Tempting Yarns

Nothing and Everything is Working

2011-10-19T23:38:00.003-05:00

I feel like the last month has been all about lessons learned and things breaking or otherwise not working. I set out to fix some projects that had problems in September. I worked and worked on two sweaters to fix the sleeves on one (the originals somehow made me look like a linebacker) and the whole top of another (the neck was too big, the armholes too deep, the shoulders too wide). So in September, I merrily ripped these out so pleased with myself for deciding to fix them so I would wear them more.

While I was doing all of these (which all used US 5 needles), the finish on my Knit Picks nickel plated size 5 needles wore off. They're sending me a new set of tips as I type. I can't live without my 5s.

Well the first sweater (the one with the wonky sleeves) has less wonky sleeves, but I still feel like I didn't choose the right style. They look much better, but I don't love them.

Here was the before, somehow I don't have an after yet, probably because laying on a flat surface, they look the same (I really need to look into getting a tripod):

This is the sweater with the too big shoulders and the too wide neckline. I've pretty much finished "fixing" it, but now it has new problems. I need to rip out the crocheted edging and redo it and might need to rip out the shoulder seams again and add more length, but it needs to be blocked before I decide either of those.

This is what it looked like before (yes, that is an insane amount of yarn behind me, I was in a yarn shop - they have lots of yarn). Right now, the sweater looks like a mess. In removing the sleeves, I managed to cut the knitting on one of them. I can easily graft it, but just one more thing that didn't really work as intended. The keyhole doesn't quite look right and I'm not sure the armholes are deep enough.

These are Skew. These socks hate me. See that left one? I knit it three times. I only knit the right one once. When I put them on (a tad of a struggle, even after about 5 modifications to the pattern), they seemed perfect. Then I wore them for about an hour and a half. I think that they STILL don't fit, either one. I haven't blocked these yet either. If they get 1/8" bigger, they will fit. Given how things are going, they're not going to do that.

Now this, I'm reasonably happy with (I think the back looks pretty awesome, so I'm showing it off). This is Forest Fiesta from the book knit, Swirl! by Sandra McIver. I knit it in Malabrigo Rios.

The only things that came out great in September were my spinning yarns. Given that I've only been spinning since March, I'm exceedingly pleased with these:

This is Blue Faced Leicester in the Lucky Star colorway from Frabjous Fibers. It turned out as a 3-ply light sport weight yarn. It's some of the nicest dyed top I've spun so far.

This is the very first fiber I washed from raw fleece, carded, and spun. It's a two-ply lace weight yarn, Cormo, from the Spinning Loft.

It looked like this when I carded it (kind of a mess, but a fluffy mess).

Fleece Washing Adventure

2011-09-18T01:11:00.000-05:00

After buying the fleeces last week, of course, they need to be processed. I've been washing the 7.5 lb Corriedale fleece and it's doing this magical thing - the original big laundry bag I loaded it into seems to still be about as full as it was before, but there are 6 bags of washed fleece in the basement (drying on my laundry rack), each containing 1.5-3oz of washed fleece AND I have what looks like a good bit of washed fleece in a comforter bag in the family room. How is it doing that? It's expanding.

I'll take more pictures tomorrow, but I took a few pictures earlier this week:

Fleece about to be washed

Fleece after washing. It's not QUITE as white as I was expecting. I wasn't sure if it didn't get clean enough because the tips were a bit compacted or if it's just not completely white. Today I experimented with opening the tips with a dog comb before washing. When I take a look at the hopefully mostly dry fiber in the morning that I washed this evening, I'm hoping for improvement. It was a bunch of extra work to do that.

I combed a bit of the stuff I washed earlier this week, just to see how it looked after the tips were opened. These are St. Blaise 2 pitch combs. They're bigger than mini combs, but smaller than big English combs. I'm using some lovely Irwin clamps (from my tool area) to hold the combs to my deks on top of some pleather for a non-stick surface. It works really well. Those clamps hold like iron (they're also quite heavy), but they don't damage anything.

Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival

2011-09-11T23:01:00.001-05:00

Great but exhausting weekend. I'm positively droopy right now. On Friday, I drove to Mount Horeb, WI, where I joined the Cultured Pearls Knitting Guild for their knitting retreat at Blooming Escapes, which is West of Madison. The place was really nice, as were the ladies of the knitting guild. Had ample room and light for knitting (or pretty much any other craft), a nice kitchen, good sleeping accommodations and nice bathrooms, with bedding and towels provided.

On Saturday, I headed over the the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Jefferson, WI. I got there at 9 so I could watch the fleece judging. I wanted to learn something about fleeces from the judges and I did.

These are judges from the UK judging a Shetland fleece.

This is a selection of all the fleeces judged that day.

After the judging was finished (around 3:30pm), they took a bit to get organized for the silent auction that started at 5:30pm. It was unseasonably hot that day and the fleece judging building was extremely warm, making the day quite exhausting. I only managed to knit an inch or two on two socks..

I did manage to do some shopping in the market. I got some Unicorn Power Scour and Fibre Rinse and a set of Schacht Cotton Hand Carders. And then I got some hand-dyed tops from Yarn Hollow and Creatively Dyed Yarns. I also picked up 2 oz of Tussah Silk & Cashmere from Anne's Fiber Expressions and 4oz of Gotland Roving (which is pretty rare to find here in the US - that was a gorgeous grey and felt like a cloud of joy) from Illinois Will of Fiber Mill and, 4 oz of natural Cormo Top blended with 20% silk from RiverWinds Farm. Lastly, I picked up some yarn from Miss Babs to make the Kleio shawl by Romi Hill.

After I walked the market, I went back to wait for the fleece sale. I registered to get a bidding number. Then waited some more. Then I picked out which fleece I most wanted and 3 or 4 others I might bid on. I ended up winning these two fleeces, and was the only bidder. The one on the right was the blue ribbon Corriedale fleece. The left one was the red ribbon (2nd place) fleece from the dual-coated category, an Icelandic fleece.

I've already started washing the Corriedale. It will take...a while.

Swirl Part 1

2011-08-14T21:43:00.000-05:00

I'm making good progress on my Forest Fiesta from the book knit, Swirl!. I'm trying to figure out exactly where I want to modify the sleeves to make them shorter. They seem like they will be too wide at the bottom and 4" too long without modification. Generally, I'd rather sleeves be too short, as I can add a cuff.

I might wash and block what I have to confirm the row gauge before deciding.

Also, one thing I didn't remember to post earlier was my spinning from the Tour de Fleece. This is a Border Leicester purchased from Celestial Designs Fiber Arts:

Cuteness Leads to Exhaustion

2011-08-11T22:24:00.002-05:00

I think this may be my most favorite project knit to date. It's Sugar Bear Hooded Cardi by Kate Oates. The pattern is very well-written and straight-forward. I love how cute it is with the little ears on the hood. I love the buttons (which were graciously provided by someone from the Ravelry Stash Knit Down Group). It's so cute, it almost makes me want a baby to put it on. It's destined for my friend's unborn baby, who I refer to is "He Who is Not Yet Named." I will probably enjoy that when he's wet or tired and crying, that I can hand him back.

The only things I didn't love were totally my own fault:

I failed to read the part about needing DPNs for the sleeves until I was in a car for 8 hours. Luckily, I had cell phone YouTube and figured out how to do magic loop.
I forgot that baby heads are big. So when I finished the sweater body, I'm thinking "Yay, almost finished" when really it was more like "Yay, one third finished."

Yesterday, my poor sweet Linus (the cat) had chemo in the morning. I worked from home the rest of the day and realized later that I forgot to get more pills for Linus. So called the vet and after I finished work, I loaded Riven in the car and drove to the vet around 6pm. Riven loves to go to the vet. He thinks the scale is some kind of dog biscuit machine. So when he walks in with me, the vet tech looks at him and says "You look like you need to be weighed." He dutifully races to the scale and refuses to move until someone (preferably more than one person) gives him a dog biscuit. He had no interest in the fact that he weighed 77.0 lbs.

Then we went to the pet store to get a bag of dog food. He ran up to each person that the leash let him get close enough to and ran through his repertoire of tricks; sit, stand and then sit again more forcefully with the end of his tail wagging, lay down, sit again and throw a paw in the general direction of the person. His hope was that he could turn these people into dog biscuit machines too. He did score some kind of jerkey and another dog biscuit.

When he got home, all this manipulation and trickery resulted in a dog that looked like this for the rest of the evening, too exhausted even to chew on the dog bone next to his head.

Summer Time

2011-07-24T22:42:00.003-05:00

There's so much more time in Summer to do things outside, which seems to automatically lead to less time to do things inside. However, I've also been on an organizing kick lately. I'm NOT a naturally organized person. It's not at all unlikely for a telephone to somehow find its way inside my refrigerator. I own at least two camera battery chargers and if I think about it really carefully, I might be able to find one of them, but probably not the one I'm thinking I will find.

I reorganized my entire bedroom. I'm hopeful that I can keep everything where it is.

I also went on vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC. I flew to Washington DC, standby. Then rode in a car for 8 hours with my parents (my brother, his wife, and their kids joined us as well, but were in a separate car). The first night, we stayed in a hotel. My dad did a phenomenal packing job on the trunk. Everything's super in there and full, every nook and cranny.

The bit he failed to consider is that when you stop at a hotel, you usually need things like clothes and toothbrushes. The overnight bags are under those chairs, the bread, the towels, the stoneware pan, the beach umbrella and pretty much every other thing in the trunk. It was problematic. Dad thought we were stupid for packing clothes and toothbrushes into the overnight bags... He never did explain where he thought might be better.

While at the beach, I started and finished Alcyone by Romi Hill from my handspun, hand-dyed yarn. It has not yet been blocked, but the knitting is complete.

This is the yarn I dyed after the last post.

Ax Man and Yarn Dying

2011-06-30T23:43:00.000-05:00

So today, I went out to hopefully get the supplies needed to dye yarn from thrift stores for under $60. I was looking for a big pot or, even better, a crock pot or turkey roaster. I was also looking for a bucket or dishpan, oddball spoons (that wouldn't be confused with stuff I already own) and some beakers/jars/measuring cups and some safety goggles.

For $40, I got a nice turkey roaster (a big one) with temperature gauge from 150 to 500 degrees, 3 scientific beakers in different sizes, a pair of safety goggles, a wooden spoon, a pair of folding travel scissors (which cost less than $2, so if TSA steals them, I don't care), a really weird spoon, a stopper for one of the beakers, and a bucket.

The majority of that came from a surplus store called Ax-man Surplus. They sell extremely strange things and also some awesome things for uber cheap. For example, there was half an aisle full of various types of cords and transformers and fans, where good extension cords cost about $5. There was also an entire aisle that appeared to contain nothing but springs of various sizes and shapes. There were parts for toys like Rockem Sockem toys. And, awesome for me, there were buckets ($2) and scientific beakers ($0.45 - $8, depending on size).

After that, I went to the ARC Thrift Store and scored a huge Hamilton Beach turkey roaster for $20 and a wooden spoon. ARC is the Association for Retarded Citizens. The organization helps retarded citizens live semi-independently with appropriate supervision. ARC in Maryland supports my Great Aunt, who is retarded and in her 60s.

As I'm checking out, the clerk asks me "Are you getting that for the 4th?" Logical question. When else would someone use a HUGE turkey roaster, other than for the 4th of July...wait... wrong holiday.

So I reply, "No, I'm going to dye some yarn."
Clerk: *blank stare*
Clerk: "Like with beets or something?"
Me: "No, with Greener Shades acid dyes, without metals."
Clerk: "Oh..."

This is the yarn to be dyed on Saturday. I'm thinking green:

More Soon

2011-06-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

Sorry to be quiet for so long. My mother came to visit for 10 days and then we drove to a wedding in Michigan (and had adventures with my GPS system) and then I've been in a work-related conference for days. I have quite a few things in mind to write about this week, but don't have time tonight since I need to be up early for the continuation of the conference tomorrow. I will definitely post something new on Thursday, and hopefully get in a few more on Sunday.

Meanwhile, here's a picture from my cousin's wedding:

You know you can buy those cheap right?

2011-06-13T15:22:00.001-05:00

I'm sure, as knitters, a number of people have made comments on their view that your knitting was either frugal or stupid, depending on the person. I've had several conversations about this sort of thing before. And I thought I would recount a few of them, particularly two I had recently with my mother (conversation 1) and a good friend (conversation 2) about handknit socks. However, first, I'll mention a couple of funny comments I've had made to me when knitting in public.

I live in Minnesota, so it's cold here in winter. Thus, some of the luxury fibers, such as cashmere, angora, alpaca, etc are very nice for winter hats, scarves, mittens and socks, since they're so much warmer than wool. I was knitting myself a hat and scarf from Skacel Divine (70% Alpaca, 20% Silk, 10% Cashmere) and Misti Alpaca Worsted Solids (100% baby Alpaca). I got extra, so I could make several hats and perhaps some mittens, so it was a good chunk of moderately expensive yarn. I'm knitting along and some I don't know walks up to me and says:

Random Person: "What a terrific way to save money, knitting your own scarf!"
Me: "I'm pretty sure it's not saving me money. However, this yarn is the perfect color and will be REALLY warm."
Random Person: "How much did the yarn cost?"
Me: "Around $160 I think."
Random Person: "(long pause) You know you could buy that for cheap right, already made?"

I've also heard a lot of comments, particilarly when knitting socks, "You know you can buy those already made for cheap, right?"

So Saturday, I was talking to my mother about her visit to Minneapolis beginning on Friday, about what things we might cook or do or see. I'd heard Jasmin from the Knitmore Girls Podcast talking about making marshmallows with her mom. When my mom visits, we usually roast marshmallows around the fire pit and make smores, so I thought making marshmallows sounded like a fun idea. I probably shouldn't have mentioned to my mom that Jasmin said to resist the urge to scrape the bottom of the bowl clean because you would end up covered in marshmallow and tears.

Mom: "Buying marshmallows is cheap."
Me: "So is buying socks, but I still knit them." (my mom, being a recipient of my handknit socks and wishing to knit her own, can't really insult handknit socks here)
Mom: "Yes, but handknit socks are better than the ones you get at the store."
Me: "I bet the same is true of homemade marshmallows."

Somehow, this has made me more determined than ever to make marshmallows... Mom's handknit socks, the Thelonious Socks by Cookie A:

Then today, a friend of my confirmed that handknit socks ARE better than regular ones.

Rick: so my sister was wearing my socks when i got home on friday

Rick: and i forgot to tell you

Rick: pretty sure i whooped that ass

Rick: and took my socks back and she asked where she could get some of those socks and i laughed and said HAHAHA PUNY SUBJECT YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF HAND CRAFTED FEET MITTTENS

Rick: true story

The socks in question, Purled Ladder Socks from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks:

Little Kids are Amazing

2011-06-08T22:17:00.001-05:00

I don't have any little kids myself, but my good friend Robin has a 3 year old girl and a 6 year old boy and my brother has a 12 year old son and a 6 year old daughter. This week has been the weeks for kids to be funny.

My niece is in kindergarten. She apparently learned about Afghanistan at school at the end of the school year and when my mom asked her what she learned about Afghanistan, she told my mom that it was nothing like she thought. My niece thought the teacher was going to teach them about afghan stands (like a stand where afghans are sold, similar to a lemonade stand) because she misunderstood the word. Being in kindergarten, she had never previously heard of a country called Afghanistan. Once my mom showed it to her on the globe she said "I don't know WHY the teacher couldn't have started by staying it was a place that people lived in instead of spending all that time talking about stands."

Then on Saturday, my friend had a birthday party for her 3 and 6 year old with her family (and me). It was a Dora and Diego themed party. One of the games was to break a pinata. So we hand the 3 year old little girl a stick and tell her to hit Diego. She looks at us like we might be nuts, struggles to lift the stick and half-heartedly takes a couple of swings at him before giving up on this silly game. I didn't think to bring my camera with me to to party, so you'll have to settle for pictures of knitting instead, and maybe a dog.

I'm making brilliant progress on the Stormy Weather afghan for my parents. It's being knit from Queensland Collection, Kathmandu Aran on size 8 Addi Turbo 47" knitting needles. As per usual, Lucy supervised the picture taking.

Sampling for a spinning project

2011-06-06T23:29:00.000-05:00

I decided to sample 2 different techniques before beginning my next spinning project. I created a pseudorolag:

Then I did a long draw woolen spun single and plied 3 of those together, soaked it, rinsed, thwacked once, hung to dry. Parts were slightly underspun. The resulting yarn was 22 WPI - a light fingering. I didn't spin as much as I thought I did and this small swatch was knit on a US3:

Next I pulled out pieces of the top and did a semi-worsted, short forward draw from the fold. I plied three of the singles, soaked it, rinsed, snapped once, hung to dry. Parts seemed a bit overtwisted and the yarn seemed less even. I had some issued getting the yarn to wind on when I was plying, issues specifically with the leader. However, knitted up on a US5, it also looks pretty nice:

Spinning from the fold was definitely easier preparation. However, I also really enjoyed spinning from the pseudorolag. Also, the yarn from the pseudorolag was fluffier, softer. I only have 176 grams of the fiber left, so I think I will go with the first preparation and hopefully get enough to make Romi Hill's Alcyone or perhaps even Taygete.

Linus hasn't been eating well the last 2 weeks and seems very thin. It worries me. He has a week off from chemo after this week, so I hope that helps.

First Stashdash 5k Project, 2nd Handspun

2011-05-28T21:23:00.000-05:00

I plied my second handspun yarn last night. It's a 2 ply made from Brown Sheep Mill Ends in an undyed cream colorway. It doesn't seem particularly overplied or overtwisted, though it also isn't especially even. It looks MUCH better than I was expecting. I'm inordinately proud of it.

I'm also feeling an urge to dye it, though I'm not really sure how. I'm not sure cream will ever be among my favorite colors. I'll have to get some dye from, uh, someplace? That might be a good start. I think I picked up a book on Acid Dyes at Borders when the local store was going out of business. Perhaps I should refer to it.

One of the bobbins had extra left on it, so I Navajo plied that this morning:

Followed by Navajo plying a selection of fibers, which included Shetland sheep, Tony the Alpaca, Mack Dawg the Llama, and a bit of angora. It's a stripey selection of natural colors:

That gets me a total of 834 yards in the 5k Stash Dash with the Knit Girlls.

I decided to participate in Tour de Fleece this year as well. So I'm trying to clear off my bobbins and decide on some projects for the Tour.

Swatching, Plying and Various Other Challenges

2011-05-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I knit a swatch for the Coat of Many Colors (cover sweater) from the book knit, Swirl! by Sandra McIver. I had to knit the swatch twice. The yarn is Malabrigo Rios, a superwash merino. The superwash stretched a bit after blocking (thus, the 2nd swatch). This swatch is 8" x 8.75" and 40 stitches by 55 rows. It includes 6 of the 7 colorways that will be in the actual sweater.

Today, I went to a plying lesson and learned to ply yarn. Here's a picture from before plying:

And here's a picture of that same thing in a 2-ply:

Then here's a picture of another yarn (a series from my try a bunch of different fibers class a couple of weeks ago). This is Navajo plied.

Finally, I've spent most of my knitting time lately working on this. This is Crocus Shawl by Hiroko Folkmann Drost. I'm knitting it from Filatura di Crosa Centolavaggi with 8/0 Japanese seed beads.

As for the various other challenges, the Knit Girllls are sponsoring a 5k from May 27th to August 15th. The challenge is to knit, crochet or ply (or knit and ply, which counts twice) 5,468 yards of yarn. Only finished projects count and photos are required.

Dramaticknits is sponsoring a Summer 2011 Stashdown from June 1 to September 1 to knit only from stash. He states the rules in his podcast Episode 14 near the end. He recommends, but does not require that you upload your stash with photos to Ravelry and requests that you tag projects with the tag DKSSD2011.

knit, Swirl! Book and Cold Sheeping

2011-05-20T16:37:00.001-05:00

On Monday of last week, I bought the most fabulous new knitting book, entitled knit, Swirl! by Sandra McIver. The sweaters in it are so beguiling that even though I am now committed to "Cold Sheeping" (more about that in a minute) for the remainder of 2011, I included an exception that I could buy yarn to make a sweater from this book. My LYS has stated that they're hoping to have a trunk show or a class or a knit-a-long for the book and are starting conversations with Sandra to arrange it. When I took classes there, at Needlework Unlimited from Cat Bordhi, she raved about how amazing these sweaters are.

I've had a few emails exchanged with Sandra as I try to choose which one to knit first (I say first because I KNOW I will knit more of them). I ended up buying Malabrigo Rios in 8 colorways. I will either make the actual Coat of Many Colors (which is the cover sweater, though my colors are somewhat more muted) or I will choose a different shape and use the color changing technique described for Coat of Many Colors. I haven't decided. I'm wishing my store will have a trunk show before I start the knitting, so I can try on some of the shapes and decide for sure which to knit.

Now as to the "Cold Sheeping". I keep track of how much yarn I buy and how much yarn I knit. I started doing that at the end of last year so that I can endeavor to acquire less yarn than I knit, thereby reducing the size of my stash (I've flashed this picture a while back):

In January, I owned around 58,500 yards of yarn. When I took this picture in mid-April, there was just under 68,000 yards of yarn there. Today, I own 72,700 yards of yarn. Definitely not moving in the proper direction if I want to avoid expanding my stash. I've been knitting around 2000 yards a month, but even so, if I buy no further yarn before the end of 2011, I will knit around 15,000 yards and end the year at 57,700 yards of yarn, just barely less than the amount with which I started the year.

