Circle Sock Pattern, Knitpicks Stroll in Jester

This is the sock that’s been my travel knitting for the last four months. Circle Socks in KnitPicks Stroll, the Jester Multi colourway on I’m going to guess 2.5 mm needles, but I honestly have no clue at the moment and stupidly didn’t put it on my Ravelry project page. (Which is odd for me, I usually am rather anal retentive about my Ravelry project pages)

Some knitters hate it when things pool, I love it in this case, I think it looks awesome. Now I just need to get the second one done. I give it another 4 months, at least.

Non-Knit

I find this quote from Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda really interesting. He is, for those who weren’t wildly geeky net denziens in the mid-late 90’s, the founder of Slashdot. It was (and is) sort of a collection of stories, commentary and so on for the hardcore computer geek crowd. A bit of news, a lot of nerdery, forums and social media before anyone knew about social media. I still own a /. shirt, even though I admit, I don’t read it much anymore. Anyhow, on to the quote. (Full interview here.)

“I still shun the term Blogging just as I shun the term Tweeting. It’s all just writing. It’s like trying to subdivide Novelist, Columnist, Blogger, Tweeter. Words are words. It’s not really interesting to keep slicing and dicing and sub-categorizing to me. I just write some stuff or share some stuff. Distinguishing between “Journalist” and “Blogger” is a waste of time. I’m all of those things and none of them.”

I find it fascinating as I regularly refer to myself as ‘not a writer’. Yet I journal (750words.com for the win, even if I haven’t in a while), I do online text based gaming (Yes, I’m a MUSHer. Have been for coming up on 17 yrs this coming Jan.), I even took a stab at NaNoWriMo this year. (First time. Failed horribly. 8K words is nowhere near 50K)

But yet I maintain I’m not a writer. It’s interesting how we put such stock in labels. I am a knitter. I’m not a writer. I am a larper. I am a gamer. I’m not a whole lot of other things.

Anyhow, you’re not here for the writing (or at least I hope not, or we’re both in trouble), you’re here for the knitting.

Neverending Shawl

It’s probably unfair to stick such a label on this shawl just yet. I’ve only barely started it (Nov 22 says my notes) and it /is/ a laceweight shawl designed to be somewhere between huge and ginormous. The smaller size is a mere 177 rows, and the larger size is 237 rows. I’m not a small person, and why yes, I am selfish enough to make it for me, so I expect I’ll be going the 237 rows. Which makes the excitement of having done 72 rows.. well a little flat.

Gwendolyn by Stefanie Bold

The relevant details are that it’s Gwendolyn (rav link), by Stefanie Bold. I’m working it in random ‘had it forever’ blue laceweight on a cone that is probably some flavour of poly-cotton and I’ll worry about blocking later. 3.0 mm needles, and I think that photo is from row 61, not row 71. Imagine another 10 rows of the same thing. I only manage to work a pattern row or two a day, so it will look much like this kinda forever.

At least I’ll always have something to blog about.

I am a colourful person. Even if I tend to err on the side of caution a touch too often. (More black/brown/drab in my wardrobe? Awesome!), at heart.. I’m a colourful soul. I’m drawn to the brights, the variegateds, the splotchy, the stripes, the spotted. I’m not much for patterns, per se, I’d rather random globs of colour here and there, drawn around by the design.

Like my recent mittens.

I happily break the ‘rules’ on lace and do doilies in variegated thread, or coloured thread. I dye like a colour blind monkey with a paint brush.

I just, only a few hours ago, put in a Knit Picks order, full of rich reds, eye popping yellows, hot pinks, and then I was reading blogs later and it happened. A moment of yarny twinged regret.

The Yarn Harlot (who is awesome, but that is rather besides the point), posts today about a scarf.. and the scarf is lovely, but along with the scarf is a pair of mittens. And those mittens are much like the heavens opened and there was a song of angels and I went ‘oooh!’.

And they were neutral on neutral. Go look here. See?

I don’t own neutral yarn! AIEE!

Hopefully it passes quickly. I’ve hot pink on it’s way!

The parasol has firmly hit the almost there stage of completion. A mere eight more beads (out of 72), and then I have to decide if I’m patient enough to wash and block it or if I’m tossing that sucker straight onto the frame to call it done, Done, DONE! I was very tempted to nip off to the KW Knitter’s Fair today, and I still keep having urges to jump in the car and just go. But with flying to New Orleans on Wednesday, the time to finish costume bits (like the parasol) and the urge to conserve knee cranky is strong, so I am going to be good, and do errands and sewing and beading instead. There’s always next year, right? More pictures when I finally finish the parasol. I promise.

Not the song, although to be fair, it’s a pretty good song.

But a sock. A deliciously challenging, full of twists and turns and surprises sort of sock. Colourful, a bit of a pain in my arse, and compelling to see how the hell it all fits together. I decided, you see, to cast on for Skew, and it’s sock origami.

