I actually finished something! Started and finished in just a couple of days. Alright, so it doesnt look like much laying on a keyboard (the only cool place to photograph FO’s).

In hindsight, a tighter gauge would be better against the wind, and it’s a shade large. Apparently I have a small head, or something. Probably more accurate to remember that knits tend to stretch. If (when?) I knit another, I’ll probably drop down to 3.75 mm needles. Here, let me give you another photo of the fabric, so you can admire the dye job. (All this and modest too!)

It’s classic merino, formerly in a sad insipid baby blue dyed with kool aid haphazardly. I used 4 mm needles. Quick quick knit, that’s for certain!

I’ve been musing on what to knit next. The Baby surprise jacket that I’m sooo close to finishing is in Time Out while I debate how to solve the ‘I need more yarn’ issue. I’ve got some UFOs laying about that.. well.. if I was all hellfired up to work on them, they wouldnt be UFOs, now would they?

So! New Year, new cast on. (Yeah yeah yeah.. only yesterday I was saying how I was going to finish things. Shush.) I need to work out of stash because well.. yeah. We did the budget for January and it took me 9 days to realize we hadnt accounted for pet food in it. (Right about when we bought cat food. Whoops.) Nor had we accounted for yarn. Yes.. that’s right.. the budget has no ‘yarn’ category. AIEEE!

Deep breath. Deep breath. The craft room overfloweth with yarn (and fleece and fabric and thread and patterns and and and..) Surely too goodness I can keep myself amused for weeks.. months even.. out of it.

Now.. I have long hair. I wear my hair in a ponytail.. well more often than I probably should to pretend like I’m a professional. Enh. Oh well. I live in Canada. It gets cold in Canada. Ponytail + warm hat = looking like an alien is trying to emerge from your skull under your toque.

Enter Calorimetry. I remember seeing it last year and going ‘oh yeah.. I should knit that’.. but apparently it didn’t stick until Kat knit one. See? Isn’t hers pretty? I am inspired. Now I just need to go stash digging to find something to knit it out of. I don’t figure that will be /so/ hard to come across.

I also surrendered, and found batteries for the old camera, rather than magically try and wish the photos from the new camera onto my computer. Or magically wish the new card reader to read the right sort of cards. Maaagic. Now I just need to have something to take pictures of. Here. Have a cute cat photo.

I started in 2006 keeping a list of FOs for the year. (or trying to at least.. I’m sure there’s stuff that got forgotten) Looking back at 2007… wow. I got very little accomplished.

• 5 doilies of various sizes
• 2 dishcloths
• 3 suncatchers
• 1 scarf
• 1 baby sweater
• 2 pair of socks

That’s it. That’s really sad. It’s made more sad by the (at least) 2 big projects that will hit the 2008 list by virtue of being.. nearly done. Mariah is all knit. It just needs sewing up and a zipper, and it has for months.. I’m not quite sure why I’m loathe to not just finish it. (Okay, other than the firey hate I have for sewing up, and the not entirely unreasonable fear that it might not fit) I’m also.. 30 rows from the end of another baby sweater.. and I know I’ll be out of yarn. I need about another 1/3 or 1/2 of a ball of Mission Falls 1824 wool, and I’m not sure if I want to scour my stash (I’ve already looked.. now it’s scouring), use a colour that looks /awful/ with the others, or beg for more yarn. The budget isnt really keen on shilling out for another ball. December wasn’t pretty.

(Pretend like there’s 2 of them. And that it’s not an old picture. I’ve got the old camera at work.. with no batteries. I’ve got photos on the new camera at home.. with no card reader for the new memory card it takes. We’re all imaginative people. We can make do!)

So! 2008! Looking forward. More finished things. I’d like to finish stuff. I think that’d be keen. I think knitting out of the stash would be keen. And paring the craft room down to where I can walk in it. That would also be keen. *grin*

So hopefully I’ll have a whole lotta new stuff to show off as this new found push to productivity gets going. (or dies a horrible death like resolutions everywhere.. oh wait! Positive thinking!)

Alright so I’m a redhead rather than a blonde, and its knitting needles rather than porridge. [1] Work with me here on the comparison.
I’ve got size 30 cotton and a doily pattern that’s caught my eye. (Yes more size 30 cotton. Sue me, it’s my favourite lace thread.) 2 mm needles arent giving me the love anymore. The plain section is too dense for my liking.. perhaps I’m just uptight (Yeah yeah yeah.. I’ve heard it), or perhaps I should switch to decaf (Uhh.. full time tech support. As the button I got at GenCon says: I drink coffee for your protection. Not going to happen.), but I think my gauge has gotten tighter. Well. Damn. Okay, no problem.. I’ve got some 3 mm needles in my bag. (No project they go with, just a zippy bag of needles. Yeah, my life is like that.) 3 mm is way too big. The thread has no structure, no stitch definition. 2 mm is too small, 3 mm is too big.. where’s my just right! 2.5 mm you say? Do I dare take those needles out of the sock in progress?

