Those who can't do, ...

...Teach! Yes, Knitters Attic definitely wants me to teach that sock class I mentioned a bit ago. I'm very excited. I went over there yesterday to hammer out a few more details - like course outline, what materials would be included, times, etc. Mercedes and I were on the same page with a lot of stuff and it even looks like I'll be doing more classes for the shop after this one. Hooray! I think the class will start sometime around July. I've already started up some sample socks so I can demonstrate the different methods of sock knitting (DPNs, 2 circs, magic loop) in class:

Wild socks for DD1

On one of my first visits to Knitter's Attic, I noticed some very funky sock yarn that I thought might make some nifty socks for DD1 - "Super Socks Colour". When we did a whole-family trip over to the store one evening, I pointed it out to her and she said that yes, she'd like socks from it. So I bought a ball. This is going to be my demonstration piece for how to knit socks on two circular needles.



Admittedly, I've mostly been working this so far with the magic loop technique, but it's easy to switch over to 2 circs to show people that technique. Incidentally, I cannot BELIEVE how much easier it is to start this toe-up sock pattern with one or two circulars versus a set of DPNs. I will be starting all socks in this pattern with a circ or two from now on and then switching to DPNs to save myself the grief of wrestling the damn porcupine.

Sleep socks for moi

I also needed a pair of socks on which to demonstrate the magic loop technique. So I grabbed some of 75/25 acrylic/wool that I recently came into possession of (more on that in a bit), put together a really long 3.75mm circular needle out of my Denise Interchangables kit, and started it up. If I ever finish the socks, they'll be for me.

Self-patterning socks #3 for DH

I'm not going to be using this project to demonstrate sock technique to the class because by the time the class starts, these socks had better darn well be finished since I need to give them to DH this Saturday for his birthday! But I'm trying to get him to think that I'm hustling on them for the sock class in order to throw him off the scent. :) They're coming along nicely. As of this morning, they looked like this:



Now, however, the heel is done and I'm moving up the leg.

Obviously, with all this going on I need to get my energy back, and that fortunately does seem to be happening. The last four nights have given me the rather strong hint that swaddling Elizabeth results in solid blocks of sleep of 7 hours or more. (Three of those nights I swaddled, and we had sleep marathons. One of those nights I took a break from the swaddling, and she woke up about three times. I consider this pretty solid proof that I should stick with the swaddling.) I am therefore feeling much more rested and the upbeat, capable-of-coping-with-stuff me is coming back.

In other cool news, one of my best friends has given me her late grandmother's stash of knitting materials (and supplies for some other crafts). There were a ton of needles (I firmly believe you can never have too many 4mms), which is awesome, some patterns, and my favourite - a UK needle gauge (so now I have two - one for home and one for the road, yay)! Almost all the yarn is 100% acrylic - some in colours I would use, some not. There's also some 75/25 acrylic/wool which I'll be keeping because it's nice. The rest I'll give away to good causes. I haven't quite decided what yet, because I have lots of options.

• I could knit stuff out of it myself for charity.
• I could give the yarn to charity knitting/crocheting organizations.
• I could give away the yarn to people I teach how to knit - DH and I went to a kindergarten orientation session last week, where it was made quite clear that they're desperate for parents to help, and I've been thinking about the possibility of volunteering to teach the kids how to knit (late in the school year when they're older). I'm sure I could put some of the extra needles from my friend's grandmother to that use, as well.

So who knows! But if you have ideas of worthy causes that could use the yarn/needles, do tell me about them in the comments.

So...onto the rest of the knitting I've been working on lately...

Muppet roadkill

Body is finished! (And boy, is it ever super-obvious where the fourth ball starts. Even taking colour differences into account, the damn thing doesn't variegate even remotely like the other three balls. Ironically, I like the way the fourth ball variegates better.) Edging has begun:

Girlfriend Shrug for DD1

When last we left this project, I was failing miserably to find more of the same yarn to have enough to finish the shrug. So lately, I've been thinking about going back to the original plan of finding some whit wool/cotton sock yarn to do the edging and some cables down the back with.

So when I went to the LYS this week, what new stock did I see? Lana Grossa wool/cotton sock yarn in solid colours, including white. HELL-o! Needless to say, I snapped it up. Now I can keep going with the shrug. I'll use the leftover white to make socks for my mom or something.

