Because ugly toes are why I knit socks

Sorry, y'all, my toes are ugly. Unkempt, plain, knobby and generally not-cute. But I have the remedy!





One nearly done! (The first picture is more colour-accurate.)

Stats:
Pattern: Jaywalker by the newly-married Grumperina. (Congratulations!) Yarn: Vesper sock yarn in the gorgeously self-striping Love Stinks (Yeah Yeah) colourway by the uber-talented Julia. Needles: 1.5mm, time spent: about 2 weeks on this sock. I have no excuse for that. Getting gauge for this pattern is a tad fiddly, but other than that? I took forays into stranded knitting, my lovely Japanese crochet book, and finished my scarf in addition to getting this far on the sock. Fast knit!

It needs finishing and it needs a mate. But for now, I'm loving it! This yarn is unbelievably beautiful, sleek and soft. The colours are rich, the colour changes are perfect, and the put-up is very generous. Julia's a dream to deal with and ships fast - and she always includes some tissue, which Fee claims as soon as I unwrap the yarn. (Fee wanted me to write this. She has a stack of 15 or so sheets of tissue paper in the dining room that are her Very, Very Own. Grady sits on the yarn whenever possible.) We heart Vesper at Chez I-Cord!

Happy Fridaylicious!

Stranded knitting III

I tried to watch Gossip Girl tonight but wasn't into it; instead, here's the third installment in my stranded-knitting techniques series. (There may be more, if I keep going in my project and think of something that needs to be covered, but for right now this is it. However I am thinking of one more...on blocking.)

Let's say you're the purest of continental knitters, and even with stranded knitting your right hand never wraps a stitch. You only pick, and you're very comfortable doing it. I'm sure you'd like to weave in your strands just like the two-handed knitters—it's not fair that they have all the fun. Here's a little trick for you. This may have been talked about somewhere before, more eloquently than my abilities allow, but I hope my little comic helps somebody. Knowing this trick has certainly helped me.

The basic principle of weaving is that while knitting you are sort of winding the two strands around each other so that the yarn that isn't used gets secured in along with the yarn that is. The two-handed method is a two-part technique that both weaves (step 1, the wrapping/unwrapping part) and locks (step 2, when you simply knit the next stitch) your unused yarn in place. (Me, personally? I switch hands when I need to weave in a lot of the mc, or I do the first part of the weaving technique without the second, and as long as I maintain even tension this works just fine. Wrap the mc as you usually do, then wrap the cc, then unwrap the mc and knit. Knit the next stitch normally. Note: This may not work for you. I am not even sure it works for me, but I feel better when I do it.)

I admit this method is a bit scratch-and-dent, it's not as graceful as some techniques are, but if you practice it you'll quickly build speed, and the first time you put it into practice you'll be able to see exactly what to do next. Try it out!

Here's the comic.



P.S.: I bought my wire coil strickfingerhut at JoAnn for about $5. It's called a Norwegian knitting thimble and looks like this.

Stranded knitting II

You may be knitting along and suddenly hit a bump in the road: you know that wool sticks, and you're using wool, but are your stitches really going to stay even when you've got to leap your main colour behind 10 contrast stitches?

That's when you need to know how to weave your strands as you go. As knitting tips go, this is up there in the big time. Knowing how to do this will help you make your knitting more even, help you bridge needle-gaps without ladders or too-tight turns, and keep you from snagging your fingernails in your selbuvotter. (HA!) You can use it to hide your ends as you go after joining a new colour yarn (provided the back side of your knitting isn't public), or even to hide your ends when you've changed to a new ball of yarn. It's endlessly useful and I hope it helps you.

So, here's a chart on how to do it. I'm loving my little comics and I hope I am not trying your patience by using them. This is the first of two; how to weave when you are holding one strand in your left and one in your right. Next up will be weaving holding two strands in your left. (That one is something I figured out on my own.)

Oh, and to answer from the comments - what to do with the purling when you don't purl well with your right hand? I would recommend using a strickfingerhut and purling from that (very easy) or to make it even easier, learn to Norwegian purl. It's *very* easy and if you Google around you'll see exactly what to do. Norwegian purling is a method of continental purling where you never need bring your yarn to the front. I think you will go much faster and enjoy your knitting more if you aren't always grinding your teeth at the purl stitches. (I'm not even sure I know how to purl with the yarn in my right hand!)

