Emily's Musings on Knitting

I'm Old!

2009-05-11T07:55:00.001-07:00

How old? Check out these custom M&Ms my mom sent me last week:How cool are they? In case you can't read them, they say, "Emily's 30 WOW." And they're my favorite colors as well :)

I know I've vanished - I'll try to be back soon. Here's a brief update! I went to Florida. It was fun. I've been knitting. But nothing complicated. I think I'm going to abandon the Petal Halter. I finished my second Clapotis. It's great. I'm trying to schedule my thesis defense. Scary. Therefore, I have to write my thesis. Scarier. And find a job. Scariest...

But today is my birthday, so I'm keeping a positive attitude!!!

I'm out of here,,,

2009-04-02T22:18:00.001-07:00

I'm leaving this misery:

And this chaos:

And spontaneously running off to Florida for the weekend. It's going to be tough to leave, don't you think?

I'll just have to endure it...

(Bonus points if you recognize that last line)

Transition Mitts

2009-03-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

Finished! Now if we could just transition into spring that would be great!
Project Stats: Transition Mitts
Pattern: Transition Gloves by Kerin Dimeler from ShibuiKnits. Raveled here.

Yarn: ShibuiKnits Sock in Pagoda and Ivory, one skein each with some to spare. Yarn purchased from Knit Purl (Portland) at the Madrona Fiber Festival.

Needles: Size 1 (2.25mm) and 2.5 (3mm) DPNs.

Time to knit: February 13 - March 28, 2009.

Modifications: None, aside from using slightly smaller needles for the colorwork section because they were seeming a bit big.
Impressions: OMG! These are great - I love them! I had a really tough time choosing colors, and it was actually good that I bought the yarn at a festival and they didn't have the full range of options - otherwise I'd have been completely stymied. Originally I wanted brown and turquoise, like these by TelmahQ, which I faved on Ravelry for inspiration months ago. And then I saw some turquoise and ivory ones, which I also loved. But in the end the orange won me over (and to be frank I have a lot of teal and turquoise already). As per usual any time I do colorwork, I was reminded how much I enjoy it. It's just so satisfying to see the pattern unfolding so rapidly - good motivation.

All that said, I'm not sure how useful these will be. As you can see, they're quite long, almost to the elbow, and even though it's thin yarn it would still be tough to get them under most of my sweater sleeves. Plus, you really only see the orange bit unless a 3/4-sleeve shirt is involved, and I don't have that many of those. I do have a 3/4-sleeve grey jacket that they work well with, so at least I have something to wear with them. I had considered this problem before making them, but I really wanted to make them so I pushed it aside and figured it would work itself out, so I'm sure it will! Thanks to Katrina for taking the photos!

It's not all FOs around here - I have a new project as well! This isn't actually new, I've been working on it for a few weeks now, but it's my work project so I haven't taken any photos of it. This is another Clapotis:

I'm hoping I'll actually get some use out of this one - my other one is really too bulky to wear comfortably, so I haven't worn it much. This one is knit with sockweight yarn, and it's very drapey, so I think it'll be more useful. Don't expect it to be finished very quickly - I'm only knitting it at lunch and I get a little less than one repeat done per day, so it'll be awhile...Here's a close-up of the yarn - it's Araucania Ranco Multi:

Lovely, yes? So many colors :)

A vest for David

2009-03-25T09:19:00.001-07:00

Thank you all for the comments on the evil cast-on for the Petal Halter. As you can see here, I've finished the first petal, and I must admit that, despite being one of the worst knitting experiences I can remember, the cast-on works pretty well. It's a bit looser than the rest of the knitting though, so I'm thinking about using smaller needles on the next one to tighten it up a bit. The shaping on this is really cool, and the pieces go pretty quickly once you get past the beginning. We'll see how long it takes me to summon the courage/energy/alcohol to start the second (of six) piece... In other news, I have a secret project that can now be revealed! This is the vest I knit for Jennifer's baby, David, who was born on February 13th. It was just gifted this past weekend, so it can finally be shown off on the blog.
Project Stats: Vest for Jennifer's David
Pattern: Design F (seriously): Pullover Sweater and Vest/Tank Top by Sirdar. Raveled here.
Yarn: Knit Picks Cotlin, Kolhrabi - less than 2 skeins.
Needles: Size 3 (ribbing) and 5 (everything else) Clover Bamboo.
Time to knit: March 4-15, 2009.
Modifications: I don't think I made any - if I did I've already forgotten them...
Impressions: This is a cute little item! The v-neck ended up being a little smaller than I was going for, and I'm not sure if that's something I did or the pattern, as the project photo in the book makes it difficult to tell how deep it should be. I love Cotlin - it's great to knit with, blocks nicely, and I assume wears well, although I haven't kept anything I've knit with it. This is the same yarn as the Petal Halter, so I'll find out about the wear soon enough. The color is more accurate in the second photo, but the flash obliterated the texture. Hard to get both texture and color these days, since the sun doesn't shine...I used much less yarn than I expected - the pattern had me ordering three skeins and I used about 1.5 to make the 6-12 month size. I think that was a good size choice, since this is a cotton/linen blend and will be good for summer. I met little David this weekend and there's no way this will be fitting him for awhile! So, congratulations to Jennifer and Aaron, and I hope David likes (or at least tolerates) his vest!

Oh, and I have a story. Yesterday I wore a new shirt to work, and then after work I went to the gym to go swimming. I'd already changed into my bathing suit, and I didn't want my new shirt to get sweaty, so I just wore my bathing suit under my jacket while biking to the gym. When I was finished swimming, it occured to me that I couldn't really ride home in the damp suit under my jacket, but I still didn't want to wear the new shirt, so I just wore my bra under my jacket. And I thought, "Self, this isn't the best plan. What if you crash? Or run into someone you know and they want to have coffee? Or crash?" I ignored all this and proceeded, and I did not crash. I got home, and I waited for the elevator with a nice couple just coming back from the airport, who were thankfully quite involved with each other when I decided I was warm and unzipped my jacket in the elevator. I realized my error quite quickly, and thankfully I have a messenger bag so my jacket stayed mostly closed, but it was entertaining. At least to me - I really don't think they noticed. And to Dave, who almost fell off the couch laughing when I told him about my new career as a flasher...

Driven to drink

2009-03-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

Friends, I have encountered the project from hell. I'm not a big drinker, but the cast-on for this baby sent me running for the booze. This is the Petal Halter from the newest Interweave, and I loved it on sight. In fact I still love it, but frankly I'm not sure it's going to be worth the hassle of making it. Each petal is knit separately and then seamed, which is fine. The issue is the Eastern cast-on, which is a morale-sucking experience like none I have encountered knitting. Why? I'll show you: Sorry that the photo is bad - white yarn + evening light + alcohol is a difficult combination for photography. Regardless, what you can see is two needles next to each other with stitches on them, that have to be knit by a third needle. Let me back up: to accomplish this cast-on, you wrap the yarn snugly around two needles held parallel (as above), and then knit across the top needle stitches. I'll wait if you'd like to go try this yourself, but even if you don't, you can probably imagine the physical difficulty that ensues when trying to knit stitches from one needle when the stitch you're knitting into is composed of yarn that is tightly wrapped around another needle parallel to the one you're knitting off of, all without slipping any stitches off of the bottom needle. AND THEN, just when you think you've got it, you turn it around to knit the other side of the stitches (which is also fiddly and difficult), which then results in what you see in the photo above. I admit, and you can see this in the top photo, that the end result of this is pretty cool, and creates a piece of knitting that is knit in both directions without a seam, but still! This cast-on, it's brutal. And I have to do it five more times...

A special dinner

2009-03-06T20:25:00.001-08:00

Looks like pasta, right?

Wrong! This is special pasta, with sauce my parents sent me overnight express all the way from my hometown in PA. The sauce is from Serafini's, and it is the best sauce ever. Thanks again - Dave and I very much enjoyed the sauce! And we'll be enjoying it several more times, as we have two quarts and we only used about half of one today!

Finally!

2009-02-28T20:51:00.001-08:00

Crystal Mountain
Originally uploaded by Emily E.M.

I got to go skiing!!! It finally snowed again this week, so I headed up to Crystal Mountain today. I went by myself since Dave is out of town, but it was fun regardless. I took the express bus from Seattle, which is definitely the way to go. It's super easy (it leaves from Green Lake, about 10 minutes from my house) and saves a lot of time. They give you your lift ticket on the bus, and if the lines are long, as they were today, that's really great - I figure it saved me at least 20 minutes of waiting in line. Plus, no driving hassles and better for the environment. The snow from Wednesday and Thursday was pretty packed down already, but the groomers were really nice. Not much sun, but a very high overcast and really great visibility, both afar and of the snow, which is key. I hate skiing when the light is really flat - today was pretty ideal!

Started!

2009-02-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last week, I have started the Urban Aran: I'm about 5" in at this point, and it's going well. My original plan to knit the medium with a smaller gauge didn't appear to be working out - I got a few inches in and decided that it was going to be way too wide. The sweater is designed with more ease than I consider ideal for me, so I'm going with the small and my gauge. So far it's looking like a good width. The cables do pull in, but not as much as I expected - of course it remains to be seen how much they pull in when an entire body piece is complete, but they aren't doing much at the bottom. Plus, with 100% wool I can surely block this baby into submission if it's a touch too small...My fear that the side cables would be too similar to those on the Chevalier Mittens was unfounded. They are similar, but this yarn isn't being knit at a gauge much smaller than it would like, so they aren't as difficult as the mittens. Overall I'm enjoying the sweater, although the Transition Mitts are really addictive - I finished the first one on Saturday. I've resisted casting on the second one so I can work on the sweater, but we'll see how long that lasts...

Madrona, or a break in the "yarn fast"

2009-02-18T08:55:00.000-08:00

Ack! I uploaded these photos on Sunday morning so I could post about them, and here it is Wednesday already! The annual Madrona Fiber Arts Festival was this past weekend in Tacoma (Why Tacoma? Really, why not Seattle itself?), and Katrina and I headed down Friday after work. To be fair - we left early. Working in a lab is very flexible. After braving the traffic, we arrived at the hotel and prepared ourselves for battle. Armed with detailed lists and debit cards we attacked the market. In the end Katrina didn't buy anything and I didn't really buy that much, although I'm really happy with what I got. First I bought two skeins of Shibui Sock for the Transition Gloves, started here: That's what Ihad Sunday morning - by now I'm about 2/3 finished with the first mitt, and it's really lovely. I was also looking for unique laceweight yarn that I couldn't get in Seattle (harder than you think, we have a lot of yarn shops here), and I found some: This is undyed wool from Ireland from Black Water Abbey Yarns, and it's very sheepy. I'm imagining some rustic lace with it. I already have yarn for the Cobweb Lace Stole from Interweave, but this might be better. We'll see. Here's a close-up: And I bought some yarn that I probably could've found in Seattle but hadn't, for Anne Hanson's Morning Glory Stole, which Rachel bought me the pattern for a couple of years ago (!) now. It's almost exactly the color of the yarn in the pattern, and it's very lovely in person - the photo doesn't do it justice.So, that's all I bought, and I have plans for all of it. I avoided the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth. Well, I didn't avoid it, but I didn't buy anything there. None of the STR leaped off the shelf at me, even though I was looking for some to match a colorway that I already have for a striped scarf. We met Rachel and Pam there and neither of them bought anything either, although they were taking classes and still had Saturday left for shopping, and I've not heard the final damage report.
All in all I thought the mood seemed a bit subdued compared to past years. That's probably the economy talking - I think people are hunkering down a bit with what they have, and although they were there browsing, I didn't see much being purchased. One thing I really noticed, and I think I noticed this two years ago as well, is that the market has too much handdyed sock yarn. Now, don't get me wrong, because I love me some handdyes, but there were SO many vendors selling it, and how many socks does a person need? I realize the purple yarn above is actually sockweight, and I'm not intending to use it for socks, but really a lot of the crazy dyed stuff really won't translate that well into a lot of other items.
In other news, I have started the purple Urban Aran (twice) and it's moving along. I jetisoned my original plan of knitting the medium because it was looking really wide, so now I'm knitting the small and hoping for the best. It's looking reasonable so far, about 5" in...I'd be further along had I not started those addictive orange and white mitts!

Swatched!

2009-02-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

Well, the mob, such as it is, has spoken, and it (you) have told me that I should knit the Urban Aran. I am in total agreement with you, and even had Anne-Marie not cast the tie-breaking vote yesterday afternoon, I probably would've proceeded with that choice. Having made this decision, I got to swatching:
I actually cut the yarn, and washed the swatch, which I photographed as evidence. May I just brag for a second that I took this photo with my phone (I got myself a Blackberry Storm for Christmas), and the color is really accurate, better, I think, than my regular camera would have done. Of course I took this at work where we have good light, so that might have something to do with it as well. I also uploaded it to Flickr from my phone, and now I can blog it, all without carrying around my camera. Hehe...
Now that I have the swatch, the problems can begin. Of course my row gauge is a disaster, which is frankly nothing new and I'm not worried about compensating for it, since I do it all the time and the pattern has things like "knit until 11 inches" in length, which make dealing with row gauge managable. The larger issue is my stitch gauge. I'm getting 4.25 st/in, and the pattern calls for 3.75 st/in. I did a lot of math and determined that if I make the medium size with my gauge I should get something in the range of the small size, maybe a bit smaller, which would actually be preferable. So, that's my plan. I was going to convert the pattern to the round to avoid seaming, but I think, with the stitch/row gauge issues, I should knit in pieces so I can knit the back first and make sure it comes out the right width before I knit the entire sweater. Thoughts?

Tell me what to do!

2009-02-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

Folks, I am having a wee knitting crisis. I've been knitting loads of accessories lately, but I have trouble getting around to wearing them. Mostly this is due to the fact that I bike commute, so I don't really spend much time outside in situations where I need warm scarves (although I have a lot of them), hats (fewer, but still a significant number), or mittens/gloves. I ski, and snowshoe, but for skiing I don't wear scarves, and snowshoeing I really get too warm most of the time. Thus my compulsion to knit fun scarves/hats/mittens/etc is being tempered by the realization that I don't actually get to wear them very often, and although I'll keep knitting accessories, I need to move on a bit just now.
It's not that I haven't knit garments before, but I haven't made a sweater since last winter, and I figure I should get back on that. I have several sweaters worth of yarn hibernating in the stash, and it's time. But, dear readers, I need your help. I have several sweaters in mind, and I'm torn about which to make, and that is where you come in. I'm putting these as non-Ravelry links as well so my mother can see them and provide her opinion, as she is wont to do!

Patons Urban Aran Pullover - in deep purple tweed (Ravelry)
Central Park Hoodie - also in deep purple tweed (Ravelry)
Demi - either tan or light maroon tweed (Ravelry)

I had pretty much decided on the Central Park Hoodie but then I noticed that some of the ones on Ravelry don't really look that great (although plenty do). Then I remembered about the Urban Aran, which I love the shape of due to the pulled-in side cabling. I had almost ruled out Demi since it's so complex, but I want to knit it sometime, so I put it in there.

What should I knit? I want to start soon, please comment!

Snowshoeing to Snow Lake

2009-02-03T08:21:00.001-08:00

Dave and I went snowshoeing on Sunday (before, not instead) of watching the Super Bowl (go Steelers!). We attempted to go to Snow Lake, but we somehow (it might have been my fault) got off the trail and followed some ice-climbers tracks instead, and we ended up turning around when we got frustrated with essentially making our own way and I sliced up my hand in an unfortunate glissading incident (It was warm, I wasn't wearing gloves. Yes, that was a bad idea to begin with.). We eventually saw some other hikers about 200 feet downhill of us, and figured that they were on the trail, so we headed down there and went a bit further on the trail (which was completely obvious, when we were on it). In the end we didn't get very far but it was nice to play in the snow a bit - we haven't been skiing yet because we're waiting for some actual new snow. It hasn't snowed in the mountains for weeks and weeks, which is odd. Good thing they got a nice base back in December or things would be quite dire.
My hair is really long, isn't it?

Parade of Christmas FOs - Part Three

2009-01-30T15:28:00.000-08:00

And, finally, I knit my grandmother a lace stole: This was the last of the Christmas knitting to be completed - there was definitely some stress there as I was finishing the second half and grafting it the day before I flew home. The grafting? Major hassle and I can definitely see the line. While I like the concept of identical ends, I don't know if I can be bothered with that in the future. Someone remind me I said that as soon as I cast on something that will require it...

Project Stats: Waves of Grain Stole

Pattern: Waves of Grain, by Rosemary Hill, from Knitty Fall 2008. Raveled here.

Yarn: Zephyr Wool-silk, colorway Curry, purchased at Acorn Street.

Needles: Knit Picks Harmony bamboo straights, size 4.

Time to knit: October 15 - December 20, 2008.

Modifications: Aside from making it shorter (only 52"), I also added extra beads on the first row because I misread the chart and thought that the "b" meant bead when it actually meant knit through the back loop. So, I repeated that error on the second half, and I think it's nice actually. I would do it again - it adds extra weight to the end of the stole and it's shiny.

Impressions: This was fun! I really enjoy knitting lace even though (or perhaps because) I do it fairly infrequently and generally complain about it when I'm not physically working on it. I decided that I wanted to knit my grandmother something nice this year, and I had this yarn laying around from the Swallowtail Shawl I made my aunt (her daughter) last year, and it was a match made in heaven. The Knit Picks Harmony needles are great for lace - nice sharp tips, not too slippery. The only problem, and this is likely just me, is that they're 10" and I prefer 9" because I knit with my needles propped on my stomach and 10" is a tad too long. But, I got used to it. You can get a lot of lace out of a skein/ball of Zephyr. I believe I started with 4 oz, knit this and the Swallowtail, and still have a ton left. Probably enough for another thing of similar size, which makes Zephyr an absolutely great deal. I think I paid $17 for the ball and that's a lot of bang for the buck!

My only real issue with this was that I had a tough time with the grafting. It was completely nerve-racking the entire time (almost 2 hours) because I was SO worried about screwing it up/dropping a stitch/not lining it up/etc. Part of that was because I was finishing this close to Christmas and I knew there wasn't really any room for error, but I think it would have been stressful regardless. And I thought grafting was supposed to be invisible, and although my line of stitches matches really well and looks like perfect stockinette, there is definitely a shadow there that I wish wasn't. But, it's certainly not something that detracts from the piece and maybe it's just an inherent problem with grafting in thin, light-colored yarn? Feel free to reassure me on this, or contradict it - if I need to figure out a better way to graft I'd like to know now before I screw it up again!

My grandmother loved the stole, and was totally impressed with it. I'm glad that she liked it - I'm always really happy when people like and appreciate the things I knit for them. I knit this for her because I knew she would both appreciate it and use it, so I'm quite satisfied.

Oh, and these photos, with the actual snow, were also taken when I was in PA, when it snowed again just before I came back to Seattle. The weather was really all over the place...

So ends the parade of Christmas knits - now onto the more current projects, although there will still be gift knitting involved!

Parade of Christmas FOs - Part Two

2009-01-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

Okay! The second large Christmas gift that I knit this year was a vest for my dad, which I had been meaning to knit for a couple of years. I wanted to knit it last year but ended up making socks instead because I hadn't found a good vest pattern. The year before I made felted clogs. You'd think finding a simple men's vest pattern would be easy, but apparently not. I apologize to my dad for these photos, which I took candidly while he was showing Dave around his workplace, Organ Supply Industries. So you know, they make pipe organs and parts, not livers and kidneys. It's a really cool place and I always like visiting. Big pipes, sheets of metal for making pipes, fancy woodworking, etc.

Project Stats: Dad's Vest

Pattern: Based on the Argyle Vest from Knitting Classic Style, obviously without the argyles and with a different bottom edging. Raveled here.

Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, in Cedar, about 6 skeins. Yarn purchased at Acorn Street in 2005(!) - note use of stash...

Needles: Clover bamboo circulars, size 5 (ribbing) and 6 (body).

Time to knit: September 27-December 16, 2008. There was a delay there while I hunted down appropriate needles for the armhole ribbing and mustered up the courage to pick up all those stitches.

