I suffer single sock syndrome

My picture loader isn't working at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to load my picture when I'm done writing.

I like to knit socks. They're a portable craft that gets done relatively quickly. Up until now, I have always knit one at a time. For some reason, they always come out a little differently, each sock in the pair.

Worse than that is the three or four single socks I have made that either had issues that made me hesitate to start the second one, or I just kind of lost interest. Maybe I could wear them as mismatched pairs...

I've been wanting to learn how to knit two socks at a time for a while now, and finally scheduled time with my good friend and known super knitter S so she could show me how. She pointed to this pattern on Ravelry (not free, but cheap)

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fish-lips-kiss-heel

that has an extensive sock making part to it, not just about the heel that involves tracing the sock recipient's foot on a piece of cardboard so you can do measurements and insure an exact fit. So armed with that, and Judy's Magic Cast On:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pmxRDZ-cwo

We started the toes of my new pair of socks. I'm doing them on one 40" circular needle. You work around the outside, right to left on these. front of one sock, front of the other sock, back of one sock, back of the other sock. The heels are done separately, I am told, and I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

There, the uploader worked. I don't have a pattern picked out yet, but I've got a lot of options with this sized needle and the fingering weight yarn. I'll update when I've got a good one picked out. 

In other news, I am meeting someone new for a drink tonight. We've been connected by a mutual friend and I've FB stalked him enough to see that he seems interesting and kind. I'm so rusty/out of practice it's like starting completely over, which I suppose isn't entirely bad. 

Update, 7-30-14: It was a very enjoyable meeting. I feel I might be a little too organized for him, but we'll see if he calls and wants to continue. I figured since I reached out initially, he can make the next move. 

Sweater progress

I have to say I am really happy with my Leaflet sweater so far. Very happy with the thick yarn (Cascade Pastaza) making progress easy to see. I've saved a lot of sweater patterns to Ravelry, and I like the look of a sweater made from DK yarn, but I need more in the way of instant gratification.

This pattern is really well written. I like the process of knitting this sweater. With the lace panel down the back, every row has something going on. In the beginning, increases are happening to make the sleeves, as well as doing the pattern on both the right and wrong side. It's a pattern that needs the knitter to pay attention, but I like that aspect of it. Doing stockinette stitch on and on feels really tedious, and with this pattern, I feel like every row has something a little different.

Yes, I have to knit with a piece of paper handy, and at the moment am doing sets of 6 rows in pattern with a decrease row. I don't mind ticking off each row as I go. I'm on my third ball of yarn, and I've got at least nine balls, maybe 10, so I think I'll be able to make this long sleeved. It's going to be very warm, but has been nice to work on during these last couple of days when we've had a cold snap. I think I'll be able to finish the body this weekend.

In other news, today is Mr W's birthday. He turns 13, and we'll have his party on Saturday. He invited a small number of kids to go play laser tag, and it looks like we'll have about half a dozen boys attend. He's getting a Kindle Fire from his dad and I. One more device, but I'm hoping he'll actually use it for reading as well as games. We'll see. My kid - the teenager.

2 hour delay

We received about 6" of snow last night, so there is a two hour delay for the schools this morning. I am relieved, because it's really hard to shovel out and get the kid where he needs to be by 7:30. This way

I get to make a blog post, do a bit of knitting, and will still have enough time to shovel.

It's funny, the school district is of course on Facebook, and under the announcement that there is a delay instead of a full closure, there are comments like, "Really?? Have you looked outside?" and the classic, "You guys are idiots. If you think two hours are enough to clear the roads, you are totally oblivious..." blah blah blah. Safety! Think of the children! We do usually have nice weather here, but it IS Colorado, and the climate means that we occasionally get large dumps of snow.

I need to get a second snow shovel because Mr W is finally a reliable second shoveler. His quality standards are not quite up to mine yet, but he's trainable. I'll have him clean off the car first and then help shovel out the entrance to the alley. I park my car behind my house, and I have to enter the alley to get to the driveway. The alley always gets "plowed in" when the snow plows go by, so I need to shovel it out as well.

