Knitting – Page 33 – The Knitting Doctor

Ack. Short Rows.

I know learning new things is good for me. It’s supposed to stretch my brain and keep my mind nimble. My green striped sock pattern is a toe-up version with a short row heel. I have never tried this before, and I’m beginning to see why. Now, I like the idea of doing the socks from the toe up. You can just knit till your yarn is half gone without doing all that guessing as to whether there will be enough to get the second sock done. I keep reminding myself that I wasn’t so hot at doing flap heels and gussets either, the first several times I did it. I’ve only ripped this sucker back once so far, but we shall see. It’s really not a difficult concept once you try it and just follow the freaking directions. Here are some pictures:

Let me tell you, I’m not feeling very guru-ish right at the moment, despite what this quiz says.

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting
and do it all the time. While finishing a piece
is the plan, you still love the process, and
can’t imagine a day going by without giving
some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation
involves leaving ample space for the stash and
supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn
ends and you begin.
http://marniemaclean.com

What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

If I sound cranky, I’m not really. It’s actually fun to do something new, even if it is a bit fidgety at first.

I promised Norma a picture from my yard the next time the sun was shining. I figured I better not wait till April to do this, so here’s one with the sun NOT shining. This is from our back deck.

Note that there is actually some blue sky there!

Crochet Lady

No, this blog isn’t going to morph into The Crocheting Doctor. I had one of those moments at work this past week that reminds me why I will always love being a physician. I had admitted an elderly lady with dementia to the hospital earlier in the week with a diagnosis of “altered mental status”. Basically she was sent in for placement in a nursing home because they couldn’t take care of her at the facility she was in. Always the optimist, I tinkered with her medications and stopped some sedating drugs she was on, and the next thing I knew, she was awake and alert. She was still quite demented, mind you, but now very alert and interactive. One of the staff had mentioned that she was once a knitter, so I asked her about it. She looked at me and promptly said, “No, crochet.” The next day I took her some leftover yarn (the leftover balls from this) and a crochet hook. When I took it out of the bag, she didn’t even wait for me to explain. Her eyes lit up and she took it out of my hands and just started in. I checked back periodically through the day, thinking she might need a bit of help. She never did get past that first row, but she crocheted one heck of a long blue chain. The yarn and hook were discharged happily from the hospital with her.

Many thanks to everyone who left birthday wishes. I had to work, but my guy cooked me a wonderful dinner when I got home. He’s upstairs making Ethiopian Doro Wat tonight. I have no idea what inspired this, but I’m not about to complain.

Just so I don’t get kicked out of the Knitting Kitty ring, here are some pictures of Lucy. Lucy found a pile of old papers that were slated for the shredder earlier this week. Note how she looks so freaking innocent in this one.

A while later I found her under the pile. This photo didn’t quite capture all the little shredded bits around her. I guess she was just trying to help.

You might wonder why there are rarely pictures of Willie. Will thinks he’s a dog, and doesn’t usually stay in one place long enough for pictures.

I have been slogging along on my three little projects, making slow but steady progress. Just because it’s so damned purty, here is a picture of Birch:

This yarn is pretty fidgety to knit with, but I adore this color. It’s finally getting to the point where I can see some progress! Oooooh! Little Birch leaves!

Wall of Yarn

My favorite part of the San Francisco trip was the little foray out to ArtFibers. All I can say is that it is probably a good thing for the sake of my credit card bill that I don’t live near this place. (Yes, I know they ship, but it ain’t the same…)

For those of you who have never been there, here is the Wall of Yarn:

I sat through FOUR whole days of medical conference just waiting for the chance to get done and go to this place. I learned many new things, and didn’t fall asleep once, thanks to my trusty knitting project. The conference had perhaps 400 attendees, pretty well mixed half and half, men and women. (Oh, I remember the good old days, when I was one of a minority of women physicians! “Lady Doctors”, we were called way back then.) I was the only person knitting, although there was one other woman doing needlepoint. I found it rather amusing that the only people that commented on my knitting were a couple of men sitting near me that said some favorable things.