Modifications: Oh, lord, where to begin. Obviously, no argyling. I did think about that, and I have this yarn in a different color as well, but I wasn't really sure about my dad's feelings on argyle. I also knit ribbing at the bottom instead of doing a sewn-under hem. More on that later. And, I converted this to the round until I had to split for the armholes/v-neck, which made the whole thing go much faster. As I've mentioned, I don't like seaming. I did do a faux seam with a line of purl stitches up the sides. I'm hopeful that this yarn has enough structure that it's not going to stretch ridiculously without seams. Oh, and I did shortrows and a three-needle bindoff for the shoulder shaping/seaming instead of doing stepped bind-offs. Why patterns don't use shortrows for this I really don't understand. SO easy, SO neat, and SO much easier to seam. Do they think shortrows are too hard? They're really not.

Impressions: First off, I love this yarn. I bought it quite awhile ago and have enough for a sweater for myself in another color and probably a vest for myself left in this color. So, it's good that I like it. I'm a big fan of tweeds, which is clear looking through my stash but maybe not so obvious when looking at my projects because I'm keeping it for myself and most of what I seem to finish are gifts. I had a good time knitting this, I'm a big fan of large things knit in the round, no purling, just round and round. That said, I think this came out a bit big for my dad. I measured one of his vests the last time I was at home so I'd have something to go off of, and this is actually not that different in size, but somehow it seems really baggy. Part of it is the ribbing at the bottom, which doesn't pull in like I was expecting/hoping. That's what my dad is used to, so this is a bit more casual than what he usually wears to work. It's also a bit big in the back - definitely a comfort vest as opposed to a form-fitting dressy one. But, I'm hoping he'll get some use out of it!

While I'm on a roll with this, I also made Anne-Marie a scarf:

Project Stats: Juliet Scarf for Anne-Marie

Pattern: Juliet, from Knitting Little Luxuries. Raveled here.

Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Angora, cherry red, about 3.5 skeins.

Needles: Size 9 Clover bamboo.

Time to knit: October 7-November 23, 2008.

Modifications: None aside from using bigger yarn and bigger needles than the pattern suggested.

Impressions: This was a nice knit, although it's impossible to photograph. That's not its fault of course, it's my fault for using red fuzzy yarn. My camera doesn't do well with either, so this is a double-whammy of photographic misery. Neither of the photos is really an accurate representation of the color. I used bigger yarn because Anne-Marie moved back to the great white north this fall, and it's cold there, and I figured something warm would be more appropriate than something dainty. I'd been meaning to use this yarn for her for some time, so I was glad to find a pattern that suited it. As for the pattern itself, I absolutely couldn't remember it, even by the end, which was frustrating. Not that it was hard, the lace panel on the left just wasn't intuitive for me.

Next, up, the Waves of Grain stole!

Happy Inauguration!

2009-01-20T11:44:00.001-08:00

Obama cookie
Originally uploaded by Emily E.M.

Check out the sugar cookies they're selling at our coffee bar today! It's good to work in a liberal environment :)

Parade of Christmas FOs - Part One

2009-01-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

So, of course I meant to show off the Christmas knits much sooner, but then ~~laziness~~ life got in the way and so on. To make matters worse, I actually uploaded these photos ages ago but then discovered that posts don't write themselves. But, without further ado, let me show you the Christmas knitting!
In addition to the mittens I knit for my cousin (here), I knit several large (time-consuming) gifts for Christmas this year. The first of them was the Lady Eleanor stole that I knit for my mother:

By the way, this was December 27th. Note the complete lack of snow. In western PA. When I arrived home on the 22nd (at 5:00am - I had a real adventure getting to PA from Seattle, but thankfully I did arrive without anywhere near the hassle that many people had. When I have the strength perhaps I'll talk about it.), there was a ton of snow, which promptly melted and then fell again just as I was leaving. Such is life. Anyway, the stole...

Project Stats: Mom's Lady Eleanor

Pattern: Lady Eleanor, by Kathleen Power Johnson, from Scarf Style. Raveled here.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, colorway 221, about 9 skeins. Yarn purchased from Little Knits.

Needles: Size 9 bamboo circulars.

Time to knit: July 15-August 21, 2008. Talk about getting a head start on the Christmas knitting! This was my Ravelympics project, although I did start a tad early because I was so excited to get going.

Modifications: I made this stole two squares narrower than the pattern suggests. I find mine to be a bit cumbersome and I thought something slightly narrower would be easier to wear.

Impressions: I'm really happy with this, In fact, I like it much better than the one I made myself, and I did contemplate keeping it and giving my mother mine, which she's seen and liked. I love, no, adore, Noro Silk Garden. I know a lot of people complain about Noro yarns having random bits of grass/sticks/etc in them, and being scratchy, but to me this is part of their appeal. Plus, Silk Garden? Not scratchy. I like the "rusticness" of Noro, and use it whenever I can. It's such perfect yarn for this project, and it really does get even softer upon blocking. This pattern is really fun - enterlac looks all tricky and complicated but it's really easy if you just trust that it's going to work out, and it's addicting because you always want to do just one more square. My mother was very happy with this and wore it often while I was home, and I don't think that's just because I was watching...but if it was, I don't want to know. So, I count this one a resounding success!

Next up, the vest of improvisation...

Scarf of Procrastination, and Amber Waves of Grain

2008-12-20T21:43:00.001-08:00

So, I finished the scarf of procrastination, which I gave to Daisy in honor of her successful thesis defense last Wednesday. Congratulations Dr. Daisy, although I'm sad that this means you will no longer be obliged to come visit Seattle to finsih your thesis! Here is the scarf: I also took a photo on a dark background because I couldn't really tell which one showed the colors most accurately. Really neither of them are that great, but such is the lighting in my apartment, especially at night.

Project Stats: Noro Striped Scarf for Daisy
Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf, made popular by Brooklyn Tweed. Raveled here.
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, colorways 205 (2 skeins), 245, and 249. Yarn purchased at Weaving Works last fall.
Needles: Size 8 Clover bamboo, 37 stitches.
Time on Needles: 12.1.08-12.12.08.
Impressions: I love this! Thankfully Daisy also loved it :) It was really fun to knit, and I've already got the yarn to make another one while I'm home at Christmas. I'm going to use this yarn: It's also Silk Garden.

I know I've been slacking, and I have no excuse. I've been a bit busy preparing for the holidays and, once I was finished procrastinating, finishing up the Christmas knitting. Here is my finished Waves of Grain stole, which is for the grandmother who appreciates my knitting: The photo is of it blocking this afternoon (I fly out tomorrow, weather-permitting). I hope to get some good modeled shots after it's gifted. Be assured there will be a project wrap-up when I have more photos. The other things I knit are still absolute secrets but will be revealed in good time...
I really hope I can get out of Seattle tomorrow but I'm not confident. We're having the worst winter weather in a decade, and it's actually winter weather, not just Seattle fearmongering. A lot of flights were canceled today and although things are supposed to taper off tomorrow I'm concerned about getting to the airport. Plus, I'm flying through Chicago, which is also having severe weather, and into Cleveland, where the bad weather that snarled Chicago today should be arriving just in time to greet me. Lovely. I fly every year at Christmas and I've been really lucky for the most part, so fingers-crossed and send good travel vibes if you can spare them!

Apparently it's the right time...

2008-12-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

I have a problem. Completely of my own doing. I have fallen prey to the Noro striped scarf phenomenon. Now, I can't really blame the Yarn Harlot for this particular problem, although she did bring the idea back to the forefront of my mind when she went on a striped scarf binge last week. I mean, loads of people have knit this scarf (there are 2378 of them on Ravelry), so it can't be entirely her fault. I've actually had this yarn in the stash since last fall, and every time I started a project I thought about it, and every time I dug through the stash I found it, and every time I stopped myself because it just wasn't the right time. Apparently, the right time is when I'm in a battle with laceweight Christmas knitting. I made a lot of progress on the lace over the Thanksgiving weekend, and as a reward (apparently) I decided to start this scarf of procrastination. I've not touched any other knitting since. I even brought the scarf to work yesterday to work on at lunch. It is pretty though, isn't it?

Books!

2008-12-01T21:48:00.001-08:00

I think I might have done this before, but I believe this is a different list, and anyway, I love books, and lists, so I'm doing it again. Borrowed from Saffron...

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read (Honestly, I thought I'd have read more of these!)
2) Underline those you intend to read (Apparently there are a lot in this category for me - I am full of good intentions.)
3) I added this - *** for books I own but haven't read yet...
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte***
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (parts)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens***
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy***
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot***
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy***
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy***
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy***
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas***
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce***
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray***
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (and in French!)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams***
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo***

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T14:27:00.001-08:00

I'd like to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! I made pumpkin pie:It's my first attempt, hopefully it will be good...

I made mittens!

2008-11-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know I promised a post about the Estes Vest weeks ago, but then I didn't write it, and I have more to say about it than I feel like dealing with today, so instead of just not blogging about anything until I want to blog about that, I'm going to tell you about something else!
Since the last time we talked I've finished three (!) Christmas gifts, only one of which I can show you, the mittens I knit for my cousin Andie.
Project Stats: Andie's Selbuvotter Mittens
Pattern: Annemor #2 from Selbuvotter Mittens by Terri Shea (raveled here).
Yarn: Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift, Peony (dark) and Sand (light), less than one skein of each. Yarn purchased at Weaving Works.
Needles: Size 2 Brittany DPNs.
Time to knit: 9.20.08-10.25.08. I actually don't remember when I finished these, but I think it was around then.
Modifications: None that I remember. I don't even think I made any mistakes (fingers crossed).
Impressions: These are super cute! My cousin is 9, so I think these should fit, although I don't really have a good sense of how big her hands are. I made a girl's medium, and they're are too small for me so I'm hopeful. Her entire life has been a pink phase, which is why I picked these colors. They were supposed to be a gift last year, but obviously I didn't get them started in time for last Christmas, and then my mother told me that Andie is now in a green phase. Well, I wasn't buying new yarn. And anyway, pink and green look good together. And probably she still likes pink - you don't let go that quickly after being obsessed with something for 9 years. Right? Anyway, about the mittens. They were fun to knit - Terri's patterns are really clear and the Shetland Spindrift is nice to knit with, if a bit scratchy. It gets much softer upon blocking and from my limited experience seems to wear well. Every time I knit fair isle I'm reminded of how much I like it and how I wish I did more of it...
What else? I have three gifts left to finish, and five weeks in which to finish them. I'm hopeful that I can do it. One is probably 65% complete, one is only swatched and is of my own design (eek), and the other I can talk about as soon as I get around to taking a photo of it. It's the one that is most likely to not get finished because it's lace. We all know how it goes with lace...

And yes, I am going to see Twilight at midnight tomorrow. Did you really think I could resist? I thought I could, but then I realized I was mistaken and acquired tickets for myself and some of my newborns. We are excited beyond all reason...

Vote!

2008-11-03T18:36:00.001-08:00

It's the most important thing you'll do this year.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

Here's our lab entry for this year's FHCRC pumpkin carving contest:

It's a translating ribosome, in case you couldn't figure it out...

Tea Swap Package!

2008-10-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

While I was in Vermont I received a lovely package from Victoria (raveling here) as part of the most recent Ravelry "Be Excellent" tea swap:
I know you want a close-up, so here's the yarn, which is Plymouth Happy Feet. When I opened the package I laughed out loud (lol!) because I bought the same yarn in the same color (on the left) in Vermont.
Victoria did a great job figuring me out - I love the mug (I've used it almost every day in the last two weeks, it's the perfect size), and I've tried (and very much enjoyed) two of the three teas so far, and there are some super cute felted polar bears in the Interweave Felts that I'm excited to make. Thanks, Victoria, I love my package!

Where I've Been

2008-10-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

Well. At least this time I have an excuse to explain my absence. Dave and I went to Vermont for a week to visit with his family (Let's not consider that we came home last Saturday.) and I couldn't really blog from there. The other problem is that I have so much to blog about and it's been so long that now it's become overwhelming. I can't even blame the scientific paper I'm writing because I spent last week doing actual science instead of writing, and there are always breaks in the science (and in the writing, to be fair, but blogging is also writing). So, let's have a quick recap of the Vermont trip, and then I'll do separate posts about my recent tea swap package and my finished Estes Vest.
Dave and I spent a week in Burlington and environs, relaxing and doing some touristy things like leaf-peeping. I'd been there before but it was nice to go back. It's really a lovely area and we timed things perfectly for maximal foliage viewing.
One of the things we did was hike up Mt. Mansfield, which is the highest peak in Vermont. You can also drive up there on a really sketchy toll road, which we did on Friday when my parents joined us for the day (from western PA - we are a family that travels). There are some nice views from the top, and I have a lot more on my Flickr page (here), but here is a good one looking east across the rest of the Green Mountains:
It was significantly colder when we drove up on Friday than when we hiked up on Tuesday - there was frost on the trees! My dad took this photo of Dave, my mother, and I, which I love because we don't look like we should be in the same place. I'm all bundled up and my mother is wearing sandals - in her defense she didn't know we'd be walking around up there, or that it would be 34F! And we're all wearing orange, which was honestly a coincidence...
Dave and I also went to Shelburne Farms, where we saw lovely trees, sheep, and Cow Twister, which was one of the highlights of the trip:
We also spent a day in Montreal visiting Anne-Marie. We saw many old buildings, the Modern Art Museum, and possibly the best sign ever:Apparently the buildings attack! We also spoke grammatically awful French to each other (but not to the locals) and ate spectacular croissants. It was good to see Anne-Marie - I've been in withdrawl since she left Seattle in September...

We also walked around Burlington, went canoeing, went sailing, and ate a lot of yummy food. And drank a lot of delicious apple cider. And probably other things that I'm not thinking of right now. All in all we had a lovely time, and it was tough to come back and head to work, although at least the Seattle weather has been lovely so we've been easing back in!

Bring on the Christmas Knitting!

2008-09-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

I realize it's just the end of September, but I have ambitious Christmas knitting plans so I needed to get a headstart. I have seven gifts planned, and a couple of them are pretty big ones. There will be no felted clogs this year (thank god!), but there will be mittens, scarves, and even garments. I've actually finished one of said gifts already (in August - hate me if you must), and several of the others are on the needles. In fact, all but three of the others are on the needles, and they're all planned and waiting, patterns and yarn just raring to go. I had to order some size 4 Harmony needles from Knit Picks to start this scarf for my grandmother (the one who appreciates my knitting, as opposed to the one who asked me this summer if I was going to, and I quote, "waste my whole vacation knitting." I love her, but she's not getting any more knitted gifts.). I'm going to use the leftover gold yarn from my Swallowtail Shawl, and as soon as I decided on this project on Saturday I walked over to the bead store and picked out the perfect shiny dark brown beads. I also ordered some larger circumference cables from Knit Picks so I can continue with the garment I'm knitting for someone, which was started on Saturday but put down once I realized I really couldn't jam all the stitches on the needle I was trying to use.

Of course I can't show you most of these wonderful gifts I'm creating, although I did think about posting them and lying about who they were for and trying to confuse the recipients, but then I just figured it wasn't worth it because they'd figure it out anyway based on color, or size, or shape, or something. Although, if you're on Ravelry you'll be able to see most of them soon, unless they're for you, in which case I won't be posting them up there! But, these are the mittens (Annemor #2 from Selbuvotter) I'm knitting for my little cousin Andie, who I really doubt reads my blog:

My grandmother is also not a blog reader, so I'll be showing her scarf in progress once I get my needles, but otherwise, just trust that if you are closely related to me or a good friend, I'm probably hard at work on something special for you!

I'm hard at work on the i-cord edging for the Estes Vest, so hopefully there will be a finished object soon!

Tough working conditions...

2008-09-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning I arrived at work to see this in the hallway:
and this in the storage room where we keep our extra lab supplies: Good times! Apparently someone overflowed the sink in a room on the other side of these rooms, which flooded through our storage room and out into the hall. The flood happened Monday early evening, and the fans and the drywall cutting began on Tuesday morning - I'm posting photos from Wednesday because that's when the fans really started to multiply. The building has a policy that they overreact in cases of dampness. I'm pretty sure I've now met most of the facilities engineers as they've come by to check on the status of our walls, which they're trying to dry out rapidly to prevent mold. Hence the removed sections of drywall and all the fans. The fans finally left this morning. They were really loud and even with the lab doors closed they were pretty irritating. Plus, as you might imagine it was like a wind tunnel out there - thankfully I didn't happen to wear a flowy skirt this week!
I've been knitting - I've knit a entire Selbuvotter mitten which I'll post as soon as I take a good photo, and I seamed the Estes Vest and did the neckband. I'm waiting to borrow a long circular needle so I can do the attached i-cord border, and I'm crossing my fingers that it will fit. Presently it's pretty tight across the chest, and I'm not sure how much width the i-cord is going to add. Severe blocking may be in order if I want this baby to button without gapping...
Oh, and it's snowing in the mountains! Check out these photos from the Washington DOT...
Can I just say that I love that WSDOT has a Flickr page?

More cables!

2008-09-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Remember how I said I really wanted to knit some Evangeline Mitts? Well, knit them I did! I started these last Wednesday after digging around in the bottomless pit of stash (where I found multiple treasures that I was unaware of possessing - for someone with a good memory it's amazing how much yarn and how many purses I stumble upon that I've forgotten), and finished them on Saturday morning. This post is a bit delayed because I was out of town Monday and Tuesday and then didn't take photos until yesterday (thank you Shibani!). But, without further ado, here are the Evangeline Mitts:Project Stats: Evangeline Mitts

Pattern: Evangeline, by Michelle Szeghalmi

Yarn: Reynolds Andean Alpaca, purchased on Dave and I's trip to Bend in 2006.

Needles: Size 7 Crystal Palace bamboo. These happen to be the first DPNs I purchased (not for this project, obviously).

Time to knit: September 10-14, 2008.

Modifications: I made several to compensate for my small skein of yarn (in the end I had plenty, but probably not enough for another repeat) and to suit my preferences. First, I cast on 36 stitches instead of 40 because I have small hands and I figured these would be stretchy, and that the cables would be shown to their best advantage stretched out a bit. I also only did six rows of ribbing at the cuff instead of 10, and left out the ribbing at the ends because I decided I'd rather have more cabling and less ribbing (frankly I'm not fond of ribbing). I did seven cable repeats total, and these turned out just the length I was going for. See random musing below.

Impressions: They're great! These were quick and fun to knit, and were exactly what I was hoping for. It's not just the photos - the cabling is subtle, and I blame the fuzzy yarn and its slight marl. That's okay - I wasn't really trying for bold here. My only issue is that the yarn is a tad scratchier than I expected from how soft the skein was, and I'm noticing that to be a trend with alpaca. I'm knitting something else with 100% alpaca and it's heavenly in the skein but also a little bit scratchy once knit up. Not enough to be an issue because I don't have sensitive skin, but maybe something to consider if you do.

A random musing: Have any of you made actual elbow length mitts? They seem like they'd be annoying - my thought is that if it's cold enough for mitts one is likely to be wearing a long-sleeved shirt/sweater/etc, and how does one deal with elbow length sleeves with that? Unless you're wearing a t-shirt, but none of mine have sleeves that come down to the elbow, so I would be left with a patch of upper arm showing, which just seems silly. Then again, I did queue some elbow-length mitts from the new Knitty, so apparently I'm at least game to try...

And, what is this?

I've finished the vest pieces and seamed the shoulders - now for the crazy amount of finishing. In the photo the vest looks quite large because I haven't done the side seams. In reality it's going to be quite fitted I think. Annoyingly it's still quite short even though I added 1.5" before the armhole shaping. I haven't done the i-cord along the bottom yet but still. I'm short and if it's this short on me I think there might be some issuese there for the taller set. The vest is blocking now and I hope that it will be dry by tomorrow so I can attack it this weekend...

Cabley goodness

2008-09-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

The Estes Vest is growing! I started the left front on Friday and finished it Sunday night, and will probably start the right front tonight. It's nice to be knitting something that moves along this quickly - even with all the cabling it really flies off the needles (size 10.5). One thing I should have noticed earlier, especially since people have been discussing it on Ravelry, is that the pockets are awfully close to the center line of the vest, meaning that they're likely to be too shallow for actual handwarming.You might be able to see that from the photo (on the left) - that cable next to the pocket slit is only 12 stitches wide, and the whole area left of the pocket is probably only 3 inches or so. We'll see. I don't have very big hands and I don't really need functional pockets. I know some people have been moving the pockets out a bit, but since I'm making the smallest size and it's already pretty narrow I'm not sure how that would look. I'm concerned that the pockets would gape at the sides and be unflattering, so I'm going to leave this as it is and hope for the best.
In other news, all this cabling has resulted in me fighting an urge to cast-on for these mitts immediately. Of course (How is this possible?) I don't think I have what I want for them in the stash, but I'm going to at least look and try to find something. The trouble is that I want grey, and I don't have a lot of grey yarn that isn't already destined for something else. Plus, the urge wants me to make them in alpaca, and I know I don't have that. Well, I might, actually, but only one skein and I don't think it's the right weight or enough yardage, so that's probably no good.
This post was brought to you by the control+i function.

