Surprise!

My sweetie is sneaky. Very sneaky.

We got engaged last week, Friday.

Sure, we'd talked about it. I knew it was coming. But not then. Not Friday. Friday was supposed to be a belated birthday dinner. A romantic, just-the-two-of-us dinner, yes, but a birthday dinner. Because, on my actual birthday, I like to go out to dinner with friends, so he takes me out for the romantic dinner after my birthday. He did it last year, and we didn't get engaged. He said, the whole week leading up to the dinner that it was a birthday dinner, and I shouldn't expect anything, you know, out of the ordinary. He has said this before, before other events (Christmas, New Year's, my actual birthday, Valentine's Day), and we have not gotten engaged, so I figured he meant it.

Little did I know that months of telling me not to expect anything were simply laying the groundwork for me to...not expect anything.

It turns out he bought the ring weeks ago (as it happens, the day before my real birthday). He told his sister. He told my friend Brian, who was going to be visiting me this weekend. Brian said later that he avoided talkng to me for weeks because he couldnt't trust himself not to say anything.

My sweetie, though, was cool as a cucumber. I had no idea. And here I thought I could read him like a book.

Maybe I should rethink what this means for the years ahead :-).

Here is what I consider our official engagement pic, taken by Brian in Chinatown on Chinese New Year (hence the confetti):

See me waving my (btw, utterly gorgeous) ring? :-)

By way of warning: I expect there will be very little knitting content on this blog for some months to come!

Happy Valentine's Day

My sweetheart sent me some gorgeous flowers yesterday.





















Why yesterday? Because, you see, he hates Valentine's Day. It's a commercial Hallmark holiday, and it bugs him.


So he sent me flowers yesterday, as an un-Valentine's Day present. His way of being contrary without being contrary, I guess.


I was completely surprised. I didn't expect anything, since I know how he feels about the day. He caught me off guard completely.









I love them. I love him.











It got me thinking about Valentine's Day, though. My sweetie is not the first man I've dated who hates Valentine's Day. I attract (and am attracted to) rebels, maybe. I'd never really had an opinion about Valentine's Day--if anything, I used to think it was kind of silly. People (stereotypically women) do seem to get a little crazy about it, demanding wild proofs of love and expensive presents, and I do think that's stupid. I'd rather have a man who supports and loves me every day, rather than someone who gives me fancy presents once a year.


That said, the first time I dated someone who couldn't stop complaining about Valentine's Day, I started to get annoyed. I don't ask for a lot: a bunch of flowers, a kiss, and a tender moment. What's the big deal? I've read a lot of rants today in blogland about how stupid Valentine's Day is, how it's designed to value the superficial over the substantial. But I resent the idea that if I like to receive or give a present on the day, my relationship is founded on sand. It's not an either/or proposition.


To me, Valentine's Day is like Mother's Day. Mother's Day is another made up Hallmark holiday, complete with flowers that cost five times as much as any other day, and jacked-up Mother's Day menus in restaurants. But you can bet I don't call my mom for weeks prior to the day, telling her to expect nothing from me, because it's a stupid holiday, and I show her that I love her on all other days so she doesn't need anything special from me. A card, a phone call on the day: it's so little effort to put a smile on the face of someone you love. What's the problem with this?


All the ranting about Valentine's Day is as childish as the romantic adolescent paroxysms those rants are protesting, a kind of "I won't, and you can't make me." Get a grip: Valentine's Day is what you make it.


My sweetheart made it February 13th. Meanwhile, I bought him something for no reason, just because I thought he'd want it--and called it a Valentine's present to annoy him :-).

I can knit in the dark

My friend Brian has sent me a pair of these.

They are knitting needles, size 10.5, with lighted tips for knitting in dim light. They're hilarious. when I called him to thank him, he related the following story:

I was walking down the street and passed by a store and there were two women in the window knitting with them, so I decided I had to buy them for you.

I went in [I ask, "Was it a yarn store?"] -- yes, it was a yarn store -- and said I wanted to buy a pair for my friend who was a knitter.

She asked me, "What gauge does she knit at?"

I said, "Um, I don't know....."

She said, "Well, what does she like to knit?"

I said, "Ummm...she knit me a scarf, once...." [this was the scarf I knitted in grad school, fifteen years ago, the very first thing I ever knit]

She rolled her eyes, and sighed very loudly. I said, "I am just going to choose them by the color I like, and you can tell me if it's an unreasonable size."

And that's what he did. They're a nice purple. Isn't he sweet?

Weekend of knitting

It's MLKJ weekend, so I have celebrated by knitting.

