][ random notes and nonsense…

I took some pictures to commemorate this event:


My fondness for rainbow chaos strikes again!
This past weekend at Maker Faire, I learned to crochet! I created a fairly ugly irregular vaguely square-shaped swatch, out of some nice yarn that frankly looked better in the ball than it does like this.

Featuring: single crochet, double crochet, accidental increases, intentional increases, decreases, gauge issues.
The pictures will live on but probably the swatch won’t; I’m sure I can find SOMETHING fun to make out of this where the riotousness of the short runs will be pleasing rather than overwhelming. Maybe a baby hat. Everything looks good in baby hats. (Shut up I do not have a problem. I can quit knitting baby hats anytime I want. Just not for very long.)


I think it’s likely to either hypnotize or blind viewers like this.
Come on, though, a bulky, warm little hat and maybe matching booties? Mittens? Both? Yes, I like this idea.

First, tho, I think I’ll try picking up some stitches and knitting a bit on the side of the swatch-- I’m curious to see how the variegation plays out in knitting vs. crochet, and to try a few stitches. What’s a couple inches more to frog, eh? My teacher-- whose name I didn’t catch because I am a terrible person-- was very patient with my hiccups and it was a relaxing way to spend some of our time there. I put myself on the list for info about teaching knitting next year, at their drop-in classes… There was spinning, knitting, crochet, and needlepoint. Plus, you know, everything else ever, but it’s a little overwhelming to try and talk about.

My QR code got a lot of compliments, if not too many actual scans, so that was fun!

ANYWAY, moving on to the actual knitting in progress… Let’s talk about t-shirt yarn.

The wicked secret of t-shirt yarn: I’m convinced it takes longer to cut a ball than it does to knit it up.


Severed Barbie head included for scale. And because I’m a geek.
Or maybe that’s just me. Or maybe it’s the size 36s talking. At any rate, that’s what I’ve been up to, mostly-- I’m well into my fourth shirt now, knitting away. It’s portable, but only just barely; the blanket already needs its own mondo tote bag. Bad subway knitting… decent car knitting, though. Aside from the mess.

Yup, actually, the real wicked secret of t-shirt yarn is the lint it creates. Bleaugh.

All in all I’m liking the fabric it creates; it’s heavy without being super-warm, nicely textured, and of course pretty soft. At least most of what I’ve knit in so far. There’s a little textural difference, because some of these are old shirts I wore eight thousand times and others are old shirts I got for free somewhere (excess con staff shirts, promotional junk, souvenirs or freebies) that just haven’t held up, or which I don’t want for whatever reason. Those haven’t gone through a thousand wash cycles so they’re not quite as cuddly.

I’m not worried in the least-- I expect I’ll wash it at least once right after finishing, since obviously it’s washable material, and I’ll want to de-lint it. So it’ll have chances to soften up through use and scrubbing.


Stretching to infinity… did I mention I’m getting almost 1 st / inch as gauge? Fffft.
I also like how the designs on the shirts give little patches of color without detracting much from the overall cohesion. I’m currently planning to stick to black and white, and possibly also grey, depending on what I’ve got on hand to cut up. I may just knit shirts up randomly as the mood strikes me, then knit a second rectangle and sew them together to add width once I hit my desired length. I am also toying with knitting it in squares and stitching together in alternating directions. Or I could try to pick stitches up along the edge… I know there are no-sew ways to do it, to attach something to both sides of an angle as you knit, I just don’t grok them.

Chances are I’ll take the path of least resistance and do two rectangles since this is supposed to be no-think knitting for me. If I get really into it I’ll make a second for my cousins to play with, with all the non-monochromatic old shirts. The texture is more the idea for them.

Speaking of the little ones, my babby sweater is slightly stalled; I’m at the stage where I need to attach the buttonbands, and I’ve had some trouble figuring out how I want to do that.


Second or third attempt, I forget.
I think the current frontrunner is this crochet chain technique, since it almost looks like a stockinette row. It’s not exactly hard but it takes more concentration than knitting so I want to leave it for times when I’m not rushed and have good lighting. My first attempt was a lot sloppier; now I’m being conscious to line up my chain better, one loop to each row of stockinette, matching the tension as nearly as I can.

One band-- the one pictured, actually-- is a little wobbly-looking because I knit it separately and grafted it down rather than knitting it up-- I didn’t want to have the colors travel on the visible edge. I’m not 100% sure if I’m okay with it-- we’ll see. If worst comes to worst, it took me about an hour to do so I’m pretty sure I’d be emotionally capable of ripping and re-doing it. Though if I were smart I’d probably have attached the good one, first.

