Yarn Everywhere!

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time knitting boring things (a second sock, more Bristow), which is one reason for the lack of blogging. The other reason is that I have quite a bit of work due at the end of classes (a week from today), so all last week I felt obligated to go to the library at night. I didn’t actually get anything done, but I was there. That’s what counts.

This week will also be very short on updates, as I actually have to do the work I spent last week putting off. I’m going to get a study carral, go into it, and not come out until everything is done. I have an orgo test on Wednesday, and next Monday need to hand in a website on biodiversity and fifteen pages of SCIENCE (this takes more work than 15 pages of history or English). After that, though, classes will be over and I may be able to convince myself that the yarn diet is over, too… one of the things distracting me last week was a plan for a very awesome felted tote bag. It involves some embriodery and an old pair of jeans.

While I was picking out yarn for it (I’m thinking Wool of the Andes in Forest Heather) I realized that if I’m not careful, everything I ever knit for myself will be green. When presented with a number of colors and asked to choose one, I usually pick a darkish mossy green. While I like every green item individually, I don’t think I’d want everything to be various shades of the same color. I’ll have to make myself diversify.

I’ve been working a bit on the cardigan - the pattern is beginning to take shape. Observe!

This past weekend was the transition from winter to summer. Turns out Connecticut missed spring yet again. Wednesday it was cold and rainy, Thursday started to get warm, and Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today were all absolutely gorgeous. They were even uncomfortably hot from time to time, which identifies them as early summer as opposed to spring. All the beautiful weather resulted in me spending the weekend outside, which means that for the past few days I’ve only been knitting socks. They are quite portable, and do not require easily-blown-away patterns. Besides, it doesn’t matter if they get a little dirty. They’re going on feet anyway. For this reason, I have finished the first open rib sock.

It has some strange pooling problems I didn’t notice until I put it on and looked at it from a distance. The top of the foot is sort of stripey, and the leg spirals. I don’t think I mind. In fact, they look sort of like zebra socks. Sweet.

Like my last pair of socks, this is a little looser than I’d like. You can see in the picture that they’re sagging a bit. Maybe I need to start casting on for a smaller size? Maybe I should start knitting the cuff with a smaller needle? Maybe I’m just unused to handknit socks and they’re all like this. Oh well. This sock is quite comfy, even if it won’t always stay up properly.

A few days ago I posted about wanting to make a cardigan for myself this summer. Since then, I’ve been looking around (read: obsessively scouring the internet) for suitable patterns. Though I wanted to make a basic cabled cardigan out of Main Line (something like the Central Park Hoodie), I’ve become completely distracted by the Wanderlust Hoodie. from Interweave Knits F06.

Look at all the twisty cables! And the leaves! And it has a hood! It looks like a forest! I believe I would enjoy wearing it, especially if I left out the bobbles. I’ve decided to make it out of Knitpicks Sierra, because it is relatively cheap, comes in a nice color (Leaf, a dark green), contains some alpaca (yay soft!), and seems of good quality. I’m a little nervous because many Sierra colors have been discontinued… what if mine is next? Then I guess it would be on sale. But what if I miss the sale, or they don’t have enough left (for some reason this sweater requires 12 100g skeins)? Uuugh.

I really want to buy it now, but I won’t. Technically I could do it without breaking the yarn diet because I would be taking the money out of my summer craft budget. The Knitpicks order that I would put in if I bought the yarn (and needles) now would be about 25% of the budget. I guess I should wait and see if I can spend less than one quarter of all my yarn/needle/spindle/fiber money on one project.

But the yarn! I want it! I guess first I should wait until whoever has it returns IK F06 to the library, then get the magazine and actually read the pattern. Yes, that should definitely happen before yarn buying. Deep breath. Being a little bored with everything you’re working on now is not a good reason to buy an entire sweater’s worth of yarn. Sock yarn, maybe, but… no. Not even sock yarn.

I finished the first two repeats of Dainty Bess and pinned it out to get an idea of how it looked.

I’m not especially happy with it. The right edge looks good, but the left edge is pretty messy - partially because there were a few errors over there and instead of ripping back and fixing them, I just picked up extra stitches. The other problem is that that marker, and only that marker, seems to have caused me to knit too loosely (see that laddery bit on the left?). I’ll have to work on that. I’m toying with the idea of ripping it out and starting over, but I don’t really love the project enough to do that.

The problem is that I’m doing this project because I liked the idea of lace knitting and wanted to try it out. I’m not doing it because I actually want a lace scarf. Honestly, I have no use for one. The only reason I was motivated to work on this for so long tonight is that I’ve just started the foot (my least favorite part) of the sock I’m working on, and Bristow’s pattern distracted me so that I knit past the decrease without noticing and now have to rip back and correct it (annoying - will probably do tomorrow).

