Mitten Four got stalled out for a while. I thought I was making great progress yesterday, then I looked a little more closely and saw some problems about an inch below where I was.
Uh-oh.
It was about twelve rows down and looked like a dropped stitch. Should I tink five rounds of stockinette, then an increase round in 2×2 rib, then goodnessknowshowmany rounds of 2×2 rib before I found the problem?
Or….. since I did know where the problem was….. on the last stitch of the round….. wouldn’t it make more sense to just drop it and ladder it back up with a small crochet hook?
I put it off as long as possible carefully considered my options for about twelve hours. Which ticked me off, frankly, because I had to put a different project in my bag when I went out. Not that I would have time to knit anyway, since I would be driving and shopping with two little boys and wouldn’t have a spare moment anyway, but still. I wanted to be primarily monogamous with Mitten Madness, and this little dilemma was, clearly, Getting In The Way Of Progress.
I shopped, I returned, I mulled things over a little more. Finally I had a beer and felt emboldened to drop the stitch. Then I let the naughty thing think about what it had done, and took my time getting out the crochet hook.
And you know what? It took me less than a minute to fix the sucker. Since the dropped stitch was in the purl section of the 2×2 rib, all I had to do was turn the cuff inside out and — presto! — it was on the knit side, where I knew just what to do to bring the stitch back up. When I got to the stockinette section, I turned the cuff right side out again, brought the loose stitch to the outside, and kept bringing it up.
Then I had a few extra seconds to stare at my project with doubt that I had truly fixed it in that short of a time.
You may have noticed that the blog looks a tiny bit different these days. I guess the housecleaning I’ve had to do lately has rubbed off on my cyberlife, and I finally did some tidying up.
It started with Twitter. I resisted the Facebook “temptation” (why do I need Facebook if I already have a blog?) but I did join Twitter. My account is set up so I need to approve every “follow” request, which should cut down on the spammy stuff. But it’s amusing. I did try to set up a widget here that would show my last five tweets, like on the Yarn Harlot’s blog, but since my account is set to Private it won’t let me broadcast it on my blog. Which makes sense, now that I think about it.
But since I was messing around with WordPress widgets anyway, I did make some other changes.
The Calendar seemed to have disappeared, so I put it back.
The Blogroll got trimmed. I apologize for any hurt feelings — none were intended. But I have not been able to keep up on my blog reading, so I wanted to keep the blogs I go to most frequently. I do have some blogs I need to add, but haven’t made a list of those yet.
I also added a Search widget. Now that I’ve finished a square for Paul Newman’s cause, I wanted to re-read my post about Robert Redford. Bingo! Easy peasy.
I adjusted the Recent Posts section to show the last 5 posts and no more. It was just taking up extra space.
And…. I also added the Category Cloud. That should be fun to play with.
Somewhere in all this, the spam counter got reset. Wonderful Akismet has actually blocked thousands of spam posts (Mary-rk, I’m looking at you), not just 43 or whatever it says now. But gone is gone!!
Knitwise, I did finish my square for the Double H Camp effort. It was supposed to be all red, but I got bored and it turned out like this instead:
Don’t worry, Shawn said it was okay to do that.
But now I’m kind of knitted into a corner. With that project done, my other options on the needles are a lace scarf, a Doctor Who Scarf, and a Doctor Who Scarf. I have tagged a few WIPs for the Ravelry WIPs Wrestlemania event, so I’m not starting on those until July 1.
Sorry, I guess I should have asked you to sit down first. I didn’t mean that the world was running out of yarn, or even that I was running out of yarn. But I got eversoclose to finishing a project last night and probably don’t have enough yarn to make it through the bind off. Which I’ve already started.
I do have some long tails on the project from where I had to join the new skein of yarn. I’m not sure that will be enough to make it, but it won’t hurt.
At any rate, it isn’t a terrible crisis, as I plan to make at least one more of these. And I’m developing a Clever Plan to tweak the pattern ever so slightly so that two skeins of the main color will be enough to make another scarf and finish off this one. The contrast color? I have sufficient. (Famous last words, I know, but I can even prove it with math.)
Sigh.
In non knitting related news, yesterday I took all the kids to a funeral mass for a school dad who passed away last week (on the evening of the last day of school, actually) from brain cancer. Ironically, or maybe hopefully, I don’t know, Connor was one of the kids who sang along in a little choir up front.
