Faina, I just met a girl named Faina

Are you all humming West Side Story now? Then my job here is finished.

Faina's Scarf

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Royal Alpaca, color 707, Patina, which I overdyed grass green. 288 yards/100g per skein, 2 skeins. I had 22g left over - about 60 yards.

Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo circulars, 3.5 mm (US 4)

Pattern: Faina's Scarf, available from Fiber Trends. Knit as part of the Faina Scarf-along!


Mofications: None besides my modified SSKs (explained below).

Notes about the yarn:
This stuff is fantastically, rub-your-cheek-against-it soft. I admit, had a gift certificate and splurged. I'm a little embarassed about the cost but this yarn is awfully nice stuff. Wen worked a project with it and thought it was softer than the cashmere she was using for a differnt project.

The alpaca's got a gorgeous drape to it. However, there's this one incongruous thing: as soft as it is to touch, it's just a little bit scratchy on my neck. Stupid neck. Enh, not scratchy enough that I care. I did manage to fluff it up a bit during the dyeing process, perhaps that's the cause.

The patina color was more brown than I was expecting, so I overdyed the yarn with an emerald green mix (1/2 primary yellow, 1/2 primary blue), hoping I would get mostly vibrant green toned down a bit by the brownish base color. I used Jacquard Acid Dyes purchased from Dharma Trading Co. I'm very pleased with the final color. In the pictures you can see some subtle shading, which is what I get when I try to dye wool yarn a solid color but I like the very small variegation.

For some inexplicable reason it's very hard to capture the color as I see it. Even natural light and neutral background doesn't do it. On the other hand, the yarn looks different even to me in different lights (I LOVE colors that do that), so I shouldn't be too hard on the camera. This blocking picture isn't soooo far off:


This yarn doesn't take a lot of frogging. After 3 ripped out beginnings, my cast-on was looking a little tired. The yarn didn't seem spun particularly tightly (who'd do that to gorgeous, drapey alpaca, anyway.)

Notes about the needles:
I used the same size needle as recommended. I probably could've gone down a size (or 2) but I liked the fabric produced with the 3.5 mm. I prefer bamboo or wood for lace; they are grabbier than metal, I naturally knit lace loosely, and I like to have more purchase on all those YOs and passovers. Bamboo also gives me a bit better control over stitch shape. I use circs almost entirely because I'm a big klutz and if I can drop a needle somewhere inconvenient, I will.

Notes about the pattern:
Very nice, well written, and not too difficult. I didn't run across any errors. At first, it seems as if a many-row-repeat (was it 100?) would be hell, but this one is very predictable. Not that I was able to memorize it, but I didn't have to watch the chart for every stitch after I finished the first body repeat. It's also very clear when you've made a mistake and forgotten a yarn over, and slightly less clear but still obvious when you've done a decrease wrong (or forgotten one). The stitch count stays constant each row during the body. I found the best preventative for errors was to stop and admire frequently.

I did modify the SSKs. I ripped out the beginning several times, once because my left-facing decreases (the SSKs) looked very sloppy. Instead of:
slip-as-if-to-knit, slip-as-if-to-knit, transfer both back to the left needle then knit them together through the back loop, I did:
slip-as-if-to-purl, slip-as-if-to-knit, transfer both back to the left needle then knit them together through the back loop.
I got this idea from the book Knitting Tips and Trade Secrets, Expanded from the Editors of Threads. For some reason, this straightened out my leftware decreases. They're not perfect, but they're not sloppy-looking either.

Old SSKs

New S(p)SKs

I've never slipped every stitch of every row before for a selvedge, and I found with this lace I had to be EXTREMELY loose in slipping the first stitch or the edging was far too tight. This was especially true for the beginning and end of the scarf, where the stitch count is increasing and decreasing, respectively. I ripped out the beginning a couple times because I was not allowing enough give on the edges.

I wove the ends in because my Russian joins look like crap with plied yarn. The yarn is fuzzy enough to grip itself firmly, and the ends are hidden either along the cast-on edge, cast-off edge, or in the seed stitch border and don't show at all. I was unhappy about how crappy my cast-on looked, so I used the weaving-in-the-ends opportunity to make it look a little better. The fringe also helps hide some of it.

Fringing! This was my first fringed scarf and I actually enjoyed it, despite the fringe boredom I've heard of. I made my fringe groups 3 strands each, about 21" length before folding in half. I chose to do fewer fringes than the picture, but did 4 instead of 3 fringes across the bottom (I learned this from quilting: if you try to divide something into 2 equal parts, it's very obvious if the middle line is even slightly off. Dividing an area into 3 instead of 2 makes the lines dividing the sections much less noticeable).

I fringed every 4th stitch up the sides, and I specifically did not tighten any of the knots until I had the fringe exactly how I wanted it. Then I tied the lower knots so that I liked them, then trimmed each grouping to approximately the same length from the scarf. Can you tell I'm anal-retentive about my fringe? It's like a Rorschach blot test, except I don't know what it says about my personality that I Enjoy the Fringe.


Blocking: I don't have blocking wires, so I used the thread-crochet-cotton-up-each-side method to get a mostly-crisp edge. Blocking helped to orthogonalize the wonky stockinette stitches, although it did nothing for my decreases. Alpaca doesn't have any give like wool does, so it's easy to get messy stockinette.

Also: wet alpaca smells BAD. I don't care how royal it is. Yes, I did a full, submerged-in-water wet block.

All in all, a fun knit! It went much faster after that first body repeat, once I realized the logical progressions of the pattern. Me and my glamorous Faina! (y'all can just ignore the head. Also, when did I turn blond?)

HOWdy

I've been (mentally) away, but for no good reason. Let's just say that every time I felt like writing, it just sounded hideous and whiny and boring. Not as if I've let that stop me before, but I didn't see the point. My raging narcissism was retrenched against the crushing self-doubt and didn't emerge from the trenches until lately. It's still got a sniper trained on it, so I don't know how lucid I'm going to be.

Damn, that makes THREE fire trucks I've seen today. Sorry, quick aside there.

The sky is doing what I call a Simpsons sky, with picture perfect soft blue shading to pale green on the horizon and big puffy cumulus clouds picking up the beginning yellows of the sunset. I bet Mt. Hood looks all regal and is starting to pink up. And Mt. St. Helens probably still looks flat.

For distraction, here are my neices:

NYC neice (two months shy of 2 years)
Talking, walking, and biting the heads off of chocolate bunnies. She has the most fabulous hair. I'm envious as I didn't have such cute baby hair. Her daddy and my love monkey both had those gorgeous blonde curls as babies, too.

Utah neice (two months shy of 1 year)
Just getting her teeth in and crawling everywhere. My brother says she took her first steps on Sunday.

Yo, I know, pictures of other peoples' relatives are the most boring ever. Tough.

We saw Utah girl at Christmas and she's changed so much even since then. We're thinking of going out to see NYC girl and her 'rents in late May or June. I hear it's kind of nice that time of year and we only ever visited once, 5 years ago (for the nuptials, so not a lot of sightseeing time).

----------------
I've just gotten so wrapped up in myself lately that I can't even seem to manage a fucking normal conversation with anyone anymore. I'm terrified of talking to people. When did THAT happen? And for this last month I've been not coping well. A cookie a day makes the depression go away (for a couple minutes). I'm not a binger nor an overeater. I've just got a raging sweettooth that I haven't had the willpower to control lately. Or I should say chocolatetooth.

And winetooth. My lovely alcohol. Although I have come to the conclusion that I get my hangovers early. I just can't marathon drink. Any more than a couple or three hours and I feel like death, although I'm fine in the morning.

Even the Red Cross rejected me. Not enough iron; I failed the hemocrit at 1% lower than the cutoff. We've rescheduled for this Saturday and I'm taking iron supplements and hopefully those little red blood cells have been reproducing. It's not unusual, I've been turned away before.

By the way, the R.C. called (I was JUST past the 2 month deadline) because their blood supply for certain types is at extremely low levels. It's not Christmas, neither has there been a national disaster nor anyone I know is dying, and I know not everyone is able to donate (K the Love Monkey himself passes out) but please consider blood donation right now if you meet the criteria. Your blood could make a real, concrete difference in someone else's life.

Kicking ass and taking names

Do you ever just want to be someone else? Something else? Just like magically transform in another person entirely? (uh, besides physically)

I'm tired of feeling all wussy and inadequate; it's time to let that inner bitch out again.

