Feel-Good Friday, Late July Edition

This has been a challenging week for a number of reasons, most having to do with not getting enough sleep. I'll spare you the boring details; suffice it to say that I'm happy it's Friday. And instead of wallowing in the less-than-happy things, let's instead focus on the good in this week that was.

I mentioned at the beginning of the week that the Mister was going to be out of town for work for a few days this week. I took advantage of his absence to completely empty the stash closet and put everything on his side of the bedroom. Molly took a stab at organizing things on Tuesday while I was working, and then Wednesday night, after I put Ruthie to bed, the two of us went through all the bins and bags to put things together logically. Molly claimed some leftovers, some mini skeins, and some full skeins for herself (she's been doing a lot of crocheted motifs to make blankets). I consolidated handspun and unspun fiber into fewer containers. And we organized the yarn into bins containing full skeins/sweater quantities and collected all the fingering weight bits that could be used in charity projects. Some things were just plain thrown out because they were of no use to me or anyone else. And now the closet looks like this:

Spinning fiber is all on the left, handspun is in the center, and yarn is to the right. The Cascade bag on top of the fiber is all the bits of fingering, so I can just pull that out and pull out scraps as needed, and the soft plastic cases on top of the yarn bins is projects that have been packed away. I also want to point out that right at the top of the handspun pile is a smaller plastic bag that I deliberately left out -- it's the handspun I couldn't find that triggered this reorganization process in the first place!

Other good things: I finally blocked and photographed my most recent pair of socks (I'm writing up the pattern and will need photos, so that was good motivation):

And I've been continuing to spin almost every evening and finished the first 2 oz. (of 6 oz. total) of this lovely merino/silk/angora fiber that my friend Margene sent me:

I'm hoping we can finish up this week with some really good news: Molly is scheduled to take her driving test later this morning. She's been getting good feedback from the driving instructor (all the credit goes to the Mister for getting her out on busy and difficult roads), so I am feeling good about her chances. I know she's very much like me and won't be reckless, but nerves are always something to contend with. If you have some good thoughts to send her way at 11:30 this morning, I'm sure she'd appreciate it! Update: She passed!

I hope this past week has brought you clearer air if, like me, you were recently dealing with smoke from the forest fires. Our air has been so much better and our weather has been absolutely stunning the past couple of days -- it was in the 50s when I took Ruthie out first thing yesterday! I also hope you've been able to find some things to feel good about, and please feel free to share them in the comments, as I think we can all use a good lift! Have a lovely weekend.

Totally Overwhelmed

Last week I mentioned that I was going to do a little digging in the stash to find some yarn for a sweater. In fact, I had a pattern and some handspun in mind. So Friday evening, I went into the stash room/guest room, opened up the doors to the closet, and started pulling out bins and bags.

Readers, I could not find the yarn.

Why couldn't I find the yarn? Well, let's just say that at one point, when Molly was moving out of this room and into the third-floor room where the stash used to live, the stash was organized. But that was several years ago, and the stash room has become a sort of catch-all for anything that doesn't have a place but needs to be out of the way. And often things are tossed into the closest willy-nilly. I have only myself to blame. This photo doesn't really give the full picture of the situation, but at least you can get a sense of the scale:

The bottom line is that I'm feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed by the amount of yarn I have. I know there are likely people who have much more and I am not in the least judging, but right now I feel like I don't even have a good sense of what I have, nor can I apparently get my hands on something that I know is in there, and that makes me anxious. I've been focusing on using yarn I already have for the past couple of years, but clearly that has not been enough.

So. Now it's time to get serious. Part of the solution to this problem is organization. If things are stored in a logical way, it'll be easier to find what I'm looking for as well as sort out what I may no longer want. That's a big project that requires space to spread things out, and I may not be able to do that until the next time the Mister is on a work trip and I can use half of the bedroom. In the meantime, the fastest way to relieve some of the anxiety of having too much is to use some of it us, so that's what I'm going to do.

I've joined a couple of charity-related groups on Ravelry that are seeking warm items made from wool (machine washability not required), and my plan is to prioritize making items for them. Thinner yarns can get doubled or even tripled. I can crochet more (it tends to grow a little faster). And I'll also encourage Molly to use up whatever she likes as well (she's a much better and faster crocheter than I, and she's made some really cute hats in the past, not to mention that she's been on a blanket kick lately).

All of this is to say that while I'll still be making gifts for family members and also probably sweaters for myself, you can expect to see a lot of the same thing over and over in the months ahead, and I hope it won't get too boring! Also, I may have some yarn I'm willing to offload on crafting friends, if that might interest any of you. But mainly I'm putting all this here for accountability and hoping for some moral support!

I have to say I already feel a bit better having written all that, and I hope I haven't made anyone else anxious about their stash. I will be back on Wednesday with a project and reading update -- assuming I haven't melted into a puddle of warm goo by then, of course.

Unraveled, Week 33/2021

It's a dark, rainy Wednesday here as we are dealing with the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred. Kat is taking the week off from blogging and thus isn't hosting a link-up for Unraveled Wednesday, but I've been posting every Wednesday this year so far, and I'm not about to break my streak! Plus, I have quite a reading update, and as I expect to be back in the office at this time next Wednesday, it doesn't make sense to wait until next week.

I am focused today on finishing up that baby-sized Flax Light that I shared yesterday -- I've got a couple of inches left to knit on the first sleeve, so that doesn't seem like too big of a stretch. I can also report that while it isn't all that pretty, the stash is officially contained in its new home, the closet of what is now the guest/stash room:

The only things that aren't in the closet now are two bags that are in my bedroom, one containing some handspun that I've been slowly adding to Instagram for sale and one containing a fleece, which I've put there in the hopes that seeing it will inspire me to finish processing it so I can spin it (I am planning to spin for a Dissent Pullover).

