BOOM

Okay, yes, it's another orange skein. But.. but... it was called Louder than Bombs!

The magic of blocking

I'm neither the first nor last to blog about this little bit of knitter's magic.

Fresh off the needles, before blocking...

After a nice evening's blocking...

Yarn: Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs Belladonna Gothing (BFL) in Tainted Love
Pattern: Gail aka Nightsong (Rav link, must sign in to see)
Needles: size 7

Those photos were taken today. Friday was sunny and warm. Saturday was dreary but temperate, until it rained. This morning, we awoke to snow.

Tainted Lace

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I catch the lace bug. It happened several summers ago, and then ever since I've been concentrating on my main love: socks, mittens, hats, even scarves and shawls, but not complicated lacey ones. It's not that I draw a definite line, and lace will totally slip into my work sometimes.

This week I found myself paging through stitch dictionaries, and then grabbing needles and swatching. Then I went through the library catalogues and requested a gaggle of lace books.

This was partially fueled by a general lace excitement, and partially a search for the best way to knit up my skein of tainted love.The yarn was slim and twisty, and was in no way appropriate for socks. (Or rather, I'm not willing to knit on a size 0 needle or smaller, which would have been required to make this a decent pair of socks.)

The pattern Gail (aka Nightsong) jumped out as the Right Pattern For The Yarn, and I cast on right away. Knitting lace is a completely different experience than my usual knitting. I can't put the needles on automatic pilot while watching a show or chatting with friends. I can't use the chart for a few rows and then memorise the pattern. I can't read my knitting and know just by looking at what stitches I've already knit what stitches I should knit next. I can't forget my pattern at home and blunder ahead anyway.

Also, knitted lace is never very pretty while still on the needles. It's scrunchy and bunched up and all messy. When it grows up, it should be lovely. That's the intent, anyway.

The little orange lines snaking through the pattern are "lifelines". These are threaded through the stitches and left there as a safety net. If I ever screw up royally, I can pull out the needles and rip out the stitches down to the lifeline. That will hold the stitches securely and allow me to carefully put the stitches back on the needle. With a sock, I can just rip out stitches and put them back on the needle without too much difficulty. It's time consuming, but simple. With lace, there's so many complicated stitches that ripping out is a headache, and can sometimes be so unrecoverable that the entire project has to be scrapped. The lifeline is there to prevent a project-dooming calamity.

Experienced and daring knitters knit lace with a lifeline. I'm not that experienced with lace, and decided the extra time and fuss of putting in the lifelines was a worthwhile use of my time. With careful attention and good knitting, I will hopefully have no need for them.

Fun facts about this yarn

• I once purchased this colourway when I had my best gothluck ever.
• I went ahead and sold it to a mama in Australia because it caught my sympathies that she would have to get up at 2am just to even try to buy gothsocks.
• This skein was a prize I won in the aforementioned stripey sock KAL. It was the "newbie" prize and I guess I knit the most stripey socks of all the newbies in the swap group.
• MLO is a kind and wonderful person who donates amazing skeins as prizes.
• I've never won a prize in a KAL before!
• Today I watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland for the very first time.
• When the movie was over, I went to check the mail and found this skein, Mad as a Hatter.
• This skein wants me to knit it. Now.

A tale of two Knit-a-longs

In January, I was participating in two KALs (Knit-a-longs) organised through ravelry groups. One was a gothalong, which simply meant knitting with yarn from Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs. The other was a stripey sock KAL, which had helped inspire me to knit all those stripey socks in the fall.  These 2 KALs are very compatible and I could have so easily double-dipped by knitting some gothstripes into socks.

But of course, the knitting-controller aspect of my brain went rogue and completely discarded that plan. I couldn't decide which gothstripe to knit up, and what I really wanted to knit up was my Absinthe. I had just discovered a delightful little pattern named Hitchhiker, and that had to be my gothalong project.

The hitchhiker was so named because the designer's prototype knitted up with 42 points. My version knit up with 38 points, and I'm just so happy with it. It makes a really snuggly scarf, and I find myself wearing it nearly every day. Instead of Douglas Adams, it reminds me of Anne McCaffrey books, with the scarf looking like the tail of a little green firelizard perched on its human's neck.

