ThunderSnow.us

Last weekend, Dan and I went up to North Conway, for our first anniversary. (Well, close enough - the day itself was Monday, and I had to teach that night.) We stayed at Stonehurst Manor, did some hiking, and swam in the pool. Our plan had been to get going early-ish on Friday, so that we could maybe go swimming/hiking/something along the Kanc. The early thing didn’t happen, and then I’m pretty sure that everyone in Boston was trying to go to NH for the weekend. Traffic was gross, both along 128 and on I-93.

Saturday we climbed Mt. Avalon, and watched the Conway Scenic at the crossing in Bartlett, and swam in the pool at the hotel. I need to go swimming more.

Sunday we climbed up to Champney Falls (have I been there before? Mom? It felt vaguely familiar… but falls all look alike), which was gorgeous. Stunning. Wow. Totally will do that again if I’m there after a rain (instead of late in the summer when everything is dry).

Also on Sunday, I got Dan and his mad photography skillz to document some knitting.

First, socks!

These are the Spring Forward socks, in Auracania Ranco Multi. I like this colorway a lot - it’s the “rainbow” colorway, but the colors are all very muted and low-saturation. I also like this pattern a lot - the squiggles are a lot of fun and the stitch pattern is easy to memorize. The pattern also shows up well even in the multicolored yarn, which is always a plus. I might do more repeats on the leg if I were to do these over - there’s plenty of yarn left and I really prefer my socks a little longer than these.

And then, a sweater!

This is Cece, by Bonnie Marie Burns (from ChicKnits, who have all sorts of lovely stuff), in Gedifra Merino Cotton. The yarn is from Mom’s and my trip to WEBS in the spring, in which there was serious stash enabling going on. But, eight balls of the Merino Cotton has turned into this lovely sweater, which is a pretty substantial inroad on the pile.

Notes: I made the body two inches longer than called for (cause I’m tall!), and still got a cropped silhouette. If I wanted this to feel like a more traditional-length cardi I’d have to add at least two or three inches more, and then the shaping would all change. (The shaping starts at the waist and goes up, so you only ever increase - this works because of the cropped length but wouldn’t in a longer sweater.) I made the three-quarters length sleeves, which are still a little on the short side, but I was afraid of running out of yarn. They’re also a little snug at the cast-on edge.

I wasn’t nuts about the lace pattern until I finished it. I’m still not wild about it up close, but the overall effect I like better than I expected. Yay! And the yarn is a beautiful color. It’s a bit splitty to work with, but not too bad. I machine washed the finished sweater(cold water, delicates setting), and the yarn bloomed… and shrank (my swatch only did the first of those). The fabric ended up feeling much sturdier (which was a goal), and the sweater was a bit more fitted than I’d anticipated. It’s stretched out a bit, and right now seems to fit just right, but I don’t think I’ll toss it in the washer again.

What has Abby made in the last five months? All sorts of stuff!

A baby sweater:

Boy Oh Boy, by Carol Scott, in Dream in Color Classy. This is the In Vino Veritas colorway, leftover from my Central Park Hoodie. The pattern calls for one skein of Classy, and when I weighed my FO, it was exactly 114 grams. Be careful if you decide to size it up any. Wooden buttons from Jo-Ann’s Fabric, cheap but they look good.

Socks for Dan:

Lonnie’s Sports Socks, by Rebecca Mercier, in TOFUtsies. This yarn wears like iron, but I really don’t enjoy working with it. (I have another pair of socks for D languishing due to this factor…) The pattern is great, makes sorta a waffle-weave texture, but the colors were perhaps a bit much for it.

Socks for me:

Jaywalkers, by Grumperina, in Socks That Rock Mediumweight. This Monsoon colorway was the first sock club colorway of 2007. It didn’t want to be the club pattern, nor at least one other thing that I tried. It finally decided to just follow the crowd and be jaywalkers. Love the way it striped on the legs, less the way it striped on the foot, but hey, handpaints, that’s what happens.

Baby booties:

Stay-On Baby Booties, by Kristen Nicholas and Melanie Falick, in Lisa Souza Sock!. Leftovers from the first socks I ever made for Dan. For baby Liam (who was nameless at the time).

