Friday, June 29, 2007

Never trust your knitting.

I know you have to have a certain amount of dedication to be a knitter and all, but really, patience has never been my strong point. I always cast on a zillion things at once and knit on each one till I get bored--it's sloppy, but it means I always have projects in various stages of completion. If I start feeling the itch to finish something, I can usually manage it in a couple of days.

On the other hand, it also means I have projects that I get bored or annoyed with, which linger for months--years!--in the dreaded depths of the craft cupboard. Such as these socks:

(They've got more green and less blue than it looks like here.) I bought the yarn last summer (from sunset yarns on etsy) and cast on last fall. I knit the first one, got bored, stuck it in the cupboard with the kobolds and the gremlins, and forgot all about it till I was showing off my sock walk of shame (=orphan single socks) to Mom. She liked the socks I was making for her okay, but she REALLY liked these. (Who'da thunk it? They are tres bright, my friends.) So, all right, change of plans: I got the socks that she was going to get (her loss, I was almost done with those!) and I started knitting the second of these. They didn't get much knitting time till this week though. I go through sock modes and non-sock modes. I'm feeling the sock bug again now. Besides, I wanted an FO, and I was too tired to work on the fidgety baby bobble thing, even though it only needs another couple inches of hood, a neck edging, and some sewing-up.

The only problem is, I am the acknowledged queen of stupid knitting mistakes. The first sock had been sitting for months in the cupboard, but did I look at it before casting on the second? No way! I knit these with my own personal Plain Sock pattern, which I have memorized up down and sideways! Look schmook!

The first sock has a 1x1 ribbed cuff. The second has a 2x2 ribbed cuff.

F*%! you, knitting kobolds! I'm taking the leftover yarn with me to Michigan this weekend in case my mom notices. If it bothers her, I'll unravel the cuff, attach new yarn, and knit a new cuff toe-up style. If it doesn't bother her, or she doesn't notice, IT IS A QUIRKY EMBELLISHMENT. Got that?

(Come on. You can barely even see the difference in the picture.)

QUIRKY.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Countdown.

We're getting married in exactly one month.

(Eeeeeeeeeek! :) Just kidding.)

I always kind of figured I'd be one of those old spinster ladies who live in a gingerbread victorian house by themselves with about fifty zillion cats. I mean, boys can be nice and all, but I'd never met one I could put up with for more than a couple hours or at most a couple days, let alone fifty years. Also, I'm a recluse at heart. I like to have lots of quiet time reading or knitting or walking, I don't particularly like playing board games or sports or anything like that, and I'm sure as heck not a good-little-wifey sort of girl. (See: dusting twice a year if the house is lucky; being unfond of cooking, much.) I don't suffer fools or foolishness gladly, I never was very good at keeping my opinion to myself if I disagree with someone else, and I lose my temper over little things pretty often. And lord knows I'm not a paragon, but in these latter, less kindly years (aka anything past age 21) I would not put up with any boy calling me his for long unless he was the soul of honor and compassion. Crushes, smushes...it's fun to have crushes, but the funnest part is that one doesn't feel compelled to do anything about them.

But, you know....somehow I'm not too upset about giving up my crazy-cat-lady future. Tejas is just too nice to have around to trade for a bunch of furballs. :)

(Note: Since we're having two weddings and (Tejas' parents threaten) a reception in India, we're electing Oct. 13th as our official anniversary in future years. It was the day we first kissed, the day we got engaged, and it was when we intended to get married. The arrangements didn't quite work out, but oh well. Forget the welter of other dates; Oct. 13th it is.)

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Thanks for the advice on tossing tangly yarn--I will toss it out! Just as soon as I finish the project and definitely don't need it. Otherwise, you know I'd figure out I needed another 10 yards of yarn just as it was slithering into the dumpster.

I was planning to go to a knitting night on Sunday, at a bubble tea place (!), but it turned out they'd had a last-minute change of heart and gone en masse to a local park we'd never heard of. So Tejas and I shared a bubble tea and went home, and I knit both sleeves and half the hood of the baby sweater. It was a nice little place though, and right over by where we do grocery shopping, so I think I can wheedle my way back sometime.

And that is all the knitting I've done in the past three days.

Monday I didn't leave the lab till 9:30 pm. When I got home, I just ate something and fell asleep. Yesterday I left at a civilized hour (5:30ish) but then went to the gym and tired myself out, and when I got home I ate something, spent some time with Tejas, and fell asleep. (Are you noticing a pattern here?) I'm determined that today I'll actually get some knitting down, because this is pathetic, and also, I think Tejas is starting to worry about me.

