Rippity-rip

The Pfeiffer Falls hooded scarf is no more. Despite liking the concept, enjoying the knitting, and even being pleased with the finished object, I had to accept that it looked stupid on me. I'm just not one for cute accessories. With some misguided projects, assuming the finished results were acceptable, I'll keep on hand until the person to whom they really should belong comes along. But in this case, I love the yarn too much to be generous. How's that for holiday spirit? Bah humbug!

Does this get me kicked out of the "Real Knitter Club"?

How do I say this? (long pause) I have knitted two things with super-bulky weight yarn, and I used Lion Brand Wool-ease Thick-N-Quick for one of them. A friend gave me the patterns from a German women's magazine and asked me to make a hat and a long cardigan for her. She wanted them for her holiday trip back home where it is wintry enough to wear something that heavy. So I grab the size 13 needles and dive into a sea of super chunk yarn.

First of all, some thoughts on materials: all super bulky yarn is not created equal. The Plymouth Encore Mega that I stranded with mohair and used for the hat shed much less than the Thick-N-Quick I used for the cardi. By the time I finished knitting and seaming the cardi I was covered with charcoal gray fuzz. So you do get what you pay for. It was an economically necessary compromise though, because the damn thing ended up needing close to 900 yards to finish. Two hundred yards more than my initial estimate - yarn substitution is sometimes not quite straightforward. Oh, and after having to go back to Mega Craftmart to get more yarn, I can confirm that the dye lot does matter with Lion Brand-type yarns too, but more on that in a sec.

The hat was a pleasant quick knit, done in about two hours while watching something mindless on TV. (Picture will follow...) Knitting the cardi also went fast; however grafting the top seam (sleeves and shoulders) and seaming up the side and lower sleeve seams took almost as long again as the actual knitting. Sewing up seams is obviously not my strong point. (Note to self: next time think ahead about modifying this sort of thing to be done in the round as much as possible.)

Back to the dye lot issue. The additional 200 yards of T-N-Q I needed to finish were from a different dye lot, but to my eye I didn't see any difference, and I checked under incandescent and fluorescent light. So imagine my surprise when I got out the digi camera to take a picture and saw this on the screen! Kinda cool in a way, but still NOT what one wants to see after battling all that fuzz. Serious "yikes" moment. I looked at the camera display and then at the sweater itself, back and forth, and the color shift was only visible on the camera when it was shooting without flash. So the dye lot change does matter, at least when photographing under artificial light without a flash. Do I warn the recipient about this?

Despite the "issues", I have to admit that I now somewhat understand the appeal of big needle/yarn knits. It does feel productive to get almost an inch of knitting out of every row - a finished item in a matter of hours instead of days/weeks/months! The low time commitment for a smaller item like a hat is such that it removes some of the emotional baggage of giving it away - it only took a couple hours, no biggie if the craftsmanship isn't fully appreciated. While I don't feel the urge to do another super-bulky sweater anytime soon, I can't pooh-pooh the concept anymore. Does this revoke my knitting cred?

Heavenly, heavenly

Oh, I've found heaven on earth! This year I finally caved and splurged on something I've wanted for a while now: a wool fleece mattress pad. Last night was the first night sleeping with it on the bed, and I'm so happy I gave into weakness. Oh, I know, I live in Alabama, for crying out loud, isn't that just a little overkill? etc. No! It is not! I love it love it love it! (Too bad I didn't have it when I was miserable sick with the cold from hell.)

I finished the Pfeiffer Falls Hooded Scarf, other than finding two buttons for the pockets, and am generally pleased with it, although if I had to do it over I'd make the large size (I made the medium size per the pattern), maybe fiddle with the cable pattern some, and do the grafting better. Egg's response when I showed him was that I looked like a teal Jawa (yep, he does have some sci-fi fanboy traits). Sigh. The picture doesn't capture the color very well; I'll try to get a better one later. The Portland Tweed yarn felt a little "crispy" while I was knitting, but when I steam blocked it, it relaxed and softened beautifully.

And this part is going back a little, but to celebrate the end of Thanksgiving leftovers and to indulge the need for comfort food induced by the cold weather, it was time for mac-n-cheese - the good stuff, with three cheeses (none of them powdered or Velveeta), an unlikely but fabulous seasoning, and baked to ooey-gooey goodness with a perfect crust on top. I think this makes Egg happier than anything else I cook.

Like another hole in my head

As in, I need another WIP like ... Well, actually after the past week with the cold from HELL, that doesn't seem all bad, but I digress...