Helpful socialization hint of the day:
If you're riding public transit, DO NOT DISCUSS your private sexual kinks in loud voices. They do not turn me on. Slapping each other and various riffs off "you know you want it bitch" and "you sure know how to please a man in bed" make me want to puke out the window. Except the window doesn't open.

The best part was when the girl said "you know what I hate, when the cops push you down and then shove their knee in your neck. I hate that, it hurts." "Yeah, that hurts a lot" replied her boyfriend. Then they got off and headed to the Nordstrom Rack.

Spring

I've been taking a photo a day (or more, or sometimes forgetting) this year. Some random meme I ran across. Mostly it's just an excuse for me to take as many pictures of anything that I feel like. It's also a way to recapture a little bit of the time that seems to be slipping by so quickly. Bah. Too much wine, too much philosophizing.

New apple blossoms

Flowering plum

Glorious unapologetically orange ranunculus

Leo needs a new pair of shoes

New rose leaves in the morning after a rainy night

Not quite so menacing

Does not play well with others

Ann & Kay of Mason Dixon Knitting are visiting Portland this week -- Wednesday afternoon. The yarn store isn't close by but it's not far either. To go or not to go.

I'd like to meet them and hear them read/talk/throw mitered squares into the air, since I find their blog entertaining and I think they'd be entertaining too in person. Some people have mentioned how their book makes them feel free to play around with yarn, to experiment with pattern and color and texture. I think that's fantastic, because it's my personal belief that my entire culture is losing that feeling of playfulness. People don't sing, because they're not good enough and the message is that they should Leave That To the Professionals. Or dance or joke make movies or write books. Because we're just amateurs and why bother when THE PROFESSIONALS do it so much better? Anything that encourages people to be creative, to think on their own - I think that's valuable and useful. Just because I don't do dishclothes (another story, not for now) doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy listening to Ann & Kay.

But I'm hesitant and torn, see? Because the last time I did one of these Big Author Events (last year's Yarn Harlot signing), I felt so profoundly alienated I felt alone for days. It's perverse, considering I was, for the first time, completely surrounding by masses of knitting women. My people. People who laugh at the cardigan/pullover joke. People whose eyes glitter and shine when you talk about yarn instead of glazing over with boredom. People who understand your obsession with decreases.

Yet in all that crowd, they all seemed to know each other, and nobody knew me. They were all very polite, I'm not saying otherwise, I just felt as if it was at a big cocktail party for the wrong company. Everybody was there with their own friends. And I didn't know how to break in. Did I even want to break in?

It's me, OK, not anyone else who's doing this to me, but just me. I don't blame anyone but my nasty twisted psyche. If I weren't quite so sequestered into my own personality, if I practiced harder at my socialization skills, I would have joined into the conversations, been less on the fringes and more involved. It's just hard, and I don't know if I have the energy for it. I don't want to cope with the alienation again right now (I also would prefer not to stand again for 3 hours, but hopefully I could get there early enough to get a chair. Or a bit of floor).

I know part of my reticence is because I work almost entirely with men. I'm extremely bad and out of practice with talking to women, face to face. I'm also, how do I say this?, not so good at the acting-like-a-girl thing. I identify as female, I just don't do a lot of the same things most women I know do. I don't even want to get into some gender-identity argument, I'm just staing facts. My mother-in-law, who is much better at the girl thing, and I get along best of all when we're both extremely drunk.

So there you go, too much information about my psychological hangups. I should just get over myself and go, huh?

Wax Philosophical

I could, but no. I'm feeling all babble-ey. Babble babble babble. After almost a week of feeling not full of words at all. Now, lots of words, just not useful ones.

The moon is waxing. Good enough?

First I am sad because I can't make it to the ASK hookup in L.A. this weekend. I had this crazy insane scheme of flying down there and crashing the party with some Kahlua fudge. I was looking forward to actually meeting some of these cool people in person, despite that I am terrified they would think I was boring and annoying and a killjoy. The Scheme was not so crazy, really, because sometimes Alaska or Southwest offers these last minute el-cheapo plane fares, but there was no joy in Mudville for this weekend. So. lame.

Second I had hot pot for lunch (shabu shabu - uh, like the scene in Lost in Translation where they are at the restaurant and she says "you have to cook your own food? This is the worst restaurant ever". It's really pretty good ("really" "pretty"-- arggh, SUCH descriptive adjectives), like a cross between a buffet salad bar and fondue (broth, not cheese).) But I go there with these coworkers and they are very snarky and bitter and really I can't take so much cynicism right now so I can only handle lunch with them once a month or so. This also makes me sad because I miss eating lunch with people, but people don't seem to do it here (except snark group).

Third, Faina is blocked and I wove in the ends. The alpaca was more slippery for end-weaving than I was expecting. I didn't use Russian joins because they look like ass when I do them for most yarn. The blocking really evened up the stockinette but did nothing for my somewhat wonky decreases. I'm over it.

Third.5: I am afraid of The Fringe, which I have never done before. I am afraid I will be VERY ANAL about the length of The Fringe and position of the knots.

Fourth, I'm inexplicably reluctant to just forge on ahead with the whole blog hosting thing. What am I scared of?

Fifth, Spring proceeds apace. My peas are up. HOORAH! Still waiting to see if the Echinacea seeds are a complete bust.

Sixth, Wen sent me yarn and other cool stuff! Fabulous red Lacey Lamb that I have been lusting after for ages and ages. She also sent a plethora of fabulous things (the candy is already gone gone gone). I was floored when I got the box. I gotta post pictures. Thank you!

Seventh, Zoe sent me yarn too! Floored #2! It's wonderful, wonderful Socks that Rock, a whole other skein to finish off the Pomatomous socks (and another pair after that, there'll be plenty left over), and TWO (2!) other skeins in a gorgeous pinky-peachy-brown. Thank you!

Eighth, I have news. I sold a pattern I designed! I'm still reeling. I'm working on the sample now.

Ninth, messing about with the camera. This one was the best of the bunch. I think I look kind of worried.

Woop woop!

Friday WOOOOOOOO!

I cast on for some socks last night, my own pattern, and worked more than an inch and was just about to start the pattern when a big yarn mump appeared before me. One of those big unspun bits that you can NEVER disguise. I'll have to cut the yarn and start over.

However, I DON'T CARE, because it's FRIDAY! HOORAY!

And it was actually a productive day for me, AND the weather is GORGEOUS today (hello, sunny and 65 degrees), AND I will be walking to a microbrewery for dinner tonight, oh yes, I will NOT BE DENIED. The air is perfumed with the scent of jasmine and sweet box and weigela and the birds are... well, the birds are asleep, but the possoms and raccoons are trundling about.

Even wild blackberries look beautiful when they're popping out new leaves.

Aw, the hell with it, I'm in a good mood. Let's post another flower pic. Call it dye inspiration:

Mental Meh

It has been a loose ends kind of week.

The Daylight Savings Time switch, better known as Jet Lag for the Entire Nation, did me in. I still haven't caught up. Every day I have to rip myself out of bed and I'm just not feeling like negotiating with the universe today. I'd rather have stayed in bed.

Every day's work feels like more and more pedantry. I'm proud of my efforts and I like to do a job well, but lately it's hard to make myself care. Yo ho ho and a bottle of ruination.

ANYWAY

Faina's main body is DONE. Woop woop! I cast off Tuesday night. Now she just needs a block and some fringe. Block and Fringe! It always sounds like "lock and load" in my head. I think block first, then fringe, but I have never done The Fringe before. I might have to re-do the cast-off first, it looks a little too tight.

Now I'm casting about trying to figure out what's next. What with my lack of concentration and just general flightiness lately, I really want something IN PROGRESS RIGHT NOW. Something I do not have to think about. Lace is fine, lace can be Follow-The-Charts,-You-Automaton which is great because I still feel as if I'm accomplishing something even though I'm plopped on the couch, vegetating. Geez, I haven't even felt like starting the new video game K bought lately.

There are several things I *want* to do, and several UFOs, but I just don't feel enough energy to care. And I need a new commuter knit, dammit. K's raglan needs some love, and there's a partially finished baby sweater that looks at me sadly from the knitting basket. I've thumbed through sock recipes and everything is looking distinctly meh (it's just me, they looked a lot better pre-loose-end-period).

BAH. Need more braincells! Send neurons fast!