Aw, crap

Unfortunately, all is not sweetness and light over here at Insanity headquarters. Alas, DD2's internal clock is such that she almost never falls asleep for the night until after midnight (sometimes - as in the case of last night - waaaaay after midnight). Moreover, she is not as talented at nursing lying down as her older sister was, which means I have to wake up fully for each middle-of-the-night feed to make sure she gets latched on properly. (With DD1 I barely had to wake up - I just rolled over half-asleep, and the kid latched on practically all by herself.) Therefore, both DH and I are pretty wiped. This is not helping me get over the cold that made its way through my family a few weeks ago - in fact, it has returned, bringing very painful sinus pressure. Nor is the lack of sleep improving my postpartum emotional state. Nor is my postpartum emotional state helping me to deal effectively with a preschooler experiencing (entirely understandable) emotional issues related to the arrival of a new sibling. (Yesterday she thought it would be a 'fun game' to pretend that she was also a baby - this consisted of her pretending to cry at high volume while DD2 was also fussing. I am proud to say that I didn't lose it on her, but it certainly took a toll on my sanity.) So the fun times have kinda slowed around here.

(It's not as dire as it sounds - DH and I have a plan. It involves him putting everything but his job on hold to take over the house while I catch up on my sleep. Things are improving - partly thanks to my parents, who took DD1 for the day today - although I haven't achieved full recovery yet.)

Bayerische socks for moi

I got enough work done on the leg that I figured I could try the sock on and get a pretty accurate idea of how snugly they would fit. Turns out they are barely big enough for me, so I'm not even going to bother seeing how they'd fit on DH. While this does mean that I get to keep the cool socks for my very own self, it does mean that I have to stress about finishing off another pair of socks in time for DH's birthday in two and a half weeks. Ack.

Muppet roadkill

In triumph, I finished off the third ball of yarn last night and started in on the fourth. It was immediately obvious that I was totally screwed.

If you'll recall, I originally bought a single ball of this yarn (thinking I could do a hat and mitts for DD1 with it, or something similar), brought it home, and was told by DD1 that she wanted a blanket made out of it. We then went back to the store and bought three more balls.

Well...this fourth ball I'm now working with is obviously the one I bought on the first shopping expedition, because it is markedly different from the other three. I checked the ball bands, and sure enough...totally different dye lots. You'd think that dye lot would be completely irrelevant for a wildly variegated yarn like this (that was certainly my theory, which is why I didn't even bother to check dye lot when making the second purchase), but nope! Many of the colours that were only briefly transitional in the other balls are now major components of the colourway in this fourth ball, and vice versa. For example, in the three previous balls, indigo would show up for one stitch in between a run of pink and green. But now in this ball, the indigo goes on forever and there's hardly ever any pink. The overall effect is way more pastel-ly and the difference between the end of ball three and the start of ball four is blatantly obvious. To me, anyway. What do you think?


(Apologies for the blurriness of the photo - I was trying to hold a baby and keep the camera steady at the same time. Tough gig.)

I think it's going to stand out like a sore thumb, even though I have only two and a half more pattern repeats to go before starting the edging. (The edging I could live with looking somewhat different. A thin strip of the body at the top, not so much.)

Sigh.

Alright, that's it for the whining from me. My vent is over, please go on about your business as if you never read it. :) Henceforth I will be focusing on the big picture: the sleeplessness will not last forever; DD1 will probably not be scarred for life by her mom's temporary deviation from Fun, Supportive, Understanding, Patient, and Appropriately Disciplinary; the knitting will all work out in the end; and life is, overall, good. Plus, it's a gorgeous day outside.

Of yarn stores and SnBs

Firstly, the information that Bliss asked for: the pattern 411 for the snuggly romper I recently finished for DD2. This is a pattern called "Top to Toe". It comes from a booklet by Leisure Arts called "Beautiful Baby", and there's actually a copy on sale at eBay right now.

Okay...and now onto the topic at hand...

