Topsy-turvy Upside-down House

This could end up being a very long story or a very short one, so let's keep this simple. Mother dearest got a brand new Pomeranian puppy named Baylee. In less than three days, this little fuzzball has successfully turned our house upside down. Our cats are furious, but it comes with the perk that my cat will now be sleeping with me in my dog-free room. But because my mom and dad both work in out of the house locations on some days, I get to watch this little rascal.

In knitting related news, I have finished a single sock. Not a complete pair of socks, but one singular sock. Yes, I do know it is the end of October and we only have 56 days left until Christmas. Socks aren't impossible if you knit on them. The trouble is I haven't been knitting. I've been playing games instead and that cuts into my knitting time since I only have one pair of hands. Whoops.

Blocking is Magic

So many people are afraid or intimidated by blocking when it is one of the techniques in knitting that is so easy to do. I think that is because that we use a specialized term instead of actually saying what it is we are doing. Blocking is simply washing your knitting and then laying it out to dry.

I think the reason why people (especially beginners) are afraid of blocking is that it is an extra step and people talk about how hard it is to block out shawls and other lacy things. I think that it is always a good thing to wash your knitting before you wear it (the exception for me is socks, they go straight on the feet) so it isn't really an extra step. It gets rid of all that extra dirt and evens out the stitches so that everything looks nice and neat.

The second point about blocking out lace is unfounded as long as you know what you are doing. Blocking lace is really extremely easy and simple to do. To prove that point, I'm going to walk you through it step by step.

First, you want to fill up your sink with warm water. Since my mom and I got a bottle of Soak wool wash, I like to squirt a little of that into the sink after the water has finished running and swish it around. That way it doesn't create lots of suds and because Soak is a brand of non-rinse wool wash I don't have to soak the shawl twice. 

I then lay my project on top of the water like it shows in the picture above. Yes, just sit it on top of the water and don't press it down. When the shawl sinks to the bottom that means it is completely wet and the water has penetrated all of the fiber.

 Leave it there for about 15 minutes or so and then it will look something like the picture above. It is completely wet. At this stage the fabric is really, really stretchy so be careful lifting it out of the water. You don't want to accidentally drag your nice clean project all over the floor.

 I do squeeze as much water as I can out of the project over the sink. Then I take a couple of towels and wrap my project up in it. Then I stand on the towel bundle. I figure if I can apply so much force with my hands, imagine what gravity can do with all of my weight.

After this last squeeze the project is still damp, but it isn't dripping everywhere. That is when the "difficult part" of blocking lace comes in.

 My mom has a set of blocking wires, but I still have to go through and thread the wires through the garter stitch bumps of the boarder. That took around 45 minutes to do so on each side. The shawl was still damp enough to let me go ahead and pin out the points at each end to keep the ends nice and scalloped. I pinned out the points quite drastically, but you could also use more pins and shape the scallops into nice gentle curves.

This is where the magic happens. You basically pin it out to the shape you want it to be and then you let it dry. I did it on the kitchen table because it has a nice fan overhead that I switched on. It was dry when I went to check on it an hour later, but it might not have even taken that long to dry.

When it was dry I went ahead and unpinned everything. The result is a shawl that was as long and wide as I wanted it to be. The stitches look even, the eyelets are nicely spaced out and "opened up" so you can see the lace pattern easier. The scallops are nice and pointy. And it is nice, clean, and oh so soft!

I have to wait until tomorrow before I can send it out so my fiance can help me with some more pictures. Hopefully, my friend Rebecca loves it as much as I loved making it for her. Now that the weather is turning cooler it will be perfect for tossing around her shoulders or neck to chase away the chill of the evening.

Just a Relaxing Day

Today ended up being a pretty relaxing day. I took my brother to a hair appointment and ended up getting a little trim and style myself. My old hair stylist got another line of work at a better place (go girl!), but that means that I have to get a new one. I tried her replacement today and she is so much younger and styles differently. I'm not sure if I like the back yet, but I love how she styled the front. I don't think I'm going back to long hair for a little while.

