The Knitting Doctor

The River

No, that's not the name of my new shawl. It's still "that cream lace shawl". Although last night there were a few expletives interspersed in the name. I came to a mistake, and in the process of trying to fix it (gin & tonic-driven, I'll readily admit), I dropped a couple of stitches. They rapidly unravelled across about a two inch segment, down about 4 rows. Fortunately, I had a lifeline installed. Unfortunately, the lifeline was 20 rows back.

I'll stop and let that soak in. There are about 300 stitches on the needles. 300 times 20 rows. You figure it out. I didn't bother to stop and take photos, but spent about 2 hours last night getting the mess back on the needles. I haven't checked it tonight to make sure that the stitch count is OK. It's in time out for a couple weeks.

Which brings me to The River. Tomorrow we leave for a little river trip. We're doing two back-to-back river raft float trips. The first segment is on the Green River in northern Utah, through the Gates of Ladore, a four day raft trip. Then we drive to Moab, Utah, and do the second segment, a 5 day trip down the Colorado through Cataract Canyon. 9 days in a tent, with "no phone, no lights, no motorcar, not a single luxury"*. It sounds like heaven to me. And I will admit that in my yarny nerdiness, that I packed the sock yarn first. We're limited on baggage weight on the flight back off the river to Moab at the end, so I'm just taking sock projects.

Speaking of which, here's the latest sock photo. I'm still loving this yarn.

I'm off to pack. I'll be back in a couple of weeks!

*Extra credit for knowing the source of that quote...

Amaranth Socks

As promised last time, I have a finished project to show you. Here are the mismatched, not-quite identical Amaranth socks.

If they look a little dilapidated, it's because I couldn't wait to wear them before I took photos!

Project Details:

Pattern: My own generic sock pattern. I started these with 64 stitches around, which was too small, then ripped and started over with 72 on the second go around, for some reason that escapes me. I had knit to the heel before I decided that they were too big. I was not about to rip them out again, so just decreased a bit extra in the gussets and ended up with 68 stitches for the foot. For the record, 68 stitches with this yarn is perfect.

Yarn: Madeline Tosh sock yarn, in Amaranth. This is just lovely yarn, in lovely colors. It's 100% superwash merino wool. It has a very nice "hand" once it's made up.

Needles: Size 2.25 mm Pony Pearls. Yes, I'm still old-fashioned and use dpns for socks. I could have gone down a needle size with this yarn and still had an acceptable fabric, but this was OK.

Started: November 2007. Really. I'm not that slow of a sock knitter, I just keep getting sidetracked.

Finished: Last week.

For: Me

Modifications: I'll ask it again, how do you define "modify" when it's your own jerry-rigged pattern? This one has 2 by 2 ribbing, and a standard heel flap and gusset. Nothing fancy.

What I learned: I'm still a plain-sock girl. And yarn can do weird things when you're not looking. This yarn came in a single hank, and I don't think there were any knots. The two socks are knit the same, with the same needles, and the gauge is the same. But look at them. They are just doing that not-matching thing to try to bug me.

And I'm already a good ways into the next sock. Remember that Three Irish Girls yarn I talked about several posts back? Some of the stuff I broke the yarn fast for? It came, I wound, I knitted. It is just indescribably lovely. I want this in every color.

This is their Adorn Sock Yarn, the  color is Eire, and I'm knitting them on my latest needle purchase, the Knit Picks Harmony dpns. These are very nice, and much less expensive than comparable wooden double points. I have a set of Lantern Moons, but I'm mostly afraid to use them for fear of breakage. This yarn is just so squooshy soft and wonderful that it almost knits itself!

I also have another gadget that I got a while ago, but haven't posted a photo. This is a handmade tin needle protector, which might make me a little less fearful of using those nice needles. Just slip it over your needles with the sock in progress, put the cap on, and toss it in your bag!

Here's where I got mine, though the home page of the online order site says it's not working. There's a contact email on that page, just email Jen and she'll set you up.

And just to prove that I'm still working on that alpaca silk lace shawl, here's a photo.

Even though it might not look much different than before, here's a photo that proves it is indeed bigger.

That used to be 100 grams of yarn, I'm down to 61.6 grams. And I now have around 300 stitches on the needle.

I really need to call this one something better than "that alpaca silk lace shawl". It's getting made up using Evelyn Clark's Knitting Lace Triangles book. I'm going to do a few more repeats of the vaguely flower-like motif, then add a ripple border, then a pointy edging. I know, it all sounds quite technical, doesn't it? Any ideas for a clever shawl name?

Tagged!

