Tofu-knits

Well, that was quick

I've already given up on the mittens I posted about yesterday.  I can't make gauge.  The pattern calls for 8 st/in on size 2 needles.  I was getting about 6 st/in on size 2, so dropped down to size 0.  That may have gotten me to a 6 1/2, but still not 8.  It's a nice fabric, although a little airy for mittens.  But I don't have any needles smaller than 0, don't have easy access to needles smaller than 0, and I'm not sure I want needles smaller than 0.  So, I'm back to the planning (insert uproarious laughter here) stage.

I got a pattern booklet along with the Kureyon.  It's so old I don't think it's available anymore.  And, it has a pattern for an entrelac hat, in the round.  So that's going to be my next attempt at learning entrelac in the round. 

I was warned that Noro patterns have lots of errors.  And that seemed to be true last time I worked something from this pattern book.  The hat pattern didn't make sense on my first (and second, and third) read-through.  It starts out saying, "With waste yarn or over crochet chain, ....pick up and knit 60 (70) stitches and knit 1 round."  Then later, without much explanation, it says to pick up stitches from waste yarn or crochet chain, without explaining if this is a new piece, or the same.  I only caught it when I noted that it says to make sure the wrong side of the border is on the right side of the 'stockinetter' stitches of the cap. 

As far as I can figure out, they want you to pick up from a provisional cast on and make an entrelac border, then pick up from the provisional border again and knit the cap itself.  The border then folds up over the bottom edge of the cap.

Let's see how far along this idea goes.

You Know you're a knitter

when you're getting ready for a trip, and the first thing you think is, "What shall I take to knit?"

We're off in a couple of days for Ohio for my family's annual gathering.  It'll be at the same place we stayed last year.  I know there will be time spent waiting in airports, sitting around the cottage, and maybe riding as a passenger in the car, and that calls for knitting.  But not just any knitting.  It has to be something smallish.  It must be easy to pick up and put down.  It must also be simple enough to work on while being sociable, or in a distracting situation.  But it should also be challenging enough, and big enough, to keep me engaged.  And when I looked over what I had going, nothing was right.  The baby sweater is getting too close to done.  The rug would require at least 3 skeins of yarn, which would be a lot to lug around.  The lily of the valley shawl is almost right, but it's not something I can put down in the middle of a row.  Socks would be almost perfect, but I don't have any on the needles right now.  I've got a few ideas for projects, but nothing for which I have both yarn and a pattern.  So what to do?

Duh! Start something new! 

I've had an urge lately to knit a tea cozy.  It's not because I need one all that much, it's just something I'd like to make.  And not just any tea cozy, but one made of Noro Kureyon.  Knitted in entrelac.  And maybe felted.  I have several old old skeins of kureyon, but probably not enough for a sweater.  So why not?

Well, because I've done entrelac, but never in the round.  And I'm not sure I could figure it out on my own.  But, I do have a pattern for some entrelac mittens, in the round.  Mittens are a good size for traveling.  And with a real pattern, I can follow, not figure out.  And I've got these 2 very old skeins of Ballybrae sport weight here that I think I can make gauge with.  OK, it's a go.

Gauge swatch, on size 2 needles, plus the pattern and the other skein of yarn.  They're different colors, but pretty close.  I think if I alternate colors every round, it'll make a nice subtle pattern.  The yardage is a little shorter than the yarn the pattern calls for, which may or may not be a problem.  (It calls for 2 skeins, which could mean anything from 1 skein plus a couple of yards, or could mean every inch of both skeins.)  So I plan to knit the hand first, then pick up and knit the cuff the other direction.  If the cuff ends up shorter, or in a slightly different yarn, so what.

Let's see if I ever finish mittens, or make a tea cozy.

This is more than 23 pounds.  Yeah, it weighs 23 pounds.  But the weight I got rid of when I tossed it into the recycle bin was much more than that.  This is a box of reprints of articles, handouts from conferences, and at least one presentation I've given during training.  They all piled up, and every now and then I'd gather them all and put them into a box.  I kept telling myself that some day I'd go through, read them, and find a better way to keep them organized.  Then, we moved.  And the box moved.  More articles showed up, and they, too  went into the box.  We moved again.  Stuff kept going in, but nothing ever came out.  That box sat on the floor of my office, in front of the file cabinet, where I'd have to step over it, and ever reminding me that one day, I should go through and deal with the contents.

