Bundles of Love

Guess what I got in the mail? A package from my sockpal! I confess that there might have been some giggling and jumping up and down when it arrived. So...here's what I got:


Socks (obviously), which I'll get to in a minute, a flower pin, and grape licorice from a winery. How cool is that? It's actually really tasty, like twizzlers, but less plastic-y and more fruity.


About the socks...they are awesome. They fit perfectly (which I'm really excited about because I'm still learning how to make mine the right size, much less a total stranger) and are lovely. I'm not sure what the pattern is, but it's kind of like a lacier version of the Monkey pattern. I really love the yarn. I'm not sure what it is, but it goes from gray to a bright pinkish-red, to black and back again. But my favorite thing about them? The picot edge.

So, basically, mad props to my (get from) sockpal! You know, in all the hurry to make/finish/send off socks to my (give to) sockpal, I kind of forgot that the whole thing was reciprocal. Literally, I forgot I was going to get a package until it showed up. And the main reason I signed up for sockapalooza was to get socks!

Anyway, that's most likely going to be the highlight of my week. Mittens got a bundle of love of her own:


Awhile back, I bought sock yarn for my friend Van, and in the process of rolling it, half of it was turned into smallish balls (as is right and proper) and the other half was turned into a huge, messy knot. After three of us tried to unravel it, I deemed it a knot of Gordian proportions and abandoned it. And then Mittens claimed it as her throne. So she's having a good week too.

In actual knitting news, I've been working on Rusted Root for awhile and I'm making good progress. I bought the pattern and yarn in a kit from kpixie because I was bored. It's really simple, so I've been using it as my in-between project for when I just want to veg out and knit while I'm watching America's Next Top Model marathons. Which are on all the time. Which may be why the Root is already to the waist decreases.


So far I have kind of a love-hate relationship with it. The yarn is Karabella zodiac, which is a mercerized cotton. I've never worked with it before and while I really like the color and sheen it has, I would have preferred the fluffyness of regular cotton. I think something about the firmness and the shine of the yarn made it look really weird in the lace stitch written in the pattern, so once again, I replaced it with a cable panel. Or maybe I just suck at lace knitting.

(On a side note, this picture of the cable was originally grass green! I had to spend a solid five minutes messing with the tone and saturation and the like to get it anywhere close to the actually color. Why do cameras do that? It's maddening.)

The other thing is that I love that the pattern is basically a cute, puffed-sleeve t-shirt, but I the specter of a baggy Root drooping under the weight of the aformentioned yarn that was haunting me. So I decided to throw in some heavy-duty shaping and rely on the Negative Ease Gods to keep it from stretching out into wonkiness. While this is great for me, it does make me kinda hate having even bought the pattern since I've now reworked, like, 89% of it. It's cool though.

And now, I'll bid you adieu so that I can keep working on my now very shapley Rusted Root and watch the first part of ANTM Cycle 5. I've seen the rest of this season, but not these first few episodes, and I must rectify that.

FO: Baudelaire socks and Saartje's booties

Whoa! Sorry about the absence. I'll get to that in a minute though. First, take a look:


Yep, I've fulfilled my obligations as a part of Sockapalooza 4, and then some. I was working on the socks and periodically checking my pal's blog, and then BAM! Out of nowhere, she had a baby. So, instead of doing important grad student type things, I made the baby booties. I finished them about a week and a half ago and mailed them a week ago. Here's the info for the socks and the booties:


Yarn - 1 skein Yarn Botanika Radiance (merino/tencel blend, 400 yards) in bluebells. My sockpal didn't give me any direction in terms of yarn or pattern, so I scoped out her blog to get a sense of the kinds of colors she likes. She seemed to gravitate towards sky blues and pale greens, so I went with this colorway. you can't tell because I took these pictures with my photobooth camera (my real one's back now! yay!), but it knit up in a mottled, not-pooling not-striping way that was just fantastic.
Needles - 32" size 2 addi turbos. This was the recommended needle size for the pattern, so I used it, but were I to knit with this yarn again, I'd probably go down a needle size. they turned out the right size for Sockpal's measurements, but I'm afraid they're not the most durable socks.
Pattern - Baudelaire from Knitty. I picked this because Sockpal said she was "adventurous" when it came to patterns and this one features lace and cables! Lace + cables + fancy shmancy merino/tencel yarn = adventurous, right? I hope so. As for the pattern, I followed it as written for the large size, plus an extra repeat on the leg.