But I'll get a bit of time to work on my Leaflet, and I snapped the picture above this morning to show my progress. All hail the thick yarn!! I'm hoping the yarn store is open today because I'll need to purchase a longer circular needle. I had a 24" on hand, but need a 32". The fuzzy Pastaza yarn I have doesn't have super stitch definition, but it was in my stash (and thus free) and I like working with it so far.

My work life is about to change a bit. We're getting a foreign student in the lab to do her Master's project and I'll be in charge of her. This was more or less foisted upon me and I'm going to turn lemons to lemonade. Not that I have anything against having some help but I've set up my work at work to be a solo venture. I've been thinking about what we can have her do, and I talked with my boss yesterday about it and I think we can come up with the stand-alone project she needs that is related to the stuff I'm doing, but my stuff doesn't depend on her outcomes.

Since she's from outside the US, the security stuff is extensive and she'll need to be escorted around the building for the first month or so that she's here. My boss offered to do some of the escorting, but her cube will be near mine, so it will fall to me to do most of it. It'll all work out, but I'm uncertain of the details. She's here for a year.

This one

One goofy thing about getting your hands on a knitting pattern you see on Ravely is that sometimes the pattern is only available as part of a book. I wish pattern makers made all their individual patterns available for purchase, well, individually, but that doesn't always happen. 

Such was the case with the pullover sweater I mentioned in my last post. I would have paid $6-7 for the pattern, but couldn't, so I've ordered the book it's in though interlibrary loan. I just can't see myself paying $25 for a book of patterns when I only want the one. Meanwhile, I wanted to start SOMETHING. 

Enter Leaflet, above. I was looking for something I could knit with aran or bulky weight yarn, and saw this. The pattern is available through Knitty, whose patterns are free (yea!). Knowing I wanted this, I went around to my LYS (local yarn store) and strangely enough they were really sparse in their offerings of yarn in this weight. I love alpaca because it's so soft, but can't spend $250 on yarn for a sweater. I was ready to spend something, though, and was disappointed I didn't find anything. 

I had purchased some Pastaza (made by Cascade, and which has been discontinued) and it was in my stash, so I'm using that. This is the colorway, a yellowy green. I'm pretty sure I have enough to make elbow-length if not long sleeves, and am planning to do that.

It's springy and fresh and if I don't like the color when it's done, I'll dye the finished garment. Some people find it scratchy, but so far it's really fuzzy, but not scratchy as I work with it. 

I'm excited to be knitting again. There was some time when it just didn't appeal to me, and now I think about it when I'm at work. Funny. It's too dark to take a decent picture of it, but I'm about 5" in on the yoke of the sweater. I do like to work with bulky yarn. Love the look of sweaters done in DK weight, but I don't have the patience for it. 

Things to do, places to go

I seem to oscillate between letting inertia keep me home in the evenings and having things to do. Sometimes just staying in is enough, maybe even preferred, but I do notice that I get a little squirrelly (is my term for it) if I'm alone too much. I work alone for a good part of the day, so unlike people who have to constantly deal with co-workers, my work time is usually a solo thing unless I go out and talk to people (which I actually should do more. See above about inertia...).

Anyway, there is a program at our science museum that I'm attending, and I'm looking forward to that. It's funny, I fully intend to become a member but for two small things. First, they don't have a way to do it through their website (they are kind of a new/young organization), so you have to print out a form to fill out and mail it in with a check (maybe credit card info). Second, and this is such a nit-picky thing that I'd like to believe it's only the first thing that has kept me thus far from joining: they don't have memberships for a parent and a kid. There's individual, there's family, there's grandparent, but unlike the science museum in Denver, nothing for an individual plus one. Small things, really. I'm making a note to myself to print the form today and bring it and a check with me tonight.

I'm hoping to get together Friday with a friend who I don't socialize with enough. Hopefully that will happen. Then Saturday I've been invited to my banjo instructor's place for some picking and socializing. This means a lot to me because I have not been playing, and stopped my lessons back in September. I just picked up my banjo again last week after a couple of months, and was relieved to see I haven't lost everything (except my calluses, but they'll reform). I still want to get to a point where I can hold my own while playing with a group, even if I don't know the song. I need to get comfortable playing (finding the chords!) in A and D tunings. But I digress. I'm grateful that my instructor thought of me to invite me and I'm looking forward to seeing those folks again.