Temptation came my way in the form of the winter Interweave Knits in Friday's mail, specifically the Pfeiffer Falls Hooded Scarf, and since I was finally starting to feel like I'm back among the living, I trotted off with the issue and my travel-size bottle of hand sanitizer to my LYS in search of yarn. (Funny how the stash seldom has the right yarn at times like these.)

And here's what called out to me:

Classic Elite's Portland Tweed in a gorgeous dark teal.

Everything else just got demoted in priority. I'm hoping this project will get me through Thanksgiving with Egg's family. This year I've been delegated to make the cole slaw.

Just when you think...

Sunday things were starting to get back to normal - no more visiting relatives, we set the corner of the house down on its lovely new concrete footing, I finished the Trampoline socks, I met the girls for a sip-n-knit at Starbuck's - and then I got smacked with cold from HELL on Sunday night. So I've been coughing, sniffling and nursing an on-and-off fever for the last three days, and I've reached the grumpy/whiny stage.

The socks are pretty cool, though. The colorway is sort of an underwater camouflage. There's a green fleck in it that doesn't come through in the picture. Too bad the yarn (Trampoline from Skacel) is discontinued. Skacel seems to introduce and discontinue yarns as fast as Mikasa does china patterns. If I had to do them over again, I'd go down a needle size, from US 2 to US1.

I also made a little progress on the top-down cardi before the plague struck. The sleeves are done, and that's where I blended in the new yarn with the old and harvested as much old yarn as possible for finishing out the body. The colorway has changed a bit in the last 4-5 years (no surprise there), but I think it'll be ok having it concentrated in the sleeves and probably some attached i-cord edging.

Having finished the Trampoline socks, I needed a next portable project. Taking a little break from socks, I cast on for the Scotch Thistle Lace Stole using the skein of Schaefer Yarns "Anne" in a lovely autumny colorway. It was a gift from my friend and almost-neighbor Barbara - so thoughtful! Not that you can really tell much from the picture (unblocked lace looks more like a dishrag than anything else), but even this little bit is working up so prettily that I'm forgiving the yarn for having been such a bitch to wind.

Back in a little knitting slump

Fiber is taking a wee bit of a back seat to other stuff lately - mostly family stuff and an unexpected major house project. I can't really call it "home improvement" in the traditional sense, although preventing the corner of the house from sagging to the point of collapse does qualify as as a significant improvement. We spent the last two weekends of demolition of the screened porch and an attached greenhouse to get access to the supposedly load-bearing corner post that the previous owners damaged beyond function during their poorly conceived and executed installation of the greenhouse. Luckily we had my step-father's help with jacking up the corner of the house and pouring new concrete footings last week, and that corner of the house is nicely supported now while the concrete cures. Whenever we get into one of these projects undoing something stupid that the previous owners did, and this is far from the first time, I have to admire the strength built into this 1970s house; otherwise it wouldn't have survived their ownership. They did cover up their messes nicely though. No, I'm not feeling very charitable toward them. But anyway, we took this weekend off from home maintenance projects, other than my rearranging the guest room furniture. That helps clear my head - what can I say?!!?

On a fibery note, Tonni brought me some goodies back from her trip to SAFF! (Check out her pictures of the fun and fiber.) Two skeins of Mountain Colors Bearfoot - my absolute favorite sock yarn now, in lupine and teal - and the superwash merino pin roving on the upper left. She also generously gave me the ends of some of the rovings she spun up on her wheel. Those are the two on the right. The rovings are for learning to spin on the drop spindle. I bought the spindel at Maryland Sheep & Wool, but I stupidly didn't buy any learning fiber; everything I bought there is too pretty to mess up while I'm on the learning curve. So Tonni to the rescue! That girl is going to get me to spin!

I know, I'm already not getting much knitting done, my house is a wreck, and here I go, planning to add something new to the mix. It'll all work out... I do have Trampoline socks almost done, and the latest never-ending WIP, the top-down cardi, is progressing somewhat now that I got over myself and started blending in the new skeins. I still don't want to photograph it though. Gotta have at least one hang-up...

Sit, Sip & Knit

Pet peeve: yarn skeins that are carelessly tied and are therefore NIGHTMARISH to wind into a ball because some of the individual strands double back on themselves. And, no, this is not a case of careless placement onto the swift; I was oh so careful. Plan was to quickly wind this lovely harvest-y colorway of Schaefer Yarns "Anne" to take it with to the Sunday's meet-up with Tonni and Catherine so I could start a lace project (for a change) while around Tonni's lacy expertise, but there's no winding this yarn quickly. Grrr...



