Pictures!

Hooray! Pictures!

First, here is the latest photo of Grandma's Gift Wrap.

It's not actually wavy--it's just stretched to varying degrees. I promise, my edges are even. I know this because I freaked out a few stripes ago and obsessively counted stitches. And it has surpassed 30 inches in length! Hurray! (That doesn't really mean anything, but it feels like a milestone.)

I also have some pictures of David's kilt hose to show off.

Looks impressive, doesn't it? I was all proud of myself, until I realized that it'll be worn like this:

So it's not quite as far along as it appears at first glance. Regardless, though, I feel pretty good about my progress. And I'm really enjoying the Clock Pattern on either side of the leg; it's pretty, and it keeps me entertained.

And that's pretty much what I've been working on. I've made some progress on my Dublin Bay sock, but haven't taken any pictures of it recently. Maybe next time!

Schadenfreude?

I'd like to take a moment to talk about my new favorite thing: the "ugh!" pages on Ravelry. Now, I know that some of you have not yet gotten into Ravelry, and some of you don't care about Ravelry. But this is a seriously awesome thing.

See, the ughs are projects that their creators have labeled with an emoticon that shows a little crying frowny face. For one reason or another, these knitters/crocheters feel very badly about these projects, and Ravelry has made it easy for other users to see them, all in one place.

I love looking at the ughs. Love it. I especially like the projects that have extensive notes explaining why the creator hates the project. Now, for a little while I felt bad about my enjoyment of the ughs. I thought it signified a character flaw, just a little too much schadenfreude for me to feel comfortable owning up to. But I've come to the conclusion that the reason I love looking at these is because it's deeply reassuring to see that other people, even people that have been knitting or crocheting for years, can screw up in grand, impressive ways and live to tell the tale. It almost makes me want to find an ugh to post. (Almost.)

So far, my absolute favorite description of an ugh begins with the sentence, "Neck turned out tiny, I'm sure due to some flaw in my soul." It's almost as good as the one where the entire description is, "This shawl is dead to me."

Although I have to admit that seeing the many, many ways that sweaters can go mysteriously and horribly wrong makes me just a bit scared to make one.

So Much for That Idea

I was just catching up on everyone's blogs and realized that it's been days and days since I last posted something decent. So I decided to use my lunch hour for Good Blogging (in addition to eating). I had this great plan to take pictures of Grandma's Gift Wrap and David's Kilt Hose (still looking for an alternate name), and even take a picture of the chart I made for the leg of the hose (because I'm not bright enough to keep track of leg decreases and where I am in a motif panel and knit all at the same time) and post that, and write insightful, witty, and interesting things about all of it. Then I turned around to grab my camera and my projects... and realized that I brought my second-string knitting bag today. The one that just has a sock in it, no camera, no anything interesting, really.

Damn!

I guess I'll have to save the interesting blogging for another day.

Knit Like a Pirate

Ahoy, mateys!

Yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Lexington Stitch & Bitch celebrated by knitting like pirates. (In case you were wondering, pirates knit in dimly-lit bars, accompanied by grog of various types.)

Some of us (that would be me) had a little too much grog, and stayed out a little too late, considering what time they had to wake up for their day jobs, and thus aren't running on all cylinders today. This entry will be short and pointless.

At least I didn't screw up my sock, poor lighting and grog notwithstanding!

Progress is Made

I've been working on Grandma's Gift Wrap pretty consistently, and making some decent progress. I'd say I'm about a quarter of the way done now.

The picture looks kind of odd because it's sideways, but that's on purpose, to show the stripes in the proper orientation.

This project is giving me far more trouble than it should be, given how simple the pattern is. I keep screwing it up in really obvious ways--well, I should say in ways that are obvious once I get to the next stripe, so I have to rip out 6 to 10 rows at a time (a huge pain, by the way, because it's really difficult to get 114 stitches in Microspun back onto the needle without splitting them all to hell) and completely redo them, and that's making this take way longer than it should.

