The lazy knitter

I just finished a sock. A toe-up sock. And I started the second sock. Then I discovered that the first sock is actually too big. More specifically, the toe on the first sock is knit too loosely and that resulted in the rest of the sock being too big (I always knit a certain # of rows for the foot, that is how boring I am when it comes to knitting socks, it appears that I always do the same damned thing because I like the mindlessness of it all). Now the second toe is done, and it is much tighter and smaller. So what to do with the first toe? Rip out the whole sock? Cut the yarn and reknit the toe, and graft the stitches back together? Both of those things will really awaken the anxiety-ridden perfectionist monster in me and make me cry and cause way more stress than I need right now. So it looks like maybe I will just have to learn to live with yet another pair of mismatched socks.

It's a funny thing, I pretty much lose interest in my socks once I'm done knitting them. I fret incessantly about minor imperfections when I'm actually working on the socks, but then I completely forget about them afterwards. I do wear them sometimes, but I don't really knit socks for the pleasure of wearing handknitted socks, but more for the joy of working with pretty yarn. Process knitter indeed.

The solution to knitting-related RSI....

....is to knit something that drives you absolutely batshit crazy, so that you can only work on it in small doses at a time. Here is my current project of woe:


Lovely, isn't it? That's Alchemy Silk Purse, and the scarf is this pattern. I bought it because I've always wanted to try it, and it was on super-duper-irresistable sale. It is currently known as Jason's Mom's Scarf (see, getting around the stash guilt by making into a gift!), though whether I'll actually finish the scarf before I go completely insane remains to be seen.

The silk is lovely and soft, but it is also slubby and a single ply so there tends to be a lot of snagging and halo-ing (especially if you've had to tink back as much as I've had to). Also, the silk totally sticks to my bamboo needles, so much so that I'm considering giving metal needles a try, even though I find them icky and hand-hurty. Lesser of two evils, perhaps? In addition, the two balls of yarn are completely different shades of purple (not sure if you can make it out in the picture), so I have to do that annoying alternating rows thing. One of the drawbacks of buying handdyed yarn from an online store, I guess.

Anyway, the yarn is yummy, and the pattern is quite attractive, but the knitting experience has not exactly been a walk in the park so far. Then again, I'm supposed to be doing this in small doses (if at all), and this is definitely keeping me from overexerting myself. =)

FOs!

Hurrah, hurrah, some finished knit items! All knit from stash, enabling me to subtract around 20 skeins (23 if we count all half-skeins as "used" =P) from the stash total. Which should make me feel really good and free to go buy more yarn, right? Funnily enough, I don't really feel like it. I like this knitting-from-stash thing so far. Of course, I'm not actually supposed to be knitting right now....and I'm not really, I promise!

OK, onto the unveiling. Here is the Mission Falls Log Cabin Blanket, finished and bordered and with all the ends woven in (which are in the back, of course):



Next up, a quickie garter stitch scarf knit in Colinette Zanziba using 7 mm needles (fun pink plastic Crystal Palace Daisy needles!). I used 2 skeins, one in colour 100 (Gauguin) and one in colour 101 (Monet), alternating every 2 rows. These skeins were my very first Colinette purchase, and will probably be my last, since I've discovered that I'm not really the hugest fan of bulky yarns.



And finally, a sweater! My second sweater! A fun cabled short-sleeved Michael Kors sweater, from the Holiday 2005 issue of Vogue Knitting. Knit using Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Aran, colour 552. The seams still need a light steaming, but I thought I'd show it you anyway. It was hard to take a picture of myself wearing it.



Here is a closeup of the 3 patterns used in the sweater. A diamond-with-berry thing, regular ol' braided cables, and a berry stitch pattern that was quite the pain in the arse. I'm very glad that I knit this thing in the sweater class, because the directions for the neck shaping in the front were just plain wrong, and I probably wouldn't have been able to figure it out myself. I'm finding that a lot of patterns have mistakes in them.



There is this one glaring (to me) mistake in the sweater, but everyone insists that they would never see it unless I specifically pointed it out to them, so I'll resist the urge to point out my deficiencies as a knitter and just leave it at that. =)

Where is my first sweater, you ask? That blue cardigan-thing? Well, it's completely done, except I haven't sewn the buttons on yet. I'm debating whether I even want buttons. That thing was such a chore to knit. Pictures some other time, when I feel like lugging it out. =)

So how do I feel, with two sweaters under my belt? I'm not sure I'm really a knitter-of-sweaters. I feel like I get bored too easily, that the novelty wears off. It was only having the sweater class that kept me motivated to keep knitting. So I'm taking a break from that for now, since I've been having wrist issues, and turning my attention to smaller projects and thinking about Christmas presents. It's never too early to plan!

Can't I stop pipetting instead?