Lee Ann tagged me for this one. I was pretty sure I'd done this one before, but I couldn't find it, so here goes. I've mixed text and photos this time around. This is just mostly random stuff from the past week.

The Seven Random Things About Me Meme!!

But first, the rules: Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving comments on their blogs.

I'm not tagging anybody for this. You're all on your own. If you do decide to do this, let me know, I'd love to stop by for a visit to see your randomness.

1. I love spring and all the spring produce at the farmers' market. Every spring I find some new vegetable that I've never heard of.

2. This spring it was flowering kale.

I clean it, saute some green garlic (or regular garlic), add the kale, stir for a moment, then add a bit of chicken stock, cover, and steam for a few minutes. When it's time to eat, I put a splash of balsamic vinegar in it, with salt and pepper. I cook most of our greens this way, though sometimes I use raspberry vinegar for excitement.

3. I love halibut. I would have a very difficult time living anywhere but where I do, as we can get good quality fresh fish routinely. One of the vendors at the farmers' market sells fresh fish, and while it's not cheap, it's a regular menu item around here.

This was the rest of the meal that went with the kale. There's grilled halibut with a splash of homemade pesto, and risotto cakes. We make those with leftover risotto. You just form it into cakes and saute in olive oil until they are crispy on the outside and heated through.

4. We sometimes eat in front of the television, but mostly eat dinner together at the table, with the good dishes and candlelight. It's a nice little ritual at the end of the day.

 

Here's that risotto in its first life:

John made it with chopped sorrel, and it was served with fresh scallops, sauteed chard, and asparagus, all from the farmers' market.

5. Another random fact:

We love a good bottle of wine around here. That is Yorkville Cellars Semillion, one of our favorite summer white wines.

6. I have some wacky stuff in my house. Here's one of them:

Salt chickens! We love using good sea salt at the table, but the flakes don't work in a shaker, and I just think this is more pleasing than a salt grinder.

7. Last but not least, my pencil collection. Yes, I'm a pencil geek. I even belong to a pencil-of-the-month club. Don't laugh, I'm not making this up. Here it is. And here's mine.

Oh wait, that's not quite all of it. I don't collect anything halfway. In my defense, I do actually use my pencils, though it looks as though the life expectancy of my pencil stash rivals mine. You might note that I collect erasers and sharpeners, too.

By the way, I'm not the only pencil loon out there. Here's a blog that's in my blog lineup as a daily read. And I actually got a proposal of marriage last week from another geek who is coveting my pencils. I think she just wants me for my office supplies, though.

Next time, perhaps a finished project!

Good Causes

This YouTube video made our local paper this morning. This was caught by a DOT camera as the police officer in the video stopped traffic for a family of baby ducks on one of our busy freeways during the morning commute. You just have to love a guy like this.

Cathy-Cate of Hither & Yarn is having a contest to celebrate her 1-year blogiversary. She's giving away lots of free stuff if you enter, but for a good cause. You can enter the contest by donating to one of three charitable organizations, Doctors Without Borders, Knitters For Knockers, and The House That Yarn Built. Any one of those (or all of them!) would be a good choice, so get over there, send her an email, and help out one or more very worthy causes.

We're off to the farmers' market later this morning to check out the bounty. I'll take the camera along so you all can see what's for dinner!

Oops...

On Saturday I pulled out one of my favorite pairs of hand knit socks to wear, and discovered this:

I don't usually get holes in the toes of my socks, but I think my aging pedicure was to blame this time. After rummaging around in my office, I found the ball of leftover yarn that goes with this sock. Here's a link to the finished socks, if you want to see what they looked like brand new.

Fixing the toe was relatively easy. I just cut off the end of the sock with the hole, got it back on needles, and reknit it. It took less time than getting a new pedicure.

After I finished the toe, I inspected the rest of both socks, and found some perilously thin heels (the photo above), so I got out the darning needle and duplicate stitched over both of them. My duplicate stitching probably wouldn't win any ribbons at the state fair, but it will hopefully give this pair a little longer lifespan.

And this is all the yarn I have left, so the next time this pair gets a hole, it's history.

This past week was a bit busy, which might explain the lack of knitting and posting around here. My weekend was spent at a Catholic women's retreat here.  There were approximately thirty women at the retreat, and we stayed from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. It was a wonderful experience, and I would highly recommend it to any of you looking for something similar.

Here's a photo of the view from the main conference room at the center:

I'm amazed that any of us could concentrate on anything but that view. I didn't get much knitting done while I was there, but I did find a couple of other knitters to hang out with Saturday evening. I just might possibly even have some progress photos the next time I post. Though I suppose fixing socks is progress of sorts.

