February already?

It feels like it's been forever since i've posted here...wait, it has been!  So knitting, unfortunately, has been on the back burner lately.  I had Bell's Palsy this past fall and school things started requiring a lot more concentration than usual (i.e. multi-tasking was impossible for a while).  I have gradually improved and think that my brain is finally pretty much back to normal.  However, this semester is even more hectic than the last one!  In fact, i'm going to be dropping a class tomorrow (no worries, it was an elective, i took a class in January Term so i could complete my final semester with only three classes if need be).  So i've only been knitting a little bit here and there and don't really have anything substantial to tell about...other than my Christmas knitting, and even in that case i unfortunately didn't get as far as i meant to.

So, in 2010 i completed the following projects:

Dashing Evi mittens FINALLY

Ginny's Hex Vest...which somehow ended up felting in cold water

Tangy Giselle - even more FINALLY, as i had been dreaming of this project for years and had multiple issues with it

Drunken Bees Toes - my socks still have issues that i need to work out

Gentleman's Matrimony/Cozy Socks

four Monteagle bags (with various variants)

a Lacy Starfish Snood that i'm in the process of reworking the band of (it turned out to be too loose)

Mega-Sonic Screwdriver for Megan

Shy Adipose for Josh

Wisp scarf for Abby

Lacy Skull Cap for Alice with matching mini-hobo purse

Baby Totoro cap for Caleb (that turned out being huge)

And my Asymmetrical Wrap...which doesn't have finished sleeves yet, but i've worn a couple of times as a vest.  The sleeves are in the works (i've finished the cuffs so far...pathetic, i know) and i'm planning to make them removable anyway.  I'm also planning to add ribbing to the back waist because it rolls up so much right now.

I guess i did get a lot of knitting done in hindsight, with about 15 projects completed and a few more started.  This year i hope to improve upon my finishing methods (weaving in ends, putting the zipper in my Fair Ginny cardigan, figuring out how to seam that baby sweater i knit years ago, etc.) and will probably eventually get around to working on quite a few projects.  River's vest (from Firefly) being among them... yeah, i've been crocheting more, even tackling amigurumi for the first time.  Yeah, i have been dreaming of a couple of projects but have no idea when i'll be able to tackle them.

fixing a frustrating pattern problem

This seems to always happen to me these days: i get to a certain point in a pattern where, even though i've followed the pattern thus far, it doesn't allow for what i want to do with the pattern next. In this case i wanted to make the sleeves on this sweater convertible (that is to say, a vest with sleeves that can be buttoned or snapped on).  Unfortunately, i wasn't quite sure how to do this, and i was in a hurry to get the project done, so i just started the sleeves in the round at the armhole.  The trouble was s a little issue with the sleeve being too baggy. Take a look (the one on top is my solution, the bottom is the sleeve before i took it out):

I'm not sure that you can really tell while i'm not wearing it, but there was excess fabric bulging under the arm even after i reduced under the arm for about 12 rows.  This sort of thing happens to me quite a bit due to my excess bust size and designers not expecting women to have breasts.  So i frogged this back to the live armhole sts (there are 4 sts picked up at the shoulder and 2 sts picked up under the arm) and knit around one complete row with the start of the row as the underarm.  There are 70 sts total, and i have divided with 7 sts on each side of the row marker.

To the right of the row marker i reduced with ssks, on the left side i reduced with k2tog on the right side or p2tog on the wrong.  Inside the markers i knit or decreased only, but for the other 56 sts i worked in a k2, p2 rib.  So to start out, i k5, k2tog, worked in rib until the next marker, ssk, slippped the last worked st back to the left needle (along with the marker), turned, and worked rib around to next marker, p2tog, slipped st back to left needle, turned, work to next marker, ssk, k4.

So it's kind of like i worked in short rows, but instead of wrapping sts i turned at my dec st.  The next couple of sts of rib i made sure to keep snug, but not tight, and each dec becomes part of the next dec the next round, so there are no holes.  I went through the same process again (with less sts around the beg of the row, obviously), leaving 2 sts on each side of the center marker (60 sts).  The decreases created a triangle, as you can see below.  From there, i bound off.

