The Quick and The Typing

I finished the wristwarmers this weekend. Although one is slightly bigger than the other (attributed to knitting tighter on one of them), I really do like them. They are made of a simple pattern, but in their simplicity comes their classiness.

The building where I work is a bit old, and so though my boss strives to keep it warm, my fingers often get cold while I’m typing. Not today. Today the wristwarmers kept my fingers warm, while still allowing for mobility and quick typing.

Though I’m glad I have finished the wristwarmers, I’m struggling to decide which project to do next. I’d like to work on Mr. BF’s grandmother’s Heirloom Mittens, but I need to map out the rest of the decreases in the top of the mitts. It’s very tempting to start working on another pair of socks, but that will take time.

I could just work on both at once. Dare I?

Opening Coloured Doors

I am a bad blogger.  I haven’t updated in so long!  My excuse is that I’ve so busy lately that I haven’t had much time for anything!

Sunday I woke up bright and early to attend the Colourwork class at the Purple Purl.  Kate was once again the teacher and she did a fantastic job.  I really love attending her classes.

I learned a lot.  Both Fair Isle and Intarsia were covered (the main methods of colourwork) and I’m incredibly pleased that I was able to grasp them both.  I’ll be working on some sample swatches as soon as I’m done the second wristwarmer.  Yes, the first one **IS** done!  There was some trial and error, but it now fits perfectly and looks good too!  I’ll post photos when the second one is done.

I feel like I’m closer to finishing Mr. BF’s grandmother’s mittens by having taken the class.  I think they’ll look splendid if I’m able to use what I learned and apply it.

I find myself knitting at lunch so that I can get these wristwarmers done.  It’s therapeutic.

Knitty Round Table – A Yarn Tasting.

Let me start off by saying that a Yarn-Tasting does not include any consumption of fibre. I love new yarns and how they feel, but I doubt I’d like how they taste. Also, I’m pretty sure that humans aren’t meant to cough up hairballs.

Last night was another Knitty Round-Table event at The Purple Purl. I love these as they allow me to knit up different yarns without having to buy them first. On last night’s menu were 5 yarns, all different, most interesting. I don’t know that I should really divulge the yarns we had until that particular Knitty issue comes out, but I’ll gander that it’s okay for me to mention the new Noro sock yarn.

It was the Silk Garden yarn. I’ll admit, I didn’t like it much. Maybe I was expecting far too much because of my love of Noro. It just didn’t feel right knit up. I didn’t feel like it would be the kind of yarn I’d like for socks. Maybe I’d see myself making a shawl out of it or perhaps something equally interesting, but definitely not socks. Besides, the “hand-wash only” warning on the label really doesn’t really do it for me. I cannot fathom the idea of hand-washing socks. Delicates, yes. Special clothing, yes. Socks? No. No. No.

Beyond the yarn itself, the evening was just plain fun. I went there straight after work, so I brought my little wristwarmer knitting project to do while waiting for the evening to begin. There were lots of good people, and prizes to be won afterwards. I came away with a book from the Yarn Harlot, and I also managed to sign up for the colourwork class.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the reviews of the yarn in Knitty. I know that there are always some bad seeds in with the shining stars of yarns, but that’s what these kinds of events are for.

Will it be sunny in Toronto this weekend? We shall see.

The Next Projects: An honour has been bestowed upon me

Last weekend, myself and Mr. BF went up to the Ottawa Valley for his mom’s wedding. She was getting remarried. It was a wonderful trip and the couple looked so happy. I had the opportunity to meet new people and to learn a little more about Mr. BF’s family history.

Mr. BF’s grandmother passed away a while back and I found out that she was an avid knitter. Apparently she left two projects unfinished before she passed away, a pair of mittens and a pair of socks. Since I enjoy knitting, Mr. BF’s mom gave me the projects to finish. I am so honoured that she would entrust me with this.

The pair of socks should be easy enough to finish once I find the appropriate yarn. The ends of the yarn have been cut and there was no extra ball of yarn with the socks. This should be easily fixed with a trip to Romni. These, I’m told, will be knit for Mr. BF as the size of the sock looks to be suited to a man’s foot.

The mittens will be a little more difficult. Though I have learned to knit mittens, I have not learned Fair Isle techniques (the interchanging of yarn colours in a row, seen in the mitts as the alternating light green and red). So the plan is to sign up for a class in the next few months so that I can learn this technique. The mitts will then be going to Mr. BF’s mom.

For the past week or two, I have been working on the first of the fabled wristwarmers in a black sock-yarn. I think that this will likely be the current project, and the heirloom projects from Mr. BF’s grandmother will be saved until I am absolutely certain I can knit them the way she would have wanted them.

Such an honour has been bestowed upon me.

First Socks

This morning I knit the last three decrease rounds of the second sock. It was with pure joy that I cut the yarn and pulled it through the last loops. I then wove in the loose end. I was done.

Tofutsies is really a great yarn. It was such a lovely splash of colour.