I suspect I can tug and block it into submission, though, before I cement its current state by starting the hood. I should try to sort out which side goes under, too-- if this is the under side (I never remember how it works, I know it’s gender-dependent but I wear men’s shirts unapologetically so I always forget which is which) I’m not going to worry at all.


Playing with the macro setting on my camera, deal w/ it.
I really, really love the complexity of the color in this yarn-- it looks unequivocally blue to me on the whole, but there’s so much depth to it and the pinkish undertones manage to make it really lively, without being overwhelming. The gray-brown works better than I had hoped in contrast. I can’t wait to finish this project just to see it, and of course, to hand it over.

I’m pretty excited about the hood-- once I get to that this will be good subway knitting again! And after the hood comes the sewing up, which scares me again, buuuut after that it’ll be one more ecksmuss gift sorted out.

I just need to get my mojo back and knit a little more regularly.

][ Swatch out

You know how I basically never swatch?

I swatched. For the t-shirt doom blanket.

It’s a tossup right now whether I’ll use the 60” 11s or the 40” 36s, so I knit up a sleeve with each to see how they looked:


36 on the right, 11 on the left
Both garter, both 5 stitches across.

The 36-swatch is loose and soft, really preserving the feel of an old, worn-in T-shirt, which I really like. I think it would be nice to wrap around me when I want something to cover but don’t want something overly warm. However, it might be too light, and I feel like it’d fail as a picnic blanket/

The 11-swatch is much tighter, of course-- I think it’d be better for throwing out on the ground to lay on, since there’s less loose space between the stitches. However, it’s not nearly as soft, and the fabric is noticeably stiffer-- I can’t tell whether that will be an issue at larger sizes but it’s really noticeable in the little swatch.

The 36s have the advantage of being a novelty to use, too; the 11s have the longer cord, meaning I could probably knit the whole thing instead of potentially having to do it in strips and sew together.

The ideal would probably be to buy a new needle-- something in a ~25 size if possible… but that ain’t happening… so this needs a bit more thought before I start in earnest.

Hmn.

][ inspiration, or something

Worth noting: fronts cast on last night for the stripey sweater. Two at a time, did the contrast color off one ball but have one each of the main color.

THAT SAID.

I took the day off work today for varied reasons, and rather than do anything actually productive, I did this:


The remains of three old, ratty shirts which I was forbidden from wearing.
I'm terrible at ever throwing anything away, especially things to which I feel some sentimental connection. My favorite comfy t-shirts are one of the worst symptoms of this, and my roommate often chides me for strutting around the house in big old shirts that are, admittedly, more hole than fabric in some cases. So,I figured I'd use them to fill a purpose.

For a while now-- since this past spring, really-- I've wanted to knit a blanket. A big, lazy blanket out of the bulkiest yarn I could manage. Washable, because I want something I can abuse-- something I can curl up under in the living room, or throw out on the lawn to lay on. Something soft but not too dear. Of course, finding nice-but-ridiculously-cheap-yarn in a superduperbulky weight has not really worked out.

For a while the plan was a checkerboard green-and-grey blanket in that Billow yarn, but per my last post that's been given a new destiny.

But now?

T-SHIRT YARN, BABY.

Time to whip out my size 36 Addi Turbos...

(And actually, even with THOSE this may have to be done in strips. Unless I bump waaaay down to the 11s, the biggest on my interchangeable set, and use the 60" cable... Ah, well! We'll see what the fabric looks like on the Addis first.)

][ And on and on and on...

I will write semi-regularly. I will write semi-regularly. This is just about forming habits, it doesn’t matter if it’s thrilling or not.

So, just checking in with recent progress:


still lovin’ the colors
Back and sleeves for childHood complete. There seems to be an error, as the pattern (for the 1-2 yr size) says to cast on 54, bind off a total of 8, and end up with 42 stitches. After looking through the rest of it I cast on 50 since the other numbers seem to be consistent; so far so good, though really what’s the worst that could happen.

I knit the back wholly over the weekend, so it’s going pretty quick. Haven’t yet cast on the fronts-- which I plan to do two-at-a-time to minimize the chance for mismatched lengths. I’m rather dreading the button-band, I’ve never done one and this one looks a bit complicated since it’s two-color. I haven’t picked buttons, either, but as they’re meant to go over functional snaps, I’m leaving that til the rest is all done with.

The hood shouldn’t be too bad, aside from picking up stitches for it. I’m considering buying a Tunisian crochet hook or two from KnitPicks-- if they fit on my interchangeable cables, I bet they’d really help for this kind of thing, even though I have very little interest in crocheting.


