Mission Accomplished

Thanks everyone for your reassurance that the acopalypse was not at hand, and generations of in-laws for thousands of years had in fact managed to meet without killing each other . My parents met DF's parents with nary a hitch worse than several hours of awkward confersation on the first day. That's nothing that a good mango mousse and cat skinning (a.k.a. karaoke) could't alleviate. My apologies to all of you cat lovers out there. And *gasp* they found that they may have something in common: complaining about their children.

Also accomplished this weekend, a friend I've known for almost 20 years got hitched. It was worth the fondue set and the plane ticket to see half of my prom date get lassoed into matrimony while the other half stood by in utter shock like the rest of us. In case you missed that, I asked, strike that, told, two of my high school friends that they were coming to the prom with me. I believe it went something like this:

Me: Joe, you're not going to prom, are you?
Joe: No. *suspiciously* Why?
Me: Okay, you, Drew and I are going. I bought tickets for the three of us already. I think you and Drew should pick up dinner.
Drew: Huh. It's like an invitation and a bill all rolled into one.

Fast forward 19 years:
Joe: Drew asked me to be in his wedding yesterday.
Me: Really? Are you a groomsman?
Joe: No, I don't think so. He would have mentioned that. He just said I didn't have to do much.
Me: Are you sure? I was looking at the website and there were five bridesmaids and four groomsmen and all the other slots look filled.
Joe: No, I really think Drew would have asked me to be a groomsman, not just to be part of the wedding.
Me: okay... if you say so.

Two days later:
Joe: yeah. Apparently I'm a groomsman. I saw it on the webpage.

Poor Joe. How does he always manage to be on the receiving end of all of our crap? At least I managed to make roles clear even if I didn't manage to get around to asking for permission first. If only I could combine efforts with Drew, we could maybe get it right eventually.

To characterize Drew as saying that he's incredibly efficient with the words he does manage to utter would be selling him short. He's a genuinely good guy, and I'm happy to see that all the years of waiting to see if the right girl could possibly motivate him to date and move out of his parents' house have paid off. J is so sweet and giving, and he totally needs someone to take care of him. She brings out a side in him that we've never had the chance to see. That probably makes her perfect for him.

In less sappy news, I did manage to swatch for my Sockapaloooza Yukon Leaves socks. This Regia Stretch color is perfect. The variegation is so subtle that it just makes the fabric shimmer. And be proud: I actually SWATCHED and *gasp* blocked my swatch instead of making a full sized swatch. Roll your mouse over the picture to see Before Blocking pictures.



Incidentally, I found that my lace pattern gauge is the same as my stockinette gauge. Did you hear that? Not only did I swatch, but I swatched in two different stitch patterns! Hell is definitely getting a bit chilly these days.

I cast on Friday toe up again. I am all kinds of paranoid since I used up some of the yarn for the swatch and I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't run out (my sock pal apologized for having big feet). I used the Turkish cast on yet again, and I'm still loving it. I had to rip out my first attemp because I was using raised left and right increases to shape a standard toe, but then I ended up hating the way it looked. I changed the increases to M1B (insert left needle under the loop between the sts from the back and K), K2, M1F (insert left needle under the loop between the sts from the front and Ktbl) and I liked that a lot better.

So far, I've finished the toes and have gotten 3.75 inches into it. I'm not entirely sure what to do about the foot length though. My sock pal gave me measurements of her foot, but she didn't specify what she'd like the finished measurements to be. I'm going with the guideline of 90% of actual foot circumference for the sock circumference, but I'm not sure about how long to make it. Should I go with 90% of the length as well?

Hey, that's not burgundy, is it?

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I didn't think Audrey would get such a positive response, so thank you thank you thank you for the little ego boost.

For those of you who expressed interest in making Audrey, I would definitely put out a word of warning. Shine is supposed to be a sport weight yarn, but I ended up getting something more of a fingering weight gauge out of it. I'm not sure if I ended up really stressed or what, but please keep that in mind so you can make adjustments. Also, I did end up making these gloves pretty small in comparison to my actual hand and forearm measurements: My hands are much more like 6.5" circumference. I did this because I had heard that Shine grows a bit after washing and I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be swimming in them when I was done.

Anyway, if you do end up making Audrey, please send me a picture or a link to your post, 'kay?

I haven't had much to report on knitting wise lately because it's just more and more of the sleeve on DF's zippered raglan. I swear the man has arms of a length to suggest that he may be the missing link between apes and man. Why oh why can't DF be a little person? I still have one last increase on the sleeves and then ANOTHER 3 inches of straight knitting before joining the sleeves to the body. It's the neverending sweater.

What do y'all think by the way of the increases in the ribbing? I have think that increases in ribbing looks a little strange, but maybe I'm just weird. Sorry for the dark picture, at least the sweater's not bright pink this time.

Sorry for the bland background. The porch is about the only place in my apartment building to get natural sunlight and prop up the camera for a self-portrait, so get used to the green stucco.

On another note, DF's parents and my parents are meeting for the first time tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed. I'm keeping the hard liquor handy. At least the plane ride will give me ample time to swatch for my Sockapaloooza socks.

Something Pink

Audrey
Pattern: My Own
Materials: Knitpicks Shine (60% Pima Cotton/40% Modal, 110 yards). Exactly 2 skeins in Blush. Size US4 Addi Turbo circulars, 24" and 32".
Gauge: 27 sts and 40 rounds = 4x4" in stockinette st
Finished Size: 6 inches around hand, 9 inches around widest part of forearm, about 13 inches from tip to cuff

Started: February 7, 2006
Finished: February 17, 2006

Pattern
Cast on 38 sts using long tail method, divide between two circular needles and join in the round being careful not to twist. Cast on for second glove and work simultaneously from here. All sts on Needle 1 will be worked in St st and will be considered the palm side.