Now I just have to block the socks. According to Kate, the best way to do this is to get the socks wet, put them on, and then take them off when they’ve dried just a bit. Obviously you don’t want to be wearing wet socks on your feet for an hour, but she says that you can take them off after a few minutes and they’ll block up nicely.

I think my next project will be the wristwarmers, but we’ll see. I know there’s some plain sock yarn in my stash which could be used for a light, summery pair of wristwarmers, but I’ll decide once the novelty of having hand-knit my own socks wears off.

The Journey of the Sock (Part Deux, A Long Sock’s Journey Into Night)

Thursday. It was the day the sock completed its journey. After double and triple-checking my calculations, I decided it was time to decrease for the toe. I was nervous. Despite the meticulous calculations, despite my faith in Kate’s tried and tested sock recipe, I still felt like maybe I had made it too short, or too long, or that it would be too wide.

I took the plunge and cut the yarn. Unlike sewing, knitting is a forgiving art. You can unravel a piece many times before the yarn starts splitting. When you sew, you cut once and any mistakes are costly. Material cannot be cut and then uncut. Even though yarn is forgiving, once the piece is cast off and the yarn is cut, it’s not exactly easy to fix the mistake. It’s the point of no return.

My fears were ill-founded. The sock has taught me that I need to trust my instincts, I need to trust the math, and I need to trust that I don’t have misshapen feet.

The sock fit perfectly. I put it on, squealed, and showed it to Mr. BF. He laughed at my girlish giggling, gave a thumbs-up, and went back to what he was doing.

Sock number two is on the needles. The top ribbing is done and I’m working on the body of the sock. Despite my earlier claims of hating the metal DPNs, I’ve gotten used to them.

I was considering posting photos of the first sock, but I think I’ll wait until both are done. Then I’ll prance around in my sock-clad feet and do a happy jig.

And after that? I might be convinced to knit another sock or two.

Happy rainy weekend, everyone.

The Journey of the Sock

I think I may not be cut out to knit socks. They taunt me and make me feel like I only learned to knit five minutes ago. Sure, the trainer sock worked well a few months ago, but it’s almost like I couldn’t cope with the larger scale (and smaller needles) of the real, grown-up sock. Kate’s sock recipe is very thorough, but I guess I’d put down the socks for far too long.

There was a lot of pain. I had knit about 3/4 of the way down the cuff when I dropped a stitch. This shouldn’t be a problem except that the stitches are very small and decided they didn’t want to be picked up again. I looked at the ribbing, decided I wasn’t happy with it either, so I started over. I adjusted the cast-on stitch number so that the ribbing would work (and I knit tightly anyway, so it probably helped in the sizing) and started knitting. Again. From the very beginning. Keep in mind, this is Sock #1. There are two socks in a pair. It’s enough to de-motivate just about anyone.

I got to the point where I would be knitting the heel. I put in a life-line, in case I made a huge, glaring mistake. Well, I did. When one makes the heel of the sock, one sets up the heel rows and then turns the heel using a fairly complicated little formula. Fortunately, that formula is easy to remember. Unfortunately, yours truly got it in her head that when I was done turning the heel and was re-joining the heel with the rest of the sock, that I would only be picking up half the stitches in Kate’s recipe. Wrong. I realized this after knitting a few more rows and I think I may have shed a few tears. Frog. Frog. Frog. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At this point, I’ve rejoined the heel, I’ve decreased the gusset, and now have to knit a very simple 17cm or so before I do anything complicated again. Decreasing for the toes should be easy, but it has to be at exactly the right time, otherwise the sock won’t fit. All this time, and I still have half a sock to knit.

Then I get to knit another one, otherwise the first one was pretty pointless.

*head-bang-desk*

PS… I wonder if I’ll ever want to knit a sock again?

Progress

I finished the bag last week. It needed to be stabilized, but with a few minor tweaks, it was finished. I created the design myself, simply using principals of knitting math to guide me along. It wasn’t a complicated design, and there are things that could have been done differently, but I’m pleased with the result.

Knitting is as much science as it is art. It’s not just a craft when you’re constantly checking numbers on a calculator.

This weekend I’m going to pick up the socks again. This time I’m going to get through them, unless of course I get distracted by another quirky project!

Variegated Yarn

Better late than never, but I’m finally updating. It’s been a busy few weeks. I got sidetracked last week with a bit of guilty reading. My mom bought me Kate Jacobs’ The Friday Night Knitting Club last week, so it kept me busy for a day or two. Although the book was centered around the world of knitting, it had a very human element to it. It had well-developed characters, but the plot line was a bit predictable at times. Though you wouldn’t need to know about knitting to read it, it does help. They do talk about specific knitting terms, but the book focuses more on the stories of the characters than on the knitting. A good read, but a quickie. I’m used to reading books that give me a lot of brain-food (cyberpunk, fantasy, historical, biographies), so it’s unusual for me to finish a book so quickly. Still, it was fun.

