Lacy Frustration

Apparently, there was yet another earthquake a couple hours ago… which would explain the faint shaking I felt (I thought it was our neighbors at the time… but they were being awfully quiet, which isn’t normal).

As for the title of this post… I went poking around in my lace books trying to find a lace border that would work with the Brooks Farm Duet yarn. I have picked out the elfin lace pattern from Barbara Walker’s 1st Treasury. I even used the outside end of my ball of yarn (cause I didn’t feel up to winding up the second hank just yet) to try it out and see how it looked. It looked pretty good, so that’s what I’m going to go with. So, what’s the problem, you ask? The problem is that the yarn loves it, too. The yarn is now trying to convince me to rip out three weeks of garter stitch (granted, three weeks of only sort of working on it) in order to use the lace pattern on the whole shawl. It feels like such a pain in the ass to even consider ripping out a triangle of garter stitch that’s about a foot long down the center… but I’m finding a part of myself arguing that, if I don’t use the lace pattern on the whole shawl, I’ll be eternally disappointed. I don’t like the idea of being eternally disappointed with the first shawl I make for myself… this yarn deserves better. This yarn knows it deserves better, which is why I’m probably going to rip out all that garter stitch once I finish posting this entry.

I think I’m going to have to reball the yarn before I get started again… maybe that will remind the yarn who’s in charge…

Just in time for the weekend

We now return you to the regular knitting content…

The shawl with no name continues… slowly… but then I haven’t been devoting a lot of time to it. I’m beginning to think it is upset at me for not having named it yet. I also think it is beginning to lament the fact that the only lace I had planned for it was a lacy edging… it’s now making mutterings about why can’t it have a smaller garter stitch triangle to make room for some lace before the edging. *sigh* So, I’m going to have to hit the books again and see what jumps out at me. Any suggestions?

At least I’m liking the way the variegation is looking.

The only other thing on needles (and getting any attention) is a pair of socks for the Husband. I wanted to call them the Dope Fiend socks cause I worked on this one while loopy on vicodin. I thought it was a funny name… the Husband was not impressed. So, they shall just remain a pair of socks for the Husband.

Aren’t you terribly impressed by my gusset?

Tomorrow, I am planning a short trip to the LYS to pick up needles for making myself a Ribby Cardi. I decided that the very pretty yarn I had picked out for Mariah was not as dark as I would have liked. And the whole goal of this exercise was to procure for me a darker cardigan to be worn over darker shirts (I currently have a light grey/silver cardigan that looks plain silly over a black tee). So, I bought a copy of the pattern… and promptly used it as an excuse to buy more yarn. *grin* I will be using Knitpicks.com Wool of the Andes in Mist (the body) and Hollyberry (the arms and collar). I am also going to try knitting as much of it in the round as I can… hence, the needed trip to the LYS. I don’t seem to own any size 7 circular needles of any length. Thus, me and a ball of yarn will venture forth tomorrow to verify gauge and make a needle purchase. It’ll be an adventure, right?

Beginning to feel human again

I saw my chiropractor on Monday, which helped to get rid of most of my upper body pain (it was all coming from my neck). Saw a doctor on Tuesday (not my doctor cause this is the week she has chosen to be in Boston), and was told if it still hurts in a week I should see my doctor, then I was given a sample of Celebrex to help with the inflammation. Unfortunately, I can’t take any of my happy 600 mg Motrin while taking the Celebrex, but the Celebrex did reduce what’s left of the swelling by half… and I can still take the Vicodin (wheee!). And the doctor said I don’t need to wear the infernal brace anymore. I just wish I didn’t have to come into work. I can’t seem to find a comfortable position to put my knee in, and it feels stiff whenever I get up. *ugh* And, of course, my knee, which hadn’t hurt for the first 4 days, hurts now that I’m at work.

At least tomorrow’s Friday.

I think the Vicodin has been affecting my brain… I was putting some arnica on my bruises the other day and got thinking about how I could dye some yarn with a orange-y yellow, a reddish violet, a bluish indigo, and a blue black and call it “Bruised.” It would certainly match the bruise on my hip. It would just be a matter of getting the colors right…. definitely the Vicodin.

I’ve been slowly working on the new shawl I’m doing with the Brooks Farm Duet. I still haven’t gotten to the end of the part of the ball that I ripped out of the Beginner’s Triangle Shawl. I hadn’t realized I had used that much yarn. What I do need to do is come up with a good name for it… Sadly, nothing is coming to mind when I look at the shawl. Purple, blue, and black just don’t bring anything to the front of my brain… and it’s missing the yellow and reddish tones for my bruise colorway idea. *grin* I also need to commit to a lace edging. There are a couple in Heirloom Knitting that I am considering; perhaps whichever one I choose will lend a name to the shawl.