Comic! Right!



For another pictorial representation of this technique, click here. She has a few more pictures and also works through it using the same color yarns to join a new ball. Good stuff!

Stranded Knitting I

Ok, hopefully my ramblings yesterday made you sort of interested in colour knitting.

One thing I have had a terrible time with is the issue of yarn dominance. Yarn dominance basically means that one of your yarn colours will be slightly more emphasized than the other in your final piece, and therefore dominant. This makes your pattern more prominent than the background.

I've heard a lot of people talk about it, and some say to play around with your colours to see what works - but I've never had any luck at that. I tend to learn things by condensing down the basic principles into a simple rule. "Simple" means something that can easily become automatic, like which way to wrap your stitches. I also believe that simplicity breeds consistency. It's much easier to be consistent at something simple than at something overly complicated.

So for whatever reason, "yarn dominance" has always been one of those really complicated issues - I hold the yarn different every time, or I can't quite see what they mean, or whatever. This went on until I found a wonderful explanation here (and yes, do go click the link, then come back here). It crystallized the principle for me - contrast yarn rides below - but what does that look like in practice?

My simple rule is: Contrast colour goes in your left hand. This means it will ride below the other colour. Don't believe me? Well, I took pictures! Here's a chart.



To help me remember, I **do** write on my pattern which yarn goes in which hand:
Orange = background colour / right hand
Gold = contrast colour / left hand

Note: If you're a two-color knitter who holds both strands in your RIGHT hand, please write in and let me know how you handle this issue. I played around with this for hours and could not figure out how to do it with both strands in my right hand - then again, I can barely knit right-handed.

There are two more posts/comics in this series. They can be found here: Stranded Knitting II and here: Stranded Knitting III.

Here you are

A lovely chapeau for your pretty head. If you have a skein of yarn that just wants to show off its color - this one's for you. :) It's simple, big, warm and squishy. Pattern link opens pdf and follows the pictures. If you knit it, please let me know!

(A samara is one of those helicoptery seed pods that fall from maple trees each year. I remember being a kid and wading through gobs of them on the street - when they turn brown, they are beautiful. This yarn reminds me of them.)





Samaras Hat

Enjoy!

FO: Poseidon socks

Pattern: Poseidon Socks (look in the sidebar)
Yarn: All Things Heather semi-solid sock yarn in Greens, available at The Sweet Sheep
Needles: 2.5mm Inox Express
Modifications: Well...the heel, toe and cuff. I really enjoyed Elinor's pattern as-is, but I wanted a quick sock fix and that meant doing my own toe-up heel and toe instead of learning hers. I cast on with a Queen Kahuna cast-on, I think 15 stitches on each side, and increased at the corners every other round until I had the right number of stitches. For the heel, when I got to the point where the sock just met the front of my leg, I started increasing every other round on the bottom only till I had 20 more stitches than I started with (60% more), then turned the heel (like you do with a flap heel). No flap, toe up, gusseted heel. I love how this heel fits me, so I use it pretty much exclusively. For the cuff, I was just playing around with ribbing and finally decided to do 1x1 twisted rib. But the pattern is absolutely gorgeous as-is...I just can't help messing around with most sock patterns I knit.

Try them! There are no purl stitches in this sock until the ribbing. The lace pattern is made from yarnovers and decreases only. It's really cool how it wiggles back and forth.

Happy Tuesday. Thank you for all the lovely comments and support about Jemima, and the lovely comments about Fee. She is blushing. Tomorrow: Moo cards!

It's like being at my house, but with 75% more cats

Y'all know what I am talking about, don't you. I'm talking about Eddie, Buckley, Tabitha, Dooper and Mrs Boots on Slacker Cats. I watched it last night, then rewound it and watched it again (thank you, dvr!) and I laughed even harder the second time. (I have a feeling things between Flatcow and Tabitha are not going to work out.) The "rodeo" scene was killing me, Buckley's item of clothing, and the whole crematorium thing? Hysterical.

