Brain vacation

Here's what I've been working on lately:

• Working with a magazine editor to proof and revise one of my patterns. Said pattern involves proofing charts.
• Getting another pattern ready for self-publication, so more detail-oriented final proofing. It also includes charts.
• Working on a new design, which is fiddly, multi-coloured, and requires the creation and testing of - you guessed it - lots of charts.

Don't get me wrong, I love and am really excited about each of these patterns...but I think the combination of working on all three in the same week may have blown a gasket in my brain. Because, early this past weekend, I decided that if I didn't start knitting on something simple and brainless, with NO CHARTS WHATSOEVER, I might explode. :) Enter Pat, a knitter who messaged me on Ravelry last week, asking about my purple and black log cabin blanket WIP. (She wanted to know how I achieved its look.) Do you remember it? It's this one:

Pat's inquiry came in a few days before the moment where I realised I really needed some mindless knitting, which was very lucky, because it reminded me that I had something fantastically mindless all waiting to be picked up again. Perfect! So many thanks to her. I've been working on it intermittently all weekend. I don't have a new progress photo for you, because this thing is now so large that it takes a ton of work before you can actually see any progress. But it is certainly coming along. My plan is basically to knit until either I run out of yarn, or the thing is about 9 feet square. Whichever comes first.

I took it to my parents' last night to work on during our usual after-dinner chat, and my brother wanted to know if he could have it when I'm done, because he needs a blanket for his living room. (For when he falls asleep on the couch, I guess.) I told him no, this blanket is for us, to stash in the trunk of the car for emergencies, and it wouldn't match his living room decor, anyway. (He recently bought his first place and decorated it, and it turns out that he has amazing taste and a real knack for putting a look together. I wasn't too surprised at this, since he's always been that way about his clothing, but that doesn't stop me from gushing about how awesome everything looks whenever I visit him. My house has no look, it's pathetic.) However, it occurred to me that if I made him a log cabin in the "Moderne" style, like this one (and in very similar colours, too), it would match his living room decor absolutely PERFECTLY. He got really enthused. I told him it would take forever. He didn't care. Okay then! I think I may have Christmas 2011 solved for him!

Unfortunately, today, I am back to working on the fiddly new design, for the pure and simple reason that the log cabin blanket doesn't fit into my bag. :( Oh, well. Sorry brain, back to work for you. It is Monday, after all.

Blanket statement

I've been working on blankets a fair bit lately. First, I was in a bit of a lull, knitting-wise, so I went back to the old faithful Log Cabin blanket. This is very much an ongoing kind of project - the plan is basically to keep going until I run out of yarn. Of course, it's increasingly difficult to find the motivation to keep going, since the bigger it gets, the longer it takes to make any discernable progress. But I think I've at least gotten far enough along to merit another picture:

The other blanket I've been working on is of my own design. I made it up when my niece was on the way, made one for her, and then gave the pattern to her mother, who is a knitter. But this was before I really understood what I was doing when writing patterns, and I need to redo a fair bit of stuff to get it to the point where I can justify asking people to pay for it. For example, there are a number of small-but-important changes to make to the chart, and I need to be a little more accurate with the yarn requirements than "approximately 500g of sportweight acrylic". All of this requires an actual test knit (or two) of the pattern, so that is what I've been doing. I'm using a ridiculously vibrant colour which I like quite a bit:

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out of yarn before I finish the border that I'm working on now. This sucks, because there's not much blanket left to knit, and the balls of this yarn are 350g. So, assuming I can even find a second ball of the stuff when I go back to the store (which is a lot to assume), I'm going to end up with a huge amount of the second ball left over. Rats. But oh well, at least I'll have a really nice baby blanket to gift to someone. I actually have an expectant mum in mind, but I'll say nothing more here in case she reads this. :)

I'm back

Not that I actually went anywhere, but man, that was a pretty long blog post drought, eh? No particular reason for it that I can give - no major stresses, lots of knitting was getting done - I just wasn't posting. As always, my apologies for the delay. But on the plus side, I now have a lot to talk about!

