knitabit

Knit a wee little bit

My life is interfering with my knitting. Grrr... Yesterday, I was on the go from 6:30 a.m. until after 8:30 p.m. And most of the time I was multi-tasking (supervising my daughter's violin practice while also folding laundry, etc.) I'm sure there are lots of moms out there going "sheesh, what's the big deal?" Well, I seem to need a good dose quiet and solitude (relative to most people) every day and yesterday, I just didn't get any. And today wasn't much better.

And I also am really hating the baby sweater. I think I've moved way beyond just plain stockinette stitch and I'm bored to tears. Will the monotony ever end? And why am I making so many mistakes? I sneak a few rounds on the sock every now and then just for interest's sake.

This is the last week of the heavy-duty sports practice schedule. And there's cold and snow coming for the weekend. That will cheer me up, believe it or not!

I got the new "Customer Manager" software to interface with QuickBooks at work, and it looks like I can finally quit entering all of our membership information twice. I will enjoy installing and tinkering with it tomorrow at work.

No a-count socks

I use some techniques for knitting socks on circular needles that I have not seen anywhere on the web, so I thought it might be nice to share them with you.

I learned this from a free sock pattern given to me by the owner of DJ's Fibercrafts in Florence, Colorado (a really cute yarn shop.) I think the pattern was called 'Mother MacKenzie's Miracle Sock' or something like that. You knit the leg of the sock in the normal way (on circular needles.)

For turning the heel, place a stitch marker in the center of the heel, and then do your short-rowing by first going two stitches past the center (knit one row, purl one row) then three stitches past the center (knit one row, purl one row) etc., until you run out of stitches. If you lose count, you can always judge where to decrease by noting the location of the 'gap' left from the previous row. (I have seen this 'gap' trick noted in some of the instructions in 'Knitting on the Road.')

When you're ready to start the gusset, you shift your stitches on the needles so that the sock is divided from side to side - that is, you have half of the instep and half of the heel on each needle.

Then, you place stitch markers to separate the instep stitches from the heel stitches. And you know where to do your gusset decreases (three stitches away from the marker - on the heel side of the needle) without having to do any counting. After you're done with the gusset, shift the stitches again so that the instep is on one needle and the heel is on the other. Then when it's time to do the toe, you do your decreases three stitches from the ends of both needles.

I knit my first pair of (completed) socks this way. Now when I read sock patterns, I see all these complicated counting algorithms that I completely ignore, because I need only pay attention to my stitch markers! A lot of this is probably intuitively obvious to those who knit socks on circular needles; I went temporarily insane trying to learn how to knit socks on dpn's, and the "Socks Soar on Circular Needles" book and this "Mother MacKenzie" sock pattern were real life-savers for me.

I know the above explanation is sad and pathetic so drop me a line if you need a better explanation. Or better yet, contact DJ's and ask for a copy of the sock pattern. I see that their website is still under construction, so pardon their dust.

You can see my stitch marker just to the left of the gusset decreases.

WIP Update

Let's have a look at the various works-in-progress:

This is the baby sweater I'm making from Dale 'Baby Ull.' This has been a frustrating sweater so far, though no fault of the yarn or the pattern. I keep finding little errors that require ripping back three or four rows. I've done this at least three times. This is not typical for me... Perhaps it's because I'm feeling a bit rushed, what with the baby due very soon. But I'm making it for a size 9-months, so it's not like I need to drop it in the mail the minute I get the announcement.

This is Lochinver; it's on hold while I work on the baby sweater. I'm at the point on the first sleeve where I need to switch to dpn's, and at the yarn store last week I forgot to pick up a set of size 5's.

These are the grey Regia's that I'm making for my husband. I'm down to the heel flap on the first one. This is my take-along project, so I do make some progress on it away from home (soccer games, etc.)

Finally, here are the Koigu socks, and I ran out of yarn with less than an inch to go on the second toe. My local yarn store no longer carries this particular color, so I need to surf the web to find the elusive third skein.

Today, I'm going to set aside my knitting and do some badly needed housework, filing, de-cluttering, etc. My pile of knitting crap has nearly overtaken a corner of the family room. My husband's too nice to comment but I can see the look on his face.

Drop everything!

I was at work at about 1:30 this afternoon when it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't want to be there and wanted to go yarn shopping instead. So that's what I did! I love having a job where you get to set your own hours!

Our friends' baby is not due three months from now but rather three WEEKS from now, so I've got to get hopping. They live in Oregon and we only see them once or twice a year, and gee, all of the sudden the baby's almost due. The fastest pregnancy is the one that's not yours!

So I bought the Dale book of baby patterns. What a rip (I spent more than the price advertised on most web sites - didn't realize that until just now, dammit!) What a great book of patterns! I justified it as an investment - "these patterns are timeless!" I told the clerk. Bought some Dale Baby Ull in a robin's-egg-blue kind of color (somewhat unisex - baby's gender is either unknown or secret.) And then I bought some little buttons for the cardigan that is now in progress. Way cute!

