Fighting the Good Fight

So, as alluded to in my last post, I spent the weekend at another one of those three-day-long socialist meetings. These meetings are so odd - on the one hand, I really enjoy them because I no longer live near a proper branch and thus no longer get these kinds of awesome conversations and get all pumped and inspired to do stuff (instead, as you know, I watch a lot of of ANTM). On the other hand, as much as I like the people there, they do tend to be a bit pretentious and drop terms like 'historical materialism' and 'radicalized youth' like they were the names of celebrities and they were desperately trying to get in to a club on Saturday night.

Mostly though, it was just exhausting. I stayed focused by writing really detailed notes and by knitting these socks:

Check out the TV: It's SPRING BREAK and I'm rewatching as much of Lost as is humanly possible.

They don't really have a name yet, but they're gray, not fancy at all, and for my mechanic stepfather. Given the atmosphere, I was toying with calling them proletariat socks of something equally ridiculous.

If you've ever wondered what our kind does for fun, stay tuned - Dani and I blogged the Oscars and it will be posted this week.

Happy Birthday Jon!

Today you're entering your mid-twenties, which makes you a lame old person as much in body as you always have been in spirit. Since you're still in Minneapolis and I'm not, I'm banking on Dani throwing you an awesome birthday like we did for her back in january. Who knows, maybe you'll even get a fort!

In any case, I wanted to celebrate your birthday by sharing your slick dance moves with the world:

People deserve to know! Besides, this way there's something they can play for you on the TV in case, you know....you get hit by a drunk driver or something. Just saying.

PS - Call your mom, Greg, and Van. They've all called your cell phone.

One Step Foward, Two Steps Back

So, remeber the Eton Sweater? And how it looked like this?


I haven't mentioned it for awhile...because I hit a bit of a knitting pothole with it. I tried it on and it was just not going to work. I mean, I have narrow shoulders and all, but I apparently had made a miscalculation at some point that not even Marilyn Monroe's tiny shoulders could squeeze into. So I made it wade around in the frog pound for a minute.


Not quite back to square one, just back to square September. Which sucks. And I need to recalibrate. But before I do that, I thought I'd cheer myself up by showing you exactly how much work has already gone into this puppy. Behold the original schematic:


Ok. Granted, it's not that much to behold. But, it did beget the Chart of Charts:


I know it's split into two pictures, but it's really one gigantic chart. The bottom half is most of the repeating body section, and the top part is how it splits for the neckline. and before you think I just crazily overcharted the damn thing, look at the detail in the middle - it means that the two halves are mirrored and thus worked differently. So just the once chart wouldn't do.

Ok. I feel a little better now. I will finish this sweater, because I made that damned mega-chart by god! Now I just have to figure out what went wrong with those sleeves.

How do you like the new layout?

I thought it was time to update it, since....well, there's no real good reason except that I didn't want to do my homework and kind of felt like tinkering with HTML instead. It's weird, but sometimes I get minor cravings for it. In any case, I'm quite proud of the third column.

Surprise FO: Calorimetry

Along with being a surprise FO, it's also the inaugural FO of 2008! Just in time, too, because Michigan got cold. Not as cold as Minneapolis (where I'm headed later this week for socialist doings and much hanging out with a certain BFF), but certainly cold enough to warrant a headwrap-y thing. I'm not entirely sure what the proper name for this is.

Yarn - Lana Grossa Mega Stoppino (99 yards, 65% wool/35% acrylic) in color 218. This yarn is awesome! It was only, like, $8 and I still have half a skein or so left. Though, I'm not sure what to make with the rest of it. It's also got a higher acrylic content than I tend to knit with (I, like just about everyone, started with plastic-y Red Heart and then quickly became a yarn snob), but it's fluffy and soft and not weird feeling at all.

Needles - Clover 16" bamboo circulars. Worked just fine.

Pattern - Calorimetry from Knitty. I've been meaning to make this for awhile, especially since my hair is growing out and I have taken to wearing it in a big, messy half-bun thing that looks unsightly in hats (and often out of them, too). I changed the gauge informally (meaning no swatches) and guestimated how big to make it. I got it kind of right, but after wearing it a few times, it started to stretch and sag a little. To make it tighter, I put the button through another hole left by the short rows and just safety pinned the other flap into place. That's why it's off-center in that picture up there.

Blast from the past

First, sorry about the irregular posting. Prelims + classes + catching up from all the stuff I put off doing union work = complete overload. Bear with me for another month and I promise contact will be frequent and full of content (note: same goes for those of you guilt-tripping me about the lack of non-blogging contact...YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!). Ok, now that that's out of the way...

Man. I have been working on this thing forever. I started it waaay back in April. Can you believe it? A year for a scarf! I could've gestated and given birth to a fetus in that span of time! Of course, the really ridiculous thing is that I am still working on it.

But, I can't quit now - I'm too far in! I've got, easily, 75% of it done. All I need to do is make another foot and half or so of crazy checkerboarded material, then graft the other disintegrating check end onto it, and I'm done. And can wear it proudly, pretending that I started and ended it in the same calendar year.

I've actually been working on it a decent amount lately. It floundered in my tub o' WIP for a few months because I was fed up with the fiddliness of the double knitting and seeming lack of progress. Now it's my go-to knitting for things that do not require visual attention, like podcasting for Jarthen. So, the possibility of getting this thing finished before I get my degree is looking more and more realistic.

Somewhere....

....Tom Brady is crying like a little girl, and I'm ok with that. I'm alright with the suffering that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are enduring right now because it is but the bitter fruit of the NY Giants' victory in tonight's Super Bowl.

Now, I don't approve of jumping on the bandwagon just because a team is doing well -- I never have. I will also admit, that I have not been the most pious of fans: I certainly haven't kept the sabbath holy, or borne witness to many of the faithfuls' recent trials, but I never, ever went so far as to root for false idols. I am penitent for my lack of observance, and I am proud to say that my faith has been renewed by the glorious spectacle of the New England Patriots getting spanked in possibly the finest Super Bowl ever played.

Truly, young Eli, you are the chosen one.

Year in Review: 2007

I feel like if I get it in before the end of January, it still counts.

Knitting wise, it was a great year, even if it did slow down a bit at the end. Of course there was standard cold weather gear:





The clear winner, in terms of number of completed objects alone (and, I might add, continuous wear) are the socks! I went totally sock-crazy last year - but if this is wrong, I don't know if I want to be right. Because then I'd have really cold feet. Instead, I have these (well, some of them):






This year I made tons of real clothes, too! Well, not tons, but there was a 600% increase in sweater production from last year. Warm outer garments abound!




So that was the year in knitting, finally. Exciting right? But not half so exciting as this weekend....when I tell you what I've got on the needles! Oh, the possibilities of another 11 months of knitted goodness.

FO: Grandpa Cardigan

Presenting the very last FO of 2007:

I call this one the grandpa cardigan, and it's actually been done for a really long time. I finished knitting it really fast, but then took a bizarrely long time to sew on the buttons. Jon was very patient through it all. I really like it, actually - it's kind of like Mr. Rogers, but older and blander.

Yarn - 5 or so skeins of Knitpicks Cadena (70% wool, 30% alpaca, 110 yards) in mist and some random amount of purple Lopi yarn I had hanging around for the edging.

Needles - 29" size 13 Inox greys. These things are monsters! It was satisfying to knit so fast, but it was also like knitting with vienna sausages.

Pattern - I totally winged this one. I got Jon's measurements and just top-down raglan-ed it until it mostly fit him (what? It's a grandpa sweater...it's supposed to be slouchy and ill-fitting!). For the sleeves, I picked them up and knit them after the body straight, and then decreased a bunch right before the ribbing to ensure maximum floppiness. Then, I worked a nifty, manful shawl collar:


I'm beginning to have a thing for short rows. They are kind of like a magic trick, you know? I have to say, though, that what really pulls the sweater together are the buttons:


Don't you think so? I pulled them off an old, icky acrylic sweater I had and had been holding on to them for awhile, and was planning to use them for myself, but they fit so much better with this.

So that's it, I'm finally caught up in terms of FOs! I'll do a much belated annual recap soon, and hopefully before the end of the month, join everybody in 2008.

FO: Cheery Freemason Gloves

These have been done for awhile.

(click for bigger)

And if you look closely at some of those pictures, you can see that they've also been broken in...by my cat, Mittens, who obsessively licks knitted objects until they get all fuzzy and puffed up. Anyway, I love them! It's currently too cold here to wear them, but they're perfect for late fall/early spring temperatures.

Yarn - Mama Llama DK (100% wool, 275 yards) in Day. I love this yarn! I've considered using it for a whole lot of different things - a cool motif in a yoked sweater, for instance, or maybe a scarf, perhaps a nifty headband - but settled on gloves, I think, because they're small (thus not overwhelming, because damn this yarn is bright) but show off the coolness of the yarn to good effect.

Needles - 29" size 4 Inox circulars. I'm having a weird dilemma these days when I have to choose between addis and inox greys - the inoxes are awesomely pointy (well, frankly, that's awesome for about a minute, but then gets kind of painful because I have a weird habit of pushing the tip of the needle around with my opposing index finger...but you know what I mean), but have a terrible cable, and the addis have that smooth-not-at-all-twisty cable, but are dull which makes intricate stitch manipulation hard. Life is hard.

Pattern - like the ampergrabbers that inspired these, I kinda made it up as I went along. I knit them from the wrist up, starting with about 40 sts. The pattern is based off a basic 2x2 rib, with the cool eye thingy in the middle (hence the freemason reference) made by increasing and decreasing in the rib pattern, like in Thelonius. I worked a gusset for the thumb.

ooooh! creepy masonish eye is watching you!

Stay tuned for the VERY LAST FO of 2008! It's worth the wait, promise.

Oops! There went January....

...without any posts. Sorry about that. Let me catch you up on what happened once my Christmas hermitage ended. In a nutshell...


...Jon got decorated. I think (but I'm not exactly sure) that this happened because he threatened to go running. Dani and I decided this was a terrible idea and said that he could - but that he would be COVERED IN SHARPIE!! He decided not to. Then, New Years got closer and we....


...built a really bad-ass fort! Look at that setup: 2 blankets for maximum canopy coverage, two-level seating arrangement, and a coffee table. We spent 3 or 4 days in this puppy solid and watched the entire Twilight Zone Marathon! Well, we took shifts, but someone was awake and in front of the TV for every single episode. which is impressive nonetheless. A couple of days later, the Twilight Zone Fort was repurposed for...


...Dani's birthday party! Don't ask me what's going on with me an Jon in this picture, I just don't know. Rest assured it was awesome. And finally...


...Dani and I got tattooed! These are little moonmonsters we;ve been thinking about getting for awhile. It's a long story, which involves a long drive to Texas culminating in my sister running around our front yard in a bathrobe trying to scare us. I think you had to be there. Oh! Interesting tidbit: the tattoo parlor we went to also did Jim Jarmusch, one of the best directors ever.

Stay tuned for knitting content, while will appear before February come hell or high water.