Knitting – Page 19 – The Knitting Doctor

When In Doubt, Shop!

First up…I hope you all noticed the change of scenery around here. I liked the old theme I was using, but it hasn’t been updated for awhile, and the old version was a bit twitchy with the newer version of WordPress. So I found one that let me insert my own photo in the header. That’s a picture of our lake at sunset a few nights ago. Here’s the original.

Next up is the pre-Olympic event of Stash Enhancement. I know, I know. I need more yarn like I need termites. So?

That is from the Verdant Gryphon, Eidos sock yarn in Medusa, Jade Emperor, and Wen Chang. Though I’m sure they would make lovely socks, my plan is to make a Color Affection shawl with them.

That is Mithril lace weight yarn, from the same shop. It will be a spectacular shawl someday. The color is Alice In The Rabbit’s House, and it is a true Tardis blue. I have my eye on perhaps this shawl. We’ll see. I have a few other lace things to get off the needles before I start something new. Note that the “yarn backdrop” was mildly curious for the first photo, and then she promptly went back to sleep. Ho hum. Just more yarn.

Last but not least, my beloved drug dealer’s scale bit the dust this week. It just died with no warning. Off to Amazon I went, and the replacement came by that famous brown truck earlier today.

I got a 500 g weight to use to calibrate it. Clever! This one is actually better than the old one. The LED thingee swings out so you can see it better, and it weighs up to 1 kg.

I needed this ASAP so I could weigh my Ravellenics yarn. I’m knitting a Lacy Baktus, which starts with a few stitches, increases until the yarn is half gone, then decreases back down. The last time I did this I didn’t weigh the yarn first, and ended up with this:

I ended up ripping about 300 rows back. Not this time.

For the record, the skein weighs 116 grams. Somebody remind me to start decreasing at the halfway mark.

I recorded a tiny bit of progress on this:

Right after I posted about six weeks ago that I could finish this by late September if I “just knit one row a day”, I put it away and didn’t touch it again. I seriously doubt that I will get it done by that due date, but I am working on it slowly. It requires a pretty high level of concentration, and preferably in the absence of vodka or whisky.

Finally, a photo of the lake I took this morning.

The daisies are going to town! It’s hard to be in a crabby mood when I have such cheerful daisies staring at me.

Spinning & Knitting

The Tour de Fleece is nearly over, and the ~~Ravelympi~~ Ravellenic Games are about to begin! I have been doing a bit of spinning for the Tour. Here you go.

The first three photos are closer to the correct color, but I couldn’t resist the last one. This one was “properly” started and finished during the tour. Even better, I have plans to knit it up into something for the Games. I think it will be a Lacy Baktus. The fiber is a merino/bombyx silk blend from Corgi Hill Farms.

Next up is silk, pure silk, from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. The color is Ghillie Dhu, and it is almost but not quite white, with a tiny cast of pale green. I won’t finish this by the end of the Tour, but will get about half way through it (I have 8 oz total). If you’re looking for this on the website, it’s the bombyx silk roving. It is purely divine to spin. If I win the lottery, I’m buying a pound of this in every color she dyes.

I have no idea what this will be eventually. I’m thinking a shawl. I haven’t quite decided, but I might leave it as a single instead of plying it.

Click on that if you dare, but try to keep from drooling on your keyboard.

If the sun keeps shining today, I might try to photograph that outside to get a better color estimate. It was pretty grey and icky yesterday when I took photos, and I’m too lazy to photoshop it to get the right color.

Then there are spindles! Primarily I’m working on a very old project. This is also from Anna at Corgi Hill Farms, when she was still doing batts. This one is merino, silk, and firestar for sparkle, color named True Blood.

That’s what I’ve gotten done so far. Here’s what I have left.

Yes, I know. I probably won’t finish that by Saturday either.

I have been knitting a bit, if nothing else just to give my spinning muscles a rest. Drop spindling a million yards a day can be hard on the hands. Here’s a blast from the past, just one of many things I’m working on.

Finally, for the Games! I do have some projects lined up. My major project will be in the category of WIP wrestling, since there is no way I’m starting another big project just for Ravellenics. I am going to work on, and try to finish the True Blood Faery Ring sweater. I “just” have part of the hood and the never ending button band to go and it’s done done done. I think I can actually get the hood done, the button band might require mass quantities of whisky to accomplish. It goes up and down both fronts, of course, but also around the hood, all in one continuous band. Here’s a reminder of where I am.

That’s the hood, so far.

I do plan on starting two things for the Games. One is the Lacy Baktus mentioned above. The other will be a Tea Cosy, since my team is Team Sherlocked, and I needed to knit something at least vaguely British-inspired. Here’s the pattern:

It’s the Crown Tea Cosy, and here’s my yarn, from the stash, no less.

I just need to get my butt out and buy sequins or beads for the thing. Those two projects are small enough that I might actually have some hope of finishing.

It’s time to get my butt in gear and get something accomplished today. There is apparently an airshow at McChord this weekend, which is ten blocks and across the freeway from where we live. They are out in full force today, practicing, and as usual, the turn around zone is right over my house. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t counting on peace and quiet!

