Yop#2.32-36 or It's Been Too Cold to Blog

Saying that it's been too cold to blog is really a horrible excuse but it's the only one I have. The desire to sit in front of a computer has been low when I could be bundled up under blankets, streaming Star Trek on Netflix, while knitting. It's also been hard to get time in front of the computer when my brain is in the right spot to write.

So enough excuses and an update instead.

I FINISHED THE GLOVES!!!!

I don't have a photo of them finished yet (it has been below stupid cold here lately and I haven't have the patience to get Husband to model them in the car. I just want to be out of the car and somewhere warm) but Husband has been enjoying them. He told me that I had to finish it before I started my next project so that really motivated me to get them done. That and I was really tired of them.

So what did I cast on next? A pattern test for a sweater but not just any design. This sweater was inspired from the Ensign sweater that Wesley Crusher wears often in the Star Trek: Next Generation series. It's been available for streaming on Netflix and I had only watched a handful of episodes here and there. People would make references and I would smile and nod as though I knew who they were talking about. (Most of the smiling and nodding had to do with the character Q because I didn't want to have gasps of disappointment that I didn't know who they were talking about.) On a whim I decided to start watching the series from the start. After only an episode or two, Husband joined in. When I went looking through the free pattern tests forum to see if there was anything I really wanted/needed to knit, I saw the sweater and knew I had to do it. It would mean buying yarn most likely as I tend to have a lot of single skeins and it would be making a sweater which has intimidated me greatly.

After a yarn shopping trip with Husband (he was having to wear the sweater after all and he did agree to the trip!) at Lakeside Yarn (I'd won a gift certificate there last year at the Yarn Shop Hop) and digging through my stash, I was able to make a swatch and start the sweater.

It's been going really well and quite quickly. Amazing what knitting on medium size yarn on larger needles is like! Husband has even noted how much faster the sweater is compared to his gloves. It's also easier to be using someone else's pattern and not adjusting everything as you go! Even though it's straight knitting (once I get through the shoulder increases) for most of it, I'm really liking that it's a relatively mindless project.  And seeing as how I'm currently updating about once a month, it may even be finished by the time I write again.

Of course, it does mean that my Girl on Fire socks have been put temporarily on hold until I needed to change colours and was out somewhere and then I would work on them. While I had hoped to get them done before the first Cookie A package arrived this year, it seems that it just wasn't meant to be. At least I'm not getting paid or graded on my knitting timeliness!

Finished Projects 

• Mint Twist Socks
• Shrubbery Caulking
• Husband Driving Gloves

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Girl on Fire
• Pretty Pillars Test 
• My Driving Gloves 
• Crusher Sweater 

YOP #2.24-26 or Surviving the Holidays

This picture isn't what it seems. I have often posted a picture that looked exactly like this through out this half of the year. This one is quite different. It's the second glove! To be technical, it's the third glove as the second glove is the 1st glove of the Husband's pair and the first glove was suppose to be the 1st glove of his pair but has turned into the 1st glove of my pair which will eventually get finished. Eventually. The reason that this is so exciting isn't because it means I only have five (or 11 if you count my gloves) fingers left, but because it means that the first glove is finished!


Here is the right glove in all it's glory. I may have actually woken up yesterday morning at 7 am so I could finish weaving in the ends so he could wear it to work. (This also explains the quality of the pictures...better ones coming at some point.)

The thumb and first two fingers have a conductive thread knit in them so that the car's touchscreen can be used without removing one's gloves.

This grey yarn was found at a store in Sparta, WI where we stopped to charge after a camping trip. Husband picked out this yarn. It's been lovely to work with as it has aloe in it. 

This is proof that I love my Husband. I knit intarsia gloves, in the round. I'm sure I could gift a ton of these (there's no way I could sell them; no one would pay that much) but I don't know who else I love enough to knit that many fingers.

One of us is amused by this picture.

This were finished up after Christmas. While I had all of last week off, this is really my first week of vacation. Between taking the little dog to the vet (she has been scratching her eye too much which irritates it and causes her to scratch it more) and doing shopping for everyone (including myself) and serving at church (6 Christmas services in 2 days; I think I've recovered; this was actually one of my favorite parts last week), I didn't get much knitting done. I got some done at church while the worship band rehearsed (after I set all the lighting) and then during the Pastor's riveting sermons (they are really good but it's a lot to hear one that many times; the 6th service was different at least) but not nearly as much as I had envisioned doing. Of course, I have an odd sense of time and space some days which means I'm often surprised when I can't get everything done.