I have finished the first of my toe-up socks:



It fits my boyfriend perfectly, so I am pretty proud of myself. Now...must fight Second Sock Syndrome!





I also took a break from the sock to knit this:







This is knit from an Insubordiknit Monster Hat kit. The handspun yarn is beautiful and soft, and I really enjoyed working with it.





Being a Monster Hat kit, it came with this lovely little monster patch:



(It has an open skull)

But, once I got the hat knit, the monster didn't really seem to fit it. I will have to use him for something else.












The hat is topless because I have a big head, and I like hats to cover my ears. I knew, therefore, that I would not have enough yarn for a full coverage hat, so I designed this, which I suppose technically is more of a headband. I like this design, though, because it lets me keep my ponytail neat:

More socks

Here are better pictures of the black socks.

I am knitting these out of Smiley's cashmere, using a pattern I've cobbled together myself. I am using Judy's magic cast-on, wiseneedle's proportions and heel, and a mistake rib pattern on the top of the instep and aound the leg.

Here's a close-up of the cast-on:

This is my first pair of toe-up socks, and I chose this cast-on because, I have to admit, I have a block against provisional cast-ons. They seem fussy to me, for some reason. Anyway, this is gloriously simple, and produces, with little or no effort, a totally seamless toe. Since I hate seaming and grafting, I love the idea of totally seamless socks!

The heel I am less happy with:

You can't really see it here, but it looks crummy. I don't like having to pick up two wraps on the same stitch. Sometime I could only get one. This is definitely too fussy and annoying for me. I am debating whether to switch to a Sherman heel on the second sock, or do this one again for the sake of making them identical.

I love the mistake rib--it's pretty, but not too feminine since I am making these for my sweetie. I like the strong vertical lines, and also the 3-D aspect--the ridges stick out nicely. On the top of the instep, I used 27 stitches in order to have both edges of the pattern match; one I got the leg, I added a stitch so that the leg is 56 stitches around. I knit the stockingnette sole on 6s and the mistake rib on 4s because the rib comes in a wider stitch gauge. But it also comes in at a shorter row gauge, so I had to throw in a couple makeup rows. On the leg, I'm on 4s the whole way around, but I am thinking of gradually increasing my needle size as I go up to incorporate some easy leg shaping. We'll see!

We'll also see if I can repeat all of this improvisation on the second sock...because I'm not taking notes :-).

Multitasking

I just want to take a moment to crow:




Crow about what?

The sock, which I am making toe-up with a fabulous magic cast-on? The fact that I've designed the thing myself, and it looks mighty nice?

No. That will be later (with a better picture).

I'll give you a hint. See that manuscript under the sock? It's a manuscript I am reading for work. It's quite an interesting one, about dreams, and the place of the image in religion (it argues that Judeo-Christian religion is a religion of the word). I am about 110 pages in.

No, I didn't write this manuscript (good grief).

No, I didn't acquire it; I am not its editor.

Give up?


I have figured out how to read while knitting.

An Ode to Honeycrisps

Warning: no knitting content here!

Let me first say: I don't like apples. I never have. And I've given them a very good chance: I've tried Granny Smiths, MacIntoshes, Galas, Fujis, Cortlandts, Macouns, Braeburns. And some are better than others. Some are passable enough that I've thought, "This isn't bad. Maybe I'll buy more." So I buy two or three more, I eat one, and the rest sit in my fridge for months until I finally give up and throw them away. I eat apples, when I eat them, because they're good for me. Not because I like them. They are never sweet enough, juicy enough, crisp enough. They are always just a little too mealy, with a skin that turns to leather in my mouth and refuses to be swallowed no matter how long I chew. I don't like apples.

Sometimes, I bake them in pies, and then they are yummy.

Then, one day last month, I was in the grocery store, once again eyeing the apples and thinking, "It's winter. It's apples or nothing. Try a new one. Maybe, just maybe, this time, you'll find it." I saw a kind I'd never seen before, a Honeycrisp. Its name suggested sweetness and crispness, two things I feel are lacking in every apple I've ever tried. I know apple names mean nothing (Red Delicious, anyone?), but I bought a couple. Why not.

I took them home. I dutifully ate one.

I loved it. It is everything I've always wanted in an apple--sweet, crispy, and so juicy you have to suck on it a little when you bite it, or juice might run down your arm. It is the first and only apple I have ever eaten as a treat. I take one to work and I eat it at 10:30 because I can't wait 'til lunch. You know how diet gurus are always telling you to eat apples when you want something crisp--like potato chips--or sweet? I've always thought that people who advise this must hate food. They must never have eaten a potato chip in their lives.

Maybe they've been eating Honeycrisps.