Reading has been good this past week, and I've finished three books:

I had put Home Fire on hold at the library after Mary recommended it, and then it was mentioned on last week's episode of Novel Pairings about mythology-inspired titles, so it all felt very timely. This novel is a modern retelling of Antigone that focuses on three English siblings, children of Pakistani immigrants who were abandoned by their father and then orphaned when their mother died, leaving the two youngest children, twins, to be raised by their teenage older sister. They are grown when we meet them, but they are still grappling with their past and dealing with their connections to Islamic terrorism and conflicts within their Muslim community. It's a heartbreaking and moving book. I gave it 4 stars.

Bingo square: An author of color

On that same episode of Novel Pairings, Sara and Chelsey mentioned Lovely War, which I'd never heard of but put on hold at the library right away. The main narrative of this book is set during World War I and follows two couples as they make their way through the war facing all sorts of challenges, but this story line is actually a story within a story: When the book opens, it's the middle of World War II, and Aphrodite and Ares have been caught in a tryst in a New York City hotel room by Aphrodite's husband, Hephaestus. The story of the two couples in WWI is told by Aphrodite in a trial overseen by her husband to explain why he has found her with Ares, and in fact the story reveals just how much love and war are intertwined. I listened to the audiobook, which uses music strategically to enhance the narrative. I'll admit that my attention wandered at some points, so the book was perhaps a little long for my taste, but I enjoyed it in general. I gave it 3 stars.
Bingo square: Story within a story

My final finish for the week was completed yesterday afternoon. I'd had The Rose Code in my to-read stack for the entire summer but only just got to it this month. This is definitely one of those books that, if I'd picked it up on vacation, I would have sped through in a day or two, but reading it before bedtime made it take much longer. The story takes place in two timelines, one during WWII and one in the days leading up to the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, and follows three women who all worked at Bletchley Park during the war. In the later timeline, one is falsely imprisoned in a mental hospital because of something that happened at Bletchley, and the wartime chapters slowly reveal why. This is a 600+-page book but didn't feel like it, and I really enjoyed the setting because I've been fascinated by the code-breaking efforts at Bletchley for quite a while. There's a very interesting author's note at the end that you must read, and she also gives a list of other books (both fiction and nonfiction) and TV shows and movies that tell more about Bletchley Park. I gave it 4 stars.
Bingo square: Color in the title

My second bingo card is filling up quickly, and I'm challenging myself to complete a second cover-all before Summer Book Bingo ends!

You can see that I already have one bingo (the right-most column), and I'm hoping to soon have a second (the fourth row). I am listening to the audiobook of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev and am, according to my Libby app, 64% through it. I also started The Illness Lesson last night after finding a copy of it in my neighborhood Little Free Library earlier this summer; I haven't yet added it to my card, but it's going in the "That you want to read because of the cover" square. That leaves me seven squares to fill, and I know what I'm reading for five of them for sure. Even if I don't manage to fill this card, I will for sure have done some excellent reading this summer!

How is your reading going this week?

Spin the ... Bag?

I think I mentioned in my last post that my fiber stash was in need of some reorganization, so today I decided to tackle one portion of it: my Southern Cross Fibre stash. I don't remember exactly when I joined the club, but it was back when there was still a waiting list, and I was on that list for several years before I got a spot. At the time I first joined, David was dyeing two colorways a month, and you could sign up to receive one or both. If you paid for just one, David would pick which one you'd get based on your color preferences, but there would usually be extras of both colorways so that if you wanted both (and were quick enough to get to his store when he posted them), you could buy the other one. He'd also offer semisolid coordinates to go with the multicolored colorways and offer limited quantities of those. So over the years, I've amassed quite a fiber stash from him and haven't been able to keep up with the spinning. I did get a good portion spun last year, but I wanted to pull out everything today to get a good sense of just how much I have. So in the interest of full disclosure, here is the entirety of my SCF fiber stash:

I've arranged it more or less in chronological order, from left to right, top to bottom. The oldest bag of fiber is on the top left; it's from August 2015. The most recent is the bottom right, from October 2020 (I've actually spun the most recent fiber I've received, which was the November 2020 shipment). There are two bags in here (far right on the top row and on the third row from the top) that are undated that I received as prizes, and you'll also notice a double in the second row -- one of those was a prize as well but was a duplicate of a club colorway, so I was able to date it. Each of these bags contains a minimum of 110 g/3.9 oz. of fiber, so in all, I've got 2,530 g or 89 oz. of fiber here to spin!

There's a spinning group on Ravelry that does an annual event called Spin the Bin. I've never actually participated in it, but from what I gather, you get some sort of bin and put in it everything you want to spin over the course of the year as a personal challenge. My bins are all full, so I have instead a zippered comforter bag that I've now put all this fiber into, and while I can't promise I will spin only SCF fiber this year, I want to make a decent dent in it. There are some bags I can combine (the two that are the same, obviously, but also some that are the same fiber base and similar colors), but there's also nothing wrong with spinning these bags individually. I really want to embrace the mentality that none of these is precious and should be saved, because, really, saving fiber for someday doesn't actually accomplish anything.

Before I can dig into this pile, though, I have a new project on the wheel that I started late last week. Back in October, during "virtual" Rhinebeck, I won a bullseye bump of fiber from Loop Fiber Studio. I never put it away in the stash room, so I figured I might as well start spinning it because it was already next to my wheel. This one is called Vernal Equinox and is a mix of merino and nylon with a touch of sparkle. It alternates sections of color with sections of black, and as I'm planning to chain-ply, I'll get stripes.

This method of fiber preparation is really interesting. The fiber is carded, I believe, and then arranged in a cylindrical form that you pull from kind of like a center-pull ball of yarn. They're beautiful to look at and fun to spin. I think I'm maybe halfway through this one.