Beginning with a purl round, work 4 rounds in garter stitch. Knit across 19 sts of needle 1 and then K1 on needle 2, work across chart, K1. Continue in this manner for 2 pattern repeats. On last row of chart for glove 2 on needle 2, work across chart, pm, then cast on 10 sts using backwards loop technique.

Thumb gusset shaping
Knit across needle 1 for glove 1, pm, then cast on 10 sts using backwards loop technique. Cast on an additional 10 sts on glove 2 (a total of 20 sts, including those cast on at the end of the last round), then knit across. Continue on Needle 2 glove 2: k1, work next row of chart, k1, sl marker, knit to end. For glove 1, cast on an additional 10 sts, pm, k1, work next row of chart, k1.

The cast on sts between the two markers on either glove form the thumb gusset. Continue working the hand sts in stockinette on the palm side and in chart pattern on the back of hand as before. Work the thumb sts in stockinette on even rounds, and decrease on odd rounds as follows: after working hand sts, sl marker, SSK, knit to 2 sts before marker, K2tog. When 2 thumb sts remain between markers, on next decrease round consume 1 hand st on either side for the decreases.

Wrist shaping
Continue working hand sts as before for one more pattern repeat. Continue working the chart, but switch palm side sts to 1x1 ribbing for two more pattern repeats. Switching back to st st on the palm side, work to row 4 of chart.

Forearm shaping
Next row palm side: k1, m1, knit to within 1 st of end of palm sts, m1, k1. Continue working from chart for sts on needle 2. Work this increase row 2 more times every 8 rows, then every 4 rows 6 times.

Border
Finish working chart, then work row 1 of chart one more time. Work in st st all the way around glove for 6 more rounds. Switch to garter st for 5 rounds. Bind off with picot bind off as follows: BO 2 sts, *return st on R needle to left, cast on 2 sts using cable cast on technique, BO 4 sts repeat from * to end of round. Weave in ends and close gap between thumb gusset and hand sts.

Discussion
I started off making these because I wanted to make use of some gift yarn and I wanted to keep my hands warm while sitting in front of my drafty window at the computer all day. That definitely called for fingerless gloves if I'm going to be able to type at the same time.

I have never worked with Shine before, so originally I thought that a cute grapevine cable pattern would dress up an otherwise plain tube. The Make Bobbles though, about drove me crazy so that idea was abandoned. I then tried a lace panel going up the back of the hand, and I'm not sure if it's me or what, but I tried 3 different lace motifs and all of them looked terrible. Maybe it's the Shine, but I finally settled on a simple knit and purl motif you see here. Maybe it was the subliminal messaging from reading all about Eunny's adventures in argyle that did it. Who knows.

These gloves could have easily taken only 1 ball of Shine for the pair if I had stopped at the ribbing for the wrist, but I decided to just continue until I ran out of yarn frankly because I had no other plans for what would have been a leftover single ball of Shine. The result, practically elbow length gloves harking back to Breakfast at Tiffany's.

They're totally impractical because let's face it, who wears elbow length fingerless gloves anyway, but I still think they're fun. And well, they only vaguely match the pajamas I tend to wear all day while working at my computer...

So much for being regular

And it's not because I don't eat enough fiber. It's just that I thought I'd be able to post a bit more regularly that I have been. I'm all spurty for lack of a better word. But anyway, life just has a habit of getting in the way, eh?

So rather than spoiling you with pictures of a WIP that's this close to being done, I'd rather just unveil the whole thing all at once. Seems more magical when you haven't even seen anything about it before.

But I really have been knitting. I swear. Even on things that have been in my sidebar for ages. Like DF's (pink) Zippered Raglan sweater. I finished the body up to the armpits and have worked a few sets of increases on the sleeves. I carefully consulted Alison's corrections to the arm instructions (thanks for the reminder IronSteph!), and I realized that all she was trying to say was just make sure that you replace the ribs that you take out from the body with the ones you're adding back in for the sleeves. It doesn't really matter how much you increase or whether you finish with knits or purls under your arms so long as it matches. In my case, I'm taking out 4 purls, 4 knits, and 4 purls from the body where I'll attach the sleeves. So, that means that when I increase for my sleeve, I need to end up with 4 purls, 4 knits, and 4 purls centered around the underarm "seam". So pathetic that it took me reading through Alison's post about 40 times and tearing my hair out to figure this simple thing out.

Because you guys just can't get enough of the pink (burgundy) sweater...
I've also been planning out my future projects. Namely my Sockapaloooza socks. I just received my yarn in the mail. I went ahead and purchased the Regia Stretch and it's just as fabulously subtly variegated in person as it is on Sue's website. I think this should pass nicely for solid, while giving a little bit of oomph in the visual texture department.
As for the pattern, I've been debating this at length. My sock pal wants lace socks, and there are so many lace patterns that I've been wanting to try, but frankly, I'm a bit selfish. I know that if I make something for my sock pal, I won't get around to making them again so that I can keep them (serious 3rd and 4th sockitis here my friends).

Then it hit me, I should pay it forward. I was recently gifted with an amazing pair of Yukon Leaves socks that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE and wear as many days as I can without grossing out DF with my smelly feet. But, I figured, hey, I love these socks that I already have, but I haven't had the opportunity to knit them yet. If I make them for my sock pal, everybody gets what they want. She gets lace socks, I get to work on a pattern that I think I'll enjoy, and I'll still have a pair of these socks even after I give them away. I think we have a winner people!

Only question: is stretch wool a bad idea for lace?

Next up, DF's cousin has twins due in April, so with my lightning knitting pace, I should probably be starting their welcome present now or two months ago. Probably the cardigan (shown left) from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits for Beginners book. At least I managed to start swatching with yarn that my future MIL purchased for me during a shopping as therapy session. Normally, I don't like novelty yarn so much, but this stuff I swear feels like a fluffy bath robe. Perfect for baby. Despite fondling the swatch, I didn't think too far ahead until I got home with my loot and actually read the label. Yes, it does say "eyelash" yarn on it. And what's up with not putting a knitting gauge on the label? Crochet only?

