march wrap-up

Stash yarn used during March:

-One skein of Morehouse Bulky* (cabled hat)
-Two skeins of Silver Moon sock yarn
-Four skeins of Oak Ridge silk/merino (Clapotis)

I'm really happy that I finally put this Oak Ridge into use. It's been in the stash since the fall of 2004. It's practically an antique. This using up stash thing is fun!

*This was one huge skein of yarn, and freed up a lot of space in my plastic storage box. It also seems like I knit that hat a decade or so ago...

baby invasion 2007

During a long-ish meeting at work the other day, I started making a list of the babies that will be arriving soon, and need some gifties. Much like last year, I should really get working.

Baby MW: co-worker of Hubby's, and I think that they would like a set of jester boots that were available on Interweave's website. Since they are felted wool, I've got a while before they need to be done. You can't subject a baby to wool in a NY summer.
Baby KB: another co-worker of Hubby's, and I'm thinking that booties in some of my stashed Louisa Harding Kimono Angora will work well.
Baby KE: friends that are getting the solid/stripy Cotton-Ease blanket. That's well in hand.
Baby AG: former co-worker of mine. I think that I want to use the Totoro hat from Hello Yarn for this gift. It's just so cute, and I think that they will really appreciate the Miyazaki reference. (Oh! And just born yesterday, I found out.)
Baby TP: kinda distant relatives of mine. Lots of options here! Any suggestions?

finished socks! (again)

My version of Nancy Bush's Rib and Cable Socks from Interweave Knits Fall 2005. (I'm not feeling well, so I'm home, and yes those are my pjs in the picture.)

The legs look a little short here, but I think that they are a great height. I love the stretch of this yarn, and the nearly solid color really appeals to me right now.

So what's next? Roza's Socks by Grumperina from Interweave Knits Spring 2007, and knit in a real solid: Knit Picks' Gloss in Burgundy (just like my favorite wine!).

most boring knitting ever

And I am completely in love with it. Yes, I'm knitting a big stockinette rectangle in Cotton-Ease.* It's the best. I only have to think for 4 stitches out of 128 (switching to knit on the last 4 stitches of the wrong side to maintain the garter border). But all that discontinued Pistachio is a touch dull, right? Especially for a Manhattan baby with very hip parents?

Have no fear: it's going to turn into something like this blankie on the left. I think that I'm going to be more free-form on the stripes, for two reasons:
a) I don't like counting.
b) I like the funkiness of random stripes(very Gee's Bend, don'tcha know?).
Since this is my at-home project, I thought that I would start with a new color whenever I sat down. If I only got four rows in, then that would be a nice skinny stripe. If I could watch a whole movie, then we'd have a big chunk of color.

I've got two blues, yellow, and orange for the stripes... and I think that I'm going to order some of the new Violet Cotton-Ease to finish it off. It needs a warm color for some balance.

*I have an enormous stash of Cotton-Ease. I was hoping that this baby blanket would use up a good bit of it, but this rectangle is one skein, and it measures 14" by 20". Smiley's always has it for at their Yarn Riot for $6 per 3 ball bag. How could I not take as much as I could carry?

clapotis fini!

For all of you wondering souls, here's my finished Clapotis, taken out for a spin at the New York Botanical Gardens this afternoon. I love it. It's soft and warm, and there's only two little bits of color pooling, which I can totally live with. I got to use a pattern that I've been holding and yarn that has been marinating since 2004. While it won't serve the original purpose of wedding shawl, I'm really happy with how it turned out. A woman complimented me on it while we were in the Orchid Show. I was pleased as punch.

What was I doing out when there's so much school work to be done? I had a little breakdown/panic attack this morning, and declared myself unfit to write. My equilibrium restored, I'm going to read for a while... which should segue very nicely into a much-needed nap. And hey: spring is here!

knitters represent, part two

That's not the Harlot herself up there, but the publisher who introduced her. I wouldn't have wanted to be distracted when she was speaking! I can't wait to hear what the actual numbers were, but the 750-seat auditorium was pretty nearly full. I would guess that 600-650 knitters were present.

