Knitwit, or, Life List no.73: Knit a pair of socks

So. Part of the reason I haven't been to terribly talkative on the blog lately is 'cause I haven't really had much to say. The rest of the reason? My hands have been otherwise engaged.

A few months ago, I found a pattern online for a really cute afghan called the Beekeeper's Quilt. It's from Tiny Owl Knits, and can be found here.  Go take a look, but then come back, okay?

Are you back? OK, good. Isn't that adorable? The individual hexagons (which have been named "hexapuffs" by some of the knitters on Ravelry) are very easy to do.  I took a bunch of sock yarn with me when I went to my parents' place for Easter, and came back 3 or 4 days later with this:

Holy Hexapuffs, Batman!

Yup. Did all that in one long weekend. I'd say there were probably around 25 in that picture, plus a cute little half a puff that you use to fill in the gaps at the edges. Added bonus: after watching me do these all weekend, my Mom wanted to learn how to do 'em. She later bought a copy of the pattern from Tiny Owl Knits, and the last time we talked about this project, she'd added her own special twist to it.  She doesn't like fiddling around with little bits, so she's making one long stuffed zigzag that will fit next to another zigzag, and she'll join them all together when she's done.

All those little hexagons in the picture are just a drop in the bucket, though. I think I need about 600 of 'em to make a decent-sized blanket.  I'll be doing this for a while.

While I was making them that weekend the thought started to percolate that perhaps, just perhaps, I was ready to tackle making a pair of socks. I'd tried a few times before and never got very far--either the join at the start was too loose and I couldn't find a way to tighten it up, or I developed "ladders"--funky gaps between stitches, usually where they met at either end of a double-pointed needle.  Well, the way around the join problem is to knit toe-up. And this pattern for hexagons showed me an easy cast-on that would work for toe-up socks.  So I found a simple toe-up sock pattern on the web (the first one on the page, called Lifestyle Toe Up socks)  bought some self-striping yarn, and off I went.

I took the first sock apart three times (at least) because I couldn't seem to get the ladders to go away. I checked a few places on line for help. Nothing seemed to work. I sent an email out to my Mom and sister, asking for their advice -- they are both very good at sock-making. Apparently my sister and I are on the same wavelength right now, because in the middle of writing this I went to read her blog, and she's just posted about her sock obsession. Anyway, Mom said that I'll stop making ladders the more I practice. Ditter says wear the socks once, wash them, and the ladders will disappear. I found the second piece of advice a little more reassuring. 'Cause frankly, if I make one pair of socks that look weird in places, I won't try making any more.

On my quest to get rid of the problem, I found videos on YouTube for how to knit with two circular needles. It was one person's way of getting rid of ladders, because you could snug the stitches right up against each other. Someone else suggested using the Magic Loop method, which was too much for me at the time. I thought I'd give the 2 circular needles thing a try. I was still getting ladders, but not as large, and there were only two of them. By the time I got to the second sock, I wasn't making them any more. Yay! And here's what I ended up with (on the left):

Stripey feet, FTW.

Gray lacy-ish sock.

Woo-hoo! There was a book sale going on at the site where I bought those needles, and I found some books of toe-up sock patterns while I was looking around. I decided to see if I could do this twice, so I dug around in my stash for some more yarn and made another pair, taken from a pattern in Socks a la Carte 2: Toes Up. They only had the pattern on the leg of the sock. I changed it so that I was working plain stockinette on the bottom of the foot and the pattern on the top of the foot, and then used the pattern the whole way around the leg, after I made the heel. This is what I got (above, on the right).

While I was working on the gray socks, I finally figured out how to use the Magic Loop method. I got myself a very long circular needle, and the socks I'm working on now are being worked that way. I'll post them when I'm done.  In any event, I do believe I can cross off ol' no.73 from the Life List. We'll take another stab at the sweater later on. I wound up taking the whole thing apart because I got mad at it. I have to make some sort of plan of attack for the sleeves before I get there next time, because the book is awfully vague when it comes to the sleeves. Mom agrees. She worked another sweater from the same book, and the instructions just seemed to fall apart when it got to talking about the sleeves. I don't understand it. The author was so detailed up to that point, then she just tailed off. I think perhaps I've gotten spoiled by the instructions at knitty.com.  Those patterns are all very informative and well-written. Maybe it's made me expect too much of other writers.