So if you actually rolled your mouse over the picture to see the back of the label, you may have noticed that they suggested a US8 crochet hook. So I figured I'd swatch with the same size needles. Disaster. I finally got a reasonable fabric after going down to size US3 needles to get 18 sts/4 in. Anyone know if crochet gauge is the same as knitting gauge, because damn I've never had to go down 5 needle sizes to get gauge before.

Here's what the swatch looks like BTW. I'm thinking that for the solids, I don't like the way the knit side looks as much as I like the purl side. There's a remarkable lack of stitch definition on the purl side that almost makes it look like I didn't even knit it but rather wove it that I really like. The colors come out funny on the purl side with the variegated yarn so I think I will use the knit side as the right side in this case. What do y'all think? Again, roll over the picture to see the purl side. I blatantly stole this HTML trick from Nona btw.

Oh, okay. Here's a sneak peak of the almost FO. Anyone up for Name that Yarn?

Patently untrue!

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Knittingspaz!

1. Japan provides over thirty percent of the world's Knittingspaz supply!
2. The international dialling code for Knittingspaz is 672.
3. If you toss Knittingspaz 10000 times, she will not land heads 5000 times, but more like 4950, because her head weighs more and thus ends up on the bottom!
4. Knittingspaz can drink over 25 gallons of water at a time!
5. 68 percent of all UFO sightings are by Knittingspaz.
6. Ancient Greeks believed earthquakes were caused by Knittingspaz fighting underground.
7. Forty percent of the world's almonds and twenty percent of the world's peanuts are used in the manufacture of Knittingspaz.
8. There are 336 dimples on Knittingspaz.
9. The horns of Knittingspaz are made entirely from hair!
10. Knittingspaz can be found on a Cluedo board between the Library and the Conservatory!

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Saw this one on Beth's blog, and I just had to pass it along.

Not without comment though:
1. And here I've gone my entire life telling people that I'm in fact NOT Japanese but rather 100% chinese as far as I knew.
2. Wow, I didn't think my a$$ was big enough to warrant a whole dialing code. An area code, maybe.
3. Actually true. Why do you think I talk about myself so much?
4. A wholesale lie. People who have managed to observe me for a weekend in the desert have made comparisons of me with kangaroo rats.
5. That's only because most observations of the world around me usually go over my head.
6. Probably true. DF calls me quite scrappy when we wrestle. I have been known to kick and bite and pull hair. Quite the feat if you noted DF's hairline in that last picture.
7. I'd believe it. DF always claimed I was nutty!
8. Again, all on the a$$ the size of a country code.
9. Hey, if I can have hairs in my bathroom stuck to the CEILING, then I'd believe I have horns made out of hair somewhere that I have yet to find.
10. Wouldn't that be Colonel Mustard in the billiards room?

Finally... a Clapotis!

So I realized that it probably takes most people about a week to 10 days to finish this project, but lo and behold, it wouldn't be a project at Chez Spaz if it didn't look like this at some point. This was taken on 1/31. Note that at least this time, I had enough sense to remember to put in a lifeline. I debated about this one for a while actually. I had changed needle sizes and the ball looked quite large for some reason and I just thought, well heck, maybe changing gauge will be enough to lengthen the scarf without altering the number of increase repeats. I'll go another repeat. I should learn to never trust my judgment on these things.

I have to say that I've become trusted friends with my ball winder. With the number of times that my ball winder has turned a mass of ramen into something more manageable, I'd have to be. I should get it a Christmas present... And with as much as I trusted my ball winder, I never thought that shortly after this picture, it would conspire against me to be the Stupidest Thing I Did This Week*.

* Blatant swipe of a brilliant idea by Carrie over at Every Word's a Purl. She does an occassional, but hilarious series of the Dumbest Thing I Did this Week. See Here for an example.

So, have you ever thought, darn... I wish I could wind my yarn barf back into a center pull ball with my WIP still attached and not have to work from the outside of the ball. Well, I'm here to tell you that yes, you probably can do this if you wind by hand (I haven't tried), but please, don't try this with your ball winder. I did. It doesn't work.

If I must elaborate, I attached the yarn going up to my Clap-in-progress to the winder, strung the yarn through the guide, and started to crank. I quickly realized that my winder was going to try to wind from both ends (and frog the Clap) so I clamped down on my WIP end. Well, it didn't wind around the spool, but all that turning had to do something. A couple dozen cranks later, I found out what: my beautiful flat ribbon yarn turned into a dense single ply tube. Yes, my first experience with spinning, and wow was that effective. An hour later, I managed to de-spin less than a yard's worth of yarn and start working again from the outside of the re-wound ball.

Thankfully, this one's done:Clapotis
Pattern: by Kate Gilbert in Fall 2004 Knitty (as if you didn't know)
Materials: Southwest Trading Company Phoenix (100% soy silk, 175 yards). Exactly 3 skeins. Size 8 Addi Turbo 32" circulars.
Gauge: 5 sts/in
Finished size: 14" x 46"

Started: January 1, 2006
Finished: January 14, 2006
Frogged: January 16, 2006
Finished: February 5, 2006

Notes:
Followed pattern, except repeated increase section a total of 6 times and repeated straight section a total of 12 times. And frogged a lot. Kate Gilbert doesn't tell you to do that.

Discussion:
I actually liked working with Phoenix. After reading the review on Knitter's Review I was a bit skeptical that I'd eventually get the feel of working with a "wet noodle", as some had described. But the reviewer was right, and the very occassional snags were unnoticeable. I highly recommend this stuff if you can find it on sale somewhere. For the first time though, I couldn't meet gauge and get a fabric that I was satisfied with. I ended up meeting gauge for the lighter weight version of this yarn, Oasis. Makes me wonder if I'd turn Oasis into a sport weight yarn...