By the cat's tongue...

2008-09-05T09:07:00.001-07:00

The cat, while cute, is a bit of a trouble maker. Observe what he's done to my So-Called Scarf: See? Perhaps a close-up:He looks all innocent, doesn't he? He would like to say a few words in his defense:

"You know, you've only gotten what's coming to you. You and Dave, you don't make it easy for me around this house. We all three of us know how I love the wool. First I tried to go for the stash, thinking that it would be less traumatic for you if I destroyed something you hadn't yet poured hours of effort into. But then you had to go and cover it up, limiting my access. So I spent some time licking my felted cat bed (which I might point out is way too small for me, hence it now stores my toys), but that just wasn't satisfying enough. I wanted more. And then you left this scarf dangling from a shelf, and what did you expect? Restraint? I am a cat. I do what I want. Plus, it's Manos - lovely flavor, very sheepy. Besides, you never wore this scarf anyway - there was mumbling about it being too stiff, or pooling, or something. So, really I did you a favor by destroying it, right? Right? Oh, and where's my second breakfast? I already finished the one you gave me at 5:00am."

Chronology

2008-09-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, so I'm going to make a chronological list of the things I was going to blog about but didn't, if that's okay.
1) The epic hike up Mount Si on 8.23.08 - Dave and I headed out to Mt. Si because although I've hiked it several times, he has not. It's 8 miles roundtrip, with 3200 feet of elevation gain. We made it up in 1:25 and down in 1:22. This is a new record for me (by 5 minutes) and I think I could've gone faster without Dave holding me back :) There aren't any photos because, well, they all turned out pretty badly, but trust that it was a nice day and there were abundant good vistas.
2) The conclusion of the Olympic knitting on 8.24.08 - Even though I abandoned all hope of finishing Bayu during the Olympics with over a week to go, I still ended up rushing to finish my other projects because the Ravelympics deadline was 9:00am PST on Sunday, about 15 hours earlier than I expected. Thankfully Anne-Marie had alerted me to this fact on Saturday, so I had time to "finish" Anais once and hopefully for all. The secret gift project was actually finished on Thursday, with plenty of time to spare (pat on back). As for Anais, well, let's just say I don't think it'll be getting that much wear. The color is off here - it's actually bright blue (better photo here) but in this one you can see the lace detail better. I haven't taken any photos wearing it yet, but it's not much better now than it was when I modeled it here (although the lace panel is much better now that it's sewn in properly). I did knit the little sleeves, and I tried to attach them, but they looked ridiculous so I took them off and I'm leaving it sleeveless (although my mother has pointed out that I could knit different sleeves, which may not be a bad idea). More about why I don't know about this garment when I have modeled photos so I can really show you what I'm talking about when I mention the problems (mainly that I look like a stubby linebacker).
3) I met Kristen's baby Alex, who is quite cute and does an adorable forehead furrow. He peed all over me, which I have to assume is a sign of affection. I believe she has photos of this (the meeting, not the peeing) but I don't have any to post. Her and Chad are both doing great and seem to be adjusting to life with a little one quite well!
4) Later that same day (8.24.08), fresh off my Olympic victories, I started a new project, the Estes Vest from the newest Interweave Knits. So far I'm just past the armhole shaping on the back and it's moving along rapidly. Funny thing about bulky yarn and size 10.5 needles!
5) Last Sunday Anne-Marie, Deidre, and I took the ferry to Churchmouse Yarns and Teas over on Bainbridge Island. I was the only Churchmouse virgin, and I was not disappointed. It's a very nice shop, and I got some lovely Misti Alpaca Handpainted laceweight:
I'm already turning this into a wide stockinette stole. I also got a Habu kit for the Kusha Kusha scarf, which is merino and stainless steel yarn (yes, stainless steel). I'd been looking for this kit for ages so I was really happy to find it. I also got some PG Tips, which is only slightly less exciting as I love nothing more than sitting around on weekend mornings with my giant London mug of PG Tips with two Splendas and milk. The milk and pseudo-sugar are key - this is some strong tea.
I guess that's really it. Since the vest is moving along quickly, hopefully I'll continue to blog about it. That's been part of the problem with the blogging this summer. I've been knitting a fair bit but there have been a lot of gifts and the things I was knitting for myself were either slow or not progressing at all. So I haven't really had that much to talk about, knitting-wise, and this being a knitting blog I figure that's what I should focus on.

Landmark

2008-08-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

I don't drive much, so it took awhile, but my 2000 Jeep Cherokee just had a big birthday: Here's to the next 40,000, which will, at this rate, probably take even longer!

Olympic Update

2008-08-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Stop the presses, I'm going to talk about knitting! Yes, folks, I really am. I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew with my Ravelympics goal of finishing three WIPs. I had hoped to finish the Anais top, the Bayu wrap top, and the secret gift project. However, when I made this plan I was under the mistaken impression that the Olympics lasted a week longer than they do, and now that I've realized my error, I'm thinking the odds of me meeting my goal are pretty slim. Regardless, I have been trying. I've made loads of progress on the secret project, and I think I can finish that, and I also think I can finish Anais if I actually get it out, since I only have one lace sleeve cap to go (plus the sewing on of said sleeves). But, the Bayu top might be an issue - I hadn't worked on it at all until Thursday night, when Anne-Marie was over to watch the Olympics. She pointed out that it wasn't going to knit itself and that maybe I should get on with it, so I did. I hadn't worked on it for at least a month because I had finished the straight part of the back and was on the shoulder shaping, and I had decided that I was going to do it with short-rows instead of stairstep decreases, but I got confused. I had done short-rows on Anais and it seemed really obvious to me when I did that, but the Bayu has a lot more decrease rows and more sloping shoulders, so I was concerned that it wouldn't work. So I decided to put a lifeline in before proceeding, just in case I messed it up, but it ended up being unnecessary. I finished the back, and yesterday I cast-on the right front wrap piece. I'm in the seed stitch morass right now, but then it will get exciting. Or at least faster, being stockinette. Here's the back piece - I'm glad I put the lifeline in because it really allows you to see how the short-row shaping works. It's so much tidier than bind-off decreases, and leaves live stitches so that the shoulders can be grafted (or three-needle bound-off, which is my intention) instead of seamed, which is also a lot neater. I tried to impress Dave with it, since he's had to sit through my expositons on the miracle of short-rows before, but he was nonplussed. Although I think he understands the general concept now, which is something. The man is a saint - he has to sit through SO much chatter about knitting, and walk around so much yarn, and get yelled at for sitting on the knitting so often. Then again, I am also a saint, since I have to trip on spare bike tubes, and get tangled in handlebar tape, and accidentally knock over carbon wheels in the night while getting a drink of water.

Inconsequential

2008-08-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

Is how I'm feeling this week. Now, before you say anything, let me explain. This week:

1) Anne-Marie defended her thesis, making her Dr. Dr. Anne-Marie, MD, PhD! She also has a Masters, which means she has almost a whole alphabet after her name these days...

2) Kristen had her baby, Alexander, who was born yesterday at 7:50pm and weighed in at 8 lb 15 oz!

3) Jennifer gathered the lunch knitters together to tell us that she is pregnant, and due in February. I admit we all saw this one coming, even though I think she was trying to surprise us...

4) Rachel is defending her thesis tomorrow. Surely it will be a great success and a smashing party to follow on Saturday.

5) Craig (my labmate) and his wife bought a house.

Me? I've been watching the Olympics and debating with Dave over whether or not we should go to Victoria for a long weekend in September. Seriously, compared to everyone else I am very ordinary these days. BUT, don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely not complaining, I am SO happy for all of them I feel I could burst!

Oh, and about the vampire "problem" I've been having? I've decided that it's best not to obsess alone, so I've created four newborns here in Seattle. Just call me Victoria...

Ah, and because I wouldn't want to not have any photos, here is the yarn I bought at Stitch & Pitch last week: It's a mitt kit (say that a few times fast) by Ruth Sorensen using the Noro Kureyon sock yarn. Anne-Marie bought one as well (in a different pattern), so we'll be having a knitalong some day soon, although it'll probably be after she moves back to Montreal (which we aren't discussing).

Someone save me from the vampires...

2008-08-07T22:46:00.001-07:00

Title will be explained later.
Last night Anne-Marie and I went to the Mariners Stitch & Pitch. We even won the game (walk-off home run!), which is almost a miracle considering how bad the Mariners have been this year. The game was fun, and there were a lot of vendors this year. I bought a colorwork armwarmer kit that I'll show off as soon as I take a picture of it. It was a beautiful night - I didn't even need my sweatshirt, let alone the scarf/hat/armwarmers that I brought. Here you see the field (obviously). There aren't any photos of me knitting because I was working on a secret project. In fact, the reason you haven't seen any knitting lately is because this secret project is pretty much all I've been working on. And I haven't been knitting much because I've been in a Twilight-induced haze (which I don't even want to begin to get into discussing) since I came back from Chicago. I need to get out of the haze though - my apartment is a mess, I've forgotten how to do science, and my friends probably think I've gone insane (not impossible). Although I have already gotten two of them obsessed with the books as well - it's good to pass around the crazy.
I've signed up for the WIP wrestling event of the Ravelry Olympics. I liked the idea of starting something new and then finishing during the games, but I'm really into the secret project I'm working on, and it's a gift so there are time constraints. So, I'm going to try to finish that, as well as my long-suffering Anais and the Bayu bamboo top (those are Ravelry links). We'll see how it goes - I'll try to keep you posted, if I can keep my mind off the vampires long enough to type something coherent!

A whirlwind trip

2008-07-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

So, without mentioning it here, or really even to that many people in Seattle, I ventured off to Chicago for a couple of days last week to meet up with my parents (my dad had a work conference on Thursday). I literally mean a couple of days - I arrived there Wednesday night at 11:00 and was back in Seattle by 7:00 Saturday night. That, my friends, is a short trip. But, it was long enough to do all sorts of things. Thursday, while my dad was at his work event, my mom and I met up with Heidi for some great shopping in the "wholesale" district, which is a mecca of bargain purses and jewelry. A lot of the stores require a wholesale license for purchasing, but some anyone can visit. I can only thank my lucky stars that I didn't know about this place when I lived in Chicago, because the damage would have been tremendous. Thursday night my parents and I saw Wicked, which was really spectacular. I always love a good musical spectacle, and this one didn't disappoint. If you get a chance to see it you really shouldn't miss it!
Friday we walked around Millennium Park and visited the "bean" (Cloud Gate) and then went to the Art Institute. I must say, I love the Art Institute, and I've been there countless times, but I was really upset this time. They're building a massive new wing and a lot of the museum is closed or in storage, including almost all of the Impressionist works, which is what the museum is really known for. I was surprised that they didn't move those paintings into an open area, since they're what people want to see. The museum is always good, although I don't think now is the best time to go. We saw these performance artists outside the museum - they were really fun, bending over and extending. That's my mom there - note her great purse, which came from the bargain purse mecca on Thursday. Friday night we went to Second City, where we saw No Country for Old White Men, which was great. I've never been to a bad show at Second City - again, you should go there.
Saturday afternoon my parents flew back to PA and I flew back to Seattle - a whirlwind, like I said! I have knitting, I show you next time...

The Second Cute Baby Item

2008-07-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

In addition to the lovely blanket that I blogged about last week, I also made a little sweater for Kristen's baby: This thing was WAY more of an undertaking than I really intended because I neglected to check for errata before getting started. But, the end result is quite cute, and once I had the errata in hand it was really a simple project.

Project Stats: Placket Neck Pullover
Pattern: Child's Placket Neck Pullover from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, size 6-12 months.
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK, superwash wool, in asparagus. I used less than two skeins. I ordered four, so there was clearly a math error somewhere...
Needles: Size 8 bamboo circulars and DPNs.
Time to knit: 6.30.08-7.10.08.
Modifications: My row gauge was really off, 6 rows/inch instead of 8 rows/inch, so I had to compensate for that in the raglan shaping. I did this by doing one fewer decrease round and also doing some scattered decreases in the back and arms to get rid of the stitches. And my yoke is a tad longer than it was meant to be, but in the end it's not obvious. I also decided not to put buttons on the placket - I figured it would be easier for Kristen this way - just pull it on and be down with it, without having to secure anything. Plus, no buttons means fewer things for the baby to potentially decide to chew on/swallow/etc!
Impressions: Lord. I was charging along on this, but I was in quite a hurry because we moved Kristen's baby shower up a week or two from when I thought it would be. Regardless, I was doing well until I got to the part where you divide for the placket and start knitting back and forth, which is where you'll really want to check the errata. I knit four rows and thought, wow, this looks really crooked and off-center. Which it was. So, I had to unknit all that, muttering obscenities all the way. I didn't want to just rip it out because the yarn is relatively floppy and I wasn't convinced I'd be able to find all the stitches. Once I had the errata in hand it was smooth sailing, aside from my apprehension about the row gauge issue. Row gauge is my nemesis. I never ever get row gauge spot-on. Thankfully, it's usually pretty easy to compensate for, although I'm going to keep in mind that it's not necessarily that easy to deal with in raglan shaping. Kristen liked the sweater, but I think it'll be awhile before I can show you any "on the baby" photos, since it's fairly large (the sweater, not the still-yet-to-be-born baby). The yarn was nice to work with, although I didn't wash and dry it so I'm not sure how well it will hold up, having not tested it myself.

The Best Baby Gift Ever

2008-07-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't know if that's really true, and it might be a bit conceited to claim that something I had a part in is the best ever of anything, but, well, I think maybe it is. My friend Kristen, one of the lunchtime fiberphiles, is pregnant, and due in mid-August. She's the first of us to have a baby, and thus we have been inordinately excited. Almost as soon as we found out she was expecting the wheels began to turn, and everyone was thinking of what to knit for this, the first fiberphile baby. I wanted to make a blanket and someone else did as well, and then I thought that, instead of making this poor summer baby loads of warm wool blankets we could all make one together, from all of us, which would be truly special and unique. So that's what we did. We all (there were 6 of us, now 7)consulted on the pattern, and Rachel and I picked out the yarn and distributed it to the out-of-towners, those who have left us for bigger and better things in Portland and Lake Tahoe. We each knit 5 squares, and then Katrina, who was new to the group when we started but is now firmly entrenched, did the border and a fair chunk of the seaming (along with Rachel). Here we are at the quasi shower we held for Kristen at Remedy Teas on Saturday (have you been there? You should go.) . I'm sure Pam (in Portland) and Daisy (in Lake Tahoe) were with us in spirit. From the left, we have Shibani, Jennifer, Kristen, me, Katrina, and Rachel. None of us but Katrina had seen the finished blanket when we gifted it, but we were all completely thrilled at how well it turned out! Kristen loved it, and wouldn't even let go of it to put it back in its gift bag when we left. I love that we all came together to make something this special for Kristen, who truly deserves it. Here's hoping that it becomes her baby boy's favorite!
I'm going to skip the usual project write-up for this because I only knit a bit of it and we all did different squares and used different needles sizes and etc. The pattern is the Textured Blocks Throw from Vogue Knitting on the Go: Baby Blankets Two, and we used Cascade 220 Superwash, purchased at the Fiber Gallery in Seattle.

The Montego Bay Scarf

2008-07-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking that maybe I'll start labeling everything starting with "the" like the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. Just for kicks. Not to worry, I doubt it'll last long. I mentioned in my last post that I had in fact been knitting, if not writing about it, and here is some of the evidence, the Montego Bay Scarf, which was a gift for my cousin Danielle:

Project Stats: Montego Bay Scarf
Pattern: Montego Bay, by Amy Singer, from Interweave Knits Summer 2007.
Yarn: Knit One Crochet Too Ambrosia, colorway Blue Lime, 3 skeins. Yarn purchased at Weaving Works.
Needles: Size 7 Clover bamboo straights.
Modifications: None, although my scarf is shorter than the pattern version.
Time on the needles: May 11-June 11, 2008.
Impressions: This was a fun, quick knit. The pattern is deceptive - it's really simple, almost too simple, which is the trouble. The whole thing is k2tog, yo, repeat, with different numbers of plain stitches on the ends, which is all you have to keep track of (I did not want to end this sentence with of, but I couldn't figure out a better way that wasn't really clunky. This is not English class.). There in lies the problem, trying to recall which right side row you're on. I solved this by always knitting in groups of four rows, so that whenever I picked the scarf up I was starting row one. It was a good strategy. The yarn was great - it's baby alpaca, silk, and cashmere, and it feels about as good as it sounds. It's not quite as drapey as the recommended yarn, but I think it worked okay, especially after a good blocking. I was intending to use a more "summery" yarn, but I loved the colors of this and thought it would be perfect for Danielle, so I went with it. It was a bit success, she absolutely loved it and the colors were perfect for her. I have some yarn lined up to make one of these for myself, but we'll see when I actually get around to that!

Last night I finished an adorable baby project that I can blog about after it's gifted tomorrow. I love the baby knits - they go fast and they're cute because they're tiny!

Eh?

2008-07-08T15:57:00.000-07:00

Hum...I have been missing in action, huh? I don't have a good excuse this time. I haven't been busy at work, I have been knitting, and there are even photos of said knitting. Alas, sometimes the urge to blog just doesn't strike, and once you get out of the habit it seems like way too much work to write anything. So let's make some lists, just for fun...

What I've been doing:
1) Finishing the experiments for my first paper
- this is not going as well as hoped
- it best get better soon
- I'm trying, really I am
- I get to use lots of radioactive stuff
- this is always exciting
2) Going home to visit the family in PA
- it rained
- a lot
- as much as I've ever seen in one weekend
- it was really nice in Seattle while I was gone
- this happens every time I go home in the summer
- I got poison ivy
- this also happens every time I go home in the summer
- it's still spreading, even though I got it over a week ago
- I look a mess because I have calamine lotion all over my left arm and leg
- I lost money at the new casino in Erie
- yesterday my mother won $525 on the same slot machine that took my $$$
- she is always lucky
- the machine also favored her when I was visiting, but not so dramatically
3) Knitting
- finished the Montego Bay Scarf for my cousin
- will get its own post soon
- finished a secret edding present
- you have to wait a bit in case she's reading
4) Miscellaneous
- I had my first summer pilates class yesterday after a three week hiatus and I am sore
- sore enough to skip my planned 1000 yard swim
- this probably has more to do with lifting weights than pilates, to be fair
- Oliver has started begging for food at 4:00 almost every day
- sadly that means I get up and feed him, because otherwise he'll keep meowing
- I'm spending all my spare time watching sports, between baseball and the Tour de France
- and tennis
- 8.8.08 - Olympics!!!
- bring on the swimming (ahem, Michael Phelps)
- and the gymnastics
- made 15 pints of jam on Sunday, 12 strawberry and 3 raspberry

Kitchen Knits Swap!

2008-06-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

My pal in Marisol's Kitchen Knits swap was Jodi, and she sent me a lovely package:

In there we have a market bag that she knitted for me, which is exciting because I've seen several friends make them but haven't taken the plunge myself. There is some lovely yarn from The Plucky Knitter as well as some Cotton-Ease, and she included patterns for both. She suggested the Lace Ribbon Scarf for the blue yarn, and I think I might just do that, as the yarn is very similar in color to that used in the pattern, and the pattern photos are lovely :) There is also honey, which I've tried, and lovely smelling tea, which I haven't gotten to yet. Plus, recipes of course, which Dave and I are both excited about. But, having just used it, I have to say that perhaps the best part of the box was the peeler. It's hiding under the tea, but this thing is great! It's a Swiss Peeler from Kuhn Rikon, and you should probably have one too. I peeled a yam for dinner and it was SO much better than either of our old peelers, which are going straight to Goodwill. Anyway, thank you for the great package Jodi, and thanks also to Marisol for organizing such a fun swap and pairing me with another almost-vegetarian!

All but the fringe...

