one down, one to go

awkward foot angle, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

ah, that awkward angle that comes of photographing one's own foot...

So with one vote for "yes, wip posts" and another for "do it the way you like", here we are. 50% of a project, but 100% of a sock!

The fun thing about these socks ( paraphernalia on ravelry) is that they're asymmetrical. This one, for the left foot, has the cable running down the left side, whereas the right sock will have the cable on the other side. It's the little things.

So, with just six days left in the month, I have cast on for the second sock. I'm heading north on a long train ride this weekend for a wedding, so I should have plenty of time to finish in time. Also ending May 31: the sign-ups for the next International Sock Swap!! It's lots of fun, and you could get goodies from all over the world!

WIPs

50% of a blanket, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

or, How to Bore your Readers 101

I find that I post more when I have actual finished objects to share, rather than progress reports on WIPs. I feel like 20 posts on the same blanket/sweater/whatever gets ridiculous and tedious... but right now I'm looking around and not seeing a lot that's going to finish itself any time soon, so here we are!

Above is 50% of the wedding blanket that is now becoming longer and longer over-due. But 50%! That's something, right? It's just becoming too big to carry around, not to mention too hot out to knit it anywhere but the air-conditioned comfort of my own living room.

Also on the long-term docket:



May's installment for the (less-than-successful thus far) Self-Imposed-Accessory-Club. Sure, I have something to show for each month, but except for the first month (and that was a squeaker) nothing has been finished technically on time. With any luck (and a long train trip next weekend) I might finish these on time. But yes, that is only the first one...

So what do you all think? More posts with the potential for repetitiveness? Or fewer posts, only when I have something really interesting to share? I don't want to lose the few-but-darling readers I have to a lack of posting, but I also don't want to bore them to death (or at least unsubscribing) either.

the great ratsby

ratsby, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Sometimes, grad school isn't all books and complexity theory... sometimes, you make really great friends, too.

And, since I've been at this whole PhD thing for a while now (five. years.), sometimes those friends have to move on.

So, one of my very good friends here threw a "gatsby" themed party to say good bye. (Only she called it the Ratsby, in honor of the vermin that overpopulate this place.) We all dressed up and I made myself a fascinator. Sadly, we couldn't get very good photos, and I can't show you how very awesome the button is (it has an enamel design of a peacock on it). Here's another poorly lit shot for good measure:



A great time was had by all, and everyone loved my headpiece... although I have to say, these things are kind of delicate. I would have to replace at least one of the peacock feathers should I wish to wear it again.

I was inspired by Notorious, which has been removed. I basically just knit a circle, folded the edges over and hemed it so it wouldn't roll too much and sewed on the decorations.

late, for a very important date

alice's socks, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Ok, these socks weren't for late for anything in particular, they just took an awful long time.I started them Jan 5, according to ravelry, but got side tracked by other projects, writing 2 chapters (just handed in the second yesterday!) and, you know, getting married. So there was stuff. But, finally here they are! This post is also later than expected, as it appears that blogger was having some issues earlier and ate my original post.

In any case, they're done now, I'm not in love with the pooling (which is probably why they were cast aside in favor of other, prettier projects) but I do like the pattern and with the right yarn I think it would be just great.

Stay tuned tomorrow... ok, more likely Sunday, to watch for a little project I'm whipping up for a Gatsby themed party!

may flowers

may flowers, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

So I didn't get anything done for April, although if I had put my mind, and fingers, to it, I definitely could have finished this before May 1st. I cast on about half the stitches on April 28, got distracted and forgot about it for a few days. Once I got working on it, though, it took a matter of hours to complete—OK, so I haven't woven the ends in yet, but just ignore those, please.

Pattern is Reverse Rice Stitch Cowl
Yarn is Mirasol Tupa, less than one skein (in fact, I can tell you that it took exactly .8 of a skein, since I got a fancy new kitchen scale and can do some (read: very little) simple math)
Needles: Size 7 US
Mods: None

April Showers...

