Why God, Why: The Whyening

As I said I would, I would try to knock the U off FO for everything I'm working on. And as of right now, I only have one project on the needles (not counting the Slippers of Which We Do Not Speak) - the second sock of my first pair. I maintain that I do not suffer from Second Sock Syndrome despite the fact that it was almost three weeks between binding off the first one and casting on the second. I needed the needles for the Ravelympics.

I just turned the heel, so I'm about halfway there. Tried to turn the heel while watching Timecop - terrible idea all around, I had to rip it back twice because I wasn't paying attention. As it is, there looks like there might be a weak spot right at the middle, I'll maybe just go over it a couple times in mattress stitch when I'm done.

Now, for the Why God Why: I finished the manthong. This thing is hideous. The rose pink straps are stretchy and crunchy, I cast on way too many stitches for the side straps even though I still cast on about two thirds of what the pattern called for. I don't think anyone's ever going to wear it, though, so it doesn't matter all that much. This is the first thing that my sister has ever flatly refused to model for me.

My good friend Mr. Pillow stepped in, though:




Merkin? Manthong? You decide!

You can see that instead of the stockinette stitch with crochet edging I elected to go with seed stitch so I wouldn't have to do any crocheting. Makes it slightly more uncomfortable for the hypothetical wearer.

And yes, I (and it) did get mentioned in an article/discussion thread on learnhub. You can find the thread and pictures from the game here.

The green Lacy Diamonds scarf I've been working on since forever and a day is finally bound off and is currently blocking on my living room floor. That was an adventure and a half. More and pictures when it's all finished and the tassels have been added, if I don't get fed up with the tassels after three and decide that tassel-less is fine by me.

I will admit that I started a new project, it hasn't all been wrestling with WIPs. Using the leftovers from my skeins of handspun, I knit a couple of scrunchies for my girlfriend.



Her mother spun the wool and gave it to me, and I dyed it in two batches, what I call Kool-aid and Sweetheart. The rest of the Sweetheart is waiting to become a hat. The Kool-aid striped nicely for this little project, and I didn't use more than a few yards, I'm sure. The pattern was so simple. Knit a rectangle, sew it around a hair elastic. I wanted to send a bit of it back to her, because it was really her mother's work, and because I wanted something little and special. No girlfriend sweaters until I can size them properly, so these will do for the moment.

I don't talk about my girlfriend here all that much, but she's amazing. She just came out to her family (for me!), and she's been kind of alienated since she did. They'll warm up again when they get used to the idea, but I just wish I could be there for her during this rough time. Long distance sucks. But the scrunchies are something she can always have around if she needs a piece of me.

Enough sappiness, dammit. Give me a vodka martini and shome asshes to shlap, Moneypenny, shentimentality hash no place here.

Heading off to my last knit night here shortly. Had my last Bitch'n'Stitch at Linda's on Tuesday, it was kind of sad. I'm used to the summers being rather lonely, with my friends either working long office hours with no social life, or spread over the globe. The knitting community has been such a sanity-saver, I'm really going to miss them. There's talk of setting up a webcam so I can still sit in. Linda's just made me feel so welcome, and she says such nice things about my work. Sadness to be going away.

There is a knitting society on campus, but from what I've heard it isn't really my scene. We'll have to see. And I'll always have Maddie. Every day is a stitch'n'bitch when we're together!

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Victory!

Da da DA DA, da da dadada, da da da DAAAA, da da DAAAA - that's supposed to be the Final Countdown. Looses something in translation.

I won gold! I could make a bunch of Cutting Edge II: Going for Gold jokes, but I'm not! My Nereids crossed the finish line with almost an entire twenty-four hours to spare. Okay, so it was more like twenty hours to spare. But still! I finished! Over the last few days, it's been moments of "I totally have time, what am I worried about?" to moments of "Ho shit, never gonna finish!"



That was fun. I've long been a believer in the power of online competition with no actual prize but a couple of cool graphics, and the Ravelympics didn't disappoint. There's just a sense of community and community accomplishment. Gives me warm fuzzies.

