One sad Hufflepuff

It is with a heavy heart that I pass along the news that some of my most treasured handknits have expired. Yes, I know there are greater losses. But these knitted items were kind of a benchmark for me in a lot of ways.

First off, I didn’t knit them. They were the first handknits I ever received, from the first knitting swap in which I ever participated. It was the summer of 2007 and Harry Potter mania was in mid-swing. One night I’d probably had half a glass of wine too many, clicked on a link, and Bam! I was in a Harry Potter themed knitting swap. We had fake wizarding names and everything.

I remember the timing because it was when I was starting to knit the Ravenclaw-colored socks for my downstream swap partner, my youngest child was admitted to the hospital and being fed some high-calorie meals around the clock in an effort to pack some pounds on him. I was pretty stressed out and struggling with the double-pointed bamboo needles and actual Sock Weight Yarn, but I was making a game effort of it sitting on the hospital bed until the afternoon I pulled too hard on the wrong needle and yanked it out of about 25 stitches. I knew then it was time to quit without really quitting. I called in a favor to my cyber sister Lauren in Scottsdale, frogged the project, and sent her the yarn so she could make socks for my partner. I did make some beaded stitch markers and get other goodies for my downstream partner, but in the end she barely acknowledged receipt of my packages.

My upstream pal, however, was a whole different story. Jules sent me a pair of striped Hufflepuff socks, a drawstring bag with lotion and goodies, and my favorite type of Ritter brand chocolate — dark chocolate with marzipan. You can relive that happy moment here at my One Happy Hufflepuff post from June 21, 2007.

Jules was also the first long-distance knitter I met in person. We got together once at a cool yarn/fiber shop near Springfield, Ohio, that had, among other things, a claw-foot tub FILLED with yarn. It was on that day that I bought my first package of stitch markers, and a hank of yarn I just KNEW I would make into mittens someday (and I eventually did). It was that first meeting when I told Jules she had the hair of a spinner. Do you believe me now, Jules?

We met up again a couple of years later to visit a yarn store in Dublin, Ohio, and get some Jeni’s Ice Cream while I finished Those Noro Socks.

Many things have changed since then. Tommy put on a few pounds and got discharged from the hospital. I learned to knit socks and even more intricate items. I had meetups with other knitters, created a little knitting get-together we like to call Unwind, and started a local knitting group that’s been meeting for almost three years now. I’ve done another Harry Potter related knitting event, and got re-sorted; I’m no longer classified as a hardworking, loyal Hufflepuff but a brainy, clever Ravenclaw who has gone on to knit herself some nice ‘claw-colored items.

When you knit…. people don’t often give you knitted things. But other knitters know this, and the kindest of them make sure that the handknits keep getting parceled out. I cherished those socks, and this winter I was wearing them to bed when I felt especially cold. One morning a couple of weeks ago I took them off to discover that they had given their all.

I’m sorry, Madame Pomfrey / Jules / Crafty Peach. But they were loved.

Behind schedule

So, based on those poll results, people are more interested in what I’m working on (and putting off) than the projects I actually complete?

Well….. okay. That’s going to work out quite well, actually.

Here’s the WIP list to the best of my recollection. I’ll put in pictures later.

1. Doctor Who Scarf, Season 18, Lion Brand Thick & Quick Chenille. This is well underway, and the only difficulty is that the yarn has been discontinued and the Terracotta and Burgundy colors, which I need several skeins of, each, are tough to find. I have a buttload of Purple in stash.

2. Doctor Who Scarf, Season 12, Caron Simply Soft. I’m making this for a friend and have every color except Brown and Yellow. I just finished the first two stripes. The next two stripes are Brown and Yellow. Time out!

3. Lenten Scarf KAL. This is an interesting project comprised of seven 12-inch squares in a row, making a 7-foot-long scarf. I am halfway through the last square, then need to weave in the ends, block it, and add tassels.

4. Baby blanket. This is the Baby Prayer Blanket pattern, done for a cousin’s baby, due in August. It’s maybe 20 percent done but that may be a generous estimate.

5. Cabled socks. This is the Brigid pattern, and I started this as a January stash knit-down project. Or February. Who’s counting? I am actually at the foot, but suspended work to take on the Lenten KAL with full force. The pattern says to switch to ribbing on the foot instead of continuing the Celtic knot, but I would rather continue the cabling if I could concentrate on the darn thing. Working both socks in parallel.