Also, I need to get this baby sweater done. I'm bored now. I want to go back to socks as my alternate project. Speaking of socks! There are so many sock patterns I want to knit! And some of them I even have the correct yarn for! (Some of them, alas, I have been drooling over for months and will continue to drool over until I go off the yarn diet. Then, my dears, we shall see the needles fly!) Right now my fancy socks are the Undulating Rib socks from the Favorite Socks book, knitted in Fleece Artist "Forest". I love the colorway, I love the way the socks are turning out, and these are MINE MINE MINE. I was going to give them away, but no. MINE! My plain socks are in Sunset Yarns (an etsy seller who, sadly, seems to have disappeared) "Rainbow Road", and they are for Mom, who oddly enough appears to like really really bright socks (she chose 'em over more muted ones I thought she'd like better). See, the way my sock knitting goes is, I have fancy socks--socks I have to pay attention to--for when I want complicated knitting, and plain socks--socks I don't have to look at much--for knitting while reading. I always have at least one plain pair going.

Since it seems like one person at least who reads this blog, and one more who might, are starting to knit socks, I thought you might like to know what became of my sock yarn survey. So here, for your edification and enjoyment (ha!), are the Sock Survey Results. (Drum roll, please.)

Sock Yarn Survey Results
  • Knitpicks Simple Stripes. I used "Sunset," "Sweettart," and "Snapdragon." "Sweettart" was by far the prettiest. Decent basic yarn. Striping pattern is kinda on the boring side and not as well-printed as higher quality yarns, but turns out nice enough. Yarn is a little scratchy but will probably hold up well, due to the nylon content. This knits up at 7 to 7.5 sts/inch for me, a little bigger than most fingering weights.
  • Lorna's Laces Shepard Sock. I used "Sand Hill" and also have one sock in "Happy Valley" completed. The feel of the yarn is absolutely scrumptiously soft and buttery; loved knitting with it except if one of my needles accidently punctured the yarn--then it didn't so much split as explode. The colors are kind of muted, but pretty, and the striping pattern is very nice (not much pooling). I LOVE this yarn and would definitely buy it again. Knits up at 7.5 to 8 sts/inch for me.
  • Lisa Souza Sock!. I used "South Pacific." The color were fairly nice, but the feel of the yarn is kind of scratchy and blah--not my favorite. (The socks turned out quite lovely though!) It striped fairly well without much pooling. However, the widths of the stripes changed over the skein, so my second sock striped twice as often as the first one.
  • Sunset yarns (etsy) superwash sock. I used "Rainbow Road." I think the base yarn for this, as well as most other etsy sock yarns, is Opal Gems Pearl, and I love it to death. Nice and scrunchy, takes color vividly and almost translucently. Also, it knits up the tightest of all the sock yarns I tried, at 8 sts/inch easily, and a much tighter row gauge. I wish this seller would come back so I could buy some more yarn from her. Not that I'm buying yarn at the moment.
  • Fearless Fibers (etsy) superwash sock. I used "Kildare." See the sunset yarns entry for base yarn comments; the coloring was nice semisolid. I've had these socks for almost a year now and they're still fairly nice, though a little pilly (I'm hard on my socks).
  • Regia. I used a red stripe and a blue/green stripe. It's also fairly scratchy, and the colors aren't as nice as the handdyed stuff, but it's very hardwearing. Tejas' blue/green socks have been through the washer and the dryer multiple times, and the socks still look new.
  • Opal. I used "Schlange" from the new Rainforest Collection. I liked the dappled look of the colors, but I hated the feel of the yarn--it's like thread. I suspect it'll wear well, though.
  • Lang Jawoll. I used "charcoal." HATE HATE HATE! I got a little ball of pilled wool on the yarn as I was knitting it, and I kept having to slide it along/pull it off. It drove me nuts.
  • Sunshine yarns (etsy). I have two of the dragon colors, but haven't knit with either yet. Bad me. They look nice enough, though I think they were overpriced. Also, the skeins are wound really tight--don't like that much. She's very popular but I probably won't buy from her again.
  • RubySapphire yarns (etsy). I have a semisolid blue, which I also haven't knit with. See the sunset yarns entry for base yarn comments. I don't like most of their colors (boring) so will probably not buy from them again.
  • Twisted (etsy). I used "Secret" and have half a sock knit in "Exile." The stripes are fun but vary in width, so the socks don't match, and the stripes in Exile are way too wide for my taste. Nice yarn though, and I like the colors. Mom loves her Secret socks best of anything I've made for her. I would probably buy from this store again.
  • Claudia Handpainted. I used "Pistachio" for socks and "Toast" for tam/gloves. THIS IS MY FAVORITEST OF ALL SOCK YARNS. The skeins are smallish, but big enough for normal-sized socks, and the yarn is somehow wonderfully scrunchy. The color combinations are really unusual, and yet somehow it all works out and looks lovely. It doesn't stripe really, nor does it pool--there are just little flecks of each color. Gorgeous.
  • Fleece Artist. I used "Origin" and am using "Forest." LOVE this yarn too! Soft and somehow slinky, and very vivid, though I had problems with one of my origin socks being vivider than the other (grr). Flecks in the same way as the Claudia Handpainted.
  • Apple Laine Apple Pie sock yarn. I used "Royal blue." I don't like so many of the colors, but the yarn base is unusual (contains silk and mohair) and lots of fun to knit with. Have to check with my mom on comfort and how well it wears.
  • Socks that Rock. I used "Dreidel" and have an unfinished pair in "Farmhouse." I like this yarn for the colors, but I'm not as crazy about it as some people. It's too dense for me somehow--makes nice socks, but I don't really love knitting it.
  • Sweet Georgia. I have an unfinished pair in "Berry." I didn't like this much (hence the unfinished pair)--it pooled horribly and looked much better in the skein than in the sock. Normally I like pooling just fine, but this sock has one side in one color and one side in a different color--blech. I'll probably finish the pair eventually, but I won't be buying more of this yarn.
  • Sockotta. I am slooooooowly knitting a sock in some lavenderish color. I don't like it much, which is why it's going slowly. It's like knitting with twine. The socks will probably be decent summer socks, though, because of all the cotton content. Nonetheless, I have learned my lesson. Will not be buying more sockotta, even though the colors are pretty.
Did I forget anything? Hopefully not, but if I did, I'll add it in later. Hope this helps anyone who's making sock yarn selections!

