5 knitting days left before gifting

I was making swift progress on the new little dolly, but then I decided to stop the knitting until I had a face on her. The face is always the very hardest part of a dolly, and I find it very difficult to sew on a face when I'm trying to manipulate the needle in and out of a head that is very inaccessible. I first sewed on eyes before knitting the body on Deaux, but I have not revisited that technique since. I'm fairly pleased with the results, although it's very difficult to judge the success of the face until the doll is stuffed and has hair. For the first time, I used beads for pupils instead of a shabby french knot, an idea I picked up on Ravelry. Now that I've faced the biggest challenge, she should finish up fairly swiftly. Which reminds me, I should bring the stuffing inside to start warming up...



The mittens are also making solid progress. I do not think that 2 other pairs of mittens will be completed in the next 5 days, and I shall have to be content with what I am capable of accomplishing.

Weekend Crafting

It's that time of year. Kidlets need gifties for a variety of teachers. Neighbours take each other small tokens that nicely express, "Hey, you live near to us." In an overwhelming season, I don't manage large batches of Christmas baking or elaborate projects. But we do strive to come up with something that the kids can work on that isn't too scary for the recipients.

This year's project involved hot wax in canning jars,



Cold snow to tame the hot wax,



Gold sparkles and little shiny sequins,



Ta da! Gifties!

Mitten progress

At this moment, I lack the technology to add a progress photo, though I'd love to show it off. I have finished my first mitten and started the second. A few interesting tidbets:

1) Yesterday, I picked up the mitten after a busy afternoon and started knitting on it. Suddenly, I noticed that I'd totally forgotten about adding the waste thread for the thumb. Panicked, I checked my position on the mitten and discovered that I was precisely 5 stitches after the spot where I needed to start the waste yarn. Not bad, eh? I think I had to rip out 10 or more rows on the last pirate mitten I finished.

2) Tonight I went to Christmas services associated with #1Man's work. As an aside, this is always a treat because I get to belt out sing familiar songs with an enthusiastic congregation. I admit I knitted my way through the services. Just in front of me, a woman was knitting on a very long scarf. And across the aisle, an old acquaintance of mine was knitting on what looked like a hat. I also admit I often knit my way through the Sunday talks. Well, I haven't usually, but ever since the knitting rush began in November, I've gone ahead and knitted there. This evening, looking at all the knitting around me, I wondered if there is historical precedence for knitting in services. I was specifically musing about the times when knitting was more of a necessity and less of a hobby. Did women who needed to knit to keep their families warm put it aside for services? I have knit my way through those Christmas services for years, but I'm thinking that it's time I learn to put it aside for that short time. If I knit my way through everything, then everything is always very similar. I have decided that for Sunday talks and special services, I can put aside my knitting and allow these times to be separate from the every day motions and rituals. (But I will not judge those who do knit during services.)

What's on the needles now

The pirate mittens I frogged back in October are back on the needles. My first try knitting them again was unsatisfactory. I like a tight cuff to keep out the cold. Now the mittens have a built-in cuff.

Personal notes: I cast on 48 stitches on a size 8 needle. I knit in 2x2 rib for 14 rows in black, then broke the yarn and set it aside. Then I cast on 48 stitches on a size 9 needle, and knit the cuff pattern for sixteen rows. Then I slid the black cuff inside the patterned cuff. The next row I knit with black, transferring one stitch from the size 8 needle onto the working needle, and knitting 2 stitches together, one from each cuff. When I had knit an entire row, the cuff was integrated. I switched to the size 8 needle and continued in pattern, adding an extra black row for symmetry to the wrist pattern. (edited for clarity, or at least an attempt at clarity)

I am knitting this pair inside out, in an attempt to tidy up my 2-colour work and keep my floats perfectly tensioned.



Also, my daughter has requested a twin for phanC, so I have cast on. We'll see how much of her I can get done.

Finished mittens

Pirate Mittens
Started Oct 7, 2007
Finished December 12, 2007
Yarn: Colour4Me in Black and in white
Needles: Circular Size 5
Notes: Although I read that this pattern knit up small, I thought I had adjusted for that problem. But then, I had underestimated the size of my son's hands. These mittens were way too small. So I sent them to Soaring Eagle instead.



Camo Mittens
Pattern: House Mittens by Alison Hansel from Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans of Harry Potter (ravelry link)
Yarn: Bernat Camouflage
Needles: Addi Turbo Size 5 circular
Notes: I was about to start making a pair of kids' mittens. I was looking through Charmed Knits, and saw that the house mittens were a good generic mitten pattern, so I followed that pattern, even if they weren't Harry Potter themed. I couldn't make gauge, though, on this pattern, her gauge is crazy-tight. I knitted it at 20 stitches per 4 inches.
Destination: Soaring Eagle Project
Started: Dec. 10, 2007
Finished: Dec 12, 2007

Better hat photos

Finally blocked

As of December 10th, the Candle Flame Shawl was finished and blocked. It still hasn't gone into the mail, but will depart tomorrow, along with the red hat.