As for the term "Cold Sheeping", I've seen it used around Ravelry, and particularly in the Stash Knit Down Group. It means pledging to not buy any more yarn and to knit only from the yarn you already own. I'm sure it has it's basis in terms like "going cold turkey", which means to stop completely doing something that is somewhat addictive. There's even a comical 12 step program with this title on Ravelry in the Cold Sheep Group. I'm not sure I would describe yarn buying as "addictive", but I'm clearly being unrealistic about how many projects I can realistically accomplish in the near term.

I did a little looking into the etomology of the phrase "cold turkey" and found a few possibilities with some clear basis:

A narrowing of the meaning "suddenly or without preparation" from a cold turkey recipe that required little preparation (originally used for heroin addicts)
A change in the phrase "talk turkey" which was an American phrase that meant "to speak bluntly with little preparation"

Needle Mayhem

2011-05-15T12:12:00.003-05:00

This week, I swatched for two different shawls with the same yarn and with about eleventy-billion needles.

I swatched for shawl 1, Fiori di Sole by Rosemary Hill, with US 4 Knit Picks Harmony wood interchangeables. I decided the result was pretty, slightly too open (I would have tried a 3, but I didn’t have one in Harmony wood), but also, the project might not quite be what I had in mind for an entry into the State Fair. While pretty, it didn’t have any super challenging anything. When entering a project into the State Fair, which is a contest, at the heart of it, and a celebration of hand crafts, it seems like I should choose something challenging.

Then I started swatching for Crocus Shawl by Hiroko Folkmann Drost. I started out with some Hiya Hiya Stainless steel needles, which I had purchased with this project in mind and I had ordered multiple sizes (so I have three 40” long Hiya Hiya needles in US 3 and smaller sizes). Those were not pointy enough, so I tried my Knit Picks nickel plated fixed circulars in 40” lengths and those were somewhat too slick.

I decided I would take a field trip after work on Tuesday and go to the Crafy Planet, which carries the fixed Knit Picks Harmony wood needles and bought a 3mm and 2.75mm in 47” lengths. I brought those home and that evening took another shot at my swatch. These were also not quite pointy enough, though they were grippy* enough. I could complete the project with them, but it would be a tad slow. I finished about half the swatch with the 3mm, it looked nice, I was mildly annoyed (better than the Hiya Hiyas, which made me massively annoyed).

On Wednesday at lunch, I took a field trip to StevenBe (I had to go there to pick up some yarn I’d ordered to make Katarina anyway). I had 8 balls of it at home, but I got 5 more. Anyway, there I purchased a 40” US 3, 3.25mm Signature circular needle (and a set of Kollage 2.25mm square 5” DPNs that I really didn’t need, but I’ll talk about more at the end of this). I brought that home after work on Wednesday and went to work on my swatch. This needle was clearly the best choice out of those available for my yarn and the project. They are a tad grippy (the right amount so the stitches don’t all fall off) and very pointy. The cable is also the most flexible cable ever and sort of invisibly swivels inside the tip somehow, like magic. I’m getting similar gauge on them as I was getting on the 3.0mm Harmony. I find that typical, getting a slightly smaller gauge with a metal needle versus a wood one. The Crocus Shawl has 9 stitch nupps and a bunch of k5tog and k3tog and even cables. I really liked this swatch, both knitting it and how it looked. I also really liked the Signature needles, but probably not enough to run out and buy them all. They’re perfect for this application, but I’ve been happy with other needles for everything else, so far.

I now have a boatload of needles in US 2, 2.5 and 3 that will be brilliant for colorwork projects. To get back to the brief diversion into the Kollage square double points, I am hard on double points. I have a sets of Addi DPNs in about 6 or 8 sizes. I really dislike them. I loved them when I was a new knitter, but I now prefer much pointier needles. I’ve tried several other brands of DPNs. I tried Lantern Moon SOX stix in Rosewood. I love them, but after completing my first project with them, they’re all bent. I’m sure I’ll use them again, but I find this a bit frustrating. I knit a tiny bit with Brittany needles because I was helping someone with a sock. She had those needles in her project and was trying to strangle the needles with her stitches and was quite successful, managing to break 4 of them in about a 36 hour period just by getting them stuck in her work. I grabbed a set of 6” Kollage DPNs in 2.5mm from Needlework Unlimited a couple of weeks ago. I recently used them to make the leg of a toe up sock (to free up my 2.25mm circulars). It went super fast, I didn’t bend them, and I liked the feel, the point, and the weight of them a lot.

Here's a picture of the Kollage needles in the 2.5mm size:

In summary:

Circulars

Hiya Hiya stainless steel – Reasonably flexible cable, low price ($8), somewhere between pointy and dull, smooth cable join, reasonably slick but not super slick

Knit Picks nickel plated – Quite pointy, low price ($6), flexible cable, reasonably smooth cable join, very slick

Knit Picks Harmony wood – Quite pointy, low price ($7.50), flexible cable, smooth cable join, slightly grippy, but not grippy enough to make me want to stab myself in the eye

Addi Turbo nickel plated – Dull point, mid price ($15), flexible cable, smooth cable join, very slick

Addi Turbo Lace – Quite pointy, mid price ($16), flexible cable, smooth cable join, so grippy they make me want to stab myself in the eye

Signature Needle Arts circular – Extremely pointy, high price ($45), ridiculously and awesomely flexible cable, smoothest cable join, cable rotates through some invisible mechanism in the tip, slightly grippy with slick tip at the very end

DPNs

Addi Turbo – Fairly dull point, mid price ($11), heavy, virtually unbreakable

Brittany birch – Reasonably pointy, low price ($6), light, break easily

Lantern Moon SOX sticks – Pointy, high price ($20-24), light, bend during use

Kollage square DPNs – Reasonably pointy, mid price ($12), reasonably light, did not bend or break during use

* Grippy is a technical term I created to describe the opposite of slickness

Sizing Socks

2011-05-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

I've answered a few questions on Ravelry lately about sizing socks (some of them through private messages). I find socks one of he simplest items to size because the math required is relatively simple, or at least much simpler than the math required for sizing a sweater. There are only a few key numbers.

I measure the circumference of my foot and then subtract 10%. That’s how big around I want my sock to be. For me personally, I knit about 8.5 sts/inch on a US1 (2.25mm), 8 sts/inch on US1.5 (2.5mm) and 9.25 sts/inch on a US 0 (2.00mm) with most fingering weight yarns. Your gauge could vary.
So my foot is 9.75” around the ball of the foot. 10% less is around 8.75” around. So then I can multiply by the gauge I get for each needle size and I would have:

US 1.5, 8 sts/inch * 8.75 = 70 cast on
US 1, 8.5 sts/inch * 8.75 = 74 cast on
US 0, 9.25 sts/inch * 8.75 = 81 cast on

Usually it’s fine if I’m a stitch or two either way (so 72 sts on a US 1 is usually okay as is 75 and with a lace pattern, often down to 70 is okay).

For length, I usually go about 0.5" to 0.75” shorter than my foot length. I measure my foot length by putting the heel of my foot against a wall and standing on a tape measure. I usually figure out the length best by trying them on, but if I'm knitting for others, that's how I tell (by measurement).

Here's a picture of some socks I recently finished:

Pattern: Pointelle
Source: Cookie A.'s knit. sock. love.
Yarn: Cascade Heritage Solids
Colorway: 5630

Shepherd's Harvest Fiber Festival

2011-05-07T17:03:00.006-05:00

Today and tomorrow is the Shepherd's Harvest Fiber Festival in Lake Elmo, MN at the Washington County Fairgrounds. This morning, I took a spinning class that was a class to try a number of different fibers. I spun with drum carded Shetland wool, Shetland wool in the locks (which I loved), a bit of white Jacob, llama (Mack Dawg the llama, specifically), alpaca (Tony the alpaca), and finally, some French Angora rabbit (which was divine). These were the fibers other than the angora. I should have taken a picture of my shirt to show you the angora - it sticks to everything:

This one is all different colors of Shetland wool with the locks at the top.

This one is (from left to right) Jacob sheep's wool, Tony the Alpaca, and Mack Dawg the Llama.

Then I had the opportunity to wander around shopping from all kinds of vendors. I ran out of money before I got to the end (it's always a good idea for your budget to bring cash to these sorts of events - at least for me). The only bad thing about that is most of the vendors did not give me receipts (so I don't know their names if I want to get more fiber from them). I have to go back tomorrow to work at the MN Knitter's Guild booth, so I will have to wander around to find the vendor names.

First, I visited some Angora bunnies:

Next, I picked up the yarn I ordered last week from Briar Rose Fibers. This is Sea Pearl, a 50% merino, 50% Tencel blend, fingering weight yarn, 2400 yards of it, custom dyed for me:

Then I purchased a number of different fibers to spin. I don't know how long it will keep me busy with my wheel, but I was hoping for maybe a year. That might be optimistic.

This is an 80% Coopworth, 20% Silk blend, about half a pound of roving from Hidden Valley Woolen Mill in the Northern Lights colorway.

I think this is 2 oz of 100% angora fiber from Angora Gardens. The person working at the checkout counter was clueless. They were also selling 60% Corriedale, 40% Angora roving, but this doesn't really look like the pictures of the roving on their web site.

This one is about 8 oz of an Icelandic Wool, Angora rabbit blend. It's fluffy and soft and heavenly. I'm probably most excited about this one to be honest. It's from Celestial Designs Fiber Art.

This one is about 8 oz of Border Leicester wool, dyed in the locks. I plan to also spin it from the locks to maintain the color variation. It's from also from Celestial Designs Fiber Art as the Icelandic/Angora.

After attending the festival, I visited Darn Knit {Anyway} yarn shop in Stillwater, MN (about 10 min from the festival. I hadn't visited the shop before. I got some Baltimore Ravens Purple Cascade Heritage Sock yarn to knit socks for my dad and brother for Christmas (they have season tickets):

I also got one skein of Three Irish Girls Cashmerino Worsted. This is a new base for them. I was so excited about the color that I didn't even notice it was a worsted weight yarn, so I'm not sure what to do with it yet. There's just under 200 yards on the skein. Maybe a hat (though it won't really match my primary winter coat).

Unrelated to the knitting, Linus has been doing so well with his chemotherapy. He seems to be doing well and isn't getting quite as stressed about going to the vet. The vet was really happy yesterday when I was there. He said he has 3 cats in the clinic with nasal lymphoma. It's the first time he's ever had more than one at a time. At least one of those families have also chosen chemotherapy as their treatment option (there are other choices). Wait that doesn't sound right - he wasn't happy about the 3 cats with nasal lymphoma. He was happy because someone brought a VERY sick dog in Tuesday night, who was clearly much better on Wednesday morning and Linus hasn't lost any weight (a common side effect of chemo) and all of his obvious cancer symptoms are gone. So he was happy that even the animals in very dire circumstances he's treated lately are doing well.

If you happen to live in the Minneapolis area, The Kenwood Pet Clinic is about the best vet ever. They've healed my poisoned dog, healed the same dog from 2 bouts of skin cancer and now have discovered the cancer in my cat. They've also solved many other smaller problems. I've been trying to buy him a new Mercedes with my vet bills lately though.

To wrap up, I watched The King's Speech sometime in the blur of the weekend. It was seriously great, a 7 on the Jenn scale of movie ratings (I probably would have paid full price to see it twice at the theater if I had been less than oblivious).

Yarnover Weekend - Part 2

2011-05-05T22:50:00.002-05:00

It's taken me a few days to get back to writing. I was able to take two fantastic sock classes with Cat Bordhi on Sunday afternoon and all day on Monday. The class was sponsored by Needlework Unlimited, who provided some lovely gift bags (I probably should have taken pictures before I unpacked them and put things away at home, but I forgot). The gift bag itself was a zipper top bag from Needlework Unlimited that would be suitable for a small project (like socks). Inside the bag was a repair hook, some highlighter tape, a skein of Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch Softcolor sock yarn (wow that's a mouthful), some cute ducky buttons, a little pad of paper, a pencil, and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

Sunday's class was a class about a super-secret-special heel that Cat Bordhi is testing and will publish something about in a few months. It fits well and has some interesting design possibilities. I can't really say more (or post a picture) because she specifically asked everyone not to.

Monday's class was to knit the Discovery Sock from her most recent sock book, Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters, and also to make our own Personal Footprint with her help. This sock ends up with a foot opening done like an afterthought pocket.

She also shared a few tips that would be applicable to all socks that I didn't notice in the book itself:

When heel stitch is not practical or desired, another approach to improving the durability of even 100% merino socks is to twist every other stitch in the direction that adds twist to the yarn (rather than removing it). For most yarns, this will require knitting through the back loop, but it could be different depending on which direction the yarn was spun. These twisted stitches can be added in a checkerboard pattern.
Also, instead of the little skeins of wool/nylon thread, something like Kid Seta will both fill in any spaces, which makes the bottom of the sock feel better and significantly improves durability. The ends can just be left alone.
Your foot doesn't know what's going on and won't tell the difference between perfection and imperfection. If someone is staring at the bottom of your foot and makes a snide comment about your sock looks, kick them.

After this weekend, I think I have more projects on needles than I have ever had before at once. I have one that I expect to finish in the next day or so, and then I'll work on the next closest.

Yarnover Weekend - Part 1

2011-04-30T18:43:00.001-05:00

On Friday, I attended two of the classes in a series offered at the Yarn Garage for Yarnover Weekend. The classes were taught by Julie Weisenberger of Cocoknits. The first was a seamed to seamless sweater class. This class involved learning how to chart out the parts of a typical seamed sweater in a Japanese pattern method. I'm pretty sure I will find it quite useful. The second class involved learning some European Finishing techniques, including English tailored shoulders, a few different types of short rows, and some slightly different decreases and increases than those I already knew. We also had an opportunity to try on several of her samples in different sizes. I bought three patterns:

Katerina
Hanna
Petra
.
Today, I attended a class on Cowichan Indian Sweaters taught by Joan Schrouder. I linked this particular biography because this is the last year she's teaching before retiring and one of the last events at which she will be teaching. In this class, I learned how to do a 2-handed colorwork technique that involved weaving the colors (as opposed to traditional fair isle). Additionally, she taught a decorative 3-needle bind off, a specific type of shawl collar and knitting top-down inset sleeves. It was a lovely class.

Yarnover also featured a market. I bought a few things (and ordered something that will be dyed for me this week for pick-up at Shepherd's Harvest next weekend). I bought a kit to make The Swan Cap:

I also bought a lovely skein of baby alpaca, silk and cashmere lace weight in the perfect green. This yarn is Lush by Bugsnugger, yarns dyed by Diane Pals. It's dreamy:

I also got some spinning fiber. The larger is a Polworth and the smaller is a Blue Faced Leicester:

Finally, there were some door prizes:

Still more classes to come, Sunday and Monday.

Mother's Day Knitting Complete

2011-04-25T21:12:00.000-05:00

No matter how early I start a project meant as a gift, I always worry that it isn't soon enough to finish before the gift is due. I made a scarf for my mother this year for Mother's Day. When I started it, I was thinking it would take 20-25 hours, less time than a shawl. I reasoned, it was smaller than the shawls I've knit. However, after knitting some of it, I realized that I was quite off and the project would take 45- 50 hours instead. I worried I would not finish in time to send it off. Thankfully, I started earlier than I thought necessary and I'm quite relieved to have finished it.

Pattern: Silver Bells by Stephanie Earp
Yarn: Cascade Alpaca Lace yarn in color 1434 Mystic Purple
Needles: Knit Picks 24" US 2

Piggy says hi

2011-04-24T03:01:00.000-05:00

It's late, so I'm not going to write much just now. Did a lot of chores and errands today. Fought with my cat over taking a chemo pill he did NOT want (don't blame him). Anyway, just wanted to post this picture of a crocheted piggy I made for my friend's daughter at Christmas, because I think the picture is adorable and a happened to come across it now.

Pattern: #15 This Little Piggy
Designer: Donna Childs
Source: Spring/Summer 2007 Knit Simple magazine
Yarn: Rowan Hand Knit Cotton + a few other scraps

What IS this??

2011-04-20T16:34:00.000-05:00

This morning, there was snow. Snow on April 20th when the Sunday before last, it was in the 70s. This seems like some sort of cruel teaser nature played on us. I was driving home after taking Linus to the vet for his exam and blood tests (to determine if he can take his next chemotherapy treatment) and decided I would snap a picture while pulling into the driveway to prove, both to my family and to you, that there was snow.

So now that nature has played it's cruel trick, I'm hoping to stay indoors and knit.

I managed to block my Ruched Yoke Tee on Friday. I'm not sure about the sleeves and need to reblock them or iron them before deciding (need to check a yarn label before ironing). There's a VERY firm crease in the top of the sleeve from the blocking (oops) and was unintended and isn't flattering.

Yarn: Valley Yarns Longmeadow in Deep Purple
Pattern: Ruched Yoke Tee - Adult from the Spring 2011 Interweave Knits magazine
Modifications: Added sleeves, adjusted for row gauge, added an attached i-cord to the sleeve edges and the bottom edge to match the one on the keyhold neckline

One other note, I had not used this yarn before, but it was lovely. I would definitely use it again. Amazing value.

Lazy Day

2011-04-17T21:21:00.002-05:00

It was a pretty lazy day at my house. I knit for a while, made some lunch, and then took a nap. A LONG nap, for three hours. Lunch was amazing though. I made Turkish Bison Stew from the cookbook Eating Well on a Budget (fabulous cookbook, fabulous recipe).

It was completely delicious. I even tried a new pasta in it called Jovial Einkorn Linguine. Very excited about these leftovers at work this week.

On either side of making lunch, I worked on a scarf for my mom. This is Silver Bells, made from Cascade Alpaca Lace.

Here are Snoopy and Linus being lazy too:

I watched the movie Easy A last night. It's loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. It was decent. Better than I expected. I give it a 5 - Pay Matinee Price.

Flash Your Stash 2011 & New Phone

2011-04-13T23:54:00.003-05:00

You can always tell when I started getting stressed because my tracking and hobbies seem to get more obsessive. My cat had his first chemotherapy treatment today so I have my fingers crossed. Also, my Blackberry broke yesterday and my mom told me today that she's a bit worried she might have uterine cancer.

So in the spirit of trying not to worry too much about things I can't do anything about, I researched phones and bought an HTC Evo today. I'm also considering getting a tablet that connects only via Wifi (which could access the internet through my phone). Once I get some clue what I'm doing with the Evo, I'll probably do some reviews of apps that I use related to knitting. I'm positive there will be some...

In the meantime, I participated in Flash Your Stash 2011. Here's a picture of my stash as of yesterday (side benefit that my yarn got organized slightly better AND my guest room is much neater):

To give you a flavor of what you're seeing, the bag of tiny skeins on the left to the blue stuff in the front is all scraps leftover from projects. To the right of that and behind it is my fingering weight yarns, a few in sweater quantities and most in shawl/sock quantities. The left above the little bag is my small collection of lace weight yarns. Behind all the small stuff, the back left AND back right are Aran weight yarns. And the area with the blob of pink in the bag is the DK sport area. The bag of pastel yarn with the pink purple and green in front of it is the worsted weight (according to the craft yarn council, not worsted spun). The bag leaning against the clear plastic bin in the back center is my single bag of fiber and then the bin contains my Stashdash yarn.

Spring Stashdash 2011

2011-04-11T20:36:00.001-05:00

Over on Ravelry, the Spring Stashdash 2011 begins. This is a challenge to fill a bin with items and to knit only items from this bin until July 1 or until the bin is empty. So I thought about what to put in it and came up with this (helpful assistant of picture taking excellence, aka Linus, was inspecting the display before I got the "real" pictures:

These yarns are:

4 balls of Kathmandu Aran for the in progress Stormy Weather afghan for my parents
2 balls of Longmeadow for my Ruched Yoke Tee, which will likely be returned to WEBS because I don’t think I need them
The remainder of the Cascade Heritage Sock that will be knit into my Pointelle socks in May
Colinette Jitterbug for Cat Bordhi’s Discovery Socks
3 balls of Marion Foale 3 ply wool for my Miralda’s Triangular Shawl
2 hanks of Filatura Di Crosa Centolavaggi for a shawl to be entered in the state fair
2 balls of Rowan British Sheep Breeds for an in-class sample Cowichan Indian Sweater on April 30
4 hanks Euroflax Originals and one ball of Katia Tango for Knit Sarong in Waikiki
2 balls of Cascade Alpaca Lace for Silver Bells Hat and Scarf
2 balls of Knit Picks Stroll in purple + either some Knit Picks Stroll in Ash OR the leftover Tilli Tomas Voile de la Mer for the feet to make Hippo (so her feet will be grey instead of pink - I don’t have pink leftovers that aren’t fuzzy and I don’t think fuzzy would be appropriate)
1 ball of whatever yarn I get at StevenBe on Monday April 18th to make swatches for the classes I’m taking at one of his shops
Remainder of the 1 lb bag of Brown Sheep Mill Ends wool roving to spin

Also, in case anyone was wondering was a freshly cleaned dog looks like right after being body blocked from a freshly cleaned dog bed that is being reconstructed once he finally manages to get onto said dog bed, I'll show you:

Virtual Knitting Retreat (and clean dogs)

2011-04-10T21:37:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I participated in a Virtual Knitting Retreat. While I did get a lot of knitting done, I didn't get nearly as much done as I thought I would or maybe I should say I didn't get the specific knitting done that I thought I would. I definitely got tired of knitting by midday on Sunday. Anyway, here's what I did get done:

About 6 hours of knitting on the very large Stormy Weather afghan for my parents, which amounted to about 14 rows (this was after I did the first 5 of those)

About 8 hours of knitting my Ruched Yoke Tee, which included hemming the bottom and adding sleeves - one of those sleeves still has some knitting left
Finished the legs on my Pointelle socks - the heel will get completed May 1 in a class with Cat Bordhi at Needlework Unlimited

Completed the swatch for my Cowichan Indian Sweaters class at Yarnover on April 30
Cast on and knit the first 16 rows of the scarf from the Silver Bells Hat and Scarf pattern, which was slow going
Spent around 3 hours spinning

Then by Sunday, I was a bit tired of knitting and it was a bit warm in my house and quite warm and humid outside. I decided to get the hose out of the garage. I left the garage open all night, so everything got wet inside the garage, including the hose. You wouldn't think a hose getting wet would be an issue, but it was dirty, so when wet, it was also muddy. I ended up with mud all over my jeans.

