Better sock juju, and a mini dishcloth bonanza.

In retrospect, I'm really very glad that I opted to rip the Coupling sock back.  I'm back to where I was when I first ripped it out, and when I tried it on?  PERFECT.  Totally worth frogging it and noting on the pattern what I did.  An extra round and two rows made all the difference!

Also, I got myself into a little nerdtastic dishcloth jog last week, and churned out these two lovelies.

First up is the Transformers Cloth, which was a really superb pattern and is spot on in terms of the size a dishcloth should be.

PROJECT SPECS:

Pattern: Transformers Cloth by Enid Danforth

Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n' Cream in Aqua

Needles: US6 Brittany DPNs, one end capped to make improvised straights.

The next is the Stargate Earth Dishcloth, which is also a very cool pattern but ended up being small, so it'll probably get use as a face cloth or something.  But, as I love SG-1, this is very loved despite its small size.

PROJECT SPECS:

Pattern: Stargate Earth Dishcloth by Megan Murray

Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n' Cream in Aqua

Needles: US6 Brittany DPNs, one end capped to make improvised straights.

While I don't use a lot of dishcloths per se, but I found the Stargate pattern, and then I found this blue yarn straggling in the back of a cupboard at work, and thought... "dishcloth time."  I did them both in under 3 hours of knitting, and it reinforces to me that there's nothing more satisfying than finishing a quick little project!

Also, I am totally and completely hooked on Twitter.  If you're not using it, try it, it's totally addictive!  And if you're already on, you can follow me at @proptartknits there!

Sock love and war.

So I began a sock that I really, really love - the Coupling socks, which, for the record, is a really phenomenal pattern.  The lace is very easy and simple, but looks really great.  The pattern said that this lace would be very stretchy, especially vertically, so the knitter should keep this in mind when starting to increase for the gusset.  I took this especially to heart given that the yarn being used on the Coupling sock was the same that I began the Merino Lace Socks (from the Interweave Knits 25 Favorite Socks book), but which I had to rip back because the lace was SO stretchy a baby elephant could have worn it and complained it was a little loose.

So anyway, I was keeping this in mind as I kntted because I really didn't feel like ripping a sock back again.  I even worried because the pattern said to knit to 3.25" short of the end of the foot, and I knit to about 3".  I turned the heel happily (even picked up stitches for the hell - whoo-hoo!  I usually bungle this big-time!) and tried it on, and sure enough, it was a little tight.  I fretted over whether or not to rip back, trying it on several times.  Finally, I decided to let it be, hoping that the yarn would stretch or relax as I washed and wore it.  I got about 2" into the leg and tried it on again, and realized that, across the instep, the lace was pulling far more that I thought it ought.  I had increased the number given for the standard gusset, given that the other measurement was for people with high insteps, which I don't believe I have.  Turns out, for purposes of this pattern, I do.

Since I'm not so hot at ripping back lace, and the pattern boggled my brain to the point where I didn't think I could put in a lifeline to rip back to, sadly, I ripped the entire thing back to the toe.  Now, whereas the first time I knitted this up it seemed to fly by, right now, it feels as though this sock is crawling backwards, uphill, through frozen molasses in January, four miles both way.

And, just because the knitting fates are sticking it to me, I started a plain vanilla sock out of Online Supersocke, a yarn I got for Christmas from my mum that looked a little flat in the ball, but when I started knitting it up...  Oh my.  Gorgeous, vivid, popping colors on a soft, buttery, sproingy fabric.  I needed something to churn through that would make me feel like I was making progress on something.  I was nearly three inches into the foot when I realized that the needles were too big for the yarn, and that the sock was far too stretchy to work - again, the same baby elephant would be tickled it was getting so many comfy, yet slightly-too-big, handknitted socks.  I ripped it back and sadly tossed it back into the stash because I think what I need are some US1s to knit it on, which, of course, are currently being used to knit the Coupling socks.

Knitting fates, I curse you.

BREAKING NEWS: Knitting Happens! FOs abound!

Well, perhaps not ABOUND, but I've got two to share with you.

First up is Dad's watchcap, knitted because the original one I made him three or four years ago got accidentally shrunk by my mum in the wash after she and Dad returned from Yosemite. Mum was beside herself and asked if I could knit a new one for him. Here's the finished item, modelled rather nicely by DBF.





PROJECT SPECS:  Dad's Watchcap
Needles: US6 16" Knitpicks Harmony Wood needles, using the Magic Loop method at the end.
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Navy Blue, and Cascade 220 Heathers in Heather Grey.

Pattern:  My own devising, based off Dad's head measurements.

The stripes came about after I had roughly 3/4" left to knit in the hat in the Navy color and I ran out of yarn. Having accidentally gotten rid of the ball band, I went back to buy a second skein, only to knit the first 1" and discover it was more "violet" than "navy blue" (AWESOME). Faced with a major decision (and unable to return the purple-y wool ease because I'd wound it into a ball), I bought the 220, ripped that hat back to its first 4", and went all freestyle with the stripes. My dad's not a particularly patterny guy, but given that his two favorite colors are grey and navy, I was hoping a stripe wouldn't be too ostentatious for him.

(It was not. He dug the hat.)

FO Object #2, for your consideration, are my "I Swore" socks, now renamed the Stargate Socks, since they were knitted mostly during watching seasons 1-3 of Stargate: SG-1. (Also, the blue and white variegated stripes remind me of the event horizon in the Stargate.)




Project Specs:  Stargate Socks
Needles: US1 Hiya Hiya 40" circ, using the Magic Loop method.
Yarn: Regia Color 4-Ply, blue-green variegated with silver sparkle.