I did manage to finish one of the Girl on Fire Socks. For some reason, I still have to look up the start of the kitchener stitch. You would think I'd done it enough times by now to know it by heart! The first one was finished during a sermon and I started the next one between services. I'm not at all surprised how smoothly the second sock is going now that I know the pattern. Cookie A's patterns seem to be like that more often than not. They look intimidating (I had a few people look at them and comment about how hard they look) but once you know what is going on, they are really simple. I love that they look hard than they really are. Not that some of her patterns aren't hard. This just happens to be one that isn't.



The most exciting news from the last couple of weeks is that I finally have a finished object! Of course, I meant for it to be finished several months ago... Maybe I'll learn to not ground projects for nearly as long.

Finished Projects 

• Mint Twist Socks

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Husband Driving Gloves  
• Girl on Fire
• Pretty Pillars Test 
• My Driving Gloves 

YOP #2.15 or This is What Progress Feels Like!

I don't know how, but this week I knit on almost everything!

Arrow Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix so Husband and I sat around and watched a few episodes this week. As we did so, I worked on his glove. I figured out part of the problem. The pattern says to increase after the ribbing. Husband's hands are just...unique. This probably also has to do with not swatching but I think his hands are also not your average pattern friendly. So I frogged that first row and instead of increasing the stitches, I decreased a few. I knit enough rows to begin the thumb gusset and had him try it one. It looked much better. As I knit (and made notes; so many notes for the second glove), I would occasionally stop and make him give me his hand to try it on. It's going so much better! Right now I'm only working on it while he's around so that I can be constantly putting it on his hand. These will be the most custom gloves ever made.

On Saturday I hosted a craft day. I was trying not to pout because I worried people wouldn't show up. I was very pleased that I ended up with 3 of my friends over and I got to work on Girl on Fire. I finished up the leg, heel flap and turned the heel before it was time to go out to a show with a friend of mine. Before people showed up, I managed to get a sort-of life line into the sock I need to frog. It's hard to follow just before the heel and on a pattern that has cables and lace work. Hopefully it'll get me close but I know feel like I can finish the second sock.

I did hear back from the designer for Browncoat. I didn't make any progress, but I did take some photos tonight.

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Mint Twist Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Husband Driving Gloves  
• Girl on Fire

YOP #2.11-12 or So Much For Progress and Mindless Movies Make Marvelous Progress

I didn't post last week. This is the main reason why:

Husband trying on glove.

After Husband tried on glove.

Yes, that's the correct order of the photos. It was too loose around his hand and then the distance between the end of the thumb gusset and the start of the fingers was too much. It measured out as the pattern said it should...it's just a tricky pattern because I'm making up a lot of things, like some of the gauge. I had a vague idea of the gauge but the knitting intarsia in the round has thrown things into a fun loop. So there's a lot of making things up. The thumb fit great but for some reason is going higher up the thumb than I think it's suppose to go. This hasn't been touched this week. At all. Currently, if I even think about this project, I start to cry a little on the inside.

This past week has been...special. I did manage to get a lot of knitting done on Girl on Fire.

This is the August club yarn. It's the first 2014 Cookie A sock club pattern I've cast on this year. I don't know why but this is a fun and relatively easy pattern. I was able to watch an...interesting movie (it's called "Dragonfyre" and it's like a badly written RPG...it's streaming on Netflix) and still make progress. I'm almost to the heel. I'm tempted to figure out the short row heel as I like the fit of that but I also don't want to mess up the pattern work. Odds are that I'll do the standard heel flap.

Browncoat has also been worked on. No new pictures as it's been spending a lot of time at work and in the car. It even went out to the Renaissance Festival. It didn't leave the car but it was there. On Saturday, as my friend and I tried to leave before the big rainstorm hit (we at least got to the car before it did), I knit about a row and a half before it looked like traffic might move (it didn't...we were there for over 2 hours before getting off site). My friend, who has knit before, was curious about my backwards knitting. I ended up letting her knit on the project until it was too dark to see. Apparently this isn't normally but I like that when this is done, it will have been a group project. There's a possibility that she might be moving down here this spring, which I think would be lovely as it would mean another friend to knit with.

It is late and I seem to have run out of things to say. I'm horribly behind in responding to comments and reading other people's blogs. I really mean to...it's been extremely chaotic recently. Maybe things will slow down in October. (How is it nearly October???)

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Mint Twist Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Husband Driving Gloves  
• Girl on Fire

YOP #2.10 or Wedding Travel Makes for Knitting Time

Most of this past week's knitting happened over the weekend. A cousin of Husband was getting married in California. It was a very last minute decision to go and only happened because we managed to find me a ticket that didn't cost and arm and a leg (or a sweater's quantity of quivet yarn). An affordable ticket meant 2 layovers round trip (one in each direction). I was smart and filled my carry on with knitting projects. Three of them came with me. I worked on two of them. Better to have too much knitting than not enough.