Then I went in and got my dogs and a Rapidbath. The Rapidbath is the best invention ever for dog owners or even for people who know dog owners. The Rapidbath turns the messy, time-consuming process of bathing a reluctant 90 lb dog into the simple process of attaching your dog to a fence (so he can't escape) and shooting him with a hose loaded with a dog shampoo cartridge. Three minutes later, clean, unhappy dog that didn't turn the bathroom into a biohazard. Riven and Snoopy are clean and fluffy (and have clean and fluffy dog beds).

Lucy and Linus kept me company and, when not holding down my legs this weekend, they did this (Linus felt Lucy was dirty, even though he's the one with nasal cancer who keeps having snot on his face):

What do you Track?

2011-04-06T15:14:00.001-05:00

Today, I feel like making a list. I like lists. I like checking things (or crossing things) off of lists. I also like tracking things. So today, I'm going to make a list of all the knitting related things that I track and this is it.

A list of all the projects I intend to knit in the next 4-6 months, along with how many hours I expect the project to take, and what month I expect those hours of knitting to happen. I base this on estimates of how much I'm likely to knit each day. It's not set in stone or anything, just a useful way for me to project realistically, how long each project will take.

A summary for each month end (all on one sheet) showing weights of yarn in rows and then the number of skeins/hanks/balls, grams, and yards for each weight at each month end. This is created by using the download feature on the Ravelry stash page, which looks like a little green X in a box. Being an accountant, I reconcile this list to another list to make sure it's accurate (here's an example).

	March 31, 2011
	Skeins	Grams	Yards
Lace / 2 ply	13.0	751	6,445
Light Fingering / 3 ply	9.0	508	2,493
Fingering / 4 ply (14 wpi)	70.3	5,873	18,579
Sport / 5 ply (12 wpi)	25.2	1,461	3,410
DK / 8 ply (11 wpi)	32.1	1,687	5,301
Worsted / 10 ply (9 wpi)	60.2	3,809	8,652
Aran / 10 ply (8 wpi)	81.3	5,352	10,049
Bulky / 12 ply (7 wpi)	42.3	2,463	4,066
Super Bulky (5-6 wpi)	3.0	157	177

	336	22,061	59,171
Months at 1500/month			39
Months at 750/month			79
Months at 2000/month			30

New this Month	20.0	1473	5973
Donated/Trashed this Month	-9.7	-1459.5	-2733.9
Used this month	-8.9	-518.6	-1,654.2

Net Inflow / (Outflow)			1,585

Total yards used by project, based on a weighed measurement, along with how many complete balls were used (i.e., if a project used 9.9 balls of yarn, I only enter 9).
The number of stitches knit into each active project each day and an estimate of how many minutes were spent on that and then a calculated average stitches/min on each project.
The calculated number of stitches in an entire project, each project with it's own tab. I sometimes use the tabs as my pattern when I've had to resize or rewrite it for whatever reason.

This picture of my desk further illustrates my planning tendencies. M&Ms must be eaten in color order from most to least. I don't know why...

Lace!

2011-04-03T17:00:00.001-05:00

I've been knitting a number of shawls and lace projects lately. I heard people say that it could be addictive. They may have been right. Here's Damask. It's a really lovely pattern by Kitman Figueroa:

Then there's this Madeleine Shawl I made for my Nana's birthday:

And I got some good pictures of my Celaeno by Romi Hill:

Lastly, I updated my bin. I had forgotten to add the Cascade Alpaca Lace for my mom's mother's day gift, which will be Silver Bells Scarf:

April Knitting & Spinning Plans

2011-03-31T00:15:00.000-05:00

The knitting plans for April can be summed up by this:

That box contains:

Cascade Heritage Sock Yarn (in turquoise) for Cat Bordhi's Discovery Sock class at Needlework Unlimited on May 2,
Red Berroco Ultra Alpaca for a Madeleine Shawl for my Nana's birthday,
Jacob and BFL Rowan British Sheep Breeds yarn for Joan Schrouder's Cowichan Indian Sweaters class at Yarnover on April 30,
2 balls of Kathmandu Aran for my mom's Stormy Weather afghan,
Beginning of the Miralda Triangular Shawl from Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia knitted with Marion Foale 3-ply
The rest of the Valley Yarns Longmeadow in dark purple for my Ruched Yoke Tee
and some Colinette Jitterbug for Cat Bordhi's Tomato Heel class at Needlework Unlimited on May 1

As you can see, Lucy approves. I also need to spin about 1.5 bobbins of Brown Sheep Mill Ends undyed wool roving to prepare for my next spinning lesson.

My Poor Sick Linus

2011-03-29T21:55:00.001-05:00

Linus (one of my four pets, an Ocicat) has cancer in his right sinus and right tonsil. The vet tells me it's some sort of round cell tumor, which indicates some sort of lymphoma. "It may be highly treatable with radiation therapy." he says. My question, "Define highly treatable and how much does that cost?" He doesn't know, but he's going to find out. This is my sweet Linus, checking out my new yarn:

There's a much better picture of him a few posts down helping me block my Celaeno beaded shawl. Anyway, I'm sad about my Linus and I'm expecting to spend as much time with him on my lap as possible for the next little while. He likes it there. I've been working on Damask, which is nearly finished.

My grandmother's birthday is on April 10th. I usually send flowers, but she's sometimes not at home and I worry the flowers will die before she gets them. I think I'm going to start a Madeleine Shawl by Courtney Kelly from the book Modern Vintage Knits with the intent of sending it for my Nana's birthday. If you haven't seen the book, it has some completely lovely designs in it that are classic, but modern. The shawl only uses 215 yards of yarn, so I feel like I can finish it in a week, hopefully.

Spinning the Time Away

2011-03-27T23:23:00.001-05:00

I took my first "official" spinning lesson today from Marie. She's been spinning since, well, forever. She also has an Etsy shop. I got to see some of the yarns she'd dyed in person, and they're very vibrant and lovely. Anyway, she got to look at my spinning (I've been practicing some at home since I got my wheel) and made some suggestions.

Here's a picture from the spinning I did before the lesson:

And here's a picture from during the lesson:

Next time, I'm going to learn how to ply.

Back to the knitting, I'm 80% complete my Damask now and I'm happy with it, even in it's crumpled unblocked state:

Token pet picture, just because he's kind of cute and comes running when the camera comes out:

Lost

2011-03-26T19:55:00.003-05:00

A new friend, Michaela, and I went to visit an alpaca farm today (the farm intending to sell fiber for spinning, the two of us both new spinners who probably wouldn't know what to do with the entire coat of anything). The drive up was a bit of a comedy of errors. At one point, we sat in the car on the side of the road for 20 min looking at a map to find our way. We were NOT in the right place. Apparently, just driving north doesn't necessarily get you to a specific farm.

I brought my fairly new Schacht Matchless with me purchased a month or so ago from Mary at Spinning Magic:

I spun up a bit of fiber there at the farm and petted some alpacas. Then the guy who owned the farm started talking about parasites. My shoes are currently sitting in the bathtub, just in case. Though how exactly I'm going to wash potential parasites off them, I haven't figured out yet...

Bags Multiply, Really.

2011-03-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

I've been on a bit of a weight loss kick this year. I went on one last year and lost 25 lbs that I kept off and I've lost another 10 here recently. Thus, I haven't been uberexcited about knitting up a bunch of sweaters that might not fit next year (hopefully, won't fit next year). So thinking over what kinds of projects I could knit that would still fit if I were another couple of sizes smaller, I came up with shawls and socks. So I've been knitting quite a few shawls and socks. I thought about bags too, but decided that was a bad idea.

I'm sure bags would look good if I were thin or not, but bags are sort of like paper to me. I don't mean that they're white and flat or anything, I mean that I don't know what to do with them and they seem to multiply uncontrollably, like bunnies. If I walk in the door with a sheet of paper, a scrap, on which I wrote a phone number or a note or something and set it down, later this week, that piece of paper will have 5-100 friends around it. It's like one sheet of paper is a magnet for other paper, paper from everywhere in the world. I'm afraid to set down paper anywhere, because I know it will multiply. However, I'm also afraid to recycle it or throw it away, because what if sometime, someday, maybe tomorrow, I NEED that paper? Sometimes, paper even attracts other things that aren't paper. For example, on Tuesday, I got an ad from WEBS listing all their sale yarns. I looked at it, decided I wasn't terribly excited about anything in it and almost threw it in the recycling bin, but then I didn't. I set it on the end table in my family room instead. Yesterday, I put a timer on top of it. A timer for a lamp that was happily in the drawer of the table before. So sometimes, paper attracts things that aren't even paper.

Bags are like that. Bags multiply. You get one bag and set it somewhere and suddenly, bags you never knew you had appear near it. Also, bags you didn't know you wanted arrive magically in the mail without you ever picking them out. It's not like I didn't know that would happen since Sheri at Club Loopy even showed a picture of one such bag right on her blog and said she'd send a bag every month with the Club Loopy order. So the beginning of my bag snowball seemed to be finishing this:

From 2010-10-31

This is the Noni design, #106, In the Sculpture Garden bag made in Cascade 220 and then felted in a front loader. Then, a bag I got free with some cosmetic purchase appeared nearby from wherever it had been hiding since I acquired it. Then a bag with a bird on it appeared from somewhere else and 2 bags I got as Christmas gifts also appeared, one that's black and white with flowers and another that's a big basket kind of bag. The big basket bag is amazing for storing my afghan in progress next to the chair in the family room. However, this week alone, three bottles of fizzy water have been upturned inside the big basket bag. Thus, not only do bags attract other bags, but bags also attract bottles of water and cat vomit.

The absolute best bag, is my Tom Bihn Swift Knitting Bag. I'll have to post a picture of it all filled up with magazines and knitting projects and my day planner and everything later, but it's both smaller and bigger than it looks. Smaller meaning that when I opened it, I was a bit disappointed that it was so small looking. However, after using it and realizing it can store a huge cape, 2 skeins of yarn, an in progress sock, my phone, my wallet, and a lace project and not seem overly full, it really is bigger than it looks. It's also discrete and doesn't scream KNITTING BAG at you in big bold letters. Actually, it doesn't really scream, ever. It's awesome, and worth every penny my mom spent on it (happy birthday to me!).

Hi again!

2011-03-24T19:50:00.001-05:00

I found that it was difficult to write much in a knitting blog when I wasn't knitting very much. However, lately, I've been knitting up a storm and I'm just starting my adventures in spinning. I'm signed up to take a lesson Sunday. At some point, I'll have to take a picture of the first bobbin for posterity. It's a bit sad.

I recently finished Celaeno by Romi Hill:

This was my first beaded shawl. My poor, sick Linus could not resist helping me block it. I'm not sure what's wrong with him exactly, but the vet assures me he'll know by Monday (poor kitty got poked and prodded at the vet yesterday).

I added some links to my Ravelry project page with project details for everything I've finished this year and everything I'm working on. They're over to the right.

I also changed up the blog format to make a picture I took the background. I'll have to create some sort of yarn tower later of yarn I actually own and love, instead of just yarn I happened to have a picture of. Not that I have anything against Malabrigo (the shawl above is knit in Malabrigo sock in the Violeta Africana colorway), but still - it isn't my yarn.

As to why I wasn't knitting very much, I had a bit of an argument with a box cutter and it won, taking a bunch of nerves and a big chunk of vein in my left thumb with it. When you can't bend your thumb, it's REALLY difficult to knit. However, other than a bit of a scar and a weird numb spot, the thumb is just fine now. Looking forward to talking to you all on a regular basis again.

Movie Review - Burlesque:

Pretty solid 3. It was worth the price of the pay-per-view (I was in the mood for a movie and nothing free on Netflix appealed at that moment). I enjoyed it, the music, the dancing. It wasn't Moulin Rouge or Chicago though (which I loved).

Returning to Balance

2007-08-08T13:36:00.001-05:00

I've been giving some thought into how to return my life to a reasonable semblance of balance. I figured the first step in that process is to identify what balance in my life might be like - what do I want to do/be, how do I want to live? How did balance disappear anyways. Was it ever there?

I tend to go full bore on one thing at a time. When I say one thing - I mean like one activity pretty much takes over. Sometimes it's work, sometimes it's a video game, sometimes it's knitting, sometimes it's reading, sometimes it's working out/eating better. The problem with this is that everything else is being neglected during that period. Nov-April was knitting. I knit instead of sleeping/eating. From most of May-now, it's been a video game intermixed with weeks of working long hours and still not sleeping. I must be eating because I've noticed my pants are getting a bit tighter (ack!).

So now I have a little vision of what balance is and now I've got to figure out how to get from here (obsession) to there. I put life balance into 5 basic categories: health (exercise, sleeping, eating well), finances (keeping everything organized, paying off a couple of house/college-related loans, saving for some home and car maintenance things and a vacation), work (keeping organized, keeping focused), entertainment/relationships (time with friends, pursuing personal entertainments in a reasonable fashion), and physical environment (organized house/car, clean, maintained, complete). I defined what those would mean to me. Now I'm trying to figure out what an absolute minimum standard is for each one that I can work to meet that standard. In SOOOO many of these categories I'm just falling far short of what I think should be the minimum and I wouldn't say my minimum standard is all that high.

I think the biggest issue is I tend to completely block out everything except my current obsession. There is just enough level of awareness to keep my house from being overrun with ants or dirty dishes, keep at least 1 outfit for work wearable at all times, to keep from getting fired (well perhaps a higher standard than that), sleep a just enough hrs a night to not completely get over my almost cold but not get it either, keep just enough groceries to keep from totally starving in my house and to keep my friendships.

I've never really been good at creating routines and am excellent at making lists of things I never do. So perhaps I'll start there with just a few small routines/schedules and work on that for a while...

Work has temporarily taken over my life

2007-08-07T15:58:00.001-05:00

I finished Mom's Boatneck Pullover and gave it to her (like 2 months late) for Mother's Day. I have recently made some progress on the Thelonious sock and the Independence Top (which is about 2" from complete).

Work - in the craziness of emerging from bankruptcy - has, combined with rereading the Harry Potter series in preparation for reading Book 7 and playing a video game online with my friend who moved to Duluth, temporarily taken over and left me with little energy for knitting or blogging. In the middle of all that craziness, I also went on vacation to Myrtle Beach. Today I realized how awfully long it has been since I posted to this Blog! Wow! It's probably also the last time I took a picture of anything at all.

Well it's August now, the 10Q will be issued on Thursday and I'm hoping to return to semi-regular work hours and stress levels - and my knitting. I doubt I will be knitting quite so obsessively as I was before, but I definitely need to unwind a little (that was a little punny you have to admit). I'm behind on nearly everything to do with my life outside of work really.

This month is dedicated to catching up with my friends, catching up with my knitting, catching up with my housework (made good progress on that this weekend), catching up with my blog, and catching up on my physical health (sleep and exercise have both been scarce lately). I hope this note finds all of you well and I leave you with this little bit of entertainment:

Juliette - starring as herself

Wow - have I been busy

2007-06-08T09:44:00.001-05:00

My Company emerged from bankruptcy on the 31st, so I've been insanely busy at work. I haven't had nearly enough time to knit or blog or, heck, keep the kitchen neat or the grass mown. I'm expecting a pretty quiet weekend, so I have plans to do all of that.

Someone told me this week (not at work at least) that I'm mean, but I'm funny. Not sure how to take that. I have a fairly low tolerance for complete stupidity. However, I believe I have learned to temper my natural desire to tell someone that they are being stupid directly, letting them figure it out for themselves (with my help of course). I walk through a patient explanation of normal logic in the same situation and let them figure out for themselves that they were being stupid. Obviously, for those who really are stupid (as opposed to having just done something stupid), they never figure it out. Mind you, I am not saying I don't personally do stupid things, and I am much more cutting with jokes at my own expense. I'm about the world's biggest klutz, and will admit it and joke about it. Can't get much more stupid than running into a wall, right? I do that all the time. I seem to have no sense of where walls actually are...

I have made some progress - the Independence Top (see 2007 Works in Process in the side bar) is nearly complete. Only about 1/4 of the back left to knit now. Mom's Boatneck Sweater is finished, and mostly sewn together (one sleeve short due to required repair). It has a spot that needs duplicate stitching on a sleeve and needs a hem added to the bottom. I haven't even touched the Thelonious socks. Last time I looked at it (like 3 weeks ago), I noticed I had made an error about 2 rows back.

Well - plans for tonight (I'm thinking really short range here):

Wash sheets and towels and put away clean towels that are on the laundry table
Clean up the kitchen (should only take about 15 min - I keep putting stuff there that doesn't belong)
Watch a couple of shows from TiVo spend that time working on the Independence Top
Mow lawn

Plans for tomorrow:

Wash real clothes finishing pretty much ALL of the laundry
Straighten house, dust, vacuum and mop all rooms (basic cleaning)
Shovel out my home office (file papers, pay paper bills, put away the piles of random items not belonging in the office that have accumulated)
Finish knitting the Independence Top (preferably outside in the beautiful weather)
Prepare grocery list and go to store

Plans for Sunday:

Make sure all laundry (including line dry laundry) has been folded/hung and put away
Deep clean bathroom and hall closet (clean walls, caulk baseboard trim and touch up finish, clean vent fan cover, cut and nail up 4 pcs of trim around laundry chute, remove nail from laundry shoot)
Assemble and block Independence Top

The Pieces are Finished

2007-05-17T13:25:00.000-05:00

The I finished the last piece of Mom's Boatneck Pullover. Woohoo. My mom is actually coming tonight (if she and dad get on the plane). For them to get on it will mean that 8 people who have paid for tickets need to not show up for the flight. Last time mom visited, 16 people who paid for tickets didn't show up for the Thursday night flight - so seems like a decent chance today.

So my plan when I get home:

Mop kitchen floor
Wash dogs
Clean bathroom floor (and walls - after dogs shake hair all over)
Put away the clean dishes in the dishwasher
Start sewing up the sweater
Pick up mom and dad if they actually leave Baltimore on the plane

Sometime over the weekend - I plan on taking pictures, both without mom in the sweater and with mom in the sweater. She may make me chop off her head before I get to post it on the blog.

This is Going to be a Long Hard Month(s)

2007-05-16T12:13:00.000-05:00

I have been able to knit so little as to barely notice. I got to knit for about 90 minutes yesterday evening (while watching House and American Idol on Tivo) and I was so happy to be knitting. Work has gotten really busy as we are about 2 weeks from the date of implementing our project. Everyone else has suddenly gotten panicked and I just wish it would be over. I go from meeting to meeting, half of which are unecessary. In those meetings, I get assigned with things to so, with no hope of actually doing them due to the plethora of meetings.

My parents are coming to visit this weekend! That means probably less knitting. Oh wait, I've hardly been knitting at all, so I don't know how much less knitting I could actually do. I expect to be able to give my mom her mother's day sweater (I'll take a picture of it when it gets completed). It has no more than 5 hours work left, perhaps less than that. I had a guest last night also, so tonight I have to get the guest room ready again and vacuum after the insanely shedding dog duo. I vacuumed 3 days ago and there are literally piles of dog hair due to the warm weater. It's making me nuts. Can't wait until they finish getting their summer coats.

Perhaps I can make the dogs wear clothes, so the dog hair all is contained inside the clothes and can be shaken outside. They both need baths, which will probably make the shedding worse temporarily. Perhaps by Saturday I will not be able to identify any surfaces other than dog hair (even assuming that I vacuum today).

I also realized over the weekend that it has been weeks since I've been to a grocery store. I've been eating out of my pantry and am now out of cereal, pasta, bread, butter, milk, all canned soups, all quick prep frozen foods, all vegetables and all fruits save applesauce. On Monday night, I had to eat eggs, popcorn (cooked on the stove), and applesauce for dinner. Last night I had to have dinner out. I really need to stop at the store, but have no idea what to buy given my parents impending visit. We probably won't eat at home.

Who Would Ever Want to Knit Socks??

2007-05-09T15:31:00.000-05:00

I'm clearly behind the times here, but a company manufacturing popular hand-dyed sock yarns started an annual sock club whereby they send the yarn and pattern to knit a pair of socks every month (or every other month - not sure) to members of the club. So many people signed up and paid for the sock club between Dec 31 and Jan 5, 2007 that the bank decided the yarn company was conducting a scam. It was clear to the bank that there could not possibly be so much public interest in participating in a sock club, therefore it could not be a legitimate business. The bank refunded all the customer's money and refused to accept credit card transactions for the orders.

See link to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog topic on this issue from January:

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2007/01/11/freakin_muggles.html

Apparently, this bank has not caught up to the current business outlook for knitting retail stores/manufacturers of knitting items (or ever read Vogue's statistics for advertisers about how much the average knitter spends in a year on knitting).