I’ll have to think about this scarf thing. I don’t want to spend too much time on something I don’t actually want. There are enough things that I do want that I should spend time on.

I’m still having fun with the macro photos, so here’s a more attractive picture of the scarf.

I found out today that I’ll be staying on campus this summer, which means lots and lots of time for knitting. I’m planning lots of different things, which I will list here as a way of remembering them.

• A hat: Shedir from the Knitty Breast Cancer Awareness Mini-issue.
• Another harf/scat - the recipient has already purchased the yarn, and it is sitting under my bed.
• A shawl, probably from Folk Shawls, which the local library has.
• Possibly a My So-Called Scarf. I can’t figure out if I like the scarf or just really want to buy Malabrigo/Manos del Uruguay. I do need a scarf, and the pattern looks fun… I think I’ll go for it.
• Socks! I think I’m giving my parents socks for their birthdays in October. It would be nice to get them done over the summer.
• I kind of want to make myself a zip-up cabley cardigan out of Main Line. We’ll see about that.
• Spinning! I might buy a drop spindle and learn to spin. It seems like quite an endeavor, though.

The completed back of Bristow, hastily pinned out for your viewing pleasure:

I managed to take that one picture before my camera died on me. It had just enough juice left to upload the one image to my computer.

Irregularities in shaping are most likely the result of sloppy pinning. I promise that, in reality, the left and right sides are even.

And now for two fronts and two sleeves, all of which will have more pattern and less endless stockinette.

My Knitpicks order arrived on Monday - US0 DPN’s, more Main Line for another harf/scat to be done way later, a pattern for lace scarves, and exciting lace yarn! Also I just discovered the macro setting on my camera and remembered to take pictures while it was still light out. The result is beautiful pictures of very thin yarn. Observe!

The first is Alpaca Cloud in Moss Heather and the second (not quite that pink in real life) is Shadow in Oregon Coast Heather.

I’ve started Dainty Bess, one of the Elizabeth I scarves (the one in green in the picture). I’m using US4 needles, the smallest suggested size, but I feel like it might end up being too loose. I guess I’ll find out after the blocking - I didn’t do a swatch because this is something of a practice project. I just want to try lace out, I’m not looking for a perfect finished product. Also, if I had decided to move down in needle size, I would have had to order more needles and wait for them to arrive before starting. I guess that’s the real reason.

The lace is taking some getting used to, but I think I’ll enjoy it. I’m looking forward to this mystical lace blocking process that is supposed to be so excellent. Maybe it won’t take 50 hours to dry this time.

I’m waiting to hear at any moment whether I’ll be spending the summer on campus being an editorial assistant or in the woods being a scientist. The first affords me lots of time to knit (and possibly learn to spin) and hang out with friends, and the second affords me lots of yarn (free room and board plus many dollars!) and looks good on my resume.

Yarn: Knitpicks Main Line (Blueberry), 8 skeins. The pattern called for 6, but I added 2 to make the scarves extra-long. I really like this yarn and would definitely use it again. The resulting fabric is very soft and has a nice drape. I think it would be good for a light cardigan, if I ever feel like making one of those.
Needles: Knitpicks Options circular, US7.
Pattern: Hoodie Scarf (scroll down). Mods included really long scarves and adjustment for gauge (I cast on 60 instead of 48 for the hood).
Notes: This is the longest-term thing I’ve knitted so far. The knitting itself took about three weeks of fairly concentrated work, and the blocking took, no joke, 50 HOURS. Turns out my door room is not full of evaporation. I soaked it and pinned it out on Thursday morning at about 9AM, and only this morning (Saturday) when I woke up was it completely dry.

I did a lot of things for the first time during this project, including the three-needle bind-off, cabling, picking up stitches to create edging, knitting two things at once on circular needles, casting on mid-project… it was definitely a learning experience. I enjoyed doing it, which is good because my roommate liked it so much that he wants one, too. We’ve ordered the yarn, but I told him not to expect it anytime soon. It’ll probably be a summer thing.

When I said I used 8 skeins for this, I meant exactly 8 skeins. This is my leftover yarn:

You can see that there is not very much left.

After I finished this I needed something new to knit. I’m not on good terms with the Bristow right now (stupid row gauge) and the Beaded Rib Socks are really annoying - I’m not sure why, I just don’t enjoy knitting them. What’s the solution? New socks! I’ve had this yarn (TOFUtsies) for a while and wasn’t that excited about it, but it was nice sock yarn that I paid a normal price for, so I figured I should use it. I used it in another color for another half-finished project and had really bad pooling problems, so I was a little nervous about that - but look! It’s beautiful!

I love how the colors are coming out, and the yarn knits up really nicely. It’s wonderful. The patten, which I guess you can’t see very clearly, is Open Rib from Sensational Knitting Socks.

I continue to be captivated by center pull balls. I love making them. They are beautiful. And SO useful. So much easier than a regular ball of yarn. There’s no rolling around and unwinding, just a smooth, steady stream of yarn from a stationary object.

