Sox and Socks

OMG! First game of the World Series on tonight and the Sox are playing! I really didn't think they were going to make it this time! Of course, every year I say they're not going to make it, in hopes that I won't be too upset when/if they don't make it. Doesn't so much work. Game 7 of the ALCS was great, and I was knitting green (monster) socks, so they'll be coming out again tonight. Of course, we'll see if I can stay awake for the whole game - functioning on less than 6 hours of sleep doesn't work as well for me now as it used to...

Now it only goes to figure that the one time that I actually have non-sock items to show off, the weather's not cooperating with my taking pictures. All I have is some finished socks (that you've already seen singles of, alas) from the weekend, but at least it makes for a good post title. Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow (bet your bottom dollar it's tomorrow), and I will be awake enough to exploit my natural resources...

Finished Firestarters, as mentioned before, in Zen String Harmony fingering, which I'll just say one more time, is perfect perfect for this pattern. This was a fun learning experience, with a different sort of construction (though I didn't pay quite as close attention on the second sock, so there are a few, not too noticeable errors). I do think that I'm all done with the magic loop method. I'm glad I stuck with it for the pair, and I feel comfortable using it, but I was so glad to get back to the dpns!

Here, of course, are the Scherherezade Slippers, finished while the Patriots crushed the Dolphins on Sunday. (I'm not really a huge sports fan, honestly, it's just a good time to knit!) They're in ArtYarns Ultramerino on size 2 (dpns, thank you very much). I think they're stunningly gorgeous - and they were another new construction for me), but since they come right to my calves, I do think I'll need to add a little elastic to keep them up when I walk...or I could just spend the rest of my life reclining gracefully in them...I'll have to ponder....

And finally, the Wine socks (really Nancy Bush's Whitby)! If all goes as planned, I'll be trading them for my case of wine on Halloween. Hopefully there will be pictures of them on the feet that fit them (instead of my much smaller ones!) as well as of a giant box of wine!

Go Sox!

Restless Me Syndrome

This is getting to be a bad habit, I think. I was sad and embarrassed when I was only getting around to posting every seven days, but less often than that?! shocking. It's been, and still is, a week in which I can't seem to do anything for more than a few minutes and then I have to go do something else. It's not a manic thing, just a flakey thing, I think. In either case, I've been very very busy getting nothing much done!

To distract from my lack of content, here is a link to a very odd children's show that Claire shared with me. It's G rated, but there _is_ singing...

One thing I _can_ say I accomplished this week (other than eating an obscene amount at a BikeJerk family reunion), is finishing the first half of my pair of Maia's Mystery sock/Scherherezade Slippers:

Isn't it amazing? Don't you want to make one? I'm ever so pleased with how it turned out. It's very tall on me since I have a short foot, and I love the lace pattern swirling up and around my calf. It actually comes to a nice point on the back, but I'm not quite flexible enough to successfully capture the back of my own leg on film.

And one final thing. This is the yarn I spun for a scarf I'm going to knit for my brother:

As you can see, it's autumnal and also sort of busy, with the light and dark strands plied together. I'm pondering what, if any, stitch pattern I should use - stockinette and garter are awfully boring, but do you think that this yarn would just swallow any sort of texture I tried? (I know, I should swatch, but that takes some willpower/attention span.)

Argh! I've been doing one thing for more than 10 minutes now. I'd better run!

October, baby, yeah!

I love October. It's somehow my favorite month. Partially because my wedding anniversary is on Halloween, partially because it's the first month that I can feel sure that it'll be autumn, which has always been my favorite season - the leaves, the lack of humidity, (new school clothes?), plus I love the peacefulness of the bare trees, etc. So I've been missing in action this whole first week of October because it's been just way too warm! I know many were glad for the weather in the 80s this week, but it made me cranky as all get out. Grr! Naturally, I'm ever so pleased that it's not supposed to even get up to 70 today. Ah! I'm happy, and the BikeJerk is happy, as he and friends are riding their bikes to Provincetown today. Hope it doesn't rain too much, guys!

