like, duh.

OK, so I'm just starting the 2nd repeat of the pomatomus and just now realized that I made a bit of an error. I've been working ALL k2tog tbl as regular k2togs. I think this came from the set-up row which is just like row one except for that exact same thing. And I only realized this from reading some of the posts in the Cookie's Sock Group on Ravelry. Even though a few rows in I thought "hmmm... that symbol looks much more like tbl or ssk... but hey, what do I know?" Le sigh.

Buuuuuuuut... I kind of like the way it looks and I don't think it's worth ripping out so much hard work. So it stays, and I'm just going to finish the socks in the same fashion. But I thought I'd try to warn anyone else who might want to make these someday...

New Beginnings

My nana said the other day "I like new beginnings". And I think I do too. They can be a bit scary sometimes, but sometimes they're so exciting you forget the fear. None of that really has to do with knitting (since I think most of us, myself included, get so caught up in "beginnings" that we catch what the knitting world calls "startitis"), but I am happy and excited about this newest project. It's Cookie A.'s Pomatomus in Zitron Trekking XXL. It's hard to see in this picture but I'm loving the way the self-patterning Trekking is working up in this stitch pattern.

Proof that you were born with what you need...

or perhaps just proof that hairdressing was never an option for me. (Of course, I should have known that when I was 18 and a bf asked me to cut his hair... I tried to convince him it was a bad idea but he ended up having to fully shave his head anyway. He probably deserved it, all things considered. But I digress.)

I've always known I wouldn't make a great blond. My eyebrows are practically black and I have very, very pale skin. But I do have some red highlights and I have experimented with all kinds of non-typical colours. Orange, however, is NOT my colour:


Can I just say, in my defense, that the package looked like this:
and not like the hideousness illustrated above? (Just so I don't get sued: Do not blame Loreal for the hideousness. It was entirely my own lack of hairdressing skills that got me into that mess.)

So I decided (after living like that for the last 3 days) that I would fix it. So I bought a box of dark brown (no fancy names this time!) and covered it up. Not exactly "back to normal" - it's still very reddish-purple-y - but definitely not orange anymore:

FO: Internaughty Monkeys

I finished the 2nd Internaughty Monkey on Thursday while waiting for my grandmother's two hour oil change. I hate car dealerships. I was going to wait until I could reunite it with it's partner (I'm staying at the 'rent's to help out with the dog while my mom's away and my dad and sis work all the time and the other sock is at Dr. BF's apartment, along with my camera), but I got bored this morning, and my feet are cold. So I give you a series I call "One warm foot":





Notes:
Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A.
Yarn: Dark Side of the Moon by Crash Into Ewe (purchased at Lovelyarns but also available on etsy)
Needles: US 2
Mods: slip stitch heel. otherwise all is as planned.

P.S. Ignore the dog toys, the strangely pyjama'd leg and the man behind the curtain...

Of things never seen before...

No one who reads this blog (at least, those who knit) can be all that surprised that I have some stash around that no one else has ever seen before. I decided that the easiest, most summer / travel friendly projects are socks, so I brought pretty much all the sock yarn I could find (in my stash, that is...). Since not much has been going on with my actual knitting (I'm about 1/2 way through the second heel flap on my psycho-coloured monkeys) I thought I'd give you a little showcase of what else I have lying around:


Trekking XXL, colour 147. I want to make socks out of this, I think, but not just plain ones. I know Trekking is one of those yarns that is supposed to make it's own pattern but I've seen loads of these in actual patterns and they look pretty cool.


Unnamed... a friend of mine who dyes made an oops on this one and didn't want to sell it, but she didn't want to throw perfectly good yarn out either. These are very much my colours, although not all together... but it might make a great toy... a funny shaped monster or something.


Finally, the yarn I'm most excited about. J. Knits Superwash Me in Light Sock - colour Pueblo. My roommate brought this home for me from Michigan. It's super soft and I have NO idea what to do with it. I'm thinking it might be too pretty to be hidden under shoes...although there are 550 yards so I bet I'd have enough to make socks (I love having small feet) and something else - maybe I'll jump on the cowl band wagon.

sadly this is the best score I've seen...

