Going Home

This is my first Christmas away from my house as a Knitter (capital K). I was away last year, as a knitter (lowercase k), and brought maybe two projects. I can't even remember the second project, if there was one. This year... oh, this year...

This is what I have crammed into my knitting bag (and I've been wanting a bigger knitting bag for a bit now):

• One knee-length hooded cardigan (I figure 2 100g balls of yarn should get me through until I get home. I might take a third if I get nervous before I leave the house.
• One pair of socks in Trekking, toe up, to be knit until the end of the ball.
• One pair of socks in On Your Toes DK, toe up.
• One scarf, 3/4 knit already.
• One neckwarmer (Tudora)
• One Sally the Eco-Fairy

I may yet be convinced not to bring the yarn for a pair or two of Dashings, but it's a 50/50 chance right now.

I have strictly told myself that I do not need to bring any more yarn for socks with me. Every now and then, I find myself carrying a ball of yarn towards the bag, and I snap out of it and put it back. The Trekking sock on the needles right now has taken me weeks already, so I have no worries that I will run out of sock to knit, but still...

All I can say is, at least yarn's light.

I've got a lot on the needles, and just two more projects to go in school before I can relax for a few weeks. Let's see what I've got pictures of, shall we?

This is the Spring Garden Shawl that was featured in my last blog post. I took this picture about a week ago, and haven't touched the needles since. It's slightly too complex and time consuming (20 minutes to a row) for me to work on while I'm stressed out with finals in school. I expect that once I'm done my homework for Monday night, this will come to the forefront again. Right now though, the twisted stitches, and the chart for both right and wrong sides are kinda killing me.



In other news, I completed one of my Roza's socks. It doesn't fit me. I have decided that it's for my Mom instead of ripping it out. I haven't woven in the ends yet, because I'm bust knitting the other sock... at least I was until I ripped the whole thing out this morning. I decided that the second sock had only a passing resemblance in fit to the first, probably due to the fact that I've been tense from school, and was knitting really tightly. I'm going to unkink the yarn before knitting it up again, though I've noticed that the Palette yarn holds the kink a lot less strongly than my other sock yarns like Sweet Georgia and Scout's Swag. Probably something to do with the quality of the wool, I'm guessing.

Well, that's about all I've got to show at the moment. I've got a whole list of things on the needles, but no photos, and it's too rainy to go out on the balcony and take pictures right now. I'm not going to make any promises about posting more regularly this time, and see where that takes us.

Oh, hello there. How have you been? I haven't seen you in two months.

I haven't knit in about as long either. I've been busy with school. Right now I'm nearing the end of 10 days vacation, and then it's back to school again. I'm doing summer courses, and they're condensed, so things get a bit crazy around here. Of course, you're here for the knitting. I know I am.

I finally cast on for the Spring Garden Shawl (Knitter's Magazine, Spring 2007) and have been having fun with that. It's my first dalliance with beaded knitting, and I haven't done much with laceweight yet. This is also my first chart with "things going on" on both sides, which is interesting. Thank god the chart is mirrored on itself, or I'd have a pretty wonky looking shawl, from reading it right to left all the time.

Pattern: Spring Garden Shawl
Needles: Size 4 Knitpicks Options
Yarn: Zephyr Wool-Silk in Pewter
Beads: Silver-lined crystal in whatever brand the Bead Pod carries..


Also on the needles are Roza's Socks from IK Spring 2007.

Yarn: Knitpicks Palette in Hyacinth
Needles: Two KP Classic Circs in Size 1
Modifications: Knitting these on two circs instead to dpns. This is my first project on two circs. I don't know why I always think it's a good idea to do new techniques on projects where I have to edit the pattern to accommodate myself.

I actually emailed Grumperina about this pattern because the sizing info is too small for me. I remember reading that her grandmother (whom the pattern is named after) has the same size feet as I do, so I emailed and asked how she modified the pattern to suit her grandmother. She was very prompt in her reply (no more than two hours before I was casting on) and told me that going up a needle size would probably do it. She was very friendly. :)

I'm a bit further along on these now; they're knitting up really fast on 60 stitches since I'm used to stitch counts like 72 and 80. I almost had a tragedy this morning, when I went to knit a bit, and... tugging the needle into place, I felt a little more... "give" than there should have been. Looked down, and there was one hand with the knitting, one hand with the needle, and lots of air in between. Yup, pulled the needle right out of the knitting and dropped all of 30 stitches.