This spin has been keeping me company while I've been reading, and I expect by this time next week, it'll be a finished skein!

We are hunkering down here for another snowstorm that's supposed to come through tomorrow into Tuesday; the current estimate is 6-10 inches (though yesterday they were saying 8-12). I'm glad that Rainbow and I are both off tomorrow and none of us has to go anywhere!

The Stash: A Reckoning

I hope you all had a restful holiday weekend, whatever you were celebrating! We had two very big Passover dinners, and thanks to taking yesterday off, I got pretty well caught up on my sleep. This morning did feel a bit crazy -- the Mister was up early to leave for a quick work trip, so I had to get Rainbow to school and then run off to an orthodontist appointment, which then made me run to get to work as quickly as I could -- but it also feels good to get back to the normal routine. I didn't get as much physical activity as I would like over the weekend, too, so my daily walks to and from work have been missed.

I am still working on two active WIPs, a shawl design sample and my afterthought heel socks; the socks are far enough along now that I might even finish them tonight if I can get enough knitting time in.

What I want to talk about today, though, is the state of my stash. Last weekend, I found myself going through just about every bin and bag of yarn and fiber in my stash in search of a skein of yarn I'd spun last summer and put in such a safe place that I'd been unable to locate it again for many months. I did eventually find that skein, but in the process I realized that I've acquired way more yarn and fiber than I really need or could reasonably use. I say this without judgment of the size of anyone else's stash; mine has just gotten to the point where it's causing me anxiety. So I'm taking some steps to help ease that:

1. Starting today, I am not buying yarn just for the sake of buying it. I won't say I am not buying yarn at all, because sometimes there is a necessity (such as needing an extra skein for a project that's a gift, for instance), but I am not in need of yarn for any planned projects right now and have enough yarn purchased specifically for planned projects that I am not going to buy yarn and cast on for something entirely new on a whim.*
2. At some point in the near future, I'm going to take some time to go through the entire stash and sort it. Things that do not spark joy will be destashed, either by giving them to Rainbow or a friend or putting them up for sale.
3. For the foreseeable future, I'll be working exclusively from stash. That means upping my game with charity knitting (a perfect use for all the partial skeins that are making up a large portion of the stash) and working on gift knits, such as items for my nephew.

My long-term goal here is to see more yarn and fiber moving out of the stash than moving into it, at least for the rest of the year. I'm hesitant to go through and catalog everything I have, if only because of the amount of time it would take, but I'm going to keep track of what comes in and what goes out. I will monitor that on a regular basis, and if things don't improve, I might have to take more drastic action. Wish me luck, and if you have any good tips, please feel free to share them in the comments!

*NB: There will still be some fiber and yarn coming in, as I'm a member of several clubs, and there may be yarn coming in for design work, but that amount is small in comparison to what's already in the stash.

Project Me

I regret to tell you that all the projects I'm currently working on are still things I can't share publicly, which is very rare for me and, I hope, something that's not likely to happen again soon. I'm trying my best to get these secret projects wrapped up so at the very least I'll have something to talk about on the blog (though it will of course feel good to get those deadlines dealt with as well).

Because I can't really talk about my knitting, I want to talk about a different sort of project today, and that's me. Over the past six months or so, I've really been making a concerted effort to get healthier, and it's not something I've really talked about online until now. The story really starts about a year and a half ago, when I went in for my annual physical and blood work and learned that my cholesterol was borderline high. At the time, I thought I would adjust my diet to deal with it, so for the next year or so, I pretty much stopped eating all meat and added more vegetables. But when the next year's testing came around, my cholesterol not only hadn't gone down, it actually went up. So I figured that more drastic measures were needed, and I resolved to lose weight.

My original goal was to lose 20 pounds, which would more or less get me back down to the weight I was when I graduated from high school, before I gained the college "Freshman 15" (really more like 10 for me) and weight that never came off after having Rainbow. I knew I wanted to do it in a healthy, realistic way, so I used the Fitbit app to count the calories I was consuming (something I'd never done before) and made smarter choices about what I ate. And of course I tried to be more physically active, which meant making exercise a priority when time allowed for it and spending less time sitting around and knitting, I'm sorry to say.

It's now been about six months since I first started the process, and I'm down 18 pounds. But it really isn't about the number on the scale; what's more important is that I feel better. My clothes fit better; in fact, some are now way too big and some items that haven't fit me in a long time are now comfortable. I feel like I'm consistently making healthier choices about what I eat, and I've noticed that my digestive issues are less of a problem than they used to be. I can even drink coffee again without feeling horrible afterward! And I'm seeing muscles where I only saw flab before, and generally I feel stronger and more physically able to do things. Most of all, I feel more comfortable in my own body, and I don't feel like I need to hide myself behind loose clothing. That self-confidence has been more than worth it.

So where do I go from here? Well, I anticipate that if I stay on track with my diet, I'll hit my weight loss goal in another month or so. But that doesn't mean I'm going to slip back into my old ways of eating whatever I want and sitting around a lot, and certainly I'll have to wait until my next cholesterol test to see if it's really been effective. But I do think it's been a massive success for me in the way that I feel about myself, and certainly in that way it's the only diet that's ever been a success for me. I've realized that it isn't about how much you weigh or what size you wear, it's about feeling healthy, confident, and comfortable in my own skin. And while it's great that I've lost the weight, that's really secondary.

Because this is a knitting blog, and not a weight loss or health blog, I'll leave you with a picture of pretty yarn that I'm using for one of my secret projects. I think it's okay to show you this, given that the final pattern will use different colors, but all you can see is the yarn (the WIP is off camera):

How do you like my Rainbow-original window ledge decorations?

Have a great weekend!