Pattern: Candle Flame Shawl
Yarn: KnitPicks' Gossamer in Blue Jeans
Started: Nov. 2, 2007
Finished: Dec 10, 2007
Pattern notes: No modifications
Needles: Clover Size 6 straight bamboo needles.

Wanted: 2 thumbs

yippee for parent meetings and special guest speakers. Good knitting time!

Mittens

New mittens. With candle flame blocked, i've started some soaring eagle mittens. My paper involves a lot of waiting for pages to load so That's knitting time mixed in to homework time. Yay!

Meet the yarn

School and holiday obligations continues to have me running fairly non-stop-steady. On top of my full-time job and the parenting joys. Fortunately I can knit through at least some of that. So here, finally, is a little more about my new yarns from Sweet Sheep.

First of all, let me introduce Miranda. Miranda is one of the sweet faerie feet at Sweet Sheep. 100% Superwash BFL (I had to google BFL to find out that it's Blue Face Leicester). I have no idea how this knits up and can't wait to find out.

Next up, we have Dream in Color Smooshy in the Ruby Red colourway. We're talking 100% superwash merino, and while it's fingering just like the other 2 skeins, with a similar weight and yardage, it's superchunk fattest of all!


Last, but of course not least, we have sKNITches Syncopation Self-striping yarn in Carnival. This yarn is also 100% Superwash Merino. I'm very fussy about my stripes, and this is my first adventure with buying hand-dyed stripes. I can't wait to see how it knits up! I know I just said that about Miranda but it's true for this, too.



Okay, I admit, when I'm at work, I open up the picture I took of these three skeins and just leave it sitting open. So when I'm flipping through the screens on my desktop, I come upon that picture. It always surprises me, and I always get that little thrill. I know I said this with my last yarn acquisitions, but I can't wait to cast on. It's been the pressure of getting these gifts for parents finished, and next up is mittens for Soaring Eagles, then mittens for my family. My priorities are entirely ordered upon mail. My parents are farthest away, so they got done first. I hope to hurry get the charity mittens finished and off very soon. My family's mittens are last because I can still be knitting those Christmas eve. Come Christmas day, though, I'm casting on some socks for me! Maybe five or six pairs.

Cranberry Cable Hat

 

Finished Object!
Yarn: Laines du Nord's Dolly Maxi 100% Superwash Merino, 3 skeins!
Needle: Addi Turbo Size 9 16" circular needle
Pattern: No pattern. My mother told me that my dad has a very large head, and that his hats measure 23". I swatched quite a bit while plotting this hat. I finally decided that to make a hat in the pattern I wanted, making it measure 23" around at resting size would probably be too huge. This pattern is supposed to stretch. So at rest, it measures 16-18", but it still looks lovely stretched out to 28". I knit 2x2 rib for 4 inches, and then a repeated 12 stitch pattern of k2, p2, cable 6 (3x3), p2. I did an 8-row pattern, cabling on the sixth row. After 5 cable-sequence repeats, I switched to total knit stitch, and decreased with a k2tog on the first k stitch of each rib. I alternated decrease rows with knit rows for the first 6 decrease rows, then decreased every single row until I had 5 stitches on the needle. It is big, and long too. I made the brim extra long so he could fold it over once or twice.
Started Dec 7
Finished Dec 9 (But I haven't woven in the ends yet)

Candle Flame Progress

 

I am a mere 9 rows of garter stitch from comleting this shawl. Ideally, I would have made this another 10" or so, but unfortunately, I am knitting with the breaky yarn, and that is a Serious Drag. I will finish up tonight or tomorrow, and then get it blocked and into the mail. Joy!

In progress

A work in progress! I started this late last night, after submitting the last deliverables for my information architecture class. This morning's knitting has already used up the first ball, now i'm worried that 2 isn't enough.

Deep freeze

Still working on freezing all my wool stuffing. The days have been cold, but not consistently frozen, yet.

sweet, sweet sheep

Me: I spent my birthday money on yarn.
#1Man: You had birthday money?
Me: I bought it from a company in Canada. It shipped on the 19th and it's still not here.
#1Man: How come you had birthday money?
Me: I know things take a long time to come from Canada, but it's been two weeks! (fuss, whine, fuss)
#1Man: How come I didn't have birthday money?

suddenly... Ding Dong!

Package Man: I have a package here that needs a signature.
Me: Is that... Could it be... I think it's.... Oooh! It's Sweet Sheep! Squeeee!

sign.... smoooch!

#1Man: I want birthday money!