Once I'd attended to the gothalong, I found myself with a week left of January and the desire to knit one more pair for the stripe-along. I had plenty of yarn leftover from the neon anklets, and cranked out a new pair of neon socks for myself. I bound off the cuffs in the 10 o'clock hour on the final day of January.

Miller's hat, more pictures

Did I mention how very toasty this hat is? I love it!

an embarrassment of yarnz

I seem to have a lot of incoming yarn this fall. I found a new dyer of delicious stripeys, Rosy Retro, and decided I needed to bring home one of her skeins. The skein is called "Garbo", which reminds me of my mother's paper dolls that I used to play with, and I can't wait to see how those blues and greens knit up.

I traded my Old Blue Jeans WM for an Amethyst WM. The colour is rich and deep and very lovely.

Lastly, I needed some trim for my Miller's Hat. I went to a local yarn store and spent a great deal of time wandering through, looking at all their worsted weight yarn in brown, grey, rust, black, and even olive.  I found some Malabrigo that looked promising, but it was a chunky weight, and I needed worsted. I eventually settled on some heathered Cascade 220. I hadn't intended to choose Cascade 220, but of all the colours I examined, this one had the warmth and richness needed to compliment the lovely Ember colourway.

Finishing the Miller's Hat didn't take long. I don't have any good photos of it worn; beware, those are yet to come. But I'm quite pleased with the outcome, even if the decreases will forever be steep and a little too short.

How I fixed the hat

After my previous post outlining how I ran out of yarn for the decreases for my miller's hat, I settled down to see what I could do.

I did go ahead and use the leftover Skinny Bugga by holding it double stranded. I alternated rows between the gothling and the Bugga, and I only knit the decrease rows. This made the decreases rather steep, as there's supposed to be a row between each decrease row. Impressively, the Skinny Bugga doesn't show at all.

Next up, I need to find a contrasting colour for the lower band.

Miller's Hat, Stuck.

So, the pattern requirements are 220 yards of worsted yarn. The skein supposedly has 260 yards of worsted yarn. But it's not enough. On the 2nd row of decreases, I have 7 grams of yarn left, and no hope of finishing this hat.

When staging this picture, I also tossed in the little ball of fingering Bugga that was left over from making the herbivore. There's 4 grams of that. If I held it double, it might pass for worsted, but while it's the same colour, it's far more luminous than the worsted yarn.

Not. Happy.

Pernicious Gauge

Not too long ago, I started knitting up my worsted gothlings in Ember, using the Miller's Hat pattern. The pattern suggests a size 6 needle, with a recommended gauge of 20 stitches to 4 inches in herringbone stitch.  I just started up the hat as a swatch, which allowed me the luxury of already having progress made, if the gauge was correct, or I would have to start over anyway, if the gauge was wrong.  Well, the gauge was way off.  In a size 6 needle, I was getting 20 stitches to only 3.25 inches.  I went up 2 needle sizes and started over.  My gauge is still small, more like 20 stitches measuring 3.5 inches, or sometimes 3.75.  I'm not willing to go up any more sizes.  The cable part of the hat is to be knit on one needle size larger, and I'm not willing to knit this yarn on a 9/10 combination, which would be too loose for this weight of yarn.

The herringbone stitch is tricky, because it involves floats, which tighten up the gauge, but I pay careful attention to those floats to make sure they aren't too tight. That's what makes the knitting so tedious.  I have 8 more rows of this stitch, and I am quite looking forward to being done, so I can move onto the fun part.

The picture shows the size 6 version above, and the size 8 version below. I do think it'll be very pretty when done!

Acquisitions

The red-n-black yarn from the previous post got sent out into the world, and in return, I got Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, a Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs club yarn.  I've wanted this yarn since I saw it, and am glad I could make a successful trade.

The pictures I took of it were all washed out, so I sent the picture to NinjaTeen, and handed him the skein of yarn. With his photoshop skillz, he painted it up so it looks like the true colours again. I'm still deciding what this yarn will be, but it will be worn around the neck for sure.