One Freaking Sock

There you have it. I posted my June goals earlier on in the month. I must say, they were rather ambitious, given that I finished exactly seven projects in the past year and a bit. Why don’t you people tell me when I write something as stupid as “I’m going to finish a sweater, a pair of socks, and part of another sweater. Oh, and a million rows of a complicated lace shawl that requires my total concentration and cannot be worked on if anyone is speaking within a hundred miles of my location.”

Ahem. On top of my lofty goals, work was a bit busy. And I tried to cut my left index finger off right after I said I was going to knit a row a day on that shawl. It was a relatively tiny cut, but it was right on the tip of my finger where the knitting needle hits it with every single stitch. So I couldn’t knit anything for about a week or it would start bleeding again, and since then it is healing OK, but hurts every time I poke it, which is with every single stitch.

No, there was no alcohol involved. I was trying to slice bread. Serrated bread knife meets finger, part eleventy billion. My family appears to be known for this talent, so much so that my husband’s first instinct was not to grab a towel or a bandaid, or even to see if he needed to call 911. No, he grabbed his camera so he could post a photo of the carnage on Facebook for my loved ones to laugh at. I’m not linking to that. Imagine my hand, some bread, and quite a lot of blood.

But I did finish a sock. Here you go.

Of course I still have one sock to go, but at least I’ve started it.

I was a bit worried as I finished the first sock that I will run out of yarn, since the yardage is a bit short on this stuff*. After I finished, I hauled out the trusty drug-dealer scale to check.

Finished sock weighs 45.9 grams (including a bit of heel and toe reinforcing yarn).

I have 54.2 grams left, so I should be good.

I’m also baking bread again. Last week’s bread was a white-wheat-rye blend. Here’s what’s in the bread machine today.

Here are the approximate proportions of what’s in it.

2 cups regular bread flour

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup water

1/2 cup mixed “harvest grains“, softened in about 1/2 cup hot water

2 TBL canola oil

2 TBL molasses

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 TBL wheat gluten

1 TBL yeast

I get my bread making ingredients at the King Arthur store online. I linked to the harvest grain blend, but the rest of what you need can be found there as well.

I’ll bake that in the oven on a stone instead of in the machine, I like the texture better that way. I’ll try to remember to show you a photo later when it’s out!

*The yarn is Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes sock yarn. It’s 367 yards, which for someone with a foot that is close to size 11, can be a little light. Can I tell you how much I love them though? When I went to find a link to this, I discovered that they now make their sock yarns in “Big Foot” sizes. You can buy a skein and a half if you have Sasquatch size feet!

Summer Of Lace

Now that summer is almost here, I really want to knit lace! Fortunately I have a couple of lace projects on the needles. I just wish the weather would feel more like summer. It hit a high in the mid-50’s today, and rained much of the week. Oh well, I can hope, can’t I?

Here’s the big lace thing in progress.

That is my Evenstar shawl, started over two years ago. I think it’s high time it’s finished, don’t you?

Here’s where I am. This is a round shawl, with endless rows then a knitted on border. I have 56 rows to go, then the border, which is a 20 row repeat done 28 times. There are 560 stitches on the needles. This may take me a while.

We’re leaving town on September 24th for a big adventure that I’ll tell you about later. I want to take this with me, finished and blocked. That gives me 108 days to finish. If I do “only” a row a day, I’ll still have 49 days to do the border.**

59 rows + 28 border repeats; 108 days. Let’s keep track, shall we? I put it in the sidebar over there on the right. And please, don’t calculate how many stitches that is. I might have to break out the bourbon.

In other news, our fabulous peonies finally bloomed. Peonies might be my favorite flower, and we planted several the summer before last. They didn’t do anything exciting last year except grow leaves, but they are going to town with flowers this summer.

This is where being able to add fragrance to a blog post would be helpful.

Last but not least, next week is the 125th anniversary of the founding of my home town. There is a big celebration planned that coincides with the annual alumni banquet (that absolutely every alumnus that lives in the vicinity attends every year!) I can’t make this one, though it’s scary to recall that I was at the centennial celebration 25 years ago. I think I even still have the t-shirt! In solidarity with all of my fellow alumni, I rummaged around in my jewelry drawer and found my class ring.

That ring was designed in 1930, and hasn’t changed since. Of course the Edgeley tribe mostly doesn’t need the ring to identify each other, since the town is so small. If we run into each other somewhere, it’s a good chance we’ll be recognized.

So who is with me on the lace bandwagon? If you are, let me know in the comments and tell me what you are knitting/finishing!

**Updated with the right numbers. Apparently I can’t add or subtract, not a good sign.

June Goals!

Let’s get back to this, shall we? For awhile I was doing a beginning of the month post with goals for the month, and how I did on the prior month’s goals. Here we go.

First up is the 2012 Great Office Cleanup. Unfortunately I didn’t get any “before” photos, but trust me, it was a freaking disaster. Here are the “after” pictures.