Weekend Knitting Report

I'm afraid there's not much knitting to report at all. I've only advanced a half-repeat on the candle flame shawl. I've been working on homework, with a little naughty novel-reading on the side. (the act of reading was naughty, as it was time stolen from homework, the novels weren't, sorry). There's been some illicit Bella activity, but more on that when I have a little bit more time for a better photo shoot. Mostly I'm wrapped up in the final activities of my quarter, plus all the holiday activities that are inflicted upon my family by the community. Sorry, no pictures, I'll turn in a bunch of papers this week and then I'll hopefully be able to knit, and thus blog about knitting.

Saturday pic

Mobile blogging... meet the view at work on a very white Saturday.

3 quick things--hurry go do

1) Priscilla is having a contest and it closes tomorrow. It's about charity. Go enter!

2) There are still openings for Lucky Lurkers to get in on the newest sock club. Go buy a spot! Not just beautiful colours, but dreamy to knit and lovely to wear, too.

3) Make Mittens! Soaring Eagle Project needs more mittens for school kids. Quick to knit. Do it!

Weekend update

I have spent the weekend glued to the computer, writing a brilliant paper assigning Library of Congress Subject Headings. I didn't make time for blogging, there was too much head banging and gnashing of teeth. I have just turned the paper in, and am about to head off to knit and watch a DVD with my #1Man. So here's a few notes from the week.

Black Friday--that's what they call this crazy shopping day here in the States. I used to aggressively shop the flyers, but I determined that too many deals were only available if I was at the store's door at 5am. I don't do shopping at 5am. This year, I was throwing out the flyers when I noticed a store had a sale on Webkinz. These are the hottest toys in the fourth grade. Naturally, my #1grrl wanted one, too. I told her she wasn't going to have some toy she had to log on to feed, and she assured me she didn't need to interact with it online, she just wanted the soft and fuzzy cuteness to hold. So she saved up her allowance and has been bugging me for a trip to the store to get her a WebKinz. We ventured out on Black Friday, and I was amazed we were able to not only get a parking spot, but she found the very Webkinz she wanted, the pug. The grrl has good taste. :)

While we were out anyway, we took a trip to the yarn store. Yarn stores are above all this Black Friday nonsense, and there were no special sales or deals to encourage rampant spending, but I managed to spend, anyway. I had gone in thinking about Blue Sky Alpaca Organic Cotton, but this merino was exceptionally soft, and the very perfect colour.



Also, I haven't yet shown the Lucky Lurker November yarn I received. She's starting a new club for 2008. I thought long and hard about rejoining, but I've discovered I'm not much of a club person. As fun as it is to await a yarny surprise in my mailbox, I'd rather spend that money on colourways I choose myself. Hopefully some other Lucky Lurker will get my spot and I'm sure they'll love it. Anyway, this is the November yarn, which is Duet XXL. This is one huge chunk of yarn! It's so soft, as always, and I would have loved to cast it on. When the holiday knitting madness is over, I'm casting on this yarn, and my Larkyarn.

My Candleflame shawl is making good progress. I'm afraid I haven't knit a stitch on it at all today, but that's okay. I managed four--count them, four!--repeats over the last week. Today's knitting breaks were all about the new merino pictured above. I swatched and swatched, working towards some good measurements for a hat for my dad.

That's the week. kthnxbai.

(edited to fix picture disasters)

candle flame update

No pictures of the candle flame shawl, but it looks just like it did before, only longer. I've been knitting it for 16 days, and I'm officially past the half way point at 36 inches, and 8 repeats. I managed to exceed my goals for the week. Instead of 2 repeats, I did 2.5. But I fell short for the weekend, only managing 1.5. Of course it all came out the same, but I had high hopes of being ahead.

I had a terrible setback Saturday when I finished the first ball of yarn and started the second. In a very short time, only 16 rows, the yarn had broken 6 times! At that point it was obvious I was foolish to continue--not to mention I didn't have much more spit-slicing left in me--and I switched balls of yarn. This means that if I finish up the current ball of yarn and don't try to employ the breaking ball of yarn, my project may come up some inches short. The final length should be 70", but I'm hoping to at least make it to 65" with what I have. I also hope the rounds knitted with the breaking yarn don't break further. Usually it seemed to be a weakness in one of the two plies.

In other news, my Jingle Spells CD arrived yesterday, but I only saw it this morning. It's pretty cute! It has already been loaded onto the kids' mp3 players, so they can enjoy it lots and lots, but the parents don't have to hear it over and over. That's one blessing of this modern technology. :)

Yarn Swap

Last night I attended an event which was entitled a Yarn Swap. For me, it was really all about touching everybody's yarn. I just couldn't get into the spirit of barter, but to wander around the room, getting my grubby fingers on all the fibre, well, that's as good as it gets, yes it is. Well, no, I just lied. Dinner out at a middle eastern restaurant with a bunch of rowdy grrls, that even trumped touching the stashes.