The dad was 31 years old and leaves behind three little boys for his young widow to take care of. The oldest will be in second grade this fall. There’s a tuition fund started for them at a local bank, and both parents were from local families, but still this is devastating. I spent most of yesterday just being numb about it, and I’m still not sure what I can do to make anything better. I don’t know the family at all, but at a school as small as ours (about 20 kids per grade through 8th grade) I’ll know them eventually — our kids might be dovetailed in ages.
Knitwise, I have the sideways scarf to finish up, as I described earlier. And I’m also working on a 12 inch miter square for Shawn4Equality’s square drive. I’m almost at the halfway point but can’t remember which decrease is better, a k2tog or an ssk. Please, someone let me know which end of the row I should do a k2tog on to make it come out right. (I don’t like my ssk’s.)
I want to get going on a bunch more knitting (can you believe there are three active scarves on the needles after I finish the sideways one? crazy) but we’re hosting a cookout/open-house thang on Father’s Day and apparently the house needs a little attention.
And next Friday it’s my birthday, and I’d kind of like to cast on a little nice thing for myself that I can finish by then. Any suggestions? Geeky projects welcome.
OK folks, it’s time for another guest post. This one is from Shawn4Equality, who I met via Ravelry (natch). He’s Whoish and a Browncoat, and an awesome knitter. He’s gotten involved in a great knitting/crocheting project, and I ended up offering to either pimp my blog for his cause, or pimp him on my blog — I don’t remember which. Below are all the details. Take it away Shawn!
———
I heard through the blogosphere that there’s currently a blanket drive going on for the Double H Camp in Lake Luzerne, New York.
The Double H Camp (founded by Paul Newman) is a camp for kids with cancer and other life threatening diseases. They are requesting handmade blankets for approximately 900 kids this summer (that’s 900 blankets!). Blankets need to be anywhere between 48-60” wide and 60-70” long and they need the blankets by the end of July.
If you can knit or crochet a blanket, they can be sent to: Linda Dunbar, 12 Birch Drive, Latham, New York 12110.
Anyway, why am I writing?
When I saw the request, I immediately wanted to help. However, being a fulltime grad student with two jobs, I just don’t have the time to knit anything that size by the end of July. I went to my charity knitting group– The Amazing Flying Squirrel Karma Team (find us on Rav!), and I said, “I want to do this, but I can’t do it alone.”
I made a request for people to volunteer to knit a 12×12 inch square section of a blanket– either 1 12×12 square, or 4 6×6 squares. Luckily, people started volunteering. Now I’ve got the initial 20 squares I asked for (big enough for the smallest blanket size, IF everyone knits the number of squares they’re promised to knit. But! If I get more squares, the blanket can be bigger… and if I get many more squares, I can do TWO (and how amazing would that be– to have these kids wrapped up in blankets made by so many people who care about them!??!)
Would you like to help? Here’s my request:
You can either sign up to do a 12×12 square, or four 6×6 squares (or more than that– volunteer for two if you have the time).
Note: If you do 4 6×6, they don’t have to be all different, or even seamed together– I plan on mixing and matching them when they get here, if I have a lot that are the same. If you want to seam yours, though, go ahead!
Any stitch pattern or a mitered square would be fine. I would prefer something not too lacy, so use your discretion.
For yarns, I’m being pretty particular. For allergy reasons and for washability reasons, it needs to be acrylic. And since it’s likely that the children at this camp are going to be on chemo, it needs to be soft. I’m suggesting Caron Simply Soft, or Vanna’s Choice. The super-soft version of Red Heart is also okay, but please wash them if you use that yarn — if it gets to me and I feel that it’s not soft, I won’t seam it into the blanket. If it’s scratchy, it won’t do.
Oh, also, if you’re probably asking yourself, “what colour should I knit?” This is the palette I came up with for a starting point:
Chocolatesheep has offered to send volunteers yarn if they don’t have any but still want to help. The only thing is, and this is important, the deadline is VERY final — I have to have all the squares by the 15th of July at the absolute latest! Any later, and I won’t be able to have them seamed and sent in on time. And weaving in your ends would probably be helpful, too
If you’re interested in being a part of this project, please email me at shawnaree at gmail. com or PM me on rav. My user ID is Shawn4Equality and I’ll put your name in a square (I’ve got a chart drawn out to keep track of the 12×12 sections) and let you know where you can send the squares.
Thanks for all your help!