Recently, I looked at my WM in "My Old Blue Jeans", thinking about starting to knit it into a clapotis. I looked at it critically, and realised it wasn't quite the right blue for me.  So when I saw a blue WM at Loopy Ewe that was to my liking, I tossed it into my cart and bought it. Amazingly, I succeeded. I had already filled up my cart, so that I just hit the $75 shipping threshhold. I have 2 skeins of Malabrigo, both destined for things for other people, 2 fancy-shmancy crochet hooks I want to try, and the WM in Blaue Tinte.

The My Old Blue Jeans was perfect for a Ravelry swap, so it's on its way out, and I'm expecting a lavender skein in its place.

Acquisitions

A few weeks ago, I had a really good etsy day and managed to snag 3--count them, 1 2 3--skeins of Gothsocks. My secret was to employ the ninja skillz of my teenage son.  This would be gluttonous and greedy, considering how difficult it is to buy this yarn, but I'm only keeping one of them. One is going to Australia, to a mama who couldn't wake up at 2am to buy yarn, and the other will be traded for a colour that caught my fancy.  The blue one, Tardis, will stay with me.

Sparkly completed objects spring forth fully formed from my needles

I have 2 finished objects. They're delightful things, and I'm very happy to have completed them. Looking back, I see that I never blogged any progress, and there's not even progress photos, save one. Looking back further, I see that I didn't even blog the arrival of this lovely stripey yarn.

The yarn is Night, a gilded Gothsocks by Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs. I was so impressed with how perfectly it pairs with  Eurota Purplewing, a Skinny Bugga! yarn, that I had to knit them together. Twice.

It started with some socks, of course. Sparkly socks with no fancy pattern, just a toe-up sock with a ribbed leg. The heels were knit double-stranded for extra strength.

Moments after completing those, I cast on for a pair of gloves. Thus we get the only in-progress photo, and ill-staged shot of the cuffs that start out a pair of top-down gloves.

I wove in the ends to these last night, and would be wearing them now if it weren't so dang hot!

 Here's me, headless but happy with my new sparkly knitwear!

State Fair

In honour of my blog silence for all of September so far, I present you with, "Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I've just been so busy..."



I just wonder--is life ever not busy?  Not that I would ever know.

As in other years, the end of summer means time for the State Fair. I had intended to enter my Jeanie in the fair, but that fell apart. So I opened up my Ravelry project page and looked over my last year of knitting accomplishments. I decided to submit my herbivore and my stripey gothy hat-heel knee socks. The socks have gotten a lot of wear in the last year, and so they weren't in pristine condition, but they were clean and neat, and I liked their unusual construction features, including the garter toe, the reinforced pad-of-foot area, and the hat-heel.

Attending the fair has cemented into a bit of a tradition with my daughter. We attend with my knitting coworker and her son, who this year is 4. We also bring along one of her ballet carpool buddies. The girls enjoy taking care of a little boy, and he likes hanging with big kids. We tour the Home Arts building, and the girls keep an eye on the boy, while we two adults run around looking at everything. It's not just the knitting that impresses us. We linger at crochet, quilts, baby christening gowns, table cloths, embroidery, and so much more. This year we ventured into the food-side of the building and oohed at the cakes and breads and preserves, too.  We never get enough time, what with the patience of a 4-year-old being our limiting factor, but we thoroughly enjoy the visit.

Now, on to my results. My stripey knee socks received a red second place ribbon! The judge wrote on the back, "Fun stuff" and "loved the graduation to fit calf".  In the picture, you can see a lovely set of monkeys (I think?) beside my socks with a blue ribbon, although they were submitted by a different category of knitter, so they weren't in direct competition. This year, the socks were stuffed a little for display, which gave them some body in the presentation.

And my herbivore received a third place ribbon in the scarf category. The judge wrote "Interesting concept". Well, I can't take any credit for the concept, other than choosing that lovely pattern to knit.

 

I also was quite delighted to find a Shipwreck entry displayed.  I have been gathering supplies to knit my own Shipwreck, and thought this one was very lovely. I felt like it could have been displayed better, and was surprised to see it only took fourth place. Because of the nature of the chaotic displays, it was not worth my limited time to hunt down and see what three items placed above it, although I'm certain they were also very impressive. I did try to find this on Ravelry, but with so many shipwrecks listed, I gave up. But to the Shipwreck knitter out there, "Lovely job! I think it rocks!"

