Deep Space Knit

State of Pogona

2011-04-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

GO OUT! MAKE YOURSELF ONE!

Seriously, this pattern is easy, fast and fun. It's just like having sex with yarn.

Wait. That didn't come out right.

But truly it's a good analogy. Fast, fun, satisfying and when you're done you wanna make more. I haven't even gotten this one blocked and I still wear it all the time (Darn you knitpicks, ship me mah blocking wires faaaaster!)

Ooooh, look at all those ruffles. Besides, when you have a red-red-redder-than-red red ninja coat, you really need a scarf that highlights it!

This scarf was made with 350 yards of lovely Sophie's Toes sock yarn in the colorway state fair.

It took 3 days to knit.

I lurrrves it!

My-my-my-my Pogona

2011-03-31T10:35:00.000-07:00

Why am I still singing that song?

Yes friends, have cast on a new shawl. And decided in the casting on that I am enamored with Stephen West's designs. So clean. So purdy. So modern.

Anyways, in a leap of total frivolity I finished a sock and instead of casting on and finishing another sock like a good girl, I have cast on this lovely little shawl. Balled up the yarn and dove in head first. Tsk. tsk. tsk. My mother would be cross. I was a WIP yet to finish >.<

The yarn is Sophie's Toes, bought at the Madison Knit in - whooo! :D Color is not my usual bag, baby: State fair. Has a lot of jewel tones in it, but somehow the blend is appealing. The sum is greater than its parts.

Potato chip knitting at its best. Knit, purl, increase and YO. Ooooh. Is ok, the handpaint on the yarn is pretty wild.

The intention is that this shawl will match my purdy new coat. Yeah, splurged on a new coat because I had two options for spring: Heavy wool and denim. So bake or freeze. To be fair, the coat was found at a resale shop and I didn't pay much for it, so win! The new coat is bright freakin' red and since all my other coats are either A. olive green or B. black I decided that the red coat needed a lovely scarf to go with it.

So Pogona was pushed to the forefront of my knitting.

Loving this shawl so far.

Taj Mahal Shawl

2010-10-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

The story of a knitter, a yarn of destiny and a project that sprang out of nowhere.

Every project has a story. Or at least that is what I’d like to think. Even when it doesn’t I am enough of a storyteller to just make something up, embellishing the little glimmers of thought that existed in my mind to craft a reason as to why I spent hours crafting something which the outside world will see as ‘just another hat’ or ‘just an other scarf’ or ‘why don’t you just buy them from Wal-Mart’ pair of socks.

Fortunately I don’t have to embellish much on this one. It has a story and a pretty decent one at that. Or at least one that tells of a knitters connection to yarn in a way she cannot describe and might give a clue to yarn shop owners on how to get someone to buy their wares even if they weren’t considering buying anything in the first place.

So lets start with the basics. This, technically isn’t my first shawl. But it is my first traditional shawl: lace, shaping, thin yarn, blocking, the whole nine. Some may call it a shawlette as it is, in fact, decently small. Fine by me. I don’t wear normal shawls and fully intend to wear this as a scarf with the point in the front and the end gracefully draped about my neck. It accommodates my insane desire to wear V-necks in the middle of Wisconsin winters.

It didn’t start with any intention to make this shawl. It started with a late-night yarn purchase one summer evening whilst I was trying to chase away the ‘help me, my crew and I work with idiots’ doldrums. That purchase netted me 2 self-striping rainbow sock maki from Play at Life fiberarts, in a delicious hand-dyed MCN. Once I had the maki in hand and was fondling their beautiful strands I wondered ‘what in the hell will I do with these?’ So I turned to my steadfastly awesome knitting bud Squidwidget and asked her. She agreed with my initial inclination that the maki were too lovely to be socks and trampled on, why not make them into a shawl?

Hm…a shawl? What an unusual idea. I’m not big on most shawls. But someone on Ravelry suggested that I might like the Westknits designs… and what do you know? I like Westknits designs. I particularly love the Akimbo pattern. And so I decided that the sock maki needed to become an Akimbo.

The problem? Akimbo uses a contrast color. I am missing that contrast color. I wanted the same yarn type: MCN and wanted a smoky tonal/kettle dyed blend of grey and black. I soon found that black sock yarn is difficult to come by.

This brings us up to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival. Still looking for MCN, I surfed many booths with a lot of lovely yarn, coming back with very little. Finally, as my intrepid friend SquidWidget was spelunking through a sale bin of ??? yarn I wandered off and found an entire booth of sock yarn. Beautiful sock yarn. MCN sock yarn.

And no black.
Ok, there was close to black, but it registered as dark purple. Tonal, but not perfect. I left the booth, dejected back to see if SquidWidget was making it out alive. ??? hundred yards of yarn later we were back walking towards the Sun Valley Fiber booth and once again I was tempted by the yarns. The booth vendor started up a pleasant conversation, handed out Ravelry buttons and in general gave us a reason to stick around her booth a few more minutes. And that’s when I saw it.

“Ocean.”

It was not MCN. But it did catch my eye – and for one of the most foolish reasons. I wanted it because it reminded me of another yarn. It had that same misty, smoky colorway of Aruncania Atacama’s misty blue; sadly discontinued. A color style I rarely see. It reminded me of lazy days spent knitting in Vermont, and my first tentative steps through socks. I knit my Mom bedsocks with that blue, bedsocks that were eventually the unfortunate victims of my aunt’s vicious laundering. And this yarn said that I should buy it.

And I did.

Now what the heck was I going to do with a skein of beautiful fingering weight, non-superwash merino? I even set it on my computer desk, right by the screen so I had to look at it and remember it wanted to be knitted. I vowed not to be that type of knitter who goes to a fiber festival and goes wild… putting up half the stuff she bought for sale in destash a month later. I was going to knit this.

But into what?

“Make a shawl!” someone helpfully suggested. Alright, I wasn’t against shawls, but I didn’t have a pattern in mind, and Akimbo was out. So, time to Ravelry search. Fingering weight, yes. Knit, yes. Shawl, yes. Photo, yes. 400 yards, yes.

This produced some 60 pages of patterns to sift through. I ended up actually clicking on maybe 2 dozen, and with page after page tabbed on my screen, I was coming to the end of the list and saw this pattern.

Small enough to be worn as a scarf? Check. Solidly works with 400 yards? Check. Attractive, interesting lace pattern? Check. Not too frou-frou? Check. Triangle shape, pointy hem, cables and lace and kibbles and bits… Sold!

Literally. Purchased from Ravelry Saturday night and cast on Sunday morning while I was chilling out at my parent’s farm. The cast on took a bit of brain-work. Oh yeah… read ahead dummy. And then we were off and going. I like the charts in this pattern better than the written parts, and almost as a gift when I was halfway through an update of the pattern, fully charted came out – glee!

Now Taj Mahal has been cast off. Her final row is finished, and she lays in that lumpy mess that unblocked shawls take. She is beautiful. Cabled ripples like ocean waves undulate across her, with a yarn that reminds me of a quiet respite from crazy theatre days. I will block her this weekend and wear her with joy, and the prideful sense of accomplishment a knitter only gets from finishing a project crafted from impulse yarn. Oh ho! The non-knitters say. You bought that without even having a plan for it!

Ha ha! This knitter sasses back. I know what I like and I am solid in my beliefs that what I like is usable and beautiful yarn. See? I can find a project for the yarn I buy! And I can make something beautiful from it.

Now if I could only find tonal black MCN…

2010-10-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

As I sit here, editing another podcast and drinking tea I start to plan winter projects. gifts you ask. Nah. After over two dozen pair of gift socks methinks I shall be knitting for myself.

The question then becomes 'what do I knit?'

Do i knit something deliciously and tantalizingly difficult to show off my mad knitting prowess? Or do I knit something mind numbing but flattering and classic. Do I knit something I have had queued for ages or something I just pull out of my bum.

Have you ever wished you could knit more, faster? I am, at heart a process knitter. I enjoy making the stitches. I enjoy intricate and difficult patterns for the challenge of seeing them through, but I also enjoy the finished product and showing off that finished product on my body. I have so much yarn that is planned for attractive projects if I could only knit faster.

I know. I know. I knit fast enough already, but there are times when my decisive destashing urge (and finish-itis) kick in and say 'KNIT MORE NOW!'

Which is why I shall stop writing and go back to finishing my shawl. Taj Mahal shawl, bay-bee! I'm on row 135 of 140! You are looking at a woman who is nearing completion and is on the home stretch!

Go me!

Whatever will I knit next?

2010-09-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

And tonight marks the night Squidwidget and I try a podcast...

Be ascared. Be very ascared!

And part 2!

He Doth Protest too much!

2010-06-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

So said boyfriend from the computer saga has requested appeal to those humble readers who judge him by his computer merit. for he: A. internet-stalks me and B. has fixed the computer.

Protesting that I have not portrayed him well, he holds that he has redeemed himself and that my computer fubared itself - rather than him mucking it up.

So, yes, he has made all computers whole again.

but his own is dead now....

Entropy I tell you. Entropy.

Kim's Chemo Hat Project

2010-06-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

I seem to keep finding long-running projects lately.

Kim is lovely. Kim is a Trekkie, a writer, a mother, a friend, a lady with an impossibly large head (literally!) and a wonderful person.

She is also undergoing chemo for breast cancer.

I could go into a big long speech about why does cancer hit nice people all the time, and how come you never hear about horrific dictators or celebrity fearmongers getting cancer and slowly going away; but instead I'll say: Doctors are hopeful. The prognosis is good, the chances of curability are high. From here on out it's as much a battle of the mind as it is of the body.

Kim lives several states away (almost everybody seems to live several states away... -.-) but when she lost her hair she contacted me. I had knit her several hats before hand - and I know her head is unusually wide. Like anybody recovering from something she wanted some cheer and to feel beautiful again. Hence: The Hat Project.

I'm shooting for a hat a month, to be sent while chemotherapy goes on. All must be soft. All must be bright. All must be easy-care. I hope the steady stream of cards, letters and hats will help the cheer factor and help offset the sickness of the chemo. I knit up a prototype in Early May for headsize and finding it fit, worked up the first of the series:

This is called the "Lace Leaf hat" and is knit in Berroco Comfort. I only wish I had completed it a bit sooner as it scream springtime to me, with green and leaves and suchlike. Kim has specially requested her next hat be red...

I need to find a good cotton blend red yarn for this. Pattern of my own design taken from the red socks of doom.

What red socks of doom?

Cliffhanger!

The Amazing Computer Saga

2010-06-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

So, I needed somewhere to post my story - somewhere where I could shout it out loud and link those who needed to know.

As the length between blog posts may say; I have computer issues. On a regular basis it seems I get knocked off the interwebz because, as far as I can tell, I'm a Calibite and have this anti-technology entropy field around me (bonus points for getting the reference). Or it may have something to do with being a theatre person and running forth with cobbled together old equipment. Maybe both?

Anyways, heart of the story. Last week my computer died. Why? no clue. Vista up and took a crap all over itself and when my boyfriend tried to fix it (he's a computer programmer who used to be an IT tech guy) he damaged the boot files. It was a fix he said "Worked on XP!"

"Um, hun..." I replied. "The computer wasn't running XP... it was running Vista."

We have learned something very important here: XP =/= Vista.

So, days stretched by. The computer lay dead. I struggled on with my craptop.

What is a craptop, you ask? Well, it's a crappy laptop. Of which I have 2: The original one my mom got me when I went off to college which runs Windows *ahem* 95 and the 'upgrade' which my production manager in VT gave to me when he decided to swap over to all Mac products. It runs Windows 2000. The latter is the one I was struggling with. The former exists so I can play "Starship Titanic."

So. I roleplay. You guys know this, right? Well, for those who don't there is it.

I not only roleplay but I "ST" (aka: storytell, aka Dungeonmaster, aka Gamemaster, aka turn into a schizophrenic running in multiple personality mode who plots horrific ways to tantalize and torment poor PCs) and have done so for... more years than I can count. (ok, I started the year before I went to Grad School which was 2003 which means... damn. 7 years)

Roleplaying is done on a chat format. However chatting with the craptop is like running the Boston Marathon with your grandmothers high heels that are 3 sizes too small. Slow, painful and ultimately frustrating. But I would soldier on! Slowly.

============================================

Here starts my story.

I have long held I have the best damn players of anywhere on the web. Seriously.

Some of the story lines we have pulled off are the sorts of things you only get when everybody trusts one another and everybody wants to play the game for fun - not to be a jerk or get their jollies by trolling or stealing the glory. One of the reason I have done it so long as because over many years we seem to have garnered the best damn following of players possible. They recommend the game to other people they know - which is a tremendous compliment and then we get more players of similar mind. So we can run stories and have fun - how freakin' cool is that?

STing is a volunteer job. I don't know why I started doing it in the first place. I guess I thought I'd be good at it. It ended up that I created the game I wanted to play in and ran it instead of played it. And along the way I met a lot of super cool people, and made a lot of friends.

=======================================

Holy shit do I have good friends.

=======================================

10-Something AM, CST.

Jamie is at work, on the stage, dragging dance towers across the floor, setting them up and focusing them with her teenaged interns Collin and Bridget. We have a tech for a dance show that night so we are putting the finishing touches on the lightplot and dance set-up. I do remember I had been up in the booth grabbing frosts and gels while my crew were in the box booms ready to focus the lights there. And the phone rings.

Me running across the theatre to grab the phone before it goes to voicemail is not unusual. This one I just barely got to in time, a beat or two after the third ring. It's switchboard. OK. There is a call coming in for me. OK. Not the most unusual thing.

But it isn't someone asking to schedule the theatre. It is Christy. Who is on the west coast. And sounding devious. Wha? Last time one of my western state friends tracked me down at work was because she wanted to tell me that a mutual friend had, indeed, come out of a very hit-and miss surgery OK and giving me an address to send cards.

This was far more devious. I was given a number. I wrote it on a orchestra program, because, well - it was there. I was told to bring this number and a photo ID to Best Buy in Plover. I was told to call her before I got there.

Hoo-kaaay. Curiosity piqued. Certainly. Mind a bit swimmy. Goodbyes are given. Lights are focused. Lunchtime comes about 2pm.

I call as directed. My cellphone sucks. It cuts out about a dozen times (contract is done at the end of June... can anyone else say "landline?!" I can.

Best Buy idles around a bit. And then they bring me a box.

A big freakin box.

Holy shit that's a big freakin' box.

You guys are crazy.

You guys are crazy and I LOVE YOU!

My cat however, is unimpressed.

I don't really know what to say, beyond thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!

Several of you have not given me your addresses, but if you guys could investigate and track me down at my place of work ("Hm, how many insurance companies have theatres in Stevens Point, WI? Only one? Ah ha!") I shall track you down with a personalized thank you. See? I am devious and I have needles (have to have aknitting picture in here somewhere since this is, technically, a knitting blog)

I cannot tell you how awesome this is. I have been more upbeat and stoked in the past few days than in months. And now I can be online without curing the hardward every two minutes. ("Craptop, you DO have a harddrive. Please remember that.")

You guys rock my world, as players, as characters, as people and as friends.

Thank you so much,

~Jamie.

If you can help...

2009-10-01T00:29:00.000-07:00

This is a geek thing, but I promised a friend I would spread the word.

An artist at Dragon Con had a piece of his artwork stolen from him. My friend is a fellow artist who is acquainted with the theft victim and we are trying to get word out - if you see this or have information about it, please follow the link and contact the original artist. I know y'all are knitters but this is a geek blog, too and geeks take care of one another.

Here is a LINK to the original blog

Socks N Dirge of Cerberus

2009-09-29T23:32:00.001-07:00

Alright, I warn you, I am about to commit knitting sacrilege:

I don't really like knitting socks.

Gasp, shock! I know! I'm a knitter, and we're all supposed to like socks, right? I mean I have knit socks. Heck, I have knit four pairs in September alone (yeah, most of them were heavy socks, pick yer jaws up). And still socks are among my least-favorite projects.

Why you might ask? Easy. It isn;t turning the heel - I find that rather charming, actually. I don't like the interruption. I like zen knitting - back and forth, back and forth or round and round and round. Anything with changing needles, tangling yarn or potentially creating ladders irks me to some degree. I can hack it at the top of a hat because I have just spent the rest of my time joyously creating the body (or will be creating the body), but socks are continual: knit, stop, knit, stop, pull tight and get the yarn in the right position. Yargh.

Yeah, I know how to knit on two circulars, 4 DPNs, 5 DPNs... in the end I magic loop. One needle, less fuss. I sort of like working the foot of my current pair, which is from Charlene Schurch's Sensation Knitted socks - Small Capitals. The pattern balances nicely across the top on the foot, and the stockinette bottom seems to zoom by. But afterwards I'm doomed to make a pair of socks for my aunt who prefers 2x2 rib.

Yawn.

Heck, she doesn't just prefer... I can put book after book after book of amazing, lovely, creative, interesting sock patterns in front of her and she will go out of her way to find the basic beginner sock at the front of the book and tell me to 'make that sock'

Round and round and round and round, watch the ladders, watch for no yarnovers, finish one, knit a second, ARGH!