The pattern is about what I expected it to be. Pretty mindless, but it kept me motivated because I just wanted to get to the next dropped stitch. I just can't figure out how to get the edge stitches on either side of the dropped stitch column to stay tight. Yes, they stay nice and taught when pulled the rows tight, but when you pull the columns tight, the edges of the columns, despite their twistedness, still loosen up. Sigh. I'm living with it, and hopefully the recipient won't notice.

If I ever make this again (doubt it since I already made this one twice) I'd definitely do it in stole size instead of small scarf size. See how it's not as Mr. Yuck short now? I only managed to add 5 inches on to the length, but because of the gauge change, I also took out 4 inches in the width to make it a bit more proportioned.

Previous posts about this project:
Good to be back on 1/11/2006
Too square on 1/14/2006
Beware! on 1/16/2006

Blogging grand rounds

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I had a chance to get out and see what everyone's been doing lately and try and be a better blogger.

Caitlyn just finished up a fair-isle hat and was daring enough to show the floats. Suffice it to say that she wrestled with those floats a bit before she was happy with the outcome (like most of us would... except if you're Eunny and have such ridiculous fair isle skills that you can design a beautiful pattern for which the rest of us have to join the knitting olympics to tackle... just ask IronSteph). It's weird how the knitting world is so small. I happened to get my VK winter 2005/6 issue yesterday, and while I probably wouldn't make a single pattern in this issue, they happened to have an entire article on Armenian Knitting by Meg Swansen. MS described a fair isle technique that ends up looking like intarsia, where you float ENTIRE BODIES of solid colored sweaters before getting to the little intarsia panel at the neck. Interesting enough to at least check out next time you're browsing the knitting magazine racks.

I did finally get my Sockapaloooza match after anxiously checking my email every hour last week. My sock pal wants solid color socks, but I sort of thought that this was so incredibly subtly variegated, that it might as well be solid. What do y'all think?

Also, there's yet another fun You Knit Too Much contest going on over there to test your fiber and pattern knowledge. I think the signups might be closed, but definitely play along!

And finally, I was tagged by Cristina for a meme way too long ago, so at long last...

Four Jobs you have had in your life:
1. Lab teaching assistant
2. Princeton Review instructor
3. Chemist
4. Professional nag

Four movies you could watch over and over:
1. The Princess Bride
2. Sixteen Candles
3. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
4. When Harry met Sally

Four places you have lived:
1. Brooklyn, NY
2. Houston, TX
3. Boston, MA
4. Princeton, NJ

Four TV shows you love(d) to watch:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Friends
3. ER
4. That's Incredible!

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Disney (world/land)
2. Maui
3. Caribbean cruise
4. London

Four places you want to visit:
1. New Zealand (Honeymoon, baby!)
2. Australia
3. China
4. Japan

Four websites you visit daily:
1. google
2. amazon
3. bloglines
4. web mail

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Does Chinese count?
2. sushi
3. soup (ANY kind)
4. NY style pizza - lots of sauce, minimal cheese, one or two toppings max

Four things currently on the floor in your car:
1. Windshield wipers
2. umbrella
3. climbing gear
4. rice (it's not my fault the bag broke 9 months ago...)

Four bloggers you are tagging:
I don't really believe in tagging, but please join the fun if you haven't done this one already!

Next up: Another FO!

Jaywalkin'

First of all, thank you to everyone who extended their well wishes to DF's family and me over the past week. It was very much appreciated. We returned from Ohio last night in a haze, so I guess that means we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

When we last left off, I was traveling and having a fantastic time (an anomaly for travels involving work, I must admit). I hopped up to San Francisco for the week and managed to make it to TWO knitting related events: Chicks with Sticks and Knit and Wine at Urban Knitting Studio. The ladies (and gentleman!) at Chicks with Sticks were very open and friendly and two are even fellow knitbloggers. Cristina has tagged me for a meme (I swear I'll get to it) and Beth made sure I didn't get lost on the way back to my hotel (she also managed to find a way to stretch a turkey from here to Friday). Go check out Cristina's and Beth's blogs to find out what the heck I'm talking about.

The Urban Knitting Studio hosted a great little get together. The owner Helen has fabulous taste in yarns and I've never seen that kind of selection of yarns before. Helen stocks more than just the standard Debbie Bliss/Rowan/Cascade mix, so if you're in the SF area, go by and check out her store. I managed to extend the non-yarn purchasing stretch just a bit longer. I scored back issues of IK (Fall 2004) VK (spring/summer 2004, winter 2004/2005) and Rebecca (25) for half off. I also picked up Rowan 37 for full price, but the LYS around here don't have any in stock, so I figured that was a find. I'm not sure that I actually like the Fall 2004 IK, but since it was sold out on the IK site, I figured that it must be a commodity of some sort. Heck, if I didn't already own the FBS pattern, it would have been cheaper to buy the whole magazine at this price rather than just the pattern anywhere else. I may put it up for trade at some point, but I'm debating about trying to collect the whole library of IK magazines...

Since I had the opportunity to stay in SF for an ENTIRE WEEK, I did get a chance to breathe a sigh of relief at the return of common sense. For example, when your parents told you as a young child to look both ways before crossing the street, what did they tell you to do in the following scenarios?

At a crosswalk with cars coming:
a. step out in the street and hope the cars have good enough brakes (which are never required to be formally inspected by the state) so that they can slow down from twice the speed limit to zero within 20 feet
b. wait for cars to pass, then cross

At a red light with no cars coming:
a. wait for walk signal, then cross assuming that all the cars who run the light will swerve to get out of your way
b. cross

Not at a crosswalk with no cars coming:
a. Walk over two blocks to find a crosswalk and step out into traffic
b. cross

I'm happy to report that pedestrians in SF tend to choose B in most of the above scenarios. I can't vouch for LA pedestrians.

Speaking of the road rules, I did manage to finish DF's birthday present and only be a few hours late!