First up, yarn acquisitions. I haven't actually bought any yarn lately, but my birthday is coming up soon, so my fantastic MIL gave me my present this past weekend when we were there for Thanksgiving. We have...

A skein of Alpaca Sox from Classic Elite. I have been instructed that its destiny is to become socks for my elder daughter. This yarn was very specifically picked out for that purpose by the intended sock recipient when she was at my MIL's two weekends ago for a sleepover. They went to the LYS there, and my MIL told DD1 to pick out sock yarn that she liked. The child made an immediate beeline for this. More about how it's knitting up further on in this post.

A nice booklet of Sirdar patterns revolving around their "Escape" yarn.

Ten balls of Sirdar Escape yarn. My MIL was very specific that the yarn has to be used to make something for ME. That is the rule. :) She bought the book pictured above because she liked one of the patterns in it and wanted me to use this yarn for it, but unfortunately she can't remember anymore which pattern it was. So she said to just pick anything from the book that I like, or any other pattern I've been hankering after. I've been giving the matter rather a bit of thought, and I think I'm probably going to go with Elsebeth Lavold's "Fjalar" sweater.

Needless to say, there was much squee-ing when I unwrapped all of this.

For my birthday, I am treating myself to the entire week off work, starting this Monday. This means, since I will be seeing my children on Wednesday morning, that I am planning to hit the Lettuce Knit SnB that evening! I'm very excited and I hope to see lots of my friends there.

In other awesome news, I've been doing some targeted "group" advertising on Ravelry this month for my fundraising pattern, the KWB/TSF Hat, and it's definitely working! So far I'm netting over twelve times what I'm paying in advertising, which is a very good deal I must say. I'm thrilled. I can't wait to be able to gather up all the profits at the end of the year and send them out to MSF.

Alpaca socks for DD1

The presents were given to me at lunch. Immediately after lunch, I put DD2 down for a nap and DD1 went out with her dad and other assorted relatives to a nearby park to enjoy the glorious weather. I wasted no time at all, and balled up my new skein of sock yarn, much to the amusement of one of my BILs. By the time we packed up to go, I'd pretty much finished about two-thirds of sock #1. At this point I've got one sock done and am over halfway up the leg of the second sock. It's really, really lovely stuff to work with and is giving a really neat diagonal striping effect. Unfortunately, I can't show you any pictures because I'm (as usual) using my new sock pattern, which hasn't been published yet.

There are 100g in the skein, so it's probably enough to make two pairs of socks for DD1. However, she has selflessly announced that I can make the second pair in a smaller size for her younger sister. I tell ya, I don't deserve this child. She's so awesome.

Toddler socks for DD2

The sock jag continues...I decided to use up the extra yarn from this sock project by making some socks for my younger daughter. I got them all knitted up in very short order, but I still have to weave in the ends on sock #2. Again, I must disappoint in the photos department because I'm using my own pattern. I'm sorry - I do promise a deluge of sock shots once the thing is published!

Turquoise socks for DD1

It seemed to take forever, but I finally finished the super-long leg of sock #1. I am now trying to find the intestinal fortitude to cast on for sock #2.

Log Cabin blanket

More insignificant progress here and there.

Wee baby socks

I got back into these about a week ago, and finished them off. And oh, they are so darn cute. Small things always are, aren't they? I hate to tell you once again that you're going to have to wait for photos...but you're going to have to wait for photos.

Endpaper Mitts

A few weeks ago, the people who are in charge of such things in my office building decided that the increasingly cold weather was the PERFECT time to start blasting the air conditioning. Seriously. And did I mention that one of the vents is right above my chair? Yeah. It's been fun.