It occurred to me yesterday at Stitch and Bitch that perhaps I should change the name of this project. You know how people make prayer shawls, and the idea is that they pray while they're making them, so the fabric is infused with good wishes and positive thoughts and stuff like that? I'm thinking that this is an Invective Shawl. I keep cursing at it, and glowering at it, and sighing, and tugging on it, and wishing I was done. My poor grandmother is going to wrap it around herself and immediately start hating everyone around her, and insulting people, and cursing like a sailor. It's sort of like the pink goo in Ghostbusters II. Also, I'm going to be one skein of white short. I'm positive that it'll be easy to obtain, but it's still annoying.

But you know, it is quite pretty. The yarn has a nice sheen, the stitch pattern is interesting, and the colors play well together. I need to keep reminding myself that I do like this project.

OMG

Hey there,

frecklegirl has invited you to Ravelry!
"Here you go! Thanks for your interest in our little site.
Let me know if you have any questions or problems!

Jess"

YAY!

New Socks

Ta da!



I finished my New York socks yesterday, and I'm wearing them today! That makes three whole pairs done. Some day I'm going to manage to start in the same place in a color repeat and end up with two completely identical socks, but I have to confess that it doesn't bother me much that my socks don't quite match. I'm making socks!

Speaking of which, I've made some progress on the Giant Socks o' Love. (I'm trying to come up with a name for David's wedding kilt hose. I don't think I'm going to go with "Giant Socks o' Love," but it's the best I've got so far. The actual pattern name is Banais, but because I'm not sure how to pronounce that, I haven't been using it.) Anyway, I finished the garter band yesterday--that's the band of ribbing that hides under the turned-down cuff, to keep them from falling down. So I was all excited to start on the leg, and I was reading the instructions, and it says, "Continue by knitting the Irish Rib pattern for 5 sts, Clock pattern for 6 sts, Irish Rib pattern for 24 sts, Clock pattern for 6 sts, Irish Rib pattern for 13 sts, Cable pattern over 6 sts." Okay. I started to figure out how many stitches to actually repeat the Irish Rib pattern over (my stitch count is higher than theirs) when I realized something. The pattern gives me a chart for Irish Rib, and a chart for the Clock pattern. The cable pattern? Not so much. No chart for the cable pattern. And I'm not an experienced enough cabler to be able to figure it out from the picture. Crap! (I just typed "Carp!" which was almost funny enough for me to leave it there. But my inner editor just wouldn't let me.) Sigh. I might be crazy, but the picture doesn't look like it has a cable big enough to be worked over 6 stitches. I'm going to have to throw myself on the mercy of more experienced knitters, once again, and see if someone more awesome than I am can tell me what to do.

In other news, only 107 people in front of me for Ravelry. Hooray!

So Close I Can Taste It

Found you!

• You signed up on July 3, 2007
• You are #12332 on the list.
• 370 people are ahead of you in line.
• 19752 people are behind you in line.
• 37% of the list has been invited so far

Is it bad that I'm mostly excited about being able to lord it over the poor slobs still waiting to get in? It is, isn't it. Just typing that means that, right before I would otherwise have been invited, the whole damn site will open up, and I won't be at all special.

For the non-fiber people, this is Ravelry I'm talking about. It's a fun new site for yarn geeks to gather and be geeky. It's in beta testing now, and you need an invitation to get in and play. Anyway, lately it seems to be impossible for two knitters to be in the same room without asking, "Are you in yet?"

Soon, my pretties!

One Cuff Done

Hooray!


At lunch today I finished the first kilt hose cuff! See, my chart is all highlighted! Of course, I immediately ran upstairs to show it off to Pat... and she was at lunch. As in not in the building. Grrr. So I went to Ila's office. She's not a knitter, but she makes great admiring noises. She was suitably impressed. Hell, I'm impressed--this is the most complicated thing I've ever knitted. I made a chart! I used motifs! The amazing and kind-hearted Jessie (Jessi?) fixed the part that I screwed up, so I wouldn't have to start over! And even though it's only a couple of inches long, I'm as proud as can be.