I got rid of a ton of books. I had a million bags of CDs sitting around, I finally got them all uploaded to iTunes, and got rid of the originals. Let’s just say that our local library is very happy. They have a biannual sale of donated books/media that benefits the library, and that’s where all my surplus went. I had two desks in my office, the one you see up there, along with an ancient roll top oak desk that I’ve had since I started practice in 1985; I bought it used for my medical office. I found someone willing to give it a good home, and off it went. My goal was to get everything off the floor, so I kept dredging out until I got there. I’ve always snickered a bit at the “fung shui” people, but it really is easier to get something accomplished when your workspace isn’t a disaster.

Knitting? Same projects. Here’s one of them. I didn’t show a very good photo of it last time.

That’s reasonably accurate for the color. Here’s a photo of the stitch detail on the sides. Click to embiggen.

The main body stitch pattern is plain stockinette, but there is a two row garter stitch detail every so often, just enough to keep this from being totally boring. This is my Mr. Greenjeans Corduroy sweater, in case you’ve forgotten.

I was a bit worried about the sizing, so yesterday I put the whole thing on a bigger circular and measured it against another sweater that mostly fits (my not-quite-a-cobblestone). You can just see it peaking out in the photos. The not-quite-a-cobblestone is just a tiny bit roomy on me, so this one should be perfect. The fabric this is making is quite stretchy, and I don’t want a big baggy sweater.

So, goals for June:

Finish the body of Mr. Greenjeans.

Finish the socks on the needles (Primary Ink Tinseltoes).

Finish the blasted hood of that Faery thing.

Read more. (I wasted an inordinate amount of time in May reading that hopelessly muddled up mess of books called Fifty Shades. I need to read something more intelligent to get the bad words out of my head.)

I’m off. We have tickets to the symphony tonight, and I need to get a few things accomplished first!

Oops!

Contrary to rumors, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I’m still here, just got sidetracked a bit over the past two months. Here’s a recap:

I worked a lot in March and April. Busy, busy, busy. Things have started to slow down a bit in the hospital since the warm weather (all the way up to 56 F so far today!), so I’m getting a little more accomplished outside work.

No exciting trips! Actually, not even any boring trips. We have a couple things later this year that I’ll tell you about as they come up, but now is just the best time to stay put in the Pacific Northwest. Flowers are blooming, the trees are all leafed out. Remember the ice storm in January that took out a big old maple in our back yard? We planted a cute little new tree to replace it (little is the operative word here).

It’s a Stewartia pseudocamellia. No, I’d never heard of that either, but they do well here apparently, and will fit better into this space than a huge canopy tree. And it won’t drop those little wingy things all over the decks and roof like the big leaf maple did. It looks pretty pitiful right at the moment, so we got the bright idea to put a small Japanese maple tree in a pot on each deck.

Neither of those will get huge, but they disguise the neighbor houses a bit.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, I got a new computer. My ancient Mac has been threatening to bite it for the past year. It was so old that I couldn’t even get memory cards for it, even if I had wanted to update it. It also didn’t have enough oomph to handle any further upgrades to the operating system. Even though I had everything backed up and double backed up, I finally got nervous enough that it was going to die on me, and got a new Mac. Meet Bert*:

Why yes, there is a crown hanging off my computer. Why do you ask?

We’ve done assorted other fun things with friends and family, saw a few good concerts (Pink Martini, Arlo Guthrie, Mary Chapin-Carpenter). Oh, and there was the Kentucky Derby. We had mint juleps, and one of us dressed up. I don’t remember which horse won, but my, that hat is swell!

I’ve been in a bit of a knitting slump, but am getting back at it. I got a real bug up my you-know-what this spring to dredge out my office/loft. It was getting to the point where I had to almost crawl over stuff to get to the desk, so it was time to take action. I pretty much have it done, but it involved weeding out tons of books and junk, and getting rid of one of the desks, since I only really need one. I have some shelves coming next week to organize all my craft crap, and my goal is to have nothing on the floor except furniture. It’s already a huge relief to get rid of a bunch of clutter.

One benefit was finding and organizing all my knitting projects. I took photos, of course.

Everything is in its own bag, with the pattern and extra yarn. I bet you want to see them.

Sock-in-progress. Same old sock, the yarn is Tinsel Toes from the Unique Sheep shop.

Lewey thinks I should have finished that by now. He said, “Even I could knit a sock faster than that.”

Dog mittens, those have been in progress for years. They may get done someday. Actually, teaching the dog to knit might help.

Box full of little balls of sock yarn. Any guesses? Here’s another hint.

Hexipuffs!

Yes, it’s a Beekeeper’s Quilt. I’ve totally lost my mind. Somebody send me a virtual head-slap.

Ancient lace. That’s that Evenstar Shawl, which has been in a very long time out. It’s just too pretty not to finish it though.

More ancient lace. This one has actually seen some progress. It’s about half done. The pattern is Morning Glory by Anne Hanson.

True Blood Faery Ring sweater. It’s all done except the hood and button bands. My hard stop goal is to finish this to wear this fall/winter. Somebody remind me of this later when I’m screwing around starting new projects.