Yep, that’s the sock in process no longer on 2.5 mm needles, but now on 3.0 mm needles. I really don’t think one round of funky gauge in the ribbing is going to be the end of my socks’ world as we know it. And I get the startitis under control. Uhh.. no I give in to it. As I always do. I am weak. *hangs head* See?

Salient points for the detail oriented: J&P Coats size 30 mercerized cotton, size 2.5 mm bamboo needles, one of the patterns out of Gloria Penning’s compilation of Rachel Schenlling’s patterns. Pattern 5 on page 3 for anyone who has the book.

[1] No porridge, but I do have a bear:

I’d claim it’s blurred for the privacy of whoever that is sitting in front of the bear, but no.. really it’s a photo out of a moving vehicle pre-coffee. The bear sits in front of the gallery next to where I work on campus. It is regularly dressed up for events or at the whim of university students.

Nothing like mixing and matching my geeky pursuits. Sitting around at office hours for the vampire larp at UoW, bump into a D&D player that we game with in Toronto and work on casting off the doily. I think that moment perhaps quantified all that is geeky in my world. This damnned doily has given me no end of grief on the thread front. First the knots, then the running out, then the non mercerized. Grrrrr. It is done. Done done. Not blocked, but done.

I also finished the first of the dayglo socks. Jaywalker pattern, Regia sock yarn. These are the travel socks, so they dont happen quickly. I’ve cast on for the second one already, so hopefully that will keep SSS at bay. The fit’s pretty good, and while I haven’t weighed the ball of yarn remaining, I’m easily going to get the pair out of it and probably could get a pair of kids socks as well. Yay small feet. (Something about me is actually small. Hands and feet.. hey, I’m taking what I get here.)

Now I just need to decide what next. Perhaps I’ll surf my Ravelry queue and see what leaps at me. I’m slowly getting the hang of Ravelry (a networking site for crafts.. sort of. It’s a great big gawk fest at what everyone else is doing really). I wasnt sure of it to start with, but I’m a slowpoke at everything. Focus is for oth.. oooh! Shiny!

My poor old camera doesn’t cope with shiny well. It doesn’t cope with little well either. Have mercy on it, it’s (in the scheme of digital) ancient. (which means a few years old. I’m so glad humans arent ranked on that scale of ancient). Anyhow, that being said, here’s some beaded shiny (little *and* shiny.. oh yay) that I did in class last night.

Class was with the Guelph Needlecraft Guild (comment if you want more info), and it was downright heavenly to sit down at a class where I wasn’t one of the people who knew what was going on. I tend to take classes that I could be teaching and end up being a resource for other students, but beading.. I’m a mook like everyone else. Here’s a closer picture.. isnt it pretty!

If all goes well this evening, I might even have a knitting FO soon. Wouldn’t *that* be novel.

Problem. My usual. Using vintage thread, run out before the end of the doily. We won’t get into the ‘you never blog’ problem, let’s just pretend it never happened and move on. Okay? Okay. Right! Out of thread. As usual. This time about 9 rows from the end, which is at once better and worse than 2 rounds from the end. Varigated pink in size 30. No problem. I’ve got pink coming out my ears (me? Pink? Why!? I’ve no idea, I think it breeds). Seven different balls of pink cotton come out to the back deck with me. Natural light is the only way to go for matching.

Every last one.. mercerized. Nice and crisp and shiny. Doily? Not mercerized. Soft and faintly fuzzy and definately not shiny. Well. Damn!

Vintage cotton is nearly always mercerized. I’m up a tree here.. but wait! I did a little tiny doily out of this very same cotton thinking ‘I’ve got lots! No problem!’.. I’ll go find it, rip it out (Eeep!) and have plenty more cotton.

I can’t find it. It’s in the house somewhere, but damnned if I know where. In the hunt, I pick up a ball of white and put it down. And pick it up again. Size 30.. not mercerized. Well I’ll be hotdamnned! Whoo!

Varigated middle, white edge.. nearly becoming my trademark.

Why do I have this much pink!?