So when I say 'missing in action' I mean that I haven't been blogging, or commenting on other peoples' blogs, or talking to my friends, or doing nearly enough of my research, but it doesn't mean I haven't been knitting. I started both my new sweater project and the orange lace project, neither of which is photograph-able yet, and I worked on these:

On the right are Boyfriend Socks for the BikeJerk. The Lorna's Laces is perfect for this cable-heavy pattern, and I love how they're turning out. At the same time, I'm working on the sock on the left, which I'm calling the Wine Sock. Even though it's Whitby from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road, it's the Wine Sock to me because when I finish the pair, I get a case of wine. Yes, a case. They're for a friend of ours who is the wine expert at a local liquor store. He's very excited for a handknit pair of socks, and I think these ones will be huge winners for his first pair - they're in Cider Moon Flurry, and they're SOOOO soft! Maybe he'll want another pair. ;)

Finally, above and below are socks for me, along with enormous produce from our CSA! Above, it's an art photo, below, you can see the sock

Which is the first of a pair of Firestarters (from Yarnissima, but available for free from the Loopy Ewe!) in Zen String Harmony Fingering in the Vitamin C colorway. I love this yarn so much - it's perfect for the pattern with its tencel blend making the stitches crisp, and the colors are so rich. I'm SO sad that I cancelled my sock yarn club membership with Zen String - I've never been unhappy with any of their yarns or colorways - silly me and not spending beyond my means!!

The pattern is certainly fun - toe-up with traveling stitch cables and an interesting construction - it's carefully organized and I love how the stitches flow up and around the gusset. It's written for the Magic Loop method....and....well, I decided to use it despite my previous frustration in it (with a needle with less than graceful joins). I have made this whole sock with the magic loop, and I don't hate it anymore. I feel comfortable in it, and stopped being annoyed by having to pull the needle up into place, but I just don't know how I feel about the method. It's sort of fine, but is it less annoying than dpns? I don't think so... As one of my students would say, I'm deeply ambivalent (because to college students, apparently, if you're ambivalent, you must be deeply ambivalent, just as any contrast has to be stark and any opposition has to be a binary one. Sigh.).

New year's resolution

Sweaters and I have had what you might call a checkered past. The very first thing I ever knit was a sweater. Seriously - the first stitches I cast on were for the back of a cardigan - this is what comes of deciding (after midnight, at Wal-Mart) to teach yourself how to knit out of a handy Leisure Arts pamphlet titled 'Teach Yourself how to Knit, Crochet, Tat, and Embroider' (all in less than 50 pages!) using cheap, unbleached cotton yarn. I got casting on and stockinette quickly, and once I figured out that the yarn had to go between the needles (not under the bottom of the project) for ribbing, I just knocked the thing out. By the time I was done with the back, I was bored with stockinette and added some cables to the front panels. It turned out well enough that I ended up selling it to my boss for fifty dollars. Not bad for your very first knitting project!!

But within that first project were the hints of the problems that have continued to haunt me throughout my sweater knitting career: I was willing to sell this first proud sweater because it didn't fit me. It was too short in the body and too long in the arms. And pretty much every sweater (all 5 or so) I've made since then has had the same problems. My dad bought me a sweater's worth of a lovely shade of Cotton Glace just one summer ago - with which I made a beautiful lace cardigan - that's too short in the body and too long in the arms!! (Sorry, Dad!! On the upside, it fits my dear friend Claire perfectly, so it hasn't gone to waste at all!!) I have one Alice Starmore fisherman's sweater that I love, but it's a giant box of a sweater - pretty, but not flattering. Despite the fact that I know _why_ my sweaters don't fit (most patterns aren't written for short people with big busts), I guess I haven't quite managed the energy or attention or something to fix the problems.

But that's all about to change!! (cue dramatic makeover moment music) This year is the tenth anniversary of teaching myself to knit, and as a challenge to myself, and because it's embarrassing that I've been knitting so long without making a decent sweater, my resolution for this sweater knitting season is to knit at least one sweater that fits me and looks great. My eventual goal is to have a (perfectly fitting) Threepenny Pullover from Veronik Avery, but I wanted to start with something simple, that would be easy to modify and that I know I'd wear all the time. So I measured all the relevant places, and I found a great pattern from Webs: the Yoga Hoodie (oddly, no front views available). It's knit all in the round, so I can test my modifications as I go, and is mostly stockinette (for easy alteration) but not too boring, with that fancy back panel. And I love hoodies. I'm casting on this weekend, so wish me luck!!