Alas, they are hard to find. When I ran back to the store to buy more, they were gone. I've since found more at the farmer's market (I bought four. Then I went back and bought five), but that's a bit of a trek. Then, tonight I found some at another grocery store, after visiting three other stores in vain. I grabbed seven before they disappear again.

I'm obsessed. If you see some when you're out shopping, buy them. Eat one, and send the rest to me (kidding).

(Kind of.)

Fickleness, thy name is Knitter

Well, small knitted gifts are past, and I am back to thinking about sweaters.

No, I am not working on either of my two sweater WIPs. Yes, this is the beginning of an entirely new sweater. I am fickle. On the bright side, though, it's a true stash buster, using Berroco Pleasure, an angora blend yarn I've had for some time, awaiting the right project. That project is this:

From the Spring/Summer 2005 Vogue Knitting, a pattern by Norah Gaughan, who always has interesting designs. I fell in love with the construction of this--the lace strip comes down one side of the opening, turns at the bottom, and comes back up the other side. The sweater is therefore closed at the bottom--it is not a cardigan.

I have a weakness for unusual design--this summer I made a Roundabout Tank top from Gaughan's book KNITTING NATURE, which was essentially a strip that wrapped around the body. Not the most flattering thing, but the construction was extremely cool.

In other news, my boyfriend has requested a pair of socks. I've knitted him things (hats) before, of course, but never at his request. I'm pretty pleased that he likes my knitting enough to ask for something, and I am busily planning the socks. I think I will try making this pair toe-up, which will require my learning a provisional cast-on.

I will get back to the Kool-Aid sweater eventually--right now it's winter, though, and even though it's been remarkably warm so far this season, I am hankering for a nice fuzzy sweater. Which I will probably not finish until July :-).

The seduction of big needles

Well, I've finished the baby blanket:

(Here's the back)

This has to be something of a record for me: start to finish in one week. Granted, I have been home with nothing but knitting, sleeping off a cold, and laundry to do for the last several days, but on the other hand, there were Christmas Eve and Christmas in there, when no knitting got done. You saw my last post--I had all of six, maybe eight inches done. Now here I am, two days later, with a full 29" of baby blanket to show.

How can this be, you ask?

Well. It's the size 17 needles, of course. Blue Sky Organic Cotton is worsted weight, normally knit on size 9s or so. But the herringbone stitch requires a bigger-than-usual needle, and thus I am done in a flash.

I like the Blue Sky Organic Cotton a lot, but I am somewhat concerned that, nice though it looks, this may not have been the right stitch for it--it seems to be pilling a bit already. Being unmercerized and loosely spun, I guess it is more prone to pilling, and I should therefore probably have knit it much tighter. We shall see how it looks after I run it through the wash (yes, the wash: it's a baby blanket, and what's a baby blanket that is not washable? Worse than useless, I say). I might get lucky--the pilling is manifesting as a slight fuzz that might end up being more charming than ratty, and the blanket should shrink some in the wash, and tighten up. We can only hope. And it is wonderfully soft, perfect for a baby.

I guess, since the baby's not due for over a month, I have time to knit something else :-).

After Christmas pictures

As promised, some pictures. On some blogs you will see boring pictures of smiling kids in front of Christmas trees. Here, you get knitting:

Dad's socks, on my feet (note how the toes turn up because they're too big for me :-).

My dad loves them. As it happens, he had been looking for some warm socks, and had been unable to find any. Their house can get quite cold, and he had been searching high and low for wool socks, with no success. So, these cashmere beauties were very timely. He was so excited I think I may have to knit him another pair--if he wears these every day, I suspect they will not last long!

Here is the baby dress, knit out of Knitpicks Shine Worsted. I adapted a Debbie Bliss pattern, changing the yarn weight from fingering to worsted, and adding the stripes, because I didn't have enough yarn in either color to make it solid (yes, this was a true stash buster!). I think it turned out very fine. The adorable baby was born on Thursday, December 21, a day or two after I finished the dress.

And, here are the beginnings of the baby blanket for the baby due in February:

A closeup of the herringbone texture:

I am knitting this out of Blue Sky Organic Cotton (another true stash buster); the colors are naturally grown in the cotton; no dyes used. It's wonderfully soft and has a lovely sheen. I am using a stitch pattern I took from a poncho pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts; you will never convince me that ponchos are a good thing, but the stitch pattern is lovely.

I hope you had a great Christmas! Mine was really wonderful, despite a nasty cold, and my very sweet boyfriend gave me a copy of Socks, Sock, Socks (despite feeling a bit embarrassed standing in the Knitting/Crocheting section of the Barnes & Noble, he persevered until he found it), so I have many new plans for the new year.

