][ we have to stop meeting like this...

Hello, blawgh. Long time no see.

I got in this weird cycle of not writing, and then starting writing, and then not finishing my entry and never posting it and then it was so old I had a million other things to talk about so I’d start over, and so on. But enough of that, I think I just need to accept that I’m not gonna be able to catch you up anytime soon.

So, bullet points:
- I did end up doing the Ravellenics, sort of. Knit socks for the Knitting Dead Cage Match, without doing anything for the proper Ravellenics bureaucracy. Crazy story. Maybe I will tell it someday. Won a set of stitch markers!
- I knit a whole bunch of stuff
- Went to MDS&W, got very few pictures, managed not to spend too much money
- Bought a lot of yarn online
- Probably gonna buy more yarn online
- Did a swap in TKD which was amahzing!

And unfortunately, for now, I’m not going into detail because moving forward is the name of today’s game.

One of the reasons I’ve been writing here less is that I have been more sociable on the Ravelry forums, which has the added bonus of keeping me more in the loop, so for once I am actually thinking about the Tour de Fleece in advance. I think I’m gonna do it. My goal is solely going to be to spin for at least 15 minutes each day (save the rest days, I guess, as is tradition, but ideally making up for those with extra time on the others.) I don’t have a fiber quantity goal or anything, I just need to make myself do it. Spindle acceptable but I’d like to put most of my mileage on the wheel. Otherwise I don’t have a game plan-- except maybe to move on to actually knitting with what I spun after I do it. Baby steps. Fifteen minutes a day is an easy enough goal that I will kick myself in the face if I don’t accomplish it.

And that’s about it, really. I’ve been knitting lots, lots and lots and lots, but I’m too lazy to dig up pictures right now. Deal with it, you get a boring update today. Next time I’ll try to spice it up.

Hopefully it won’t be six months til the next!

][ wool, wool, wool . . . or, I covet stuff and babble a lot to keep warm

It’s been cold, people. Bitter cold. Psycho cold. I’ve always been good at winter, and even I am struggling with this one. We had eight or ten inches of snow last week, and I’m getting used to single-digit temperatures in the morning. And we don’t even have it bad.


I have accepted that fog and frost will just be constants for a while.
I’m layering like a pro. I’ve taken to wearing skirts to work, just so I can wear several pairs of fleece pyjama pants under and whip ‘em off once I get to the office without having to awkwardly maneuver out of my grownup work pants in the bathroom to slip the leggings out from under them. I’ve got a big ol’ pile of gloves and scarves and hats to rotate my way through, and I don’t leave the house without ‘em. There was a time when I’d go out sleeveless in the snow wearing my clogs, but that time is long gone. This winter demands respect and I’m paying it.

Traditionally I’ve been bad at knitting in the winter, for whatever reason. I’ve usually been most productive in the spring and fall, when it’s not too hot to keep a pile of cozy fabric in your lap, but not cold enough that you really want the finished item more than you want to work on it.


Taken through a screen because I didn’t want to put eight pairs of pants on to go out.
Right now, though, I do want to knit. Maybe it’s that I’ve been knitting so much more and more consistently for the past year, or maybe it’s that I am better at reading patterns and trying new techniques, but I haven’t hit the same kind of dramatic loss-of-interest, even in between projects. I might stop for a week or a month but I am still interested. However, I find that it’s influencing my habits in a totally different way: I want to knit, I want to always be knitting, but I only want to knit animal fiber. Give me wool. Now. Or else. I’ve got a pointed stick here, people. Several, in fact. Give up the goods.

(See how cold it is? Completely delirious.)


Here’s a small part of my staying-warm strategy.
A drive-by finished object: the Welton fingerless gloves took a bit over a week to complete, lots of which was spent binge-watching The Walking Dead.


Also pictured: the cowlbeast! I love this thing, man.
I’m seriously surprised at how quickly these have gotten fuzzy and lived-in-- I always thought of this as a pretty sleek and tight yarn, and the gauge is pretty firm, they were knit on 3s. I’m a little miffed, but mostly okay with it, and desperately glad to have them. (I wear them under my mittens, to protect the vulnerable space between sleeve and glove.