Much like the baby surprise sweater, you knit along with utter blind faith, and find little ah ha moments along the way. This blind faith knitting, well it humbles me. I’m a rookie designer, I think of myself as being reasonably adept at knowing the hows and whys of patterns being put together, and this? Well. It takes what I know, tosses it on it’s ear out the door and kicks it to the curb. In my generous moments of strong self esteem, I am inspired by the flexibility of knitting and of the human brain to consider such a thing, and on the bad days I stare in baffled awe at my knitting and think ‘Well, no use /me/ designing anything, it’s all crap comparatively’.

So behold my obsession, and the parasol? Well it will get washed and blocked and beaded. Just after this section. I have to see how it goes next!

Wow, summertime and the living is /busy/. It is as if all of my hobbies have combined into one giant sleep depriving mass of enjoyment, that starts being less enjoyable when you’re still awake 6 hrs before you have to be at work.

But! Today is the day that knitters near and far are casting on for Camp Loopy Project 2. This time we need to do mittens, socks or gloves with a cable in them. It doesnt say all over cables, just at least /a/ cable.

So I am torn. Do I do nice cozy mittens in patons classic wool to match the Mariah I still need to finish? (I have wool left over, and I’m quite certain sewing in a zipper is not going to take more than 100g of wool. It’ll take no wool in fact.), or do I ‘accidentally’ forget the cable requirements and knit my larp character a pair of lacy white cotton gloves, so that I can manage to outfit her lace bits all in handmade stuff.

I /do/ have a whole month for this (amongst GenCon and parasol knitting and sleeping off irc events), the potential for both exists.

Oh the choices, the choices!

As I dont have any pretty pictures of my chosen yarn, nor have I considered patterns for mittens or gloves, you will have to make do with a parasol in progress picture. 21 repeats done.. only 51 remaining. This could be a while.

I think I’ve written this post in my head about a half dozen times, but every time I consider opening up blogger, I tend to pick up my knitting instead.

There is something to be said for the instant gratification of big thread, big needles and fairly quick moving projects. Usually I’m working in size 30 cotton and 2 mm needles and a week’s worth of work requires a magnifying glass to locate. Currently my projects are size 5 cotton and dk cotton. It’s such a difference!

So the parasol is currently at this state:

The middle section is done (63 stitches per repeat, 8 repeats around, 504 stitches per round), the border has been test knit and charted and now it waits on the second ball of Clea. Which I’m picking up tomorrow on the way to a wedding, because knitters are awesome. Even during a postal strike, a ball of yarn was found local enough for me to go pick up. The fact that it’s half an hour away from the out of town wedding we’re going to is just gravy.

So in that pause, I had to start my Camp Loopy shawl. Now, this might be cheating. The requirement was a two colour shawl or scarf, and I took 80’s peach yarn (remember 80’s peach? Yes, I had flashbacks too), and dyed 3 of the 5 balls a denimy blue/purple/pinky splottered varigated sort of haphazard colour, and the last 2 balls a solid (ish) blue/purple that’s in the varigated.

To me? This is two colours. I think. Close enough, I’m working from stash anyhow, so I dont qualify for any prizes or anything, but I can knit along!

DK cotton + 5.5 mm needles = fast moving moose lace.

I’ve never had to increase lace along the edge of a shawl before, and while there may have been some /words/ and a lot of ripping when I realized I’d managed to extend the lace, but also managed to quit increasing.. 5 rows back. Now that I’m getting the hang of it, I’m kinda chuffed to bits with myself.

I have some vague thoughts of beads on the edge, but that might take it away from denimy casual shawl to trashy. But sometimes, a girl wants a little bit of trashy. *grin*

Runners, and I suppose most exercise enthusiasts, talk about the wall. Where at some point things get hard and slow and frustrating and discouraging and you push through anyhow because you are a strong athlete and a warrior and home is 5km thatta way, so either you push through or you suffer the indignities of calling for a cab mid-run. Well at least that’s my guess, exercise and I have the sort of relationship where we flirt and talk good, and then someone doesn’t call, and then there’s accusations and pain and a lot of not talking and it’s all downhill from there until the next optimistic reunion where ‘this might be the one!’.. and you get the picture.

Anyhow, lace knitting has that wall. 42 stitches per repeat. 8 repeats a round. That’s 336 stitches per round, and it increases 8 stitches every other round. It’s currently got a radius of about 9 inches. I’m aiming for about 15 inches before the border, which means about 6 inches more before a border. (Borders take forever and use unthinkable amounts of yarn, I’m going to worry about that later.)

Currently I’m getting about 8 rounds an inch, so 48 more rounds. 8 more stitches, every other round.. another 192 stitches. It should be 528 stitches per round by the time I’m starting the never ending edging.

Perhaps I shouldnt have done the math.