In other news, I'm getting close to starting a sweater. It's called Derry Raglan (that's the Ravelry link). It's knit with aran weight, and is easy and fast and has a little bling down the sleeves. I waver on the yarn, though. I'm always looking for that sweet spot in yarn, where it's good stuff - not scratchy, not droopy, won't pill right after I get finished - but doesn't cost me $150 to get enough for a sweater. Good yarn is not cheap. I think you kind of get what you pay for.

Finally

It has been forever and a day since I felt excited to start a knitting project, but maybe the cool nights really are the thing that triggers it in me. Also, I received a birth announcement from my dad's girlfriend's son and his wife (how to shortcut the name for that relationship?) for the birth of their daughter. This is the Lacy Julian Hat and I believe that link will only work if you are registered with Ravelry. Isn't it sweet? And more to the point with my knitting these days, doesn't it look like something that could be knit in a weekend? I'm thinking something in a very soft variegated color scheme, with a couple of my littlest handmade buttons sewn on. 

My local yarn shop is having a sale this weekend, too, so it all fits together nicely. Since I'm posting pictures, here's a recent bracelet.

Candy pinks. I'm getting a kick out of making these. I think I've said that about a hundred times, so I'll stop. 

What else. I was called in as a mediator (I say that tongue in cheek) to talk to Mr W over at his dad's house. Seems Mr W hasn't been turning in all of his assignments, and the school has a system where parents can check all of their kids' work. I noticed he was missing a couple of things, and texted his dad to make sure those got done. 

One of the things that has always irked me a bit about my ex is his impulsiveness. However, when he jumped right on the "the kid is off of TV and the computer until this is turned around", I found myself relieved that he acted so decisively. I wondered if I would have done the same thing. I may have waffled more and waited until the infraction was larger? But his dad did the right thing to get Mr W's attention. 

So we talked about getting organized, and the kid needs to bring home all of his homework, even if it is done already, so we can see it. I think we're all on the same page. Mr W walked me out to my car, and I thought it was really interesting coming from this ever-maturing 11 year old boy when he said, "I just thought that I needed to stand up to him for some of this stuff". He was implying (and I largely believe him and it will all get sorted out) that the grade viewer thing online wasn't complete and that he (Mr W) was correct on some of his points. Fair enough. I told him he still needed to pick his battles, and that things would go more smoothly with his dad if he was cooperative and helpful on the little things. 

Welcome to middle school.

Wingin' it

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my search for a short sleeved summer sweater with an open stitch pattern. It's one of those things that I thought there must be a bunch of patterns out there on Ravelry. But nothing was quite right. The ones I thought I could adapt were written to start from the bottom up. I don't like the inflexibility of doing it that way. I want to be able to try the thing on and see how it drapes and add more to the length if necessary, so I like to make my sweaters top-down.

For that matter, that whole seaming thing doesn't work for me either. :-) Making the thing in pieces, and then mattress-stitching them together at the end. Forget it! I think it's a matter of how people were taught, but the top-down raglan sleeve increase make sense to me. You cast on a number of stitches, place eight markers, and do regular increases at those markers. Eventually you have enough stitches and the thing is long enough that you put the live stitches for the sleeves on scrap yarn and continue to knit the body of the thing.

I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I am winging this one and we'll see how this goes. I cast on 72 stitches after I found a sort of similar pattern (The Loose Knit Cardi from Classic Elite), and am working a six row repeat pattern of :

1. Knit with triple wrapped stitches
2. Knit, picking up one of the wraps and letting the others fall (this creates the drop stitch look)
3. Knit, increasing one at markers (knit f/b)
4. Knit
5. Knit, increasing one at markers (knit f/b)*
6. Knit

After I divide off for the sleeves, I won't do any more increases. This makes it so I am doing the increases at the same side of the marker each time (I think - with the garter stitch, it's not easy to see the increases, which I guess is a good thing). I'm not going to have the same number of stitches as the pattern, but am hoping that once the thing is long enough, there will be enough stitches to have real sleeves. As I said, I'm winging it, so it's an experiment. I've already ripped back a couple of times, as the drop stitch pattern leaves a gap if I want to put a button band or attached I-cord in later. So I'm knitting the first stitch of the triple-wrapped rows with a regular (single wrapped) stitch. It'll go fast enough that if it doesn't work, it's not a big deal, but if it does I'll have a nice sweater for summer.