I just love the berries out of the pattern I'm knitting for mom's sock. I never thought that doing little fake yarn over cables would be so easy and addicting. It is a little like magic. Pull one stitch over two others and then make a yarn over in the next row and ta da! A magic little cable with a hole in it.

This week:

Reading: The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey. Finally started the book and it is interesting. I'm reserving judgement until I read a few more chapters.

Watching: Orange is the New Black. Whoever knew that prison drama would be this interesting? Only one more episode left in the season and I am interested to see how this season will end. Then I'll have to decide if I want to start something different or just focus on reading for a little while.

Fit, Ease, & Socks

I never used to care about my own personal gauge when I was knitting. I just followed the pattern with the needles called for or one size up when it came to socks. I made my socks fit and didn't care if they were too tight or anything. But something changed when I started learning more about my knitting and gauge and fit.

My current goal has been to get the perfect pair of socks. It even led me down the road to taking the gauge of all of my sock needles so I know exactly how I knit. The last two pairs of socks I knit fit well, but were a little slouchy and slipped off easily whenever I would take off my shoes. It was frustrating going from knitting socks that mostly fit but were a little loose around the ankle or too tight around the toes to socks that wouldn't stay on my foot when I wasn't wearing shoes.

That's when I starting reading up about ease.

The easiest way to describe ease is the space between your skin and your clothing. Imagine a loose fitting t-shirt. That item would have positive ease so that you can move around easily. Now, imagine a clingy slinky little black dress. That item would have zero ease. Now, imagine a simple ribbed stocking cap that you would wear in the winter. That item has negative ease and clings to you so that the hat won't fall off, but still fits.

Socks should have negative ease so that it clings to your foot and stays there so you can take off your shoes without your socks falling off. Reading around the Socks Knitters Anonymous (SKA) group, a lot of people like their socks with about 10-15% negative ease. That will make them small enough to cling, but big enough to stretch to fit your foot.

Yarn Over Cable Pattern by Charlene Schurch

So, what does that mean about the christmas socks that I'm knitting for my mom? Simply put, I have to do some math, but (luckily) the math is relatively easy thanks to the handy charts in Sensational Knitted Socks.

Her shoe size is seven which means that her leg will be about 8 1/8 inches around. With the five stitch pattern I'm doing with my personal gauge being 9 stitches per inch, that means I would have to cast on 70 stitches for a sock with zero ease. That means it would be a slouchy sock.

At 10% negative ease I would have to cast on  63 stitches. (10% of 70 is 7)
At 15% negative ease I would have to cast on 60 stitches. (15% of 70 is 10.5 round down to 10)

This means my goal cast-on number would be anywhere between 60-63 stitches. With the pattern that I'm using, sixty stitches turned out to be the perfect cast on number. This means that I should be knitting a sock that will fit mom's foot perfectly and not be too snug or too loose. But because this is a gift, I won't know for sure until Christmas day.

Ninety Days

I know you don't want to think about it, I know you don't want to hear about it, and I know that it is far too early to even start talking about Christmas, but knitters everywhere have to remember that Christmas is only ninety days away. This is the first year that I am really counting down the days until the big gift giving holiday of the year because it is the first time that I am only going to give handmade themed presents to my family this year. Of course, I am one of the lucky ones that my family doesn't read my blog so I can talk about my holiday knitting!

This year I am making my entire family (that is immediate family and my fiance) Christmas socks. No, they are not going to be all of the same pattern. That would just be too insane even for me and I would get really bored and stop knitting them. Instead, they are all going to have the same color palette but have different sock patterns. This way my family can't get them mixed up in the wash either.