Yarn - I had some aqua and gray Dale Baby Ull laying around, so I used that. I have no idea about the actual yardage, by roughly 6.5g of the aqua and 4.5g of the gray made this pair.
Needles - size 1 clover bamboo dpns
Pattern - Saartje's booties They came out absurdly tiny and cute. Now I kinda of want to knit a lot of them and scatter tham around my apartment so I can pretend helpful elves (who go about barefoot) secretly live in the cupboard.

Ok, so now that that's done. About the lack of blogging: I'm sorry. Besides my inherent sloth, the major culprits are 1) Harry Potter and 2)lack of knitting progress. I figure I get a free pass with Harry because, come on....last book! And the lack of knitting progress has gone a bit like this: I work on something, then look at it and realize it's waaaayyyyy too big/oops I changed needles and messed up my gauge in a totally noticeable way/is a hideous color for my skin...::facepalm:: Literally, all of those things have happened. I'll cover them one by one, but see? My knitting mojo got all wonky and unblogworthy. I think I have it fixed now, though, so no worries.

In other, more competent, non sockpal-related news, I fixed a sock!

See that? I brought it back from the dead, people! I'm pretty thrilled. They're my first pair.

And on the reality TV front, Bear Grylls is my new hero. Seriously, I have seen this man drink his own urine and sleep in a tent he made out of a dead reindeer. Bad ass mofo, that one.

The return of knitting content

Ok, as promised, here's some actual knitting content!

The Exchequered scarf is clicking along at a decent pace. I'm now to the checkered midsection, and I'm planning to keep chugging along until I'm out of yarn and then graft it to the other end section. Since it's a ridiculously easy pattern now that the check is established, and since I kind of totally hate knitting scarves (the length! The utter lack of any variety! Gah!), I've decided it will be my travel knitting. There's no real rush for a squishy double-knit scarf now that the temperatures in the mid-80s anyway, right?

Since the scarf is on the backburner, I started a couple of new projects. First, I'm working on a pair of pomatomus socks. I started them last week when I was sick and have since already completed the first sock!

(click for bigger)

I've been wanting to make them for awhile, and the pattern has not disappointed me so far. I also decided to use this as an oppurtunity to further my appreciation fro toe-up sock construction. I wanted to be able to use the entire skein for once, and not get left with a whole lot of yarn at the end. Man, this puppy turned out tall! Also, the cats gave their stamp of approval when they carried it off in the middle of it's inaugural photoshoot.

I also started the puff-sleeved cardigan from Fitted Knits. I bought the book originally for this design, because it's just so damn cute. I'm using the organic wool/cotton yarn I got awhile ago that I originally planned to make into a Ribena-inspired vest. I swatched and cast on for the vest no less than 3 times, and it just wasn't working. It seems to have taken quite nicely to the cardigan though.


I'm about 1/3 of the way through the raglan increases. I ended up reworking the pattern a bit because my gauge was larger than the pattern called for. Which was soooo easy! Not only is it knit top-down in one peice, which automatically makes it customizable, but the author included a section in the book on how to resize garments....and used this sweater as an example! Funnily enough, I'm more or less following the directions for the 36" size, even though the finished product will boast a bust measurement of 43".

On a somewhat unrelated note, look at those stitch markers! I love them. Jon's mom got them for me when she was up in the Upper Peninsula. Heather, if you're reading this, I'm also grateful for the saffron bread you left here when you passed through last. It did not last long.

