It’s Furious Balancing

I’ve been getting a deluge of spring catalogs in my mailbox. I do most of my shopping online, so I get a lot of catalogs, let me tell you. They’re mainly for clothing, and I’m seeing the endless parade of women’s clothing in insipid, washed-out pastels. Girly pink. Baby blue. Lavender. Pale yellow.

Ick.

On top of it all, I’m seeing a lot of ruffles and frilly nonsense — nothing I would be caught dead wearing. I will, however, wear lace. Some lace. Not frothy, frou-frou lace, but Lace with a capital “L.” Lace that looks something like this:

Pattern: Strangling Vine Lace Scarf.  The pattern a four-row lace repeat, which you can memorize it easily.  I’ve christened my version the Isadora Duncan Scarf since the friend who gave me the yarn questioned the wisdom of knitting a scarf with the word strangling in the pattern title.

Yarn: Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash, Blue Curacao, approximately 190 yards.   The intensity of the color is phenomenal.

Needles: US size 3, Addi Turbo Lace.  These are the ne plus ultra of knitting needles.  I cherish mine in a way that’s almost lascivious.

Size: Before blocking: 32″ by 4.25″ ; After blocking 46″ by 4.5″

I get high blocking lace.  It’s the most amazing transformation.  All the lumpy stitches behave themselves and lie flat, and all the yarn overs open up to show off those well-behaved stitches.  I can see the allure of knitting larger lace pieces like shawls and stoles.

I’m wearing this to work tomorrow (I’m thinking with a plain ivory or white sweater).  I want to skip down the hallway,  “Lookit what I made!  Isn’t it awesome?”

Thankfully, my co-workers humor me.

The current theme in my world is Catching Up, or rather, Trying to Catch Up.  I’m so incredibly tired of the long lists of tasks — at home and at the office — that I’ve decided to quit talking about them.  It’s the status quo.  Deal with it.

Nonetheless, here’s an FO from last month that didn’t make it to the blog.  Michelle’s Holiday Scarf.

Pattern: February Lace Scarf by Laura Nixon-Corfield

Yarn: Sock Yarn from The Woolen Rabbit in the Pussywillow Colorway

Needles: US Size 4 (3.5mm)

Size: Before blocking – 6” x 42”   After blocking – 5.5” x 60”

Mods: None

Comments: This is a simple 4-row lace repeat, which makes it easy to memorize.  It also makes it Boring Beyond Belief.  You will be ready to stab your eyes out with your knitting needles after 4 inches of knitting.  Srsly.  The upside, though, is that it looks complicated to a non-knitter.

The recipient, whom I’ve known for over a dozen years, was delighted.  I say that I don’t knit for other people.  The truth is, I do; but it’s an extremely short and exclusive list.

I’ve been working on a stealth knitting project for the past week, and I finally get to write the FO post since it was given to the Birthday Girl  this morning. She loves it.

Pattern: Scrunchable Scarf by Susan McCone (KnitList)

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Aura, Color 750 (Ivory), 2 balls

Needles: U.S. Size 8/5.0mm

Size: After blocking, approximately 4″ by 48″

A very easy pattern, and it’s the yarn that really sets the scarf apart as special.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t photograph that well.  The silk gives it a lovely sheen and the mohair has wonderful loft.

The thought I had as I was knitting this was that it would be a perfect scarf to wear for a “special occasion” evening.

It was graciously received.  It was given to a co-worker who has watched me knit for a few years; she knows how happy it makes me to work with high-quality yarn.

I hope I got all the cat hair out of it before I gave it to her…

As I was walking to my usual Wednesday evening manicure appointment, a young woman passed me on the street and said, “I like your Noro Striped Scarf.”

I stopped and we had a quick chit-chat about how we love Noro Silk Garden and how addictive those Noro scarves are to make, and then she mentioned she worked at the LYS and how they had just gotten in a new shipment of Silk Garden and how I wish she hadn’t had mentioned that since it’s payday tomorrow and how she understood that feeling since that’s where her own paycheck went and how she had enough yarn to last her a solid year of knitting but, hey, it was good insulation for the upcoming winter, right?

You never know when you will run into another knitter.

Knitting women… chuckled when they heard that FBI agents, ever on the lookout for agents of unfriendly powers with subversive pamphlets, apprehended a woman passenger on an incoming liner whose papers included such scribbled notations as “K2, p4, k6,” and demanded a translation of the code to which the vast State Department Library had no key.