So the armhole is now pleasantly snug.  It looks a little tight in the photos, but it doesn't feel tight at all.  Hopefully i will get some better images up here (or on my Ravelry) soon.  Right now, it needs to be blocked a bit, and then i need to start on the sleeves before it cools off too much (one can only hope!).

ecstatic and traveling

i finished Ginny's Hex Vest today! i need to finish weaving in the ends and block the knit portion. It's actually looser than i expected, and has a deeper neckline than i envisioned, but overall i am very happy with the end result. Now i am planning to knit Christmas presents for Aunt Polly, Abby, Dad, and possibly Uncle Earl and Zac. Dad's present will be like Daniel's, only with the left over green fisherman's wool (and if i run out of that, i'll knit the rest up with the brown fisherman's wool i just got in the mail today for the asymmetrical wrap sweater).

i'm going on a cruise in less than two weeks and am currently trying to decide what knitting to bring along. i think i'm going to leave the computer at home and make it a knitting retreat! i think i'll take the remainder of the Christmas present projects (at least, those i don't finish before the cruise), and sock yarn if that fails. There is actually a good chance that i can get a couple of Christmas presents done before we leave for the Mediterranean. Of course, i do have some school work to get done, but overall i'm very optimistic.

yet another dye day... squared

So, once i found the lemon-lime Kool-Aid, and wrestled my yarn into large loops secured with scrap yarn, i set about in dyeing bogey-colored yarn.



First i soaked the yarn in the same large pot as last time: i think that i had more length with the lemon yarn that i dyed orange, but this yarn is definitely thicker, and filled the pot to about 2/3 instead of 1/3. Next i emptied the Kool-Aid into an empty bowl and filled that bowl with water, stirring to dissolve the powder completely before pouring it over the yarn.

+ =

i heated the yarn, but it didn't even get anywhere near a boil before all the Kool-Aid was gone from the water. After steaming it for about 20 mins i let it cool, eventually draining the yarn and hanging it to drip dry. i liked the progress i had seen in the midst of the heating:



Unfortunately, though the yarn floating nearer the top of the pot turned out beautifully (albeit a little darker than i envisioned in the middle of the dyeing process), the yarn on the bottom... didn't.



Whole spans of yarn with no dye at all, and blotches of a decidedly blue-green hue. i was of course a little upset, but relieved that this did not happen in my last project, with more expensive yarn. If need be, i could always buy more yarn (i've found it online for even cheaper than i paid for it at work), but i decided it would be cheaper to buy more Kool-Aid, dye it again, and just live with the mistake. Now i know to not dye so much yarn at a time. i bought four more packets today, and dyed again, and the color seems to have come out well (no pictures yet, it's still drying), thought just a hair darker than the other skein, and of course with no hope of fixing the blue-green bits. i'm not sure yet how hard it will be to work around this error.

wha???

Read some blog the other day, can't remember where, in which a woman said something along the lines of "Oh, my daughters and I love to crochet, except for one of my daughters who prefers to knit because it's more time consuming." And of course i was like, "Wha...??????" i haven't been a slow knitter in well over a decade, and am even faster now that i've made the switch to continental. Crocheting is more time consuming (for me) because i crochet less than i knit and have to think about it more, and i have to constantly watch what i'm doing (if i'm knitting stockinette i don't have to be too focused on my hands really, i can watch tv or whatever. i knew i had arrived as a knitter when i was knitting in the round in a dark theater while watching Underworld 2, and no, i do not use glowing acrylic needles). Knitting is not slow any more than crocheting is, it merely depends on one's amount of experience. This weekend i knitted two hats; they both took me 3-5 hours once i worked out the kinks of learning a new pattern and figuring out what to do when i ran short on yarn (they never mention that in the project books that laud knitting with leftover yarn...). As a result i made a beanie instead of a beret and a two-colored hat instead of a solid one, but it all worked out, and rather quickly (i will admit that i was getting rather tired of the k2, p2 ribbing on the second project, however). Anyways, back to the point: enjoy the craft you love, realize that it takes time to master a new one, but eventually crocheting and knitting are both rather like riding a bike: once you know how, your fingers always remember the way.