As Husband posted on my Google Plus posting of last week's blog about hoping the gloves would be finished before it got cold (I don't think it ever really got too hot), this was the project I worked on the most. On the first flight Friday evening, I crashed. For some reason, I usually get onto the plane and fall asleep. It's odd and sometimes I wake up just in time for the drink service, though not on this flight. It was a mad dash to catch my connection. The 45 minute layover was lost due to the first plane being lately. I thankfully made it. As I prefer a window seat (it's handy when you have a habit of falling asleep very easily), I found myself sitting in the back of the plane (I love and hate Southwest's seating policy). To avoid talking to the loud group of musicians (one of whom kept trying to hit on me), I pulled out my knitting and started to work on the thumb gusset. I was finished with the gusset when it was time to start packing things back up for the landing. Since we took different flights (he had rewards points and got to fly direct), I got to the hotel before he did and sat and continued to work on the gloves while watching bad TV. At that time of night, I think all TV is bad. I did manage to work on Browncoat as it required less thinking. I'm noticing that even though both yarns are fingering weight for the glove, one is slightly thinner than the other, so the stitch height is different from front to back.

Saturday I abandoned my knitting while we explored the city and then headed to the wedding. We took public transportation to the wedding and I pointed out that this would be the perfect time for me to knit. It wasn't practical (and properly not polite) to bring my knitting. I did meet the little girl who I gave Fuzzy to and she is adorable. I was even asked to watch her for a bit by her parents (who I was meeting for the first time as well) and it was fantastic. Nothing like a 2 year old to distract you for being overwhelmed at meeting a million people for the first time (it may have been less than that but it certainly didn't seem like it!). My Police Box shawl made an appearance as it started to get a little chilly at the end of the evening. One of the other guests we shared a table with loved it. They sat a group of Whovians together and it was fantastic.

It was a stupid early flight back on Sunday, so the first flight was another crash until we land experience. Once on the ground, I saw that my flight was going to be delayed. It ended up only being delayed 30 minutes, which was better than the 60 minutes it was originally going to be delayed. I pulled back out the gloves and worked on them for a few rows. Saturday night I had Husband (or was it earlier on Saturday...I don't remember now) try on the glove and it seemed a good fit. Now the real challenge is that I'm using two colors and making up the pattern as I go along. I'm using the Gloves Pattern Generator to get my rough numbers but I'm still making up a lot of stuff. Normally, one would just slip the thumb gusset stitches off onto the side and continue knitting. What does one do when there's a color change in the middle of it? Well, I knit to the first side of the thumb gusset and moved those stitches. Then I knit the rest of them in the new color and put them onto the same holder as the first set. I'm then suppose to cast on 4 stitches, so I cast on 2 with each color and I started to knit plain rounds. Well, now there's a problem.

That's yarn from moving stitches and then casting on. I thankfully had only done a few rows. I'm not entirely sure what to do. I think I'll frog back to that point and then knit the entire row and knit back to the spot where the stitches are slipped. Then I'll carry on. Hopefully that will work.

No work happen on Girl on Fire. I did look at it and pet it a few times but I was so exhausted on Sunday that I didn't feel like thinking.

I did work a bit on Browncoat during the week. The current section is simply stockinette, so it can travel with me to work. Of course, it's more fun to hack portals on my way to work some days..... Sunday I also had my first roller derby practice after taking last year off. As Husband dropped me off from the airport, I took the light rail back to where my car had been parked over the weekend. Yet another opportunity to knit and I didn't have any knitting with me. It would have helped the ride as I may have killed my phone's battery while hacking portals....

Looking forward to the first concert of the fall season (with knitting of course) and an actual "weekend" this week. Somehow I plan on doing everything and nothing in those two days.

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Mint Twist Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Husband Driving Gloves  
• Girl on Fire

YOP #2.5 or Really, Gauge is Important

This week I've been pretty project monogamous. I've not had the time sitting and watching things that allow for mindless knitting. I keep remembering that I should finish the Mint Twist socks, but they have become my back-up project. The leg is nearly done (over 3/4 of the way there!) but I keep being drawn to Husband's driving gloves.

After realizing that the new tighter knitting on the color ribbing wasn't going to fit, I frogged it and started over on much larger needles. I got the band to the correct size and went down one needle size for the rest of the glove. One day, I will learn to listen to my gut feeling. As I looked at the needles I was pulling out, part of my brain pointed out that I should really go back down the 3 (or so) needle sizes to what I had originally been knitting on as that would get me my gauge. Not that I've done a gauge swatch, but that's what my gut feeling was trying to tell me.