Well, that's enough yarn-talk for now. Time to get back to knitting.  And yes, I really am working with wool in this heat (it's supposed to come pretty close to 100 degrees here today), with no air-conditioning. I have fans running all over the house, with one aimed directly at me. I think we'll be okay. Sophie's upstairs on the bed, directly under the ceiling fan. While I'm thinking about it, I should probably go up and make sure I've turned that one all the way up. Though if she were uncomfortable, I'm sure I'd be told about it. She is not shy, my Sophie.

Useful (to me) video

I've been doing a lot of crafty-type stuff this week, since I've been parked on the couch with a foot in the air.  Most of it was embroidery, but the day before yesterday I knitted a cowl. I'm about to make another one.

I don't knit in the round very much, mainly because most of the time the place where I joined the stitches looks ghastly. I've been using a method that I learned from "Knitting for Dummies," whereby you cast on one extra stitch, transfer the last cast-on stitch to the needle next to the first cast-on stitch, then knit them together. Most of the time it leaves a funky gap that I just can't get rid of. I always thought I'd make more socks if I ever found a better way to join things.

Guess what?  I just did.  I tried starting the cowl and was disgusted with the join. Since I had the lap top open (listening to Middlemarch some more) I decided to take my problem to Google.  Here's what I found:



So simple! And works so very well. I am very grateful to whoever this woman is.  There's nothing to keep me from making socks now except my own inertia.

As soon as I finish the second cowl I'll show you both.

It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark

I've decided that next year's big project is crossing off #37 on my Life List: handmade Christmas.  Every person on my Christmas list will receive a present handmade by me.  There will be other things going on, I'm sure, but #37 is the big goal right now.

To this end, I've started compiling a list of who's getting what.  I haven't sorted that out completely just yet, but there's one project I know I'm doing, and for whom.  In the next 5 minutes I'm going to start casting on stitches to work this wrap with this yarn (color #2, fawn) for my aunt.

And no, I haven't forgotten about/given up on the sweater.  I need something portable to work on for the next week or so, though, as I make my way to and from my sister's house.  This project will do nicely.

I know, I know.   Isn't it a skosh early to be thinking about Christmas 2011?  We haven't even gotten to Christmas 2010, for pity's sake. Yes.  Yes, it is.  But I just bit off a very large piece of something, and it's going to take a while to chew it thoroughly.  I have an awful lot to do; might as well get started.

There will be updates throughout the year (with pictures) except for things being made for people who read this blog (I'm looking at you, Mom.  And you, Ditter).  Don't want to spoil the surprise.

Wish me luck.  I hope I don't drive myself crazy.  Though that might be fun to watch too, huh?

Busy

The plan today: get some coffee in me, medicate the cat, then finish this house. Not much to blog about at the moment.

Here's another picture I pulled off my hard drive from 'way back:

Background: I was at a crafting day thing in a friend's basement, which she had made over as her workshop (jealous!). A bunch of other people were over as well, some that I'd never met before. One of the women made miniatures--for dollhouses, I think.

Aren't they amazing? I took a close-up of the cutting board to emphasize how very small these things are. That olive jar was pretty neat, too. I cannot for the life of me remember their creator's name. Maybe the Chief Loon knows--she was there too, and I think she knows these folks better than I do.

All right, that's enough fun. Time to go squirt ointment at the cat. Whee.

One for the wall

I found a photo hanging out on my hard drive that I really like. I took on campus a few years ago:



It's cropped from a larger picture. I like this one because it looks I got a lot closer to the rabbit than I really did. Pretty good, I think. Then I ran it through the watercolor filter on Adobe Elements:



Suddenly I want to take it to Kinko's and have them print it on watercolor paper, like I had them do for the picture of Pip that I then framed and gave to my Dad for his birthday. I know exactly where I want this to go, too. I'm pretty sure my bedroom wall color is in there among all those shades of green, and my walls are still bare. I think a big framed bunny will do quite nicely.

Snapshot Sunday #2

These aren't pictures taken with my camera, they're scanned. A long while back I took a drawing class through the arts center on campus. Our first project was to take some image out of the newspapers and sketch it. I chose an oxford shoe, and shocked myself when I found out I really can draw. I don't have a scanned image of that.

Not quite as far back, a blogger I used to be in contact with named Anna suggested we each do that same thing again and post our results. We shared our drawings with each other, but we didn't post the results on our blogs. I don't think she was happy with how hers turned out, and I didn't want to publish mine without her publishing hers.