Now, for the beauties themselves:




They're current;y having a nice soak, as the yarn was a little grubby to start with and I didn't think to wash it beforehand. The Pomatomus stitch pattern is so simple and so intuitive. The only thing that gave me trouble was changing between pattern repeats, because I overlooked a line of instructions in the pattern. And then I reversed the pattern for the other glove. I'm actually quite proud of the fact that you can't tell which one is the reversed one. The thumb gusset was also a bit of an adventure.

Ooooh, they are so pretty! I loves them! Everyone who sees them covets them instantly. My mom keeps hinting that she'd like a sweater in the stitch pattern - firstly, no, and secondly, no. She'd look like Namor. And these already have a deserving recpient, which means I have to haul my ass down to the post office soon. Bleh. First will finish the little presents for my girlfriend and then will just make one big trip, yay.

Speaking of big trip, my next big challenges are getting all my WIPs finished so I'm not hauling them all down east with me, and finding some way to transport my stash. I may ask a friend to be a yarn-mule for me.

Speaking of yarn, my mom has this habit of calling all yarn 'wool' and it's kind of starting to bug me.

Speaking of bugging me, there was a moth in my bedroom the other night and I went all Rambo on its little mothy ass.

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Stubble Update: I look rugged and manly.

Olympic Update: Canada no longer fails at medals.

Ravelympic Update: A dozen rows away from the thumb gusset and plunging along. Had some major yarn issues, I ended up having to break the yarn and start a new ball, the last one was just way too tangled. It's going to be a race to the finish, but that was the point, wasn't it?

I reversed the pattern for the second glove so the swoops would go it in the opposite directions. I thought it would be harder, but I just screencaped the pattern and mirrored it before copying it down into my pattern book. Then I had to experiment with decreases to make sure they sloped the right way, and had to figure out that I needed to shift the stitches in the opposite direction between pattern repeats. They're looking good, though! I am hopeful!

My stash is looking better and better. It's like since my last SEX, there's so much more colour. I also dyed the second skein of handspun from my girlfriend's mother. I tried for a graduated effect and it didn't quite work, but I still like the rose-red effect. I'll have pictures up soon. I'm thinking of making a hat or something with it, and a scrunchie for her from the leftovers of the last skein. Shhh, it's a surprise.

On the school front, I got it all straightened out! Switching my major back to Celtic Studies, so I've registered for Welsh, Irish Bardic Poetry, Medieval Gaelic Prose and Poetry, creative writing, directed study and thesis. All Celtic Studies, all the time! The all-singing, all-dancing Gaelic revue!

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Selfish Knitting!

Well, my very large paycheque came in, and I have all this spare time on my hands, which is a dangerous but delightful combination. My final yarn splurge of the summer:



That would be three skeins of Peer Gynt for a naughty nurse hat, two skeins of Nashua Handknits worsted, two skeins of Noro Kureyon in funky rainbow, one skein of Noro Kureyon Sock in green and gold, one skein of Cadenza sock, and one skein of Fleece Artist Trail Socks. The Trail Socks is, I think, my favourite. The colours are just amazing.



To continue the selfishness, I picked up two sets of Hiya Hiya DPNs in weetiny sock sizes, so I should be good throughout the school year. I know I can get DPNs that small at school, but not five needles in one set. And (drumroll please) a ballwinder! Whoo!



I didn't really see the point in one, until Jupe wound up a ball for me. The cakes are so squishy and round and pretty and it's so much fun to play with. I wound up a few random balls hanging around just for fun, and then another ball of my Mystik DK - because I'm done one of my Olympic gloves!




The thumb is shorter than it should be, but I used up the entire ball and didn't want to dip into another one for just a few rows of ribbing. It looks gorgeous, but as always the start and end are a little wonky. It took me a week to do one, so I should be able to squeak in under the finish line. I'll put in a few more hours daily though, just in case, because I want to get the manthong done by the end of the month as well. I have to start thinking about how to shlep my stash back to school, it's kind of growing wildly out of control.

Speaking of school, a rather exciting update! The Celtic Department is offering Welsh! Of course, this completely throws off my whole schedule, I register for courses, and I can't find the form that will tell me if I can fit Welsh into my degree pattern. Argh. Small departments that fail at paperwork cause me much pain.

