Oh commercialism tastes so good...

Actually, my brain is a little fried right now. I've been up since 5:30 am or so, and I've only had 1 nap today.

On the happy upside, I've gotten ALOT done, including getting the shop up and running to my satisfaction. For those that care, it's at:

http://REminders.etsy.com

So far, all we're selling is stitch markers. Why? Here's the story. I bought some pretty stitch markers once, at an out-of-town LYS. Unfortunately, the best thing I could say about these markers is that they were pretty. They ate my yarn worse than a cat on crack. You could probably hear my cursing half way across the globe, as the markers snagged yet another strand. The not-so-great craftsmanship of the markers is what inspired me and the wonderful boyfriend to make an etsy shop with markers that don't eat yarn. I've tested all our stitch markers on my own lace knitting, just to show you how much faith I have in them.

There's so much more I meant to do with the shop, but I'm tired, and at the point where I forget things I should know. Like the teardrop faceted cut is called briolette. I had to look that up, which was a sad moment for me.

I do want to make a youtube video of the testing of the stitch markers, so that the faint of heart can see just how much you can abuse both yarn and marker without snagging. It was funny to see a friend's face the first time I showed her how vigorously I would rub the markers with lace. She delicately dragged the markers across one of my shawls. Me? I rubbed that sucker in there, pinched the marker between two fingers and rubbed like I was trying to polish the glass. No snags, but perhaps a heart palpitation or two on her part as she watched.

And I'll have to figure out those widget thingies. And possibly pimp out my shop in other ways. Joy's done such a great job with her shop, mine's been kicking around for how many months now? It's about time I got it into gear.

Busy as a bee

Well, sort of. After the insanity of finals week, we went to visit the boyfriend's parents. This resulted in lots of knitting time, luckily for me. I needed it. Thanks to the help of a fellow raveller, I was able to pick up the graduation dress without a math induced headache. She's challenged me to a friendly competition, and holy crap, she's already kicking my ass. She started the dress 2 weeks ago, and she's got more done than me already! She has everything but the lower half of the sleeves done on the upper half of the dress. She's already 3 inches into the skirt of the dress. Have I mentioned she's knitting it in the round?

It's a great challenge, because I started a new project out of anger against the dress. I've started the shaker cardigan from Rowan 25 and the Treasury of Rowan Knits book. I really should look through my own pattern books more often, I'd forgotten that I'd wanted to make the cardigan in the first place. I'd gotten some gorgeous silk/cashmere yarn (55/45) in a trade from a friend. It's argosy yarns, haiku 2 ply in their La Haina colorway. It's this gorgeous varigated blue that looks good on both sides of the fabric. Let me show you.




Can't tell which one is the right side or wrong side without having to look for the purl bumps. The first one is the right side. I'm debating making the cardigan reversible, it's just so darn pretty. I started it because I wanted to make something where I wasn't doing drastic changes to the pattern. Okay, okay, I made some changes to the pattern. I added the ribbing, and I'm doing it all in one needle size, 2.5mm. But those are all the changes I'm making, I swear! Except, I might make it 3/4th sleeve if I don't have enough yarn. If my usual lace yarn karma holds out, though, I'll have leftovers.

As you can see, the cardigan has distracted me from my graduation dress. So far, I have the front done.



I've made it so that I don't have as many ends to weave in, by incorporating the ends into the knitting. I like it, because there's less seams to sew and less ends to deal with later. I've started on panel 2 of the back.



I'm nearly at the 8 inches length required, so I pinned the back of the dress to the shoulder of my shirt to test the length. 8 inches barely covers my ass, so it looks like I'll be adding a bit of length. I know there's a second ruffle, but I don't trust ruffles. One good breeze and you're flashing the world.

As for other goodies, my goal this week is to get the etsy shop up and running. Expect to see more links because of it.

I live in a crazy town

And they have made me queen. For good reason.

So, in the course of three weeks, I have learned to spin, and gotten two spinning wheels. I think that might be the reason I have inherited the crown. Yeah, about that. I don't even know how to spin on a wheel. I've never even tried. I tried to convince the boyfriend I just wanted maybe 3 spindles so I could perfect my spinning technique. No, no, he eared a million billion brownie points and bought an antique spinning wheel.

Not that I want to sound ungrateful, but I don't feel worthy enough to spin on a wheel yet. While the person who taught me says I'm a good spinner - I'm still just a beginning spinner. You know, someone who's just been spinning for 2 weeks. Okay, now it's 3. I can spin alpaca, but wool is the devil and everyone has lied about wool being easy to spin. It's easy for me to spin something my cat threw up if I use wool. Hmmm, maybe I can make cat toys out of that horrid beginner's wool...