Fitness (or not so much)

I started wearing my pedometer again recently (after a several year hiatus). When I used to wear it when I worked at Wells Fargo full-time and was going to grad school part-time, I walked 10,000-14,000 steps most days (as I would pace up and down the hall in my apartment while reading the articles I had to read for school). I've been wearing it for 1.5 weeks and the most steps I have achieved in a single day is 7800 and most days it's more like 3000-4000. Ack! Yesterday at lunch, I walked around a tiny little circle of sidewalk (think something about 1/10th the size of a quarter mile track) a bunch of times in an attempt to 10000 steps for the day on my pedometer. Still had only at 2714 steps as of 3:21 pm... can't be good. However, it probably does explain how in the days since I was walking 10000-14000 steps a day I've managed to put on about 30 lbs...

I mowed my back lawn yesterday. I also sprinkled grass seed on some bare spots, but I think Snoopy will probably eat it before any grass grows. He is mostly the reason for the bare spots anyway.

Knitting Update

I actually did knit today and yesterday and the day before. I am beginning the sleeve cap shaping on the last sleeve of Mom's boatneck pullover today. I guess I just needed a little break from knitting and my hands and elbows were starting to not feel so great I think I'd been doing a bit too much knitting (Sacreligious statements, I know). Anyway, I feel enthusiastic again after a week and a half where I did very little knitting. I worked a little on all of my open projects actually. I'll get up some more pictures soon.

Can you tell Lucy from Linus?

Pictures below. When they are naked (without collars), which they are right now, my mom can't tell them apart unless they are together or are making noises (since they sound different from each other). Note the eyes that appear cloudy are a trick of the camera - essentially a version of red eye due to the color of the retina and the reflection of the flash off of that retina. There is nothing wrong with the actual eyes of the cat.

Who am I?

Who am I?

Stash or Not Stash? That is the Question

2007-05-07T15:16:00.000-05:00

A stash is defined as a secret place where something is hidden or stored or something, such as money or an illegal drug, that has been hidden or stored. In another source stash is defined as a horde or secret store of valuables or money. The key components strikes me as something both secret and either valuable or illegal. I don't consider any of my yarn as being secret and certainly not illegal (though by some, it might be considered valuable). One does not usually store secret items in clear bins with labels describing exactly what is inside and the intended purpose of the contents.

Lately, I have accumulated a good bit of yarn with which I am not knitting right now. However, all of this yarn has an intended purpose - a specific project with a pattern. Is this stash yarn or is it a project that has not begun?

Stash

When I first started knitting, I bought a couple of yarns that don't have specific purpose or patterns. At this time, I have only a few yarns like this - 1) 2200 yds rose colored Lion Brand Wool-Ease with which I was intending to recreate a navy blue cabled v-neck sweater that I loved until it basically fell apart, 2) a Rowanspun DK weight yarn in blue, there are several possible patterns for the Rowanspun, but nothing that is really affixed to that yarn and 3) Plymouth Baby alpaca brush (lots of this in black, blue and another blue). I also have 4 sock yarns with no specific intent.

I also have leftover yarn from completed projects that can not be returned. I have yarn from my neice's Christmas sweater (about 2.5 skeins), 3 cotton yarns for dish cloths, leftover Rowan Cashsoft 4-ply from the bunny booties (probably enough to make another pair). I'm going to have a good bit leftover from mom's sweater also.

Not Stash

I segregate yarns purchased for specific projects as yarns that are not a "stash." However, the number and amount of yarn accumulated in this category is beginning to exceed a "temporary holding" definition that satisfied me that this was not, in fact, a stash. I have yarns for all of the following projects that have not been started (shown generally in order from newest to oldest):

Handmaiden Sea Silk laceweight - project: The Essential Tank from "Lace Style"
Malibrigo laceweight - project: Bella from Fiber Trends
Louet Euroflax sport weight linen - project: Crystal Palace Knit Sarong
ArtYarns Ultramerino4 - project: Thelonious Socks (pt 2) from Cookie A
Manos del Uruguay Wool - project: Travel Bag from "Men with Balls"
Cascade 220 - project: Sculpture Garden Baguette from Noni
Rowan Soft 4-ply - project: Rhiannon Socks by Cookie A
Noro Silk Garden Light - project: Entrelac Vest
Kathmandu Aran (purchased by my mom) - project: Cabled Afghan from "Gorgeous Knitted Afghans"
Mixed cream and brown yarns - project: poncho type thing (sure the pattern has a name)
Cleckheaton yarn - project: hat for mom as Christmas gift (from a book called something)
ArtYarns Flora - project: Braided Top (from an ArtYarns flyer)
Rowan Felted Tweed - project: mittens (from knitty.com mittens 101)
Lion Brand fun fur and Wool Ease - project: White hat from "Hip Knit Hats" (thus the washability)
Skacel Sirenetta - project: self-designed v-neck tank
Rowanspun Aran, JoSharp Silk Road Aran, Berroco Memories - project: Cardigan for Arwen (Interweave Knits, Winter 2007)

The Big Mistake

2007-05-07T11:24:00.000-05:00

A week ago, my friend talked me into buying a video game - World of Warcraft. I was envisioning a military-style game, perhaps set on the water. Instead, it's a massive online world with classic dungeons & dragons rules (classes of characters including a variety of magicians with various specialties, a thief class with 3 specialties, 2-3 combination classes, and a warrior class) combined with some special twists of professions unrelated to the character's profession, quests that earn a character both special items and experience points required to gain additional levels and a Player vs Player concept where you can duel characters on your own "side" and actually kill the characters on the other side. I kept saying I shouldn't buy this game because I am definitely a gamer and get sucked into any new game fairly obsessively for a couple of weeks. She's owned the game a month and in one week, I've nearly caught up with her (partly because she has been helping me and has been neglecting some of her own character's skill improvement).

Of course, I have the benefit of having played many different version of this exact kind of computer game since I was 6. We purchased Wizardry: the Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord on the Apple II+ in 1981 and I would watch my dad play with his party of characters with funny names such as "Yurassis Dragon" (see the punniness there?). I soon moved on to playing myself. I was introduced to the world of online d&d computer games called MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) in 1993 when I was a freshman in college. Similar to Wizardry, there were no pictures. Just words telling you about the monster and, new, the ability to play with real people in your party at their computers somewhere else connected to the Internet. Experience gives me the ability to select strategies and to know what features of the game I want to participate in and what features I don't and how to move up fast with the right sets of skills.

My boss commented that if he would have had to pick any leisure activity he was sure I would never participate in, computer gaming would have been at the top of his list. He still doesn't know about my Xbox...

Some people are completely nuts about this game. There was someone on over the weekend who mentioned he had skipped work to play (mind you he was a high school student who works at a Carl's Jr.). The company who makes the game offers credit cards with benefits, sells atlas books & a series of strategy guides (at around $25 a pop), a board game (for $80), a behind-the-scenes DVD and music CD each selling for about $10 and so much more. Not to mention the aftermarket on these puppies. On ebay for $850, you can buy a character someone else made that is up to level 65 and there is actually a bid for $850 to buy that character. I find this all crazy. Isn't the fun of any game actually playing it yourself? Why is it fun to get a character that's done everything already and not even really know how to play it? Mind you - it appears to be a fake bid intended to get someone else to bid on the character. Ebay is a game too you know. I just had to comment on the insanity.

Note that despite all the verbiage on the game, I did clean my entire house this weekend, mow my lawn, do laundry, go to a friend's house for dinner and drinks, spend 5 hrs at Yarnzilla to knit with the others at the shop, and get at least 14 hrs of sleep on the 2 weekend nights (lots more than my usual weekday amounts).

Knitting Update

That said, I have been neglecting my knitting. I'm at least half done with the 2nd sleeve for my mom's sweater, but I haven't worked on either of my other two projects for about 5 days. I'm off to eat lunch and spend about 15 min working on that sleeve now.

Unrelated Ramblings

I have brown carpet in my office that has accumulated so much dirt it actually looks dirty (so dirty that if I actually had to touch it with any part of my body - I would need to then either shower or wash whatever touched the floor - even if it was my feet). I need to take a picture of my cube for you some day. Compared to bank/finance companies I have worked at previously, our working environment here is at least dingy if not downright polluted. I keep Windex wipes in my desk so I can clean all surfaces at least weekly (and it often takes 2 passes). In my little 8x8 cubicle, I wipe off as much dirt as in the entire downstairs of my house every week. I assume this is because the people around me don't do the same and the cleaning people only vacuum the main traffic areas and don't dust or clean any desks or cube surfaces.

Picture of the Day

Ack - I'm behind

2007-05-06T22:24:00.000-05:00

I have been busy with other things and haven't had enough time to sit and write. I don't have too much time now, but I can post some new pictures. Yarnzilla got in new Handmaiden Sea Silk in this week. I fell in love and had to buy some. I will be knitting the pictured top from "Lace Style." The color rendition is pretty lousy in this picture and I don't have time to mess with it right now. It's a lovely medium rose color.

And of course, the obligatory pet picture. The boys posed very nicely (they were praying for a dog cookie - and got one).

Purely Theoretical

2007-05-02T09:39:00.000-05:00

I get to spend the next two days debating whether or not purely hypothetical transactions that probably never would occur might occur at the price we estimated (if ever such a thing would take place - which it won't). Whoever thought accounting was some sort of fixed set of rules was just plain wrong. Certain standards are so open to interpretation as to hardly even be useful guidelines and others just don't apply in a logical way to the real world.

[Post Script - Written 3 hrs later. Holy crap are these meetings boring. I had to buy a Dr Pepper during lunch just now to have any hope of staying awake for the afternoon session. It's funny how when actually leading a meeting or participating in a discussion about really boring crap, I can easily stay awake. When listening to other people (who are clearly not feeling passionate about the boring crap) the crap gets even more boring. I think this is the most semi-swearing I've done in any blog entry.]

I met with my knitting group last night and worked on my mom's sleeve. I at least got the first 20 rows completed. 84 more to go until I get to the sleeve cap. I had a nasty headache and took some Immitrex when I got home. It made me feel a little slow and light headed for about 20 minutes, but it did make my headache go away so I would be able to go to sleep. I had an 8 am meeting this morning, so sleep was good. I'm not a morning person at all. It took one alarm clock playing the Dixie Chix (pretty loudly), one beeping alarm clock set at maximum volume that used to wake up people on a different floor of my dorm when I was in college, 2 wrestling dogs whacking the bed and one cat biting my hair to wake me up at 6:30. The animals don't like the beeping alarm at all.

Here are pictures of the body of the sweater and new yarn I bought to make Bella - it's Malibrigo laceweight (1900 yards of it - well 1880 anyway).

And I couldn't post anything without a pet picture. Here's Lucy.

Gardening is Expensive!

2007-04-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

So far, I've spent $300 and I still don't have any dirt for the garden (or mulch for the paths - or bolts for the fence for that matter). I've been to 3 stores so far - Bachman's (high-end garden center, for the seeds), Home Depot, and Menard's (regional midwest Home Depot-like place). Home Depot did not have the proper height of chainlink fencing (which I had to use due the top rail necessary to keep my fur butts from destroying the fence). They had the wrong height for $85 a 50' roll. At Menard's, they had the 42" proper height for only $30 per 50' roll. Made no sense, but I was happy about the price.

I got the fence posts driven in Sunday (easier than I thought) and hung the gate from those. The gate hasn't been tighted into place yet, just hand tightened. It looks kind of funny sitting there without any surrounding fence. Just a gate in the middle of the yard. I need to stop at a Home Depot sometime before the weekend to purchase the bolts (store trip #4). I was thinking I could get the fence put up, dig up the grass and attach the chicken wire into the bottom of the fence before the weekend. However, it rained yesterday, tonight is my knitting group, tomorrow I'm planning a trip to Riviera Maya Mexico with my parents for Thanksgiving (break from tradition), and Thursday I'm going to a bar after work to celebrate my friend's last day at my old company (She finally escaped). Sounds like my week is pretty full-up. Then next weekend I'm sure to be heading off to purchase as much dirt as my truck will hold and can plant a few of the seeds that can be planted prior to the last frost date.

Knitting Update

I did not, however, get any knitting done Sunday or yesterday at all. My hands and elbows were a little tired from driving in the fence posts. I did finish the body of mom's sweater on Saturday and got the shoulders connected with a 3 needle bind off. It has not been blocked (which I should do tonight). I'll be casting on the second sleeve at lunch today. That project needs to be completed really quick since I need to ship it off to mom next Thursday. She was really concerned about it being too long and asked me to err on the side of too short, so I can add a hem/cuffs if more length is needed. I just found out I might see her the weekend after Mother's Day, so perhaps it can wait until then so I can fix it that weekend if it needs more length.

I noticed yesterday that I forgot to actually post Luka and Romeo's pictures (my guest stars). Here they are:

A Love for Knitting (even in Duluth)

2007-04-29T10:05:00.000-05:00

My cat Linus, who usually just lays around the house curled up so he appears to have no legs or tail, was really loving my knitting table today. He knocked down the supply container and then moved onto the fat cat sock blockers. Note that the red is his cat collar (which is broken). He pulled it out of the container under the sock blockers and then spent a bunch of time both rubbing the knitting box and trying to open it.

Visiting my friend on Friday night, I made one sighting of an afghan I knitted laying in its natural habitat. I also found more cats. These are Luka and Romeo.

My friend is learning to knit and didn't know how to bind off. I felt the need to take a photo (and then to show her how to bind off). We actually didn't get to the bind off part on Saturday (as she convinced me to purchase a game called "World of Warcraft"). I'll have to talk her through it over the phone.

Anyway, today I need to go to Home Depot and start building my garden. Lucy thinks that sounds like entirely too much work (and she can't figure out why Linus is wasting all that energy rubbing his face all over everything when he could be laying in the sun asleep like she is).

Hope for No Weenies

2007-04-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was leading a project team meeting with 2 directors (my boss and his counterpart), a bunch of consultants and 4 other accounting managers (my peers). During the meeting, one of the directors Blackberries started buzzing, only it was a kind of sick, watery buzzing of a type that usually signals bad things for an electronic device. This particular director does not usually cart irritating electronic devices to meetings (see previous message about my lack of love for anything electronic in a meeting).

After the meeting, I commented that her Blackberry sounded a bit sickly. She said, "It is. I need to carry it around today (I don't like to). I've had a few problems with these things." My boss then started ribbing her (kind of under his breath) - "When dropped in bowl of Cheerios - I'm not sure that it qualifies as a problem with the Blackberry. Then there were those other Blackberries you had - one dropped in the pool, then another run over with the car. How did you run over it with the car, by the way?" I thought it was really funny because she appears to be the most put together person ever. Always dressed in beautiful suits with her hair perfect. A Blackberry dripping in milk didn't sound like her at all. Sounds more like something I would do. Heaven knows my hair is never perfect (my hair won't do perfect, in fact) and I certainly never have appeared "with it" . Good to know other people are klutzy, even when they don't appear to be.

Of course, I'm the obvious kind of klutzy. The kind that runs into filing cabinets that jump out in front of me, falls out of my chair sitting at my desk and manages to injure myself with items such as bananas or toast. The employees of my last Company actually considered whether games they were thinking about playing on a pontoon boat might cause me to end up bleeding or overboard (apparently, quite a number of games were eliminated by these two criteria).

Tonight I'm flying up to Duluth for tomorrow morning's drive back to Minneapolis, so I won't have time to post any knitting pictures until probably Sunday. However, if I don't sleep the entire flight (sleep is a definite possibility given my 2:30am post yesterday and my still on-time work arrival today), I should get some knitting done. I definitely expect to be able to knit in the car on the way back down to the city. I'm debating about bringing my mom's sweater (which I really should finish) or my Independence Top (which I really want to wear). I'll probably bring mom's sweater and the Thelonious socks and pray the Addi's don't get disallowed by the TSA. They shouldn't. Minneapolis let me on board with them before and knitting needles are definitely on the allowable items list.

Duluth is more hard-ass. Last time in Duluth they made me remove my toiletry items from my smaller than 1 quart clear zippered plastic bag (actually zippered with a real zipper) to an Ziploc brand baggie. Apparently, lots of potential terrorist airline employees attempt to get by with unsafe volumes of liquids that are housed in commercially made bags obviously smaller than a 1 quart Ziploc bag as anyone with any sense of spatial reasoning can see. The federal government is trying to ensure the Ziploc company survival I guess (not that they were ever in any danger).

When I was last waiting in line at Duluth security, a group of elderly people were talking about a friend, an old lady (just short of cane walking here) , who actually had 17" screw driver (a size I have never seen used) in her carry-on luggage the previous time they had flown (don't you love a good parathetical statement?). She read the sign about prohibited items, whipped this huge screwdriver out of her luggage, showed it to security and asked if that was allowed on. Uh, not so much. TSA confiscated the world's biggest screwdriver, . They did let me bring crochet hooks.

I hope I don't run into a weenie such as the one encountered by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee on my flight. I'm rather expecting a first class seat (since there are only 35 people on this plane), so hopefully the weenies will be delegated to coach-class. If she had been able to capture a picture of his face (rather than just his feet), I would know ahead of time if he was there and be sure to answer that they were not metal - just really shiny plastic.

I Think I'll Make Dirt Now

2007-04-27T01:57:00.000-05:00

Linus - "She finally listened to my cry and fed me. Note the licking of the lips."

First off, I am typing this on my laptop computer from my favorite chair in the Family Room. I bought a wireless internet card and router today and got them all set up for use. Woohoo.

Anyway, I went to Bachman's, probably the premier garden center here in the Minneapolis area, on my way home from work. I wanted to purchase vegetable seeds (hello $40 - wait - goodbye $40 would be more appropriate, just for the seeds). Then I asked how much it would cost to get garden soil (aka dirt) for the little 10'x14' garden I'm planning, along with a little mulch. Well, that costs $150 + $70 for delivery. Yes, if I want someone to bring it (and it won't fit in my car for sure), I have to pay half again as much. Note that I would still need to move the dirt after it gets here to get it in the garden.

My mom suggested pricing the same thing out in bags at Home Depot (fortuitously, I got a coupon today for $10 off any $50 garden purchase at Home Depot in the mail today). I will need at least 5 bags and up to 9 bags of mulch (for paths in the vegetable garden and a new garden bed next to the house). I also need at least 24 bags of dirt and possibly as many as 30. Of course, before I do any of that, I need 4 fence posts (a special kind my neighbor recommended so if this doesn't work out, they're easily removed), Treated wood to make raised frames, fencing, chicken wire, 2x4s, and some screws. I think this weekend will be fence and bed weekend (and I'll bring home as much dirt as I can fit in my truck in one trip). Next weekend I'll get the rest of the dirt for the vegetable garden. I can get the mulch for the paths and the dirt for other parts of the yard later.

The dirt business sure seems to be thriving. It seems like dirt shouldn't be that hard to come by. I don't imagine that the dirt in my vacuum cleaner bag would grow good vegetables, though. If I dug a bunch of holes in my yard (which Snoopy is doing for me anyway), I should be able to make a boatload of money. Of course, I would have a hole instead of a yard and I bet the dogs would track in more mud than they do already.

Knitting Update

I guess I've made more progress than I thought on mom's boatneck pullover compared to the picture from Monday. This is the back. The front and one sleeve are completed. A second sleeve will be completed soon also.

Lucy - "I'm happy because I knocked at least four things off of tables today for fun. That's why mama calls me Lucifer."

Wow - this week is flying by

2007-04-26T12:37:00.000-05:00

I haven't had much chance to write this week. Usually, I write during lunch break or as soon as I finish working for the day. This week, there haven't really been lunch breaks and the finish of work for the day has been 7/8pm, limiting my time to write.

Work is extrememly busy as we're expecting to emerge from bankruptcy in approximately 4 weeks (and my job is to make sure all the accounting works when we do that). Tasks are being piled on top of tasks. The funny thing about that is my desk totally reflects this because at the beginning of the week, there were 3-4 miscellaneous pieces of paper laying around, 2 notebooks and a variety of writing implements (along with a pile of file folders). Now there is a very messy stack of papers, reflecting another task getting literally dropped on my desk before the first was finished. Someday, I'll come up with a good system for keeping track of tasks. I'm not really so good at that.

One kind of funny story. My friend who lives in Duluth (about a 3 hour drive from the Twin Cities) asked me to fly up Saturday morning and drive down with her in her car. This sounds nuts, but given the flight is about 60 min (and free for me) - isn't really that crazy. There aren't any Saturday am flights, though, so I need to reach her to find out when she actually wanted to get into town.

Knitting News

Not too much progress on anything this week. I feel like I'm off in the number of rows worked in my mom's sweater, but think I'm fully off one row and then have the decreases misarranged in some of the other rows. I don't think this is going to impact the final product, since the shaping is still very similar (1 or 2 rows off) and the entire garment is only 1 row too long (and there are 70 rows to make that up. I am at least making progress on this.

I've also managed to knit a total of 1 row on the Thelonious sock and 11 on the Independence top since last writing.

Since I have no new knitting pictures:

Technical difficulties

2007-04-23T23:20:00.000-05:00

I already started typing this post once and hit a wrong button - killing the whole thing. I need to go to sleep in about 10 minutes, so this post will be shorter than originally intended. The finishing class Sunday was good. I learned Japanese short rows - which are a lovely alternative to the wrap and turn. Neater for sure.

(above) Mom's Boatneck Pullover (the back)

Nasty headache most of the day, so I'm dragging tonight. I stopped at Target today and got 1) a migraine prescription and 2) some stuff to store yarn and the knitting notions I tend to scatter all about the room because the pockets in my knitting bag (which I stupidly purchased before I really knew how to knit) are completely inaccessible to the average human.