So I’ve been working on the back of Bristow. I did the seed stitch border, I knit until the piece measured 3.25 inches, I decreased, I knit four of the twelve rows of stockinette that were supposed to leave me with a 7.75 inch piece… and then I noticed that it seemed a little long. I pulled out a ruler and, sure enough, I had knit around eight inches. Hm, I thought, that’s strange. It doesn’t make any sense, unless… oh. Row gauge. Huh. Sure enough, while my stitch gauge is decent, my row gauge is about 25% off.

I panicked slightly, as I have no idea how to go about changing row gauge. A Google search led me to this Knitty article on gauge, which calmed me down. I took a deep breath and started doing math. I respaced the decrease rows to make the entire decrease about the length it’s supposed to be, and did the same for the upcoming increase. Then I ripped back 18 rows and prepared to continue. Here is the current state of Bristow. It’s half as large as it was 24 hours ago.

I’m not really satisfied. Sure, I can respace these increase and decrease rows because they each have three plain rows between them. But what about once I get to the shoulder and have to decrease every knit row? Now that decrease will be too long in proportion to everything else. I also feel like a tighter row gauge would make the finished product look neater. I really want this sweater to come out well - it’s my biggest project so far, and I’m prepared to spend a long time on it. I’m going to try switching back down to a US6 needle and see what that does to it.

I know that finding a mistake in your work and needing to do all or part of it again isn’t unusual, but this is the first time I’ve had to do it over more than one or two rows. It’s pretty frustrating. I sort of want to start a front or a sleeve so I can get into the pattern and make it more interesting, but I know I should get gauge problems figured out now. That’s why I decided to start with the back in the first place. Last night I didn’t feel like looking at it anymore, so I distracted myself by winding beautiful center pull balls.

I also have a sudden desire to knit shawls and was pleased to find that the town library here has Folk Shawls, along with many, many other knitting books. I’ll put that on my list of summer projects. I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I’ll probably be on campus for the summer. That means there’ll be lots and lots of time for knitting.

My Knitpicks order (lace and such) hasn’t shipped, which means I almost definitely won’t get it by Friday. This is disappointing, as it means I’ll get it on Monday at the earliest and, for various academic reason, won’t be able to justify even winding the yarn into one of those nice center pull balls until Wednesday night. Lame. Lace was going to be my Friday afternoon.

I finished the harf/scat over the weekend. Pictures and wrap-up notes to come after it’s been blocked - that will be an adventure in itself.

With the harf/scat done and the knowledge that I needed something to work on other than the plain stockinette back of Bristow (coming along nicely), I ordered the laceweight I am allowed by the
yarn diet. I spent hours looking for a good project - you’d think that with all the lace patterns on the internet, I’d be able to easily find one that I liked. But no. I needed something that was written for laceweight yarn (as opposed to cobweb or fingering), easy enough for a first lace project, small enough that I won’t have wasted much money on yarn if I decide I hate lace, and (this was the hardest part) attractive. Turns out all the patterns I like and could do are either for sale on the internet or only available in books. I’m not used to paying for patterns, but I’d rather pay than try to knit something I don’t like or can’t do.

I finally ended up going with Elizabeth I from Knitpicks. It comes with patterns for three one-skein scarves in simple-looking lace stitches. I think I’m going to try the one shown in red on the site first. It’s a little hard to see, but I found pictures of it elsewhere. I decided to buy the yarn from Knitpicks, which is my new favorite yarn source because of the low, low prices and the (in my experience) relatively high quality. I’d be interested in finding out how they get the prices so low - they can’t do enough business to write it all off to economies of scale. Anyway, I couldn’t decide between Alpaca Cloud and Shadow. Alpaca Cloud is supposed to be wonderful, but something about the pictures of it bothers me. It looks a little too insubstanial. I think Shadow is beautiful, but people do say such great things about Alpaca Cloud… so I got a skein of each. Oregon Coast Heather in Shadow and Moss Heather in the Alpaca.

One of the things that frustrated me most in my search for a lace pattern was the frequent lack of clear pictures of the finished product. It’s great to see a shawl draped flatteringly over someone’s shoulder, but I also want a picture of it spread out so I can see the stitches. And if it’s not a free pattern, I want to know things like suggested yarn, gauge, and needle size before I buy it. Dear internet: Please give me all the information I need to make an informed decision, and please make it free.

I talked to my parents over the weekend, and apparently a new yarn store opened up in the town next to mine. This is fantastic. It means there will be a yarn store in a place I know well that I can get to easily in ten minutes. I don’t have to find random stores on the internet and drive half an hour with bad directions to get there. I can’t wait to go home for… a weekend at the beginning of the summer? Maybe? Hm. Maybe I’ll make my parents go and take pictures and tell me what the prices are like.