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I think the last time I blogged about knitting I had mentioned that Tomato was finally on the needles. I somehow got it into my head that I wanted it finished by Seasocks.
I did a quick consultation with Pam to see how long it took to finish hers and I hit the ground running. Tomato was cast on last Monday night and as of a week later I had just started working on the waist increases. By my estimates I have another 10 rows before I need to be thinking of overall length.
So far my row gauge has been matching up perfectly with the pattern. When I finish one pattern section and it says continue until x=however many inches I’ve been hitting that mark perfectly. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen but it sure makes the knitting go faster.
I’m curious to see if I can finish the body tonight. Mindless stockingnette is great for tv watching but it has started to cause the numbness in my hands to flare up again. I’ve been a good girl though and have started wearing my wrist braces again at night. In fact I’ve been pairing them with some hand lotion and cotton gloves for a truly sexy bedtime outfit.
I am counting down the days till Seasocks. I’m debating closing down Dragonfibers for the duration of my trip rather than risk having people miss the notice about shipping delays. This year is turning out to be chock full of travel, some of it fiber related and some of it not.
In non-knitting news….my sister has finally picked a date for her wedding and instead of having a year reprieve like planned it is now happening this September. Same date as my parents anniversary in fact. Is that weird? Sarah wasn’t sure about it but with such short notice there aren’t a lot of dates available.
Some of my friends are coming over on Monday to what I’m calling “Dress Hell”. The bridesmaid designer is based in LA (great for Sarah who lives there but not so great for me) so they are shipping me 3 dresses in the styles I’m considering so I can try them on. In order to avoid the nightmare of trying on the dresses alone or god forbid…with my mother; I’m inviting a few friends over who can tell me what they think.
If you don’t hear from me after next Monday it is because I’ve crawled into bed with a pint of icecream and nothing you say will get me to leave.
Oh and what asshole decided that bridal wear should run ridiculously small? How is a girl supposed to feel pretty when she has to buy a dress that is 2-3 sizes bigger than what she normally wears?
I may post pics of all 3 dress options on the blog..it all depends on how I feel about them.
Stacy update: She is still in pieces. I keep putting off the seaming because I’m so fixated with Tomato right now. I have a feeling I may need to frog the bottom of the sleeves to shorten them. I sort of forgot I had stumpy arms but it all depends on how she fits once assembled. Hopefully it will be soon.
Bus sock 2 update: Stalled. I have maybe half an inch of ribbing for the cuff on the first sock yet I just can’t bring myself to do it. Perhaps this Tomato obsession is getting a tad unhealthy.
I guess all those repeated readings of Pride & Prejudice (along with multiple viewings of the BBC/Colin Firth movie) has paid off.
First the good news.
Stacy is finished. Well her bits are finished. Right now she is hanging out on my dining table being blocked. Tomorrow I will start on the seaming.
I was really trying to finish up the front right shoulder last night before I went to bed since it was all that remained. However once I noticed that I accidentally repeated one section of decreases twice instead of knitting the final decrease section I decided it was time for bed.
Stacy was happily cast off this morning, Nicki once again using my concentration as an opportunity for napping. He looked a little like this.
I’d like to point out that this pose is one that he adopts almost every single night when I knit. He loves how the fleece blanket makes the perfect little Nicki-sized hammock.
Before tackling the project of weaving in all those ends I decided a bit of cleaning was in order. Afterall I only have 3 more weeks before Pam, Stephie, Sharon and Sobe descend on me for Seasocks. The apt needs to be houseguest clean by then.
Boxes were broken down and 3 trips to the dumpster later there didn’t seem to be a noticeable difference. It sucks how cleaning always makes things messier for a while.
However I did have a moment today, a true “Are you fucking kidding me?” moment.
I was picking up assorted junk off the shelf where I toss my keys when I walk in the door. It’s a shelf right smackdab in the middle of the apt. A shelf I walk past multiple times an evening. It’s also a shelf that is just below eye level so I see what is on it all the time.
I went to grab the stack of papers that are there and in order to pick those up I have to pick up a ball of yarn (go figure).
“Son of a Bitch!”
Stacy yarn.
The 14th ball.
The ball of yarn I didn’t think I had so I ordered another so I could finish the sweater.
Now while some might say this is why you should keep all your yarn for a project together I would like to point out that this is why you shouldn’t set down a project for 5 months, move house and then expect to pick up where you left off without any hiccups.
Oh and it snowed on Friday, and on Saturday. I like snow just fine… when it’s in December or January. Mid April is not snow weather. Do you have any idea how hard it was to sit at knitting on Saturday while the snow fell when only the week before I was sitting there enjoying the 80 degree weather?
It’s just not right.
I missed my goal of getting Stacy finished on Monday night because I got sidetracked with the latest shop update. I think I broke Etsy when I was trying to change my shipping options because it went down in the middle of the whole process.
However I went over to the parents house for dinner last night and managed to finish the back panel of Stacy.
Looking good so far!
I then picked up the front panel and started working on that before deciding that it was after 9pm and I probably should go home at some point.
