Surprise... Socks!

Who'd have thought it? I've knit... socks! I'm working on non-sock projects, really I am, but I haven't felt like lugging them around in this heat. The Clapotis is a thick, stifling blanket, and even Geodesic and the lace shawl I'm knitting are too much. So it's socks.

Vampire socks (March '10 Mystery Sock for the SKA on rav, not really called vampire socks). Top of the foot:


Side of the foot (How much you wanna bet yoga was invented by people trying to take pictures of their handknits???)


Both of them together:


And from the back (speaking of contortions...)


I love how these came out. The twisted stitches made my hands hurt, but aren't they pretty?

The boring details:
Yarn: Louet Gems Pearl Fingering in a freakin' bright blood red
Pattern: Belle Vittini
Needles: US #0
Comments: I only did one repeat of the second chart. I love the stitch definition of this yarn, but for some reason can't get gauge with it. My row gauge was off so much, I ended up with an 8" shaft even though I left out 20+ rows of shaft pattern! Still, I love how they look. Lots and lots of twisted stitches, though.

Purple Sock of Awesomeness

I wanted to get a better shot of these, but somehow, the weather hasn't been cooperating. So, without further ado, I will share my not-so-good shot of the purple sock of awesomeness, AKA Hyacinth by Janel Laidman. It's so pretty. This is the instep.


And this... this is the heel.


Yeah. Genius. And so much fun to knit! I'm usually not a fan of intricate cables you can't memorize, but this was fun. There's a definite learning curve -- the design starts out relatively simple, and new techniques get added as you work your way up to the cuff. As somebody who doesn't knit a lot of toe-up socks, I have to say I learned a lot.

Now I have to finish sock #2. Except... it's too hot to knit. Maybe tomorrow...

Back in the Red

Not financially, more knitting-wise. I think I am experiencing a red phase. I'm spinning red fiber and knitting no less than 3 projects, all red -- with a fourth waiting for caston. But before I share some of my reds, here is what I found in the mail room when I returned from vacation. There have been some thefts, so I'm lucky to have found my stuff still there.

A new spindle and some of the lovely, squishy St. Seraphina Knits roving. Check her out on etsy, I simply adore her fiber, I'm a ... ahem... frequent customer, shall we say.


Then, there is my first-ever Zebisis spindle. I ordered the one on the right -- dark green with lucky bats on it. I also received the 1 oz spindle on the left and... some lovely fiber. A whole order full. Just because she's nice and generous. I've never spun any kind of silk and am not quite sure how to go about it, but it's so pretty, I'm sure I'll figure it out.


Now, back to my red phase. Here are the vampire socks... one sock is done, and I'm working on the gusset decreases for the second. This won't take long, I have small feet.


Then, the Geodesic cardigan. It's taking a good long time because I decided to knit the 38" size -- I want this to close properly over my chest and not have the arms-like-overstuffed-sausage-look. I've tried on some cardigans recently, and lemme tell you, it's not a flattering look.


I am knitting the 11th repeat of the straight section on my Clapotis. I love it. Has a bit of a volcanic-island-camouflage thing going, but I really like the effect. Oh, and the Lion & Lamb... it's heavenly to knit with. Shimmery and silky. Mmmmm.


There are more socks, but I don't have good pictures of them. Truth is, twisted stitches require good lighting and no flash, and these socks are too gorgeous to show with bad photography. I'll try again when it's nicer out -- it's getting gray and gloomy.

Nantucket. Part 2

Before we get to the knitting (because, as I said, there has been knitting), here is more Nantucket. The first couple of days were cool and foggy, a lovely spooky atmosphere. We still managed to walk around the beach barefoot. Then again... maybe that barefoot beach walking in the cold is part of the reason I'm currently on antibiotics.


The town of Nantucket is very pretty, I love the narrow streets, cobblestones, and cozy atmosphere. Words like "quaint" and "charming" come to mind.


The thing about Nantucket real estate, though... it's very expensive. I mean, extremely. You're looking at multi-million dollar cottages here. I'm not kidding. Now, they're very nice, but... that's a lot of money. We saw a shack, a converted garage, more or less... and you can get it for an affordable 1.4 million. Cool, huh? Maybe next year...