2008-06-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

After a fairly concerted effort (well, not really, but it sounds good) I've finished the Montego Bay Scarf up to the fringing.
I realize you can't really see the thing in that photo, but it's not an easy item to photograph. Perhaps if I wore it, but it's not finished yet, so it's early for that. The little balls are the fringe waiting to be attached. I did four of them yesterday after I took this photo, and I really think they're a bit short. The fringe is supposed to be braided, which sucks up some of the length, and they're only 12" so the fringe is pretty short. I've seen several on Ravelry with unbraided fringe and I might try some of that for a comparison. I suppose short fringe will be alright, but the scarf is drapey and graceful so stingy fringe seems like a mistake. I don't know. The yarn is cut already so there's nothing to be done but figure out the best solution!
Hope all is well with everyone. Sorry to have not been blogging but I've had little to say. I did finish Anais but I'm not happy with it, so there hasn't been a photo shoot. I tried really hard to find a way to wear it yesterday but frankly it doesn't look good. I didn't knit the sleeves because I didn't really like the way the lace inset worked and doubted the sleeves would be better, but without them I'm looking like a linebacker in the thing because it's too big and too straight up and down. Not enough shaping apparently - I wanted it fitted and I think I'd need to be about 2" bigger everywhere for that. And, yes, I swatched, and I got gauge, and I made the right size. Maybe I'm smaller than I think. Anyway, I'll take some photos of it to show you and we can discuss it. I think I'm going to do the sleeves as a test - it can't take long and perhaps it'll save the whole thing?
Oh, and in case you're curious about my problem with the lace insert? This is the problem. It's the SAME for all the sizes. Now, think about this. I made the 34" size, but the pattern goes up to 54". But, my lace insert is, at least in theory, the same size as the 54" one would be, which means that in my shirt it doesn't need to be stretched at all to fit in its space. So, it looks a bit sloppy. And, I knit it on much smaller needles than were called for, and it's still too big. Granted maybe I should have sewed it further up the neckline to stretch it, but I'm not sure that would have helped much. I just think it's an odd part of the design, to not compensate for the fact that the sizes will be different in inset size and the amount of stretching that will and won't be happening. Then again, looking at the ones on Ravelry it doesn't seem like other people had as much trouble with this, so perhaps it's just me?

Weekend Update

2008-05-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

We're having another lovely weekend here in Seattle, which was definitely not what the weather folks predicted. It was supposed to be 65 and raining all weekend - yesterday it was probably 80 and sunny all day, and it's cooler today but still quite nice. Yesterday I did a triathlon worth of athletic endeavors. I biked to the gym, went running, lifted weights, went swimming, then biked to the lab and then home. All told that's about 9 miles of biking, 2 miles of running, and 800 yards of swimming (800 yards = 3.6 skeins of Cascade 220). And, Dave and I walked a mile or so each way to go toss the frisbee at Gas Works Park after dinner, so I was a bit tired by the time I went to bed! I expected to be sore today but I feel alright. So, I walked to work (2.5 miles). I would walk home but my ancient Birkenstocks decided today would be a good day to cause blisters, so I will be walking part of the way and then taking the bus. Why am I telling you this? I have no idea.

What you really want to see is something related to knitting, right? Well, I am here for you! I have a new project, started a couple of weeks ago but not yet blogged, that I can show you. This is the start of a Montego Bay scarf, which I'm making as a gift: These aren't really my colors but the scarf is lovely, and has been fun to work on. I'm about 35% finished. Yesterday I hit my first snag when I picked up an errant yarnover (or something) and ended up with an extra stitch, which it took me quite awhile to fix. It would have been easy had I just gone back and fixed it immediately, since I noticed it immediately, but instead of ripping back I tried to fix it by knitting three together (instead of two) when I got to the problem spot, and that seemed okay so I carried on, but then I had too few stitches and in the end I had to unknit six rows instead of one. But, I'm back on track, and although a trained eye could probably notice where the issue occurred, it's not really that noticeable.

I've also finished Anais, although we haven't taken photos yet. Soon I promise. Yesterday would have been a good day, I'm not sure what went wrong there. It took me awhile to decide on my next garment, but I'm going to make Bayu (Ravelry link here). I have loads of black bamboo in the stash that should work well for this. I love the off-white color in the pattern, and I do have enough ivory Hempathy for it, but I think the Hempathy gauge would be a bit too small. The bamboo I have is the old put-up of the SWTC bamboo, so it's a bit rough and slubby, and I think it'll be perfect. Plus, having used it before I know what needles I used and the gauge, so I can proceed recklessly with this one. No one except (apparently) the designer has knit it yet, so I will be a pioneer!

Oh, and I apologize to everyone who might have gotten spam from my Hotmail account yesterday. I have no idea what happened but hopefully it will be a one-off thing. I contacted Hotmail and I'm waiting to hear back from them. I never even received the email I supposedly sent to everyone I've ever known on Hotmail - gotta love the Internets...

Snobbery

2008-05-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

I, my friends, am a yarn snob. I do not own acrylic. I have no fun fur. Novelty yarns of any stripe are thin in the stash. This, by the way, does not mean that I haven't used these things (aside from the acrylic), just that I've grown out of them. So, when I saw that Cindi was organizing a special swap for yarn snobs as part of the Cuppa Tea Ravelry group, I was really excited. And I was not disappointed:
This is the package I received from Vivian in Australia. Australia! I think this is my first international swap package, and it's really cool because everything is unique. The yarns are exquisite. Here's a close-up of the Live 2 Knit skein:
Vivian wrote that it was specially dyed, and it is just my colors. The yarn is Ginger and the colorway is Sea Glass, and it has 2% silver thread (hence the shine). It's really lovely, and definitely not getting hidden away as socks; I have to come up with the perfect project for it. The other yarn is 100% bamboo laceweight Xie from Southwest Trading Company, which I've never seen before (this particular yarn; the stash is hiding plenty of SWTC products). I suspect it will be quite soft and drapey but it's so tightly wound on the cone that it's tough to say. It looks really fine, but I think that's from being so tightly wound as well. They say it's for weaving but I suspect it will work for lace, and there is a lot of yardage, so we'll see!
There are also lovely stitch markers and great smelling soap. The tea is Australian and smells really good but I haven't tried it yet. I got the package on Friday and we had a really warm weekend so there wasn't any hot tea drinking. There was sunburn though, and knitting outside (new project!), so it was a fair trade. Thank you Vivian, I love my package!

Almost Anais!

2008-05-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

Pardon the 12:15am hair-do, but here is what I've accomplished on Anais:

The reason for the late night photo shoot is that, after not working on Anais for quite a few days I became obsessed with finishing the front piece. At about 9:00 I got it out of the bag and got to it. I hadn't been working on it because I was at the armhole shaping + neck shaping part, and I thought that might be tough to keep track of, but it really wasn't that bad. In the photo it's only pinned loosely under the armpit and at the bottom, but I think it's going to fit well. Oh, and the lace inset is just flopped on. I'm wondering how it's going to fit in there, it seems like the right size now and it's not blocked yet, so I'm worried it's going to be too large. I might have to rip it out and reknit on smaller needles, but we'll see. I'm hoping to get the sides seamed tonight and then I'll deal with the lace. The shirt is a bit shorter than I hoped, but I'll probably wear something under it anyway. Having a white tank sticking out the bottom will be a cute look.

Oh, I might be on TV! I was stopped by the King 5 news folks this morning on my way to work and interviewed about bike commuting. I'm sure I wasn't the only person they talked to, but maybe I'll be on! We're Tivoing all the news today just in case...

ETA: I was on TV! Friday morning, and it will probably rerun in the evening as well. Or, you can find me online here, at least for the moment. I'm a little ways into the story...how exciting!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-05-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

In honor of my birthday, I had lunch and some tasty cupcakes with Anne-Marie: From the left, we have Cardamon Chai (delicious), Hummingbird (to be eaten soon), and Mint Chocolate (Anne-Marie). They were tasty. We spent some time knitting with our cupcakes (new project! Will get it's own post soon), and we went on a bit of a yarn crawl (to be honest, I've been crawling since Thursday, due to the Weaving Works ~~my birthday~~ Mother's Day sale, but I didn't really buy that much). It was a fun day, thank you Anne-Marie!
Dave had to work today, but yesterday we visited the Seattle Art Museum, which honestly was nicer than I expected. Because I lived in Chicago for several years, I have gotten a bit snobby about art museums. The Art Institute has such a great collection that I'm really spoiled. But, there is a some cool stuff at the SAM, so I'm glad we went. We also had a nice dinner at our favorite greek restaurant. Tonight we went out for margaritas and Mexican at El Camino - if this post is at all coherent it is in spite of two fairly strong margaritas! So, I had a lovely birthday weekend, and I promise to talk about some knitting soon!

The Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt (finally!)

2008-05-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

I love it! It's great! It's blue! It fits! I am out of short exclamatory sentences! Seriously though, I'm really happy with the way this tank top came out. It started out fraught with difficulties (twisted cast-on, bad needle/yarn combo, etc) but ended well. Granted, it took awhile, but there was an intervening fall and winter not being tank top weather situation, so overall it wasn't too bad. I started in August sometime and finished in late April, but I don't think I worked on it all from late-September until probably February, when I took it to work to be my lunch project. But, what you really want to see are the photos, right?

Project Stats: Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt
Pattern: Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt (which I've also been called the Ruffled Tuxedo Top), by Theresa Schabes, from the Summer 2007 Interweave Knits. I made the 36" size.
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy, navy blue (color 011). About 4.3 skeins. I bought 7, so clearly a math error or a gauge error was made at some point here. Yarn purchased at Acorn Street.
Needles: Size 3 Clover bamboo circulars.
Time on the needles: August 2007-April 2008.
Modifications: Many. First off, I didn't see a good reason for this to be knit in pieces, so I knit it in the round until I had to separate. And even when I had to bind off the center front for the lace panel I knit the rest in one piece flat until the armpits. Second, I didn't see the point of most of the crochet, so the only place I crocheted was around the bottom of the armholes, which looked messy due to the stepped bind-off. My upper armholes looked crocheted already because I had been slipping the first stitch of every row, and the other places that were supposed to be crocheted (straps, front edges, bottom) had nice garter stitch edges already. Aside from the bottom of course, but I didn't think one round of single crochet would keep it from rolling and anyway I like the little roll it has. Then, since I was jettisoning so much crochet, I decided to heck with the scallop crochet around the front lace inserts, which look fine as is. AND, why button it? I like it open, thus open it shall be!

Impressions: I love it, as I might have mentioned earlier. I really like the Hempathy (good thing, as I have a lot of it in the stash from the Webs extravaganza of '08). It was nice to knit with and it feels nice to wear, although I think if one had sensitive skin it might be a bit scratchy for something close to the skin. I'll always be wearing something under this so it's fine. The color in the second photo is more accurate - the first one has some flash issues. The fit on this is perfect - I was a bit worried because I was between sizes and decided on the larger of the two, since this is supposed to be loose-fitting. It worked out as well I could have hoped. Honestly, I didn't measure it when I was finished, so I'm not sure if my gauge was right in the end (I did swatch), or if I'm bigger than I think I am, but either way it fits.

So, I'm really happy with this, and if Anais turns out half as well I'll be thrilled! I'm on a roll garment-wise and I hope it lasts! By the way, the necklace I'm wearing is one of my favorite pieces of jewelry. I got it from my parents for my birthday a couple of years ago and it's a simple silver clasp-type charm that holds a marble. It's interchangeable and fits any small marble, so there are infinite possibilities. I love it, and wear it quite often.

I finally got around to mailing my Yarn Snob Swap package today. I haven't gotten mine yet but the mailing deadline isn't until this Saturday. I'm hoping my package arrives on Saturday as a one-day-early birthday present!

It's May Already?

2008-05-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

I guess that means it's time for another goal post. I like these because they give me something to talk about on a day when I might not have had anything else to say. I'd love to show you the Ruffled Tuxedo Top (Mine has no ruffles - it's actually called the Sleeveless Tuxedo Tank, now that I think about it.) but the weather is NOT cooperating. It's in the 40s and raining again today. We've had a fairly eh spring really - it started out well but then it never warmed up. Anyway...

The April Goals were as such:
1. Finish Ruffled Tuxedo Tank - DONE. I promise there will be photos as soon as the sun shines, or at least when it's warm enough to be outside in a tank top.
2. Get through trellis repeats on Hanami Stole - NOT DONE. Haven't even touched it :(
3. Finish secret project pieces - DONE - you still can't see it, sorry, but believe me that I finished it!

Really that's not so bad, but these weren't exactly lofty goals. I was a fair way into both #1 and 3 when April started. But, better to accomplish small goals than to be perpetually frustrated! This is a good motto for science as well...

So, what will I do this month?
May Goals
1. Finish Anais - I've got the back almost finished (hopefully today, with Oliver and Jane Austen for assistance), and the lace inset already completed. This should be doable.
2. Knit a secret small gift project - this you'll likely see before #3 from April.
3. Finish trellis repeats on Hanami - I want to work on this, I do, I don't know what happened in April. I think I just felt like I needed simple knitting all the time, so that's what I did. Must push past that barrier!

Right now I am in the lab making RNA, which is really quite a lame way to spend a Saturday. Then again, it is cold and rainy, and Dave is at work, so I guess I might as well be here. And I do have a Starbucks Chai, so all is not lost.
I don't want to have a post without any photos, so check out the lovely Silky Wool I got at the Fiber Gallery sale last weekend:
I have six skeins (only $4.10/skein!) - if you have any good project suggestions let me know! As my mother pointed out in the comments last week, I am apparently in a blue phase. I just finished a blue tank top, I'm knitting a blue t-shirt, and I bought this blue yarn and some blue Manos (also very on sale). I don't usually wear that much blue because I don't like to wear anything but light blue with jeans (unless they're light jeans, but I don't have any of those). But, in the summer I wear a lot of khaki shorts and capri pants, and those go well with dark blues, so maybe that's what's going on subconsciously with all these blue projects...

Testing, testing...

2008-04-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Is anyone writing this blog? You know, after I posted last week about not having much to post about, I thought, Emily, you must get on with starting something new so you have something to post. So I did. Last Tuesday night I swatched for Anais, even going so far as to ~~wash~~ wet my swatch and pin it out, and then I got a bit excited and knit the lace inset: I thought, aha! I can blog about this on Thursday, but then Oliver got into something and we were in a panic about him on Thursday night and Friday (he's fine), so I didn't post, and then it was the weekend (the Fiber Gallery anniversary sale was great as always), and then I had to finish up a news story on the potential environmental disaster about to be wrought by our current biofuel strategy, due today, and so on. But, since the story is done and the back of Anais is almost complete as well, I guess this post is overdue.
I am tempted to hold forth on the biofuel issue, but I will restrain myself and talk about Anais instead, this being a knitting blog. I am loving it so far. The Shine Sport is wonderful yarn to knit - very smooth. It makes a fairly dense fabric that still drapes, so I think it was a good choice for Anais, which is a relatively close-fitting (hopefully) top. My row gauge is 7 st/inch instead of 8, so I've been having to modify things a bit. I had to space out my decrease and increase rounds a bit more and then had to do fewer of them to compensate, but I think that will be okay. The overall length will remain the same but it won't nip in quite as much at the waist, which is fine. I'm at the neck shaping on the back piece, which I'm going to do using short-rows so I can graft live stitches at the shoulder seams like I did for the Drops Swing Cardigan. I think that will look neater. I was tempted to knit this in the round but decided not to so I would have the stability of side seams. I've been slipping the first stitch of every row and that will make the seaming a breeze.
Oh, the Tuxedo Top is finished, and I wore it yesterday. It's great, I love it, the fit is perfect, etc. I'll post the report about it as soon as I have modeled photos!

I know, I know

2008-04-22T20:02:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile, but you haven't missed much, because I haven't been doing much knitting. I am almost finished with the Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt. As evidence, I present a horrible blocking photo. Let me tell you, trying to photograph a navy shirt on a black futon is a recipe for disaster. But, you get the idea. The straps were knit and blocked separately, which is why the armpits look so short. All I have left is a LOT of crocheting, which hopefully Anne-Marie will help me with (Go check out her beautiful new shawl. I'll wait.).
What else? Not much is happening. I've been pretty busy, but aren't we all. The weather has continued its downward spiral. Friday I rode home from the gym in SNOW. In late April. It snowed several more times over the weekend and then yesterday I rode home from the gym in SLEET, which was actually worse than snow because it stung. Thank god the summers are lovely here! Actually, I don't mind the rain/snow/sleet/grey oppression that much unless I have to be riding my bike to work/class/home in it, and even then I only mind it if I'm not in the mood to accept it. Friday I thought the snowy ride was kind of fun, for the novelty. Yesterday? Not so much. I'm not a saint.
For my next "me" project I will be knitting Anais, using Knit Picks Shine Sport (in River). I have to swatch so I can figure out how the yarn behaves, and then I'll be off. Maybe I'll even post swatch photos, since I probably can't bore you all with chatter about the weather much longer before you tune me out...

By the way, Pennsylvania? You're on notice.

Spring Tease

2008-04-14T10:43:00.001-07:00

It was SO nice in Seattle on Saturday. So nice. I even got a tan sitting outside of Peet's with Anne-Marie (although it's only on my right arm because of the way I was sitting. Oops!). I was there in a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops. Lovely. In the 70s. And then yesterday? Back into the 50s, with rain. Today? 40s and rain. The rest of the week? The same. Anyway, here are some lovely tulips to brighten the gloom!
I finished the main part of the tank top and the first lace panel on the front, so I'm almost finished! I have the second lace panel to finish and then the straps, which should go quickly. Then, even though I converted it to the round, there is a lot of finishing to do because there is crochet around all the edges plus some sort of fancy crochet (Have I mentioned that my knowledge of crochet stops at single crochet edgings?) around the lace panels. I think I'll be enlisting Anne-Marie for help on that, and it should be finished soon!

It takes two

2008-04-11T23:42:00.001-07:00

To get photos like this!I just realized I hadn't shown any photos of the Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt I've been working on (the one that is part of the April goals). I think the only photo that got blogged was the swatch, back in July, which is really quite pathetic, although to be fair I did set it aside for quite a few months. I'm almost at the armpit split, so I thought I'd try it on, and hilarity ensued. It's a good thing Dave was around because there's no way I could have gotten out of it, seeing as it's on a 24" circular and I am, well, larger than 24" in circumference. As Dave was helping me out of it (it fits, by the way, as you may or may not be able to tell), he said, "Oh, this would be a great blog photo!" and disappeared to get the camera, leaving me with my arms falling asleep up in the air. The things I do for you!

We finally had a glimpse of warm and sunny weather today so I went for a walk after work, where I discovered this: This is a statue across the corner from our apartment building. It's called Waiting for the Interurban, and people from the neighborhood often dress it up to suit different occasions. I'd say this is a good occasion! I'm not sure who the hopeful suitor is - presumably there was another t-shirt on the rightmost figure (out of frame). My hope is the intended viewer took the shirt and ran to say yes!

Viva Las Vegas

2008-04-08T14:02:00.001-07:00

I spent last weekend in Las Vegas, and let me tell you, it is a surreal place. My trip was a mini family reunion of sorts, organized by my cousins in honor of their mother's 60th birthday, which was in January. My mother and I tagged along for moral support and gambling. I myself didn't do too much gambling, although I was getting into the spirit of it by the end of the second day. I find I'd rather have something for my money, even if it's just a mocha. But, I can see the appeal, especially if one is lucky like my mother. My aunt was very pleased with her shawl. Here she is wearing it before dinner on Friday, flanked by my cousins. The highlight of the trip was probably O at the Bellagio. O is the Cirque du Soleil show with the water, and if you ever get a chance to see it you really should, even though it's expensive. It's worth it.
I realized when I got home that I, as usual, have no photos of myself. I'm sure others do, but for now we'll have to be satisfied with general Vegas shots. I'm particularly proud of this photo of the fountains at the Bellagio, taken while we were eating dinner at Olives (very good). I'm amazed I was able to get a good shot of the fountains in motion. I have a few actually, but this is the best one. The fountains are really cool. I was also impressed with the class ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio, done by local (Tacoma/Seattle) artist Dale Chihuly.
On Saturday I found a machine I loved called Easel Money, and here you can see evidence that I made $20.06 from the $1 I put in (trust me). I of course lost that $20 later, but I was pretty excited at the time.
And look, they have an Eiffel Tower!
And, just in case you haven't had enough gambling, they have slot machines all over the airport. Here's a fun shot of my mom whiling away the time waiting for our flights:
I had a great time but I really think a weekend is long enough to be in Vegas. It's an interesting place but totally overwhelming to the senses! And no, I didn't do any knitting while I was there, and hardly any on the plane...

