Cottage46 Knitter

Serious knitting ADD

Since the big Oregon finale my knitting has been all over the place.  Seriously.  I've had a cold so that hasn't helped.  It's a good thing my current project basket is large because I can't focus on anything for very long. 

There have been numerous sock projects cast on and tossed aside. 
Salida:

Bayerische (which I think might work better for me on US1s instead of 0s):

And this poor yarn is on its 3rd or 4th incarnation. I don't even remember what it is anymore.

When I am able to concentrate, I've made pretty good progress on Must Have Deux.  Although checking the Ravelry page I see I started it last April, so not exactly lightning speed here.
       

And even when I can't hold myself upright, I can work on this stockinette alpaca vest. 

I did a few rows of Abalone's swatch.  Spindrift is scratchier than VY's 2-ply, isn't it?  I'll get back to that when I don't have to stop to blow my nose every 20 seconds.

I survived celebrated by 41st birthday yesterday.  Whoopee!  No big yarny gifties to show, but VK always pays for my summer knitting retreat.  I hear that I have some lovely flowers from my parents at the library.  (My gift to my co-workers was to keep my germy self home today.) 

VK was home sick today too.  When we're both sick we call ourselves Pneumonia and Congesto Sniffiletti.  Funniest if said with a fakey Italian accent.  Anyway, VK was in the kitchen fixing lunch when I hear, "Ouch!  Oh, I need some paper towels."  He had dropped a knife and the blade landed on his big toe.  By the time I managed to get to him, his flip-flop was full of blood.  Honestly, I've never seen so much blood from something that wasn't a head injury.   It bled for a long time, but finally it stopped and we got it neatly bandaged up.  So the day was not totally without excitement!

Lost on Sleeve Island

One sleeve done.  One sleeve to stub length.  (And the trees are not upside down this time.  I checked.)  Despite all the snow we've had, there was one clear spot on the deck.  Go figure.

I finished my TKGA master knitter swatch resubmits and mailed them off yesterday.  Hopefully by this time next week I'll be starting Level 2. 

When I was buying Malabrigo for Christmas presents I bought myself a skein (purple of course) for a cowl.  Now I'm ready to make the cowl and I. Can't. Find. The. Malabrigo.  I intend to conduct an indepth search tomorrow, but if you hear weaping and gnashing of teeth from the Midwest tomorrow, you'll know I didn't find it. 

Just so I have a 2-picture blog post, the socks I've been working on.  Grumperina's Roza's socks from an IK issue that I can't find right now.  The pattern makes a nice snug sock. 

Does anyone else think this winter has been a bit... much?  If so, enjoy the following.  A Texas friend of VK's sent it to him, hence the Indiana references.  Insert your favorite cold weather destination.

65 above zero:
Floridians turn on the heat.
People in Indiana plant gardens.

 

60 above zero:
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Indiana sunbathe.

 

50 above zero:
French & English cars won't start.
People in Indiana drive with the windows down.

 

40 above zero:
Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.
People in Indiana throw on a flannel shirt.

 

35 above zero:
New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Indiana have the last cookout before it gets cold.

 

20 above Zero
People in Miami all die.
Indianans close the windows.

 

Zero:
Californians fly away to Mexico.
People in Indiana get out their winter coats.

 

10 below zero:
Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Indiana are selling cookies door to door.

 

20 below zero:
Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Indiana let the dogs sleep indoors.

 

30 below zero:
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Indianans get upset because they can't start their snowmobiles.

 

40 below zero:
All atomic motion stops.
People in Indiana start saying, 'Cold enough fer ya?'

 

50 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
Indiana public schools will open 2 hours late.

Oh for Pete's sake

Here's the first 3 inches of my first Oregon sleeve.  Notice a problem with the !@#$% trees?

Oh yes!  They are upside down.  I've already even woven in some of the ends!  So Oregon is going to be on a brief time-out. 

I did manage to finish one moose mitten.  I duplicate stitched his eye and you still can't see it very well.  I don't do well tensioning yarn when there are big blobs of color like a moose body.  Had the same problem on the sweater.

  

And I finished an uninspiring pair of socks that I started... wait for it... in May. 

I also managed to finish and mail my Master Knitter Level 1 binder today.  Woot! If levels 2 and 3 take as long as level 1, I should be a master knitter in 8 to 10 years.

A surprising amount of progress

Especially since I don't feel like I've been knitting much at all.  Perhaps I finally have learned to knit in my sleep.  All my spare time seems to spent obsessively checking pollster.com and political blogs.  Election day cannot come soon enough.

