Not Much Knitting So Far

Not much schoolwork either. I've got part of a toe, and that's about it. Only knit for like half an hour yesterday. I'm also partway through a book for class, and by partway I mean the reading equivalent of "part of a toe". Sigh.

My best friend's coming to visit on Thursday. This will be nice. Anh and I have been snarking at each other for a bit today. I hope we both stop soon. Also, I need a shower. >_>

I'm baaaaack...

At least for the Knitting Olympics. It'll be awesome. :D

I'm making a pair of toe-up socks, using a heart cable pattern, and the construction of Chevrolace, with minor modifications. Obviously I'll screw with it. I do to every pattern, especially the ones I make up myself. Since I've knit Chevrolace before, and enjoyed it, I think this is a good fit. For the yarn, I'm using Artyarns Ultramerino 4 in color 115 (basically a valentine's pink/red mix). I'm balling it right now. That's allowed, right?

The reason for the hearts is the pink yarn, and the reason for the pink yarn is twofold: it's been sitting in my stash for too long, and Valentine's day is this Sunday. I just realized I haven't updated this blog since I started dating Anh, so this will be interesting. I've also stopped blogging so frequently, what with college and all. It'll be nice to return to it.

I think it's fitting that my return to knit-blogging corresponds to the start of the Knitting Olympics. Very fitting.




The Knitting Olympics Athletes Pledge

I, a knitter of able hands and quick wits, to hereby swear that over the course of these Olympics I will uphold the highest standard of knitterly excellence.

I will be deft of hand and sure of pattern, I will overcome troubles of yarn overs and misplaced decreases. I will use the gifts of intelligence and persistence (as well as caffeine and chocolate) and I will execute my art to the highest form, carrying with me the hope for excellence known to every knitter.

I strive to win. To do my best, and to approach the needles with my own best effort in mind, without comparing myself to my fellow knitters, for they have challenges unique to them.

While I engage in this pursuit of excellence and my own personal, individual best, I also swear that I will continue to engage with my family in conversation, care for my pets, speak kindly with those who would ask me to do something other than knit, and above all, above every stitch thrown or picked, above every cable, every heel stitch, every change of colour, I swear this:

That I will remember that this is not the real Olympics, that I'm supposed to be having fun and that my happiness and self-worth ride not on my success....

but on my trying.

Let the games begin!

Sheisse....

So I did a massive load of laundry. And as I was moving it to the dryer, I saw a flash of sky blue. Yes, that Koigu-blue. The chevrolace made their way into the washer............I freaked out for a while, and then gently extricated them.

And nothing had happened. It was quite a shock to realize I had put something into which I spent a lot of effort into a machine with a propensity for eating socks, but I feel like sometimes it's better. The same way jumping into cold water is sometimes better than trying to ease yourself into it bit by bit.

So if I hadn't been a complete idiot operating on four hours of sleep, then I would never have had the courage to put my hand-knit socks in the washing machine, even after hearing people talk about it. But I did, accidentally, and so that accidental act acted in lieu of courage.

Maybe this is what people mean when they say "either brave or stupid". It all depends on whether you know what you're doing or now. (Ack, now I'm talking like I'm writing my paper.....that's due saturday and that I haven't started...)

Argh

The semester's starting today. All break, I worked on the left glitten. It took like three days of lazy knitting, so I've got major second glitten syndrome at the moment.

I'm listening to a song by Onitsuka Chihiro, who is amazing, and thinking of all the knitting I could do this semester. I cast on for a pair of Charade socks for me, in the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock (in Dusk), and the stitch pattern is really low-key, the colors are very deep, and it almost seems like it could be a man-sock. Except it's small.

Ha. Off to class. Feh.

Creativity strikes at odd moments

So I'm sitting here with a ball of yarn the size of a large grapefruit, and it's in a nice ball, too. I wound this one myself, and it's a lot nicer than usual (and center-pull, at least for now...)

Guess how I made it?

I took a large knitting needle, two pieces of cardboard, and made a turkish-spindle-like apparatus. And then I wound. All I had to do was move my right arm up and down while spinning the whole thing by the needle. I felt like a human ball-winder, but it worked. Heh.