Fee watched quite a bit of it (she usually doesn't watch tv at all). Grady ignored the whole thing.

Of course, the hurricane geek in me is watching Dean out there in the ocean. He's going west into the Gulf, where an unlimited supply of hurricane fuel - hot ocean water - waits. (The high that made it 105 here yesterday is making him stay south and go into the Gulf instead of crossing Florida.) Keep an eye on him if you're so inclined.

Last night I worked some more on my swatch, and as soon as I get a few more rows done I'll show some pictures and talk a little about color theory. (Possibly tomorrow.) Also I did a few rows on Jemima and some on my second sock. I'm chugging along.

Catch Slacker Cats, willya? It's CRAZY.

Pictures

I wove in the button band ends. Can't find 'em.

I'm leaving it, finishing the collar, and if I hate it, I hate it. I learned a lot.

Please tell me this doesn't look too terrible. I can live with the collar.





Here's my newest sock project. These are the Tesselating Lace Socks from Knitting the Light Fantastic. (Scroll down to the red socks. Isn't she a great knitter? And I think she's a vet, too.) I'm doing a test knit for the pattern, but I think she is planning on making it available eventually. The yarn is Mama-E's sock yarn in Testudo, named after her college mascot, who is a Diamondback Terrapin. :) It's her Project Spectrum yarn for July/August.

The yarn is lovely. It's soft and scrunchy, and because these socks will be taller, I started out knitting them on a 2.75mm needle. After one pattern repeat I changed to a 2.5mm. The pattern is easy and intuitive, and y'all will love it when it comes out.

For now, it's my consolation! And whoa, somebody needs some self-tanner!

Reporting for duty, late as usual

Remember the Lucy sock yarn? Remember I had terrible pooling and set them aside in disgust? The kind of disgust only a knitter can muster?

Well, I think Nona has a solution. I'm going to wind my yarn and knit my gauge swatch. I'm running a little behind, but y'all can call me a Sidewinder, too.

I mean, sideways socks? They fit Nona so well, I MUST HAVE A PAIR!

For posterity

I can't ever seem to find the instructions for doing that toe-up-no-flap-gusset-and-short-row-heel. Somebody over at Flickr asked me about it and I couldn't find my own notes! Here they are now, preserved for all blogdom:

Toe Up No Flap Heel:

Mentally divide your stitches in half. The bottom is one half, the instep is the other. Work the heel only on the bottom stitches. Start at the place where the sock is long enough to cover your whole foot but doesn't go up your ankle - just where your foot and ankle meet on the front.

So say you are working that sock on 64 stitches. 32 will be the heel and for this part you increase every other round BOTTOM ONLY until you get to 52 stitches - 10 increase rounds.

Then you turn the heel just like a flap heel. All that decreasing will bring the stitch count back where you need it. Once when I made these I ended up two stitches short, and just increased on the next round.

Project Spectrum

I hafta be kinda quick this morning, but I want to say a few things about Project Spectrum. For anyone new to the blog, I'm a commercial artist. While I do like almost all aspects of photography, design is my first love. So any chance to play with colour is a treat for me.

Last year I didn't join because I stupidly thought it meant only knitting with purple for August. Or whatever. I hate purple, by the way. I love violet and raspberry and aubergine, but I dislike the blue-purple "I'm 9 and not afraid to say I don't like PINK" colour. The princess purple. Ick. The lavender tulle of Disney dresses and Limited Too clothes is like a Jen-repellent. You know, THIS purple. I much prefer warm colours, warm lavender (like the real thing) and warm grapey hues.

Colour is just unlimited fun and interest for me. I love that I can see colour better with one eye than the other (you can too, probably). I love the logic of a colour wheel and how beauty can be very structured and logical - two colours that are matchy-matchy with a little surprise of something else makes me happy. When I'm in a bad mood, I wear bright colours. When I'm designing at work, I wear happy, bright and fun colours. Colour affects mood. It reflects up on your face and makes you look happy, tired, energetic or washed out.