A mesh bag:

Elisa’s Nest Tote, in a mysterious blue-and-white tweedy cotton yarn that I think I got as a Christmas present from Dan’s parents a few years ago. This pattern is (as many people have noted) very, very, very stretchy. Make with care.

A lace scarf:

Lace Ribbon Scarf, by Veronik Avery, in Knitting Notions Merino Laceweight, a lovely heavy-laceweight kettle-dyed yarn. Love this scarf, love this pattern, love this yarn. Love.

Fingerless mitts:

Pulsewarmers with Falling Leaves, by Alexandra Brinck, in Berocco Ultra Alpaca. I went back and forth for a while on whether this yarn wanted to be this pattern or not. I was concerned about the fluff factor of the alpaca covering up the pattern too much. Final verdict was that it was a good pair, and since they’re knit to a tighter gauge than recommended for the alpaca, they’re warm warm warm.

A squooshy hat:

I more-or-less improvised this pattern. It’s a simple cable rib, done in squooshy pink yarn. Auracania Limari is way too warm to photograph in July (in case you were wondering). I have plans to make a matching set of wristwarmers with the other skein of this that I have (part of the great WEBS excursion of April 2008).

Rustic-feeling mittens:

The mittens from Chunky Winter Set, by Amy King. Made in handpsun wool/silk/alpaca that I got at NH Sheep and Wool. I adore the texture of these, and this is a really functional basic mitten pattern.

Towards the end of December, Interweave made the pattern for the Central Park Hoodie available from the new online pattern shop. I know it’s a “trendy” knit, and everyone and their mom has made one (there’s almost a thousand entered on Ravelry), but I like the simple cabled lines, and the hood, and I think it’s just cute as anything. So I’m a sheep. Baa.

I printed the pattern and picked out the yarn (Dream in Color Classy, color In Vino Veritas, gorgeous burgundy-red hand-dyed, superwash, worsted-weight merino), and tossed it in the suitcase to take to Gabon. Two weeks of travelling and lounging meant that most of it was completed by the time we returned home. This is a some-assembly-required sweater. You make the back and both fronts, and then sew the shoulder seams and pick up stitches to make the hood. Then the arms are added, and you pick up stitches along both fronts and the hood edges to make edging/button bands.

I actually swatched for this, and washed my swatch (in a sink in our hotel in Libreville), and found that, as usual, I need to go down about two needle sizes. I did the ribbing on a US 4, and the body on a US 6. It was worth it, as it fits beautifully, and exactly as I had in mind.

The buttons were the last to be done, and I don’t have any photos with them. The whole thing’s been done for more than a month, though, and I’ve worn the hoodie almost everywhere. The yarn is starting to pill a bit, especially where the arms rub the sides, but I’m (so far) okay with it.

Other knitting:

Lenore

Calorimetry

Henry

Lonnie Socks

Most of the photos (the ones hosted on http://spinfire.smugmug.com, that are 3×2 aspect ratio) are Dan’s and used w/ his license.

The game: You are assigned a target. The pattern is released. When your target receives a finished hat, you’ve killed them. If you receive a finished hat before you’ve finished yours, you’ve been assassinated, and must send your unfinished hat to your assassin. They complete it and send it to your target, if, of course, they are not themselves killed. Last knitter standing wins.

My weekend:

Friday, I snag one of the remnant balls of KP Merino Style and swatch, as gauge has been decreed to be grounds for disqualification of a weapon (hat).

Saturday, the pattern is released. I have plans already to spend most of Saturday playing 1856. The good thing: Knitting and 1856 go together very very well. The bad thing: In driving to Acton, I lose an hour and a bit of knitting time. I finish long after the post office has closed.

Sunday, there is no mail, no FedEx, no nothing. I consider driving to my target’s house and delivering the weapon by hand. I decide that any target living north of Burlington is better dealt with by the USPS, and prepare the delivery.

Monday, my hat hits the mail. My target is going down. I get a message from my assassin warning me that she overnighted my hat and I’m going to be dead on Tuesday. I prepare real, from scratch, sharp cheddar macaroni and cheese as a last meal.