No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting
Chapter 14 — The Forties: Knitting in War and Peace
Anne L. Macdonald

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.  ~Buddhist saying

I’m applying this thought to my knitting today.  I’m at the very beginning of two rather lengthy projects and need the Positive Self Talk.

Project One is the new incarnation of Socks for The Husband.  The first attempt was too loose after the calf, so I frogged it.  I hadn’t gotten very far along when I (wisely) thought I should have him try it on.  Since I’ve only knit socks for myself, I kept looking at the few inches of ribbing I’d done,  thinking — This looks awfully big.  Is it really big or do I only imagine it’s too big because he’s got Giganto Feetz? When in doubt, try the thing on.  Ripping back part of a sock is much preferable than ripping out an entire sock.

This new sock-knitting attempt is from a recently published pattern — Oliver — that I discovered when catching up on Franklin’s blog.  There’s some unique shaping going on in the gusset and arch that is supposed to help the socks “fit like a glove.”  I can get behind that. I think it’s worth $7.00 if I get a pair of socks that actually fit him.

I’m currently in the “work in k2p2 ribbing until leg measures eight inches or desired length” bit.  This is my mindless take-to-work knitting, or the designated project to work on while surfing the Innernets/watching a DVD/sitting in a waiting room.

Project Two is Hanami. This is going to be a Magnum Opus.  I’m 13 rows into what’s an approximately 500-row pattern.  This is fussy lace knitting with lots and lots of charts.  If I can work a few rows each day, I’ll know I’ll get an FO out of it eventually — a drop-dead gorgeous, awe-inspiring, phenomenal FO at that.  I’m glad I gave myself a self-imposed time limit of a year to complete it.

Yep. Put one foot in front of the other. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Pattern: Mitered Mittens,  The Knitter’s Almanac (May), Elizabeth Zimmermann

Yarn: Noro Kureyon, Color 265

Needles: US Size 6

Size: Children’s Large/Ladies’ XS.  I started with a cast on of 40 stitches.  After 5 rows of 1×1 ribbing, I decreased 4 stitches evenly on the first knit row, and worked on 36 stitches until the decreases at the top of the mitten.  They fit me very snugly, so I’m imagining these for a 8-12 year old girl.

Mods:  The gusseted thumb.  EZ’s pattern calls for an “afterthought” thumb.   After finishing the mitten, you’re supposed to snip a few stitches where you think the thumb should go and pick up stitches for it.  That was way too haphazard for me, even with my l33t steeking and yarn snipping skillz.

I found a write-up for a gusseted thumb on Kathryn Ivy’s blog, and did a 12-stitch thumb.   Putting the thumb on the side, I think, keeps the “spirit” of the EZ mittens, in that they can be worn on either hand. 

They were a quick and easy knit, and the color changes in the Noro kept me entertained.  I am easily amused by self-striping yarn — I do not deny it.

I have far too many things I want to knit.

I’ll say right upfront that it has nothing to do with knitting 23 holiday gifts for my family, friends, co-workers, UPS delivery person, Xerox repair guy, or mailman.  I hear about a lot of knitters freaking out when the colder weather hits and the Christmas tree displays and muzak appear in the stores on the day after Halloween. 

I also hear about a lot of knitters who are stunned when their knitted gifts aren’t received with enthusiasm — or even politeness.  I read some time ago that the only people you should give knitted gifts to are other knitters (because they know how much time and energy you’ve put into a scarf or a pair of socks).

I knit for myself, for the most part.  The current exceptions to this rule are:

• A pair of socks for The Husband, which will take forever and a day since he has humungous Man Feet.  Really now, who has an 11 1/2 inch foot?  I knit for him because, well, because he’s my husband and I love him (humungous Man Feet and all).
• A Baby Surprise Jacket for a service knitting project.
• A pair of Eden fingerless gloves for HunterXan.  They’ve been hibernating a long time. I put them on the list, though, because they’ve been haunting me.  I do have the leaf edging parts done, so they count as a WIP for another person.

Only a highly select and vetted group of people receive  handknits from me, so this overwhelming urge to cast on half a dozen new projects has nothing to do with a pre-holiday knitted-gift anxiety attack.  It has more to do with my idée fixe that I need enough winter accessories to outfit the Scott expedition.

