Did I Promise You Some Buttons?

*Ahem*

Sorry about the recent ridiculously long absence. In my defense, I haven't knit a stitch since we last spoke.

The sweater is the February Lady Sweater, the yarn Brown Sheep Worsted. Needles, size 8.

The verdict... eh. I don't see what all the fuss is about. It looks really good on other people online, but on me, it's more linebacker than hip, swingy cardigan. Perhaps its just too big, but I don't have the time, energy, or inclination to reknit it.

Luckily, I am co-directing a big charity auction for school one month from now, and have a lovely handknit sweater to donate!

PS- I wouldn't hold your breath for more frequent posting. I'm barely staying above water this semester- with the auction, four seminars and two lecture classes, plus all the wedding day-dreaming I'm doing, I have no baking or knitting to share and no time to share it!

In Which I Ramble On About Some Things On My Mind

I really apologize for the lack of postings recently. Life is just getting in the way - of both blogging and knitting!

Fortunately, my seminar professor gave me permission to knit in class, and yesterday I was able to complete about four inches of the front of the sweater I'm working on! I love knitting in class- I stay focused on the discussion, and because we don't have to take notes (a huge relief in law school), I get to make productive use of the time!

I don't have a picture to show you because Mike just left with the camera- he's going on a bike ride tonight, which he's very excited about.

I tried knitting socks again out of the Shibui and it is just really not cooperating. I think I might have to give up on the yarn - at least the first few yards. I've now knit it up into the cuff of a sock at least four times, and it has just lost its spring. I am also so frustrated with the pooling! I may have to stop buying Shibui, it's just impossible to knit with and not get ugly pooling (not my socks, but an example of someone else having the same problem with the same yarn).

It just doesn't matter how many stitches you put on the needle, if you alternate skeins, what needle size you use- nothing will stop this yarn from pooling, and it is driving me crazy.

Especially since I have a lot of gift certificate money to use up at Knit/Purl and everything else they stock is ludicrously expensive. Maybe I'll see if my gift certificates contain enough money for a sweater's worth of malabrigo and call it a day.

Except, I've just joined BlueGarter's group, Knit Local, which is a network of knitters striving to knit from yarn produced from local sheep, mills, spinners, and dyers. And Malabrigo, as delicious as it is, comes from Uruguay (I think- somewhere far away, at least). Unfortunately, as it always goes, local yarn is way more expensive than yarn from, say, those online yarn repositories- they're like the CostCo of yarn stores, and I just can't help buying from them because of the price.

Oregon has a great resource in the Oregon Wool Grower's Association, a directory and community of local yarn and fiber producers. I plan on doing some poking around in there and hopefully planning some projects based around that yarn.

Coming Home to Roost

Pooling = bad.

I started work on a pair of Monkeys using some delicious bluegreen Shibui sock yarn. It was nice to be working on a project again, as I hadn't knit a stitch since finishing the Charades (below).

Unfortunately, as you can see, the Shibui + 64 st pattern = hideous pooling death.

I ripped back, adjusted the stitch count, and tried again. Same result. Boo. The socks are currently sitting in time out in my knitting basket, and I'm again casting about for something to knit.

In some exciting house news, we got a chicken coop tonight!

Now all we need are some chickens! We're debating whether we'll get baby chicks (super cute) or older pullets (fresh eggs now!). But whatever chickens we get, they'll have this beautiful home.

Another thing we have is a really cute cat. I hate when bloggers just post photos of their cats, as a regular feature, but I promise I won't do that.

Hello- I make very cute facial expressions!

Magic Loop 4-Eva!

My knitting has slowed to the speed of molasses in January since finals time and the move. I don't know what's wrong with me- I don't have anything to do after work, so theoretically, I should just sit in my backyard and knit all evening, but I don't.

Since I'm uninspired by the Boot Socks (and my substitute yarn is too cottony and not wooly / acrylicy enough, so I have to find a different yarn with which to finish off the foot of Sock #2) and I can't bring myself to figure out the sleeve-cap shaping on the Elizabeth Bennett cardigan, I cast on for some more socks last night.

Except I had left my Addi circulars at my office, attached to the Boot Socks, so I cast on with dpns. I used to love dpns. I swore by dpns. I scoffed at magic looping.

No more.

Five needles, ten needle tips. No thank you.

It's all magic loop, all the time for me now.

I may have to skip over to the yarn shop on my lunch break - it's one block away and I haven't gone even once yet! How's that for self control? - and use my gift certificate to stock up on Addis. (The G.C. is from helping out with inventory back in March. $40 for four hours of yarn fondling? Yes, please.)

Dirty Pretty Things.

Guess which is which.Pretty tulips and sun.

Dirty ends. All of them. This sweater looks like a fringe coat. Ugh!

Pretty no-knead bread! (But not the 24-hour one)

Pretty new skis and a view of Mt Hood. (This isn't the best picture- the skis fell over right after I took it- augh!- but I like how it shows how clear the day was!)

