Update on UFOs

childHood: side seams done, I need to do 1" on the hood and do a 3-needle bindoff. It'll need buttons (for show, with snaps behind), but I doubt the child will wait for that!

Super Secret Project #1: is done! Needs blocking and weaving in of 3 tiny ends.

Anniversary socks: well, I started turning the heel (with reinforcement thread, bought in Windsor weekend-before-last) at the Borg/Smith talk at First Congregational of Berkeley. Listening to religious discussion while starting a heel I'd not done before... well, too much for this bear of very little brain. I read the wrong number of stitches from the Knitter's Handy book and started a too-narrow heel flap. I also did the wrong thing for the purl row: the knit row is slip 1, knit 1; the purl row is slip 1, purl to end. I did slip 1, purl 1 for the whole row. (It was hard!) Undid my erroneous purl row, restarted the heel flap, and did all 34 rows (still wondering why I had to exclude 7 lonely stitches). Oops, I was supposed to do the heel flap over 34 stitches on this size/gauge sock. Riiip.

So now I've finished the heel flap and the first part of turning the heel. The next part is knit over the instep with the heel stitches, so I've discontinued the reinforcement thread (as thread through the instep seems quite uncomfortable). I moved all the stitches around so the middle of the heel is the start of the round and started the heel flap (with reinforcement thread) on the other stock. The heel flaps look really great in this yarn!

Not much else going on in my knitting world...!

I DO finish things!

...except for the camera search. I swear, I came across the camera bag when I was frantically searching for something else, but of course, can't recall that now.

But I started AND FINISHED a hat on Saturday! It's for Rabbitch's hat drive for homeless folks in Vancouver, BC. It's, um, huge. I made it from yarn given to me by a friend-of-a-friend, who knit some hats for Xmas presents and didn't want to knit any more. I had thought it was Lamb's Pride Bulky, but it turns out it's LP Polarweight. Calls for size THIRTEEN needles.

I had 15 and 10.5. I chose the 15s and a dark grey and cast on 60 (me, swatch???). Loosely following the directions in the Knitter's Handy Book (I love this book!), I knit ribbing, then stockinette, then switched to a lovely blue for 3 rounds, then finished the hat.

It is HUGE. I'm not sure whether to send it in as is (some homeless person with a huge head will be so happy!) or full or felt it a bit to reduce it to human proportions.

Oh, well. I knit some more on gf socks and cast on for another hat in a lighter grey on the 10.5 needles. I'm already up to the st st on it and will put in a stripe of green in this one, then send them off to Rabbitch.

K says she knows an SF Tenderloin minister who would be happy to receive handknits for the folks she ministers to. I may be able to get a list of what she wants and hold my own hat drive for local folks! With prizes! God knows I have more sock yarn than, well, God.

P.S. I also sewed the sleeves onto G's childHood correctly and completely seamed one side. It really does look great. About 1 more inch on the hood, seam it and the other side, add buttons, and we're done!

Coming along

I ripped out the stitching of the sleeves on childHood on Tuesday night, while my sweet gf was holding my arthritic, painful ankle and trying to do something to ease the pain (my strong anti-inflammatory and sucking down an entire beer finally helped, well, conk me out at least). So that's ready to move forward. I think the part I messed up in stitching is called the armscye--the straight-across part at the armpit. I had stitched the sleeves up to, but not onto, the armscye. Fortunately, ripping out was pretty easy. I did un-cast-off a stitch on one sleeve, but was able to restore it even in my drunken stupor.

And last night, I got 1" done on gf's socks! I'm doing the K2P2 ribbing and it really looks great in this yarn. My son and I watched Sinbad (the new animated one) while eating comfort food--ice cream and then grilled-cheese sandwich for him, potluck noodle salad and then quesadilla with salsa for me. Then I sent him off to get ready for bed and watched half of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. K called partway through and realized I was knitting madly while holding the phone squished to my shoulder. I love productive knitting!

Will I ever finish anything???

I feel like I have 6 projects and will never finish any of them. sigh

The most likely candidate is G's childHood, which has the sleeves sewn in and just needs the underarm/side seams done. When that is done, I can really try it on him and estimate how the hood is coming along. Maybe 1-2" left of that, I think. Then I can put buttons & snaps on and BE DONE.

But nothing else is as close to being done. The blue cotton Tahki is slow going and I have my doubts about the way I did the decreases on the bustline (directions are vague for every row after the first--"do the same decrease" but the first decrease row gives stitch counts and there are fewer stitches after that!). And it's getting heavy. I should calc to see how many more rows I have till the shoulders. I already decided not to start the v-neck as low as they recommend, as I'm hoping to wear this in other places than the Ren Faire.

I'm completely befuddled on Branching Out. I had too few stitches on a row, so started to tink back, only to realize that I don't konw which row I put the lifeline through (10 or 1?). Ugh. It is lovely so far, though...

