and it only took two years

pattern: Rock and Weave
designer: A. Karen Alfke
yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock mediumweight in Fairgrounds
needles: Addi Turbos in US#s 1 and 2, Clover 10 inch straight in US#5

One of the (many) ace things about ravelry is that it got me to go through my stash and my box o' projects and evaluate what stays and what goes, what gets finished right away and what gets frogged. It made me realize how much yarn I have (seriously, I should not buy any more for another year or two) and how many little projects I have going on that I have kinda forgotten about. See, even though I have a plastic bin for the stash and a (cardboard) box for my projects, the truth is that I squirrel away yarn and WIPs in strange and unexpected places such as desk drawers, fabric bins, mailing supplies, plastic bags tucked in between pieces of furniture, and then I forget all about them. The combination of the tendency to squirrel and an unreliable short-term memory makes for a lot of surprises around these parts, not just the knitty kind. (Ask me about the coffee I made in the morning and forgot about until 10 that night when Matt asked why there was a full press hanging out on the kitchen table or the yogurt that I walked away from and forgot about until I went to see what the cats were fighting over.) Yeah, it's a little scary. In my quest to upload photos of all my stash and WIPs, I have come across all sorts of stuff, like these Rock and Weave Socks... that I knit and finished two years ago but had yet to sew on the buttons. Frigging buttons! I was four buttons away from completion of a nifty pair of socks in an awesome pattern, yarn and colorway. Dude, seriously, I am the world's laziest knitter.

I found four buttons from an old Club Monaco sweater that Matt accidentally shrunk to unwearable proportions and finally attached them, albeit I think I would have preferred to use matching yarn over thread. In fact, I believe the pattern suggested tooth floss for strength. I used hand-quilting thread instead, which is slightly waxed and also very strong. I am not too pleased with the way the white of the thread pops against the shimmery mother-of-pearl goodness of the button, but perhaps I will get used to it. Besides, it's not too noticeable against that yummy yarn... uhhhhh, I hope not at least. I'm just excited that these are finally 100% finished. Dunzo! Next! And just in time for Spring (or something like it).

More photos on my ravelry page.

like a lemming to the cliff's edge

I finally did it - I finally joined ravelry. And you know what? I love it. I now understand what all the hype was about. I was so wrong about what I imagined would be a den of cliquery and weird bloggy elitism. I was so so very wrong, and I apologize for having dismissed it as such in the first place (hence my stubborn refusal to join). It's actually quite egalitarian, I found. And what a fabulous resource for patterns and information it is! It is so wonderfully organized. I am just totally loving it. I have kind of been doing the "hit-and-run" thing where I peek in for a few minutes here and there to check messages and organize my stash and projects. I only checked out the groups and forums last night at like 1 AM when I couldn't sleep because I was over-tired from an exhausting week capped off with guests for the weekend (I should have just gone to bed as soon as I got home from knitting). I was planning to upload the rest of my stash today, but it's rainy and crappy and there is no light coming into the apartment. It will have to wait until tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I'm just adding more patterns to my queue and checking out the forums. Pretty interesting stuff.

It's funny because the main reason I was prompted to join up was because it's gotten to the point where it is almost impossible to have a conversation with a fellow knitter in which they don't reference ravelry at least 5 - 10 times. I was completely out of the loop. I would sit at any knit night and feel like Donny, out of my element, struggling to keep up with the discussion because I had no idea what anyone was talking about with ravelry-this and ravelry-that and ravel-ravel-ravel, and that's not even to mention the folks with the ravelry links on their blogs that would lead me to a grinding halt at the ravelry home page as I clicked away to check out what they were referencing/linking to. Normally, I don't care about being the odd one out, but I think lately it's all starting to get to me, what with me being the only person in Cambridge without a PhD and probably being the only Nuyorican in a 20 mile radius. I feel like I would love to just be on the same page as everyone else if only for a few minutes, and with this, well, in some small sense, it feels like I am on the same page (sometimes even literally). I feel connected, or at least, I feel like I'm finally speaking the same language as everyone else.