I've finished one repeat of the 2nd chart on Oregon.  My Knit Picks #3 circular broke last night as I was spreading stitches out.  (!!!)  Saved by sticky Shetland wool.  The stitches were quickly recovered onto an Addi Turbo 40" needle which is actually working better because the KP was a 32".  It sounds a lot less dramatic than it seemed while it was happening. 

I started a stockinette v-neck cardigan adapted from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.  I'm using Stonehedge Shepherd's wool which is deliciously soft.  (Sorry, no links.  I've been editing an index all day and REALLY want to get to knitting.)  Anyway, it's navy blue, it's stockinette, boring but satisfying.

My meeting and webinar project has been this lovely pair of toe-up socks in Online Supersocke cotton.  Since Indiana revamped librarian certification, I've become a slave to LEUs (library education units), hence my attendance at lots of webinars.  I guess a lifetime certification for $1 with no continuing ed requirements was deemed insufficient. 

And I have a pair of 9 to 5 socks ready to start the heel.  These have completely stalled since I have 3 stockinette projects in active rotation and never really feel like concentrating on a heel.  Or even a heel flap. 

Here's Zoey willing the door to open so she can get back in on my chair where she belongs.  Between Zoey and my hormones, I am never cold.

I do love spring

Because we get to see the heron.  Here he is sitting on the end of our dock.  This could be one of many herons of various genders, but we choose to think it's just one and he's a guy.



And we have the obligatory flower shots.  Note that there is only one overwhelmingly purple shot.  Personal growth, I say.



I got to spend the entire day at a budget workshop today.  Oy.  These things generally cover the same thing from year to year.  But we had a lot of legislative changes this year, so I went.  It's broadcast over the web so while you can hear the speaker, you can only see the power point presentation on the screen.  The exact same one I have printed out right in front of me.  We also got to hear lots of loud paper russling (sp?) in the microphone.  Sheer bliss, let me tell you. 

The upshot however is hours of nearly uninterrupted knitting time.  I had about half an inch of this sock started last night.  The rest I did today during the workshop.  On #0s.



Progress on St. Brigid continues.  It goes very smoothly once the first repeat is under your belt.  I have decided to change it to have set in sleeves.  I've never done anything remotely like this, so prayers would be appreciated.  I had seen a couple with set in sleeves on Ravelry so I PMed Larisa (whose St. Brigid is gorgeous) and she sent me a link to a wonderful series of Jenna Wilson articles on Knitty about set in sleeves. 



And Sitcom Chic #2 is done except for blocking and the cool spiral clasp that I'm waiting for.  This one doesn't fit quite as well as the first one.  Something is a little different about the neckline.  But I still like it.  I hope the clasp comes soon.  It's going to be too hot to wear it soon.



I watched the PBS documentary about FDR over Memorial Day weekend.  I just love that guy.  He's always been my favorite president, faults and all. There were wonderful video shots of him laughing and playing with kids in the pool at Warm Springs.  And one 4-second shot of the "walk" that he developed with braces on his legs and holding the arm of one of his sons.  To think that if his paralysis would have been known he wouldn't have been elected.  But it was the experience of polio that made him the perfect president to lead the country through the Depression and WWII. 

Then I happened to watch the Waltons episode that had FDR's death.  At the end, the Waltons all go to Charlottesville before dawn to watch the train carrying FDR's body back to Washington go by.  His casket was in the last car, the only car lit, with four soldiers standing guard around the casket. 

I don't know what my point is here other than that they just don't make presidents like they used to.

New WIPs and St. Brigid yarn

Sitcom Chic #2 is coming along nicely.  I have one sleeve done and the other one is about halfway.  I ordered a sweater clasp for it instead of a button, but it hasn't arrived yet.

I went on a little cast on binge at knitting group.  First, Lupine Lace socks from Fiber Trends in ONline Supersocke cotton.

And then Branching Out from Knitty in Dream in Color Smooshy.

I haven't touched either project since then.

My St. Brigid yarn arrived!  It's Cascade 220 Heathers, Colorway 9463.  It's a little less pinkish than shown in the picture.  More burgandy.

Although it was in the house all last weekend, I did not touch it until my Economics index was done.  So I wound all 10 hanks last night and Actually. Swatched.  Got gauge with #5s and happily cast on, carefully placing my stitch markers between cable sections.  On the first row I realized that there 2 sections where I hadn't cast on enough stitches. Duh. So I ripped it out and will try again tonight.  Evidently it takes at least 2 tries for a 5-years-of-knitting-experience knitter to cast on the right ^&$*!%& number of stitches.