The other night I knit in front of this roaring fire and drank hot cocoa with marshmallows. Life was good.
I started a thing with stripes and have had to shelve it almost right away, because I don’t have more of the brown yarn (leftovers from the childHood, if you go back a couple entries) and I’m not sure whether I want to a) frog the thing and re-do it with two blue stripes to every brown, and hope that gives me enough; b) frog back the bit where I’m trying the two-to-one, order more yarn, and continue, or c) tear the whole thing up and try this again some other time with yarn I’ve got more of. Add in the fact that I still don’t know whether it’d look good on me, and you’ve got my current attitude: go away for a while.

Instead, I’ve started more socks.


Not actually exciting.
Not everyday socks, but what I call cocktail socks-- big, thick ones you wear around the house when it’s bloody cold out. I don’t really know what I’m doing with them, I just needed to get something on the needles to mess around with and saw some leftover LB fisherman’s wool and said yes. (I know, that’s mostly not fisherman’s wool in the picture. I thought I’d use an acrylic blend for the toes and heel to give it a little more fortitude, so it’ll be black toes and heels. Knitting the heel is going to be a nightmare in anything but the brightest light, unless I find a better way to do it, but oh well.)

I might dye them a more interesting color when done, but we’ll see.


All fun, not so fattening on the stash.
Actually, a lot of my future knitting plans are socks. I got a Phat Fiber yarn box for January, and I’m planning to make a chaotically striped pair with a skein of black and all the sock-weight samples. I also bought myself a skein of one of the featured yarns, and I’ve got a skein set aside to try and knit a pair during the Olympics. I wouldn’t call myself a sock knitter yet, with only one pair done and no real schedule on doing anything fancy, but I’m excited about it!


Planning out the color progression!
Other than that, I’m really craving certain things that haven’t taken shape yet. I want to knit some stuff inspired by The Walking Dead, because it’s totally taken over my mind, but I have no idea what would be the right project to go for.

I also desperately want a wool blanket-- but that might just be because it’s so bloody cold lately. I’m not sure I want to knit one... I definitely don’t want to pay for enough wool to do so! But I want one madly. Ah, if only I had a loom... and a flock of sheep... and no day job.

Til next time! <3

][ gratuitous sock pictures ahead

Behold! Socks!
Wellp, my first pair of socks is my first finished project of 2014! I'm pretty thrilled. A week and a half doesn't seem bad for my first socks, and I'm reasonably sure I could do the next pair quicker, if they're not too much fancier.


Taking pictures of your own feet: surprisingly hard.
I'm not 100% on this toe construction-- I think next time I'll try the magic cast-on and increase up instead of doing a short-row kind of thing-- but for now I will proudly and cozily wear these. Around the house, at least. It might take me a while to work up the courage to risk them out in the real world.



Quarter for size reference, obviously
Above are my leftovers. I could have cut it a bit closer and done another half-round, I think, but this was my first time doing a sewn bindoff and I wanted to make sure I had plenty left over. This is also after taking a few inches to reinforce the edge of the heel where there was a bit of a gap between the tube part and the heel section-- it looks just dandy now, and I can't feel the extra yarn at all.

I'm a little worried about these wearing out-- a lot of reviews on this yarn said it's prone to felting and falling apart, and it does feel a little more loosely spun than I expected a sock yarn to be-- but I'll live with it one way or another. What I can say for sure is that these are super cozy, and really, really warm. Also, the cat loves them.

After finishing them I milled about lost for a little while, but decided to cast on a silly little something...


You know you covet my bees.
These will someday or other be a pair of long fingerless gloves; I'm winging it, but I plan to use what I learned from making my BFF's Link Gauntlets to shape the thumb gusset and fingertips and all that jazz.

They'll have a similar set of stripes up at the wrist, I think, and if I feel really ambitious maybe a ring around each finger, but that's probably more than I have the patience for. I'd like to put a little embroidery on one hand or both hands, but I don't know what.

At any rate, it'll keep me busy for a bit until I make some decisions about what I really want to be knitting now!

I'd start more socks, but I don't have that much sock yarn stashed, and most of it is earmarked for particular stuff that I don't feel up to beginning yet. I'm toying with cracking out some pastel rainbow stuff when the Olympics roll around, because even though I don't care in the least about the whole knitting games ordeal, I do like some of the protest stuff cropping up and also it seems like a good excuse to knit rainbow socks as fast as I can. '

I've also still got that big bulky yarn that wants to be a hat (I just don't know what hat it wants to be) and a kit to knit myself a complicated colorwork sweater, which was a lovely ecksmuss gift. (I sort of did a gauge swatch for that, but haven't measured it yet.)