Edit: 4-3-12. I am increasing on either side of each marker for the second increase after the first two rounds. I should also mention that I K three rows to start before doing the dropped stitch row.

Saturday!

Well, it's Saturday and I'm looking forward to lots of puttering about in the house and yard. The dog is snoring at my feet. Happy camper.

On tap today is cleaning out my garden beds. I thought I should leave last year's growth on so that if/when it snows again that the young plants would be protected. However, they've just gone ahead and poked right through, so I guess I'll clean things out today. I am thrilled (THRILLED, I tell you) to have made the decision to sign up to have the trash hauling company take away my compostable yard waste. Wahoo! I always seem to have stalks and woody stuff that simply accumulates instead of composting, and now I can get it outta here. I'll keep a compost pile for easy stuff like grass, leaves and kitchen scraps, but the other stuff will be gone.

I'm making good progress on painting my fence, so need to continue with that. The house needs some attention on the inside, and I need to go to the grocery and hardware stores. Just little chore things that aren't urgent and I like not having to absolutely get any of it finished.

Tonight I'm going to play music at my banjo instructor's place with other students and friends of hers. The last time I did this I had a lot of fun, so am looking forward to that.

Finally, I've been looking for a summer sweater project, and am thinking of this:

I'm thinking making mods so that I just do the drop stitch pattern all the way down the sweater, and not do the sleeves below the yoke, so it would be short-sleeved. I need to look through my stash to see if I've got enough of the right kind of yarn to do this. I'm thinking some kind of cotton blend, worsted weight. The pattern uses a strand of lace and a strand of sport weight.

Best of Knitty 2011

One more post for today.

I just saw this post from Knitty in my feed. I wanted to tuck it here in the blog so I can go back and look at a couple of these patterns later. Later as in when I pick up knitting needles again. Someday...

Some teaser pics:

And now, I wait

I got the first 10 bracelets finished, photographed and up on Etsy just now. You can see them at this link. Holy moly, it was a lot of work!! And on a scale of 1-10, I think the photos are about 6 or 7, I need to get larger pieces of background paper or fabric, although I did find a stash of old bottles that I like the look of. 

I spent a couple of hours this morning figuring out the little rings of metal, called jump rings, that can give some extra length to the piece, and also are used to attach things like the toggle clasps. I had bought a bunch of jump rings and with the two beading pliers I had, if I wasn't flipping the ring across the room, it was so mangled at the end that it was unusable. 

So I did what people do these days when faced with a conundrum - I went to Youtube. And there, I saw a video of a woman making her own jump rings from a length of wire. A-ha. (Alison, I did read your comment - sorry I never replied. I did get wire working books from the library and they were helpful.) The woman on the Youtube video had this nifty little pair of pliers that you could put an open jump ring in and when you closed it, the ring would close. So I went out to the bead stores in search of this wonderful tool.

And no one had one. I tried four stores. But I got some suitable wire to make my own rings, a pair of flush cutters and got a proper second pair of pliers for manipulating jump rings. I didn't need the special pliers. As is true in so many aspects of life, having the right tools made all the difference. I wound the wire around a knitting needle and then cut one ring at a time of the resulting coil, so that I had one turn of the wire with each cut. Then it was a simple thing to get stuff put on the rings, put them together and get on with things. 

After seeing the photography on Etsy in general, I decided my photos needed to be much brighter. These are a little washed out, but I'll get better at this as I go. 

What do you think? Any suggestions?

And for the rest of my evening, I'm going to take out the bind off from my Cadence sweater and add another 2-3" of ribbing, as it's just a bit too short. I thought I would take it on my work trip Monday. I'm flying to Long Island for some training. It's going to be a busy three days, so I'm enjoying just chilling at home today and tomorrow. 

Once again

It"s been an elsewhere kind of week. Trying to plan for things that are coming up, lots of time in front of the computer. The computer stuff shook out with success. I know a tiny bit about this program and wanted to use it to analyze data for a paper that I'm writing. It uses the geographic coordinates of each site and compares it with the genetic data to group the populations into groups, if that makes sense. It was all well and good to start, except that it put three populations on the wrong side of the state, and that took a few days fiddling to figure out how to kind of fool the program into putting the populations where they needed to be. I am glad that my boss is OK with me spending that kind of time on something, especially if, as in this case, we'll use the program in the future.