I'm planning on making another Odessa, this time for my mom, out of this yarn.

~~~~~

I was thinking about what it means to be a better knitter, and I know it's easy to say "you're a good knitter when the finished product is beautiful and takes little time."

But I feel that's wrong, ja? Being able to knit even stitches, keep a consistent tension, choose colors that go together well, all these are tangible effects of experience. Yet there are some other things I feel we think about and then banish to corners of our minds.

When you can read a pattern and say "that looks interesting, let me knit that" rather than "that looks interesting, it's probably really hard."

When you modify patterns because you know this technique doesn't suit you. Not that it's something you're uncomfortable with--by all means do things that scare you a bit--but rather that you've tried it before and you don't think it works with the rest of the project.

When you start to fix things more efficiently. I for one feel like this comes not from "1337 knitta skillz" or anything but from a simple desire to spend less time undoing your valuable knitting. To cut corners and minimize the damage. And yet people think being able to fix something by dropping stitches rather than by frogging is more advanced.
It's just lazier, but when you get to that level, you can afford to be lazy, because it won't hurt you. Too much.

That's about all. I'm by no means an expert knitter, but I'd like to think I've got some experience under my belt.

Random Stuff

The holes in myself, I fill with knitting.

I'd like to learn Japanese, partly for the hell of it and partly to be able to knit from Japanese patterns. (More for the hell of it though.)

I'm one and a half repeats into the second Chevrolace, I'd like to get a couple more done tonight. I'm done with finals, for better or worse, so I have lots of knitting time. Until next semester starts. >_>

Scarf Pattern

My Cabled Scarf
(action shot first, naturally)

I made this scarf in 9th grade. It was my second FO (yes, ever.) and I had lost the first one. (More about that later.)

I made it out of yarn my mother had used to make a sweater for me, but it would work in just about anything. It's a really basic pattern, pretty easy to memorize, it doesn't roll up, and it's skinny enough to wrap around a couple times without being so skinny that it doesn't keep your neck warm.

As far as I can remember this was it:

CO 26 sts, any CO you'd like. Make sure it's fairly stretchy.

RS : K3, P2, K2, P1, K1, P1, K6, P1, K1, P1, K2, P2, K3
WS: P3, K2, P2, K1, P1, K1, P6, K1, P1, K1, P2, K2, P3

The 6 knit stitches in the middle become a braid cable, so one crossing every four rows.
Pattern repeat:
1: *ribbing* k2 CL *ribbing*
2: work in pattern
3: work in pattern
4: work in pattern
5: *ribbing* CR k2 *ribbing*
6: work in pattern
7: work in pattern
8: work in pattern

Here are some handy dandy pictures:

This is the actual chart, RS and WS rows. Green implies cabling, if it's after the k2, then CL, if it's before, CR.(read it like a normal chart, right --> left and bottom --> top)


Here's a nicer version, with only the RS rows put in (to get a feel for the pattern):
(same reading)

Sorry about these charts, they're made from a java program I wrote myself and so they don't have cables and stuff added yet. Still pretty nifty, eh?

And here's a picture of the actual scarf, that's served me well for four years now:

Stitch definition is kinda iffy--this "camera" is actually the built-in camera on my laptop, so there's like no flash and no fancy angles.

SSS

Ah yes, here it is. I had my physics final this morning and I don't really want to think about it. I finished the first Chevrolace yesterday, and I don't really want to think about doing the second one.

I can't tell if I'm just being lazy or if I don't want to do it because it reminds me of physics. Hm. Either way, I've still got sss and it's being annoying. I am going to remedy it. Not by starting another project though, I don't need too many WIPs.

Actually.......... *evil glint*
I should start working on Sarah's glittens. Combat second sock syndrome by tempting second glovelet syndrome. Aiya.

Morning 'till....er, Morning?

So I pulled an all-nighter, supposedly to do the physics problem set (which I did do, thank you very much) and ended up watching House and knitting the Chevrolace. I got like 5 or 6 pattern repeats done since this morning, and I calculated how many stitches I've knit so far, it comes out to about 9,500. Maybe more.

That just makes me stop and go HOLY FUCK WHAT AM I DOING?!

Almost ten thousand of the same stitch (well, and basic variants) over and over again. Why is knitting so addictive? I could never see myself doing something ten thousand times....maybe it's just incomprehensible and knitting makes it easier to avoid big numbers.