I happily started knitting and learned how to do intarsia in the round. The yarn for this project was bought almost a year ago. It's taken me this long to start it because it's been really intimidating. This isn't simply a "take this pattern and make it for me" but a "this is what I want, can you figure out the pattern for me" sort of of project. I had little experience with intarsia to begin with and it seemed silly to have one's first project be in the round. I'm glad I leveled up in my knitting skills before I started this one.

Yesterday, I finished the thumb gusset. I pulled those stitches off onto a stitch holder and got Husband to put the glove on his hand.

It was big and not just a little big. It was a lot big. I stuffed the project back in my bag and left my knitting in the car as we were on our way to see a fringe show. As we spent the rest of the day going between activities, I pulled out the Mint Twist sock instead of frogging the glove. For some reason, I feel that frogging the glove in a moving vehicle was a bad idea. It ended up being a pleasant day (one event we went to was the same one that we had met at 3 years ago) and a lot of fun though I knew I'd have to frog the glove. Again. At least this time, I should only have to frog it to the wrist band.

Before I frog it, I did take some lovely pictures of it on my hand.

Black palm, grey top because gloves aren't hard enough.

I probably could have fit both of my hands if I had tried.

Friday night, while I was working a show and knitting on the glove, I thought it would be fun to capture what it is like for me to knit at work. Thankfully my phone has a timer. It took several shots and below is the best one.

What you don't see: the musicians on stage.

This photo was lit only by the dim house light and the work light I have at my position. I'm also in full blacks. The music was phenomenal. It was a concert by the Young Musicians of Minnesota. This is a student run group that is striving to promote classical music to young musicians. It was truly a remarkable concert and a lot of fun to work. It's also nice to have such great music being played live while I knit.

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Mint Twist Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Husband Driving Gloves 

YOP #2.4 or Now With More Pictures!

Some weeks are just filled with chaos. I'm pretty sure that was this past week for me. Even though there was all kinds of stuff going on, I still managed to get some knitting done.

As Husband mentioned in a comment in last week's post, I have indeed started his gloves. I've only cast them on twice now.

The first time I frogged, I wasn't happy with how the two colors were looking. Specifically, I didn't like how the purl stitches were looking. I frogged and then dug up some information on the internet about doing ribbing with two colors. I needed to hold both colors at the same time to keep the tension constant, which wasn't what I was doing. I kept dropping the color I wasn't using and I think that's why it was looking so sloppy.

Last night, I had Husband try it on. It was too tight. Way too tight.

 

I liked how the stitches were looking but yeah...Husband barely got his hand through it. It's going to be frogged and cast onto a larger set of needles.

I didn't get a chance to work on Browncoat but here's a picture of it:

 

I really like how the pattern is looking. I'm in the middle of a row (of course) so I couldn't spread it out very well to get a full shot. After the week I've had, it would be nice to have some mindless knitting time.

Finally, the Mint Twist socks. I added a few rounds, but not a lot of progress. There are pictures nonetheless. I'm including a picture of my kitchner stitch that got complimented.

Pardon the blurriness. I was tired.

Works in Progress

• Lilia Socks
• Mint Twist Socks
• Browncoat Top  
• Husband Driving Gloves 

YOP #32-34 or is Ravellenic a real word?

It has been a quick three weeks. So quick, in fact, that I thought there had only been two of them but it appears I've missed two weeks instead of the one I thought I'd missed. Oops. One of the goals for myself is to do the weekly update on time. This is not happening for several reasons. The biggest one is that I'm not sitting in front of the computer a lot. To be fair, I've probably spent the last 30 minutes doing anything other than blogging because I needed to get something out of my system before I started writing. I think it was some excess energy about work and I didn't want to go too much into that. The biggest plus side to work is that when there are shows, I get a lot of knitting down.

Earlier in February, the Lunar New Year was celebrated. Every year, the Vietnamese Student group puts together a show. It is always entertaining for several reasons. Another plus is that there's enough down time for me to work on my knitting. This means I made a ton of progress on the Blood Orange Newton sock. I managed to get onto the foot. Of course, I've not touched it since then. For this, I blame the Olympics.

On Ravelry, there is a group that hosts the Ravellenic Games. It's all about personal challenges during the course of the Olympic Games. This is honestly the first time I've cared anything about the Olympic Games since some time in the 1990s. I usually find the theatrics of the opening ceremonies interesting (though never enough to actually watch them; I read about them later and how they did things) but it's hard for me to get into the sports competitions these days. It was a good motivator to finish Husband's socks.