Tuesday, about 9am, a knock on the door. FedEx. I’m dead!

It’s a very lovely hat though.

Holy smokes it’s been a while. There were Christmas happenings,

and a trip to Gabon,

and Arisia,
,
and I suddenly have a new part-time job doing customer service for these guys, and I’m starting to get interview requests from graduate schools!

Life’s a little insane right now.

But, there’s been lots of knitting. (Long trips are good for that - not so many other things to fill one’s time with, and, as I’ve been discovering, fiber is lighter per hour of entertainment than books are. Hee.) First, however, is an older project. Remember the shrug I was making for Kris? Here it is blocking, looking like it has ridiculous orangutan arms.

A close-up of the diamonds pattern (from the wrong side, as it was blocking).

(A note: The previous two photos are the only ones *not* by Dan. All others are his, and are used under his license. Thanks babe!)

Shimmer, by Rebecca Hatcher, from the Winter ‘03 Knitty. It’s knit in Filatura Di Crosa Zara, superwash merino, lots of plies, black (cause it’s for Kris and that’s what she wears). Lovely, amazing forgiving yarn. The arms are knit in the round to the underarm, then joined to the flat back, and the whole thing is worked in rows with raglan shaping. The ribbing along the fronts and neck is added at the end.

Things I learned on this sweater:

1. Superwash wool will grow when it gets wet.
2. I knit more loosely back-and-forth than in the round. My purls are looser than my knits, and I need to go down a needle size to save my sanity.
3. I knit really lossely in general, and if I want to get gauge, I need to go down a needle size (or two).

I found the pattern easy to follow, although the myriad comments about the frustration of joining round arms to flat back were entirely justified. That portion, immediately after the join, is a pain, and requires rather a lot of stretching of stitches. If this had been knit in something less forgiving, like a cotton blend, I suspect that stretching would have been much more visible. But it’s a very cute shrug, and I do like the lace across the back.

The shrug was seen “live” at Arisia, and totally made my weekend.

That blue sweater that I’ve been working on since fall? I finished that last sleeve, and blocked them both. They’re lovely and drapey and have been begging to be sewn up.

One front is blocking on the couch right now, and if I have time in the morning, I’ll claim the bed and block the other front and the back tomorrow. (If I don’t have time, the pieces will continue to be blocked one at a time, as pinning something wet to the bed at ~7pm does not seem like a good plan.)

I am quite in love with felting (well, technically, fulling, but we’ll ignore the pedants).

This lovely purple Christmas present seems to have come out quite nicely. If its companion will only cooperate as well, I’ll be all set. I finished the knitting yesterday, having had a minor yarn emergency the day before, but luckily the Yarn Basket in Portsmouth had the colorway in stock and saved my butt. When I felted it, it had the usual amount of fibery mess hanging off of it. I made the fatal error of attempting to remove fibery mess from the wet, mostly-felted item by sheer force (rather than, say, scissors). As part of the fibery mess was attached to one or two yarn ends which hadn’t been woven in (fatal error the second), my tugging and pulling caused a large amount of the fabric to tear. It was decreed unsalvageable (for its original purpose, anyway), and consigned to the wastebasket. Today I thought better of it, and remembered that felt is good for all sorts of embellishments to other projects, so it has been rescued and is drying. And I am knitting another one. Argh.

I’m alo tooling around with this lovely autumnal yarn.

It’s the worsted weight merino from Fearless Fibers, but I can’t remember the colorway name. It’s reds and oranges and yellows and browns, and I quite like it. It seems to want to be a brioche stitch scarf right now, as the brioche stitch breaks up the colors enough that I find them pretty rather than garish. Cheerful, anyway. Maybe this is just an SAD thing. Anyway, these aren’t colors that match anything I wear regularly. Is it speaking to anyone? Want a scarf?

I’ve been rocking the knitting lately, but much of it is for other people, and is at least nominally a surprise.

These socks are on hold for the time being. I’m more than halfway through the second one (past the heel turn and somewhere on the leg), but projects with a firm deadline are getting my attention right now.