So I have nothing to show you for the month of April. Sad, right? I was working on the Accidental Girly Mitts as my Self-Imposed-Accessory-Club entry, but I just wasn't loving them. They were too big, even though I went down 2 needles sizes, and I was going to have to finagle something to make them smaller at the wrist... so I just decided it wasn't worth it. So I frogged, and started casting on with the same yarn to make a Reverse Rice Stitch Cowl but didn't even get the cast-on finished. So.... that's that.

BUT!! It's May 1, which means that the sign ups for the next International Sock Swap are now open! And it's our one year anniversary! It's a great group, and a lot of fun... and low pressure: the packages don't have to be mailed until Aug 31!! You have the month of May to think about it, but if you have wanted to in the past, I would highly recommend it!

while I was away

pretty girly, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Remember when I had no idea how much yarn to pack? Apparently that was a non-issue. I didn't even touch the blanket, although I did finish the socks... and started on the April Self-Imposed-Accessory-Club: the Accidental Girly Mitts.

Oh, and got married:



So, you know, I guess it's understandable that I didn't find much knitting time!

socks: wedding edition

socks: wedding edition, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Just under the wire, but the socks that the boy wants to wear on our big day are done! If you look at the original picture of the first sock you might notice that it doesn't really look quite like either of these final ones. It is the sock on the right in this picture, but I had to cannibalize a bit from the cuff in order to make them the same length.

Originally I had thought that the yarn had the same colour-repeats from both ends of the skein, but it turns out the inside had less green to start with (check out the toes). So in the end I had slightly less yarn than I thought and the repeats don't quite match up. Still, I think they're fun.

Yarn is: Zitron Unisono
Needles: US 2 stainless steel hiya hiya dpns which I'm now madly in love with (having always been a bamboo needle kind of gal, this is a big admission)
Pattern: toe-up heel gusset from in my head.

I think panicking and packing are similarly spelled for a reason

packing, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

So I'm heading home to Canada for 10 days... no particular reason ;) and I'm trying to figure out what to pack... I have all my clothes packed, of course, but I'm wavering on how much knitting I need to take. On the one hand, I'll be busy as all get-out, but on the other... well... you never know, right?! I'm taking the second sock of these: for the plane but is that going to be enough? I'm already increasing for the heel gussets.... it's not a super long flight or anything, but still, there could be delays and whatnot.

As for the downtime at home type knitting, I'm taking the blanket (as pictured) and April's self-imposed accessory club pick: the yarn (the pink in the corner of the above picture) is the Mirasol Tupa and it has been slotted to become some Accidental Girly Mitts. Now I just need to remember to pack the appropriate needles....

march revisited

march blocked, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Finishing foils me again! I finished knitting this on March 13 and finally got around to blocking it yesterday. Why is this so hard for me to do? Well, ok, space, for one thing. The only decent space for me to block anything is on the murphy bed in the spare room, except that when the bed is pulled down there is pretty much zero room for anything else back there. So everything we store back there has to be pulled out and the fact that the boy uses it as office space is pretty much lost.

But hey, now it's done, and with 2 weeks to spare! It looks so much better blocked, too (as is so often the case...).

Pattern is the Emily Capelet from Ysolda's Whimsical Little Knits 2.
Yarn is Araucania Ranco Solid, about 3/4 of a skein.
Needles were US 7/4.5mm.
Mods were none that I can think of... 14 repeats total.

What to do....

wullenstudio pink cadillac , originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

A friend picked up this great pack of sock yarns that gradiate from a light pink to a deep fuchsia. I'm thinking some kind of shawl that will really show off the slow change of colour.

Beware the blob!

happily ever after, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Actually, it's a wedding blanket...

It doesn't look like much of anything, maybe an oversized tam, but eventually it will be an adult sized undercover, for some friends who got married in January. It's a bit late, but it's been a hectic few months... who knew wedding planning + dissertation writing would be so complex!?

a sock and a stretchy bind-off

, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Tah-daaaah! A sock! Ignore the long stretch of time since my last post...

I'm actually "home" visiting in Canada, to put the final touches on the wedding preparations. Fortunately we're not too fussy about things being just so, so everything is working out wonderfully.

This morning I finished up the first of a pair of very rainbow-ish socks for the boy who thinks grey is a colour... so hopefully he'll like them.

