Post-Olympian Knitting Itch: Squid MP3 Cozy

So, I've been thinking lately that I want to knit myself a squid cozy - I know, I know, they're not socks, and socks is my resolution, but I *am* working on a pair of socks (the Kathmandu and angora), and if anything is inspiration to get crackin' on size 3mm socks, it's screaming over size 2.25mm needles :) And since my sin is probably pride, I have to at least try and do it better than anyone's done it before, so I've cast on and gotten started already. Ah, the fun. Let's see if anything ever comes of this, eh?

Knitting Olympics - Finished on Day 11!

*Fanfare plays* It is done!

So, about 15 repeats in, I realized that I hadn't blocked this scarf at all, and had no idea how really long it might stretch. I gave it a good tug, and figured out that 20 repeats would really make me a good-sized scarf! So I finished them up (40 inches unblocked), wet 'em and set 'em, and now I've got me a non-curling foofy wooly bright yellow 56" scarf! And I've got enough time left that I can work on other projects (like the tatting class I'm teaching this monday) without any guild whatsoever :D

Knitting Olympics - Days 7, 8, 9

So far, I have 20+ inches of the Yellow Scarf finished, and I'm progressing well on the socks. I know I have to buckle down and commit to one of these in order to finish in time, and I'm having a really hard time deciding which one of these is going to take me through the home stretch. I have 11.5 of the 30 pattern repeats done on the scarf (plan to finish at least 1.5 more before going to bed), and one toe - that's right one toe - done on the socks, so I'm thinking the scarf is going to win out this season. Sure, I've got almost 20 more inches to go, but it sure goes a lot faster on 8s than 3s. The socks, they will be finished by the end of february (got to keep up with that resolution, after all)... or at least the first week of march.

Knitting Olympics - Days 5 and 6

Day 5: Crap! I have two tests tomorrow! Time to study!

Day 6: Well, the brown socks? Gone. Finito. Not happening any time soon. So here I am, one third of the way through the Olympics, and what do I have to show for it? One toe for a toe-up sock (kathmandu and angora/nylon sweater unravelings), and 7" of a handspun yellow scarf. So, scarf it is then! Yes, this will be my Year of the Scarf. And my year, I mean a few weeks.

Knitting Olympics - Day 4

Well, I've decided to have the pattern for these tan-and-brown socks be a modified form of Jaywalkers - basically, they're about ankle-high, I did my own heel without looking at the pattern, and I'm kinda guessing on the gusset decreases. All is going well. The thing is, though, that these socks? They're going to be fugly. On the cuff, the stripes are doing well, no pooling, one row tan, one row brown, switch to 2 rows each for the heel, 4 during the turn, really nothing wrong with the stripes themselves. It's just the colors, see, they're really really ugly. But, I kinda like them ugly, for some reason. These are socks only a knitter could love, the red-headed stepchild of handknit socks, the oh my god has she lost it already socks.... plus they're pure wool, so they're the unseasonably warm in summer which is when they'll be ready socks :) I love these socks like I love my cross-eyed dim-bulb inbred cat - because someone has to. And it might as well be me.


Update - 2 hours later.
Well, I've got much of the foot done. Guess I'd better try it on and see when I should start the toes, eh?

*gets sock onto foot, cannot get past heel*

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Okay, stepchild sock, that's it for you for today. Now, I go to cast on for a friggin' toe-up sock if it kills me - at least this one I *know* will fit. That'll learn me to eyeball my gague swatch >.>

Knitting Olympics - Day 3

Okay, so remember how I wanted to make socks and a scarf out of that yellow handspun? Well, the scarf is winning out, so I needed something different to make for theolympics! Therefore, I picked up some stash wool (yay stashbusting!), and I'm making some self striping tan-and-brown Jaywalkers on size 2 needles!


...and in my "spare" time, a yellow scarf.

Knitting Olympics - Days 1 and 2

The Knitting Olympics (and I suppose those regular ones) both started today at around 1:30 p.m. At this time, I was at work, with many hours left to go and pouring rain to walk through once I could leave. I got home at six, kissed Sweetie goodbye for the weekend (he's visiting home), and got to work spinning up some yarn for my bright yellow socks. I tried a new technique, from Paula Simmon's Spinning for Softness and Speed, but I don't think I got the hang of it - I certainly didn't get any good yarn out of it that night, and unspun what I had for later use. With such a mighty unachievement under my belt, it was time for dinner, some reading, and bed. Thus starts my trial - not with a bang but a whimper.

Day 2 dawned bright and clear, and I set to work. Today, I will spin. Today, I will fill three - perhaps four! - bobbins with bright buttery yellow goodness. If I spin too much, after all, I can make a Liesel scarf :) Maybe I should do five bobbins, just in case.

More forthcoming.

Dichotomy Socks - Note to Self

Okay, so those Dichotomy Socks I posted a pattern for recently? The ones with the gague of 8 sts/inch? Yes, they don't fit me in the cuff. The pattern works - it makes a sock that looks like it should, that gets the correct gague in St st, is pretty to see and (in theory, anyway) fun to wear, and it does. Not. Fit. Me.

Is it the cables? Is it the cotton? Is it the fact that I really really should have done a gague swatch in pattern? Who knows? It could be any one or many of these things. The pattern will be adjusted to reflect many sizes of feets, once this olympic stuff is over. I'll probably just add plain ribbing inbetween the cables.

It does, however, fit K., and she did just have a birthday recently, so... happy birthday, here's a half-done sock!

... you know, I think it is the cables. I knew they pulled in when I wrote the pattern, it's hard to do cables and not notice that, I just figured the yarn overs in the lace pattern would stretch enough to account for the pull. Note to self: they don't. They account for the decreases in that selfsame lace pattern is what they do.

I think I've noticed something, though, with cable patterns. It seems to me that a 6-stitch cable takes up about the same width as a 4-stitch rib. Could there be a 3:2 ratio of cable crossings to stockinette? I should do some comparative swatching and find out.

Golden Apples

Whee! This spinning thing is much more fun than I'd suspected. During the superbowl I spun some yellow Colonial from BlueGooseGlen into a long enough DK single for a whole sock :3 I set the twist, wound it into a center-pull ball, and I've been carting it around ever since, petting it and showing it off to everyone I see. It's got a vaguely apple shape to it, so I'm thinking that with its lovely golden color I should knit a Golden Apple out of it! And then spin more, so I can make some socks. And then I get to play with dyeing!

I've Got You, Babe

Okay, hokey puns aside, my Babe came in monday and I've been so busy figuring out how this whole spinning thing is supposed to work (and, you know, studying) that I haven't posted anything on it!

It was pretty easy to set up, put three tube bits where tube bits ought go and screw in to secure, stick on a flyer, bobbin, and drive band, pop the treadles onto the frame and you're good to go. My first, oh, two days were disastrous - I admit it, I'm not too bright, and it took a lot of "but what is it supposed to be doing that it's not?" before I went over the instruction sheet again, the manufacturer's email again, oiled everything again, and of course, just when I bring Sweetie over to show him what's not going on that should be, something clicks and I start spinning up a storm. I have since volunteered him to be the first victim of my spinning madness in the form of a hat that he must wear and love, regardless of how much like crap it looks. I've spun all the way through the extra fiber Heather sent me (it was very sweet of her) and most of the way through the half-pound of Brown Sheep roving that came with the wheel. That I plan to dye and make into a scarf for me. When I get home from classes today, I get to work on the actual dyed rovings from Heather, and try and practice uniformity of singles.

For now, though, it's back to studying! Cognitive psychology waits for no one.