A recipe

I have finished dad's socks; they have been shipped off (with mom's socks) to the parents, and will arrive in time for Christmas. Whee!

Baby dress is also done, for the baby who was due on Saturday but has not yet arrived. Her mother is going to the hospital today to give her a little "inducement".

Pics to come shortly. Though, happily, dad's second sock looks much like the first, so you could just imagine the last picture doubled.

As a result of the FO frenzy, last night I found myself with no knitting demanding attention (what's that you say? I can't hear you. Did you say something about a "Kool-Aid lace sweater"? Did you say "Somewhat Cowl sweater"? I do not understand you; you'll have to speak up). I've brought out the yarn for the baby blanket I plan for the February baby, but in my swatching I have discovered I need a bigger needle, and I cannot borrow such needle from a friend until tomorrow.

So, I stopped in a farmer's market on the way home and picked up some collard greens and onions, and made a very fine soup, if I do say so myself.

And so, in my first official Departure from Knitting Entries, a recipe of sorts:

Collard Green Soup
Serves 2, with leftovers

Remove the tough ribs from a bunch of collards and tear the leaves into eatable pieces. Wash them.

Chop two small onions and smash several (about five or six) cloves of garlic. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a largish pot over medium heat and saute the onions and garlic. When the onion is soft, splash in some soy sauce.

(I added the soy sauce because I lacked bacon or ham or some other smoky, salty thing, the usual accompaniment to collards. I probably put in a couple tabelspoons, enough to give some flavor but not enough to taste of soy sauce.)

Add about 1/3-1/2 cup of white wine, and boil for a few seconds to cook off the alcohol. Pour in two cans of less-sodium fat free chicken broth (see how healthy this is?). Bring to a boil, then stir in the collards. Cover and simmer for 1/2 an hour.

Drain and rinse a can of white beans and add them. Simmer another fifteen minutes, or until beans are soft. Then season to taste with cumin (for more smoky flavor), salt, pepper, and cayenne. I made mine spicy with plenty of pepper and cayenne. Simmer another five minutes or so.

This was really delicious, and scary healthy. Low fat, high fiber, vitamin rich, and perfect for my sweetie, who has a bad cold. Sheesh.

In other news: Kimono Angora is on sale at WEBS. What's that you say? I already have 11.5 skeins of Kimono Angora burning a hole in my yarn stash? You'll have to speak up--I can't hear you over my drooling....

Holiday madness

I've been slow to update the blog because holiday madness has taken over, and I have not done much knitting. This is starting to make me very nervous, as I still have one sock for dad to finish before Christmas!

Alas, because I am basically making up the sock (combining a couple different patterns and making up the heel flap based on the one [one!] I've done before--this caused by my failure to bring the right items on the plane with me), I made an error in second sock. OK, two errors: 1) I made the ribbbing one row too long. 2) I flipped the stitch pattern around to make symmetrical socks, without realizing that this meant I had to change the ribbing from k1, p1 to p1, k1.

Now, I caught error 1 fairly early, but I thought it wouldn't bother me. I told myself that my dad would never notice one extra row of ribbing and I don't have a lot of time; I should just keep going. Naturally, after another inch of knitting I concluded I Just Couldn't Bear It. So, I tried to fix the problem by dropping stitches and hooking them back up, only to discover error 2. Error 2 was noticeably ugly. I think even someone not anal about knitting would notice it.

Now, I know knitting is a forgiving craft. I know I could have fudged something. But I think fudging would have taken just as long as what I did: I frogged the whole thing and started over. >sigh< It took me only about three hours to get back to where I was, so perhaps in the grand scheme of things I have not lost a great deal of time. But: I have to ship the presents in time for Christmas, which means, by my reckoning, I have until Tuesday to finish the socks.

Guess what I will be doing this weekend? Baby dress (for a baby due any minute) has been put aside for the sock. All other projects are on hold. I am not even to think about/swatch for/fondle the yarn of a baby blanket I plan to make for a February baby. And I certainly am not to start fantasizing about this:

What, you might ask, is this? This is ten skeins of Kimono Angora. Ten skeins, won on eBay for very respectable amount. Ten skeins in the same colorway (though not the same dyelot) as the leftovers I have from my mom's socks. Which means I really have 11, maybe 11.5 skeins. I am drooling over the sweater I am giong to make with this!

January, will you never come??

Hawaii is not for knitters

So, I haven't been knitting much (I know!), because I have been on vacation in Hawaii (the Big Island). I have to admit: hiking, kayaking and snorkeling, not to mention volcanoes, mountains and beaches, don't leave a lot of room (or energy) for knitting.

