Wheeee! Wearable FO!

This is kind of a bad picture of me. My face is shiny, I'm hunching up my shoulders in such a way that I look about four feet wide, I've somehow given myself a triple chin...but I don't care. I wanted a picture of Tubey, and I wanted to be in it.

This was a tough one. I thought it'd be easy, but by the end I was almost crying. When I bound off and realized that I was about an inch shy of long enough, I DID cry. I cursed every stitch of the last twenty rows. I think the issue was that I didn't use the recommended yarn. About a year ago, I bought a bunch of Trendsetter Kashmir, a 50/50 cashmere-silk blend, to make a Clapotis for a wedding. I made the wrap, but didn't end up wearing it to the wedding. I didn't end up wearing it much of anywhere, as it was more of a blanket than an elegant scarf. I loved the color, and I remembered enjoying working with the yarn, so I thought this would be a good time to recycle it and make something wearable. Well, here's the problem. This yarn isn't as springy as Cashmerino Aran. It didn't want to move smoothly around the circular needle. I had to yank it around the cable every ten stitches or so. I do this funky thing with my index finger when stitches won't slide off the left needle, where I put my finger over the tip of the needle for leverage, and pull off the stitch. My finger hurt, and I wasn't able to unlearn my bad habit.

Also, this yarn's expensive. I had all of the pistachio from last year's knitting mishap, but had to buy the blue, cream, tan and brown. I didn't have the right amounts to lay out the stripes in the same proportions as those in the pattern, so I had to guess at their proper length as I went along and hope I didn't run out of any one color before I'd done what I wanted with it. I did not want to have to buy more of a color in order to knit two extra rows of it.

It wasn't as fun as I wanted it to be while I was working on it, but I sure love it now. In fact, I hated it so much at the bind-off that I didn't do the finish work for a month afterward. I finally finished weaving in the ends last Thursday, and wore it to work last Friday and again for a day around town on Sunday.

The details? Why not. This is Knitty's Tubey, knit in the small size. It took about six balls of green, all of the dark brown and tan, and probably half a ball of the blue and white. I started it on February 8th, and bound off on March 18th.

Somewhere in the midst of all of the angry Tubey experience, I decided it'd be a nice change of pace to knit something more challenging. This is the start of Starsky I was having quite a time with this one too, until it occurred to me to rewrite the chart so that I would understand it. I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around the chart, with the right side and wrong side symbols looking the same and meaning different things, but I also couldn't remember what all of the abbreviations meant in the written instructions, so I had to keep looking down at the legend for Every. Single. Cable. Cross. I kept muttering, "Oh, goddammit! It's THAT one again. Why can't I remember what I did seventeen stitches ago???" I made up my own abbreviations for each of the cable crosses, and maybe I'm the only person in the world who'd understand it, but so be it. Now it's fun! I'm a little worried about how small it looks, but I think it only looks narrow because it's all smooshed up on the needles.

And then, in the midst of all of the cable crossing and Tubey cursing, I decided to take up crochet. Here's my first little sampler. I think I'm going to love crochet. It seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. I've got 'The Happy Hooker", and I'm going through each of the sections in order. Tomorrow, the double and triple crochet. It's a brave new world.

What's New, Pussycat?

Where to start?

I haven't posted anything over on the Knitty WIP page, because I'm not getting things done. I've got a project that qualifies as a Knit Chocolate sweater, but I haven't posted over there, either. And, most offensive of all, I haven't posted anything about my most recent package from my completely awesome and cool secret pal. I'm a bad, bad blogger.

But that's all going to change. Why, you ask? Why, because of my new, shiny laptop computing device. All the kids have them these days down at the Starbucks. I felt old not having one of my own. Sure, I told my manager and my husband and everyone who asks that I need it in order to run Visual Studio. That's true. It's also true that I'd be more likely to post pictures and write blog entries if I didn't have to sit in my office with my back to the world in order to do it. Plus, that computer in the office gets noisy after more than a few minutes, like going to blow up kind of noisy. I think the CPU fan is going out. And...um...no, there's no other good reason for me to own this thing. It's got a 17" widescreen monitor, and a DVD burner, and a 6-in-1 card reader built in and it's bad ass, I tell you. If it were a car, I'd have spent all day today rubbing Turtle Wax on it, just so my neighbors would ask me about it.

But enough about that. On to the knitting related content. I got this bundle of goodness from my secret pal, oh, a week or two ago. I know it was a Friday, because I was home to receive it, and I took the last couple of Fridays off to catch up on some stuff. See what I mean? Bad blogger.

This was the Busy Bee package, because while I'm not getting anything done, I'm still managing to appear to be practically buzzing with activity. Frenetic, I think it's called. Anyway, the thing about my secret pal packages is that they're always adorably wrapped. I like to lay out all of the individual things and unwrap them one at a time.

So in this package, we have an adorable Lantern Moon bee tape measurer, two sizes of Addi needles, a sweet card, delicious dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses, and a ball of Sockatta yarn.