So I like it. And the project spectrum colours scared me - blue and gray? Civil war colours? Every colour carries both mood and connotation, and the connotations of these two for me - sky, ocean, military, machinery, modern box-shaped boring architecture, Tiffany's and the lot just didn't seem to have anything in common for me. I could literally not think of any more boring colour combination than blue and gray together. I don't care if it's stormy skies and sunshine - I just could not get into it.

What I didn't realize was that instead of going into shutdown mode, those clever little fellows who live in the back of my brain and occasionally send up ideas (which are, luckily, usually good ones) have been sending up little flares of ideas for about four weeks. I started to realize - my Calorimetry is a stormy ocean blue. The bunch of t-shirts I just got at Old Navy? Blues. My favourite Crane's paper stationery? Cream with a tiffany blue border. New jeans? Light blue. Crochet granny squares? Neutrals and throw in a bit of blue. Lucy socks? Blue and brown - a neutral. Grannies 2.0? Blue and brown. The Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed I just pulled out of the stash for some Endpaper Mitts? Blue and brown.

I realized I do like warm blues, and I especially like warm, bright blues combined with a neutral (brown) right now. I know brown isn't on the official list of PS colours, but I think because I see so much of it - jeans, sky, cars - that blue became quite boring to me. I've never been bored with snowy, icy, iron-y, bleached-wood greys. Gray to me is one of those comically underappreciated colours because so many BAD grays are used. But if you really look at steel, at the slight blue undertone that makes it seem cool and strong at once?

Nature doesn't use a lot of gray. I often say it's amazing that God created so much beauty that is disposable. Leaves and flowers fall off trees and get trampled, grass dies, a sunset is only good for an hour or two. Every creature and created thing comes to an end, but that didn't stop Him from making things almost recklessly beautiful. How many days could I work, with unlimited time and budget, and never come up with something to equal the beauty of what God does every night at sunset? I know there is a scientific explanation for it, and I don't care - many people think music is the highest human form of worship. For a non-musical, visual person like me, a sunset carries much more worship potential for reflecting on the beauty and perfection of God. One of my favorite bible verses is Jeremiah 32:17 - Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

So, gray. Not a lot there. I love gray but it hasn't been speaking to me lately. It's one of the colors of twilight, of death, of winter. It can be comforting, cool, and safe as well. Add yellow to a gray and you warm it up. Add a little red on top of that and you get brown. So I went with brown as a foil for my blues. I'm happy with that. I'll try to collect some photos of what I am talking about colorwise.

Take today to reflect on how much beauty surrounds you. If it doesn't, take the time to make something beautiful with your hands or needles. Stop and really look at the yarn you're knitting with, and marvel that it came from a sheep, or a cotton plant, or a piece of bamboo. Try to notice some details you haven't before, and get a little lost in the process of just looking.

You might be inspired! Thanks for listening to me.

Destash

These are a lot of little odds and ends I'd like to pass on to new owners. If you like, email me at meangirl at comcast dot net and I'll hook you up! I HAVE TWO CATS. These yarns aren't covered in cat hair or anything, but the animals do live here. Click to see them bigger. All yarns are sold on a first come, first served basis. $3 US shipping for each order and I'll combine shipping if you buy more than one. (If you're international, I'll have to figure out what the shipping actually is.)

1. 2 skeins Schachenmayr Crazy Cotton, 50g/125m/132yd each, 100% mercerized and gassed cotton, pink, red, orange, gold and plum colour 86, dyelot 51055, $10 for both. Sold!



2. 2 skeins Cascade Pastaza, 100g/132 yards each, 50% llama/50% wool, grey colour 006, lot no. 0634, $14.50 for both. Wound into balls but not knitted. Sold!



3. Hand-dyed sock yarn. Henry's Attic Kona Superwash base, gauge 7-8spi, dyed by me. About 350-400 yards. $15.00. Sold!



4. Hand-dyed worsted yarn. Paton's Classic Merino wool base, gauge 4-5spi, dyed by me with wilton's dyes. 220 yards. $6.00. Sold!



5. 1 skein Schoeller + Stahl Fortissima 100 Socka, 100g/420m, 75% superwash wool/25% polyamid, green tweed colour 2090, lot 251140, $9.00. Sold!



6. 2 skeins Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4-ply, 50g/200yd, 100% merino wool sock yarn, cappucino colour 0693, lot 7B2, acquired from another stash sale, $8 for both. Sold!



