More Punkin' fun!

Based upon the success of our previous pumpkin carving expedition, we elected to pursue further efforts in this domain, yielding the following results:


This one was carved by yours truly, and I was very pleased with the way he turned out. He seems like a wry old chap, and, if he was sentient, I wouldn't mind making his acquaintence.

The fine specimen on the right, of course, is a representation of the eminent psychologist Abraham Maslow (chap on the left), and was carved by the proprietor of this fine blog. Note the fine shading around the mustaches and eyes: he certainly looks the part.

You, dear reader, can look forward to another two pumpkins that as yet are uncarved: nothing's better than post-halloween pumpkin carvin'.

Behold, Pumpkins!

Jon went shopping (he always does the grocery shopping - it's something I just refuse to do, because I have no car and because I don't cook) and surprised me with some pumpkins and jack-o-lantern supplies. Last time we tried to make a jack-o-lantern was a couple of years ago, at Oberlin, when we got a behemoth of a pumpkin which bested us. It was too monstrously thick to carve well, and ended up looking just ridiculous.

But these turned out pretty good, I think.

Yay for jack-o-lanterns! There may be more to come, depending on when Jon gets to the store next.

Charade Socks: The Journey Continues

So, this weekend was kind of a bust. There was no working really (some paper did get graded), but there wasn't any real sleeping, either, so it wasn't all that relaxing. I'm not prone to insomnia, so this is weird for me, but I'm under a ton of pressure school-wise and other-parts-of-life-wise and just let it get to me I think.

I took today off for recovery. I watched some really, really, bad horror movies (Thr3e in particular is bad. So bad that it totally has fake versions of real actors, which is something to see.) and ate some fried chicken. And....I finished the first charade sock! Hooray for knitting accomplishments!


One down, one to go. Sweet.

Guest Posting Series: Jon

Now I’ll admit that for a long time I was very skeptical about the enjoyment one can derive from the act of knitting. In my estimation, I considered it to be an idle and somewhat unseemly habit-this opinion was not based on any rational inquiry into the subject, mind you, but rather on the snap, ridiculous style of thought that is now so synonymous with the name Jon Seid.

As with so may other things that I believed myself to be constitutionally opposed to, I quickly found that knitting, upon closer examination, was a much more palatable pursuit than I previously imagined. It took several failed attempts for me to gain any appreciation for the art, and it was only on this, my fourth attempt to learn that I finally saw how a decent, God-fearing gentleman could engage in knitting.

For some unknown reason, as I find so often occurs in my life, when I again took up my borrowed pair of knitting needles and embarked on yet another scarf, I discovered that I actually enjoyed knitting! How curious! I exclaimed to myself, that after heaping so much odium on this pursuit and its adherents, I, Jon Seid, a man of considerable steadfastness of opinion, should in fact perform a volte face on such a long-held and deeply believed premise. Such is life, however, and I suppose that I must accept these changes of mind, just as one is compelled to do so with the wind and the rain.

That said, I happy to be able to present to you this, the beginnings of what will become my first completed objet d’knitting:


Look for further updates, as they occur! Jon, Captain's Lieutenant, signing off.

A Heel for Brian

Weird. It's exactly a week since my last post. I'm trying to carve out some me-time from my hideous monster-schedule of vicious time-bandits, so hopefully it'll become more frequent than that. And if it doesn't that happen, hopefully Jon will start posting here. And then there will truly be cross-pollination of the knitting and Jarthen blogs.

But, back to the knitting! I took this weekend mostly off, and worked on Brian's socks and the Eton pullover. The Eton pullover still needs pictures taken, so it'll have to wait until another post.

So, last time you saw it, the Charade socks were barely halfway through the foot. Now, they're past the heel! Check it out:

check out my cankle!