Keep On Keepin' On

Despite the fact that I am coming off a four-day weekend and only had to deal with a three-day work week, it has been a very long week. The Mister has been away since Saturday morning for work, so I've been solo parenting since then. Every time he has to travel, I gain even more respect for single parents and how they manage to do it all. The Mister will be back late tonight, and there's a holiday weekend coming up, so I expect I will recover rather quickly.

But you came here for the knitting, didn't you? There has been some, though not as much as I would like. I have been working on Rainbow's socks during my lunch break, and I'm quickly approaching the end of the first sock. I'm trying to use up as much yarn as possible without playing another game of yarn chicken, and I think I will likely start the ribbing soon.

I am using the Fish Lips Kiss Heel for these -- my first time using it since the first pair I made with it -- and I think I may have messed up the template a bit, as the foot of the sock is turning out a bit big, but that actually works out for the better, as I was planning on putting in a bit of extra room so she won't outgrow this pair as quickly. She likely won't be wearing them anywhere but around the house, so a bit of extra fabric shouldn't bother her.

I've been working on my Wonder Woman Wrap most nights after I've gotten her to sleep, and it's finally started to get interesting now that I've added in the contrast color.

The pattern is very clever and quite simple once you see how it works, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I have a feeling a second one is in my future, as a certain kid in the house is planning to dress up as Wonder Woman for Halloween and has requested her own shawl. Fortunately, the pattern has been updated and now includes directions for a child size, so all that remains is to rummage through the stash and find some appropriate yarn.

Speaking of the stash, I am happy to report that it is finally back home! After living in a basement closet for months while we were working on a renovation project on our third floor, I finally got around to moving it back upstairs to the "stash room" on Monday (it also served as my workout for the day -- it's not so easy to move all that yarn and fiber up three flights of stairs!). I have to work up the energy to dig into it and organize it a bit better, but that should happen soon.

Rainbow and I also got a little crafty earlier this week. We went to Michaels on Monday to pick up some jump rings and beads, and then on Tuesday afternoon, following her first (half) day of school, we made some stitch markers.

The clay ones might look familiar; we did a bunch of them for the stitch marker swap at SSK earlier this summer. But I thought they might work better as progress keepers because they're so long, so I made a bunch of plain jump rings with seed beads (my favorite type of marker) to go with them. I still have to glaze the clay and add the lobster clasps, but very soon we'll have some swanky stitch marker sets!

Stash Management

Dealing with my stash is something that's constantly in progress. I have been buying yarn and fiber for many years now, so there's quite a bit of stuff in there, but I am trying to make a concerted effort to keep it under control. As far as the fiber stash is concerned, there has been a fair amount coming in due to the two fiber clubs I'm in. One way to try to keep that managed is to try to stay on top of the shipments -- which is why I put in several hours this weekend trying to finish spinning up the second bobbin of my most recent FatCatKnits shipment.

This is the second colorway (Sam of Sam and Dean), and I'd estimate that I'm somewhere between one-half and two-thirds done with it. I started it Friday night and spent about another hour on it today, so I think another evening or two should do it. I'm hoping to find time this week to finish these singles so that I can ply next weekend.

Another way to manage the stash is to use or get rid of the handspun I've spun over the years. I have knit with a good amount of it and given some away as prizes, but lately the handspun skeins in my stash have started to outnumber the commercial skeins. Luckily, I'll have an opportunity to liberate some of it in two weeks, when I'll be selling it at Indie Knit & Spin. My afternoon consisted of dealing with this:

This is just some of the handspun I've pulled out to sell at the event. What you can't see are the skeins that I already labeled and set aside as well as what's still in my stash (some because I want to keep it and some because I haven't gone through it yet). It's hard to get a sense of scale, but that's a pretty big plastic bin they're crammed in there. By the time I called it quits for the day, I'd pretty much filled the bin (many of these skeins were in individual plastic bags, which took up even more space) and there were still more skeins left to label. Some are going to take a bit more time because in some cases I need to reskein or do some calculations to determine yardage, but most of the pile has been labeled and accounted for. And by golly there's a lot! Digging into this was a bit like going back in time, because there are some skeins from when I first started spinning in this pile. It's hard to believe they've been sitting there all this time. I just home someone else will love them and take them home!

In Which There Is Mild Panic

Last week I got an e-mail from a friend asking if I had any old swatches that I could donate toward a yarn bombing project at her kids' school. As it happened, I had a drawer full of them, most of them many years old and thus entirely unneeded, so I told her I'd pull them out when I had a moment. That moment came last Thursday, when I was home for the holiday.

It had probably been years since I'd looked in that drawer (part of a plastic storage system that was the original home of my stash, though the stash has long outgrown it), and some of those swatches were knit before we moved into our house six years ago; I can't even remember the last time I opened that particular drawer to look inside it. What I found both astonished and scared me. Quite a few of the swatches had what looked like pills on them as well as what looked like grains of sand. I had a feeling that this was evidence of some four-letter pest that likes to eat wool, and an e-mail to the friend who had requested the swatches confirmed it (I wanted to see if she still wanted the swatches even though they might be contaminated).

This incident freaked me out enough that I actually stayed away from the stash for a day or two until I was ready to fully investigate. Fortunately, it looks like any pest activity was contained to that one drawer -- there was no evidence of anything like what I saw in that drawer on any of the yarn in the storage unit. I pulled everything out, bagged it, vacuumed the entire space and every drawer, and put everything back with lavender sachets. Everything that was possibly contaminated was thrown out, so my fingers are crossed that that's the end of it.

Meanwhile, lest you think I've been spending every free hour thinking about moths, there has been knitting. The Baby Surprise Jacket for our neighbors is just about done -- there's just a few inches of applied I-cord left to do on the body. If they know the gender of the baby, they haven't shared, so I went with a color that could go either way. I did I-cord loops for the buttons rather than the traditional button holes; it's what I did for the BSJ Rainbow came home from the hospital in, and I found them a lot easier to deal with when trying to get a squirmy newborn into a sweater.