Looking for Yarn in All the Wrong Places

Thank you for the suggestions on what to do on the Pomatos. Heh, signature orange toe. I would feel better about doing that if I hadn't already finished and woven in all the ends on the first sock. Also I might be more inclined if I happened to have some complementary sock yarn lying about, but I don't. I may just suck it up and buy another skein. I can always just make another pair of socks, some plain vanillas that don't slurp up as much yarn as do all those twisted stitches in the Pomatomus.

I'm flirting with an idea right now of making a need yarn/got yarn website. It would superficially similar Good Yarn Karma, but allow you to post requests for specific kinds and dyelots of yarns that you needed. The site would also also allow people to offer extra partial or odd balls for swap or payment.

The site would be MUCH less hands-on than Good Yarn Karma, as I don't have that kind of time in my life. Instead of a blog, it'd have a more automated format: submit a request or offer by form, then let people respond to that request or offer. The site also would NOT be involved in arranging and guaranteeing payment and shipment -- it would only help connect the yarn-less with the yarn-enabled, who'd then figure out their own exchange. There'd be a search functionality so you wouldn't need to comb through all the posts to find something.

It'd be somewhat like the skein list that yarn store owners keep. The goal would be to connect people with extra skeins with people who need them. I see requests all the time for needing just one extra or partial skein of X in dyelot Y. What do you think? Would such a service be useful? Or would it be unnecessary or easily abused?

ARGGGGH

I didn't make it.

And not even close enough to just fudge the decreases.
Anyone got about 10 yards of Socks That Rock lightweight in the color Puck's Mischief?

Yeah, didn't think so.

Friday Night Sock Smackdown

FRIDAY!   FRIDAY!!   FRIDAY!!!

ONE NIGHT ONLY


LameSockKnitter Co. Presents:

The End of the Sock

Big Alice & her Pomatomus socks go HEAD TO HEAD! You've NEVER SEEN this kind of action!

Marvel at the 24 decreasing rows left to the final sock -- only the toe to go!
Gasp at the dwindling yarn supply!
Wonder at the seething inner passions and denouement of the Pomatomus socks!

Will she make it!? Will she complete the pair with a SINGLE SKEIN of SOCKS THAT ROCK?

This Friday night only! No repeat performances!

We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need THE EDGE!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I don't think I'm going to make it.

Roses, before and after

These are kind of bigger-than-normal images, so click for bigger. I apologize that they're somewhat hard to see, too.
Roses, before prune.


Roses, after prune.

(The stuff underneath is St. John's Wort, which grows wild here. I like how it looks and I REALLY like the big yellow blossoms in summer, so I let it be)

They look decimated, don't they? They actually prefer it and will grow much better and stronger after this. Pain in the bazunga to do it, though. Just because I imagine I can hear plants screaming.

Whole lot of nothing

Roses: pruned
Faina Scarf: slightly over halfway (about 20 rows into the 3rd main chart)
Floors: vacuumed
Tasty Sunday Brunch: consumed
Yarn: fondled
Guest Room: cleaned out of all the junk that accumulates there.
Studio: disaster area
Weather: too nice to be stuck inside today.
Peas: pre-sprouting

Hmm, I guess I accomplished more than I thought I did this weekend.

Ugh I hate pruning roses. The inner perfectionist makes a play for dominance and I spend hours squatting down looking for outward facing buds and agonizing over which branches to cut. I like roses and all but I once read a quotation calling roses the "Poor sickly children of the flower world" and boy howdy do I resonate with that. They get EVERY disease. I think the black spot and rust is endemic now. And the camellia is trying to eat the red one (perhaps because the camellia is also red?).

On the other hand, the blooms are nice and my goodness you can cut those suckers down to nothing and they don't care, they LIKE it. I always feel like I'm decimating the roses when I cut them. Ha. Sickly yet tenacious. It gets easier to prune as I go along, once I get the first few thorn puncture wounds.

I didn't put them in, we purchased the house avec rose bushes, and when I first hit the Net trying to find out to prune them - HA HA HA. Because every pruning manual ever written assumes you have perfect new roses and not hoary old things with stems that are inches thick. INCHES. I have to use a saw to cut things out sometimes. No way can I form a "perfect 5-fingered open hand" or cut them down to 1 foot. So I just kind of try to thin them out, cut them down to not very tall but generally not into the old wood. Whatever. Only one's died on me so far. And that was probably from the black spot, rust, and lack of light. Yeah, for sure. Not me at all.

The old(er) previous owners had a Thing for Pink, as ALL of the flowering things in the backyard are pink (except the lilac, which I think was planted after the era of the pink-lovers). Roses? All pink. (And all hybrid teas. FEH). Rhododendron, azalea, even a Mountain Laurel (Kalmia) - pink. Let us not forget the pink tulip bulbs. Oh yeah, and except for the hydrangea. Which can be made to bloom pink.

I gotta go to Powell's technical tonight because Microsoft is making my life HELL and it'd be nice to know why, and please please please to make it stop.

Public Knitting

It's raining today (as it has been all week, not to make you think that the weather's unusual), but it's heavier than a drizzle and steady and the air is completely saturated. I wore my full hazmat raingear to walk to work today: 100% waterproof ripstop nylon, baby, and none of that breathable crap either, that stuff leaks after 10 minutes. I may make a dorky swishy sound with every step, but by heaven and hell I'll have dry jeans.

Some extremely stoned-sounding man on the train today said "Yo, what you knittin', bro?" He then apologized once I turned around and revealed my gender. I displayed the current sock and described its sockiness (I'm used to the excuse-me-sir by now. I doesn't annoy me, I'm kind of big and it's any easy mistake. What pisses me off is that the catalog for Patagonia had many women's clothes that crested in a size L but their men's clothes went to XXL. Thanks, Patagonia, I see there's no double standard AT ALL). He told me his grandmother had taught him how to knit a long time ago but he'd kind of forgotten. I should have encouraged him to knit again but I wasn't feeling very chipper this morning and I don't think on my feet quickly, especially in the morning.

Now that the current sock has its heel turned, it actually does look like most of a sock and not some stylin' fabric tube. Which is a boon to identification during random train encounters. That makes 2 this week, a bit of a record: Wednesday was the "Oh, look at YOU! You're doing needlework!" lady, who really was quite nice despite how she came off in that exclamation.

My favorites were the teenage girls who were completely engrossed in what I was doing. They kept asking these questions in awed voices. And people, I am not cool. I do not look cool or sound cool or act cool. But they thought my knitting was cool. There's a reason why I stick with DPNs--makes me look like some kind of badass look-what-I-can-do-with-toothpicks knitter.

Blush

I'm flattered by all of your attention in my Random Things I Like list; it was fun to compile. Run with it, I love reading all your lists! I get these great mental pictures reading them, like Pacalaga sitting on the deck and scratching her dogs' ears and laughing with her kid.

And nah, I'm not terminally depressed, it was just a bit of a cold grey day and I'm doing something at work that isn't exactly attention-grabbing and I was (ahem) daydreaming a bit since Spring's been a kind of fickle mistress this year and keeps tease, tease, teasing. Hey, I stayed late afterwards. Also, I can't seem to stop writing as if I were a nature-obsessed prose poet. Shoot me now.

Kristen made an impassioned plea to escape the tyranny of blogger comments and use haloscan, but I've just been too damn lazy to figure out why I don't have the necessary options on my interface. Or even to switch hosting. Um, yeah. Maybe this weekend?

She also pointed out this awesome little utility which will generate email-me pictures so as to foil spammers. How cool is that? However, I'm going to keep my pleasantly techno-crude current image for now, mainly because it made her laugh :)

Carol, if you're ever up in Oregon, or I ever happen to be in Florida, we're on for a Twilight Zone marathon. Yes, we've got stars at night here (when it's not cloudy. Which is a lot of the winter), though not a whole lot. It's still in the city-ish, but it's not that big of a city.

Thanks all for the comments on Faina, I appreciate the love.

Faina's Scarf: Pilgrim's Progress

I actually did cast-on for Faina's scarf on February 14th. I'm just too lazy to have posted pictures. Here's a "dry block" of my current progress:

I love the yarn, it's amazingly soft, and the pattern is fun. I just have to stop and admire FREQUENTLY, so I catch all my missed yarn-overs before having to rip out multiple rows.

Thanks for all the well-wishes on the cold, I used it as an effective excuse to not do much besides sit around and knit most of that weekend, so I'm about 3/5 done with the scarf.

