be called “Bloo Glooming Hood” and I doubt I will be satisfied until I find something suitable to that title. 

Epic of Yarnpire

¡Happy New Year!

I keep planning to add things to the projects page on Ravelry but not quite getting around to it. I usually have pictures of everything before it goes out the door as a gift, but… I only seem to upload the ones I finished since I started using Ravelry. 

I should include pictures of the bent scarf, but it is a gift for my MIL and I would like it to be a surprise. The pictures are uploaded so if you want to look, help yourself. Keep in mind that it has not been blocked and I fully expect the blocking to beautify it. 100% llama yarn, semi-felted single, bought ages and ages ago before I knew what makes a good yarn.

 I got a new knitting bag. Of course I never go anywhere so who knows why I got it. But we were at the World of Goods warehouse sale and how could I possibly pass up a purple batik bag for $5? I do really like it. It is almost perfect. It would be a better knitting bag if it stood up on its own, if I was sure of the handles’ durability, and if the inside was not black. I can possibly add a cardboard insert to help the freestanding. And if the handles fall off a $5 bag, I am not out too much money. 

 

 

I cast on for my sweater. The yarn is absolutely brilliant in this. It looks better cast on in the sweater than it did skeined or balled. I am wavering on whether I should frog and start again. I did a long-tail cast-on and it looks horrid. I also managed to be a little confused on whether I was going to be using the #6 or #8 needles. But I did start on it. I much prefer the fabric to the #6 swatch, but the body will take about 22500 stitches compared to 15000. That is a huge difference in work and the #8 swatch looks tolerable. I will take some pictures before I frog. I might do a sleeve first. I should definitely take pictures, but eh.

Project-wise, my schedule cleared up a little. The February date for the Woodland Shawl has been put off. I am now doing that for me and I want to do lacework in the summer. It might end up being something that is put up for adoption, but I am knitting it because I want to knit it and there is no pressure.

Currently the plans are spinning for my rainy day scowl. Coming up with a project plan/pattern for the scowl. And sweater. And sucking it up and using the sock yarn that taunts me daily. (“I am an adult, sock knitting is not too hard. I will master it. And then I will have an entire repertoire of woolly socks and my feet will never be cold again!”)

I have decided that I am extremely funny and should have a job naming things. For example:

 I have named “Knave of Hearts, Jack of All Spades”.

 

 

 

 

The new (proto)yarn, I want to call “Mood Indiglo” but I suspect I would get a lot of complaints from Timex and Billy Joel’s attorneys. It may end up being something like “cobalt cutin” for the dust that appears on blueberries and grapes. Today’s research suggests the Epic of Gilgamesh was written on lapis lazuli tablets… so I am leaning toward “Source of Gilgamesh”.

Project progress

I am almost done with a whatever you call a shaped scarf meant to be worn indoors as a decorative thing. It is not for me. I know I am almost done because I am almost out of yarn. I combined that mitered corner idea (double-decrease at the diagonal) to make a U shape thing. I am making it out of garter stitch because the only time I have done this was for that EZ pattern, and I know the corner is the proper 90 degree angle when done every other row on garter stitch. I found a ball of navy blue llama wool in Aran weight. I know I planned to use it with something else, but I bought it years ago, so repurposing is a good idea, especially since I cannot remember what I wanted.

I found a ball of white raw silk. I could come up with some lacy design and make a buttoned neck wrap thing. That will require some thinking.

Next on the stack is a mobius ring from fawn alpaca. Well, maybe. I know I do not want something made from that and I need a neck warming thing a lot more than I need to make gifts.  Plus the recipient is the one who was getting that Woodland shawl (there are several with that name, but it’s the Nikol/cupcake one). That seems like it might be overly ambitious. 

I have not made any progress on my sweater. I talked myself out of the helix idea because of the hassle and because after I sketched it, I realized it would just look striped and horizontal stripes are not very attractive. I think I could come up with a way to visibly spiral something using short rows, but that seems like biting off way more than I can chew knitting-wise. For making the ordinary sweater, well, I just need to start on it. 

No spinning progress. I found an end on the bobbin with the catastrophically broken single, but am still very bummed. 

The hand things and hat were well received. And now I can show them off here.