After going out for coffee with yet another person from the online dating site, I am officially taking a break. I was just about to when it seemed he and I might hit it off, but there was no spark. Perfectly nice, just not what each other is looking for. Can one tell this in one two-hour coffee date? I think so. I know so. It's funny, I picked the place, and the same thing happened the last time I went for a first meeting at this place. The guy was a great match on paper, but wasn't interested.

And I've been mulling over past connections as well. To what end, I'm not sure. I looked up someone I had gone out with a few times and we ended it as friends, and I think he'll be someone that I can call up to go see live music or hang out with, with no expectations of taking it anywhere else. I got a call from another past relationship person, who was going through a painful breakup with someone they truly cared about. I don't know if we do this more when it's someone whose well-being we care about, but when the conversation was done, the feeling of being able to step back because this wasn't actually my problem was a huge relief. And yet another past brief relationship person has been all over FB this week, as he whoops it up on vacation.

And 9-11, who hasn't been thinking of 9-11? I get sucked into the pictures and the stories of the heroes, and get so depressed about where the country has gone from there. Depressed that it takes a tragedy to bring out the best in us. The partisanship in Washington is so repulsive to me when so many people only want to work and earn a decent wage to feed their families. There is an interfaith remembrance tomorrow afternoon, and I think I will attend to get a reminder that people are doing good work.

And today's going to be a busy day! Mr W's got a party in the afternoon, we're going to a picnic, and I won tickets to the Historic Homes tour for knowing why they built the streets so wide in my part of town. Why, you ask? To be able to turn around a wagon and a team of horses, of courses.

And, I started knitting my Lanesplitter. It is going to be a pretty fast knit, and I'm excited about it.

OK, thanks for reading through these rambles. I'm looking forward to heading back to the present for a while.

Tangential

This is just something interesting that I've seen and wanted to share. The blog for the website Knitty has a section for yarn spinners (as opposed to bike Spinners...). A contributor named Jillian has been spinning different types of wool recommended by a book about rare breeds of sheep.

I don't have a desire to spin wool into yarn, but her weekly forays into the different types of wool out there has been very interesting to me. Above is something called Romeldale. Here's a link to her post from today, from which you can see the previous weeks' trials. 

Green and an F.O.

We've been getting rain for the last couple of days, so everything is very green. Here's the intrepid rhubarb plant that grows just outside my back door. I thought I had gotten all the flowering stalks cut off, but this one peeped out. Looks like this will be the "do something with rhubarb" weekend.

My best laid plans for raspberry containment have already been overcome, as you can see they are escaping out to the left. I'll need to reassess and try something else for the upper part as well. But it's nice to think we'll have fresh razzleberries. I wonder if any will make it inside.

This is why I love perennials. The Delphinium (on the left) started greening up weeks ago, and it's the big, bold kind with spikes of dark blue flowers. Looks like it's time to thin the Iris (again!), and the rose in the back looks respectable after I finally cut the dead canes off last weekend.

Here's my boughten lettuce starts, planted around the beginning of April. I believe I'll have a salad tonight. I sewed the snap peas heavily, and there are a couple of the wimpy broccoli seedlings I started inside. The look better every day.

And last but not least, here's my Cadence! A Finished Object (F.O.) that is done but not blocked. the lace pattern at the top will lay flat and pop a lot more when I've blocked it, they tell me. I wish I had made it just a little longer, but I will see if I can get another inch out of it when I block it, and I could pick up stitches and add a couple more inches of ribbing at the bottom because I've got plenty of yarn. This was done in Cascade Ecowool Plus, and two of their massive (400+ yard) skeins were more than enough for this sweater, made in a large (38? maybe a 40 inch bust), and I have about half a skein left, so this took about 600 yards. A real bargain.

Progress

Here is my Cadence as of this morning. I did move all the live stitches to scrap yarn so I could try it on, and the neckline, which is really wide in the pattern, and which I made on smaller needles, will work fine. The yarn is pretty grabby, so I've had to change the way I hold it and that has sped up the process a lot. I'm ready to do the 2" of ribbing on the bottom now, and then hopefully knock out the sleeves.

