FO: Rusted Root

Guess who finished something, like, a week ago?!

(click for bigger)

Me! That's who. And the what is the much-anticipated Rusted Root. I love this one, I really do. I think it can be thrown on over just about anything, and dressed up or down to my heart's content. Despite the super-funness of it, I should say that I was kind of shocked at how heavy it is. I know it's cotton and all, but damn this garment has heft. On to the specs:

Yarn - around 7 skeins of Karabella Zodiac. As usual, I bought the recommended amount, and ended up with a substantial amount leftover. I really ought to just start buying enough for a size or two smaller than I'm making (must be the short torso). I shared my thoughts about the yarn itself here.

Needles - Inox 29" size 6 circular for the body and Inox 29" size 4 for the ribbed edges

Pattern - Rusted Root by Zephyrstyle. I talked about this pattern a little bit already, and my feelings haven't changed that much. I still think that the pattern as written is a nice, simple top that would look great a girl with a bit less up top and longer, leaner lines....you know, not me. Which brings me to the overhaul:

• I replaced the lace motif with a cable motif. It's a habit. This particular cable is ripped off from Shedir.
  
• Once again, I held a shaping extravaganza. All the shaping was added along the side 'seams.' I did it the same way as last time, by first taking my bust, waist, and hip circumference and then measuring the length from my shoulder to bust, bust to waist, waist to hip, and then the overall length. I converted the numbers to my gauge, and then figured out how many stitches I need to add/subtract per zone and divided by the number of rows in said zone. As my mom would say, it was a lot of ciphering. But, considering that I didn't end up with a weirdly long baggy t-shirt, I think the ciphering was worth it.
• The sleeves came out wonky. This wasn't intentional, it was just me not following the pattern. I increased for the puffiness, but then totally zoned out and never decreased. Son, now, it's less puffy and more floppy. I think I'll add a kicky ribbon or elstic or something to puff-ify them when I get around to it.
• Last but not least, I changed the ribbed edging on the bottom hem, neckline, and sleeves to a 1 x 1 rib. It was written as a 2 x 1 rib, but that didn't work well with the fancy new cable panel, so I switched it.

And that's all she wrote, basically. Oh! Speaking of writing, guess who totally can't at all? That's right, my students! They're godawful people. In fact, you see how cute and gleeful I am in those pictures? Well, those pictures were taken last Tuesday, right before I went in to teach (see, cause they're semi-professional and don't emphasize the 16-ishness too much...or at least that what I keep pretending). I was all perky and stuff until I had to tell them that they're papers kind of totally sucked ass and that the class average was a B-. They were NOT HAPPY about that, let me tell you, and every single one of my 42 students wanted to come in for a draft of their next paper. So, that's what I spent the last week doing. Jon can vouch for me.

I really don't get these kids. I mean, I like getting As as much as the next person, but I was never such a grademonger. Seriously, kids (I call them that as if they're actually a lot younger than me. They're seniors mostly, so, that's not all that accurate) were coming in to argue about getting points off for formatting. One of my students went behind my back to another TA to try an get her to grade her papers from now on. The other TA, of course, refused....which is actually good for the student because she's totally a harder grader than I am. Anyway, point is, I don't understand the rabid fighting for points or the assumption that everyone should get As just cause. Kids today.

Meager Knitting Update

Hi blog!

Look what I did today:


Rusted Root is practically off the needles! It's not totally finished yet because I still have to do the sleeves, but the body is done. Stick a fork in it. I even did the neckline trim.

Look, I know this post is going up at 2 AM, and I know that this is a pretty awful photo, but e for effort, ok? It's been a long day.

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.