So I grabbed some sock yarn (Trampoline from Skacel) from the stash and cast on for some toe-ups (yawn). The yarn is aptly named though - lots of bounce in it.






But on a much happier note, Catherine's split poncho/ruana/wrap is complete and in the possesion of its owner. Doesn't she look just look chic? (This is her Paris Hilton over-the-shoulder look, by the way.) This became a collaborative project; Catherine crocheted the varigated side and about a quarter of the solid side, and I knitted the rest of the solid side and seamed them together. The design is from an old Design Source booklet for Manos del Uruguay, adjusted for the much smaller gauge of the Jojoland Melody (varigated) and Louet Gems (solid) yarn Catherine picked out.

Never say never...

At some point I swore I'd NEVER knit bouclé yarn into anything other than scarves, and then ONLY on double digit needles. Love how the yarn feels - hate how the yarn acts. Well, I had two skeins of Touch Exclusive bouclé yarn staring at me for weeks and weeks, and the thought of making two more "one skein wonder" mini-Clapotis just wasn't doing it for me. So then either a muse or an evil spirit put some size 13 circulars in my hands, and there I was, knitting away at a top down something. The final object depended on how far the yarn went. And this is what appeared (edited picture 15-Oct-08, colors are still a little off, not quite so pink in person):I thought the colors were unpromising together when I held the two skeins next to each other, but knit up they go quite well. The morning after I had started this, I found a fallen leaf from a maple tree with these same colors, so I took that as a sign - Mother Nature isn't wrong!

Nothing in this sweater is planned; it just happened. The technical specs, such as they are, for this are two skeins of Touch Exclusive Bouclé (approx. 185 yards each) and US 13 needles. Cast on 48 stitches (8 for each front, 8 for each shoulder, 16 for the back), knit a basic top-down raglan alternating colors whenever you feel like it until you run out of yarn.

The next challenge is to figure out how to finish it up. I have no yarn left at all, nothing to trim out the neckline, make a button band or other closure, etc. The edges need something though. Hmm...

Oh, and I also am puzzling over naming it. Some possibilities:

• "Carrie" (from the movie, because of the color, in honor of Halloween)
• something with "Maple" - "October Maple", "Maple Leaf" (because of the color inspiration)
• "Cherry Red" (from an old Lou Gramm song that kept rattling around in my brain while I worked on this "...it's either cherry red or midnight blue...")

End of an era

The day has come to say good-bye to some faithful companions. They've been in every kitchen since the time when "cooking" meant pouring milk over my cereal in the morning. Making them may even have been my first semi-fibery project, but thirty years later, I have to admit that my favorite potholders are done for.

So I dig out the potholder "loom" kit from the bottom of the craft closet this afternoon and make up some new ones. It was 'way more fun when I was 9 or 10, by the way. I don't remember the loops jumping off on their own volition, nor do I remember having a hard time finding loops that would actually stretch enough to fit the loom. Maybe those are all the things parents handle...

Anyway, I now have a new pair, all bright and shiny and unscathed. I've been afraid to wash the old ones for a few years now, they were getting that fragile. I figured they were getting heat sterilized with use anyway. (Germophobes, I really don't want to hear about it.)

Or am I perhaps carrying sentimentality just a wee bit too far?

Socks, socks and more socks

Here are the latest ones:
From left to right, they are Waving Lace Socks (Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Rosehip) and Diagonal Cross-Rib Socks (Dream In Color Smooshy in Blue Lagoon), both from Interweave's "Favorite Socks", and then some basic 2x2 ribbed socks (Regia Jacquard Color in a denim-y colorway).















They all are part of last month trip to Farm Country to help out during my mother's post-surgical recovery. The Bearfoot socks were intended as my sanity project; I brought the last treasured skein of this, my favorite, sock yarn specifically for that. I had no idea what to expect, so naturally I expected the worst. Happily, things went well with her recovery. The Smooshy socks are from my foray to the LYS (such a friendly place!) near the physical therapist's. The self-stripers I made for my step dad for the rare occasion when he wears socks - he's a barefoot and Chaco sandals kind of guy.

Pleased as I am with the results - come on, how can one not be pleased with having more handknit socks?!!? - I'm getting a bit antsy with just doing small projects. In the last few months it's been almost all small stuff: socks, scarves and hats for a friend's shop, coffee cup cozies for a Breast Cancer Awareness Month fundraiser (I forgot to photograph them before I dropped them off - doh!).