(above) Thelonious Sock (isn't this a cool pattern?)

Anyway, the yarn in my guest closet is now neatly labeled with what's inside.

I managed to start swatching for the design I talked about on saturday (dolman sleeves, deep v, knit on diagonal). This swatch is too tightly knit for this particular project (when it will need to be layered for wearing and will be edged in kidsilk haze). It's probably perfect for something else though. I'll probably try the next swatch on needles 2 sizes up (this was knit on 6 - I'll probably try an 8 next). I'm coming to the conclusion that perhaps I am a tight knitter, since my gauge is WAY off compared to the ball band and I tried the recommended needle size. Might be the biasing from the diagonal knitting though. However, I LOVE the diagonal stripes and the colors. Kind of beachy and organic (ironic since the yarn contains soy).

A Doorbell

2007-04-21T14:30:00.000-05:00

Blogger is a bit clunky for comments isn't it? It's quite difficult to reply to people. So, to answer a couple of comments:

Ray: I posted the information on the Artful Yarns pattern you asked about. Wait until you feel the yarn. I thought the sweater was pretty and shiny when I saw it hanging on the shelf, but after touching it - I had to have it (unless it would bankrupt me).

Laura: Yes, it is a button. It's the button for my Independence Top that I've been knitting out of Noro Sakura. The keyhole neck is closed with a button that is pushed through a crocheted button hole. I thought this button was a perfect complement to the loudness of the top.

In my 8 hour knitting class tomorrow - I'm anticipating getting a lot of work done on the back of that top and on finishing up the sleeve. Speaking of the Independence Top, I'm going to try out short rows to finish the sleeve cap on it because I read something cool online this week about using a 3 needle bind-off to attach sleeves. This isn't an especially large sleeve cap (and there is only one sleeve) so I thought I'd give it a shot.

To whoever told Debbie that this blog is one of your favorites: Thanks! I honestly never thought anyone would read it, so it amazes me that more than 250 different people read it every week (when it's only been around since February).

April Goals

I am well in my way to meeting most of my April goals. Today, I sorted all of the stuff that got dumped in my basement during the Master Bedroom Remodel of 2005/2006/2007 (the completion of which will be on my goals for May). The asbestos removal required that literally everything be moved out (which wasn't in the original plan for the project), so it all got dumped in the basement and a lot of it didn't make it back up the stairs. I hauled 6 bags of trash (2 which each contain only one item, perhaps I should have used yard bags instead of kitchen bags) out of there. I also sorted what's left into a stuff that needs to find a home somewhere in the house/garage and stuff that needs to be sold/go to charity. I vacuumed the carpet (thank god). Still more work to do. However, I'm going to finish up laundry and clean the rest of my house before I continue on that project.

Pictures

Tomorrow (after my finishing class) I should have lots of new knitting pictures to post. Today, I'll go with my fall back - pictures of my animals which I think are "a doorbell" (my friend Robin always uses this instead of saying adorable, no clue why since there are pretty much no other words that she does that to). There is a kitty (Linus) standing on my lap right now, purring. Every now and then I stop typing for a minute to squeeze him (right about the minute he's planning to stand in front of the monitor).

Snoopy comments, "Note the curl of my ears because I'm so happy to have something in my mouth."

And Around we Go

2007-04-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

Any guesses on what this item is?

Ann of Mason-Dixon Knitting brought up the topic of difficult knitting projects on Wednesday, which spurred an interesting discussion in the comments about whether a project like that is insanity or fun. I was thinking fun, because I like complicated. However, the list of skills required to knit what she thought was perhaps the most difficult of all projects, the Jade Starmore's Katherine Howard from the Starmores' "Tudor Roses", some of the skills I had never even heard of. A peplum? Not exactly a skill, but perhaps complicated. I didnt' really get intimidated until the "Intarsia diagonal cables using three shades of yarn and 32 bobbins" bit. I really like the jacket though (the shape and style are very me, etc...). I have an Alice Starmore pattern from the "Celtic Collection" in stranded colorwork with a dragon motif (subtle enough that I didn't immediately notice it was dragons - just loved the colors). Not sure if I love it enough to knit it - but maybe.

I have a design I'm working on for something knit on the diagonal with a horizonal edging added to it in Rowan Tapestry (edging in Rowan Kidsilk Haze). I haven't actually TRIED to do it yet, but I wasn't thinking that would be all that complicated to knit - will have to pay attention to shaping at the edges on the right side rows. It's much more complicated to design, though. I need to knit up a swatch after I actually draw out the shaping on some knitters graph paper (which I started). Swatch probably won't happen this weekend. In my head, this thing has some moderately complicated shaping - but I'm not sure it will translate to something difficult at all to do. Should be pretty easy to figure out in swatch. I thinking diagonal stockinette, dolman sleeve, deep V-neck, seamed in the middle (to create a diagonal line) knit in 2 pieces, snug leaf pattern of some kind for the hem and cuffs and neckband in Kidsilk Haze with picked up stitches (I have 4 choices I need to swatch to see if any of them matches my vision).

April Goals

I made significant progress today on one of my April goals - to clean my basement. It's not as bad as I thought. Only took me about 30 minutes to complete 1/3 of it. At least half of what was down there is trash. The other half can be divided into items without proper homes in the house (most of which I considered lost or missing until today) or items that need to be sold on ebay/at garage sale/given away. I'm really bad at letting go of things most of the time. I fall somewhere between a pack rat and a normal organized person - perhaps that is a clutter bug. I'm just awful at figuring out where something should live so: 1) I can find it again later, 2) it's easily accessed when needed, and 3) I put it away when I'm through with it. How do people figure this out?

Riven is a happy dog (and wishes I would leave another uncooked pizza on the counter for a second - he hasn't eaten one in about a month)

Howard Stern has Failed (and I'm still knitting)

2007-04-19T17:33:00.000-05:00

American Idol Update

I am thrilled that Howard Stern's manipulations of American Idol results are at an end. Sanjaya was voted off (as he should have been at least 8 weeks ago). People at my work were so excited about this that there was actually a make-shift party where chips, donuts and other goodies were available in celebration of the demise of Sanjaya's American Idol dreams.

On a related topic, I thought it was really low of Chris Richardson to attempt to earn votes by expressing his sympathy for the families of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. I also thought it was lousy that many people apparently interpreted from Simon's facial expression that he was not sympathetic to the victim's families. Personally, I like Simon and didn't get that at all.

My mother is a college professor. At least 8 of the 32 victims were also professors or teaching classes at the time of the shootings. Before knowing who the shooter was, she was hoping it wasn't a student. I think it has totally freaked her out that it was a student. Nearly half of the students in one of her classes are failing - and she doesn't want to be the next shooting victim.

Knitting News

I don't feel like I have lots to show. In the middle of 3 projects, I'm making progress, but it looks the same as previous pictures.

One good question - I haven't done any lace knitting before. I purchased a copy of the pattern Fiber Trends Bella from Yarnzilla last weekend. I love this thing (not really a poncho, not really a shawl, seems casual enough for workwear and dressy enough). Any opinions on good lace yarns? Yarnzilla has Malabrigo laceweight in 100% merino and Fleece Artist Leicester laceweight in 100% wool and will soon have Fleece Artist Flaxen in a linen silk blend. Any opinions on these?

Many Crackberry Addicts without Anchor (muhahaha)

2007-04-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

I detest the use of Blackberrys and similar electronic devices in meetings. The buzzing, the beeping, the tapping, the key clicking, and the wheel spinning as people (who are supposed to be listening or participating in the conversation) send and receive emails. It's ridiculous that this activity is socially acceptable, but knitting in a meeting is not. I can listen and knit at the same time. I'm sure I can't listen and email at the same time. Given this, I admit an almost gleeful delight in today's news that the Blackberry network experienced a significant outage yesterday evening and this morning (see article). I'm sure this forced many "Crackberry" addicts to either further heights of button pressing in attempts to get messages to send and freak-outs about declining popularity evidenced by the dearth of new bleeps and buzzes from the little device. Anyway, I found this an excellent start to my day. I wish the outage would continue for a couple of days so that I didn't feel that I needed to toss Vice Presidents and CFOs and consultants and auditors out of windows (or jump myself - we only have 3 stories in this building) to get away from the irritation.

American Idol Update

I'm not sure who was better yesterday, Jordin or Melinda. I also enjoyed Blake and Phil gave his best performance ever. When oh when will Sanjaya go home? TONIGHT!!! Woohoo. Lucy and Linus expected it all along.

Knitting Update

I spent a good bit of my knitting time yesterday dropping 8 stitches about 8 rows on my Thelonious sock (in 2 different places) to reknit them back up as I noticed I made a fairly large error that I repeated on both sides of the sock. Anyway, it's fixed now. I managed to knit 1 more row on the socks tonight and noticed one of the yarnovers (like 20 rows back) is misplaced. I have to look at it more closely to figure out if it can be fixed.

I also knit another 20 rows on Mom's boatneck pullover.

I stopped by 3 Kittens Needle Arts at lunch to pick up the extra skein of Euroflax I needed to knit the Knitted Sarong and to get a button for the Independence Top. Mistake!

I was wandering around and saw fell in love with one of the display sweaters that feels SO SOFT. So I asked about it, bought the pattern and bought 15 balls of Artful Yarns Flora (cotton/viscose blend) in a lovely and unusual greyish green to knit it. It will be lovely to wear to work. No clue when I will knit it. Maybe I can work it into my May/June since the Independence Top is going to be finished much more quickly than I expected.

What is it about Tuesday?

2007-04-17T00:18:00.000-05:00

On Tuesdays, blog traffic spikes. I don't mean a little. On Tuesdays, this blog gets double the traffic of other days of the week. Why is that? I can understand a little trough on the weekends because a lot of people don't use their computers as much on weekends.

Car Trouble

My car is making weird sounds is is feeling a tad funny. I took it into the shop yesterday evening (accompanied by Riven - they like seeing him) and the guy asks what the problem is.

Me: "My car is making a bad creaking/clicking noise in the front."

Dave: "Sounds like it might be the brakes."

Me: "I don't think it's really a brake noise. It's more like the noise the car makes right before it breaks - like right before the axel falls off."

Dave: (looks a bit blank)

Me: "The axel broke on my old car in the middle of an intersection right after driving across the Chesapeake Bay bridge. The wheel fell off. My car is making that kind of noise - I think - but not all the time."

Dave: "Okay, we'll take a look and call you."

I walked home from the shop with Riven (they're nearby) and waited. I got home from walking around 6:45. At 8:15, I thought maybe I should call and check. They haven't looked yet, but no worries, they don't close until 10:00. At 9:45, I call again since I'm thinking I might need a car to get to work in the morning, maybe I'm a nut on that, but I'm pretty sure I can't walk 22 miles and get to the office on time (better yet get home) - and I'm not currently up to biking that far. The repair guy stops by to pick me up (at 10:45) and on the way back tells me the only thing he can find is the rotors are getting worn and the brake shoes in front only have about 1/3 left and I need an oil change (which I knew) and an oxygen filter needs replacing (my check engine light is on). *sigh* Well, at least I'm pretty sure the axel won't fall off on my way to work (a comment that they're probably still laughing about) and I would have had to pay the $50 to find out why the check engine light was on so that can get fixed anyway. Note the dealer charges $100 to plug in the exact same computer and find out why the light is on.

Doggie comments - That ball is mine!

Blog Discussions

This blog discussion really cracked me up. It's a discussion about office jargon that drives people nuts.

Other General Stuff

I need to do laundry! Over the weekend, the weather was so nice that I spent a lot of time outside. I cleaned the yard, cleaned the house - but skipped the laundry. Now it's Tuesday and if I don't do laundry, I'll have to resort to wearing dresses this week (not my preferred office attire usually).

Knitting Update

I made a little more progress on the sleeve for the Independence Top at lunch. Last night, I also cast on (and knit the first 10 rows) of Mom's Boatneck Pullover.

Lay off the Sauce

2007-04-16T15:34:00.000-05:00

Yarn Spotting

Have you seen this Kauni yarn for Ruth's Cardigan? The pattern and the yarn are both Danish. The squares are just a little too square for me - but I can totally see this on Alice Starmore's dragon cardigan from the Celtic Collection (which probably has a different name for the pattern) or on a yoked fair isle design. My mind is working...

Linus had just batted at the yarn and been told he couldn't play with it. This is him sulking and wondering when I will turn my back.

Lay off the Sauce

This was the thought that popped into my head when I headed to the vending machine this afternoon for a Diet Cherry Coke - basically an instruction to myself to NOT drink it (which I ignored). Nutrasweet and I are not friends. I've drank just over half the can and my skull is already tingling in places. Nutrasweet (aka Aspartame) makes me feel very strange. When I started working here, I also started drinking diet pop (we call it that here in Minnesota) regulary since there was no coffee cart I could go to at 2:45. The more I drank, the weirder I felt. I had all kinds of weird symptoms, the most describable being the skull tingling.

Given that explanation, when the "lay off the sauce" thought popped into my head - it arrived with a friend "I wonder what the etymology of that phrase is?" So I set upon a quick search (think time equivalent to a coffee or smoking break - neither afforded me here since I don't smoke and I have to drive somewhere if I want coffee). Nothing immediately popped in a Google search for the etymology for the entire term. So then I went looking for information equating alcohol to sauce and found "foods like sauces (where alcohol is typically added after the sauce has been brought to a boil) may retain as much as 85 percent." Then Wikipedia defines that "A cocktail is a style of mixed drink. A cocktail usually contains one or more types of liquor and flavorings, usually one or more of a liqueur, fruit, sauce, honey, milk or cream, spices, etc. The cocktail became popular during Prohibition in the United States primarily to mask the taste of bootlegged alcohol. " Of course, sauce was the only term not underlined with a further definition. Well, my conclusion is either the term came from the Prohibition era when a "sauce" was added to liquor to make a cocktail that appeared and tasted non-alcoholic OR it's because sauces containing alcohol are often nearly as alcoholic as the original beverage.

Work Stuff

Would you imagine that a little 3 page letter would generate a ton of work? Until Friday, I wouldn't have. The SEC sent my Company a comment letter asking a question about something reported in a previous financial report. Three people (one Director, one Manager (me) and one Chief Accounting Officer) spent 1 hour looking at it Friday afternoon. Then today, I've spent my whole day drafting a response to the letter. We get 10 days to respond. Not sure what happens if we haven't responded by then, but I understand that it's best not to find out. All this for something we're pretty confident was correct. There are now 5 other people working on this and it's probably all I will get done this week. Nice break from the 7 presentations on the same thing last week, but it wasn't in my plan. (This, not surprisingly, is why I needed the sauce (aka Diet Cherry Coke)).

More Info on Weekend Stash Enhancement

As a note, the yarn I bought Friday (shown in yesterday's post) was purchased from 3 Kittens NeedleArts. They implemented a new loyalty program recently and I earned my first $50 gift certificate on Friday when I bought all that stuff. I realized when I got home that I'm about 125 yards short on the Euroflax, so I'll use part of that $50 to buy another hank of that. I'm sure I'll find some use for the rest of the certificate. I'm taking a finishing class "Finishing for the Finicky" there on Sunday for 8 hours. Eight hours of talking about knitting. Sounds great to me. I have to make sure I do a little something else on Saturday though.

Anyway, the yarns I acquired at 3 Kittens were Manos del Uruguay Color 112 - Moss (2 hanks) in 100% wool, Euroflax Original 100% Linen yarn in sport weight (3 hanks) machine wash and dry marketed by Louet Sales in color 18-2274 Crabapple, Katia Tango in color 3502 Red Multi marketed by Knitting Fever, and ArtYarns Ultramerino 4 in Color 116 (3 hanks - orange semi solid). I've decided after I'm through with the Thelonious sock in the Mountain Colors Bearfoot, I may try it in this orange where it will be MUCH more visible.

Rhiannon Socks

Any of you who have read my blog for a while probably are aware that I like to knit things that will be useful (to me or to someone else). However, the more I think about it, the less useful I think I will find the Rhiannon sock by Cookie A since 1) I rarely wear skirts which are about the only way anyone would ever actually see these socks and 2) even if I wore skirts/dresses more often, I can't quite imagine what kind of skirt or dress I would wear with these socks that would look like something I might wear. I love them, and I'm sure I will wear them - but I just think most of the time, no one will see them. I guess that's okay really, but it does seem ridiculous to have spent $75 on yarn to knit socks no one will see. I'm hoping there is a good bit of the $75 in yarn leftover to knit other socks or items. It's a good match for the yarn I'm knitting socks with now, so perhaps the leftovers from both projects could be friends later.

Sock Question

On a related note - anyone have any opinions about whether I need to weave in/knit in another yarn in the heel and toe to reinforce? I usually use sock yarns that have some nylon content, but the Rowan Soft 4-ply is 100% superwash merino wool. For that matter, so is the new ArtYarns Ultramerino (except for the superwash part). I read something on the historic knits site about using a linen yarn with the original yarn, but I'm imagining this will create too much thickness for my taste. Shouldn't whatever is used be really fine?

Pictures

I made a little more progress on my first Thelonious sock today. The lace pattern is starting to appear. This is clearly not the best yarn for showing off the pattern, but now I have that orange ArtYarns Ultramerino 4 to do a repeat. It still looks pretty sharp, though.

Lots of pictures/progress

2007-04-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

I had to start off with some pictures of my dogs enjoying this weekends perfect weather. I'm sure these are arranged in an unpleasing fashion, but I don't have much time to write just now. Dinner is nearly ready. Note the size of Snoopy's tongue. It constantly amazes me that he manages to get it back inside his mouth after he gets it out.

The zipper went in on Sapporo this weekend (I love the cute little Dale rubber tab), officially finishing up the project. The front of my Independence Top was completed today. I vacuumed my car (totally unrelated to knitting). I finished the front of Mom's boatneck pullover. And I knit about an inch further on the Thelonious sock.

On Friday (after a stressful week) I also enhanced the stash to knit: Michael Del Vecchio's men's toiletry bag from his book "Knitting with Balls" for my dad, Crystal Palace Knit Sarong (the pink Euroflax) and Sock yarn (orange).

Homeless & Unrelated Tangents

2007-04-12T23:22:00.000-05:00

I'm not the one who is homeless. I have stuff, objects, junk that is homeless, but I'll get to that in a minute.

I spent most of today repeating the same presentation over and over to different groups of people (I've now presented it 4 times) and tomorrow I need to present it 3 more times. This is definitely a better use of everyone else's time since the smaller groups are more conducive to questions, but man does it just sort of fry my brain.

I don't have any knitting pictures to show you only because they're not interesting. I'm making progress on mom's boatneck pullover (which looks pretty similar, only a little bigger than in this picture - mostly because I'm working on the front now and that is obviously larger than the sleeve...), Independence Top (which also looks pretty similar, only a little bigger than in this picture) and Cookie A's Thelonious socks (which, I'm sure you guessed it, looks pretty similar, only a little bigger than in this picture).

I can show you a before and after of my purse. Why would you care? You probably don't. I noticed that my nice handbag was looking spotty and whipped out my Coach leather cleaner and Coach leather moisturizer to fix it up. I also took a quick spin around my house today and straightened up - something I have to do at least weekly since I seem to leave a trail of stuff behind in the wrong spots as I go about my life. When you have a small house, it's amazing what 30 minutes can do to improve (or destroy) it's condition.

Before (above), After (below) - note the after is not yet dry or buffed, but it still looks better. Needs to be cleaned a few more times in the next week or so to get the mystery spots out.

Does anyone else have a problem figuring out what to do with stuff? I seem to have all these temporary holding places for things. Certain items (like my handbag and my jackets) eventually find homes (on hooks by the back door). Other things seem to never find homes and just move from place to place. For example, my stalker purchased one of those digital photo frames, where you can put in an SD card and it plays a slide show of your pictures. I have no clue what to do with it. Mind you, I tried giving it back, to no avail. It's still in the box. The box has been on my kitchen counter (2 weeks), on my dining room table (3 weeks), on the large end table in my Family Room (2 weeks) and since has been the sole item on top of this random drawer unit places by my back door when the puppy was chewing shoes (so they had to have a new home). Now that I've just said that, it occurs to me that I can use that drawer unit as yarn storage or needle storage or for some kind of storage for something to do with knitting...

Other things that tend to float around the house, homeless, include library books, mail I haven't bothered to open or read, papers that need to be filed or that need to be found later, cardboard boxes that I keep saying will be used to ship stuff I want to sell on ebay (I am putting 15 books and a video game up tomorrow - I took the pictures already), in progress knitting projects, laundry (clean and dirty ), and the absolute worst is anything new that has been purchased. When it's a replacement of a nearly empty item - I can NEVER figure out what to do with it.

Speaking of mail (I did mention it at the beginning of the last paragraph), I received some light and dark grey Patons 80% wool/20% nylon fingering weight yarn from Jean in Canada (from the knitlist) today at a cost of the shipping only. Love that. She got a lot of yarn free and knew she wouldn't be able to use all of it. Grey totally suits my sock personality. I prefer the muted colors for socks - and the darker colors since I prefer not to wear shoes inside and have 2 black dogs. White socks are just dumb in my house. Note that I pretty much only have white socks for wear around the house - what does that say exactly?