Impressive, right? They're coming right along. One section that did give me pause, though, was the heel. I figure I have to make a billion socks in the next few months, so it behooves me to make it a learning experience. I'm going to try and learn a new(ish) sock technique with each pair. For Brian's socks, I chose the short-row heel:


I've done them before, on the here there be dragons socks, but I did't do it right (I think, in retrospect), and it didn't stick. I'm not sure if it's because I kinda-sorta understand short rows, but it stuck this time. So far, my feeling on them is that they lack the structure of a dutch heel flap and gusset, they are less fiddly and easier to make. This probably means that I'll be using the short row heel a lot in the near future.

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.

Socks for Brian

Blog,

Sorry for the suspicious absence of late. I can assure you I wasn't sneaking off to Jarthen, I just got really really busy for real. The first assignment was due this week, so I've been doing a lot of grading. Grading blows.

Back to knitting! There's still shamefully little to report on, so I thought I'd give you a proper introduction to these:


I'm making a pair Charade socks for my dear friend Brian. I've started a socking queue, since everyone and their mama wants socks this year for Christmas. Being a fan of knitted socks myself, I understand they're appeal, but damn, people! No big chunky hats that take, like 20 minutes to make?! No rest for the weary, eh?

But I digress. As usual. I bought the yarn (approved by the man himself, of course) this summer and never got around to starting his socks. Then, he told us he was moving from Ann Arbor to Chicago in the fall, which was especially sad since he lived right down the street from us and made it feel like it was a real neighborhood, complete with....well, neighbors, and I declared that I would send him off with a freshly knitted pair of socks. Which obviously didn't happen.

It's happening now though! I'm about halfway through with the foot, and trying to sneak in rounds here and there between the comma splices and misused technical jargon of the student papers. The pattern's actually great for this because it's a two-round repeat that's impossible not to memorize. I think it may technically be lace, since it includes YOs and decreases, but it's quite a manly lace, don't you think?


I do. I hope Brian does too.

There's one thing other I should let you know, blog (and readers. Never fear, readers! Once the dust of my rocky relationship with blog has settled, I can spend more time directly addressing you. Be patient, please). As Jon has been zooming right along with his knitting, I have offered to let him use you to share his efforts with the interweb. You're a generous blog, and he's a nice boy, and I think you'll get along well.

PS - To the readers: if you are not on the Socking Queue referenced above, but you'd like to be, leave me a comment or email me or some such thing. And if you are a reader of the knitting variety and would like occasional blogging privileges (but, perhaps, not the pressure of your own knitting blog), drop me a line as well and it can be arranged. Jon is definitely not more special than you.

Another convert

Knitting blog,

I have some really wonderful news to report! You've been enthusiastic about the successful knitting conversions ("oh so like a wandering saint among the barbarians," says Jon) I've performed in the past, so I thought you should be the first to know. I have finally, after years of trying, and many failures, convinced Jon of the healthful benefits of knitting. See?


Oh yes, blog, that Jon. Grab the smelling salts and I'll give you a moment to recover. Better? Good. Let me show you Exhibit A, taken around Thanksgiving last year:


Not so good, right? That was after a few hours of wrangling with the needles. Granted, there was some pretty strong egg nog happening, but you get the point. Now, witness Exhibit B, taken tonight just a few moments ago:


He's accomplished so much! In so little time! It's like little flag of victory. Doesn't it just warm the cockles of your heart, blog? It does mine.

I'll end the Week of Apologetic Posting there. I think it's a high note.

I started a sock!

Here it is:
Kindly ignore my weirdly fleshy mitt-hand, Jon the Goblin, and the random fish-eye lens effect happening and you'll see the lovely blue and green yarn there! And about half a toe! Times are good.

But now, blog, I am sleepy. It's been a long day, but I wanted to get in a wee post before bed.

-she of the fleshy mitts

Still no pictures.

Oh blog, it's sad, I know. I'm sorry about that. But the reason for the lack of pictures is two-fold:

1. The projects that are on the needles are either in a state of not-so-different-looking-than-when-last-photographed (the Eton pullover), or are freshly off the needles and being processed into wearable garments (the Grandpa cardigan is getting buttons, and Rusted Root is blocking).
2. I have a lot of projects planned, but I am wracked with indecision. Early start on Christmas socks? Another sweater? Perhaps a vest? Something for me or somebody else? I just can't pick. This is not usual for me, and (being a psychologist and all) I know that traits are stable and enduring, so I'm thinking it should pass soon.

So, all told, it's kind of a nice place to be knitting-wise. I mean, a couple of projects are done, or almost done, and I've got a wide variety of things to make and yarns to choose from. Oh! And some exciting news is that I finally got my invite from Ravelry, so I'm on that now.


PS - My friend Dani is so much more awesome than ravelry, cause she fights the good fight.

I'm 23!

Today is my birthday! Yay! Given that it's my birthday, I'm going to ask for a little flexibility with the content here and steer away from knitting for a bit.

Here's what I've done today: woke up, had some breakfast, edited a few student papers, held office hours (where I discussed said student papers), and came home. Then the real festivities began! There were many lovely presents (including a very nice pair of boots I bought for myself), several milkshakes, and a scavenger hunt.

from top: awesome jacket (thanks jon!), gleeful boyfriend, signs telling me how great a day Sept 19, 2004 [sic] is, really cool stool with Jon's hookah (thanks mom!)

And now, I must leave your and return to the festivities. But, I'll leave you with these profound lyrics from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie:

Did you bring your baby?
Babies don't watch this!
Take your seed outside.

See you tomorrow, blog.

PS - I finished rusted root! She is blocking and we'll have a proper showing soon!

ETA: Google is scary. That is all.

Of knitting and cats

Knitting blog,

Once again, I have little for you on the actual new stuff front. I will tell you that I've started the sleeves of rusted root, but if I took a picture it would look exactly like the one I posted yesterday. So I won't be posting about anything current...but we're making up for lost time, so I guess it's ok. I hope you understand.

Anyway, I was thinking about what to show you today, and I decided I'd show you a couple of funny things I'd knitted but never blogged about. And then I pulled all the pictures off my digital camera was full and realized I had a bajillion pictures of the cats being ridiculous. And then I realized that one of the goofy knitted-things I was going to blog about anyway was a cat toy I made over a year ago, so it was kind of fated.

This is Frank the crab. He's a blue crab because Jon's a Marylander (which, by the way, is an awesome word), and you know how they love their crabs there. I put catnip in it because I was churning out cat toys at a fearsome rate around then. I made Frank out of some soft acrylic yarn that wasn't to squeaky. I mostly just made it up as I went along, but I remember making two pentagons for the shell. After I'd sewn them together and stuffed it, I think I picked up stitches along the outside and made the legs out of i-cords. The pinchers were done in the round (I think) and shaped with decreases. I used buttons for eyes, the same ones as here.


But, why is Frank so fuzzy there? Because Mittens is a total niphead, that's why. Seriously, that one is an unwed teenage drugged-out mother. She's actually got cat toys stashed away in various parts of the apartment that uses when she's fiending. Check this out:


See? She did that while I was taking pictures of Frank tonight. Couldn't help herself. And stoned out of her mind, too. I'm thinking about contacting those nice people from A&E's Intevention show to come and have a gander.

And then there's Fatty. He's too simple to be interested in drugs, he just doesn't understand them. Here are two things he does understand, though:

Blinking while making a nest out of my clothes...


...and guitars (as furniture, mind you, not as musical instruments).

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.

An Apology of Sorts

Dear knitting blog,

I'm sorry I've been so distant. Things have been hard lately....school's started and I have all my research to do. On top of that, I'm carrying a full load of classes and I've started teaching. It's all very strange, and something I was perhaps unprepared for. Very through the looking glass, you know, what with all of the long hours spent trying to come up with a not totally lame group exercise to teach totally unenthused students about validity and reliability.