I did make one sleeveless sweater on commission, but I don't count that as "mine". The pattern, color and yarn choices were all someone else's; my participation was merely in the execution of someone else's ideas. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against commissions. They just don't particularly scratch the creative itch.

I do have a top-down cardi parked on the needles for about two months now. I had this lovely lovely yarn in the stash (picked up on super sale a few years ago), and I made it into an assymetrical cardi first. HATED the end result, so rippity-rip, and started over. This one is based on a Marianne Isager design in her book "Stricken a la carte". I bought the book in Germany last summer; I don't think it's available in English yet. I suspected from the beginning that I might not have enough yarn, and I was right. Getting more wasn't a problem, other than the obvious one of the new yarn not matching the old. I know what I need to do - rip back a ways and alternate rows of old and new skeins - I just haven't been able to grit my teeth and go to it. It's bugged me so much that I don't even want to photograph the thing as a WIP until I get over that particular hump.

Not (quite) a dead blog and some general weirdness

Skipping over the details of the last few months is probably for the best; a quick summary should do.

After getting back from beach vacation in late spring, things got weird at Egg's work (precursor to all the recent economic/financial weirdness lately perhaps?). A month later I went back south because my snowbird mother was borderline incapacitated with lower back/hip/knee pain, and they needed help getting the things squared away for hurricane season and getting the sailboat back to FL. We dodged squalls all the way back and got pasted by a few really wicked ones, but in between I did manage a little sock knitting. The picture looks idyllic, but there was some weird juju out there the entire trip.

Home for July and most of August, then up the interstate to Farm Country for a month to take care of my mother following her hip replacement surgery. A bum hip had been causing all that pain, and the change post-surgery was nothing short of amazing.

Doggie got a farm vacation. Things that suburban dogs don't normally get to do, like digging,

rolling in (deer? muskrat? groundhog?) poop,

and interacting with big critters.

For entertainment I went to a few farm auctions, and I found treasure! That is, I'm sure this "thingy" (actually there are two of them) is something wonderful, once I figure out just what this weird contraption is.





















The auction bill said "antique yarn winder", but that doesn't seem right somehow. The Amish neighbors all had no idea, and even when one of them took me and my mystery object to visit a couple 90-something year old elders a little further away, no luck either. The consensus was that it looked very interesting, and they'd love to know what it finally turns out to be, whenever I do find out. The mystery continues for now...

Blog slacker still on island time (vacation report #1)

Here are a few excuses why I've not updated in almost a month:

• internet connectivity on vacation was spotty at best
• vacation photos require much editing of unhappy angles (meaning pasty white chubbiness)
• the dog required much attention and love after being abandoned at the gulag (boarding kennel) while Egg and I frolicked on the beach
• I went to Maryland Sheep & Wool three days after we got back from our island escape and am still recovering from fiber overload
• I've been in an extended post-vacation slump

So, time to get caught up! Let's start with ten days of salt water infused bliss...

We flew in and out of Daytona Beach using a small flight service that goes straight to the island, bypassing Nassau completely. I'm not a mega-resort and casino/nightclub action kind of girl, and the idea of being stuck on a cruise ship with multiple thousands of people is about as close to Hell as I can imagine, so that suits me just fine. Also great is skipping most of the post-9/11 air travel unpleasantries.

Our original plan was to go sailing with my step-dad, but a combination of his building timetable slipping a bit behind and a rash of scary brushfires in the area made us change plans. It just didn't seem like a good idea to leave their home site unattended for days on end.

We rented a place in Little Harbour, up the way from where my folks are building in Casuarina Point. As the seagull flies, it's only a couple miles; by road it's about 12 or so. Island geography is funny that way. We quickly got into vacation mode. (And dig that farmer's tan/sunburn thing on my arm!)

With generous coating of SPF45 I got back in touch with my salt water self. (BTW, when the label on the sunscreen says "May stain some fabrics", believe it. A couple T-shirts look like they have carrot juice spills in awkward places.) Mother Ocean was a little testy with me at first for having neglected her for the past three years, but she relented fairly quickly. My beach crawls were rewarded with lots of small treasures - beach glass is magic - and in the water I had small finny escorts. After one beach nap I woke up to see a ghost crab eying me as if weighing whether I was dead and worth a nibble; he moved on. Egg preferred a more sedentary and shady approach to relaxing, understandable with his burn-not-tan skin that no SPF can completely protect.

