Christmas Spirit

You know what gives me the Christmas spirit? Finshed objects! That's what! Like these socks:

Yep! The Red Herring socks are done! Although they're actually aqua, but whatever.

Yarn - Dale of Norway Baby Ull (100% wool, 180 yards), 1 skein in black, 2 skeins in blue (color 6714). It's really soft an springy, and it's superwash, which is an added bonus. My only complaint is that I kept snagging my needles on it and separating the plies.
Needles - size 2 32" addi turbos, for the magic loop-in'
Pattern - Red Herring from Knitty. I followed the pattern pretty closely, but because I have bizarrely long, narrow feet, I added a few more decreases to the foot to make it more snug.

Guess what? More finished objects:

Leila's Brainwash bag is complete! All that was left was to add straps, line it, and add a closure. By the way, that's my boyfriend modelling the bag, not my sister.
Yarn - 1 skein each of Lopi (100% wool, 110 yards) in black and white. I like this yarn to make random bulky things like bags and it's good for felting. It's too rough to make wearable things, though, and it sheds all over creation like a cat. So, I shaved the bag to try to get rid of all the wispies. Which felt really weird when I was doing it.
Needles - 24" size 11 bamboo circulars
Pattern - I used the charts from the Brainwash Bag pattern, but I adapted it to be worked in the round. I didn't felt it, either. I was planning to, but then I got scared of some horrible felting-gone-wrong fiasco messing up the communal washers in my apartment building and chickened out. The final dimensions are 14" long x 10" wide instead of 10" x 10".


Last but not least, I've been working on some swatches the last couple of days. My other, Tamar, started a leftovers blanket last year that's been in my possesion forever, and I haven't added to it yet. And I'd feel like a total jerk if I didn't do anything to it before I see her next week, so I made a bunch of swatches. Hopefully, I'll start swatching for real and I can just start adding those.






So, tomorrow morning I head back to Texas to celebrate Christmas with my family. Which will be nice because I don't see them that often, what with my living in Michigan. I'm going to start a new pair of socks (maybe these cable twist ones) on my flight tomorrow using this sport weight handspun I've had lying around for awhile. After Christmas, I'm flying to New York to visit my friends Dani (who got the purple armwarmers), Tamar, and Carly. And then back to the grind.



A word of warning, though: my family only has dial-up so I may not be able to post until I get back.

The dust has settled

Hallelujah! Finals are over, and even though I have to do pilot testing and data coding over Christmas break, I don't have any tests, or papers, or classes to go to until January! I have survived my first semester at grad school. Cheers to me.

So, how much knitting have I gotten done? Not too terribly much. I'm about halfway done with the second of the Red Herring socks, which is exciting. I really love this pattern, though as you can see in the photo, I did occasionally butcher the stranded pattern. But, it doesn't bother me enought to take it out, so I guess that's cool. I've noticed that I'm actually kind of a half-assed knitter when it comes to myself, and can deal with messed up stitches and decreases that aren't mirrored. But knitting for other people makes me a perfectionist. Weird, huh?






I also started designing a sweater for myself. Here's the sketchy schematic-y thing of it. I'm envisioning it as a kicky little bolero/cocoon shrug thing, all cozy and warm and fitted with a little shawl collar. I'm pretty excited about it.

I'm using Malabrigo yarn in Bobby Blue, which is really gorgeous. My Other bought it for me in New York months and months ago and I haven't been able to think of the right thing to do with it until now. I'm working it in a really basic twisted stitch pattern based on braided cables. If you look closely at the picture underneath the sketch, you can kind of see the wee little twisty braids. I like the texture, but it eats yarn like nobody's business.


The last picture shows you how far along I am. I'm attempting to knit it all in one peice because I hate seaming, so I'm using the raglan decreases from the top-down all-in-the-round sweater pattern here. But, I am knitting it flat since it's supposed to flare open in the front. I figured it was either knit it flat and shape it as I go (sensible), or knit it in the round and steek the bejesus out of it to beat it into the right shape (totally, utterly foolish). Anyway, I'm just past the armholes, so there's not much to show just yet.