Here’s what I worked on:

I figure I’m about a third done with this. It was great conference knitting, with those miles of stockinette that I didn’t have to pay any attention to.

Oh, I suppose you want to know what yarn I came home with??

The ribbon yarn in both of these pictures is called “Houdini”. The first one really is as red as it looks. The red shiny stuff with it is Baccarat, which is a nylon sequin ribbon novelty yarn. The red combo will be a long skinny scarf.

The other combo is the Houdini ribbon in a fall color blend, along with Kyoto, a silk/mohair/wool blend in a lovely gold color. This will be a wide rectangular shawl. The women in the store are unbelievably helpful in assisting you with pattern and color suggestions. I sort of had an idea what I wanted for a pattern for this, and the woman helping me sat right down and hand wrote a pattern for this yarn combo that I think will be perfect.

I’ve decided that as an incentive to finish that Birch shawl, I will NOT start either one of these until I finish that one. I tried to work on it while watching the VP debate last night, but got a little worked up and lost track of where I was. Maybe I won’t really try to finish it till after the election.

Busy, Busy,

Doing stuff other than knitting, unfortunately. We’ve had a houseful of visiting relatives the past 2 weeks. It reminds me of when we lived in Montana for a bunch of years. We used to say there were two seasons; winter and visiting relatives. I’ve also had one of those weeks at work where I look back and realize that all I’ve done for the past seven days is work, eat, and sleep. I have done a little knitting, but not so as you’d notice from these pictures.

First the lavender sweater:

I couldn’t get it to quit rolling around and be quiet for a decent picture.

Then the Birch shawl. This is a bit more painstaking to knit. Not difficult, just one of those “pay-attention” projects. Note the dental floss lifeline at the end of the last repeat.

And the striped socks. These don’t look like I’ve done much since the last pictures, because, well, I haven’t done much since then.

The good news is that tomorrow is Friday for me. And we are leaving the next day for a week. I have a medical conference to attend for three days, and we’ll play a little bit as well. The meeting will provide me with three whole days to sit in a chair in a conference room and KNIT! Lovely! I used to feel self-conscious about knitting in conferences. I’ve found that honestly nobody gives a rat’s ass if I knit or not, and it keeps me awake and attentive. I’ve decided that it’s probably less distracting than if I was snoring loudly during a lecture. The meeting is in San Francisco; anybody know any good yarn shops there??

I probably won’t get a chance to blog again until I get back. Have a good week, everybody!

You Can Do It At a Trot,

You can do it at a gallop. You can do it real slow so your heart don’t palpitate. Just don’t be late, do the Puyallup.

Yes ma’am, we went to the Puyallup State Fair this year; complete with three small children in tow. For those of you not fortunate enough to live in this heaven we call Western Washington, Puyallup is pronounced “pew-al-up”, sort of rhymes with gallop. This and other unusual place names is how we tell locals from out-of-staters. Sequim is another good test; locals know to say “squim”, the furriners say “see-quim”. Some people mistakenly think we keep these unusual names to honor our local native people. Wrong, so wrong. We do it so we know who the visitors are.

If you live around here, every year in mid-September that silly song runs through your head non-stop. And you just have to go. There are cows, chickens, rides, deep-fried Twinkies (really!). There are more varieties of fancy pigeons than you would ever believe. There are 4-H girls and boys showing their horses and pigs. I had a whole conversation with some very cute noisy geese with huge orange bills. I forget what variety they were. The only sheep I saw were in the children’s petting barn; I think the main sheep showing events are next week (yes, the fair goes on for weeks).

We ate, we petted, we admired, we saw the lady doing cowgirl rope tricks. Any other time of year this would have been unbelievably corny. I spent serious time in the craft pavilion admiring the many lovely quilts and knitted items. And watched the end of the fastest fingers contest. There were about ten women entered; they each got a ball of yarn and a crochet hook, and were timed to see who could crochet the fastest. Here are a few of the knitted things:

I dared John’s son George to ride the Extreme Scream with me. I would have one piece of advice: pee before you try this. You get shot straight up in the air at about a million miles an hour, then dropped like a rock.