Usually when knitting irritates me, I turn towards my guilty pleasure: video games. I have a small selection (read: sizable stash) of favorites from the Atari 2600 up to the Playstation 2. Haven't gone newest gen yet - haven't found any games really worth playing on any system but the Wii, and my boyfriend has a Wii. Anyways (this all ties together, I promise) I favor two types of games: Mindless action adventure and serious RPG. Usually when stress kicks in I favor the former. Dynasy Warriors ("Watch me wade into a dozen dudes and righteously slay them with my magical powaz while being accompanied by period-accurate ancient Chinese hard rocks music...") and Devil May Cry - the first one - ("Jamie, why are you juggling blood-spraying zombies in the air with a hail of gunfire?" ""Cause it's fun, Mom...") are personal favs.

But I bought Dirge of Cerberus several months ago, Heck, maybe even a year or more ago - can't remember. Gainful adult employment does that to ya. Anyways, a while ago -and I hadn't played it yet. It looks so promising - RPG styled, action oriented, badass main character, prettyboy anime design. So what do you mean I have to go play almost first-person shooter? (third person shooter actually). I mean it's all about getting my ass kicked while I run around with a really big gun. See?

I bite at this game. I blow goats at it. RPG fans are not created to do shooter games. I aim everywhere but at the dudes I am supposed to be killing - and at times this reminds me of my sock knitting. I drop stitches forget patterns and occassionally forget to turn the freakin' heels and only notice this after I'm decreasing for the toe. I run around Dirge of Cerberus saying things like "You get back here, I'm gonna shoot you!" while wildly flailing and shooting the crap out of anything around me; and I knit socks while vowing "You get back here you damn dropped stitch! you will not evade me!"

This is cheaper than therapy. Trust me. :D

StashCat

2009-09-24T00:35:00.000-07:00

Like a LOLCat, but lazier.

So, I have a new cat. Actually an old cat that is new again.

Hokay, let me try to explain. My mother and I swap cats. She lives on a farm and decided to rescue stray kittens, so she has a lot of cats. More cats than could really be considered normal and a house that is far too clean to have so many cats. I swear she's like a bionic woman when it comes to keeping a clean house with (*ahem*) fifteen cats.

Yes, fifteen.

Stop rolling your eyes, we used to have twenty. (The joke used to be 'I have two, my mother has the other 18 - cats are cheaper in packs of 20...)

Anyways she has a lot of very happy healthy cats in a disturbingly clean house. And when Sultan was a kitten he used to be called Meriadoc (because his brother was Pippin, 'natch) and he was supposed to be my cat. However my first cat, Robin, didn't like Meriadoc. So Robin stayed with me and Meriadoc stayed with my mom, who changed his name to Sultan. Thanks, Mom.

Anyways, after getting gainful employment and an apartment nearby said gainful employment, I wanted a cat with me in the apartment. But Robin is getting weird in his older age and he has decided that he will. Not. Move. Ever. Again. To the point where he hyperventilates and pulls out all of his fur if you try to move him to a new house. So that was a no. Meanwhile Sultan was banished to the basement for peeing on the baseboards (say that five times fast!) because he had dominant male issues.

So my mother sweet talked me into taking Sultan, again. He knows he new name now so I couldn't change it back. However being an only cat means he has had no peeing issues whatsoever. He does, however, believe he is prettier than any other creature on the farm, and he has also decided that my stash is his stash.

This is Herschnerrs Warehouse swag. Yum. I dig the Nob Hill Jewel Sparkle for kid's hats. Sultan prefers it for it's lovely bed-like qualities.

Look at him. He's smirking. Proud that he can shed on my yarn.

Jerk.

Oh Dear Me

2009-09-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

I am a horrific blogger.

I really am. Stress gets to me and I stop writing.

However Ravelry is down tonight and I finally have a new computer and decent internet access and, well, a blog!

So I'm working on a Scotty hat. Dang is this a long hat! Long to wear, long to knit, LONG! It is for Eric, who is lovely and has a big head. Physically not egotistically ;-)

I have piles and piles and piles of photos. I must sort and post them.

Gainful Adult Employment

2008-10-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

I has it.

When I ended last theatrical season, I swore to myself that this seasonal work thing was going to stop. I was sick and tired of moving across the country every 7 months, and feeling like I was getting older with nothing permanent to show for it.

So I did not re-accept my contract with my previous employer.

As the summer days grew on, I kept failing to reach a new contract with a full time theatre; and it was looking more and more likely that I would have to see if my position was still unfilled at my old job. (sigh) And one day out of the blue the neighbor lady came over to collect her rummage sale things and she suggested that I check on the Sentry website for a job.

I paused a second and wondered if she was nuts. Sentry is a grocery store; but near my hometown it is also a major insurance company. I thought that neither sounded like they really had a career path for a theatre technician.

Ah, I was wrong. Sentry Insurance owns a theatre. And they needed a theatre manager. And after a long interview process of many candidates, I am the chosen successor for the 'Theatre Manager' position.

My very own theatre, mwa hahahah!

I work 30 minutes from home. Not 1200 or 2000 miles.... 30 minutes. It's.... amazing!

So, that's what I have been up to. That and scads of knitting. Oh, and Hat Attack. Dear goodness. So much catch up blogging to do!

Yarn Recycling Day

2008-08-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, lovely lazy weekends.

Since I have been bit heavily by the destash bug, I have also been going through my yarn.  I feel the need to ball up, tidy up and categorize everything.  And with that, I have been frogging some very old projects I will never finish or wear in order to reclaim the yarn.

Mmmm, strawberry flavored wool.  This was at one point going to be a crocheted sweater; but I figured out that I didn't quite have enough yarn for the pattern I wanted to make. So it sat in a box all through grad school and then sat for two more years until I finally found it and thought "gee, this is nice wool"

Besides, I figure that knitting takes less yarn than crocheting does, so I still have enough yarn for a ~knit~ sweater!

And so it was frogged.  And balled.  And turned into a lovely hank of crinkley yarn.

I even had help through this whole process! See? This is Heidi. She thinks I cannot see her...

Oh... but the temptation was too great. I see you, Heidi... >.> <.<

I had five hanks to be dipped in hot water, relaxed and then hung to dry. Several move un-crocheted skeins that could simply be balled and stored.

After all that work, my assistant was pooped.

I'm sort of jealous that this old cat still has the flexibility to turn herself completely into a catball. May I be as supple when I am her age.

Until then, I'll content myself with the fact that I now have a sweater's worth of wool all fresh and waiting for me!

Cats in the Slammer

2008-08-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

(with all due respect to "Cops"... eh, who am I kidding. I'm making fun of it.)

Bad cats, bad cats, what'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when the come for you...

To be fair these are not bad cats. They are simply feral rescues. For years and years my parents had barn cats in the, well, barn. But as the number of cows dwindled the number of cats grew. So we started taking in kittens (which might account for the unusually high number of housecats our family has) and finally my mother decided that enough was enough. She was going to livetrap all the feral cats.

We finally live trapped the last of the feral mothers from the barn; tranquilized them, got them taken to the vet for shots and fixings; and now they are enjoying a lovely day in the sun. We set up a place for them to live indoors, with an outdoor cage. Now they pass thier time away as healthy, lazy cats. This is a Saint Bernard pen that is rigged up through a basement cat door, for some fun in the sun. Or shade as the case may be in the pictures. I just like how Suzy (the little black cat) is looking up so woefully, as if to say 'nobody knows the trouble I've seen...'

Woe be to the chipmunk who runs through the bars.

Round and Round

2008-08-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

(and round and round and round and round....)

I find it a theme of my projects lately that I start them "because the yarn was there"

No, really. It's the yarn's fault. It lays in the boxes and tells me to make things. I erase all responsibility.

So let's start with the yarn. Red Heart Symphony. It's 100% faux mohair. As faux as mo goes. Acrylic, all of it. I found it within my stash - the old stash (yes, I have stash stored away in separate places, like vintages. And when I dig it out I find some surprising things. This was one of them.) I took it out and looked at the skein and thought 'what the hell is this?'

What the hell indeed? It was... well, it was furry. Not Fun Fur furry. Just furry.

What the hell do you do with furry? You type "Red Heart Symphony" into Ravelry and click on 'pattern ideas.' That's what you do. God Bless Ravelry.

Anyways, one of the patterns that showed up was the "Portland Pullover" from Interweave Knits. I have always thought it was an attractive pattern; and the fact that it's modeled on that cute redhead model IK used for so many years didn't hurt. The ravelers said it was a fast, easy and nice to wear. I said 'sold!'

I cast it on a few days before my mother fell off the garage roof, and I ended up spending hours knitting the sweater body in the ER waiting room. There are some times where completely mindless circular knitting (19 inches of it...) is most welcome.

I did not knit the sleeves flat. I mean a circular body with a circular yoke and flat sleeves? Please. I knit them on a 16" circ. Yaaay!

I'm not fond of funnel necks, and I will almost certainly wear a button down or turtleneck underneath it; so I bound it off earlier, and shored it up with a single crochet border and kitchenered the armpit seams.

Since Wisconsin is cold lately, I got to get some lovely outdoor pictures. Mmm, fuzzy sweater. Fauxmo it may be, but it's delightfully soft and light.

Hermitage

2008-08-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Like animals when they don't feel good and they crawl off to thier dens, I have crawled off to my internetless den for, oh, about two months. I'm very bad at that >.<

News: my mother just got okayed to walk again (yay!) and now she can really start driving me nuts.

Man, I'm glad she doesn't read my blog. >.> <.<

Life is good.

This post had pictures. The internet ate the pictures. *shakes fist at the internet* I will post the pictures later.

Life is still good.

2008-07-06T19:03:00.001-07:00

I want to thank everyone who gave me comments and thoughts. When I get a moment to sit down and it is quiet I will try to respond to each individually.

My mother is home. Sore and slow, but home. And so I knit on. I have half a sweater done. Soon I hope to have pictures.

Happy 4th of July to all, and peace,

~PSG

Sometimes You Knit...

2008-06-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you knit to remember.

Sometimes you knit to forget.

I don't have any jokes for today's blog. No witticisims or sarcasm. No pictures even.

My mother fell off a roof today. We were very lucky because she slid and landed on her hip rather than falling on her chest or head. So she broke her pelvis, but hopefully no other injuries.

It all seems so stupid. The ladder slipped. You wonder 'could I have done something different?' I stepped into the house for a minute or so, trying to get something out of the over before going back outside, and I heard the ladder collapse and her scream.

I don't know. I don't like to wallow in guilt. So I spent two hours in the emergency, knitting while I waited to hear about CAT scans and X Rays.

It will be a long heal. Two months. I wish it were me instead of her. I really do. I'm much younger and I mend better. But if all goes well, there won't be any major complications. She can come home in a day or so.

Knitting is funny. Stitch after stitch, a way to channel the enegry that could be used for pacing, screaming, shouting, hitting. Stitch by stitch by stitch. The same movement over and over and over again.

I think I might give the sweater I make to her. We are the same size, it'll fit.

A sweater to remember the love, knitting to forget the pain.

The Manly Scrafghan

2008-06-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Scrafghan: (noun) scrˈaf-ˌgan : a blanket or shawl knitted or crocheted from many different colors or types of yarns. (scrap+afghan)

~My dictionary of dumb definitions for words that don't exist... but should!

Several days ago my mother entreated my with a quest. Nothing so droll as running out and slaying monsters or beating the hoards of cats back from the basement. No. I was to protect the integrity of the very walls of the farmhouse she lives in. Save the chairs from a cruel fate! Preserve the sheen and appearance of the 1970's fake wood paneling!!

I needed to make her an afghan.

So, the yarn warrior rode again, digging through the nameless trenches of ages old stash. Stash so old everyone had forgotten where it was bought. Stash that surely bore the horrors of things like nameless forgotten scratchy wools and acrylics so cheap they would curdle milk. What would come of thise project... time would only tell.

~*~*~*~*~*~

So, yes. My mother wants an afghan. For the express purpose of putting it on the back of the chair my Dad sits in to watch TV.

Now my Dad is an older man, and the years (and beers) have not worn well on his frame. He has bad knees and therefore has a tendancy to not so much sit as to collapse into any given chair. Therefore the wall behind his favorite chair gets decimated if there is no padding between chair back and wall. That's where the afghan comes in.

He has an afghan on his chair. Oh yes, he does. Or did. It is his afghan. My great grandmother made it for him in the 1970's. Much of my parents house still dates to the 1970's. Anyways, it was a fine afghan, one of the few knit afghans in the house (most of them are crocheted because most of the grandmothers crocheted more than they knit), with wide chevrons done in knit and purl ridges, in dark brown and white. Nothing wrong with it... well there wouldn't have been anything wrong with it had half of the afghan not been made in wool with half made in acrylic.

See how it has big stripes? Some of the stripes are wool. Some aren't.

Well, my Dad sweats. Most men sweat. So when he would use the afghan and get sweaty the afghan got smelly. After decades my mother decided the afghan needed a wash because it was rank. All of the other afghans in the house were either all wool or all acrylic. This one said on a very old card that it was all acrylic, so my mother out it in the washing machine on gentle and washed it before hanging it on the line to dry.

And then she noticed that some stripes had felted, some hadn't.

Whoops.

So I dug through the big old stash of bulky yarns that time forgot. Some I bought (shame on me...). Some my mother bought (shame on her...) and some that we didn't know where the hell they came from. I pulled out everything that was in the olive/gray/brown color scheme and then all the neutrals. I figured if this was a sacrifice afghan, I was going to make it the easiest and quickest way I knew how: interlocking shells of crochet with an N hook.

So now the challenge is to make this big pile of unknown scrap yarns look like something that really meant to be an afghan without killing some of the yarns in the process. (I hate you, Lion Brand Cheille Thick and Quick... do you hear me? )

So far, not so bad!

Today is...

2008-06-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Jerky day!!!

YUM!

(yes. This is thoroughly random. But I don't care. Because I have jerky.)

Ronan's Old Man Sweater

2008-06-18T10:32:00.001-07:00

or "Proof Positive that I was not on a Two Month Bender..."

I mean, you can't be drinking and knitting... right?

Anyways, I had bought six skeins of Dalegarn Baby Ull in three colors: lime, sunshine yellow and blue. I throught they looked nice together and wanted to make a baby sweater out of them. I actually get a kick out of making baby sweaters that are in colors most people don;t consider 'baby colors.'

And so one of my best friends, Colleen, announced several months ago that she was having a baby boy. I think I had this in my head when I originally bought the yarn, but I delayed the project for several months. Then I dealyed it until after my Mother's Mother's Day sweater was done, meaning I started Ronan's sweater circa May 21st. The shower was on May 30th. I would have *totally* gotten that sucker done in time if I didn't have to drive from Vermont to Wisconsin in the middle.

That's OK. Ronan isn't born yet (he is due fourth of Julyish) and the sweater is sized so he can wear it in oh, December rather than July. I had enough done so I could show everyone the body at the shower, and most of the guests thought it was a dashing vest. Nope... I just had to add the sleeves. Sleeves, I think, are my nemesis.

Anyways, with the yarn I had, I decided that it would be funny if I knitted a golf style argyle into the sweater with fair isle. Because in my warped mine, making an 'old man' style sweater for a newborn was funny.

I wove a good amount of the fair isle on the body of the sweater. I am getting away from weaving, but I didn't want anything snagging. I didn't Fair Isle the sleeves at all. That isn't because I hate Fair Isle on Magic Loop (ok, I *do* hate fair isle with magic loop...) but more because I didn't want any loops in the sleeves whatsoever so there would be no chance to Ronan catching his itty bitty fingers in them.

I sewed the steeks on a seweing machine, cut them (to the horror of my aunt), sewed them on, and tried about six different variations for the neck. My biggest quandry there is that I wanted a button and a toggle until someone politely pointed out that some babies chew things like buttons off of thier clothes. Yargh! I want to dress the baby, not choke the baby, so I haven't finished the sweater 100%. It also needs a blocking, which will get done tomorrow.

On the bright side, both the mother and the mother's family like the sweater. So goal accomplished! woot!

Mother's Mother's Day Sweater

2008-06-17T19:26:00.001-07:00

The complete story.

(or at least as complete as I can make it)

I had come off the Stonewalls vest raring to knit a garment. I signed up for the Monthly Adventures Knit and Crochet along through ravelry, and I was off and running.

The snag came into place when I hit the end of the body. Front and back was knit in the round up to the armpits and it sailed along right up to the shoulders which were finished in a three needle bind off. I breathed a sigh of relief and cast on for the sleeves.

And then I was cornered into working the Full Monty.

Remember that British movie about the six guys who lose thier jobs and decide to become strippers. Yup. That Full Monty.

Well, almost. The musical version is what I would call "Americanized." Set now in Buffalo instead of Sheffield, the musical lacks the gentle subtlety of the British movie and instead opts for beating you over the head with the funny while six guys sing, dance and prance about in thier skivvies. I had to give the actors props for this one, because they took a mediocre script and made it into an entertaining night of theatre. Anyways, spending the bulk of one's free time backstage did not make for good knitting for a week or so. And when I finally got back to the sleeves, I found myself staring in the face of a deadline.

No worries, I thought. I wasn't moving back to the midwest until May 27th. So I really didn't need to finish the sweater on Mother's Day since I could hand deliver it on the 30th. But as May crpt by the worries sunk in.

I was frustrated with knitting both sleeves at once. I found that no matter how much I can do a technique, I hate anything with a high probably of tangled yarn. The fact that I was working against a cord as well as the technique meant well... I chickened out. I knit the sleeves one by one. Magic looped up to the fair isle and then on a 16" circular the rest fo the way up.

Here's a bit of trivia. I knit the sleeves backstage of the show... so I could honestly tell my Mom that her sweater was lovingly knit while six actors got totally nekkid onstage.