Overall, i feel that the art of knitting is a rather misunderstood pastime. i am so sick of people giving me dirty looks when i bring my knitting along to class or church. Please understand, that if i feel comfortable enough to knit in front of you, it is a compliment. Knitting gives me a heightened sense of awareness: i retain lectures better and notice more details (which is saying something, as i am pretty observant on my own as a rule). i am great at multitasking, but knitting focuses me enough to not let me be distracted, allowing me to give more of my attention to what is at hand (well, rather, what is not in hand, but being discussed, taught, etc.). Just because someone doesn't know how to knit does not mean that one should look down on me because i can!

It disturbs me how we have fallen away from the idea of never having idle hands and always contributing to society, the war effort, etc., to become a culture that is threatened by the fact that i can create something with merely a ball of yarn and two (three, four, five) needles. i didn't know that i was going to be making some sort of statement every time i picked up the needles when i taught myself how to knit from a book nearly fifteen years ago. If i have to, i'll continue to make that statement, because i fully intend to continue knitting for the rest of my life, and i hope to be knitting more in the future. i'm already working on another hat and fully intend to start crocheting the hex vest this week, too.

End of rant. (;

bitter lemon-limes

After looking at at least five grocery stores, i have finally found some lemon-lime Kool-aid. The bad news is that i neglected to write down how many ounces of yarn that i'm going to be dyeing, and only bought eight packets (when there is 16 ounces of yarn). So, the question is, do i buy more? Perhaps dilute the green with the leftover yellow and orange that i have left over from dyeing Tangy Giselle? i'm undecided. i think that i will probably be using what i have and then adapting to fit my needs as i am actually doing the dyeing. i do not want the colors to be too bright or too diluted, either. i'm not exactly sure what color i'm going for here, just something greenish, but not blech (like the $200 handbag that my US Lit professor bragged about getting a good deal on last semester). i'm definitely going for a bogey color (hex!), but i want it to be pretty, too.... Does that make any sense???

The bitter part of this post is that i am trying to figure out a good way to unwind this yarn and i have managed to get it royally tangled in the process. i'm almost finished untangling it now, but it's taken me over an hour. The board game box was too small, the ironing board kept collapsing, but the empty laundry basket turned upside down seems to be doing the trick.

dreaming of yarn...

i cannot believe that i forgot to bring my knitting with me today (i'm in the middle of Liberty Cap 2.0, and World Geography is the perfect opportunity to get the needles clicking). The weather is cool and rainy today, and as such i have knitting on the brain (along with the cruise i am taking in two months, but that is entirely beside the point: that is on the brain because we finally got our plane tickets today). i am really restraining myself, not allowing myself to run down to Tangle (Mountain Biking was canceled due to the weather, so i have a little extra time on my hands today) and check out the yarn that i am thinking of buying for the Hex Vest or simply buying it online (i haven't even seen this yarn in person or touched it, mind you, but i am itching to start this project, nay, multiple projects). i still haven't had the time to take photos of my yoga bag or dye it. My life is so busy and full of stressful requirements. Maybe after the first mod is over (which means the yoga class will be over, and by then, what's the point?).

On a cruise related note, i found two pairs of pants at Goodwill, one pair brown and like new, the other pair pink and from Old Navy. What on earth was i thinking? Well, basically, what the heck, it's four bucks, and i can dye them. i have no idea if i can actually dye this type of fabric, but it doesn't really hurt to try, as no one in town has the appropriate pants (well, Old Navy does, but i'm not willing to pay $30 a pair for them), and Hi Fashion Fabrics does not have the fabric i'm looking for, either. i broke down and bought some batik for a blouse (i shouldn't have looked!). i have very low willpower lately.