I'm also nearly done with the sample for my next shawl pattern; I finished the lace section today.

I predict I'll be done with this by the end of the week, so with any luck I can get the pattern finalized and off to the tech editor in the next week or so.

Obligation Complete

I've mentioned the fiber I was spinning for a friend at least a couple times (remember, the stuff that was turning my fingers black?). Well, I've finally finished it. The second skein was completed Friday night and skeined and washed yesterday morning, and today I have two dry skeins ready to be delivered to their owner.

One skein obviously behaved better than the other when it came time to twist, as you can see.

Surprisingly, the yarn doesn't seem to have changed color much with washing, though the water was a bit cloudy when I drained it. Some VM did come out as well, but there's still a fair bit in there that I just could not pick out easily.

The finished yarn looks to be in the sport to DK range; to be perfectly honest, this is not the most consistent yarn, mostly due to a less-than-stellar prep, and because of the large quantity of it (and the fact that I just wanted it to be done), I did not take the time and care to make it more consistent. As a result, there's a bit of thick-and-thin action going on here. All told, there's a total of about 550 yards in the two skeins.

I still have no clue what breed of sheep this is. It didn't feel like anything I'd spun before, and this was the only information I had to go on:

If I had to guess, I would say this was a meat breed and someone decided to try to make a little extra cash by selling the fleece as well. The prep was very odd -- the fiber was wrapped around itself in a flattened ball, but the strip of fiber itself was very wide -- and it was full of VM, much of which I either pulled out or fell in my lap while spinning. It was not a particularly pleasurable spin, but fortunately my miniSpinner made quick work of it. I was very happy to get it off my wheel before the start of the Tour de Fleece begins.

Which is a good thing, because I inventoried my fiber stash on Friday night and apparently I have a lot of spinning to do:

196.45 oz. unspun -- does not include fleeces!

You Ask Questions, I Have Answers

I'm glad you all enjoyed my shots modeling the French Market Bag. It now seems to be dry (three days later!), so now I can start using it to actually hold some yarn. Like, perhaps, the yarn for The Mister's Seamless Hybrid.

Kenny wanted to know some more details about this sweater, probably because he's been doing extensive research and experimentation on his own seamless sweater. So here are the specs, as requested.

This is the Seamless Hybrid sweater from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears. It's an entirely seamless sweater, knit from the bottom up in simple yet elegant stockinette, and called a hybrid because it's a combination of several seamless sweaters. I was inspired by the version Jared knit -- in truth, I'm inspired by just about everything he knits! The yarn is Cascade 220 (my stand-by), knit on size 5 needles at a gauge of 5 stitches to the inch.

Although the mister is a very plain-and-simple kind of guy and would only agree to a muted solid shade, I had to add a little excitement to the sweater with the contrasting facings on the hem. And in true Brooklyn Tweed fashion, I made the hem truly seamless by knitting it into the fabric of the body, rather than sewing up the cast-on edge after the sweater was finished.

To do this, I provisionally cast on 90% of the total body stitches (in this case 180) with the purple acrylic you saw in the last picture; I used a crochet cast on for ease of undoing later. Then I knit one row with the main color -- this is so that the contrasting color doesn't show through in the seaming row. I then switched to the contrasting color (gray) and knit eight rows, and on the ninth row I increased evenly across the row to get to 100% of the total body stitches (an increase of 20 stitches to a total of 200). I kept this final row in the gray to have that little bit showing at the hem. Then I switched to the main color and knit 10 rows, so that this portion was equal to the length of the facing. To join the two sections, I undid the provisional cast on and knit the resulting live stitches together with the stitches on the needle, knitting one stitch on the needle alone every 10 stitches or so to account for the difference in the number of stitches.

It's really quite cool how this works. There's a neat row of purls along the bottom of the hem and a cushy double thickness around. I'll do the same hem for the sleeves.

Any more questions?

Finally, since it's Friday, and all the cool kids are doing it, here's a little yarn pr0n:

This is 280 yards/4 ouncesof handpainted superwash merino from Zen Yarn Garden, received as a prize for SAM3. I'm not normally an orange girl, but this skein is especially yummy. It's aptly named Orange Creamsicle; were it not for the furriness, I might just lick it!

Mail Call!

Today was a good day for mail. First, our ketubah (marriage contract) was delivered to me at work, and were it not for the fact that it's wrapped in plastic in a tube and very hard to get back in said tube, I'd show you a picture. Suffice it to say I'm very pleased and it will look lovely hanging up somewhere in the house after the wedding.

A Knit Picks package was waiting for me at home. I decided to take advantage of the big book sale and enhance my Elizabeth Zimmermann collection:

There was also a little bit of yarn, but it's all for knitting for others. First, five skeins of Shine Sport (in the very gender-neutral colorway Green Apple) to make another Pea Pod cardigan for a baby due in January -- gender unknown, of course. I also ordered two skeins of Essential sock yarn in a colorway called Dusk, the heathered blue my future FIL likes so much, to make him a pair of socks for Christmas. How do you like my long-term planning?

Tonight I am going to take the plunge and cast on for my Flower Basket Shawl for the wedding (if it gets done). I figure in order to have it done to wear at the wedding, the knitting will probably need to be finished by Thursday the 30th and it will be need be blocked on that night or the morning of Friday the 31st. That gives me a month to knit. To further complicate matters, I am using a single strand of a very thin laceweight soysilk yarn, rather than the doubled laceweight called for by the pattern, so to compensate I am going to go down to a size 3 needle. This might mean more knitting for me, but I firmly believe that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

My lace and I will be at Barnes & Noble at the Waterworks tomorrow evening for the first-ever first-Wednesday meeting of the Hurricane Knitters. Hope to see you there!

Damn you, Harry Potter!