Here's another bit of trivia... unlike the British movie, the American stage version of MOnty makes a pretty big deal about the chippendales strippers all being "Fairies" or gay. There is even a role of a gay male stripper. (I chalk this up to the fact that the writers of the show were gay men). So the bulk of the characters are straight men, trying to prove that being straight strippers are better than watching prancy gay men.

Yet the bulk of the cast was gay, with two notable exceptions... one was the main character, the other was the guy who played the gay male stripper.

Nothing is funnier than hearing a very attractive guy pretend to be gay. Particularly when all of his lines are stereotypical, and yet he sounds so... buff.

Anyways... now for the eye candy. I haven't shot a pic of my mother in the sweater yet, but I modeled it. I love the way it turned out. Very light and fluffy!

Moving and Flooding and Knitting (oh my!)

2008-06-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

No, I have not been on a two month bender.

(I can hear the chorus of *snap!* awwww.... now)

I hate moving, so the drive from Vermont to Wisconsin meant less time for internet more time to packing and even more time spent pacing, going "But I don't wanna move, Charlotte, I don't wanna!"

And when I got back to Wisconsin it welcomed me with... rain. Alot of rain. Feet of rain.

But now we have the sump pump merrily chugging the last few inches out of our basement. Wausau came through pretty well, not all that much flooding (though I can't say the same for a few hours south >.<)

So tonight we have stories. The story of Mother's Mother's day sweater, the yarn stash, the ultimatum, the ongoing pile of hats, and the Manly Scrafghan! (I feel like a TV announcer for a teaser.)

And so many blogs to go read. It's like a big ol' treat :D

29, bay-beh!!

2008-04-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

OK, drunk blogging again!

I do this so rarely, it's like a hyperactive treat!!

29 today! Opened SHOW! The actors didn't know I was turning 29, so when they found out afterwards they *all* bought me drinks. Alot of them. Yikes! Yee haw. SO many I had to get a ride with the painter. Yee.

So.... I have alot to blog about. Hats. Sweater progress. Theatre.

Must. Blog. While. Sober.

I need another goblet of water.

Crocheted Beanis got a great reception tonight. For some reason it makes people bust a gut. Awesome.

I need to go to bed.

I love everyone right now. Yeah. Head spinning. More water. Bed. Yeah.

Peace,

PSG

Sweater Progress, a Renegade Hat and Kink.

2008-04-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

One of the best feelings in the knitting world is the feeling you get when you three needle bind off some shoulders, because it means you're done with a whole big chunk o' sweater! I love the body of the sweater. Light, soft, warm , and it even actually fits!! Unfortunately in my world it also means you have to cast on for the sleeves.
I have decided to venture into learning something new, and will work both sleeves at the same time. The only problem with this is that I have a limited stock of 40" needles. I have a size 7 in Addi Turbo's which the bulk of the sleeve will be knit on, but the start needs to be knit on 5s. And I only have 5s in Plymouth Speedway. The cord of my Plymouth Speedways has more kink that Hugh Hefner in a whipped cream factory, so knitting is less than pleasurable. (and, yes, I have boiled/heated and otherwise tried to soften the cord in every way possible.) I can't wait until I have enough rounds to change to needles thta won't fight me every step of the way.

Road Trip!

2008-04-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

There are very few things on Earth that would possess me to get my butt out of bed at 8am on a Saturday. They must be Earth shattering (like a fire... in my bed) or tantalizing (like a sci fi convention). Or maybe they just have the right words in them.

This one started with "Road Trip" continued with "through lovely rural New Hampshire" and ended with "woolen mill". Somewhere between the beginning and the end the magical word "yarn" came up.

That's the point where my mind did a complete 180 degree turn and I went 'bwuh-huh?' That word required more explanation.

     "Oh, it's the Harrisville Woolen Mill" the lady organizing it said. "They spin their own yarn and they are having a sale." Uh huh. yeah. Now I'm listening. "It's in their old mill building where they have knitting and weaving and spinning classes, and their studio had hanks of their yarn, plus cones and wool by the pound and..." She said alot more, about how they carried Vivian Hoxbro kits and did things with her shadow knitting, but at that point I had really tuned out, and I was already planning on how in the world could I get the day off from work.

It ended up being just as easy as saying "I'm taking Saturday off." With phase one accomplished, he meticulously planned phase two: get up in time for the road trip. I am pleased to say phase 2 went off without a snag, so let's just skip directly to the part everyone likes, right? Pictures and yarn!

The drive was wonderful. What looked like it was going to be a foggy, rainy day, broke into a fully day of warm spring sunshine. It was, in a word, radiant. The trip was smooth: drive on the highway south to Keene, and then on back highways past little towns until you get to Harrisville. Harrisville was one a small rural settlement in the middle of nowhere that was built around a mill in the late 1700's. Over 200 years later and it is... a small rural settlement in the middle of nowhere built around a mill. It is gorgeous. I would move there in a heartbeat. If I had a job, that is.

This is basically the downtown. The white building the the general store, which is alive and thriving, and sells, well, everything you might need. It's pretty much one of the only stores around, so unless you're taking a trip to one of the larger cities, people shop here for their day to day needs. On the far left you can see a large brick building - old dormitories for the mill workers, they now serve as dormitories for people who take classes and seminars though the millworks spinning, knitting and weaving programs. I would love to take a class like that someday.

The studio is in the old mill building, which is built directly over the river (which provided the mill power). You can hear the rush of the water in the building. People always mention it, and some tourists ask if that's "the air conditioning going off?" After you get used to it, it is wonderfully comforting.  (yup, here's a picture of the water, running under the mill buildings!)

And then there is the yarn. I suppose by some yarn store standards there isn't alot of yarn, because they only sell a few things that aren't their own yarn. But that's OK. Their yarn is pretty breathtaking. That, and they helpfully offer to get any quantity you desire if there isn't enough on the shelves. I found plenty on the shelves. This is their New England Shetland - enough of it to die and go to Fair Isle heaven.

(And if you're asking what's so cool about this yarn, what do they make with it, well, here's one of the patterns I have seen recently made with Harrisville New England Shetland. Drool!)

So then comes the question... did you buy anything?

I, being of extreme self control did not... aw, hell.  It was on sale. I sure as hell bought yarn! I did get out of there with under $100 of yarn (a feat most others could not claim) but I bought yarn for that vest above, as well as two more skeins of wool and flax, to beef up the two I already had (which will become a vest! A lovely vest!) and a skein of silk and wool for my yarn swap partner through ravelry.

Did I mention I'm going to make that vest up there? The Eunny Jang Ivy League vest? I want to run around in circles and squee! But that would probably make my roommates try to commit me, so I'll settle for lounging in the sun.

Sweaters, Sweaters, Sweaters!!

2008-04-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

So, I decided to make my Mother a sweater for Mother's Day.

I don't know why this suddenly struck me as the best idea for a Mother's Day gift (besides the fact that I'm completely addicted to knitting...) but something gnawed upon my brain and said "knit her a sweater!"

Now this isn't the first sweater I have knit, nor the first sweater I have knit for my mother. The first sweater I knit was following the "Skully" pattern form the Stitch N' Bitch book, but I didn't use Lamb's Pride. No, I use some other Mohair mixed with Acrylic, and bound together with a thin nylon thread.  I can't remember what it was called. Not Moonlight Mohair - something else strange sold by Jo Ann's. It was distinctly... furry. Not like fun fur, mind you. It looked fairly innocuous on the ball. But the Acrylic was brushed to be fuzzy, and the mohair was fizzy and it had a sort of almost boucle type texture from the nylon binder, so all in all it ended up looking like I was wearing a beige shag carpet when I was said and done.

     I normally take pictures of these disasters and share them gleefully, but I have to admit that when I moved away from Oregon, I (ahem) conveniently forgot to bring the shag carpet with me. In fact, I think it accidentally ended up in the big "Donate your clothes to the homeless" bin. And I feel sorry for the homeless person who ended up with it.

Anyways, the sweater I first made for my Mother was called the "Bookworm Tunic" from the Better Homes and Gardens Hip Knits book. I made that one out of a lovely shade of muted brown-purple Cotton Fleece from Brown Sheep. It turned out very nicely, and distinctly not furry. She still has it, so I'll take pictures of it sometime.

The problem was I made the size small, 36 inches. My mother is quite small, having about a 35 inch chest. But the finished sweater didn't have much stretch (cotton tends to do that) and she felt it was a bit too snug overall.

So, I was on a mission to find the perfect sweater for my mother and make it in a comfy size that was big enough without being too big. So when I was shopping in Newport, NH (In a store called Hodgepodge, which is a lovely romp in the yarn type of place) I found an older copy of a Dale of Norway pattern book. And I loved every sweater in the book, so I bought it. The sweater I loved best was this one:

It is called "Gerbera." It's made out of a yarn called "Sisik." I wanted to know more about this yarn, so I called up the information on Sisik. And from the Dale of Norway site, I found out that it was... discontinued.

That's ok, I never use the yarn the pattern calls for. So with weight and such in hand, I tromped off to the LYS and started looking for a substitute.

Here's where we got into trouble. Sisik is an unusual yarn. It is 30% wool, 30% mohair, 34% acrylic and 6% viscose. That's an... odd combination of fibers. It is also an unusual weight, falling somewhere between a sport weight and a DK. It is also extremely light, and I was afraid a physically heavier yarn like the Kathmandu DK that was available would make the sweater unbearably heavy. There aren't many yarns I found that would substitute for it. At least not in my little town. I needed more information on this Sisik.

So I went to the web's greatest source of weird knitting lore. Ravelry. And I typed in Sisik, which brought up pictures of the yarn and the label.  I recognized the bird on the label. My jaw dropped open. I had that yarn in my stash.

     6 balls of "pewter" (a light gray) to be exact. I had bought them from the Herrschnerrs outlet store from their big "Hey look, discontinued yarn, cheap!" bin. Serendipity? I had half a sweater sitting right in my bedroom. Now to find six more skeins of a discontinued yarn.

     I didn't get alot of choice of color, but the choice I did get was good. 6 skeins of Navy Sisik from LittleKnits.com later and I was off and running.

Oh yes, and I chose to knit the medium (39") instead of the small (35") chest size. If this sweater ends up too big, I will beat my mother (kindly, of course) with it.

But she does look smashing, so far, no?

Life, Hanging in the Balance....

2008-04-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

Either that is the start of an emo-poem, or the latest round of hatly violence has taken a turn for the worst.

And since I am rarely (if ever!) emo, lets move on to hatly violence.

Monday, March 31st was a blur of orange yarn and crochet hooks. The newest Yarn Smackdown pattern was released at 8pm EST, and I was determined to finish it before I slept.

Called the "Divine Hat" by Sarah Arnold, it's a lacy little crocheted beanie. I whipped it up in just over two hours, and was on the bottom ribbing when I noticed that I had made a mistake. Not a weensey little mistake, mind you... a big honking, "I read the pattern completely WRONG!" mistake.

In my defense the pattern is white type on a black background in 8 point font. Despite the fact that my monitor is big, the resolution made it darn near impossible to see. So I dug out my glasses, re read everything, consulted pictures of finished and more divine hats than mine on Ravelry and figured out that yes, in fact I was a blithering idiot.

So at around 10:15 or 10:30 pm, I ripped. And ripped, and ripped. I ended up with this:

So sad. I could only save the first 3 rounds. I took a break, got some chocolate and some Diet coke, sat back down and began to crochet again. It went faster this time, and I got the hat done a smidge under 1am, finishing and everything. That's OK. I cannot physically mail anything earlier than 8am because no freakin post office around here (that's within 50 miles) is open anything other than 8-5 (ok, a few are open 7-4, and if I wanted to drive all the way to Concord NH there is one that is open until 6) Point being these mystical things called 24 hour post offices are mythical and legendary in the snowy fields of Vermont. So I was pretty happy with myself and I mailed it very early the next morning.

Well, my opponent also mailed hers early, if not the night before (She does live in a place where there are mythical magical late night post offices. Lucky punk!)

She mailed hers Priority. I mailed mine Priority.

On Friday both hats arrived.

As of right now we don't know who is alive or who is dead.

On the bright side I got lovely natural soap with a nice hat! So if I die, at least I'll be clean and smelling good.

The Alphabetical Death March.

2008-03-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't been knitting much lately. I was supposed to start on a sweater for my mother; but that has gotten pushed back and back. Then again I haven't been blogging much lately either.

So that begs the question, what exactly have I been doing?

Oh, such a bad question for someone who works in theatre. I have been working on a play (as is to be expected) and that play is currently The Elephant Man. Yeah, the one about Joseph Merrick, who suffered from elephantitis in Victorian England. Actually it's a very good play. Not one for the squeamish, but very well written.

Anyways, the play has titles for every scene. Usually, if a director wants to show the audience the titles, they are projected on a back wall or screen or some such with a slide projector. But our theatre doesn't have enough space to project - the images cannot be sharpened. It also had the problem of being an intimate space, so you can hear the constant whirr of a projector fan. So what is the solution? Make title cards.

Now this would have been a fine solution had someone gotten around to deciding what those title cards needed to look like in a reasonable amount of time, instead of waiting until the last minute. Or if someone decided that we had enough budget to print out the titles on large format paper and simply spray glue them to cards. But, no. They decided we had to print out and tape together stencils, and then cut out the letters, so we could stencil the titles onto cards.

Ever hear the adage: "Cheap; Fast or Effective - pick two." That's theatre to a T. And we already has cheap and fast down, so honestly the signs look rather like ass; but they are readable so I'm not complaining.

This is me, dead in my tracks, after fifteen straight hours of sign cutting. With piles of theatrical junk all around. Glamourous job, no?

Anyways, let me show you the aftermath of almost 21 straight hours of sign cutting (with some sleep and a bit of food in between parts of it). There was one point where it was 10:30 pm, I had seven signs left, and I put on some techno and set my brain on autopilot. For three hours I became a letter cutting, diet coke fueled machine! Yeah, bay-bee!

Here is the weapon of choice, an exacto knife, with the backup of a pack of 100 number 11 blades. Yes, you know you're in theatre when you buy exacto blades in packs of 100...

But look how many blades this project used!!

And the carnage of my workstation. (messtation??)

Look at all them letters! I am incredibly glad that's done with.

I cast on a hat during this whole mess. A plain old beret. Because I desperatly needed some idiot knitting to get me through!

Technical Difficulties and Kicking My Blog's ass...

2008-03-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah, there was some technical difficulties.

It's not they we're dumb... it's that our internet connection sucks and we're not patient.

So ignore the weird strange multiple posts. These are not the droids you're looking for...

*waves hand, goes back to knitting*

Every Single Time...

2008-03-26T23:21:00.005-07:00

So, lately every single time I end up at a knitting meeting, a Stitch N Bitch or a hat club knit along, the same music seems to be playing on the radio.

Now seeing that I live in bustling, historic downtown White River Junction (heard of it? didn't think so. I have figured out when a town needs to bill themselves as 'historic' that translates into 'we don't have anything else good to say about us, so we'll bank on the fact that we've been a boring little town for a reeeeally long time...') there aren't many radio stations to choose from, so the one oldies station seems to be a safe bet for most people.

Therefore the oldies station is usually what's playing. And every single time I sit down to knit, the *same song* comes on. Every single time!

I like the song. I really liked the song before it started stalking me; and to make things worse, it makes me want to dance. So I'll start dancing while getting coffee or picking out yarn, which greatly amuses the rest of the knitters around.

So now it's become a joke of sorts to see whether or not the song comes on, and if I'll get funky wit' my bad self.

So, you can share in my pleasure and pain. The video even has bonus psychedlic 70's special effects! I hereby present to you the song that has been stalking me, the schmoozy dance hit of 1974, and the man who screams "I got a mullet!"

Mr Andy Kim, "Rock Me Gently"

Hats, hats and more hats.

2008-03-24T15:33:00.001-07:00

I have a backlog of hats to blog about. That's partially because I have not been blogging as much as I should and mostly because I have this hat knitting obsession that I should really address at some point.

So, without further ado, I present to you...

(cue theme music)

Hats!

We'll start with the Nomad Hat and Scarf (which I call a harf, because: A. it sounds funny, and B. gets people asking 'did you mean 'harf or were you hocking up a hairball?)

Well, I love the idea of a hatscarf, and let me tell you, man is this sucker warm! Though I don't think that many respectable nomads would choose the colors I chose.

Yup. Lime green and bright pink. I used to have a nailpolish that exact color of pink and my mother wouldn't let me wear it to middle school because she called it 'prostitute pink.' I remember my Aunt buying both the prostitute pink and a prostitute purple from Avon because the color they had printed in the book was far more muted.

Anyways, I chose the colors, not because I have an obsession with wickedly bright colors. (ok, wait, I do have an obsession with wickedly bright colors. I'll admit this.) (But I'll deny it later ;-) ) But because I was at a yarn swap with some older ladies and one brought out these two skeins of lime Lamb's Pride Bulky with the statement, "I don't know who would ever want these..." and while most everyone else sighed and shook their heads, my eyes lit up like bubble lights on a Christmas tree (effervescence and all!). Well, I got the two skeins, plus the skein that 'went with them' - the pink. Funny thing was, the more I looked at the skeins all together, the more I decided that they really did go together. And so the Watermelon Harf was born. I have to make another one of these in far more muted colors for my aunt who always complains that her ears are cold during the blustery Wisconsin winters.