Earlier in the year when Knit Picks announced that they were going to discontinue the Felici yarn line, I had a massive order that included ten skeins of Felici Jingle. I didn't think that I would like the color when I ordered it, but I did anyway because they were Christmas colors and perfect for gifts. It was a happy surprise when the yarn came in and the normal fire red, holly green, and snow white were instead replaced with a toned down rust red, forest green, and soft almost off white. This way they are nice winter themed socks at first glance instead of the obnoxious ugly Christmas holidays sweater tones that aren't really suitable for wear outside of the holidays.

The hardest part was actually planning the patterns that I wanted to use. Since Felici is a self-striping yarn it does play well with texure, but I also wanted to play with the stripe movement in some socks while still keeping the patterns simple and (hopefully) quick to make. Best of all, every single pattern I picked out are socks that I haven't made before, so there is no chance of me getting bored!

The line up is:

1. Jaywalkers for Dad.
2. Yarn Over Cable Socks for Mom. 
3. Circle Socks for my brother Hunter.
4. Vanilla Latte for Will (the fiance for any newer readers out there).
5. And Hedera Socks for me.

Since my parents will be out of the house for a full week while they take their annual time-away-from-kids-empty-nesting trip, that means that I will have time to knit on their socks while they are away without them peeking. Between my work and looking after my brother to make sure he survives a week without the parents, I should have time to get at least one pair of socks done before they get back which will leave me just enough time to cast Will's socks on for my lounge around the family knitting project.

Are you doing any Christmas knitting this year?

Quick Shawl Update

This project is hanging on my needles for way too long. I didn't get my friend's wedding shawl done in time to give it to her in person and that did put a damper on my knitting for a little bit. I actually put it aside to finish two pairs of socks and then I fell down the spinning hole for a while.

Now I have a goal to finish her shawl before the end of the month so I can get it washed, blocked, and photographed before I send it off to her before the weather starts getting cooler. Because, really, that is when she would be most likely to throw this shawl on to get warm and cozy.

I have decided that I am going to start reading more books. My finished book count has declined rapidly since finishing school and I do miss reading. I feel like it keeps my mind flexible, but I don't feel like buying more and more books for myself. Enter the local library: perfect source for free books.

My most recent book is called No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting by Anne L Macdonald. It is such a fascinating read for a knitter. The book starts with the women knitting during the American Colonies before the Revolutinary War. I feel like such a lazy person when I read about everything women did back in the older days. They did everything from taking care of the house and the farm and the children as well as doing the wash, mending clothes, spinning yarn and thread, knitting, embroidering, canning, and quilting. I feel like I don't get nearly as much accomplished.

I have gotten up to the 1920s, so the book is quickly approaching the end. The chapters are getting a little shorter and there are more pictures. I know I am getting close to the time period where knitting dies out and falls out of the mainstream, but it will be interesting to see if there is a revival during WWII or not. I will be surprised if it doesn't.

Travels and Wedding

When you live in the cold north, you expect the weather to be nice and warm in the south. You expect sunshine and heat and humidity in spades. What did we get? Comfortably warm for the wedding and cool breezes everywhere else. The entire family left our emergency jackets at home safe and sound in our respective coat closets. We had to go out to the store and buy new jackets just for the trip.

Speaking of the wedding, it was a lovely ceremony. They had it out in the middle of a field that you would have never guessed was there. It was right beside a high school, but by the time you got to the site of the ceremony, it looked like you were in the middle of nowhere. It was a country themed wedding so we were sitting on hay bales and the arch was made out of logs.

Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to catch up with my friend Rebecca since she was busy with wedding stuff, but she made a lovely bride. And it is going to be so strange to think of her with a different last name now. She wasn't used to it yet either which caused some hilarity during the reception when her new husband tried to get her attention by calling her wife.

I did get to catch up with another member of my old Girl Scout Troop. Her name is Pooja and the reason why she has been so hard to contact is because she just finished up her first year of medical school. Her mom came too and it was quite a reunion! I didn't realize how much I had missed them until we met up at our favorite authentic Mexican restaurant La Hacienda. Boy, I didn't know what I was missing with that guacamole. I have been thoroughly spoiled by that and will not be satisfied by that mushy green stuff you can find at Moe's Southwest Bar & Grill or Subway.