I had started the Angels Have the Police Box socks back in October. I hadn't touched them since.....December 1st.  The next step was to sew up the cuff and then pick up stitches for the leg. I remember this step being amazingly tedious and annoying and I hadn't wanted to do it. I love the look of the cuff but I really don't like picking up stitches along the edge. I don't know if it was because the yarn was wanting to split on me or the color but it wasn't fun to do. Once I got that part started (which I did while helping to navigate to Madison, WI), it was a piece of cake. Picking up stitches and navigating is a talent and a skill though and I don't recommend it lightly. I did manage to finish them though it was a doozy. Husband's feet are large for his frame but they are big feet. That's the part where I get hung up because I want to be done. Part of me also finds is a little sad how much bigger the foot of the sock is when compared with the leg of it. It's a decent leg length though. The best part is that Husband likes the socks. They were finished last night and he wore them today. The cuff is a little tight going over his heel but once they are on, they look beautiful.

Since I last wrote, I've started a new hat. I had hoped to have it finished by the time we got to Madison but I needed larger needles, which weren't in the car. Many years ago (the late 1980s), my mom had a hat business. She made machine knit hats and her mom would make hand knit hats. I'm sure my mom made some of these hats as well but I mostly remember Grandma making them. It's actually one of the reasons I didn't like knitting for the longest time. I've always been one who likes to talk but Grandma would get annoyed if I tried to have a conversation with her (or just talk at her) if she was knitting because I always seemed to pick the moment that she was counting stitches.

This March it will have been 15 years since Grandma passed away. I still have a hat she knit for me but I think wool moths have gotten into it and it needs to be replaced. I wanted to use the same pattern so I asked mom for it. This pattern that I'm using is one that Grandma figured out on her own. I believe it's based on a pattern she saw in a book but she didn't like the way it looked so she changed it. The pattern, which I happened to find over the week of Christmas while organizing mom's needles (she has her needles, Grandma's needles and my Great-Aunt's needles; and I simply sorted them by needle type so it would help her narrow down her search), is written on an old yellow post-it note. There was a modification for the pattern for different yarns on another scarp of paper but that was it. And the directions assume the person making the hat knows what you're doing. For the increase of the crown, it simply says "increase to 119 stitches". I'm use to patterns that tell me exactly where to increase. This increase isn't a simply every other or every third either. I've sat down and figured out where the increases need to go so that it's even and have written it out. I asked mom if I could write it up and put it on Ravelry for others to make and she's okay with it.  I'm in the process of making the hat (just started decreasing) and then I need to write it out and get it tested. In some ways, I think I want to do this so something of Grandma will still exist. It's also a way to thank her for making 100s of these hats and, in some way, to express gratitude that she figured out this pattern. She started to knit again after I was born. Her knitting (and that of my Great-Aunt) got my mom to knit, which has led to me knitting. It's a gift that has managed to be passed on even though I didn't learn until after Grandma had died. I feel like it's a way to reconnect to my past while moving into my future.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  
• Here Fishy Fishy I
• Gingy
• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Japan Scarf II 
• Scarfowl
• Here Fishy Fishy II 
• Gillian
• The Angels Have the Police Box  
• Mini-Socks 

Works in Progress

• Police Box
• Blood Orange Newtons 
• Grandma's Tam

A year later: Looking back at my knitting

It's now been just over a year since I feel I could truly call myself a knitter instead of someone who would occasionally (and quite randomly) knit something. The mental marker for me is Chicago TARDIS. Last year, I was working on my first pair of socks, which won me a Ponds button for being able to talk about something that isn't cool as though it is cool. I believe Husband was trying to hide his face in embarrassment at that point. I've done a lot since then and feel it would be good to recount it as a way to remind myself that I have actually done a lot.

First Socks

This was the first pair. I had bought this yarn years ago with the purpose of  making arm warmers. That was a thing for me for a while. With how stupid cold it's gotten again, it may become a thing again. October 2012 found me wanting to knit something. Apparently I was bored. I didn't want to make arm warmers though. I pulled out this yarn and decided since it was sock yarn, maybe I should make socks with it. A year later, I see little things that I could have done differently but I'm still happy with how these turned out. They were the gateway into becoming a "serious" knitter. This was one of my last projects made on cheaper yarn. The yarn had been bought at a Jo-Ann Fabrics. When I was first starting, I couldn't tell the difference in how things knit up. I certainly can tell the difference now. And I know it won't be the last project. Some things call for cheaper yarn, like knitted toys.