And as an added bonus, my swinging the tails of the scarf behind your back, you can pretend you're a superhero with a scarfy cape. Ok, maybe you won't but I will. :D

(heere she comes to save the daaay....!)

I also had leftover yarn, so I knit up a pink radioactive pirates hat. I finally figured out that I have made enough of these for now. I printed off the pattern and didn't use it once until I had to check which row the decreases started. When you memorize a fair isle pattern, it's time to find a new one. Anyways, this one is stranded not woven as an experiment and needs a block, but is otherwise a dandy hat. Yay. I said dandy.

And I finally jumped on the bandwagon (shown by my somewhat manic expression in this picture. ether that or the caffeine just kicked in...) and knit up an 'Unoriginal Hat' from the YarnHarlot. I need to knit a big hat and send it to Kim since the others didn't fit her comfortably, This one is pretty big. I'm also going to knit up a Foliage hat in the biggest size I can to see if I can get one that's comfortable for her.

Now I'm on to a sweater, so no more hats for a bit. (who am I kidding. I can sneak some hats in my queue, right?)

Crocheting for Blood and Glory

2008-03-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the YarnWarrior. Entering the windswept plains of battle with naught but her hooks and needles, dangling a thin thread of yarn from her pack. She is the forgotten heroine of the wartorn tundra. She is: crazy.

In other words we have entered our second deadly fiberarts contest of the year. Yarn Smackdown, which is set up alot like March Madness where knitters and crocheters face off in a bracket style competition, the winners advancing to the next round.

I have been put in the crochet brackets since, well, you name it and I do it. The hat pattern is both charming and aggravating. Charming because it makes a nice hat. Stretchy, attractive, warm. Aggravating because it is *alot* of work for a hat. Maybe it just seemed that way because I was furiously hooking for my life before I went to bed (Now how many other contexts could you get away with saying *that*?!)

It's a vintage pattern; using front and back post double crochet to form cables. They are very attractive cables, but it kinda made me want to knit cables instead.

I can't believe I just said that. Me... the old hand at crochet wants to knit instead? Partially it's because I enjoy doing certain things in certain mediums better. I love crocheting afghans, but in knitting they seem like a chore. I love crocheting pineapple doilies, but I wouldn't want a knit lace pattern to try to imitate pineapples. In the same way crocheting cables felt like kind of a chore.

Anyways, the hat is done, sent and delivered already. I'm hanging on the mail delivery tomorrow to see if I got a hat on the same day or not. But my hat? Well, this baby is a story in and of itself.

I got the pattern and read the yarn requirements. It took 2 skeins (1 1/2 to be exact) and I went "what?!" I have lots and lots of one full skeins - enough for most hats, knit or crochet. But this sucker takes alot of yarn. So I started ripping apart my stash at 7:00 at night (after all the yarn stores were closed) looking for what I had with two matching balls.

I found Encore left over from an ill conceived scarf idea...

Encore is nice yarn. It's part acrylic, but it's soft and washable.

But there was this problem with the color.

Yeah. You see what I mean, right?

Looks like a "Watch out and slow down, dummy, there's a school zone ahead" sign, doesn't it?

So then I made up a song for it.

Sing with me: (to the tune of a possibly recognizable Men Without Hats song…)

Ssss-aaaa-ffff-eeee-tttt-yyyy
Safety-hat!

You can knit if you want to,
you can leave your friends behind,
Because if your friends don’t knit - or they don’t crochet, then
They’re no friends of mine!

I say, we can knit where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind
And we can knit.

Francois!

Ah we can wear what we want to the night is young and so am i
And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet
And surprise ’em with the yellow dye

I say we can knit if want to if we don’t nobody will
And you can act real rude and totally removed
And I can look like an imbecile
I say we'll wear yellow; there colors are out of control
We can knit, we'll crochet we’re doing it wall to wall
Put it on, go outside, everybody look at your hats!
Fold the brim, don a scarf, everybody takin’ the chance
Safety hats!
Oh well the safety hat
Ah yes the safety hat

Safety hat!

Now that that song is in your head, hope that I don't live to next round to make an even dumber song for an even more obnoxious hat.

Mwa hahaha.

Hats, Kerchiefs, and Vests, oh my!

2008-03-04T16:31:00.000-08:00

Hats.
Ahahah! I finished a hat. I would celebrate, but by now the hats are threatening to take over my apartment and eat me.

That's ok. I get to send this hat off to a dear friend in Vegas who had a nasty infection, which would have been fine but her healthcare provider knackered something up, and it got worse. I think a nice warm fuzzy hat would be fitting at a time like this.

And hoo, boy is this hat fuzzy. It's a destash hat, made with something I got from Jo Ann Fabrics (Dolcetto I think it's called...) and SmarieK Knit's "Swirl Hat" pattern. It's a really neat little pattern, and I added the extra 16 stitches to make it large. I am happy to say that it didn't turn out too large and it should fit her nicely.

The kerchief.

See. Obnoxiously Purple. Obnoxiously Bright.

I like it.

(and yeah, I have this 'I look like I just work up' look on my face, here. It's because I *did* just wake up in that photo. It was over the weekend, after the revelry. because the after the revelry photos looked; well, even dumber. >.< What can I say? I look kinda dumb at time :D ) Vests.

So, having finished my queue of projects (wow, I feel so... British... when I use that word.) I found myself in a quandry of what to knit next. I try to limit myself to one project on the needles at a time. I still have the Baby Sweater on my roster, but it's no longer on the needles. It is patiently waiting for me to find the right notions so it can snap closed and not be snaps that Baby might eat off of the fabric, so it's pretty much done, and just waiting for me to get off my lazy butt and *fix* it. So I got to cast on a new project (yayy!)

I decided to go for the Stonewalls vest from Cheryle Oberle's "Folk Vests" book. And the yarn I had in mind was the mystery green wool from the ginormous cone. Knitting this vest I am starting to wonder how much wool was on that cone. Now it came in 2 ply, fingeringweight strands, and I had it wound up into center pull balls so I could hold two strands together to approximate the yarn needed for the vest. I thought the yarn needed was DK weight, but when I swatched I found it was more like worsted or aran.. so three plys it is!

At first I was horrified, terrified of running out of yarn.

I am now halfway done, and I have used only three balls... I have this many left.

Which now leaves me with the question: what else will I knit with this stuff?

Anyways, here was the vest Sunday evening:

And here was the vest Tuesday morning after I found out I had a snow day on Monday and spent the vast majority of my snowed in day knitting and watching Doctor Who:

Man, I *love* days off of work!!

Yarn Karma

2008-03-03T20:51:00.001-08:00

So I have this theory that karma exists, at least to some small degree; and while I'm a generally unlucky person, I believe in Yarn Karma.

What is Yarn Karma you ask? Well, quite simply out, it is the belief that if you do a good turn with your yarn, a good turn will come back to you. From knitting charity hats to prayer shawls to packaging up some of your stash and sending it off in the mail as a special present, sharing yarn means good luck.

Yup. I said 'sharing yarn.'

I know, there are alot of teriffic knitters out there that can not bear to part with thier stash in the least. I'm not one of them.

Now I'm not rich. Far from it. I knit with what I can come by, and I don't buy much yarn. I did win several hundred dollars worth of yarn from a drawing earlier in the year, but by and large alot of my stash comes from donation. Not that I solicit donations, mind you. No. People just give me the yarn.

To date I have gotten: a bag of Firenze from a contest, a garbage bag of Cascade 220 and Lamb's Pride. A shopping bag of Lamb's Pride bulky, a Wal Mart bag of Lite Lopi, a few skeins of Lime Green Cascade, two large unlabeled balls of white wool, a gigantic cone of green wool (and I mean gigantic.) and a mystery cone of white fingering weight god knows what fiber.

Why? you ask. What makes me so special? Well, nothing, really. But way up north in snowy Vermont I belong to a knitting guild. I am the youngest regular member of the guild by at least 25 years. I entertain them. While they knit drop dead gorgeous fair isle sweaters and things straight from the pages of Elizabeth Zimmerman's lovely classic books, I knit devil hats, police tape scarves and crochet beanises. They find me unusual and amusing. But I also knit enough difficult things that they have grown to respect my knitting. They like giving me tips and tricks, passing on wisdom, and gifting me yarn.

I don't know quite why, but I think it has to do with the idea that for many of them thier daughters are my age and they don't knit. I'm the new hope for the next generation of knitters for them, and because I'm not in a big city, there aren't many other young knitters around. So they think that I need to keep on knitting, and at swaps or destashing events they just keep handing stuff to me. Sometimes they even bring small bags of yarn by the local LYS I hang out at.

The problem here? I work in Vermont seasonally. In May I have to haul all my crap 1200 miles back to Wisconsin in a 1993 Ford Taurus.

There is only so much yarn that fits into a '93 Ford Taurus.

So I sort through it. I knit up alot of it. And I give it to other knitters, too. I particularly like putting a skein or two into the mail to a friend or acquaintance. Because snail mail is highly underloved in this day in age, and let's face it. Everyone loves getting something in the mail that isn't junk or a bill.

And the really funny thing? Almost every time I send something off, someone gives me yet more yarn!

This teaches me two things: 1. Yarn Karma is real
2. I need more addresses

Yarn Karma: pass it on!!

Mailbag!

2008-02-28T14:35:00.000-08:00

So, cleaning out the prop shop today I found stuff we had rented that had to go back (oh about two weeks ago... *whistles innocently*)

And seeing that I had to package that stuff up and send it out, I took the opportunity to package other stuff out and send it, too. I sent the boy the Scarf That Shall Not Be Finished, despite the fact that he's now working in South Carolina, and it's downright balmy there. (He thinks that's a selling point and I should come join him. Hell no. I like my snow, dammit!)

I packaged up a hat o' death for a friend who though that the whole Hat Attack thing was 'really cool' Imagine that! Asking to be cruelly slain by knitted death!

And I even packaged up a special surprise for a Ravelry friend. Why? because I had the whim to be very nice. Hopefully knitterly karma will mean that my projects on the needles will now turn out.

I can hope, right?

Kerchief pics tomorrow. Yee!

The Mathematical Love Song (remix)

2008-02-26T21:23:00.001-08:00

This is awesome...

And I know I am the biggest damn geek for thinking it's awesome.

Yup. waving my flag here.

Inexplicably Purple.

2008-02-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

Have you ever found a yarn you thought was so intriguing that you *had* to buy it, only to get it home and think "What the hell was I thinking? I don't wear that color."

Well... Let me tell you, I hate purple. I don't own a piece of purple clothing, period. Not a single one. But I bought two skeins of this.

Then to be really freaky, I bought some rainbow colored Noro Kureyon to go with it.

I think I'm having a brain meltdown.... but the finished project is on the blocking board. And I'm going to wear it to the opening of Driving Miss Daisy. A purple, rainbow kerchief.

If any of you punks makes a joke about coming out, I swear I am showing you what a second degree black belt can do with a set of 60" circular, sharpened knitting needles....

Revenge of the Knitter

2008-02-23T21:29:00.001-08:00

So I told y'all how much I hated that Wildfoote sock yarn, right?

Oh, did I find the perfect solution for getting back at it.

So, the recipe for revenge involves going to a thrift store and buying some poor, lonely, abandoned little Beanie Babies...

See them there? Aww, aren't they cute? Actually, no. I think that Gorilla thing is hideous, and he had it coming. And that angel bear? Reminds me of a pretentious pop-princess wannabe. I never liked stuffed bears. I felt bad for the Walrus guy, though. He actually was cute.

Anyways, knowing my destructive disposition these guys were doomed from the start and they were summarily sliced open and pirated for thier beans.

Poor little guys!

Anyways, whatever would I do with all those beans and all that Wildfoote? I was left with 3/4 of a skein left. I couldn’t let it go to waste. I had to find an appropriate pattern for a yarn this vile.

I had a short conversation with myself that went something like this:

Angel side: “Give the yarn a break. Maybe it’s not so bad. Try some wristlets with different pattern. It’ll be okay.”

Devil side: “Screw that” (demonic snickering) “Make a beanis”

I’m sure that this is the perfect project to show off my many years of crochet. >:D

The really funny thing? Wildfoote makes a beautiful Beanis.

More hats.

2008-02-22T21:06:00.001-08:00

There comes a time in every knitters life when she has to seriously sit down and think about her choices. To evaluate the yarn which she has spun and worked into beautiful things and ask herself why?

Why the hell am I surrounded with more hats than I can ever wear?

I mean I *do* look good in them, and I *do* try to give them away, but cleaning my piles of clothes this evening has uncovered 18 knit hats in one small vicinity, with two more fresh off the needles.

Maybe I should sell hats?

Anyways, here is my go at the death hat, mark 2. I love me some Fair Isle and I like the Binary Cable Pattern, so here is Death: Sweet Black Cherry Flavor using Black encore and the Cascade 220 from the death hat.

This is me, looking diabolical and plotting death:

I adore the way this turned out. I am now in a mission to make one (probably slightly bigger) for Ruben in green and black; just like an old fashioned computer screen - then we'll see if he can read the binary.

Experimental Clara.

This pattern was given to me by Judith, a lovely knitter who makes the most wonderful things - none of them from a pattern. Yet every once in awhile a pattern piques her curiosity and she tries to make it. When she gets frustrated with pattern reading she gives the pattern to someone else who will make it and then tell her how it works.

Somehow she was coming up with the wrong number of stitches per round, which I can't quite figure out why because my stitches per round were perfectly fine. Maybe because some people read patterns differently? The directions aren't wrong, per say, but they aren't the clearest directions out there.

Anyways it turned out pretty nicely - nicer than I thought it would when I started it. But it's Lopi and it's slightly rough and slightly small. It fits my head - but how many hats do I really need?

Wait a second...

Judith has a small head. She doesn't mind rough wools. This whole thing was her idea in the first place...

Experimental Clara is now her hat.

As a sidenote; I know alot of people don't like Lopi because it's scratchy, but it is warm. disturbingly so! I was knitting it and I wanted to see how the stitch pattern swirled so I put my left hand in the hat to hold it up and held it in front of my face. After about ten seconds I realized my left hand was getting noticably warmer while my right hand was cold.

Remind me to make mittens out of Lite Lopi and knit a nice soft lining for them out of something yummy... because shit is this stuff warm!

Death, by hat

2008-02-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

It's official. I am D-E-D dead.

I have launched my weapon, killed my target, but I am also dead.

~*~*~*~*~*~

(Sit down, kiddies, it's storytime!)

So, we got the hat patterns on Saturday sometime just before 9 am. If I had been living in PST like I was two years ago, I probably could have gotten the hat knit and mailed before the post office closed; but I now live in EST so I didn't sweat it. Too much.

I opened the pattern (binary cables, how geeky-cool is that?!) and read it through, and looked at the yarn in my lap. Chianti Lamb's Pride, Dark Magenta 220? I had gotten the Cascade 220 wound up the day before, and it was lovely and soft. I think I chose it because it was going to give a better cable stitch definition. It was very nice to work with.

There was a knitters retreat that day in Hanover NH, and I went. I told alot of very wonderful older ladies about my (somewhat crazed) competitive knitting. They were highly amused. I finished the hat itself later on while basking in the sunshine lights of White River Yarn's knitting den. (They are those full specturm-mimic sunshine lights. Most happy!).  Finished at 7:15 pm EST!  Post offices closed at 11:30 am EST.  BOO.

Later, at home, I was looking at the hat, paranoid at all the posts saying the hat was short. Well, I have a teeny head (and I hoped my target did too, which she does! perfect!) but I wanted something that gave a small edging, add a little weight, add a bit of a finished end, so I grabbed my trusty crochet hook and some baby brush alpaca (mmm, leftovers from the spiral hat) and crocheted as carefully as I could around the edge. I had lots of time left! That Sunday I decided I wanted me some Doctor Who. And there is one place that carries it used... and also carries tons of other quirky things; so we picked up some amazingly fun skull key covers to go with the hat o' death, packaged it all up and shipped it out Monday morning eaaaarly.

Monday went by and I was informed (gleefully, I might add) by my target that she read my assassin was done. Done?! Oh no! I had launched a weapon, but I was dead woman waiting! My Target lives in California... my Assassin lives in Massachusetts. That's practically in my backyard >.<

So I knit hats.
Alot of hats.
And I wear every single one of them at least once.  Sometimes I wear them a few times.   But of all my dozens of hats, I usually end up wearing just one. This is my signature hat. I love it. It lives on my head:

Despite my better judgement I opened the package. What have we here? It's white!   It looks somewhat hatlike...

I should have known then and there that it was dangerous. But I had my suspicions...

And then all of a sudden... it ATTACKED! It flew at me, eating my signature hat! Eating my head! Aaaaugh!

Later they found me, my hat on my head, D-E-D, that spells dead.

I am consoled by the fact that my target is also dead, and her blog post about it is hilarious!

And My assassin? haven't heard hide nor hair from her. But from her blog she's a published author (She's got a website) So I can say I got killed by a famous person!

Death... By Knitting

2008-02-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

So, as some of you know I'm nuts.

As some of you may not know I'm officially part of the Hat Attack, which is a game of assassiknitty or Sock Wars, but instead of knitting socks, we're knitting hats.

Hats?! Did you hear that?! HATS!

I love me some hats.

And I have me a target. This fine lady has a blog too: go check it out! (and it's pretty cool) She's lovely, she likes Doctor Who, she knits... and I am going to kill her. Mwahahahah!

Now I just really need to settle on a yarn.

The Dreaded 70's.... Gloves?!