I didn't have a tapestry needle handy but really wanted to use EZ's stretchy bind-off (a good demo of which can be found towards the bottom of this page), so I just used what I had on-hand... my knitting needles.

If you aren't familiar with EZ's version, you might want to take a look first... or not, maybe it would get confusing?

Anywho, here it is:

First of all, cut your yarn, leaving a decent length (enough to work all stitches twice... I find if I wrap it around my hand about 4 times, I have plenty left over).



Insert your needle into the first two stitches, as if to knit them together. Wrap the yarn around the needle and pull the needle back out (just like a knit stitch)... but instead of slipping them off the left-hand needle, just keep pulling your right hand needle until the yarn comes all the way through.



Now go back to the first stitch and insert your needle as if to purl. Wrap your yarn around and pull it out the back, all the way, just as for the first step. Slip this first stitch off the needle.

Repeat both steps until one stitch remains. Work it as a knit stitch and then (if you do have a tapestry needle or crochet hook lying around) weave in your ends. Or be lazy like me and just start the next sock, leaving your ends loose! (Ok, eventually I will weave them in... just not today.)

P.S. The blanket keeping me warm in the demo shots is a never-before-photographed knit of mine from... maybe 2002? Before I really got back into knitting, but needed something to keep me busy over a Christmas break, I made that blanket, a feather and fan pattern in Lion's Brand HomeSpun.

P.P.S. In case anyone was wonder, the yarn for the socks is much more exciting... it's Zitron Unisono, which I also used for a shawl for my mom last year. It's lovely, soft stuff, with aloe vera and jojoba mixed in. Needles are US 2s and pattern is just cast-on, increase, heel, cuff from my head.

an inheritance, of sorts

inheritance #1, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

For the most part, I didn't knit these socks.

Or these ones, for that matter:



But now they're mine, I guess. I won't go into too many details about how they came into my possession, out of respect for the people involved, but these belonged to a knitter I never knew... although I wish I could have. This knitter that I would never know was very special to someone who is very special to me. Her other unfinished projects have since been finished and given to family members who would treasure them and keep them as memories. No one, however, knew how to finish socks. So these socks have sat, for a few years, only to finally find their way into my hands, and, perhaps, eventually onto my feet.

We knit a little differently, this knitter and I... you might be able to tell, if you look closely on the first picture, that the sock that is almost done and the sock that is still in progress are resting on different needles. She used a size 3... to mimic her stitches I had to go down a size. (I tried to finish them using her needles... but the difference was too stark.)

The visible differences, however, stop there. The colours (green and purple on the first and that teal in the second) are exactly what I would have chosen, given the chance.

But this... this was perhaps the most shocking discovery to me:



They're a perfect fit.

caving to convention

alice socks #2, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

It's Wednesday, right? Let there be wips!

So I almost never do a wips update, and probably even less so on a Wednesday... but hey, stranger things, right?

Above is the 2nd sock in my down the rabbit hole set. After the first one these got cast aside for a while for other, more pressing things (read: chapter 1 of my thesis got handed in, didn't it?) and then forgotten about (feb SIAC had to get done too).

I have to admit, I wasn't thrilled with the pooling on the first sock (raveled here), and clearly the second will be no different. But I've come to terms with it. It's a sock after all, and hardly anyone will actually see it.

But this... this is a much more important WIP:



It is my March entry in the Self Imposed Accessory Club, but more importantly, it is the shawl/shawlette/capelette/whatever you want to call it, that I will be wearing on my wedding day.

The pattern is Emily by Ysolda Teague, and I love, love love it. I love most of her stuff, and I'm slowly realizing that it is her incorporation of garter stitch into most everything that I really can't resist. The yarn is the Araucania Ranco Solid that I received in a swap package last fall. As soon as I saw the yarn I knew I wanted to make myself a shawl for the wedding out of it. I just hope I have enough!

under the wire

feb siac, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

With 7 mins to spare, here is the february SIAC entry. Simple toe-up, heel-flap socks with a picot hem.