Jaywalker Socks
Pattern: Jaywalker by Grumperina
Materials: Vesper Sock Yarn by Knitterly Things (100% merino wool, 440 yards). 1 skein in Neapolitan (test batch so it's different from what's available now) gifted from Keohinani. 2 Size US1 Addi Turbo circular needles (24", 32")
Gauge: 10.5 sts/in in pattern
Finished size: 8" circumference, didn't measure length of foot and cuff, but fits SNUGLY on DF's size 11 feet

Started: December 26, 2005
Finished: January 29, 2006

Notes:
Worked as 2 socks on 2 circs. Cast on 38 sts with Turkish cast on and turned short row toe (decreased to 20 sts unwrapped). Knit one round across cast on row and toe sts then increased evenly around to a total of 84 sts. Worked in stitch pattern as for larger size. When length looked "right", turned short row heel on half of the sts (decreased to 16 sts unwrapped) and continued in pattern. Started ribbing when DF complained the yarn left over wouldn't be enough to make ribbing as long as he'd like. Kept going until I ran out of yarn.

Summary:
I think I get why everyone in blogland is making a pair of these. First of all, they count for my J in the Sock-A-Month KAL (thanks Chrissy for posting these pics for me in time). More importantly, they really show off self-striping yarns and make it look like you did a whole lot more work than you really did.

For the knitpicky (ahem, *me*) there were some things I thought worth pointing out. First of all, I still can't quite close up the hole at the ankles when turning a short row heel. The toes don't have this problem, but it's a whole lot more noticeable on the heel. SEE?

If you didn't notice so much from the picture above, somebody up there decided to align the sun, the moon, and the stars so that the striping went completely uninterrupted across the cuff and the instep despite not doing an afterthought heel. Makes the OCD knitter in me extremely happy. And for the thrifty knitter, the beauty of knitting toe-up:

Yes, that's less than 1/2 yard of leftover yarn. A word of caution though, binding off takes a whole lot more yarn than you think it will, especially if you go up a needle size to avoid the tourniquet effect. I thought I had enough for one more round before the bind off, but the bind off ended up taking what seemed like twice as much yarn. So I had to tink back ON THE NIGHT OF DF's BIRTHDAY. I tell you, if it weren't for that, they wouldn't have been done on time!

Clearly, I didn't really follow the pattern as written, but I'm still calling them Jaywalkers!

I'll leave you with one last pic of how DF feels about his new socks...

*note to self: do NOT take pictures of DF after he's had a nightcap*

Previous posts about this project:
I'm on the wagon on 1/24/2006
Pretty in Pink on 1/18/2006
Gotta love having a camera on 1/17/2006
Beware! on 1/16/2006
Good to be back on 1/11/2006

to be continued

I apologize for my absence... before mentioned trip was too exciting to interrupt with a blog post. Lots to catch up on: observations on life outside LA, new knitty folk in REAL LIFE, DF's birthday on Saturday, God has a backhoe, Jaywalkers done, progress pics...

Unfortunately, I'll be away again this week unexpectedly. DF's grandpa passed away this morning and we will be going home. If you're the spiritual type, please keep Grandpa Russ in your thoughts and prayers.

I'm on the wagon

I thought it was bad when I jumped on the bandwagon to knit Jaywalkers (which btw, are nearly there... they even cover DF's ankles!) and Clapotis. Now, I've gone and done it. I actually signed up for Sockapalooza!

Sign ups close at midnight (GMT -5:00) TODAY, so go there now if you're interested...

Short post with no pics today since I'm actually on the road this week. More about that later...

Let's play a game

How about, What's ticking off the Spaz today? Anyone want to hazard a guess? You do actually get 2, but the one where you say "Your stunning inability to photograph burgundy as anything other than pink?" doesn't count.
That's 12 inches of progress on DF's zippered Raglan, which translates into almost 2 full balls (30% ish) of progress. And, gotta love him, he still likes his sweater so far despite its imperfection.

Pretty in Pink

Okay, since I'm on a pink roll...

Let me just put a disclaimer on this before I start: I am often still asleep when DF leaves for work in the morning. To my dismay, when DF came home from work yesterday, he was wearing this:

I think he looks fantastic in orange, and pretty in pink. I'm apparently not hip enough to be able to combine the two without turning into Mr. Yuck. I'm wondering if DF has Duckie fashion sensibilities. Which, if he does, that's totally cool, because I always wanted to be Molly Ringwald when I was a kid. Only problem is, Duckie didn't get the girl...
This, by the way, is total fodder for DF's second favorite website of all time: http://www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com/. The all time favorite? A now, apparently, defunct website dedicated strictly to the combover. Visit here for its US counterpart.

No knitting content for today. I cast back on for Clapotis and turned the heels on Jaywalker. Nothing earthshattering to show, so no pics for you!

gotta love having a camera...

Okay, my picture taking skills suck, as evidenced by the pictures on my last post. But since there was a request, I did finally take a picture of the lovely stitch marker that Chris sent to me. It's true color, and the fabric in the background is much closer to true color of DF's zippered raglan than the hot pink version I posted yesterday.
Also, I got a better picture of the pink variation in the Jaywalker socks. It's really hard to tell, but if you look closely, there are actually two different shades of pink between the khaki stripes. One is more peachy and the other is closer to cotton candy pink.
Not that DF is at all embarassed to wear pink. He may be accused of being a bit metro for it, but I still think he looks kind of hot in pink.

Must say though, I'm much happier with blogging now that my camera's back in my possession. One of the last pictures we took on the camera before my parents hijacked it:

Just outside Red Rocks Canyon, NV; November 2005

Beware!