Last but not least, I was interviewed recently for WhoKnits online magazine. Go here to read the interview!

The Yarnery Family Singers

If you haven't seen these videos yet, go now. It's the Yarnery Family Singers, with a spoof of Sound of Music songs to honor Stephanie's visit this past week. Scroll towards the bottom of the post to get to the videos.

I'm now going to try to stop laughing and compose myself enough to go to work.

Project Update

I've come up with a new way to handle all my yarn stash. I created an Access database file a long time ago, before I got a Mac, but there is no good Mac equivalent of that software that is cheap and easy to use. I finally found one, and if you're a Mac user, you might want to check out Bento. I was able to import the old Access file info, then I just had to update the thing, and add all the tons of new yarn I've added to the stash in the last year and a half since I got my Mac. I just love this software; it's so easy that you don't need any database experience to figure it out, and at $49, it meets the criteria of cheap. They have a downloadable demo so you can try it out. The only catch is that you must have the Leopard operating system installed on your Mac to use it.

The really nice part of all this organization is that I have one database field for yarn location, so I can figure out where something is without tearing apart the whole yarn closet to find what I'm looking for. I can sort by any field, which means that if I have a pattern for a lace shawl that uses 1200 yards of laceweight, I can figure out what I have in the stash that works. I also did a little reorganization this past week, as the various box contents are a bit random, and are in order of yarn vintage as much as anything else. I now have all the sock yarns in one place, and all the lace yarn in another place. And I've decided to start my own sock of the month club. Every time I get the urge to yarn shop, I'm just turning around and opening a box, and pulling something out that catches my eye. I brought all the sock yarn upstairs to sit right behind me, so I'm not tempted to buy any more.

Hey, it could work.

Here are the various current projects. 

I'm not taking a photo of Cobblestone. I've done exactly two rows on it in the last two weeks. I need to line up some good movies and just sit down and work on this one.

Here's my new lace project.

This is going to be a triangular lace shawl, using the Evelyn Clark Knitting Lace Triangles book. So far I think I'm going to use this particular motif for the whole body of the shawl, with a ripple pattern for the border, then an edging. Her book is simple, but brilliant.

The yarn is Alpaca With A Twist Fino, in cream. It's an alpaca/silk blend, and is just heavenly soft, and whisper light.

Next up is the current sock. This is the Madeline Tosh yarn, in Amaranth. I've finished one, and near the heel on the second.

Notice anything odd about those stripes? Here's a better photo to show you:

What the bloody hell? Yes, I've counted and measured. I have the same number of stitches on the needles, the same gauge, and the same size needles. Now I could understand this if this yarn came in smaller skeins, with one separate skein for each sock. But this was one skein, which I split in half to make things easier in trying to calculate how long I could make the cuff. These socks aren't fraternal; I'm not even sure they're related. For what it's worth, I'm liking the second sock better.

Last but not least, I've resurrected the Sock Hop yarn from last fall. Remember the ball of sock yarn that I apparently misplaced somewhere between here and Idaho? I finally unravelled the first sock, figuring that after all this time, if I haven't found the yarn, it's lost forever.  Here's its new incarnation:

That's going to be a jaunty little beret. The pattern calls for one skein of Koigu, so I figure this should be enough. So far, I'm loving the way this yarn stripes. It's a good thing I only need one beret, though, as I'm sure that if I had to make two, they wouldn't even come close.

And finally, my gadget of the week photo. I saw these on a couple of other blogs, and had to get one (of course!).

This is a knitting abacus bracelet, by Hide and Sheep. I figured this might be one of those gadgets that looks nice but never gets used. Not so. I really like the simplicity of how this works, and it's much prettier than my office supply store clicker counter. I also got some of the stitch markers, which are lovely as well. They make a wide variety of marker styles, including markers for crocheters. Check it out!

To The Beach!

You will note that the ticker was reset again. I'm hopeless, but least I'm honest. More about that later.

We went on a little road trip this weekend to the Oregon coast with the new car and the dogs. We found a nice little resort right on the beach that was dog-friendly, and stayed for a few days. It was cool, rainy, and windy, but just a perfect get-away, and the dogs had a blast running on the beach.

Here is a travelogue, in photos.

In the car, more than ready to go:

Me too:

Our room:

It would have been better if we'd gotten a room with a nicer view:

The beach:

All this leads to two very tired but happy dogs.

Of course there was a yarn shop in town. Isn't there always? I bought two skeins of sock yarn, which of course I don't need. What's your point?

There is a skein of Jitterbug sock yarn, in the color Lapis. The other one is Noro Kureyon sock yarn, which I had no desire to buy until I actually saw it.