Purple and Blue Socks

I started these socks at the end of the year with the high ambition of being able to finish them before the year was out. The ball of yarn, which came with a sock knitting kit, wasn't enough to make the pair of socks, so I purchased more yarn (from Jo-Ann Fabrics again; I didn't know any better at the time!) to finish them off. With a bum ankle from some wall running, I wasn't going to be doing much for New Year's Eve. The plan was to stay up all night to finish these socks. It didn't happen. I have learned after these socks, to be much pickier about my yarn choices. Thankfully, my oldest bonus kids bought me some yarn for Christmas and Husband gave me a gift card to a local yarn shop. He also gave me a book on Derby inspired knitting.

Hat Knitting

In January, I went to a local yarn shop to join in with some Minnesota Rollergirl skaters who were making hats for charity. I brought Husband along to get him out of the house. He sat over in a corner and worked on a drawing. I worked on making my first ever hat. I had received a bunch of smaller double pointed needles and interchangeable circular needles for Christmas, so I was very excited to try them out. The skaters had patterns and yarn, so I picked some out and started the hat. This was an amazingly frustrating process. I was trying to figure out gauge and it was a mess. The first hat was enormous! I made another hat with the same pattern, which ended up being toddler sized (no photo of it though I did gift it to friends with a young boy who was going through a phase of loving hats).




I used up more of this gray yarn from Husband (left over from another project) to make another hat that was actually decent sized. An adult could actually wear it. It was also my first time contacting a designer because I didn't understand the pattern. I still managed to drop a few stitches and screw it up a little but I was overall happy with how it turned out.


Derby Leg Socks

Once again casting on with Jo-Ann Fabrics yarn, I knit these leg socks using the magic loop method. It was a fun and quick project and I really enjoyed making them. I loved having all my derby friends ask me about them. This does remind me that I need to get back onto my skates soon....












Cookie A Socks

 Knowing that I had enjoyed my sock knitting experience, my mom signed me up for the Cookie A Sock Club, which she had already joined. I had no idea what I was getting myself into so I was excited. I remember an early post about it on facebook and having friends who have knit for much longer than I have responding in awe that I was going to tackle her patterns. It's probably good that I didn't know what I was getting into. I have learned a lot from these projects though.

Things I've specifically learned from the Sock Club

• How to pick up dropped stitches in a pattern after a needle breaks and you loose a bunch of stitches.
• How to read charts. How to follow a chart when there's also a decrease in the chart.
• How to let a project sit after messing it up instead of continuing to work on it and making it worse.
• How to dye yarn (I wanted to have my Tiberius socks in the "right" color for Kirk).
• How to do a short-row heel.
• How to knit two socks at a time using magic loop.
• How to become addicted to really, really nice yarn.
• How to make all kinds of cookies.

I gifted one pair of socks to my mom. She's made me tons of socks but she's never received socks before, so that was special for her. I entered one pair of socks into the state fair and scored a 94/100. Of the 12 sock patterns we've received this year (though let's be fair, I only just got the last 2 this past Monday), I've completed 3 pairs. I've been distracted with other projects lately. The patterns from August didn't really jump out at me and I wasn't up to the complexity of either of the October patterns. And I had a space suit to make.

Gifts

 I appear to have made quite a few gifts this year. I made, in less than a week, an alpaca scarf to send with my bonus son to Japan as a gift to his host family. It turns out that the father of the family was a ski instructor in Europe... Good thing I (really Husband did it) convinced my bonus son to take the scarf with him...

 My youngest bonus daughter likes things that she can put other things into. Boxes, bags, nut shells.... So back in April, I bought a kit to make a beaded bag for her. This was my first time incorporating beading into a project. The best part was that the kit included the needle to get the beads onto the yarn. They really did think of everything. I then placed an old heart-shaped silver box into it to give to her as well. She does like her containers. She was so happy and surprised by it that she was actually silent when she opened her eyes.

 Last January-ish, I posted a facebook pay-it-forward gift thing. The requirement was that the first 5 commenters would receive something handmade by me during the yarn. I'd tried to do something like this once before and pretty much failed. To be fair, so did the person I had commented on to receive something from. The thing is that if you comment on someone else's status, you then post this on your own wall. This year, I've managed to gift 2 of the 5, which is better than in the past. One was to my mom (her socks) and the other was to a friend who I don't see very often. It was the first time I did a test knit and that I made socks for someone that I didn't have there with me to have them try them on. She loved them when she got them and they fit perfectly! 

My husband asked me to make a pair of socks for a friend of his as he knew she would appreciate them. I pointed out that she was more of a shawl/scarf person and I should make her one of those. We don't get to see her very often these days but earlier in the yarn when she was visiting, I showed off my yarn collection to her. It wasn't very sneaky of me but I managed to find one that she really loved the color and the texture of without giving away what I was doing. She just received the shawl last week and she loves it. She really loves unique things. I told her that this scarf has several unique things to it.