I decided that I couldn't bear ripping out the Clapotis just yet... I still have to get up the nerve to rip out my first finished object of 2006 all the way to the beginning (the gauge was just not right). So instead I decided to cast on for something else on Saturday night. Let me present to you, the DF's zippered Raglan from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.
Yeah, not much to look at, is it? I'm most of the way through the first ball (out of an anticipated 7) of Malabrigo in burgundy. And might I say, there's nothing about this that could possibly make this a last minute gift. Let's face it, who can knit a MAN'S SWEATER at the last minute? I worked on this for hours and got a whopping 4.5 inches! Those are handmade stitch markers from Chris, by the way... I know, the picture just doesn't do it justice.

To try and relax from the slow progress on DF's sweater, I decided to work a little more on the DF's Jaywalkers. I'm just about ready to turn the heel on these babies, and maybe, just maybe I can have a FO for DF's birthday at the end of this month, and ALSO qualify me for a double entry in Chrissy's Sock-A-Month KAL. Just a word of caution though for anyone who does 2 socks on 2 circs... pay attention to what you're doing or you might end up with this (really bad picture... why can't I take indoor pictures?):

Anyone notice anything weird here?

Too square

So I think I know why everyone loved that Clapotis pattern so much. It's just so mindless that you can just leave it for a while, and then pick up right where you left off without nary a thought. And it's SO fast.

So I finished it this morning. Sort of.

I put it on, and it looked great over my shoulders. The drape is nice, though it seems the solid portions may be a bit loose. But I can live with that. There's no pooling that's really noticeable. That's good. And it covers the shoulders nicely. Also good.

Then I put it on as a wrap around scarf. .
Not so good. Look at how ridiculously short those ends are! Not acceptable. Not at all. I laid it out flat and measured. Or at least measured as best I could when it can be pulled in every direction at once. It measures a perfect 20" wide as the pattern described. And a measley 43" long. I knew 3 balls of Phoenix just wouldn't be enough!

I think it I take out an increase section, I should get an additional straight section out of it. If my calculations are correct, that additional straight section should give me about 6 inches more and take away a couple of inches from the width. It may still be a bit small, but at least it will be a little closer to the right proportions...

That, btw, is my Mr. Yuck face. In case this is a regional thing, the poison control center where I grew up had a campaign to distribute neon green stickers with a unhappy face squiting it's eyes and sticking out its tongue as if to say, Tastes yucky! And you're supposed to put those sticker on Drano, Windex, etc. That's the idea anyway. My dad instead decided that a better use for them would be to put them over my face in pictures where I was not coooperating, pouting and generally not smiling pretty for the camera.

That's also the face I make when I finish something and then decide that it needs to take a trip to the frog pond.

Bleck.

Good to be back

Ok, so I don't really have the time to do this right now, but I'm going to post anyway.... Thank you for everyone who noticed that I had been a bit MIA in the past 3-4 weeks and welcomed me back to the world. I'm really sorry for being so far gone. As promised, a nice LONG post to update you on where I've been hiding all this time. And it's numbered because I like numbered lists.

1. Christmas Giving
As some of you may have guessed, I was a bit busy finishing the 9 Christmas projects I had planned. All but one was finished. Unbiased Redux wasn't looking like a winner, so it got scrapped. It was a bonus gift anyway.

If any of you were guessing exactly when I'd finish and guessed that it would be Christmas eve, then you'd be mostly correct. I finished the knitting on Christmas Eve around 11:00, but I was blocking and installing zippers as of Christmas morning. BTW, if you need to install a zipper by hand, do not leave yourself 2 hours to install 2 zippers. It just won't happen. Especially if you're OCD. I ended up having to give the garment and the zipper with a note, "Some assembly required." Just trust me that it's a bad idea.

Overall, I think the Christmas gifts went over well. My grandfather thought I made his vest for DF but gave it to him instead when it didn't fit DF. Here's a pic of my grandpa trying it on. A moment of panic washed over me as I was wondering how big of a noggin he had as it just wasn't fitting over his head.
Turns out, it fit him just fine. Of course, I look at the picture below and cringe at how the ribbing around the V-neck was causing the chest stripes to pull. But overall, the fit was good, and he was happy.
I couldn't get a good picture of my grandparents wearing their matching hoodies. Here they just look confused, and well, maybe a little bit embarassed. But give them a break. It was like 80 that day, and probably closer to 85 in the house. My grandfather just isn't a hoodie kind of guy. I'll have to recommend that he doesn't wear it up unless he's really cold...
And my great grandmother thought that her Charlotte's Web shawl was very pretty. Too pretty in fact to wear. Her comment was, "This would be really pretty... if I were younger. I'm too old. Don't make me anything anymore." Okay, so I'm kind of sad about this because honestly, I just don't want to think of my great-grandmother going anywhere. But I told her that I made it for her to wear it, not put it somewhere where it wouldn't be ruined. My mom told me last weekend that my g-g wore it to her doctor's appointment last week. :-) I didn't get a good picture of her wearing the shawl, but here I am trying to put it on her. That hat she's wearing was a gift I made her last year, btw.
DL's hat was perfect! DF did a really good job. We did have to argue a bit about whether or not to add a pompom/tassle on top. But when DL received the hat, he just remarked, "Well, sometimes women are just right." Word on the street says he wore it all weekend snowboarding. He wears it off-center, for a "jaunty" look as he puts it. I think it looks better that way too. As you see below, the skull right above the face just looks like too many faces and just a bit weird. Wait, what am I saying... it's a PINK hat, how could it not look a little bit weird?
2. Christmas receiving
I was very lucky to get a gift this year from a Secret Santa! She managed to pick out a lot of different things that I am REALLY looking forward to working with. Look how generous:
Not pictured: delicious Funyuns. They just didn't last long enough to make it into the picture... shown here counterclockwise(ish) from far left: enough Jaeger Baby Merino for a short sleeved top; Knitpicks Shine which is destined to become a cute baby hat for the numerous babies on their way this year; some very cute, very awesome hand knit socks (see below for just how WELL they fit!); Knitpicks Shadow which is most definitely going to be a purple Flower Basket Shawl; hand beaded stitchmarkers (in the purple sachet, but not pictured separately); and a calendar, which will be a good reminder as I dive headlong into planning TBD (the big day). Also, my favorite part of the whole package, if I had to pick one... right in the middle is a handmade Christmas card with just the sweetest note that I ever could imagine. Secret Santa, you spoil me!