And just so this post won't be too visually dull, here are two of my favorite dogs pretending to be cute:

WTF?

Thank you all so much for your kind comments on my cephalapod creation! If I weren't still just amazed that he turned out so well, I'd be blushing right now! I have to say, he turned some heads at the wedding this weekend. It was a really awesome and beautiful wedding AND I didn't take a single picture. Well, I took one, but it was dark already so all you can see is a white dress and glowing red eyes. Which sort of summed up the evening, actually. ;)

The BikeJerk has been working really psychotic hours lately due to fiscal year ending madness, and when he's supremely overstressed and not sleeping, _I'm_ somewhat stressed and not sleeping as much as would be healthy. Which means I'm actually knitting a lot, but barely can keep my eyes open to photograph or post about anything. Except one thing:

This is a mystery sock that Maia is doing this month. The photo is just past the third clue out of four, so it's not so mysterious right now. I hadn't intended to do this project because I like making my sock choices from a well-informed position, but I saw some pictures after people had done the first clue, and I had to check it out. As soon as I saw it, I cast on for this instead of the orange stole that I hinted at in my last post (hence the title of this post!). It is SO much fun - the construction is fascinating, with increases in unexpected places and stitches that move in mysterious ways - I did the first two entire clues in one sitting because I couldn't put it down.

Honestly, it reminds me of when I turned my first heel. I remember reading 'turn work' and thinking that the author must be nuts, but then giving in and trusting something that seemed impossible, and being so amazed and gratified when my trust was fulfilled and I had somehow made a heel. I remember in the first clue and a half of this sock thinking 'really? does she mean that?' but doing what I was told. And it's looking (and fitting) pretty darn nice!

Oh, and one more thing: thank you to Peaknit for nominating me (ahem, back in August,
ahem) as a: . It means a lot to me - seriously, even though it took me so long to post about it! I'd like to nominate in turn: Beth, who not only knits amazing socks, but homeschools three boys on top of that; Nell, who had the guts to both go to nursing school AND unravel the first sweater she ever made; and Bookwoman, who gives great beer suggestions and information (among other things! ;)). Rock on, y'all!

Say hello to my little friend

This is Henry the Octopus.

My friend Claire asked me to make him to hold the rings at her wedding.

I made up the pattern as I went along (writing plentiful notes), and I was so unsure that he was going to turn out alright that I also made a little pillow as an alternative in case my first original toy pattern turned out to suck.

I'm rather stunningly pleased, however. You see the well-dressed wedding octopus is wearing a dapper hand-knit tie in a cashmere-merino blend.

This is the bottom of Henry, just so's you can see how neat and tidy everything is. That ridge near the legs is where I bound off the bottom and the rest of the body together. The whole thing's worked in the round, so that's the only seam. It used some Koigu that I had lying around, though I had to emergency purchase an extra skein (that's why the right side of this picture seems like the yarn is lighter - it is!). He also has pipe cleaners in his legs, so they are somewhat moveable. That didn't work as well as I'd like: up at the top, the pipe cleaners can move around too much in the leg, so it doesn't hold its position as well as I'd wanted. I have some ideas on how to make it work, but didn't have too much time to fix it as the wedding is in three days! Talk about panic-knitting!

And here are my last socks for the Summer of Socks!

It makes my tenth pair since Jun 21. Not bad, though there are people participating who have made over 30 pairs in the same time! These seemed appropriate to end with as they're sort of autumnal and summery (surely there's a better word for that!). The pattern is just plain vanilla toe-up in Sunshine Yarns superwash merino (sock club colorway Fresh, which I bought a while back from ChickenKnits). That's Chowder, acting like a fool behind my feet.

And what will I do, now that the Summer of Socks is nearly done, and Henry is safely finished? Well, I won't say I'm not going to knit socks, but this is the next thing I plan to cast on: