Auntie Blankie

Hey, look! It’s a Finished Object! Never thought you’d see one of those around here, eh? I finished off the baby blanket for my niece a few weeks ago. This is a grand thing for a couple of reasons: 1) It has been blocked and was handed off at Christmas, 2) I can knit on other things… any thing I want. I finished the blanket with enough time to think about whipping out a pair of socks for The Husband for Christmas (although the last couple inches had to be knit Christmas day after giving him his gift). I also managed to finish a pair of socks for myself, although that’s not as much of an accomplishment because I had finished the first one back in May when I went to Seattle for a conference. I cast on and almost finished the second sock on my trip to New Haven, CT to interview at Yale the second week of this month.

Here’s a shot of the baby blanket in all its glory:

Sweater time?

I think I really need to cast on a new sweater.  The few store bought sweaters I wear are not really good for fall or winter (i.e., cotton and acrylic blends rather than wool).  And the few hand-knit sweaters I have for myself have all fallen into disrepair.  My poor Ribby Cardi has pilled something fierce and both shoulder seams have split.  One of the cuffs on my Mr. Greenjeans caught on something and is unraveling, so no wearing it till it’s fixed.  And… that’s it for sweaters.

So, there are 2 sweaters up as possibilities — Tempest in Rowan Felted Tweed (purple) or a plain crewneck pullover in Rowan Felted Tweed Aran (red).  I’m leaning towards the pullover first as it would probably be the easiest to get on the needles and finished.  Tempest would require more careful swatching in order to match gauge, and I’d have to fiddle with the pattern because I’d be knitting it without the stripes (some of the directions are based on stripe repeats).

Now, I just need to finish my Celaeno test knit, my self-designed socks, and OMG! a baby blanket cause my niece could come as soon as a couple weeks from now.

Putting on a New Look

One of the recommended security updates for my blog was to get a new theme.  Apparently, older WordPress themes can have weakness that allow attackers to get into the blog.  So, a-hunting I went.  I think I did pretty good, and it was super easy because it was one of the new default themes loaded on my host when I upgraded to the newest version of WordPress.  The header picture I have up is one of the default images, but I kind of like it.  It may stay, or I may decided to finally make my blog a grown-up knitting blog and give it some sort of picture with actual yarn or knitting in it. *shock*

Designing in my sleep

Since I am still only spinning the lace yarn for the shawlette I’d like to design, I have been lying awake in the dark thinking of how to execute said design.  Some things have been hard to figure out just in my head and will need to be put on paper to see how the mechanics will actually work out.  Some things I think of then forget as I drift off to sleep, leaving me only to wake up in the morning knowing I had a solution and it’s gone.

One of the mathematical things I’ve been working on is the fact that the lace pattern I have chosen is an even stitch number stitch pattern.  Most shawls started at the top, as I want to start this one, tend to have an odd number of stitches in between the edge stitches and the center stitch.  Last night, I believe I worked out how to jigger it, now I just need to find out if it’ll look alright.

Meanwhile, the sock design I began working on in June is slowly making progress.  I finished the first sock only to discover that even though I had gotten gauge in my swatch, I lost a whole stitch per inch when knitting the sock.  Eight stitches per inch is quite a bit different that 9 stitches per inch, especially in stretchy 2×2 ribbing.  So, I’m working the second sock on needles that are half a millimeter smaller.  The unfortunate part is I really liked how the color of the yarn worked out in the larger gauge, and in the smaller gauge it’s spiraling.  The little bit of fancy stitch patterning it has is an 11 stitch repeat, so not much I can do there to play with fit.  Just have to live with the change in color patterning.

Selfish Spinning

New niddy-noddy was obtained on Friday, and there was much rejoicing.  I decided to go with the fancier, albeit more expensive, Schacht niddy-noddy because I loved the idea of being able to create either a 1.5 yard skein or a 2 yard skein with the same tool.  I was also a bit put off of the Ashford niddy-noddy because my old one (the one that was eaten by the pup) was an odd length — 1.66 yards (otherwise known as 5 feet, don’t know who thought that was a good idea).  It was a bit of a pain to remember that when figuring out yardage.

I actually managed to begin spinning the Selfish Shetland over the week, but only just got half a layer on the bobbin before things like errands, laundry, and cleaning crab (tasty, tasty crab) got my attention.  This is my first time spinning Shetland, so it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

One of the things I’m going to focus on while spinning this 2-ply laceweight will be the plying.  I think I’m doing okay with the amount of twist I get into my laceweight singles, but the finished yarn still comes out a bit… um, what’s the word… not fluffy at all, sort of rope-like.  The singles when I test them with ply-back are as I want them.  So, it must be that I’m over-plying; I tend to add plying twist to my singles so that they look they way I want them as I feed them onto the bobbin.   But, I think I read somewhere that twist continues to be added until the yarn actually winds around the bobbin shaft.  Several of my early yarns are nicely balanced and fluffy, and they are from the time period when I just let the wheel pull the plied yarn in as it went.  I wasn’t overthinking things or trying to control how the plying twist entered the yarn and put the singles together.  I may need to try that again.

4 Ounce Challenge

Having too many options always seems to make decisions more difficult.  The days are ticking by on the 4 ounce challenge (deadline is Sept 30).  I don’t have any fiber from Hello Yarn or Southern Cross Fibre, but I do have plenty of Spunky Eclectic fiber to choose from.  That’s part of the problem.  Well, that, and not even being able to decide what kind of pattern I want to try to come up with.  Socks are always fun… so is lace… ooo, what about a cowl?  If I can’t even settle on what it is I’m going to make, how can I pick the right fiber for the project?

The top fiber in the running is a Spunky Club offering from last year – Selfish in Shetland.  I’m also considering the newest shipment, which I can’t give details on yet.  The nice thing about the Selfish is that it’s all set to go.  When I received it last year, I split it up and pre-drafted it.  So, it’s ready to spin.  I’m also finding the maroon, orange, and green combination appealing.  I think I’ll aim for a 2-ply laceweight yarn as I’m considering knitting something like a cowl or shawlette.

Off to ponder…