But I didn't just touch, I fell in love. And not with sock yarn! It was lace weight yarn. Which means, you see, I'm going to have to make lace. A one-skein lace project. This wasn't barter yarn, this was Yarn Pusher Yarn. As I was paying Lark for it, she asked if I had enough for my project. I responded that I didn't have a project, I just needed to have the colours. This is alpaca/soy silk delicious pettable squeezable yarn. I spent a great deal of time today trying to perfectly capture the colours with my camera.

 

 

Deep Freeze

I've been wanting to freeze the Magic Cabin Wool that's been in quarantine, but I don't have space in my freezer. I finally realized that nature usually provides a nice big deep freeze for me, so I've boxed the wool up and placed it out in the middle of the backyard. Considering people are frolicking about outside in tank tops today, it seems unlikely I'll ever get a freeze, but rumour suggests it may well come.

Saturday Sky

Our gorgeous but unseasonable autumn weather continues, with people wearing shirt sleeves outdoors the weekend before American Thanksgiving.

 

candle flame burning bright

I may well drive myself totally insane. My fear of knitting nothing but shawl for the rest of 2007 has driven me to sandwich in knitting when I shouldn't be knitting, and to articulate some lofty but achievable goals. At this point I'm trying to do 2 repeats a weekend, and 2 repeats a week. I'm right on schedule, at 5 repeats complete: 2 from last weekend, and 1 of 2 for this week.

I seriously am getting a little manic about this. I've noticed it takes me about 5 minutes per row, valuable information for when I'm knitting on a break at work. It helps me know when I have time to complete another row, and when I should just close up shop now. So last night I calculated that with 36 rows per repeat, that's 3 hours per repeat. Today I'm home with a sick grrlee, and while she rested, I was knitting against the clock. I time myself in pairs of rows, since the wrong side usually is faster. I started at 10 minutes per pair, but then got 8 minutes, and once even 6 minutes! After that, I evened out at 8 minutes per pair. At that speed I can save myself, oh, 36 minutes per repeat!

Okay, enough of this. I'm off to see if the grrlee can eat, then do some homework.

A Conversation

I was sitting at a film, knitting while waiting for the event to start. The gentleman next to me inquired what I was knitting, and I told him it was a shawl, and showed him the picture on the pattern of the candle-flame design.

He: A good friend of mine has become really well known around the world as a knitting expert.

Me: Oh really?

He: Yes, maybe you've heard of her? Nancy Bush

Me: (have I heard of her? have I heard of her???? but I'm so cool and just say,) I have her books

He: In fact we just had dinner with them the other week. I grew up with her.

Me: (I pull my foot up from the darkness so he can see my Lost Lornas and say) She designed these socks!

He went on to tell me a little about her, nothing that isn't already in the common Nancy Bush lore, how she just travels the world looking at yarn, how she had the foresight to close down the physical shop Wooly West and just go online.

When will it be my job to travel the world, looking at yarn...

In Candle Flame news, I've finished 3 repeats and am 15 inches into it.

Saturday Sky

I've never officially joined the Saturday Sky rings, but the idea has always appealed to me. Just for kicks and grins, here's tonight's sky. It was so warm this afternoon that I found myself scooting to take the garbage out in barefeet.

 

Mirror mirror

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
who's the ADD-est of them all?

Goodness, even while all wrapped up in my own personal race against time to see if I can double my amount of knitting a week to make faster progress on the flame shawl, I've got that wandering eye! Today my eyes fell upon some plied home spun, not very much, but there it is, and I got all excited to spin more. I started thinking about socks from homespun. What's with that? I hardly have time to even pick up needles, what with all the homework I've got. Plus so many projects to finish, so many holiday season projects I'd like to do...

 

Knitting update

First of all, Bella. Bella is not hibernating, but she needed a little time off. There were two issues.

Issue #1. I've never done knee-socks before and I wasn't entirely happy with the cuff. Not quite sure how to fix it, I backed off for a little while.
Look, up near the cuff... there's pooling! When I increased, I got pooling. I'm not a fan of pooling.

Issue #2. The unthinkable happened. I've composed funny short films (in my head) about this scenario. It's not so funny in real life. My neatly balled duets yarn fell out of the knitting bag and I kept walking. By the time I noticed, the ball was no longer a ball. It was not even a nice long line of yarn, it was a mess. I'm knitting from both ends of this ball, and it's very complicated to sort out. I'm afraid I just tossed the mess aside to deal with when I have, oh, more than 2 seconds of spare time. Which will be, uhm, some time in 2010?

Next up, the candle flame shawl. Princess Anne let me have the needles back. I cast on last Friday night, and at this point I have 8" complete. The goal is 70". Let's say I can knit 10 inches on this a week, this will take another 6 weeks to finish. That puts me way too close to Christmas, and no time for anything else! School, work, that's all got to go.