While we were out traveling, we got to see mom's friend Sue and her husband Earl as well as my Grandma Peg and Grandpa Emerson. Those were nice visits and each included plenty of food. Sue gave us some of her homemade jam and I got to see a blanket that her mom made. I thought that was cool because none of my relatives that are in the grandmother age knits. My own grandma never knit and she is constantly amazed that I knit socks.

As far as the wedding shawl is concerned, it is going to be a wedding gift still, but Rebecca knows that it is going to end up coming to her in the mail. I have it about half done, but it is going to take two balls of yarn instead of one and a quarter. That's fine though. It means that when mine gets there she will have more time to appreciate it as a gift from a friend instead as something in a bundle of wedding gifts.

I did get in a bit of travel knitting. I discovered that I had to be drugged with anti-motion sickness pills to even think about knitting in the back seat of a car. But when I was visiting relatives, I could knit all I wanted to and still be social.

Obviously, my choice of travel knitting was a good plain sock. I decided to go into the more recent sock yarn stash I have accumulated and picked out KnitPicks Stroll Handpainted in Juice Box. It is a wild yarn and I was expecting it to pool and flash like mad! Unfortunately, I could not get that yarn to misbehave. It came out in nice neat little one row stripes and it does look really cool. There is a tiny bit of flashing on the cuff and on the gusset, but not much.

And with that I'm going to leave you with my favorite picture of the wedding: right after the cake feeding. I just think they look adorable together and we are going to keep more of an effort to stay in touch. Best Wishes to my friend and her new husband!

Wanted: Emergency Yarn

When I first decided that I wanted to knit a shawl for Rebecca's wedding gift, I thought I was going to do a completely different shawl. It was going to be a lovely little Mermaid's Song found in the Unnoffical Harry Potter Knits.  It was going to be lovely and beaded and a challenging knit.

Then things turned ugly as the shawl decided not to cooperate. I messed up the stitch count somehow and I was having trouble knitting the faux nupps found in the pattern. So, I decided to rip it out and start something completely different.

One of the things that people have said that the shawl was lovely, but would I have enough yarn to finish the thing? I assured them that everything would be fine. I would totally have enough yarn to finish it. After all, I was knitting it on big needles to make the pattern light and airy. I kept knitting on it and watching the ball stay the same size. Then parinoia sat in.

What if I did run out of yarn and I didn't have any left? What would happen if I kept knitting and got it the size I wanted to be, but ran out of yarn in the last few rows? Or even worse, run out of yarn during the bind off? Or what if I had to knit the last few rows in the car on the seven hour trip down from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and ran out of yarn in the car and have no ability to even get yarn to finish it?

So I bought another ball and kept it stashed away when it came in.

I just ran out of yarn.

Good thing everyone around me had good instincts. Now I have to go and wind the new skein so I can keep knitting on because I have less than a week left if I want to get it blocked in my house and not in a hotel room.

Color Match: Purples

I have been searching for a few weeks now to try to match my nail polish to my awesome purple Nintendo 3DS and I think I finally found a match.

It's not a very good day to take pictures and my nails aren't in the best condition since they have been attacked my work, but this is too awesome not to share.

The nail polish is Coconut Kiss by China Glaze. I only put down one coat of color even though my standard is two because I just wanted a quick change to my poor little nail nubs. As you can see, even at one coat it is a pretty close match to my 3DS which makes my little girly gamer heart flutter a bit. I love it when things match.

So imagine my delight when I happened to look down at my knitting. Not only do my nails match my game tech, but they also match my friend's wedding shawl. The shawl is officially out of time out since I had to rip back three whole repeats without a lifeline. (I think I just heard shudders and gasps of horror of the thought of ripping out lace without one.) I could have spent the time to tink back stitch-by-stitch, but by the time I realized where I made the mistake it was just easier to take the whole thing off the needles and do a hard rip.