Uh-oh

I finished a sleeve! Stockinette goes so quickly. But... do you see the problem? No? Look closer...
Can you see it now? That faint line right in the middle of the photo... How about if I hold it up to the light?

The dreaded wrong dyelot!! Noooo! (Cue crash symbols and lightning flash!)

I'm not sure what happened, though, as I double checked and I got all the same dyelot! The shoulder of this sleeve is still slightly greyer than the rest of the sleeve and body. Ugh. At least it is only slightly off, right?

A Day for Love

Nothing is better in this world that waking up with a purring kitten, a lovely man, and a mimosa in your hand. I love Valentine's Day, especially when my first class is canceled and I can spend some extra time in bed and then have a special French Toast breakfast.

I tried to send my Valentines out early- I had them all ready to go the first few days of February, with cute heart postage stamps, and lettering with my set of rubber stamps, and I slid them into the mailbox with love for everyone in my heart.

Then, tragedy struck about three days ago.
Yes, the post office returned my Valentines, canceled the stamps, and smudged the ink. All because my cute little cards, so adorable in their small size, do not meet minimum size standards. Well, you'd think the USPS would be glad for any mail it could get. Harumph.

So, instead of just a few friends receiving Valentines, you all get one! And the internet triumphs over the postal service once again.

Fan Girl

Today I went out for coffee. I expected I would get to the cafe before the person I was meeting, so I brought along some knitting. Halfway there, I realized I was wearing my awesome knitting t-shirt and my Minimalist Cardigan. Luckily, I got to the cafe second, so I didn't have to face the decision of whether to be Knitting Girl, wearing a knitting t-shirt, wearing a handknit, and knitting, all at once.

We sat outside and a guy walked by asking for change. We told him we didn't have any (which was true) and he walked away. As he left, he remarked that he liked my sweater. Perhaps in a moment of TMI, I said, "Thanks! I made it!" (I don't know if any of you feel the need to tell everyone who remarks on something you happened to have made that you made it! but I do. Probably because I'm so shocked I actually like something I made enough to wear it.) He turned around and looked more closely at my sweater. Then he said it really needed a button. Or maybe a zipper, which are really simple to install, you know. Then he asked if the seaming was the hardest part. I said yes, and he said it looked like I had messed up on the shoulders (which, technically, I did). They just didn't look right. He then proceeded to talk about how matching a straight line to a circle is hard, because of physics and equal and opposite reactions. Eventually he walked away, revealing he wasn't wearing any underwear and was in dire need of a belt.

Two for you, one for me

In the midst of my many small holiday projects, I started a new scarf for myself. It's My So-Called Scarf, out of some yarn I got in Berkeley, back at the Great-Yarn-and-Fabric-Binge of 2007. I originally got the yarn with a hat in mind for Mike, but he was disdainful of the brown / blue blend, so the yarn has languished in my stash, moving across California and then up the coast to Oregon.

Unfortunately, it looks like 100m (2 balls) are just not going to be enough. So far, I've got 12" of scarf. I'm already through the first ball. I just don't think a 2-foot scarf will cut it.

I'm using US 10.5 (6.5mm) needles, instead of the 11s called for in the pattern, and the fabric is really dense. I could rip back and go up a few needle sizes, or Mike has suggested making it into a neck-warmer, which might actually be a good idea for biking through the winter.

The stitch is great though. It's really rhythmic, and I got into a nice groove while watching Viva Las Vegas last night.

I've got a commissioned gift FO to share, but I just put it in the mail yesterday and it has to make its way all the way across the country to DC. And I don't even know if it had enough postage to make it. Let me know, Claudia, so I can share it with the world!

Working Girl

Unlike everyone else in the world, I am working this weekend. It's ok, though, because I haven't worked since April! Also, the job entials sitting at a desk, in the upstairs gallery of an art shop, waiting for the (very few) customers to come in. I don't know much about art, so it's good that the customers are few and far between.

This also means I get to work on my knitting! I worked the entire foot and turned the heel of the second Anastasia sock yesterday- a very productive day! Today, however, I brought my laptop in and discovered a wireless connection! There will surely be much less knitting accomplished today. (The artist-in-residence who has her studio next to the gallery keeps checking in on me to see what my progress has been. It's very flattering to have a sincerely talented artist be amazed at my li'l ol' socks...)

When I started the left sock, all the k2tog of the right sock became ssk, so that the spirals slant left instead of right. I started happily along (while watching North by Northwest with Mike's Mom!)... and got about an inch or so into the pattern when I noticed that the spirals looked awfully bad, compared to the right sock. I got out my computer and looked up how exactly one is supposed to ssk.

Turns out, there's a bit of a controversy. What I had been doing (slip one, knit the next and pass the slipped stitch over) is not in fact ssk! The ssk definitions I found were something to the effect of knit two together through the back of the stitch. Knitty says to slip 2 stitches as if to knit, then knit those 2 stitches together.

What does anyone else do for SSK? I like the way knitting 2 together through the back of the stitch looks, although it's a lot bumpier than the k2tog sock.