Finished!

I finished Terea's monkey socks! I'm so glad that they're done, because it's always so satisfying to finish a project, but they were fun and quick to knit, and I miss the project already! This is me modeling them, just because.

I was going to make a pair of monkeys for myself, but then I saw another pair of socks by Cookie A, Hedera, and I knew I had to make those! She's such an amazing designer. I have this lovely sea green yarn by Brooklyn Handspun, and I think it's perfect for this project. I opened my Magic Loop book and tried it out, and I really get this method! I'm sure, though, that I'll find a way to eff up these socks using this method. To make things really interesting, I'm going to try them toe up.

Easy peasy!

I'm really concerned about how little trouble I am having with my revamped Monkey socks. I had started them in September, done a lot in a little time, and then got bored with all of the purling and stopped. Good thing.

It turned out that I had been knitting them backwards; I'd pushed the right side into my the space between my DPNs, and therefore was knitting the whole thing in reverse. Stupid, but it was still okay, at least until I went and did the heel inside out, too. Then I was all messed up. I frogged the whole thing, and started over again this Tuesday. Right now, I'm about to start decreasing, and I feel so much better about my skills as a knitter, and my ability to read and understand a pattern. Also, I got to practice my short row heels again and am really getting the hang of it now, which is awesome.

I can see why people keep making these socks again and again (the other day I met a woman who has made 5 pairs of Monkeys in a very short time). They're cute, fun, and really easy, and I think I will make myself a pair soon, after I get through all of the obligatory knitting that I need to finish up.

Success

I finished Satanski's mittens, and am really pleased with how they came out. Mittens are great! Here's the final product:

And here are the mittens with the scarf that I made.



I've enjoyed this yarn so much (and I still have so much left) that I'm going to make Satanski a hat, too.

Halfway home

I finished my first mitten! I'm very proud of myself. I nearly messed up when I got to the thumb, where I didn't pick up stitches tight enough and had left a rather noticeable hole, but I found the mistake in time to go back and fix it. This pattern is pretty much idiotproof, since I'm sure I made a bunch of boo boos that are completely invisible by this point. I love how knitting this in the round means that I get to knit the whole time (after I finish the ribbing), but that I can then turn the mitten inside out when I'm finished and see a darling knit pattern. When I finished the mitten, I picked it up to photograph it. I thought it would be fun to take pictures of the mitten at the same time as the scarf, so I finally wove in the ends on the scarf. It only took a week.

I feel like I understand mittens now, and am looking forward to starting the other hand tomorrow. Because a lot of patterns say that kid mittens can be interchangeable, I will make the next one as identical as I can to the one I finish today (might be a little better looking, now that I know what I'm doing), but the next set of mittens I do will differentiate between left and right.

Odds and Ends

I finished blocking Satanski's scarf, so all I need to do now is take a few minutes and weave in the ends. It came out really really well, and although it's not terribly hard to impress a three-year-old, I'm happy that he likes it so much. I also started on what will be the matching mittens. This is my first pair of mittens, and I'm kind of cobbling together several patterns, so we'll see how those turn out. Here are pictures of the finished scarf (undone ends and all) and the beginning of the mittens.

Today, the knitting Meetup group that I belong to had a trial yarn swap. I didn't prepare well for it at all; I brought 300 yards of a brown striped sock wool, 300 yards of a sunny yellow sock wool, and 600 yards of blue alpaca. I probably shouldn't have been so obvious about bringing things that interested me not at all! Anyway, I ended up trading the alpaca for some gorgeous light blue bamboo (cannot believe I got that), and the brown wool for some really cool blue cotton. I was also given about 200 yards of a cool white wool with flecks of yellow and orange (it's cute; definitely for babies/kids). I couldn't find any takers for the yellow wool, and although I may regret it later, since I still have several balls here and I have no idea what I'm going to do with those, I gave it away for a yarn drop. I hope that somebody can put it to good use!

All finished!

I finished Satanski's scarf, and it came out great! I love this yarn (Malabrigo Worsted, in Oceanus), and Satanski loves his scarf. That picture to the left shows what the scarf looked like last night, when I was about 60% of the way finished. I'm going to get started on matching mittens tomorrow, with a hat to follow soon thereafter. I need to block the scarf, as right now all it wants to do is roll itself back into a ball, but that means that I might as well block all the other stuff I've been ignoring for a while. Block party tomorrow!

Sorry, I'm groaning over here, too.
