Speaking of which. The only logical thing to do when you’re bored with a million old knitting projects is to start a new one. Right? I thought you’d agree.

It’s a sweater. The yarn is Araucania Nature Wool that’s been marinating in the stash for years. The pattern is Corduroy from the book “A Fine Fleece” by Lisa Lloyd. It’s pretty mindless knitting so far.

Then there are the failures. Remember this?

This was a mystery knitting project that I started God knows when. I got this far and decided to be skeptical, and waited until the last clues were out. It did turn out to be a hat, but it’s something that I would never wear. Here’s a photo of a finished one.

Cute, but not for me.

So it sat around in a bag for a few months, until my cleaning frenzy. I ripped it out and wound it all up back into little balls.

I think those might make cute little hexipuffs, don’t you?

Enough already. I’ll try to be back before another two months goes by!

*The old one was Bert also. My laptop Mac Air is Ernie, of course.

Blogiversary!

I almost, but not quite, forgot about it! Good grief. Eight years ago today, I got this blog up and running. It has been great big fun, I’ll tell you! I’ve learned a lot in the process, and met some terrific people. Even though I occasionally lose it and forget to blog for weeks on end, I’m still here!

In honor of the day, I decided to post some actual knitting. I know, you’re shocked. The past few weeks since we got back from vacation have been a bit of a slog at work, but I have done a few things. Here you go!

First up is True Blood. This is slowly but surely coming along. I have finished both sleeves, and started the hood.

The first photo is more like the real color. After the hood, I just have to attach the sleeves, then knit a big honking button band all the way up one side, around the hood, and down the other. And it’s a hemmed band, so it will be eleventy billion stitches. Then I can attach my little garnet and silver faery buttons, and I’ll have a wonderful wool hooded coat, just ready for summer!

Next up is an actual finished project!

Project Details:

Houdini Stole

Yarn: this is a combination of Art Fibers Houdini and Kyoto. The Houdini is a wide nylon ribbon, and the Kyoto is a silk mohair blend.

Pattern: made up stole pattern (see below)

Needles: Big ass 12 mm needles. This was a little like knitting with beginner crayons.

For: Me

Started: March, 2011

Finished: yesterday

What I learned: I don’t generally go for artsy fartsy novelty yarns, but this actually turned out quite pretty, and I think I will wear it. It’s quite long, good enough to wrap a couple times around my neck. The shop lady at Art Fibers just made up the pattern on the spot after I picked out the yarn. Since it’s hand written in pencil on a piece of scrap paper, I’m pretty sure I’m safe to share it here.

With Houdini, cast on 3 stitches. Knit every row (garter stitch). Increase at the beginning and end of every other row until the piece measures about 20 inches (or as wide as you want). Then increase at the beginning of the row and decrease at the end of the row every other row, until it is as long as you want. Then decrease at each end every other row until you have 3 stitches left and bind off. AT THE SAME TIME, alternate the two yarns (Houdini and Kyoto) every two rows. So, two rows of Houdini, two rows of Kyoto. I just did the increases and decreases with the first and last stitches, and did a knit in the front and back increase, and a simple K2tog decrease. The yarn is busy enough that you can’t really tell.

You end up with a big long rectangle, but with the knitting on the diagonal.

Now that I finished that, I’ve resurrected an old lace stole pattern that’s been marinating quite long enough.

The is the Morning Glory stole, by Anne of Knitspot. The yarn is Harmony, a discontinued yarn from Brooks Farm. The color is named Froot Loops. This is sort of “moose lace”, but the pattern takes a little concentration. It is patterned on both sides, so no easy purl back row, and the pattern repeat shifts around on almost every row, so markers are a bit useless. It’s making me pay attention! It is knit in two halves, then grafted together.

Enough for today. We have a cooking class tonight, which should be a lot of fun. I’ll report back…

The Color Of The Day…

Is red!

I’ve finished the first sleeve for the True Blood Faery sweater, and am well on my way with the second sleeve. I don’t really feel like I’m on Sleeve Island with this for some reason, I think it’s the cable section. I can be pretty entertained by knitting the same cable over and over and over and over…

Then I’ll have the hood and the button bands to go. Of course the button band is about a million stitches long, and it’s double since you knit it, then do a turning row, then knit it again. Then you get to SEW the damn thing. And it goes all the way around the hood. Terrific. It’s a good thing that I’m into mindless knitting most of the time.

Here’s the body, all done, ready for the sleeves and hood. And button bands.

Here’s something else red:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Corgis!

Ok, ok. I sort of forgot about the blog. Here’s the quick update, in list format.

Work’s been a bit busy. I could just stop there, and hit “publish” and be done with it.

We did finally get the huge downed maple out of the back yard. It’s now in pieces in the front yard, awaiting a log splitter to turn it into firewood.

I haven’t been doing much knitting on old projects. I have a bazillion of them, and I am just bored to death with them.

So I started a new project. If any one of you honestly says that you wouldn’t do the same, I still won’t believe you.