So Lochinver and the Regia sock will be ignored for the next couple of weeks.

Oh - and as I was channel surfing and knitting simultaneously this evening, I came across the Cubs game and thought "gosh, it will be fun to see the crowd go crazy when they win." Within 5 minutes, the Marlins scored 8 runs. And who's the bigger heel - the kid that caught the foul ball, or the shortstop who bobbled that easy out? I'm thinking that dream series match-up is toast.

Blog toy added

After patiently waiting for more than a couple of weeks, www.blogrolling.com is back up and running so I've added the "blogabit" feature at lower left.

I'm not quite halfway through adding my regular list of blogs to the site (I'm reading them as I go.)

In knitting news, I'm about 2" into my husband's Regia sock, and am about halfway down the first sleeve on Lochinver. I need to switch to DPN's to finish the rest, and I don't have a set of size 5's. Will hit Hobby Lobby while I'm out running the kids around (it's the only place in town to get knitting supplies, so give me a break!)

Yarn shop adventures

No photos today, just too dang tired.

Yesterday, I trekked over to Boulder with my list in hand: a third skein of Koigu KPPPM; the Fall 2002 edition of VK (for the Koigu pullover pattern); some Brown Sheep Nature Spun worsted for the Master Knitter swatches; and a 32" Size 4 circular needle.

They didn't have the VK. They were all out of the Koigu in the color that I needed. They did not carry Nature Spun in worsted, only in sport weight. So I didn't buy the circular needles, either (actually, I ran out of time and had to go pick up some kids.)

I had a business trip out to Sterling today, so that was an opportunity to visit a rather famous yarn shop there - Fiberspace. They are famous for their felted fish in the "Knitter's Stash" book. What a totally adorable shop. (Turns out that her dad was on the Board of Directors at the conservancy district meeting I had just attended. Not too surprising in a small town...) Sterling is out on the eastern plains of Colorado - not exactly an economic hot spot. The shop is located in the downtown area. She stocks a lot of natural fiber yarns in there, but also has a few acrylics for the hobby knitters. A great selection of books - got to glance through "Poetry in Stitches" and some other Norwegian-type books.

So here's the haul: "Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques" or whatever it's called (by Wiseman, maybe? I'm too pooped to go upstairs and look at it); another book about Swedish design and patterns (I'm 3/4ths Swedish, so it really caught my eye); 4 skeins of Nature Spun worsted in Aran; 32" Size 4 Addi Turbo circular needle; and the Knitkit "Little Companion" pattern.

This shop is every bit as cute as DJ's Fibercrafts in Florence (a small town west of Pueblo - famous for "Supermax," the prison that houses the Unibomber and other assorted terrorists domestic and foreign.) DJ's website looks like it's still under construction - it had just a placeholder for the longest time; I check every once in a while to see their progress in developing an online presence. I decided it felt really good to drop some money into the Sterling local economy as opposed to Boulder or Fort Collins.

I guess I'll have to contact Vogue directly to get that back issue, or at least get a copy of the pattern. And I'll start trolling the net for that Koigu color - the sock would still be cute with a contrasted toe, I'm just not ready to give up on finding the match.

Lochinver update: picked up the stitches for the first sleeve, and am 2 rows away from finishing the gusset.

Knitting on the road

Lochinver had to sit in the basket this weekend - I took off Friday morning for a tour of a bunch of ditch systems in Utah. You can read about it in my work blog.

It was a big car trip - and we know that means socks, boys and girls. My first Koigu sock consumed about 1.01 skeins of KPPPM yarn. Had I known that, I would have made it one-half inch shorter. So on my second sock, I ran out of yarn with fewer than 20 more toe rows to go. So I will go buy a third skein of yarn, and is that really so bad? Maybe I will buy TWO and make another pair of socks, each 1.0 inches shorter than these. And besides, it's an excuse to go to the yarn store!

Now on the sock needles: a pair of grey Regia socks for my husband.

Major milestone

I completed the body of the Lochinver sweater:

The shoulder straps are grafted (using Kitchener stitch) to the back yoke. This picture doesn't show the grafted stitches, but they look very nice (if I do say so myself.) Grafting is the one finishing technique that I can do well.

Some quick math on the armhole suggests that I will need to pick up 3 stitches every 4 rows. I'll have to re-check my numbers tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

Brief Update

No pic's today - am having a WAY busy week with work stuff. In the evenings, I prefer knitting as opposed to blogging about knitting.

Anyhoo, I'm within one pattern repeat of the top of the back yoke on Lochinver; should be pictureworthy by tomorrow. I'm within an inch of the heel flap on the second Koigu sock.

I got my packet of information on the Level 1 Master's Knitting Program and I already understand all of the concepts involved; let's just hope my swatching is up to par. I'm going to order some Brown Sheep Nature Spun for my swatches.