So my Nantucket real estate dreams are not going to amount to much. But if I could, I'd buy a house like this one. It's an inn, not a private residence, but doesn't it look wonderfully Victorian and spooky? I love it and want one.


Lastly, I have to show you a picture of this garbage truck. It has two remarkable things about it. One, it's incredibly clean. It's the cleanest freaking garbage truck me or Mr. Batty had ever seen. But the most remarkable thing about it is the sigh in the front. It actually says... wait for it... Optimus Prime. How awesome is that?


I'm still wondering what a garbage truck transformer would look like.

Nantucket Vacation, Part 1

After a week of no e-mail or Internet, I am back. We spent the week on Nantucket, our first time on the island, and we loved it. As soon as we arrived, I immediately found my natural habitat... the bed at our inn.


Then, there was yarn. Mr. Batty and I walked to Sheep to Shore, a yarn store with a great selection and a very friendly owner. See the skein of Madeline Tosh sock yarn I'm holding? Its big brother, a skein of worsted-weight in the same colorway, came home with me. This is my one and only yarn purchase since December. I'm on a roll.


Unlike other islands I've been to, Nantucket has a lot to offer to vegetarians. The food was excellent wherever we went, but one of the highlights for me was the tofu scramble below, served for breakfast at the Even Keel Cafe. Yes, it's vegan. It's delicious. Yum.


And... a silly hat. I've seen a knitted version of this on rav. Look, the shark is eating my head! Aaaaaah!


There was much beach-walking and knitting, so stay tuned for Part 2. I don't think the pictures would all fit in one post -- it would take forever to load.

Annual Luddite Retreat

Thank you for all your lovely comments about my sock! I have started sock #2 and will be posting pictures when it is ready.

In the meantime... it is time for my annual Luddite retreat: a week without computers, internet, all the technology that connects us to people around the globe, but also takes up time that would otherwise be used for knitting, reading, reflecting, and connecting with people directly next to us. So... I'll be off for a week, and I'll see you when I get back online.
Stay tuned for more knitting and spinning. I won't be idle.

Look, More Sock!

So far, it's only one sock, but the second one is on its way. It's the March mystery sock for the SKA on ravelry. The pattern ended up being called Belle Vitini, but I think of it as my vampire socks. The burgundy, the lace, the holes... very gothicky, vampire-bitten feel.


No, really, look. They're downright creepy.


I'm almost done with the straight sections on my Clapotis, I've been spinning, oh, and knitting more socks. I don't have time to post pictures of it all right now, but stay tuned. More knitting is on its way.

No More Finals!

Finals are over. They have been for a week, but I needed the extra time to clear my head... and then there was a business trip to scenic Secaucus, NJ. There's nothing much in Secaucus. Its redeeming feature is being a 10 minute train trip from Manhattan.

But now I'm back, and there has been knitting. Not much, but there has been some. Let's start off with the entrelac socks I finally finished. The stripes line up, I couldn't believe it.


This is my first afterthought heel. I thought unraveling the contrasting yarn and picking up the stitches would be a pain, but it was surprisingly quick and painless. I love how the heel doesn't interrupt the stripes at all. I think this one is a keeper. Not for every sock, but definitely for self-patterning sock yarn.


The "separating stripes" led to some funky pooling. I may knit these socks again with a stripes-only yarn to see what happens.


The gory details:
Pattern: Flechtmustersocken from Der Geniale Socken-Workshop by Stephanie van der Linden. It's recently been translated into English, I've seen it at stores. Very good book.
Yarn: Beryll HappyStrick. Never heard of it before, but it's nice.
Needles: US #0. No surprise there.
Comments: These took me a long time, and I'm not sure why. But they came out OK for my first entrelac socks, and I hope my sister likes them.

Still Kicking

The world is not flat, I haven't fallen off the edge of it. But I'm likely to be more than a little spotty with the blogging until mid-May, when the final project for my class is due. I've been knitting, spinning, and cross-stitching, and there is stuff to see. I just don't have the time to put it up right now.

See on on the other side of finals!

Caturday

It's Caturday! It's also homework day and laundry day and grocery shopping day, but the cats are being extra cute.