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Moral dilemma.

Just a quick question...is it wrong to toss yarn that's hopelessly tangled? Toss as in, trash can? I have 2 or 3 skeins that would take me HOURS if not TENS OF HOURS to untangle, and frankly, the thought makes me kinda woozy. And it's not like they're quiviut handspun my great-great-gramma from a muskox she raised herself, or anything. I have serious qualms about tossing yarn...but the chances of me ever using these couple skeins are extremely slim. Immoral? Or not?

(One skein is tangled from when I let Tejas frog it and didn't simultaneously wind it up, stupid me. But I don't think I'll need it to finish the project (if I do, I'll untangle just enough to finish). The others evidently just hate me and decided to spontaneously tangle beyond repair when moving or marinating in the bottom of the stash, or something. Well, I hate them too. Stupid tangled yarn.)

Friday, June 22, 2007

In for the long haul.

I think I mentioned that Tejas asked me to make a lace shawl for his gramma, who he's very close to, and who can't make it to our wedding. I had him page through a book of shawl patterns, and he picked out one he thought she would like, and then I showed him all the small-gauge yarn I had with enough yardage to complete said pattern. There was an moss-green skein, some teal stuff from Knitpicks, and a ridiculously bright redbrown-lime green-magenta singles skein that I'd bought off handpaintedyarn.com*, which obviously has some issues with color fidelity on its website (it looked pink and yellow when I bought it). He grabbed the bright one, saying, "This is PERFECT! My gramma LOVES bright things like this!"

*I know it sounds like I've bought a ton of yarn from there, since I've used two skeins of it since I started this blog. But really, it was only one order of about $40 worth of yarn: a few colors of bulky, plus a bit of laceweight. My review: The bulky is slightly lower quality than Manos del Uruguay but very similar and nice to knit with. The laceweight is CHEAPCHEAPCHEAP and really very nice, if you can avoid the ridiculously colored stuff. My moss green laceweight is also from this site, and I adore it.