Bigger and Better Things to Come

Many thanks to Deb! I’m going to rip back the few inches of the Beginner’s Triangle Shawl and start on an adventure… my own shawl. 🙂 Not like I’m doing anything fancy. I’m going to look around and see what lace edgings I like and figure out the base number of stitches for the edging of my choice. That will probably affect whether I start with an odd number of stitches or even. Deb told me she just did a garter stitch triangle, then a lace edging. This is the basic construction of the Wool Peddler’s Shawl I just completed, so this should be pretty straightforward. Nifty. 🙂

I’m also thinking of starting a pair of socks for the Husband since he has managed to wear holes right through the bottoms of both socks in the last pair I made him, now they were a little bit over a year old and he wore them a lot whenever it was cold out. I think they ran into the problem of the carpet in our apartment being rougher stuff than the wool they were made out of. I picked up a couple different colors of a washable wool yarn that looks to be sport weight, so it should work nicely.

I’m also hoping to get the drum carder out of the box sometime this weekend. I got it a month ago, and it’s just been sitting in its box the whole time. I had been so busy with school stuff that I had to ignore it to get assignments done. But, the long weekend should afford me some time to play.

Now for some peppermint tea… and some painkillers… for the kink in my neck is giving me a righteous headache.

JavaScript rots your brain

I don’t know why but this week has been exhausting; thankfully, it’s at least going by fast. I blame it on the JavaScript project I’ve been working on for work. My manager had the brilliant idea that now that I had done a website with JS, I must be an expert, so I could easily complete this page for marketing. *ugh* I’ve been working on it since last Friday. At least I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is glorious since the light was in doubt until moments ago. I have been building the page in parts, and yesterday I added the last important part of the JS code, and it didn’t work. Everything was working beautifully, then I broke it. I have spent a goodly portion of today taking things out and adding things in an attempt to make it work goddammit. My manager came up with a way to make it work that was akin to using a hammer to make a square peg fit in a round hole. I’m rather proud of my coding finesse (I would have gone into programming if it hadn’t been for the required calculus classes). So, I spent today working on it, and now, finally, it is working. The only thing left for this project is to apply a stylesheet to make it conform to the company website. For some reason I have a feeling that’s going to break it again… of course, that would have nothing to do with the fact that the company website was designed by someone who has a limited grasp on how a website should be designed for usability standards. Anyways, the JS is working — properly, no less — and now my brain is goo. I have a couple more hours of work left and all I can do is stare at the wall. Hopefully, if I keep my head upright my gooey brain won’t leak out my ears.

Actual Knitting Content
I haven’t done much… haven’t even considered the dropped stitch in my Beginner’s Triangle Shawl. Might have something to do with me wondering if this is the pattern I want to use this yarn for. I thought it would be good because I only have 1000 yds, and the pattern says knit till the triangle is as long as you want it, you’re bored, or you’re half way through yarn. But, I’m still in love with what Deb did with her Brooks Farm, and I’m slightly unhappy with the fact that the Beginner’s Triangle Shawl will have vertical stripes…. *ugh* Perhaps an email to Deb is in order to find out how much yarn she needed for her shawl….

It’s not a Flaw… it’s a Feature!

Shawls
I finished the Wool Peddler’s Shawl (officially this time) on Monday night. It took me about 2.5 hours to finish the sewn cast-off, but it looks really nice. Now I just need to wash it and block it. You’ll get pictures when it looks pretty… right now it looks a bit lumpy.

I did a swatch and cast-on for the Beginner’s Triangle last night. This morning I discovered a new design feature that I have added to the pattern. I photocopied the chart because there is no way I was going to cart around a hardcover copy of A Gathering of Lace. Unfortunately, certain things didn’t show up in the copy… those certain things being the purl stitches at the end of each row. They’re there to create a clean edge… the first stitch of each row is slipped as if to knit. Well, I have been knitting the last stitch of each row… opps. Since I was on Row 18 when I discovered this (by looking up something in the book) I decided it looks just fine and to continue as I have been. *shhh* Don’t tell anyone.

Secret Pal
I still haven’t figured out who my Secret Pal was.

But I can happily say that my other Secert Pal (the one I was sending to) is Lisa @ Slip Knot Pixie. Yea!

Time Warp

The closer I get to the end the further away it seems to be*. 16 rows of lace left on the Wool Peddler’s Shawl. I think it feels like it’s taking so long because I have my next project picked out. I can’t start the new shawl until this one is done, because I know I would leave the Wool Peddler’s Shawl behind, uncompleted. If I just finish it before moving on I won’t have to worry about it staring at me from the knitting bag I keep it in. Lace does that you know… stares glaringly when you have cast it aside for another project. At least my lace projects do. If you have a deadline for the lace project it mumbles incoherently as well; it knows it shouldn’t be forgotten because it has a debut to look forward to.

I’m still procrastinating on the main part of my secret pal’s last package. This time around I am blaming it on my yard stick going missing, which isn’t really much of an excuse. It’s just that it’s the only long straight edge I have. I’ll either have to find it or make do… most likely I’ll be making do, then I’ll find it when I no longer need it.