On yet another completely unrelated tangent, I frequently play video games. My personal favorite game is The Sims2. The concept is this game is pretty ridiculous, you create a person or family, full their basic needs, their wants, and their life aspirations while avoiding their fears. They grow old and die and the game goes on with their children and grandchildren and other houses. The characters participate in all kinds of life activities like "woohoo" with their spouse or lover, gardening, owning a business, going to jobs, learning new skills, taking care of babies, toddlers and children, cooking, reading, watching tv and other activities that don't seem like they would be interesting or fun - but somehow grab and addict you to their little simulated reality. Anyway, since the characters garden, I think they should also be able to knit and earn a living as a maker of clothing or something. Anyway, I think I'm going to play the Sims2 now for 30 min or so before I sleep.

Famous People and $1 million

2007-04-11T17:08:00.000-05:00

Sock Wizard (V2) Beta Testing

I agreed to participate in beta testing this weekend for Sock Wizard V2 (a sister product to the Knitting Math Wizard I use all the time). Given that I am now knitting only my second pair of socks (which do have different heel and toe construction from my first pair), Carole will be getting the beginning sock knitter perspective. She asked people about sock knitting experience - so not a mystery.

American Idol

I really enjoyed last night's American Idol. It annoys me that Sanjaya is still there (even more so because he was decent last night). He shouldn't have been in the top 24 really. His voice is good, but he has no power at all. I'm guessing that Phil Stacy will be going home tonight. I liked Jordan Sparks and Blake the most. However, if Melinda and Lakisha don't make it to the final 4, something is wrong in the world.

Famous People and $1 million

Last night, after the eventful Latin episode of American Idol , I conversed with a co-worker via telephone. Anyway, co-worker and I somehow got on the subject of 1) why do rich famous people act so weird and 2) what would each of us do if we had $1 million. You know how regular people who get divorced are usually more cautious about marriage a second time? Famous people seem less cautious about marriage the second time (or third or seventh). Normal people date for a while (sometimes a short while, but usually at least a few months), get engaged (which also lasts for a few months) and then get married. Usually, they see each other regularly or even daily during this period. Famous people meet and get married in extremely short-time intervals. The interval of time actually seems to get shorter depending on how many previous marriages in which the couple has engaged (I wonder if this measurement can be converted into a predictable mathematical formula?). Not only that, but unlike normal people, famous people often are in different cities during the dating/engagement week - so they don't actually spend much time together. What inspires a person who has spent a sum total of 4 days in another person's company to think they could be married to that person for the rest of their lives? Actually, do famous people enter marriage thinking or intending that it will be for the rest of their lives? I'm sure it's very stressful to have people watching you and invading your privacy all the time. On a blog, I can choose what I share with the world. Reporters not only don't give famous people choices about what is shared, but they usually spin a story to bear no resemblance to the truth. Maybe Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have it right. If you're famous, the key to a long-term relationship is to never get married. The key to a short-term relationship is marriage. Kind of the opposite as for the general public.

Then we moved on to a related topic. How much money do you have to have to start to lose all normal perspective and start to do idiotic things like spending $20,000 to buy a blue designer toilet (which will have to be replaced next year since blue will no longer be in)? I can't even conceive of having $1 million (after tax of course). It wouldn't be enough for me to live on for the rest of my life, but it would be enough to pay off the mortgage, replace my old car, buy a store and have a really nice nest egg - generating income or rolling over into more money for later. I've always thought I would like to own a bookstore (like a Barnes & Noble - though I don't think they're a franchise). Lately I've been thinking how fun it would be to own a yarn store, but unless I get $1 million windfall from somewhere (highly unlikely) - I'm not enough of a risk taker to do it. At least not while I'm single and would have to risk my ability to pay for my house. Well, I can dream of a different life even if I'm both pretty happy with my current one and not likely to jump into another anytime soon.

Knitting Update

Bet you didn't think I would talk about knitting at all - did you? I'll probably update this part later or in the morning after I get in the bulk of my knitting for the day. I've made it past the waist of the Independence Top today at lunch. I can knit about 7 rows of that sweater in 30 minutes - a rate of about 29 stitches per minute (when I'm distracted and eating lunch and definitely not clipping along). Given that in October I averaged 8 sts per minute, I'd say I've improved. I'd better spend some time figuring out the shaping on the sleeveless side of the sweater in the next couple of days. I had to size up the entire pattern (it only went to 38 - which I am not) and I added waist shaping, short row shoulder shaping (for the side with a shoulder) and short rows in the bust. Anyway, I figured out the sleeve cap shaping for the short-sleeve side and need to figure out the sleeveless shaping for the other side. It's probably the same as for the orignal pattern since I am using the same length of armscye as the original pattern and getting the exact same sts AND row gauge. Weird.

Trials and Tribulations

2007-04-10T13:29:00.000-05:00

There are always challenges when you have pets. Yesterday, I arrived home and my house didn't smell like, well, like my house. It didn't smell good at all. I looked around, unable to locate the source of the smell. I thought maybe I had left something in the garbage for a few days (sometimes it takes me 5 days to fill my kitchen garbage can, during which things can start to smell bad). I took out the garbage - still a bad smell. I finally did locate the source of the smell. Thank you Riven. Apparently, finishing off the cat food on Sunday made him sick on Monday.

I also wrapped up cleaning up my yard yesterday from the winter. Four lawn bags of stick pieces (thank you Snoopy for shredding my fir tree), weird spines from some unusual trees in my yard, the last leaves from the fall and some previously frozen & unremoveable dog matter that survived my weekly attempts to keep my yard clean. I have a few protesting muscles today, but am very happy to have my yard back to it's normal, neat state.

The way is now clear to start setting up for a vegetable garden in the corner. I was hoping to start working on that this weekend, but it's supposed to snow 6" tonight. I should be able to buy materials this weekend to build the garden, though. I should also be able to build the frames for the raised beds in the garage if it isn't too cold (perhaps I should recharge the drill batteries tonight). Hopefully, I can dig for the posts and pour the concrete on the 21st. I think only need to put up 4-6 posts. I've never done it before, but how hard can it be? I do need to dig up the sod (which I would like to use to replace damaged grass elsewhere in the yard). I'm really hoping that for all this work, I don't stink at gardening.

Does anyone know how to order mulch and compost for delivery? I also want to redo my front garden beds, so I'll need a decent - but not ridiculous amount. I'm not sure I have enough money to replace all my plants in front yet. I'll buy the vegetable garden stuff and figure it out I guess - since I know how much I have for that project. I also need to wash the outside of my house (it's white), do some touch-up painting on a garage window and a few other spots on the garage (which will need to be completely painted next year) and strip my deck and restain it. Whew. That sounds exhausting.

April Goals

Inspired by Cynthia, I formulated some goals for April. Though I did write these down earlier in the month - I didn't post them, I have the following five goals for April:

Prepare vegetable garden beds, put up fence & order/buy seeds

Clean the basement (I can't quite describe the level of disaster that has befallen my poor basement. It's a cluttered mess. At this point, it's become impossible to clean (i.e., vacuum/mop/dust) around the clutter and the dirt has reached the intolerable level now. We're not talking "How Clean is Your House" levels of intolerable - but too dirty for me. The tool/laundry side of the basement will probably only take about 30 minutes to declutter, since it isn't too bad. The carpeted Rec Room side has become a dumping ground for all kinds of random stuff. I think I'm going to have to do a "Mission Organization" approach to it and just pull everything out, sort it into categories (while creating trash/donation piles), and put back the pared down stuff into logical homes with LABELS. If something isn't labeled, I can not find it nor can I figure out where to put it when I'm through with it).

Finish knitting socks (I finished them on Sunday, so one down)

Knit the front and back of Mom's Openwork Boatneck Pullover (the front will be finished this week - so on track for that)

Start a fairly mindless knitting project (Independence Top) - Lucy demonstrates it's fun factor as I couldn't frame a picture of progress without her in it.

I did begin the Thelonious Socks by Cookie A yesterday. I started with the size M on Addi US 2 needles (for proper gauge), but after knitting and inch and trying it on, it was very loose. I dropped to size 1 needles (looks better) and I think it's a better fit now.

Happy Easter

2007-04-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

I have a few pictures to post. I finally got some pictures of my progress on the Independence Top. Yes, the colors really are this bright. The interesting texture is due to wraps of thread in the yarn. Not sure how else to describe. You can look more closely by clicking on a picture (my camera takes some pretty large pictures).

I went to a friend's house for Easter. We dyed Easter eggs with her 6 year old daughter, had a lovely dinner of flank steak stuffed with cream cheese, roasted red peppers, garlic, spinach and feta cheese along with roasted potatoes and grilled asparagus. I brought a key lime pie for dessert. After dinner, we went out on a bike ride. Just before we got home, my friend's daughter fell (with a scrape and a bruise), but you would have thought someone was murdering her with the screaming. She is definitely dramatic. I find her enormously entertaining most of the time (though I was sorry to see her get hurt). I think her dad finally managed to convince her to try the bike again another time.

When I got home, Riven had gotten into the cat food and eaten all of it. Lucy & Linus were not too sad since they got tuna for dinner. Riven got no more to eat for dinner (he was not so happy). Since Snoopy was in his kennel during the ransacking of the cat food, he still received his dinner.

Major (Temporary) Stash Enhancement

2007-04-08T02:19:00.000-05:00

My Dale of Norway zipper came in!!! One of the last albino zippers available for Sapporo. Linda bought out the distributors stock to get it for me. I'll get it in next week at another Nancy 911 clinic.

I've been a bit nuts today I think. I met with my Saturday morning knitting group this morning. Before leaving, I intended to take my knitting, a notebook with a list of supplies needed to make a vegetable garden (so I could price materials at Menard's), a blank page to make a grocery list, the grocery ad, a copy of Vogue Knitting's newest book and coupons from the paper (for the grocery store). I did at least have my knitting. When getting ready to leave, I tried to stand and found that my sock yarn was wrapped once around my left foot and twice around my right. I have no clue how that could possibly have happened. After we were through with the knitting (and crochet) group, I came back home and got everything I forgot the first time.

Then my usually observant father called and we had a rather bizarre conversation:

Dad: "What brand is your 42" HDTV?"

Me: [thought: (not out loud) - When did I get a 42" HDTV and where would such a monstrosity go in my little house?] (out loud) "You mean my 30" HDTV?"

Dad: "Your TV is only 30?? No - your TV is bigger than that surely?"

Me: "Umm - No. I wanted a 34" but it wouldn't fit in my cabinet. But it's a Sony. With a different brand I could have fit the 34" TV, but the picture quality wasn't anywhere near as good as the Sony - so I got the smaller TV. You are aware my TV is a CRT, right? The kind with the tube?"

Dad: "It is? Umm."

Me: "Dad - what is this about?"

Dad: "I'm buying a 42" TV to go in my Sports room."

Me [thought: Sports room?? When did Dad get a sports room?] "Okay... I thought you were going to get a 42" flat panel in your bedroom for when mom won't let you use the big screen." [Note: My parents have a 62" HD TV in the Living Room. It's so big that if you are not in a chair all the way against the far wall - it feels like whatever is on the screen is attacking you.]

Dad: "Yeah - that's my sports room. An LCD TV doesn't move fast enough to get sports action, so I need a CRT or a Plasma."

Me: "But if you get a CRT, the screen will be about 25" from your face in that spot - won't that be a problem? Also, I think my 30" is about 500 lbs"

Dad: "You're TV isn't 500 lbs. The 42" is only 190. [Dad's thought: How did she think 2 guys carried in a 500 lb TV into her house]. You're mom's finally ready to go. Thanks for telling me what brand your TV is. Bye."

Sometimes, I'm sure I am missing major pieces of a conversation with my dad - like he's had most of the conversation already before I actually got on the phone. If the man gets a 190 lb TV, I wonder who will carry it up the stairs into his house?

Anyway, I did get the stuff I was supposed to have taken with me anyway and headed over to Yarnzilla for a Nancy 911 clinic because I could not get the toe on my first pair of socks to look right. When I did exactly the same thing I thought I did at home with Nancy watching me, it turned out beautifully. Makes no sense. Anyway, with the socks completed, I bought 2 Cookie A patterns to make more socks. One pattern (the Rhiannon) I'm saving until I go to Myrtle Beach in July - it's a small portable project and will probably take quite a bit longer than the whole week. I had to buy an entire bag of yarn and I'm still not sure if it's enough.

I also gave my Vogue Knitting 25 years of articles, tips and techniques to Linda to peruse (she's getting a couple of copies in the store). It was declared a success. THEN, I decided I needed to make something felted and found a Noni pattern and some Cascade 220. Somehow, I ended up buying one too many skeins of the purple color. Oops. In 2-3 weeks when I'm getting ready to actually start that project, I'm going to get a handle and feet and whatever other hardware I should have. Linda has it all in stock. Love that.

So now my first pair of socks are finished, I brought them home, washed them and while they were blocking I made a big mess in my house. Specifically, I decided I needed sock blockers - which I didn't have. So I took a cardboard box and measured 20 places on my foot and cut them out of cardboard. Then I coated them with Press N Seal wrap and stuck the socks on them. They seem to be working, but they look really stupid. I'll get a picture of the socks tomorrow (sans cardboard masterpieces).

I sat down to watch some TV and reached for my knitting for my Independence Top and realized I LEFT IT ON THE TABLE AT YARNZILLA!! Ack! Well, I have more yarn and another size 7 needle I used to start the body, but I definitely need to recover the sleeve and needles next week. This has been scatter brain day. I've left a trail of stuff behind me like bread crumbs.

At least I finally remembered to drive up to Maple Grove to get the Kathmandu Aran my mom ordered from Amazing Threads. All 37 balls of it. In the fall, I will be knitting her an afghan in a cable pattern from "Gorgeous Knitted Afghans." She paid for everything and I'm going to knit it for her.

Is Linus not the cutest? He decided to lay on my lap like a baby while I was trying to type this.

Alterations (Part 2A): Sleeve caps, waist, bust and shoulder shaping

2007-04-06T10:41:00.000-05:00

In Alterations (Part 1), we reviewed altering length in rectangles/squares and in diamonds/trapezoids. That covered reducing the length of a sleeve up to the sleeve cap. Sleeve caps are definitely more complicated.

Sleeves and Sleeve Caps

Jenna Wilson wrote a series of articles for Knitty.com about sleeves and altering sleeve caps:

Ravellings on the Knitted Sleeve Part I covers the different types of sleeves and their pros and cons.
Ravellings on the Knitted Sleeve Part II covers creating a set-in sleeve for a sleeveless body.
Ravellings on the Knitted Sleeve Part III covers adjusting/modifying or creating a sleeve cap for a set-in sleeve. This is the article I use most often, especially when my gauge is different from a pattern due to a yarn substitution or when designing my own patterns. I use a spreadsheet to do these calculations. I'll get that moved to a computer connected to the Internet and see if I can load it into this post later.

Altering Length in a Sweater Body

Jenna Wilson also wrote a lovely article "First amendments: Altering length in a knitting pattern" for Knitty.com about altering length in sweater bodies that includes where to alter the length. It was complete enough that I don't feel the need to embellish. One thing to note, if you are getting the correct row gauge for a pattern, you can first calculate how many rows you need to add (so row gauge of 28 rows and you want to add 2", you need to add 14 rows). If you use Jenna's directions for figuring out what section to add these 14 rows, you can then insert these rows between the directions for increases and decreases - so if the existing pattern calls for 7 decreases every 5 rows from the hem to the waist and you want to add 14 rows in that area, you can adjust the rate of decrease to be every 7 rows (2 rows for each of the 7 sets of decreases) to distribute them evenly.

Adding Waist Shaping to a Pattern

Any woman with curves usually prefers not to wear a straight box. A straight box tends to make me look bigger all over, since it obscures my waist - the small part. However, many designers write sweater patterns as a straight box because it's easier. With a straight box, who cares where your waist is (no one will see it anyway)?

My waist is 9" smaller than the widest part of my hips. As described in http://temptingyarns.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-planning-process.html, I use Personal Fit Templates (step 1). I don't like the hem to be too clingy in most things, so I usually pick something with about 4" of ease at the hem and I also don't place the hem at the widest part of my hips (they don't need extra help to look big). Even though my waist is 5.5" narrower than the measurement of my body at the hemline, I don't calculate for a waist that is that much narrower. I usually go with about 3-4" narrower, 1" or less at each edge front and back, as in the simple schematic.

Then it's a simple matter to calculate the number of stitches to reduce. If my gauge is 20 sts = 4" or 5 sts = 1", reducing 5 stitches at each edge will give me my 1". Before I can calculate how often to increase, I need to calculate the measurement from the top of the garment to my waist (so where on my neck the sweater will fall to my waist in the back). Then I need to subtract that number from the overall length of the sweater. So a 24" long sweater where the waist should be 16" below the neck means from the hem to the waist should be 8". Then I can follow directions for a trapezoid to calculate how often to increase.

The directions for a trapezoid (shown in Part 1 also) are: Now it’s time to recalculate the rate of increases and/or decreases. In most of these shapes, I am doing an increase or decrease at each end of the same row – so 2 per row. First I subtract the number of stitches at the narrowest point from the number of stitches at the widest point. So in a triangle shape, let’s say I start with 3 stitches and I need to get to 103 stitches. I need to increase 100 stitches. Since there are 2 increases per row, I divide by 2 to get 50 increase rows. My length is 200 rows, so I take 200 rows / 50 increase rows = 4 and I will increase 2 stitches (one each side) every 4th row. Probably yours isn’t working out so even. If I have a remainder, I get a few simple options; change the number of rows and, thus the length, to get an even number of rows or adjust the number of stitches at the top to match up with an even divisor of the length. Changing the number of rows will not work in a sleeve where it needs to be a specific length. So to get a bit more complicated, let’s say I need 50 increase rows and my length is 225 rows. 225/50 = 4.5, so I would need to do 2 increases every 4.5 rows. As far as I know, I can’t knit half rows, so I need to come up with something else. For this purpose, I leave leftover stitches at the waist. So if I end up with a remainder for increasing evenly every 4 rows, the extra rows I leave at the waist so my waist is straight for several rows before increasing again. There are programs (such as Knitting Math Wizard, which I own) that will do this math for you, which makes this much easier than doing it by hand.

I reverse the instructions to widen back to the bust measurement under the arm. If the armscye is 9" from the top and the waist is 16" from the top, then I have 7" to increase 5 stitches each side to get my 4" back. Calculate as for a trapezoid.

Adding Bust Shaping

For any woman with larger than a B/C-cup bra, adding short row shaping at the bust gives a much better fit - eliminating the phenomenon where the front of the sweater is shorter than the back. I've seen articles that say to measure from the shoulder to the front waist and from the shoulder to the back waist to determine how many inches of short rows to add. However, I think this goes too far. Knitted fabric is forgiving. I use a rule that for every cup size over size C, I add approximately 1" of length in short rows. I also block my sweater fronts over a bra stuffed with socks (which looks really funny) to make sure it's still the same length as the back.

This article in knitty.com by Bonnie Marie Burns called "Wrap Your Mind Around This" describes the technique for adding short rows. I usually add short row shaping about 2" below my actual armhole depth (mine is 7.875" and I usually make sweaters with armscye depths of 8-5"-9"). This means I add short rows pretty close to the beginning of the armscye shaping (a few rows below). Bonnie has a slightly more scientific process for determining the location of the short-row shaping.

Shoulder Shaping & 3-Needle Bind Off

You will get a better finished look from incorporating short-row shoulder shaping, if your shoulders slope down from the neck (mine are pretty straight - but my mom's are very sloped). Jessica Fenlon contributed an article on "Rewriting Your Pattern for Short-Row Shoulder Shaping" to knitty.com that describes how to modify a pattern already containing shoulder shaping with bind-off instructions to one with short rows.

If the pattern does not contain instructions for shoulder shaping, you just need to figure out the slope of your shoulder.

The easiest way to do this is to hold a knitting needle (or a small level - even better) extending from the spot where your neck meets your shoulder and horizontal to the floor. Then measure the gap between the edge of your shoulder and the needle/level. This measurement might be 0.5" or 3".
Calculate the number of rows making up this gap
Determine the number of stitches across the top of the shoulder. In a straight shoulder pattern, it probably will say "Bind off X stitches" on the directions for the front making this search pretty easy.
Divide the number of stitches by the number of rows. Drop of the .X and this is how many stitches to put in each wrap and turn. Leave the remainder at the neck. So if there are 36 stitches in the shoulder and 5 rows to get your shoulder drop, you will leave 7 (drop the .2) stitches unworked at the end of each row for 5 rows.
The last row you will pick up all the wraps and knit (or purl) all the way across. Leave the stitches on a stitch holder.
When the other side has also been worked and shaped, place the live stitches on 2 needles and do a 3 needle bind off instead of a seam to prevent the shoulders from drooping to the elbows later.

2007-04-06T07:52:00.000-05:00

Lucy Update

The good news is that nothing is seriously wrong with Lucy (except she's a bit too skinny as can be seen in this picture). She does not have anything wedged in her little body inappropriately. The vet suspects that whatever she ate that I can only identify as "something green" might have caused an inflammation of the pancreas that will heal if she eats special food for a week. Lucy loves the special food, so shouldn't be an issue. The vet was going to confirm that there are not any other possible causes of the vomiting (such as metabolic diseases), but did say it can't be cancer because there are no tumors. They did notice (on the 24 x-rays they took) that Lucy has arthritis in her hips and lower back. It doesn't seem to be slowing her down. This is her this morning playing with her feathers. Linus was feeling left out - so here is a picture of him trying to eat the feather (after he caught it in midair).

