Socktober, Part 1

It's Socktober, everyone!  So get out those DPNs or 2 circs (or magic loop) and the STR and get to sockin'!

I am so participating in Socktober this year. In fact, I joined a KAL/contest sort of thing that the lovely ladies from Stash and Burn are running.  Nicole and Jenny are running a contest on Ravelry to help their loyal listeners destash all that sock yarn they have lying around.  Entries are open until October 9th over on the Stash and Burn Ravelry Group.  To participate, you have to total up your sock yarn stash in yards, then pledge how many yards you want to get rid of (by knitting it, of course) by the end of the month.  Drawings are going to be held for prizes, too!

This is the perfect "competition"/KAL for me right now.  I am in LOVE with sock yarn, but my sock knitting has not even come close to keeping up with the influx of sock yarn.  In fact, I have only knit 3.5 pairs of socks in the past year since I started knitting.  Despite that knowledge, I keep buying sock yarn.  The colors are so pretty!  And you only need one skein!  It takes up so little room!  And where else can $10-$20 provide you hours and hours of entertainment?  Nowhere, my friend, that's where.  

So I am in for Socktober.  I have 20,657 yards of sock yarn.  That's 11.74 miles (or18.89 kilometers for you metric nuts).  That may sound shocking, but it is nowhere NEAR the top numbers in the group.  One woman has over 70,000 yards.  That makes me feel better.  And a little jealous.  I tried to be ambitious but realistic in setting my goal, and, as I have nothing else to do this month except for one lone job interview, I settled on 1,200 yards, which I figure is just over 3 pairs of socks (assuming an average of 440 yards/skein, although some I'm using are 380 and some are 460--it all balances out in the end).  Ideally, I'd like to get through 4 skeins, but I'm not going to make myself crazy doing it.

I'm actually using patterns for my socks beyond Silver's fantastic Sock Classes for once.  The plan is to knit Monkey by Cookie A., Hedera by Cookie A., Spiraling Master Coriolis by Cat Bordhi, and, hopefully, at least one Santa Cruz hat by Sarah Hope-Parmeter for the 7Long Project.  That'll get done, but the hopefully is for "hopefully that'll get done as part of Socktober," not "hopefully I'll get to that at some point."  Just to clarify.

So far so good.  I started the Monkey socks on Friday and finished them yesterday.  That makes it 4 days for one pair.  Now, those went abnormally quickly.  It usually takes me much longer to knit a pair of socks and I'm sure the rest won't go as quickly.  Here they are:

Monkey by Cookie A. in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Mediumweight in the "Knitty Rocks" colorway

I like them.  I like how the lace pattern made the "stripes" all wavy, I like how the colors run together, and I like how they fit.  So, all around a pretty good success for my first non-stockinette pair of socks!  I knit them on 2 circs, which I have decided I much prefer to DPNs.  No ladders!  And only 2 needles!  Anyhoo, I love this pattern.  It went really fast and the lace pattern was really intuitive and easy to memorize.  Two thumbs up.

Next on the needles is Hedera.  Here's what I have so far:

Hedera by Cookie A. in Mama Llama Original Sock in the "Twisted Yarns" colorway

The yarn is not nearly as orange as it appears in the photo.  It's more of a dark beige-y tan color, like tea with a little bit of milk in it.  This one is going a little slower.  I'm having a bit of trouble memorizing the lace pattern for some reason (not because it's hard.  I'm just slow today), so I'm having to sit there are read along and it's slowing me down.  But it is SO pretty!  I'm loving the look of it, and this yarn is great, if a bit thinner than the STR.  Progress is good, though, and I am happy.

There's one hitch in all this.  I just got some money and Lorna's Laces just added new colors.  That's right.  Despite the knitting frenzy to destash sock yarn, I have actually already bought more.  HOWEVER, so far I have only bought 3 skeins.  I'm hoping to pass my goal and actually get rid of 4 skeins this month.  So, if all goes as planned, that actually puts me at -1 new skeins.  

I love creative math.

Next time: Socktober, Part 2!

