Sheep On My Stuff

I didn't update with Day 3, but by the end of Day 3, all I had to do was the collar. I got all the knitting finished on his birthday (December 2), and got the sweater wet-blocked over Thursday and Friday.

The kettle-dyed Wool of the Andes wasn't quite colorfast (I am still not sure all the loose dye came out, though it does not appear to have shed onto Grant's shirt), so it took forever, but eventually the sweater was complete. And today (his first day back to work since the blocking was finished), he even wore it. Awwwww. What a sweetheart.

Grant models his birthday sweater!

(Yet another bad cell phone picture, this one from the iPhone. We're just out of luck on cameras lately.)

He appears to like it! We're currently pondering which sweater will be his holiday sweater from me. Now that I've gotten started making sweaters, I don't seem inclined to stop. :)

People sometimes ask me "How long does it take you to knit (x)?" This usually makes me crazy, because I feel like there's an implied sense that if it doesn't take that long, my efforts are less valuable. But some projects just plain don't take long. I once knit a wine cozy in the time it took us to drive to our friend's house, but it was still a cute gift!

It's also hard to say, because some days I work on a project for ten minutes here, half an hour there, and other times I am literally slamming out stitches as quickly as I can for as many hours as my hands will put up with it. That's been the case yesterday and today (although today I had to go run errands as well). And 4.5 st/1" still knits up hella fast. So:

2009 Birthday Sweater, Day 2

It's almost impossible to tell scale and progress here, but the sweater is finished (save for some weaving under the armpits — sixteen stitches per side) up to about 3" above the armpits. The cables on the sleeves are going to go all the way up to the collar, and they're mirror images of each other. (I am very proud of myself for not having screwed them up yet; cables are kinda new for me, but now that I've been working them on this project and they've been turning out so well, I'm hungry for MORE MORE MORE.) All measurements indicate that this should fit, although if it's a bit snug, this particular sort of wool will block a little big.

I've been experiencing so much pattern scatteredness lately — I keep starting projects and starting projects and starting projects, and finishing nothing. It's nice to have something where I've just been able to work it and see it coming together almost instantly under my hands. I just hope it looks as good on Grant as it does on the needles, because it is really looking pretty great on the needles!

Also, I'm sort of envious. Now I want one of these for myself! Except that my version would need side shaping, bust darts, and a V-neck, and I'd probably give it cables up the front, too. Maybe next project… hmm… maybe I should order yarn. >_>

I have holiday projects done, but can't post them until the recipient sees them — so not until after Dec. 25th. ^_^

I do not know how the seed stitch blanket project is going; haven't measured it lately. It is still on the needles, and I am approaching the end of The Largest Single Continuous Ball Of Yarn I Have Ever Had In The House (due to splicing from the project I unraveled to start the seed stitch blanket). It is finally cold enough I'm excited about working on it, though!

I have several (new) pairs of socks on the needles, and am thrilled about them all. :)

However, my whole world is currently being consumed by the following project. (Sorry for the horrible cell phone picture; our camera batteries are all refusing to recharge…)

Grant's birthday sweater, 2009, after one day of work.

This is what's known as "last-minute birthday insanity". My adorable Grant is more than a little hard to shop for, and I had thought I didn't have time to knit him a birthday present. But then this morning I had a flash of inspiration, figured out what I wanted to knit, and knew I had the right yarn in the house for the job. What's more, that yarn knits up at 4.5 st/1", which makes it a quick-knitting project.

I had never really thought of myself as a fast knitter, but it seems that when a deadline is looming and I have a dozen episodes of Enterprise to catch up on, I can really move. ^_^ The sweater currently has half its body (up to the armpits) and 1.25 sleeves (up to the armpits); the worrisome part is that at the armpit point, I will be about halfway done. I still think I can do it, but a.) not secretly (which would require me to stop knitting when Grant is home), and b.) I won't be able to have it washed and blocked by the actual birthday, which is unfortunate, because it will definitely require both (the yarn is not quite colorfast).