Knitting News

The socks are nearly complete (finally). I took out the toe on sock 1 to reknit. I'm not loving my grafting on sock 2, so I'll have to try that again too. I might ask for help from Nancy at Yarnzilla tomorrow at a Nancy 911 clinic. There must be some sort of trick I don't know about. Note that the first picture doesn't show the grafting and the second pictures was taken on top of the book containing the best Key Lime Pie recipe known to man from "The New Best Recipe" by Cook's Illustrated magazine.

I have made some progress on mom's boatneck sweater also. I might add more to this post later today, but if I don't leave for work now, I'm going to be late.

Lucy Still Sick

2007-04-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

I'm really worried about my Lucy. Because I have 2 cats, it's often difficult to tell if one of them is not eating, drinking or going to the bathroom. I separated the two cats yesterday morning, Linus has nearly lost his voice from meowing and spent all night trying to find an escape from the bathroom. Lucy has barely eaten or drank anything and only used the litterbox once in 24 hours. However, it's difficult to tell if this is because she's really sick or because she is separated from Linus. I mixed some chicken in with her cat food this morning and she was chowing down when I left the house. She can't resist a piece of chicken. As a reminder - this is Lucy (in the front). She looks a lot skinnier to me today than she does in this picture taken 3 weeks ago. If she still hasn't gone to the bathroom by the time I get home from work, she'll be going into the vet this evening. I did talk to the vet on Saturday and followed his advice and thought she was doing better - thus the separation to make sure. Now I'm not sure. I hope when I go home I find that she hasn't been sick, that she has eaten and she has drank her water and did use her litterbox. I left a message for the vet in case I need to bring her there this evening to get x-rays (to make sure there isn't anything stuck in Lucy - like what I have no idea. Maybe yarn? She's never even played withe yarn when I've seen her. Would yarn even apear in an x-ray?) As a note, she does not (and never has eaten) any of the cat foods that have been recalled due to them containing rat poison. If you own cats or dogs and don't know what I'm talking about - see this web site for the Menu Foods "wet-foods" recall notice and then there is an additional on certain other pet foods and treats. These recalls are linked to adulterated wheat gluten for some products and a non-consumeable chemical in others. Lucy and Linus eat dry pet food manufactured entirely in the US with 5 ingredients in it (none of them wheat gluten, since Linus is allergic to it).

Day of Boring Discussions

My sick Lucy is starting to make me feel like napping in long, detailed meetings about accounting guidance and pronouncements. I know I have started at a topic too long when I can quote the names and numbers of the 7 different sections of specific accounting guidance about that topic. Ick. At least twice I felt myself nodding off, despite the fact that I was actually talking. Our accounting team the accounting team of another Company (both of us bankrupt). We are fighting the same battle against the same foe and we're trying to make sure we pick the same weapons (like the metaphor?)

My Car

My car needs an oil change, soon it will also need new tires and that silly little "Check Engine" light is on. The oil change I know I can afford... The rule in my family is buy a brand new car (when you buy one) and drive it until the wheels fall off. I actually owned a car in high school where the axel broke and the wheel fell of immediately after I crossed the Chesapeake Bay bridge. I had the car fixed and kept on driving it. The car I have now is 9 years old and has 88k miles on it. It should go another 60k+, and hopefully, the wheels will not fall off. From experience, I can tell you that having the wheel fall off creates an comfortable jolt as well as a bad noise.

Knitting Update

I made it through the first complete 20 row repeat on my mom's boatneck pullover for the body (in two evenings). I haven't been working only on that, so not too bad. There are 5.5 more 20 row repeats in this sweater (though they get narrower for the shoulders 1/3rd of the way up). My goal is to complete half the sweater front this week (so another two 20 row repeats should do it, which should take another 6-8 hours - definitely doable by Sunday night).

I also want to finish knitting my first pair of socks this week and I need to get my homework (swatches) done for my finishing class over the weekend. I'm within about 5 rows of starting the toe on the second sock. Note that the toe needs to come out of the first sock and be reworked after I'm done the second sock. It's both a tad too short and definitely too pointy for my taste. I think it's because my gauge is so small. I checked it yesterday and the sock fits fine, but the gauge is 9 sts and 11 rows per inch for the Mountain Colors Bearfoot sock yarn on 2 - size 1 Addi circulars. I'm going to undo the first toe completely, knit another 9-11 rows and then decrease less to get a wider toe. What do you think the right width is for the kitchener stitch on the toe of a sock?

I definitely need to put away clean dishes (so I can empty my dishes I just put in the sink yesterday evening), put away 3 loads of clean laundry and vacuum the basement stairs tonight as these will drive me crazy if I try to ignore them.

Ruminations

2007-04-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

Last night, my mom and I were ruminating on the movie review business. We decided that we should start our own reviews and only review movies that are generally termed chit flicks (sometimes called chick flicks). The big issue we have with existing movie reviews for these movies is that the reviewers almost always rate them poorly and call them "predictable." Well, let's be honest, would it be a good romance if the hero and heroine didn't get together at the end? I think not. Reviewers are most harsh on the romantic comedy genre. Perhaps that's why they are also called critics. They criticize nearly everything. Reviewers often like the romances where someone dies at the end ("The Notebook" and "Titantic" being an excellent examples), but they rarely like the happy funny movies.

Let's take "Music & Lyrics" for example. Out of 165 reviews, 35% rated the movie as awful. Boo Allen from the Denton Record Chronicle (in Texas) called it "Harmless, innocuous froth which could have been worse." Lou Limenick from the New York Post gave it 2 out of 4 starts and commented, "Too bad director Lawrence tends to hit you over the head with the jokes in the script." I paid full price twice to see it in the theatre and will probably buy it on DVD and watch it often (this is my highest rating - Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Titantic and Notting Hill all fall into this category). It made me laugh both times. I found it even funnier the second time actually. I liked the characters in the movie. They were neurotic and charming. Basically, it lifted my spirits.

Knitting Update

I recalculated and re-cast on for the Independence Top. Much better the second time around. I'll get some pictures tonight. Loving the Noro Sakura colors. It has some odd thick wraps in the yarn that I have a love hate relationship with. I also am finding that I need a lot more moisturizer (the yarn is a bit drying - which probably means it will be cool to wear for summer). I also made progress on my first socks and on mom's boatneck pullover. I'm going to my bi-monthly knitting group tonight, so I'm sure I will make more progress soon.

Other News

Lucy is apparently not completely better as I hoped. I went to sleep at 2:30am (don't ask why, I don't know) and was awakened by her vomiting at 5am (I think just a hairball). Went to investigate and couldn't get back to sleep until after 5:30am and got up at 7:10am to get ready for work. I fell amazingly okay still. She was begging for chicken yesterday (I gave that to her on Sunday after a 24 hour fast to see if her stomach seemed better). I'm not sure she ate any actual cat food at all since then, holding out for more chicken. Sometimes not eating makes my cats sick. I locked her in the bathroom today with a litterbox, cat bed, food and water (she was MAD). Since I have two cats, it's often difficult to tell who is eating, drinking, etc.... I am hoping everything is okay, since she's acting fine, but I should be able to tell more today - and may require a trip to the vet.

I also got my kitchen and bathroom floors mopped (twice) yesterday. Amazing how much damage 4 days of continuous rain and 2 75 lb dogs can do to the cleanliness of a white floor.

Another week has passed

2007-04-01T22:48:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what happened to March. It seemed to evaporate like water in Arizona. I think I only completely finished the bunny booties this month and nearly finished Sapporo (except for the zipper).

On Saturday, I added to my yarn collection with Noro Sakura Color 6 to knit the Independence Top from the April 2007 Issue of Knit n' Style and Noro Silk Garden Light in Lavendar/Aqua/Magenta for some sort of summer top - I think an entrelac vest in Noro Volume 20 (with my own personal touch of course) to which I may also add some bamboo. I already cast on for the Independence Top - because I need a stockinette pattern for occassional brainless knitting.

I also finished knitting the first sleeve for Mom's Boatneck sweater and cast on for the body. I was also featured on Linda's blog this week at Yarnzilla, in which she referred to me as a knitting "wunderkind" (note that this was not a good hair day or really a good anything day in the appearance department). She took some pictures of me wearing Sapporo on Saturday to post on her blog this week. I took a picture of myself wearing Sapporo on Friday - but hopefully Linda's picture will turn out better. Finally, I made significant progress on the second sock of my first pair of socks. I turned the heel and went several inches beyond in Saturday night.

Movie Review - 300

Also this weekend, I went to see "300" with my friend visiting from Duluth and her parents. This movie is the myth of King Leonitis of Sparta (Greece) pitting 300 of his best professional soldiers against the army (of about 1,000,000) of Xerxes of Persia. The film was grainy (on purpose), there was tons of gratuitous violence and lots of slow motion blood. If that turns you on, this is the movie for you. It wasn't the most hideous movie I have ever seen (that honor goes to three movies "Shopgirl", "Random Hearts" and "House of Sand and Fog"), but I spent a lot of the movie staring at the screen with an odd look on my face that was basically a "Why am I watching this?" kind of a look.

More Knitting Stuff

Upon exiting the movie, it was pouring rain. It had been raining for days, but this was a deluge. My friend and I decided perhaps we needed to visit Barnes and Noble (hopefully for however long the deluge lasted). Of course, I couldn't resist the new Knit N' Style (June 2007). I also picked up a lovely new book out from Vogue Knitting "The Best of Vogue Knitting Magazine: 25 years of articles, tips and expert advice". This book has a publication date of May 2007 (odd) and contains TONS of useful information for nearly every knitting topic under the sun. I also picked up "Hip Knit Hats" by Cathy Carron. I previously borrowed this book from the library and it has some of the best knitted hat patterns I've seen anywhere. I also have my eye on "Fabulous Felted Hand-Knits" by Jane Davis. This is one of the few felting books that doesn't seem to have tons of projects that I couldn't possibly find a use for and has items beyond bags. However, it was a bit beyond my budget for this month.

Well - I should sleep.

A Bit of a Mess

2007-03-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

This post is likely to be quite short as I'm taking a 10 minute break from today's insanity to reset and recharge. I will then need to reread a document I have looked at far too much in the last few days to have maintained any objectivity about its quality.

A friend of mine, who I met through a roommate referral service nearly 7 years ago, was an optician (at the time). She had nearly completed a degree in biology and is not at all a dumb person. She's stubborn sometimes, but definitely not lacking in brains. When we first moved into an apartment together and didn't know each other we exchange basic job descriptions. So I knew she was an optician - which had something to do with eyes - and she knew I was an accountant - which she thought had something to do with numbers.

A few months later, she asks me curiously, "So what do you do at work all day?" I told her I mostly met with people and talked on the phone and sometimes wrote memos (now I probably spend about 50% of my time meeting, 40% writing and 10% doing some kind of analysis). She looks confused by this answer and asks, "Why does a bank need an accountant and how does talking to people and writing have anything to do with accounting?" It became clear at that point that I had a bit more insight into optical work than she had into accounting. My response to the why a bank would need an accountant was that every company needs an accountant. We keep track of the check register in small companies and the bigger, more complicated check register (or general ledger) in big ones. There are LOTs of rules about how to do this. I'm the kind of accountant who reads the rules.

So to those of you who are not accountants and have never taken a business class, whoever said accounting was not creative was smoking something. I am the type of accountant who reads accounting pronouncements (there are lots, some as many as 150 pages) and then figures out how to translate them into English and make them useful for my Company. In some cases, I have done this by figuring out exactly how to apply the guidance and then implement it. In others, I just write about it. While this doesn't sound creative, the people who write accounting pronouncements do not write them in langauge that is clear to people in all fields and industries. There is a lot of interpretation involved in accounting. I interpret. I am also the type of accountant who probably wouldn't know a tax law if it walked up and bit her - so asking me tax questions is a big mistake.

I guess I take the same approach with my knitting as with accounting. I want it to be practical and used. I want it to be well-constructed and elegant. I don't care for short-cuts and all projects require preparation and planning and a bit of mess while they're going on.

These are the shoes purchased when my mom was here by the way. I love shoes. Especially cute summer shoes.

Evening Out of Control

2007-03-27T22:03:00.000-05:00

This evening quickly spun out of control. I was still returning phone calls when I walked in the door (as a note, having a cell phone sing "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt while in an important meeting is a tad embarassing - note to self, remember to turn it off next time). The last phone call scheduled to take up all time available on Saturday and Sunday. As many of you probably know by now, I like to have some quiet time on the weekend for a half day or so to recharge my batteries. Not having any skyrockets my stress level. Somehow, I will have to get a half day to myself to take care of normal stuff - like laundry and vacuuming up the mounds of hair produced by four animals. (Lucy is helping me type by the way, so if there are misspellings, I apologize and so does Lucy).

Last night, as I attempted to nap for 20 minutes (literally 20), my phone rang 4 times. Tonight, it rang 3 times in the first hour I was home (it took nearly 2 hours to watch American Idol rather than the 1 hour 8 minutes it was actually on with commercials). To top it all off, one of those calls was a charity and then someone came to my door collecting money too. I have to get better either at not answering the phone/door or at saying no - because I'm now $50 poorer and probably would not have chosen to give money to either of these groups when choosing on my own. Why is it that the door always rings when I'm in the middle of fixing dinner. Between them, the charities requested a "minimum" donation of $185. Since when did "donations" have minimums?

The dogs were a bit rowdy tonight. They got to wrestle a little in the house before I sent them outside to run it off. This was post wrestling match.

I made some progress on Mom's boatneck sweater and very little on my sock today.

Afternoon Slump

2007-03-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

I am very sleepy. I think I could take a nap right this second on my desk if I put my head down. To stave off the sleep, I am currently segregating a package of M&Ms into color pools. Yes, I segregate my M&Ms. Thou shalt not mix colors. Inevitably, when I do this, a co-worker will come by to ask me a question, see my piles of single colors of M&Ms and say, "I won't ask." (As a note, immediately after typing this, a co-worker did come by to ask me a question and commented on my piles). I'm sure the question they won't ask must be, "What are you doing and why?" In answer, I have no idea why I segregate my M&Ms. Perhaps it's from my mom, who still hates to have food on her plate touch other food on her plate. Perhaps is my mathematical mind, which enjoys noticing that this bag had more blue M&Ms than any other color and only had 3 red ones. At least it keeps me awake. Probably not an incredibly productive activity, however. Also, does anyone know why the Mars candy company felt like they had to change from "Plain" M&Ms to "Milk Chocolate" M&Ms? Is it now bad to be plain? Perhaps plain has negative connotations, like teachers in California who aren't allowed to use red pens to correct school papers anymore. Apparently, red has negative connotations (caused, no doubt, by the use of red to correct papers). Perhaps soon teachers will not be allowed to correct papers at all - so we can produce even less educated kids in our nation than we are now that the only measure of education is the stupid standardized test mandated by the government to waste our tax money on administrators and spit out parrots instead of analytical thinkers from the high schools. Anyway, I digress. Perhaps milk chocolate IS more descriptive than plain, but if you didn't know what an M&M was, would you buy it? Perhaps there was this entire population of people unreached by M&Ms due to the "Plain" label, who are now willing to purchase and eat them as "Milk Chocolate"?

I really need Lolly to make me a mocha from Kincaid's coffee cart at the GMAC RFC building in Bloomington, MN (at Hwy 100 and 494) - complete with homeade fudge sauce and whole milk. I understand that Lolly doesn't work at the coffee cart anymore, but she always made the best mocha. I can't even get a cup of coffee here in the afternoon. The joys of working for a bankrupt company - no free coffee (or even pay coffee in the afternoon), no water cooler, no refrigerator and very little that's caffeine free and without aspartame (which makes parts of my skull tingle and makes me feel very weird) in the vending machine.

It looks like a lovely day outside. I think I'm going to leave at 5:15 (about 30 min early) to go home, pick up from the mess the dogs made in the yard (mostly tree branches and bits of a rose coated with real platinum) and take Riven (the slightly too fat dog) for a walk.

Why would bits of a rose coated with real platinum be scattered about the yard you ask? Apparently, my stalker left me a gift on the back doorstep on Valentine's day. I went in the front door, so I was completely oblivious. Snoopy thinks anything outside is his personal toy, so he shredded the package and the platinum-covered rose. I found pieces in the yard later and assumed it was some cheesy silver plastic crap left by the stalker that was nearly unidentifiable, so I threw it in the garbage. Not sure what else I could have done with it and it annoys the heck out of me that the stalker leaves anything for me at all (otherwise, I probably would not refer to him as my stalker). I told the stalker's brother (the idiot husband I mentioned yesterday who got the speeding ticket for driving his motorcycle nearly 130 mph - upper 120s he tells me proudly - dummy), that the stalker was driving me nutty lately because he keeps "dropping by" my house on his way home. I'm getting to the point where I am being very rude and pretty much slam the door on him. I hate interruptions.

The Weekend is Over...

2007-03-25T22:57:00.000-05:00

This was a productive weekend all in all. Saturday was very busy.

Cats

Lucy and Linus went to the vet for their rabies shots Saturday morning. Lucy LOVES the vet when the vet is examining Linus. Lucy does not love the vet when the vet wants to examine her. Linus wanted to hide and he tried hiding in my shirt, in my knitting bag, under the cat carrier and under Sapporo.

New Knitting Group in St Louis Park

After the vet appointment, I went to Bizarre Bazaar in St Louis Park to meet with a new knitting group. It was the first meeting (I was an hour late due to the vet appointment). Seemed like a nice group. I hope we do it again.

Last Norweigan Sweater Class

Then, I had my last class for Sapporo. I finished all of the finish work except for installing the zipper. The zipper still hasn't come in. The yarn shop owner has been calling for the the Dale distributor, who won't call her back. The sweater is in it's final blocking right now. I may unseam the neck and undo part of it, since it feels a bit thick to me. I'll check again after blocking.

Life Stories

I went to my friend's house on Saturday night and her husband got a speeding ticket this week. He was riding his motorcycle over 120 miles per hour when he got the ticket (they only ticketed him for 90) and he tried to convince me that wasn't really that fast. AHHH! Moving at 120 miles per hour while surrounded only by air and other cars sounds too fast to me. I think the man has a death wish.

Other Knitting Progress

In celebration of completing Sapporo, I cast on for Mom's Boatneck Pullover, which is intended for mother's day. I should finish it in time since it should not take anywhere near the time as Sapporo and I finished that in 2 months. This is the beginning of the sleeve. I really like the deep rose color. Mom has never owned anything that is not worn tucked in because she never finds anything to fit properly. Hopefully, the custom knit thing will work for her. She picked out this pattern (I am not brave enough to choose clothing for anyone else, even my mother). I got to test out my Knitting Math Wizard to alter the pattern, which worked out great. Much faster than when I do it by hand and it spit out this nice little check sheet to keep track of my progress.

I also completed a dishcloth that had been on the needles for a month. I hadn't touched it since I originally cast on and I cast on for Sock 2 of the pair I started. It was wet in this picture, so normally it would be a bit lighter than this.

Alterations (Part 1): Rectangles, Diamonds, Triangles, Trapezoids

2007-03-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

There are a number of wonderful resources for making knitting pattern alterations, but some of them either are not simple enough for whatever I’m trying to achieve or focus on a very small part of knitwear design or just don’t cover whatever I’m trying to do. Also, they are scattered among different articles. A portion of this is covered in my planning to fit article, but this section is much more focused on altering a specific pattern. This is organized by the type of garment or shape being knit. Part 1 covers squares/rectangles and diamonds/triangles/trapezoids without centered patterns or motifs. Part 2 will cover sweater fronts without centered motifs and sleeve caps. Part 3 will cover dealing with motifs. Parts 2 and 3 have a lot of literature already, so I will organize links to those items based on how I use them and add my own 2 cents where it makes sense.

Assumptions: You have knit at least a 4” x 4” gauge swatch in your pattern stitch using the yarn and needles you will be using for the project. You have not recently changed anything about how you are knitting (how you hold the yarn, etc…), so your gauge swatch is representative of the gauge you will get in your finished piece.

Squares / rectangles knit flat (afghans, some sweater pieces with no shaping, dishrags, scarves, some shawls, some poncho pieces) with no special motifs

This is the simplest shape to alter. The math is very simple 2nd or 3rd grade math. Alterations on this shape are needed for three reasons, 1) you are getting a different row gauge or want a different length than that described in the pattern (you need to alter length/rows), 2) you are getting a different stitch gauge or you want the piece to be wider than that described in the pattern (you need to alter width/stitches), or 3) you want to alter both the number of rows and number of stitches in the pattern (length & width).

To alter length in a rectangle: Take the length in inches that you want the piece to be. Divide by 4” and multiply by your 4” row gauge from your pattern. So if the row gauge for 4” was 20 stitches and you wanted your piece to be 20” long, you would need 20” / 4” x 20 rows = 100 rows. You’re not done yet. If you are using a pattern stitch, you still need the correct number of rows to complete a full repeat plus any extra rows in the pattern. Using our same project, we are doing a cable stitch pattern with an 8 row repeat with 1 extra row at the beginning of the project. If I divide 100 rows / 8 rows, I get 12.5 repeats. I will need to decide whether it would be better for the length to be longer than the 20” I originally wanted or shorter than that. If I want it to be longer, I would use 13 repeats, so 13 x 8 rows + 1 row = 105 rows, and 21”. If I want it to be shorter, I would use 12 repeats, so 12 x 8 rows + 1 row = 97 rows and 19.4”. Now I choose and I’m through altering the length of that plain rectangle.