Her blog has been inactive for years now. I think her life got very complicated and she didn't have the time or energy to both live it and then write about it.

So anyway, here's the picture I drew from. I can't remember what the ad was for, or what magazine I tore it out of:

And here's what I did with it:




















And now I want to dig out my sketch book and draw again. Like I have time for that right now.

Number 12, and where I've been

I'm trying to tackle #12 on the life list -- knitting a sweater. I wasn't terribly specific on the list, but what I really want is to knit a sweater I am willing to wear in public. I've decided to knit gansey, because hey, why start easy?

Ganseys (also called guernseys) are sweaters that were traditionally knit by the wives/mothers/sisters/daughters of the fishermen of the Channel Islands (most notably Guernsey, hence the name) and worn by said fishermen. They were usually dark blue. I don't know why that color in particular, unless it's because it was the most practical one. These sweaters were all about practicality. They were knit in all in one piece from the bottom up, had a section at the bottom that could be torn out and reworked if it wore out, had gussets under the arms to save wear and tear on sleeve joints (thereby prolonging the life of the sweater), usually had the initials of the wearer knit into it somewhere (I'm thinking that was to ID sweaters and match them back up to owners on washing day--you have 4 men in the family all with similar blue sweaters, you're going to have a hard time telling them apart otherwise) and had some fancy knit/purl designs and simple cables in them. The plainer ones were work sweaters, the fancier ones were for dress. Wikipedia does a much better job of explaining this, if you want to know more.

I got interested in ganseys when my Mom mentioned she was looking for a good, free pattern for one. Being a library employee, I put my little research cap on and started digging around on Ravelry and coming up with some good book titles. I mentioned them to her and suggested she take some of them for a test-drive through interlibrary loan before she decided to buy some. And then I started to ILL them, myself. Borrowed one called "Knitting Ganseys" and after reading it decided that yes, I could probably do this.

Wish me luck. I've been thinking that knitting a sweater in the round might be easier than knitting it in pieces and then sewing it together. I've tried the piece-it-together way before and was disgusted with the results. Let's see if this works better.

Thing is, I can't knit and type at the same time. This is why things are quiet right now. Though I can't use that excuse next month--I'm going to do NaBloPoMo again.

And I just realized, I crossed off making a pie from my list but never wrote it up. So I need to do that. Maybe I can write the post in my head while I'm knitting.

Edited on 10/18/10 to add: Just found this in my drafts. So far the sweater is going well. I've gotten about 1/2 way up, and am now working solely on the back. It looks pretty good so far, if I do say so myself. (And I do...)

As soon as I get home (provided I remember) I'll post my 10/10/10 pictures and at some point this week I'll talk about making the pie. Maybe. Well, the pictures definitely, but I'd rather knit than write right now.

Oh! And the opera was really good. They used this interesting set design, called it "The Machine" -- a bunch of planks that could be raised, lowered, tilted -- with them they got the Rhinemaidens to swim by suspending them on cables, made the gods look like they were flying, made a staircase to Niebelheim, all sorts of things. It was almost like the set was another cast member. It reminded me a little of the way they used a rotating stage in Les Miserables. There are so many more things you can do with a stage like that than a traditional set of flies and curtains.

Now I'm all excited for Die Walküre in May.

Proof! I can actually finish something

When it got so bitterly cold here two weeks ago, I dug out a project from one of the many (still) unpacked boxes in my craft room and finished it so that I could protect my face at the bus stop. I was nearly done with the scarf when I'd packed it -- only had about six more inches to add on it.

I bought the yarn from Patternworks. It's called Boku, and is a mix of wool and silk. I'd originally bought it to make a pair of fingerless gloves to wear at work, but then I was moved to an office that doesn't make icicles grow on my nose come November, so I decided to use the yarn for something else.

A couple of Christmases ago, using a pattern from knitty.com, I'd made a scarf like this in oatmeal-colored wool for Ditter's father-in-law. I had a hard time giving it up. I could only make myself do it by promising that someday I'd make one for me. When I was looking around for something to do with the Boku yarn, I remembered the wavy scarf. I thought the variegated stripes and the waves would go nicely together.

I'm tempted to get more and make mittens now. I suppose I should learn how to make mittens before I start buying yarn to make 'em with, huh?