Here it is:

And another shot.

Don’t ask, I have no idea what it’s going to be. It’s the first clue of a mystery project. I’m suspecting a hat of some type, but we’ll see. John thinks it’s half of a bikini top.

I had a little dust-up with the circular cast on, and finally searched out a you tube video on the Emily Ocker cast on, and figured out how to use the magic loop technique to get the thing started. The yarn is from Abstract Fibers, and the designer is Mary Scott Huff. Here’s the Ravelry link. I forgot how much fun color work is!

Then there are Corgis. When you don’t know what else to blog about, there are always dogs. There’s one of them up there in that photo. You can tell he’s not very energetic today. We’re also dog sitting for friends today.

Riley really thinks that three Corgis are an unnecessary number of Corgis. She really wishes she were still an only dog.

Last but not least, I am making roasted garlic pasta sauce for supper tonight. The garlic is roasting in the oven, and the house smells divine!

I’m off to knit!

Happy New Year!

Ok, Ok. I’m starting out the new year already behind. Terrific! We did have our blackeyed peas on January 1st, so I’m quite confident that this will be a great year. If you forgot about them, I think you get a bit of a grace period. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We did modify that recipe this year. I’ve decided that I’m just not that big a fan of a ham hock in beans or peas. It just gets too greasy in general. However, I love pancetta. Instead of using the ham hock or shank, dice up a handful of pancetta, have the deli slice it thicker for this than regular bacon. Saute it until crisp, then drain the fat, then add to your peas. Yum. It’s probably healthier than boiling a whole pig leg in your supposedly healthy pot of legumes.

How did I do with my December goals? Here they are:

Continue to write.

Finish the grey mittens, my hands are cold.

Get a grip on the True Blood Faery sweater sleeve problem. I need to mostly MacGyver the whole thing, so I might need some whiskey. I may not finish it, but I am going to figure out what to do with it.

And how did I do? I finished the mittens, and also a pair for John. Win! I did sort out the True Blood Faery sleeve. In case you’ve forgotten, this sweater pattern was never finished in the larger set of sizes. However the armscye on the size I’m making is the same measurement as the one on the size smaller, which was finished by the designer. I started out knitting, decided it was going to be wrong wrong wrong. Fortunately I set it aside to let my brain stop exploding before I ripped the whole thing out.

I ran the numbers through my Sweater Wizard software. And surprisingly, it’s not far off. I dragged out a couple of sweaters that fit me and have decided that the sleeve as written is going to work. So I’ve been knitting onward. Here it is.

As for the writing, after I finished Nano, I haven’t done much, but I have been writing a bit here and there. December always feels like riding on a bullet train to me. The whole month just has too many things going on to really slow down and enjoy any of them. Oh well.

So what are the January goals? I have a pair of socks on the needles that I’d like to finish. Here they are.

So:

Finish those socks.

Keep working on the sleeves. I don’t think I can finish both in January, but I’d certainly like to get one done and make good progress on the second.

Blog more.

Read more. I keep track of my books on Goodreads, and read 20 books in 2011. That doesn’t sound like a lot until I translate into a page count. I tend to read huge books, and my 2011 page count was 9992. My goal is 25 books in 2012.

Write a bit.

Spin a bit.

There you go. I’m not doing the 2012 resolution thing publicly, except for the books, but I do want to get some of the ancient projects done and off the needles. We’ll see how that goes. I will try to keep up with the monthly goals. That seems to keep me on track at least a bit!

Mid-November Update

Now there’s a catchy title for you! Let’s see, what’s going on at the Knitting Doctor Palace?

Hardly any knitting. I started a pair of mittens a couple weeks ago. Here’s where I am now.

Yes, I know my desk is a mess. But those are damned pretty mittens. And since it’s gotten cold here, I need them.

By the way, when I’m Queen Of The World, I’m going to make it a rule that every electronic device that needs a cable to hook to your computer has to use exactly the same cable. I’ve got a cable for the phone, a different cable for the Kindle, and yet another cable for the camera. They are all white, the end that hooks to the computer is identical, and they lack any other identifying markings, so I spend at least twenty minutes trying to find the right one every time I try to download photos or charge the Kindle. I should come up with a system for keeping track of them.

Back to the update.

I’ve written 28,327 words so far for NaNoWriMo. To stay on schedule, I should be at 28,333 by the end of today, so I’m in good shape. Of course the damned thing makes no sense, but that’s not the point.

I have to work every day next week including the whole weekend, except I have Thursday off. I have a dozen people that will be around my Thanksgiving table expecting to be fed, not expecting me to brag about how many words I’ve written, so I probably won’t get much writing done. I suppose I should spend the next few days banking some extra words. Blog posts don’t count in the Nano world. Neither does a swell turkey dinner with all the trimmings. And we’re having three kinds of dressing, since I’m an overachiever. Most of the family like bread dressing, but some are gluten intolerant*, so there will be wild rice dressing too. And there is a contingent of Southerners that insist on cornbread dressing, though I think that’s heresy. I suppose that makes me a Yankee. I farmed out the making of the cornbread dressing to one of those Southerners.