I say hopefully, because this is the time of year when knitting loses its appeal to gardening. I used to worry that I'd lost interest in knitting all together, but it comes back in the fall. I like the rhythm of that. I was outside for a bit yesterday, and made a long list of things that need to be done in order to properly usher in spring/summer at my house.

Has anyone every tried doing weed control by pouring boiling water on the weeds? The previous owners put down pea gravel in the font of the house and it always has weeds, which I usually knock back with Roundup, but would like to find an alternative. I did a test patch yesterday, and the leaves sure looked cooked, but I'll have to wait and see it that actually kills the plant. I remember seeing a butane torch apparatus in a gardening catalog that allowed the user to burn weeds, and thought that was a good idea for this small space, too.

Since the government shutdown isn't going to happen, it's back to work today, and I am relieved.

Boom Shakalaka

Here is my latest knitting project. It's a Cadence sweater, by Jordana Paige. If you click through to look at the pattern, you'll see that it has this really wide neckline, which initially turned me off to the pattern. But good old Ravelry shows several projects where people have cast on with smaller needles, then switched to the needles the pattern calls for when they start the chart. How clever! So I cast on with size 7's, and then switched to 10's. Too early to tell if this worked, but I think it will be OK.

Here's a close up of one of the pattern repeats. The Cadence name is apt, as I have gotten into a rhythm working around them. You might also get a sense from the pictures that this is bulky yarn. I am such a fan of bulky yarns for sweaters. This is Cascade's Ecological Wool, which is a really good deal, at $15.00 for 400+ yards of yarn. I love the look of a sweater made from DK yarn, but just don't have the time to spend with that skinny yarn. This way, I can see my progress and actually have a chance to wear this thing before it gets warm. C'mon spring, I dare you to come early!

It's Done!

 Here's my Liesl sweater.  I had to redo one arm, so it took me a little longer than I thought it would.  But I like it!!  It fits well, and I like the way it looks.

Here it is after blocking.  I wasn't sure if it would be long enough, but it's fine.  The lace really stretched quite a bit.  Yea!  This is my next project:  Cadence.  I'm casting on with smaller needles than it calls for, so the neck isn't so big, and so far so good, but I'm only a few rows in :-)

Returning the favor

Like a lot of girls, I was taught how to knit by my mom, when I was in my early teens.  My recollection is that she didn't knit much herself, but knew how to cast on, and do the basic stitches.  I may have made a scarf when I was younger, but I don't recall making anything else.  My mom didn't actually knit much either, but was working on a vest when she got sick, and a friend of theirs ended up finishing it.  So, I guess my early experience with it was glancing at best.

Fast forward to around 2007, when I'm out of school, have a full time job that doesn't require me to work outside of work, and want to develop a hobby.  I think it also may have had something to do with wanting to make a pair of socks for the guy I was dating.  I wonder if he threw those away, or kept them... Anyway, at the time, I had recently become friends with D, who is a good knitter.  A real knitter.  And I remember us meeting for coffee once, and she showed me just a couple of things, like how to decrease stitches properly for a sock, and that did it.  That gave me the oomph I needed to go ahead and consider myself a knitter and take on other projects (besides scarves!). You know how you can watch videos, or see books about something, and it just doesn't click until someone is sitting next to you and does it a couple of times?  That's how it was.

Well, yesterday I got to return the favor, and I showed my friend C some basics.  It just strikes me as ever so cool that this is how this craft is passed along.  That a skill that is both practical and an expression of creativity is often perpetuated in this way.  It was fun to see her first few tight, weird stitches turn into a declaration of "Yes, I think I've got it".  Because we all do tight weird stitches when we start anything new, and it's just practice that leads us to be better at it.  Does that sound like something I tell my kid?  It is.

You nice people

I know I've been remiss about not mentioning my previous post on asking people who don't comment often to pipe up and say a few words.  I wanted to thank you for doing so; it's a lot of fun to know that there are people who I know through the blog that I've never met.  Pretty cool.  Mike mentioned that he had trouble commenting, and I wanted to say that I think that's a Blogger thing.  I often have to resubmit a comment 2-3 times for it to stick, and that's what I would try here if your comment doesn't go through the first time.  If I don't have the word verification on, then I open the comments up to spammers and we don't need to see those kinds of ads.  I had comment moderation on for a while, but forgot to check it, and Blogger held the comments until I remembered to check for them, so I turned it off.  Anyone who does the word verification thingy should be able to comment, so feel free to try.  Or not, I'm glad you're here.