As if that weren't enough... I also got RAK'd! Apparently, some people just have that yule attitude. I was too excited when I opened my package to take a good picture, but along with some incredibly beautiful stitch markers and a pin, I got Vesper sock yarn!!! Yay, I know just what to do with this. Thank you SO much, Jill...

3. Real Live Knitting Progress!

I have been coveting time to make socks ever since Socktoberfest. Thanks to my RAKer, I have the perfect excuse to start the infamous Jaywalkers for DF. I cast on for these 2 days after Christmas, and boy, 2 socks on 2 circs with a new cast on method (Turkish) toe-up using short rows for the toes was just a bit overwhelming at first. Thankfully, it got a whole lot less so once I finished the toe and was on to the main part of the sock. Here's the progress as of last Thursday. Since then, I've only completed 2 more of the beige stripes and I'm preparing to turn the heel. I'll let you know if I throw them out the window at that point...

A word to the wise, if making socks for man-sized feet, don't pick fingering weight yarn if you want to remain sane. Oh, and especially don't combine it with a stitch pattern that requires MORE stitches per inch than normal. Sigh. Well at least I'm finally making SOMETHING for DF. DF's sweater is in this stage:

Yup, that's a BRAND SPANKING NEW swift. DF made me promise not to leave it set up with the ball winder on the coffee table all the time. For now, I've faithfully put it away to leave the coffee table free for things like, um, coffee.

I also jumped (somewhat belatedly) on the blog bandwagon of 2004 and cast on January 1 for Clapotis using Southwest Trading Company Phoenix soy silk. I think it's looking quite lovely except for some pooling going on. I was seriously considering ripping back to the increase rows and taking out one increase section because it looks like this number of stitches is perfect for stacking the colors on top of each other. Can you tell that all the turquoise is in that pool on the left and all the lavender is in the pool on the right?

4. Projects for 2006

Oh good god, this is ridiculous. But, here we have a short(ish) list of projects I was hoping to cast on for in 2006 (in no particular order):

1. Jaywalker socks
2. Clapotis
3. Raglan zip front sweater for DF from Last Minute Gifts
4. Union Market Square Pullover from IK Fall 2005
5. Hoodie from VK Fall 2005
6. Blackberry from Knitty Fall 2005
7. Unbiased Redux in Kureyon
8. Un-Blaze
9. Flowerbasket Shawl from my Secret Santa package
10. Lace Throw from IK Fall 2005
11. Arisaig from Knitty Fall 2005
12. Embossed leaves socks from IK Winter 2005
13. Bad Penny
14. Karabella Ruffle Shawl in Gossamer
15. Handwarmers
16. Head wrap
17. Split Neck short sleeve polo for DF
18. Baby gifts

Well, I didn't quite make it to 20 on the list, but the sad thing is (but probably not surprising) that I have yarn for all of these projects already. And a whole lot more left over.

5. Other announcements

In case you didn't notice, THAT'S MY FACE in the pictures above. New for 2006, I will not be camera shy. Granted, I'm not going to fold my feet behind my head to model new socks just to get my face in the picture, but I won't go out of my way to smudge out or cut off my head in pictures anymore. Unless of course it's a REALLY bad hair day. Who was I kidding? What web stalker is going to look for knitting blogs for their next victim? Plus, I like seeing what people look like in their blogs. It makes meeting up with your blog friends in real life much easier.

Planning for TBD is in full swing. If I don't post for long stretches of time, you'll know why. No other decisions other than date and time have been made yet, but I don't think anyone really wants to read about the minutia of wedding planning here. I don't want to hijack my own knitting blog with this stuff.

Anyway, there are 500 unread posts in my bloglines account right now. Umm, yeah. Don't know what to say about that one...

Houston, we have liftoff!

Okay, I know that I haven't blogged in about 10000 years, but traveling for nearly 3 weeks in a row and leaving again this weekend has wreaked havoc on my blogging, reading and posting. So no, I don't hate you, and I have a lot of commenting to do, but be patient...

On my to update list: secret santa and other Christmas swag, the Christmas knitting recap, projects for 2006 and progress on new projects I've cast on. I swear, I really have been knitting a lot, just not blogging much.

Today's is a quick post, but I wanted to share that WE'VE SET A DATE!!!

Drumroll please...

On October 14, 2006 at 7:00 pm at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Houston I will officially become Mrs. DF.

Let the mayhem ensue.

Because you asked...

Pacey actually told me where he got his shoes, though it took him a while to recall the name of the store. That either means that he had someone else go out and shop for him, or he was under the influence at the time he purchased them. Okay, I guess it could be a host of other things as well. Then he went on and on about how they weren't exactly what he'd thought they'd be yada yada yada. It was somewhere in this diatribe that I realized, Pacey isn't really a climber. I probably could have told you that before meeting him, but this just confirmed it.

I also wanted to give a shout out to all of the lovely ladies I met on Sunday at Lauren's SoCal KnitBloggers KnitOut. I named that of course because I like for things to have names. It fits into nice categories that way. I thought it was way cool that a girl from New Haven, CT could bring all of us local bloggers together when we usually wouldn't. Thanks Lauren!

I got to meet up with Jillian again, which makes me happy because she's just such a great sounding board. Wendy was in attendance and I felt bad because I hadn't been keeping up with my blogreading to realize that Girlfriend had been sick for almost a week. I was psyched that she could make it anyway! The post I'm linking to discusses the 6 types of knitter. What type are you? For lack of a better category, I think I'm a garment knitter...

I didn't get the nerve up to talk to Marnie and Julia though I stalk their blogs on an almost daily basis. I keep hoping that Marnie's test knitters will finish their work soon so I can buy the Deciduous pattern!