In Which My Husband Is Unintentionally Spiteful, and I Accomplish Nothing I've Promised

My husband knows nothing about knitting.  Nada.  Zip.  Niks.  But, somehow, when I tell him to pick a sweater pattern and yarn for his Christmas sweater, he manages to create a perfect storm of all my least favorite things about knitting.  The pattern is Hardy from Rowan Magazine 43.  Here is what I've been able to bring myself to do so far:

Don't get me wrong--it's a beautiful sweater.  It's going to look great on him and the style really suits his personality.  But there are so many things about it that just make me want to slit my wrists:

1.  Sewing.  I am a TERRIBLE sew-er.  I cannot do a proper mattress stitch to save my life.  I usually just end up whip stitching everything together and praying that it looks OK on the right side (there, my secret is out.  Happy?).  Instead of picking a nice, simple, top-down raglan, he picked the one sweater pattern I OWN that is knit flat in SIX pieces.  Two sleeves, two bottom sections (front and back) and two yoke/top/cable sections (front and back).  To be fair, when I first looked at it, I thought it was eight pieces, but apparently you pick up the stitches for the top of the chest from the side of the cable, which leads me to...

2.  Picking up stitches.  I don't mind picking up a few stitches off a side for a bag or sock gusset or whatever.  However, this pattern requires me to pick up like 6,812 stitches along the long side of the cable pattern TWICE.  In charcoal gray nubbly cotton yarn that breaks if you breathe on it too hard.  Fun times.  It's going to be impossible to see!

3.  Purling.  I don't like purling.  I know I'm not alone here, but man, I really don't like it.  The whole sweater is purling.  The right sides are an equal proportion of knit and purl, and the wrong sides are all purl all the time.  Grrr.

4.  Ribbing.  See purling, above.  The whole thing is ribbed in some funky 3x3 garter-rib-type-thing.  Except where it's cabled (which I don't mind).

4.  Cotton (or cotton/silk blend) yarn.  Ow.  My hands hurt.  This yarn (Rowan Summer Tweed) is so beautiful, but it's really still and almost feels papery--like paper mache or powdery newspaper.  It's very hard on your hands.  And there is NO give to it.

5.  Dark/black yarn.  You can't see your stitches at all!  I always thought, "oh, please.  I've worked with chocolate brown yarn and I could see that fine.  How much worse can it be?"  A lot.  That's how much.  It's a black hole of suck.

6.  Vague patterns that assume you know what you're doing.  It's a Rowan pattern.  It pretty much just says: "Knit the sweater.  Seam.  Block."  And that's the pattern.

7.  The metric system.  I know it technically makes more sense than the imperial system, but damn.  I hate centimeters.  

OK, that's out of my system now.  I may need a break from this for a little while... like the whole month of October.  It'll be much better Thanksgiving knitting, I think.  I want to relax right now, chill out and knit things I enjoy.  I have no doubt that this sweater will be fantastic once it's finished and that Henry will love it, but it's just not fun knitting.  From now until November, only fun knitting will be allowed.  Besides, I'm not knitting for anyone else for Christmas.  I put my foot down on gift knitting after my frenzied sweat-shop experience before we went to South Africa.  But hubby doesn't count.

In other news, I have accomplished none of the things I promised in my last post.  No more mohair blanket strips, no more 4" squares, and no finished giant sock monkey.  But that last one is not my fault!  I ran out of yarn like an inch and a half from being finished with the final arm.  I had to order more and it just arrived today.  So that will get finished soon.  The blanket, however, is still on the back burner.  It's still too hot here, sorry.

Instead of doing any of the things I promised, I did these:

Ballband Dishcloth by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne in Lily Sugar 'n Creme

and this:

Moebius Cowl by Cat Bordhi in Rowan Tapestry

Hey, what can I say?  I wanted to do something fun and easy (but not just boring garter stitch), and then I wanted to do something really challenging.  I had fun.  It went well.  I would do it again.  The Ballband Dishcloths are SO MUCH FUN.  I want to make stacks of them.  And after watching Cat Bordhi's YouTube video on the Moebius Cast-on, it made total sense and only took me one try!  It was fantastic.  A blast to knit, really, and quick once the first couple rows are donw.  She is a genius.  So, really, everything worked out perfectly--I was happy, the knitting went smoothly, and that's all that matters, right?  Not some arbitrary self-imposed goal.

Oh, and remember my issues with the increases for Skylla?  Yeah, I found Cat's videos like two weeks too late.  She has one on her LLinc and LRinc decreases and the LLinc is the one I needed.  NOW I get it perfectly.  Oh well.  I'll just have to knit another one.  My mom wants one to store needlepoint notions in.  I don't think I'll tell her what it's really for...