I came across this article at some point in the recent past, and it really made me think about the way humans think about things. It's all experience, really. I mean, relativity would not have been so ground-breaking if we all moved at relativistic speeds, because it would be something so intuitive. We'd feel heavier, shorter, squatter, etc. We wouldn't have to constantly refer back to the Lorentz transformation to back up or refute our (usually-incorrect) guesses.

So maybe, through knitting, I'm getting more comfortable with the idea of big numbers. Maybe I'm getting more comfortable with visualizing shapes, with multi-variable calculus. (Haha, that last one's a long shot, but who knows?)

All I know is that when I knit I get things. It's satisfying and you end up with something satisfying. It makes me happy, that I can say I'm good at this thing and yet I'm also never perfect. But that's ok. I will always learn something more, something brilliant and useful or something mundane and superfluous.

It doesn't scare me to know that I'm never going to stop learning.
It amazes me that everything I know is built upon the simplest of stitches, and that they are all entwined in such a way that many paths lead to the same result.

Yeah, I'm being all metaphorical. I get like this about knitting though.

It's All Backwards!

I mean that. This Chevrolace is constructed toe-up, but has a gusset, heel flap, etc. I love the way a traditional heel fits, especially the gusset and all. So when I finally turned the heel of the first sock, my mind just went kablooey. Up until that point I was in danger of getting SSS (except in my case it would be FSS?) and I wasn't sure what all the brouhaha was for.
But now I'm in love with toe-up top-down socks. They're backwards, just like me!

Also, I need to try some of Cookie A's designs. Apparently this whole topsy-turvy thing goes on in those too.

Stress Knitting

I've found that when I get stressed out I turn to knitting (or making origami stars) to calm me down. I think this is because the act of making something gives me a feeling of accomplishment, lets me see that I'm worth something, has a tangible result. I'm not sure. But I don't get the same feeling after reading lots of manga (tough books are different) or playing flash games. It's not just a high score I want, it's a sock I can wear. (Theoretically. I'm still sensitive to wool.)

So I'm working on that Chevrolace and I feel like the pattern doesn't quite suit the yarn because it hides it, but it's ok because the yarn is a soft spring day, that perfect day in April when the clouds wisp across the sky and the wind breathes patterns on your skin and the grass shines with something like life and the sun caresses your face. It's that lovely day when all the world is happy and you are with it.

Which is why it's so hard to give up this yarn for studying....

Finals? What finals?

Instead of studying like a good student, I'm knitting a Chevrolace sock. In Koigu KPPPM, P905. This colorway looks and feels like a dream, one of flying high above the clouds and perhaps sometimes in them. It's beautiful. (Ravelry is awesome too.)

Now I need to go study for physics and math. (I wish there were an easy knitting-centered way to learn both...hehe)

Score one for the obvious...

I guess I haven't quite realized it's 2008 just yet. So when I say Project Spectrum and link to the entry from a year ago, just know that I do mean the one with the elements and all.

I'm sitting here before going to class with a paper to write, a problem set to do, a program to make, and two tests to study for. And yet all I can think about is what I want to knit. I don't think I'm going to allow myself to knit until after all this, because I use it to procrastinate, and that would NOT be good at this juncture. So no knitting until the 23rd and then I'll start with my friend's glittens, which I am completely improvising and for which I have a pretty color chart of my own creation. (I'll probably fail at fair isle, but I figure I won't know until I try and I'm not going to tell myself that I can't do it just yet.)

Anyhow, the spinning goes slowly, as I use that similarly, as stress-relief or procrastination.

Oh well, off to class.

So much knitting...

I've finished a pair of socks (Waders, from Magknits) and a hat (Garmisch, the pattern can be found online--my friend emailed it to me though), and from this knitting (socks in one week, hat in two days) my hands hurt like hell. So no small-needle knitting for a while.