This is what the OpArt blanket is looking like these days. That kid is due nigh on two months from now and I still don't know when we'll be having his dad's baby shower at work, so I should definitely get the lead out and start doing a lot of work on this again. Even after I'm done knitting, I'm going to be weaving in ends forever, so I should just do it already.

Hopes, dashed

I had high hopes for the scarf that I was going to make Satanski. I sat down, thought of a pattern, and charted it. All was well, until I realized that my chart was not taking into account the two decreases I need to work on each row to even out the two yarn overs I was including. I think I tried to get too fancy, too fast, and the whole thing just annoyed me. So I decided to modify a baby blanket pattern from Debbie Stoller's Stitch and Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook and make it into a scarf instead. I've made the Big, Bad Baby Blanket a couple of times already (and I'm pretty sure I have a third one somewhere on a set of circulars), so by now the pattern is pretty much dead easy for me. I'm hoping that I will have enough yarn left over afterward to make the kid a pair of mittens, or even a hat. I can't remember what the name of the yarn is, because I bought and had it wound in Vermont, and cannot find the label at all. I just started it yesterday, but it's kid-sized and knitting up quickly, so I will upload photos once I get home from work.

My OpArt is coming along well. I'm up to 132 stitches in each section. I need to pay more attention though, because a couple of rounds ago I dropped a stitch about six rows down, and that was super annoying to fix in pattern.

Satanski's scarf

I've taken a bit of a break on my OpArt blanket. I'm up to 116 stitches in each section, and I'm still doing one or two rounds per day, but it's kind of boring me right now. This is exactly why I started four months before the baby's due. My nephew saw me seaming some booties that I made for our baby cousin, and asked me when I was going to knit him something. I have been meaning to do so for a while, and I do need a break from the blanket, so I decided to make him a scarf. At first, I was going to do something basic and maybe practice my Continental knitting, but then the stylista in me won out. I do not put my nephew in boring clothes when I'm buying them, so why would I do it when I'm making them?? Plus, I still have this idea in my head for the sweater, and I kind of want to see how my designing goes on something child-sized, before trying my hand at anything as involved as a sweater. I will get back to Continental knitting again at some point in my life, but not now.

I worked out my pattern in Google's spreadsheet program, using letter abbreviations. Then I looked online for a pattern generator and found a good one, but it didn't have all the symbols that I wanted. So I made and downloaded a printable chart from here, and entered my symbols myself. I'm pretty tired and I figure that there's no point in starting this so late and doing a bad job, so I'll get cracking on this tomorrow.

Inattention

I somehow acquired a large hole in my knitting, but one that I can fix when I'm cleaning up and weaving in ends. I also somehow only had 88 stitches in one section when I should have had 90. I fixed it using an invisible increase I learned of on knittinghelp.com, but it should not have been necessary. I'm trying to decide whether I want to start using safety pins to mark 20s of stitches, so I have a better idea of how many stitches are in each section. I think I may. I'm up to 94 stitches now, and it's such slow going. I'm motivated, though, because I can now see the blanket's square shape in a way that I couldn't before.

Progress

OpArt is still pretty easy, but it's no longer as fast of a knit as it used to be! I'm up to 75 stitches in each section, or 300 stitches total.

Feeling a little creative

I recently saw a cute orange knit sweater in the window of a local store. I was hesitant to go into the store and find out how much it cost, because that place is usually pretty expensive. Then I thought, "I'll knit it!" I decided that I should take a picture of it, because there is a cute pattern on the front (this is pretty much the whole reason I wanted it). I didn't take the picture before it was removed from the store window, so I went in today on my lunch break to take a closer look and to see the price. As I suspected, it was WAY TOO MUCH MONEY - $300. No sweater is worth that. On the plus side, I do now have a much better idea of how to make it (once I figure out how I want to do the decreases so that I will still have the same number of stitches after the yarn overs). I'm putting that on the back burner in my head, since I've got the Monkey socks and OpArt blanket to finish first, but I'm excited!! I think this could be pretty cool!

Aw yeah!

Now my OpArt blanket is really coming along! The pattern really is dead simple. I did a figure-8 cast on and then went from there, so I didn't get the annoying ridge thing that happened when I tried a regular cast on and knit the first rows in the round
Then, as long as I didn't do anything stupid (like stop counting), I had no problem with the pattern. And honestly, I really only have to pay any sort of attention four times in a round, and even I can do that. I'm also finding my new stitch counter invaluable, and wonder if I was already thinking ahead to this project when I impulsively added it to my purchases last time I went to Purl Soho. I'm up to 39 stitches in each section (I find it easier to think of sectional counts, than total stitch count). This really is one cool-looking blanket! I'm actually looking forward to blocking it, because I want to see it at its best!

