Category: I Might Be Insane

I Might Be Insane

Well, damn

Two and a half months later…

The last few months really got away from me. I signed up for 3 separate classes at the Graham School for both fall and winter quarters. These are 3 hour classes per week for each class, with an accompanying amount of reading. While I enjoyed all of them, it hasn’t left me much time for other things besides the real life stuff that doesn’t go away, even if I’d rather be sitting in a chair reading. I had signed up for another three classes for spring quarter, which starts next week, but came to my senses yesterday and dropped one of the classes. It was a class on Ulysses, by James Joyce, which I’d really love to take, but it will likely be offered again at some point. John has three grandsons in university, and has pointed out that I was probably doing more class work than any of them.

I have been knitting, but slowly. I pulled some yarn out of stash a few weeks ago to knit a plain warm shawl.

I bought that in 2022 after we got back from our Scandinavian cruise. It’s a lovely, woolly yarn made in Sweden. I’m doing another Boneyard shawl, which is dead-easy, and doesn’t require much of my available brain power to work on.

I really like how the gradient striping is turning out. I have the last skein to go, so this will be a really huge shawl to wrap up in.

That stack of books behind the knitting is for spring quarter. We won’t read all of each book, but it’s still a lot of reading. I’m taking a three-quarter class on the history of US immigration, as well as the Graham Basic Program (great books class), which is a four-year program. Spring quarter will complete my second year, and it has been a real eye-opener for me. The books we read are mostly things I missed in college, since I was on a premed track, and didn’t get a chance to study many of the classics. For fall quarter, I also took a class where we read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and for winter it was Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. (Spell check wanted to change that to The Brothers Kalamazoo, which certainly could be an interesting book, but not the same.)

I did actually finish a pair of socks over the weekend.

Aren’t those pretty? The yarn is from a UK dyer, Felt Fusion. This particular yarn base is John Arbon’s Exmoor Sock yarn, which I love. It’s the same old plain white bread sock, top down with a flap heel and gusset.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to not stay away so long this time!

Rebel

i had good intentions to do Nanowrimo this year. Since I’m retired, I really have no excuses*. For the uninitiated, this organization encourages people to write a 50,000 word draft of a novel during the month of November. Last year, there were around 380,000 participants. I’ve done this before, but it has been several years.

I sort of planned ahead, had a crazy-ass shell of a plot, and waded in on November 1st. November 3rd, not having fun. Came up with a totally different seat of the pants plot, started over. November 5th, still not having fun.

I have no illusions that I’m going to ever publish the great American novel. I finished my career, I don’t need a new one.

So I bagged the whole thing, and here is what I’m doing instead.

My book weight is hiding the author’s name, this is the Fiction Writer’s Workshop by Josip Novakovich. It is set out in clear chapters, with a ton of writing exercises for each section. So I started a new project file**, and am writing away.

It’s not a novel, and I may not hit 50,000 words by the end of the month, but I’m having fun, and learning some things in the process.

*No excuses, other than the fact that I can’t write my way out of a paper bag. There is that.

**I’m using a writing project app called Scrivener. If you’re a writer, check it out.

Sigh

As it turns out, this yarn does not want to be knit at 20 stitches per 4 inches. I sort of expected this, which is why I did a swatch. It also doesn’t like being knit into cables. The heathery alpaca/wool blend just really wants to be stocking stitch. Fortunately I’m not bored at all by miles of stocking stitch.

So here’s the deal. What I want is a plain long cardigan, knit in pieces, seamed, and with a wide shawl collar. I don’t want to do a top down cardigan. My ideal gauge for this yarn is at 17.5 stitches per 4 inches. You wouldn’t think this would be a tough pattern to find, but there you have it.

You do know where this is going, right?

It looks like I’m cobbling together my ideal sweater on my own.

This is either a brilliant idea, or quite insane. But how hard can it be?

Stay tuned.

Wooly bully

My yarn stash is taunting me. I already have close to a dozen projects going. I have three lace shawls, two sweaters, two socks, one hitchhiker mindless garter stitch shawl, a pair of color work mittens, and a linen washcloth. And a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, and the mystery gift thing that will likely take months to complete.

I shouldn’t be rustling around in the stash boxes looking for distraction.

Yet here I am. My stash is bullying me into starting something new. That is a perfectly lovely skein of Dream In Color Smooshy fingering weight, the color is called In Vino Veritas, which is I’m sure why I bought it in the first place. This has been in the stash box for over a decade. I even have a pattern picked out.

Isn’t that pretty? It was written for this very yarn, and it’s free! Free is always good. Of course, I’ve been telling myself that I don’t need another project on the needles, but really, who’s counting? The pattern is Larch.

You do know what happened next, right?

Stealth knitting

This is all you’re going to get for the next couple of weeks. I’ve never been one of those organized knitters that start knitting Christmas gifts in January every year. I usually think about it around December 20th, therefore, no Christmas knitting ever gets done around here.

Last week I had the bright idea to knit a few things for a few people. Mind you, I picked some VERY SIMPLE things that I can practically knit in my sleep, more of a “stocking stuffer” type of gift.

Then I started thinking, well, I could do these for a few more people too! Pretty soon I was up to knitting about a dozen of these little Mystery Projects.

Right. I am insane.

Of course, though I had the yarn for a few of these Mystery Projects, I don’t have enough to knit all of them. This is despite the boxes and boxes and nearly half a million yards of yarn around here.

So I ordered more. It was supposed to be delivered Friday. I got a tracking notification from USPS that it was indeed delivered “at or near the mailbox”, whatever that means. I think it means it is “at or near” someone else’s mailbox, since I did not receive it. This makes the likelihood of me completing my Christmas knitting even more improbable than it already was.