Anyhoo, I'm knitting the Melon Stitch Shawl from Victorian Lace Today, which is a nice pattern (though has not yet been blocked, so looks kinda scrunched up and weird) but involves knitting seventy thousand repeats of the central pattern, then knitting on a border. Booooooring...I'm forcing myself to make this my main project because I know if I work on something else, I won't come back to this easily, and then I won't get it done in time. Blah. At least I have the central pattern memorized by now, so I can listen to booktapes and not really pay much attention (I do have to look at it though. No knitting & reading for me.) And the melon stitch, which comes once every 6 rows, is kinda fun.
The wonky red bit at the cast-on edge is sock yarn from Trace-trace's socks, scavenged for a provisional cast on. Also, the yarn is brighter in person.

The poor little bobble sweater is feeling neglected...maybe I'll try to finish the sleeves this weekend, to take the edge off the melon stitch monster.
Then, I was thinking...I have a couple of sock yarns in Harry Potter-themed colors (Welsh Green Dragon and Hungarian Horntail Dragon) and some Gryffindor-colored worsted weight. Anyone feel like a Potter project-a-long in honor of the last book? (I'm currently 81st on the library hold list for it--I need something to distract me until a copy trickles down to me.)

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Belated pictures

Here are the fingerless mittens I finished on Sunday. Tomorrow I'll post them to the Loopy Ewe yarn shop (my favoritest! If you need sock yarn or lace-weight and want the best, this is where to go! And the customer service is THE. BEST.EVER. Ahem. Shameless plug over.) Note the extreme lack of fancy patterning or even hand-dyed sock yarn. Yes, these are somewhat ungenerously plain fingerless gloves, but come on. I knitted them on size 1's so they are eminently close-knit and practical.

Note also the wonky stripes on the lefthand glove. There was a knot in the yarn and then the color sequence reversed (stupid cheap Knitpicks yarn). I thought it was kind of funny and cute (also, I might have been reading and not looking at my knitting and maybe didn't notice till I'd knitted another couple inches) so I left it. I hope some poor teenage girl in Russia doesn't hate me forever for making her mismatched gloves. Am I the only person in the world who thinks it's cute when the stripes on handmade socks and things don't match?

Yarn: Knitpicks simple stripes, 1 ball
Needles: size 1
Pattern: One of the free ones linked from the Loopy Ewe site, plus a few modifications (like a half-inch of ribbing added to the thumb).

Tejas is shocked by my hijinks with the camera.


Knit Night and the baby bobble sweater

On Monday I went to the knit night at a nearby yarn shop, Full Thread Ahead. It was the first non-KnitWits knit night I've ever been to! And, you know, I don't really think I'll go back, though it was kinda interesting. The shop was nice and the ladies there were mostly really nice, but they spent the whole time talking about cloth diapers and cruises and stuff I couldn't really relate to. And there was one very loud lady--associated with the shop somehow--who raised her voice and talked right over me both times other people started talking to me. Jeez! But everyone else was nice and one of the ladies told me that the Sunday afternoon knit night at the pearl tea cafe tends to have a younger crowd...I may try that, though it will mean buying bubble tea (alas, the budget! Suppose I can afford $3.50 for a bubble tea, but still. Oh the guilt). I'm thinking I'll go once and see if everyone is all Young Hipster-ish (in which case, I will take my uncool-but-pretty Fair Isle tams and go back to knitting at the Hobbit Hole) or if they're friendly.

The project I brought to knit at the knit night was my baby bobble sweater, which isn't really a knit-in-public thing since it's complicated enough that you have to keep an eye on it. I brought a sock too in case things got really interesting, but since I didn't get to talk, I didn't switch to my sock. Anyway, the evening cemented my extreme dislike of the baby bobble pattern. HATE YOU PATTERN! It's so incredibly badly (confusingly) written and full of mistakes. None of them are all that hard to notice and figure out, but come on! How hard is it to do a test knit? I don't like having to second-guess a pattern. To be fair, I think a lot of problems may have come in translation, but I don't think that completely excuses them. So...LOVE the sweater, it's adorable and I think my cousin will love it, but HATE HATE HATE the stupid pattern. Grarrr.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Not a housewife.