March recap and April goals

2008-04-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

My March goals were apparently a bit lofty seeing as I did quite poorly at meeting them. Let's discuss them, shall we?

They were:
1. Finish lace shawl - DONE
2. Finish lace hat you (still) haven't seen - NOT done. The snag I hit before the last goal post is still present and unresolved. But, I did knit a different hat, so I guess this goal was sort of met.
3. Finish Chevalier Mittens - NOT done. I wasn't happy with the decreases on the first one so I planned to modify it on the second, but then didn't get around to even starting. When I finished the shawl last week I planned to do it, but then I smashed my left index finger folding a tv tray and there was no way I could deal with tight gauge knitting with that type of bruised and battered left hand. The nail is still bruised and a bit numb...
4. At least work on the Ivy League Vest. - NOT done. Oops.

So, as you see, my progress was abysmal, but at least I finished the shawl, which was really the important thing. The rest were all secondary to that and are all for me so there's really no rush.
Moving on...

April Goals
1. Finish Ruffled Tuxedo Tank - This one I started last summer and then abandoned until the weather started looking up. I've been working on it at work and progress is being made.
2. Get through trellis repeats on Hanami Stole - I've done 1/7 so far...
3. Finish secret project pieces - I can't show this project, but I'm 3/5 finished already so this is doable.

I swam 1000 yards yesterday, which is almost five skeins of Cascade 220, and more than twice as much yardage as I used for the Swallowtail Shawl. I really like swimming but I tend to forget about it as a form of exercise. I have a lot of practice as I swam competitively when I was a kid. Well, by that I mean there were swim meets, and I swam in them. Whether I was competitive is a different issue. So I decided to take up swimming again, and I've been enjoying it. It's like riding a bike in that you don't forget how to do it, but different due to the whole lack of ability to breathe underwater. It's tough. I'm hoping it doesn't increase the circumference of my already burly arms!

The Elegance of the Swallowtail

2008-04-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have to preface these photos by reiterating that this shawl isn't for me, although I kind of wish it was because I really like it! I didn't think I'd be able to pull off a triangular shawl (and honestly I'm still not sure it's something I would actually wear) but it's pretty in the photos. Dave took a ton of photos, most of which got thrown out due to my arms looking more akin to those of a linebacker or the sudden appearance of a double chin, but some were good enough to display on the blog: I think this is how I would be most likely to wear something like this, and it certainly adds a degree of elegance and sophistication to an otherwise very plain black dress. Here's a good "from the back" photo. Please ignore my apparently gigantic arms. I think some of that is the light. Hopefully.
And then a "demure" pose, although I was probably glaring at the wall or sticking my tongue out or some such silliness that is thankfully well-hidden.
And finally, a close-up of the nupps which I went on and on about in so many posts. You can see that they really do add quite a nice texture to the lace and thus were well worth the effort.
Project Stats: Swallowtail Shawl
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl, by Evelyn Clark, from Interweave Knits Fall 2006.
Yarn: Zephyr Wool-silk, colorway curry, about 475 yards. Yarn purchased at Acorn Street in Seattle.
Needles: Size 4 Knit Picks Harmony bamboo. These needles are great - I can't say enough good things about them. You should get some.
Time to knit: Mid-January to March 24, 2008, with about a month of laziness mixed in. It went pretty quickly considering it was my first real lace project, but there was a deadline involved which provided motivation not to slack.
Modifications: The shawl as the pattern directs is pretty small, so I made mine larger by adding five repeats of the budding lace pattern (the main section), for 19 total repeats. I followed the instructions provided in this post by Pepperknit, and had no problems with the math working out correctly. I did the nupps as instructed in the pattern, and although they were tedious it wasn't so awful once I got used to them. I think the super sharp needles helped a lot in that regard. My shawl ended up being 60 inches across the top by about 27 inches long, which I think is a good size. It's perfect for me. The recipient is a bit broader in the shoulders, but hopefully it will be okay for her as well. I will be gifting it this weekend so I'll update about that soon!
Impressions: I love it! While it's not the first laceweight project I've started, it is the first I've completed, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I made my only mistake early on and got it over with (bet you can't see it! I can't and I know where it is), and although I had to tink back a few stitches a couple of times, I really didn't have any issues. This is a very simple pattern because it's so repetitive, and I'd recommend to any new lace knitter. I put in lifelines but thankfully I didn't have to use them. I was a bit concerned about the color but I really like it in the end - the photos are fairly accurate, especially the close-up of the nupps. I was going for gold and this was the closest color I could find. I have a ton of yarn left, and gold is not my color, so I need to come with another gold shawl giftee! I'm all inspired to knit more lace, although I'm still not really sure it fits into my dressing style. I'm thinking rectangular stoles like the Hanami will be more wearable for me, but I jumped at the chance to make a triangular shawl when I thought of a recipient I knew would appreciate it.

We'll have a March goal recap and April planning post later today or tomorrow!

Something new...

2008-03-31T09:24:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all your compliments on the Swallowtail Shawl! I'm really happy with it, and I promise, even though it's a gift, to take some modeling shots with it to post with the write-up (which is waiting for those photos). As soon as the shawl was off the needles I decided I needed to knit some more lace, so I cast-on for the Hanami Stole. I've been meaning to make this since early last summer when I first discovered the pattern, and I've had the yarn since August, but I'm just now getting going. It's good timing though, as the cherry blossoms are in full bloom here in Seattle! What I'm showing you here is just over one repeat of the first chart. I had some trouble with the beaded cast-on so I just did a long-tail and then added beads every other stitch on the first row. I think it looks acceptably similar and the beaded cast-on was really just too tedious to bear. Your eyes are not deceiving you - it is a bit lighter on the right. The yarn is a semisolid with variegations from fairly deep pink to almost white, and unfortunately it's pooling a bit, but I suspect it won't be that noticeable and as the lace pattern changes it will probably sort itself out. Fingers crossed!

Magic!

2008-03-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Swallowtail Shawl is blocking! It went from this: To this:
in a matter of minutes. This was a group effort - I borrowed the blocking wires (which I only used on the top) from Jennifer, and Anne-Marie came over for moral support and to help with the pinning. We were both impressed by what a difference the blocking made. It is true that it's quite a transformation. I was able to block the shawl to about 60x27 inches, which is, I think, an acceptable size. It's still pinned to the futon although it's pretty much dry already. I must admit I'm a bit afraid to unpin it for fear that it might snap back to its unblocked state, although I know that's unlikely. I tried to get a good shot from the side but didn't really succeed. This is the best one. I'll take more close-up shots so you can all appreciate the nupps (and muse about the project) when it's finished blocking! I am, in all honestly, amazed that I knit this...

Something is missing...

2008-03-25T09:42:00.001-07:00

Swallowtail Shawl, unblocked
Originally uploaded by Emily E.M.

The needles! I finished binding off the shawl last night, and I think it looks great, in that crumpled mess sort of way :) I'm going to get some more pins tonight and Dave is going to pull out the futon so I can get blocking. I'm really excited - first lace project almost complete, and I'm very much looking forward to the blocking magic. I have NO idea how big this is going to turn out, although I don't think it's going to end up much larger than the pattern even though I did five extra repeats of the main pattern. But, we'll see - I'm new to this, maybe it will grow by leaps and bounds? Fingers crossed!

A lovely weekend

2008-03-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday saw us off skiing again, this time at Mt. Baker for the Eighth Annual Golden Egg Hunt. They hid 4,000+ eggs around the ski area and (supposedly) gave away $15,000 worth of prizes. I only found two eggs (and I was the only one of us who found any), and they had (unlucky) raffle tickets inside. The weather was lovely and there was a lot of snow, although it was pretty heavy and a bit tough to deal with in spots. Anne-Marie took this photo of my trying to work out how I was going to get a turn started: It was, by the way, steeper than it looks. You can see above and behind me below how much new snow there was - I think almost two feet last week. This is probably the last time we'll get out skiing this year, although they got 15 more inches of snow today, so there is always hope for next weekend. But I'm okay with being done for the season - we've been out six times and that's pretty good considering we didn't go at all until after New Years, I was sick a couple of times, and I was out of town for a weekend. Anne-Marie has more photos on her blog - the one of Dave and I standing at the top of the run I'm struggling with in the photo above is a really nice shot you should check out. We took a break to watch the egg toss: They got really far apart by the end, and the prize was a pair of snowboards and several lift tickets, so I suspect people practive! And, as you can see, all the cool kids drink diet pepsi (sorry Mom)! Well, Anne-Marie is behind me drinking hot cocoa, but...

The Easter Bunny (aka my parents) sent me a nice surprise! Lots of chocolate (but not too much) and some other goodies, in a really pretty bowl with sunflowers on the inside. Dave and I tried the game (top right) this afternoon and it's really hard! Thanks Mom and Dad! Oh, the Peeps? I'm embarrassed to say that they're long gone...

Quick shawl update

2008-03-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

I have finished the nupps! I'm on the final chart! The end is in sight! Please let me not screw it up now! In all seriousness, the nupps weren't that bad, although those rows were quite slow-going. By the end it was taking me about 30 minutes per row, which, although there are a lot of stitches (don't ask me how many), is still a long time for one row. I don't know how many stitches I have because I enlarged the shawl by five repeats of the Budding Lace, and I could do the math, but I haven't. All I know is - more stitches than the pattern. I've been following the modifications made by Pepperknit (here), although I just did the purl5tog instead of the decrease she used - I didn't find it that difficult (but, again with the slowness). I did start out doing a slip 2, p3tog, psso decrease, but thought it looked sloppy because one of the slipped stitches was a yarnover, so I moved to the p5tog because it was tidier, but after a few rows I noticed that the first couple of funny-looking nupps had sorted themselves out and really did look just like the p5togs. I guess I didn't have the faith, but I stuck with the p5togs anyway. I just finished the first two rows of the last chart, doing four increases as recommended so that the final chart numbers will line up. This is a leap of faith because I don't know how many stitches I have and I'm not counting! Tonight I'll move my lifeline and proceed with the final bit. I've really loved knitting this, and I'm sorry there aren't any photos, but it's too jammed on the needles to spread out, and hopefully I'll be done with it this weekend and I can stretch it out for you!

Oops, I made a hat!

2008-03-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I stumbled on a cute pattern on Ravelry, and despite really needing to get on with my shawl knitting, I decided, what the hell, it's MY knitting, and cast on. And then proceeded to knit the whole hat in under three hours, or two episodes of Jeopardy (sans commercials, thank you tivo) plus A Life Less Ordinary (which you should see if you have not). Without further ado, I present my new alpaca hat:

Just to be clear, I don't actually smirk very often, even though I'm always smirking on the blog. The reason for this is that I'm trying to avoid having a double-chin, so I avoid actually smiling for most of my blog photos. Just so you all don't think I'm a smirker...

Project Stats: Alpaca Hat

Pattern: Robin's Egg Blue Hat

Yarn: Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky, less than one skein, in ivory. Yarn purchased at Weaving Works, where I also got the button.

Needles: Size 10.5 bamboo straights and DPNs

Time to knit: March 14, 2008, about three hours

Impressions: Cute! Fun! Fast! Warm! This is a fun pattern, really simple and really quick to knit up. If I make another (Not unlikely - I have lots of potentially appropriate yarn in the stash. Many people might get one of these for Christmas next year.), I will make it a tad smaller, especially if it's for me. But it does fit, although I made it slightly too long. I have that problem with hats - either too short or too long, and always just a little bit either way so I don't bother to fix them. Alas, I like it anyway!

In other news, I have finished the first border chart of the shawl, and have mastered the nupps. I actually haven't had much difficulty negotiating the p5togs, but that's probably due to the spectacular Knit Picks needles with their lovely sharp tips. Now that I'm all into the lace and feeling confident that I might actually finish a lace project, I'm looking forward to what I want to knit next, and thinking that whatever it is I'll have to get more of these needle tips in whatever size I need, because they are great. I knit eight rows today and I think I have 25 left, although the last 15 don't have nupps and hopefully will go by quickly. I doubt I'll get much accomplished tomorrow because we're going skiing, but we'll see. If my eyes aren't tired when we get back I'll try.

Moral Dilemma

2008-03-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

So this morning I found a lovely brown and turquoise umbrella on the SLUT (= South Lake Union Streetcar, originally named SLU Trolley, hence the SLUT, which stuck even after they realized it was a bad acronym and changed the name). Now, I was the only person on the slut, so it's not like someone put the umbrella down and was coming back for it, so I thought, "Ah, free umbrella, and just in my colors. Lucky me!" But then I was a bit torn, because whoever lost the umbrella might have come looking for it. I really doubt that though - in my experience when you lose an umbrella you don't know where you lost it and they aren't that expensive and you just buy another one and try to be more careful. I could have given it to the driver for the lost and found, but as per my above point, I doubted anyone would come looking for the umbrella, having probably not known where they lost it, so it would just sit forlornly in the lost and found forever. Thus, I took the umbrella, because I'll appreciate it and one can never have too many umbrellas - this will be my work umbrella. Many people in Seattle will not deign to use umbrellas so as to not appear weak in the face of the elements, but I am not one of those people. Umbrellas are my friend. I blame the glasses. I wish I had my camera so I could show you this umbrella - it's really quite cute, brown/turquoise/white squares and a good size...but to be honest I probably wouldn't have taken it if had been plain black or something (ie not something I would have bought on the spot if I was in the market for an umbrella). Now - did I do the right thing? What would you have done?

Quick update about nothing

2008-03-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

Dave is back from Florida (well, on Monday, I'm a bit slow), and he brought a huge bag of Florida oranges, which we've been enjoying quite a bit. Oliver was very glad to see Dave (as was I, but I don't purr), and Dave was glad to return and find out that the class he's teaching next quarter is almost full.
This will be quick because Blogger is having an outage in 4 minutes, but I wanted to check in and update that I finished the main lace section of my shawl and now I just have the three edging charts to knit. Those might be a bit slow, since they have nupps, and they keep getting longer each row. I'll try to post another photo soon but the shawl is too wide to stretch out now so it might be tough...

Weekend Update

2008-03-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday: Sense & Sensibility
Knit half of first Chevalier Mitten after Rachel fixed by miscabling at lunch.
Friday: Pride & Prejudice, 5-hour BBC version with Colin Firth. This is my favorite P&P.Finished the first mitten, aside from the thumb. I'm not sure if I'm happy with the way the tip looks and I think I might rip it back and just to decreases along the top chevron instead of the bizarre thing the chart calls for, especially as this is a tad too big for my even with the extra chevron removed. Also knit a bit of the Swallowtail Shawl.
Saturday: Pride & Prejudice (again) with Rachel this time, and only the first half. Then I broke with Jane and watched Vanity Fair, which is at least the same time period. Knit lace. In the evening Anne-Marie and I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl, which was quite good, and, although much earlier in time, still involved romantic intrigue and good dresses.
Sunday: I'm going to watch Persuasion, the new Masterpiece Theater version, which I have on the Tivo, and knit lace. I have two repeats to go on the main section so I hope to finish that tonight, although it's already 8:15. Where did the day go?!?
Well, part of the day went to hitting up the dregs of the Hilltop Yarn fire sale, which, as you might recall, I skillfully avoided last weekend by going skiing. I stopped in there today on my way home from the grocery store and was pleasantly surprised by how many great pattern books they had left. I got this whole lot, plus some row counters, for $45. I've been wanting some of these Rowan books, but they never go on sale, so this was a great find!

What have I done to anger the knitting gods?

2008-03-06T09:35:00.000-08:00

URGH! You know, I just wanted a simple project, easy-peasy, for work and when I couldn't deal with the complicated lace. So, I started the Chevalier Mittens, which are lovely and almost still seasonal if I can finish them quickly. I cast on last weekend and brought them into work with me to knit at lunch, and I was moving along, slowly (due to the tight gauge around the cables) but surely.

Then yesterday at lunch I took a look at them and thought, "You know, something doesn't look right here." Can't see it? Look on the upper right. Here's a close-up:

I'm not sure what went wrong here, really, but Rachel diagnosed that my cables weren't traveling (hence the stacking on the right, where it looks like a real cable cross instead of a chevron like the left side and the section underneath). I'm not sure how I messed this up - surely I can read a narrow chart? I suspect I just didn't knit two before starting the cables on one row, but now I have to rip it back, and I'm really not looking forward to that because of the exceedingly tight gauge. But, I have small needles with me to make it easier and will proceed accordingly. If all else fails I can just start over, it didn't take me very long to get to where I am...But, this is frustrating because I just want something simple to work on, you know? I haven't even attempted to fix the lace hat...

Dave and I watched Into the Wild last night, and I would really recommend it. The book is great, but the movie has better scenery. I find the protagonist to be a very selfish character, mainly as regards to how he treats his family, but he has many redeeming qualities and by the end you're with him, at least sort of. By that I mean you can empathize with him, but you're probably not going to think twice about going into the wilds of Alaska and camping in an abandoned bus. Now Dave has flown off to visit his grandmother in Florida (lucky) so I have the house to myself for the weekend. I intend to watch as much Jane Austen as I can find time for and maybe to eat some chicken. I might also go skiing. And some work will be done, I suppose...

Past failings and new goals

2008-03-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

Failings is a bit strong, really, but I liked the sound of that title so there you go. February was a tough month for me in that I kept getting sick, I had a ton of work to do in lab and for my writing class, and I was out of town for almost a week. You'd think since I was sick I would have accomplished a lot of knitting, but I was actually too sick for that, believe it or not. Plus, February is a short month, so perhaps I should have been less ambitious in the first place...

As a recap, the February goals were as follows:
1. Finish Anastasia Socks - Done
2. Knit to armholes of Ivy League Vest - Ha! I think I knit two rounds of this because of #3 and 4
3. Finish woven scarf - Done
4. Finish first section of lace repeats on gift shawl - Well, mixed bag here. There are supposed to be 14 repeats, but I'm doing 19. I have 15 done, which means I sort of met this goal, if I was to be making the original shawl...

Looking back, that's really not that awful considering how busy I was and that the lace is time-consuming to knit. The only thing that really suffered was the vest, because I was knitting the shawl at the times I would otherwise have been working on that. The woven scarf came to Boston and was knit on the plane and in seminars, and the socks were mostly knit on the way to and from Boston on the plane. The lace is the evening with the TV knitting...

March Plans
1. Finish lace shawl - This is not optional as there is a deadline involved. I think this is doable as I'm getting faster even though the rows are getting longer.
2. Finish lace hat that you haven't seen yet. We'll see how this goes. I was trucking right along on it but hit a snag that I couldn't figure out last night so it's in time-out for the moment.
3. Finish Chevalier Mittens - I started these last night to take the edge off after finding an issue in #2 and not having the patience for #1.
4. At least work on the Ivy League Vest, but the rush seems off with this project now that it's getting on toward spring and it might be time to break out the hibernating spring/summer knits from last year...

Another "woven" scarf

2008-03-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Behold, another woven knit scarf! This is my third (here and here) one of these, and I think it's my favorite, but that might just be because I get to keep this one! Project Stats: Colinette Woven Scarf
Pattern: Woven Knit, from Knit Scarves! by Candi Jensen.
Yarn: Colinette Prism, colorway Toscana, 2 skeins. This is the recommended yarn and it's great. I bought it from an Ebay vendor in the UK in December 2006 for just this purpose.
Needles: Size 11 Clover bamboo straights.
Time on the needles: January-February 2008. Finished on 2/29 - thank goodness it was a leap year or I'd have been up very late on Thursday trying to finish in February!
Impressions: Love it! I'm honestly not sure why this pattern isn't more popular. It's dead simple and results in a cool fabric that lays completely flat. There are only 13 of these on Ravelry and three of them are mine! It can get a bit tedious but that's true of most scarves so I doubt that's the deterrent. The yarn is great - a bit pricey but I got a good deal on it and it was nice to, for once, be using the recommended yarn (even the same color!). I'm really excited to have finally knit this, since I acquired the yarn quite awhile ago and had been meaning to knit it up ever since, but it always got pushed out the way for gift projects and more exotic knits. Here's the obligatory texture close-up:The color is fairly accurate there as well. It's a nice mix of green and blues/reds, so it will go well with a lot of things. I suspect I'll be getting a lot of use out of this one!