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They say football is a game of inches.

Wow! What a difference half a millimetre makes! I don't know if it's the change from Hiya Hiya to Clover (which would make me sad, I want to be a Hiya Hiya true believer), or if it is the jump from 2.25mm to 2.75mm, but it's made such a difference.

My fingers were starting to hurt, I'd completely messed up the last row, in a fit of frustration I frogged the whole thing. I moved up the needle size and I can't believe the difference it made in drape. And, especially, in ease. I've almost made it right back to where I was in half the time.

I can't believe there are winners already - I thought the point was to pick a challenging project. Then again, sometimes you can totally overestimate how much time something takes. There's been a lot of complaining about people starting before the gun. Then again, there's been a lot of complaining all around about various things. Wank wank wank drama wank.

Back to the Nereids!

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Baseball! Olympics! Baseball! Olympics!

What to start with! So many exciting knitting events, so little time to blog about them.

First, This Week in I am Actually a Preteen Girl: I'm going to murder my mother in her bed soon unless she stops rooting through my stuff and treating me like a child.

Okay, back to being a semi-adult.



Stitch'n'Pitch! It was awesome, fun was had by all, etc. There was even an article in the Toronto Star on it. Slight disappointment in the goodie bags, was expecting more yarn for all the hype - not that I'm complaining too much. I brought four non-knitters, I ended up with a pile of yarn even without raiding the swap table. I wound up with a ball each of Red Heart Soft Touch, Bernat Soft Boucle and two of Sirdar Country Style. And then the yarn gods smiled upon me and I wound up with a ball each of Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash, and Natal baby alpaca. Whoo hoo! So thank you to my non-knitters:



To round off the collection, halfway through the game Linda threw a skein of Alpaca with a Twist Fino at me. To my credit, I caught it. Given my usual skill at catching thrown objects, it should have ended up four rows over in someone's beer. But it didn't! I'm considering buying a matching skein and trying my hand at the Heere There Be Dragones shawl, but it terrifies me. Of course, there is the matter of money.

I saw four people I know, not counting Jupehusband and Jupebaby, who were attached to Jupe, and I chatted with everyone around me. There was an adorable family behind us. The mom and daughter were both knitting away, and the dad was studiously untangling, rewinding, and organising yarn.



And here we have Jupe and the Jupebaby:



And the lovely ladies of Linda's (and a guy named Sweeney):





I ended up befriending a couple of people around me. A girl and her boyfriend were sitting one row down and she was new to knitting, but she's pretty into it and is writing articles about it for an online community.



She gave me her business card, which I have since lost. Which is sad, because I think my manthong would be making an appearance. Maybe some tactical Googling will pull it up. We introduced her to the wonder of Ravelry - she hadn't heard of it yet! She took this lovely picture of Jabba the Hutt knitting a green lace scarf:



My dad was amazed at the number of knitters who turned out. It was pretty cool, actually. Even just visually. Looking up and down the rows, and just seeing dozens, hundreds of pairs of hands constantly in motion. And if someone dropped a metal needle on the concrete, everyone's head popped up and started looking around frantically. Speaking of my dad, I think he was really getting into the swing of things. When Jupe and the lady sitting next to me orchestrated through some yelling and gestures a yarn swap and sent two balls of yarn passed hand-to-hand down the seats. A ball of Divine got to my dad and he smoothly cradled it against his chest and whined "But I want to keep it!"



And then the Jays were so good to us and graciously won the game. Bottom of the ninth, two up two down, and then wham! Two good hits, two runs, and we won! It was great, we were on our feet, there was cheering.