I am not very good at the housewifely arts. This should be apparent to anyone who sees my house on a normal evening (yarn strewn EVERYWHERE, Tejas' clothes piled here and there, junk mail on the futon, floors in need of a mop, quick things like fish and asparagus for dinner), except that I usually try to contain the mess at least a little before we have visitors. I'm borderline untidy, and Tejas is just plain messy, and between the two of us we undo any cleaning in about thirty seconds flat. On the other hand, mess gets on my nerves--a few books on the floor and tousled sheets I can stand, but anything more starts looming in the back of my mind--so on Saturday I spent a couple hours picking up all sorts of assorted mess, mostly yarn I'd left in little caches and random stuff Tejas had left everywhere, and sweeping everything within an inch of its life. (I decided Tejas has to unpack his own bags from the Memorial Day trip to Portland. I just zipped 'em up and stuck them in a corner so they weren't so obviously messy. One has to draw the line somewhere.)

So now the Hobbit Hole looks pretty nice again, and just needs a scrub for the bathroom tub (I hate scrubbing the tub, especially since I gave up my nice effective toxic Comet scrub in favor of baking soda. Hate you, baking soda!) and a mop pretty much everywhere, and a good dusting. And then it will be Very Clean. And will remain so for approximately half an hour. Case in point: I cleaned the kitchen until it sparkled (except for the floor), and though we have cooked nothing in the meantime except fish, asparagus, fried eggs and oatmeal, it needs scrubbing again. Grr.

Have to say, I'm really glad Tejas and I lived together for quite some time before getting married--otherwise I'd worry about the non-housewifeliness and, you know, the yarn everywhere. As it is, well, he knows what he's getting (and so do I). I dislike scrubbing tubs, but I'm willing to do most of the cleaning and make him dinner most nights and lunch every day, and learn Indian cooking so he gets some familiar foods (my Vegetarian Indian cookbook = security blankie. I loaned it to a friend once and was SO nervous till I got it back). And he's messy and doesn't know how to clean much, but he does dishes and helps me carry laundry to the laundromat down the street and cooks dinner sometimes and breakfast every morning. And I know that he likes to sleep extra on the weekends, but doesn't mind if I listen to booktapes and knit while he's napping. It all works out pretty well, and it's nice to know that we actually like living in the same place, instead of it driving us crazy.

Lack of craftiness


I finished the fingerless gloves (pictures later--forgot the camera) and knit about an inch on the melon scarf, and that's about it! Not much done around the Hobbit Hole this weekend, what with all of Sunday spent helping at graduation. But it's A LOT CLEANER, gosh darn it!

Friday, June 15, 2007

We reach new heights of dorkiness.

Scene: campus post office
Me: Um, hi, I need to buy stamps for these letters. This one has to go to India, the rest are all normal.
Post office lady: Okay. [reaches for flag stamps]
Me: Actually, these are wedding invites. Do you have "love" stamps or something? Heart stamps?
Post office lady: No, we're all out! But you can go online and order them.
Me: Well, how about the forever stamps? They say "forever," right? Do you have them?
Post office lady: Oooh, yes we do! Look, they even match!! And the 90 cent stamp for India matches too! It was meant to be.

Tejas was highly chuffed with the forever stamp idea. Just enter us into the dictionary under "dork."

Cast-on-itis

I have this deadly malaise. First, there was the baby sweater. I longed for something made with worsted-weight yarn--anything bigger than the teensy little fingering-weight of sock yarn or the sport-weight of my blue sweater (which is a WOOP for now...more on that later). I was socked out. So I cast on for the baby sweater and chugged through the front and back. Hooray!
But that baby sweater is kind of involved, what with the cables and bobbles and all, and even if it's worsted weight, it goes kinda slowly and you have to pay attention. And the color is...not so colorful. So I cast on for the nice simple colorful hat. (And finished it! No lambasting me on this!) But the problem with quickie knits is that they're addictive--I want to knit another hat! Maybe three!

And in the meantime, Tejas asked me to make a lace wrap for his gramma (since she can't come to the wedding due to lack of passport, due to lack of birth certificate. Stupid colonial government)--I'm going to make the Melon Stitch Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. So of course I had to cast on for that, just to make sure the yarn looked okay in that gauge. (This is going to be my Big Involved Main Project right after I finish the baby sweater, because I have to finish it in time for Tejas' mom to take it back to India when she leaves. September 20th, folks. You've got to keep me motivated, or I'm not going to make it. Lace takes me a long time.)

And then my favoritest online yarn store, The Loopy Ewe, is running a charity drive for baby hats for an orphanage, and fingerless gloves for a girls' school in Russia, and the deadline is June 30th, so I figured I'd better make something. I'm sick of baby hats (there were those other charity things looking for baby hats...and then I knitted a bunch for the FIVE girls I know who had/will have babies this year) so I decided to make fingerless gloves. So they're on the needles too.