This Christmas present is flying along. It’s Reynolds Andean Alpaca Regal, on 6’s, and despite the fact that it’s a heavily improvised pattern (and thus is occasionally cussed at and frogged), it’ll be done soon. This is also the project that’s getting my attention and love right now, because the improvisation makes it interesting, and I’m very intrigued to see what happens.

This Christmas present is basically done. Or, well, the knitting is done. There’s some fairly elaborate finishing involved, but I picked up most of those supplies this evening.

The big blue sweater, like the socks, is languishing. This is not just the Christmas-knitting-trumps-all phenomenon, but also an mysteriously missing sleeve. That’s right, this sweater’s back, two fronts, and one sleeve were all completed. The second sleeve was about two-thirds finished, and somewhere in the process of gathering up projects to bring along last weekend, it has entirely disappeared. Please, if you’ve seen about two-thirds of a dark blue sleeve, let me know! (I suspect that it is in Dan’s car, under the snow tires in the back seat. We shall see if it shows up.)

And then there’s the _____ I want to make for _____, which is still nothing but several balls of yarn, as is the second _____ for _____ _____. And I really want to make a little _____ for _____, which isn’t too ambitious of me, right? (I’ll leave the idea I got just yesterday for next year. I can’t give everyone handknits every year. Y’all understand, right?)

Oh, and for those who have been asking, the wishlist is at http://thundersnow.us/wishlist-2007/

I finished this year’s mystery stole in August, just before I took off for ECVP. (The primary motivation for finishing was so that I could have a new lace project for the airplanes.) Due to my utter lack of cotton string, it languished in a drawer for months before I got around to blocking it last week.

Before:

After:

Blocking is magic! The lace pattern opens up and the fabric drapes beautifully.

This stole falls squarely into the realm of items I wanted to knit, but am not particularly likely to wear. Ever. I do think it’s lovely, though.

The laceweight Malabrigo is very soft. It’s a merino singles, and it develops a definite fuzz as it wears. It’s beautiful.

Pattern: Swan Lake, by Melanie Leesburg.

Photos featuring me are courtesy of Dan.

As promised, more (and better!) shrug photos.

It’s so much more wearable with the sleeve length approaching that of my arms. I’ve been cuffing the sleeves because they’re a hair long. I blame row gauge. But I actually quite like the cuffs - I think they’re cute.

You can see the way the pattern continues across the back, and stays nicely on my shoulders. I’ve learned that the shrug will stretch over time, and not stay up quite so nicely by the end of the day. I’m really still learning about how different yarns and fibers will behave, and while I know some basics, I’m not always so good at applying them. I find myself much more often in the position of looking at an outcome and thinking “Oh yeah, that does kinda make sense. I should have anticipated that,” than in that of “Oh yeah, I knew it was going to do that.” (Of course, this is still better than “WTF? Why is it doing that?” Small improvements, yes?)

As for the seams,

I’m happy. They’re still not great, but I’ve learned a lot about how to seam reverse stockinette, and they’re good enough to awe the muggles. Most of the uneveness that remains is due to my having tension issues at the selvedge, rather than to a flaw in my seaming per se. (A side note: this photo is the best representation of the color. The others are too turquoise.)

All of these photos were shot by Dan, and more of them can be found here.

I also finally blocked the mystery stole, but as there is a wee matter of a baseball game tonight, I’m off to a friend’s house. Lace photos will have to wait.

I finished the Drop-Stitch Shrug the other day, sewed up the arm seams, and wore it down to Boston on Thursday. (We will ignore the fact that the patterns length for the sleeve seams is way too short, and I ended up safety-pinning the last few inches.)

Besides, re-seaming the sleeves will let me use my new seaming-on-reverse-stockinette skills, which developed over the course of doing those sleeves. First seam:

Second seam:

I figure by the time I get to third and fourth seams, they’ll be awesome. I finally figured out how to keep the seaming even, so now I just need to keep track of which loop is the closest to the selvage stitch.

I also wrapped up some holiday knitting… the photo below is there merely to taunt my family members.