6. Tilting TARDIS scarf, based on the cowl pattern. This was a KAL timed with the end of the last season of Doctor Who, and we’ve started the new season already. You can imagine the urgency I bring to the project.

7. Cotton blanket: I have knitted 93 of the requisite 225 squares. I have no idea how I’m going to crochet them together. ‘Nuff said?

8. Greenish blue scarf, One-Row Handspun Scarf pattern. Begun on St. Patrick’s day 2010, or maybe 2009. I don’t remember, haven’t touched it in months.

9. A brown hat I’m knitting on the fly for a friend who is also Tommy’s bus driver. Every time she sees me she asks where it is. I last worked on it in December, and now it’s finally spring. Again, urgency.

10. I’m almost ashamed to say I never finished that little Adipose I was making in the summer of 2008? Really? 2008? Good Lord, Tennant was still the Doctor and everything.

There’s probably something else waiting for me to finish it. Are you happy now?

What a couple of weeks!

Wow, I can’t believe I’ve been back home for almost a whole week. It was kind of crazy there for a while, driving to the lower U.P., then “up and over” and down to near-Detroit to stay with a friend on the way to my parents’ house, then a Rav meetup with two previously-met knitting friends, then a meetup in Fort Wayne on the way home.

During the whole trip I only had two knitting projects with me, and I finished one and cranked on the other (despite leaving the lace pattern at home). I felt like such a Knitter.

Here’s the project I finished: Those Noro Socks!

Since then I’ve started and finished a book (“The Wednesday Sisters”) and taken an Aran knitting class at Irish Fest Summer School.

If you’re going to Milwaukee’s Irish Fest on Sunday, leave a comment and I will get back to you — I’d love to meet you there. I will wear my Ravelry button (I’m “chocolatesheep”) so you know who to say Hi to.

More later!

Xtra pictures of the SOMA cube

Well, you did guess that starting a post title with X was going to be tricky, didn’t you? I can’t believe I got this far and nobody commented on it. Almost all the ways through my ABCs, and it’s only mid-July. That degree in English Literature is sure coming in handy!

I got the game pieces assembled, but I need to do a lot of sanding before I can call them done. Right now they’re more like portable splinter dispensers.

The seven SOMA pieces

Now, let’s make a cube.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

You can also place the last piece differently and make this pretty configuration.

The Crystal

And here are all four cubes, assembled. Sanding is next.

Four cubes

Whew! I don’t know when I’ll get to do the sanding. We have seen a couple of yucky bugs and it’s time to give serious attention to de-cluttering the house so we can have it sprayed.

Knitwise I haven’t done anything with the lace scarf in a few days. I guess I got tired of being so good at un-knitting it. But I have added two stripes to the current Doctor Who Scarf, and Fringed the second Pinstripe TenScarf on the 11th.

Next to get attention: Casting on for the second Noro sock, or attacking Tyrone. Maybe with scissors.

Vultures!

I’m getting really tired of this. Poor Farrah Fawcett, can we let her rest in peace?

Quite some time ago I wrote a post that included a head shot of Ms. Fawcett with that famous hair, which all of us “of a certain age” were trying to re-create on our own heads many years ago.

The post has taken on a life of its own, and most of the people who find my blog via search terms have been using phrases like “Farrah Fawcett” but most often “fara faucet” or some even more misspelled variation. Every time poor Farrah’s cancer flared up in the last two years, I’d get a spike of hits. (That post is responsible for 10 percent of the total hits on my blog. I Am Not Making This Up.)

So. I was away around the time of my birthday, and didn’t have access to wifi. When I got back I noticed this tremendous spike of views on and just before my birthday. In fact, June 25 set a new one-day record, topping the day I wrote about the Blue Moon Fiber Arts sock club debacle. Wow, I thought, did people really come by to say Happy Birthday in those kind of numbers?

Nope. Farrah Fawcett died of cancer and my blog must have hopped to the top of the search-engine list.

Sorry folks, nothing to see here. Just one thumbnail headshot of Farrah from the 1970s, a few chocolate bars, and a lot of procrastinated knitting. You vultures can move along.

But you yarnies can stay! I’m making a lace scarf, and finishing socks, and all kinds of exciting things.

Here’s the first clown Noro sock. I haven’t cast on for the second one yet.