This my friends, is why I don’t do Christmas knitting.

Please send whisky. I will surely need it.

I might have lost my mind

I finished my Hitchhiker shawl on the long plane ride home yesterday (finished project post later when I find it in the heap of bags). So I had an itch to start something new. Meet Cloud Blue Kiri: 

 I purchased the yarn when we were in Carnation and Duvall WA a few weeks ago. We stopped at Tolt Yarn & Wool, and this was one of my purchases. It is Biches et Bûches Le Petit Silk & Mohair. I’m not quite sure what possessed me to start yet another lace shawl, especially in fuzzy lace weight mohair. If you’ve ever knit with Kidsilk Haze, this is similar, but if anything, with longer mohair “feathers”. Any mistakes in this are likely not going to get ripped back. The pattern is Kiri, which is a similar version of Birch, but top down so you don’t have to cast on (and count) millions of stitches. I knit Birch 15 years ago, and there isn’t enough whisky in the world to make me do that cast on again.

For those of you keeping track, this makes four lace shawls on the needles. My plan was actually to start a simple project to take the place of the Hitchhiker, but this yarn just rolled out of the bag and into my lap. It’s mighty pretty yarn, but I might need that whisky before this is all over.

Yes, I Am A Dork

I realized earlier this month that it will be 36 years this year that I graduated from medical school. Where the hell did the time go?

I decided to make a big splurge and update all of my hard copy medical texts. I tend to use a lot of online resources “on-the-fly” when I’m actually seeing patients, but do have a need often to return to actual texts. I can always read those online through my work medical library, but it’s not always the latest version, and I have trouble reading scientific stuff on an iPad on a routine basis. With technical texts, I find that I need to flip around to find stuff, and refer to the index a fair amount, and find that more annoying on a device.

So here they are.

The only one missing is the pharmacology text, which is coming later this week.

The dork part is that I’ve been pretty damned excited to have these show up. I’m also really excited that I have a monetary allowance at work for education and books, etc. I’m glad I’m not a freshman medical student for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is the expense of textbooks.

I’m also hoping that there is a reference in there somewhere to the treatment of hernias and back strain, because I suspect my poor mailman has both after lugging all those to my front door.

Yarn Chicken

I am nearing the end of this shawl. This is 22 Little Clouds, and I’m making it in that cashmere yarn hand spun in Afghanistan. Obviously I want to use every bit of this lovely stuff possible.

The shawl is an elongated triangle shape, with a ruffle border. The instructions say to save 25% of the yarn for the ruffle and bind off. The ruffle section starts by doubling the stitches on the needles, so I have about 600 stitches per row. I have two rows left, and then the bind off, which will eat yarn like crazy. My last row used about 6 grams, and I have 38 grams left.

So I’m trying to decide if I’ll have enough to do FOUR more rows before the bind off instead of two. That really would be playing yarn chicken, I think, and having to undo most of a 600 stitch bind off if I’m wrong would take more whisky than I probably have in the house.

Stay tuned.

Sometimes…

Patterns sometimes just don’t match the yarn.

I’ve wanted to knit the Wool Peddler shawl for a long time. I finished the garter stitch part and started the lace section earlier this week. It is just not doing it for me. In this yarn it just looks like a sloppy mess. I gave it a bit, since crappy looking lace can sometimes block into a thing of beauty.

I’m going to take it back to the garter stitch and do a modification I found on Ravelry. Well, it’s not really a modification, since it leaves off the lace altogether. When the main garter part gets big enough, you do an increase row (knit, increase in the next stitch, do it over and over to the end), then keep knitting more garter stitch on twice as many stitches for a ruffled edge.

I know, I know. I said I was tired of garter stitch. I guess I was wrong.

Now to get that mess unraveled and back on the needles.

Brilliant or Insane?

Oh my. I got a wild hair this morning and figured I’d share it here. I did start that pretty lace shawl Thursday, it’s coming along nicely. I’m about 35 rows into it. Of course, there are about 344 rows in the whole shawl, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that by the last of those rows, there are 693 stitches on the needles. This one will be a long, albeit pleasant, slog.

That wasn’t my wild hair. Here it is.

This is a Peace Fleece sweater that I knit for John a couple of years ago. It has always bugged the shit out of me, since it’s an inch or two too short for him. Every time he wears it, which is a lot, I notice it and it annoys me that I didn’t fix this at the time.

I have plenty of that yarn left, so this morning I started it. After a little googling, I found a video by Eunny Jang that shows how to lengthen or shorten a piece after the fact. Since this is just straight stockinette, it shouldn’t be that complicated, right?

You start by undoing the seams at the sides. I’m pretty enthusiastic about weaving in ends, so this took a bit of work to get started.

Then you pick up a row of stitches where you want to add length. Eunny shows it in her video, but basically you pick up the right side of the “v” on each stitch, making sure you stay in the same row.

Once you have all the stitches on a needle, the fun begins. You snip (CAREFULLY) the stitches in the row above the one you just picked up, pulling off the ribbing piece as you go.

Which leaves you with live stitches on your needle. Then you just join the new yarn, and knit it as long as you need, knit new ribbing, and Bob’s your uncle. Do the same on the other half (remind me to make them the same length), fix the seams, and you’re done.

I had a brief thought to save the ribbing piece and just graft the two together, but came to my senses on that one. I could probably knit a whole damned sweater in the time it would take to graft that much neatly.

I’ll let you know how this goes. I might need whisky before the day is done.