On the other hand, he seems quite enthusiastic about it, and the cable on the sleeves is the only complicated thing about it; the rest is so easy I can do it while reading. (I've been reading the World of Warcraft comic — I didn't realize the Varian Wrynn storyline was written by Walter Simonson. o_O And I've been reading Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden and only haven't been throwing it across the room repeatedly because it's on my Kindle, which wouldn't tolerate such treatment.) I'll still take good-luck wishes, though. XD

Okay, this isn't going to be the most interesting post, but last time I said I'd aim for 20" by this time this week, and…

Seed Stitch Blanket progress

The blanket is actually quite wide — wide enough to cover a queen-sized bed. The real question is… how long is it going to be?

Bam! (said the lady). Not just 20", but 24"!

I made it to 24", and I've still got a TON of yarn left. Maybe next week I'll be up to 36" of blanket!

I'm also seriously considering moving my destashing criteria from weight to yardage. That's going to be a little harder to count, but I think it'd be worth it in order to make me stop avoiding socks and shawls (which I love, but which don't weigh much).

I have a fingering-weight scarf on the needles, but no pictures of that just yet! I've ripped it out and restarted it several times, but I think I'm finally happy with the (tubular) cast-on…

I don't know what happened. One minute I was going along just fine, blogging twice a week, and the next… poof. Nothing. And for months and months I just kept writing nothing. I was still knitting… but maybe not as much.

So in the interests of actually getting more knitting done (I'm never going to knit down my stash at this rate), I'm going to see if I can get back to at least once a week, checking in and giving an update on what I've been knitting!

Lately it's been a grey and white bulky-weight seed-stitch blanket. No pattern, just miles and miles of seed stitch. This is actually what I'm in the mood for right now. Something easy, simple, soothing, something that can be done while I read, write, edit, watch TV, or in downtime during my raid.

Seed stitch blanket, 11/06/2009

I have started and restarted and restarted this blanket over and over and over. It has been many things. This is what I've liked best, and more importantly, what I've liked knitting the best. It's now 14.5" of seed stitch. I'd like it to be at least 20" by the next time I check in; wish me luck!

It'd be hard to be happier with this project than I am. It's not just the fact that I knit three-quarters of it while I was in Hawaii (:D), it's also the awesome blocking squares from KnitPicks. These are 1'x1' squares that fit together like puzzle pieces to create whatever size blocking surface you need. They come in six-packs, so I bought two sets, thinking that'd probably cover me for my shawl knitting. I might actually need a couple more, but they're very easy to store.

They look, feel, and even smell (!) like brand-new flip-flops. Go figure. The foam is non-absorbent, which I think is going to reduce my drying times somewhat — having wet knitting on top of a wet blanket just means you have to dry out both things, not just the knitting, which was never quick. I'm definitely looking forward to blocking more projects on these!

I'd pick up more KnitPicks accessories, but I already have a ball winder, and I really have all the stitch markers I'll ever need. >_< The sock blockers… maybe. I've gotten along fine without them so far, but they're the only things I see on their accessories page that I'd use (and don't already have). But if you don't have a ball winder already, it might be worth picking one up from there — that's a really good price!

Guess what I finished last week?

Yes! Erica's Shawl is done. :D :D :D It's just waiting for my new blocking squares so I can block it, weave in the ends, and send it off. \o/

Pretend it's March 26th. Okay, it isn't March 26th, but pretend it is for a second. On March 24th, my sweater looked like this:

More or less. What was wrong with it? Well, the thing people say about flat gauge being different from in the round gauge turned out to be really true on this project. I stared at the different yoke and sleeve gauges for a couple of days trying to decide if I could live with it, and eventually the answer was no.

So I ripped back, went down a needle size for the yoke, and voila! It looks great. I just wish it'd looked this great the first time around.

This is the part where I repeat "I'm a process knitter, I'm a process knitter" and that I like the act of knitting every bit as much as the finished project… but I'm awfully glad to be nearing the end of the sleeves/yoke part, I have to say.

This time around, on vacation, I bought 200g of yarn (which means I'm still under where I started at the beginning of the year, yay) and one crochet book: Hawaiian Lei In Crochet by Roberta Wong. (It's even signed! :) I got it at a local independent bookstore.)