9 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Yep, big dork

The short and long of my travel woes is that I was delayed about 6 hours and didn't end up getting home until 4am. I slept/vegged in front of the tv for most of the day yesterday and I'm still a bit tired, but glad to be home. When I wasn't totally out of it I worked on my monkeys and this morning I grafted the first toe. I'm not much in the mood to dig out my camera and the chord, so I'm relying on the mac-cam:





As you can see the "dark" side of the moon ended up on the bottom of the foot, while the more sunny colours pooled a bit on the top. But I likes it.

And the big dork picture:

The Baltimore Washington Internaughty*

I know. Two posts in one day after a month + long interlude. But I'm stuck at the airport. Which seems to be pretty much the story of my life. Whenever I travel (which is pretty darn often) I have some kind of delay or problem or mixup. Because of storms both around here and around Detroit the flight has been delayed several times. Instead of a 4:30 take off time it is now almost 7:00 and they claim we're going to get out of here at 8:15, but I have my doubts. So I started, and then finished, the Complete Persepolis. I highly recommend it. And now the only entertainment I have is my newest sock. It's Cookie A.'s monkey (you all know where to find it... I'm too tired to link everything!) and my friend Terry's yarn (as explained 2 posts previous).

*I got a pre-recorded message the other day for my van service to the airport and for whatever reason - a glitch, a skip in the recording, a disgruntled voice-worker - my destination was called the Baltimore Washington Internaughty airport, as opposed to "International".

P.S. Since starting to write this our flight has been delayed another 1/2 hour and the flight that was scheduled to leave after ours is now going to leave early. Why they wouldn't switch the planes I don't know... just to stick it to me one more time I guess.

WWKIP

This is what my WWKIP day looked like:

I went down to Lovelyarns during HonFest where Sue hosted a tackiest knitter contest. In case you were wondering, the lovely lady on the far right took home the prize, and the tacky, tacky crown.

Let's see some closeups:





Pictures in this case really are worth a 1000 words...

This is the yarn...

This is the yarn that Terry dyed.
This is the yarn that Terry dyed, that I bought.
This is the yarn that Terry dyed, that I bought at my favorite yarn shop.
This is the yarn that Terry dyed, that I bought at my favorite yarn shop, to make into monkey socks.
This yarn makes me happy. :D

Ok, so I can't believe it's been over a month since I've posted anything. Thanks to everyone who left comments on the sweater dilemma. In the end I ripped it back, added several extra inches (I believe it was somewhere in the region of 5) and then stuck the pocket back on. It now has an almost complete sleeve and is in need of another. But it is just TOO HOT to even think about having a whole sweater made out of malabrigo sitting in my lap.

So I put that aside and have been working on the 2nd entrelac sock. I'm sorry, but entrelac gets darn boring after a knee-length sock and a half! So I've been chugging along on those, but it's been really, really slow going. And thus the acquisition of new yarn... I've been checking this yarn out (which is dyed by a friend of mine, Terry who runs crashintoewe on etsy and dyes for our lys. It's her merino sock, colourway "Dark Side of the Moon". It's not really "me" to have all these colours jumbled together at once (I like colour but just not ALL COLOUR, ALL THE TIME, like this kind of screams at me..) but I have loved this yarn since she brought it in a couple of weeks ago. So, on a whim yesterday, I grabbed and cast on. Monkey seems to be the sock pattern I always go back to, so there you have it.

I think for sheer displeasure with the weather, socks are what you're going to see around here for the next little while... and yes, I promise I won't wait another month and a half to post again!

wicked dilemma

As you can probably tell, my wicked dilemma is that my wicked is, well, wicked short. What do I do? Do I rip out the bind off (did I mention that I did a sewn bind off... wicked hard to rip out...) and add more seed stitch? Do I rip back and add more stockinette before the seed stitch? If I do that, then do I have to rip out the pocket and put it back on holders? Do I just try and block the crap out of it?? I probably need a good 3 or 4 inches to have it fall where I would like it to... check out how much longer my t-shirt is. Granted, it's a long t-shirt, but I'm past the age, and waist size, where belly-shirts are cute anymore. (And although I am working on the waist size part... the age I can't do much about.)

I probably already know the answer (and it's the worst out of all of them) but please advise!!

wicked start

wicked start, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

I cast on for Wicked on Sunday and already have the sleeves on holders as of last night! I tried it on this morning (as seen above) and, hooray!, it fits! Not that you can really tell from that picture, but trust me, it does. I was a bit worried 'cause my gauge was slightly off, a but I think it's going to be ok.