Anyway, for now my work is cut out for me.

PS: SOCKS!!!!!!!


Couldn't resist. Sorry kittens.

][ I may have miscalculated here…

One funny little side effect of all that ecksmuss knitting was that I had nothing to knit after. Nothing. The only thing left on the needles was my Doom Blanket, and that’s almost more of a t-shirt-cutting project than knitting, really. I wasn’t in the mood and it doesn’t really travel at this point.

I worked up one last gift over the post-ecksmuss weekend (it’s a bit naughty so I won’t link), but then I had nothing. No knitting! That is so not me.

I toyed with a few ideas but couldn’t decide, so I took a knitting break of a couple of days. When the New Year dawned, though, I woke up with a sense of purpose, wound a skein, and decided to start 2014 with my first proper pair of socks.


Universal toe-up pattern and KnitPicks Imagination in Wicked Witch.
I got down to the narrowest bit of the short-rows on Wednesday, and between my lunch break and commute, back to the widest bit Thursday, and picked up all the stitches. Now I’m at the easy bit, for now-- knitting round and round a while until it becomes time to face the heel.

But I promised a mistake, right? That’s what you’re here for.

While I was still ruminating on the right post-Ecksmuss project, I seriously flirted with the idea of knitting a big slouchy hat of the bulky, delightful wool I’d bought at Flying Fingers’ Black Friday sale. See, what you may not know about me (or perhaps you do) is that I have many fabulous hats. Many deeply fabulous hats, but very few warm winter hats. A big hat knit with big yarn on big needles would go a lot faster than a tiny fiddly pair of socks, so I’d probably have a hat where now I only have toes. And a big woolly hat of my own devising would be a seriously useful thing if it got cold.


Pretty, but not great to walk around in.
It got cold.

Maybe I should knit myself some gloves…

][ in with the new

This is partly a re-post from a Ravelry thread; I wanted to do a 2013 wrap-up here and figured I may as well just use that as a rough draft, add in a few things I forgot, and increase the general level of tangential rambling.

2013 was a good knitting year for me. I think it’s safe to say I knit more this year than the rest of my life put together. I've knit more consistently, more adventurously overall, and with more variety than ever-- it’s quantity and quality and variety all at once.

I did a ton of baby knitting. I made twenty-one small hats for babies at the NICU in the first half of the year, after my twin cousins were born 2 months early. I've also knit 2 hats apiece for them, including a coordinated pair plus a pair of tube socks for each, and a matching hat for dad. I knit a hat and booties for a coworker’s niece, too.

I also knit my first sweaters-- tiny babby sweaters, okay, but I think they count. They were a big hit-- a little too big for the kidlets now, but the parents love them and that gave me all the warm fuzzy feelings ever. Pretty much the only standard baby thing I didn’t knit in ‘13 was a blanket, but that’s okay-- honestly, prior to 2013 I had knit one baby blanket and that was the extent of my baby knitting prowess. (I wish I had pictures, it was a nice one. But I digress.)

My most complex colorwork to date is a 2013 project-- my actually-scannable QR code, which is pretty darn cool if you ask me. It was also my first steek (and as a steek, a great learning experience, but perhaps not the wisest of choices.) I learned a lot abot cotton yarn and why it is not the best idea for certain projects.

I finished what is probably my oldest WIP this year. I knit a pattern in a language I don't speak for my grandfather. I made my first pair of fingerless gloves. I designed and knit three cowls. (Well, I knit four, but the fourth hasn't been gifted yet ;3) I spun on my wheel.

I probably knit thirty tiny pigs-- I've actually lost count of them. (A couple I kept, a couple I’ve already given away; the lion’s share of them have been tucked, flat, into my much-belated Christmas cards. Don’t tell, it’s a surprise.) I found something to do with my size 36 circulars. I made a hat I liked enough to get over my fear of putting pictures of myself on project pages. I knit more Christmas gifts than I ever imagined. (Some still aren't up there.) I made a lot of people I really love really happy.