Here’s what I’m working on for myself at the moment:

• The fuchsia Catriona cabled vest.  I’m about 8 rows before the point where I divide for the V-neck, but it’s slow going.
• A cabled beret that’s absolutely perfect for the mink/cashmere yarn I bought not too long ago.  Yes, mink.  And before anyone pulls a PETA blood-throwing stunt, the minks aren’t killed for their fur.  They’re shaved, or shorn rather, like sheep.  There’s a whole ‘nuther blog post in here so I will just leave it at that for now.

And here’s the list of what I want to cast on RIGHT NOW DAMMIT:

• Ysolda’s Snapdragon Tam.  I love just about everything Ysolda designs, and when I discovered a new hat, it went to the top of my To Knit list immediately.
• The Hanami Stole.  It’s been on my Ravelry queue for almost two years, and I think I finally have the skill — or the chutzpah — to try it.  I even have the yarn at the ready:

• Thrummed Mittens.  I live in Michigan.  These will be unquestionable necessities in about 3 months.
• A pair of fingerless gloves in a fine enough gauge to wear at the office.  I need to start wearing something to keep my fingernails from turning purple.  The pattern is not yet determined, but the need and motivation is there.
• Elizabeth Zimmerman’s mitered mittens, maybe done in this shade of Noro Kureyon:

I think if I give up sleeping, I can get all of these projects — and some more service knitting — done before the end of the year.

That’s a joke, by the way.

Another Finished Object:

Pattern:  Noro Striped Scarf, by brooklyntweed.

Yarn:  Noro Silk Garden, 2 skeins each of colorways 264 and 279, with maybe 20 yards (total) left over.  I much prefer the Silk Garden for this scarf over the Kureyon.  It’s softer and has a nicer drape.

Needles:  Denise Interchangeable Needles, US size 8.  The Silk Garden is more slippery than the Kureyon, so a stickier needle was is order.

Size:  Before blocking, 72′ by 5 ½’.  After blocking, 78′ by 5½’ .  Long enough to wrap twice and tie in front.

I think I’ve got the Norovirus out of my system. I picked up the fuchsia cabled vest yesterday, having suddenly realized that I want to wear it this fall, which will be here soon (fingers crossed). Very soon.

This happens every year — the excessive heat, light, and humidity go away, and my mood and energy level increase a hundredfold.  I sleep better.  I don’t snarl as much.  My skin clears up.  I get to laugh at all the people who whine about winter coming.  I decide it would be Bad Form to stand on the corner and chant “Neener Neener Neener” at the kids on the school buses.  Life is very good.

Norovirus Scarf version 2.0, made with Noro Silk Garden.  Click here for the extra-big photo.

No, not the sort that causes gastroenteritis,  but the viral pattern for the Noro Striped Scarf.  I did a quick check on the stats over on Ravelry and, as of this writing, there were 3,947 finished scarves and 751 scarves in progress.  That’s a lot of scarves.

It’s one of the most popular patterns on Ravelry, right up there with the viral fingerless gloves, the viral Elizabeth Zimmerman baby sweater, and the viral scarf/shawl whose name sounds like a venereal disease.  I will admit to attempting the baby sweater and to making a pair of those fingerless gloves, but I will not knit something that sounds like it should be living in a petri dish.

I needed something with brighter colors so I could recover from the Soul-Sucking Socks of Despair, and I needed a simple traveling project to carry around with me.  Voilà! Two different colorways of Noro Kureyon and k1p1 ribbing.

Pattern:  Noro Striped Scarf, by brooklyntweed

Yarn:  Noro Kureyon, 1¾ skeins each of colorways 229 and 209

Needles:  Clover Bamboo, US size 8

Size:  Before blocking, 58′ by 5′.  After blocking, 66′ by 5′

Mods:  None.

These are not my usual colors.   While it did help me recover from the SSSoD, I can’t see wearing it myself.   I plan on donating this scarf to a local Catholic church that is starting a charity knitting ministry for families relying on the auto industry for their livelihoods.  I heard they were looking for winter items, so this will be my first contribution.

I must admit that I started a second Norovirus scarf before I was finished with this first one.   It’s much less, um, vibrant.  That one I’m keeping for me!

EDIT:  Ooooo…. I see that stripey scarves are THE fashionable fall accessory this year!

The first phase of knitting is obsession.  Everyone knits too much when they start.  Everyone worries that they’re obsessed.  Everyone worries that they won’t be able to stop, or that they’re getting carried away.  The bad news is that you’re not going to be able to stop, that you are getting carried away, you’re knitting too much, and that things are probably going to get worse.  The good news is that soon you’ll be in so deep you won’t care anymore.   — The Yarn Harlot

Remember those blue socks I was going to make?  Well, they’ve landed in the “hibernating” pile while I’m working on other projects.  A lot of other projects:

A fuchsia cabled vest, knit in the round.