My second mistake was that we took our laptop along with us. We had wireless internet access, which is always dangerous when combined with a credit card and lots of free time. My logic went like this: I've already blown the yarn shopping fast, and have to post about it, so why not really do it up right? This makes perfect sense to all of you, right? Don't even begin to try to convince me that you all wouldn't do the same.

So I was browsing online and found the Three Irish Girls website. I couldn't resist some more sock yarn. Look at their colors, and see if you don't fall for this, too. Then I realized that I had a coupon for 10% off at Kris's shop, Sonny and Shear. Let's just say that I won't need to buy sock yarn for a few more lifetimes. These haven't arrived yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll love all of them, too.

Last but not least, thank you all for the lovely comments on my last post! I got to wear the stole on vacation, and it provided some much-needed warmth!

Langsjal Jóhönnu

The stole came off the blocking board this morning, and was finally seen out in the wild (in between rain showers!).

Yarn: Lodband Einband, Icelandic laceweight wool, purchased at Schoolhouse Press. The color number is 9808, and I used all but 1 gram of 5 skeins of yarn (225m each).

Pattern: Langsjal Jóhönnu, from Three Cornered and Long Shawls, by Sigridur Halldórsdóttir. I also purchased this from Schoolhouse Press.

Needles: Knitpicks Options circular, size 3.75mm

For: Me

Started: May 2006, for the Amazing Lace knitalong. It went into an extended timeout in September of that year, when I got sidetracked by other stuff. I did a row here and there just so the poor thing wouldn't feel abandoned, but started back in earnest on it over this winter.

Finished: April 5, 2008 (Thanks, Chris, for noticing the "2007" typo!)

Modifications: None, except for my possibly creative interpretation of the charts. I also used way more yarn than what the pattern called for, which was 500 yards of laceweight. I used 1230 yards of the Lodband Einband. I did use a larger needle than called for in the pattern, as I liked the look of the pattern stitches better at that gauge, so that accounts for some of the difference. The finished shawl measurements given in the book are 25" by 75". Mine is 26" by 84", so that accounts for some of the rest. I think if you only went with the 500 yards, you'd have a really short stole. I wanted something that I can really wrap up in.

What I Learned: Where to start? This is easily the most difficult thing I've finished. The original book is in Icelandic, and the included translation is somewhat terse, at only 15 pages to the original book's 77 pages. This shawl is one of the more challenging in the book, as it is patterned on both sides, meaning no long purled or knitted row on the return row. If you make a mistake, there's no "easy" row to rip back to where you can get your bearings and get the thing back on the needles. I did a lot of painstaking "tinking" to fix mistakes. I used lifelines, and stitch markers to separate the horizontal repeats.

The chart in the book also doesn't have the horizontal repeats marked, so that required a whole lot of fiddling in the beginning that I probably made much more difficult than it really should have been.

There's a really looooong grafting row at the end; 125 stitches to be exact. It's done on a plain knit row, though, so it works just like grafting a really big sock toe, and if you think of it that way it's much less daunting. I also learned the hard way to make my grafting much looser than I would think necessary. A lot of ripping and swearing ensued, then re-grafting.

While I would not necessarily recommend this to a complete beginner, any knitter with patience and an ability to read a chart can do this one. After I first started this, I wasn't thrilled with the yarn, as it's fairly rustic and plain, but it has grown on me. It goes with the pattern perfectly, and will be a warm, yet stylish stole. It also blocked out beautifully.

While this book is fairly expensive at $45, it has several other lovely patterns that I want to make someday.

Here's a close up of the stitch pattern:

And me, all wrapped up and warm.

The only thing I'm not happy about? It doesn't make me look like this woman from the pattern book:

Pin Forest

Langsjal Jóhönnu is actually done, all except for the waiting for it to dry part, and that's not far off. Here are some finishing shots.

Off the needles, finally, and with the lifelines bravely removed.

How much yarn did I have left after the edging?

One gram. I calculated to the tenth of an ounce how much yarn I was using for each repeat, so I could use as much of the yarn as possible, but sort of forgot to figure in the crocheted edging. I just squeaked by.

Here's one of my latest gadgets:

It's a sterling silver tapestry needle, from Celtic Swan. I really am coveting their sterling double point needles, (hint, hint to husband), but I settled for this. It's heavenly, and perfect for finishing a project that's been in the making for nearly two years!

After the stole got a good soak in the sink, I crawled around on the floor with blocking wires and pins. Here's the pin forest:

And the long shot:

I am ecstatic that this one is finished, finally. I'll post project details once it's dry and I can get an action shot.