Partly because of the wild fires, partly because that's just the way it is down there, phone service was unreliable while we were there. For quick and easy communication with my folks down the way, we used the VHF radio (kinda like CB radio for boaters), and my call sign was "Wayward Daughter". Egg came up with it, and I thought it was perfect. Since the radio channels are open, there were probably a few boaters wondering where the hell this oddly named boat was.

Time flies...

Yep, Egg and I are looking at five years of wedded bliss. We tied the knot on the deck of a beachfront house on Abaco, one of the Out Islands of the Bahamas, after almost ten years of unwedded bliss. (Damn, we've been together a long time!) His mother had gotten tired of waiting for us to get married and had begun lobbying for grandchildren several years before, which we still haven't produced, but I digress...

So, we're off the the island again soon, and dear sweet "C" gave me this to protect my pastey-white, sun-deprived face from a wicked sunburn. She crocheted it in my favorite color, so sweet and thoughtful. Pardon the dorky, take-a-picture-of-myself-in-the-bathroom-mirror photo; I cropped it, but perhaps not enough. Isn't the hat just wonderful?!!?

Now, decision time: to bring knitting or not? Our original plan was going sailing with Captain Stepdad, which would have been not conducive to knitting. I'm prone to seasickness as it is - and no, I can't knit in the car either - so concentrated fiddling with sock yarn and size 1 needles would equal instant heaves. But plans have suddenly changed (too much backstory to go into why), we're going to be mostly shore-based, and I'm weighing how much of a nuisance it will be to shake sand out of anything I might bring. What impact does saltwater have on sock yarn? Oh, I know what I should bring: that lace shawl/stole I started back in 2001 (!!!), oddly enough with the intention of it being my "something blue", whenever we were to marry. Well, obviously I didn't finish it in time for that, but how about five years later? Hmm... Actually, it's just as well that I didn't finish it for the wedding, because I didn't even wear shoes, and an elegant lacy shawl would have looked out of place, and been hot as hell.

I finally got over myself and made the i-cord straps for the entrelac bag. Like most things that I procrastinate, it really didn't take THAT long... Into the washing machine with the bag and the straps tomorrow, and maybe I'll schlep it all damp to Knit Nite, unless the felting is a complete disaster.

Fiber dry spell

A combination of a wicked stomach flu and spring fever - mostly the flu - has severely limited my enthusiasm for yarn, or much of anything for that matter. I'll omit most of the scary details of the stomach virus, other than that I think I caught it from a dear old friend's one year old and that it knocked the hell out of me for longer than expected. (Could this little sweetie be the face of a germ carrier?!!?) Egg deserves kudos for being a kind, supportive husband during the first night and day of drama and the subsequent five days of whiny exhaustion.

The main current WIP is a shop model for the LYS, but progress is slow. Despite there being an abundance of stockinette stitch in it, my concentration just hasn't been sufficient for working on it for any length of time. I have started on the miles of i-cord handles (yawn) for the soon-to-be-felted entrelac bag; again, progress is slow. That one I really need to light a fire under, because the bag is supposed to go to Maryland Sheep and Wool with "T" and me in May. Come to think of it, if this fiber ennui keeps up, I will not have to worry about busting the budget there - good for Egg, bad for me.

Maybe a little informal knitting meet-up will get me back in the mood....

Serendipity

Egg linked me to an article about how it has been scientifically proven that men just don't get or utterly misinterpret non-verbal flirty signals from women. Does that really surprise anyone? Anyone female, that is? Then within an hour I stumbled across this delightful reply. (found on a random blog, originally from the PostSecret project)

I'm just not feeling very yarny the last few days since finishing the wavy socks. I ripped out the toe-up Monkey socks in the loud colorway of Wildfoote last night - the pattern completely disappeared into the riot of competing colors in the yarn. Anything beyond a simple rib is wasted there.

So, it's Knit Nite in a few hours at my LYS, and I have nothing on the needles. All my projects of late have been accessories or other little things (OK, so the entrelac bag isn't little), and I'm jonesing to do a garment again, just can't seem to find the right pattern. Sigh... Spring fever sucks.

Buyer beware

Why I avoid eBay:

see more crazy cat pics

This one just cracks me up every time. Egg forwards me particularly good ones from this website, and when he sent me this one a few weeks ago, I nearly wet my pants laughing.

A woman came to the LYS this week who had a totally different kind of buyer beware experience. A beginner knitter, she lives about 2 hours away in a town with no LYS. She fell in love with a fairly advanced pattern in a Big Knitting Magazine, ordered the high end yarn specified in the pattern, and arranged for private tutoring through her Generic Craft Store to walk her through the process. Well, the tutor bailed out, and now she's stuck with a several hundred dollar investment in yarn and lacks the experience to finish it (buyer beware #1). So she and her husband drove up here for help. Four + hours later, I'd written out row by row, line by line how to finish the left front. She used the oddest yarn management system. The pattern called for alternating rows of two different yarns, and she had each of them wound onto empty paper towel rolls. The fuzzy yarn wouldn't unspool easily from the cardboard, so these tubes kept jumping around. Even tensioning was impossible, but she said it worked for her. She also used the heaviest pair of straight needles I have ever seen. 18 inches long, and they must have weighed close to a half pound each - I could barely knit with them. I asked her if the weight bothered her, and she agreed that they were too heavy, but she liked the pointy tips, and damn it, she had paid over $30 for them (buyer beware #2), so there was no way she was even going to look at some nice, light weight circular lace needles with extra pointy tips.

On my own personal knitting front, the wavy socks are done:I'll probably give these to my mother, She of the Perpetually Cold Feet (in a literal, not figurative, sense). They're slightly too big for me, and the pair of bed socks I already made her (those from that odd red/yellow/mottled Koigu) just need a little something something to go with them. This evening I cast on for the next pair, this time using Brown Sheep's Wildfoote in a really loud colorway, and am going to see how how Cookie A's Monkey Socks turn out worked toe up.

The entrelac bag is fully knitted yet still unfelted. It's HUGE! As in small children can hide in it. I'll try to get a picture of that - small children hiding in it - this weekend when we meet up with old friends and their kiddies. I double layered the bottom to give it some extra heft down there and also to compensate for a tactical error I made when I started it: the bottom is black, and everything disappears into the darkness of a bag with a black interior. The inner layer on the bottom is out of the light grey, which I hope will help. I still have to knit the handles (miles of i-cord?) and then felt it (tons of lint in the washing machine).

Speaking of horror

On my way home from Knit Nite at my LYS tonight, I got stuck behind a creepy-crawly driver, and while waiting for the traffic in the passing lane to clear, I happened to look over just as I was passing a small local motel. This motel seems to cater primarily to construction workers at local jobsites, sort of low-rent TDY or extended stay place. Just then, a fellow came out of one of the end units heading to his work truck dressed only in, you guessed it, his tighty-whities! Beer gut in all its glory! Yikes - I really didn't need that image burned into my retinas! That's my punishment for taking my eyes off the road. I guess his rationale was that it was just going to take a minute, why bother getting dressed?

Vicarious knitting

I haven't exactly been lighting up the blogosphere with observations of and witticisms on my own personal yarn adventures, have I? I'm in a knitting dry spell lately, and no, the hat pattern didn't suck all the creative energy out of me. ;-) (That would be pretty pathetic, wouldn't it?)

No, blame it on the effect of noxious household cleaning products on my hands. Last week I spent a few days at the white elephant house, now that it's empty (except for the garage) cleaning in an effort to get the place to a point where it doesn't look scary-neglected. I've spent three days - so far - on the bathrooms trying to get 10+ years of hard water stains off the glass shower doors and surrounds. LimeAway, CLR, etc. - all did nothing on those vertical surfaces except smell bad and do a number on my hands. A little internet research turned up the off-label use of glass cooktop cleaner, which with a non-scratch scouring pad and LOTS of elbow grease actually worked. Still not great on the hands, but at least it did scour the lime off those damn glass panels and doors, which is more than I can say for everything else I tried.

Yes, I did start out wearing gloves, but inevitably water and cleaning product run into them, rendering them pointless, so off they come. The feeling of LimeAway sloshing around your fingers inside a latex glove reminded me of touching fire coral back in my island girl days - a momentary, odd, little tingle followed by a scorching burning like your skin wants to come off.

So, combine that with some big yard clean-up action, and I suppose my hands would make a manicurist either scream and run from then room ("The horror!") or grin with glee at what she could charge for repairing that much damage. When I did try to pick up some mindless knitting (the entrelac bag), the yarn wouldn't slide through my fingers; it was like trying to pull it through velcro. Yuck!!!

I've contented myself instead with browsing the new Knitty, scrolling through Ravelry, and stumbling across other fiber fun that other people are having and posting online. The hand lotion has started to improve things a bit, so I should get some stitches done before heading back for more adventures with cleansers, vacuum cleaners and such later in the week.

Happiness continued

I've test knit my little hat pattern with several different yarn weights now (light worsted/DK, worsted and heavy worsted) and noted the adjustments necessary to accommodate them. I made a child's size by accident (miscounted my repeats - oops) too, so this is turning into an all-purpose pattern.

"T" said she'd test knit it for me too with yet another yarn - can't wait to see the results! This is in addition to proofreading my pattern notes and catching a glaring error!

Happiness is...

Today was one of those perfect days that we get here this time of year, when spring sneaks in a preview. I took full advantage it this afternoon (morning was spent with the neighborhood association cleaning up the common area planting beds and then giving the dog a much needed bath) and settled myself on the deck with the necessities. Please don't look too closely - I didn't bother to scrub the outside table yet of its winter layer of ick!

I started out noodling around on the current WIPs (entrelac bag destined for felting, socks) but picked up some new yarn from my LYS instead. It's the varigated green/blue/black stuff (Di.Ve Autumno) on the circ in the middle. Egg got a hat out of it yesterday, a top down variation on the Life O' Crime watch cap he got earlier but complained was too itchy. This was the manliest colorway of this yarn on stock, and it's soft soft soft, 100% merino. But what's in progress in the picture is mine mine mine.

I've loved traveling stitches from the first time I worked them and made the old classic "Celtic Cardigan" from Oat Couture several years ago mostly because the stitch patterns are all traveling stitches. This hat is made using the stitch pattern from the cardi's ribbing, worked in the round. For the crown decreases I wanted to maintain a semblance of the main pattern, so out came the graph paper, and I am really happy with the results! Yes, it looks like a mushroom on my improvised head model (a mixing bowl set upside down on a pillar candle), but just look past that.

And check out the close up of the crown!

The color of the yarn in the pictures is a bit off, though. It's actually a bit darker than shown, and what looks grayish is really a green and black melange. My mediocre photo skills notwithstanding, I'm so pleased with this little project. When the weather changes back to winter for a day on Tuesday (if the weather guys are right), I'll be able to wear it when I take the dog on his morning constitutional through the neighborhood.


P.S. I forgot to mention the one fly in the ointment with this: it took just a few yards more than one skein of the yarn. Doh! No big deal in this particular case because I had some left over from Egg's hat, but for it to be a true one skein wonder project, I suppose it would have made slightly smaller. (Sigh)

Entrelac and other favorite things

My sanity-saving entrelac bag is progressing nicely, especially after a very productive Saturday afternoon at the local Starbuck's with knitting pal "T". OK, so the colors could be cheerier, but this is a stash-buster project! Since I figured out how to knit backwards, entrelac is so much simpler - no more flipping back and forth...And an extra special thank you to "T" for the cool button:

This will now adorn my WIPs, or maybe the bag or basket holding them, just to make sure there's no confusion! :)

Or maybe I'll attach it to the needle holder with my newly acquired double point needles from Bryspun. I absolutely love the ones made in New Zealand, especially the 5 inch ones in small sizes for socks (yes, I'm old school that way - no magic loop for me), and this week I went to absurd lengths to build up my stock. I scored a set of US 2.5 ones from the UK - thanks eBay! - and a handful of various sizes from a store in Massachusetts. Here's irony for you: the vendor from the UK charged me half as much for shipping air mail, even with the exchange rate considered, as the vendor in MA did for UPS ground. Gotta love that shipping upcharge - a nice tidy profit center there!

Despite what the distributor's website says, the set I have that were made domestically aren't as wonderful as the NZ ones. The material and the shape of the points are different, and IMHO, not in a good way. Hence the quest for the imported ones. From what I can tell from some internet research, the "original" ones, from NZ, are sold under the brand name "Quills" and maybe "Liteflex" outside of the US.

Today was all about cooking: pot roast with egg noodles and apple pie. Comfort food, and the house smells wonderful as I write. Like the entrelac bag, I didn't use a particular recipe for either. So I probably used too much freshly grated nutmeg in the pie (but it just smells soooo good when it's grated) and maybe too little salt in the pot roast (can always add more when it's done)...

Yarn therapy

I've missed my usual group yarn therapy (i.e. Knit Night at my LYS) for the second time now because I'm still tangled up in the mess of one of my parent's move. No matter how many TV shows you watch or magazine articles you read about coping with aging parents, they do NOT prepare you for the reality of it. I can imagine that it's hard enough when the parent-child relationship is reasonably stable, but, let me tell you, it's a whole new level of conflict when it isn't.