2008-02-01T09:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, 'fession time.

See last post? The one where it exalts all the great things about 70's colors and say I'm make a pair of socks?

Well, I was making a pair of socks...

Let me start this 'fession off by saying I. Made. A. Gauge. Swatch. I'm using using the "Sensational Knitted Socks" book by Charlene Schurch. She has these nifty little charts for how many stitches to cast one for each pattern, and my foot size with my gauge fell directly between casting on 66 and 88 stitches. I was leaning towards casting on 88... but then I talked to one of my best knitting friends who had just made a pair of the same socks. She had big feet (as do I) and CO 66 stitches - her socks came out huge. So I cost on 66 stitches and knit halfway down to the heel before trying them on.

Well they fit... sort of. They're uncomfortably tight, but they fit around my hands just fine. So I have now made a thumbhole and CO some extra hand stitches and continued on my merry way with my new glove "pattern"

I guess this proves positive.... gauge swatches might not lie, but every knitter IS different.

(To be fair, she knits continental and I knit stubbornly English... so yeah, I gues English *is* tighter)

Dreaded 70's Socks and the Interminable Baby Sweater

2008-01-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

So, the bulk of the month of January has been consumed by Theatre and Baby Sweater.

Theatre is a given. I work there and it eats you soul... but the baby sweater?

How much yarn can a freakin' baby sweater take? Well, 5 fifty gram balls, plus just enough extra for the stupid ties to send it over 6. Punks.

     The sweater is for Corum, one of my best friend's 6mo son. The pattern is "Dragon Skin Wrap" from the Holiday IK magazine. I worked it up in a beautiful green tone because, well, I wanted the darn thing to actually look like dragon scales. Then I started knitting it. And knitting it. And knitting it. It just goes on and on. It turned out fairly large, which is OK. TRaci said that Corum is a pretty honkin' big baby, and by the time it gets out to Oregon, it'll be getting warm, so I hope it will be big enough to still fit come next fall. It should be, I made the next size larger, and it looks like it would easily fit a 1-2 yo.

     When I told my SO that I was knitting Corum a sweater, he obviously missed the memo that my friend had a baby, because the first thing he asked was "who's Corum? Why did you knit him a sweater? You haven't knit me a sweater." I looked back at him and told him that's because he's a freakin' hugh man, and Corum has a 20" chest.

     It took him a while to compute that thought, and he finally burts out "Wow... that's a skinny guy..."

      No, dipshit, that's a baby.

Anyways, Corums sweater is knit (yay!) and blocked (yay!) and now it needs to be sewn (boo!) and have those freakin' ties knit on (boo!)

So then I decided to knit something for myself. And even though I hate making socks, I don't have a pair for mysef, so I have started the amazing 70's socks. The yarn? Austermann STEP. I don't know what they call this color, but I call it "yeah, let's go disco in POLYESTER, Bah-BEE!"

I adore it.

I should have been a child of the 70's

(well, technically I am, but only on technicality. I lived in the 70's for the first 8 months of my life. Oooh, ahh)

Blogging

2007-12-27T19:20:00.000-08:00

So there are some days when the blog posts just roll off the keyboard, and some days (months) where they just stare at you and flick you off.

This has been one of those months.

So now I am seriously behind in this thing I call a blog. *ahem* time to rectify that.

Socks.

I hate socks. I really do.

You go round and round and round and round, until you get to the heel.

Yay! I actually like the heel because you're actually *doing* something and then you go round and round and round again until you hit the toe and you're done. Of course you could do an awesomely intricate pattern but then your Dad asks you for socks and if you knit him lace he'll disown you.

The worst thing? Everybody wants socks for Christmas.

Dad's Socks.

Ooooh, aaahhh. Basic socks with a somewhat interesting rib. Well, it was interesting the first dozen times I knitted it. Still, they knit up fast and they're warm and he loves them. Yay. I didn't get any newer pictures of them because his feet kinda stink and it fogged up the camera lens

(either that or I was too full of Christmas Turkey read: too lazy to take some.)

These are the Socks I Hate. That's their name.

Oh yes, I called them "Desert Sands" socks on Ravelry because the yarn was called "desert grass" I'm changing the name. I hate these socks. I knit them (am knitting them - shame!) for my Aunt for Christmas. As it is December 29th and that picture is a mere three hours old, you can see that they have not been finished for Christmas.

Why?

Because I hateses them. And they hate me back.

Ok. The pattern? I like the pattern. It's the River Rapids sock pattern from sockbug. The pattern is clear, easy to follow and nicely written.

So why do I hate these socks?

The yarn.

The yarn is Brown Sheep's Wildfoote.

I usually like Brown Sheep, but I have to say I hate this yarn.

It's slippery. It's not elastic at all. It splits worse than a bleach blonde with a hairdryer obsession. And the worst thing?

The damn socks turn out lovely

If this yarn was craptacular all around I could easily dismiss it, but nooo... it mocks me! It comes in all these lovely colors to entice me, and worse, the finished product is really nice! Soft, smooth, strong, and it feels good on the foot, it's as if this yarn is sitting back and laughing at knitters, flipping us the bird and saying "You'll hate knitting with me, but everybody will want a pair of socks made out of me, and you'll just have to suffer!"

I really hate this yarn.

even more I hate the fact that you either have to be an expert knitter or completely anal retentive while using it or you lose stitches like mad. I swear either I have ten thumbs or it's the yarn, but every time I set my project down the stitches slip off the needles. Even if it's just sitting there while I have to pee, I come back and have to pick up stitches. This is where the splitting part comes in - you can't pick it back up, either!

Maybe I should learn to use point protectors every time I stand up for a Diet Coke, but I'm not that kind of knitter. I have never had this problem before - and I don't even use DPNs. I magic loop my socks!

And why am I convinced the socks hate me back? because even after I packed meticulously every knitted present, the finished sock feel out of my bag and stayed in Vermont while I Christmassed in Wisconsin.

It's evil. I swear it is.

My Grand Plan.

I have decided the best way to get back at the Wildfoote I hate so much...

I will have about 3/4 of a skein left after both socks are done.

I think I am going to crochet that leftover yarn into a Beanis

Since it is greenish yarn, it will be titled my "Gangreeous Benis"

Hah!

Hat Club!

2007-12-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

It's officially the second meeting of my newly founded hat club tonight! I shall be bringing cookies and my digital camera (and probably candy canes, because if you don't like candy canes, you're probably a heathen)

I'm pretty surprised at how well the hat club has taken off. We'll see how many people come this month. The theme for December is "color work" (whioch for me means "Fair Isle")

January will be "Cables" so here to hoping a good turn out!

Socks, and The Scarf That Shall Not Be Finished

2007-11-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

The socks: Pretty simple, for my Dad for Christmas. I learned a new stitch pattern, yee! It's called "supple rib" from the Super Stitches Knitting book. Very easy, quite fun, it looks nice too. It makes a thick, warm fabric that I am hoping hugs the foot and doesn’t sag at the ankles like the boy always complains about. Methinks I shall finish this sock tonight or tomorrow, and then cast on another one.

The scarf: This scarf is my nemesis. Like Voldemort is to Harry Potter, this scarf is to me.

What is it? It’s a Virginia Tech scarf. For a friend who lives in Blacksburg, this scarf is to commemorate the VT tragedy. He wanted to show off his hometown spirit. It needs to be finished by Christmas.

This scarf does not grow. No matter how many rows I add, it is still the same darn length when I hang if off my neck… and the intended recipient is over a foot taller than myself.

Oh, yes, I can see the length be added when I am knitting. I can watch it grow block by block of Fair Isle. I have committed myself to knitting at least five rows before I knit on any other project.

I hate this scarf.

Even when it is done, it shall forever remain “The Scarf That Shall Not Be Finished”

Soldering Onward!

2007-11-20T19:19:00.000-08:00

So, I am fully enchaned in the arms of the Beast.

Beauty and the Beast to be exact. That is the chosen Christmas show for the theatre where I work. And so these last few days has been an endless line of creating strange things to mob the poor Beast's castle, including, torches.

     Now the theatre where I work is a tinder box. Literally. Built in the 1800's it is a large rambling hotel and opera house built entirely out of wood and plaster with very large, very old and very dry timber frames. We do not have fire in this theatre. Ever. So the torches had to be lit with lightbulbs.

this is either art... or a big damn mess.

     Now I have never done wiring before. Technically I knew how (remembering those science experiments with lightbulbs and batteries in grade school) but I hadn't applied thatknowledge for years. Setting up the circuit was easy. Making it permanent... well, that's another story.

     To get all those wires to stick to the bulb, the battery box and the switch I had to solder them. Can I just say that soldering is hard? Freakin hard. I'm sure somewhere there is some solderer laughing at me, but every time I would melt the solder it would roll around and stick to the soldering iron, not the wire. Then I forgot that I hadn't unplugged the soldering iron and went to clean up, only to bursh the hot iron away with my hand, and (yeeeowch!) burn my fingers.
  check it. Burnination!

But now... the torches are done! They still need some paint, but they light! (Bwahahahah! Liiiight!) Now it's on to fake swords and axes! So I'm going to reward myself with some Doctor Who (oooh, it's "Time Flight" with Peter Davidson. I love Doctor 5. Love him.) and some knitting on the "scarf that will never be finished"

  Yee Haw! Fake fire!

Ravelry, IK Knits and Boooty!

2007-11-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

First off: Ravelry.

Oh, dear God, is this place cool. There are *so* many cool people there! And they like to talk to you... about yarn and knitting and stuf you're interested in! I am *so* glad my invite came today. Any of you knitters back in the home state... go join!

My name there is PlainSimpleGarak (which is pretty much my name everywhere) and I am lovin' it.

Second off: IK knits

Just picked up the new one, and man... the issues seem to be getting much better. There are two fair isle sweaters (well, one is a vest, by Eunny Jang I believe, who is becoming my Fair Isle idol. Must knit that.) that I really want to make.

Must. Finish. Other. Projects. First.....

New projects... crack for knitters.

~*~*~*~

Pirates!

(or what theatrical technicians do when they are frazzled and need to relax)

After the Adrian post, I thought it would be funny to photoshop a pic of me and another equally geeky friend laying claim to the booty. enjoy!

Holy Mountains of Yarn, Batman!

2007-11-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

So, I had mentioned before that a friend was given literally a truckload of cones of yarn. (Well, a pickup truckload, but it's a truck, nonetheless.)

I was allowed to riffle through the yarn and take any cones I might like. Alot of it was acrylic and strange things, but there were a few cones of Shetland wool. Fingering weight and laceweight Shetland wool.

I snatched up a cream cone and a nice grey-green heather cone of yummy yummy wool. I knit them into gauge swatches, and doubled, on size 7 needles it knits up quite lovely. (quite lovely... is that grammatically correct? eh... I'll look that up later.) My intended pattern is from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Vests book - the "Stonewalls" vest. The question was, then, would I have enough yarn?

Well, that was going to be a problem. The cone was ginormous but I needed to use it doubled.

Now I don't have a ball winder. If I can't beg borrow or steal someone else's ball winder I end up slinging the hank over my leg - using the knee to foot span as the yarn holder with the yarn holding leg folded over the non-yarn holding leg in a bizarre yoga type posture. Ohmmm....... It works well for small hanks, like alpaca. I often wind balls in boring places, like when my housemates drag me to karaoke in our rinky-dink town. Trust me, drunk rednecks singing Shania Twain pairs well with mindless ball winding.

But this cone is, as I said, ginormous. There was no way I was going to carefully wind it into however many little center pull balls, even if I didn't have to loop it over my leg. I needed to make a deal... (Insert dastardly rubbing of hands here)

My friend who works at the LYS has a ball winder, and likes winding things with it. She also has a yarn scale. And it so happened that on the day I walked in, she also had a rather irate lady with a felted hat problem. Now the irate lady made a hat out of a lovely brown Bartlett yarn, but she wanted to have it felt down. The Yarn store clerk had advised her not to use Bartlett for felting - it's a tightly spun wool, and while it *is* wool, and will felt, the tightness prevents radical felting. It is a beautiful Fair Isle yarn, but not the best choice for felting, and she was ushered towards many other lovely types of wool that would felt much better. But she didn't listen, and she came back in, mad that her hat didn't felt down enough. She blamed her washing machine for the bad felt job and demanded my friend to felt it for her. And after a long headachey conversation my friend agreed (if only to get the irate lady out of the shop).

When I came in she was lamenting about how she didn’t want to try to felt the hat more. Well me? I love felting things… and I needed a ginormous cone of yarn wound. A light popped on in my head. She likes to wind yarn, I like to felt… if we offered a trade (more dastardly hand rubbing and some curling of an imaginary mustache) we would both be happy.

Ladies and gentlemen… this is why you listen to your helpful friendly yarn shop lady when she tells you a yarn ain’t gonna felt.

This is after one trip through my machine. I put it through twice more and the dryer twice for good measure. It finally fit a large woman’s head, but it was slightly ratty looking. Ah, well… it fit!

But my prize? Check this out! A mountain o’ yarn! I kind of want to try climbing it and yell “ADRIAN!” at the top of my lungs, but I think my roommate might call the funny farm. What the hell, I think I will anyways. Yell “ADRIAN!” that is, not climb the yarn. I don’t want to squoosh the fibers or break the computer desk.

..

...

......

ADRIAAA-AAAAN!

....

Yes, Nate, your roommate is crazy; you can stop staring at me now. I promise I will creep into your room late at night with that big avocado kitchen knife and scare the bejezus out of you if you don’t stop staring at me. Heheheheheh.

Anyways, how much yarn is there? I had been afraid that I didn’t have enough for a vest. Well, there are over 1200 grams of yarn in my mountain… that’s 42 ½ ounces… and likely over 2000 yards.

I think that is enough yarn for a vest.

Score!!!

Tutorial: Woven Fair Isle

2007-11-11T16:04:00.000-08:00

Somehow my endless enthusiasm for Fair Isle has been getting out and about >.> <.<

So, for the knitters of White River, here's some (hopefully easy) instructions on how to weave while you knit.

Woven Fair Isle Tutorial

Note: I work this technique using the "two fisted" fair isle method: holding the main color in my right hand and the contrast color in my left, knitting with both at the same time.  I cannot recommend this technique enough.
Heck, even Elizabeth Zimmerman advocated it... and who can argue with her?

If you are unfamiliar with this technique, I suggest the following steps to learn it:

1. if you do not know both continental and English style knitting get someone to show you whichever style you are unfamiliar with, and practice it.
2. cast on 80 stitches to a circular needle and do a gauge swatch of *K2 main color, K2 contrast color* repeating around until you feel comfortable using both hands at the same time.

~*~*~*~*~

Why Weave?

Traditional stranded fair isle has you carry the unused yarn in the back of the work until it is time to knit with it again. It works smoothly for section where colors change every few stitches, but does not carry well across floats. A float is a section of knitting where one color is carried along the back for an extended period of time.
     Most knitters agree that it is safe to carry (strand) your yarn behind the work for up to 5 stitches. Many traditional patterns put a tiny stitch (called a peerie) into long expanses of a MC to prevent stranding for more than 5 stitches.
     This method of weaving lets you lock the unused color into the one you are using so there is no loose strands hanging behind your work. It also allows you to work more than 5 stitches between color changes, and helps prevent bunching and tightening of the fair isle work.

~*~*~*~*~

The General Idea

The concept of weaving the yarn in the back of the fair isle is simple. The yarn that is not in use needs to twist over the one being used to knit. If you were knitting fair isle with one hand (say all English style) you could pick up the yarn you were not using and twist it around the one you were knitting with, similar to starting an intarsia color change. This method is clunky, frustrating and slow, however. It tends to get your yarn all tangled up.

So weaving with both hands is a matter of taking the yarn not in use and moving it's position from the bottom to the top, back to the bottom, back to the top and so on. This creates an interlocking twist in the back of your work.

~*~*~*~*~

So how do you do this?

1. choose which is your Main Color (MC) and which is your Contrast Color (CC). I prefer knitting with my right hand and weaving with my left hand, so I choose the color which will have longer continuous blocks of knitting as my MC.

In the pictures the MC is Burgundy and the CC is orange

2. Hold the MC in your right hand. Hold the CC in your left.

3. Knit in your pattern until you come to a float of 3 or more stitches. (floats small that 3 stitches do not require weaving unless you are really anal about your knitting)

4. knit the first stitch of the float normally

5. You will weave the second stitch and every other stitch in the float. This will mean that even even stitch will have a weave.

To weave the CC into MC knitting:

put the needle in as if to knit.

lay the CC over the top of the needle (you are bringing the unused yarn from the bottom position to the top position)

Wrap the MC around the needle the exact same way you do when you are knitting normally. The MC should slide underneath the CC

Knit the stitch, making sure to knit only the MC. The CC should slide off of the needle, now in the top position

Knit your next stitch normally. This places the CC back in the bottom position, effectivily weaving the two yarns together in the back.

6. Continue on, weaving every other stitch until you reach the end of your float and then knit normally.

To weave the MC into CC knitting

sooner or later it will happen that you will have a float where your main color is placed to the back, and your contrast color steps up. This technique is slightly awkward (which is why I tend to judge which is the MC by length of floats rather than amount of color used) but effective.

In these pictures the MC is orange and the CC is burgundy (the opposite of the above photos!)

knit the first stitch normally

loop the MC around the needle loosely

loop the CC above the MC on the needle

Draw the MC over and around the CC (this brings the MC to the top position)

knit the stitch normally with the CC

Again you will weave every other stitch.