• Every purl stitch and yarnover was done incorrectly but it was off the needles so I wasn't going to redo it, especially since Husband told me I was done. This means it's different than the others out there.
• The yarn is a limited edition color, club member only color from Indigodragonfly.
• The yarn is a merino, seacel blend which I haven't found very often.

Husband asked me to make him a pair of socks to walk on the wire. I made them out of yarn from a yarn exchange and it's an acrylic and wool blend but knowing how hard he's going to be on them, I though that this was the best option. As much grief as he's given me on my sock obsession, he was amazed with how well these socks fit and with how much it improved his wire jumping. He's had classmates notice the socks and ask him about them. I'm sure he beams when he tells them that his wife made them for him.

And his recently finished cowl. I was going to surprise him with it but he saw the supplies in the car one day when I went to bring him a lunch at work. I love that he tells me that I don't have to knit him anything. I know that I don't have to knit him anything. I enjoy making things for him. He takes care of them, appreciates them and tells everyone I made them for him.



The Tally
In the last 12-ish months, I've made:

• 2 pairs of vanilla socks
• 3 hats
• 3 pairs of Cookie A socks
• 1 pair of wire walking socks
• 1 pair of test knit socks
• 1 pair of leg socks
• 1 beaded bag
• 1 scarf
• 1 shawl
• 1 cowl

for a grand total of  15 finished objects. Not too shabby for only getting into this a little over a year ago!

YOP #21-23 or Goodness, is it already that time of year?

It seems I've gone several more weeks without blogging. This whole blogging once a week thing is still as hard as I remember it to be back in college. As it was back in college, this time of year always seems to be busy for me. In college, it was mostly filled with exams and year end concerts. Now, it's mostly filled with year end concerts. Even with all the insanity of the past few weeks, I have managed to finish a project. I didn't get two projects finished by the end of November as I had hoped to but apparently I needed sleep. And to make a spacesuit.

I made everything but the climbing harness, boots and gloves. He picked out the fabric and convinced me to let it be entered in the Masquerade. We won our class!

I will be writing more about the spacesuit in it's own post. I need to take some close-up photos to finish the documentation phase. In case, you know, I want to make another one. And, like any artist I know, I not only can point out all the things that are wrong with but I also have ideas on how to improve it. I am very happy with it though. But first, more knitting things in the post.

I'm still working on the Angels Have the Policebox Socks. I keep redesigning what they are going to look like in my head. While I was at Chicago TARDIS, I pulled them out a lot not only to work on (though not as often as I would have liked) but to show them off to people. There were those who were also knitters, so I was working on introducing them to the awesomeness of Indigodragonfly. The rest were simply Whovians who I knew would understand the humor of the name. These were originally going to be socks for me but with how stretchy they are feeling, I decided that Husband should have them even though he thinks sock knitting is a bit silly. He works from home often and it will be nice for him to have nice, warm socks.Now I just need to finish the second sock. The cuff is mostly done. The horizontal cabling looks really cool but that whole having to seam it together before making the rest of the sock makes me a little angsty.

No real progress on Fuzzy or the TARDIS shawl.

I did finish my first colorwork project ever.

 

It was meant as a Christmas present but Husband as already been given it. It's been stupid, gross cold out for over a week now (we seem to be lucky if we break 10 degrees F right now) and would have had it sooner if I'd not put off weaving in ends and connecting the tube. And there was the ever present spacesuit that needed to be worked on. Of course, Husband likes to wear it as a hat/crown accessory instead of around his neck but he loves it so I'm happy. And I seem to have impressed at least one friend with the fact that I've made it. She's not fond of colorwork but she makes amazing things.

It also looks good on the dog.

 

Finally, I've cast on a hat for my younger sister. She's a vet in the northeastern part of Montana, where it gets even stupider cold than here. She needs/wants a new hat that is girly, so I'm making her one. It's OMG Pony Pink color (in Husband's words) and I'm using a Cookie A sock pattern that someone else had already turned into a hat because I've not been knitting enough Cookie A this half of the year. I've called the hat Here Fishy Fishy because at some point, my sister posted that as a facebook status update and now it comes up every time she calls me. It's quite a stretchy pattern but I will admit that I'm worried that it's going to be too small and I won't know until it's nearly finished.

It looks like it will stretch to about 24", which is larger than my head (I think; I did measure my head but that was last week before a head cold decided my sinuses would be a fun place to vacation). I'm hoping for the best. There was the gauge of the original pattern, which I believe I'm getting, but none on the blog post with the modification. Gauge still makes my head feel funny if I think about it too hard.