I don’t look nearly as terrified in this picture as I really was.

As this is a KNITTING blog, here is another finished project. I have had the yarn and pattern to make fruit hats for John’s grandchildren for a long time. While we were hanging out here this week, I started and finished an eggplant hat for Penelope. It started out as a blackberry hat, but the little bobbley things were just looking too weird for me. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.

Yes, that’s me in those fashionable slippers and robe behind her. We were all still in our jammies waiting for pancakes when I took these pictures. More pictures here.

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If you haven’t already checked this out, sign up for Bloglines. It saves a ton of time if you surf through a bunch of blogs every day. Kerstin and Wendy led me to this one. That little sign-up button in the upper left of the page will subscribe you to my blog and let you know when I’ve updated. Cool, huh?

New Pictures

This past week has gotten away from me. It was a hectic week at work, and this week we have a house full of family, with my husband’s two children and their families here for vacation. Between them they have three children under the age of three (seven months, one year, and two and a half). We all packed up and went to the state fair yesterday, which was an all day experience. I have some pictures from the craft pavilion that I might get around to posting later on. At any rate, I haven’t gotten much knitting done. Penelope, the oldest grandchild, is fascinated by knitting, and at the “why” age. Why are you knitting a sock? What are you doing with that yarn?

The sock in question is this:

The yarn is Rodel Sport & Strumpf Wolle, which I bought in Germany when we were there earlier this year. I was going to do the Cloverleaf Rib sock pattern, with that insanely fine gauge stuff I posted about last time. After about three starts and three frogs, I threw in the towel. I just don’t need this kind of stress at the moment. I’ve always wanted to learn to make toe-up socks, so decided that this was the time to learn. Starting was much easier than I anticipated: I did a crochet provisional cast on, then the paired increases were done in no time. My husband has already laid claim to these socks.

The lavender lace cardigan has seen a little progress:

That’s the back of the sweater. Now it will be plain stockinette up to the armhole decreases.

I will post an update to my finished project page today as well, with the Audrey sweater and the Montego Bay socks. Everybody is taking a nap at the moment (no small miracle with three children!), so I might get a little knitting done as well!

New Projects

Half the fun of finishing old projects is that you can start new projects without guilt. Not that I have much guilt about knitting; there is enough obsessive-compulsiveness in my work life that I just let it rip when it comes to my “fun” time. I digress; it’s probably that after-work bourbon again.

Anyway, I spend the last few finishing days of a project dreaming about what I will knit next. I do try not to have more than three or four projects going at once. I am a relatively slow knitter anyway, and it makes me too anxious when I am not making any perceived progress on something because I have fifteen different things started. Three seems to be the ideal number for me. I know knitters who freak out if they don’t finish one thing before starting another, and others who have dozens of things going at once, and seem perfectly content with that! I have decided that for me it is perfect to have one “big” project (defined this month as a sweater), and one “little” project (defined as a hat or a scarf/shawl), and a pair of socks for the third project. These definitions may well change by October, so don’t hold me to it.

The “little” project at the moment is the Birch shawl. I plan to do another couple of repeats this week and get a picture for you. It’s starting to look somewhat attractive, even if it is only an inch wide.

The “sock” project is still up in the air. I joined the Six Sox Knitalong some time back, and have yet to start one pair. The first pattern was of course due to be completed last month, but I hate deadlines, so purposely planned to start late. (If you believe that lame dog-ate-my-homework excuse, we need to talk.) The first pattern of the six is a lacy one called Cloverleaf Rib. I decided to make it in some stash yarn.

That color is just so wrong. In reality it is a cloverleaf/kelly green. I could not get it to photograph accurately. The yarn is from Ozyarn, a company from Australia. They don’t seem to have this on their site anymore, but it is a very light fingering weight mohair/wool blend. Their needles are great too, by the way. I started these the other night, but got very frustrated after the first row. Mohairy, almost lace weight yarn on US 0 double points was something I was just not in the mood for at the time. I’ll start these again later this week when I have a bit of time, before I give up on this yarn.