Last but not least, you’ve all met Sweetpea, or at least you have if you’ve been here awhile following me around in my travels. She joined our family back in about 1994, I think, and has been on every world travel trip we’ve taken since then. She’s gotten dragged around on buses, trains, automobiles, and airplanes. Oh, and boats. And river rafts, on a camping trip. She also went camping on a two week horse pack trip way back when in Montana. She traveled by pack mule on that trip. She has gotten dragged around the bedroom by a dog once, pawed by the cats, and I sleep with her. Every single night.

Up until today, she has never had a bath. There was that close call on the Mediterranean Cruise in 2006, here’s what I wrote then:

I promised a bear tale a few posts ago. Sweetpea is a rather unadventurous bear, at least up until now. Generally, she’s been satisfied to hang out in hotel rooms and ship cabins. Occasionally we get a room/cabin attendant with a sense of humor, and we find her perched in different places in our room when we get “home” at the end of the day. But that’s about as much fun as she usually has.

Until now. One day on the cruise we came back to our cabin after being out and around the ship, and found our room all cleaned up, as usual. Don’t ask me how, but the cabin attendants unerringly know when you’ve left the room, and whiz right in to tidy up and make the bed. This particular day I was rummaging around to find my knitting, and noticed that Sweetpea was gone. She was nowhere to be found. I rather frantically called the number listed on the card that our attendant had left. I found that she was on a break, and I had reached room service. They listened quite patiently to my rather lunatic-sounding story of the missing teddy bear, and I could almost hear the eye-rolling and snickering in the background, though the man on the phone was well-trained enough to not laugh out loud. He said he would look into it.

Not five minutes later there was a knock on the door. A young woman had rescued Sweetpea from the laundry, where she had apparently arrived wrapped up in our sheets. She was very happy to be home, and did not even think about having any more adventures for the entire rest of the trip.

She’s been looking more and more bedraggled looking as time went on, so I decided to give her a bath this morning. She’s drying out now, but John snapped a photo before she came out of the washer.

I can see why children are terrorized by their parents tossing their favorite companion in the wash. I paced nervously the whole time she was in the machine of death, but she did fine, and smells a whole lot better.

Enough stalling, I need to go make up some more words.

*Does anybody know if there is a way to make gluten free gravy? I’m pretty much a gravy making traditionalist, make the turkey stock from the inside parts, then do the flour thing in the turkey drippings and it all takes about a zillion hours to make, but boy I never get any complaints. Except it would be nice to have something without flour for the ones who can’t eat it. Any ideas?

Crabby Crabby Crabby

That’s me. I just want to smack somebody, anybody, which generally isn’t considered good manners, especially when it’s not anybody in particular that I’m crabby about. John says he definitely doesn’t volunteer to be the smackee, though he was nice enough to say he’d make me a martini for cocktail hour tonight, so I guess he wouldn’t be on the smackee list anyway. The dogs are looking a bit nervous, though Willie’s not nervous, he knows that any respectable cat wouldn’t stand for being smacked.

Let’s see, what am I crabby about? Let’s start with being sick again. I’ve had some sort of bronchitis bug all week. I was at a medical meeting the last part of last week, started feeling crappy on Sunday, fortunately had Monday off. Went to work Tuesday feeling sick, had to take yesterday off since I couldn’t talk except to squeak. John nearly got smacked for laughing at my squeaking. I had today off, which was a good thing, but I have to work the weekend and tomorrow. Fortunately I’m feeling better, and I don’t sound like so much like a demented mouse anymore.

Then there were technology issues. I seem to have lost the camera cord and spare battery, fortunately I found a spare cord so I can upload photos from my camera. Then I lost my sunglasses, which may not seem like a big deal in the Pacific NW in October, but the sun does actually shine here at times. I found them today, in a case, in my bag, right where they should have been. Weird.

The big techno glitch is our cable TV. We have a Tivo DVR, which is only a month old. The old one gave up the ghost while we were in Scotland, we think it might have been a power surge when we lost electricity for a bit, but who knows. Of course it was just dead, so we couldn’t recover anything we’d recorded while we were gone, including the first couple episodes of all the fall shows I had lined up to watch. No big deal, we caught up with them online, mostly, and set up the new Tivo that they sent us. We’ve been a bit busy this past couple of weeks and haven’t watched much television, and sat down night before last to catch up a bit. Of course there are now about 16 hours of new shows that we’re behind on. We were in the middle of an episode of The Good Wife (great show, by the way), and poof, the TV goes off, and Tivo starts to reboot. After much swearing and messing around with it, it turns out the the NEW Tivo box has died as well, and all the episodes of everything we had recorded are toast toast toast. Crabby crabby crabby. The Tivo guy on the phone today has no idea how close he came to being smacked.