Good news, bad news

I get the OpArt pattern. So so well. And every time I frog it, the first set of stitches looks that much better. I think that maybe next time I'll try a figure 8 cast on, see where it gets me. But the point is, I am not paying enough attention to what I'm doing. I'm wandering and watching all manner of ABC shows, and I miss this increase, or forget that second row of the stripe. Bad bad Nicole.

I'm gonna hit the hay now, and try all this tomorrow when I'm hopefully less distracted.

Break

I took a break from knitting and got back to reading. I now miss my socks, but at least I feel like I've really been exercising a different portion of my brain. Last night I tried to start the OpArt blanket by Melissa Dominguez, and ended up feeling like a moron, because I was having trouble understanding the whole two circular needle method, especially because the pattern is rated "mellow" by Knitty. So I'll try again today or tomorrow, once I've gotten adequate sleep. I'm just sad because I even did a gauge swatch and am so ready to start this baby. If I don't get it the next time I try, I may just cheat and start it on double pointed needles, switching once it gets bigger. This will be my fourth baby blanket, and hopefully this one will actually be completed before the birth of the child it's intended for!

Weird

Okay, I have no idea when I became such a perfectionist. Usually pretty good is just fine with me, but for some reason, I cannot stand to have blatant (to me) imperfections on this sock. The person I'm giving this to really wouldn't care if I had to go back after knitting it and tighten up a few holes, but I care. I looked at my heel, and could see how nice it would have been if I hadn't forgotten to slip the first stitch a couple of times, and had to frog it. Okay, third time's the charm, right?

Revelation

I've heard a lot about short row heels, but I didn't really know what that meant until I looked it up yesterday (it seemed a little obvious, but when it comes to knitting, I don't assume anything). I was interested in trying something new on my Monkey socks, and since I was still using dpns and knitting from the cuff down, I figured that I'd innovate with the heel. I used the marvelous Kaity's clear and helpful tutorial to learn how to give my sock a short row heel. Success (mostly, but the error was mine, not hers)! Then I wasn't sure what I should do to accommodate the ankle, but both Kaity and Joy were helpful and told me that I didn't need to add any more stitches. I'm going to go get started on the bottom of the sock now!



My sock looks so bulky, not at all like the pretty pictures I see on Ravelry, and I cannot wait to block them once they're finished. Can you believe I actually want to block anything, much less this enthusiastically?? I think I've only blocked two items in my life (I should change this).

Doh

My first attempt at my Monkeys was a little off. This is my first go round knitting lace, and I'm learning by the round, but I definitely effed things up. The cuff, which is always the easiest part of any sock, was not messed up, so I frogged back to that point and then tried not the make the same mistakes again. Here's what I had before the frogging:
As you can see, one of the holes on the fourth needle was not so much decorative as it was massive.

Luckily, this time I'm doing better. For one, I don't have any craters in my sock. For another, I'm being consistent with my yarn overs (I was doing it wrong the first time, which is embarrassing, since I made an entire blanket that was full of yarn overs [unless those were wrong, too, but then at least they were all wrong in the same way]). Here's the new and improved version:

Looking at these pictures reminds me that I need to learn how to use the macro mode on my new camera...

Y Kant Nicole Read??

I keep doing this to myself. I don't read the entirety of something, and it ends up biting me in the butt. For some reason, I had it in my head that the Monkey sock pattern by Cookie A. was knit from the toe up. I was apprehensive about starting toe up socks, but I figured that I would get it soon enough. So I got up this morning, Googled the figure 8 cast on, and got it after a few false starts! The tutorials on Knitty and Hello Yarn were invaluable! I was rolling, and just about the time I got to my first set of increases, I decided I should see where the sock pattern picked up. So imagine my surprise when I realized that Monkeys are NOT knit from the toe up. They're top down, just like every other sock I've ever knit.

I was discouraged but not totally cowed. I googled toe-up Monkeys and found a few people who'd done it that way. Monos Locos, an adaptation by Jennifer O'Sullivan, looks interesting, but it inverted the lace pattern and removed the purls, which I did not want to do. Another toe-up adaptation, this one by Zhenya Lavy, kept the lace the way that Cookie A. had done it, but employed the magic loop, which I have yet to attempt. So that was no good for me, either. I found this web site that had a listing of Monkey KALs, and lost it, but I just used my Googlefu and found it again. Here you go! It lists various Monkey adaptations and tricks. So what was there to do but to frog what I had? Thankfully, I was relatively close to the start of my socks, so frogging was only mildly painful. Also, I already swatched this, so when I do begin, at least I know I should be on gauge.