7. 1 skein Lang JaWool superwash, 45g/190m, 75% new wool/18% nylon/7% acrylic, bright blue colour 83, lot 39938, knitted a teeny bit and frogged, comes with reinforcing thread, $3.00. Sold!



The following yarns come together in bags, but if you want them individually let me know.
1. Green/blue DK wool bag - 2 skeins Classic Elite Beatrice 100% merino wool tweed, colour 3272, lot 588, 63yd/50g each; partial skein of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in gunmetal; partial skeins of Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton (green and blue solids); partial skein of Debbie Bliss Merino DK (I THINK) in light tan. Beatrice is knitted, frogged and rewound - full skeins. 40g each leftover of each Wool Cotton. 35g left of Merino DK. 25g of Cashmerino Aran. $50 of yarn originally - $27 for the lot of it.



2. Knitpicks Palette / Misti Alpaca DK bag: 2 full skeins Misti Alpaca Sport (?), no labels, one bright orange, one olive, wound into balls, 50g each. 3 skeins KnitPicks Palette, 50g each, Bark, Nutmeg, Twig. These were wound double into cakes to be used with the Misti Alpaca in a fair isle project. 50 Palette in Blue, not double-wound. Seems like I used about 5g of the alpaca for a hat, then frogged and rewound. Haven't used the Palette at all; I cut it, but it can be put back together. The lot - $15.



3. Crazy anonymous bag - most of this acquired in a contest win elsewhere. 1 ball of what looks to be Manos or Malabrigo but feels more thick and thin. Colour - blood reds, worsted weight single-ply, 100g. Partial ball of brown worsted wool, feels like cushy merino, 50 g. One full ball black DB Baby Cashmerino, 50g. One ball totally unidentified black yarn, 50g 4-ply sport weight (I think). $20 for the lot. The red has been knitted and frogged.



If you've made it all the way down here, you deserve a treat. Look what Angela did with my arch-shaped socks pattern! Much prettier, don't you think! Maybe we can get someone to translate this for us into English!

Today I'm really behind

Note - the pads of my hands just under my fingers look funny because they are scars. From blisters and calluses. From rowing. I gave up a little bit of myself for it back in the day and have deep grooves worn into the palms of my hands. Ask me sometime to show you - it'll freak you out a little though. Heck, it freaks ME out a little.

Ennyway. I think I am finished with my mad crochet bit for a while. I believe I have 16 20 granny squares for my mini-cat blanket. Both my kitties can't resist sitting on the squares whenever I lay them out so I think this is a good bet. I guess I'll crab stitch them together as soon as I pick a base colour.

I worked on my pillow cover last night while I watched The Triplets of Belleville. (Tour de France movie, huzzah!) I love that it's a cartoon. I love that there is no dialog. I love the giant noses, they are funny.

I know everybody is all about March Madness and all, but how many weeks to July, again?

Don't try this at home

"Hi Mom, this is Jen."
"Hi Jenny."
"Mom, I just stabbed myself in the hand with a metal knitting needle and I'm wondering if I need to get a tetanus shot."
"..."
"Seriously. It's about 1/8" deep."
"...Have you been doing anything particularly dirty with those needles?"
"Uh...no...but hands are dirty you know. I don't exactly wash my needles."
"Keep it clean, keep it dry and bandaged and wash it every day with soap."
"The needle?"
"..."

In case you are wondering, a puncture wound from a 2.5mm Inox Express hurts like heck.



In the grand spirit of using up scraps, I give you my crazy granny square collection:



(Except that I've already bought three skeins of Patons SWS for this and used up almost two. Ughh.)

I am holding out hope that somehow I can unify it or work on the order enough that it will look like I planned this. Or, I may just scrap everything and go to solids and pick a repeating pattern for the colors. (I am kind of a weird savant about patterns and patterning. I can figure out square roots from number sequences and other crazy stuff.) There are patterns in here, but I am not sure they are obvious to anyone else. The fact that the SWS is self-striping just makes it all kinds of crazy interesting.

What do y'all think? Cat blanket?