A sideways-knit cloche from Boutique Knits in a royal blue bulky alpaca.

To see the finished cloche, check out the great photos on this blog post.

A Noro striped scarf alternating two different colorways of Noro Kureyon. Click on the gallery photos to embiggen.

I have to add that I’ve made much more progress on the vest and the hat than those pictures show.  The hat is ready to be seamed and have stitches picked up for a cable running up the side.  The vest is about 2 inches longer.  Only the scarf pictures are current.

These are the projects on My Knitting Rotation.  There are a few other UFO’s out there — besides the socks — lurking in various phases of unfinishedness.  These three are just the ones I can’t keep my hands off of.

Not only that, I’ve got a zillion things on my To Be Knit list  — thrummed mittens, a cabled hoodie by one of my favorite designers, an entrelac beret — and I’m chomping at the bit to get started on those.  I’m going to make myself finish a current WIP before I cast on anything else.

I promise.

Really.

I think I’ve mentioned several times that the dark, dark yarn I used for my Black Rose Socks really dragged me down towards the end.   I needed a (short) break from sock knitting to tidy up a few WIP’s and to marshal my forces and make decisions as to the yarn and the pattern for my next pair of socks.

The yarn choice was a little difficult.  I needed something brighter and more alive than the Gothic Rose.  This was my first choice:

ONline Supersocke 100, a self-striping 75/25 wool-nylon blend.  It was a bit TOO bright for my current needs.  I have a hard time believing in was made in Germany.   It seems a little too perky.  I mean, we Germans certainly can be perky when we want to be (I’m thinking lederhosen), but this colorway lacks a certain Sturm und Drang that says “German” to me.  I also thought I would be blind before the heel turn on the first sock.

I chose this yarn instead:

Malabrigo Sock Yarn, in the Impressionist Sky colorway.  I’m trying it out on out Cookie A.’s Hedera sock pattern. 

I love the subtle color gradients in the yarn.  Blue is my favorite color, and I find it hard to imagine that I will be sick of the sight of it anytime soon.

Perhaps I just jinxed myself.

5elementknitter used the word soul-sucking in her comment on my previous post, and I think that is the best word to describe my last sock knitting project.  The Socks That Wouldn’t End.  The Socks of Doom.  The Thorn in My Side Socks.  The Ninth Circle of Hell Socks.  The Oh-My-God-I-Need-To-Stab-Myself-In-The-Eye-With-A-DPN Socks.

Once again, for the record, there is nothing wrong with this sock pattern.  Nothing.  Not. One. Thing.   In fact, I think it’s a great pattern for beginning sock knitters who would like to make something that Looks Really Impressive and Complicated, But Isn’t.  This pair of socks lets you tell every non-knitter How Hard and Challenging They Are.  Srsly, cats and kittens, we’re talking a 17-stitch lace pattern worked over 8 rows, and only 4 of those rows involve lace.

These socks took me 10 weeks to knit.  I know I’m a slow knitter, but I usually take no more than a month on a pair of socks, knitting on and off.  I was three-quarters done with these socks when I ripped back the entire Second Sock and started over.  It was ugly.  I’m glad I did it, but it was ugly.  In any event, I wanted to write my standard FO blog post and then hide these socks until September/October when I won’t mind looking at the yarn again.

Pattern:  Blackrose Socks, by Suzy Anvin

Yarn:  Dream in Color Smooshy, Gothic Rose, approximately 360 yards.  Even though I love this colorway, I think staring at it for 10 weeks was the major problem.  My next pair of socks will be made with something considerably brighter.

Size:  Small

Needles:  US 0, 1, and 1.5 to customize the fit.  I started with the 1.5’s, then switched to 1.0’s after the first four lace repeats to accommodate my skinnier ankles.  I switched to the 0’s to make a dense (i.e., less prone to holes) toe.

Mods:  I did very little modding on these socks.  I did nine repeats of the lace pattern before the heel turn instead of eight repeats since I wanted to add a little length to the leg.  I did my usual shortened heel flap by working 27 rows as opposed to the 33 called for in the pattern.

They fit like a dream come true.  These are my fourth ever pair of socks and I think I’m getting the hang of customizing socks for my German Peasant Calves and Dainty Elf Feet.  Or something like that.