And I have completely finished Sam's bag! I've washed all three bags and blocked them, but hers was the first to dry out, so it was the first to get lined and strapped and the like. Isn't it pretty? The final measurements are 10" wide x 12" long x 1" deep. I made it in the round and used the slip-stitch pattern from Via Diagonale. I made the flap by continuing the slip-stitch pattern for half the stitches flat. Today I sewed on the strap (a 1" wide, 6 ' long peice of black cotton twill), lined it with about 1/2 yard of pink cotton, and sewed on a big button to close it. I braided three strands of Lopi and sewed it to the inside of the flap to make a button loop. You know what I like best about it? The way the color shifts on the flap and the bag match up perfectly.
Yarn - 1 skein Noro Big Kuryeon (100% wool, 176 yards) in colorway 18 (purple/navy) and 1 skein Lopi (100% wool, 110 yards) in black. I ended up with about 1/2 a skein of each left.
Needles - size 11 bamboo circulars
Pattern - I used a simple common-sense bag pattern in the Via Diagonale slip-stitch pattern: knit in the round until your work is an inch or so longer than what you want the finished bag to be, turn it inside out and work a three-needle bind off, and make a gusset (described beautifully here). I prefer to sew straps on rather than knit them, especially if the bag isn't going to be felted, since knitted fabric stretches so much, and I definetly advise lining bags. It makes them prettier, and more durable. And if it's a colorwork bag like this one, you won't be catching your keys on the floats every six seconds. Pretty damn simple.

Update

The end of the semester pressure-cooker is turned all the way up, so there's little time for knitting and even less for blogging. Nonetheless, I valiantly march onward. Here I am finishing up the Point Five scarf instead of submitting an IRB... proving procrastination can be productive after all. It is all done and wearable, and I'll post final pictures and details about it after the finals dust has cleared.



In the meantime, I've started a pair of Red Herring socks from the last issue of Knitty in turquoise and black. I knit about 1/2 inch or so whenever I need a break from my more pressing academic pursuits. I'm finding that although I do it very, very slowly, stranded colorwork can be really satisfying. Still hate intarsia though.

I'm free!

Guess what.....I finished the Christmas knitting! Isn't it amazing? I finished Mandy's bag this morning (although, technically, I still have to block and line the bags I've made and then I'll be totally finished with the christmas knitting. But, whatever). In fact, Mandy's bag turned out so well that I'm seriously considering submitting it to Knitty to be published. Which means that i'm not allowed to post pictures of it on the web until it's been accepted (or more likely) rejected. But here's a taste to hold you over:


Here's the final count of completed Christmas knitting:

• 3 pairs of socks
• 3 pairs of armwarmers
• 3 bags
• 2 hats
• 1 shawl

Not bad! And how to celebrate the end of my holiday servitude? With a super-fast super-bulky scarf, because its been snowing all day and I want to have something of my own as quickly as possible. Huzzah!


At least, these first 6 inches or so look warm and comfy.

Retail therapy and a FO jumpstart

Today was a good day! I found a winning cocktail of FO's and shopping to help prop up my waning academic abilities. I went yarn shopping and thrifting with a couple of girls from my area who knit and wear old, smelly clothes (just like me!) today, which was a much-needed break. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd looked foward to some sort of social outing, which is kind of frightening. So, it got me out of the house, away from the books, and all pumped on retail adrenaline.
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I ended up buying more sock yarn, of course. I bought two skeins of Claudia's Handpainted in the passion fruit colorway (in the blue shoes), which is amazing. The big blue hanks are Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the purple mountain colorway (appropriately pictured in the purple heels). They're gigantic skeins, and one is easily enough for a standard pair of socks, but I got ambitious and I'm planning on making super-long kneesocks with them. I got the cute blue and purple shoes, along with some skirts and a sweater, and the thrift store. The damage? $75 at the yarn store, $20 at the thrift store. Good haul.


After getting home and seeing Mr. Man off (he's gone to Oberlin, our alma mater, for the weekend to be a better activist than I and see our friends who are still wee undergrads), I spent the night alternately working on various psychological measures and papers and his armwarmers. Now, I'm finished with the reading I had to do and the armwarmers. I feel productive.
Yarn - about a skein of Malabrigo (100% merino, 215 yards) in apple green
Needles - Clover bamboo size 9 dpn's.
Pattern - some weird love-child of Fetching and Glaistig. The structure and shaping of the armwarmers are based on the Fetching pattern, but done in the cable pattern of Glaistig. I ended up doing three cable repeats total with an extra ten rows of 1 x 1 ribbing for the fingers, with the thumb being placed on the row just after the 5th cable turn. The thumb was made with five rows of 1 x 1 ribbing.

Only one more present to go!