Dropping 30 stitches first thing in the morning was not my idea of a good time, but somehow, I managed to calmly thread the needle back through all the stitches, and only one had tried to make a run for it, at the very end of the row I was picking up. The KP needles are sharp enough that fixing a dropped stitch doesn't mean running for the crochet hook anymore, so all was well. I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to grab all those stitches when my eyes weren't even focusing yet.

Well, I don't know if I can promise any more faithful activity on this blog, but I am still alive, and I am knitting occasionally. Just wanted to check in and share. Happy knitting.

kp_pallette
Originally uploaded by tulokyn.

I do so love getting yarn in the mail.

I almost managed to beat the post office with my fan lace socks (I have four pattern repeats to go on the second sock and ribbing on both) but the gorgeous weather conspired against me to get my order here sooner.

I'm swatching the pink stuff now, but it'll just be a little swatch. Then I'll go back to my other socks like a good knitter and finish them up so I can wear my socks while I knit new ones

Bad blogger, bad blogger. I've never been good at keeping up to date on these things.

I just finished the semester at art school, and that was eating pretty much every waking moment. I spent the last two and a half weeks of the semester down at the school painting. Not doing quite so much knitting, though the most recent socks I've started (these should be finished by the startof my summer semester (May 7th) easily) are clipping right along. I'm doing both socks at the same time on two sets of dpns. Both of them are just slightly past the heel turn (toe up) and are looking rather pretty.




Fan Lace socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, in Louet Gems Fingering, 2.50mm knitpicks needles.

I am hoping that they're not a smidge too short. I guess we'll see about that.

Other things have been on the needles and ripped out or sent to the corner. I just wanted to show off my orange socks today. :)

The driver CD for my camera has been found, and I have knitting progress to show, but not yet. I've been hacking away at my Beaded Rib sock, and I'm up past the heel now. :D Homework has intervened in my race to the finish though, and I expect it'll be another week or so before I'm done. Ah well. Pictures will come later.

I 'm mostly posting for non-knitting reasons today. I'm part fo a game called LOST that is a social experiment, and I'm about to lose. I would be ever so pleased if one of you lovely readers would go sign up at http://www.lost.eu/fdf1 and prevent me from losing. Sorry to be a pain. D: I promise knitting pictures this evening, okay?

I would have pictures, but the cat stole the CD that has my camera drivers on it. I had to reinstall Windows last weekend, due to a virus doing something terrible to the part of Windows that takes care of the login screen. Fun times.

Anyway, since I last blogged (in October >_>) I have finished knitting two shawls, a beer cozy, a modified beer cozy to fit my tea bowl so I would stop burning my fingers, half a purple sock (we're about 1/4 through the heel flap and hanging out until I stop hating purling, or I lose interest in what I'm knitting now), numerous swatches (including two 2-3 inch "socks" that I decided were too ugly or too big. I call them an experiment on how well this yarn holds up to frogging), and I;m currently working exclusively on a Welt Fantastic sock from Sensational Knitted Socks. I have taken the liberty of removing the welts on this attempt, and it looks awesome.

I was a spoiled knitter on Christmas. My mom got me two sets each of two sizes of KnitPicks dpns, Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch, Knitting on the Road bt Nancy Bush, and the Knitter's Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I also got a subscription to Interweave Knits that starts with the next issue, and a neat miniature sewing machine. My boyfriend got me a set of size 1 ebony dpns by Lantern Moon, and two balls of Patons Kroy sock yarn. I got myself two hanks of Sweet Georgia in Gold Digger, and that's what's being knit into Fantastic socks right now.

The other day, I got the urge to learn fair isle again, so I found a hat pattern, and I ordered a bunch of stuff from KnitPicks for that and for more sock needles. I love their dpns so much that I wanted to have some on hand for the next swatching I'm going to do in larger needles (2s and 3s specifically). Of course, I ordered on Thusday, and my order status still says Pending, so I'm getting antsy about seeing it move already.

Anyway, I need to go work on my homework. Photos to come at some point, but I need to find that CD first. The manufacturer's website only has the update to the driver's, not the base to get upgraded. Boo.