And how did I know that everyone there was a knitter? First, a quick scan of the seats showed that everyone's fingers were getting busy. Second... there wasn't much applause. That's not to say that everyone wasn't completely engaged in the talk, but no one really wanted to put down their needles to clap for five seconds. It's really wasting time, you know?

The Craft Yarn Council swag was very nice, indeed: Patons SWS and Boye needles in fabulous fun colors. I didn't make the square that was mentioned, because I'm quite enamoured of my second rib and cable sock. (I got so much done that I'm ready to do the heel now! The pair could finish in April!) The book (they had enough people so as to out of autographed copies) is very entertaining, as expected. Bohus was beautiful, albeit blurry from where I was sitting. Joe's surprise appearance was fantastic. And a marvelous time was had by all!

(I'll try to record some of my highlights from Stephanie's talk this weekend, but I'm fried right now.)

knitters represent

The scene from Strawberry Fields in Central Park at noon:

Many people were confused, but even more were standing around knitting. Thankfully it was warm enough today for people to be outside and knit. I got to meet the Yarn Harlot! And she said that she loved my scarf. I nearly swooned.

But I also got to connect with a fellow alum from college. She's on Broadway! Congrats Cristin! And from D., too.

clapotis update

It's really close to being done, so I didn't want to display Clapotis in its full glory yet. But it's a very addicting knit. I am a bit concerned about the length, but I'm not ripping the entire thing either, so I'll make do with what I've got. Scarves always stretch, right? In any case, I think that this won't be the wedding shawl for 2007. It went so fast that I should have time to work up the Shetland Triangle before June 9. Fingers crossed...

How's that Masters' thesis project going, you ask? Shush, say I.

grimace

The first rib and cable sock is finished! I even grafted the toe together tonight, to make the picture extra special! And so it's an actually completed sock. I believe that I pledged not to do sock-in-progress pictures, so a gaping toe just wouldn't do. I haven't followed the Nancy Bush pattern; I could not, for the life of me, figure out the heel instructions, and the toe looked odd in the pattern, so I've substituted a short row heel and wedge toe.

I've enjoyed the cabling without a cable needle very much. So zippy! So ideal for train knitting! I can race myself to finish an entire repeat on each train trip, because the counting is very simple. Daylight savings time means that it's still a tiny bit light when I get home, but I can't capture it... so crappy pictures will have to do. There will be a better photo shoot when there's a pair.

my yarn from nepal

Here it is, in all its wild-colored glory. I pulled the multi-colored yarn out of the bag first*, and got to happily oooh and aaah over it. When I grabbed the pink skein, I was confused at first, because who knew that novelty yarn was so big that it traveled to Nepal? So, the question is: what in the heck do I make with these? The kitchen scale says that the multi-colored is 181 grams, and the pink in 188 grams. There were no tags to give a yardage clue, but I do know that it is silk. And very heavy silk. I'd guess that size 7 needles will work for both, but the multi is thicker, and could probably go with a size or two larger.

So is it beret time?

I hear that my friends were very focused on their yarn-shopping mission. When they returned to the hotel, the rest of the group asked where they disappeared to so suddenly on their first free moments. They answered that it was a yarn mission, and a colleague (who works in the Paris office), begged them to take her to the shop the next day. Should I ever meet this woman, I have a conversation starter!

*Am I weird in that I keep very ordinary plastic bags from other countries? I can't imagine throwing out the little bag, because it came from Nepal, but I swear that it's the same thing as they use at the corner fruit stand. The glories of globalization, I guess.

monday listage

(Spoiler alert for the Amazing Race below.)

-It's really lovely outside. Central Park (pictured above) doesn't have any green yet, but there were tons of people enjoying the warm weather.