Don't get me wrong, I love the Harry Potter books, but they've been the reason I've been absent from the blog for the past week. First I was in a hurry to finish rereading #6, as I really had little to no recollection of what happened in it and wanted to have it fresh in my mind before starting the final book. Then, of course, once I started #7, I've wanted to read it relatively slowly so as not to miss anything. I've been reading every evening, but the problem is that, after reading all day at work, my eyes have been crapping out on me and I've been passing out early night after night. I've got a little less than 300 pages to go, so I will finish it by the end of the weekend -- tonight, if possible, since J will be out at his bachelor party dinner.

There has been a little knitting in spite of all the extra reading. I haven't taken Harry Potter to work (my eyes really need a break during my lunch hour), so I've been working on my Solstice Slip socks instead. Sock One is done ...

... and Sock Two is well into the foot. The stitch pattern is easy to memorize and goes really quickly, so I'm sure this will have a completed mate sometime in the next week.

I've also been knitting a little bit while reading -- specifically knitting the miles and miles of stockinette on my French Market Bag, which requires no attention at all:

This bag is going to be positively humongous, at least before felting. I started out with the four skeins of the Patons SWS (leftover from Lady E), but it's been getting used up so quickly that I picked up two more skeins at Michael's today; I also picked up some white crochet cotton to finally knit up a wedding garter (blue ribbon was purchased as well).

As long as I'm fessing up to buying that yarn, I might as well tell you about the major stash acquisition I made this morning. You see, I'd gotten a postcard in the mail about a big sale at Yarns by Design -- everything 35% off this morning from 10 to noon -- and I figured I'd might as well take advantage of it to buy yarn to make Eunny Jang's Tangled Yoke Cardigan in the fall issue of Interweave Knits. I'd seen a peek of the design months ago on Eunny's blog, but I've been seriously lusting after it since the preview showed up on IK's Web site earlier in the week. This morning I was contemplating substituting Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool for the Rowan Felted Tweed called for in the pattern when I came across this:

I wish there were a way for you to feel this yarn through the computer screen because it is positively the softest yarn I have ever felt. This is Sublime (aptly named!) Extra Fine Merino DK, in a gorgeous sage-y green that I have not at all accurately captured with my camera. It's not at all the tweedy look of the pattern, but when I saw this yarn I knew it would have great stitch definition (and thereby make the cabling on the yoke really pop). After I touched it and held it to my cheek for a minute, there was no way it wasn't coming home with me.

This also found its way into my basket, though I've no idea how:

Two skeins of Malabrigo worsted in the colorway Verdes -- the first thought that popped into my head when I saw it was "Emerald City." I've no real project in mind for this stuff, although wouldn't it make a spectacular garter stitch scarf? (Clearly the knitting of one particular blogger is in my head!)

I am off to be a good blogger and finish up the tale of the boy wizard so I can get back to my knitting!

Sweater, Interrupted

Hello, everyone! I've been meaning to blog for several days now, but the weekend got hectic, as it always seems to do. As soon as J got home on Friday evening we had to change and rush off to wedding, and then yesterday I was up bright and early to go to my first wedding dress fitting(!) and run errands. Today should have been a relaxing day, but somehow we didn't manage to wake up until 10, and by the time we got ourselves moving, the day was already half gone. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I've got three loads of laundry to do today, so at least I'll be able to catch up on all the knitting-related activities I've put off the past two days, including this post.

Let's go back a couple days to where I left off. Last Wednesday was clearly a fun knit night and I made decent progress on Aidan's sweater despite only half paying attention to it while talking to the girls and laughing hysterically. Thursday night I spent some time tidying up the house and then sat down to work seriously on the sweater. I was able to finish the body and weave in all the ends from the striping around the bottom:

I was all ready to pick up stitches for the first sleeve when I looked in my needle drawer and realized that the one US 5 circular needle I was using for the body is the only size 5 needle I own. I had thought I had a set of dpns, but I looked at the inventory list I'd made of my needle collection a while back and it looks like a 5 is the only size I don't have (and my dpns range from size 000 to a size 9).

Since I couldn't work any further on the sweater, and since J's gray ribbed socks are kind of boring, I decided to cast on for my own pair of Embossed Leaves socks in the Koigu I bought a month ago specifically for them.

You must understand that I've had Koigu in my stash for quite some time (I bought my first skeins of it more than a year ago), but this is the first time I'd actually knit with any of it. I didn't know what knitted bliss I was missing! This is the most luxurious sock yarn I've ever knit with, and aside from the feel of it the colors are just gorgeous. Now I understand what all the fuss is about! I've been forcing myself to work on J's socks this weekend to get them done (I have ony about five inches of the second sock to go), but all the while I'm tempted to cheat on them with the Koigu socks. Can you blame me?

I did stop by Knit One yesterday to pick up the needed size 5 dpns -- and I did mean to only buy the dpns -- but I couldn't help but take home this lonely skein of sock yarn that jumped into my hands and begged me to take it to meet the rest of the stash:

This is Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch, and the color is what really drew my attention. Obviously I didn't do a great job of capturing it on camera; in real life, it's an olive-y green plied with other shades of green, purples, and blues. I think it'll have a subtle striping effect when knitted, but I'm going to exercise restraint and put it away for a bit, since there are plenty of other things to knit right now.

I hope you're all enjoying your weekend! I will be doing my best to finish up the sweater for Aidan this week and keep you updated.

ETA: Forgot to mention that I started a Flickr group called Socks for Men, for those of you who knit socks for the guys in your life. I know that my guy loves hand-knitted socks but is very picky about what he'll wear (you all know he's a fan of the shades of gray). I'm hoping that if you are a knitter of socks for men, you'll join the group and share the man-friendly patterns and yarns you've used!