Sorry, due to a huge number of attempted spams, comments have been disabled on this post.
Work is progressing slowly and somewhat steadily on the blanket for Connor’s little brother Logan. As of right now (I need to do more knitting on it tonight) I am almost 65 percent done. It’s 40 inches wide by 36 inches long, and too big to be portable any more.
I am compensating for this by casting on smaller projects to do “in between,” but since I have about two weeks to completely finish and gift this blanket, even my own curious logic fails me this time. There is no between, there is no try. There is only knit in basketweave until I fall asleep, then have a Coke and try to knit some more. If I’m lucky, I quit for the day before I start knitting in my sleep and have to go back.
Nevertheless, I now have finished one lavender slipper sock. Before you yell at me, it’s for my grandmother, and I want her to have this new pair before Easter. Plus, it’s a super quick knit even for me. I could probably do the whole second sock in a long evening, including the seaming.
There’s not much else going on right now. Well, that’s not quite true. I applied for a job at Ravelry, I’m learning how to design and develop web sites, Tommy’s eyes are crossing and I’m trying to arrange an appointment with an optometrist, and we have a relative dying of cancer right now.
But other than that……
Oh yeah, I went past 4000 posts on Ravelry today. So yay me.
Whew! I just finished that weaving-in project I took on from a Ravelry member in Illinois. I took longer to get it done than I had anticipated, and I hope she’s not too inconvenienced.
It’s very impressive, though, and when I took it to the coffee shop yesterday to work on ends it got manhandled by every knitter in the place trying to figure out the pattern.
Here is the front:
And here is the back:
And here is a close-up of the center back:
Whew! 48 ends woven in. And this afternoon I’ll be able to get it to the P.O. and send it back to her. She’s the lucky one who gets to block it. For a couple of minutes there, I thought that was going to be my job. Shudders at thought!
That means I can get back to Logan’s Blanket, and the Noro socks. I finally did cast on for them as toe-ups, but promptly botched the short rows for the toe. Tink, tink, tink, tink…….
Also: to all those concerned, I’m all caught up on Torchwood now.
Okay, okay, I think I get the message. You want me to finish Tyrone.
Right?
That’s fine with me. I even have a Ravfriend in Alaska that promised over a year ago to help me through the decreases. (I’ll be in touch, Birgie.)
Here’s what is currently on the needles and has to come off first.
Number One. Retro Rib Sock #2. I’ve done the cuff and the first pattern repeat on the leg. Just 16 more repeats to churn through before the heel flap. And all that that entails. Since it was my January Sock Club selection and it’s almost March, I’m starting to feel a bit of pressure. We don’t want my gauge to change, do we?
Number Two. Spiral Rib Sock #2. Snuck this one in on you, didn’t I? I started this one last Friday at Knit Night, severely modifying poor Garry Aney’s perfectly fine spiral rib pattern in bulky yarn. If I hadn’t bought self-shredding bamboo dpns to make it with, I would have finished the first sock even sooner than Sunday morning. It’s too bad they won’t fit my husband as I had intended (it was going to be an anniversary present — who knew there was a wool anniversary?!) but they will fit me. And my feet are cold.
Number Three. Norm’s Scarf. This was supposed to be a Christmas present. And it’s really sailing along right now. It’s super easy (every time I say that I have to go back two rows, but so far you can’t tell) and I’m sure it’s more than half done. Norm’s a great guy and deserves this scarf while it’s still cold outside. (If it doesn’t get done until spring, I’ll make his wife a matching scarf in baby blue. You heard it here first.)
Number Four. This is the super important one, more important than either of the socks. It’s a blanket for Logan, Connor’s little brother. The deadline is Easter, and I started it last night. Cast on 171 stitches and knit three rows of the Ann Norling “Baby Blocks Baby Blanket” pattern. It shouldn’t look very babyish in dark blue and bright red!
Number Five. Doctor Who Scarf, Season 16. But it’s just listed here for the sake of the order. If it had to come off the needles before I worked on anything else, it just wouldn’t be fair.
I thought about becoming a monogamous knitter on Logan’s blanket for Lent… but next I thought my brain would explode. We don’t want that because then we would never get the socks done, would we?
So.
Lent, for me, is going to be an attempt at 40 healthy days. Healthier eating, more exercise, better attitude, the whole thing. Take time for myself, be nice to others, the whole bit.