Having a kid-free weekend coming up, I've been looking for things to do, and found something for a couple of weeks from now.  There's a group in town called Art Lab, dedicated to making art more accessible to everybody, a message I can certainly get behind.  They have this cool idea, called Art Lab Supper Club, where they have something like 50 people buy a $15 ticket for dinner, which is donated.  We'll listen to pitches made by local artists who need money to accomplish their projects, and at the end of the evening vote to determine who gets the ticket money from the night.  My friend D and I will go.  I love that kind of stuff.  I actually have a bit of an idea that I would pitch, and will talk to someone that night to see if it might be a contender at a future Supper.  It's not for me to make art, but to bring something in so others could sell their art. 

Oh, and I've been knitting.  I have a really neat scarf that I forgot to take a picture of, but will do that soon, and also have started another Leisl.  This time I am making the next size up, as my last one was too small (a heartbreak, but I'm going to give it to someone instead of ripping it out).  I'm also using two strands of yarn held together, on the big needles again, so it will have some heft to it, but be lacy, and also (this is a big part) use up yarn I've got on hand.  You'd think that wouldn't be a big deal, but it's actually hard to match a pattern you really like to yarn you already have.  It seems best to go the other way; see a pattern you like, then buy the yarn.  But yarn is so seductive - pretty, soft, full of promise, and people buy it just knowing they'll be able to do something with it.  Eventually. But, I like this so far.  A lot.  The yarn is better behaved than the last one, a lot less fuzzy, and this is machine washable yarn (although I probably won't actually do that for fear it'd come undone...).

Little Circs

Disclaimer: This post contains a bunch of knitspeak.

I started these at the airport when I was traveling for Thanksgiving. The yarn came from Michael's or Hobby Lobby, and I wasn't sure if I'd like it, especially when I started the ribbing at the top. It was a bit splitty and a bit fuzzy, but for a plain stockinette sock (no pattern; CO 60 sts on a 1 1/2 needle), it is just fine. Can't beat the price, which I think was about $4-5 a ball.

You'll notice that these are knit on a 9" circular. They take a bit of getting used to, as they are pretty small in your hands. However, you can FLY on a plain stockinette sock. I think that if I had to do lots of ribbing, or anything with a chart in the pattern, these would not be the needle to use; double pointed needles would be necessary. But I love how I can just go and go on these, and the sock appears. I did have to use dpns on the heel flap, and then went back to the circular needle after I had decreased back down to 60 sts.

In other news, I'm supposed to meet someone new tomorrow, that I met on Match. Our communication has been sporadic, and I don't have any strong feelings either way on what I want, so we'll see how it goes. He seems like a good guy, has kids, is local, is even a lab geek like myself.

Proper tools

Here is my Liesl sweater, on the blocking board. The sweater's been done for a couple of weeks, and I've been looking around at thrift stores and kids' consignment stores for some of these foam tiles to use for blocking. I didn't have any luck, and finally just ordered these from Knitpicks. They were $20, stack into 1 square foot pieces, and there's nine of them.

What a difference the right tool makes. I have an old carpet remnant in the basement I had used in the past, and it just didn't work like this. I could use some longer pins, but the little ones I had are fine. I'm a little disappointed that the sweater is taking so long to dry (I should have given it a spin in the dryer when it was rolled in its towel), but it will be dry in plenty of time to wear it when I travel to MN on Wednesday.

I have extolled the virtues of this sweater before, but I love this sweater!! I love how it is knit with thick yarn, on big needles, and has a simple construction. I didn't even put button holes on; I'll buy a dark brown ribbon and tie it closed at the top. I'm going to knit another one this winter yet. If you've never knit a sweater, I would highly recommend this one.

The sun's out today - I simply MUST rake leaves. I've consoled myself with the idea that I'll just rake them onto a tarp (no bagging, which I hate) and make a leaf compost pile in the corner of the yard.