I cannot capture the green of the scarf with a camera, which I guess makes sense seeing as the color looks different to me depending on what light I'm knitting in. Aw yeah. I love complex shades like that. You can also tell it's a home dye job, since it's got small variations in the color. One of the ugly secrets of home dyeing: it's difficult (to impossible, especially with wool) to get completely even colors. If you want even color, dye the roving, not the yarn. I happen to like the slight variegation, it makes the yarn more interesting to me.

Frances the attention hog cat

Catbutt!
I ripped out the first chart twice. First time, the slip stitches on the ends of the rows weren't loose enough. Even though I'm now being very loose (knitting, not morally, Rabbitch) on those side stitches, I'm still worried they're going to be too tight when I stretch out the lace. I don't know how I'd be looser at this point, though.

Second time, I got farther but then ripped because my SSKs look like complete ass (that's the technical term, you know). UGGGGggy. I wasn't at all certain they'd even out with blocking.

They looked sloppy compared to the K2Togs and I couldn't figure out how to get them even. I tried making them tight, loose, and tugging on the 2nd stitch vs. the first. I somewhat have this problem with socks too, but the tension seems to be tight enough that it doesn't really bug me that much, and washing does even it out.

I finally went with a modified SSK: slip 1 knitwise, slip 1 purlwise, insert left needle through front loops of slipped stitches then knit them together. I got this idea from the Knitting Tips & Trade Secrets book that I got for Christmas from the 'rents. A very close look reveals that 2nd twisted stitch, but I don't much care because they're coming out more even (not completely though, which irks my inner perfectionist). It also helps to carefully not stretch the stitches when I slip them.

Now I'm at the point where I'm faced with the eternal scarf question: should I add another repeat to make it longer? I think have enough yarn....

Also, I'm vaguely entertaining the idea of knitting it halfway, knitting another half halfway, then grafting them together. Am I insane? Would this look awful? Could I pull off the grafting if I did it on a purl row?

An effort to think positively today

Random things I like

• Garlic
  
• Very fresh butter
  
• the way grass moves in waves when blown by the wind
  
• the feel of silk charmeuse
  
• The Princess Bride, by Willim Goldman (referring here to the book. The movie's pretty good too, but I'm thinking of the book today)
  
• pale green of new spring leaves
  
• tulips
  
• seeds
  
• fresh sugar-snap peas
  
• blue hydrangeas
  
• Frances the cat, purring as she sits on my chest
  
• bird tracks in the sand
  
• tasty BEvERages
  
• sleeping
  
• bouncy, springy wool yarn
  
• D'Affinois brie
  
• grilled salmon
  
• GOOD chocolate chip cookies
  
• drinking and eating and talking on the back patio on a summer evening as the stars come out
  
• fresh raspberries picked from the vine
  
• bouquets of dahlias from the Farmer's market
  
• candlelight
  
• blueberry pie
  
• Twilight Zone marathons (oh yes, so horribly cheesy and dated and slow-paced, but I like the concept of T.Z. Marathons)
  
• DVD players
  
• massive summer thunderstorms in the desert
  
• sound that snow makes when it's falling
  
• EuroRails (it's a board game)
  
• Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade
  
• Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon
  
• the clouds scudding quickly across the sky
  

Long time, no blog

Thank you all for the compliments on the grey cable-twists socks. EXACTLY as you say - just enough pattern to make them interesting, yet still easily memorized and compliant with the Not-Too-Fancy K requirement. Like ribbing++

Sorry I haven't been around. I submitted a design to the Purlescence Storytellers competition and was scrabbling to get that all together. I'm not expecting much of it because I am TRULY AWFUL at drawing. Truly. My sketch of my lace stole looks as if it's demonically posessed. I always failed art classes in elementary school, my only shameful minuses on the whole report card. I took woodshop in junior high just so I could avoid art. And because bandsaws are cool. If nothing comes of the contest, maybe I'll finish up the design post it here.

Then last-last Saturday I picked up a cold from somewhere, and even though for 2 days I managed to keep it confined to my throat (and thought I was over the hump), Tuesday was the Great Snotfall and Achiness. I'd been trying to Zinc and Vitamin-C it to death and been drinking so many liquids I had to pee every hour, on the hour. Wednesday I caved and bought some Airborne to try. Because, see, Wednesday night K & I left for a little romantical vacation for 4 days.

Fortunately I felt much better on Thursday and mostly completely healthy by Saturday. No Pseudoephedrine-enhanced benadryl supplies were exhausted. We had a good time and K got some respite from the annoying, frustrating, and long hours he's been spending at work for some months. It's awfully nice to sit in cushy chairs in a warm room, with a lovely view, and have people bring you good beer.

Plus I didn't have really much to say lately.

Not like I have much to say today. But hey, travel and airports are sure conducive to lots of knitting time. I'm past the heel of a Pomatomus already. (Faina didn't come along for the ride, since it's not a great travel knit (too many charts to be checking all the time)). Day-umn. It took me WEEKS to do the first one last fall.

First sock: 51 grams
Yarn leftover for second sock: 52 grams
It's going to be a close one.

Grey Cable-Twist Socks

Hey, another pair of socks! These ones for K:

Pattern: Cable Twist Socks from Hello Yarn (actually, I used only the stitch pattern and went my own way for the rest)

Yarn: Rowan 4 Ply Soft in color 372: Sooty (a steel grey). 100% superwash merino wool. I used 2 balls + part of a 3rd (there were 35 g left on the 3rd ball). Each ball: 191 yards/50 g. Purchased from Woodland Woolworks.

Needles: 2.25 mm (US 1) Lantern Moon wooden DPNs

Gauge: 7.5 st/inch, 10 rows/inch in stockinette

Notes about the yarn: very soft, squishy, and elastic, and not easily split. Two thumbs up!, a pleasure to knit with, although pricey if you need that 3rd ball. I don't know how well it will wear, but it's got a tight twist to it.

Notes about the needles:I like to use wooden double-pointed needles or magic loop. I avoid ladders in the socks by:
1) hiding the needle change in a purl trough - lots of those in this sock.
2) working the first stitch of the next needle, then putting the needle into the 2nd stitch, and then tugging to tighten up the first stitch and the join. This tends to work better for wool than cotton.

I used 2.25 mm needles which produced a firm fabric. It's not as bouncy as the original yarn, but K liked it better than the 2.75 mm and it'll probably hold up better to wear.

Pattern notes:
I used the stitch pattern from the original and crafted the rest of the sock from generic sock patterns and my own head.

The pattern isn't difficult, is easy to memorize, and gives you a nice cable effect without the cabling. All the cables on those socks are left twists: just work the 2nd stitch first, then slip the first. This is essentially the same as cabling without a cable needle, using only 1 stitch to cross. The ribbing it produces is very springy! However, it still was too small to fit over K's feet, so I added a couple more repeats. These still fit firmly on his feet, but not restrictively.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My version of the pattern:

Leg:
Cast on for 10 repeats of the pattern, instead of 8 (10 x 7) = 70 stitches.
If you wish to do calf shaping, cast on 10 additional stitches = 80 stitches.
I cast on only 75 stitches and you can't hardly tell there's any calf shaping. If I did it again I'd do 80.
The stitch pattern is 5 knit/2 purl, with the cable shaping happening over the 5 knit group.
Calf shaping: Work 5 knit/3 purl for about an inch, then switch to stitch pattern, still working 5 knit-cabled/3 purl. Work about 4 repeats of the pattern then purl-2-together over 2 purl stitches in every 3 purl group = 70 stitches.

Work stitch pattern until leg is long enough, ending with the final stitch pattern row.

Heel flap (I used a plain old slip-stitch heel flap):
Assuming your stitches are arranged as follows:
needle 1: 5 knit, 2 purl, 5 knit, 2 purl, 5 knit, 2 purl
needle 2: 5 knit, 2 purl, 5 knit, 2 purl
needle 3: 5 knit, 2 purl, 5 knit, 2 purl, 5 knit, 2 purl
needle 4: 5 knit, 2 purl, 5 knit, 2 purl
And you are at the very beginning of needle 1:

Knit 18 stitches, k2 together (this will be 1 knit and 1 purl knit together). Turn work
Purl 34, turn.
The non-purled stitches will be worked later as the instep)
(One each end you are dividing the 2 purls into 1 purl held on the instep to work later, and 1 purl to be involved in heel shaping.)
1. (Sl 1, K1) across, turn.
2. Sl 1st stitch, Purl back
Repeat rows 1 & 2 for a total of 17 times (34 rows total)
Now repeat row 1 one more time

Turn heel (34 stitches to start):
You should be starting with the wrong side facing you, after that final #1 row from above.
Sl 1, P 17, P2 together, P 1, turn.
Sl 1, K 3, SSK, K 1, turn.