Now I just have to make it reach the floor, and do the whole thing over again. Piece of cake! (Especially after I wrote myself a big note, to keep me from messing up that one motif again.)

This Week: All Granny, All the Time

As part of my Great Clean-Up over the weekend, I took a close look at some of my UFOs. One thing that has been taking up valuable Project Basket real estate is the intarsia spade I was working on as a possible Grandma present--it had been hanging out about halfway done, because it seemed to be a good idea gone wrong, but I was reluctant to frog it. This week, I finished it.


Imperfect it may be; slightly misshapen, a little bulgy, and definitely blurry in that photo--but you know, I kind of like it. I think I'm going to see how it survives a machine washing, and if it does all right, I just may finish the set and have a Grandma gift at the ready for some future occasion.

I've also been making nice progress on Grandma's Gift Wrap. Here you see it in all of its stripey glory. The colors are a bit off, but when are they not? Each stripe is about an inch and a half wide, so we're looking at about 11 inches of wrap. I just have to do that about 5 or 6 more times, and I'll be done!

Eesh. That didn't make me feel more done at all.

The other thing I've been working on this week is what I have dubbed the Hexaghan. (Afghan made from hexagonal granny "squares" = Hexaghan.) I decided that I should try to crochet one hexagon per day until I'm done. So far, I've kept to my resolution for two whole days. Yay! No pictures of this project today, but this entry has a picture of 4 hexagons down toward the bottom. They look pretty much the same, except that the most recent ones are medium grey instead of blue. I ran out of black Red Heart doing the edging on the last blue hexagon (hooray for using up yarn!), so I grabbed a stray skein of black Wool Ease--look at my mad stash busting skills! (That's not to say that I didn't consider buying more Red Heart so all of the edging would absolutely match--I did consider it. But this is supposed to be a stash busting project, as I said. I held firm.) We'll see how long I can keep up the "one hexagon a day" thing!

KNT 210: Yarn Storage for Advanced Beginners

I took drastic measures yesterday and tidied up my living room. A big part of tidying my living room was dealing with The Stash, which has been attempting a bloodless coup recently. It was time to put my foot down.

Now, I forgot (read: was too embarrassed) to take a "before" picture, but here is what the yarn storage area is supposed to look like.

There is yarn in the hatboxes, in the little trunk under the basket, and in the cardboard box next to the basket. (And in the basket, obviously.) The little suitcase has needles and notions in it, and the thing on top of the cardboard box is the Ancestral Needle Case. This is "After." In its "before" state, the yarn storage area was a wild and scary place: the basket was piled almost twice as high, there was another (larger) box full of yarn on the floor in front of the trunk, and little piles of balls of yarn next to that box. And that's completely ignoring the bag full of cotton yarn that was next to the arm chair. Clearly, something had to be done. So I dug deep into my little pea brain to figure out where to put the rest of the yarn--and I came upon a completely obvious solution. See, I had been going for decorative storage, but I can't really afford to keep buying cute little trunks and baskets--not to mention the fact that I don't have room for too many more little trunks or baskets. But being someone who is on the "just starting out" end of life, all of my "side tables" are, in fact, large Rubbermaid totes covered with colorful sarongs. And do you know what Rubbermaid totes are? Storage. Brilliant, I know.

The casual observer need never know that this


conceals this.


I have successfully reasserted my governance of the territory known as The Living Room--at least for a few more weeks!

~~~~~

I've been knitting along quietly on the second of the New York socks.

Suddenly my foot seems very long. I might have to switch gears and get working on Grandma's Gift Wrap for a little while so I don't get burned out on socks.

~~~~~

Sunday was ReBelle's first birthday--happy birthday, LYS! There were treats, a sale, and many knitters. Also, Robyn brought a project for everyone--sock holders! I picked little green monsters, and I'm thrilled with my new toy.














These aren't the best pictures in the world, but you get the idea. I think they're just adorable.