Birch continues to taunt me. I may put her away in the basement and start the Swallowtail shawl instead. I already have the laceweight alpaca it calls for. Ha!

Good progress on Branching Out

Lots of counting has made all the difference for Branching Out with the Misti Alpaca sportweight. I've finished 3 repeats of the pattern, and it looks really nice! I'm using my kacha kacha to count rows. It's been a while. I love that thing.

Tried childHood on the child, and yep, the hood needs to be larger. I'll put a few more inches on it and try him again. I don't want it to be another jacketlike thing whose hood he outgrows first.

Maybe I can finish it for him to wear to school on Tuesday!

Birch 1, Me 0

Birch has won this round. I got to the end of row 4 and instead of 6 stitches left, I had 1. I give up. I'll frog that and re-cast-on with stitch markers every 10 stitches, since the pattern is over 10 stitches. (and am eyeing Kiri as an alternative...)

I've also decided to frog my other KSH project, Branching Out. I just kept making mistakes and getting paranoid, so I'll use that beige color in something else, maybe stranded along with another yarn. I've restarted Branching Out in my Misti Alpaca sportweight in a beautiful aubergine. (No printed gauge on the label! Little Knits says it's 6 sts/in, so it should be fine for this pattern.)

Am slogging away on the blue Tahki cotton sweater, checking rows off on my clipboard. I think I need to frog down to one decrease, though, as I did it in reverse (the k3tog first rather than last; what was I thinking?). I'll get to the V-neck shaping soon!

Am also slogging away at the Redwood Forest socks. I'm on row 18 of the 20 rows of k2p1 ribbing. I hope the 10-row pattern can be clearly charted so this can continue to be a very portable project (unlike the blue sweater).

And finally--am nearing the end with childHood! Finished the 10" of the hood last night. Just need to try it on the Child With The Significant Cranium to make sure it will fit him before I do the 3-needle bindoff. I've heard the hood is absurdly large so we might be just fine. Then I'll have to sew the sleeves on and seam them and the sides, sew on the buttons and snaps, and be DONE.

Not a lot of news

Once I get my home computer back to where it was, I'll post some photos of updates. Until then, I'll just have to describe things.

Birch: still scaring me, I guess. Still on row 2. (or maybe 3.)

childHood: still about 1/2 way up the hood. The end is in sight! I may decrease a few stitches in the middle so that it doesn't have a silly point when I 3-needle-bind-off the top.

blue Tahki cotton sweater: looks good. I'm about up to the v-neck shaping, which occurs front and back. I have to keep track of my rows on a sheet of binder paper, checking off rows as I do them. I still like the look of it.

And, of course, I have to start a new project, oy! A friend really likes penguins, and I have some Red Heart handy, so I started Pasha. It's going to be kind of big! Not sure I'm up to miniaturizing it, though, so I'll probably just go for the 8" size. Fun to be working on something small, though. I hope she likes it! (it's s surprise)

Nothing finished, many updates

Finally took some photos of my current WIPs. Well, active WIPs. I keep coming across the Branching Out scarf I started and averting my eyes. I'll pick it up again some day.

First, the Tahki cotton "I am so making this up" sweater. It's looking great! I'm in the middle of the 2nd ball and finally feeling like it's getting somewhere. Maybe 3.5"? The K2P2 rib is slow going and periodically I mess up and K a P or P a K, which astounds me--can't one get a rhythm going with K2P2? The color is a true French blue (the photo looks more like a medium blue to me).


Next, the L!on Brands "Copper Penny" trellis yarn shawl. I thought this would go like lightning! I am not even making clear damage to the first ball of 3. I still love the colors and still wonder if I would wear this (it is not soft and I am all about the softness). The colors are very coppery/autumn. I don't think I captured that.





And then comes the childHood sweater, on which I'd love to get started on the hood... but I messed up the right-hand button band. I counted repeats on the left and tried to match it on the right... but I miscounted--AND cut the yarn! I'll have to rip it all out and start over. I hope I have enough yarn. I hope, I hope. The right-hand band seems just fine.



Finally, the Shrapnel Socks. It's actually going well (pausing to knock on wood) and I have maybe 1.5" left before ribbing. For such tiny needles and yarn, it does go pretty quickly, especially if your dental hygienist is running behind!

Good start on blue sweater

I took the Tahki blue cotton sweater to SF Pride yesterday and knit on BART and while we were waiting to march, and after. I have 2.5" done and finished the first ball! It is very slow to knit (k2p2 rib for 8") but I still love this yarn and the drape seems quite nice. (photo to come soon)

I did one of the front bands on Graham's childHood sweater and slip-stitched it on. Did the other one, thought I'd matched the first, but... cwap. It is shorter and I snipped the yarn already. Ugh. I'll have to rip it completely out and start over. I did have to do the yarns differently for the right-hand lapel band, as the direction of the garter stitch means I have to swap yarns at its outside edge, rather than the inside edge that the left-hand one had. I decided to follow this method:

At each new row, twist the new color with the previous color and knit the first stitch. *Then* wrap the new yarn around the other 4 yarns behind the work and continue to knit the row and its following row with the new yarn.