Maryland Sheep and Wool got me back my knitting mojo

Sadly I forgot my camera on Saturday, but being around so much fiber really got me my knitting mojo back! I wasn't feeling it the last couple of weeks, but the last couple of weeks have also been extremely stressful, especially in the academic arena. Friday was my last day of teaching/class (and I don't even have to worry about final exam time 'cause our students took their last test during class time!) so spending Saturday at MSW was a great way to celebrate my first day of freedom, or, as some people like to call it, summer.

I might have forgotten my camera, but I did not forget my love of all things fiber. The damage:


Two skeins of "Sylvan Green" Domy Heather by the Davidson Corporation 475yds/100gms (and really, ridiculously cheap!)


And a skein of purple (I accidently threw out the tag when winding this so I don't remember the exactly colour name) of the same. I'm going to make a stripy cardigan out of these, a la newest knitty surprise cardi. I think this is very close to the weight of the yarn she used, so I'm going to play with needles and gauges and see what I like!


I also got a BUNCH of koigu KPM. This skein is for me, to use in some kind of colourwork with a skein of purple I've had for over a year. I'm thinking maybe Eunny's Anemoi Mittens. The other KPM I got was 3 skeins of a darker teal for my roomie. He's been a bit down lately and I thought it would be nice to get him a present. I know he's been wanting teal socks, so now he can make them for himself! (I got 3 'cause KPM is a little short on yardage and, well, he's a boy, so he probably needs longer socks than I do! I love that my feet are small and usually don't require that I get any extra yarn...)


And finally, what better than malabrigo to re-start my knitting mojo??

This is the beginning of wicked in malabrigo worsted "Verde Adriana". I didn't buy this at sheep and wool... I have enough malabrigo in my stash for 4 sweaters (including this one). Seriously, I think I have a problem... but it's a better addiction than most!

Still here...

I'm still here... April wasn't exactly a productive month for me, knitting-wise. I did manage to write a good chunk of a paper that I still have left over from last semester, and I was knitting, but I can't show you 'cause it was a test-knit for a book that should be coming out sometime next year and we (the test-knitters) were sworn to secrecy.

So, I'm done with that now, and I still have papers to write, but there will be new knitting content soon, I promise. I decided as a transitional project, I would make a new mother bear. Those go super quick, so I should have at least that to show off by the end of the weekend. Oh, and I'm going to MDSW (Sheep and Wool) on Saturday, so I'll try to remember to take a camera!

Karma

So I opened up my purse yesterday to find this:



Which sucks since I really need this set of needles - both for the test-knit I'm doing right now and, eventually, for the 2nd entrelac sock. Fortunately my roommate had an extra set of US size 1 dpns that he wasn't using.

But then I came home to these:


Completely and totally awesome hot pink knitting earrings from Lick My Sticks.

And I tried to get a picture of them on:


Go over to her shop or her blog. She's funny, a great knitter and makes some awesome earrings!

I finished up one entrelac sock last night watching Best in Show with my roommate, whom, by the by, had never see it before. So the movie was fun, but finishing the cuff on the sock, not so much. In order to put in the tassels (yes, these socks have tassels) there are eyelet rows and a hem and they're bound off in a way that attaches the last row to th inside... it's a wee bit complicated and quite a large pain in the arse. In fact the last couple rows of ribbing and the bind-off lasted the entire movie. BUT, well worth it:




And the side view:

PS3: earth yarns

Or: Malabrigo, how do I love thee? Let me count the stashed yarns...

I was somewhat surprised by the lack of green yarns in my stash this morning*. I really thought I had more! Green is one of my fav colours and over the years I have come to the realization that it really does look good on me. (In my high school years I wore blue all. the. time. I wasn't super popular - although I don't think I was a super geek either - so blue usually made it easy to blend in. I'm a much more colourful dresser now!) I have green eyes, and usually wearing green makes them pop. Anywho, enough digression, and on to the stash I plan on using for PS3: Earth.

So, the lack o' green yarns means I actually only have 2 pictures to show you. However, these 2 pictures represent quite large potential projects...


4 skeins of malabrigo worsted weight in Verde Adriana. This will (eventually) become Wicked. Or, at least, that's the plan.



5 skeins of malabrigo worsted weight in Oliva. Planning to be Drops' A-line jacket. The lighting (for which I am very grateful, not having seen the sun for at least a week...) made this look much browner than it is, but I think it's beautiful in all lights.