I also picked up another hank of Smooshy.  The colorway is Pansy Golightly.  I love that.

Brigitte tagged me for a meme!  (Appropriate to be tagged by Brigitte on my first St. Brigid post.)

 

The rules: Posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer. Play nice, children.

 

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? Hmmm... working at the same library, but as a part-time circulation clerk. And commuting 3 hours round trip to Kalamazoo's Western Michigan University for my history masters.  Glad gas wasn't $4 a gallon then.

 

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today - in no particular order? Cast on the appropriate number of stitches for St. Brigid, run library payroll, read some more of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (great writer, great book), avoid the chocolate cake in the staff lounge, pick up some groceries.

3. Snacks I enjoy - potato chips, popcorn (not microwave), pretzels, really anything covered in salt.

4. Places I've lived -Indiana and Michigan.  Well that's just sad.

5.  Things I would do if I were a billionaire - Set up various friends and family for life, travel, add a few hundred square feet to the cottage, adopt several children, try to reduce the number of kids in the world who starve to death or die of stupid treatable disease.

 

6. Peeps I want to know more about - Skipping this one since most knitters have been tagged by the time I get around to doing memes.

Monday is Memorial Day in the U.S.  I'm looking forward to a 4-day weekend.  (I see no reason to work Friday.)  It's supposed to be in the upper 70s which will be nice since it's been pretty cool.  Sunday will be the running of the Indy 500.  This is the only car race that we watch and we both get weepy when they sing Back Home Again in Indiana.  "When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash, then I long for my Indiana home."

There will be much knitting and reading; hopefully we'll get the kayaks in the water too.

Cables, I need cables

Progress is flying along on Sitcom Chic.  One more row to the eyelet detail. 

I have 4, no, make that 5, cable sweater patterns I want to get started on/get back to working on.  I've taken FLAK out of the deep dark cave it has been in.  Managed several rows of sleeve.  It's Elann Peruvian Highland wool on size 5 needles which makes a nice, dense fabric, but after a few rows it feels like I'm wrestling with the stitches. 
St. Brigid: yarn is on order, Cascade 220 in a blue/purple heather
Fulmar: stash dark blue Frangipani
Must Have: thought I'd do it in stash Paton's Classic Wool, now I'm debating about maybe doing it in a cotton blend, maybe Cotton Ease?
Spring Forward: Planning to order some TLC Cotton Plus as soon as I get my next indexing check. 

Current sock projects are also cables, strangely enough.  Celtic Braid in the fabulous Smooshy:

And some Knit Picks Gloss for Clessidra:

I'm not sure if I have startitis or plannitis.  Thoroughly enjoying myself either way.

Book review!
I just picked up a copy of The Ultimate Sock Book.  Exceeded expectations.

There's an interesting chapter on sock knitting history, not as indepth as some other sources, but interesting.  The section about knitting during wartime has some wonderful reproductions of postcards used to encourage women to knit socks for soldiers during WWI.  It includes a German postcard which I'd never seen an example of before. 

The next chapter is basic techiniques: cast ons, working with DPNs, decreasing, short rows, kitchener, etc.  A new sock knitter would really appreciate the anatomy of a sock chapter.  Good detail about sock construction with helpful pictures.  Wish I'd have had this when I learned socks.  My first pair were just pathetic. 

There's a chapter on designing socks which includes how to take measurements, how to choose yarn with a great chart with specs on various yarns, a universal sock calculator chart, and universal toe up and top down patterns.   There's also a chapter of stitch patterns that will work well with socks including some colorwork patterns. 

The second half of the book is patterns.  I see several that I want to knit up.  There are patterns by sock gurus Cat Bordhi, Nancy Bush, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, and other designers who are probably sock gurus that I'm not familiar with.  (Sorry for the preposition ending sentence.)  The Meg Swansen Arched Shaped Socks are here which I find fascinating (but apparently didn't photograph).  There's an argyle pattern which I think is still part of the TKGA Master knitter level 2 requirements.  It's a nice mix of cable, lace, colorwork and ribbed patterns. 

I ordered it thinking I could donate it to the library if I didn't like it.  I'm keeping it which is high praise from this librarian.  (Since I'm at a library every day, I have considerably less need to own them myself unless I'll really use it a lot.)

A sampling of the patterns that I'll be knitting eventually:

Could this dog's life be any better?  No, I don't think so either.