So, my concentration re: knitting projects has been pretty minimal of late. Creatively it's a real low point right now. I've finished a few small sample items for my LYS and made up the funky "Nomad" hat/scarf combo from IK FA07 out of stash yarn; in other words, nothing too mentally taxing. Last night I did risk casting on for a felted entrelac satchel bag, loosely based on one from a 2001 Knitter's magazine. Using the Emily Ocher cast-on (idea from the Nomad), I started working outward from the center of the bottom, increasing as I went around. The bottom is plain stockinette; I'll start the entrelac part on the sides. Pix will follow soon.

Not a funny night

The bed socks for my mother are done, as is the mini-Clapotis I made for myself. For once I have nothing on the needles, and also for once that's probably a good thing because I'm wrapped in some intense family drama involving an aging parent, a step-parent with a dubious agenda for aforementioned aging parent, a white elephant of a house that won't sell, incompetent movers, and some disturbing hoarding behavior on the part of both the aforementioned aging parent and the step-parent. You know something is wrong when you have to smuggle bags of empty glass jars, empty plastic milk jugs, broken but allegedly still repairable gadgets, etc. home to your own trash can because if you leave them there, they will get put back in the piles of stuff to be moved to the new house. I don't think I'll be looking at the knitting needles for the next few days until I have a better handle on this situation.

One step forward, two steps back

Yep, I ripped the socks back to the toe last night, and no, not because of the color oddness. 1) They were a little too big, and 2) these are my first toe-up socks that I want to do with a heel flap instead of a short row heel, and I started the gusset increases too late. They were going to be huge! Now, after the do-over part, they're looking much better. I've got the first one done to the leg shaft and am starting the gussets (again) on the second.

Yesterday down at my LYS where I help out some, I had a terrific teaching experience. My student already knew the knit stitch and had made a few garter stitch scarves, but purling had eluded her, and she struggled with gauge. When she signed up for the class, she also mentioned that she has a chronic autoimmune disorder that somewhat affects her dexterity on one side and her concentration, which things like knitting help maintain. Talk about a great motivation, aside from the sheer pleasure of working with nice yarn! We started on a basket weave scarf, and she picked everything up very quickly: long tail cast-on, the previously elusive purl stitch, reading her work to know where she was in the pattern repeat... All well and good, and what made it really fun for me, other than that she got it so fast, was her delight in the results. The purl stitch opened up a whole new world of possibilities! I'm quite sure she could have fought her way to learning to purl on her own, but it is gratifying to think that I helped make that process less painfully trial and error.

Looking out my window toward the wooded area that is our back yard this morning, I watched an enormous chipmunk thudding his way along a small downed tree trunk headed for the the spot below the bird feeder. Obesity is not just a human problem - all those spilled sunflower seeds have done their work for that (not so) little rodent to look as fat and happy as he does in the middle of winter (such as it is here in Alabama).

Hand painted yarn = surprises

Sometimes the basics come back to bite you. In this case, it's the tendency of multicolored yarns to "pool" colors when they are knitted. I know this happens, have had it happen before, and know that you are supposed to work alternating rows/rounds from two different skeins to prevent this, but, sheesh, what a pain in the ass on what is supposed to be a quick pair of toe-up socks! So, let the colors pool - it's a pair of bed socks for my mother anyway!

When I pulled the yarn out of the stash last night and got started, I honestly didn't remember buying the yarn, but I must have had her in mind as the eventual intended recipient, because the colors are not me. However, this is one of the few cases where I have been surprised by something in the stash, which says something considering the quantity of yarn in there. I embarrassed myself a little when I started listing the particulars in my Ravelry notebook - somehow it doesn't look so scary in person (all nice and tidy in bins) than it does when listed out there for all to see.

Woot

I has a blog! (Borrowing the syntax from icanhascheezburger.com, which oddly enough is one of my husband's favorite browsing sites - he sends me links to the choice pix, so I don't often bother to troll around there myself.)

Like with most things, I'm a little behind the crowd in joining the online world of personal expression, but what the hell! It's 2008, I turn forty later this year, and right now my ongoing love affair with hand knitting and regular forays into the kitchen to cook really wonderful food are my touchstones keeping me from some sort of truly embarrassing mid-life crisis. Hardly original themes for a blog, I know, and I can't promise that I won't post the occasional picture of the dog being cute or the periodic angst-ridden rant about aging too fast. But life at Chez Squirrel does have its moments...