I should really kick it off by mailing out my swap packages tomorrow. Brandy in Texas, the lace kit came in and I’ll send you some goodies, too. Cate in Florida, I didn’t forget your spindle. Claire, I just need to find the right size box for the newspapers. And my secret Rav swap downstream partner — I’ll prep the package today. Jules, I owe you a bunch of goodies but don’t have enough yet. You’re an angel!
Firstly and most importantly, the Connor Caps project was a huge success. In three weeks, knitters and crocheters from around the world contributed 145 hats to help support Connor in his fight with brain cancer.
December 5 was Hat Day at the school, and I had to leave early to get all the hats there. Unfortunately, I was just inside the city limits when I realized I had left one box of fleece hats at home. They had been sent from Hawaii, and represented the largest number of hats sent in by a single person, so I couldn’t leave them out. After a few moments’ panicked thinking, I realized that what I had to do was keep going, let the helpers start stringing up the rest of the hats, hope someone would take care of my two younger boys, and dash back home (ten miles away) for the fleece hats.
It worked out perfectly — the preschool teacher took Big Tom as well as Jack, and by the time I got back to school, all the rest of the hats were clipped to a clothesline that ran the length of the school gym.
The hats weren’t the only thing going on. The school principal kept everything moving through an intensely emotional ceremony. She explained about the Connor Caps project and how it had come together, then let Connor go up and pick out his own hat. Then each class from kindergarten to the eighth grade came up for hats. I made a little movie of part of the “hat sorting” and I’ll try to post it here. The quality is not great, since I made it with my little digital camera, but the emotions are what really show.
After all that was done, it was only 9am, and Jack still had school. It took me a full thirty minutes to convince Big Tom that he needed to come with me, and to convince Jack that he needed to stay at school until I came back for him at the regular time. To help me recover from the emotions of the morning, I went to the nearest quilt-shop-with-a-yarn-room and bought the prettiest and softest yarn I could find. I could only afford three balls, so I hid the rest of the dyelot and told the clerk not to sell the rest to anyone else.
Soft and pretty "reward yarn"
When I got home, there were more hats waiting for me. Even though they didn’t get here in time for the ceremony, they’re still part of the program, and if anyone wants to contribute hats they are still welcome. We came just ten hats short of making one for each kid at school, and I think the staff members would like to have hats too. If you’re interested and able, please contact me for the mailing address.
We have other projects planned for helping and comforting Connor and his family. The details are up at the Connor Caps group on Ravelry, but I can post them here, too.
Next there was a pilgrimage to Sinsinawa Mound. For some reason I had thought this was in the Eau Claire area, since it was described as being 2-3 hours away from Jefferson. Boy was I wrong. We went through some new Wisconsin territory for me, and I took a picture of the Verona exit from 151, just to prove there is something past it (that’s how I get to The Sow’s Ear). At one point our charter bus was stuck behind two Amish men driving their buggy home from Sunday Meeting. When we were at the spiritual center, I read on a flyer that it’s “just a ten minute drive from Dubuque!”
The day at the center was amazing, and there’s no way to adequately describe it all. I could refer you to read what Connor’s mom wrote in his CaringBridge journal — but she says the same thing.
It started snowing and squalling on the way home, and since James and I were in the first seat of the bus, we had an excellent view of how dicey the whole drive was. We were able to watch DVDs on the way out and back, and after the second movie ended, the kids decided to sing Christmas songs the rest of the way home. I can think of much worse road trips with schoolkids!
I found out later that when Connor’s family got home that night, other friends had put up their Christmas decorations for them, and they came home to a beautiful display of sparkling lights. They really are getting support from all quarters.
What comes next? Oh yes, Christmas knitting. I took a couple of projects with me (what? It was going to be as much as six hours on a bus!) but the only one I worked on was the Christmas stocking for my brother. I got a ton of it done, including almost finishing the colorwork section. After that it really picked up speed. It arrived at my parents’ house yesterday, and he doesn’t have it yet, but I can show you a picture. Even with the cuff folded, it came out to 27 inches long.
Ben's stocking
There really wasn’t any other requested knitwear to make for presents, but I did send out an Everlasting Bagstopper (i.e. cotton market bag) and make some dishcloths. In the meantime, I started working on a Season 16 Doctor Who Scarf as part of a mini knitalong. On Ravelry I became acquainted with a woman who finished her Season 12 Scarf as she sat with her dying mother. She was using the same yarn I had used and we both had lots of leftovers, so when she decided to make a Season 16, I started one too. I believe it’s the longest scarf, and I know I’ll run out of yarn at some point, but there’s no deadline. It’s all about community and support.