Speaking of sports victories, Olympics! They started today! I watched the Opening Ceremonies in pieces - caught part of the Parade of Nations live, then another part of Parade of Nations when it repeated on CBC West, and then the entire thing tonight. Wow. It was incredible. Just beautifully done, amazingly coordinated. And, of course, I cast on for my Ravelympics project. I've very excited for the games. I've never really gotten behind KALs, but this one should be fun. It's getting me excited for the Olympics, and the Olympics are getting me excited for the Ravelympics. Everyone wins! I'm competeing on Team Mine for the Selfish Knitters, and one of the mods is doing the exact same project I am, so I'll have a bit of support there, which I'll appreciate. I'm working on the Nereid Fingerless Gloves, which are a fingerless glove version of the infamous Pomatomus socks. The yarn I'm using is the Estelle Mystick DK, a cotton/viscose blend, on 2.25 Hiya Hiyas. I'm scared I'm going to snap the needles right in half every time I K2tog tbl.

I'm a little worried that they'll be too small, the rib's looking pretty tiny. I'm considering recasting on with 2.75mm, or the 72 stitch version. I think I'll do another few pattern rows and see how it looks before I do any ripping.

I have an unhealthy affection for fingerless gloves, I've realised. And for lace. This is the perfect project! I have two more pairs of fingerless gloves to finish by the end of the summer, as well as a pair of cabled mittens as part of a set, and a Shetland Shorty and Jayne Hat for my sister. My friend requested something warm and snuggly for the winter, but she's one of those unfortunate people who can't wear wool on her skin. One of my goodies was a ball of Red Heart Soft Touch in a mottled gold-green-rust, so I decided to donate it to the cause. There's enough in the one ball for a Calorimetry and a pair of Cozy Cabled Mittens.

Jupe very kindly wound it for me into a manageable cake, and now I'm wondering how I've lived without a ballwinder. Do want. And I worked an extra three and a half hours, so I can afford it too. Happy birthday to me! Only eight months early.

This post ended up much too long.

Good night!

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I'm running out of SEX puns already.

My post yesterday was so long that I forgot to enthuse over yarn!

I finally, finally, finally made it to Romni Wools in Toronto. Last time I was in Toronto I had gone looking for it, but didn't go west enough along Queen because I was foolish and forgot to doublecheck the directions. This time, however, my parents plus demonkids plus I all hopped on the subway and headed into the city - I, however, hopped off at Osgoode while they continued south, for the CN Tower and some sightseeing. I hopped a streetcar down to Romni.

Oh. My. God.

We're going to need a bigger boat, my God it's full of stars.

There was so much yarn. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling yarn. My ears hurt from the excessive soundproofing. I wandered the aisles in the main room for a while, fondling and ogling and generally being overwhelmed. So much I wanted to buy, but I had a very strict budget of $35. I know it was very strict because I had $35 in cash in my pocket and no wallet. I'd heard of the sale room downstairs so I mainly controlled myself. The only thing I picked up with this gorgeous hank of thick and thin yarn. The colours were incredible, so bright and vibrant and psychadelic. It was enough to make a funky chunky scarf.

It was also, unfortunately, far too expensive.

But just when I thought that there couldn't possibly be any more yarn, I went to look at the books and found - dun dun dun! - more yarn! And then downstairs I went to the sale room, and found that they had reproduced and there were now two sale rooms. The thing that killed me was the cones of yarn. The racks of cones receded, it seemed, into infinity. I literally could not see the end of the yarn.

At the end of it, I walked away with two balls of Berrocco Foliage in the Statice, and three of Mystik DK in a raspberry for pretty damn reasonable. The Foliage will probably become an Unoriginal Hat and the Mystik DK is earmarked for the Nereid Fingerless Gloves.

For even more reasonable, I picked up some yarn at a street sale on Saturday. I went to have a look at what everyone was selling (I had set up on one end of the street, so I didn't have a lot of time to wander), idly wondering if anyone had yarn. Very next house, I see one of those folding canvas holders, stuffed with yarn. A delighted squeal of "Oooh, yarn!" prompted a reply of "Yay!" from the woman selling. We chatted while I poked through her stash, and my cousin and mom noticed what I was fondling so I had to deal with them yelling "DANGER! DANGER! BACK AWAY!" the entire time.

Five balls of Bernat Handicrafter Cotton and two big balls of Caron Wintuk in forest green for three dollars - which wasn't even the best deal of the day. I also managed to pick up the original Star Wars trilogy, The Cutting Edge, and eleven Bond movies for nine dollars. Not exactly knitting-related, but still entirely awesome.