I learned the basics of crocheting at Maker Faire. I got over my terror of tiny needles (and almost forgot how to use bigger ones.) I learned at least three new cast-ons and one bind-off. I finally managed a provisional CO that didn't utterly fall apart and make me start over. I allowed myself to frog a project I wasn't loving. I had a prima ballerina admire the scarf I made myself.

I organized my stash. I let myself buy way too much yarn because my stash was so organized. I bonded over knitting with my cousin. I talked to a dozen strangers on the subway who wanted to know what I was doing. I can't count the new stitch patterns. I bought roving from ridiculously cute sheep. I missed Rhinebeck, but I learned the art of a perfectly-executed mattress stitch. I managed to snag a Phat Fiber box. Iknit with my grandmother, who hasn't picked up knitting needles in the last 20 or 30 years, but who started cranking out NICU hats with the rest of us when she found out how much she likes bamboo needles.

I blogged more consistently, I *think*, than ever, though that's not saying much. I knit at the movies (simple ribbing at Thor 2 but 2-color drop-stitch colorwork during The Desolation of Smaug!) I published my first (silly) pattern and started writing up two more. I started actually talking to people (a little!) on Ravelry. I told my roommate more about fiber content and knitting technique than she ever wanted to know. (Sorry about that.)

I’m sure I’m forgetting things, but that’s okay. It’s been a busy one.

I am not big on making resolutions-- I love them in theory but I find they make me more likely to fail in the long term, because once you slip up once or twice it’s over. I had a sort of to-do list somewhere in the middle of this year that wholly got away from me, but I don’t really feel like it’s a failure, I just think I went in different directions. (See: the long list of knitting accomplishments above. Who really cares if I didn’t knit socks?)

But I do have some thoughts.

I’d like to blog more regularly in 2014, even though literally no one reads it. I like writing and it’s good for me to critically think about my knitting, what I’ve done and where I’m going. One of my weak points as a knitter has always been a certain reluctance to make big skill-jumps; I usually need to really want a particular thing to get there. I think if I end up writing about eighteen different scarves in a row, though, I’m likelier to notice the rut I’m in and be braver about getting out of it.

I would love to start the super-intimidating-but-awesome sweater kit my cousin gave me for Christmas; it’s going to be a trip, with cuffed sleeves and mesurement adjustments and fair isle and steeking and lord even knows what else. I’ve done a bunch of colorwork now-- some of it with proper floats, even!-- and I like knitting the kind of wool in the kit, so I think I’m up to it. I hope. But I’d like to read through the pattern a few more times before I start swatching, even.

I would love to do some more knitting from stash-- and I’ve got plenty of it-- even though the siren song of New Yarn is pretty hard to resist. I also, definitely definitely want to do more spinning! I love it, and I love knitting with handspun. (Okay, so I haven’t knit with my handspun, but the Cowlbeast was a genuine pleasure and I really want more groovy adventures like it.)

I’m hoping to go to Maryland S&W and/or/and Rhinebeck in ‘14, though we’ll have to see how that really pans out in terms of time, money, &c, but I love fiber parties. I’ll definitely go to the Long Island show again, if I can-- it was an awful lot of fun last year. Same for Maker Faire… potentially I might agree to teach knitting there, but I’m not 100% decided on that.

I want more non-scarfy wardrobe pieces to wear-- a sweater would be nice, but I’m thinking of all the shawl patterns I have set aside just waiting for the right yarn or the right mood or the swift I don’t have to wind that gigantic skein of laceweight into a ball.

And?

Socks.

I’m casting them on as we speak, baby. Let’s wreck this new year.

][ ho, ho, ho boy.

When people ask me about my yarn stash, I like to use the word ‘dragonish.’ I hoard certain things with all the avarice of a huge, fire-breathing lizard. (This metaphor possibly brought to you by The Desolation of Smaug. We saw it. I knit through it. Two-color drop stitch pattern in the dark. I’m pretty awesome, yo.) There aren’t many things I collect this way: yarn is one; books are another; and, apparently, vacation.

Thanks to holiday closures and the fact that I haven’t taken half my time off yet this year, Friday was the first day of my break, and I don’t go back to work ‘til January 2nd.