-My friends got back from Nepal, and brought me some crazy silk yarn. I'll take pictures tonight with a real camera for tomorrow.

-It's Spring Break this week. It's likely my last Spring Break ever. For my first Spring Break in a really long time, Claire and I went to New Orleans. I've been glad we made that trip pre-Katrina, because the experience of driving through the residential neighborhoods on the way to the airport (just like every other tourist) made the devastation much more real. I'm going back to NO for a conference in May.

-During our dinner with E. on Saturday night, I learned that I don't complain about school and schoolwork very much. I complain in my head all the time, so with less than two months to go, I'm going to start vocalizing those feelings more.

-After visiting with my friends and one-year-old, just-walking-this-week buddy in Cobble Hill, we went over to the Brooklyn General Store. Very interesting shop, they sell Morehouse Merino (!), and had the Addi Turbo needle I wanted. Friendly people, too! A big thumbs up. No yarn purchases, though, because I can't call a trip to Brooklyn a vacation.

-While Rob and Amber were in the process of getting kicked off the Amazing Race last night, he said something about hating to be a loser. I was engrossed in Clapotis, and belatedly commented that as a Red Sox fan, he must be accustomed to losing. Hubby's response: "I wondered when you were going to make a crack about that."

breaking news

While this will be interesting only to me, really, it's very important in my narrow world-view. The Supreme Court of New York just decided that the renovation of Washington Square Park can move forward. I really don't care about the renovation itself, but this means that, in all likelihood, my commencement ceremony (the university-wide one) will be held in YANKEE STADIUM in May. I can hardly contain my glee.

I really hope there will be beer, peanuts, and hot dogs sold during the ceremony. How great would it be to have the speakers interrupted by continual calls of "Bee-yuh hee-yuh!"

(Post #200: whoa.)

a clapotis grows...

Here's the start of my Clapotis! Thanks to Kristie's instructions on how to do a smaller Clap, it seems that doing the rows 1-6 at the end of section 2 are really important. They are specifically included in the mini version, so they must be vital in a way that I can't yet see. Therefore, I'll do them.

The yarn is from Oak Ridge Yarns in Putney, VT. I found it at Rhinebeck some years ago. I originally bought it for a scarf pattern they displayed, but then decided it was too highly variegated for my taste in that design. After I saw the Clapotis pattern, I thought that the two were meant for each other. In the summer of 2005 we were going to be passing through Putney during vacation, so I called to see if I could swing by and buy two more skeins. Oak Ridge was going to be away, so I got two more skeins mailed to me.

Once, when I was at the Point NYC in the Village, I heard some knitters talking about how to modify the pattern for different yarns. Someone recommended splitting your yarn into four lots: one for increasing, two for length, one for decreasing. It looks like that will work out perfectly for me. I should be able to eek out the last six increase rows from the first skein. The only question that remains is the consistency of yardage in small-producer yarns. I've not had great experiences in the past, but might pull out the digital kitchen scale tonight to weigh and see what I've got.

All in all, a very fun pattern, and certainly will be finished for the June 9 wedding! Why didn't I do this earlier?

random thoughts wednesday

A random collection of thoughts from the past week:

a) I celebrated my seven-year anniversary at my job. That's a long time.
b) The cash registers at Starbucks was broken this morning, so I got breakfast for free.
c) The really poor performance of The Black Donnalleys on NBC may be the only thing that brings back Studio 60.
d) I am so, so ready to be done with school.
e) Two colleagues/friends are in Nepal this week. They've promised to buy me yarn in between meetings. I can't wait to see what they bring back. They aren't fiber people, but both happily wear gifts I've made for them.
f) Hubby made a drink with the clove-scented bourbon, and it was very tasty. Made with apple juice and seltzer.

I knit another hat for myself last weekend (what is that, three so far this year?). Picture below, but since it's black, it's going to be hard to photograph. And I've also started the heel of the rib and cable sock, and my Clapotis.