In really exciting knitting news, I now have knitting buddies who don't live hundreds of miles away! I went to brunch with a wonderfully sane and funny person in my program (which, I'll have you know, is quite a feat in my cohort. Some of them are just nuts.), a friend of hers, and her sister. It was lovely and refreshing. On the way home I cut through the market and picked up this geranium.


It's a present for Jon. Our friend Van has several houseplants and each time we've visited Jon's mentioned wanting to get some for our apartment. I have no knowledge of plants and asked the woman selling them what would be best for an apartment and she suggested this. Jon was thrilled and has dubbed it Francis. Long live Francis!

PS - We've already established that I have a deep, abiding love of reality TV. Its not surprising, then, that I have become obsessed with So You Think Can Dance? It's got everything you could really want: acrobatic moves that make someone getting hurt a real possibility, attractive young people in ridiculous outfits, and a judge that is quite probably drunker than Paula Abdul. Seriously, Mary Murphy is just insane! Lots of weird screaming and swaying. I feel bad for the judges sitting on either side of her as she must smell like a barrel of paint thinner.

Now, I know this isn't knitting-related

...but when did they start letting the undead on reality TV?



More knitting stuff when I'm not too busy to enjoy anything other than reality TV.

Jon hit the jackpot

So, you know how it always takes you a week or so to get readjusted after breaks and things? I know it takes me at least a week or two, as I'm a creature of habit, and the shift in schedules from one semester to the other always hits me kind of hard. I've finally fallen into the rhythm of this semester, but it's pretty vicious. This semester is shaping up to fairly light class-wise, but very, very heavy research-wise. I'm working on four projects in various stages of completion, so I usually have to do some combination of administrative work to get through red tape, data analysis in the inexplicably hot and stuffy computer lab, data collection (thankfully, mostly online), and meet with professors and/or undergraduate research assistants. And then do a bunch of reading.

Basically, I have two options to manage this workload, which is apparently a bit larger than the typical first year grad student gets stuck with.

1. Work for several hours every day of the week with no breaks. This has the distinct advantage of allowing me to go to bed at a decent hour every night, but renders any other activities (such as moderate exercise) virtually impossible.
   
2. Work ridiculously hard during the week and do no work at all on the weekends. This requires me to work until 2 or 3 am and get up by 9 at the latest every morning, which means that I'm a mess by Friday. But, it also means I get to sleep all weekend and recharge.

I tried Option 1 for a couple of weeks and crashed and burned. It sounds good in theory, but the constant working meant that I needed more and more downtime, which meant that I was going to bed later and later. The lack of sleep turned out to be a huge drain on me emotionally, as I tended to burst into tears whenever my cats ran away from me.

So, I switched to Option 2. Which worked really well for the last couple of weeks, even if it meant I was a mess on Fridays and spent the weekends catnapping all day instead of hanging out with people. But, now I'm sick. It's not a big deal, just a cold that should pass in a couple of days, but I wonder if taking Option 2 has made me especially susceptible to germs.

Anyway, the bright side of Option 2 is that when I'm not passed out on the couch over the weekend, I'm knitting like a fiend. And this weekend, Jon scored big time! First, witness the Resurrection of the Cosby Socks:
Remember them? I made them waaaaay back in October and then this happened:

Yep, Jon ripped the toe of one of them right on the second or so time he wore them. And I avoided repairing them for, oh, about three months. I'm not sure why....I'm not their biggest fan, to be sure, and I was sure it would be a hassle to pick up all the stitches and reknit the toe, and I was a bit miffed that he took such bad care of them. But, it's cold now, and I felt bad, so I fixed them up good as new.