Pattern: Wendy Johnson's Toe-Up Socks with Slip-Stitch heel in size Medium.

So here's the deal with these socks.

I love, Love, LOVE this pattern - it's concise, easy to knit, and produces and phenomenal-looking sock. It fits my foot like it was designed just for it (this is part of the reason I love tow-up socks so very much!)

However, there was this little thing with the yarn.

The first sock knitted up great - no problems aside from knitter stupidity and a sudden inability to read patterns properly. The yarn was scrunching funny, like the plies were coming apart and pooling around the silver mylar thread that had been spun into the yarn. I attributed this to the fact that I had ripped the sock back (literally) four different times, and that the yarn wasn't keeping up with it, though I didn't find it surprising. However, the second sock (made with a different skein) was a different story, which makes me believe it was the yarn. In the first three inches of the second sock, the yarn was frayed down to a single ply in no less than a dozen different places. I had to spit-splice the yarn just to keep going. Because of this, I am now really, really good at spit-splicing, which is a great skill to have, but was exceedingly frustrating. Trying to find Regia's website to complain didn't work, because all the links I found to their US website were broken. Awesome.

Despite that, though, I still like these socks :)

Next up: The Merino Lace socks from Favorite Socks, the most excellent Interweave Knits book. I'm modifying it to go toe-up instead of cuff down, and with Wendy's slip-stitch heel instead of the lace panel the pattern calls for. We'll see how this experiment goes! I'll be working on these all day, and tomorrow on the day off! Around here, we were expecting some pretty funky and abnormal weather for the Central Coast, about which I am totally stoked - it's supposed to pour buckets here, with winds up to 45 MPH. We may even get THUNDERSTORMS!!! Sweet!

TA-DA! The first FO of 2009!

Very early into the new year, I finished one of my very favorite projects I think I've ever done.

 

These are the Porphyria mitts from Cissy Black

(if you're on Ravelry, you can easily find the pattern, but it's not on her site) and they were easy, elegant, and pretty.



Pattern Specs:

Pattern: Porphyria Mitts by Cissy Black
Needles: One US2 36" Addi bamboo circular needle using the magic loop method (How I
love you, Magic Loop!)
Yarn: Indigo Moon merino wool, colorway Northern Steppe. I acquired it through a
yarn trade with a Ravelry user in England, and I love, Love, LOVE it!

I highly recommend the pattern. Also, BEHOLD! I have both finished a project AND updated my blog, all in one fell swoop!

Also coming soon is the Hug-Me-Tight, which is 95% done. Finally almost!

Pay It Forward

About a week ago I lost my wallet. I was heartbroken. It's not like the thing was given to me by my Grandmother and was a priceless antique, or that I had dropped $3oo on a Coach wallet, but my wallet has everything essential to me in it, including my driver's license, car insurance, debit card, and two corporate credit cards, as well as a couple of sentimental things, like my old college ID and some business cards I keep for good luck. I was crushed and feeling pretty dumb about the entire thing. I reordered what needed to be reordered, got a new license, and cancelled my debit card (not that they could have spent much - I only had about $15 in my account at the time). I was positive I would never see my wallet again, because, since my car windshield got smashed in while parked in DBF's parking lot, I've been pretty cynical about the state of humanity - people's conduct with respect to themselves and to others. I mean, I saw my DBF's then-17 year old cousin's boobs on her "Sexy Pics" page on MySpace. If someone mutilating Chuck's windshield wasn't enough to convince me that humanity was going to hell, well, then that photo sure was.

Today, when I went home to check to see if my new debit card had arrived (it had), there was an oddly shaped package in the mail, in an envelope with only this as the return address:



And this written on the back:



I didn't recognize the handwriting, and it had been mailed to my old address. My cynical mind debated whether I should open it or not. When I finally did, I held it far away from me is case it was riddled with anthrax or something.

Inside was my fully intact wallet. Aside from clearly having been gone through, every card, every receipt, every coin of change in the coin wallet was there. The only thing missing was my new-ish book of stamps, which I suspect found their way onto the front of the envelope.

There was no return address listed for me to send a thank-you note to, and I wish terribly that I could do that. So instead, I thanked God that there are still people in the world who want to do the right thing. The best I can do to say thanks to whoever my mysterious friend is will be to pay it forward to someone else.

I hope that's enough.

Not dead, merely lazy. 5 months worth of lazy.

Well, well. I haven't been around much lately. There's been much that's happened in the last 5 months, notably, the summer season at the theatre that I work at. It really is miraculous that no one exploded or ran out of there screaming, including myself. Now that all of that is over and life is a little more stable, updates will be more frequent. Though really anything over every 5 months could be considered more frequent, I suppose.

A post in a little bit featuring knitting goodness, though really (sadly) not much has been done. I have made progress on some things, though, and have taken some very neat trips. An overall update post will be coming later, and by later I really hope I mean tonight, though I am going to DBF's little brother's water polo game, so we'll see. I'll take photos of that, because really, water polo seems to be an exclusively Californian thing (I found out, at the first H2O polo game I ever went to, that all but one of the men and two of the women on the US Olympic Water Polo teams were from California. The others were from Hawai'i.). If you live somewhere that isn't Cali, and you have the (albeit rare) opportunity to go to a game, GO. It's very cool. More later, I swear.

No, really.

Yes, I'm still alive...

I haven't given up the ghost; it's been a terribly harried past month or so and so I've been doing little more than waking up, making it through the day, and going back to bed :)

Rest assured I'm knitting; there will be photos to prove it, now that things are winding down!