Yarn In and Yarn Out

I survived the big Knit One sale, but I'll get to that in a bit. First, I have more prizes to give away for the contest! I was so blown away by the number of responses -- and so many by readers who hadn't before left comments here -- that I got to feeling like I really wanted to give away some yarn. So, after the grand prize was awarded by a correct guess, I used a highly scientific method* to pick three other random winners.

The first prize to be awarded is the Tofutsies I bought in Hilton Head. It doesn't have a colorway name, but it's in lovely shades of pinks and white. The winner of this yarn is ...

Jess!

Next, we have a skein of OnLine Supersocke Beach Color, in a summery multicolor colorway of blue, green, purple, red, yellow, and an orange-y brownish shade. I used this yarn to make these socks for J, and the knit fabric is very soft and comfy. This skein will soon be making its way to ...

~Kristie!

And finally, a skein of Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch, the yarn the Yarn Harlot herself told me I could get at Knit One. This skein is colorway 717, with shades of blues, purples, and greens, and it is awarded to ...

Jamie!

All of you, please check your e-mail for a message from me about claiming your prizes!

Above you see my haul from the sale this morning, which is really quite reasonable if you ask me. The store was very full, and the staff were handing out small garbage bags as people walked in the door -- I saw plenty of people with full bags, let me tell you, but I restrained myself. Most of what you see above it destined to become garments for my baby cousin Aidan. At left are six skeins of Reynolds Sea Wool, which has a lovely sproing to it, much like Koigu. Next are two skeins of Cascade 220 Tweed in a boy-friendly green, and finally at the right are five skeins of Dale Baby Ull, a superwash wool that I just love.

I had planned to do an FO report on the latest socks, but we've been so busy enjoying our last day of vacation (sort of) that we didn't get around to taking any pictures. I'll try to get J to take a proper foot portrait before he heads out tomorrow.

On tap tonight is finishing up the Embossed Leaves socks for my future MIL and watching the very last episode of The Sopranos. Tomorrow it's back to the grind.


*I put everyone's name on a little piece of paper, folded all the pieces up, and then picked three at random. Primative, but it works.

The Sixth Sock

Ladies and gents, we have a completed sock:

Finished last night during happy hour, its mate was started right away and is currently several inches into the foot. I fully expect to finish it tomorrow during our looooong day of driving home.

My favorite part about this sock, other than the colors? The Eye of Partridge heel. Look at how fetching it is:

An unfortunate incident occurred while knitting the leg of the second sock of this pair. I'd noticed that the tip of my left index finger had been getting dried out, what with all the handling of wool this past week, and in combination with directing the sharp points of my Knit Picks circs, I suffered a knitting-related injury -- a hole in my finger. The skin literally split open, much like a deep paper cut. You can all thank my poor abilities as a photographer for the fact that there isn't a picture of said injury posted here, because for the life of me I couldn't get the finger to get in focus. You'll be happy to hear, however, that I've quickly adjusted to having a bandaid on the finger and am now knitting as fast as ever.

Today being our last day in Hilton Head, I persuaded the group to let me stop at a yarn store in between stops this afternoon. I'd found two stores in my web searches, although one was a needlepoint store that also sold some yarn. We went to the other, a little place called the Courtyard that is also a used book store. J and I ducked in very briefly, and it did not take long to make some selections. There wasn't much in the way of yarn to choose from -- some Rowan, some Louisa Harding, some Plymouth, and only about two sparsely populated shelves of sock yarn -- but then I wouldn't have expected mass quantities of wool in a climate such as this. I, of course, went only for the sock yarn and was happy to add some that hasn't made it into my stash yet.

If you are a reader of Brooklyn Tweed, then you're probably familiar with his yarn portraits. I'm no photographer, by any stretch of the imagination, but I call this one "Yarn on Vacation":

Here's a close-up of what I picked up -- two skeins of Regia Bamboo in a blue/gray colorway and two skeins of Tofutsies (no, I haven't tried it yet, and I know I'm probably the last to the party), one in berry shades of pinks and magentas and one in a colorway very much likethat of the socks I'm currently knitting. And you know what? One of these skeins of Tofutsies could be yours! I'm offering up one of them as a prize for one of the participants in the contest, to be determined by random selection. And I'm still planning on going to the big sale at my LYS on Sunday, where I may pick up a few more fibery prizes.

As we are heading out bright and early (at 6 am!) tomorrow, this will be my last post from Hilton Head. Depending on what time we get home and how exhausted we are, I will post the final number of completed socks either tomorrow night or on Sunday. Either way, I'll be sure to lay them all out and take a picture once we get home so that you can be assured I haven't snuck in any extra knitting time; J will vouch for the final count's accuracy and honesty.

The big yarn sale starts at 7 am on Sunday. What time do you think I should get there? Do you think there will actually be people there at 7?

The Big Announcement

My goodness, that was certainly a fast response! I should try some intrigue in my posts more often. But I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Without any further ado, here is the big announcement:

The first-ever Knit/Wit blog contest!

For the past week or so, I've been alluding to the fact that J and I have a vacation coming up. Here are the details that "nebby minds" want to know: This Friday, we are leaving for a week in Hilton Head with the whole family (and by whole family I mean my parents, J's parents, and my kid brother -- you'll be happy to hear that we'll be in a big house with a bathroom for each bedroom). After considering my options, I decided that I would take only sock yarn with me, since socks are bound to be the most practical and most portable project I could take on the trip.

And therein lies the key question you must answer as your entry to the contest: How many socks do you think I will complete by the end of the trip?

Here are the rules:

1) One entry per person, and your entry must be in a comment to this post.

2) For the sake of being as accurate as possible, we'll call a sock with a completed leg 1/3 complete and a sock with a completed heel or heel and gusset as 2/3 complete.

3) Your guess is the number of completed individual socks, not completed pairs.