I am SO glad I went skiing yesterday instead of braving the crowds at the Hilltop Yarn fire sale! It sounds like it was utterly chaotic with people and that the good stuff went fast. People were lining up at 9:00am for an 11:00am opening! For YARN! I love yarn but that's insanity. So, I'm glad I didn't go - crowds and disorganization frustrate me to no end so it wouldn't have turned out well for me, plus the skiing was great. Dave, Anne-Marie, and I went to Crystal Mountain, where we found much good snow and Dave did a hike up/ski down race (Because he is crazy. Anne-Marie and I rode the lifts, because we are sensible). Fourth time skiing this year and I would like to go at least once more, maybe next weekend if it keeps snowing...

February accomplishments and March goals to come later today!

Swallowtail shawl progress is afoot

2008-02-27T22:35:00.001-08:00

Look what I'm making - a giant blob of orange gold! This is my Swallowtail Shawl, 14 repeats of the main lace pattern finished. I'm enlarging the shawl so I plan to do 19 repeats as per Pepperknit. This is a semi-secret gift project. Semi because I want to be able to blog about it, but secret because I'm not telling you who it's for. See, semi-secret? Right...

I need to figure out how to make Flickr embed photos in my posts without doing the weird formatting it's doing up there! Anyway, this is Zephyr wool/silk in curry. I think the color in the first photo is pretty accurate. I'm worried it's going to be too orange, but really it is a lovely color and hopefully the recipient will like it. I was going for gold but I couldn't find any gold laceweight in Seattle or on the internets. So, curry it is! I'm very much enjoying knitting this now that I'm into it, although that took a little while. Now the rows are longer and thus the stitches are more stable on the needles so I feel more confident, plus I have the pattern pretty much memorized and I'm learning to read the lace to make sure I'm on track. This has to be done in about a month, which should be okay at my current rate of progress, although the nupps may slow me down. Pepperknit also has a different nupp method that I think I'll borrow to avoid the purl5together stitch, which sounds painful even with the Knit Picks Harmony needles (which are great, and not garish as I initially feared). Here's a close-up of the pattern. Thanks to Dave for stretching it out so I could take the photo!

Now that I'm back and not that busy there's no stopping me - I'm posting all the time! Oh, and I've been messing with my sidebars a bit - if you're a blog I read and I haven't added you yet don't feel bad. My computer at work crashed when I was making the list and I haven't gotten back to it yet. Then again, I read a lot of blogs so I might not be able to list them all...

A fresh perspective

2008-02-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

Dave and I have been arguing for ages about the merits of furniture rearrangement. I grew up in a household where we rearranged furniture almost monthly, and I did the same thing in my college apartment. However, since I've lived in Seattle, I haven't really bothered moving things around, largely because their original arrangement seemed like the best one. When my mother was visiting a couple of summers ago, we rearranged the living room, but everything else has stayed as it was. But I digress. Dave did not grow up in a family where furniture moving was a frequent occurrence, and he really couldn't understand the point. We got into it again while having brunch at a friend's house on Sunday, and I resolved that we were going to rearrange the bedroom, if only to move my nightstand to the other side of the bed so I could switch sides such that maybe Oliver would stop harassing me for food at 5:15 in the morning (I'll be sure to let you all know how well that works out.). Well, to make a long story short, Dave ended up getting quite into the process and now the bedroom is completely different: I realize hardly any of you know how it was before, but I figured my mother would appreciate this, and she's one of my most loyal readers! And I know how she likes furniture at angles, because she put my couch at one! Dave even has his own reading area so he doesn't have to read in bed when he has insomnia. Apparently he would rather read sitting up...We have a nice symmetrical wall of furniture, which appeals to me because of the varying heights. We'll see how we like this. Last night it was hard sleeping on the wrong side of the bed!

Final Christmas gift in the mail!

2008-02-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

Finished! Finally...my poor grandmother, having to wait until late February for her Christmas gift!

They look funny because they're too big for me, hence the floppy toes. I made the first of these socks in time for Christmas but was worried about the size, so I only gifted one sock. It was, as feared, too big, so I made the second sock smaller with intentions of ripping out the toe and reknitting shorter. But, these are toe-up and with the eyelet pattern it was all getting too confusing for me and I knew I would procrastinate on it and therefore I decided to let the first sock be a bit big. I think she'll be happy with them anyway, she said at the time it was okay. Plus, I suspect these will be worn almost exclusively in the house, not with shoes, and that they will shrink a tad anyway. Fingers crossed that they fit and she likes them, and that she isn't lying when she says so!

Project Stats: Anastasia Socks

Pattern: Anastasia, by Pepperknit.

Yarn: Socks that Rock Lightweight, colorway Lucy (named after Wendy's cat). Yarn purchased at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival in 2007.

Needles: Size 1 Clover bamboo DPNs

Time on the needles: November 2007-February 20, 2008. Eh. No excuse for this, really.

Impressions: Once again, I love the STR. This was a nice pattern but I had some issues on the legs. Once I was doing the pattern all the way around I got frameshifts, and I probably could have figured out a way to fix it but it only happened once on the first sock and then the second sock I was knitting on my way back from Boston on the plane and I was tired and not thinking hard enough about it. It's really not that obvious anyway, unless you're looking. Most of my socks thus far have been knit top-down, but I like toe-up for full yarn utilization. Not that I used all the yarn here since I correctly assumed my grandmother was not the tall socks type. These socks have brought me around to the merits of the short-row heel, which is easy and I suspect faster than the heel flap-gusset decrease heel I'm used to. Plus, most store-bought socks have short-row heels (You know you've looked too!), so there must be something to them...This is a good pattern for this yarn, and I'm really happy with the striping (no pooling!) that I got on both socks. Overall I'd say these are a success, but I do feel bad that they aren't the same size, and that they're soooo late!

A belated post about my recent trip to Boston, and more importantly, to WEBS

2008-02-25T06:54:00.000-08:00

Alright. I'm sorry. My recent blogging, or lack thereof, has been an utter disaster. This is only my second post in February and the month is almost gone. Granted I was really really really busy and I had repeated health plagues, but still. And then I went to Boston for almost a week. I uploaded these photos last Thursday and I'm just now getting around to writing about them, which is pretty pathetic. I'm not so busy now and hopefully I'll get my blogging mojo back. But I see how people fall out of blogging. There's an inertia that arises from not posting, where you think, "Oh, I'll just do it tomorrow," but then tomorrow you can't be bothered, nor the next day, and you don't have much knitting to show off anyway, so you don't post. But, I'll do my best to not let down my public!

Right, apologies over with - let's talk about Boston! I went to Boston for the annual AAAS conference (this is the American Association for the Advancement of Science - try saying it three times fast). This isn't really a bench science meeting, it's much more about science policy and scientific issues. This year the theme was Science and Technology from a Global Perspective, and there were many symposia on global warming, global health, ocean contamination, energy policy, emerging green energy technology, etc. I loved it. I love science and I think we should all know more about it. But, I find my current research very focused (this is the whole point of graduate school - learning a lot about a very narrow subject) and I have broad interests. So for me this meeting was great because I got to learn about all sorts of interesting science that I wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to, and to meet some of the people who make the policies that shape how our nation deals with science. I went with FOSEP, the Forum on Science Ethics and Policy. We're a group of graduate students at the University of Washington that are concerned with science policy. We bring national speakers to campus to discuss current issues and encourage dialogue across campus, and we do some community outreach here in Seattle. Several of us went, including Anne-Marie, and we got a bunch of ideas for future seminar speakers, so the meeting was a success.
But, enough about that, probably you'd rather hear about Boston (or WEBS), so let's talk about that! We spent most of our time at the conference, although we did do some shopping (Thursday night when we arrived we had to jet to H&M because Alaska Airlines didn't feel like putting my bag on the DIRECT flight to Boston, and thus I needed to quickly acquire a new shirt). Although the conference technically didn't end until Monday at noon, Monday morning found Anne-Marie and I at Enterprise renting a car for our jaunt to Webs. As soon as we knew we were going to Boston we decided we really should make a pilgrimage, even though Webs is in Northampton, over 100 miles away. But, if you've already come all the way from Seattle, 100 miles is nothing, right? So off we went, through the pouring rain, driving wind, fog, and a mishap with a toll booth, to the yarn mecca of the United States. And we were not disappointed. Here's a shot of Anne-Marie in the back room, where all the deals are:Note smile and empty basket. The smile widened and the bag filled as we proceeded around the stacks. The front of the store was also impressive. I didn't think their base prices were that great, but they have a discount program that makes them quite a bargain if you're buying more than a couple of skeins (which of course I did). And, no sales tax in MA! They have such a huge variety. I wanted to take pictures but I wasn't sure if that was allowed, and anyway I was just too overwhelmed. Here's what we bought (this includes another trip to H&M, so those bags aren't all full of yarn, and our little car.

We had a little trouble getting all that yarn back on the plane. Thankfully Anne-Marie brought an extra bag and we were able to jam it all in there. If you ever get a chance to go to Webs, you really must. It's great, and the people were really friendly. And they have good pizza in Northampton, if you need a further reason to be there. And no, I'm not going to show you what I bought, because I don't want to frighten my relations. Actually I didn't buy that much - it could have been worse. If you're on Ravelry you can see that I uploaded a bunch of new stash - that was all of it. There were two bags of Hempathy (summer tops, light sweaters), a bag of Classic Al (lovely red) and some other assorted skeins for scarves and fair-isle projects. Between us we definitely paid for the rental car and gas with the money we saved, so it was a success.

But it wasn't all science and yarn, we did see some of Boston proper. On Tuesday we walked a good chunk (to the Charles River) of the Freedom Trail, which winds through many of Boston's historic sights. It's very easy to follow as they've painted, or bricked, a red line on the sidewalk that you follow blindly, and which occasionally has markers like these, in case you are confused about what you're doing: The Massachusetts state capital building is quite impressive:

Boston has a lot of history, being one of the oldest cities in the country, so there was plenty of old stuff to be seen, like this cemetery in the North End and Paul Revere's house, from which he set off to warn everyone that the British were coming.

And we saw other things as well, like Harvard Square in Cambridge, and Boston Common, and the waterfront. Boston isn't really that big, you can walk around most of it without too much effort and see a lot fairly quickly. We also drove around a bit when we got back from Webs, and the Boston drivers were NOT as crazy as I expected. Then again, I am an aggressive driver so perhaps I just fit right in? And it was a holiday, so maybe everyone was subdued. We had a lot of good food, including great Italian. Seattle is not a city that has good simple Italian. It's all fancy and expensive and I just want some pasta and good homemade red sauce. I'm spoiled because in Erie where I grew up there is great Italian food, and in Chicago as well, but out here, nada. But I digress.

I loved Boston. I always thought it would be my kind of city, although I'd never been there, and it was great. The people are friendly but they're aware of their surroundings and they walk quickly (people in Seattle amble and take forever to make left turns driving, which makes me insane). They drive fast and get where they're going, which I appreciate (see previous paratheneses). And they have good food, good yarn (well, close-by, although we went to Windsor Button and it was pretty good), and, and I can't stress this enough, everyone we talked to was really friendly. It has been my observation in several East Coast cities that shall remain nameless, that unfriendliness, if not outright hostility, reigns supreme, but Boston was not like that. Plus, there are so many universities, museums, theaters, etc, there that it seems like a larger city (Boston is smaller than Seattle, which surprised me). I'm actively looking for where I want to do my post-doctoral research, and Boston is now high on the list. While I love Seattle I would really like to be closer to my family and I could always come back here. We'll see. I'm sure I'll keep you posted!

Okay, that was a saga of a post. I have other stuff to talk about but I'll save it for later! Hope you're all well, and I'll try not to disappear for as long again, at least for awhile...

Does absence make the heart grow fonder?

2008-02-07T22:29:00.001-08:00

Right, I'm back. I've been here all along really, but I had some sort of fever-type plague which I think was a short-lived flu, and then I had (well, concurrently really, which wasn't fun) a huge amount of stuff to do for class and lab, and now I have a chest cold but at least I'm not alternating between crying about stress and sweating through my clothing. Sorry if that's TMI. And I had this whole big January wrap-up/February goals posts all written in my head for Friday but then I spent all day laying on the couch trying to will my head into not pounding whilst wondering who in their right mind thinks they're going on Jerry Springer to hear some good news. Ahem. Yes, it was bad enough that I didn't go to work, which is rare and was nice...but I didn't knit, because I had lost the will to live, let alone count. So, now that it's February 7th, the wrap-up/big plans post seems a bit silly, but I'm going to do it anyway.

The January goals were thus:

1. Finish Anastasia Socks - Not done :(

2. Finish secret gift project - Done, this was the Baby Surprise Jacket for Vivian

3. Finish Drops Swing Cardigan - Done, discussed at length here

4. Knit a hat for Rembrandt - Done, knit jointly by Dave and I but not yet posted

5. Finish Carpathia hat - Done, this was for Daisy

6. Cast-on and knit five inches of the Ivy League Vest - Done, see below

7. Design my ski hat - Not done, there are some potential issues here

8. Pick pattern/yarn for semi-secret shawl - Done, this was talked about here and progress has been slow but I have been working on it. Just tonight I did a repeat...

Looking back I am really happy with all that! Aside from the socks, which were a Christmas gift and are languishing. I did start the second sock and I'm about halfway up the foot, and there's really no reason I haven't been working on them aside from that I've been working on this:

Sorry the photo isn't great, but that is just about 5" of Ivy League Vest. I've been really enjoying it so far! I'm using Knit Picks Palette and I really like the yarn. I've very happy to be done with the ribbing as it was tedious. I'd like to devote an entire post to this but I don't have the energy just now so that will wait until there is more progress...

February Goals

1. Finish Anastasia Socks

2. Knit to armholes/v-neck steek (whichever comes first) of Ivy League Vest

3. Finish woven scarf - I'm going to Boston next week and this will be a good traveling project, with the socks

4. Finish the section of the lace shawl that I'm on now. I've done four repeats, I think I need to do 16 or something, and it gets longer each repeat so this isn't trivial but there is a deadline looming for this baby.

We'll see how it goes. February is a short month and it's 1/4 over already, plus I'm going to be really busy for the next couple of weeks, so I might not do as well with the goals this month as I did in January. But I will make a valiant effort at it, just for you!

Gotta love it!

2008-01-31T15:23:00.000-08:00

From the Washington DOT:
(I am obsessed with this site because I love looking at the pass cameras.)

Snoqualmie Pass (3022 ft) (This is I-90.)
Restrictions Eastbound:Pass Closed
Restrictions Westbound: Pass Closed
Conditions & Weather: Snoqualmie Pass remains closed due to extreme winter conditions from milepost 34 near North Bend to milepost 106 near Ellensburg. The pass will remain closed for at least the next 24 hours. Due to wet, heavier snow, the avalanche threat has increased. Friday, Feb. 1, at 9 a.m. is the earliest WSDOT will be able to assess the effects of this storm and our ability to reopen the pass.

Stevens Pass (4061 ft)
Restrictions Eastbound:Temporarily closed
Restrictions Westbound: Temporarily closed
Conditions & Weather: Stevens Pass will be closed between milepost 56 to milepost 99, Scenic to Leavenworth, while wreckers remove a pair of semi trucks that slid off the highway on the west side of the summit. Avalanche control is also in progress. Estimated time to open is 6:00 p.m. Snowing.

I love living somewhere where they have to close the roads due to snow! How exciting - I predict epic snow when we go skiing on Saturday!!!

Not that Innocent

2008-01-29T22:33:00.000-08:00

First off, thank you for all the compliments on my cardigan! I love getting comments, it makes me so happy, and I'm glad that you all liked the sweater :) Today I'd like to tell you a little story about my darling feline Oliver...
Oliver looks all cute, doesn't he? And loving? He loves to cuddle on the sofa, and he only chews on my hair in the bedroom, and he's been doing that less and less frequently. However, he has developed some annoying new habits...

Dave has been having insomnia, so after we read our nightly installment of The Intellectual Devotional (Yes, we are supremely nerdy, and happy about it. The Intellectual Devotional is based on the religious devotionals where one reads a Bible passage and comments each day, but with topics like visual arts, science, music, philosophy, etc. There is also an American History version that we'd like to get next year.), he usually heads back out to the living room to read until 3:00am while I fall asleep immediately. Now, generally Oliver wakes up and starts agitating for breakfast around 6:00-6:30, but sometimes earlier if he's really feeling peckish. I've been trying to get up and to work earlier, not to mention to my 8:00 pilates class, so the 6:30 thing isn't that big of a problem, especially considering I usually drag myself out of bed grudgingly, feed Oliver, and go back to sleep. And I do mean me, since Dave rarely deals with the hungry beast. Because Oliver only pesters me. Me. Even at 3:00am. When Dave is AWAKE in the living room. Meow. Leap onto my head. Off of my head. Back up. Back off. Meow. Feed me. Chews on my hair. I'm starving. Don't ignore me. At 3:00 in the morning! Eh. Dave? Completely oblivious to all this, although he did feed the cat when I ~~yelled~~ brought the situation to his attention. I'm really not sure why but all of a sudden Oliver is complaining a lot more about not having enough food. He's a bit overweight so we've got him on a lower-calorie food, but we're still giving him more than he really needs. And, look what I had to do to the stash this weekend:
Those are bins of yarn behind the towel, as seen in this post. I've always covered the bottom bins because sometimes the yarn rolls out and Oliver finds that quite intriguing. But, generally speaking he ignores the stash in this form. However, suddenly I've been finding chewed on yarn balls - some Cascade 220 (still in the skein, now with more than two ends) on Thursday and then some turquoise mohair (now with many ends and some thin bits) on Saturday. So, desperate measures were taken, as you can see. Although I miss seeing the yarn I'd rather have Oliver not chew on it and hurt himself, so this is what I've got. Oh, and despite all this complaining, I love Oliver to death and wouldn't change him for the world :) Well, aside from the waking up early!

Drops Swing Cardigan!!!

2008-01-27T21:03:00.000-08:00

Voila, the Drops Swing Cardigan! I'm really happy with the way this came out. When I first tried it on I thought it was a bit big, but after seeing the photos I don't think it looks as tentlike as I feared.

Project Stats: Drops Swing Cardigan

Pattern: DROPS Jacket w/ A-line shape and 3/4 sleeves (103-1). I made the worsted weight version, not the bulky.

Yarn: Rowanspun Aran (sadly discontinued, but I have a lot in the stash), dusky blue (SH964). I used about four skeins (~800 meters). The yarn was purchased at Cucumberpatch UK (Ebay).

Size: Medium (36.4"). I was torn about this because I was between sizes, but I went with the larger size since this isn't really meant to be a fitted sweater. Plus my gauge was slightly off, so I think my finished sweater is a tad smaller than 36" and fits quite nicely.

Modifications: I didn't do as many sleeve increases as the pattern called for because the sleeves were already looking really wide. I was worried that would cause trouble when it came time to set in the sleeves, but it was fine. I should have made the sleeves shorter - I was going for the 3/4-length option but with them uncuffed they're to my wrists and just look like they're too short. But I like them better cuffed anyway, so it's fine.

Needles: Size 8 Clover bamboo.

Time on the Needles: September 11, 2007-January 18, 2008. I was actually pretty dedicated to this aside from when I had to deal with the Christmas knitting. There was probably a month in there where I didn't touch it at all, but when I was working on it, progress was fast.

Impressions: I'm really happy with this, my first completed sweater that wasn't made in one piece! I had to seam! I didn't screw it up! It doesn't look handmade in a bad way! I did a few things that aided a lot in my finishing of this project in a moderately timely fashion. First, I seamed the shoulders as soon as the back and both fronts were finished, to get it out of the way, and I joined them with the three-needle bind-off so they look perfect. Then, I knit both sleeves at the same time to avoid second-sleeve syndrome (sss). And, I didn't procrastinate on the seaming, I just leapt right into it as soon as the sleeves were finished. I had slipped the first stitch of every row on all the pieces, which made the seaming a piece of cake. I also think the slight slubbiness of the yarn aided in the sleeve-setting-in process because it hides some minor issues, but overall the seaming wasn't as bad as I feared. The blocking was easy, but I was stymied for a couple of days by a lack of buttons, and then by a lack of daylight, which is why this is just getting posted now even though I attached the buttons on Thursday.I call this one a great success!

Blocking!

2008-01-23T08:33:00.001-08:00

The Drops Swing Cardigan is blocking! And I am afraid.