So last weekend I did.  Wow.  Some of the stuff was utterly irrelevant to anything I do now.  Some was horribly outdated.  Some was at such a basic level, I didn't see any need to hang on to it.  Other stuff was so detailed I suspected it would make my eyes roll back into my head.  But most of it was just stuff that I hadn't missed in the 6 to 8 years I'd been accumulating it, and would probably not miss if it was gone.  So it's gone.  There's a nice open space on the floor where the box used to sit.  And I feel like I've gotten rid of a lot more than 23 pounds of paper.

Eye Candy Friday

I made it on Friday, it's not the last second, and it's even a recent photo.  This is another picture I took a couple of days ago while hiking in Sedona. This is pretty typical of the red rocks of Sedona.  But I have not yet gotten tired of hiking amidst the beauty.  Now, if I can just stay away from the man-eating yucca plants.............

Photo update

Lots of pictures here.  I figure it's about the easiest way to get everything caught up.  Besides, shouldn't a knitting blog be visually oriented?

(Very) Good Friday found me hanging out in my office before church waiting for this package.  When opened, and with some assembly, it revealed this. It's my brand new Jensen Ashley.  She's lovely, spins smoothly, and is very fast.  The other wheel in the picture is a Reeves, which I also love, and thought was very smooth and quiet.  But after spinning on the Jensen, the Reeves seemed a bit clunkier in comparison.  Hmm, I'm starting to feel a little guilty about saying things like that, almost as though I'm comparing my children.

In the knitting world, I've finished another pair of socks.  They're not ready for their debut yet, as I never trim the loose ends until they've been washed.  That's just in case they do some unexpected size changing when they hit water, and I have to rip back and re-knit.  I'm not usually a stickler for matching color repeats in socks.  After all, they're socks!  But looking at the photo, I can see that these might look better if they were closer in appearance.  One looks like an orange sock with stripes, the other like a striped sock.  Oh well.

 The baby yarn I posted about here is becoming this.  I'm making up the pattern as I go along, using elements I've seen other places and liked.  The bottom and the cuffs are a picot hem.  The body has an eyelet pattern, adapted from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries.  One of the biggest surprises to me has been how many decisions need to be made for just a simple drop-shoulder cardigan like this.  It's not just gauge.  It's not just size. (which I fudged after looking at baby sweater patterns in a book to come up with chest diameter, body length, and sleeve length.)  It's how long to make the hem.  Should the eyelet pattern spacing get smaller as the sleeve diameter decreases, or should one repeat be eliminated as its location is decreased away?  Ribbed button band or picot?  Should the collar extend across both button bands so it overlaps itself, or should it end at the junction of body and band on one side?  How many stitches should I pick up for the button bands, and the collar?

I already learned one pitfall on this.  If you are tacking down a hemmed cuff, and you don't go quite far enough up the sleeve on the inside, the hem will curl outward.  Badly.  So there's some undoing waiting in my future.  I've tried taking notes on this, thinking maybe if it comes out pretty, I could write up the pattern.  But my notes usually end up being scribbles, unintelligible even to me more than 3 hours after I've written them.  And often when I do write something comprehensible, I discover that what I'd planned doesn't really work, and have to change something as I'm knitting.

In other news, I've been traveling a bit.  The beginning of April found me in San Diego for a conference.  My sister came down to visit the first day there, and we spent the afternoon up in La Jolla.  That is a lovely community, with a great yarn store, but.......it fulfills the 4 criteria for standard tourist town.

Art galleries, expensive restaurants, T-shirt shops, and bad parking.

I've done more hiking in Sedona.  (Standard tourist town, too.)  And that's where I encountered the dreaded man-eating yucca plant.  At least it inspired me to go get my overdue tetanus booster.  I also found evidence of a Borg visit to the region.  And I met the largest snake I've ever seen in the wild.  I'm not sure exactly what kind he is, but pictures I found online hint that he's a gopher snake.

There was also a brief visit to Albuquerque, where 2 people I know spoke at a conference.  And I got the true Albuquerque experience at the Frontier.  Cheap, casual, good food, varied customers, that's my kind of place.

Next month we're headed back to Ohio for our annual family gathering.  It'll be nice to see my Dad and my sisters, and the hiking is great.  But like so many middle-agers, we're watching Dad's health decline, wondering how long he can keep living alone with no nearby relatives, and hoping it isn't a crisis that brings about change.

Hello, again

Not much blog-worthy stuff has been going on.  Although, in many of the blogs I follow, nothing fascinating happens.  But the bloggers' observations on ordinary life are interesting enough to keep me following along.