Well, guess what. This girl has got to take some time off from knitting. I think I've been doing it too much (not too much by itself, because I really don't knit all that much, but too much in combination with doing benchwork and writing at a computer) over the past few months, and it's starting to show. I had a bout of wrist pain about a month ago, but chalked it up to mad sweater knitting + mad manuscript writing/editing, and it got better eventually (I should mention that I wear a wrist brace thing while knitting most of the time). But I think I reaggravated it by knitting the Mission Falls blanket -- a few days ago it hurt to turn a doorknob, and sometimes it hurts to pipette, and tonight when I was sewing my sweater together it sort of hurt too. So I think I need to take a break, even though there is stuff I'm dying to knit up, and even though knitting has been a stress reliever lately.

Which brings me to the question of, what do I do instead? I've been playing around with the idea of taking up some other sort of crafty hobby to complement the knitting, like maybe needlepoint or quilting? Buying fabrics for quilting would be SO MUCH FUN, don't you think? I feel like I need to get better with a needle and thread, my sewing skills (and therefore seaming skills) are absolutely atrocious. Hm, maybe not quilting then, that seems like too much of an investment only to screw it all up. =)

Mindless knitting

Hey look, a blog post!

So after the Great Apartment Flooding of 2006 (hopefully the only one!) I started going through my things and dispairing of just how much CRAP I have. I had an excuse to throw a lot of it away due to flood damage, but some of the things that are left, that I don't really want but can't really bear to get rid of, are still hanging around.

Which brings me to the yarn stash. It's not really a ton of yarn compared to some stashes, but it's stressing me out. I love all my yarn, really I do, but there's a lot of stuff that I know I'll never knit. I keep telling myself that I'll put it up on eBay someday, but I just never get around to it. Which brings me to the Mission Falls Cotton. I bought a bunch of it when I first found out it was being discontinued, because it looked so fun to work with and came in such delightful colours. I didn't know just what I was going to make, just something. Then I found out that hey, Mission Falls is back!, and I felt like a bit of a jerk for jumping the gun that way (BTW, have you seen the "new" Mission Falls cotton? Does it feel....harder and twinier to you?). So I had to knit up what I had, ASAP. And hence the birth of the Mindless Mission Falls Log Cabin Blanket (log cabin tutorial courtesy of the fun new book from Mason-Dixon Knitting). It is VERY mindless knitting (great for long car trips and watching tv!), yet very fun at the same time. And the yarn did indeed live up to its promise.



I have a couple more edges to do before I run out of yarn, and I'll probably do a border using the red yarn in the central square.

Who/what is the blanket for? I have no idea. I just like looking at it and petting it. Maybe just a lap blanket. Or maybe I'll have a nice surface to decorate with it someday when I have actual furniture. =)

Here is a gratuitous sock shot. Remember those socks I was knitting at Christmas, out of the Lorna's Laces?

You know you're a knitter when....

....your apartment starts flooding and the first thing you throw on the bed, after your tote bag and laptop, is your yarn stash.

Yes, that's right, my apartment got flooded on Friday night! Something on the toilet in the apartment upstairs flew off, and water started gushing everywhere, and ended up flooding our entire apartment with at least an inch of gross brownish water. I'm happy to report that nothing too valuable was harmed, some shoes, books and papers, in addition to all the area rugs, and that all the yarn was saved. Our ceiling is quite a piece of work right now though, and I'm not sure how the living situation is going to turn out, but at least the important things are safe and sound. =)

'Puter Issues

I've been having some issues with my computer at home, where all my knitting photos live and from which I make blog posts. As in, the computer is infected with something horrible and I don't know what to do about it, and I am very tempted to just wipe the whole thing and never use it again, because it is 4.5 years old and a piece of crap anyway. Though I've been rather busy running about lately, and haven't quite gotten around to figuring things out yet. Perhaps I will just survive with a laptop for a while? Anyway, until I decide what to do, blog posts with pictures will be a little sparse. Here is a picture-less update:

1) I finished the Lorna's Laces Rainbow socks I was working on over Christmas (finally!)
2) I have one more sleeve to knit on sweater class sweater #2
3) Sweater class sweater #1 is just waiting for buttons
4) I am knitting a little Hufflepuff scarf for Snoot (Jason's dog), it's going to be so cute!
5) In order to knit the scarf as a tiny tube without using dpns, I managed to learn Magic Loop. It is indeed very magical and loopy, though I don't think I could knit socks using that technique since I don't think they make Addi Natura circulars that small, and the cords on other circulars aren't flexible enough.
6) I have seriously broken all my no-yarn-acquisition resolutions.
7) I think it's pretty much settled that we are coming back to Toronto over Easter! Which means I can bring the Alchemy with me, and mail it from home.