I intend (this never works out the way you want it to, but I intend) to do only one more big yarn purchase before I head back to Antigonish for the school year. I have my eye on some different kinds of sock yarn, and I might (if I can find it for not too deadly) pick up enough worsted in something to make a sweater out of. My stash is already unwieldy and large, but I don't expect it to grow very much during the school year. Little money, little available yarns except for icky acrylic and Briggs and Little.

Stitch'n'Pitch tomorrow night, I'm excited! We have great tickets, too, and I'm hoping to see a few people that I know. I'm going with five people, but only one other person will be needlecrafting. My mother thinks that cross-stitch is the perfect solution for baseball - she usually finds it too boring. I haven't been to a Jays game in years and years, but we used to go all the time. I was at the 1992 World Series Championship game when they won - yes, you can all be jealous of my five-year-old self.

Now, to clean my house and get back to working on the Selfish Knitters August KAL.

I'm a little afraid of this project.

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FO Parade

So many FOs, so little time.

I finished a fun fur shawl!

I finished the Shetland Triangle!

I finished a sock!

I finished a Calorimetry!

I have an awesome girlfriend!

The hideous shawl will be first. My little cousin was hanging around and saw the unfinished monstrosity on the needles and fell in love. So I finished it off and gave it away. I had meant to do another ball of the eyelash stuff, but it seems to be perfectly sized for her so I guess it all worked out. The bind-off was still far too tight.



The kids even managed to stay away from my Shetland triangle as I was blocking it. I picked up a bunch of foam puzzle tiles from the dollar store. I have to admit, I had hoped this would end up bigger. Then again, I have very broad shoulders so maybe it wouldn't be this weetiny on people not sized Jabba? It does cover my shoulders, and it's absolutely gorgeous.







It's like holding a cobweb in my hand, it's so light and delicate. I'm just in love with it. I just don't know how to wear it. Right now it's a very pretty light shade on the paper lamp in my bedroom. But by the end of it, I've lost my taste for lace for the next little while. I'm back to knit and purl basics.

Speaking of basics, I made a sock. The second sock has been cast on, but due to some poor choices involving DPNs and public transit, I can't continue until I buy new needles, which won't be until at least Tuesday. The first one, however, turned out fantastic:



I used Patons Kroy, the self-patterning. I bought the yarn in a fit of extreme depression - I was sobbing, crying, and shaking, and there were no yarn stores open so I ended up blubbering in the yarn aisle at Michael's for a while. The result wasn't too bad. I was very worried about running out of yarn by the end of, especially because I have large feet. The first sock is a little snug due to said giant manfeet, but I had at least four more bars of colour left so I know I can make the second sock up to an inch longer in the foot. I'd really hoped to get them finished by the Stitch'n'Pitch on Tuesday, but alas, it was not to be.



I'm pretty sure that my cousin (not the weetiny pink princess) already has designs on them, but she can't have them. Mine, all mine. Selfish Knitters, represent!

And the final FO on display tonight is the Calorimetry that was meant to be for the Selfish Knitter July KAL, but I wanted to use Rita's handspun that I dyed. Which means I didn't actually cast on until the twenty-ninth. I could have cast on with a few fewer stitches, but the finished project is warm and squishy, smells good, and always makes me think of her when I look at it.



It knit up like a dream, with the big pools of bright bright green and purple tiger stripes slashing through it.



My sister kindly provided the button for it, which I think matches the green pretty well. Definitely the best I could find when I wanted to be done done done.



It was so nice to work on something with big simple stitches and big chunky yarn. I never would have thought that some time 5mm needles would seem big and chunky! It was wonderful mindless train knitting for my commute into the city. I picked up a temp contract working data entry for the forensics department of my dad's firm, which has meant ten, eleven, twelve hour days and an hour-long commute in the morning into downtown Toronto. Lots of knitting time. And, most excellently, lots of yarn money. The gig pays $20/hr, which will nicely pay for my X-Ring and some yummy yummy yarn for myself.

And, well, the awesome girlfriend just goes without saying.

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