But I can hear what you're saying, blog. You're going, "Don't even! You were insanely busy last year and still found time to blog with me!" Well, I can't deny that....but the problem hasn't been the lack of blogging. No, the real problem is that I haven't even been knitting. A row here and there, sure, but not like usual. I didn't tell you before, but I started a new medication a while back. It's nothing serious! I'm ok! Well, the doctor told me to scale back on the caffeine, which you of all blogs should know is pretty hard for me. It makes my hands shaky and that makes it hard to knit.

Oh, blog, I can't lie anymore! Not to you, knitting blog! The real truth is that I haven't been knitting or blogging because...I've been seeing someone else. His name is Jarthen, and I may have mentioned him once or twice. It's getting pretty serious....we're even getting into podcasts together. I know this is painful, blog, but mostly this letter is to say I'm sorry. Sorry for letting you down and sorry for deceiving you.

But I can't help but hope that we can still make this work! Take me back, blog! I did some knitting this weekend...don't you want me to show you? Don't you want to know how excited I am that the next cycle of America's Next Top Model is starting this week (on my birthday, no less)? The Jarthen blog doesn't care about any of that, it would make fun of me!

I'm a fan of Big Love, as you know. And I know we may not be Mormons, blog, but I think we should live the principle. You and me and the Jarthen blog as one big happy online family. Let's make a go of it! And to show you I'm really serious, I'll post everyday this week, even if they're just wee little posts. I'm up to the bigamous-blog challenge, I know I am!

So, about those music videos...

...They were for Jon. More specifically, I posted them so that we would be able to rock out Friday night in celebration of it being his last day of work. See, what happened is that Jon's been temping lately (working on this book-scanning project for Google. It's apparently super-secret....and I may have already said too much), and he worked from 4pm-midnight. This was fine for now, but during the semester, he'll have afternoon classes and wouldn't be able to stay on. Classes start in a couple of weeks, so he decided to quit in order to give himself time to get prepared to start classes and find a job that's more compatible with his student schedule. He wanted me to make sure that everyone knows that he's not slacking off, and the he's at a job interview as I write this! He has several more scheduled for the week.

Anyway, I thought he'd earned a break so I threw him a surprise quitting party Friday night, and the music videos were part of it. I should clarify that said party was attended only by me, Jon, and the cats. It was selective.


So, these were the decorations. I printed out a bunch of words and phrases associated with being jobless and taped them around the apartment (Jon's favorite was "The Best Stand Down"). Originally, they were going to be suspended from the ceiling, but I'm short and that didn't work out. We had a good time.

To keep with the theme here, I have a couple more bits of Jon-centric news. In knitting news, I'm making him a sweater!


As you can see, it's not just any sweater....it's a full-out slouchy old man sweater. It's gone super-quick because i'm using bulky yarn and size 13 needles. I originally bought the yarn to make the spicy fitted V neck top from Fitted Knits. I ended up making the entire body of the sweater in, like, 3 days, and realized that something wasn't quite right. We've all been there, right? Awesome pattern, nice yarn, but the garment just isn't working. I set it aside for a couple of days and realized I'd never wear the damn thing because I look terrible in gray. I still don't know what possessed me to by it in that color. So I ripped it.

Jon liked the yarn, so I offered to make something for him out of it. Thus, the grandpa cardigan was born. About all I have to do for it now is make some big patch pockets, sew on some buttons, and weave in the ends. And it could stand a good blocking.

In non-kitting Jon-related news, he's got a blog now, too! Well, more specifcally, it's a blog where he's serializing his fantasy novel. He wrote the prologue as a project during college when he was too young to know better. Then, a couple of years later, a bunch of us were hanging out talking about what bad writers we were when we first got to college and Jon showed it to us. We had a good laugh, and then got weirdly obsessessed with it. Seriously, for the last 3 or so years, a group of about 4 or 5 of us have outlined the novel (and sequels, since all good fantasy books come in trilogies.), held dramatic readings complete with funny voices, and had heated discussions about such things as the philological inconsistency of character's names.

Jarthen, a most brave lad

If you're interested, pop on over and check it out! There's a couple of character bios up already and a magnificantly detailed map of the fictional country it's set in. I'm still tweaking the layout, so it's subject to change, but the story's already being posted.