This year, I let my daughter spend her babysitting money on a wristband for rides. She and her ballet friend toured all the animal sheds with us, and then they were let loose on the rides. Soon I left with my coworker, and the ballet girl's mother took over for the rest of the afternoon.  When she came home exhausted at dinner time, the grrl admitted, 'My favourite part is really the Home Arts building and the animals." But I do think she got her money's worth on that wristband.

Yarn 4 yarn--May Gothsocks Club Spoilers inside

When I received the May Gothsocks Club shipment, I knew that it was a yarn that needed to be with someone who would love it madly. As always, as soon as the spoiler pics were released, there were people looking to acquire it, so trading it was no problem.

I received Bugga Ruby Tailed Wasp from the lovely MissTwilight on Ravelry. It snuggles up with me at night and keeps me warm.

Spoiler below

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And in return, I sent her the Alice-inspired "Drink me" colourway. Gorgeous, pettably soft, but not something I would have knit up. I'm glad she can give it a Good Home.

I also gave up my spot in the Gothsocks club, allowing one more lucky soul to get in. I only have so much yarn money, and I need to be able to choose what colours and yarns to buy when I do splurge. But I still have the June yarn to come!

Acquisitions, Gothsocks Club Spoiler

Attention all ye readers! If you happen to be in the Gothsocks club and you haven't received your April shipment, beware! The picture is below. (I'm pretty sure no one would find it by accident, but there's the alert, just in case.)

Okay, I have to admit, I'm still acquiring yarn faster than I can knit it. But selectively.

First of all, I needed a new order of Noro for a donation piece I'm going to make. I just happened to buy a couple of skeins of the highly-coveted Skinny Bugga to fill up my shopping cart. The colours are gorgeously saturated, and are called "Lubber Grasshopper" (the left skein) and "Eurota Purplewing" (the skein 2nd from left).(ETA: Ordered from The Loopy Ewe, of course, and received only two days after ordering.

 

Also new to my yarn stash is the March Gothsocks colour, Godric's Glory. If you watch True Blood, it makes sense to you. If you don't, like me, you can still admire the pretty, pretty sparkly stripes.

 

April Spoiler, here.


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This is called "Frakkin Toaster" and it's inspired by Battlestar Galactica. It's a bamboo/merino/nylon blend and begs to be something wispy worn around the neck.

 

Sob. I need more knitting time!

Suddenly Skewed

Last week, Knitty published the new pattern, Skew. Now I had already made knitting plans for the weekend, which involved my Teenage Drama Queen Gothsocks and a different pattern. But I dropped everything for Skew. That seductive heel just pulled me in!

I cast on at 7pm, to coincide with the start of the Olympics. This meant casting on at the theatre, while waiting for Swan Lake to begin. Swan Lake (which was stunningly fabulous) happened to have two intermissions, which allowed a wee bit of progress

I knit through the weekend, and finished Monday evening. Oh how I love these socks! The bias of the knit fabric makes them fit very snugly. They might be my best-fitting socks ever.

Pattern: Skew
Yarn: Ohmygoth in Teenage Drama Queen (Jan 2010 club yarn)
Needle: knit picks circular size 2 and size 1
Dates: Feb 12-15, 2010
Modifications: None. Freaking awesome pattern.

Gothsocks Club--Spoilers within

Hark readers! If you happen to be one of the Canadians who has not yet received the February 2010 Gothsocks club shipment, do not scroll down! Exit this window immediately!

So! My yarn indulgence this year is the Gothsocks Club. I'm not a real fan of yarn clubs, but I've loved everything I've seen previously out of the Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs Gothsocks club. So this year, I became a member.

January 2010 was an Ohmygoth (cashmere-wool-nylon) in the lovingly named colourway Teenaged Drama Queen.

Isn't it beautiful?

Next up, February 2010

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(is that enough space to avoid any spoiler activity?)

SQUEEEEEEEEE!