The reason I got the second wheel was that we couldn't agree how to fix up the antique wheel. The bulk of the research has been my responsibility, and I wanted to make it into a single drive, scotch-tensioned system. The wheel, from the looks of it, was originally a fine yarn spinning wheel judging from the number of hooks. Oh, and it was double drive, with a canadian tension bar. Guess who wanted to restore it to original condition? Not me. I understand the argument to return it to pristine state, but I'd be afraid to use it.

So, I trolled around on e-bay for parts and lo and behold - I found a second wheel for a terrific price. As in less than 50 US dollars good. The seller had it listed as decorative, and so the auction wasn't doing so hot. Thus I entered into nail bitting negotiations to buy this wheel. I'm not kidding about the nail biting part. I established the wheel important parts still worked - at this point I knew what I could repair and what I could repair from all the extensive research. A wobbly wheel, or a bad flyer were things completely out of my league. Replacing the drive band and switching from double drive to single drive? CAN DO. Thus I find myself the owner of a second wheel. I am so incredibly excited, because this is going to be my workhorse, my wheel that I can tell "Dance for me, my puppet" and do whatever else the hell I want with it.

Okay, I might deserve the title of queen.

So, I'm happily helping the boyfriend restore the antique to pristine original condition. We've got 2 parts ready for restaining already, and we've had it a week. Oh! It's the last week before finals. Shouldn't we be doing something other than studying? I mean, studying for class, not studying about spinning wheels and repairs. Heh.

Other happy news - I traded 3 skeins of RKS Night for 1 glorious skein of Argosy yarn. It's haiku, a 45/55 silk/cashmere blend and I have yarngasms every time I touch it. It's a new color for me, dyed in shades of blue, from the color of the Aegean Sea to midnight blue. I kinda sorta want to do something with feather & fan, because the colors SCREAM for gently waving patterns. Or maybe I'm the only one hearing it say that. It's a delightful process trying to find JUST the right pattern for it.... as I work on the graduation dress.

Shut up. I love the hectic pace of crazy town.

Baby got back!

Soccer + Martial Arts = Butt Muscles

Which I forgot that I had. The largest measurement of my ass is 37 inches. I'm rather pleased by this number, since it makes a great hip to waist ratio. It also explains why I don't fit size 2 jeans anymore. Or size 4 for that matter. I think I'm okay with this.

The reason I'm suddenly obsessed with measurements is that I took my measurements today. Why bother? Because I really want to make a knitted lace dress by Vogue Knitting. And, as anyone who's ever made a Vogue pattern knows, Vogue does NOT use real people's measurements. Seriously? Who has a 26 inch waist and a 34 inch chest? NOT me. I've sewn Vogue patterns before, I should know better.

So, I took my measurements, and I'm throwing Vogue's measurements OUT the window. Thankfully, the majority of the background on this pattern is stockinette stitch, so it's easy to do increases and decreases and maintain the lace pattern. I don't have that much changing between my waistline and my bustline: about an 1.5 inch increase, or only 6 stitches to increase for 34 rows. For the back bodice, I'm doing 2 sts increased every 10 rows. I think that's right.

I am a little worried how well my chest will fit, since there is a 2 inch difference between my bust and bustline. I'm going to try increasing 2 sts every 3 rows, for 34 rows, which should give me more room in the bust. Thankfully, I'll be meeting with Joy later, who is much better at understanding this gauge and size thing than I am. It's not scary math, but it is alot of algebra. Oh, for those that care, my gauge is 5.5 sts by 7.5 sts per inch. It's been pretty consistent.

As for the yarn, I love Zephyr. I'm using the 2/18 laceweight doubled, and it has forgiven me every time I've frogged the bodice. At this point that's atleast 4 times. Yeah. So the yarn was totally a worthwhile investment. All it's done so far is gained a tiny bit of halo. Hopefully, this will be the last time I need to frog it.

Knitting News Bulletin - for me anyways

So, all knitting is on hiatus until the socks are finished. Well, almost all other knitting. I got through most of the cabling on the second fingerless glove, mostly because I didn't have any reinforcing yarn with me to start on the second sock last monday. Oops.

I'm about 3 inches away from turning the heel. Considering that I cast on the second sock on tuesday, I think I'm doing pretty darn good. The first sock... well, it turned out any first project does. It's got quirks here and there from where I was learning how to do stuff. An engineer might call them "design features" like the centimeter wide hole I closed with the end of reinforcing yarn. There's also the half-row on the toe that's not fully reinforced because I ran out of yarn there. Things like that, just all around the sock, that I will ignore when I give the socks to the boyfriend. I've learned alot about how to make a toe up sock and what NOT to do.

Let me say, I hate embroidery floss as reinforcing yarn. It's almost as thick as sock yarn, and knitting with it is a pain! I hate knitting with yarn practically doubled on tiny needles. It made the heel and the toe the slowest part of the sock! Rargh. One thing did go right with these socks, though. I am in love with the ease of EZ's sewn bind off. Well, what I did may not be her bind off, exactly, but it's true to the spirit of it. I looped the long tail of the yarn through the last row twice, once through the front and once through the back of all the stitches so that they lay flat like they were knit. It looks nice and it's oh-so stretchy. I love it.