Currently I’m working on the lace scarf (the pattern is called “Moon River” but my project is named “Fire River” because of the yarn colorway) and fixing Tyrone and wishing Tyrone were already fixed. I did finish a second Pinstripe TenScarf, but haven’t added any fringe yet. (And holy moley, I got a Rav PM from the pattern designer saying she hadn’t had time to fringe the one she made since it was for a gift, but she liked the fringe I put on mine. Wowzers!)

This one’s a giftknit, and I want to get another one on the needles ASAP for another Whovian friend. Who knows, I may start cranking these out like some people make touques. I’m not naming any names.

Unclear

Whew. I can’t believe it’s so far into July already. The first session of summer school is almost over, and lots of travel lies ahead this month before the Big Trip back to Ohio in August.

But some things are unclear. The first such thing is what’s up with Tyrone. I really did make a frontal assault at the poor stalled thing last Friday. I wove in all the ends I could, and it’s obvious that I got it on more needles than the one. If I recall correctly (and it’s quite possible that my recollections might be hazy) it’s on two 24-inch circular needles and two dpns. It didn’t seem to alleviate the stitch crowding, and it didn’t make my next step terribly clear. I want to get some thinking time in on it before I press forward. But I think I just need to do “whatever” to accomplish the raglan decreases.

I was never so happy to switch to sock knitting as I was last Friday night at 9pm! So I picked up Those Noro Socks and forged ahead. I’m on the foot now, so it’s no sweat. I worked on it late Friday night, some on the weekend, and even tried it on last night. At which point Mr. Beth said, “That looks like a clown sock” and described to me the hand-knitted sock he was visualizing all this time. It, um, doesn’t look at all like the sock that’s on the needles right now.

I could frog the whole sock if this yarn were the last skein of it in all the world, or I could finish this sock and make its mate. Hey, let’s vote!

No prizes today. Just share your wisdom.

Pretending to write

Don’t tell anyone, but there’s nothing to see here today. That’s right, move along, just move along folks.

Well.

There are actually a couple of reasons to make a blog post. The first Good Reason is that I’ve finished three items since the last blog post. You would think that finishing three items would yield more than two liberated needles, but that’s technically correct (the sock was on scrap yarn while I waited for more project yarn to come in).

I finished the Clayton Prayer Shawl and got all the fringe on. If I did my math correctly, there are 60 yards of yarn for just fringe. I took it to Late Night Knitting and had my friend Dale-Harriet model it in a test fit, since she’s about Elfriede’s size. She said it fit perfectly and she was keeping it, and I’ll admit I had the tiniest clench in my chest as I tried to think of what yarn I had enough of in order to make another one of these. But she did give it back.

Then I sat down at Late Night and cranked out the rest of a Windmill Dishcloth. The ladies in the B. G. R. wouldn’t let me present it as finished to the rest of the store until I had seamed it up and woven in my ends. I got it up to the front of the store at 10:01pm, too late to ring the “FO” bell. Rats. But I started it Tuesday, finished it Friday. No complaints and I will make many more.

Then I sat back down and pulled out the Spiral Rib Anniversary socks. These were the socks I started months ago in February in Universal Deluxe Chunky Tweed, a yarn so staggeringly popular that I had to list it as a different yarn in my Rav projects because it wasn’t in the database then. (It is now, and I got to contribute a nice picture of it! Woo hoo! I have now had sixteen minutes of fame) I took a look at the pattern, realized I had not noted any of my pattern changes on the actual pattern, shrugged, put it back on the needles, and carried on for two pattern repeats. Then it was almost 11pm, so I packed up, drove an hour to get home, pulled it out again, and did two more repeats and the toe, seamed them up, and wore them to bed. I finished at a little after 1:30am. (Oh crap. As I write this, that’s still TODAY.)

I spent most of today overhauling the tiny little space in front of the master bedroom closets. It was starting to look like a Grade A Packrat had taken up residence there. You know, the old lady with the stacks of magazines and the boxes she’s planning to reuse and all the detritus of the Hoarding Life? It’s the kind of reorganizing project you can never impress anyone with, because you never have the guts to take a “before” picture. You would just be so ashamed.

It looks much better now, and could actually be used for Knitting Things. And you can open the curtain and the window and close them again and stuff. I still have various items scattered all over the bed which I will have to get cleared off before midnight, but that’s OK. Small stuff.