This of course motivated me to finish my Endpaper Mitts so I could prevent my fingers (which are rather vital to my job, what with the constant typing on the computer and all) from freezing. Unfortunately, the Knitting Fates decided that this was the right time to hit me with a big case of Knitting Stupidity. I started making every damn mistake possible. At first, it was actually going very well - I just kept going on the 1x1 rib that I'd already started with mitt #2, easy peasy. Then I switched to the main pattern, following Chart B, immediately increasing for the thumb. I was about halfway up the thumb increases when I realised that I was supposed to start with Chart A, and not start any kind of shaping for about four or five inches. FINE. I ripped back.

So I started in on Chart A. It was going okay - I was screwing up the pattern here and there and having to tink back more frequently than I would have preferred, but definite progress was being made nonetheless. I got to the correct starting point for Chart B and started increasing for the thumb again. And once again, it wasn't until I was about halfway up the thumb when I realised something was wrong. Like, really wrong. Like, hey-this-mitt-seems-really-small wrong. Like, I-have-no-freakin'-idea-how-I'll-get-it-onto-my-hand small. I checked the instructions...yeah. I was supposed to switch to a larger needle size after the ribbing.

There are no words.

I ripped back to the end of the ribbing and started again.

A few rows in, I realised I'd forgotten to switch needle sizes AGAIN.

At this point, I think the only thing stopping me from throwing in the towel (or, more accurately, throwing the glove into my fireplace and turning it on) was that it was still freezing in my office.

I finally managed to get the main pattern going PROPERLY. I still kept making a lot of pattern errors (including a few that required surgery about six rows beneath where I was, that sucked pretty hard), but at least I was now making a glove that would actually fit me.

Finally, FINALLY, I got it all done, and...



I really like them.

(Thanks to my husband for taking that shot. I tried really hard to take it myself, using various stick-like objects around the house in my mouth to press the 'take a photo' button, but without success.)

I especially really like that I did all of the colourwork parts holding both strands in my left hand. That is a new and tricky skill that I still need to work on to get fast at, but I think it does improve my colourwork speed, and I'm really glad I learned how to do it.

You'd never know Christmas was coming

...Because I've been doing almost zero Christmas knitting. Seriously. How stupid is this of me? I mean, I got a great head start earlier in the year, but now there are fewer than two months to go and there's still a pile of work to do. Here's my list:

Family, STOP READING NOW, DAMMIT.

• DH: maybe some socks. Status: Not even on the radar yet, but I think I know which yarn to use.
• DD2: also maybe some socks. Status: I at least know which yarn I want to use.
• MIL: Lliclla wrap. Status: Still have to block it.
• Mom: two pairs of socks. Status: pair #1 has one sock down but the second one barely started; pair #2 I've still got about a third of the way to go before I finish the first sock.
• Dad: Probably socks (geez, do you sense a theme?), maybe two pairs. Status: I need to buy the yarn.
• Brother: Ragna sweater. (Thank heavens; something which isn't socks.) Status: Haven't even finished one side of the damn thing yet; I'm probably totally screwed.

On the upside, though, I'm doing well with the baby gifts. However, I would like to warn everyone I know who's of procreating age that if anybody else announces any babies which are due before December, you're getting store-bought stuff from me, and that's final.

Log Cabin for baby Miller

Finito!



I really like it. I'm thrilled that I finally figured out how to do the spirals thing with the log cabin technique; I'm thrilled that I found more of the yarn in the basement just as I hoped I would; I'm thrilled that I managed to find a really good edging motif that struck exactly the right balance between the need for baby frills and the geometric square-ish nature of the blanket itself (#278 from Lesley Stanfield's "The New Knitting Stitch Library", in case you're curious); and I'm thrilled that it took me less than two weeks to do (let's hear it for bulky yarn and thick needles).