I'm hoping that this project will kick me back into knitting Cookie  socks. Of the 12 designs we've received this year, I've made a total of 3 of them. I know it's not a race to complete them and that I shouldn't feel bad if I don't because even the ones I have finished had led me to doing new things which is exciting. Husband also thinks I should finish all my WIPs by the end of the year. We'll see if that happens. Between concerts and being stupid sick (I did a little knitting today on my day off but I've barely touched it because I don't feel like knitting; I may be dying), I'll be happy to finish any project at this point.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  

Works in Progress

• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Fruity Tulip Socks
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Here Fishy Fishy

YOP #19-20 or I Really Just Can't Be Bothered

It's Saturday. I could almost be writing the post for next week's update. It's taken me long enough to get to the last two weeks to write anything. Not that I haven't tried at least a few times. I've definitely opened this blog and then stared at it. That counts as attempting, right? It's been a productive, and trying, couple of weeks.

I'm nearly done with Husband's cowl. It needs to have ends woven in and then the two ends joined together. While I'm sure it's easier than my brain is currently thinking it to be, it's a little more complicated than something I can just walk and knit at the same time. Of course, it's also become stupid cold, so it's harder to walk and knit anyway. I'm very happy with how the colorwork has turned out on this and work had enough shows that I was able to spend a lot of quality time working on this project. (There will eventually be pictures).

Progress has been made on the TARDIS shawl though it won't be done in time for Chicago TARDIS, which is this next week. Hopefully it'll be done next year, though there is still a chance it'll be off the needles (though not blocked) by the time the convention starts. We're driving there in our electric car which is going to require quite a bit of charge time, so I intend to do a lot of knitting. Of course, I'll also have some hand sewing left to do. I'm working on a costume for Husband and this will be done in time for the convention.

The latest pair of test socks are also progressing nicely, though not fast enough for my tastes. Nothing seems to these days. I've finished the section the designer wanted tested though I'm planning on finishing the socks. I found an error on the large heel, which I'm actually kind of proud of as it means I'm actually getting pretty good at this whole sock knitting thing.

Now if only I can figure out how to knit faster. I want/need a new hat and mittens. I've got two items to make for my sister. I also want to start and finish another pair of Cookie A socks before the end of the year. I need to somehow become independently wealthy so that Husband and I can both do all the projects we want without having to do that whole work thing. Not that I dislike my work but it would be easier to become wealthy and get rid of work than to stop sleeping.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 

Works in Progress

• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Fruity Tulip Socks
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Colormatic

YOP #18 or Maybe I Should Make Lists

It's a new month and my current projects are moving (mostly) along nicely. I'm nearly done with the leg of the sock I'm testing. I like the design though there are things that I would modify with the colorwork. Maybe after I make this pair, I can redesign what is now shaping up in my head. Is that pattern plagiarism though? Enough would change that I wouldn't think so but I wouldn't have the idea if I hadn't worked on these socks.

Instead of only have the 2 blue striped down the back, I'd do either all or every other one of the twisted stitches as blue and then inversing it on the other sock. I'm not sure how it would work with the stranding though. I'd be concerned that it would make too dense of a sock fabric.


The cowl for Husband is on the second section. I wish it was as simple as the first section as I could walk with that and not have to check a pattern every other row. The design is a mosaic colorwork, so the first row sets up the stitches and the next row repeats the same pattern and then things change on the third row. It's remembering the odd numbered rows that I haven't quite mastered yet.

No progress on Fuzzy this past week. I need to fix that.

The TARDIS shawl was doing well...until I dropped a stitch. I can't seem to find stitches easily in lace work (can anyone??), so I frogged it and started over. I'm not at about the same point I was a week ago...

There are things that I really need to cast on. Okay, really only two things. The hat and cowl for my sister.

I need to have the TARDIS shawl and the test socks completed by the end of the month. I'd like Fuzzy to be finished soon as well. It seems as though I've been working on it for the longest time, though not lately. While my sister's birthday is in November, she'll be receiving her hat and cowl in December as we'll all be together for Christmas.

On top of that is my competitive nature saying I must make ALL THE SOCKS from this year's Cookie A sock club before early December. I know that this isn't going to happen. I like sleeping. A lot. But if they were all made, I would have a lot of entries in the year-end prize drawing which is for a membership for the 2014 club. Mom already plans on giving me that as my Christmas gift this year but it would be cool to win it. Just not realistic.

With that, it's off to do dishes so Husband can rest his poor beat-up hands. It will also mean I get away from the bowl of evil pistachios...

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 

Works in Progress

• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Fruity Tulip Socks
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Colormatic