This week I managed to finish the iCord for the iPod. It works quite nicely as a purse strap, and I’ve already begun using it so that my iPod doesn’t get tangled up in my purse pocket.

Front:

Back:

I also went back to the gym belt. I ended up using my stashed ball of Noro Kureyon (Ania, if you’re reading this, I’d be the happiest sister in the world if you brought me back a few balls of Noro [in any thickness or colour variation] from Japan – - it’s so bloody expensive here!!), but I set aside my dreams of using cables. I do think that I’ve got the general idea of how to make simple cables, but I really needed to have more of a flat belt for use in the gym. I ended up using a rib pattern (still not flat, but moreso than cables) and then attaching the hooks.

I have used it several times already (I’m at the gym almost daily) and it’s quite comfortable. I don’t even notice the iPod when I’m doing cardio, and I don’t have to shift it around when I’m doing weights. It really was a great idea. I’m thrilled with being able to make my life easier through knitting.

I’ve started to work on a little tote bag for myself. I grabbed some yarn from my stash (originally designated for a scarf for my sister, until I decided to make the Coffee Scarf), and began knitting a simple pattern on 5.5mm circular needles (Knitpicks Harmony… soooo smooth and nice). I knew the yarn was variegated (much like the Noro) before I started knitting, but what has resulted from about 20 rows of knitting is a weird blue-camo print of sorts. Neat. I’ve got the pattern worked out in my head, now I just have to make sure I don’t do anything silly. Realistically, this is just a tote for a novel or two. I’m just looking for something small to carry a book in when I’m going to a coffee shop. My purse is too small to hold a book, and I don’t want to carry around bigger bags just for a single book.

Variegated yarn has become my new favourite yarn type. It’s such a surprise when you’ve knitted a few rows. Sometimes you can see the pattern and colour variations after 20 or so rows, sometimes (like in the case of the Noro) the colours never really repeat and you’re anxiously waiting to see how the next beautiful, bold colour will blend.

I’m going to try to update next weekend (on time), but I’m volunteering at North-by-North-East here in Toronto, and I’m figuring it will suck up a lot of my time.

Good night, everyone!

iCord for the iPod

I’ve been knitting the cables for the belt, frogging the belt, knitting it again, frogging, lather, rinse, repeat. I haven’t given up, and I’m still knitting the cables, but I decided to multi-task and try to knit the second part for this project: the purse strap. The top d-rings on the iPod Cozy are sewn on in such a way that they will accommodate a clipped-on purse strap. In a knitter’s world, the easiest way to achieve this is by knitting an iCord.

An iCord is essentially a spiral, knit on DPNs. You don’t turn the work after you’ve knit a row, instead you let the knitting spiral in on itself.

An iCord is beautiful in its simplicity, deceptively so. While it’s just a simple matter of knitting each row, the first stitch of each row must be knit tightly, else you are left with an ugly loop where the knitting is trying to spiral. When I began knitting this last night, I thought I was doing something wrong. I ended up going to Knittinghelp.com to make sure I hadn’t misread the instructions in the knitting book I was using. After watching the minute-or-so long instructional video, I came to the conclusion that while I wasn’t knitting wrong, I was not giving the iCord the respect it deserved.

Now I’ve got about 4 inches of iCord, and it’s not entirely perfect. There are some parts which are a bit lumpy, due to not pulling the first stitch nearly tight enough, but when is knitting ever perfect? If a human makes it, there are bound to be imperfections. Such is the case with everything, and all of these imperfections are what make a unique piece.

I haven’t had as much time to spend on knitting as I would like, but life has been busy. Mr. BF is working on a movie night with a friend of mine. They’ve rented out the Bloor Cinema and are going to be showing two horror films. It’s going to be an interesting event, with lots of giveaways and some DJ’ing in between the two movies.

Morbid Outlook Magazine
in association with Jade Lens Productions
presents

GRUESOME TWOSOME
Thursday, June 5, 2008
A horrifying evening of film at Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West

featuring The Undertaker and His Pals and Tromeo & Juliet
and morbid music with your DJ Mistress McCutchan

Tickets $18
Door at 7pm

Giveaways and much gore.

Info and links to the Facebook and Myspace can be found HERE

I’ve been trying to help out with promotion and flyer-ing as much as I can, as I’d really like them to succeed with this event.

In other news, a friend of mine sent me an interesting knitting link the other day.
Knitwit BBC Goes After Dr. Who Fans.

While I believe in protecting the copyright for the creators of the characters, I also believe that this may be going too far. Unfortunately, there are always selfish people out there who will take these free patterns and try to profit from them, so the BBC does have a point. It’s quite sad, but selfish people seem to set these precedents, giving normal, happy fans a bad name. Maybe Steven Spielberg will try to put copyright protection on Indiana Jones’ fedora? Any thoughts on this?

Away I go. Coffee, knitting, and a trip to the gym await me