Last but not least is the knitting. Medical conferences are great for knitting! So I finished the Little Devil red socks I’ve been working on for about a hundred years. Here they are:

Done! Then I tried them on, they are too fracking short. It just wouldn’t be a Knitting Doctor post without screwed up knitting, now, would it? I stuffed them back into the bag until I got home and could deal with them. Who knows, maybe they would become longer with a little time out. Not so much. So in a fit of pique, I grabbed my scissors and cut off the very end of the kitchener graft on both of them. John was horrified. I got the first one ripped back to before the toe decreases and back on the needles. So they’re not done after all. More crabby.

The other crabby crabby crabby knitting thing is that flipping True Blood Faery sweater. This pattern is making me crazy for many reasons, which I won’t go into just now, but the sleeves are one of them. The initial pattern was just in a few smaller sizes, and the designer, who at the moment is on my smackee list, sort of jerry-rigged the larger set of sizes, but never actually finished writing it up. The sleeves were never finished in the larger size range, but the armscye measurement for the next size smaller is the same, so I figured I’d just use those instructions to knit the sleeves. After I got about a foot of sleeve done, I realized that this is just a mess. Several other people who have knitted this pattern have had to rewrite the sleeves, since the way she’s written it ends up with huge balloon sleeves at the underarm, not a look that is flattering to anybody, especially not me. Here’s a photo. The blue green sweater underneath is a Peace Fleece cardigan that I did a ways back. I mostly wear it as a jacket, and the sleeves are plenty big around under the arm to fit over anything I might need to wear under it.

It might not look so bad just now, but I still have 10 sets of increases to go, so that sleeve will be 20 more stitches around in circumference by the time I hit the underarm. Damn. I’ll rip it back to just before the cables, and plan to dust off my sweater wizard software and come up with a different game plan. Crabby crabby crabby.

The not crabby part?

I have a pot of homemade bean soup on the stove! I have a sweet husband who loves me! I get to knit all those sleeve cables again! I love knitting cables! And I almost forgot to show you two of the things I bought in Scotland! Here they are:

Every Queen needs a pencil with a crown on it. And a God Save The Queen mug to drink her tea from.

Last but not least, I have a good job, and that means that I don’t have to knit for a living, which is a good thing, all things considered.

Surrender!

I had all these great plans to do post after post of the Scotland photos. I just give up. John got ahead of me and did a Picasa photoshow, complete with captions, so I’m just going to link to it and leave it at that. I will admit that even I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the photos we took. Here it is, go have a look. He picked a pretty good representation of where we went and what we did.

This week is starting off a little badly. I had the weekend off, which was great, except that yesterday I felt like crap. By evening I was feeling better, so figured I was over it, but woke up this morning still feeling like I had a bug. I went as far as taking a shower before I just threw in (down?) the towel and called in sick. I generally think that staying home sick is a real waste of time, since if I’m sick enough to stay home, I don’t feel like doing much else either. I guess that fits with the “surrender” theme. Oh well. I’m feeling better at this point, so will drag my sorry butt out of bed tomorrow and get to work whether I feel like it or not. If I spend too many days sick in bed, I can convince myself that I really AM sick.

Knitting is proceeding. I’ve fallen in love with that True Blood Faery sweater again. I’m still on the first sleeve, but it’s going well. Here’s a crappy photo or two. It looks much like it did the last time I showed it, but it really is bigger.

OK, I’m off to collapse on the sofa again, with a book and a cup of tea. Fortunately I have a huge stash of good books to sustain me!

P.S. Thanks for all the great birthday wishes! I might surrender and never get around to answering all the comments, so I figured I better say it here.

September Wrap Up

Well, I survived my week back at work after a lovely vacation. The first day back was a little dicey, since the jet lag was still kicking my butt, but getting back in the routine of work and home helped. I’m pretty sure that staying busy and having something to do helps, rather than just sitting in my jammies thinking about how tired I am. I think that’s why I didn’t have much trouble when we got to the UK; our friends in Manchester had planned a very busy two days for us while we were with them, and our brains got on local time pretty quickly. More on that later. Let’s get the fiber stuff out of the way first, shall we?

First, what were those September goals?

Finish the baby thing.

Finish those red socks.

Read books.

Enjoy the vacation.

And how did I do? I didn’t finish the red socks, but came close. Here they are as of today.

I just realized that it probably would have been helpful to take that photo on a different color background. Oh well.

Since I’ve been knitting these freaking socks for months, I’ll forgive you if you’ve forgotten the details. This is Lisa Souza Sock! yarn, in the color Little Devil. I’m having a devil of a time convincing my husband that these are really for me. For some reason, the man that likes every color, as long as it’s blue, loves these. We’ll see. I do love him, after all, so I might at least share them.

How about those non-knitting goals? Enjoy the vacation?? Check. Read books? Check. I decided to re-read Pride & Prejudice after we visited the estate where this version was filmed, and as usual enjoyed reading it very much. The other book I’m reading is the second in George R.R. Martin’s Ice & Fire series. It’s over a thousand pages, and I’m somewhere in the 800 page region at the moment. I also read several guide books while away, and part of a book of Scotland history.

Now, about that baby blanket. It is finished. Here it is:

Project Details:

Yarn: Cotton Ease, the vintage colors, in Electric Eye Searing Baby Blue, edging in white.