Now, repeat the following 2 rows until you have no more stitches left. On the final repeat you won't be able to do the last P 1 and K 1. No worries.
1. Sl 1, purl to 1 stitch before the gap. P2 tog, P 1.
2. Sl 1, knit to 1 stitch before the gap. SSK, K 1.

Gusset:
Pick up and knit 18 stitches across the side of the heel, one for each slip-stitch loop on the edge + one at the end where it looks kind of loose. I always tend to pick up 19-20 stitches, instead of 1 per slip-stitch loop. If you do so, just decrease the stitches using a few judicious K2tog or work the gusset a little longer. A couple stitches REALLY doesn't matter much at this gauge.

I tried Grumperina's Pretty Way of picking up stitches and I like the effect. It gives a nice taut edge with a neat pattern. I twisted every stitch I picked up, as she directs. This has been the best thing for me to avoid the dreaded "gusset gap" when you join instep and heel.

After picking up 1 side, work the instep stitches IN PATTERN--just start a new repeaton the cable pattern. You should start with a purl 1 and end with a purl 1.

Pick up and knit about 18 stitches on the other side of the heel. Knit half of the back stitches onto the same needle you used to pickup/knit the heel stitches.

Rearrange your stitches so that you have the following:
Needle 1: starts at the very back of the heel, includes half the heel stitches and left picked-up stitches. I also move the 1 lonely purl from beginning the patterned instep to this needle.
Needle 2: all the patterned instep stitches, minus the 2 purls at the ends. If it's awkward to hold, break the stitches on this needle up into 2 needles.
Needle 3: the lonely purl at the end of the patterned instep, all the right picked-up stitches, and the first half of the heel stitches.

Next row, start the gusset decreases:
Repeat these 2 rows until you have 20 stitches (18 knits, 2 purls) on needles 1 & 3 (33 stitches on needle 2) = 73 stitches total
Round 1:
Needle 1: K to 5 stitches before the end. K2 tog, K 1, P 2
Needle 2: work in pattern
Needle 3: P 2, K1, SSK, K to end
Round 2:
Needle 1: K until 2 stitches before end, P 2
Needle 2: work in pattern
Needle 3: P 2, K until end.

Foot:
At this point, work the toe straight, knitting the knits, purling the purls, and working the cable pattern section in pattern. Work until you are about 2 1/2" inches before the end of the toe, ending with the last cable pattern.

Why all the purl 2 fuss? Because I wanted the cable pattern on the foot to be framed by 2 purl troughs, of 2 purls each, just like the purl trough from the top of the sock. You can see this effect best in the "wearing" shot below, where the stitches are stretched out.

Note on the picking up the gusset stitch: to be totally correct, you would need to PURL the first stitch you picked up on the right heel, and PURL the last stitch you picked up on the left heel, to keep the pattern from the top continuing exactly.

I tried this on the 2nd sock, but a) it was really awkward to purl and twist the stitch, and b) I think it actually looked worse than picking it up and knitting it with a twist, at least using the Grumperina pick-up method. So I say, just go with the knit-twist.

Toe:
*** this first part is important to a balanced toe!
Move the 2 purl stitches at the end of needle 1 to needle 2.
Move the 2 purl stitches at the beginning of needle 3 to needle 2.
Needle 1: 18 stitches
Needle 2: 37 stitches
Needle 3: 18 stitches
total: 73 stitches

Work one row all knit. (I didn't do this, but would have, because the purls look funny if you go straight into the toe decreases)


Work the following 2 rounds 9 times (until 9 stitches each on needles 1 & 3=37 stitches total)
Round 1:
Needle 1: Knit to 3 stitches from end, K2 tog, K 1
Needle 2: K 1, SSK, knit to within 3 stitches of end, K2tog, K 1
Needle 3: K 1, SSK, knit to end.
Round 2:
Knit entire round

Next, work Round 1 every round 7 times, stopping before you work needle 3 the very last round (you're going to leave the yarn at the end of needle 2).
Needle 1: 2 stitches
Needle 2: 5 stitches
Needle 3: 3 stitches.

Transfer Needle 3's stitches to Needle 1 and graft the toe closed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These have been done for a couple weeks but I wanted to get an Action Shot. K liked them so much, he wouldn't remove them from his feet after this pick. A successful socking!

stupid blogger

Making us all switch to the new one. If it's not clear already, I'm not much of an early adopter. To mutilate a quotation: "I do not like CHANGE unless I MAKE IT MYSELF."

Fuck this, I'm going to get hosted and do Wordpress.

Haloscan comment wizard isn't working for me, probly because I'm on a Mac.

I drove today so I could leave early for an optometrist's appointment. Then I left my lights on by accident and my battery ran down. Then I locked the keys in the car. Afterwards I ran fast and just caught public transit and ran just fast enough to arrive in time for my appointment. Then I walked home. Happy fucking valentine's day.

Faina's Scarf Prep

La wants some yarn porn (isn't that Baby Alpaca Silk enough, honey?), so here's the yarn I'm intending to use for Faina's Scarf.

It's Blue Sky Alpaca's Royal Alpaca and it's baby's buttcheek soft. Yes, from the stash; what, you think I have no self control? Well, I didn't when I was buying this, but that's what you get when you give me a gift certificate and say "limited edition" and "alpaca" in the same sentence.

I bought it in color Pewter from an online store, and I thought that the color would be a sophisticated soft olive green. It arrived and was much more brown than I expected. Now, I love me a good brown, but deep in the gray winter, brown isn't really turning my crank, so I set it aside until I had a better idea of what to do with it.

Last weekend I dyed it up. Jacquard acid dyes, 1 tsp each of blue and yellow (I forget which blues and yellows I purchased: probably sapphire blue and sun yellow).

It's now this lovely shade of vibrant green that I ADORE. I could hardly wait until it dried so I could ball it up. Every time I walk in that room I have to pet it. It'sa deep grass green but sophisticated-deep, not dark-deep. This picture is crap but it kind of reflects what I feel about this yarn: it GLOWS

Does alpaca stick to itself after dyeing? Because if it doesn't I may have felted it a teeny tiny bit. Not much but I had to tug a little strands to get them to separate when I was converting it to a center-pull yarn mass. I was very, very careful about the temperature differentials and agitation while it was hot. Maybe I am too much of an agressive rinser? It doesn't look any more or less hairy than before, and I've got no dreadlocks, so I'm not worried.

Gratuitous pictures because I feel like it:
Dedicated to today's break in the Winter greyness:a view from my office window during a pretty sunset last week. I love how the quality of light changes during the day, and especially how it colors things at sunset and dawn.

And for my Bob Esponja fans:

The Fug

Wen, just for you and red Lacey Lamb do I drag the fugly out of the closet.

This loveliness is the first shawl I ever knit. Back in the L.B. (Lion Brand) Era, when I'd first started knitting but didn't know such things as Local Yarn Stores existed.

This next one is a bit blurrier but truer to color. I haven't messed with the color saturation/hue/brightness at all. Natural but slightly dark lighting.

I telecommuted to work and at that time I was a new knitter, obsessed, and didn't have anything to knit (patterns? Where do I get those from?). Hadn't yet discovered the knit blogs, knitty, just about anywhere except the Lion Brand Pattern site. Oh yes.

I also was on the phone in boring meetings A LOT and was desperate for some knitting. I picked that shawl pattern and went to find some yarn. Yes, some L.B. HOMESPUN a.k.a Acrylic Wonder.

What possessed me to choose the orange/green with Maleficent-purple highlights, I have no idea. Probably it was on sale. I seem to remember a clearance of some kind. I think the name of the colorway was "Renaissance". Let's see a close-up (this one is with flash):


Knit on US size 11, a bunch of YOs and K2Togs. There's even a crochet edging on that puppy.
To give it some credit, it's warm and soft... and is that awkward shawl size that will never stay on your shoulders. Poor thing spends its days balled up in the closet.

Eat the dogfood

Pacalaga pointed out that if I'm going to bitch about blogger not delivering email addresses, I should at least BOTHER to put up my own address. D'oh. Actually, she said it in a much nicer way.

So behold! Now you've got a functional if extremely ugly pointer for contact information up on the top right.

P.S. Go see her Clapotis and Tendrils stoles. They're gorgeous. That red yarn... oh man. Makes a girl want to go purchase something. I really like the mostly-solid colors, I think it really brings out the beauty of the yarn.