I think I have knit about half the ball which means the shawl is about halfway done. It is fairly long already and I do plan to block it pretty severely so it should be a generous size when I am done. I have about one more week from today to finish it, so I will be knitting on it pretty obsessively this weekend. And go to the store and pick out a dress for the wedding. I will keep you guys posted on the progress.

Good Knitter, Bad Blogger

I've been a very bad blogger the past two weeks, but I have been an excellent knitter. Except for three days in the past two weeks, I haven't been anywhere without some project with me. For the first week it was a pair of socks that I was working on obsessively while I was waiting for the last of the snow to melt. (It has and there is currently no snow, but a lot of rain.)

For the last week, I have been working on a very special project. The project is so special that even my mom's cat decided that she had to help me out by laying on top of my knitting bag that my yarn was in. It is a lace shawl that I am making for my best friend's wedding present.

I have had some interesting difficulties with this shawl. Now, it is on a timeline (the wedding is in three weeks) and I kept running into trouble with the beaded lace border in the Mermaid's Shawl that I had first cast on to knit for her. I ended up frogging that whole thing last sunday and dragged out my favorite stitch dictionary to find a lace pattern that was easy to do and easy to memorize.

With those two things in mind, I ended up picking out the Old Shale stitch pattern (also known as Feather and Fan). I'm doing a garter stitch border on the sides of the shawl as well as the bottom and the top.

There has been a week worth's of knitting in this shawl so far. I have taken it to a college meeting (where I got to hold a desert fox) and it has been knit on during the Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug. I have knit at least two repeats on it a night and tinked back at least five different rows on it because I made stupid mistakes. The only place I won't knit on it is during my thirty minute break at my first job because the row is so long and I can't put it down in the middle of a row.

I am in serious love with this shawl. I am using the laceweight version of Knit Picks Gloss in Lilac. The lace is so cushy with the merino/silk blend and it shines in the sunlight. The lace is going to be nice and airy because I'm knitting it with US 7 needles. There is nothing I dislike about the shawl right now.

Right before I cast on for the shawl, I did to a Ravelry search to figure out how many stitches I should cast on for the pattern and I couldn't find any patterns. I know it is a really simple pattern and most people can think of a way for it to work like I did, but there are people out there that are highly dependent of patterns. So, when I finish it, I'm going to write up the pattern and put it up for free on Ravelry.

Knitting, Life, and Learning to Write Again

It has been six months since I have even thought about this blog. In that time I have gotten work in two part-time jobs and have all but given up my hobbies and life to my jobs. I had been living and breathing work day in and day out. When I wasn't working, I was worrying about work or about how to find a different type of work. All the things that I was supposed to be figuring out in college and never really did since I was too busy worried about passing my classes and getting good enough grades.

I had lost joy.

But then, I picked up the pure alpaca sweater that I had been working on for my mom and tried to remember how I felt when the yarn passed through my fingers. The endless blue and white stripes reminded me of sea spray. The finished fabric was soft and drapey and almost fluid when held. Figuring out how to knit the collar on was a challenge and by the time I had finished I felt proud of the work I had done.

Best of all, my mom loves her sweater.

I am still working two jobs, but I am working on getting my life back from the endless day to day grind. I have finished a pair of socks for my fiance and I'm working on a shawl for my best friend's wedding as well as a pair of socks for myself.

I like to write and I like to share. I had just forgotten about that and you should never forget what makes you happy because then what is the point of it all?

I'm sorry if this feels really negative to some of you, but I feel like I need to get this off of my chest. The transition from being a full time student to a working young adult has been really difficult. It finally feels like I can start knitting again and I have discovered a really important thing.

I really need to knit more socks. 

Deep Autumn

The leaves are slowly changing their color from the emerald and forest greens of summer to the dusty browns, vivid orange, and sunny yellows of fall. Depending on where you live and what trees surround you, your backyard could also be coated with a thick layer of brown pine needles so plush that you can walk on them with your bare feet without getting pricked.