I've finished Tubey and only have the weaving in to do. This picture's a little old, since now the whole body is done, but it's the picture I have available.

And finally today, the first in what I hope will be an exciting series, Gratutitous Buddy Photos. Few cats are born to be in front of the camera. Even fewer are aware of their gift. Rare is the cat that actually acknowledges and loves the camera. Buddy the Cat is one of those cats.

(The camera loves me right back, the Woman. Look at me. I'm stunning. -- BtC.)

Wild Sock!

Close, but not the same...these two skeins of Lisa Souza Sock! were dyed on the same day, by the same dyer. They're a different as night and...some other night. The skein on the left is lighter, and contains more vibrant teals and purples. The skein on the right is uniformly darker, except for the white patch that the dye missed. When I shook them out to hang them over the chair, I found that both skeins have this white patch. It's a little more pronounced on the darker skein, because the rest of the colors blend together so much more thoroughly.

One of these skeins is taking a trip to the post office, being traded for the Rowan Cotton Rope book so that I can find something to do with my other Stitches impulse buy -- too many skeins of aran/bulky black cotton. There's no wrong choice here. Really, neither skein has problems that a little grape Kool Aid wouldn't fix. I leave it to my swappie to decide.

:-)

Secret Pal Package! Wheeee!

Just when I needed something good to land on my doorstep, this package arrived. Unbelievably cool stuff, wrapped up in polka dot ribbons!

Buddy the Cat tried to lay claim to all of it, but we've talked it through and now I think he understands that it's all mine. (You'll have to sleep some time, the Woman. Mark my words. It's only a matter of hours until at least one of those things is in my mouth. - BtC.)

Here are the details:

- Circular point protectors
- Sock-shaped point protectors - so cute! I've never seen these before.
- Sweater-shaped DPN holders - even cuter!
- Coiled needle holders
- Stitch marker rings
- A variety bag of aluminum cable needles - way cool, since I only have the grooved wooden ones, and they're kind of awkward to use
- Self-coiling tape measure
- A cool little knitting gauge
- Barrel shaped counter - made for fitting onto a straight needle. No more trying to tie the other kind to my needles with waste yarn!
- A gorgeous set of glass needles with pale green ends. You can't see the ends in this picture, but trust me, they're beautiful
- Two balls of Berroco Medley in 'Louvre'. The colors in the balls are lovely, aquas and fuschias and greens - like jewels half-buried in sand. I can't wait to make something out of them
- A needle case with a built-in accessory case
- Calendar of knitting thoughts
- Four handcrafted stitch markers

This was so much fun to open, and it's all so cool...I'm really overwhelmed. Thank you, S.P.!

Gloomy Day

I'm unwell. I started feeling a little off last night, just a little cough but still, not quite right. By this morning, after a night of relentless, dry coughing, I'd developed a vigorous cold. It's the kind of cold where I can move about the house, but not really get anything done. I have all day to be knitting, but the last thing in the world I want to do is knit.

It's raining outside. The dog's going stir crazy. Buddy the Cat's upstairs on my bed, avoiding me because I've let the dog into the house on what would traditionally be a 'Buddy Day'. We used to have 'Buddy Day' when I'd take time off from work. I'd put Lucy outside in the morning, and I'd sneak around the house pretending not to be here so she wouldn't know that I'd stayed home and that Buddy had monopolized my time. Now, before anyone gets any ideas, I should point out that I only did this on nice, sunny days. She'd never get left out there in the rain or the fog. It's a pretty yard. It's no hardship for her at all. I love my sweet, simple dog. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT! We remodeled the kitchen last year, and now there's a glass door out to the patio. There's no hiding from Lucy anymore. Thus, no more 'Buddy Day'. And Buddy hates me for it.

So, catless, free of any beauty products, unwell, and a little rumpled and cranky, I decided that this would be the very best time to take pictures of the Graphite hat. I finished it a few days ago, but I can't get Accountant Boy to model it. "I'm wearing a dress shirt. It won't look right." "I haven't shaved." "I've just shaved. I don't look outdoorsy enough." "Honey, it's midnight and I have to go to sleep." Fine. I'll do it myself.

It's very much like the blue hat I made for my dad. In fact, knowing how my mind works, the length and the direction of decreases are probably the same for both hats. I really like the decreases in the ribbing, because I've managed to keep the top of the hat from swirling like a nautilus shell. I like that effect in womens hats and when it's intentional, but not in this kind of cap. You can't really see the details in this yarn, but it's pretty cool. I should write down how I did it. Maybe next time I make one, I'll remember to take notes and publish a pattern.

Hey, I said I wouldn't use liquor bottles for BABY hat modeling. I never said anything about us grown-ups. Thanks for the help, giant bottle of Grey Goose! (Grey Goose -- "Honk-honk!")

And finally for today, my yarn came in from my swap with Lumay from the knittyboard. It's gorgeous. I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. It's hand-spun, hand-dyed chunky wool, and if I had to guess at the yardage, I'd guess about 300 yards. I'm going to measure it with my handy dandy fishing line meter. Suggestions?