I tried to only get it damp and I was very careful not to allow it to put weight on itself so it wouldn't stretch out. It's already a tad big and I don't want to have to felt it into shape (although I bet that would be lovely)! This is the last time I don't wash my swatch - just saying (Remind me that I said that if need be, please.). If this grows I will have learned this lesson twice, but I think I'm safe. Laid out on the futon it looks about the same size as it did pre-blocking. The only reason it really needed to be blocked was to teach the bottom ribbing to be flat and to (hopefully) make my decent armhole seams even more presentable. And maybe to soften up the yarn a tad as it's pretty itchy on the neck. The stitches, however, were remarkably even. I procured buttons and will attach them as soon as the sweater is dry. You can see in the photo the the front center must not have gotten very wet as it's much lighter...That's some lazy blocking, that is!

The spring Interweave Knits preview is up! I adore Holly, the cover sweater, which reminds me a lot of this one, which I've had in my Ravelry queue for awhile now...

You always remember your first time...

2008-01-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

Minds out of the gutter folks! I've got a new FO to show you, my first Elizabeth Zimmermann project, a Baby Surprise Jacket for my friend Vivian: I finished this a week or so ago but the baby shower wasn't until today and I didn't want to blog prematurely in case she spied her present. This is, quite possibly, the cutest thing I've knit. I love the yarn, I adore the buttons, and it was just so fun to knit because I quite honestly had no idea what part of it I was knitting at any point, including during the end when I was knitting the buttonbands. You know you're doing that because you're making buttonholes, but even so I couldn't fathom how what I had on the needles was going to turn into a sweater with only small seams to sew. This is what it looked like when it came off the needles:

Can you believe that that lumpy mass of garter stitch turns into an adorable jacket? It's amazing. I can't wait to make another one!

Project Stats: Baby Surprise Jacket for Vivian

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann, from The Opinionated Knitter

Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, colorway Rainbow. I used about 1.5 skeins.

Needles: Size 8 Clover bamboo circulars. To think I contemplated knitting this on straight needles! Thank goodness I read over the pattern before I was stuck on plane with 9" needles with way too many stitches on them...

Buttons: Purchased at Weaving Works. I think they're my favorite part of the sweater. So perfect!

Time on the needles: December 21, 2007-January 10, 2008. I cast-on for this on the plane home for Christmas - see:

Instead of peanuts we had bananas! Actually, we had a whole little breakfast pack - it was pretty good, thank you Continental!

Impressions: I've already mentioned how fun this was to knit, but it really was, and I'd recommend it to anyone up for a bit of an adventure. The pattern is, shall I say, a bit vague. What you see in the photo is all there is, and the top bit isn't even directions. You have all the info you need, but if you're like me you'll find yourself wishing you had a little bit more. However, if you just trust in the genius of EZ you'll get there in the end. I didn't take photos of the folding process, but Anne-Marie has a really good series of them here. I also really liked this yarn. It's a bit bright but Vivian and John intend to be surprised by their baby's gender, so neutral was key, and who doesn't like rainbows? The yarn is very smooth and nice to knit, which is good because I have a whole sweater's worth in the stash, ostensibly for a Dave sweater, but that is on hold because of the sweater curse. We are not married nor engaged, so no sweater for him. I don't actually believe in the curse, but it's a better excuse than the reality, which is that I'm too lazy, although Dave isn't really much bigger than me. What else can I say? The buttons were a great find. I was unsure of what color/style I wanted, but these jumped right out at me and they were perfect. The sweater has buttonholes on both sides (with the intention that the knitter would gift post-birth, thus knowing the baby's gender and afixing buttons appropriately). Waiting wasn't an option for me so I just went with the buttons on the right. I doubt the baby will care what side the buttons are on, frankly, and neither do I! The simplicity of the garter stitch is one of the appealing parts of this sweater. It creates so much textural interest while being truly simple to execute - no purling the entire sweater! Overall I call this a roaring success, and I think Vivian and John really liked it. Their baby is due on Valentine's Day, but it might be awhile before he/she can fit into this sweater!

In other news, I have finished the hat for Rembrandt and, drum roll please...the Drops Swing Cardigan! It just needs blocking and buttons, but it is seamed and ready to go. I hope to get the buttons tomorrow and have a photo shoot soon thereafter! In case you're counting those make foru FOs already in 2008. Phew - wonder if I can keep this up?

The Carpathia Scarf/Hat

2008-01-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

First FO of 2008! Here is the secret Carpathia Scarf and Hat, which I knit as a gift for Daisy. Not a Christmas gift, really, just a to-be-nice gift. I won this yarn in a blog contest, and although it's quite nice, it's really not my color. However, Daisy took one look at it and proclaimed that she loved it, being a fan of the chartruese. So, then and there (about 1.5 years ago now) I decided that I would knit her something with the yarn. It came with the pattern for the Carpathia Scarf, so I knit that, and because it was getting to be a good length with a lot of yarn left, I made a matching hat.
Project Stats: Carpathia Hat and Scarf
Pattern: Carpathia Scarf from Cider Moon. I improvised the hat based on the scarf pattern.
Yarn: One skein each of Cider Moon Champagne (mohair) and Glacier (superwash merino), colorway "Ruffled Feathers," held together throughout.
Needles: Size 11 bamboo straights, circular, and DPNs. This is why one needs so many needles!
Time to knit: Not long, a week maybe?
Impressions: These were lovely yarns to knit with, and I'm really happy with the finished scarf, although the hat came out a tad larger than I intended. Daisy seems to like it (or she is a convincing liar!), and it looks better on her than it did on Dave and I when we were testing it out during the knitting, which is good (notice there aren't any photos of us in the hat...). The stitch pattern is easy but results in a pretty cool pattern, as you can see in the close-up from yesterday's post. I didn't get a chance to block the scarf, but it's quite drapey and I'm not sure how well it would have held the blocked state. The scarf pattern called for one skein of each yarn, but I knit the scarf almost to the length in the pattern, with hardy fringe, using only slightly over half of the yarn, leaving me enough to knit the hat as well. If anyone is interested I can reconstruct how I made the hat - I wouldn't mind having one for myself, albeit a bit smaller in circumference.

Now for the juicy details of what I really learned knitting this project! First off, it is not wise to try to be efficient by winding two skeins of yarn together into one ball to save oneself the trouble of carrying around two balls, especially when one winds up knitting the entire project at home anyway. Ask me how I know this. Because this project entailed knitting with two strands of yarn throughout, I had the brilliant idea of winding them together with both skeins on the swift at the same time and a giant ball on the ballwinder. Well, in theory this was a good idea, but the first go at it I had one yarn going one direction and the other going the opposite way, which obviously didn't work. A little foresight could have prevented that. Also, a little foresight could have prevented me from putting the larger wool skein above the smaller mohair skein, such that it kept falling down around the mohair while I was winding the ball. Although annoying, that didn't result in any real difficulty. The problem I ran into was during the knitting itself. Anyone who has knit with mohair knows that it likes itself. Very much. So, while I was knitting (from the outside of my giant double-yarn ball), several rounds of adhered-to-itself mohair would peel off together, causing tangles and preventing the wool strand from coming off the ball. So, I spent a lot of time untangling yarn, removing it carefully, or, when all else failed (often), breaking the mohair, removing the mess, and tying it back together. Let me tell you, this was really irritating. If I was really careful I was able to prevent the yarn belching (not vomiting, as it was only one yarn of the two, and in smaller quantities than would have come out if I'd have been using the center-pull method), but more often than not, even with due diligence, it would happen. But, that's all water under the bridge now, right? And I've learned my lesson on this one...

In case you're keeping track, I'm doing pretty well with my January goals. I have accomplished #2 (soon to be gifted and then blogged), #5 (Carpathia Hat), and #8 (the gold shawl). #4, the hat for Rembrandt, is at the crown decreases (thank you Dave) and will be finished any day now, and I am almost finished with the sleeves of #3, the Drops swing cardigan. So, I consider that good progress being made, although looking at the sleeves I'm a bit skeptical about them going into the sleeve holes, but I'll have an answer on that pretty shortly, maybe even this evening...

More skiing, and a peek of some knitting

2008-01-15T22:21:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay, but I had a friend visiting this weekend, which both slowed down my knitting and kept me from blogging! Brent, one of my roommates from college, came to Seattle for a few days, and it was great to get to hang out with him. It's been quite awhile, although we did see each other at Andrea's wedding back in September.

Sunday we went skiing at Stevens Pass, which was great. Lovely sunny day, pretty good snow, no major incidents and everyone made it home in one piece. Brent did have a slight issue when he fell and his binding twisted when his ski came off (Which I really don't think is normal. The binding, not the ski. The ski is meant to come off if you fall with enough zeal.), and he walked down quite a bit of the hill before a ski patroller stopped and fixed the binding. I had been ahead of him so I didn't witness this, but it made for a good story...I wish I would have been skiing with the camera as it was a really spectacular day. These photos were taken around 4:00 so the light was already not ideal, but you can see the blue sky at least, which is always appreciated around these parts.
Since I waxed poetic about Mt. Baker last week, I feel I should give my 30-second review of Stevens Pass. This was only my second trip there, and it was much better than the first. We went there three years ago (Really? Wow. Time flies.) and that day the visibility was awful because it was snowing like the dickens (What does that even mean? Why do people say that? Do other people say that? And should it be Dickens?), and really crowded. As I've mentioned the weather was beautiful on Sunday. But, it was still really crowded, and the lift lines were totally chaotic and completely unorganized. However, aside from that it didn't really seem that busy since the ski area is pretty big and everyone was spaced out around the mountain. So, although I wasn't keen on the waiting, overall the skiing was pretty good. They have a nice variety of terrain and good grooming, and Dave reports that the double black diamonds were to his satisfaction. The drive is about an hour less each way than to Mt. Baker and much less frightening. Plus, leaving home at 6:30 instead of 6:00 felt downright luxurious - I even took a shower! I suspect we'll go back.
I'm sorry that this appears to be turning into Emily's Musings on Skiing (Maybe I should grab that and save you all the boredom of reading this? And why aren't there more knitters who ski? Do they just not talk about it, or are they mutually exclusive activities?), but most of my knitting has been secret gift knitting that I can't talk about yet. However, here is a snippet of something I can post about soon, and after Sunday I can show off another secret project.
Them some bright colors! Sorry about all the parentheses this evening - apparently my mind is wandering...

A bloggable project!

2008-01-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

Finally, something I can blog about! I've been doing quite a bit of knitting, especially considering all the "work" related stuff I've had going on, but sadly none of it has been bloggable! However, I'm charging along on my January list. I've finished the secret gift project (#2) and the Carpathia Hat (#5). I have also started #4, the hat for Rembrandt, which is going to be a joint project between Dave and I. I cast-on and did the bottom ribbing, and now he is going to knit up to the crown decreases. This way the hat can be from both of us without me having to do all the work! Dave is a good knitter (albeit not the fastest), but he has no interest in purling (Nor do I, really, but it's tough to avoid if you want to knit anything interesting!), so he's doing, as he put it, "the part of the hat that doesn't require me to purl."

So, that brings me to item #8 on the list - "Pick out a pattern and yarn for a semi-secret gift that I'll probably blog about whilst being coy about the recipient and occasion."

I have done this, and had actually already done it when I posted the list, but once I get going on making lists there's no stopping me. Plus it felt good to have already accomplished something! I've decided to make the Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits. I'm not going to mention who or what it's for, to keep it secret, but I'd like to blog about it as I go since it's my first triangular shawl. Plus, otherwise I'll have nothing to talk about. I cast on last night, and got through the first Budding Lace pattern and one repeat of the second Budding Lace pattern:

The color is less orange in person - more of a deep gold. I'm suspecting it's going to be a difficult color to photograph accurately. This isn't a color I would have chosen for myself, but light gold was suggested to me and I did my best to find appropriate yarn (Which was NOT easy - there is a dearth of gold yarn out there.). This is Zephyr wool-silk, the same yarn as I was using for the mystery stole (Yay, no need to swatch since I already know it'll work on these needles!), colorway "Curry." It's similar to Oliver's lighter orange bits, and he's pretty interested in it. Or in the blocking pins - just before this photo he had one paw on the yarn and one paw in the pins:I realize it still looks orange. God, now that I'm looking at it in these photos I'm a bit worried about the color. Eep. Last night I ordered some Knit Picks Harmony needles to work on this, but I'm using my Clover bamboos until they arrive. I'd continue with the Clovers but the tips really aren't sharp enough for the complicated stitches that are going to come up later in the shawl. I resisted the urge to even look at the Knit Picks yarn and just ordered the needles, which even with shipping were much cheaper than the comparably sized Addi Turbo Lace needles I was eyeing at Acorn Street when I bought the yarn. Plus, I really prefer wood needles, especially for lace with slippery yarn. I have enough problems keeping my stitches on the needles without the needles conspiring against me!

In its element...

2008-01-07T22:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Dave, Kristen and I had an epic day of powder skiing at Mt. Baker. I didn't carry the camera around with me because it was snowing and thus the views were pretty much non-existent, but I did get a nice photo of my Jeep in its element: Note that we even broke out the chains for the drive down from the mountain. Although not many people seemed to be using them, I think they were a wise decision as the roads were pretty bad. Better safe than sorry! A lack of foresight (and living in Seattle, where it really never snows and where I park inside) led us to the old-fashioned coat sleeve snow removal technique - thankfully there wasn't much ice on the windshield or we'd have been there all night...

We had a grand time. I really have no experience skiing powder so it was a day of experimentation for me. Kristen does a fair bit of backcountry skiing so she had some useful advice for me, but mostly I just made it up as I went along. There were a lot of ungroomed intermediate runs for us to deal with before moving on to the really tough stuff, which I should do. I'm in a "I'm a blue run skier" rut, when really I'm certainly competent enough to ski harder runs, I just lack the confidence to get on with it. Kristen and I did go down 1 (2?) of the black runs yesterday because there was so much snow that it was hard to get too much momentum going. It's not the steepness so much as the potential moguls that freak me out, to be honest. And it was fine, and fun, because the snow was nice and fluffy. They have SO much snow at Mt. Baker - the base is up to 140" (That's 11.5' - the most in the country.), with 20" more forecasted by Wednesday. Baker is interesting because they're not particularly interested in providing a pampered skiing experience. No high-speed lifts, lifties who may or may not notice you're there, etc. But, they have the best snow and the cheapest rates around, which makes it well-worth the drive for us, even though it's the furthest ski area from Seattle (within a reasonable drive). The remoteness and the "lack of amenities" result in fewer crowds, which is great, and I think it's part of their strategy to not upgrade the lifts and such in order to keep the mountain less commercial and more for the locals and purists (I'm not really either of those, but after having fun with the powder yesterday I could see how it could be addicting). Some of the closer ski areas get really crowded on weekends, but even on great powder days like yesterday the lift lines were really pretty short, especially in the afternoon when all the people who are only there for fresh tracks have gone home. Plus, when it's not cloudy, you get views like this:

Hope you all had a good weekend!

A few goals for January

2008-01-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

I'd like to be one of those people who make itemized lists of what they plan to accomplish. Instead I just make vague lists with no time frame attached, with items that are easily be pushed aside at will. So, this year I'm going to copy Dawn and make monthly lists. We'll see how long it lasts...

What I ~~Hope~~ Intend to Accomplish in January 2008
1) Finish the Anastasia Socks for my grandmother, which were a Christmas present.
2) Finish a secret gift project that I really can't show you (Sadly, as I might advice on it!) as I suspect the recipient might be reading.
3) Finish the Drops Swing Cardigan, which is currently at the upper sleeve stage.
4) Knit a hat for Rembrandt, which will be a belated Christmas present. An army green skein of Manos is wound and ready next to the sofa.
5) Finish the Carpathia Hat I'm knitting to go with the Carpathia Scarf (No, you aren't losing your mind, you haven't seen the scarf or the hat.). This might be dodgy because I'm really winging the pattern on the hat, and it's lacy. I'm charging along but I fear the decreases might get a bit interesting. Maybe I'll just do the top in stockinette...
6) Cast-on and knit 5 inches of the Ivy League Vest. I'm SO excited about this project but I feel like some of the others really have to be accomplished first.
7) Design my ski hat, as it's really past the time to have done that, being January and all, with the snow falling fast!
8) Pick out a pattern and yarn for a semi-secret gift that I'll probably blog about whilst being coy about the recipient and occasion.

Anne-Marie and I were planning to both knit Bird in Hand Mittens over Christmas, but I didn't get to mine due to items 1&2. I'm not sure how she's doing with hers, but I've not heard mention of them. I'd like to add them to the list but I think I'll just have them in my mind and cast-on if it suits me. I see a lot of things on my list, but most of them are small(ish) or mostly finished already, so we'll see. I reserve the right to add projects as needed for sanity/gifting/procrastination/etc.
I think January might be a pretty busy month for me. I have to give another talk next Wednesday (I plan to largely recycle the one I gave in December), a journal club (basically another talk, but short and on someone else's research) next Thursday, and prepare a poster for the annual American Academy of Sciences meeting in mid-February. Plus, I'm taking the second term of the science writing class I took last fall, as well as doing some copy-editing for the magazine that is partly attached to the class. I'm also taking pilates, at 8:00am (eek!). Oh, and I'm supposed to be finishing up experiments to write my first research paper. And I'd like to go skiing a few times, if I get my hat finished!
You know what I've just realized? I mistype "the" as "hte" almost half of the time...

Christmas Wrap-up

2008-01-02T23:03:00.000-08:00

I had a lovely time at home with my family for just over a week. As usual it went by too quickly, but I did get to enjoy a bit of Dozer taking over the sofa:

Some adorable longhaired Welsh cattle:

A spectacular photo of my grandmother eyeing an unfelted clog:

And a lovely Christmas tree:

My parents sent me back with a gift for Oliver, which he loves:

The gifts I knit (knitted?) went over very well, and all of them fit their recipients except for the Anastasia Socks, which ended up being okay in the heel/leg but too long in the foot. I had only finished one of them as I was fearing heel issues, so at least there is only one to fix, and I think I can do it by ripping out the toe and knitting it again shorter instead of taking out the whole leg/heel/etc. And yes, despite the photo above my grandmother's clogs did felt down to the perfect size and hopefully my parents will gather some photographic evidence of that for me to post at a later date.

I finally went back to work today and it was a struggle. I tend to completely forget about the whole operation as soon as I leave for more than two days, and it's always tough to get back into the swing of things. Thankfully this year I planned ahead and had experiments ready for right after the holidays, which should minimize the amount of "what am I doing again?" that usually goes on right about now...

Oh, while I got many lovely gifts for Christmas, the only one that was knitting related was money to get my five pounds of alpaca cleaned and spun. Remember the alpaca? Here it is again, just in case. That's only four pounds of it. It's a lot of fleece, and fairly clean already so hopefully I won't lose too much. Anyone have recommendations for a good place to ship it off for processing?

A year in stitches

2007-12-31T22:38:00.000-08:00

Here's my obligatory "what I knit in 2007" post! Some of these projects might not have even made it onto the blog...

Knits of 2007
1. Woven Knit Scarf - for Heidi
2. Felted Clogs - for Mom
3. Embossed Leaves Socks - for Gram
4. So-called Scarf - for me
5. Rio de la Plata Hat - for me
6. Sari silk scarf - for me
7. Fluffy yellow scarf - we'll see
8. Peekaboo Mittens - gift
9. Austermann Step socks - for me
10. Traveling Rib Armwarmers - gift
11. Asymmetrical V-neck Tank - for me, will be ripped
12. Lotus Blossom Tank - for me
13. Short-sleeved Cardigan with Ribbing - for me
14. Endpaper Mitts - for me
15. Striped Baby Blanket - for Kristin
16. Purdy Plum socks - for Susan
17. Chevron Scarf - for me
18. Felted Clogs - for Gram
19. Saartje Booties - for Pau's daugher Olivia
20. Purl Scarf - for me
21. Saartje Booties - for Marlene's granddaughter
22. Moss Grid Towels - for Andrea and Dave
23. Stockinette Socks - for Dad
24. Selbuvotter Mittens (NHM #7) - for me
25. Felted Clogs - for John
26. Woven Knit Scarf - for Anne-Marie
27. Drop-Stitch Scarf - for Andie
28. Ana Hat - for me
29. Earflap Hat - for David
30. Carpathia Scarf - gift yet ungifted

That is a lot of knitting! And, it seems I never posted about my Lotus Blossom Tank?!? Dave and I did a photoshoot - I wonder what happened there? I guess I'll have to post about it soon!