I've had the finishing urge.  But with several good-sized projects going, that isn't likely to happen soon.  I did finish a small Wallaby.  It was going to be one of 3 for the sons of a friend.  But the yarn knitted up into a fabric that I feared was too soft to stand up to children playing, so I quit after one sweater.  Gave it to a work partner with a son it'll fit.  He was impressed, and I couldn't convince him it was quick and easy.  He did seem to understand when I told him it was probably less work than he put into the Beethoven Sonata he's playing in church this week.

I'm expecting a new arrival soon.  I finally went ahead and splurged on the spinning wheel I've been admiring for so long.  I placed the order about 3 1/2 weeks ago, and the estimated ship date is March 31.  The wheel will be stained and finished, which cost extra, but I wanted to be able to spin on it right away.  I'm really excited about it!

We've had our share of snow, thank goodness.  This was our house the day after Superbowl Sunday.  It wasn't the first storm of that size, and we've had a couple of similar sized ones since.  I know how much we need the water, but I'm getting tired of shoveling.  For a time, our entire back yard was covered with about 3 feet.  the compost bin was buried.  The birdbath, on top a pipeline marker, was almost buried.  But after several days of sun, a lot has melted off.  Hubby dug us a path to the compost bin, so we can at least get the degradables out.  March is traditionally the snowiest month up here, and we've still got that ahead.  I may be in for more shoveling.  We're planning to get a snowblower, so I won't have to get up at 4 am to clear the driveway to get to work on time.  But when we went looking, everyone in town was sold out of everything in the size we could use.  So it's on the September 'to do' list.

It is tax time.  I meet with our accountant on Monday to give her all our financial information for the year.  This always seems to end up with arguments between hubby and me, largely stemming from our differing patterns of disorganization.  He looks at papers and documents, thinks 'Gee, I don't know if I'll need this again, so I'll throw it away.'  I look at stuff and think, 'Gee, I don't know if I'll need this again, so I'll hang on to it.  I'll just put it here on this pile, and eventually I'll figure out where to put it.'  So I spend much of my time trying to find the top surface of my desk under all the piles of stuff, and tripping over more piles as I walk to the file cabinet or the printer.  But when I need something, it's there somewhere.  He has less clutter, but at tax time I end up scrambling to recreate records to come up with figures for deductions.  I wonder if marriage counseling could be counted as tax preparation expense?

Know Thyself

Lots of new projects in the past week or so.  To start, a rug.  Just inside our porch door is a scrap of carpet, that works fine but has a tattered edge that snarls in the vacuum cleaner.  Last fall at Taos, I had a class with Donna Druchunas, and also picked up her Knitted Rug book.  This is her log cabin rug, in some Paton's Shetland Chunky Tweed.  It wouldn't have been my first choice, being a bit too plastic, but it was available here in town.

Next is a swatch.  I've been fascinated lately by baby stuff, despite not having any babies to knit for.  But when I found 3 skeins of superwash wool fingering weight, white with pink, blue, and yellow spots, at a yarn store last week, I bought it.  It's a yarn store I'm not that crazy about.  The only reasons I go are that it's close to one of the motels where I often stay, and they have a good candy bowl at the counter.  As I was checking out, I found myself thinking I was rescuing the yarn, rather than buying it.

Finally there's the Clock Vest. It's from 'Folk Vests', out of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool.  This sweater kicked my butt big time when I started.  First I had to go down about 3 needle sized to make gauge, then didn't have needles small enough to do the border, so had to upsize.  A few inches up, it became clear I was going to have to find someone to wear it with me, it was coming out so big.  So rip back, start over, decreasing the stitch count for the border and keeping the same needle size throughout.  I'd show pictures, but 3 inches of sweater just doesn't photograph well.

I was frustrated with this for a long time.  It didn't help that about the time I started, Devorah cast on the same vest.  She's since finished it, ripped it out because it was too big, re-knitted it, and finished it.  I've gotten about 2 inches into the body.  But I've reached the point where the pattern flows.  I made lots of mistakes when I was reading it as 'slip the next 2 needles to a cable needle and hold to the front of the work, purl one from.........".  Charting it helped, as I had an easier time putting the stitches in the right place when I could see where they were coming from and where they were headed.  Finally I've reached the point where I'm seeing it as 'a 2 stitch band and a 1 stitch band, both move one to the left this row' and do just that without having to look at the chart again 'til the next row.

I needed to be reminded of this.  I have a way of learning things that isn't efficient, isn't quick, and isn't elegant.  I can forget something I've heard faster than I can write it down.  Details frustrate me, until I've mastered concepts.  Once I have though, the details that I previously couldn't grasp are obvious.