By some miracle, I’ve ended up in Round 2 of the Knit Off, and the pattern comes out Sat am. In a moment of sheer bad luck, I’m paired off against the fastest knitter from round one bar none. Hopefully Paula just kicks my tush, rather than trashes me so soundly it’s embarassing. If the gods of fate are shining, perhaps she’ll.. uhh.. sleep through the pattern release and it’ll be lace and.. yeah. It’s an honour to be in the top 16. Really.

Knitting my face off will be a nice change in stress from my Gryphcon stress. It’s about this time every year that I swear up and down and left and right that I will never do this again. Ever. It might even stick this year.

I have, however, been knitting. The flare up in my elbow has eased to a dull roar (just in time to see the specialist.. aint that always the way), so I’ve got a pair of mini doilies unblocked and a sock at the heel. We’re going picture lite today so close your eyes. Picture a blob of pink crochet cotton. That’s one doily. Now picture a blob of yellow cotton. That’s the other doily. Remember the sock from here? Well picture the second one down at the heel. See? It’s good to exercise your imagination and not rely on photos all the time!

I’m giving knitting another try.. shhhh, don’t tell the elbow that it’s supposed to be upset by this. I am, however, also trying to mix it up and do other things. Including digging out the dyepot and cotton. Prompted, I must admit, by a momentary panic as I remembered I’m teaching at the Needlecraft Guild a week today. Clearly this requires not class prep, but a dye weekend. Clearly.

I’m teaching a lace doily class. Doily = cotton. Therefore dyeing cotton is class prep. Right? Right!? How about taking seriously ugly cotton

and some el cheapo cold water dye from the fabric store in blue and my trusty dye crock pot (turned off, we’re talking cold water dye here). Voila.

I am more pleased with this than I really have any right to be. I mean I took fugly cotton and dunked, but hot damn it turned out well! I also *cough* over estimated how much dye one ball of cotton would need. The dyepot didn’t even vaguely change shade. I couldn’t leave it like that! Poor lonely dye. Sooooo…

became…

The big ball of white stuff is acrylic (I’m pretty sure) and I only balled off a wee sample that stained a little. The bizarre varigated on the bottom right came from a ball of ecru cotton still balled up tightly and thrown in for good measure. I decided not to skein off the ball of pink cotton, my arms were getting sore by then.

Sore arms, and still a deep blue dye bath. I was out of cotton things I wanted blue. I mean I like blue and all, but there is only so much blue cotton a girl needs. Especially a girl who is not currently knitting (much). So in a moment of ‘enh, what the hell’, I dumped a healthy glug glug glug of vinegar in it, had a moment of ‘I am so smrt'(1) with the ph measurement and tossed fleece in. Heated it up (wool likes being warm. And acidic.), let it cool and…

Well I’ll be damnned. Apparently I did get it acidic. Now I just need to develop a fondness for all things blue.

(1) pH testing by it by strip or by drops of indicator into a water sample relies on colour to determine the pH. My dyepot already had the dye in it. It was a lovely deep blue. This makes it hard to determine the lovely pale shade of colour that tells you the pH. I am so smrt!

I woke up this morning to a white paw in my face (alright, that’s not so unusual), and once I got reaquainted with my glasses and got Dalla off my chest I looked out the window to this.

The entire outside world had become white all of a sudden. Whammo. Very pretty, even if the drive in was sloshy and slippy and miserable. Definately a boot day, not a croc day. (Note to all: Crocs + slush = Very Cold Feet. Take my word on it, even the most fantastic hand knitted wool socks will not help keep your feet warm in near freezing slush. I’ve tested this theory empirically.)

Fortunately waiting on the kitchen floor for me was an exhausted dye pot. (Alright, so I felt pretty exhausted too, but that had less to do with the lack of colour and more to do with needing an adjustment on the vader mask. Which I suppose is a whole different lack of colour in the all black look.) A couple nights back I decided I needed more orange in my world. Everyone needs more orange, it’s a law or something. So I balled up a chunk of reclaimed wool. (New ballwinder, still makes me squee. It’s downright fun.) Plunk in dye crock pot. Add a glug of vinegar and 2 packets of orange kool aid. And half a packet of colourless. It was handy, it was more citric acid. Fake watermellon kiwi smell + fake orange smell + vinegar is not something I think Kraft was aiming for as a marketing technique. Just saying. I let it cool in the pot and *cough* left it another day to um.. cool. Fully exhaust. Something. This morning I came downstairs to this little bloom of colour.

I’ll be interested to see how far into the cake of yarn the dye went. I may be redyeing the interior bit to have some colour to it. It’ll be something for post dental hell tonight. (Only one of the weeny layers of hell, just a check up and annual lecture about flossing. I still hate hate hate HATE going. Childhood trauma. *shudder*)