*I always think of Waiting for Godot when I think of the idea of approaching infinity. My English teacher even had an inclass demonstration… she put a garbage can across the room and told the student to walk towards the garbage can, each stride was to be half the size of the one before. He could walk forever and never reach the garbage can. For some reason she explained it better than my calculus teacher did.

Approaching the weekend

I first would like to apologise for my inability to spell cappuccino in my last post… I was doing a disservice to a fabulous drink.

Cappuccino Socks
The heel was turned without great difficulty, and there was much jubilation.



The sock progressed along nicely, and was actually completed a few hours after these pictures were taken to even more jubilation. Now to get to work on the second, which should be too hard. This was a nice, simple sock to knit, and it went pretty fast.

Felted Kitty Bed

The felted kitty bed that was finished last week was thrown into my parent’s washing machine and felted on Sunday. (I do my felting at their place because it’s a top loader, so I can check progress, and I don’t have to pay for it.)




As soon as I find a box for it, it will be winging its way to Florida for my sister’s new kitty.


Reader’s Comments
Julie asked where I got the pattern for the scarf.

I got the lace pattern from The Dishcloth Boutique… it’s the Garter Stitch Lace facecloth on page 1 of the knitting patterns. I modified it slightly, doing only 4 rows of garter between the lace segments. This facecloth was the first lace pattern I knitted, so I have an unusual fondness for it… of course, being easy to remember while looking complicated is a bonus.

Update
I finally got around to not only snapping a picture of this, but uploading it so I could share. This is what they pulled out of my tire 2 weeks ago. No wonder it went flat in a couple of minutes, eh?


The patch job seems to be holding up nicely, too.

Is it Spring yet?

In a week’s time we went from 88 F and sunny to 55 F and rainy. I know the Vernal Equinox was on Sunday, but we been suddenlt plunged back into winter around here. On an interesting note, a tornado hit South SF on Sunday.

I’ve had plenty to post about recently, but I’m damned if I’d had the time to do so. Thus, this post is mostly going to be look what I did last week. 🙂

Lace Scarf
This is a lace scarf I knit up as a belated Christmas present for my best friend’s fiance. I used fingering weight Frog Tree Alpaca. It seems to be a nice yarn, although I was a bit shock by the amount of guard hairs in it.


Cappachino Socks
Since the felted kitty bed was finished on Thursday night… well, the knitting part anyway… I cast on for a pair of socks. Back in November I got my Secret Sock Kit in the mail from Inspirations Yarns. It’s a beautiful chocolate-y brown color with variations in the (now let me show my complete lack of dyeing vocabulary) darkness/lightness of the color. It’s their Java yarn, which is a superwash 3-ply that they claim is sport weight. The Secret Sock Kit also came with a pattern. I decided it would probably be best to use the pattern that was written for the yarn. I get out my size 2 dpns and look at the pattern to see how many stitches I should cast on. The pattern has 2 sizes: woman’s small and woman’s large; by the numbers associated with the sizes I assumed I was a large… cast on 42 sts. This is when I notice that if you’re making the small socks you woudl cast on 40 sts. I was perplexed… 2 sts difference didn’t seem like a lot even with a gauge of 6 sts/inch. I decided to give it a shot even though I am feeling great doubt. I got through the ribbing (just an inch, thankfully) and started into the st st. I thought it looked more than a tad small while doing the ribbing, but ribbing can be deceptive. I measured my gauge in the st st… 7 sts/inch. No wonder it looked small. Switching to size 4 dpns got me to gauge, so I ripped back and started over again.


Still looks a bit too small doesn’t it. I slipped it on my foot… the knitting stretched as far as it could. Those would not be comfortable socks; I would feel every ridge of the sts. So, out it came again.


Third time’s the charm, right? I decided I liked the look of the fabric when I was using the size 2 dpns. I have a sock pattern for basic socks and one of the sizes uses a gauge of 7 sts/inch… perfect… I thought. It was huge. I didn’t even bother taking a picture of that one. I ripped it out as soon as I realized it would work for a sleeve.

The too small sock was 7 inches around, the too big sock was 9 inches around, so I settled on something in the middle. I cast on enough sts to get me 8 inches and went for it… this time I’m actually writng it down so I can knit the second sock. I started the heel yesterday – it’s a short row heel that’s a mixture of 3 different ways of doing it. So far, it looks pretty good.

I’ll take pics once the heel is completed as well as before and after shots of the felted kitty bed.

Mmm… red

Six skeins of Sheplova Mushroom arrived via UPS this morning….

It’s such a yummy color… I love deep reds, I just look funny wearing them… my pale skin (I’m a blonde) reflects it and I look like a beet. *pout* This is, of course, why deep reds are my favorite colors.

This particular batch of skeins are destined to become the Wool Peddler’s Shawl from Folk Shawls for a friend of mine. She has a gypsy heritage, and it shows in her coloring. When I saw this color I knew it would be perfect for her… and reading the description of the Wool Peddler’s Shawl, it is also an appropriate color… apparently wool peddler’s wore red shawls so they could be found in a crowded market place.