I'll give you behind-the-scenes infor regarding Jarthen and co. And if you do check it out, leave the big guy a comment, will you? He's an absolute sucker for flattery or attention in general.

totally unrelated to knitting...

...I'll explain tomorrow, promise. In the meantime, enjoy some of my favorite music videos!

1. Eels - last stop:this town


2. Blur - Coffee and TV


3. the killers - bones


4. Jamiroquai - virtual insanity


5. gorrillaz - 19/2000

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: Orangina

Presenting Orangina:

(Click for bigger)

This is the last surprise FO for awhile, I promise. Remember when I said in my last post I hadn't blogged awhile because of some major facepalm moments? And that one of them entailed a major gauge error? Well, that would be the summertime tunic.

I kind of fudged the gauge swatch and never realized it because of the way it was bunched on the circular needle. I worked on it at the beach, at the movies, while reading the last Harry Potter book, and then I checked it. It was about 10 inches long and I was all "hmmm, I wonder if it's time to start the armholes," so I put it on scrap yarn. And then I was like, "my hours of long, tedious work have created a gigantic, shapeless sack....DAMN YOU, GAUGE! DAMN YOU AND YOUR SICK, TWISTED SENSE OF VENGEANCE!"

It was literally 10 inches long by about 48 inches wide. And I admit I am a bit busty, bit I'm no Dolly Parton. So after carefuly measuring gauge as if I had just made the world's biggest gauge swatch on purpose, I ripped it all out and sat on the yarn for a few days, humbled by the defeat. I also came to the conclusion that the summertime tunic would probably look terrible on me anyway, and make me look more frumpy than carefree. I'd bought the orangina pattern awhile ago and decided to use the yarn for that instead.

Yarn - 5 skeins of Knitpicks shine (60% pima cotton, 40% modal, 110 yards), sport weight, in cherry. This yarn is awesome! It's really soft, and (perhaps not shockingly) shiny, and totally worth getting since it's super-cheap. The downside is that I have 4 skeins of this yarn leftover, and I'm not really feeling making another tank top out of the same exact yarn.
Needles - 29" size 6 Inox circular, which gave me a gauge of 20 sts x 28 rows = 4 in stockinette.
Pattern - Orangina by Glampyre. I'm apparently working through her entire catalog. The gauge I got was significantly looser than what was listed in the pattern so I calculated the number of stitches needed to fit my bust size (200ish) and made the size that came closest to that number (XS, with 206 sts). Here are my other mods:

• I worked it bottom-up, not top-down as written. I did this mostly to start in the round and to get the ribbing out of the way. I also wanted to eliminate seaming and be able to kitchener the shoulders together.
• I made the ribbing 5" long and the lace section 16" long, which is longer than specified for the XS size.
• I have tiny, wee little shoulders. They also slope down kind of dramatically. This means that I have issues with bra straps falling down, the straps of shirts and dresses being to long, and that I get a weird wing effect with square cut tops that have no armhole shaping (like this one). When it came time to separate the front and back to make armholes, I bound off 5 sts and then alternated knitting 1 row plain and decreasing 1 sts on the edges until a total of 9 sts were decreased on both sides. I basically eliminated and entire lace repeat this way.
• I grafted 3" of the shoulders together instead of 2".
  

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.

Totally unrelated....

....but while anxiously awaiting the last Harry Potter book, I've started rereading the His Dark Materials trilogy (which if you haven't read, you totally should). I found this quiz you could take on the film's website that tells you what your daemon (for those of you who don't know, this is the physical manifestation of your soul in animal form) would be and ...... ta-dah!



Meet Erasmus the Chimp. How perfect is that? I really like Erasmus, so I chose to settle him into final form immediately, but you have the option of letting people who know you really well can take this quiz to see if your daemon really fits you. You have 12 days before it settles into it's final form, but I didn't want anyone messing with his chimp-ness. So there.