The goal is to get the socks done by valentine's day. I can totally make it... while trying to study for two midterms. I really have no concept of impossible.

Needles in a haystack

If you were to stick my hands into a hay stack and have me knit like that, then that's how I feel like when I knit on DPNS. Dozens of little tiny sticks constantly poke me while I try to make one single stitch. I realize, that at most, there's really only 5 needles, but with the way they cross and - I swear - tangle with eachother, it might as well be a dozen. If I haven't mentioned it before, I hate double pointed needles with a firey raging passion. The first pair of socks I ever learned, I learned to do on magic loop because I hate DPNs that much.

I was reminded of my passion about DPNs today, when I tried to finish a finger on the celtic knot gloves. Needless to say, I didn't make it through one finger. The poor gloves have been languishing at the bottom of my knitting bag for a reason, I hate hate hate DPNs. It's not even their fault, I had the brilliant idea of adding half fingers to a fingerless glove pattern. Perhaps it's the tiny amount of stitches on tiny yarn that I attempt to do in the round, that make DPNs so difficult. But is it really necessary for one needle holding a mere 4 stitches of fingering weight yarn to twist around completely and then tangle with another needle while I try to knit stitches on the opposite side of the finger? Really? Really?

Suddenly, I understand why people knit completely fingerless gloves. I ripped out the half finger I'd made and then proceeded to rip out the one complete half finger remaining on the glove. The glove is now happily finished, thumb gusset and all, patiently waiting for me to weave in the ends. I don't know why it never occured to me to try knitting the fingers on magic loop. I might not have such a passionate loathing against DPNs if I had thought of trying magic loop first. I've even started on the second glove, with the lovely wooden harmony circs. So perhaps I will have a second pair of fingerless gloves before winter ends.

I've also noticed that the cable on knitpicks needle is 100X better than the cable on my addis. The addi's I have get kinks in the cable, and acquire a certain amount of twist to them after I've used them for a month or so at a time. I can relax the addi cable again with a dip in boiling water, but I haven't had any problems with the knitpicks cable at all. I'm a convert. I may start slowly collecting every needle size Knitpicks has to offer.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"

Old time is still a flyin'.
For that same flower which blooms today,
Tomorrow may be dying.
-Herrick, Robert "To the Virgins, to make much of Time."

Yay! Today, I woke up and there was no pain in my left hand. Curling it was a little stiff, but no shooting pains. Much love to yoel for her cat sweater project which cheered me up. I crafted maybe a whole hour yesterday, and took it very easy on my left hand. By crafting, I mean I bound off on the front waistband of the vogue dress, and started on a crochet rose. It's loosely based off of A Rose By Any Other Yarn. By loosely, I mean inspired to think with yarn in 3D. I constantly forget that I am way better at crochet than knitting. The woman who taught me how to crochet taught me how to look at an object and determine how it was made - aka patternless crafting. I forget that I have that skill alot.

So, the "gather ye rosebuds" flower was born - or the Georgia O'Keefe rose. Once you see it assembled, you'll understand the reference. I didn't intend for the center of the bud to look so... well, similar to certain parts of female anatomy. Humor aside, it's a lovely reminder to take things easy. Aging sucks, my joints hate me, and I haven't hit thirty yet. It's to remind me that beautiful things bloom over time, and if I want to keep these skills, I have to work within my limitations. And probably pick up a regular exercise regime, that includes more than walking a mile around campus.

I haven't decided whether or not I will write the pattern for the rose. It's interesting to see it shape up to resemble our more modern rose, the hybrid tea rose. It's why I'm making up the pattern as I go along - the old Irish crocheted roses don't look like roses to me. When I thought about it, though, I realized that it wasn't modeled after the tea rose at all. The pointed bud shape of the tea rose is the product of much more modern breeding that only came about within the last century or so. The Irish rose was most likely modeled after the older varieties, like the floribunda. Actually, now that I've looked at one, I definitely see the resemblance. It makes sense, since the floribunda is a much hardier rose than the tea rose, and would have been much more common two centuries ago.

As for the rest of my projects, I think I bit off far more than I could chew with the f'ing deer socks. Colorwork and patternless socks? Ooops. The nail in the coffin was having him try on the first finished sock. Well, he tried to get it on, to no success. There simply wasn't enough stretch in the colorwork to fit his heel. I was sort of dreading making the color on the second sock anyways. Now that I know it doesn't fit, I think I might make a pair of normal socks first, before going back to these socks. The deer will have to be saved for another special occasion.

That, and I want to do reinforced heels on his socks. I don't learn, do I? Hmm, let's see - let's try a technique I've never done before in a pattern I've never done before. To make it more interesting, let's try it in fingering weight yarn! On magic loop! Brilliant! Sounds like fun to me. I needed to stop by a craft store today anyways.