Grannies

I'm rushed and running in circles this morning, way behind at work, and won't get home tonight until about 8. I didn't get home last night till 11-ish, because I was out shopping for a shoot and for myself and I ended up buying an air cleaner.

Everybody lately has been saying they really help with allergies and asthma, except don't get the ionic ones because they put out ozone, which is a lung irritant. And I read one article that even said it can cause long-term damage.

So I took back the ionic one I bought at first and got me another one, a HEPA kind with a permanent filter you just vacuum. Returns at Wal-Mart are always dicey, but they were real nice. And the filter? So far, I really like.

The cats, not so much. Fee is scared of it if I put it on medium, but seems ok with it on low. Also I bought them an ionic pet brush. They love it and are super shiny and soft after I use it on them. I need to buy a human version of it, because it will clean the pollen out of my hair at night and let me get a good nights' sleep. But if I have to use the cat brush on my hair for a while till I find one...well, don't tell anyone. :)

I had a nice time last night with some Rowan Cashsoft DK, an H hook, and some instructions, inspired by this. Beautiful work, don't you think? I'm having a lot better time with granny squares now than I was.

Whatnot

I started a pillow cover last night. This is the moss stitch pillow cover from Winter 2007 Knit Simple. I have a big stash of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky I've been hoarding for quite some time. I think this orange came from Threaded Bliss. I also have some brown that is going to be the back side. (I think.) The pattern has a flap and buttons but I am thinking of just sewing in a zipper instead.





I don't know about y'all but I am dying to know about Stephanie's home renovations.

Also here's Fee, very blurry today:

I've settled on a pattern

I had both cuffs done, but this morning I watched Kung-Fu Hustle and knitted this:



(That's one pattern repeat. I'm very happy so far.)

(Oh, and that's the quilt I bought for my couch.)

Catching up on photos

1. Tape measure:


2. Lucy:


3. That Hype Bag:


4. Green-Eyed Monster:


5. Monkey socks in daylight:

I think

This pattern should be called Babushka. I'm on the bandwagon! Grady models.



Grady would like to say he is just glad I didn't make him wear a bib.

As requested

Download a pdf by clicking this link.

An easy, totally reversible cabled scarf that will eat up a lot of yarn, lie flat and look fabulous on you!



Based on Vogue Stitchionary Vol 2 (cables). I used the Reversible Rib Cable, and made it smaller.

Manitou Passage Scarf

3 skeins Cascade 220 wool or any yarn that knits to 4 stitches per inch; cable needle; #7 needles or the size that gives you 4 spi in stocking stitch. Warning: this pattern is a *serious* yarn-eater. Plan accordingly!

Makes a scarf 6" wide and as long as you like. (I did 14 repeats of the pattern for a 72" long scarf. The cables are fat and thick and need more length to balance them out. Bundley-uppey!)

C16F: Put next 8 stitches on cable needle and hold to front of work; (k1, p1) 4x, then (k1, p1) 4x from cable needle. (Personally I had great difficulty trying to do ribbed cables with no cable needle, and don't recommend it.)


Cast on 54 stitches using long-tail cast on.

Rows 1-7: k3, *k1, p1, rep to last 3 sts, k3.

Row 8 (Cable row 1): k3, (k1, p1) 8 times, C16F, (k1, p1) 8 times, k3.

Rows 9-15: k3, *k1, p1, rep to last 3 sts, k3.

Row 16: (Cable row 2): k3, C16F, (k1, p1) 8 times, C16F, k3.

Repeat these 16 rows for pattern, alternating Cable rows 1 and 2 so that each cable is vertically 16 stitches high, but alternate cables happen every 8 rows. The rest of the rows are worked in 1x1 ribbing, with three edge stitches on each side worked in garter stitch (knit every row).

The cables will gape a little more than you are used to - you can basically put a finger in behind them. Don't worry about it! For a while I fiddled with the stitches to get everything to even out, but it really truly doesn't improve the look of the scarf. They won't show.

When the scarf is as long as you like end your cabling by knitting one last Cable Row 1, knit 8 more rows in the ribbing pattern and cast off loosely, but not too loosely because you don't want your end to flare too much. Either side is fine; the scarf is totally reversible.