Pattern: Tweed Baby Blanket, by Jared Flood. This is the third of these I’ve made. Of course the original was in tasteful lovely wool, I used eye searing acrylic cotton, which has the distinct advantage of being machine washable.

For: The latest addition to my extended family, a grandnephew named Jace. Here’s his photo:

Yes, he is adorable. He deserves a baby blanket, don’t you think? I’m thinking he’s still young enough to use it, even if he was born in June.

Needles: 5mm circulars.

Started: Oh good grief. Too long ago. Sometime back in May, according to Ravelry.

Finished: about 10 days ago, in Scotland.

Modifications: I used eye searing cotton acrylic instead of heirloom quality wool. I also made it bigger, by one full repeat of the feather and fan edging.

What I Learned: I am sick to death of garter stitch. This pattern starts out swimmingly, with just a few stitches on the needles. You knit that big center square as a diamond, and for about twenty rows it looks like you are making terrific progress, then it just gets bigger, and bigger, and more bigger. Then, Hooray! You start decreasing, but it’s still all garter stitch till you get to the edging part. I have no plans to knit another one of these anytime in the near future.

I did learn something of a knitting nature. The final edge is an I-cord bind off, and it calls for a double point needle one size larger than the main needle you use. Of course, I didn’t have one with me, and do you think I could find a yarn shop to buy a needle? I just charged ahead and finished it with the 5mm size. The edge would scallop much more nicely if done with the larger needle, but this just needed to get done, and I’m not doing it over. It’s fine as is.

OK, October goals:

Finish the red socks.

Finish at least one sleeve of the True Blood Faery Sweater. See photo below.

I’m spinning up some lovely merino/tencel stuff. I have it about half done and want to finish it.

Summer Wrap-Up

Or, A Very Big Post

Now that summer is officially over, let’s get back to the monthly wrap-up posts, shall we? This summer was a bit of a bust as far as knitting goes. I got lots of other non-fibery projects done though, and enjoyed a lovely summer with family and friends, so I count it as a success all the way around! Here’s the summary:

I did no knitting at all on the True Blood Faery sweater. The current status is that I have the main body done and blocked, and I’ve started on a sleeve.

I knit about an inch on the current sock in progress. It just seemed to want to stay in hibernation.

I am nearly done with that Electric Blue High School Graduation Baby Mystery Project. I’m on the edging, about 6 rows to go, but those rows currently are at 592 stitches, and getting bigger every time around.

I spun up several skeins of yarn.

I started doing natural dyeing. Here’s the latest:

These were dyed with chopped dried madder root. The top yarn is handspun Romney, from a sheep named Rainbow, that was a gift from Dorothy* last year. I spun it up into a two ply right after she gave it to me, and it went into the stash. I was looking for something else to toss into the dye pot and found this, it was spun undyed. The roving is BFL, about 4 ounces. The color is pretty accurate, at least on my monitor.

After I pulled those out of the dye pot, I decided that there might be some color left, so tossed in the skein of rhubarb-mordanted Perendale wool that was in the August CSA box, along with 4 ounces of a BFL-Silk blend. Here’s how it came out.

That’s also pretty accurate, it’s a pale peach color. I haven’t quite decided if I like it or not, but I can always over-dye it next time I have the right color dye pot going.

Project Details:

Fiber: Two skeins of Romney wool, handspun by yours truly, 4 ounces of BFL roving, one skein of local California wool, and 4 ounces of BFL-silk roving

Mordant: The peach wool was mordanted by Birdsong from the CSA with rhubarb. I did the rest with an alum/cream of tartar mordant. I used about a 10% alum mordant solution

Dye: Chopped madder root. There was about 230 grams of the madder, I would definitely use more if you wanted to dye this much fiber and have it all come out red.

What I Learned: As the dye pot exhausts, the color changes. Duh. Madder is treated a little differently than the fennel. For one thing, it doesn’t stink like the fennel, I did this in the house without any problems. From what I read, if you cook the madder too hot or too rapidly, it will turn more orangey than red.

Here’s another summer thing. I bought a new spindle! This is sort of an early birthday present for myself. I’ve been looking at Golding spindles for a long time, and finally saw one that had my name stamped all over it.

Do you want a close up of the top? Of course you do!

Pretty, eh? The Scottish thistle is in honor of our next big adventure. We leave for Scotland** next week for a couple of weeks. I can’t wait! When I saw this up for sale on the Golding website, I knew it had to be for me.

OK, a quick list of September fiber goals and I’m out of here, or I’ll be late for church. I’m not getting very ambitious since I’ll be gone much of the time.

Finish the baby thing.

Finish those red socks.

Read books.

Enjoy the vacation.

That’s it. I’ll try to do one more post before we go, since we had a very special visitor last week that I’d like to tell you about!

*The wool was the gift, not the sheep.

**As usual, for you stalkers thinking you can steal my yarn while we’re gone, we have a house-sitter. She brings her llamas to guard the wool, so don’t even think about it.