*Note: there are tons of green yarns in my stash, but all the rest are just partial skeins, left over from other projects. So, they don't count in this case. Or that's what I'll tell myself anyway.

up close and personal

I realize that yesterday's picture of the harlot holding my sock is not really a very good project picture... but it was just so cool that the harlot actually held my sock! Anywho... I'll get over my star-struck-ness sooner or later - although I actually also met the guys from Everclear on Friday, so it's been a big week for me and "rock stars". (Yeah, the harlot may not sing, but the woman announcing her at Borders did call her the "Beatles of Knitting"...)

Anywho, since it is still grey and icky and foggy out, here is a close up of my sock, as held by the harlot:



Pattern: Entrelac Socks by Eunny Jang, Interweave Knits Spring 2007
Yarn: Crystal Palace Panda Silk in 3005 and 3006 (3 balls and 2 balls respectively)
Needles: US1 / 2.25mm

whadda ya mean it's april already??

OK, so I've been slacking a bit in the blog department... I've been really tired since getting back from Korea - the kind of tired where I don't want to do anything all day but then I can't get to sleep at night. It's a vicious cycle. Also, I haven't done anything so interesting to even consider blogging it. I got very little knitting done in Korea (even on those 12-13 hour plane rides I mostly just tried to sleep). Since getting home I've finished the mate to this sock but they're pretty much identical... The striping patterns on both the leg and foot of the sock look almost exactly the same. I've also started another sock and gotten a package from Cookie A for whom I'm going to be doing some test knitting (secretive and "unbloggable" test knitting, of course).

But I actually, finally have something "bloggable"! I met the yarn harlot last night! A couple of knitterly-friends and I went to see her at the Borders in Annapolis. By the time we finally met her she was probably pretty tired (over 2 hours after she finished speaking) and her publicist had already left so I'm pretty sure that my picture won't be showing up on the blog (especially since mine is the only camera with proof positive of this meeting...) but it was lots of fun just the same.
Ok, on to the pictures:


Obligatory picture of harlot taking picture of us...



Harlot quizzing me on both my rocket-science abilities and my true Canadian-ness... more on that later.


Trading socks with the harlot!


And, finally, the obligatory hold-my-sock-while-you-hold-mine picture.


Thanks to my friend Terry (no blog, but she does have an etsy shop full of beautiful hand dyed sock yarns - including ones with real silver spun into them!) for all the pictures.

OK, so the rocket-science/canadian quiz: My latest sock is the entrelac sock by Eunny Jang from Interweave Spring 2007, as modeled above by the lovely yarn harlot. When she saw that she asked if afterwards I would be on my way to nasa to work on rocket science and sharing my brain with the world. I sheepishly told her that I do Spanish Literature and would probably in the end help, well, no one.
Then Terry yelled "she's CANADIAN" and I turned a little pink and said "Thanks, Terry" kind of flatly. The harlot looked at me and said "How long did you live in Canada?" And I said, well, technically I still "live" there, but I'm here for school. So she said "Do you think you can pass the Canadian test?" And I said "well, I would definitely hope so!" And she looked at me (somewhat suspiciously I think!) and said "Well, Americans can't get it, ever." And I said "ok...." (while thinking in my head "Oh. My. God. If I don't get this I'm going to look like the biggest dork, in front of the Yarn Harlot.) So she looked at me again and said "It's very easy, you just have to finish this sentence: "When you eat your smarties..."

Yes, I got the answer right, but no, I'm not going to tell you what it is. Otherwise we'd have to make you all Canadians... and you wouldn't get the joke anyway! She thought it would be a great question at the border to check everyone's "true" Canadian status... although you probably would have had to live through the 80's and 90's watching Canadian television to actually understand.

back and burnt out

Well, we're back from Korea (to Canada that is... I still have one more plane ride tomorrow to head back to school in the States) and I'm exhausted. The 13 hour time difference was very hard to adjust to and we were still waking up at 4:30/5:00 most mornings. Now I'm back home, it's 11am and I haven't finished my still-warm morning coffee.

Above is the usual BF-rubbing-Buddha's-belly picture. This was taken at a temple we stayed over-night at during the trip. When I'm a little less tired and I have time to go through and look at all of the pictures (and there are hundreds if you also count the ones on Dr. BF's camera) I will post more. Very little knitting was accomplished past the initial airport wait / plane ride. By the end of the trip I was so tired that I didn't even knit on the way home!