The “big” project is a sweater. I was planning on doing the Eyelet Cardi from Chicknits, and still will, but the yarn I picked just turned into another pattern. I have the Sweater Wizard software and really just needed to use it to make an adult sweater. I’ve done a baby sweater using it, and the software really does generate very easy to use patterns. The web site is here, if you are interested.

The yarn I am using is Sonata cotton in a medium lavender that I got at Elann earlier this summer. It will be a crew neck style cardigan, button up, and very plain with the exception of a lace border at the bottom and at the cuffs. Here is my pattern/gauge swatch:

And with this photo, you can sort of squint and imagine what the sleeve will look like:

I’ve finished the lace border on the back piece and am a couple of inches into the stockinette portion. This should be good mindless knitting except for the borders. This ought to be a great sweater to dress up jeans, or go with a skirt as a more dressy outfit. Yee-ha! I love knitting!

Vacation, and Finished Projects

Our vacation to Nevada definitely exceeded expectations! We stayed at Walley’s Hot Springs in Genoa, which is close to Carson City. It is in the high mountain desert, so though warm in the daytime, it was quite cool at night. We also had a full moon while we were there, which added to the beauty of the place. Of course we took lots of pictures, some knitting related.

Here is the view from the balcony of our condo:

This family provided our nightly entertainment (click to make it easier to see them!):

Walley’s was built in the 1860’s or so. It has a spa with several natural mineral pools.

We did day trips to Tahoe, Virginia City, and a long bus tour of Yosemite. We also spent a couple of days just hanging out by the pools.

We took a trip on Lake Tahoe on a paddleboat, the M.S. Dixie. Here I am waiting for the boat:

And on the boat:

Then there was the quality time on the balcony at the end of the day, with cocktails and knitting:

I finished this:

If I look like I had a few in that picture, I probably did. The photographer was probably also inebriated. I’ll try to get a better picture this week.

I also finished these:

Details of these two projects will be on my Finished Projects page when I get a little more time to post.

The only yarn shopping opportunity came while on the bus tour of Yosemite. On the ride home, we stopped at a Mobil gas station for fuel and food. Along with the usual things you might find in a gas station convenience store, there was this wall of yarn:

I didn’t buy anything, though I was tempted to do so just so I could say that I bought yarn at a gas station. The two girls at the checkout counter were learning to knit, and graciously allowed me to photograph them:

I’ll have updates on the new things that I am starting in my next post!

Last Post….

Until I get back from vacation, that is. We will be gone a week, so I’ll be knitting away, but not blogging away. We’re going to a hot springs resort in Nevada for a week. Only my husband would arrange a vacation in August in Nevada, at a hot springs. It actually does get cool at night there, so it should be pleasant. And it beats the heck out of working for a living.

I got the pieces for Audrey put together:

I’m not quite halfway done with the lace neckband. I’m taking that and my socks on the plane tomorrow. I should finish this sweater while I’m gone.

I have decided that I will start one more summery project before I get started on the Rogue sweater. I just can’t get into a heavy worsted weight sweater with cables and a hood in August! My next sweater project will be an Eyelet Cardi; pattern by Bonne Marie of ChicKnits. I have a stash of Elann Sonata cotton yarn in a nice lavender color that should be quite girlie when it’s done. You can find the pattern on her “Patterns” page, of all places.

Don’t have too much fun without me; I’ll be back in a week!

Ahhhh, Lace!

But first, the Lucy report. She seems to be fine. I’m thinking she got into something outside and ate something she shouldn’t have. There are such a host of plants and chemicals that can make pets sick. We quit using slug bait because it can be so toxic to pets, and dogs especially love to eat it. That doesn’t guarantee that the next door neighbor isn’t using something like this in their yard.
At any rate she is back to her usual self. I was going to say “normal” self, but just exactly what is “normal” when you are referring to a cat? It took me about half an hour this morning to get a remotely decent picture of her.

“No, I said no pictures!”