~*~*~*~*~

Any questions comments or concerns about this tutorial, feel free to comment or e-mail me

Hat of the Month Club

2007-11-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

Ha ha!! I have done it!

I just started up a "Hat of the month club" in my town. Now I can infect the joy of knitting hats to other knitters! The premise was simple: choose a pattern with a new technique or a something new and interesting to learn each month and gather. Everyone knits the same (or a similar) pattern, helping one another get through the difficult starting point. Usually patterns are just hard for the first few rows until you learn what's going on, and once you get that down the rest is fairly easy. So the club is designed to painless get people started on something new.

What I find really frightening is that the club knitters see me as the "expert" of sorts. Me?! I'm younger than all of them! I haven't been knitting that long (then again I have been crocheting since I was a tot) but I don;t find it very difficult to pick up new techniques. So I have been teaching others wonders like provisional cast ons (hey, you can pick up the stitches? cool!) and hoe to do fair isle with two hands instead of trying to untagle yarns in one.

The hat of the month? The one that got this whole silly hat thing started. That darned short row hat. I liked mine so much, I made another one! I knit this one so fast I forgot to take a picture of the WIP >.< I must stop doing that. I'll post FO pics soon.

So what have I been doing lately?

I must sheepishly admit I am glued to the screen watching classic Doctor Who. Can you believe that my geeky brain has never watched this show before? Well, one here and there when I was reeeally little, but nothing I could really remember.

I. Am. Hooked.

I *love* this freakin' show. Well, most of it. I personally think the sixth doctor should be dragged out into a busy highway, beaten with a stick and left to get run over. That's partially because he doesn't have the best writing, partially because he's a jerk, and mostly because I find I really adore the fifth doctor and I'm pissed that he had to regenerate into Mr Rainbow Dickhead.

whoo... geek rant there. ok, I'm ok now.

Anyways, I may be starting a vest soon, depending on what gauge my mystery yarn knits into. Yes, I was gifted a huge-ass cone of two ply shetland wool of undetermined size. It's pretty thin, so my quest tonight is to finish watching Earthshock and then knit a gauge swatch with the yarn doubled to see what it does.

Pictures soon.

Hat Update Numba Three

2007-11-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

Yes!

I am finally not a lazy blogger and have pictures!

So, without further ado, lets see some FOs (huzzah!)

We Call Them Pirates!!

I liked this pattern so much I had to make a second one directly after the first one.

I adore this pattern. Nicely written, fun to knit. My only problem is that I have never ever seen the suggested yarn anywhere (I'm sure it's online, but I really dislike buying yarn online. I like going to LYSes.) That's ok. I have found my own way.

The hat on the Left is made from Reynold's Whiskey and Frog Tree Alpaca. I knit it up on Addi Turbo 3's; though if I am to knit it again I think I'll use 4's. It made a size appropriate for the head of a small woman or a teen. Now I have a small head so I'm quite pleased with it, but most people who I knit hats for have a larger head. So this hat is mine.

The right one is truely yunny to have on one's head. It is knit out of Plymouth Suri Merino, mmm, soft wool and softer alpaca on size 5's. Suri merino doesn't have the best stitch definition for cables (As we shall see in the next hat) but it make a beautiful yarn for Fair Isle. This hat is larger and stretchy. I should give it to someone for Christmas, but it desperatly wants to stay on my head forever. I am wearing it right now. Yarr!

Koolhaas Hat
(or the hat in which the Deep Space Knitter learned to make cables without a cable needle)

This is also knit in Suri Merino. It is lovely, soft and stretchy, but I don;t really think the cables pop as well as they could have. The yarn isn't spun tightly enough to do so. That being said, I'm still quite happy with the results.

The pattern is from IK's holiday gift issue, and I have to say I'm impressed that IK found hats that aren't ugly or over simplistic to have in that issue. Good on them! That being said, if you decide to make this hat: read the pattern the entire way through before you pick up the yarn. Put the book down, have a drink, read it again. And then read it a third time.

Why?

The pattern is correct, but it isn't written very intuitivly. It is very easy to miss directions or screw up on the repeats simply because they are written strangely (a small example would be the repeat is listed as *K1, P2, K1* instead of the far more intuitive K1; *P2, K2* until end, K1)

The trick to make it all work out? (which I learned after the first 1/4 of the hat was done...) Except for the very top decreases, you always knit into the knit stitches and purl into the purls. So if you get lost, think of that.

Also... I do not suggest knitting this pattern without knowing how to cable sans cable needle. There are 54 (count em!) teeny little cable crossings in some rows. That'll drive you nuts of you're using a cable needle.

Forever Plaid

so... what do you do when you're on an enforced yarn diet and want to knit hats from you stash?

You design your own hat, duh.

I had this idea for a straight sided brimless toque with a plaid fair isle pattern. This one was made with worsted weight yarn and size 7 needles. (Yarns used: Plymouth Tweed and Galway; Paton's Classic Wool) I calcualted the gauge... and I thought that casting on 100 stitches seemed like an awful lot. It wasn't. It fits nicely, but with the straight sides, 110 might have been better. I have some front views that show my ugly mug, I might post them later. For now I have nightmares of this damn hat showing up on something like You Knit What 2 with a tag saying that somebody loathes plaid.

I like it, though. Still working on the pattern.

And check out the top... it may just be the best part!

Yee! Fair isle decreases! They look stunning IRL.

Belated Halloween, The Eviscerated Yarn Stash, and Pirates!

2007-11-04T07:48:00.001-08:00

So... first things first. Last post.

I very rarely drink, and yesterday, after fighting for two hours over the phone with a bank three states away that kept telling me "Well, you have to come in to one of our offices" and me saying "What part of I am in Vermont for seven months and you are over 10 hours away don't you understand?" I finally hung up and went to knit.

I finished a brand spankin' new hat design, went home and felt wound up. Didn't want to play beer pong with my housemates. They have this tendency to revel in frat boy style partying, even though we are all rapidly aging out of that category. I thought a nice quiet night with some Italian and some wine would be nice. hen I got to listening to Hibiscuit's girls' Extreme Drunken Winter IK review, and decided to drink along.

Truth be told, if you're of age and want something to do that's safe, relaxing and funny, it's a hoot. And even when sober, I can say that I love Hibiscuits Girl, she is my hero.

Anyways, on to today's affairs. This is my catch up post. I have FO's piling up around me, which many knitters would say 'you lucky punk!' For me it's more like 'Dear God, where do I put everything? Besides on my head?'

So let's start with Halloween.
I must, must, must must, MUST finish my Harry Potter sweater. The one that I have bought all the yarn for and still have not cast on any stitches. I even got the charmed knits book from a friend to poke me into doing it.

I started the costume oh, about 5 years ago now. I add a piece to it every year. Well, every year but this one. This year was supposed to be a real vest or sweater, not one found at Salvation Army, but I was busy and it didn't happen -.-
The real reason I need to make myself one is that the vest/sweater needs a deep V-neck. Most vests do not have them that deep, but you need to have the tie underneath. You can't even see I have a house tie on this costume, which is sorta sad.

Th problem is kicking myself in the bud and getting it done. I wonder if there are any "Harry Potter Costume Knitters" support knitters out there. Otherwise by the time I get this costume done Harry Potter will be gone and forgotten.

Ah, well. Halloween was great, the costume worked and I had alot of fun. I love Halloween, and honestly I can't wait until I have either A. kids so I can sew them costumes or B. a house so I can decorate it and scare the bejesus out of kids who come to trick or treat and give them scads of candy. I think too many people shy away from Halloween nowadays because it's some sort of "bad" holiday. Come on, it's a crafter's paradise! (That and any excuse for me to show off my costuming skills is good enough for me)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Some people, as I have heard, organize their stashes. They bag things up and place them carefully into storage.

I tried that. I really did. My yarn rebelled, committed seppuku and spilled it's yarney guts all over my floor

(which is geek speak for, I keep my yarn on a shelf but I have a cat and that doesn't mix well.)

You can see the beginnings of the raspberry beret here (I wasn't kidding on that) and the 'it might never get finished' fair isle Virginia Tech scarf.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"We Call Them Pirates" in progress, and a story!

I love this pattern!

I have to admit, I also love Fair isle.

Most of the knitters I know in Vermont dislike it, and I adore it. I haven't been fair isling for all that long (then again I haven't been knitting for all that long) and I'm constantly ready to jump in to a new project.

Now (*Cracks knuckles, sits down.* Storytime!) I always thought Fair Isle patterns were attractive. I bought books on how to make Fair Isle sweaters even before I knew how to knit telling myself 'someday I'm going to make one of those.'

So when I learned to knit I wanted to try to fair isle. Problem? I leaned to knit English style. Fair isle, holding both threads in your right hand... well... it sucks. I ended up with a tight, lumpy, knotted mess.

I didn't do any Fair isle for over a year. Two maybe. I moved from Oregon to Wisconsin to Vermont. And sitting in a LYS in Vermont, one lady looked over and started extolling the virtues of knitting continental. She noticed that I hold my knitting oddly for an English knitter - I keep the index finger raised and the middle finger controlling the unknitted stitches, just how a continental knitter would. She felt that that made me a prime candidate for learning continental. And so she taught me. I knit an entire beret in continental, and halfway through I decided I just didn't like knitting continental. I hated purling continental. I had a long hard think.

     I came to the conclusion that knitting is about quality of time spent doing it, not the quantity of what gets knit. I enjoyed knitting my old way.   And so I did not become a continental convert.

     Instead I immediately applied my good knowledge to the pursuit of evil and with a comfortable grasp of continental knitting, I taught myself two-handed Fair Isle.  This was a technique that I could really sink my teeth into because it felt natural. I picked up the book "Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified, which outlined some really useful techniques for painlessly weaving the yarn in as you go, and I was hooked.

This is probably a good thing.  Fair Isle is a great way to bust your stash

A Knitter and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

2007-11-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

I worked on that play. Yeah, it;s a kids Play - Alexander and the no good terrible, horrible very bad day. I was the set designer. It's hellacious. You need a copy machine that fits people inside and lights up. Fun.

Wine and cheese, Bay-beh!

And by wine I mean “Raspberry Wild Vines”, which is even cheaper than Arbor Mist, and Crowley’s large curd cottage cheese. It is fucking delicious. Redneck relaxation, and I revel in it!

I am drunk.

WARNING: I swear when I am drunk. Thou Hast been warned.

I had a very bad day and this is the perfect relaxation. I am listening to Hibiscuits Girl’s extreme drunken audio review of God Knows What knitting magazine, I wish I had it in front of me, but it’s old. I’m drinking with her. It’s awesome. We must do this again.

After this whatever will I do?

I’m watching Doctor fucking Who Kiddies! Yes! Tom Baker rocks! Yee Haw! It’s downloading slowly but I’m gonna watch it. Why? Because I’m a complete and utter geek, that’s why. Yanno, I’m reeealy glad that I’m drinking out of a plastic wine glass.

Did I tell y’all I’m knitting a pink hat?

Yeah. I had a run in with the bank, and that caused the bad day, and therefore I am on an enforced yarn diet. So I’m using stash yarn. In a moment of unadulterated weakness last year I bought two skeins of marled pink wool. I hate pink. But I bought it. Why? Because it was lovely.

It’s becoming a beret.

A Raspberry Beret. AHAHAHAHAH!

Shit yeah! Go go Prince!

I’m drunk.

But I can still spell.

What the hell else am I going to do with 2 skeins of pink-marled Galway? I sure as hell ain’t making a sweater out of it. I may make another Fair Isle hat with it.

Yeah! I designed myself a Fair Isle hat too! It’s lovely. I’ll post it tomorrow when I’m not drunk.

Ooooh, 60% of Dr. Who is loaded.

My friend has always wanted a Dr. Who Tom Baker Scarf, and I am going to knit it, methinks. There is an entire website on it. An Entire Website!! It’s like www.drwhoscarves.com !! That’s almost as good as www.ballsonline.com That got a lot of laughs last year when I had to order cases of balls for a play. Yeah. Balls.

I probably shouldn’t post this. Aw, hell. It works. I love Hibiscuits Girl. Go check out her blog, she rocks. right there. Go! I found it trying to figure out if anyone else thought that Knit.1 was on crack. Yeah! Google linked me to her Extreme Drunken Review. It’s awesome. I would do that, but it’s stealing.

Ok. I’m gunna go watch Doctor Who now. That’s safe. Safer than posting to the blog, methinks.

Pics tomorrow. I have We Call Them Pirates hat Mark II on me head right now!

Raspberry beret! Ahahahah!

And Now For Something Completely Different

2007-11-03T00:00:00.001-07:00

And completely dorky.

Yarn hath been gathered. But it was opening night, so we had to dress up, and see the play and drink free beers. That is why we go to opening nights. Free Beers.

When we came home, the house was a mess, yes it was. It was like yarn puked up all over the place. I must straighten this tomorrow. Whoo, I just changed from the royal we to I, must be late.

Anyways, I found this quiz, which I think is pretty freakin awesome.

Not only was it fun, but it's freakin' perfect!

This blog ain't named "Deep Space Knit" for nothing!

Yarn Hunting

2007-11-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

I have a day off... time to go yarn hunting. Lets see what I come back with!

Felted Dinnerplate Beret: Version 2

2007-11-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

So I am supposed to do a hat update, but I left my bag at a friend's house. The bag which holds the hats >.< Instead I will post a second version of the same pattern.

Apologies for having my ugly mug modeling all these hats. They are all knitted in my size and my roommates don't appreciate knitting (how sad is that?!)

Dinnerplate Beret, Version 2

This is basically the same hat as before, but knit top down instead of rim up. This has quickly become my favorite version of the pattern for several reasons:

1. I dislike DPNs and I don’t like knitting hats on Magic Loop. So I would rather get the DPNs out of the way first and then knit the rest peaceably on a circular needle.

2. Some yarns run out right about at the hatband area… it’s easy to swap them out and knit a contrast hatband. Economical and prevents a buying a second skein or knitting a doofy looking circle at the top of your hat

The pictures are:

Noro Kureyon, felted.

Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride, unfelted.

Cascade 220, felted

Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, felted.

As you can see, not felting the hat gives you a Scots Bonnet type hat rather than a tight beret. These were all knit up to 25 stitches per wedge, and down to 12, on size 7 needles.

Materials: About 200 yds of worsted weight, feltable yarn. (Superwash wool does not work. So far what has worked is: (in order of tightest felting to loosest felting)
Classic Elite Inca Alpaca
Araucania Atacama Nature Alpaca.
Plymouth Galway (felts surprisingly well)
Berroco Ultra Alpaca
Cascade 220
Plymouth Boku
Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride
Paton’s Classic Wool
Lion Brand Fisherman’s wool
Noro Kuryeon (Requires 3 skeins)
Reynold’s Lite Lopi

That should give you an idea of what is out there that may work.

1 Size 7 16” circular needle (or size required for gauge)
1 set of size 7 DPNs (or size required for gauge)
optional 1 size 5 16” circular needle (for a better fitting hatband on an unfelted bonnet)
8 stitch markers (1 should be a different color from the other 7)

Yarn Needle
11” inch dinnerplate (preferably plastic) for a felted hat.

~*~*~*~*~

Gauge: US size 7 (20 stitches; 26 rows = 4inchesx4inches)
Gauge is not extremely crucial for a felted hat, but it greatly helps if you are close. If you are having problems, err on the larger rather than the smaller side. Even for an unfelted hat you can still put it in the dryer for a few minutes and shore it up. It’s awfully darn hard trying to stretch a too-small hat.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sizes are listed as Small (Medium) [Large]

Small fits most adolescents. Medium is an adult female (and every hat pictured). Large is for an adult Man.

If you plan on making the hat unfelted, choose one size smaller. There are also notes at the very bottom for custom fitting the hat to your head.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A note on increases: if you intend to felt the hat, you can pretty much use whichever increase you feel the most comfortable with because the resulting felted fabric will blur stitch definition. If you do not intend to felt the hat, consider using a right lifted increase or an invisible increase to create a clean line.

When I felt these hats I use the bar increase because I can knit it in my sleep (and in the dark, which is helpful when knitting through movies)

For ease of the pattern, increases are written as: RLI (standing for Right Lifted Increase)

(This is the Lite Lopi hat)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~

1. Using whatever method you like, cast on 8 stitches to one of the DPNs, leaving a 8” tail of yarn at the end.
2. Turn work, using the bar increase, increase once in every stitch (16 stitches)
3. Spread these 16 stitches out evenly over 4 DPNs [trust me, you’re knitting 8 wedges, 4 DPNs makes things much easier than 3]
4. Join for circular knitting. Knit one row even (16 stitches)
5. *k1, RLI, PM (Place Marker), RLI, k1* Repeat from * around on each DPN. You should have 4 markers placed in the center of each DPN, and 24 stitches creating 8 wedges (2 per DPN) with 3 stitches each.
6. Knit one row even
7. Increase one stitch per wedge. (If you increase in the same place every wedge you will end up with clear spiraling lines at the top of your beret. If you don’t want the lines to appear, change where you place you increases every round)
8. knit one row even
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8, increasing one stitch in each wedge every odd row, until you have 10 stitches on each wedge. Knit stitches off of the DPNs and on to the circular needles if you so desire, placing markers at the break between each DPN, and the different colored marker at the place that marks the end of each row.
10. Repeat steps 7 and 8, increasing one stitch in each wedge every odd row until you have 21 (25) [28] stitches per wedge. 168 (200) [224] stitches total. End knitting one row even.
11. *Knit 1, k2tog, knit 18* Repeat from * around. 20 (24) [27] stitches per wedge. You will be decreasing one stitch per wedge on subsequent odd rows.
12. Knit one row even.
13. Repeat Steps 11 and 12 until you have 10 (12) [14] stitches per wedge. 80 (96) [112] stitches in total.
14. If you plan on making an unfelted hat, switch to using the smaller sized needles. If you would like a contrasting hatband switch to contrast color. Work 4 rows of K2, P2 ribbing
15. Purl one row even.
16. Work 4 rows of K2, P2 ribbing
17. bind off.
18. Run the cast on tail through the first 8 stitches at the top of the hat and pull tightly to close up hole.
19. Thread the yarn needle with a length of yarn, and fold the K1,P1 ribbing up at the purl row. Sew the two bands together in an elastic seaming stitch to create a double-thick band.