I made a pair of Dashing into mittens from the leftover yarn from Garmish, and then started another Garmisch for my friend in Paton's Classic Merino, Royal Purple. That was finished in five days, due to skiing and being out during the day.

I also signed up for ravelry and I might have to wait forever to get an invite.

That was my winter break of knitting, basically. Up to Dec. 31, 2007.


For 2008, I'd like to do Project Spectrum, and I'm thinking for February that I'd like to make a Clapotis in the blue cotton yarn that I bought in Istanbul. Except it would be thinner and have cables. I have lots of blue yarn (including more sock yarn...I went overboard. Again.) so the first two months should be fun.

It'll be interesting to see what the first FO of 2008 will be. I'm placing my bets on the Odessa my mom commissioned from me. But it might be that pair of glittens I'm going to make for my friend. Hmm...the race is on.

They popped out of the snow....

Like daisies!

What I mean is that the moths have multiplied. And they're starting to scare me. I'm fine with moths outside, but in my home by my stash....cold sweat time.

Man, I'm addicted to yarn....

Panic! at the house...

KYAAAAAAAK!

I found a moth fluttering around upstairs, by my stash. @_@
I looked at pictures and it doesn't seem to be a clothes moth, but still. I'm a bit freaked out.

I miss people already. My best friend went off to college and left this yarn that we bought together at my house. I guess I'm going to make something for her, but I don't know what she wants. It was pretty funny when she called me when she got to her grandfather's house because she didn't remember where I had packed her summer reading. Hehe.

Long Time No See...

It's been a while. Since my friend got a blog for her college life (basically so she can keep in touch with us...), I've decided to come back to blogger, at least for a while. Hmm.

So the knitting's been a bit sketchy. I mean, I finished an Odessa in all of 24 hours, minus sleeping time, and then I've been stuck on these socks for like forever. That would probably be because I ran out of yarn--OMG I now know exactly why everyone's like "buy enough! Make sure you buy enough!" I am NOT frogging and rationing the yarn. No sirree. Unfortunately for me, the yarn's discontinued. Fuck. >_< I guess I'm going to keep looking until I find it or something.......or ebay. haha.

Anyway, I also have not finished the scarf or anything like that.

I have spun up quite a bit of the alpaca I bought from NJ Sheep and Wool, and I plied it. 2-ply, because it's a bit thick for three-ply (now it's about regular worsted-thickness), and because I don't have the patience to spin up another batch. I'm now predrafting the rest, because it's actually a really nice fiber to spin...took a bit of practice at first, but the staple's like the perfect length and it's strong enough to be thinner than I'm necessarily comfortable with. And it's a beautiful color...a deep charcoal grey with lighter flecks. So soft, too. Not itchy, like regular wool.

Anyway, I am so bringing my fibery things with me to college. I packed most of my stash in these clear plastic bins with labels, and so it's easier to carry. Still quite heavy though. I figure the things I'm going to have most of in my room are going to be books and fiber. =_=;;

Next Project

Seeing as how I got into Princeton!, my next project appears to be the Uniscarfity scarf, from Magknits November 2006. In Black and Orange. Teehee.

Celebrations?

I finished the pair of Falling Leaves socks. Right now my knitting binder has nothing in the WIP section; I feel so empty. :(
Anyway, if I could get nice sock yarn I think I'll do the baudelaires, but I might also do the Cable Net socks (also from Knitty.com) in the leftover Magic Stripes yarn from the Jaywalkers.

Youpi, as the people in the French workbook would say. I feel proud.

1 pair down, who knows how many to go.

(And the best part about these falling leaves socks, besides the fact that they're ready in time for fall, is that they're Sockotta, so they have a 45% cotton count. LOVE the fact that my feet aren't all itchy and rashy.)

Falling Leaves

I'm done with the heel, just about one or two pattern repeats left and then the ribbing and then I'm done. I want to decrease 8 sts somewhere in the pattern, because the first sock is a bit loose around the ankle, but I also don't want to change it too much. Perhaps I'll just go down a couple needle sizes. (I think at this point, I'm using US0s. I'll go down to US000s for the ribbing, and 00s for the pattern.)

Hmm. This is the third pair of socks I've ever knit. At least, third finished pair of adult-sized socks.

After I'm done with these, I believe I'm going to make a pair of Baudelaires, but I have no wine-colored sock yarn and I fully believe that it calls for a deep bordeaux color.