Finally I got a decent shot:

“Aren’t I the prettiest cat you’ve ever seen?”

Riley said, “Not to worry. I eat stuff all the time; she’ll get over it.”

And now, the knitting report. I made a little progress on the Waffle Socks. For those of you that are not keeping up, I am finished with the first of this pair. I finished the heel flap and turned the heel last night. I love turning heels; it just seems like magic to me to take flat knitting and make a curved surface out of it. If any of you have heels you want me to turn, send them this way. (I like grafting toes too; I know, it’s a sickness.) I also got the gusset stitches picked up and am ready to rock on the foot.

Sorry that’s a little fuzzy; damn sock must have moved while I was taking the picture.

Last but not least, the lace neck piece for the Audrey sweater. This is just so addictive! The pattern looks like it might be complicated, but it is really easy to knit.

I started out using a lifeline with every pattern repeat. I might quit doing this, as it is easier than I thought it would be to keep track. For the record, I left them all in so you could see. Click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see them. I am using dental floss for this; at the end of each 12 row repeat, I just thread a length of floss through the stitches on the needles. If I screw up badly, I just rip back to the flossed row and put it on the needle, and I have a starting place where I know exactly what row I am on. OK, maybe I won’t quit doing this. It does seem like tempting fate.

So now when my dental hygienist asks if I’m flossing, I can answer truthfully, “YES!”.

By the way, Lucy says “Thanks!” for all the get-well wishes. MEOW!

Ack, Lace!

I started the Birch shawl, from Rowan #34. I cast on 272 stitches last night before bed, before I just plain gave up for the evening. I started the thing on an ebony circular needle: bad mistake. Don’t try to knit fine lace-weight yarn the color of old bordeaux on a black needle. Switched to my Denise needles, and things went better.

I finished the rest of the 299 cast on stitches this morning after a couple of cups of industrial-strength coffee. Then I counted, and re-counted, and counted again. This hairy stuff just does not rip out; I did not want to get to the end of the first row and realize that I was a few stitches off. Here is the thing after casting on; it looks like a hairy caterpillar.

And after a couple of rows:

It doesn’t look like much yet, does it?

I’m counting on suggestions by Ann of Mason-Dixon Knitting, posted on her blog after she completed this last fall. She has a link to a nice chart as well that should make this a bit easier. This is definitely not going to be the kind of project you do while engrossed in an interesting movie. Or while drinking large quantities of alcohol. Though it might drive me to drink; on that note I will leave you with the Drink of the Week recipe.

Brazen Hussy

Ice cubes
2 oz. vodka
2 oz. Triple Sec or Cointreau
1/2 oz. lemon juice

Shake in a cocktail shaker, strain into a cocktail glass.

As always, enjoy in moderation!

Project Round-Up

I thought it was time to update where I am on my projects. I have 3 things going at once. I would probably have fifteen things going at once if I didn’t arbitrarily decide to limit myself to 3. This may not sound very Bad-Ass, but it’s my blog, I can do what I want.

First there is the pair of socks that is taking forever. I have yarn for about another 50 pairs of socks waiting once I finish this pair.

This is Sheep’s Gift, in Montego Bay, from Joslyn’s Fiber Farm. The pattern is the Blueberry Waffle sock pattern, from here.

I don’t mean it to sound like I am sick of these. It’s just hard to get excited by wool socks in August. I’ll change my tune in January.

Next is Audrey:

This is Rowan Calmer, the pattern is “Audrey”, from this summer’s Rowan magazine. I’m workin’ on it, OK?

Then there is (was) this:

You can clearly see that this is done. This is the Bottom’s Up Bucket Hat, by Bonne Marie of ChicKnits. You’ll find the pattern for sale on her “Patterns” page. The yarn is Schachenmayr Rainbow, from Elann.

If you can count, you realize that this leaves me with only 2 projects on the needles. I have not completely decided, but I think this will be next:

This is “Birch”, a shawl pattern from Rowan #34. That picture does not even come close to the yarn color. I gave up after about five photos. In reality, it is a deep lacquer red.

