Eye Candy Friday

Crocuses

Originally uploaded by limonene.

I know it’s not knitting, but I couldn’t resist giving the whole “Eye Candy Friday” thing a try. These are two flowers from one of the many patches of crocuses that are scattered around the campus every spring. I’m don’t think that campus security knew exactly what to make of the person kneeling on the sidewalk with a camera poised over the flowerbed, but I didn’t really care. The landscaping here is just incredible–the crocuses are almost done, but the daffodils are coming out, and the hyacinths, tulips and rhododendrons will follow soon after that.

Knitter’s Block

Blocked

Originally uploaded by limonene.

I can be a bit of a procrastinator with my knitting sometimes. Right now I’m rushing to finish the last pattern repeat of the Lizard Ridge block for my knitting circle’s baby blanket. I’m three rows away from the end of it, and then it’s on to block the final 5 squares. I traded all of the blocking for some of my share of the sewing, which I almost feel guilty about, because I’ve come out so far ahead (even though the squares take more than a day to dry, so I’ll be sleeping on the floor tomorrow night). It’s no coincidence that the only sweater that I’ve actually ever finished is a seamless one.

I’m thrilled with the way this project has come out, and how vibrant the colors of Cascade Superwash are. I also love the way this pattern blocks out. I truly believe that blocking is magic, and it’s amazing what a little water and a little (or a lot) of stretching can do.

Argosy in progress

Argosy in progress

Originally uploaded by limonene.

This is what’s standing, er, sitting all balled up in a bag between me and casting on for my next big project. It’s exactly half of an Argosy scarf from Knitty, in Silk Garden Lite. I got stalled on it almost two months ago, when I couldn’t decide if I wanted to keep the stripe sequence constant, so that the second half of the scarf ended with gray/purple/red, or to invert the stripes so that the scarf was more or less symmetrical. Then work and group knitting projects took over my time, and then I went on a bit of a sock kick, so here I am. Half an Argosy and spring is pretty much here for good (I hope). I sure hope that I ended with a full repeat of the chart, because I have no recollection of where I put the project down. Time to flip a coin to decide what to do when I join the next ball and get back to knitting.

On Pins and Needles

Purl

Originally uploaded by limonene.

I’m not known for my willpower when it comes to yarn. I’ve gone on yarn diets with varying (read: small) degrees of success before, but none of them have really stuck. I can talk myself into some new sock yarn, or something soft and lovely from the sale bin, or pretty much anything, really. So this year I decided to try something different, something with teeth. This year, I gave up buying yarn for Lent. There was some debauchery at Blue Moon Fiber Arts involving a pair of skeins of Socks That Rock on Mardi Fil, and that was to be it. No new yarn until after Easter. I’ve been doing mostly OK, with just one major slip: the moving sale at String. According to my sources, Sundays don’t count as part of Lent, and you can do whatever it was that you’d given up, and I ran with that loophole to $210 worth of a cashmere/silk blend for $30. I’d say that I wasn’t proud, but that is going to make a really nice lace wrap.

Why all this background? Because on Sunday, I went into the lion’s den: Purl in Soho. And yes, I was hedging my bets somewhat–old habits die hard. I went in search of the new Addi Lace needles , and I came out with…Addi lace needles in 2.5 and 3.0 mm and size 000 Addi Turbos. I’m improving at this whole not-buying-yarn thing.

Now I just have to get myself to put down the Crusoe socks and stay away from the yarn for Eugen Beugler’s Spring Blossoms shawl until I get the second half of that Argosy finished.

Sock Mathletics

Crusoe in Progress

Originally uploaded by limonene.
After slightly over a year of knitting socks, and 8 toe-up pairs, I decided that it’s time to attempt knitting a cuff-down pair. I’m knitting Crusoe from Knitty, in Socks That Rock mediumweight. (Full disclosure: this is my second attempt at cuff-down socks. My first try was with Colinette Jitterbug, and I was getting frustrated with the strange flashing and pooling that I was getting, so I switched over to toe-up. Those socks are slightly too big anyway, and the heels are pilling after one wearing. I might just rip them out and start over with another pattern with a thicker heel and not worry about getting the pretty spiral effect.)

