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?

Socks N Dirge of Cerberus

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

Sweaters, Sweaters, Sweaters!!

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?

Hat Update Numba Three

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.

Interior Sunshine

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

 
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

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…”