What I also found thrilling about this project - but not thrilling in a good way - was how little of the yarn I had left when I finished. Here is all that's remaining of the three different colours I used, with my hand included for scale:



Yeah. Cutting it damn fine, I was, particularly with the solid purple. I don't mind telling you that when I rounded the corner right before the final long edge (with another corner and a teeny bit of edge to go after that long edge was done) and looked at how much purple was left, I got really, really scared. You know that thing in knitting where you start getting really nervous about whether you've got enough to finish your project, and as you keep going, you vascillate wildly between "yes! I think there's enough!" and "no! I'm totally doomed!"? That was me all over for the final stretch, baby. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end.

I'm going to have to ask my mom whether I should send it off to my cousin myself, or - if it turns out that my parents are also sending along a gift, which I certainly expect is the case - whether I should give it to my mom so she can mail both gifts in a single package.

P.S. to Glyn, if you're reading this? Yes, it's for your sister - please keep it secret!

Turquoise socks for DD1

I'm still working here and there on the first sock. It's very tall...but still not tall enough. DD1 likes her socks extremely long, like up to her knees, so it's taking me a while. I'm doing the leg in 1x1 ribbing to boot, so you can imagine how scintillating I find it. (The plunking sound you just heard is the drip-drip-dripping of my sarcasm.)

Log Cabin

This also got a bit of time since my last blog entry - nothing spectactular, nothing to merit a new photo - but still, progress is progress.

Ragna

As I'm now starting to feel the first faint stirrings of panic about Christmas, I figured I should stop procrastinating on this one. Alas, I think I've so far managed to do only about one more row. Sad. Also, I can't find the book with the pattern.

No big deal, you might say, with almost two months to go? Like hell. The boy is not tiny and it's cables...all over the sweater.

I'm so screwed.

Idea for baby garment

Usually my design ideas come from wanting to do specific designish stuff. But this design idea comes from a very specific yarn (On Your Toes Bamboo), in two very specific colours (which I'm not going to reveal here just yet). From there, the motif (which you'll also have to wait for) just suggested itself to me, and now I'm trying to think of what kind of baby garment I should apply it to. Ideally, I'd like a blanket, but for that I'd need to buy a lot more of the yarn than I really have the budget for. Maybe a sleep sack. I'm not sure. Stay tuned, I'm hoping it will turn out to be excruciatingly precious.

Idea for something cabled

I got hit by an idea for a cable motif this week, charted it up and swatched it out in some acrylic sportweight. It's not looking too bad, I think I can make it work. I'm thinking about using it on a baby jacket.

And finally, two more neat things before I sign off for another week or so. Firstly, I wanted to give a nod to Carrie K, who left an awesomely quotable sentence in her comments for my last blog entry. Here it is: "Sometimes the Knitting Goddesses just want us to swatch fruitlessly."

Doncha love it?

The second thing has to do with the piece I wrote for the Cast On podcast, which I mentioned a few months ago. My revision was accepted, and tonight I sent my recording off to Brenda. If she deems it to be up to snuff, you'll hear my voice doing the piece. If not, you'll hear somebody else doing it. Either way, I'm not quite sure when it's going to air, but hopefully sometime soon. I'm pretty darn nervous about the whole thing and I hope you like it...assuming you listen to Cast On...which you totally should, because Brenda puts out a great show.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

Kathy, who goes to (and now works at!) my LYS has given me an "I Love Your Blog Award"!

Isn't that lovely of her? And she's a really good knitter, too, go check out her blog.

The rules for receiving this award are:

1. Post this award on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate at least 4 other bloggers, and add their links as well.
4. Leave a comment at the new recipients' blogs, so they can pass it on.

And so, I give you:

• Rick Mercer's blog
• A Little Pregnant
• Navelgazing Midwife (warning: photo in header is not work-safe)
• Crazy Aunt Purl

Yep, not a whole lotta knitting content in there, but they are certainly blogs that I love. I am, however, too shy to do #4 on the list. To distract you from my failure to follow the rules, I present...much knitting progress!

Anouk for baby Mendez

Done! And IloveitIloveitIloveit, it's really sweet. I especially like how all the pastel colours work together.