The other reminder I got of this happened in church choir.  I love singing.  And we've got a really good choir.  But I've been on the verge of quitting, because with my minimal musical education, I don't learn the music easily.  I'm not helped by the alto who sits next to me, who I think is trying to be helpful by frequently telling me what page we're on in the hymnal, when to stand, sit, kneel, sing unison or parts, process or recess, exit the choir area for communion, etc.  (That's actually one of my favorite parts of the service.  Having never been baptized, I don't take communion, and one of the basses and I hang out in the vestry together telling jokes until the rest of the choir returns.)  But instead of helping, she's distracting me from finding my place.

This week we sang Jean Berger's 'The Eyes of All'.  It seemed familiar when we first read it.  And after just a few repetitions, I found I only needed to glance at the music for reminders of a couple of notes.  Yesterday I pulled out my old cassette tapes and played one from an undergraduate choir concert.  There it was.  I knew the piece because I'd had to memorize it for a performance........in 1993. I learned it then.  And now, over 13 years later, it's still mine.

I need these reminders now and then.  In the midst of frustration, disorganization, and what sometimes appears as chaos, there is learning.  I need to remember that.  Instead of giving up, or berating myself for not learning things the way I think I should, or expecting someone else to somehow magically make it clear to me, I need to honor my own abilities.  I need to remember that I learn by repetition.  By making mistakes.  By looking at something so many times from so many directions that by the time I'm done, there's almost nothing I don't know about it.  And by trusting that as overwhelming as the process sometimes feels, it will happen.

What does this have to do with knitting?  Well, I probably start 3 or 4 times as many things as I finish.  And some of the stuff I do finish has been knitted a couple of times by the time I'm done.  Projects get started and abandoned because of details I didn't recognize when I started.  The yarn isn't right, it's boring, or it just doesn't look as good as I'd hoped.  Despite how I often feel, there's nothing wrong with that.  That's just the way I work. 

Eye Candy Friday

I tried snowshoeing for the first time yesterday.  I've wanted to try for years.  After all, it's about a 7 minute walk from our front door to the forest, (Not sure if it's NFS or Park Service, but it is federal land.) and the trails can get pretty tough if we get lots of snow.  When I mentioned this to one of my partners, she asked if I'd like to borrow her snowshoes to try them out.  Uhm, yeah.

I was not the first one out on the trail.  From the tracks there had been at least one skier and one other snowshoer before me.  But I was the only one out, at least until I met.................

Alright, I confess, he's not that cute. 

I give up.

I hereby give up apologizing for not posting regularly.  I also give up feeling bad if I don't post anything for eye candy Friday.  I don't post regularly.  And I don't always post on Friday, nor do I always have pretty pictures.  So instead of feeling bad and apologizing, I surrender. 

Now you see it, now you don't.  I started a new project last week in Chicago.  It's a shadow knitting scarf, from Donna Druchunas' new book, 'Kitty Knits'.  I have Vivian Hoxbro's 'Shadow Knitting', and even knitted a potholder to try out the technique, but I didn't really think it was something I'd enjoy all that much.  But then, when I spotted this scarf, I was hooked.  And I thought hubby would also enjoy it.  So I snatched up the book, 4 skeins of Cascade 220, and a new needle. 

I didn't really need another size 6 circular needle.  But, when you get angry and frustrated, and go yarn shopping to blow off steam and distract and comfort yourself, knowing that you have several perfectly fine needles at home across the country will not keep the needle on the rack.  I needed some yarn and something new to knit RIGHT NOW, and waiting 4 days just wasn't going to happen.  I also would have made different color choices.   I thought hubby would like the scarf, but not in the orange and grey shown in the book.  So I picked out some more subdued shades, and ended up with.....muted orange and mild grey.  Seeing them knitted makes me think he won't like them.  It was a few days later I realized it could be done in black and white, which he'd certainly wear.  Oh, well.  If if finish this one, someone will like it.

It's been an upsetting month.  A couple of co-workers have had family members die.  My mother-in-law had a minor stroke.  I missed seeing a friend back in Chicago because of her SO's heart attack and subsequent 4 vessel bypass.  It put my Dad's medical issues, which is what inspired the latest Chicago visit, in perspective.  His doctor's visit went very well, overall.  The diagnosis given by his home town pulmonologist was not entirely correct, and the prognosis much better than I'd feared.  Now, if he will only follow through on the suggested treatment, he'll probably do much better.

