green sock, originally uploaded by Jazmin_.

It really is hard to be creative about describing more sock. Woot. More sock! Although I’m knitting along, turned the heel, working down the foot and that little ball of yarn is getting awfully little. Awfully awfully little. Hrm. Might I, for the first time ever, run out of yarn before I run out of sock? I’ll blithely keep knitting along and hope for the best. If need be, I’ll either have a funny coloured toe, or rip some off the top to add to the bottom. Or something.

photo, originally uploaded by Jazmin_.

Alright so it’s not the best photo, the colour is far more mossy in real life and well real life is far less blurry. My iphone is not a great camera and post bloodwork shaky hands aren’t exactly ideal either. Still! Having half of Guelph turn up to get bloodwork this morning meant that I had plenty of knitting time. This is the current drag around everywhere sock, started on the flight from London to Toronto, which is why it’s missing a pretty picot cast on. I forgot to pack two sets of needles, so it got a boring ribbed start, that I can do in the dark with no elbow room. As I proved. I’m not a small person, but economy seats sure are. And they cruelly walk you through the decadent first class seats on the way to your little cubby of hell, I think if they accepted credit cards on the plane for upgrades on the spot, they’d make a mint. Anyhow, let’s see if I can get socks knit before winter ends.

Apparently that’s what it takes for me to actually get off my lazy arse and get going on projects again. An unexpected trip to Scotland in Jan. resulted in me (sensibly I’d have to say) bringing 2 stalled projects and nothing else. It got dark at something silly like 4 pm, halting sightseeing, and well, no internet and 4 TV stations. No MUSHes, no WoW, no blog reading. 3 adults expressing TV station opinions and a TV smaller than my laptop screen. I arrived with 6 repeats done, and left with something like 26 repeats done.

photo
Originally uploaded by Jazmin_

I have fears that it’s going to be too short, but the proof on that is in the blocking. Someday I’ll remember that not only am I larger than most (to say the very least), but I’m long through the torso as well. Too short is just a shawlet, right?

see more puppies

I’m still knitting a little, mostly I’m just keeping up with life. Still, I couldn’t resist sharing with anyone who might still peep in now and then.

I decided today to pick up the needles (sure fire sign that the winter blahs might be letting up a bit), and cast on a wee bit of a thing to use as a coaster. Possibly to plunk in etsy as a set of coasters, but I digress.

Alright.. spiral design.. I like spirals. I dont want huge chunks of plain.. no problem, I’ll add in some extra lines of holes. Piece of cake. Only a 4 needle set. Well.. I’ll cast on 9 instead of 8.

Well it’d break the line to decrease on the first increase of a new line. That’s okay. It’s just one extra stitch. No problem, it won’t make sooo much difference.

Well. If you can’t be a good example, at least you can be a horrible warning.

 

If you increase too fast, you do not get a circle. See? You get.. oh.. 130% of a circle. Which is not a flat coaster. Well. Damn.

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!