I'm unfortunately not sure when I'll be able to get out to the next Lettuce Knit SnB, since DH's new job (yay!) looks like it'll require him to work weeknights (boo!). This means that if I want to go, either I'll have to find babysitting for DD1, or bring her with me (not a great option). So anytime I go, it'll involve some planning. The upside of this is that I probably will be able to give Aven a heads-up in advance. :) On the downside, Emer, although I would loooove to meet up with you there, you probably don't want to wait on me and my schedule. I really think you should just up and go. New people come in on a fairly regular basis, so your arrival won't shock anyone. :) True, some of the new faces show up just to stalk the Harlot (heck, that was one of my motivations for starting to go), but they tend to either never be seen again after the first visit, or realise that the rest of the SnB is such a great group of people and keep coming back. If you show up at the shop, introduce yourself, pull up a chair, pull out your knitting, and contribute to the conversations, it will all go swimmingly. I hope you decide to go, I think you would really like the crowd there and I would sure like to meet you there, too. I'll keep trying to post in advance when I'm planning to go.

DH was off work Friday during the day because he was on during the evening, so after lunch I went back to Knitters Attic. I used the pedestrian walkway that DH had found for me, and the walk took...are you ready for this?...TEN MINUTES. Ten freakin' minutes! (Well...not including the stretch of time when I took a wrong turn and went in the opposite direction for twenty minutes.)

I went partly to time the walk, and partly because I was on the hunt for some baby crochet patterns for my mom, who for some reason insists on making large blankets for all new babies of friends and family. She's been complaining recently because the blankets take so long and there are a lot of families she knows who are expecting right now. She's therefore feeling a little overwhelmed. I thought it might be nice if she could make baby things that are a bit smaller and quicker to make than blankets (thus giving her less crochet deadline stress), so I picked up some pattern booklets for her for Mother's Day. Plus one knitting pattern booklet for myself. (I am weak.)

I also got to chatting with the woman (Mercedes) working at the store at the time (same one who showed up on Sunday after a stint of yarn-buying for the owner [June]), and hey, guess what? They need someone who can teach people how to knit socks! They've been wanting to hold a 'sock course' at the shop, but the person they found to do it isn't free during the weekdays, and that's when their customers have expressed interest in going. Since it looks like DH will be working a lot of weeknights at his new job, that leaves his days free, and he can probably take care of DD1 one afternoon a week so I can pop out and teach sock knitting (with DD2 in tow). So Mercedes said she'd talk to June about this possibility, and I'm going to think about how on earth I would teach a sock course. The money I earn from this could go a long ways towards mitigating the "financial catastrophe" that Carrie K has sagely predicted will result from having a yarn store so close to my house. Happy dance!

Then on Saturday, DH snuck out of the house on a mysterious "errand", which I figured was a pathetic last-minute shopping run for my Mother's Day card. But no! He actually went to Knitters Attic to get me my very own ball of Austermann "Step" yarn for Mother's Day!!! Check it out:

The colourway is not what I would have chosen for myself, but who cares, it's for socks. Socks for me! Foot-pampering socks for me!

And little did I know it, but another amazing Mother's Day gift was in the cards for me. For reasons unbeknownst to anyone but herself, my mom felt it was necessary to upgrade from her Olympus C-50 Zoom digital camera (5.0 megapixels) to something ridiculously jazzy and feature-rich (and expensive) right before DD2 was born. She was going to give the C-50 to my brother as a hand-me-down, but for some reason he didn't want it, so guess who got it instead!!!

(Picture me doing a serious happy dance right here.)

No more crappy photo quality from the digital camcorder!

Which of course brings us to...

Some kind of blanket

Here's a shot of the swatch I made (please ignore the crappy grafting job:


I'm going to do another swatch, this time knitting it clockwise so that the decreases on the "spines" will be K2togs. (My left-leaning decreases always come out disgustingly uneven, I have no idea why. It doesn't matter if I do K2togtbls, SSKs or Sl1/K/PSSOs, it always looks bad.)

Muppet roadkill

Zooming along very nicely on this - I'm now on the 17th repeat of the pattern. Less than 4 more to go! Of course, just as I was mentally congratulating myself on how fast I was getting this done, DD1 asked, "When are you going to be finished my blanket, Mummy? I want it now!"