Maybe more about them later... now it's time to collapse.

wedding gloves, groom edition

wedding gloves for a groom, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

excuse the picture, I had to hand them off immediately and I was in the library with only my camera phone on hand... aka the grad student excuse.

Finally finished up the gloves for my friend's husband. She's off to visit him tomorrow (another perk of the grad student life: potentially living apart while your partner works in one place and you are making the mad dash to finish your dissertation...), so I wanted to give them to her before she left.

Pattern is: Dancing at Lughnasa (rav link).
Yarn is: Cascade Heritage Solid
Needles: US 1 & 2 DPNs
Mods: None, actually.

My original rav post here.

Happy Valentines' Day

A hat, for my Valentine. He's already caught glimpses of it, on flickr or ravelry and said "hey, what's that?" to which I quickly and smartly (ha!) reply "NOTHING!" in a really squeaky voice, so I'm sure he hasn't caught on at all. In any case, I'm time-stamping this to post later, so that it might not ruin the surprise, if there is one left.

Also, I'm not that ubber-skinny, I swear. But apparently a big bulky hat can make you look half your size in no time! It's going to be the latest dieting trend, for sure.

UFO-busting

leg warmers, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

pattern: yoga socks/leg warmers (leg warmer version, obv) by Drops Studio. yarn: starry by dream in color.

These have been long-languishing in the UFO pile (started July 9, while still in Spain, these were finished up on a plane this past Friday, with the ends woven in and photographed this morning), and now they're finally done! As part of the stash-bust, I'm including the need-to-finish-UFO-bust.

My UFO pile isn't that big... but my need-to-knit pile is starting to be... next up on the need-to-do list is to finish up the wedding-gloves: groom edition, and then start on the blanket for another wedding present-owed. (yes, that means the wedding has come and gone... whoops.) Also: wedding sweater: my groom's edition and the shawlette that I plan on wearing myself on the special day.

Oh, and that pesky dissertation... I handed in my first chapter a little over a week ago though, so that's good, right?!

after!

after, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

I finally got around to felting the slippers for my partner's birthday yesterday. He loves them and says they are keeping his feet very warm. In fact, I had to rip them off his feet to get a decent photo:



But I'm glad he's enjoying them!

Pattern is Felted Slippers from Midnattsol (rav link ).
Yarn is bits and pieces of left over malabrigo... first my own and then some sent to me from a fellow raveler after an impassioned plea... which is why they don't exactly match... but I kind of think that makes them all the more charming.

I highly recommend this as a first felting project (it was mine!). It's such a simple design (remember the mishappen scarf), so it takes very little time to knit up and it doesn't seem like it would be such a horrible disaster if it didn't work out. In fact, at one point I was convinced I had let them stay in the washing machine too long, and that they were too small, but they worked out perfectly!



Original ravelry post.

February SIAC

cascade heritage redux, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

For the February Self-Imposed-Accessory-Club I will be making some toe-up socks (possibly in my Socks for a Winter's Night pattern or possibly plain) as a class example, in some cascade heritage that was almost a different pair of socks... but then wasn't. It has been around, in one form or another for well over a year now, so it's high-time it got used! Only problem: class doesn't start until Feb 12... which will just impose my no-yarn-before-SIAC-is-complete yarn diet for most of the month of February. Which will be hard, but probably not such a bad thing.

The 3rd International Sock Swap is underway, this time I am not participating (I just have TOO MUCH other stuff on my plate right now), but I am still moderating. I hope all the swappers have a great time!

before...

before, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

stay tuned for "after"...

the perfect spit splice

no ends, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Look ma, no ends!

Thanks to a trade on ravelry, I received a whole bunch of green and brown leftovers in order to make a second slipper. They won't match exactly... but they're slippers, right? No one will see them and they can be whimsical (which I can't say without thinking of regretsy (potentially NSFW)), right?

Anywho... I wanted to show you all how I made the perfect spit splice. No, I don't mean that I'm going to give you the right spit to yarn ratio, I mean that I'm going to show you how to line up your yarns so that there are no ends to weave in and it transitions perfectly from one colour to another at the beginning of a new row. Note: this will, of course, only work on feltable yarns. Since this project is going to be felted anyway, it only makes sense that I'm using a feltable yarn. What is a feltable yarn? One that is made 100% of animal fiber, which has not been treated to be washable (aka, it should NOT say superwash on the label). Malabrigo, used here, is a perfect example of a great feltable yarn.

So: when you get to the last row of your old colour, knit until there are 3 stitches left. Wrap the yarn around your needle (like a yarn over) 4 times, like so:



Cut the yarn.

Next, pick up your new colour and pull the ends of both yarns apart, like so:



Now, spit splice the yarns together. (No, I am not going to show you a picture of me spitting in my hand... you'll just have to use your imagination.) If you've never done this before, basically just lay the two ends that you have pulled apart over each other in your hand. Place a little spit over the two yarns and rub your hands together quickly until the two yarns stick together and won't pull apart when you tug on them.

Knit the last 3 stitches and voila:



If you look very closely you will see that the new colour (brown) is hanging out just under the last stitch, ready to start a new row. There might be a little bit of overlap in that first stitch, but you'll never see it in the final product. (Especially since these are going to be felted anyway... but even if it were just a stripy scarf, I don't think you'd ever know.)

Happy spit splicing! (Bet you never thought anyone would say that to you...)

inspired by the Harlot, and boredom

even snowmen need to take a break once in a while...

So, if you haven't heard, it snowed quite a bit on the east coast last night! We have a snow day today, which will afford me some time to work on wedding stuff guilt-free! Ok, less than guilt-free... but maybe I'll also do some dissertation reading this afternoon... right?

If you don't know the Yarn Harlot, and you read me, I'm flattered... but dude, you are missing out. I have a feeling that 99.9% of knitters out there will not fall into that category, so you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that I've been inspired by the Harlot's Self-Imposed Sock Club. So, in the middle of a thunder-snow-storm last night, I pulled all the skeins of sock yarn that I had... and realized it was surprisingly fewer than expected. Five, to be exact. Seven, if you count a couple of skeins of fingering that are quite definitely not-for-socks.

So I looked around the stash some more and pulled a couple more skeins of things that have been languishing in the stash for far too long. Things like my Alchemy Sanctuary and Mirasol Tupa, which are too pretty to go unused for any longer. So I revised the plan a little, making it a Self-Imposed Accessory Club.

What does this mean? Well, every month for the rest of the year, I have an accessory pattern matched to a skein of yarn in my stash. That's 11 accessories, in 11 months.

There's one more catch. I'm going to also use this as a chance to impose a yarn diet on myself: Every month, on the first of the month, I will pull one skein and one pattern, and until I have completed that project I will not bring any more yarn home. That doesn't mean that I won't work on other projects... I have lots more yarn that I'm not including in the SIAC. And once that project is done, if there is something I need/want... well, you know.

How about you all? Anyone on a yarn diet, or challenging yourself to use up some long-suffering stash?

wedding toque - groom edition

wedding toque - groom edition, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Why, yes, that is more crochet!

The groom's hat in my wedding set for my friends is complete. And if these sets have taught me anything it is that crochet is not wholly evil. I'm still not going to be granny-squaring myself a cardigan anytime soon, but it makes for a nice embellishment once in a while... and, in the case of this hat, can add just enough extra length that you don't have to rip back the crown on a slightly short hat.

Hat pattern is my own, if you can even call it that... 3x2 rib over 80 stitches with a half-treble/half-double 2 round trim. (And it looks even better when you don't wear the join in the middle of your forehead... sigh.)

Yarn is Cascade 220, about 1/2 a skein, on size 7 needles.

4 years

I just realized that my 4 year blogiversary (as opposed to blogaversary, which I just wrote, and sounds like I have a blog-adversary) was just a few days ago, Jan 18. I forget sometimes, as I tend to do contests to celebrate posting milestones... but perhaps next year this time I'll remember and do a 5-year-celebration. I mean, that's a lot, in blog years, right? It's funny to look back and see what I was working on and how I wrote about it and how much things have changed (in my knitting, writing, and just life in general, really).