About 2 more inches were completed at home before something dawned on me. I rounded up all my pieces and counted how many balls of yarn I had used up so far. I then went hunting for all my remaining balls of yarn and counted those.
# of balls I had bought: 13
# of balls I am going to need: 13.5
Crap!
(actually I used a different word but you get the point)
Now part of me is hoping that since the front will likely use a little less yarn than the back I can squeak in under the wire but just in case I’m ordering 1 freaking ball of Knit Picks Andean Silk in Hyacinth. I’m pissed. I’m also hoping that the dye lots for orders placed 5 months apart are at least reasonably close so that if all I need to use the extra ball for is seaming and finishing the neckline it won’t look too weird.
Oh and I of course discover this yarn shortage about 2 hours after I get the email from Knit Picks saying my recent order just shipped. Grumble grumble.
Nicki on the other hand was happy last night.
My Mom knows about his cat grass habit so sent me home with a little pot of grass she had grown for him. I set the bag on the floor and didn’t really think twice about it until I heard the frantic pawing of a plastic bag. That cat knows what he likes and from what I could tell he thought this batch of grass was particularly tasty.
In other news…Bus Sock 2 is making fine progress. I’m now on the cuff of the first sock and it is really quite enjoyable to have a project I only work on while commuting. It make the mindless stockingnette a little more interesting since I only see it once or twice a day for less than 30 minutes at a time. Stacy has become a great pleasure to work on at home so I am extremely happy with my decision to bring her out of hiberation.
Ok I admit it, I love calling my in progress knitting WIPs. It always makes me think that maybe I should knit some chains or handcuffs just for the fun of it.
Anyway…
It occurred to me about partway through the week that I keep referring to my sock knitting as bus knitting. In fact I’ve been calling my recent socks Bus Sock 1, Bus Sock 2. Yet very little of the sock knitting was being accomplished ON the bus. I’m not sure what it is about my mood lately but I had been seeking refuge in mindless stockingnette socks almost everytime I sat down to knit.
I of course realized this when I was working on Bus Sock 2 and noticed that a whopping 1.5inches of the entire foot had been knit on a bus (I was already past the heel). I decided this was defeating the purpose of bus knitting. Besides that handy little WIP widget to the left of this post wasn’t getting any smaller. Those older WIPs weren’t moving along at all.
So it was with a sense of relief that I set down the sock knitting this weekend and picked up one of those languishing WIPs…Stacy.
She was cast on back on Nov 1st as part of the NaKniSweMo challenge. She progressed so quickly until life stepped in and derailed everything. On Nov 17th I finally gave up and resigned myself to failing the challenge. I had a good reason though since it meant I had the time and energy to devote to the VYT Holiday Event where I got to stand around awkwardly while people looked at my rovings and yarns. It was fun though.
I packed up Stacy on Saturday morning with the intent to take her to Sat knitting where I could kickstart her progress. I underestimated the effect of allergies and a headache so the kickstart was more of a feeble twitch.
Why oh why did I not write down where I had stopped? How the hell was I expected to figure out where I had stopped knitting a FULL 5 months earlier with relative ease? Why couldn’t I remember what size I was making? Why the hell did that double doze of Zyrtec and Aleve take almost 3 hours to kick in?
I think I sat there for over an hour just looking at the knitting in my hands and then at the pattern. Back and forth I went and I couldn’t even get my brain to THINK of what to check. It hurt. I wanted to cry. Betty asked if I felt as bad as I looked (thank goodness I didn’t take that as an insult).
I was almost ready to throw in the towel when I internalized a “Fuck it!” and picked one of the 2 rows I decided I might have been on and started knitting. At that point I still had no idea if I was supposed to be on row 1 or row 5 but I figured I might as well try row 1 and if it didn’t look right that means it was row 5.
Damn I got it right! I knew I couldn’t have been so lazy as to not finish an 8 row pattern repeat before setting down the needles back in Nov.
There was more knitting done on Saturday night and some more on Sunday night. As of today there are 4 more inches left to knit of the back piece before it is complete. Pics tomorrow of a finished back (hopefully).
That means by tonight I will have a finished back, 2 finished sleeves and 1/3 of the front complete (I had decided back in Nov to complete all the ribbing first). It is starting to look like my goal of having her complete by Seasocks is feasible!
Having a completed Stacy sweater for Seasocks is going to be wonderful. I have very few items from Knitty (or knitty related books) so being able to bring this FO will be a big deal for me. The only other knitty patterns I think I have knitted are all gifted and somehow I doubt I can ask my cousin in the UK to send back the Monkey socks. I may however be able to take back the Coupling socks from my mom to show them off as my knitty socks gone wrong. It is my example of how one shouldn’t assume that drastically changing the gauge on a purported stretchy pattern will turn out just fine.
Since I don’t have a Stacy pic to show you…
Bus Sock 2, modeled by Nicki. He may look grumpy but I would like to point out that he never tries to get the sock ‘hat’ off. He was also enjoying his usual evening habit of lap-napping so he wasn’t in the mood for pictures.