4) The contest closes at 12 pm (noon) EST this Friday, June 1, which is when I'll be leaving the office and getting ready to head out.

5) In the case of a tie, all entries with the correct number of completed socks will be entered into a random drawing. In the case that no one correctly guesses the number of socks completed, all entries will be placed in a random drawing.

I'm sure the big question on everyone mind is, What do I win? Will this do as a prize?

This is a skein of Colinette Jitterbug in colorway 87, Bright Charcoal. I decided to use the last of my Knit One birthday gift card to buy this and I'm hoping it'll have a good home to go to when I get back from vacation.

If you need some help in making your guess, here are some things you might want to know:

• The fastest I've ever knit a pair of socks was four days (these socks, specifically), and that was while working full time, so I certainly wasn't knitting all day long.
• We are driving down to Hilton Head, in two cars and over two days. I am not planning on doing any of the driving.
• The trip is approximately 700 miles, so we anticipate the whole trip will take roughly 10-12 hours, depending on traffic and whether or not we get lost along the way. We are also leaving in the early afternoon on Friday, so we'll have daylight for pretty much all of the trip.
• I am planning on taking a couple books with me, but I don't know if I'll actually spend that much time reading (after all, this is a vacation and I do read for a living!)
• I am NOT telling you how much yarn I am taking with me.

I am going to be taking my laptop with me and hope to be updating on the road, for all of you who like to keep score. Also, does anyone know of any good knitter-friendly attractions or even yarn stores in Hilton Head? If I find a yarn store, I just might decide to pick up some other prizes for a random drawing to be held later ...

Okay knitters, make your guess! (This should be a good opportunity for some of you to delurk!)

12 p.m. EST ETA: The contest is now closed. Thanks for your guesses! Please check back to see my progress!

Foot or Hoof?

This sock is probably the fastest lace pattern ever. Look! A completed sock!

I cast on this sock Sunday night, didn't work on it at all except for a couple rounds on Tuesday (because I was working on finishing up the Grasshopper Socks), and finished last night while watching the Lost season finale. As I was knitting the toe, I wasn't liking it. I found the p2togs at the end of each needle to be fiddly, and I thought that the toe looked better suited to a hoof than a human foot. Plus, I've never been wild about toes that end up with only a small number of stitches and the thread pulled through all of them; call me nuts, but I love to kitchener.

However, as soon as I was done and the ends were woven in and I tried on the sock to see how it looked with the lace pattern stretched out I found that I loved it. The purl stitches complete the last leaves on the sock and it makes for a very unique look. It also fits well, surprisingly so. And, conveniently, following the pattern as written makes a sock exactly the right left for the recipient's foot (and mine, as you can see).

I've already cast on for the second sock and have completed the cuff. With the long weekend coming up, I should have no problem finishing these up in the next few days. Then perhaps I'll cast on a pair of these for myself -- since I've already pretty much memorized the pattern. I already have the yarn picked out: this gorgeous Koigu that I picked up at Knit One last weekend.

(Finally!) Finished: Cambridge Jacket

Pattern: Cambridge Jacket by Ann Budd (summer 2006 Interweave Knits)
Yarn: Cascade 220 (100% wool), color 8401, approximately 6.5 skeins
Needles: US 8 (5.0 mm) 32" Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: approximately January 20/March 18 (save sewing in of zipper, which was done last night)
Mods: only on the collar, which I fudged a bit to make the ribbing match up

This sweater was completed roughly two months ago, but I didn't get a chance to buy a zipper until last weekend, when I made the trip to Jo-Ann's to buy buttons for my Forecast. I bought two options -- one in white that was the full length of the sweater and one in light gray that was just a tad shorter. J selected the gray zipper, not only because it matched, but also because he did not want the neck to zip all the way up (he has sensitive skin and didn't want the wool rubbing against his skin right under his chin). This worked well with the front of the collar, which is angled just a bit at the top. Here you can see what it looks like zipped all the way up (and please excuse J's funny face):

From this view you can see the one part of the sweater with which I'm not 100% pleased -- the sleeves. They're a little big for my taste, but J tells me he likes them, so I'm not about to rip and reknit. The zipper is also still a little wavy, but I have faith it'll smooth out just fine with a little wear.

Here's the back view:

This still needs a good wet blocking to get all the stitches to relax and even out (I only did a spritz-and-pin blocking of the pieces prior to seaming), but then it will be going into storage with the rest of the sweaters until next fall.

The one element of this sweater of which I was unsure as I was knitting was the one edge stitch in garter stitch. It looked odd as it was knit, but look at how nice it looks next to the zipper:

I'm so proud of myself for sewing in the zipper successfully -- my fear of messing the sweater up at this stage was probably the top reason why I put off zipper shopping for so long (and why I waited a whole week after buying the zipper before sewing it in). All in all, it wasn't that hard, just time consuming. I think I still prefer buttons, but at least now I won't immediately discount a pattern that involves a zipper.

Meanwhile, I'm already planning for J's next sweater, which will be an Elizabeth Zimmermann Seamless Hybrid (you can see a great example of one here). Would you believe I already have the yarn for it? We stopped at Knit One today because I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket and J picked out a gorgeous charcoal shade of Cascade 220 -- still in keeping with his usual palette of shades of gray and black. I'll use the leftover yarn from the Cambridge Jacket to do the facings of the hems.

The socks in progress continue. I'm past the heel of my second Grasshopper sock, so I expect to have those finished in a day or two. I've been getting more and more unhappy with the socks I've been knitting for my future MIL as I've gone along, however, so I'm going to rip them and do some Embossed Leaves Socks (from Favorite Socks/Interweave Knits) instead. Jenn tells me they're a fast knit, and I've long been wanting to knit them. An added bonus is that I'll learn the pattern to be able to knit myself a pair -- perhaps with the Koigu I picked up today as well?