Morgana has this funny habit of lying on dark patches of carpet. Black is her favorite color because she blends in so nicely. Yesterday, I got a package from a goth store, and my belts were wrapped in black crinkle paper. This morning, there was a black cat on black crinkle paper...


...and a gray and white cat on white crinkle paper.


My cats are using military-style camouflage techniques. They're probably waiting for the stash closet to open, for milk to spill, or for the bag of kibbles to come out. They're lurking, ready to spring.

Speaking of spring, my allergies are acting up, and I haven't had as much energy to knit. But i finished up the increase section on my Clapotis this morning. To me, it looks like gray and red camouflage. And I love the way the colors are pooling. Very nice, even pooling action.


I guess the camo effect would only work in a volcanic wasteland, but you get the picture.

Rainy Day

It's a gray, rainy day. I tried to take pictures, but colors show up all washed out. Can you believe the fabric below is blue? A pale blue, but still...


I'm not a big fan of gray, at least weather-wise. I'm solar-powered. When the sun is shining, I want to bounce around and do fun stuff, when it's not, I just want to curl up somewhere. So that's what I've been doing, and I've made good progress on the kitty cross-stitch. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Whew

Taxes are done. Homework is done. Time to knit!

Procraftination

I should be playing with a JavaScript library. My assignment is due next Saturday, and there's quite a bit left to do. So what am I doing? Why, casting on for my Clapotis, of course! Reds and blacks... I think we're back to my favorite color combination.


Don't believe me? Look, spinning! Why, yes, it's black and burgundy. With just a bit of glitter for added drama. Now, if that's not goth-tastic, I don't know what is.

And the outlier. Because statistics teaches us there's usually an outlier. Remember these? I was knitting them in December. I need the needles so I can start my socks for my one and only sock club this year -- the pattern-only option of the Janel Laidman sock club. No yarn coming into the house. Yarn diet, I'm actually doing it.

Now back to JavaScript. Somehow, I doubt that site will make itself interactive if I just keep looking at it.

The Power of Stash

Today, I went stash diving. One of my groups on rav is doing a Clapotis KAL, and I bought some Lion & Lamb for it ages ago, right after I knit my mom's. Lovely yarn, I wanted one in reds and blacks. The colorway is called Embers, how could I resist?

So I opened my stash closet and dove right in... looked in every bin, spent 20 minutes, no Lion & Lamb. But I found this... black Lamb's Pride Superwash. Just a few months ago, I knit a friend some fingerless gloves out of the stuff, in fuchsia, and another co-worker asked if I could knit some for her daughter, in black. I thought I'd have to break my 0 tolerance yarn diet for this. Guess what? I don't! The perfect yarn was sitting in my stash all along.


Eventually, I did find the yarn. Grays and reds and a bit of blackish purple, like a fire that's going out. Perfectly named. Look at that sheen.


And I found something else at the bottom of my stash: my long-lost ballwinder! What almost became an evening of winding took less than an hour. Yeah.


Now, I just have to find the pattern in its folder, and I'll be good to go. In the meantime, have a picture of my mystery sock in progress. The color is pretty close to what they look like in real life. I call these my vampire socks... between the blood red and the lacy holes and elegant columns of twisted stitches, I'm getting a very vampiric vibe.


Thursday, I'll be doing homework. But today, I'm digging up the Clapotis pattern. My pattern stash is also pretty big.

652

Not the best picture, but here it is... the Bridgewater Shawl in blob form. It's actually brown. And it's a square. And I spent a good long time today picking up 652 stitches. Now, I'm ready to start the edging.


However... knitting a lace shawl is not exactly the best way to put a huge dent in the stash. I need to cast on something worsted-weight. I'm planning on knitting another Clapotis, this one for me. That should help.

Zombie!

What would you do if the zombie apocalypse happened and you didn't have the perfect hat to wear? I know many people ask themselves this difficult question, and I have found the answer. I knew I had found it the second I saw 3.5 oz of assorted fiber (some of it glows in the dark!) at Merlin the Cat Yarns on etsy.


Radioactive zombie apocalypse yarn! Spun and plied on Big Meg, 1.5 oz of spindly awesomeness. She's a bit light for a plying spindle, but once you get some yarn on her, she spins and spins and spins like a dream.

This is the hank, freshly soaked in Eucalan and dried, much to the amusement of my cats, who tried to slay the neon sheep.