A yarn bowl from the Knit Witch! I saw one of these on Turtlegirl’s blog a few weeks ago and when the Knit Witch posted new bowls I snapped one up immediately. Seriously I think I bought it less than an hour after she sent out the email saying new bowls were on the site. I love it!
Dragonfibers news….April 15th sale! All US shipping is a flat $2 on any items purchased on April 15th. International shipping is also discounted. No it isn’t a Tax Day sale. The 15th is my sister’s birthday so everyone gets super cheap shipping on that day. 🙂
Yup, that blog title does not deceive you. I finally finished a knitted project.
Remember this?
That was the ill-fated Bus sock in Jitterbug Jewel. I had barely made it halfway up the first sock before disaster struck. This wasn’t on the same level of the previous bus knitting accident (all but 4-6 determined stitches were pulled from the needles on that fateful bus ride) but it was still a painful pair of events.
1: The damn sock was too damn big. Once again I had forgotten just how much I love my negative ease and blindly assumed that 64st on size 1 needles would fit just fine. Yet I continued to knit the too big sock until event #2.
2: The doctor told me to stop knitting. Thankfully it was only for a short period of time (I lasted 3 weeks without picking up the needles) but it was enough time to completely derail the sock.
So when I did finally pick up the sock again I decided to frog all but the toe and try again on 60stitches. Still not as snug as I prefer but VERY comfy socks.
I went with the basic toe-up stockingnette sock with a short row heel and then because I’ve never done one before…a picot hem. I opted to sew the hem down on the inside of the cuff instead of doing a bindoff.
I also tried a different short row approach in my neverending goal to find a truly hole-less short row heel. I’m not sure I have found it yet. Could it be I don’t make my wraps tight enough?
Right now these babies are warming my toes and while I was initially less than pleased with the pooling/flashing of the colors they have grown on me. At least both socks pooled in similar ways, I think if one had pooled while the other made neat spirals I might have thrown them to the ground in a huff.
Of course a new sock needed to be cast on because I’m just not brave enough to cast on while actually on the bus.
Am I the only one who dreads the end of a project because then the decision of what to knit next is looming?
The yarn I had set aside as the next sock sat on the coffee table silently mocking me while I cast on with another ball. It is a test yarn I dyed up but I’m not feeling inspired to knit it (could it be because I had already designated it as Mom socks?).
My other options for Bus sock 2 were limited by 2 things.
1: Bus sock knitting is best reserved for heavier yarns OR very simple patterns/stockingnette. I learned my lesson after the Endless Retro Rib sock in that dark purple/blue yarn on size 1 needles.
2: I was honestly too lazy to pull out the swift so I could wind off a skein.
So my only option was something already in a ball or cake. Preferably something that would be interesting to look at while I knit round upon round of mindless stockingnette.
Hence the decision to knit this.
Not only is it self patterning and in a ball but it was also partly unwound due to a misguided attempt at making a BSJ out of it. Oh and being bright and cheery didn’t hurt either.
I feel like there has been a lack of knitting content on the blog lately and I am starting to get a little concerned about that. I wish I had more updates on what I have been knitting or spinning yet there seems to be so little movement on either of those.
The first Jitterbug bus sock was finished late last night and the second was cast on. Sadly there is no picture of it yet.
Daniel has been sitting forlorn in my living room while I’ve been occupied doing everything but spin.
April 1st marked the beginning of my 1 year Dragonfibers anniversary celebration and there were new rovings and of course the Well Heeled Batts uploaded to the shop. It feels good to be paying attention to the business again.
Nicki has discovered that the dining table is strategically placed for early morning sunbathing (well on those few days we get sunshine here in Seattle). Rather than finding him milling outside my bedroom door each morning I’ve been getting up and seeing this.
I swear that look says “I know I’m not allowed on the table, what are you going to do about it? I might as well enjoy the sunshine while waiting for my food since you insist on hiding under your covers for ‘just a few more minutes’. ”
When I do put his food out he slowly moves to eat like he is doing me this BIG favor. Sigh.
I’ve also started to wonder about my eating habits at work. I opened up one of my desk drawers this week and was able to draw 2 conclusions.
1: I eat sushi for lunch way too often
2: The sushi places gives me way too many soy sauce packets.
41 soy sauce packets on 4/1. That number is now up to 43 or 44. This is what is left after I have opened my typical 2 packets for lunch. Occasionally she only gives me 3 but I’ve gotten upwards of 6 packets before. Who needs 6 packets of soy sauce with their lunch?
I’ll leave you with yet another completely random picture.
Duck Butt! This comes from my little trip to the Country Village in Bothell last weekend. Don’t ask me why I find a picture of a duck butt so hilarious because I have no idea. There was a great toy store there called Toys that Teach, nothing in there needed a battery and it was the first time in ages that I had seen a collection of windup toys. I love toy stores like that, all you need is a child with an imagination to make the toys work.
For now I’m going to focus on silly things like duck butts while I go through a less than fun time at work. Some of you might be privy to some of my whining already so I won’t vent it here. Lets just say that I need the time off for Seasocks now more than ever and I’m counting down the days till I can leave this turmoil behind.
KnittingKitty rambles on and on 