P.P.S Thank you to Kristen for the good info on Haloscan. I've seen it before but I didn't know anything about it. Hey, no worries about the gushing, I'm all for as much opinion as I can get. Lets me know ahead of time if something is going to be cool or drive me bonkers.

Monday and all that

Thank you so much for all your stories and advice for what to do on the Raglan of Doubt. I haven't ever done a raglan sweater before (heck, let's be honest. I've yet to do an adult sweater, period) and my small (but loud) inner perfectionist thinks I Must Do It Perfectly the First Time. Which is stupid and paralyzing and even if something doesn't work, I will LEARN something from it, so it is NOT a waste of time. Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself? Sigh.

To answer some questions:

I've tried the sweater on K himself, and it looks too big - hence a big source of my worry.

About the grey cable twist socks, Carrie asked about the pattern: it's a pattern from Hello Yarn, although I used the stitch pattern and not much else, since I a) used thinner yarn, and b) made it for bigger feet. It looks complicated but the twists are just a left twist, and that's the only complicated stitch in the whole thing. You don't need a cable needle.

Just so you know, Blogger's new version means that I no longer get anyone's email address when they post a comment - all the comments are tagged "comment-noreply@blogger.com". I'd really like to answer people personally but I have to hunt down email addresses, if they're even available. I think this might push me over the edge to switch to something different.

Raglan of Doubt

Comparison of the raglan against the favorite sweater. 8" of 10" raglan length completed.

I've draped the new sweater about the favorite sweater... which is a little misleading, as the favorite sweater has set-in sleeves and the line of the shoulder is probably different.
This image I've modified so you can see the raglan line. Red is the current line. Purple is a projected line if I continue to the length suggested by the pattern, using the pattern of increases ever other row. Orange is the raglan "line" of the favorite sweater, if I started from the same point as the new sweater and drew a line to the underarm.

I've got a few things here:

• I think I was wrong about the width. If continued in the present form, it'll be about the right width. (I still can't get over this, because on K himself, it looked far too wide, even at this point.)


• The arms, however, will be a lot thinner than the favorite sweater


• Maybe I'm just not looking at this 3-dimensionally. Maybe it will curve around and work perfectly. And maybe I'll win the lottery today. ha


• If I did rip it out, how would I fix it?
  
  
  
  1. Make the raglan increases only 1 every 3 rows?
     Then I wouldn't get right body width, would I? I think this option must come with a modification to increase the length I do the raglan line - this would fill in extra width. I can't visualize if this would fix the problem at all.
  
  
  2. Increase the number of sleeve stitches at the cast-on, so that the sleeves were wider?
     This might be the way to go - it's the sleeves that look wrong here.
  
  
  3. Keep the every-other-row raglan increase, but only do the increase on the sleeves some rows? E.g. row 1: increase both sides of the marker: row2: straight, row 3: increase only on the sleeve side of the marker, row 4: straight.
     This would also make the sleeves wider, but it might make the raglan line look funny. And it might bias the whole sweater.
  
  

Add to this that I want to throw in some slip-stitch colorwork and also that favorite sweater is a tad bit too roomy, and now you know why I threw this in a corner. I think my confusion all stems from where the raglan seams start at the the top of the sweater: where's the right place?

The pattern I'm using for this sweater is the The Incredible, Custom-fit Raglan Sweater by Pamela Costello. I think I need to go back to Maggie Righetti's books and see what she says about placement of the raglan seams.

Oh swatch, you'll be a sweater soon.

Ain't no thing

Aww, I'm not any green thumb. The gardenia came pre-potted from a garage sale and I just put it up in the window. I water it when it looks dry. I just got lucky that it likes the light and conditions. I repotted it last summer since its roots were growing out the bottom.

I'm too wordy today, you know when you get all blab blab blabby and can't shut up? Those are my fingers, today. And I'm not even caffeinated up. Sorry.

Last night I fell asleep trying to figure out the raglan and where it went wrong. What makes my head explode is that it's way too big when I try it against a favorite sweater, yet I measured the favorite sweater to get the raglan's dimensions, and when I measure the raglan, it matches pretty close. For example: the back is measuring 18.5" wide right now, at about 8" down the raglan. The favorite sweater back measurement is 22.5". By my calculations, it'll be about 22" wide when I reach the point at which the sleeves are divided off. RIGHT ON TARGET.

Yet when I put it against the favorite sweater: TOO BIG. Same as when it's tried on by K. I must've measured favorite sweater wrong, I guess.

I'm going to rip it back again and do the raglan increases once every 3 rows instead of every other row. Working out the math, that should take 20" off the width by the time the sleeves are divided off. Maybe too much. I wonder if I could do a 1/3 scheme then switch to 1/2 or would it look too weird. Hmmm.

Perfume

My potted gardenia is blooming.

It's not, shall we say, the most perfectly formed of flowers, but the fragrance fills the whole room and about knocks you down when you come in the door. All from one small flower.

A gardenia isn't exactly the best choice of houseplants, I know, especially here in the Northish where there isn't a whole lot of sunlight during the winter. I bought it from an apartment sale for $5. I give it a siesta in partial sunlight on the front steps during the summer. It gets by, but it grows pretty spindly over the winter and it would really prefer more humidity in the summer.

I still love it, for these intensely fragrant creamy white blooms that show up in the middle of winter. They open all at once, going from a tightly wrapped bud to an explosion of petals in just a few hours. Despite how you look, sometimes, you just gotta bloom.

Sunny Weather

It smelled just a little like Spring today. It's still cold, down in the 40s, but it was warm in the sun and there was just this hint in the air of a wet greeny smell. Normally I'm all a-ok with winter but this one has seemed long and cold, if not particularly dreary.

The cable twist socks enjoy a sunbathe on a bench.
Turnin', turnin', turnin', keep those heels turnin', rawhide!

I got a bee in my bonnet last weekend and worked them a bit so it won't take a month to finish them. Maybe another week, if I can get the gusset done this weekend. The image is a little light but fairly true to color - K the love monkey wears only the dark socks. And by dark he means grey or black.

I am also somewhat obsessed with entering this month's Purlescense Storybook Competition. Camaderie in the land of Alices and all that. If only I can just get the idea out of my head and into yarn. Things coming out of my head usually don't translate well so this will be no small feat for me.

Yeah, baby, show off those twists:

"Progress"

Those quotation marks in the title? Not quotation marks. Instead, they are "sarcasm tongs." They depend highly on context for differentiating them from regular quotes. They're my sarcasm markers for text even though no one understands that but me and a few other people on an obscure messaging system. Nobody gets the joke when I laugh at signs that use quotation marks for "emphasis."

Anyway.

Krista said something the other day in the comments that made me bust a gut laughing:

This is beginning to sound like a weight watchers meeting. "When I really crave chocolate cake I eat an apple and that gets rid of my craving!" Yeah, right. I still want chocolate cake, but we're in this together. UFO's ahoy!

Mmm, chocolate cake. However, I am remaining strong. I even went into a yarn store the other day and Bought Nothing. It really is a damper on the yarn lust to think of the pile (and it is a pile) of yarn awaiting me. It's embarassing how far I've let this go. Too much stuff and not enough Do.

It's not really been a great week. It's one of those weeks where I just feel low, unworthy, tired, dull, profligate, stupid, and generally a worthless person. Please don't say anything, I'm not angling for sympathy, it's just a statement of fact. The self-esteem, he is not so high in the first place, no? It makes me reticent because everyone gets tired of the whining.

Usually I can wait these little episodes out, and I have been feeling a bit better today, but they sure play hell with my eating and sleeping and drinking plans. Self-medication. The forebrain knows that the chocolate bar will just make me feel like crap, but the hindbrain knows that it will feel good for at least a few seconds first. Uh, maybe you could say it's been a week of instant gratification. And no pictures.

BUT, I have not bought yarn for me. That's something, isn't it?

In other adventures, Karen asked how the Run-a-gogo has been going. Here's what I've got so far:

Walking: 30 miles
Gym (elliptical trainer): 24.6 miles

Seems like a lot, but really: not so good. I get a freebee, no-strain 100 miles just because I walk 2 miles every day going to and from work. I shouldn't even be counting it toward the total there. It's good for my health, but it doesn't do much for the fat.