Double-faced bib

This is also finished and it looks amazing, if I do say so myself. Alas, that's all I can tell you. I'm hoping to publish the pattern, so you won't get a picture; and the mother-to-be reads this blog, so you won't get details on who she is or what the bib looks like or much of anything else, either. Sorry. I know, I know, the secrecy thing blows.

Stretchy socks for Mom

I finally got the cast-on done properly and got going. I'm almost finished sock #1, but the foot seems way too small. I'm not sure how this happened, because the toe looks like it turned out as long as it was supposed to be, and, accordingly, I started the toe when the foot was as long as it was supposed to be, given how long the toe was supposed to be, and yet somehow the two lengths didn't work out to a nine-inch foot. I've lost count of how many times I've checked that my math was right (7 5/8 inches of pre-toe foot plus 1 3/8 inches of toe should equal 9 total inches of foot), so that's not the problem.

At this point I am studiously avoiding trying to find out what the problem is, because I'm sure the solution is going to be ripping back and knitting more foot. Or snipping the foot open and adding more length before grafting the foot back together. Either way, grumbling will be involved and I'm not ready to go there yet.

St. Brigid wrap for moi

This project right here pretty much sums up me as a knitter.

About two weeks ago, the chill of autumn began making its way into the weather, and I was completely unprepared because I haven't got a transitional (read: spring/autumn) jacket. In the interests of saving money, and because I am trying to snazz up my wardrobe wherever possible, I decided that knitting myself a wrap was in order, using the shape of the Chunky Highland Wool Wrap but something else for the actual pattern.

I've been drooling for some time over the cables in the St. Brigid sweater pattern by a certain Outer Hebridean designer whose name dare not cross my keyboard. :) So I redacted them, put 'em together in such a way as I thought would give me an 18-inch width, and got going, using some royal purple Emu Superwash DK that I had 7 balls of in my stash thanks to a Knitters Attic sale last year.

Unfortunately, once the first ball ran out I only had about five inches done...


(It's actually much more purple than this in real life.)

...and since the wrap as I planned it would require a total of 94 inches, it was pretty clear that my remaining six balls weren't going to cut it.

So I went looking for something else in the stash that I had enough of.

Enter my 19 balls of blue Angora Extra, which I had acquired during a ridiculously good online sale at the studio. This is supposed to be an Aran-weight yarn, although when you feel it it seems like fingering or sport. However, the label says 4 stitches per inch, and I got the distinct impression from reading other people's projects with it on Ravelry that it would "bloom" like crazy...so I assumed it would be Aran-weight, and removed two cabled braids from the pattern I'd worked out.

And oh...my...GAWD. This yarn is AMAAAAZING. It's sooo soft. You know that scene in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where Ford and Zaphod are admiring the black ship? The dialogue goes something like this:

Ford: And feel this surface!
Zaphod: Yeah...hey, you can't!
Ford: I know, it's just totally frictionless!

That is exactly how it feels when you touch this stuff. It's absolutely gorgeous, I'm completely in love with it. The cables looked awesome knitting with it, too, not too fuzzy at all.

Once I'd knit through the first ball, though, the logic centre of my brain was telling me that I should really confirm that it would indeed bloom as expected. So I did up a swatch and soaked it in Eucalan for about half an hour.

No bloom.

Like, maybe a little bit of horizontal expansion that was really just the cables relaxing out, but the yarn itself bulking up? Nada.

Cursing viciously, I ripped out the whole thing (alas, I did not take a picture before doing this) and re-cast on with enough stitches to put the two missing cable braids back in. I finished two rows, went to bed, and didn't get a chance to work on it for a few days.

During that time, I discovered a spring/autumn jacket in my closet.

It's a gorgeous jacket that I'd forgotten all about...one of my dad's cousins visited us this summer and had bought this jacket for herself as part of her trip (which included some sightseeing in Alaska, I believe). She no longer wanted the jacket and didn't want to haul it back to Australia with her, and so she gave it to me. It's gorgeous, warm, classy, and fits me perfectly, and I love it.