The second reason for writing a blog post tonight is to have written one. I want to post more frequently, but the only way to do that is to sit down and do it. Sometimes you don’t think you have anything worth recording, but you have to sit down anyway, start typing, and see what happens. Sometimes the words come alive under your fingertips and all you have to do is try to keep up. Sometimes it’s just crap and stays crap. But if you’re not at the keyboard, you don’t know which one it will be. The words won’t have a chance at all, and they’ll likely creak with rust the next time you try to let them out.

Anyway. Three projects finished, photographed, and added to the FO page for the year. Two circs liberated. One package of dpn’s briefly brought out, then returned to storage. Mark your score cards accurately because I won’t be repeating myself.

Current projects: Season 12 Doctor Who scarf (just started), Season 16 Doctor Who scarf (half done), double-knitted scarf. I probably won’t even pick up Retro Rib until July (WIP month). But I’m on the verge of casting on for a lace scarf/stole, and another Sideways Ten Pinstripe scarf for some lucky Whovian friend. Good God, what is it with the scarves? My Rav Projects page is full of them, and it doesn’t have all of them, and it’s not like I jump for joy and do backflips when I’m making scarves. (I’m more or less thinking OH JOY. ANOTHER FREAKING SCARF.) But I sure have made a ton of them.

I might have to break up the scarficity with some charity squares — Shawn of the Comments (Shawn4Equality on Rav) is helping coordinate some 12 inch squares for an Admirable Effort. He should really give the details himself; maybe I can persuade him to write a guest post. I haven’t had one of those in a while.

While I was sitting here pretending to write, I wrote over 900 words. Now I’m off to Rav to talk Shawn into writing some. Be back soon!

P.S. Keep voting on the WIP poll, or encourage a friend to help you stuff the ballot box. I think you only get one vote each but who cares. I’ll look at it at the end of June to see what’s in the lead, and that’s the project I will dedicate myself to after Tyrone has been finished.

P.P.S. Hey, that’s almost 1000 words! I wonder how many I’ll need to type before I get to that magical glorious round number that will look so impressive on my stats page. Does WordPress count how many words I’ve typed? Ye gods!

Logan and his blanket

 

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.

Karma enhanced

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.

I can’t believe I’m going….

So, like, there’s like, this spinning retreat, like, starting tomorrow — and I get to go!

Well, not to the whole thing, but something like two-thirds of it plus a little slice of Friday. It’s the Judith MacKenzie McCuin-led retreat held through Susan’s Fiber Shop. Getting there has been an interesting journey, what with date changes and roommate arrangements and hotel reservations — but it starts tomorrow.

On the one hand, the original plan was going to be *awesome* with all the things that a friend and I had schemed up. Nothing can replace the weekend that I had, briefly, in my imagination. But this one should be pretty good too, even though I’ll miss everything that happens in the daytime Friday session.

The best part of getting ready for it (have I packed a single thing? NO) has been clearing the spinning equipment so I can start fresh this weekend with spinning every freaking thing in my stash, with intelligence and intention. This week I made two new Wookie skeins totaling almost 200 yards of 2-ply, I updated my spinning records as much as I could without Actual Research, and I made little labels for the jars I keep my handspun in.

(No, I haven’t knitted a single stitch on any of my handspun. There are many reasons for this. But I do have a project in mind for my Wookie-wool once it’s all spun up. Right now I have about 25 percent of what I need. Wait and see….maybe by 2011.)

So. I emptied my bobbins, I reglued most of my bobbins, I printed out directions to the “field trip” portion of Friday…. 

Yup. Going to yarn camp, and I couldn’t be happier.

Wait till the kids find out.

Knitwise I’ve been a bit of a slug. I started working on the second Retro Rib Sock again, figuring if I did one pattern repeat a day I would eventually finish the sock and could get on with my life. That plan worked about as well as most of my plans do, but this time I’m going to climb right back on the wagon and keep trying to work it.

I got caught up on Logan’s Blanket tonight, too. It’s pretty easy to work twelve rows on that blanket — you just have to turn your back on teh drama of Ravelry and actually sit down to knit.

So. Let me know if you’d like me to blog from mid-retreat on Saturday night, and I’ll take the computer along with my collection of two-hundred year-old technology. Hey, maybe I’ll even take the camera!