To be effective for weight loss, I need to be doing sweat-and-pulse-rate-raising exercise 4-5 times a week, 40 minutes a session. I know this from personal long-time experience. An average session is about 3.5-4 miles on an elliptical trainer or treadmill (I don't run. Bad knees). It'd be better if I were weight lifting as well, but I'm not ready to spend the time nor energy to go there yet.

So my Secret Goal all along has been 200 miles total, not counting the daily walk. I included the walking total so I didn't feel quite so wussy.

This is all only about ME, of course. Your mileage will vary. I've got the genes of a yak: highly optimized to survive long, viciously cold winters by efficiently handling fat supply, and plenty of thick hair for insulation. ha ha

Daydreaming about Yarn

Did you *see* the gorgeous stuff that Rabbitch has dyed up? Mmmm, yum. Rabbitch, you enabling yarn ho, I'm on a diet. Feh.

I am dreaming of the Yarn today. (Do you think Plato's Perfect Form Yarn came as a single Yarn, or were there different forms for each fiber and fiber mixture?)

All that lovely squishiness: the True Blue wool, the soft and flirty cashmere, the cloud of alpaca, the exquisite stinky silk. I cannot get the hand-dyed alpaca laceweight out of my head. Or the pale green silk I lusted after for MONTHS before snatching it up when a local yarn store sold off their entire Blue Moon Fiber Arts supply at 40% off (oh yes. The stars aligned, or something).

Today the hard plastic keyboard at work is paining me. (But only metaphorically; it's my stupid lower back that's paining me literally, but that pissant better go away soon or I'm gonna get REALLY ANGRY). Why'd I join this stupid stash-along anyway? Oh yeah, because I've already got too much fiber. Maybe I should redecorate my office with yarn. Then I can stare at and fondle it all the time. And really give my coworkers something to talk about. Woo!

I've also been thinking about participating in the UFO Resurrection. Because lately, there's been a pile of those developing, too. But I'd apply it to both knits and quilts and sewing, since there's certainly enough outstanding projects from all those to keep me busy. I don't think I've got 12 knit UFOs.

Knit stuff I can think of offhand:

1. Cable Twist Socks from Hello Yarn in grey Rowan 4-ply Soft.
   Status: On the needles and active -- commuter project. Working on the 2nd sock. I get about a repeat done per day, and so it'll take me ~25 business days to finish them, assuming I don't get stuck on the train or in a line.
   
   
2. K's raglan, in charcoal DK wool. The Amazing custom-fit raglan that... doesn't fit. This'll probably end up blog fodder. Stay tuned.
   Status: Time to rip back. Again.
   
   
3. NYC niece's raglan, in variegated thick cotton. I got to the armholes and ugh. After joining a sleeve the stitches on the body connecting the sleeves were extremely loose and ugly.
   Status: Figure out some way of keeping the body stitches tight. Already ripped back. Gotta finish this before she gets any bigger.
   
   
4. K's slip-stitch sweater. Still working on the test version.
   Status: Stymied last Fall when trying to adapt the slip-stitch pattern to include the increases on the sleeve. This should *not* be so hard. Need to revisit this again.
   
   
5. Denmark socks, take 1. I did these in Rowan wool/cotton and although I love the fabric and the stitch definition I was getting, these are far too narrow for adult feet.
   Status: Time to pick up those sad pieces of broken heart and rip rip rip. Maybe add another couple motifs to the pattern? (Note to self: measure the width of a cable before ripping so I know how much many stitches to increase.)

See, not so many. I haven't been knitting all that long. There's MANY more projects floating around my head, wanting attention. And much, much yarn clamoring to be knit up.

I better get back to work. Sigh.

Randomness

Thank you all so much for your compliments on Audrey's socks. They were a fun knit and it's pleasing to hear that you all liked them.

Now a confession: I'm a big slacker (ha, as if THAT wasn't already apparent).
And a wannabe.

I asked La last week for a letter for my own Alpha-Meme, and I have yet to post the results. Sorry, La. Mostly I've been editing and re-editing, trying not to sound like a complete dork, but my writing has pretty much sucked lately. But I think I'm ready.

I promise not to subject you to too much Ravishing Ridiculousness. Or assonance, either.

My letter: R

Raspberries
I could sing the praises of raspberries for weeks. There is nothing like a sun-warmed raspberry, right off the vine. I'm especially partial to the raspberry crop that comes ripe in September. I have to freeze up a half flat every year just so I can make it through the winter. These are from this fall's farmer's market.


Rhubarb
Tart but mellifluous, rhubarb's gotten a bad racket. My grandmother makes the most amazing strawberry-rhubarb pie. Tart and sweet, together 4-ever.

Rubinesque
I aspire to this, but really I'm a little too rotund to qualify.

RUM
We used to live within staggering distance of this great Tiki bar in Seattle. This is where I learned the beauty of the fruity drinks. And I'm not talking about some sad, crappy Mai Tai, either. This was the real deal. Fresh juice, tartness balanced with sweet, and enough booze to kill a goose.
I went on to purchase Beachbum Berry's Grog Log, which looks like it was self-published using a lot of free tiki graphics and some skull mugs, but it's also an excellent Fruity Rum Drink recipe book. This books spends a while discussing the intricacies of rum. There's way more than your standard white, tasteless Bacardi. Light vs. Dark, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Rum de Martinique, Rhum Barbancourt, ... it's as if every tiny island in the Caribbean has their own, special version. Not to mention the weird English mixes. Yohoho and pass the pineapple!

Rosemary
Despite being all Mediterrean and crap, rosemary grows very well here in wet-winter, dry-summer land, only dying back when the temp drops below 20 F. Versatile, easy to grow, and fantastically scented, rosemary's one of my favorite herbs. Mmmm, rosemary bread.


Ruler & rotary cutter
The most wonderful inventions that the quilt world has seen since the iron. You can have my precise ruler and sharp-enough-to-slice-through-8-layers-of-fabric-or-maybe-your-finger rotary cutter when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

Refrigerator Rolls
Such a common name for a tasty, tasty baked good. I make these about once a year. They're an ode to the fact that Fat Makes Everything Taste Better. Like fudge, you DO NOT WANT to see what goes in these. They're similar to croissants, but more plainspoken. The secret is in the overnight rise in the fridge. And the butter, of course.

RED
I can't really say I have a favorite color. I go through color crushes. During last year I was on some kind of green kick. And then recently it's been orange and pink and even a little grey.
But the color I'm most likely to make a beeline for is red. Scarlet, brick, crimson, ruby, apple, fantastic red! For the last 6 months I've been fantasizing about dying some silk in several dark shades of red. There's a certain shade of Alchemy Bamboo I have to RIP myself away from every time I pass by.

Rose
Portland's nickname is the City of Roses, for a natural climate that roses love (with a little extra watering in the summer). Although not a "rose gal" per se, they're in my garden and I love to look, smell, and photograph them. This beauty is from the International Rose Test Gardens.


Anal-Retentive
I'll take the Fifth (of rum! hhahahahaha)

Socks for Audrey

It's COLD here. My hair froze on the way to work this morning. FROZEN HAIR, people! Of course, when it gets cold here, it usually means brilliantly sunny and clear, and today is no exception. So I'm torn, but I think I prefer sunny and cold rather than grey and warm. Now I better go pick up my fingers off the cold, cold ground where they've fallen.

Hey, found the camera cable! These have been done and sent off for weeks, but I'm still going to show them off.

Warm socks on the cold ground

Socks for Audrey!
I hope she likes them.

Pattern: Denmark socks from Knitting on the Road, by Nancy Bush

Modifications: I deviated slightly from the chart because I liked the effect. At the top of the sock, after the nupp row, I continued the ribbing pattern from the top instead of changing to K6 straight across the cabled section. I liked how the very first cable crossing folded in the Ks from the edges, over the interior ribbing.

Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK in color 520 -- Bloom. Used about 2 1/4 balls for a US Women's size 9 foot (142 yards/ball)

Needles: Brittany Birch 3.25 mm, 7.5 inch long DPNs.

Gauge: I got about 6 st/inch using the 3.25 mm to produce a firmer sock yarn.

Finish time: About two weeks for the pair - the pattern is easy to memorize, the larger gauge makes it faster to knit.

Notes:

About the Yarn: I LOVE knitting this stuff; it's very soft, very squishy, and extremely pleasurable to knit with. It's not as smooth as a 100% superwash, many-plied wool, such as Karabella's Aurora 8--it's got a little fuzz, but nothing that obscures the cables. The color was a lovely damask-rose pink.

There was a knot or bad spot on every ball I used, just about 20-25 yards in on Every Ball. What's with that? Someone must've gotten slap-happy with the scissors at the factory, I guess.