Unfortunately, I'd also forgotten all about it. Had I remembered it, I could have avoided this whole wrap fiasco entirely. However, I am clearly an idiot, and an knitting-enthusastic one at that, and so we have the saga that you have just finished reading.

I don't quite know what I'm going to do with the yarn now. I love it desperately and absolutely want to make something with it (something for me, dammit), but don't know now what it should be.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what comes to me.

Log Cabin blanket

This is proceeding very nicely indeed and I really like how my little variation on the Log Cabin theme is working out.

Turquoise socks for DD1

Well, with the wrap project scrapped; the Log Cabin project too big to transport (the blanket itself could probably be shoved into my bag, but the balls of yarn are enormous); two other projects finished; and two other projects being assiduously avoided; I needed something else to do. So why not make some socks for my older daughter.

I had some fingering weight acrylic in a greenish turquoise kicking about, probably enough for two pairs, so I started with that. It's going pretty well. I'm using my new sock pattern which I can't wait to have published so that I can link it up to all these damn sock projects I've been doing lately in my Ravelry notebook, and to show you some actual pictures of the socks.

Log Cabin for baby Miller

My parents were over at my place last night (happy birthday, Dad!) and told me the news that one of my second cousins is expecting her first baby. This is extremely good because she has MS, the symptoms of which apparently go away when you're pregnant, which is certainly good news for her right now. She's due in November.

After they left I started thinking about what I could make for her, and - despite having a long list of baby stuff in my queue - I settled on doing another Log Cabin blanket. I'm not sure why...but I'm quite happy with the decision and I like the way it's going so far. I'm using some Patons Knit 'n' Save bulky yarn in my stash. I'm not sure I have enough to make this blanket (I think there's more in the basement, although I haven't found it yet), but as per my usual style, I'm blithely forging on ahead regardless of potential consequences. This should be good for a laugh or two...

Actual visuals

Well, good news - the sock pattern has been written up and sent off! I proofed it about eight million times, but I'm still worried there's something wrong in there. However, it's gone now, so no use worrying (although I probably still will). I actually got the family in their socks at the same time and got them to hold still enough to take some good group feet shots. Hooray!

Double-faced bib

This is coming along very nicely and I'm really pleased with how it looks. The main bulk of it is finished, I just need to pick up stitches and do the neckline. But first I have to weigh it and the remaining purple yarn so I can write up the pattern with an accurate idea of yarn requirements.

Anouk

No progress, but I did finally take a picture:

Log Cabin blanket

And once again, my obsessive nature takes over. Here's the whole sordid story:

A few weeks ago, my LYS brought in a new yarn: Marble Chunky. This is very similar to the Marble DK that I used for all the KWB/TSF hats I made a while back, but in a thicker gauge and different colours.

And oh, the colours. I'm particularly obsessed with MC3, which is a very righteous purple/blue/green combination, but there are lots of other good ones, which make the whole line pretty much Covet City. And at one point I was looking at them on the shelves and was seized by an inspiration to make a baby blanket out of the pink and light brown colourways using the Log Cabin pattern.

Now, I've never done a log cabin blanket before, but it seems really cool and people have done some wonderful stuff with it. I'm not yet in a position to buy the Marble Chunky for it (I'm waiting for the right gift-giving occasion to come along which will give me an excuse to buy it using household funds instead of my own spending money), but I figured I could practice the concept with stash yarn and do some stash busting in the process.

And so, we have my first log cabin blanket in progress:



I'm not sure whom it's for nor how big it's going to be, although I do have about two pounds of each colour to use up. It is, however, a fantastic project to do while spending time with my girls when they don't need to me to actually do stuff with them - it's completely brainless and I don't have to look it, so I can watch and talk with the kids at the same time. I'm definitely enjoying it, although of course it's going to get more and more sloggerific to make any progress the bigger it gets.

I'm thinking maybe it'll end up being an emergency blanket that we keep in our car trunk.