And a closer look. It was surprisingly difficult to keep the singles from becoming all even and smooth -- art yarn is not easy to make. Did I mention it glows in the dark?


Now, if I could only find a brain-shaped button, I'd have everything I need to make the ultimate hat for the radioactive zombie apocalypse...

In somewhat more... tame crafting news: the March mystery sock for SKA. Homework and twisted stitches have kept me from progressing too far -- this is 2/3 into clue 1. I love twisted stitches, but they hurt my hands.


The yarn is a beautiful cherry red, or blood red, depending on your preference and point of view. I love these socks, but knitting them is going to take a good long time. I can only do a few rows a day, then I need a break.

Reconciled... Sort of

My knitting and I have reconciled, after a fashion. I've been spinning and cross-stitching more, and doing homework.

But I'm really excited about my spinning. The first picture shows the color accurately, the second shows the texture of my single.

Originally, I started this project as an entry for the March challenge in the Spindlers group on ravelry. The theme is fairy tales, and this fiber made me think of Rumpelstiltskin and the miller's daughter whose father claimed she could spin straw into gold. Look at that color. It looks like antique gilt, it even has a tiny bit of Angelica in it for extra shimmer. It's called Lioness, but I think of it more as Old Gold -- or Fool's Gold. It's the color of pyrite.

It won't get done in time for the challenge, but I'm incredibly excited anyway. It's my first-ever project spun to a specific weight. Once I ply it, it will be fingering weight, and I'm thinking shawl thoughts. This is much too pretty to be hidden in a shoe.

My second intentional weight project is the fiber that came with one of Jesh's spindles. It's not much, but it doesn't have to be -- it's my first ever laceweight, I'm still practicing, and I can't believe how much yarn I'm getting out of that tiny sliver of fiber.

Finally, let me show you the center square of the Bridgewater shawl. It's getting there! Almost time to weave in the ends, then pick up 600 stitches or so. It'll be gorgeous when it's done, though.
There is more knitting. I'll share my hat and sock projects in a bit. Have to do homework first...

Trouble in Paradise

After three consecutive attempts to cast on for a hat, my knitting and I are not on speaking terms. It's not a breakup, just a break, and it won't last long. We're too tight. But I need my yarn to decide what it wants to be, and I need time to cool off, or I might chuck it out the window. So instead, I've been stitching. Here's one of my WIPs, a kitty hanging from a tree.


There is the UFO I started my senior year in college, and this year is my 10 year class reunion. But we won't talk about that (amazing how time flies!). I'm going to finish this little guy for a SAL. Then, maybe, I'll get around to the enormous UFO. Or I'll knit that hat.

Today, I Frogged

I was going to show you pictures of Kat (rav link), but it turns out I didn't have quite enough yarn to finish. So I ripped it out. I'll be casting on Lucky instead, because I want my lovely green and purple birthday yarn to be a slouch hat or beret. It's been sitting in my stash since August, and it's told me only recently what it wants to be.
I'll be leaving off the pompom, though -- and I'll be knitting in the round. No way am I knitting this flat and seaming.

Time Flies...

...when you're too busy to have fun. I'm taking a class, which is admittedly fun, but comes with lots of work. And things have kicked into high gear at work. So there's precious little knitting or spinning time. But I try to squeeze some in here and there, for the sake of what passes for my sanity.

Fiber makes me feel better. Fiber is good for you, and, best of all, it doesn't count towards my yarn diet. So here it is, 5.something oz of superwash sock yarn-to-be. And my new Ethan Jacob. 5.4 oz of spindle, supposedly almost the same weight than the fiber, but oh so much less voluminous.

Both spindle and fiber have passed feline inspection.


I've been working on my Bridgewater shawl, and I'm finally past the halfway point on the center square. By the time the lace edging comes around, it'll be a nice change of pace from all the garter stitch.


I'll leave you with a picture of Merlin lounging on the fireplace. He looks so relaxed and comfy.

It's good to be a cat at our house.

There is more knitting and spinning, but it'll have to wait until the weather improves. It's gray, windy, dreary... not a good time for pictures. And my remaining projects are actually in fun colors. You'll have to wait... and I'll try not to let almost a month go by between posts again.