I just checked, and it's the Falling Leaves pattern that is toe up (and also on a magic loop). I think I may try those after I finish the Monkeys, unless I find another pattern that I like better in the meantime.

I'm such a dummy!

So I decided that today I would start on the Monkey socks by Cookie A. In keeping with my newfound desire to do things correctly, I was going to swatch it and then go from there. I remembered the pattern calling for size 1.5 dpns. I had no idea where to get those, but I thought I'd do the swatch on size 1 needles and go from there. So then I brought the yarn I'm going to use and the needles to work today, and looked over the pattern once more. It turns out that Monkeys are made on size 2 needles. So what I have right now is not going to cut it. I felt pretty stupid, but realized that all was not lost. I could just swatch another pattern, right? Except no, because pretty much all of the other pattern I want to make are somehow on size 2 and 3 needles. No 1s, no 1.5s. I don't know if I just liked different patterns last night, but I'm not even sure which of the patterns I read and wanted to make even required 1.5 needles.

Luckily, I still have two pairs of socks to make (for Stephanie and Terea), and I want to prevent boredom by doing something different, so I found a pattern that requires size 1s: Spring Forward! I'm going to swatch this now and see how it comes out. Thankfully, I kept the remaining Lorna's Laces from my last pair of Jaywalkers in my bag (I was going to use it as waste yarn when I cast on my toe). I'm using the same yarn in different colors for these socks, so I guess I really haven't lost any time. I just hate making stupid mistakes like that.

Wonder what's next

I know that I just finished my second pair of Jaywalkers yesterday, but I really don't want to lose my momentum. I enjoyed making those socks and the feeling of accomplishment when I finished weaving in the last strand, and I want those feelings again. Plus, I said that I would make socks for Terea and Stephanie, and I want to do that soon. Also, I know that I sometimes find sock knitting tedious and boring, so I think I'll mix it up and make sure that I actually work on one of my many other UFOs when I need down time from the socks. I just realized that Zeeby's bag, which I have been working on for no less than two years, is a nice, mindless project that I could easily complete while watching dvds. I have to do the same row over and over again for 11 inches, and there are no decreases to worry about, so why not?

Jaywalkers the second

So I finished my second pair of Jaywalkers, and I couldn't be happier. I am getting much quicker at this sock-knitting thing. And this time I did not in any way screw up the Kitchener stitch! I think that using the Youtube video to get myself started is a good idea, but that I need to turn it off once I'm on my way. Probably going back and forth between my knitting and the woman's instructions was confusing me.

Here are my finished Jaywalkers:


I tried them on and they fit, but then I stupidly took them off before pulling out my camera. So I think I'll take a picture of them actually on my tootsies sometime soon and add them to this post at a later date. I just noticed that I have my red and white socks on my red computer, which is on my pink bedspread. This sudden habit I have of possessing red items is starting to worry me. I must be stopped.

I've found the next pair that I want to make: monkeys! I've heard good things about this pattern, and I like the way that the completed so looks. I'm encouraged by all the n00bs who burst their sock cherries on this pattern. Now I just need to find out where in the world I can find some 1.5 dpns. I'm not necessarily ready to start a new pair of socks at 11:30 at night, but maybe I 1) do a swatch to test my gauge (which I almost never do) and 2) see if I can find some mods to this pattern to fit what will almost certainly be a foot larger than the one this pattern was designed for.

While in Poughkeepsie for Christine and Justin's wedding (which was awesome, by the way), I went bowling. First we were going to go minigolfing, which is an obsession of Ben and Elissa's, but then I saw a bowling alley, and successfully changed our destination. I am no good at all, but I did manage to win two games. I was so excited to get there, but then I picked up a bowling ball and realized: if my wrist was too sore to knit, what in the world was I doing in a bowling alley?? I wasn't thinking at all. During the second game, my wrist really started to get sore, but I was using an 8 pound ball, which is pretty much the smallest I could use and still be using an adult ball. I worried that I would be in pain during the wedding and the next day, but AMAZINGLY enough, my wrist stopped hurting and I actually got quite a bit of knitting done on Monday and today. Plus, the curiosity got to me and I tried on the socks, so now I know that they do actually fit me. It's pretty exciting.