Next time (for real this time): Socktober!

Ike Can Suck My...

So, yes.  I am in Houston.  Hurricane Ike hit us last Friday night/Saturday morning and WRECKED Galveston, parts of Houston, and most of East Texas and Western Louisiana.  Thankfully, my family and I are fine.  We are in the center of the city and there wasn't much substantive damage to either my parents' neighborhood or mine.  Sadly, my parents' neighborhood lost a number of large, ancient pine trees, but thankfully none of them did any damage to homes.  Our street got lucky--we had a branch down in the back yard and that was about it.  There was a tree leaning on a house across from us, but it didn't hurt the house.

We finally have power back, though!  We got it back on Thursday morning, which means I won the bet with my parents and husband on when that would happen.  I said Thursday at 3 PM, but 10:30 AM is close enough!  My parents still don't have power, though.  They are JUST outside the Loop, while we are pretty much dead center inside it.  Apparently (apparently) the entire Inner Loop will have power back by Monday, but who knows when my parents will have it back.

So I've been knitting in the dark.  Sort of.  Thank God our neighbors across the street had power, and one of them let us run an extension cord to power our fridge and a lamp.  And thank God the weather cooperated and remained nice and cool and breezy, so we just opened the doors and basked in the unseasonably cool 65-degree evenings.  

It's really amazing how the city has come together, and how quickly things are getting back to "normal."  I say "normal" because it's not, really, but we're all trying.  Signs and trees are ripped up everywhere, a lot of places don't have power, but every place that does have power is open and trying to do what they can to help people and get the city back on track.  Hell, last Sunday the city was giving out free generators to people in need at Ikea and Second Baptist was hosting a Red Cross relief center in their parking lot for ice and water and so forth.  Our neighbors really all got together and did their best to help each other.  Restaurants are opening, hotels are offering discounted rooms, Continental is offering discounted airfares, and every place you go has a can for the Red Cross or some sort of donation option.  Even Borders is asking people to buy bags of coffee to donate to the relief effort in Galveston.

Galveston is pretty much destroyed.  They're not letting people in yet, so we don't really know how bad it all is.  We have friends who have houses down there (they're fine), but they don't even know what's happened to them because they can't get in to see them.  One of our friends is working in Galveston today doing recovery, and he has to be escorted in by the cops.  He's coming over tonight, and I almost don't want to hear what it's like....

So, during the hurricane (couldn't sleep, of course) and in the long, powerless days after, I knit.  I started off knitting the Sweet Dreams Throw from KnitPicks because I wanted to do something that was just plain garter stitch, very simple and mindless just to keep me busy and relaxed.  I finished one whole strip (out of five) before I got pissed off because it was TOO mindless, too hot, and the mohair was making me sneeze.  

It's still a great pattern and I intend to finish it now that we have A/C again.  But I caved and switched to the Funky Sock Monkey from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  I've had this kit since it came out, and have been dying for an excuse to start it.  My colorways are Hot Flash and Rock Star, and while similar at first glance in places, up close you can definitely see the difference and I think it gives it a nice subtle (HA!  Subtle in hot pink?) dimension.  

I've finished Ralph, the small monkey.  All he needs are eyes.  He is a knitting monkey, and he is definitely a he because I was listening to the Y Knit podcast while knitting him and decided the world needs more male knitters.  He's knitting a scarf out of remnants of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in Knitters Without Borders, a colorway that benefits Doctors Without Borders.  So he's a knitting monkey for a cause, too!  I adore him.  Check him out:

I'll post more picks once he has eyes.  I'm working on his big brother Steven right now--he's knit in the reverse combination of colorways and is about twice the size.  I just finished his tail and am getting ready to stuff him and start on the legs.  They are SO CUTE!!!

In between my last post and the hurricane, I knit squares.  Remember that pile of yarn in the last post?  Here it is now:

I am bloody sick of knitting diagonal garter stitch squares.  REALLY bloody sick.  I did use up all my leftovers from the last post, but have since found a whole mess o' Lamb's Pride Worsted under the bed.  Damn.  But I really couldn't knit another square with that leftover Lorna's Laces (I made like four before I lost it) to save my life.  So, instead, I knit a squid:

This is the Skylla pattern from the book Anticraft: Knitting, Beading, and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister.  It's a Diva Cup holder.  If you're male, you really don't want to know what a Diva Cup is.  If you're female and you don't know what a Diva Cup is, or if you're interested, their website is here.  I've been using one for about a year now and I LOVE it.  I'm never going back.