More started objects: I cast on for the Clock Vest from 'Folk Vests' using Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.  But it hasn't gone smoothly.  When I swatched, I had to go down 3 needle sizes to make gauge.  No problem, until I realized I'd made gauge with a size 1 needle, and needed smaller needles for the border pattern.  In my impatience to get going, I decided to use the 1 (the smallest I had) for the border, then go up to a 2 for the body.  Only problem is, the only size 2 I have is in use.  So I used a 3.  A couple of inches up, I wrapped it around me.  It overlapped in front by a good 6 inches.  And this sweater changes sizes by changing needle size, not number of stitches.  So I ripped it out.  Bought a size 0 needle, and this morning I cast on again with 10% fewer stitches, and a plan to increase for the body and knit the whole thing on a size 0 needle.  No pictures, as a cast on row just isn't worth it.

Just in time: Eye Candy Friday

It's Friday evening.  I'm in my PJ's, just about ready to go to sleep.  But I realized I hadn't posted something for Eye Candy Friday yet.  So here's a dramatic, if not beautiful, picture of a storm over the mountains.

It's been a strange week.  Although I have been working, there hasn't been much work to do.  And I'm debating whether or not to write a letter to the board of direcctors at work telling them that one of the charitable organizations to which they donated money in our name has an ideology and some goals that many of us strongly disagree with.

That's the way it is tonight.  I'm ready to get a good night's sleep, and enjoy a weekend off.

And so the New Year Begins!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

My New Year's was very nice, but cold.  We went out to dinner with another couple, then stayed downtown for the midnight celebration.  But as a concession to families, (and old fogies like us) they do it twice: once at 10 pm, when the ball falls in Times Square, and again at midnight local time.  We were there for 10 pm as I was on call the next day.  Gotta say, it is nice being in a small town.  After yelling, kissing, and spitting out the confetti that materialized from nowhere we could figure out, we headed home to drink hot chocolate and warm up, and made it there by 20 minutes after. 

Another finished object!  I've had the yarn and pattern for this hat for years.  But with my recent burst of knitting energy, I pulled it out, cast on on Monday, and finished Wednesday.  The pattern is by Fiber Trends , and was pretty simple.  It's only the second thing I've ever felted.  The first, another hat, was while we lived in an apartment without our own washer, and so I had to drop it into a hot bathtub and stomp on it.  Using the washer was easier, and I got the daily crossword puzzle finished while waiting.  I'm still a bit in awe of the transformation of floppy, oversized, limp knitted items into firm, shapely garments.

There has been lots of knitting in the last few weeks.  Some of that is thanks to slow times at work.  I finished the Wallaby I started for myself.  Well, I finished it for the first time.  Got all the grafting done, and ends woven in, then tried it on.  And the hood is too small.  It stretches to reach over the top of my head.  At first, I thought I'd just live with it.  But once the excitement of being done Done DONE! lessened, I couldn't live with it.  It'll be much easier to fix now, before washing , than trying to pick out the grafting after it's been washed and worn a few times.  So it's back on the needles.  Should be done within a day or so.  Pictures to follow.

I'm bucking the trend of bloggers who are resolving to go on 'yarn diets' or knit only from stash this year.  Inspired by pictures on Claudia's blog, I pulled all my yarn out of the closet and installed it in open shelves in my office/room.  It's so nice to see it all, instead of having to poke around in bins, guessing what might be there.  What I found was that while I have lots of yarns, I have very little of most of them.  With the exception of some white and black mohair, and some laceweight, I didn't have enough of anything to make a sweater.  So, time to flesh it out a bit.  I bought yarn, and felt relieved.  I did limit myself to yarn with a specific project in mind.  And perhaps it's time to learn more techniques that work well with bits and scraps.

I'm also not making any non-knitting resolutions this year.  It struck me on New Year's Eve, as I dropped my year-end tax submissions in the mail at 7 am, and had no other last-minute things to take care of, that my life is really going along pretty well.  It's not perfect.  There are lots of things that could be going better.  But there really isn't anything that needs to be overhauled.  For the first time that I can remember, I'm feeling quite content.  So instead of making grand plans that I will probably berate myself for not following through, I'm just going to take life as it comes.  And those opportunities to do something to make it better, I'll take them.  Maybe it'll be taking a walk instead of losing myself in TV.  Maybe it'll be paying a bill as soon as it arrives, instead of putting it on a pile to deal with later.  Maybe it'll be cooking a healthy meal at home instead of grabbing something from a restaurant.  Or maybe it'll be ending a blog post in order to make time to write a thank-you note for a Christmas gift.