Baby, it's cold outside

I've been neglecting sock knitting for far too long.  So these helped me procrastinate on starting the moose sleeves.  They're for VK so it's OK to avoid his sleeves for his socks.

Pattern: generic toe up with 2x2 ribbing
Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Moosecreek colorway
Needles: KP #2

I wound a hank of Socks that Rock Farmhouse colorway with my new Christmas swift.  I love yarn cakes.

I may be over hand-dyed yarns though.  I'm currently loving heathered yarns or more subtle colorways.

I'm planning to sew the sleeves into Rogue today and try my hand at this applied icord thing.  I still haven't purchased a zipper, mainly because I've never bought a zipper before and I'm not really sure what variables I need to consider.  I'm guessing length and color are crucial.  Anything else?

I don't normally mind cold weather, but this is a little ridiculous.  It's currently -2F/-19C with a -19F/-28C windchill.  I woke up this morning and ran to the bathroom to see if the pipes froze overnight.  They didn't!  Hallelujah!  It is a little eerie to see steam blowing off the lake though.  The dogs are finally learning to potty quickly when it's this cold.  When they were puppies, they'd stand out in the cold holding one paw up with a pitiful "My feet hurt but I don't know what to do" look on their faces.  Now they go out, get it done, and get back inside.  Good doggies.

Projects update

Well, I ordered another ball of Kauni for the neck and button bands.  Shelley at Fun Knits dug around until she found a ball with 2 full repeats of the red/purple/blue sequence.  So Kauni is just waiting for that to arrive.  I'm going to do the button band in the garter check stitch, but I'm not sure about the neck band.  I'm thinking that the garter check may not pull the neck in enough so I may do that in corrugated ribbing. 

My commute knitting has been a pair of Red Sox socks for a friend of VK's.  The red is Knit Picks Telemark and the white is from stash, probably Galway. 

I pulled out VK's Dale of Norway moose sweater.  I've knit about a dozen rows or so and now I'm ready to start the more complicated part. 

Since that's going to require concentration, I cast on for the Everyday Cardigan as a backup project.  I'm making it out of Alpaca with a Twist's Baby Twist that I got a deal on at my LYS. 

That's my update.  I've been able to get a surprising amount of knitting done in spite of having an indexing project.  This makes me glad.

VK went hunting a couple of weeks ago and he gave a goose wing to Zoey.  She carried it proudly around the yard as if she isn't the biggest baby in the world who quakes with fear when she hears fireworks. 

I need another distraction...

...like I need a hole in my head.  But this has not stopped me.  But at least I finished a pair of socks.

This is a Singer 503a from the early 60s, also known as the Rocketeer.  The lady that was selling it had several inquiries, but was waiting to sell it to someone who would love it.  Enter: me! 

So would you like to know how this little adventure started?  A couple of weeks ago I got an urge to sew.  Haven't sewed since jr. high, but whatever.  So my mom had bought an old Singer for me a long time ago at an auction.  I had stuck it in storage without even opening the case.   So when this urge hit, I got the machine out of storage and opened it up.  Turns out to be a lovely mocha-color Singer 301.  (Pictures to follow; it's at the repair shop getting rewired.) 

So being a librarian and wee bit obsessive, I start researching my treasure.  Joined all the vintage Singer yahoo groups, etc.  And then I start looking at other vintage Singers.  Also because I'm a wee bit obsessive, I became completely enamored with these machines!   So I went looking on Craig's List and found the Rocketeer.  It came with the cabinet and all the accessories.  I've been having a ball.  Row after row of parallel seams on scrap fabric.  Whoohooo!

So as I'm blabbing away about my apparent new hobby, VK mentions that his grandma's treadle machine is in the shed.  Well, what do you know?  We haven't dug it out yet.  It's been beastly humid.  But knowing that grandma's treadle machine is probably in bad shape, I've been reading up on restoration. 

Then I got this on eBay.  For $.50.  That's not a typo.  Fifty cents.  It's a local pickup which I haven't done yet, so I don't know much about it.  I think it's a model 66 from pre 1925-ish.  I'm pretty sure the cabinet is similar to the treadle machine that my grandma had, 4-drawers, no fancy carving. 

So this is why my only knitting progress is a pair of socks.  It's Socks That Rock, btw, in a 3x2 rib.  My Fir Cone Lacey cardigan is only in need of sleeves.  Oh, and to be ripped back to the bottom of the armholes.  :o<  Apparently shaping can be a little tricky with a lace pattern.  Who knew?

Oh, and I got yarn for the Kauni cardigan.  I think I have adult onset ADD.