Nevertheless, it does take thirteen hours to get to Hawaii, including the layover in LA--that's as long as it takes to get to Japan. (Actually, now that I think about it, the plane tickets to Japan in March were cheaper than to Hawaii in November. Hmm.) So, some knitting did get done, to wit:


One sock for dad, knit out of 100% cashmere from Smiley's.

I've also made progress on my Kool-Aid project:



This is the beginnings of the sleeve of the Vogue lace sweater. It's hard to really see the pattern, since lace benefits hugely from blocking, but I'm quite happy with it so far. As you can see, the variegations in the colors are making some nice subtle stripes, which I am liking quite a bit. I hope different balls don't lead to different patterning (always a danger with handpainted variegated yarn). But so far, I'm pleased.

Berry Blue + Grape = Teal?

Here is my yarn, happily boiling in Kool-Aid:


Looks tasty, doesn't it?

Here is is, rinsed, washed, and hung up to dry:

What you can't really see here is that I've actually produced a variegated yarn--the amount of yarn I had was really jammed into my 6-quart pot, so some parts of the yarn did not dye as thoroughly as others. I actually like this; I was a little worried the Kool-Aid would make for a rather flat color. My only concern is how it's going to knit up, since the variegation certainly does not follow any planned pattern. I hope I don't end up with large patches of light blue and large blotches of dark blue.

What you can tell from this photo is that the yarn has come out a blue that is almost teal. Not quite, but it definitely edges a little into green. Since I had blue and purple Kool-Aid, this puzzles me.

The answer, I think lies here:

The photo is blurry, but you can hopefully see in the center of that circle, the yarn I used to tie these skeins. That yarn was white 100% wool, and it's now purple. So that 34% silk in my main yarn is having a pretty significant effect. Happily, not only did it make the color turn teal, it also made it a strong and glossy color. It's not what expected, but I really, really, like it.

I hope it stays this nice as it dries!

Potato chip

So, I've reached the point of sewing up the baby dress, and my mom was visiting, so no work could be done on Dad's socks, so the only answer this weekend was a throwaway project, the potato chip scarf:

This is a free pattern from Knitpicks, and it's pretty simple: cast on 150 stitches, knit one row, Knit front and back of every stitch on the next row, knit two rows, knit front and back, etc. It's super easy, but what they don't tell you is that, since the stitch count increases exponentially, in no time at all your 150 stitches have become 1,200 stitches, and you're taking over an hour per row. Binding off took me well over two hours. I had to stop halfway because I had to go to bed. So, even though overall the scarf took me only about a day and a half, I feel like it took forever.

For you non-knitters out there, 1,200 stitches is a lot--the sweaters I make are usually between 200-300 stitches around. Now, of course there are many more stitches total in a sweater, but there's something about that psychological milepost of the finished row that makes for easy knitting.

I used two balls of Berroco Furz in plum and one ball of Le Fibre Nobili Geisha in cherry (I think). Both are fun furs I had in my stash, so at least this interminable scarf was a true stash-buster. I can tell you the Furz is a much nicer yarn to work with than the Geisha, but since they're both discontinued, I don't know how much use this info is :-)

This is a lousy picture of it on (boy, do I need to clean that mirror!), but hopefully you can see the scarf's charming tendency to corkscrew. I'm actually extremely fond of it. I can see how making scarfs for gifts can be addicting, my grad school experience aside. I am considering giving away this scarf, though the more I prance about in it, the less likely that becomes.

Yes, it is called the potato chip scarf because no one can make just one. Maybe next time I will make liberal use of stitch markers for milestones.

Success

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!



What you see here are 15 packets of Berry Blue, and six packets of Grape. I'm supposed to have one packet for every ounce of yarn, so this is about right. I am hoping to produce a nice blue with hints of purple.

Where did I find it? A giant Gristedes, almost as big as a suburban supermarket (or so I like to think; whenever I go into one of those suburban places I am astonished a building can cover so much acreage without the roof falling in), about ten blocks from my house. They didn't have a lot of flavors, but they had the ones I needed.

My mom is visting me right now, and I think she will think I have gone completely over the deep end if she were to witness me boiling yarn in Kool-Aid, so I think I will wait 'til next week to begin the experiment :-).

Cute pics

Here is my sweetie, humoring my strange penchant for taking pictures of knitting:

















It is, alas, a bit big for him, though at least I got the circumference right!

He confirms it is very warm. And just in time, too, as it is just about winter-coat-and-hat weather here.

I am still ridiculously proud of this hat--and the guy who wears it :-).