It is the perfect time to pick up the sweater that you have been too busy for. Or in this case, the sleeve of the sweater you have been working on for a few months and would have been done if you had not put it down for some reason that has since been lost to time and a bad case of the lazies. To imagine, the silly pattern actually wanted you to count so you could place increases in an even amount so the sleeve would actually be fitted to your arm. How dare it be so considerate. How dare you be so lazy to not want to count a measly seven rows then work a simple little increase.

The sleeve is at the simple part of knitting. The part where it is just a two-row stripe pattern on and on for a few inches. Then it will be ready for the sleeve cap, but we aren't rushing the process here. Simple, mindless, soothing knitting is ready for us and that is what we will happily take. Even if you have a pair of empty straight needles sitting beside the ball of green just waiting for you to cast on and knit the ribbing of the next sleeve. We aren't there yet and sweaters are a process project.

Just knit. Sit and knit, happily and steadily for a few more inches at least.

The Sock Saga

I am finally feeling better after having a couple of days off from work. I am actually starting to feel like a human again instead of feeling like a human robot trained to please people I don't know. And I have been knitting. What is bad about that?

I finished the socks for my dad and I am really happy with them. I noticed when I was blocking them that one sock is looser than the other. Ah the pleasures of guage and proof that how stressed you are really does affect how you knit. Either way, those socks are done and I can now move on to a different project. And the best part is that I know my dad will love them too. He is already hinting for a second pair.

The projects I had to choose from was another pair of socks, a scarf, and a pair of fingerless mittens. So, I chose the socks, but I knew that something was bothering me about them. It wasn't the fact that they were the Snape's Stockings pattern by Erica Lueder. It is a fun pattern and it is nice and textured. And it wasn't the pastel blue-white-purple-pink yarn (which turned out to be self-striping). I just did not like those two things together. So I ripped out the half-sock I already knit and I feel a lot better about it.

My next project that I will finish will be my scarf that I started when I first got my job. It is a good time to knit it since it is summer because I will finish it and it will be a wearable item when fall comes around.

Breaking News: End of the World Failed AGAIN!

I wanted to get this all written down and blogged on the official re-start of the Mayan Calender just to add to the "End of the World" ether. Sadly, I was too busy to blog about it, so I am going to talk about what I did that night instead instead.

I went out on Friday with my friends and fiance to the game shop. Incredibly shocking, I know, but where else would you expect a bunch of geeks to be spending their time on a lovely and slightly snowy Friday night? There was a Magic the Gathering tournament going on that my fiance decided to enter. He even wore his Ravenclaw Scarf I made him for good luck.

To be honest, the only reason why I wasn't playing is because I don't have my own deck made yet. I have to wait for the end of next month for the cards I want to play with come out. Then I can make my own deck as well and play with them. But, I do have a sock knitting deadline, so I decided to come out and knit on my sock during the tournament.

It was my first one and each match consisted of three games making the rule the best two out of three wins. During the middle of the tournament most of the people who weren't playing anymore left and I got to sit next to my fiance and watch him play while I knit on my sock.

I think the most exciting match of the day that I watched was when he went up against that was full of rats. It basically generated a new rat every turn while his generated a new centaur every turn. That match was a race to see who could bring out the most monsters before the other person decided to attack.

I think I got two inches knit on the sock during that match alone because I knit faster when I am excited. Thank goodness knitting is stretchy because I think I also knit a tiny bit tighter than I normally do during that match as well.

The night ended a little after midnight when my fiance made the top ten instead of being able to make it to the top eight. I was trying to stay awake during that time and I was glad that I hit the toe during the final match so that I had something to focus on to keep me awake.

I got most of a sock knitted that night. I got the other cuff cast on and finished the next morning before my fiance's family Christmas party, but I am still running behind on my sock progress.

I have a little less than one and a half more days to knit one more sock. Here's hoping I can do it in between laundry and last minute gift wrapping.