I sat myself down Friday morning with a fresh pot of coffee, bad holiday films on Netflix (SIDE NOTE: Holiday In Handcuffs is like the best/worst film EVER, go watch it), and my to-do pile.

This was my to-do pile:


The red thing is nearly done; I may or may not add a couple more rows, but it’s at the point where it’s on Not Worrying About It hold; the black bag contains my bff’s secret gift, which of course I can’t talk about; the rainbow-and-black yarn doesn’t actually need to be done until after New Year’s; the two sweaters are knit and seamed, but one needs blocking and both need buttons and only one has buttons picked out, even; the clear bag is a side project that isn’t actually a priority; and the kicker, the green yarn is… well, I don’t even have a pattern, just a rough idea in my head. Ha ha hah. But I’ll manage something.

All things considered I wouldn’t be doing badly if I hadn’t decided to add two things last week or so… so I can’t complain.

Some quick updates on other things:

☆ The Cowlbeast is long since finished; if I recall I bound off Halloween night, and was wearing it shortly after. I love it. I wear it damn near all the time. I cannot actually stop raving about the thing. Go look at all the cute photos on my project page, I’ll wait.

Possibly will write up the pattern for it-- I’ve even got suggestions for commercial yarns it looks nice in… more on that some other time after Christmas. Hint hint. Not that I’m up to anything.

☆ I do also still want to post a pattern for 6H, but I need to make another for some step-out photos and I’m lazy as heck. But, someday.

☆ I knit like thirty tiny pigs. They are the potato chips of knitting for me. They are my new favorite use of tiny scraps. They’re getting stuffed in Ecksmuss cards when I belatedly send them out for everyone to fill up and keep and love.

☆ I’ve already given away three knit gifts-- two coffee-cup cozies and a set of cat toys-- and they were totally loved by their recipients. One of whom gave me a gift of a couple small things, including some really lovely stitch-markers and a needle-gauge card. I’m charmed because it means this coworker of mine cared enough to notice my hobby, go to a shop, and ask someone for advice on what to get a knitter. That’s just a bit touching to me. Happy Ecksmuss and all that.


ANYWAY, I gotta jet because this green thing (with picot edging, because why wouldn’t I do a complicated cast-on on a large last minute Christmas gift?) won’t knit itself, and I have a whole new pot of coffee awaiting.

][ producing... slowly... ish

My name is Hannah, and I am not a process knitter.

Sometimes I am. When I get an idea of a technique and want to try it, I'm a process knitter. My hideous washcloth? Really fun for the first dozen rows when I was learning how to make the gathers, really boring now that I'm on the third repeat. My cable swatch? Interesting when stitches crossed, mind-numbing making the bed of purls around it.

Bubble wrap? Actually pretty interesting to knit-- like my long-suffering and also just plain long scarf, the repeat's short enough that I have to pay some attention but not tricksy enough to drive me crazy. No chart needed. Good travel knitting or TV knitting or whatever.

But when it comes down to it? It's all about the product.


And this still isn't quite a product.
I totally guessed wrong about my quantities. The dark yarn, skeined, looked like a heck of a lot more-- but it turns out the light yarn was just balled very tightly, and there's a ton left. As you can see.

For the finishing edge (the "top" edge, I think), my current plan is to switch to smaller needles and knit stockinette rows a while to create a nice, rolled edge long enough not to eat the first bubble repeat.

But that bottom edge... man, I don't know what I should do there.

The stockinette curls badly enough to really interfere with the edge of the design, so I'd like to do something to weight or stabilize or decorate the edge, to even it out a little. Originally I was thinking applied i-cord, but I knit a few inches and I hate the way it'd look, so that's out.

I think my options are:

1. Stitch the rolling edge to itself right up at the end, which will stabilize it a little and hopefully keep it from rolling more
2. Try a line of crochet along the edge to stiffen it a little and hopefully tame the rolling
3. Pick up stitches along the whole way and knit more to give the roll some more room to go without eating the pattern
4. Pick up stitches and knit them in reverse stockinette, and hope the roll going the other way (on the inside) balances out the outside. May require stitching down of the inner flap thereby created.
5. Pick up stitches and use one of the books of edging to make something actually nice happen there.

I have no idea what I'm going to end up doing, but I do know one thing:

I really, really want to be wearing this, not knitting it anymore.