And next up...
This isn’t knitting… yet. The four skeins of Billow I bought on an impulse with the vague plan for a checkerboard blanket caught my eye the other day, and after winding a couple of ‘em (which was fun, I can’t lie. They’re big squishy balls that barely fit on the winder) I realized I really didn’t have any interest in sorting out the intarsia or whatever for my throw, that I’d need to buy more anyway and I didn’t want to do that, and that I should have just about the right amount and the right-ish weight of this to make my other cousin’s little sweater. And that the colors were awesome for it.

I’m a bit concerned since some of the reviews on this yarn are pretty negative, but we’ll see. I think I can make it work, and if not, I’ll find something else to do with it. I really hope I can though because I adore how these colors look together and they’d be really fun in the pattern I picked out.


Most of a washcloth!
The tentatively-titled 6H continues… slowly. Honestly I just haven’t been knitting as much the past few days on the train, which means less progress on this sort of project. I have most of the pattern written up, and provided I actually like it when it’s done I’ll probably pop it up on Ravelry… though I’ll have to knit a second one if I do, to make step-out photos of some of the trickier bits. Ah, well. Burn that bridge when I come to it.


And that’s it. Yup. Still thinking of various other things but nothing in progress… I may ball up a length of my white lace-weight (not the whole thing probably, I expect it’s going to be huge) and spend some time knitting lace on the subway, if and when I get tired of wash cloths. But that sounds fiddly… I’m more worried about transporting and using tiny, sharp needles than memorizing the pattern, though. Still it’d be nice to have a stash of knit lace on hand to embellish anything I wanted, wouldn’t it?

But would I really use it? I can’t be entirely sure.

I don’t know, I don’t know. I guess I will see how all the sweaters (and my potential second 6h) go.

Til next time, kittens!

][ Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I was going to post an age and a half ago about the progress on my QR, but I finished the thing before I got around to doing so.


Yes, it scans! In fact, this picture scans even more easily than the object. Try it out if you like.
The steeked edges still look a little raw; I may eventually knit on a border, or perhaps knit outward from there and make it the center of a blanket or something, I don’t know. For now I’m content to call it done. It needs to be blocked, really, but one thing at a time. Definitely not getting that done during the work week.

I’ve decided to be good and move on to more Christmas knitting, because I know if I don’t, said Christmas knitting will never get done. I’ve never really done any-- one year a handful of people got scarves, but at least some of those were oh-crap-last-minute scarves, done up on my trusty #17s in the days leading up to the holidays. That was my dedicated BIG NEEDLES ONLY phase. Knitting entire sweaters, even sweaters for babbies, is a bit much to leave that long. And not really doable on size 17’s.


This is my cat absolutely not being helpful.
Actually, the 6s and 7s feel huge after a month of mostly knitting the QR on 2s. It’s kind of hilarious, really. Anywho, I cast on the sleeves (two at a time, knitting from both ends of both balls for the colorwork, because I’m an overachiever) over the holiday weekend… made great progress over the weekend and basically took the whole rest of the week to get anything more done. Hah.


And here are some sleeves! Gosh I love this color combo.
I do manage to get a row or two done each evening, at least, as I catch up on Welcome to Night Vale. Which is great for knitting to-- something I don’t have to look at, so even reasonably complicated pieces are an option. Not that the sweater is all that complicated-- I find it intimidating but only because I’ve never really done that before. Last night I got the length I wanted and bound off sleeve number one before passing out; tonight I finished off sleeve 2 and need to re-wind the balls again so I can move on to the next bit of the sweater. (I started with the sleeves because when I’ve made doll sweaters and the like, I find those hardest to concentrate on. I figured it’d help to get ‘em out of the way, especially as they’re one of the more finicky bits of this design.)


Gratuitous closeup.
My other ongoing project-- my subway knitting, by and large-- is knitting washcloths, as I mentioned last time. I finished my first and started a second at the Schoolbus Demolition Derby the other weekend, and have been continuing in that vein since. The tentative plan is to keep at it and have enough to give everyone one or two with a little bar of fancy soap as part of Ecksmuss festivities. I don’t care if these don’t come as a surprise, so they’re also good knitting for when I need to be around people I can’t knit my main project around.

Mostly I’m just dumping ‘em all in a perpetual WIP entry on Ravelry, though my current one will probably get its own entry eventually, since I think I’m going to write up its accidental pattern. It’s kind of cute.


Thinking of calling it 6H-- Hannah’s Happy Happenstance Handmade Herringbone Hexagon.
The shape is due to me not bothering to count and belatedly realizing I’d messed up the stitch pattern to include an unintentional increase on every row. Way to go, self. But, hey, that’s the happy accident part. The rampant alliteration is just me being a terrible human being.

Anywho, that’s the state of the knitting this week. Stay tuned for tomorrow next week next month whenever I next remember to actually update this, and I’ll try not to let it wait til next bloody year.

Wooohooo.