Some things, however, have withstood the test of time. From my first year of blogging:

These mittens, for instance, are still standard (in part because I only have these and one other, much thinner pair) in my winter outfit. If it's cold, these are the mitts that won't let anything in. They're also, I believe, the first design I came up with myself. Eventually I may have to give them up, though... one of the thumbs is starting to unravel from a broken stitch. :(

My first real socks, which were also my first monkeys, starting my seemingly undying love for sock knitting (and that pattern, which I've made... 3 times, I believe? And I only want more...), in spite of my protests to the contrary. Yes, I still have those socks by the way, and although the schaefer anne tries to pill and get fuzzy, the bamboo I paired it with has made them practically indestructible.

And finally: My first mother bear. I'm so sad that I don't have a completed picture of him, as I'm pretty sure he was the cutest one I've ever made. I haven't made one in a while, but I still think the Mother Bear Project is a great organization. I'll have to make another one asap.

What about you... have any knits that have stuck with you all these years?

not a mishappen scarf

not a mishappen scarf, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

nope, that's a slipper... can't you see it?!

Yes, it's a slipper. And no, this isn't my own personal version of The Emperor's New Clothes, either.

A while back, while on my morning perusal of ravelry, my dear partner saw these slippers over my shoulder. He loved them and asked if I would make him a pair. So, for his upcoming birthday, here they are. Or rather, here is one... I'm running out of left-over bits of malabrigo, so I've sent out a couple of emails to people on ravelry with bits of similar colours in their "will trade or sell" to see if they can send them over post-haste. Of course, if anyone out there has any little bits of green or brown malabrigo they'd like to share, I'd be happy to take those too!!

If you are still wonder how the above seemingly mishappen scarf could become a slipper, check out the pattern. It's ingenious, really, and simple enough for the earliest of beginners to figure out. The only thing I'm worried about is the felting, which I've never (purposely) done before. I guess we'll just have to wait and see, right? For now, this is on hold until I can get enough little bits of malabrigo for the second slipper. I think I only just have enough of my own left to seam the first one...

one of each

semi-stripped, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Well, if nothing else I'll have one warm foot and one warm hand:



Actually I'll have one warm foot and my friend Ele, for whom I made the toque in the post below, will have one warm hand. (And a warm head, but that was already a given.)

The sock is Down the Rabbit Hole in Holiday Yarn's Flock Sock, the pairing of which I had high hopes for... and was utterly disappointed. The yarn only stripped along the heel and gusset (and a bit on the toe, which is easier to see in this picture) while the cuff is pooling-central and the foot spirals somewhat but in huge, awkward swaths. That being said, I love the pattern, and the other sock actually swirls the other way (in the pattern, I mean, I have no idea what the yarn will do as I haven't started it yet).

I'm still going to make the second sock, and wear them... and probably often. They're comfy and they fit perfectly. I also have high hopes that the yarn will hold up well (it's plied, which I prefer) during washing. Don't disappoint me again, flock sock. They are decidedly socks from "wonderland" and I'm going to enjoy them as such.

The mitten, on the other hand, came out just the way I'd hoped. The pattern is a much-modified version of my garter cuff mitts (rav link). Mods include: making a full mitt as opposed to fingerless, and adding the same crocheted edging as the toque. I also added half an inch of stockinette to the cuff before starting the thumb gusset, since I'm not nearly so worried about running out of yarn as I was the first time round.

I should have the second mitt finished today so that Ele can have as warm hands as she does head by the end of the week! I gave her the toque yesterday, as it was ridiculously cold, complete with freezing rain, and she seemed quite enthralled with it. I can't wait to make her husband's set too!

look ma, I crocheted!

thorpe, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

and not just single! that's a half-treble! (half-double for the 'mericans)

I promised all my girlfriends that were getting married this year (you know, before I knew *I* was also getting married this year) that I would knit them something of their choice for their wedding present. Smart choice, me, seeing as I have 4 friends getting married between last November and next August. All I'm saying is that NO ONE is allowed to have babies anytime soon. NO. ONE.

First up is my friend Ele, who got married in November. She and her now-husband will be moving to the north next year (although it does get cold enough around these parts too) so she asked for hat and mitt/glove sets for them both. Since Christmas knitting sort of took front stage, I am just now getting around to their gifts.