Savor the irony

I am obsessed. I have now been to 7 stores (6 grocery stores [two Gristedes, one D'Agostino's, one C-Town, one Associated, one Food Emporium], and one Rite-Aid), and remain unable to find Kool-Aid. I have even gone out to Astoria, Queens, where my boyfriend lives in a somewhat more kid-friendly neighborhood, and, even though his grocery store has an aisle labeled "powdered drink mixes", there was no unsweetened Kool-Aid to be found. I guess moms today prefer to allow the Kool-Aid man or the Capri Sun lady to decide how much sugar goes in their kids' drinks.

So, this morning, I have gone online to find unsweetened Kool-Aid, and the first link turned up by Google is that old reliable, Amazon.

Go ahead, click on the link. Savor the irony:

"Ships from and sold by Gristedes Supermarkets of New York."

Hey, Kool-Aid!

I was recently explaining to my friend Christina that there are not a lot of kids in my neighborhood. Small apartments + sky-high real estate costs makes for not a lot of families with small children.

This was brought home to me in the last day or two by my inability to find Kool-Aid.

The grocery store nearest my apartment had some Kool-Aid, but they were unusual "ethnic" flavors like "Jamaica" (browny-red), "Mango" (orangey-yellow) and "Tamarindo" (dirty brown). Tasty, I am sure, but unfrotunately not the colors I am looking for. I really just want some Blue Moon Berry, maybe mixed with some Lemon Lime or Grape Berry Squash.

So, I went to the next nearest grocery store, and get this--they don't carry Kool-Aid at all. I know! Even the checkout girl I asked was surprised when the manager told her. I mean, I know grocery stores in Manhattan are pressed for space and have to make some hard choices, but I feel there is something wrong with the world when there is no room for Kool-Aid.

I've lived in Manhattan ten years, and in that time I have been on more than few food quests. I once visited six grocery stores in search of guava paste. Glaceed cherries was quite a challenge. Dried porcini mushrooms, chipotle en adobo, Chimay Belgian ale....I am used to the hunt. I even get a thrill out of it.

But...Kool-Aid? Kool-Aid, the ubiquitous bug juice of my childhood, an exotic ingredient?

Where is the Kool-Aid man when you need him?

A Project

Here is the sweater I bought in the thrift store on Saturday, two weekends ago:


It's a Casual Corner sweater, size XL, 66% wool, 34% silk. It's got a lovely sheen to it, and when measured in rib, it's about 7 stitches per inch. I bought it for $4.49 at the Goodwill store on 181st Street, waaaaayyyy uptown, in a Dominican neighborhood.



Here is the same sweater, unraveled into fluffy kinky balls. I love this stage, and the bounciness of these hanks of yarn.















Those same hanks, after washing, hanging in my shower to drip dry and unkink:















The finished product, 22 oz. of yummy (almost edible!) wool/silk yarn, waiting to be turned into lace:















But wait, wait, there's one more step. You see, I've decided that I simply cannot wear white lace. It's too girly. Quite honestly, I do not know what line white lace crosses to become "too girly", since, after all, I just finished knitting a pair of pink fuzzy angora socks, but I know it has crossed that line. So the only thing for it is to change the color of this lovely yarn.

How, you ask?

Kool-Aid.

Socks!

Well, here are mom's socks, on my feet:
















I used, in total, slightly less than two balls of Louisa Harding Kimono Angora in color #4, and somewhat less than 3 balls of Elann's Baby Cashmere in "Claret," knit at 6 stitches per inch on size 3 double-points.

The pattern comes from the sock book shaped like a sock; I don't remember what the pattern is called, as I have already returned the book ton its owner :-).

It's got a subtle windowpane texture which is lost, visually, in the variegated yarn, but trust me: it looks nice in 3D.

The Kimono Angora is 70% angora, 25% wool, 5% nylon; the Baby Cashmere is 60% baby alpaca, 30% merino wool, and 10% cashmere. I guess that makes these socks 35% angora, 30% baby alpaca, 27.5% wool, 5% cashmere, and 2.5% nylon. Easily the most luxurious socks I have ever had on my feet. I love them, and I have been well-bitten by the sock bug. I think I will make socks for my dad for Christmas, too, in 100% cashmere, as he is a cashmere junkie.

I love the Kimono Angora, by the way: it is soft and fuzzy as angora should be, but it doesn't have the shedding I associate with angora and, most importantly, it doesn't itch. I'm not joking: I stuck my swatch inside my bra for a few hours and didn't notice it at all. Normally if I put something with angora next to my skin, it itches like crazy. This is a great tragedy for me, as I adore angora. But I can wear Kimono Angora! I only wish it weren't so darned expensive; I'd make a sweater out of it.