If you are not felting you hat, celebrate because you’re done! If you are, read on:

20. Fill your washing machine with a ½ load of cotton laundry (towels, jeans and/or t-shirts work well. You need the extra stuff in there to increase the agitation). Set the machine to heavy soil (don’t use the delicate cycle!), the water level between medium and high; and the water temperature to HOT. Put in a ¼ to a ½ measure full of laundry soap. (To protect the hat, use soap without bleach or additives. Ivory flakes are the best if you can find them). Throw your hat in there with the laundry and let ‘er rip.
21. Check the hat ½ way through the wash; and again at ¾ of the way. Alpaca can felt very quickly. The goal is to felt it all the way down until the stitches disappear into fabric. If in doubt, put it back in. Stop if the hat shrinks so small that it won’t ever fit around your head.
22. Take the hat out. When first out of the wash it will looks like a wrinkled, tiny, matted mess. Don’t worry. Grab your dinnerplate!
23. Stretch your hat over the dinnerplate, and adjust so you get one flat round side, and so the head opening is centered on the other side. While it is still wet you can stretch the head hole larger or smaller and shape it with your fingers until it is the size and shape you want it to be.
24. Let your hat dry – it will take between 24-36 hours to get it completely dry. You can touch it and flip it over halfway through, but don’t be tempted to take it off of its plate too early! It has to completely dry in order to retain the nice shape you stretched it into.
25. When its dry, take the hat off the dinnerplate carefully, and viola! Hat!

(Inca Alpaca)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Pattern sizing notes for the unfelted version: This pattern can easily be custom sized by increasing or decreasing the number of stitches per wedge at the widest point and at the brim. If you wanted a truly massive renaissance-like pancake beret you could increase all the way to 30 or 35 stitches per wedge. If you wanted a very petite baby hat, you can stop increasing at 18 or fewer stitches per wedge. The same is true with the brim. The caveat here is if you knit a larger hat you will need a larger dinnerplate.

If you want to custom fit the brim of your hat, transfer the stitches to a piece of scrap yarn as a holder, or a 32” (or wider) circular needle and pull it over your head. Knit down to the point where it is snug, and then start the ribbing.

(Noro Kureyon)

Tales of Hats and Theatre

2007-10-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

Tech week.

In theatre tech week is the week directly before opening night. It is when actors move from thier rehearsal space and into the theatre, and everything comes together. Set. Props. Lights. Sound. Actors.

In theory this is an exciting time, full of the nitty gritty "magic" of theatre.

In reality it is five days of hell.

My schedule has been for the past four days: Get up, work. Eat animals crackers for breakfast while I work. Break for lunch, eat lunch (the only meal of the day, really). Work. Break for dinner - maybe. Work. Watch the run. Knit. Get notes. Go home. Eat what should have been dinner if we're not too lazy. Knit for relaxation until exhaustion takes over. Rinse, repeat.

It's funny how much knitting you can get done in a dim theatre when you know that knitting is, in fact, the last thing keeping you sane.

The show opens tomorrow. I finally have a maneagable list of notes.

I also completed three hats. Koolhaas hat? Done. Brainmonster? done. We call them Pirates? I had to stop and take a picture of it midway through because I knew I would finish it before I blogged it >.<

I even finished a horn and started another darn pirates hat.

But I'm not crazy... yet!

Hat Update Numba Three

2007-10-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am a hat knitting fool.

No progress yet on the devil hat. I will have to knit those horns sooner or later.

But... check these out!

Koolhaas Hat: I called it the twisted stitch hat below... but it has a pretty twisted name to go with it. This one is being knitted in Suri Merino (which for people who aren't fiber snobs is 50% wool, 50% Alpaca). It's a lovely soft yarn, but it doesn't have the greatest stitch definition.

     I love the concept of this hat being based off of Architecture (in this case the Architecture of Rem Koolhaas, which is presumably where the hat gets the funky name). I am what you could call and Architecture history geek, so I must say this pattern has definite appeal.

It also has forced me to learn to cable without a cable needle as it features 52 (count em'... 52!) one by one cables every 4 rows. Yeesh. That's enough to drive a person nuts.

     I hated this hat when I started it. Wonky knits, hundreds of teeny tine cables. About halfway through I started to realy enjoy it. I don't know whether that's because I figured out the best way to make these teeny cables or because I bought a new hat needle.

Mmm, my very first Addi Turbo. I usually hate to gush about things, especially things you buy, but hell... these things make knitting like putting a hot knife through butter. Buttah! I am freakin' sold.

This hat would be finished tonight, but I am out of yarn and need to pick up another skein. >.<

Brainmonster!
I wanted hair on my Brainmonster. Partially because I'm a freak, and partially because I found by accident that Jo Ann Fabric's had thier Fun Fur rip off "Cello" on clearance... and the color scheme just happened to match the Nature Wool I wanted to use, and so I figured it was a match made in heaven... or Brainmoster hell... whichever you prefer.

     I admit, I was stubborn. I wasn't going to change the pattern to knit in the cello, so I stuck with size 7 needles even though I had 2 strands of yarn. It was like a battle of brawl vs. knitter with no brains, but I perservered. We shll soon see if the top is tres wonky or fits ok. Either way I am past the fun fur (ahem...Cello) and into knitting pleasure once again.

Hat Updates Numba 2

2007-10-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

Spiral Hat

     Hey, this one wasn't on my list! yeah, an extra hat snuck in there all of a sudden. I was gifted this pattern by a fellow knitter and I thought it would be a smashing way to use up the leftover 3/4 skein of Boku from the short row hat. I thought "why not, it's kinda cute" so it is paired with some absolutely divine baby brush alpaca. Mmm, fuzzy!

     This pattern is easy to follow and turns out nicely. It is also EASY. I think a beginner could tackle it as a second project. Knit, purl, decrease, yarn over, pick up stitches. That's about it. Most of it is knit flat. If I had one complaint it is that there is no decreasing at the very top of the hat. It makes for a bulky (read: messy) bind off at the very top.

     Now the rest of the hat looks fine, so if people are inspecting the very top of your hat, they probably have issues. Then again I'm only 5'4" and I know several people who could easily inspect the top of my hat without too much difficulty. Still, if they did they would have issues. Also, with any kind of fragile yarn, there is a good chance of it breaking when threaded though all the top stitches. Even double thickness, it is a big bind off. I ended up using the alpaca to sew the side seam, and embroidery floss to bind the top closed. It's strong, slick, and comes in about eighty bajillion colors.

Devil Hat: Meh I am lazy. I knitted the hat part of this one over a week ago and I have yet to add the horns. Fun pattern, very interesting to knit!

Entrelac Triangles hat.

Ok, remember when you're mom used to look at your craft projects and tell you how "unique" they were because unique was a nice way of saying "It looks like crap"?

Well, this hat is "unique."

Then again most people who I show it to think that's it's really cool so I might just get some of those ultra huge jingle bells and sew them on, call it my "Merry Idiot" hat and be good.

It also doubles as a pretty nice candy bowl for Halloween, tentacles and everything!

Knitting Tip Numba 1

2007-10-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

So, as I was sitting, knitting, in the LYS, the one with "sunshine" lights, a lady came in, all flustered saying she was a beginner and asking if she was doing something wrong. She pulled out a fairly marvelous simple cabled hat, and asked if the cables were all right.

Well, they finally figured out that she was doing right twist cables while the pattern asked for left, but since she did them all the same it really didn't matter.

Anyways, this lady was an avid golfer, and she didn't have a cable needle. Instead she used a golf tee.

We tried it, and sure enough it it doesn't work marvelously.

So... for cables made with worsted weight yarn or larger on size 8 needles or larger, try a golf tee if you don't have a cable needle.

Some Bug is Going to DIE...

2007-10-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

Zander: My God. How could this happen?
Carmen: We thought we were smarter than the Bugs.
~Starship Troopers

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It's chilly today in the great white North, and I decided to take out my Harry Potter Scarf.

And what do I find?

Something was munching on it!

After a few trips through the microwave and a gentle washing I set about meticulously inspecting my scarf. Luckily only one hole, but gah! It got munched away!

I had to pull out 8 rows of 4 stitches. bah!

Now I'm a pretty terrible mender, but I got the job done. It's not lovely, but it's sturdy and from five feet away you cannot tell.

I'm inspecting and washing my stash skeins as I type.

If I see a moth, it's war.

The Hat That Ate NYC

2007-10-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

Alright, I know there are blogs out there that show you only the best of what the knitter can do. The finest projects and the greatest triumphs.

That is not this blog.

This hat is not good.

Ok, seriously, WTF was the pattern writer thinking?! Did she even knit an adult size hat or did she arbitrarily choose a bigger size of needles and yarn and hope that it would all work out right? I'm seriously hoping it was the second because if it was the first, man, I feel sorry for her family because this woman does not live in reality.

Ok, maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe there's a good explanation for all this, like her husband was regretfully suffering from encephalitis at the time.

I'm going to hell, I already know this.
I think this hat is going to eat me and send me there in a handbasket.

Ok, back to the hat. It's not just huge, it's monstrous. It's also kind of cute in this pointy-star jester sort of way. But that doesn't excuse the fact that if it had a neck hole I could wear it as a tank top.

I am doing a load of jeans tonight. Though I have slowly switched over from machine felting to hand felting, this hat is getting shown no mercy. I figure one of three things will happen:

1. It will felt down small enough to fit my head and I'll have a hat
2. It will felt down small enough to fit my head, but it will be so thick and heavy I will not have a hat
3. It will felt down, but it will never get small enough to fit my head and I still will not have a hat.

I am suspecting 1 is a pipe dream, options 2 and 3 are looking far more likely at the moment. I am prepared for this eventuality!

I always wanted a smashing, decorative felted bowl.

Hat Updates

2007-10-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

Short Row Hat

This pattern is beautiful. It's fun. It's well written. It's easy to understand.  I recommend knitting it.

I have never before in my yarn shopping life seen the yarn it calls for ("Ami Ami Faith"). I suppose if I lived somewhere cool like Chicago or New York I could buy it, but I don't. I live somewhere nice and rural. And I didn't want to order it online. I wanted to knit it right away.

Plymouth's Boku makes a nice substitute. It does the gently shaded self striping thing with a little more regularly and less gusto that Noro Kuryeon, and it's the same gauge as Ami Ami Faith.  Yay!

I had it in progress a few days ago. It knits quickly. Two days of concentrated knitting, a week if you're sporadic. Mine was interrupted by running out of my ball and needing to wait to buy another one.

The Entrelac Triangles hat...

Ok, the pattern writer for this hat was either A. smoking crack or B. has never actually knit a hat for an adult human before.

The adult pattern calls for Crystal Palace Iceland, which is a very chunky yarn, or two strands of Taos, a worsted weight. On size 10 1/2 needles.  I am using one strand of Galway chunky which isn't as chunky as iceland, on size 10 needles, and the hat would fit a rhinoceros.  Seriously.  Look!

The pattern lists no gauge. It doesn't even list a size. This should have triggered my alarm bells.

The idea for the pattern is intriguing, and the actual technique is pretty well written; but the pattern suffers from poor editing.
Small details like your pick up and knit row is also row 1, not a set up row are poorly communicated.

I intend to finish this hat and then felt it within an inch of its life to see if I can salvage it. Then I'm going to rewrite the pattern and knit it again in something sane, like, oh... worsted weight yarn.

Stupid freakin' pattern writers.

I will beat this hat. I swear I will

October is Hat Month!

2007-10-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

It is officially hat month. Why? For no good reason other than I adore hats.

So, on the needles or in the roster are:

1. Veronik Avery's Short Row Hat
2. The Domiknitrix Snow Devil Hat
3. The Crystal Palace Yarns Entrelac Triangles hat
4. The Half Assed Blog's Brainmonster hat (with my own modifications)
5. The "We Call Them Pirates" hat
6.The twisted stitch hat from the newest Interweave Knits
7. Another freakin' beret.

I'm crazy, right? Though I have several of these almost finished and an entire day of knitting and Ninja Turtles ahead of me. I can do this, yes I can.

Pictures tomorrow when I'm not so damn lazy.

How Things Felt, Study 1

2007-10-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

We love felting things, yes we do.

I try to keep a record of the berets I make and what they look like felted. Currently I am amassing quite a stack at the end of my bed.

And, yeah, I know the technical term is fulled. Sue me.

From right to left we have:
1.Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride, slightly felted (knit on size 6 needles you get a nice, tight fabric that doesn't need much felting.)
2. Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride, unfelted. Note: both of these hats have a contrasting hatband. You run out of wool just at the ribbing section if knit from the top down.
3. Altacama Alpaca, fully felted.
4. Cascade Yarns Wool 220. This turned out very nicely, though I had to put it through both the wash and the dryer. That may have had something to do with my roommates fiddling with the wash settings -.-
5. Noro Kuryeon. This felts nicely, but not tightly. I worked and worked to get it smaller and it still remains a big floppy hat. A lovely scots bonnet, but not a beret.
6. Altacama Alpaca, again. This is my signature hat.

Felted Alpaca Dinnerplate Beret: Version 1

2007-10-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

I had to post this because a friend of mine kept asking for an easy link to the pattern so she could share it with friends.
This is my trademark hat. Once I get the direction written up, I have several versions of it, that all basically make the same darn hat. I have knit it in almost every feltable worsted weight yarn known to humankind, and it works in every one so far. Looser knit or looser felting yarns give more of a Scots Bonnet feel to the hat rather than a beret. Either way, I'll add lots of examples.

~*~*~*~*~

Felted Alpaca Dinnerplate Beret: Version 1, bottom to top. (Version 2 can befound here)

Size: One size (to fit an average woman’s head; but see gauge notes)

Materials:
~About 100g (2 hanks) of worsted weight alpaca yarn (wool can be used but may not felt down as tightly) This comes out to about 200 yds of feltable worsted weight yarn. Note: Superwash wool doesn't work! (See notes at the very bottom for what does work) The model is knit in Araucania's Atacama Nature Alpaca.

~Size 7 circular needles (16” long); and/or 1 set of 4 or 5 size 7 DPNs [OR SIZE NEEDED FOR GAUGE] (I prefer knitting on circular needles for as long as possible; though it is certainly possible to knit the entire hat with DPNs. Because it decreases to only 8 stitches you need to use DPNs for the smallest rounds.)

~8 markers; 1 must be different from the other 7

~Yarn needle

~11 inch diameter dinnerplate (preferably plastic)

~Size “H” crochet hook (for optional loop top)

Gauge: US size 7 (20 stitches; 26 rows = 4inchesx4inches)
As this hat will be felted very thoroughly, gauge is not extremely crucial; however when I used size 8 needles I get a hat that more comfortably fits a larger head (man’s). However increasing the needle size brings me dangerously close to running out of yarn in the final few rounds; and once I had to bind off a round or two early.

1. Cast 112 stitches on the circular needles using the long tail cast on. Place the different colored marker at the join.

2. Work 4 rounds of K2, P2 ribbing
3. Work 1 round of purl
4. Work 4 rounds of P2, K2 ribbing (The purls should line up where the knits are beneath them, the purl where the knits are)

5. Work 1 round of knit, placing a marker every 14 stitches, which should give you 8 sections.

6. Knit next round, increasing 1 stitch in every section (to make 120 stitches, 15 stitches in every section). In order to avoid a noticeable spiral around the hat; work the increases and decreases randomly from row to row and not always in the same place.

7. Knit next round evenly next row even

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7, increasing by 8 stitches (one stitch in every section) until you have 25 stitches in each section (200 stitches total)

9. Knit one row evenly

10. Knit next round, decreasing 1 stitch in every section to make 24 stitch in each (192 stitches total)

11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 until you have decreased all the way down to 1 stitch per section (8 stitches total). Switch to DPNs when the work gets too small to handle on circulars (usually between 8-10 stitches per section)

12. Break the yarn without binding off the last 8 stitches; leaving an 8” tail (leave a 16” tail if you want a little ‘loop’ at the top of your beret for decoration) Thread a yarn needle with the tail and pull the tail through all 8 loops. Pull the tail tight, and the little hole should close up neatly. If you want a loop top, go to step 13; otherwise tie off the yarn and weave in the end.

13. To create a loop at the top, bring the tail up to the outside of the hat and create a small slipknot in the tail as close to the top of the hat as you can. Chain 12, and slip stitch the end of the chain to the first stitch (or to the top of the hat) to create a loop. Tie off yarn tail and weave in yarn ends.