HELP HELP TOO MANY PROJECTS BURIED ALIVE! My knitting time this weekend will be devoted to reducing the number of projects on the needles--always good motivation. First up for annihilation: fingerless gloves!

[Pictures to come soon, of these projects and of the WOOPs I need to be shamed into finishing. I stole Tejas' digital camera but I need to remember to use it. It's the heat.]

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Ravelry

Have you knitterfolks checked out ravelry.com? I forget where I heard about it, but I signed up to test the beta version, and it's so cool! You can put in your stash info (excellent for keeping track of destashing and trying to remember how many balls of something you have, if you're a ditz like me and paper lists don't really cut it). People can put in their current project info--just because, I guess--and then when other people (like me) search for a pattern or yarn, it pulls up all that project info and their reviews. THIS IS SO AWESOME. I hate trying to search the web for a pattern or yarn, trying to find out if it's as good as it looks or if it has some hidden flaw that will make me despise it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. And I hate it when I write down the name of a pattern that looked really cool and then can't remember what website it was on. But here! You can just search! And up it pops!

Okay, so I don't really know if I'll use it that much, but hey! It's a really nice idea!

Quirks

I think everyone must have some knitting quirks. It's a law of nature. I am the sort of goofy person who spends a lot of time wondering what other people's quirks are and if I'm completely crazy or just kind of normally crazy. In the interest of full disclosure, here are the quirks that belong to me and Tejas (if I'm completely crazy, please don't tell me; I'd rather not know):
  • If I don't cast on a second sock immediately, I get distracted by another project and the second sock will not get done for at least three months. I've learned this the hard way. No matter how pretty I think the yarn/pattern/sock is now, something else will look prettier once the first one is done.
  • I don't like to look at my hands while knitting stockinette, garter, or sometimes even 1x1 or 2x2 ribbing. I can read and knit at the same time very easily, and it actually bothers me nowadays to look at "simple" knitting. So I save plain socks and stuff to do during books or lectures.
  • Knitting without looking at it was one of the most useful things I ever learned. (See knitting during lectures, above.) I am a fidgety sort of person and have trouble paying attention without something to occupy my hands. Knitting = lifesaver.
  • When I'm upset about something, I knit until all hours of the night. It doesn't make me less upset, but it's soothing. (Tejas knows by now that if I make a beeline for the needles and knit with grim intensity, I need a hug.)
  • I hate frogging things, so I ask Tejas to do it. He does it gleefully. (I'm thinking of hiding my WIPs....)
  • Knitting with bright colors, or lots of colors, makes me happy. I'm about five years old at heart.
  • I like having finished knitted stuff...but it's not really the point for me. I will happily you give my sweater that took seventy-five hours to knit, or my lace shawl that took about 150.
  • This might be because I love knitting lace, but I don't actually wear lace shawls very much. (At all.) (There's a pattern in Victorian Lace Today for a circular lace cape-y thing STRAIGHT out of Little Women and I want it with all my quirky little heart!! I would never wear it though, except maybe for halloween. But someday it will be mine!)
  • I can knit Continental, but it makes my fingers hurt and my gauge go wonky. So I knit English style even though it ought to be slower and I have to drop the yarn to switch colors. It's faster and easier for me.
  • I have never tried intarsia, for the simple reason that I've never seen an intarsia pattern I wanted to knit. (<3 <3 Fair Isle <3 <3)
  • If I make a (big) mistake, I get really annoyed and throw the project to the bottom of the knitting pile and refuse to touch it for another six months. I'm childish like that.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Crafty weekend!

This past weekend was pretty good for the crafting kobolds (you know, those little goblins in the craft cupboard that get miffed when you neglect their domain). Pretty much the only time I wasn't crafting was when Tejas* and I were at a lab goodbye party for some folks who are moving on to real life jobs.

*Yes, I have decided to use DF's name. "DF" sounds stupid and I keep having to go back erase "Tejas" all the time.