Maybe I can afford a Kimono Angora bikini :-).

Lace

I am not a big fan of knitted lace. I think it's a bit clunky, and not at all airy or ethereal, as lace should be. This is too bad, because knitting lace is actually kind of fun, what little I've done of it. I like yarnovers. I like it better than I like cables, which require too much fiddling around with a little cable needle that I'm always misplacing.

So, not being a fan of knitted lace, I have completely ignored most knitted lace patterns I've seen. Yeah, I thought, it would be fun, but it's ugly.

Then I saw this.

Now, I know that I am by no means the first or the only person to be impressed by the Yarn Harlot. I am very late to the party. And much, much praise has been heaped on this shawl, and justly so. It's stunning. It is so stunning that it has inspired in me a fierce desire to knit some lace.

Here's the problem: I have no use for a shawl. Lace knitters seem to knit lots and lots of shawls, and for the most part when I admire a piece of lace knitting, it is usually a shawl. They're pretty amazing. But my life is not a shawl-wearing life. I can barely keep the pashmina I have in my office to guard against the arctic air conditioning off of the floor long enough that I don't roll my chair over it more than three times a day. If I knit a shawl, it will lie folded up in my closet, to be admired on occasion but never worn. And even though that is the fate of a lot of my knitting, I just can't accept starting out a project with that understanding in mind. That's a lot of knitting for art's sake.

Unfortunately, last weekend I bought a sweater at a thrift store in a lovely cream 66% wool / 34% silk blend. As is my wont, I am the process of unraveling this beauty to have a sweater's worth of yarn for a mere $4.50. The yarn is thinner than I normally go for--it looks like sport or even fingering weight--and so, naturally, it has become the focus of my lace hunger.

And so, with my better judgment in full protest, I have been looking high and low for a top with a lace that is sufficiently pretty to feed my idea of what lace should be, yet not so over-the-top that it looks ridiculous, and have been having real problems. For a while, it looked like I might win the battle, Finicky Taste uniting with Better Judgment (not to mention a few things like WIP Baby Dress and WIP Mom's Socks) to fight off the lace urge long enough to let it die, as so many of my knitting urges do. Then, I flipped through the Winter Vogue Knitting again, and came upon this:

Mind you, I have flipped through this issue several times already, and never paused on this. It's ridiculously girly, and the stupid model's pose makes it impossible to tell what it looks like. But, but...look at that sleeve! I love the lace, and I love the way the end of the sleeve flares, and I love, love, love the geometric hem of the sleeve, which kind of reins in the floral fantasy. As for the rest of the thing....well. I like the ruffled neckline well enough (I actually am in a ruffle period in my life right now. I know: I need help), though it's a bit aggressive for my taste, and, frankly, combined with the lace it's just a little too much. I don't like the length--I'm not sure I'll have enough yarn for it, and I think it will look dumb.

But the major problem is, am I going to wear a lace top? In white, no less? Am I that princessy? Is there any way I could conceivably modify this that it would be wearable? Do I care?

Or, to put it more simply...what do I knit for?

FO's

As promised, some pictures.

Here is my sweetie's hat.

Yes, that's "hat," not "hats." It's a Mets hat on one side, and, when you turn it inside-out, it's a Rangers hat.























I am, I must admit, insanely proud of this hat. I made it up myself. I charted the design, I made the pom-poms. I basically figured out intarsia and duplicate stitching as I went along. Probably if I had it to do again, I would do things differently, and better, but I love this nonetheless.

I only hope it not to big for my sweetie's tiny pinhead :-).

Here is a pic of my mom's sock:

I knitted this with a strand of Elann's Baby Cashmere and a strand Louisa Harding Kimono Angora, held together. It is beautifully fuzzy and soft, and very warm: the perfect sleeping sock. Not bad fo my first attempt at sock-making, I must admit. And socks are the perfect portable kntting: I knitted the bulk of this one on a plane.

Now, I just have to finish the second one before Christmas!

Traveling and knitting

I realize I have been remiss in updating this blog, but I have been traveling (and knitting).

I am home now, with considerable progress made on:

1) Mom's socks: I have finished one sock, and it's soft and beautiful and I am totally in love with it.

2) My boyfriend's hat: the deadline for this is Nov. 10, but happily I am nearly done. It looks pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself, despite the challenges of the Rangers logo. I just have a lot of duplicate-stitch embroidery to do, and the finishing, which will be the tricky part. But I think I may even be done with this tonight!