The yarn's superwash but I'd only wash it in a pillowcase on gentle cycle, and no drier. It doesn't felt well, but it's not exactly a sturdy yarn. This yarn was a bit splitty and looked messy after splitting, so try to avoid the splitting by using a dull-er needle.

The DK weight means that these socks wouldn't be all that pleasant to wear in shoes, even with how soft they are. These were meant for comfy around-the-house socks or for bed. I fear that they'd wear poorly in shoes as well.

Russian (felted) joins looked like complete crap with this yarn. I tried a join but the section just look sad, soggy, and lumpy. Instead I duplicate-stitch-wove in all the ends for a long length and hope for the best.

About the Needles: I prefer wooden DPNs because the stitches cling to them and don't slip off as I'm working. I like the pointiness of the Brittanies, which are just sharp enough to handle the K2Togs and SSKs, but not so sharp that they split the yarn easily. They're one of the less pointy ones in the class of wooden DPNs.

I did not use a cable needle. The crossovers were only 1 stitch over 2. I got much better at my cabling-without-a-needle technique on these socks.

About the Pattern: well-written and easy to follow (thank you Nancy Bush!). The nupps at the top are interesting and not hard to do, and for you nupp-haters, there's only 8 per sock. The pattern produces a decorative cabled ribbing that stretches well. I really like how the single ribs on the side frame the pattern when it reaches the foot.

Accentuate the Positive, Medicate the Negative

(The title's a quotation from Amy Sedaris's new book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, that K's brother & sister-in-law sent us for Christmas)

I got a full 9 hours+ of sleep last night, with no nocturnal postings. Hooray!

Thank you all for the great comments. I do tend to be far too cynical and negative in my outlook. I know that optimism is more successful. I TA'ed for a professor once who'd give any student that showed up to all the classes a 2% grade raise. He swore that it worked much better than any punishment scheme, and that for classes where everyone came, he had a much higher performance on homework and tests (before the raise). He did have fabulous attendance -- and this was a *big* class.

And I generally see things as HUGE PROBLEMS TO SOLVE RIGHT NOW, instead of little pieces I can conquer one by one. And the HUGE PROBLEMS are Enormous and Overwhelming and hand me that chocolate and why don't I just start a new knitting project? It's good advice to just pick one or two and break them down into achievable goals. It's just something at which I'm horrifcly bad (crap, yet another thing for the list)

So, in trying to for a more positive outlook, following is my personal list of...


Highly Suggested Guidelines for Stash Success!

• When looking for a new project, look to the stash first. Fall in love again!Find


• The stash storage space is just as calming as a yarn shop. Go there, not the yarn shop. You love to organize, so organize! Touch and sniff the already-purchased yarn!


• Ebay does not exist for the next 9 months.


• If you love something, set it free. If you're not quite so in love with something, free it to be loved by another.


• Complete at least one dye project a month.


• Yarn may be bought to finish projects in progress: case in point, K's raglan, for which he would like stripes. I bought all the yarn, get 7" in and he says, "can't it have stripes?" (The raglan depth's all wrong anyway, so I might as well rip it out (again))


• Purchasing giftee yarn does not count, as well as test yarn bought for Mom's project.


• Sock yarn counts.


• Stash will take first priority for yarn for a specifically requested gift, but if nothing is appropriate, yarn purchased for said gift is allowed.


• When consumed with yarn lust: stop, drop, and roll in the stash cashmere.


• The LYS coupon, received this month for my birthday LAST month, has been consumed. I will kindly not count it against the stashalong so I don't feel as if I've failed before I started.


• Fiber Festivals are excused, but not GOING NUTS at fiber festivals. I'd like to attend Black Sheep Gathering this year.


• Two (yes, I'm weak) get-out-of-stash cards.

I've been completely unable to find the camera cable for the last 2 weeks. Hence all the boring text and you get an old picture from December.


The Peace Lily contemplates the parking lot

Not an interesting post

Ugh.

Can't sleep. Although I exercised today (sleep++), I also had alcohol with dinner (sleep--) and cake (sleep--, after the sugar crash). Usually you can put me in a dark warm room and I'm out like the proverbial light, but not tonight. After 1.75 hours of tossing back and forth I've given up and here I am, on the couch, not sleeping.

The problem with not being able to sleep is also those thoughts going through my head about what a fuck-up I've been. And all the things I'd like to change about myself. Most of these changes can only be effected over a long-term period (not gonna lose 40 pounds overnight, no matter how much tossing I do), so of course I can't DO anything about them tonight, bah.

So because it's my blog and I can wank around on it all I like, my little head-list.

Not be such a pack rat.
Get rid of the extra STUFF
Do, instead of accumulate.
Garden less haphazardly.
Get rid of the crap.
Lose the weight, lose the fat, feel better.
Make better food choices All The Time.
Cut out the booze. It's not helping with the weight and the sleeping.
Finally get around to figuring out how to register & setup my own site.
Finally send Grandma a letter and pictures and yarn.
Did I mention getting rid of stuff? KNIT FROM THE STASH. FINISH SOME QUILTS.
Stop buying crap
Sell/give/barter the stuff I'll never get around to using.

Oh, here's the cat, out wondering why I'm not in bed. She's now proceeded to fall asleep in my lap, while I am still WIDE AWAKE. Enjoy your sleep, kitty.

Prospero Año Neuvo!

Hey, I'm back.

Hap-happy new year everyone!

And thanks for all the comments on the previous post.

I'm not going to apologize for the rant, but I will apologize for the self-indulgence (normally I'm such a happy, if loquatious, drunk). But what's life without a few psychological hangups, eh?

And really, I do like pink. I've yet to meet a color I didn't like. Oh, I've got the usual hues I gravitate to EVERY TIME (mmm, scarlet), but, for example, I'll start knitting something in a gorgeous, delicate pink and suddenly I swoon. It's immediately the Best Color In The Universe and what have I been thinking, not noticing it for this long? I have my little color flings.

Maybe it's all the playing with patchwork for the quilting - there's no colors I don't like. Just color combinations. So pink? Beautiful. I just have some problems with some of the societal connotations.

-----------------

We've been travelling all over the place and it's been trains, planes, and automobiles and The Party Never Ends (WOO WOO) what with Xmess and my birthday and New Year's. And while I'm kind of relieved to be back home again, I sort of miss all the excitement. I've been trying to figure out why I so enjoyed the holidays, and besides not having to work, I think the primary reasons are:

a) I got to be around a lot of people
b) I wasn't constantly worrying

Not much I can do about not having to work all the time. However:
A is my own fault. I don't really, um, get out much. Like, not at all. This is something I can do something about. Time to try another stitch 'n' bitch group . The first didn't go so well but I need to be tougher-skinned about this all. The right group's out there but it ain't happening while I sit all mopey at home.

Now B. Worry worry worry, it's like a pastime of mine. As if I'm constantly honing my mad worrying skillz.

It's time to stop living my life in regret. No more worrying about things I cannot change. Make an action, carry something out, decide or decide not to, but DECIDE. I'm tired of second-guessing everything and trying to be perfect the first time. Time to shoot that inner perfectionist and learn from mistakes, not be consumed by them. Regrets should only serve as constructive criticism so that I DON'T DO THAT STUPID THING AGAIN.

And in the spirit of all that wonderful holiday human interaction, I thought I'd actually join a couple 'alongs. I don't normally, seeing as how if I don't participate, I won't disappoint anyone. But these are all self-affecting, and nobody's gonna feel too sad if I don't quite make it all through the stash-along.

Hello, the stash? Out of control. Literally. It embarasses me everytime I see bits of it. I have PLENTY of FANTASTIC yarn and there is no excuse, none, why I shoudn't be using it. I have a wee bit of the obsessive-compulsive in me and definitely Collector tendencies. And it's one of my slowly-working-towards Life Goals to be more of a Doer and less a Collector. Let's take the weight off and fucking knit something for once.

And speaking of taking the weight off.
I never make any time-dependent weight goals, because they inevitably depress instead of inspire me. HOWEVER, I am joining Rachael's 100 miles by April 1st because I need all the inspiration I can get when it comes to getting to the gym in the dark cold mornings of the winters.

I will be elliptical-trainer-ing and walking my way to 100 miles, due to the crappy knees and my wish to still be using the original equipment when I'm 40. I would really like to feel more comfortable in my body and my clothes. This is one place where regrets are perhaps helpful.