I've been having some pain in my left wrist, so I find it difficult to knit more than a couple of rows in any one sitting. I've been favoring it and waiting for the pain to go away, but it's been a while now since I felt this way, so I think I'm going to have to go to a doctor. Bummer!

I've finished the heel of my second pair of jaywalkers, and now I'm decreasing them and preparing for six mind-numbing inches of the foot. I keep forgetting to see if I can get my ankle into this pair. If not, I'll have to find SOMEBODY else to give them to. Too late, I found out that there are a couple of larger, official updates to the pattern, which can be found here. If this pair doesn't fit me, I guess I'll go up to the next larger size. I'm going to be in Poughkeepsie this weekend for Christine and Justin's wedding (yay!), so maybe I can try to get some more done on the socks while I'm traveling to and from.

Also, while looking for something else entirely, I came across a bag that I have been 95% finished with for the past two years. Everything is knitted and felted, and now I just have to sew the darned pieces together. Nevermind the fact that this bag is no longer to my exact taste, I should just be done with it, right? I think I don't want to finish it.

So I finally finished my first pair of Jaywalker socks. As you can see, they're pretty cute, even though one foot is about 1/8 of an inch longer than the other. Oh well. I need to find somebody with narrow, but long feet. Maybe I'll have to try them on the feet of all of my tall, skinny friends. It could be like Cinderella, with socks, and a lesbian subtext!
Seriously, though, I really love this yarn. It's Lorna's Laces and it is self-striping, which is the greatest thing ever! I think that the stress of the last month gave me the motivation to finish the first sock and start/finish the second one, so let's hear it for silver linings. I realized pretty early on (but not too early to do anything about it) that these socks wouldn't fit my feet, so now I am making a second pair in the larger size given, and I hope that they'll fit me! This pair is going to be magenta and white striped, which will look adorable on me!

Here are the beginnings of my new socks. I really like the way the first pair turned out, so I'll stop being so lazy and do more work on these.

Convertible Mittens

I was a little burnt out after I finished The Boy's scarf, and to tell the truth, my fingers still get phantom cramps when I think about how much knitting I did at the end of December, but I now need some mittens, and I think it's time for me to attempt some. I hate mittens, though, because you have to whip them off every time you need to use your fingers, which just sucks. I like the idea of convertible mittens, and I found a pattern that I think I understand, so I'll be attempting those soon (soon being within the month of January). I actually started them last night, but I didn't have the right size needles, and I didn't feel like being an innovator, so I ripped them out. I am interested in training myself to knit without a pattern for things other than scarves, but I don't think that this is the right project with which to begin my liberation from the tyranny of patterns.

Update: I wrote this in January. It is now August of 2008, I don't even remember starting/stopping this pattern, and there is no more Boy. So a lot has changed. But I guess this explains why I saw the tag "knitting ennui" when I went to write a new post today!

Holy Hiatus, Batman!

It's been a while since I last posted anything, but I have actually been knitting stuff. I made more booties (and then didn't photograph them, but more on that later), but the big project was the scarf that I made for The Boy. It was a broken rib scarf, and if I'd had any idea how much work that was going to be, I probably wouldn't have slacked off until late-mid December. I started it when I bought the yarn in October, but then got bored with how slow it was coming. Fast forward to the week before Christmas, when I realized that I had a problem on my hands.

How to finish without my fingers falling off? It wasn't easy. I stopped hating the pattern so much and became an automaton, and fell in love with the cashmerino yarn, which also helped a lot. I watched a whole lot of Buffy dvds until the wee hours of the morning, but I finished a whole 20-some odd hours before Christmas, so GO ME. Below, the finished product:
Wow. I just realized how horribly blurry this picture is (this may be why you're not supposed to take pictures of FOs at 3 am, after 7 hours of marathon knitting and cursing).

I finally sent out four pairs of booties that I'd been holding hostage longer than was decent. I stupidly forgot to take pictures of them (more for color variety, since they were all made from the same pattern), but one of my friends was kind enough to send me a picture of her son wearing them. This is the first time that I've seen my booties on a human. Cute! She said that he usually hates socks, but kept these on for a few hours, which tickled me to no end. I'm honored. The kid lives in the South, and it wasn't that cold there on Christmas, so I salute the trooper. The pattern is made for a baby of about six months, so they're kind of huge on him right now, but at least they'll last for a while.