His voluminous amounts of gratitude then caused the Return of Sick Kitten and Sweatpant Gray yarn:
I made him his hat! Friday I had him go through the Vogue Stitchionary 2: Cables to pick out a bigger, bolder motif that could stand up against the texture of the yarn. He picked the Horseshoe I pattern. I started it yesterday and finished it this morning! I'm quite pleased with the result, in spite of the vomit-colored stripes.
Yarn - 1 skein each of Rowan Harris DK tweed (100% wool, 123 yards) in lewis gray and thatch. Which I still say is a misleading name for that color.
Needles - 40" size 5 addi turbos. I have to say that one reason this iteration of the sick kitten hat went so much better than the last is that I used these needles. The yarn is kind of felted and grippy, which makes it a real pain to use anything other than super-slippery metal needles.
Pattern - My own! It follows below, in case I (or, for that matter, anyone else) want to use it again:

Jon's Horseshoe Cap

This hat is knit from the brim to crown, and is 10" wide and 9" long unstretched.

Notations:

• m1 = make 1 stitch by picking up and knitting/purling through bar between stitch just worked and next stitch
• horseshoe cable pattern
• rounds 1 & 2: k12, p4
• round 3: Work 6st right leaning cable, then immediately work 6st left leaning cable, p4
• rounds 4-8: k12, p4
• stripe pattern:
• rounds 1-6: work in pattern in MC (gray)
• rounds 7-8: work in pattern in CC (vomit)

Pattern:

• CO 84 st in CC, work in 1x1 ribbing for 1 inch or so
• next round: switch to MC, [k4, m1, k4, m1 knitwise, k2, p1, m1 purlwise, p1] repeat to end (105 sts)
• next round: [k12, p2, m1 purlwise, p1] repeat to end (112 st)
• work rounds 3-8 of Horseshoe cable pattern, maintaining stripe pattern
• work Horseshoe cable pattern 4 more times (5 times total)
• when work is 2" shorter than desires, begin crown decreases over next 15 rounds:
  o in MC [k1, k2tog, k9, p4] repeat to end (105 sts)
  o in MC [k8, ssk, k1, p4] repeat to end (98 sts)
  o in MC [cable 5 to the right (hold first 2 sts to back), cable 5 to the left (hold first 3 sts to front), p1, p2tog, p1] repeat to end (91 sts)
  o in MC [k2, k2tog, k6, p3] repeat to end (84 sts)
  o in MC [k4, ssk, k3, p3] repeat to end (77 sts)
  o in MC [k8, p2tog, p1] repeat to end (70 sts)
  o in CC [k2tog, k6, p2], repeat to end (63 sts)
  o in CC [k5, ssk, p2], repeat to end (56 sts)
  o in MC [k1, k2tog, k3, p2] repeat to end (49 sts)
  o in MC [k2, ssk, k1, p2] repeat to end (42 sts)
  o in MC [right leaning twist, left leaning twist, p2tog] repeat to end (35 sts)
  o in MC [k1, k2tog, k1, p1] repeat to end (28 sts)
  o in MC [k1, ssk, p1] repeat to end (21 sts)
  o in MC [k2tog, p1] repeat to end (14 sts)
  o in MC [ssk] repeat to end (7 sts)
• break yarn and draw tightly through last 7 sts
• weave in all ends, attach pom-pom if demanded to by your significant other

Here's a closeup of the cable motif and the crown decreases. I'm really pleased with the way the crown decreases turned out and took a picture of them before I added the pom-pom.

But that not all! I started Jon a pair of peekaboo mittens tonight as well:
It'll be fairly simple. All stockinette, all in the round, and I'll probably substitute an afterthought thumb for ease. I'm using the leftover skein of the alpaca tweed from my totally awesome first sweater ever, but I'm holding two strands together and knitting it on 7's to make it nice and thick (and fast).

Between the hat, socks, and mittens, Jon should be nice and toasty when he drives around all night delivering pizzas. I'm making all this stuff for him in large part because it's gotten soooo cold here. In my phlegmatic, fevered stats, I've spent the night watching the Grease: You're the One that I Want marathon, which has been interrupted three times with weather advisories talking about polar fronts and windchill temperatures hovering around -12 degrees. I guess I just wanted to make sure he didn't lose his ears to frostbite, because, let's face it: ear stumps are not sexy.