This is Ele's hat (lavender just isn't her husband's best colour). It's a thorpe (rav link and blog link), in Crystal Palace Aran Solid (left over from my Seneca Sweater) and Malabrigo Worsted (in Lettuce) for the trim.

Mods: To adjust for using an aran weight instead of a bulky I increased to 88 sts total. Decreased to 80 for garter in order to follow the L instructions for the ear flaps. Still used a size 9 needle.

Stay tuned for the matching mitts!

things received

holiday card swap, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

The day before I left for Christmas I received a beautiful handmade card from the swap run over Useless Beauty Designs and never had a chance to photograph it.









I also came back from Christmas to another swap package:



Socks (hand dyed and hand spun), Hand dyed merino and silk yarn, a silk bag from lantern moon and a hand woven bag from Peru. Also, some great milk / peanut butter chocolate... not pictured is the box of Ferrero Roche, as that might have already gotten consumed...

This package was from evilmichelle on Ravelry, on the International Sock Swap. Thanks Michelle! We're holding sign-ups until the end of January for the next swap, so come on over to rav if you want to join in!

things aren't always (working out) the way they seem

swedish socks, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Sadly, these are the socks that will never be worn. They also make me haaate colour-work. Actually, I think it's just one of those knitting skills I don't care to use. Sure, the result can look great, but it also is a huge pain in the arse. The boy asked for these, it took me months to finally figure out a way to make them work and, alas, they are too tight. One he can just barely squeeze over his heel, the other ain't ever gonna happen.

We can't cry over tight socks, however, so... onward and upward!

I cast on for some socks that I've been coveting for a while in some yarn I've been coveting for a while... but the result is coming out... well, less than desirable. I mean, go look at the original! (On flickr for those without ravelry access.) So pretty! So perfectly striped! I really thought the yarn I chose would stripe just as well, especially since the store sample looked just as perfect.

But alas:



Pooling madness! Just when you think they're going to at least spiral a bit, the colours start pooling back the other way. I'm doing the medium size, which should be fine (64 sts is a perfectly normal number for socks, right?!)... I can't decide if it is worth it to rip them back or just let them do their thing. I doubt that a different sock pattern is going to make a difference... the pattern is a reference to Alice in Wonderland ("Down the Rabbit Hole"), so maybe it's a sign to let them just do whatever topsy-turvy thing they're going to do.

new year, new you, right?

handspun striped scarf, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Yes, New Year's day has come and gone. But I'm still working on my resolutions. In part, I really wanted to finish up some languishing UFO's in my knitting basket, like the one pictured above. Started on Nov 8, this got pushed aside for Christmas knitting when it was 3/4 of the way done. It's another Noro Striped Scarf, without the Noro, of course. Instead I used Malabrigo Worsted (in Lettuce) and a handspun from gnome garden, who doesn't appear to be selling in her etsy shop anymore, although there is some available at my fave lys. I made a change to accommodate for the fact that the yarns (especially the handspun) were a bit thicker, casting on only 35 stitches, instead of 39.

Ok, so, resolutions. Like most people I want to eat better and work out more. But not really for my waistline so much as my health. I'm not what anyone would consider overweight, but I've felt pretty crappy for almost a year now, starting more or less last March when I was abroad for a semester. Yesterday I was killing a few extra minutes waiting for the bus in a book store and bought Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. It's not a diet, or a recipe book. Just a few rules to follow if you want to eat healthier. I'd really like to get a CSA share this summer, but it always seems to boil down to not knowing where I'll be / traveling too much.

Anyway, the point of the book (although the little entries about the 60-some-odd rules are also enlightening and interesting) is this: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants". Simple, right? And yet I fail, a lot, especially on the mostly plants bit. (And sometimes the not too much bit, but that's easier to fix. Actually, I also fail on the eat food part too, sometimes... if you take into consideration what is food and what is just "edible food-like substance" according to the author's definitions.) I'm not going to give up meat, but I am going to learn how to cook more like a vegetarian.

If anyone has some easy, delicious veggie options they'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you!