Now, knitting cuff-down has required me to do something else that I’ve never done with socks before: plan ahead. No more casting on stitches and increasing until it fits my toes, then knitting until it’s time for a short-row heel, and finally knitting the cuff until I run out of yarn or patience, whichever happens to come first. I’ve been told that this strategy doesn’t work out so well when you’re going cuff down, unless you’re OK with making legwarmers with heels. Enter the math. I’ve made footie socks out of one skein of Lorna’s Shepherd Sock and had a bit to spare, so I figure that if I leave myself 107 yards, I’m definitely in the clear. A quick back of the envelope calculation tells me that this is approximately 44 grams of the yarn, weighed out on the lab scale and the other 34 grams for the cuff. But then again, the STR is a lot thicker than Lorna’s, so I could even leave less, if I really feel like pushing the limits. I’m thinking of swapping out the heel in the pattern for Eye of Partridge, though, and maybe that’s enough adventure and improvisation for one pair of socks.

My Represent Square

My Represent Square

Originally uploaded by limonene.

This is the square I knitted for Warm Up America during the book launch. It’s done in Patons Soy Wool Stripes, in Natural Navy.

I chose to make my square out of garter stitch because I got a late start knitting it (I didn’t really think about what the yarn and needles were for until the speaker from the Craft Yarn Council spelled it out for us), and I wanted to try to get it done during Stephanie’s talk. Purling and counting really slow me down, especially when I’m trying to pay attention to multiple things at once, and this was no time for ripping back. Later on I was glad that I chose garter stitch for another reason. The SWS is nice and squishy and fuzzy, but in my hands it was also rather splitty. I couldn’t really knit it by touch and I had to keep looking up at Stephanie and back down at the square. I might have driven myself mad if I tried to get too fancy with things, and keeping it simple was the way to go. I finished just under the wire, during the Q&A, and got to add my square to the satisfyingly large pile of other squares.

I think that that’s the way that Stephanie has touched a nerve with a lot of knitters. All I did was to knit a 7″ by 9″ block. 35 stitches by some number of rows. It isn’t much, it didn’t take a huge amount of time or resources, and there’s not much you can do with a 7″ by 9″ block. BUT. When you get together with a whole community of knitters, be it just a few or around 700, or even more, and you each put in a little bit of time and effort and resources, and repeat those small actions over and over, then all together, you can do a whole lot of good. It’s how the donations for Warm Up America and the hats for the homeless became part of these Represent events. It’s how Stephanie’s fundraising drive for Doctors Without Borders has raised over $320,000. As she said, this concept of small actions repeated many times is a lot like knitting, and it’s pretty darn inspiring.

I’m starting to think that my gauge gets really loose when I’m trying to speed knit. I cast on 35 stitches, like the brochure said, and I ended up with a square that was almost the right dimensions (7″ by 9″), but not in the direction that I expected. It’s still slightly too wide, at a smidge over 9″, but it’s exactly 7″ long. This has happened with other squares that I’ve made, so I’m going to have to work on this in the future.

Represent

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Originally uploaded by limonene.

On Thursday I went to the launch of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (a.k.a. The Yarn Harlot)’s new book. It was a truly inspiring event, so much so that even a couple of days later, I’m still processing it though. I think the biggest thing about it for me was the sense of community that I felt with these 700-some men and women who attended, nearly filling the auditorium at FIT. Even though we were from all different places and backgrounds and age groups and had all sorts of different experiences, we were brought together by a love of knitting. It was quite an evening.

Here goes nothing…

I’ve done it. Inspired by PenguinGirl who I re-met at Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s book launch last night, I have left the world of the Sadly Blogless. I’ve decided that my knitting stuff (and maybe some baseball. I do bring the knitting to games) will go here. Wish me luck!