This way, the bundle of carried-up yarns is behind the edge rather than at the edge. I didn't wrap the just-previous yarn because it is right below the current row and, I think, doesn't require it.

I can't wait to be done with the bands (and not just because I hate slip-stitching!) and start on the hood. I just hope with all this ripping that I'll have enough for the (multi-striped) hood. My calculations said I'd have plenty. Well, nervousness helped the Leaf Lace Shawl!

Blocking again

I blocked Graham's childHood sweater last night. I'd forgotten how hard blocking can be. Blocking the Leaf Lace Shawl was hard, just because it was hard to line up things straight (and with right angles, as for that center stripe) and stretch it out evenly.

But blocking something to measurements? Shew, even harder. Some pieces were slightly too small. No problem; stretch 'em a bit. Several dimensions were too big. Huh? Too big? I measured while knitting! But they must have gotten stretched while I washed and squoze them. Argh. So I crept my hands across them to bring in the width to reasonable size. I gave up on the sleeves and hope they're not too long on him. On the rest, I persevered.

Thankfully, we're having good blocking weather. It's supposed to be almost 90F/32C today.

Got some more rows done on the huge needle/crap-yarn-source shawl. I still love it but feel... dirty when I knit on it. Ha, I'm such a snob!

Yep, another new project

I'm 1cm up the leg of the second Shrapnel Sock (so named because these socks have been through the war) and quite pleased. I think they'll (knock wood!) turn out.

And... started a new project. I nearly picked up Birch, but since the Leaf Lace Shawl is fresh off the blocking couch, I couldn't ponder casting on 299 stitches just yet. I put it back in the yarn-stash box and pulled out my 3 balls of Lion Br*nd ladder yarn in Copper Penny. Still love this colorway. It comes with a shawl pattern on the back of the label (CO 3 sts, K across, then Kf&b, K to last st, Kf&b; repeat last row till you're done). I had bought the size 19 circulars at Websters in Ashland (INOX brand; not bad!).

I was afraid I would hate this yarn once I started knitting with it; not so! I still adore it. I knit some rows this morning. The only odd thing is that the yarn pulls from the outside of the ball. I'm used to center-pull balls. I know better than to wind it on the ball winder; non-stretchy yarn just slumps and makes a huge mess. I'll keep yanking it as I knit. Eee!

I'll be blocking childHood tonight or tomorrow night.

Going great guns

Got the Leaf Lace Shawl blocked. It is beautiful... but kind of itchy. I'm going to try freezing it, as one person suggested, and then (ugh) I'll wet it and put instant hair conditioner on it and see if that does the trick. Freaking mohair. Who knew it was itchy? I didn't. (Photo was taken blind by holding the camera up high)

Anyway, so since I blocked it but am too wimpy to go ahead and weave the ends in, I moved on to other projects. Today, I finished the right front of childHood. Now I need to block the pieces before doing the 3-needle bindoff on the shoulders and picking up stitches for the hood.

Also ripped back my mom's 2nd sock to before the heel shaping. I got more knit of the foot and I think I'm ready to redo the heel (and I'm remembering that the heel only took me one day, or rather, one visit to the zoo, so I'm hoping it'll be as quick). Then an inch or so of st st and some ribbing, and Bob's your uncle. (well, he is mine; isn't he yours, as well?)

And I haven't started Birch yet. Quite proud of myself for holding back. Ha!

Um, more WIPs

So I've done a teeny bit more on mom's 2nd sock, a little more on Graham's sweater, and am on the last repeat (I think) of the Leaf Lace Shawl, which leaves the edging to be done (and then blocking), and...

I started something else. Graham's teacher really likes red, and I made her a shrug (the One Skein Wonder) last Xmas, but it was too small for her. I had some wonderful 100% angora in a bright red from Dharma's inherited stash and decided I wanted to make a small scarf from it. There were about 48 ounces of it. I started with using the angora for 2 rows and a red mohair I had for 2 rows, etc., but it just wasn't soft! I asked the KnitList and they recommended stranding it with a red merino wool for strength. I went to Websters while I was in Ashland, and instead of selling me wool, she pulled hard on the yarn (ack!) and told me it was plenty strong by itself and just to knit an open pattern with it. I tried the Airy Scarf pattern stitch from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, but it just didn't work for a worsted-weight yarn.

So I went back to our beloved Knotted Openwork Scarf pattern from the CKDA and used the pattern over 9 stitches, and it really looks very nice. (Thanks again, Dharma, for finding this great pattern!)

Now to finish by June 15...!

(do I have to admit that I found an unfinished scarf for my niece in my stash, if she said she doesn't want it any more?)