14. Thread the yarn needle with a length of yarn. Fold the bottom ribbed brim together at the line of purls. (It should flip easily to the inside of the hat, creating a double-thick band.) Sew the band in place using a running stitch; pull the fabric every 4-6 stitches to make sure it stays stretchy. Tie off and weave in yarn ends.

15. Fill your washing machine with a ½ load of cotton laundry (towels, jeans and/or t-shirts work well. You need the extra stuff in there to increase the agitation). Set the machine to heavy soil (don’t use the delicate cycle!), the water level between medium and high; and the water temperature to HOT. Put in a ¼ to a ½ measure full of laundry soap. (To protect the hat, use soap without bleach or additives. Ivory flakes are the best if you can find them). Throw your hat in there with the laundry and let ‘er rip.

16. Check the hat ½ way through the wash; and again at ¾ of the way. Alpaca can felt very quickly. The goal is to felt it all the way down until the stitches disappear into fabric. If in doubt, put it back in. Stop if the hate shrinks so small that it won’t ever fit around your head.

17. Take the hat out. When first out of the wash it will looks like a wrinkled, tiny, matted mess. Don’t worry. Grab your dinnerplate!

18. Stretch your hat over the dinnerplate, and adjust so you get one flat round side, and so the head opening is centered on the other side. While it is still wet you can stretch the head hole larger or smaller and shape it with your fingers until it is the size and shape you want it to be.

19. Let your hat dry – it will take between 24-36 hours to get it completely dry. You can touch it and flip it over halfway through, but don’t be tempted to take it off of its plate too early! It has to completely dry in order to retain the nice shape you stretched it into.

20. When its dry, take the hat off the dinnerplate carefully, and viola! Hat!

~*~*~

Note on yarns:
Alpaca is a hollow core fiber, meaning it will felt incredibly well. Some people argue that alpaca is a luxury fiber, and you should not be felting it, but I started out with an alpaca hat because the lite lopi was too itchy against my forehead. Besides, if you've never used alpaca this hat is a good first project - it only takes 2 hanks and you're done!

Wools that are more loosely spun tend to felt better than those more tightly spun. Of all the wools I have tried so far, Plymouth Galway felts the tightest, to the point where I lost all stitch definition and it turned into a wonderfully textured fabric. I was very pleased. I also had to stretch it quite a bit to make it fit the ginormous melon it was going on.

Why I Love My Job

2007-10-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, not always, but there have been some times in life that I insist that my job is better than most.

So the question remains, then, why do I love my job, and what the hell is it that I do? Ah, dear friends, I'm one of those *theatre* people. No, not actors. Technicians. I spend my days making odd things for actors to carry or use onstage (or sometimes they merely sit onstage and look nice.)

So why do I love my job today? Well, because today my job consists of taking this pack of Club Soda, turning it into vanilla french sodas, drinking it, saving the bottles so I can fill them back up with the seltzer (because the actress will only drink a certain kind of seltzer which, in fact,
doesn't come in little bottles which the director wants to see).
     What other job on earth can you say you get paid for making yourself French sodas and drinking them?
     Then again once I had to work on a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I got paid for chewing hundreds of pieces of gum (literally hundreds - we had an assembly line of technicians chewing) and hot gluing them to the bottom of a chair. No, I don't have pictures for that. Be thankful.

     I do, however, have more needleworthy pictures, since this is, at heart, a knit and crochet blog. Last year for Christmas the show was CATS. Yup, the CATS that you're thinking of. Well, did you know that giant singing, dancing CATS wear knit cat warmers? Check it!

I personally got to knit one of the calico kittens because when we started we didn't have many accomplished knitters working with us. Halfway through we had contacted the local knitting guild, and a massive cat-warmer knit along commenced. I also knit the legs for MacCavity. And the big shaggy cat... Old Deuteronomy? Latchhooked. Completely latchhooked. Not by me, though. They got a whole passel of volunteers to sit and latch hook a cat. Latchhooking is really quite simple, Alot of knitters husbands worked on it!

And for pure comedic value... did you know CATS go to the gym?

***Bonus!***

The best D**n French Soda Ever

You need:

1. 1 Bottle Vanilla Seltzer (Mine is Polar brand, sold in the Northeast US)
2. 1 Bottle of Vanilla Syrup (Da Vinci is my fav, Toriani works too)
3. 1 carton light cream.

4. A large glass, mug or plastic goblet (I have a thing with plastic footed goblets) fir anyone wanting a soda
5. A shotglass (or a person good at guestimating)

Pour a shot and 1/2 of vanilla syrup into the mug. Cover it with vanilla seltzer until the mug is 3/4 of the way full.  Stir the syrup and seltzer together. Add 1 shot of cream. The cream will cause the seltzer to fizz, creating a creamy, foamy head on top of your soda. If you filled the mug too full of seltzer it may overflow, so get ready to slurp.

Sip and enjoy!

Mohair Blues

2007-09-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

This leaf scarf is annoying long winded.

I have decided that I don't care what the pattern says for length. The length is ball's worth of mohair. Period. Because knitting all those little intarsia leaves into mohair is starting to drive me nuts. That and the mohair loves to get tangled before it comes out of the skein >.<

I am soooo glad I left my cats with my family, otherwise I'd have 2 mohair-noosed cats.

2007-09-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, check this out! Isn't this cool?!

Ok, you're probably going 'no, Jamie, it's a bag of yarn.' Or even if you're as yarn obsessed as I am, you're probably still going 'Cool, a bag of yarn. Ok.'

Oh, dear friend, but it's a *special* bag of yarn.

And just why is it special you ask?

Because I *won* it. I never ever win anything, but I entered a drawing at one of the lovely local yarn shops (White River Yarns), and my name was drawn for an afghan kit! How lucky is that?

There's 20balls of Firenze boucle and 5 of Firenze (Plymouth brand) ... That's about $250 of yarn... for free!!
I have never been so lucky! AND I get to knit it!

That remind me... I have never knit an afghan before. I have crocheted 27 of them... but never knit. I think this speaks to me, it whispers little snippets in the night (Yes, I sleep with it by my bed. That's not because I'm a fetishish, but because my apartment is small) that say "cuddle up, knit in the recliner during the long winter snows. Watch Wrath of Khan for the hundredth time"

That's a little slice of heaven right there.

Interior Sunshine

2007-09-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

Dear goodness, is the newest LYS nice! Comfy chairs, full spectrum lighting... it's like a little slice of heaven. Speaking of... if you have never had a chance to knit in full spectrum lighting, check it out! You can see the difference in the paint on the walls. In the back room it's this dirty yellow color, and in the full spectrum its this lovely satiny eggshell color.

Anyways, enough about that. On to knitting. I decided to start a brand new pattern, because I don't have yarn in for my other projects. I even bought yarn to match. This is from Vogue Knitting (which I'm starting to think that no one should knit from unless it's a scarf or a blanket pattern) oh, 2005ish era. Falling leaves on a mohair background. The yarn is yummy - the leaves are "Kathmandu" - Merino/Cashmere/Silk, with laceweight mohair. I love the look, but the pattern needed to be beaten six ways to sunday. It lists that the leaves are a 14 row pattern... and them proceeds to only give you 12 of those rows. C'mon guys... they make editors for a reason! Anyways, I ended up making an overly large "gauge swatch" - a.k.a. I started the scarf and then had to learn to make choices and correct the pattern as I went, so I started over once I figured out exactly what to do.

I have faith that this will be marvelous once it is finished.

Creation of a knitter part 2

2007-09-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

Ah, grad school, land of studying you butt off and then searching for anything possible to take your mind off said studying. I enjoyed crafts throughout grad school, slowly teaching myself to sew and paint and build little theatrical models (as I was studying theater). The knitting was all but forgotten. The Harry Potter scarf needed some help come Halloween, being all basic stockinette stitch, the ends curled up into a sausage shape which eventually annoyed me enough to get out a crochet hook and ‘sew’ up the sides by single crocheting down the edges with the corresponding colors forming a very thick and somewhat lame tube scarf. Ah, but it was gloriously burgundy and gold and look good we did come all Hallow’s Eve, and things were swell.

Two years later came Serenity.

I knew little about Firefly the TV series other than my best friends Jen and her hippie husband Ruben loved the show. Crazy dog drooling loved the show. When it was cancelled there was much lamenting in their household, most of which I pretty much ignored. And when Serenity was announced there was much rejoicing, which was also ignored. Both Jen and Ruben were theatrical sorts. Jen and I had routinely dressed up in costumes to go see Harry Potter movies, and Ruben got it into his head that he felt left out. And so this happened:
Sitting, peaceably one night at the computer, I get a call. It was Ruben; all panicked as if someone had told him his cats were dying. “Jamie!” He practically yells, “Can you make me a Jayne hat?”

I paused for a second realizing I had no clue what he was talking about. “A what?”

“A Jayne Cobb Hat. I have a jpeg of it! Can you make one?”

“Ruben, what the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s a hat, you know, made with yarn like you do!”

“… crocheting?”

“Yeah, I think so. You’re crafty and I need one when I go see Serenity and I don’t know who else to ask.”

I sighed and said, yes, sure, I would see what I could do. His birthday was conveniently close and heck, making a present was better than buying Mr. ‘I don’t really like it’ a present so why not. I got on the internet and told him to send me his pictures. There was the man called Jayne in pixelated color, wearing the infamous hat. I zoomed in while he e-mails me website after website on potential hat making instructions and very quickly realized that this hat was not, in fact, crocheted. It was very much knit. I was back in the Harry Potter scarf conundrum.

I remembered how to knit… sort of. But I had only knit a long square, not a cone or hat, and this one required skills I didn’t possess… mystical skills like decreasing and joining. It was time for a new book and a new try (and new needles while I was at it.) The book ended up being the first Stitch N Bitch, the needles were bamboo circulars. The yarn was Lamb’s Pride Bulky because it was the right weight and had more colors than I could count, including passably Jayne Cobb hat colors. The amazing this I found was that using good needles and natural fiber, the yarn didn’t stick to the needles. It slid off beautifully without being too slippery. I was, in a word, amazed. So much that I started to actually enjoy the knitting.

Ah, but Jayne hats are chullo style, with earflaps. At that point in my career I didn’t have enough knowledge to knit them seamlessly or otherwise onto the hat, and I opted to knit the hat and crochet on the earflaps (my own design! Well, I suppose if you’re going to cheat you have to do it that way).

I managed to make two Jayne hats with the skeins I had purchased. One was a bit big, one was a bit small. I washed the bit big one in slightly warmer than needed water and it felted just enough to be the right size (god bless wool) and the bit small one luckily fit his wife, life was good again. But this venture into geek inspired knitting left me with an urge to knit, one that hasn’t yet been quelled.

So to blogdom and beyond!

Addendum:

Shortly before the creation of this blog I decided that my sad, sick little first project needed some updating. I also decided that I didn’t want an acrylic scarf. My summer and early fall project was a new Harry Potter scarf knit in the round so the edges wouldn’t curl with wool in a finer gauge. It was rather dull, but I love the result.

The creation of a knitter, Part 1

2007-09-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

Ok. Since it's been a long time since I posted and I'm trying to get this Blog up and running, let's start with a story, shall we? Get to know one another? good.

Besides, I have a knitting guild meeting tonight and pictures to download... if you don't chill out now there won't be any time left!

The creation of a knitter, Part 1

It all started with a book and a movie. It would start again later with another book and another movie, but at the time it was just one:

Harry Potter.

I have loved these books ever since the third one came out. I started reading the first on my plane trip to London to study during my undergrad, and read the majority of them all on the Underground waiting to get to my stops. Somehow reading about platform 9 ½ while you’re waiting for a train in King’s Cross Station makes it that much cooler. The Goblet of Fire came out while I was in London, so I felt even more spiffy to be able to buy it there. When I came back home I found that many of my geeky theatre friends also loved the books, and so we held a sort-of private fanliness between us.
And then the first movie came out. It wasn’t the best book to movie adaptation we have ever seen, but the visuals were magnificent. And coming out of the theatre I decided to myself that one day Harry Potter costumes would be had.

In those days I was on a quest to teach myself how to sew. I knew I was a theatrical designer and if I wasn’t going to do into costuming, I would certainly need the knowledge for things like soft props and upholstery. And so I got a fairly dashing cape pattern and knocked off my Harry Potter robe. I had the pants. I had the white shirt. I even found a website that sold Harry Potter ties (www.wildties.com - They have some of the best customer service on the web that I have ever had the pleasure to encounter, if I was a guy I would be this website’s biggest fan.) But alas… I needed a scarf.

At the local craft store there were free leaflets for “Wizard Scarves” which were, of course. Harry Potter scarves. They came in knit and crochet versions and I picked them both up. I had been crocheting for years, I could knock off afghans in a week, I figured I could knock off Harry Potter scarves in a day or so. But the problem was the crochet version looked distinctly…. wrong. It had that notable crochet texture, and the lines between the stripes were interrupted by the ‘v’ of the single crochet. It simply wouldn’t do for a replica of the movie costume and that irritated me. The movie ones were obviously knit and if I wanted a true Harry Potter scarf, mine would have to be knit as well.

The problem? I had less knowledge of knitting than a sentient asparagus did of Shakespeare. So I did what any sane person would do. I asked my Mom. Mom had to know… she was Mom. Mom could answer my sewing questions, she had taught me how to crochet, she could macramé and rumor had it she could tat…so she had to know how to knit too, right?
Well, only kind-of. Mom had only knitted once in her life and decided she didn’t like it. Her sister, my aunt had knitted when she was young but couldn’t remember how. My grandmother had knit some things, but she too gave it up in favor of crochet, and grandma couldn’t see very well anymore. But she did give me her old knitting needles. So I went back to my house with a conundrum.

Fortunately Mom does not have conundrums. She was shopping one day and saw a booklet entitled “I can’t Believe I’m Knitting” and bought it. So the next time I went home, there was properly Harry Potter colored yarn, grandma’s old aluminum knitting needles and the booklet waiting for me. So I would lean how to knit, and that was that. It was a tedious project of trial and error. Back then I couldn’t visually recognize a knit from a purl so I would forget what hand motion I was doing every time I set the work down. I ripped out a lot of it. To make things worse, while grandma had a beautiful collection of vintage crochet hooks, were knitting needles were cheap aluminum ones from the early 80’s. Every kind of yarn seemed magnetically attracted to them in such a way that you could cast one and it would simply adhere. 40 stitches by 6 ½ feet…it was the longest project I ever knit.

I finished the Harry Potter Scarf in September 2003, put the knitting needles away and promptly forgot about the whole thing. I traveled to grad school with the scarf and the costume and my crochet hooks, thinking “I’ll never knit again…”

Crochet vs. Knit, Round 1 (ding!)

2007-09-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

Oooh, new mags, and a rant!

I went to my local bookstore today to find that the magazine racks were filled with new magazines. Glorious new magazines. Wonderous new magazines.

And so I had to have them. well, some of them. Some of them have things inside that I would never ever knit or crochet. or both.

But I did find my guilty pleasure: Interweave Crochet, by our friends at Interweave Knits. I nearly fell down in joy the first time I ever saw this published, because I must confess I am a crocheter at heart. I have been knitting for a meer seven months. I have been crocheting for decades (which is pretty good since I'm not yet 30). I have over a dozen afghans under my belt, several sweaters, many hats, scarves, potholders and even a stuffed lamb in my crochet repetory. And so getting a new and potentially beautiful magazine into the hands of crocheters thrilled me. The new issue is... well, it's mediocre in terms of patterns, but it's not bad, but that's not the crux of my rant...

My rant concerns the ravelings on the last page. Usually these are interesting little tidbits, written for crafters, by crafters. But this one pisses me off. And I'll tell you why. It's supposed to be a story extoling the virtues of crocheting freeform art. For it's own sake. But the author, an editor of the magazine, has to use the first several paragraphs telling us how she is a knitter, and crochet is foreign.

Yes, I know. thank you. I practice this weird craft with a hook. The red headed stepchild to knitting.

Bloggers do this too. "I would love to knit this top, but I can't handle the crocheted edging"

what do you do with this hook? What do you do with your left hand?

What I wanted to know is what the hell do you do with these pointy things. Where was my hook? Why can't I go anywhere I want with these things? what do you mean I need 18 billion little double pointed needles in order to make a circle. Why can't I just chain 6, slip stitch them into a look, and SC into that loop X times? Viola! Circle! Want it bigger? Add more rounds! Want it a tube? Add more rounds without increasing stitches. Learning to knit after learning crochet is actually a better way to go around thinsg I found. My knitting friends who are just picking up crochet are agonizing over thier first scarf... for months. I learned knitting seven months ago and I'm on my fifth sweater. And when I can't solve something... well, I crochet it together.
I think that the idea that knit is right and crochet is left (like hands) is all wrong. There shouldn't be anything alien or strange about crochet. It's a yarn art, just like knitting. Yeah, it's different, but there are those of us out here who picked it up first. I'm proud of my l33t crochet skillz. I do not believe that they caused me "agony and frustration" as dear Miss Schroyer writes in her ravelings. At least no more agony and frustration that knitting causes.

A-hem. ok, I'll stop being a ranter now. I am, however going to whip up one of those yummy half knit, half crochet patterns I have and take it along to my next stitch and bitch. Why? because I can.

Mission Statement

2007-09-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

Yarn + Geek = Good

There, my mission statement in 5 words or less. :)

As a side note: This originally said Knit + Geek = Good and then someone pointed out that no matter how good it sounded, I crocheted too much to limit my blog to knitting. I agree. Long live my hooks!