I worked on just one project: Erica's Shawl, which got to this point:

I hope it's about 33% done, but it's impossible to tell right now. I'm just going to keep going until I run out of yarn. :)

How ready am I to be back to normal life? Only so ready. We're unpacked (except, I guess, for our carry-ons), almost all the laundry has been done, but oh God, I don't adjust to time changes well! I went to bed around 11 last night and woke up around 7:45, and while that ought to be plenty of sleep, internally I have no idea what time it is. It could be 5:30. It could be 8:30. It could in fact be 3:30pm, and I would not argue the point.

"Knitting In Public Day" always seems very odd to me, as it wouldn't occur to me not to knit in public. I take my knitting everywhere, and I knit at restaurants and in cars and while on tours (really! I did that today). The most common place someone will ask me about my knitting is at restaurants; invariably the waiter or waitress will ask what I'm doing, if they have absolutely no idea what knitting looks like, or what I'm knitting if they're more familiar with yarncrafts.

I was relieved when I saw a quote from the Yarn Harlot (and now I can't remember where I saw it; perhaps on her page-a-day calendar!) saying something to the effect of "No matter how big a sock you're knitting, people will always ask if it's a baby sock." I was once knitting a sock for Grant in navy blue, and when I told the waiter who'd asked that I was knitting a sock, he replied, "Oh, a baby's sock," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I boggled at him. This was eight inches of ribbing and a turned heel the size of an adult man's foot. A not-too-small adult man's foot. What baby has feet like that? But apparently people are just crazy, and assume that all knitting is for babies or something. It wasn't just me!

Lace mystifies people, but most people take it in stride once I tell them I'm making a lace shawl. Now that Erica's Shawl is big enough, I can hold it up and people see what I'm talking about. They do ooh and ahh quite a bit — and deservedly so; the yarn is lovely and the pattern is clear even before blocking — but most people just get it and don't keep at me about it.

(It's about twice that long now, and I seem to have finally begun to make a dent in the yarn.)

Today's waiter was… a little more aggressive. He said it looked like I was almost done — dude, I have a foot and a half of shawl! I said no — it was barely started, and it'll be six feet long (I hope) before it's done. I held up the ball of yarn I was working with.

Waiter: How many of those will it take to be six feet long?
Me: Just the one.
Waiter: *jawdrop*
Me: *smugly* That's why it makes such great vacation knitting — it packs up really small.
Waiter: *grabs bag of yarn, gauges weight* *to my UTTER SHOCK AND HORROR, attempts to GRAB NEEDLES OUT OF MY HANDS to feel weight of shawl*
Me: AUGHN NO NO NO NO STOP!!!
Waiter: *still pulling, oblivious to fact that I am in the MIDDLE OF THE ROW* Oh, I just–
Me: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! STOP! *tries to keep stitches on needles, grabs back*
Waiter: *finally lets go* Oh, I was just trying to see…
Me: *desperately checking needles and praying I haven't lost hours of work — guess who doesn't work with lifelines?* I need to take care of this now.
Waiter: Oh! Sorry! Sorry! *departs*
Grant: Ack, sorry about that.
Me: Whew. Didn't lose any stitches. Sheesh!

What on earth do you guys do when that happens to you? Does that sort of thing happen? I tell you what: I have shown off lace shawls to many people, and nobody has ever attempted to yank knitting out of my hands before! (The waiter was very lucky Grant tends to pay for meals, I'll say that.)

It's strange to be an introvert who does such attention-getting things. Knitting garners a lot of attention. Reading on my Kindle garners a bit of attention. People see me doing unusual things and get really excited and interested in them. I don't mind explaining it, and I don't mind answering a few polite questions about my knitting. But holy cats! Just because I'm showing you my lace does not mean you can grab my needles out of my hands! Crazy! o_O

Tomorrow I'm going on a trip to the summit of Mauna Kea, where there will be stargazing. The trip's a long one, so I plan to bring my knitting. I'm not sure how much attention I'll get, but I do know I'm not going to let anyone close enough to grab my needles. It had never occurred to me I needed to keep a close grip on them before — no one's ever done that before — but now I know.

So what it is you guys do when people ask you about your knitting? What would you do if someone tried to grab your needles out of your hands? How do you answer people who are just saying crazy stuff, like asking if your gigantosock is for a baby or insisting that you're crocheting when you're knitting on five dpns?