Anyhoo, that was probably TMI (and clearly I've been living inside my head too much lately), but ummm, look! Here's the latest WIP I posted, socks for Matt using Sock Hop in Light My Fire, same pattern as my pair here:

don't forget to bring a cowl*

pattern: k1,p1 over 100 stitches
designer: none (well, me, kind of, but really, this is the most basic pattern in the world)
yarn: one skein of Koigu KPM in 1515-29
needles: Crystal Palace US#7 circs, 16 inches

Like Ms. Frick and Melissa, I too seem to have a thing for green cowls, my latest pictured in the photo above. This one fits a little better than the stumpy cowl, hugging my neck a little tighter and preventing any chilly breeze from whisking in. I just used the most basic cowl recipe ever - I cast on 100 stitches and knit 1, purl 1 until I ran out of yarn. So easy, and so fast! I started Tuesday night and finished Thursday.

What do you think of the cowl, Mali?

"Why do you do this to me? Swathe me in a green knit babushka then post the photo on your blog for all to see? Surely there must be some sort of law against this kind of treatment of animals. If not, then I am hoping for some karmic retribution here."

*The reference in the title is to this South Park episode, in case you're curious or just feel like watching it again.

stumpy cowl

pattern: my own truncated version of the Gloria Cowl
designer: you know, I'm not sure; I am using orinda5's instructions as posted here
yarn: one skein of Pear Tree light worsted merino in Moss (107 yards)
needles: Crystal Palace US#7 circs, 16 inches
modifications: I used a light worsted yarn and one size smaller needles than the pattern calls for (US#7 instead of 8)

Based on the impression that one might immediately have upon looking at the top photo, allow me to clarify a few things. This is not a tube top. This is not a headband. This is not a sling. It's a cowl. It's a stumpy cowl, to be more precise. It measures only 7 1/2 inches long. *ahem* Not that there's anything wrong with that. It serves its purpose quite well; it is just right for my far-from swanlike neck. And it is super-cozy and cuddly, albeit bound to pill in balls and flurries because such is the nature of Pear Tree's merino. (It's luxuriously soft but a little, ummm, pill-y.) I'm trying to make it feel like it's cowl enough, but secretly, I'm wondering just how much I can stretch it if I block it without the yarn felting on me or doing something atrocious. No! That's just wrong of me. It's fine. It fits. It's warm, soft, and squishy. I love it.

P.S. I can just imagine the cowl enlargement spam that will soon land in my inbox.

hey all you ravelrousers!

Are you on Ravelry yet? Are you on the waiting list to get in? Well, the fabulous Julie Frick has organized an awesome fundraiser to help the good folks at Ravelry afford another server (which means that more people will be able to join the growing ranks). Each $10 donation gives you the chance to win some fantastic prizes (and I do mean, fantastic! like handspun yarn from mr. brooklyntweed himself and other insanely talented dyers and spinners, such as Sunshine Yarns, crazy4dyeing, Yarn Nerd, and sKNITches, just to name a few, plus some super-extra-excellent prize packages from Hello Yarn, Yarn Pirate, Scout's Swag, and more). Please go here for all the details.

utterly socktastic!

pattern: Lichen Ribbed Socks, from Knitting Vintage Socks
designer: part Nancy Bush, part my own fiddling and fine-tuning
yarn: Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop in Lucy In the Skies
needles: Addi US#1 circs (magic loop it, baby!)
modifications: knit over 64 stitches (instead of 60 as pattern calls for), eye of partridge heel and round toe (instead of Welsh Heel and Star Toe of Three Points)

I love these socks. I am wearing them right now, and good lord, are they cozy. I love how they do not match perfectly, yet there's no denying that they are a pair. Ahhhh, the beauty of knitting with handspun yarn! As a child, I had this kinda O.C.D. habit of touching anything that I thought was pretty because somehow, in my mind, touching it, absorbing its tactile qualities as well as the visual somehow helped to commit said item to my memory. I would stealthily touch every flower that struck my fancy at the florist, every button that I thought was cute at the fabric shop, every plush animal I fell in love with at the toy store. I would run my fingers across photos in books and magazines, "zapping" images into my memory. Yeah, I was a strange kid. Funny how knitting with wonderfully soft yarns in gorgeous colors plays into that for me; as I knit with this, I felt like I was somehow reading a code that I was committing to memory, like memorizing music notes, absorbing both the color and the texture on several levels. Okay, so maybe I'm still weird like that, not that I go around "zapping" things anymore. Anyhoo, check out the heel on these puppies, because I am so happy with them:

Eye of Partridge heels for everyone!

yay for yarn!

Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop handspun sock yarn
top: "Sunshine of Your Love"
bottom: "Light My Fire"

Okay, so I know I said that I would not be adding any more yarn to the already pretty plentiful stash of sock yarn that I have. (I don't stash other yarn - I buy it on a per project basis because if not it will just sit in a container for months.) What can I say? How could I pass these up? To assuage the feelings of guilt I'm having over here, I am winding these tonight and casting on for socks some time during the week. It's part of my "No Yarn Left Behind" plan. (Insert tongue in cheek, please.) This goes beyond stashbusting, although I do plan to knit through the stash for the rest of year. This is implementing a system where I use the yarn as soon as I get it in my hot little hands, and if I don't use it within a month of purchase, I will give it away. Let's see how that works. Perhaps it will motivate me to knit more, or perhaps it will just make me extremely generous in the coming month or two.

P.S. - Regardless of this vow I have made to myself, if any of you fabulous dyers and spinners out should come out with a line of yarns/colors based on Led Zeppelin songs, I just might have to break down and get one of everything. Seriously, just envision Kashmir or Dancing Days as colorways. Mmmmmmmm, I'm just dreaming of it....

gauge away

Oh good lord. You know what's completely stupid? When you knit the second sock of a pair and it is significantly wider than the first, despite the fact that you cast on the same number of stitches (64). Gah! You know what makes it even worse? When you realize this when you are 7 1/2 inches into a 9 1/2 inch cuff. DOH! I guess I was thrown off by knitting the hat at a much larger gauge the other day and was therefore knitting much looser. What to do but frog the whole thing and start over again, being mindful not to knit so loosely this time? So yeah, I'm only about 5 inches into the cuff now. I should be back up to speed by tonight when I go over to Beba's to watch ANTM.

Also, when I checked myself out in the mirror in my squishy new hat, I was suddenly reminded of the Kids In the Hall character Cabbage Head seen in the skit posted above. Double DOH!

just in time for spring!

pattern: Foliage, from Knitty
designer: Emilee Mooney
yarn: Pear Tree light worsted merino in Moss
needles: Bryspun US#8 circs (magic loop it, baby!) and Susan Bates US#6 for the bottom ribbing

When I saw Grace's version of this over at KathrynIvy, I knew I had to knit one for myself. She is so inspiring me lately with all of her lovely knits. Funny thing, I don't really remember this pattern from the Fall Knitty. I guess I must have just skimmed over it and not really paid attention. Well, I love it. It was a superfast knit; I was able to knit it in one day. More specifically, I knit the body Saturday night, but then I realized that I didn't really like the way my SK2Ps looked, perhaps because I knit continental. Yesterday, I frogged the whole thing and knit it over again, this time doing S2 from the front K1 and Pass 2 slipped stitches over so that I got these little ridges down the middle of each leaf pattern. I knit the second version of the hat, the lighter weight one. I made a few mods, including knitting it on size US#8 and US#6 needles, as opposed to the size US#7 and #5 the pattern called for, in order to make it fit right over my huge noggin. I also only did 2 1/2 pattern repeats instead of 3 and bound off using the kitchener bind off so that I would get that nice neat edge. I think I could have probably gotten a good fit using the size 7 needles as lace opens up and gets kind of stretchy. As it is right now, it fits a tiny bit loose at the crown, but I like the way it looks.

I can definitely see myself wearing this until the end of the chilly days here. My only problem is with the yarn I used, which I think will fuzz out terribly with wear. As I was knitting with it, the Pear Tree got super-pilly and fuzzy. I am afraid that in a year, this will look like some silly green clown afro wig instead of a lacy hat. Ehhhh, for now I will enjoy its squishy warmth and softness.

P.S. - It's funny how the color looks so much darker and richer in the top two photos. I think it's because of the lighting (or lack thereof). The color is actually much much closer to the other two duos of photos. It's not teal at all so much as a deep sea green. I've never seen moss that color so so much for the name on the yarn tag.