Market bags

I was watching Oprah in the week leading up to Earth Day, and she had an Earth Day show which profiled a whole bunch of products and tips. One of these was to stop using the clear plastic bags for fruits and vegetables at the supermarket, in favour of a lightweight mesh bag. I liked this idea, so I'm going to try and find the time to make some. I've got a couple of contenders for patterns: the Eco-Friendly Expandable Shopping Bag from Lion Brand; Yarn Demon's Net Shopping Bag [scroll down]; and the Saturday Market Bag from MagKnits. No idea yet which one will be the winner. Stay tuned.

Store review

(Comments responses coming next entry, I swear.)

Sunday afternoons are SnB times at the new LYS, according to their website, so I exercised a great deal of willpower and actually held out on visiting them until then. (DH could hardly believe it.)

It was heck deciding what project to bring with me, though. Me being me, I wanted to make an impactful first impression by knitting on something desperately complex (or at least something that looked desperately complex). Unfortunately, all the WIPs I have that fit that bill have no more knitting work to be done on them. For example - the Elizabethan Jacket? Has to be blocked and sewn together before I can knit the collar. The Peacock Feathers Shawl? Needs to be blocked and have the ends sewn in. I did consider the Larry's Cabled Cashmere Sweater, but there was a good chance DH would have seen it (it's his Christmas present, so that would be bad) and it's not complicated anyway, just a bunch of ribbing. Everything else was either too simple or not high-priority enough to want to work on. So...what to bring?

Bayerische socks

In a desperate attempt to have an impressive project to work on in front of other knitters, I started these. They are extremely fiddly and slow going, but very, very handsome.



I'm still not sure whom they're going to be for, though. DH's birthday is coming up soon (panic!), but I'm not sure they'll fit him. I'll have to wait until I get a bit more done, so I can try them on and see how they fit my calves. If they fit nicely, DH is SOL and I'll have to do panic knitting for him on another pair. If they're loose, I will have to accept that the socks were not meant for me.

As it turns out, the socks were even more impressive than I thought they'd be, because I ended up being the only person at the SnB who'd ever done socks.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

The store is an extremely short drive from my house. The shop itself is nice, clean, bright, and run by a very nice lady. Unfortunately, its location (in my humble opinion) is not great - it's located in one of those mazes of commercial real estate where you would expect to find, say, discount computer shops; or the physical location of a high-volume eBay shop that sells refurbished office equipment; you know the kind of thing I mean? It seems to be a very poor location for a yarn shop, especially since the LYS is deep within the maze, at the very back. To make matters worse, the maze itself is off of a commercial/industrial side street. The shop will attract the square root of ZERO walk-in custom from people just passing by, which is a handicap. I suspect the owner got space there because the cost is cheap. Also, I have to admit that my neighbourhood does not have really good commercial space available anyway, so I'm sure the owner's options were pretty limited.

However, location aside, I like it. It's small, but yarn stores often are. Admittedly, I was initially disappointed because a lot of the stock is acrylic. However, DH pointed out to me that we do not live in hip, young, organic downtown Toronto; we are in convenience-oriented, older-clientele suburbia, and there is probably a very large demand for good acrylic yarn around here, especially since Lewiscraft went belly-up. So the owner is really filling a niche with the acrylic stuff. Fortunately, there is also a good selection of natural fibre yarn - cotton, alpaca, merino, silk, etc. (for example, there's a fair bit of Noro). They also have a very decent selection of sock yarn, including Fortissima Colori, Patons Kroy, and Austermann "Step", to name just a few. JOY! I was also lucky enough to be there when one of the employees came back from a yarn-buying expedition with some really, really nice stuff. It seems like the owner already has a pretty good idea of what kind of stock she wants to carry, although she seems to be fine-tuning it.

The SnB itself was sparsely attended, but I got the distinct impression that more people usually show up. The owner said she thought all her usual attendees were at home puttering in their gardens. (This was unsurprising - it was indeed one of our first perfect gardening weather days.) I asked the owner how business was going, and she said that it was slowly growing, which was GREAT to hear. It sounds like she started out with a decent customer base already, thanks to bazaar sales at a local church, so she's not just building from nothing. I really, really hope this store does well.