To alter width in a rectangle: Now I do basically the same for the width, only substitute the word stitches every time I said rows in the previous instructions. If I have an especially wide pattern repeat, I sometimes will repeat a section of the pattern to make my width alteration and not repeat the entire pattern. For example, I’m altering an afghan that really has 3 main cable charted patterns that are organized in repeating sections across the width. I wanted to add width to it and have three charts, a 48 stitch central pattern, a 28 stitch side panel pattern or a 18 stitch side panel pattern. I don’t want to dilute the central pattern by repeating it, so I chose to add 2 of the 18 stitch side panel patterns arranged on either side of the central pattern to increase the width sufficiently (5”).

Diamond / Triangle / Trapezoid shape (drop shoulder sleeves, other sleeves up to the sleeve cap, diagonal baby blankets, triangular shawls)

Adding shaping steps up the complexity one more level. Now I have to worry about the number of stitches at the beginning and the end, as well as the rate of increase to make sure I get an even shape.

Altering Width and or Length in a Diamond/Triangle/Trapezoid (yes I know I’m spitting 7th and 8th grade terms at you now): If you are adding width up the entire length of the garment (both the top and bottom), you just add your stitches or repeat in the middle and carry on your merry way. When you only want to add stitches at one end (or as in a triangle or diamond, there is only one spot to add stitches that’s wide), you will need to recalculate the rate of increase. So the first step is to do the math for altering width in a square to figure out the number of stitches you will have at all your key points (widest point and narrowest point). If you are also altering length, do the math for the number of rows as for altering length in a rectangle.

Now it’s time to recalculate the rate of increases and/or decreases. In most of these shapes, I am doing an increase or decrease at each end of the same row – so 2 per row. First I subtract the number of stitches at the narrowest point from the number of stitches at the widest point. So in a triangle shape, let’s say I start with 3 stitches and I need to get to 103 stitches. I need to increase 100 stitches. Since there are 2 increases per row, I divide by 2 to get 50 increase rows. My length is 200 rows, so I take 200 rows / 50 increase rows = 4 and I will increase 2 stitches (one each side) every 4th row. Probably yours isn’t working out so even. If I have a remainder, I get a few simple options; change the number of rows and, thus the length, to get an even number of rows or adjust the number of stitches at the top to match up with an even divisor of the length. Changing the number of rows will not work in a sleeve where it needs to be a specific length. So to get a bit more complicated, let’s say I need 50 increase rows and my length is 225 rows. 225/50 = 4.5, so I would need to do 2 increases every 4.5 rows. As far as I know, I can’t knit half rows, so I need to come up with something else. There are two basic options. If you are comfortable with increases or decreases on purl side rows, the most pleasing option is to increase in every 4th and then every 5th row 25 times (2 sets of increases over 9 rows). 9 rows x 25 sets = 225 rows. Another choice is to first increase every 4th row 25 times and then every 5th row 25 times. This will not produce as even a shape. There are programs (such as Knitting Math Wizard) that will do this math for you, which makes this much easier than doing it by hand when you are getting uneven answers.

Bunny Booties completed

2007-03-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

Bunny booties are done - except for sewing on snaps, which I tried to do last night, but all my needles are too big to fit in the tiny holes of the tiny snaps. I have to stop at the store tomorrow to get smaller needles.

Additionally, I completed my first sock (which still needs a friend) over the weekend. I think it's a touch too short and I don't like the shape of the toe too much. I'll have to rip out that section and redo.

Pet Watch

Linus was completing his daily ritual of loving Riven when I took this picture. He rubs all over Riven's head and legs and purrs. Sometimes, he even licks Riven's head. It's kind of funny.

Book Review

I'm reading this book, "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey and am finding it interesting to consider how it is that I can relate to someone and yet completely not relate to them at the same time. This books is the memoirs of James, who at the age of 23 finds himself on a airplane, not knowing how he got there, covered in blood, missing 4 teeth and with a hole through his cheek. At the end of the flight, his parents meet him and drive him to a rehab center. It's a horrific story and at the same time a story of hope. I have seen the edges of drugs and alcohol at college and even after that, but have no personal experience with what that kind of addiction does to people. The part of him I relate to is really the part that can't quite find the ring of truth in a 12 step program (even though I've never attempted one for anything) or in organized religion or in calling any kind of controllable behavior a "disease." Those three things all tend to be ways that people pass judgment or pass the buck and not take responsibility for themselves and their own actions. I'll totally buy into the fact that chemical imbalances can cause mood disorders that could potentially be labeled a "disease" (clearly, manic depression is one such thing), but "addictive personality" when there is nothing chemically different about that persons brain than my brain or your brain - I don't buy it. Anyway, this is a bit too much philosophy for me and perhaps even edging toward doom & gloom. The book is good. I'm not quite finished, but I'm getting there.

Life Notes

On totally other topics, does anyone else have a distraction problem? I think I have identified distraction as my biggest personal flaw. To give you an example, I decide to vacuum the floor (due to the plethora of black dog hair elephants - bigger than bunnies - on my white vinyl floor). It should take 15 minutes. Theoretically, I should be able to get the vacuum from the front hall closet, pull the plug out, plug it into an outlet, telescope the handle, turn it on, vacuum the floor, unplug it, rewind the cord with the button, string the handle back up, put it back in the closet. When I vacuum the floor, it goes more like: go the the front hall closet to get the vacuum - it isn't there, walk around the house looking for it (it's a vacuum, how tough can it be to find) and find it in the middle of a room where I have walked by it 50 times already that day without noticing it, unwind the cord and go to plug it in only to find the outlet full of cell phone rechargers and the range plug (since I haven't fixed the polarity of the outlet behind the range), hunt around for an open outlet - find one and plug it in, realize the floor can not be easily vacuumed because there are shoes on the floor, a napkin, a dog, an unidentifiable object that appears to have been chewed, various dog bowls (which house underneath them the dog hair land mass - even bigger than the elephants), 2 dog bones, a Bona (a cleaning device that should also be in the front hall closet), and a cat toy. Collect dog toys and dump in dog toy bin, collect shoes and put on shoe rack, go to throw napkin in the trash can and find the trash can is full, remove the full bag, set it outside the side door - where I will notice it as I attempt to leave for work in the morning and will have to stop my car to get the bag and put it in the garbage can, go to get a new trash bag from the drawer and find no more are in there, go to the basement to get a bunch of new trash bags from the big box and realize I forgot to put the towels in the dryer over the weekend, open the washer and realize they smell a bit musty, dump in some Oxyclean and detergent and turn the washer back on, go back upstairs, realize I forgot the trash bags on top of the washer, go back downstairs to get them, put the trash bag in the garbage can. Toss the cat toy into the guest room (aka cat room), pick up the dog bowls and set on a chair, decide to ignore the Bona and finally start vacuuming the floor, dog starts barking at vacuum since it got too close to his spot on the floor, the phone starts ringing, and the doorbell rings. I have now vacuumed 1 square foot and it's 30 minutes after I started. Answer the phone and ask whoever it is to hold on, answer the door and find my stalker who wants to have a chat or some other god-forsaken thing, tell him I'm busy and on the phone (while my dogs attack him in joy and jump all over him, which they don't do with pretty much anyone else) and finally get him shoved back out of the door, go back to the phone, can't get that person off and can't really vacuum while in the middle of a conversation, finally get off the phone, vacuum the floor, by which time I'm starving, so prepare dinner and forget all about the vacuum still standing in the middle of the floor - which waits there until the next time I need it. All in all, it will take me 60 minutes to vacuum a floor. It's easier just not to start. Pretty much every task I undertake goes something like this unless there is a kind of routine associated with it. *sigh*

I think I'm going to go take a walk

Sapporo Nearly Complete

2007-03-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

Project Update

I probably will finish the collar of Sapporo tonight. That leaves the zipper facing, part of the bottom hem and finishing weaving in ends. Of course, it also leaves actually putting in the zipper, which I don't have.

The bunny booties are well on their way and should definitely be completed by Sunday when I see the baby for which they are intended. I finished the main part of the booty at the hair salon yesterday. I got a hair cut for the first time since October.

Hair

I've been following the same stylist from salon to salon for about 7 years. It's been 6 salons now. For the first 4 years it was all the same place and then that place had issues and he got bounced around to different salons by the owners of the original shop. Matthew (the stylist) finally left and is now in a very nice salon, Tres Jolie, near Kenwood in Minneapolis. My mom even flies in from Baltimore for him to cut her hair and Spencer (his friend) to color it.

American Idol

I really liked Hailey, Blake, Melinda, and Jordin last night. I really didn't like Chris Richardson or Stephanie, probably because they both stylized the songs they chose so as to make them virtually unrecognizable. I hate that. Sanjaya shouldn't even be there. Howard Stern is a jerk (which I guess really goes without saying) attempting to influence the outcome of American Idol by choosing the worst singer of the top 24 and trying to get him to win. I don't think he'll get him that far, but it's still irritating. I cast 1 vote for everyone else, except him, to cast 1 vote against him. I still think they should have a number for and a number against each singer and the person with the lowest net score should go home.

Other Knitting News

I'm planning to write up a little schpeil on pattern alterations in the next few days. I plan to highlight where to find good articles I already know about on certain topics and add in some of my own tips also.

Mom's Visit

2007-03-19T23:23:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit delinquent in updating my blog. My mom came to visit (she's still here actually until Wendesday morning). We generally run around like maniacs doing all kinds of things and spending far too much money when she's here. I bought shoes at Nordstrom (Marcy - my shoe salesperson - is the best, I'll post pictures later this week. Awesome shoes. I bought 1 hank of yarn (not too bad) and 1 book at a yarn store. I bought a tad of clothing. Mom bought lots more than me. She bought 36 balls of yarn and a book and a needle for me to knit her an afghan. It's lovely yarn. Kathmandu Aran in a sage green tweed. She selected a cabled afghan pattern that will be quite complicated and is very large. It took more than 2 hours to knit about 1/3 of a swatch. That project can't be started for a while since the store (Amazing Threads in Maple Grove, MN) had to order the yarn. The book, on the other hand, was purchased at 3 Kittens Needle Arts. Tommorrow, we will be visiting a multicultural complex for lunch and then getting new haircuts. I have to go back to work on Wednesday for an 8am meeting. Have I mentioned I am not a morning person?

Sapporo Update

Sapporo was blocked on Sunday and today I did about 1/2 the hemming, steeked for the zipper and got about 1/4 of the collar ribbing completed. Here's a picture from the blocking on Sunday.

Pet Watch

Linus decided to tell Lucy he loves her. The animals were all happy today to have us home. I have also finally found a solution to Snoopy's barking that always begins at 7:30, finally. He now sleeps on a dog bed next to my bed, but separated from Riven by a baby gate. Thus, no barking and no wrestling at 7:30. Finally, a chance to sleep in. I love it.

Knitting Guru - That's me

2007-03-16T11:37:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what to write about today. Therefore, this post may seem a little stream of consciousness.

Knitting News

I didnt' get much personal knitting accomplished yesterday. I was looking for news of the knitting world, so I ran a search on Google for knitting news. There is actually a web site that arranges news articles by topic and actually gave me knitting news. Apparently, the big news in knitting today is that a handmade bookmark will perk up a novel about characters who craft. This article contains directions for gluing some kind of pocket onto your book (ack - defiling of a book) and making a magnetic bookmark. Why would you want a bookmark to be magnetic? Other big news: knitting needles can kill time and stress, but it isn't sexy (most of us knitters knew about the time and stress thing, since both time and stress dwindle when we get needles in our hands, but not sexy!!! come on) and several blogs made the cut including Mrs. Pilkington, Wendy Knits. One article covers a winning ad campaign that features a ball of yarn as the main character, citing the popularity of knitting blogs for the win and another discusses Caron yarn company's not-for-profit venture to give knitters in Rwanda employment. Anyway, I thought the web site was interesting.

Work news

Someone at work gave me 5 files totalling 180,000 lines of data about general ledger entries made in one month here at the Company. Apparently, using this 180,000 lines of data, I'm somehow supposed to come up with an idea to divide the Company's income and balance sheet into two pieces the beginning of the month and the end of the month based on a date. Date is NOT a field in this file (nor is it an available field). Note also that this will be the first time I have looked any any general ledger report for this Company and I doubt it will make any sense and

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to assign the 26 pages of tasks on the project to people other than me. Perhaps I'm nuts, but I don't envision that I can complete 26 pages of tasks (few of these short tasks) within 60 days. I also don't think this list of 180,000 lines divided into multiple files will mean anything to me at all without an interpreter. I don't quite understand why everyone thinks I'm doing the entire project - not just managing the project. I expect that sometime next week, I'll be assigning this particlar task to someone who might have a clue how to actually do it. Good thing I'm decent at bossing people around (not that I really boss, this is Minnesota after all and everyone is expected to be "Minnesota Nice.")

Minnesota Nice

When I first moved to Minnesota 9 years ago, I made people cry at work. I don't consider myself rude, but I am usually direct. I've had to learn to become less direct since moving here. On the East coast (I moved from near Washington DC), people expect you to get the point in the least possible time and then move on. If you are telling someone they messed up, you tell them (still nicely) that they messed up, fix the problem, and then move on. In Minnesota, apparently, the facts are rude. When calling someone to tell them they should not, in the future, record an entry that we received $50 million in cash when we did not actually receive $50 million in cash, you must not say it directly. I'm not quite clear on how to communicate this information (which is important) effectively, but in a less direct manner. I had fixed the problem before I called and just called to let them know about it and that it was fixed and how to avoid that mistake in the future. Upon hanging up, this person went to her manager in tears and the manager called my boss to tell her I was rude to her employee and made her cry. I learned that when dealing with people in Minnesota, you must first talk about a mundane subject, like the weather, before telling someone they screwed up. Perhaps this proves that you don't hate them, I don't know. When dealing with people in California, you must first have a lengthy conversation about a more personal topic (the person's most recent vacation, the color they painted their living room over the weekend, recent knee surgery) before delving into the business at hand. While I am one to waste time in idle conversation with the best of them, spending 25 minutes to communicate a 2 minute item seems like a big fat waste of time to me...

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting and do it all the time. While finishing a piece is the plan, you still love the process, and can't imagine a day going by without giving some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation involves leaving ample space for the stash and supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn ends and you begin.http://marniemaclean.com
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Waiting Game

2007-03-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

I'm very excited about my mom coming to visit - if she can get here. I work for an airline, so when a parent wants to fly, I book their tickets standby. When they don't fly with me, they will pretty much be the last person to get on the plane (since priority goes first to people who paid, then to people with the highest priority number and then the highest seniority with the Company). My mom, flying alone, gets a priority of 9. The only person with a lower priority is someone who is flying cheaply that works for another airline for leisure travel. It only costs $30 each way coach for a parent to fly like this. My mom's favorite part is when she does get on the plane, they take the $30 out of my next paycheck.

Anyway, last week, I booked her on tonight's flight out of Baltimore. There were 15 empty seats on the plane. Yesterday morning, there were still 2 empty seats, with one person ahead of her on the waiting list. This morning, the plane was 2 seats overbooked, but the airline expects that 5 people won't show up for the flight, meaning mom would probably still get on. As of now, the plane is 7 seats overbooked, there are 4 paying passengers on standby, there are 2 people ahead of her on the employee waiting list and then there's her. So to get on the plane, 14 of the 115 people (108 seats on the plane) who have paid for tickets on that plane will have to not show up. I'm guessing, this scenario is not likely. Additionally, if everyone shows up, there are only 7 seats available on the morning flight and 7 on the afternoon flight tomorrow. *sigh* It's like playing Russian Roulette with your vacation. I am supposed to have Monday and Tuesday off to spend with my mom.

Well - it looks like I will be having dinner alone. I will get some time to knit, since I've cleaned my entire house (except for the basement) in preparating for mom's visit already.

Post Script: Mom just called. She is in a seat on the actual plane!! So, 14 people didn't show up I guess. I'm thrilled. Original plans for this evening, back one. This also means I'm $30 poorer...

Pet Picture of the Day

I am Lucy. I can't resist getting very, very close to the camera.

The Great Melt

2007-03-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

First, there is a lot of snow. Then, there is a lot of melting. Then there is a lot of water - and mud. I have a white vinyl floor in my kitchen and dining room (locations of the back and side doors). A white floor is insane in pretty much any house, but it's much worse when you have 2 black dogs who shed a lot and a back yard that currently bears a strong resemblance to a swamp. The good news is, it's been warm. The bad news is my white floor looks like it has never been cleaned in the 11 years it's been there. Of course, if that were true, there would be a lot more dog hair laying around.

I'm still not clear on what the dogs and cats do all day. They clearly make no effort to clean up. I imagine they just lay around. If I got a "nanny cam" I would probably see the dog sleeping on the sofa, the cats clawing things I'm not aware of, and heaven knows what else.

Knitting Update

The bunny booties are coming along fairly well I think. I'm about 3/4ths finished the first one. I still need to take some pictures and post them. It probably won't be tonight, since I will be making a last ditch effort to make my house really clean immediately before my mom arrives. I doubt I will be doing anything else.

Oh, and yesterday I stopped at 3 Kittens Needle Arts on the outskirts of St. Paul and bought a set of 5 ebony Lantern Moon dpns (size 3). Love love love. Not as sticky as bamboo, not as slippery as my Addi Turbos. Very smooth. I also bought some ArtYarns sock yarn, I think it's Ultramerino 4 in colorway 143 (I'll have to confirm on the label later and take a picture). Given that I haven't finished my first pair of socks, this was probably silly. I really liked the yarn though.

Anyone have any creative solutions to yarn storage? I need something a little better than jammed into my guest room closet, occassionally falling off shelves and jumbled up in various bags (the current storage solution). I have space in my office, but want something moderately attractive. My house is short on closet space.

Other topics

I seem to be having issues with blow dryers in general. Three years ago, I had a blow dryer that started making a bad noise, so I pulled it away from my head, at which time it promptly caught on fire (never a good thing around hair). I shut it off and blew out the flame (which wasn't like a huge fireball, more like a large candle). I bought a new one, which stopped working at all about a year and a half after I bought it - leaving me with a half wet head. So then I bought another new one. That one has started making a loud whining noise occassionally when used. I'm envisioning another fire, so I think I need another new blow dryer. Apparently, a blow dryer is now a disposable item expected to last only a year. It's not like I'm purchasing the world's cheapest blow dryers here, but I'm not spending $150 either. It seems like $35-40 would get you a reasonably decent blow dryer. Apparently not.

Pictures et al

2007-03-13T01:07:00.000-05:00

I'm nearly through reading "The Friday Night Knitting Club." Excellent book. I would recommend it for even those of you who do not knit, since (despite the name), knitting is not the main focus of the book. The members of this club are the focus. (Post script - I finished the book last night. I was not especially thriled with the ending. I'm downgrading it to good book).

Sapporo Update

Progress is being made, but this last bit is a tad clunky, as I try to make sure it fits properly. I'm needing to do some adjustment with the front neck shaping and will probably need to drop a section of the center stitches to relocate my cast off for the zipper. I'm going to try it on one more time tomorrow before going further.

Pet Update

The dogs got baths. I have to stick Riven to the bathtub with a suction cup leash for him to stay in. He got himself out (still stuck) after his bath and was subjected to the indignity of my camera. He was not thrilled. He hates water.

Lucy and Linus had their evening nap interrupted. They are peacefully sleeping again now.

Not Much Knitting

2007-03-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

Knitting Update

I didn't get very much knitting done this weekend. I went to my norweigan sweater class on Saturday, finished a few rows on Sapporo and then had to take them apart later because I forgot a couple of sets of decreases (that really couldn't be fudged). I did try on the sweater and get some feedback. Last night, I finally went back and fixed that mistake and worked out how many more rows I needed to cast off for the zipper, for the neck line and to make sure the sleeves wouldn't be too short. I need to loosen up the colorwork on my sleeves a touch before I weave in the ends, as the top of the sleeves are pulling in a bit. It will probably relax with blocking. I'll take more pictures tonight for posting either tonight or tomorrow morning. I only have 20 more rows until I cast off for the neck in the front and start the back and forth knitting (which will slow me down a touch).

I started some baby booties on Saturday for a friend's new baby. Aren't these the cutest things ever? It's a free pattern. I bought some fairly expensive yarn to knit them with (I don't know what I was thinking) given how long they can be worn (Rowan Cashcotton 4-ply - $50 for 4 balls for baby booties). I'll have leftover yarn for sure. I intended to bring this project to work today, but I left it home *sigh*. Perhaps I'll take a shorter lunch so I can leave a little earlier (though no one really pays attention to my comings and goings that closely).

Mom Preparation Underway

As for the monster list of cleaning tasks, well, I got some of them done. The dogs are clean, soft and smell like chamomile (did you know that's the smell in baby shampoo? - though I used dog shampoo with the same scent). My knitting disaster area in the family room has been composed into some semblance of order (which took about 2.5 hours). My linen closet has been straightened. My kitchen has been scrubbed and dishes checked. I did about 2/3rd of the laundry. I cleared off my desk in the office and paid all my bills.

This morning, however, I discovered my washing machine decided to walk about 6" across the floor while washing the dog bed covers. I'll have to fix that somehow this evening. A 5' tall front loading washing is not exactly an easily moveable affair.

Health Update

I went to a health seminar with a friend yesterday, which was interesting. It was put on by Market America. I bought 6 - 32oz bottles of drinkable aloe hoping to drink away the last remnants of this stupid ulcer. This stuff is a natural health treatment for inflammatory digestive issues (such as ulcers, acid reflux, colitis, irritable blowel syndrome, etc...) as well as a powerhouse of antioxidants for better immune system function. It wasn't crazy expensive and will be well worth it if it helps. They also have a nice shopping feature on their web site to do price comparisons for you and a lot of other cool stuff.

Well - hopefully tonight I'll get in a solid hour or 2 of knitting...