A year in books

2007-12-31T21:51:00.000-08:00

I'm back from PA, and I'll be talking about my trip (and how the knitted gifts were received) soon, but first I want to make a couple of lists. This year I decided to write down the books I read over the course of the year. I did this for no real reason other than to keep track of them, but as time went by I realized I'd been reading quite a lot of books. I have pretty eclectic taste, but this year I was on a bit of a single-word-title-non-fiction kick (subtitles accepted). When I originally planned this post I intended to write little descriptions for each, but now I'm feeling a bit too lazy for that, plus I have reading to do! I've also decided to write where I obtained the book from, just to keep track...Books are listed in order consumed. * are for books I highly recommend to you all.

Books I Devoured - 2007 Edition
1. Cell - Stephen King (bought at the Cleveland airport on route back to Seattle last Christmas)
2. Touching the Void - Joe Simpson (owned)
3. Gods in Alabama - Joshilyn Jackson (borrowed from my mother)
4. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress - Susan Gilman (borrowed from Daisy)*
5. Nature Girl - Carl Hiaasen (Christmas gift from Dave)
6. Knitting under the Influence - Claire LaZebnik (Christmas gift)
7. A Painted House - John Grisham (found in apartment building lobby)
8. Coal: A Human History - Barbara Freese (bought at used book store)
9. Casts Off - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (bought)
10. Buried Alive - Jan Bondeson (library)
11. Washington Disasters - Rob and Natalie McNair (birthday gift from Dave)
12. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (borrowed from Vivian)*
13. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser (owned since high school)*
14. Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death - Jessica Snyder (borrowed from my mother)
15. The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr (bought at used book store)
16. The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche - Gary Krist (library)*
17. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (owned)*
18. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling (bought on day of release)*
19. The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the Beginnings of Modern CSI - Colin Evans (library)*
20. The Jury Master - Robert Dugoni (found in apartment building lobby)
21. Persuasion - Jane Austen (Daily Lit)*
22. The Dawn of Human Culture - Richard Klein (library)
23. The World Without Us - Alan Weinberg (library)*
24. Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair - Laurie Perry (gift from Rachel)*
25. Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming - Chris Mooney (library)
26. Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science - Bill Bass (library)
27. Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization - Iain Gately (bought at used book store)
28. Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster (borrowed from my mother)*
29. Emma - Jane Austen (Daily Lit)*
30. A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah (borrowed from my mother)*
31. Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire - Roy Moxham (bought)
32. Uncommon Carriers - John McPhee (library)*
33. Bright Lights, Big Ass - Jen Lancaster (bought at Powells)*
34. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie (borrowed from my mother)*
35. The Gatecrasher - Madeleine Wickham (borrowed from my mother)
36. Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer (owned)

36 strikes me as quite a lot of books, especially considering I also finished 30 knitted objects! I'll be listing those shortly just to keep track. I used to read more before I started knitting, but even so I'd like to read even more books in 2008. I'm already about halfway through The Pillars of the Earth, which was a Christmas present from my dad. It gets its * even at the midway point...

More Christmas Socks!

2007-12-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Here is the second installment in the secret holiday knitting, the Purdy Plum Socks. I actually mentioned these quite a few times back in May and June when I was knitting them - they weren't initially going to be a Christmas gift, but I inadvertently made the first one slightly too big for myself and thought my aunt would like them, so instead of ripping out and starting over I proceeded and had an early gift!

Project Stats: Purdy Plum Socks

Pattern: Wendy's Toe-Up Gusset Heel Sock.

Yarn: Fly*Dyed Monarch, colorway Purdy Plum. Purchased at Madrona Fiber Arts Festival 2007.

Needles: Size 2 bamboo DPNs.

Time on the needles: I don't remember actually. Not that long - about a month I think.

Impressions: I like these, it pains me slightly to give them away, but I think Susan will appreciate them. They fit really well and she even wore them on Christmas after receiving them Christmas Eve. I'm really happy with the way the yarn striped, with no pooling anywhere but around the gusset, which isn't surprising due to the changing stitch count in that region. This was my first attempt at Wendy's pattern and I really like it. It's adaptable to many gauges and foot sizes (For reference, these socks have 52 stitches at a gauge of 7.25 stitches/inch.). I know I've waxed on about this before, but I really like this yarn. I like slightly thicker sock yarn because it knits up faster and I don't have to use teeny-tiny needles. I also used this yarn for my Sockapalooza socks, and I have several more skeins of this yarn in the stash, so maybe finally some socks for me?

Dad's Christmas Socks

2007-12-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here is one of my secret Christmas projects: These are the socks I made for my Dad. They're made from worsted weight superwash wool, and hopefully he'll find them warm and well-padded. I'm pretty happy with them although the yarn pooled differently on the two socks. The one on top in the one I prefer - the other one has a huge vertical black stripe on the sole of the foot.
Project Stats: Dad's Christmas Socks 2007
Pattern: Based on Wendy's Toe-up Sock with Gusset pattern. These are 48 stitches in circumference and I had to do a lot of increases to get the gusset large enough.
Yarn: Järbo Garn Raggi Multi, two skeins with leftovers. Purchased at The Twisted Ewe in Port Townsend, WA.
Needles: Size 4 bamboo DPNs.
Time to knit: 10.2.07-11.2.07.
Impressions: Thick socks are fast! I'm happy with these, and they fit my Dad well. He and Dave have approximately the same size feet, so I had a good model. I didn't have any real issues with these socks aside from the flashing I eluded to earlier. I suspect even slightly varying the number of stitches would have taken care of that, but it's hard to vary that much when you're dealing with such heavy yarn. Couldn't have the socks being an inch too wide!

Knitting night cookie fest

2007-12-20T17:32:00.000-08:00

This post is a tad belated, but Tuesday night we had our knitting club meeting at my place as a special Christmas treat. It was full of cookies and spiced cider and more cookies. Here we have Vivian (six months pregnant!), Anne-Marie, and Kristen enjoying the festivities:A good time was had by all, and I still have a few cookies left. Vivian brought some really tasty chocolate cookies that I now have in the freezer for emergency cookie cravings, and I was able to convince Kristen to take some home for her husband, but there were a lot of cookies for the four of us.
Before Vivian and Kristen arrived, Anne-Marie and I exchanged presents. You can see what I made her in my previous post, but she made me a neat cup cozy, shown here: I believe it's the first crocheted item I've owned, for a long while at least. It's pretty big - that's a 20 oz. cup inside (Full of tea. It would be way more mocha than I could handle.). I have to say, I took it to work on Wednesday and I think it kept the tea warmer than those little cardboard wrappers they give you, even in a brisk wind, and it's better for the environment! She also gave me The Knitting Answer Book, which I suspect will come in handy. Thanks Anne-Marie!
We had a slight fire incident while opening gifts. Yes, you read that correctly - fire incident. I had wrapped Anne-Marie's scarf in tissue paper inside a gift bag, and there were candles burning on the kitchen counter. She stepped back a bit to try on the scarf, and I was watching her when all of a sudden I saw more brightness than usual in my left eye. The tissue paper, which had been tossed on the counter, had encountered the candle and burst into flame. I blew on it (bad move), Dave ran over and blew on it (still a bad move), and then I grabbed it and flung it in the sink (finally, some sense). Here's the evidence: Should you be planning on trying this yourself, note that tissue paper burns very quickly and without much smoke. Combusts, really. And blowing on it makes it burn even faster. Funny, that whole oxygen feeding the flames thing! However, there was so little smoke that it didn't even set off the smoke detector which was almost directly over it. Good times!
I'm just getting ready to head to the airport to go back to Pennsylvania for eight days. Should be nice. They have snow, I will get to relax (please?), get some knitting accomplished, read a bit, etc. I've been a bit stressed as I was busy at work and I had to give a big talk today (It went well, thank you for asking.), so I haven't really had that much time to contemplate being gone for over a week. Hopefully I packed matching clothing and remembered my underwear...My parents have dial-up, but I don't want to vanish entirely, so I think I'm going to pre-write some blog posts, with photos, of the Christmas gifts that I've knitted but not posted about, so that I'll have something to post quickly while I'm away.
I wish you all happy holidays and lots of knitting surprises under the tree!

First secret Christmas knitting revealed...

2007-12-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight I finally gave Anne-Marie the scarf I made her for Christmas. I say finally because I made it back in November (October?), so it's been hanging around the house for quite awhile, tempting me to keep it for myself. Here she is modeling the scarf:

Project Stats: Anne-Marie's Woven Scarf

Pattern: Woven Knit, from Knit Scarves! by Candi Jensen.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Chunky. Colorway 05 - it's a pink/red/purple/green/tad of blue combo. The color is most accurate in the top photo. I used three skeins and the scarf is a good length. Yarn purchased at The Fiber Gallery.

Needles: Eh. I don't remember. I think I used smaller needles than I thought I would need in order to get good stitch definition. I think it might have been size 9s.

Time to knit: I honestly don't remember, but not very long. This pattern is pretty addicting so it went by fast. I think it took a few days. It's not like me to be so sketchy on the details but I couldn't even put this in Ravelry because Anne-Marie would have seen it!

Impressions: I'm really happy with this, and I think Anne-Marie liked it. I made Heidi a scarf like this last year, but I like this one better as the pattern really got lost in the yarn in Heidi's version. The woven stitch is simple yet not boring, and the scarf looks much more interesting than a plain garter stitch for not much more trouble. Plus it doesn't curl or need to be blocked. That said, I had a really tough time deciding on a pattern for this yarn. I initially wanted to do a long cast-on and knit it lengthwise, but decided against that as I didn't really now how that would work with the long color repeats. Then I tried the Yarn Harlot's One-Row Scarf, but the pattern got lost. Then I tried ribbing on three different needles sizes, and the stitch definition was awful. Finally I thought of this pattern, which was perfect. The detail of the pattern wasn't lost even though the yarn is a bit slubby. I lucked out and had three skeins that lined up perfectly with each other so the color transitions are all really smooth. I haven't seen many projects with Silk Garden Chunky, but I think it's fairly new and might be difficult to find. I'd recommend it - I think it's softer than regular Silk Garden, plus bulky yarn = fast progress. I consider this one a success!

In lieu of knitting...

2007-12-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun Oliver and Dave photo. Dave is convinced that Oliver doesn't like him, or at least not as much as he likes me. One night I caught them on the couch, sitting as far as physically possible from each other: This photo is great - it looks like Dave is giving Oliver the stink eye and Oliver is blissfully ignoring him. Typical cat behavior, I say. Note Dave is wearing felted clogs :)

I have been knitting. I started another stealth project on Saturday, which will be finished and probably gifted soon so I can show photos. I also just finished the heel of the first Anastasia Sock at lunch today and I'll (maybe)be moving on up the leg tomorrow. I'm a bit concerned about it because it's a short-row heel without any increases beforehand (toe-up), and it seems very narrow. I was already worried about it, and now I'm really troubled. The socks are for my mother's mother, and when I talked to my mom tonight she mentioned that my grandmother's feet swell (which I knew) but also that she wouldn't want tight socks, particularly around the ankle. Well. What to do? I'm really torn about this - I might go up a couple of needle sizes to make the ankle/leg larger, which seems like an okay plan since they aren't heavy wear areas anyway. My mother didn't seem thrilled about it, but what I think I'm going to do is just make the one sock for Christmas and make sure it fits. It'd be a shame to make both and have them both be too small. I could see my grandmother acting like they were fine to not make me feel bad but then not being able to wear them, and that makes me sad, so I'd really rather they be right so she can use them. Thoughts? I really think after this I'm just making socks for people with feet my size or Dave's size, so I have a handy measuring device at all times. Since we are a family of (for the most part) small-footed women, there will still be plenty of potential socks to knit...

Swatched!

2007-12-12T22:05:00.000-08:00

Look what I made! An actual washed and blocked swatch for the Ivy League Vest! I'm not usually so much for the whole "treating the swatch as you will the finished piece" thing. I do generally swatch, sometimes many times, but I never wash and pin. But, for a fitted fair-isle garment I thought I should suck it up and do it right. Here's my swatch: The colors in the second photo are more accurate - sorry the photos aren't very good but the lighting was bad and this is going to be tough to photograph because it has both light (too bright with the flash) and dark (need the flash) colors.

I swatched with size 3 needles for some reason that absolutely escapes me. The pattern calls for size 4, and I'm a tight knitter, so why I thought I would need to use smaller needles to get gauge completely baffles me. I'm getting about 7.5 stitches/inch instead of 7, so I think I'm going to just go for it with the size 4s. Live on the edge I say. My row gauge is miraculously close to being correct, and will probably be spot-on (famous last words) with the larger needles. I also suspect that when I go up to a 24" circular my knitting will be slightly looser because I won't be dealing with floats across the DPN junctions like I was in my swatch. So, the swatching is finished and I'll be casting on soon, although I decided I must finish my grandmother's Anastasia Socks first. It would be a shame to have had so much of the Christmas knitting done well in advance and then to fall behind on the very last thing when I had so much time to spare. Shame on me...

Oh, David loved his hat, and was wearing it in lab today! Great success - I love when recipients visibly appreciate the knitting!!!

David's Earflap Hat

2007-12-09T22:33:00.001-08:00

David's Earflap Hat
Originally uploaded by Emily E.M.

Phew, another one! I whipped this hat up so quickly I didn't have time to mention I was making it! It's for David, the graduate student who is just finishing his rotation in my lab. We were at a Christmas gift/craft show at work a couple of weeks ago when he spied some clearly handknit Noro hats, and was really excited about them. I stopped him from an impulsive purchase and told him I'd be thrilled to make him a hat. I love knitting hats. So, we discussed color (He really wanted purple and green - hopefully this won't be too lavender.) and that he liked stripes and pom-poms, and off I went. Anne-Marie and I took a trip to Weaving Works yesterday morning for yarn and then I was off. I started knitting this mid-afternoon on Saturday and finished it tonight, which is probably a hat record for me. I'm really happy with the way it turned out - hopefully he'll like it too!

Project Stats: David's Earflap Hat

Pattern: Kim's Hats, from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. Modified for smaller gauge yarn. See below for details.

Yarn: Noro Kureyon, Colorway 188. Purple and army green. The green is darker than the upper photo implies.

Needles: Size 7 circular and DPN.

Time to knit: December 8-9, 2007.

Impressions: I love it! I modified the pattern to compensate for using smaller yarn than the Manos called for in the pattern. I used 96 stitches at a gauge of ~5 stitches/inch. I also started the decreases at 6.5" instead of 8." Looking at the hat on Dave, I'd say that was a wise move. The pom-pom was a joint project for Dave and I, and was quite fun - it's a bit wonky but I like it and it will suit its recipient well. He asked for purple and green stripes and a giant pom-pom, and that's what I've conjured up for him! I'll try to get a photo of him wearing it, but no guarantees...

And no, the socks for my grandmother still aren't finished...nor have they been worked on. This was more pressing as David is leaving for Christmas this week.

Ana Hat!

2007-12-05T22:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess perhaps knitalongs aren't for me. Usually I get so far behind that it's hardly worth saying I'm in a knitalong, but this time it was me who jumped ahead. As I mentioned last week, Anne-Marie and I decided to have a mini knitalong for the Ana Hat. I cast on last Wednesday night and, despite not knitting at all from Friday-Sunday, finished my hat this evening. I know I said I would try to take in-progress photos because this hat has pretty interesting construction, but it ended up coming together much more quickly and easily than I envisioned, and I forgot to pause for photos. Without further ado, here it is, the Ana Hat:

Project Stats: Ana Hat

Pattern: Ana, from Perl Grey

Yarn: Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3 ply. Kit (yarn + pattern) purchased at Hilltop Yarn.

Needles: Size 7 bamboo straights, DPNs, and a long circular.

Time on the Needles: November 28-December 5, 2007. Not long at all.
Impressions: I'm pretty happy with this, and Dave assures me that it doesn't look silly, although I have my doubts. It looks better in reality than in the photos - apparently I'm not particularly photogenic today. This was a really quick knit, and ended up being much less confusing than I anticipated. Basically you knit a large rectangle (133 rows of stockinette). When you've finished the rectangle, which is essentially what wraps around your head, you pick up stitches along the cast-on edge and then along one side, which makes a curved rectangle with three sides on the needle. Confused yet? Then you create the puckered back using DPNs to do several short three-needle bind-offs, which pulls the fabric into pleats. I didn't really get it until I did it, if you know what I mean, but in the end it was pretty simple. I think I could've done a better job closing the final hole and getting the puckers even, but the hat is pretty slouchy anyway and I doubt anyone will notice. It can be worn stockinette side out or reverse stockinette side out, and I think I prefer the latter because I like the rolled-up brim. The Woolie Silk was a dream to knit with, and I'm trying to figure out what I can do with the remaining 71 meters. Sadly I doubt it will be enough for mitts, but I might try. And, of course, being turquoise I love the color :)

Portland - Land of Rain

2007-12-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely time in Portland this weekend, although the weather was, as usual for cyclocross in December, ugly in a truly epic fashion. It was pretty cold on Saturday, but not overly wet (but it snowed!), although the course was muddy because it had rained a fair bit during the week. If you're curious about what cyclocross is, here is a nice example shot of one of its unique characteristics: Here you see Dave (center, blue jersey) carrying his bike after having jumped over the white Toyota barriers. In cyclocross you ride the bike most of the time but have to get off to go over obstacles. Most courses also have a hill too steep/muddy/sandy to ride, which you must run up, hence the name run-up. The Portland courses didn't really have a run-up this year, which Dave appreciated. Dave finished 14th out of ~80(ish) people on Saturday despite doing this to his brand-new-as-in-put-together-on-Thursday tubular (and expensive) wheel: It's the one on the left, if you're unsure. Note that it's no longer round. Thankfully he has extra wheels, so that we could be part of the true misery that was Sunday...

It started to rain with a vengence on Saturday night, and when we arrived for Dave's race on Sunday morning the course looked like this: And this: This is the same spot as the photo with the barriers from Saturday. That is a lot of standing water. Dave had a good race again, coming in 15th, and looked a bit muddy afterwards:And he was happy about it! Although it was warmer on Sunday, it rained all day and was quite windy, so we left before the pro races. I think this is the first time we've abandoned a spectating effort, despite having been in some pretty bad conditions over the last few years. I've been to Portland for a big race in December every year I've lived in Seattle, and it's always epic weather. Which is great. If it sounds like I'm complaining I'm actually not - the conditions/weather are a huge part of cyclocross - the worse the better, and if you get cold you can warm up later and if you get muddy, well, it comes out the wash!

We also spent quite a bit of time at Powells this trip. I love Powells. I'm thinking about doing a post-doc in Portland just to be near it...

The "A" Projects

2007-11-30T12:15:00.000-08:00

This post is brought to you by the letter A and the number 2, which is how many A projects I've got on the needles. I started the Anastasia Socks for my grandmother last weekend: I haven't done too much yet, but I'm plugging away. The pattern is simple but as usual I haven't bothered to memorize it. It really doesn't bother me to carry the chart around and keep track, plus I hate fixing things, and if I don't get all cocky about knowing the pattern I'm much less likely to screw it up. Dave was unhappy that I exploited Oliver for that photo, but I've seen much worse stuff on cats. Here's a close-up of the sock: The yarn is Socks that Rock Lightweight in Lucy, after Wendy's cat. The picture isn't the best, but the yarn color is pretty accurate.
As promised I also started the Ana Hat, from Perl Grey. I should take a photo of the diagram that came with the pattern - it's quite confusing, and just reading through the pattern makes me wish I'd taken some engineering classes. I'll try to take progress shots as I go so I can show you how this thing comes together. So far I'm knitting a giant rectangle. The yarn is quite nice to work with - it's Fleece Artist Woolie Silk, a 65/35 wool/silk blend. I love the colors (teal - go figure!). But what really should be mentioned here is the row counter, which is vital for this project. I'm one of those people who would rather keep track as I go instead of counting later, and I'd rather not have to carry around something to keep track with (pen and paper), and for this (131 rows) a counter is key. I have an identical one somewhere in the ether of my apartment, but I can't find it for the life of me. I even checked in the sweater-that-shall-not-be-named's bag, but it wasn't in there. So, and this is the good part, Dave offered to go buy me another one yesterday. Of his own free will. I should probably keep him.
Speaking of Dave, we're off to Portland for the weekend. The hat is coming along, as is the sock and the sleeves. I suspect the hat will receive the most attention. It looks like it's going to be cold/snowy/windy/rainy/miserable. I'm looking forward to it. Cyclocross is ALL ABOUT the suffering and bad weather!