I meant to do some destash-knitting of the icky yarns at the bottom of my yarn box, but what did I do instead? Cast on my sister's pretty russet handspun yarn. I am so fickle. Only thing was, what with it being Friday evening late and me tired and sharing a glass of wine with Tejas while watching a movie and casting on midway through the movie...I forgot that I wanted a hat in single rib and did 2x2 rib instead. Ah, cruel fate. I paired the handspun yarn with some old-gold stuff from handpaintedyarn.com since I didn't think I had enough handspun for a ribbed hat. Also, I thought the combo would look nice and autumn-y:

Tejas took pictures of me dancing around wearing the hat at an early hour, pre-shower and -toothbrush. Admire the hat, forgive the wearer:


I have a little of the handspun and a lot of the old-gold leftover...I'm thinking of making a plain stockinette hat with them, maybe in a slightly larger gauge so the barberpoling of the handspun shows up better. (I can stare at the barberpoling for hours. I am so easily amused.)

I also knitted on the bobbly baby sweater for my cousin Katie's baby boy (lots of fun cause of the bobbles. Told you I'm easily amused). Here's the back:

I'm not so wild about the grey color, but I like the yarn (cotton/wool blend called "Bomull") pretty well, and they didn't have any brighter colors in superwash. And this was in my stash. (The bobble sweater was going to be knitted for Kabir, but I never got round to it. Like I said, fickle. I reserve the right to be fickle and irresponsible in my knitting.) The sweater is a hoodie thing that looks really cute, and my pattern goes up to a 5-yr-old's sizes! When we have kids (not for a long, LONG time...) I might have to make a new one in every size... :)

And finally, something you don't see just every day, here at The Hobbit Hole: (click for bigger image--sorry, I shrank it while deleting pertinent info)














Thursday, June 7, 2007

Of chicks & stashes.

We took the greyhound bus to Portland over Memorial Day weekend to see my folks and meet the pastor & caterer for the wedding. (Wow that sounds so official. The wedding is going to be a grand total of 20 people and the caterer is just a local Indian restaurant. But it's a REALLY GOOD local Indian restaurant.) The big attraction at my parent's house this time around is that my mom bought some baby chickens to raise for eggs:
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DF as the Animal Whisperer

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Good thing they didn't realize what he was going to do to their very distant relations, a few days later:
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On a completely unrelated note, I really hate being on a strict budget. I've been on one most of the time since I started college (I used to give nearly all my summer earnings and writing award money to my folks to help pay tuition, and just kept some of the during-the-semester money. Didn't amount to a whole lot.) except last year, when I got my stipend and relaxed to merely "on a budget" (loose not strict!). Especially when I was in college and my sister was insisting she didn't want to go, I had this horrendous fear of being solely financially responsible for her AND my parents AND all the pets. Which is total nonsense, but I'm the world's worst worrywart. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to get a good job and then my entire family would be out on the streets, eating rotting garbage out of dumpsters. (I was really happy when I got into grad school and got my stipend, and my sister showed signs of being willing to finish her batchelor's. I mean, between the two of us we could probably at least manage cat food and a cardboard shack.)

This year, DF's feckless advisor didn't keep proper track of his grants, and ran out of money. So DF has no stipend, and in fact had to pay back a quarter's worth of tuition because his advisor overdrew the account. (DF is too polite to call the advisor names, even to me, but let me tell you I've got some choice epithets for him.) That means we're living on my stipend plus our savings, which isn't exactly the end of the world, but it means we're on a really strict budget. Which means no yarn.

No yarn! I'm knitting from stash! I guess it's not all that bad, though my stash and I have a love-hate sort of relationship. Most (75%) of the yarn in it is either subpar stuff I bought as an innocent (stupid) youth before I knew what I was doing, or yarn left over from knitting other projects, or random gift yarn that I don't really have enough of to make something out of. A lot (LOT) of it is fingering weight or lace weight, because as every penniless knitter knows, you get a lot more knitting time for the buck with itsy bitsy skinny little yarns. Luckily a fair bit of the fingering weight is sock yarn that I bought last year in my sock yarn survey, and while some of that is also a bit subpar, I do have some nice stuff left. And socks take a long time to knit, so I've got a goodly amount of knitting time left before I'm totally out of yarn.

But in keeping with the spirit of the whole Knitting From Stash thing, I've decided I'm going to try and decimate my stash! Out with the old, the disliked and kinda ugly yarns! You will all be knitted up this year! Then, when DF graduates and gets his nice impressive job (pleasepleaseplease in six months like he hopes) and I get to buy yarn again, I will go on a mini yarn spree and buy Nice Yarn. The kind of yarn I used to save up for and beg my mom for at Christmas (she never wanted to get it because she said I didn't finish anything. I do, it just takes me a long time). Rowan and Fleece Artist and handspun sock yarn, yum. In the meantime, I'll ration out my beautiful yarns and knit up a lot of the ho-hum stuff in ways that make it pretty nice, and give some of the knitted stuff to charities like Afghans for Afghans (where I'm pretty sure nobody minds strange-lavender socks as long as they're nice warm wool).