New people I met: Kathy whose blog you must check out because you'll be wishing that the internet could bring you food, MJ who's also a rock climbing knitter, Kris who was wearing a beautiful FO and as far as I can tell scores jealousy points from me for being all-around crafty (check her post and you'll get a glimpse of my unobstructed face!), Allison whom I was happy enough to have a sweater deconstruction conversation over her store-bought sweater (I WILL be making a larger than required gauge stockinette fuzzy sweater just like the one she was wearing!), Lori who gave me a lesson on Canadian geography, and so many more that I just can't list everyone here!

And really, next time: projects for 2006!

Panic time!

Okay, less than a week until Christmas, and FREAKING A I'M NOT DONE KNITTING!

It's not off my chest yet. Is this Christmas knitting ever going to be over?!?!

I watched 8 episodes of Desperate Housewives hoping to get some serious knitting done and went to a Knit Out with many fellow SoCal (and even a knitter from 3000 miles away!) knitbloggers yesterday (bloglines is down, so I can't tell you who right now) and managed to only finish the upper right and half of the upper left of my grandmother's hoodie. EEK! I blame it all on the discovery of this game.

*deep breath*

I've decided that even if I don't finish by Christmas, it's okay. The sari silk Unbiased redux (which I'm slowly starting to think should be scrapped in favor of just doing it in Kureyon instead) is a bonus gift for my SIL and I think my Grandmother would get a real kick out of opening a box with her in progress hoodie with the needles still in.

In case anyone was wondering where I've disappeared to, I had a cross-continental work trip last week, another work trip to somewhere where it's really cold right now, and then I get to finally go home for the holidays this Saturday. So I'm sorry I've been so MIA, but as you can see, it's the same panic as ever.

The good news is, the slow death of my blog due to lack of pictures and not posting enough (stupid deadlines!) is coming to a close after this Saturday. Maybe this won't cure the latter, but at least I'll have access to a camera again! Yay!

Also, I finally got to see the pictures from my brother's wedding. There's a great picture I MUST share. It'll have to wait until I get the DVD from my brother this weekend. See this post for clues.

On a random other note, I've decided that starting my blog has somehow increased my chances of celebrity spotting. Really, I mean it! Back in July when my best friend from college came out to visit me, she was shocked, SHOCKED that living in LA for almost a year, I still hadn't managed a single celebrity spotting. She on the other hand, had even managed a Lindsay Lohan run in living in New Orleans. Not long afterwards, there was the You Knit Too Much incident at Long's. Then there was the anniversary edition. Now this. Pacey Witter at my gym. Okay that's not his real name, but that's the only name I'll ever know him by. Yes, I'll admit it. I watched Dawson's Creek. Can't help it. It was the OC of its time. What did I manage to do this time? Well, in true spaz fashion, I managed to blurt out, "Dude, where'd you get your shoes?"

Okay, so I'm sorry for the randomness of my post today, but I really truly feel all over the place, literally! If I don't manage to post this week, I hope everybody who celebrates it has a very Merry Christmas and Happy Channukah!

Next post: my list of projects for 2006!

The scanner is my friend

Being a blogger without a camera sucks. But the scanner is my friend. I haven't been able to show off my recent Christmas related FO's becuase they just haven't fit on the scanner! I finished my grandfather's Hoodie Boogie Rock and cast on for the last of the trio on Wednesday. I also cast on Wednesday for Unbiased Redux. I wasn't going to show it because I don't think you can make out much from the scan, but oh well, you twisted my arm.

See? Can't tell a bit from that, right? It's not everything I hope it to be, but I think it might be too early to tell just yet. I've decided that this would be perfect for a felted Kureyon version too. Just have to finish this first, and then I can experiment!

On the DF knitting front, he finished the knitting on our friend DL's (those are his initials) Bones hat. It just needs a bit of seaming for the hem and the back where DF had to work back and forth. Not a bad attempt at intarsia, huh? Actually, it's stranded, so it's more Fair Isle, I guess. Anyway, project number 5 under his belt now, and 3 (including this one) without a pattern! I wonder, is this a man trait to just fly by the seat of your pants and knit with an idea of what you want but no directions? He's not bad, huh?


In non-knitting news, I managed to send off a secret santa package today! I'm notoriously bad about sending gifts that I already have to their intended recipients, so this is amazing for me. Which reminds me of a story my cousin told me earlier this week about his adventures in Christmas shopping.

So he went into a dollar store to pick up some stuff for our family's secret santa exchange. Only it's not secret since we all know who drew who. I guess that's more of a gift exchange. Anyway. When he walks into the store:

Clerk: You're back!
Cousin: Um, no, not exactly.
Clerk: Yes you are, you're the guy who likes to collect the Chinese figurines!
Cousin: Um, no!! What kind of pansy do you take me for exactly?
Clerk: Sorry about that, let me ring you up.
***
Clerk: Um... yeah. Do you need a bag for your items? *holding up the girls' opaque tights*

So what would you think if you were a 19 year old boy and you open up your Christmas present only to find: one pair girls' tights, a block of chalk, and leather work gloves? Looking to get him arrested, is what I think!

Actually, it's all for climbing. You cut up the tights and fill it with chalk so your hands don't get sweaty, and the work gloves are to help manage the rope if you so desire. I guess you could probably use trouser socks, but I think the tights might be cheaper.

On the wedding front, still nothing has been decided. A new wrench was thrown into the mix this week: we found out that DF's grandfather's cancer hasn't gone away, it's spread to distant organs. We're thinking about whether it would increase the chances of him attending if we move the date up from the fall. I don't know.

BTW, has anyone else noticed some strange behavior of Bloglines and people's blogs who are hosted on blogger? I haven't seen blogs light up in bold for the past couple of days, but if I click on the feed, there are unread posts in it. Did I do something weird?