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I am listening to Folk Alley, recommended by Rachael. This just rocks. Well, OK, it’s folk music, but you know what I mean. If you have streaming audio capability, listen up. If you don’t, well, which century are you living in??

Weekend Knitting

Here’s what I did most of the weekend:

And Willie’s main activity:

He likes to sleep in Riley’s crate. Sometimes he even sleeps in there when Riley is in the crate.

I finished the second sleeve on the “Audrey” sweater.

This went relatively smoothly, after I screwed up the first row after the cast-on about 4 times and had to start over. Don’t even ask how one screws up the first row of a pattern 4 different times.

Here is my “gadget” photo of the day:

Somehow I ended up with an extra music stand in my house. This one got put to work as a pattern stand.

I started the second “Audrey” sleeve today. Now that I have figured out where to do the increases and decreases, this one should go fairly quickly. (I know, I know; that’s tempting the knitting gods again.)

A nice little package arrived in the mail today as well, from here.

This is Phildar Aviso, a cotton/acrylic blend that is just as soft as the Rowan Calmer. I had trouble getting this red to photograph correctly; the true color is a crayon/lipstick red, and not as orange-y as in the photo. I finally broke down and ordered this to make the “Kate” sweater from Phildar Famille Spring 2004. Here is a photo from the Kate Along blog.

I’m not too sure when I will do this. I want to do one more lightweight sweater before winter gets here, then start on the Rogue sweater as my main winter project. How to choose, how to choose?? I think this calls for a glass of wine to aid in the decision making process!

Ah, Summer!

I finished the front of Audrey this week, and am madly at work on the first sleeve. Here are pictures to prove it:

That’s the sleeve. It took me a while to wrap my brain around the directions to do the sleeve increases while maintaining the rib pattern. Basically the pattern just says to do this, not HOW to do this. One would think that this would not be difficult, but it took me a bit to figure this out. I’ve never done increases with a rib pattern before; so far it looks like it is working. The little pins are the way I mark my increases. I start with a chain of pins for however many increases I need to do. Every time I do an increase, I transfer one of the pins to mark it. When the pins are gone, I’ve done all the increases that the pattern calls for.

That’s the front and back.

We went to a Rainiers’ game this week again. This time I remembered the camera, unfortunately BOTH batteries were dead. I did manage to get a couple of pictures before the second one died altogether.

Here is a terrible picture of me knitting. John mostly didn’t get the knitting in the photo. He did however manage to get a dozen of the thousands of small screaming children that were there from summer camp programs. Total attendance at the game was about 6000; I’m pretty sure that most of them were under 10. 6000 10-year olds sounds more like 30,000.

Here’s an action shot:

And the mascot, Rhubarb:

The home team won, it was a beautiful sunny day, and I had my knitting along. What could be better? We have tickets for tonight’s game also, there is a big fireworks display after the game. Ah, summer!

Knitting Hubris

Oh, I was being cocky. The back of Audrey went so well. I started the cast-on, went right on to the cast-off at the neck without ripping once. I did those increase and decrease darts without a hitch. Hah, I said. The rest of this one will be easy, I said. I can have it done in a week, so when the weather is no longer 97 freaking degrees outside, I can wear it.

I have ripped the front of this sucker more than once. I am not going to put it into writing how many places I have had to go back. First the decreases looked like crap. Then it was those increase darts. I got to the armhole shaping and thought, well I have this one whipped; I had no trouble with this on the other half.

Somehow I got off a stitch on the shaping. It wasn’t looking right, but I thought, you know, it took a few rows on the back before it all started to look right. So I forged ahead, knitting more rows. I looked at it last night, counted, counted again. Then I said a lot of really bad words that would probably get me “googled” from some decidedly juicy non-knitting sites if I repeated them here. And ripped. I am partway into the armhole shaping section and so far so good. But I’m not saying nothin’ from now on till this front piece is done.

The good thing is that this yarn is just wonderful to knit with. I’ve said that before, haven’t I? Why can’t yarn that costs only $3 a ball be this soft??

No pictures today, I’m not tempting fate.