3) A Lizard Ridge afghan: this is a pattern in the new knitty. I love it, even though I don't really like Noro Kureyon, and even though I flat-out hate afghans. Yet I could not resist this. It's pretty, each block is small and quick to knit, and it's interesting. I am almost done with the second of 22 blocks. I have no idea what I am going to do with it when it's done: I really dislike afghans.

The Somewhat Cowl and the mittens are stalled, alas, as I try to meet deadlines. In the twinkle-in-the-eye stage: a baby dress and booties for a friend having a baby in December, and a baby blanket for my boyfriend's brother, whose wife is having a baby in February.

Pictures to come!

The hazards of knitting

My hands and wrists have been hurting a lot lately, in part thanks to knitting.

My right wrist, in particular: I injured it some 15 years ago and it has not been the same since (don't get me started on how much I hate futons!). When it rains, it hurts. And when I've been typing or knitting too much, it hurts. It doesn't hurt where most people with carpal tunnel seems to hurt, on the underside. No, it hurts on the outside, right where that protruding knob is.

The sweater I've been working on is on Knitpicks Options needles, and I don't think this has helped. Normally I work on Denises, but the yarn I am using was too "grabby" on the ,so I switched to the Options. They're metal, and they lack flexibility. They hurt.

So, rather than stop knitting (hah!), I've done two things:

1) I've switched (back) to combination knitting.

2) I've bought some Handeze gloves:















I bought the kind that come up the fingers, since my fingers hurt, too. As far as I can tell, you can only get these on the Handeze.com website.


Don't I look like some kind of snazzy knitting superhero? Batknitter, or Purlgirl. I should be able to shoot hand-dyed wool from my wrists like Spider-Man.

They've been surprisingly helpful so far. Fingers crossed!

Hey, cool hat!

I'm loving it:


I'm in the groove right now, that great groove where you love what you're knitting and you can't wait to finish it.

Alas, there are times (many times; most times) when that groove fails; you hit a pebble on the track, and suddenly you just don't care anymore. Something has happened to spoil your pleasure: you've made a mistake too huge to fix, you've realized the pattern is ugly/boring/unflattering. Maybe you're just very, very tired of cables, or of the feel of that yarn. You can't finish. You want to move on to something else, something more interesting, something where that groove is still waiting, something that is not starting to stink of failure.

Right now my mittens are languishing. I am ashamed. They are languishing because I can't decide how to decrease the top of the second mitten. I know I dislike how I did it on the first mitten, but I can't decide how to change it. Also the thumb is placed too low, I think, after having been placed too high on the first mitten. I feel defeated.

But the hat, the hat still loves me. It is still turning out the way I planned it in my head. Each row is a thing of beauty. I really, really, hope it stay this way, because I actually want to finish this one.

I just know it will be perfect.

Design

Well, I've been working on that hat for my boyfriend, and I hate it. Check it out:


This is actually my third attempt. The first time through, my stranding across the back was a mess--much too tight, no doubt because I am stranding across 18 stitches. I've never really done intarsia before, and I'm just winging it and finding that doing it in the round is a mistake. The second tme through, I fixed the stranding tension, but the gauge was completely off, so I had to rechart it.

This is the third time, and it's perfect. The stranding is great:

And you can clearly see the pattern (yes, it's a Mets logo). It looks great, and I hate it.

My objection is simply that it looks like a hat you could buy. Blue with an orange logo centered on the front. Such hats ae everywhere. Sure, maybe my logo is a bit larger than your average commercial hat, but why go through all this trouble to make a hat I could buy?

I want a hat which will make other Mets fans say, "Hey, cool hat!"

It doesn't help that I want to make this a doubled hat, with a Rangers logo on the other side. The Rangers logo could not have been better designed to make it difficult to knit:

I've realized that the only thing to do is to make the logo huge, cut off the top and bottom, and make it more of an impressionistic Rangers hat. But this will make the Mets side all the more boring.

I've decided therefore, that, however proud I am about how good it looks, I must rip the whole thing out and start over. I'm going to blow up the Mets logo, too, rechart it, and do some serious intarsia, back-and-forth and seamed. This will be an interesting experiment.

I am learning, as I start designing, that I appear to be a hit-or-miss designer. This is frustratng to me, since knitting takes so very long. I want to get it right the first time! But I'm also an impatient type, and at a certain point I just want to dive in and knit; there's only so much visualizing, planning, and charting I can do (and it's a very small amount, I admit). So, I am resigning myself to rippng out a lot. I have to say, my poor blue yarn is looking a little ragged. It's tough stuff--Elann's Highland Wool--but I've now frogged it three times. Good thing it's cheap!