As already mentioned, I was the only person there who had ever done socks, so I spent a few minutes trying to explain the addictiveness of sock knitting. :) The other woman there was working on her first project (with a novelty ladder yarn, if you can believe it - and she was doing really well with it, too), and I was able to help her with some of the instructions. All in all, it was a totally lovely afternoon and I was encouraged to come back. Insinuations were also made about the possibility of me teaching a beginner's class, which is SO DAMN COOL. So! Excellent first contact. I absolutely intend to go back this Sunday.

The only real problem was the environment guilt I felt taking the car to go somewhere so close. But although the shop is very, very near my house as the crow flies, it's quite a ways as the car drives. I originally estimated that it would probably take me at least half an hour to walk there, which is too much with the baby and the diaper bag AND a project bag, even in nice weather. HOWEVER! A few days after this enjoyable LYS expedition, DH discovered the existence of a pedestrian pathway that would allow me to get there much more directly. SCORE! I'm hoping to get out and time that walk one evening this week.

Overalls for baby Potwin

Well, of COURSE I bought something at the new yarn store! What do you take me for? Last month (or thereabouts), we heard the news that one of DH's cousins is expecting their second baby, which is fantastic news. So I figured that I'd do the baby overalls project for them (the one that's been languishing untouched in The Schedule since January). I wanted to make it out of cotton, and I found a super-nice blend at Knitters Attic: Kool Kotton from James C Brett. It's a 50/50 cotton/acrylic blend, DK weight. There was a sample sweater made out of it on display at the shop and oooh, did it ever feel nice. So I snapped up two balls, in white. It must have been on sale, too, because my total was less than I'd calculated from the tag price, even before taxes.

Next up: design the overalls.

Muppet roadkill

It's getting there. I've got about seven more pattern repeats to go:

Some kind of blanket

This is mostly just a sparkle in my eye at this point. For a few days, I've been mulling over an idea for a new method of blanket construction. This morning I woke up determined to test-drive the idea. I haven't taken a picture yet, but the test piece worked out really nicely and I'm very excited about it (visuals coming soon). Knitting being as old and popular as it is, I'm sure that I'm not the first person to have invented this, but I'm still pretty high on myself at the moment for having thought it up my very own self. :) The inspiration came from a pattern I have by Elsebeth Lavold, where she uses short rows to go around corners for an edging, and uses cables to hide the lines of short row shaping. With what I've done, the edging IS the entire blanket, and I use lace to hide the lines of short row shaping (if that makes any sense). I'm pretty excited by the possibilities and will probably be experimenting a bit with this.

OMGOMGOMG

Just for fun, I decided to hunt for "knitting" shops close to my home on the Yellow Pages website today. To my extreme surprise, the search engine returned something less than a kilometre from my house. Knitters Attic has apparently just opened up - their opening sale started March 31. Yes. I can freakin' WALK to a LYS now. I am beyond stoked. They even have what sounds like an SnB (described as a "Knitting Club") on Sunday afternoons. Dudes, I am so there. It took all my willpower to keep from packing up the baby, abandoning the rest of my family and heading right out to the shop the second I realised all this.

Damn, I wish I had more money to spend on yarn.

Y'think they might want part-time help? ;)

(But of course I will still be going out to SnBs at Lettuce Knit. The awesome people there are so totally worth driving downtown for.)

Snuggly romper for Elizabeth

Buttons were procured. Romper is complete!


Front


Back

Mendocino jacket for DD1

Obviously I've been on a button-gathering expedition since my last blog entry, because I bought buttons for this project, too. They have been sewn on, and now all that remains is to block it. As much as I'd like to avoid this final step, it is definitely necessary, not only to flatten some of the seams and stop the bottom edges from curling up, but also because when DD1 tried it on, she complained that it felt itchy at the sleeve cuffs where the yarn touched her skin. (Well, actually she described it as "freckly", but I know she really meant "prickly".) So some Eucalan will be required to soften up the fibres a bit.

Feather/fan blanket for DD1

Work continues - I've finished the first ball of yarn and am working my way through the second. It's still hideous. An acquaintance of mine actually suggested than it looked more like "Muppets in a blender" than Muppet vomit, and as sick as that imagery is, I unfortunately have to agree with her. DD1 continues to think the blanket is cool as all get-out.