I had a LOT of trouble with this pattern--it's knit using double knitting, and this was my first time using that technique, so I had tons of trouble with the increases (I'm definitely going to try m1 increases instead next time).  I had to re-knit the darn thing about four times before I got it, and even then they looked awful.  Huge gaping holes in my squid!  I know I still didn't do it properly, but now I think I know what I did wrong.  Anyway, the lumps and bumps you see are my poor attempts at fixing it.  Have I mentioned I can't sew?  No?  Well, I can't sew.  But I'm claiming they're a design feature.  They're veins.  Squid have veins, right?  Giant, protruding veins on their heads?  No?  Oh, well.  I still like it.  The pattern doesn't call for the I-cord loop on the head, but I added one after I discovered that the small legs hang funny when you use the long legs (which you're meant to use) to hang it.  Plus then it doesn't look so much like a squid.  So I took a page from Ravelry user Snow Blue's Skylla and added an I-cord loop on top so it can hang upright.  I am much happier with it now.  And look at the cool fabric I have inside:

How awesome is that, seriously?  I love it.  Sorry about the knot.  We didn't read the sewing directions before we tied off our ends and we didn't think it was going to show.  We don't like to talk about that.

Next time: giant sock monkey, another stripe for my Sweet Dreams Throw, holiday knitting plans (already?), and probably more squares.  Damn squares.  

Also, at some point we will talk about my trip to South Africa.  I promise.  It's just hard getting my thoughts together on it because it's darn near impossible to put the experience into words.

It's Hip to Be Square

So I know I haven't been posting but after the insanity of my last semester and being in South Africa all summer (much more on that later), I haven't had much time. But now it's on! It's on like Donkey Kong!

I've been doing a ton of knitting (again, more on that later), but right now it's all about squares. 4" squares for my "Buncha Squares Blanket" (pattern from the Mason-Dixon Knitting blog) are consuming my knitting life for the next few days. I have a TON of leftover yarn from my South Africa projects and it needs to be taken care of. I mean, seriously. Look at this:

(From left to right, Artfibers Triple Cheesecake, Peace Fleece Worsted, and Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted. And a little bit of Artyarns Beaded Silk. Hey, I'm optimistic.)

That's a lot of 4" squares right there. I think there's more, too, but I just can't find it. Or I can't bear to look for it. One or the other. I want to be knitting two more of these:

(BYOB pattern from Knitty in Lion Brand Cotton Ease)

But I'm not. This one is being given away as a gift basket for the woman who found my JRT, Diego, when he got lost overnight last week. It's stuffed with bath stuff and treats and toys for her dog and chocolate and so forth:

(Dude, look at how much this thing holds!  It's so worth it!)

It's the least I can do to say "thank you." We thought he was gone forever! So thank you. Over and over!

But, anyway, instead of knitting more bags or adding the snap to my Nob Hill, I'm knitting garter-stitch squares. Mindless, endless, garter-stitch squares. It's a little bit zen and a little bit frustrating, especially since my Ravelry queue is SO long and enticing! But I must be strong and persevere. It can be done. It must be done.

I need the space in my stash.

Blog Rehab

There are a lot of things I should be doing right now.  Like homework, and grad school apps, and that article I promised Andy.  And finishing a long overdue baby blanket.  And laundry.  Yet here I am, knitting and watching "Celebrity Rehab" (and Jesus, if Jeff Conway isn't the best anti-drug advertisement ever, I don't know what is).  And setting up a blog, of course.  

What is the fascination with blogging?  Why is it so popular all of a sudden?  I mean, I get the cathartic nature of it for the blogger, but what does the blogee get out of it beyond some slight (and, let's be honest, in most cases slightly boring) voyeuristic thrill?  What makes my life worthy of being read about?  What is appealing about class, and yarn, and dogs, and a hairy South African husband (OK, well, I get the last one).

So let's find out.  You and me.  You can see if my life is interesting enough to deserve the few minutes of your life it takes to read about it, and I can see if writing about all this keeps me from going nuts in my last semester.  Tune in and turn on, people.