So! My resolutions for the official Summer of Stash:
  • I will delve into the box that holds my worsted & bulky yarns and knit up a lot of hats. I like knitting hats, and my family is always leaving them everywhere, so we always need new ones. (I'll have to ration out the lovely handspun stuff my sister gave me. TWO HATS WORTH OF HANDSPUN, people. La la la lalalal love my sister :) )
  • But I reserve the right to buy one ball of black Shetland jumperweight wool to make my mom a replacement for the fair isle hat she lost, which she specifically asked me to remake for her. I think I've got enough left of the other colors.
  • I will knit up some more fair isle tams. I feel the need for complicated knitting.
  • I will finish the stupid three-quarters-knitting things that are laying around.
  • I will knit up at least one largish baby blanket for Afghans for Afghans. Also several hats. If I can bring myself to it, maybe some socks and a couple of baby or kid sweaters. My strange-lavender and strange-blue yarns, which are kind of funny colors but really soft and cushy and nice, will be dedicated to this.
  • Socks! Socks for all!! I'll try to make it out of this with really-not-much sock yarn left (though even if there is some left, I'll buy more when I can. Please. Sock yarn is like crack cocaine).
  • I'm ignoring the laceweight for now since it takes an ungodly long time to knit, and a lot of attention, and besides squishes down real small. Someday, though, I'm gonna knit a really nice lace shawl for DF's gramma.
  • I will knit lots of dishcloths and use up my dishcloth cotton, at least most of it. I haven't got too much, so it shouldn't be that bad.
  • THERE WILL BE NO WORSTED/BULKY WEIGHT REMAINING except bits too small to make into anything. I only have one mediumish box of the stuff, I ought to be able to use it up. Even the acrylic (this counts "nice" acrylic only. I have a couple skeins of Red Heart which are exempt, for a little while at least).
And these will be (among) my rewards, at such a date as we can afford them:
  • Another tape measure, one that rolls up so I don't drive myself crazy untangling it all the time.
  • Sock yarn. Lots and lots of lovely sock yarn. Lorna's Laces in cranberry or navy or periwinkle for fancy socks, green & white yarn for Spartans socks for my grandparents, Claudia's Handpainted and Fleece Artist in multicolors for plain socks. Oh yes, and handspun Sock Hop sock yarn. Drool...
  • Yarn for a sweater. Or maybe a couple of baby sweaters. Or whatever large project I most lust after at the demise of my stash.
  • One or two skeins of some fabulous, ridiculously fancy yarn. I want to go wander a yarn shop (maybe Northwest Wools...mm...) and pick out whatever catches my eye.
Let the great Stash Depletion commence! Expect knitting photos soon (I'm stealing DF's camera as soon as I get home!).

Monday, June 4, 2007

Testing, testing 1-2-3!

Hello? Hello?

As you guys might have seen, I'm switching to here because a) I feel like it and b) you can find the livejournal one too easily, leading me to neurotic fears of being fired from the lab because I complained about making growth curves or something. So this is my new blog, which will probably not be updated any more often than the old one, unless I get a lot less lazy. But you never know. Maybe I can figure out how to put those "percent project completed" thingies in the sidebar and shame myself into finishing a few things.

Lemon and chives refers to my lovely, lovely balcony at The Hobbit Hole, which suffers from the unfortunate drawback of not being located in Portland or at least in the woods. However, it does have a nice lemon tree downstairs (not mine, but nobody else picks the lemons, so it might as well be--and I want one of my own for the balcony!), chives that grow an inch a day, and a pot of herbs that I can't bring myself to use. Sage and dill because I don't really know what to do with them, cilantro because it became Cilantrozilla and grew four feet tall and bloomed--have to go wack off some usable bits today, really I do--lemon thyme because I have lemons, and johnny-jump-up violets because they are way, way too cute to eat.

Anyhoo, because I'm paranoid and neurotic (seriously. Ask anyone in the lab. I double check EVERYTHING, and I still make stupid mistakes.), I haven't decided if I'm using my name on this blog yet, or my fiance's, since, y'know, we have kind of an unusual combination. So for now, he will be DF for dear fiance, and I'll just be me.