I also had a meetup at Thanksgiving time, with Christine (“akasha”) from one of my Ravelry groups. We met at a yarn shop (go figure) and I found the perfect tweedy yarn to start collecting for another variant on a Doctor Who Scarf. Talk about no deadline. And then, on Thanksgiving Day, I wore my Scarf all day long. My brother was impressed and eventually asked about it, and the upshot is that I’ll be making a machine washable version for him. Just yesterday I bought the bulk of the yarn I’ll need for it. I want to buy a special circular needle for the project, and I’ll get started after I find it.
I made another pair of the cotton footies in shades of blue, and gave them to James in his stocking. They’re a little big yet — I made the adult size — but at the rate he’s growing they will soon fit.
And after getting heavy snows and bitter cold and brisk wind, I decided to make everyone in the family a new pair of mittens, in wool this time. I started with Big Tom, and made a pair of baby blue mittens in Dalegarn Falk, using the Fittin’ Mittens pattern and adding a green Norwegian snowflake to each mitten. Jack’s are next. He wants an Autobot logo one one side and a Decepticon logo on the other, and on the other mitten he wants….
So, what’s on the needles now?
A Season 16 Doctor Who Scarf. The bamboo socks, newly restarted — transitioning to the toe color on one sock, with the other one watching curiously. Not Jack’s mittens yet, but soon. There are also seven (I think) other WIPs. One is a Secret Holiday Project that didn’t come close to getting done, but the others are familiar (cough Tyrone cough) if you’ve been reading this blog for a while.
Ugh, it’s driving rain right now and it’s melting our snowbanks down so everything will be ice when the temperature dips again. And the sky is thick with fog. Yuck yuck yuck! I’d rather it were cold straight through winter than to have this freeze/thaw/sleet junk, especially when we have most of the day booked for a huge Round Robin family eatfest today. With four little people to get in and out of the cars from house to house, it’s not easy, but we’ll do as much as we can.
We all had a blessed Christmas and I hope you did too! Stay warm and dry…. I’ll be back in a few days to make insanely optimistic New Year’s resolutions. We’ve all got to have a tradition, and that one’s mine.
What happened? Is it time to go? Where are my clothes? What am I taking?
Oh yeah.
I thought we were on track with getting ready for a week away from home, when I saw the 2-3 inches of wet snow on the ground this morning. OK kids, now I’m serious about the mittens and the hats and the scarves. And by the way, pick up a snow shovel on your way out. kthxbai.
There are a couple of knitting projects I really should be working on today, but in reality I’ll be doing dishes and laundry and making lists and packing for the kids. So any knitting will probably be just stress-release knitting. I started a little garter stitch scarf for my daughter that’s perfect in that role — filling the Garter Stitch Void where the Doctor Who Scarf used to be. (I’ll probably start another one after Christmas, if there is anything after Christmas.)
We currently have 20 Connor Caps logged in here at Hat Central. Today’s the last day I’ll be receiving mail before the deadline of next Monday. I’m preparing myself hoping for an onslaught of the remaining 180 hats then, when I go to the post office to pick them up.
If you haven’t emailed me for my address before 2pm tomorrow (Tuesday), just contact Sara (Spitfire) at the email she left in the comments, and she’ll get it to you.
And while I’m gone, try a visit over here. Apparently I have a German twin! When I update my blogroll in 2009 I may well make a separate section for Chocolate Sheep sightings around the world. If you see one, please let me know about it!
Yesterday I purchased a 66 qt. plastic bin, 200 feet of clothesline, and 200 wooden clothespins for transporting the hats to school on Hat Day and displaying them between the basketball hoops. Does anyone know if 200 feet of clothesline is going to be enough?
It’s come to my attention that I haven’t posted a picture here of my Doctor Who Scarf, fully fringed. So here’s one!
I will be offline during Thanksgiving week, so if you will need my mailing address for a hat, please contact me before Tuesday, November 26. After that time you can PM spitfire if you’re on Ravelry, or you will be out of luck.
Please, when you send a hat/postcard/afghan square, include your name and address in or on the package. I want to give credit, and there are prizes at stake. I want to everyone to be eligible to win.
And if you sent me a hat from Cedar Ridge, California, contact me right away so I know who you are!
