Look! A post about knitting.

Sorry that I fell off the wagon, there. Knitting blogs that have too many non-knitting posts bug me a little. Though come on, you have to do Memorial Day, right? As Terry Pratchett would say, some things are important.

Anyhow. My more complicated projects have been put on the back burner for a bit. I'm doing some truly summer-stocky summer stock, which means you have no time and no brain for anything complicated. So instead of butchering the pattern on my leaf sweater (don't worry, I'll work on it on days off) I'm just doing basic ol' garter stitch bias squares in random old cotton that I have. (Yes, even the miters are a bit much for the brain right now. I'll try to bring them back in a day or two, once I'm used to things.) I can knit them while I'm working on lines, and on breaks, and just whenever I need to soothe my brain. Very zen. And when I'm done I'll have a blanket! Or someone will have a blanket. We shall see. Here are a couple of the squares:
I'm trying to give them different-colored tips so I can have fun little squares-within-squares. Which may be butt-ugly. but who knows? I may turn up a winner yet.

Memorial Day

If I had to pick the holiday it would be best not to need, I'd pick Memorial Day.

And since, really, anything I say will probably come out trite and useless, head over to The Alternate Brain. They say it much better than I ever could.

arrrrrgh!

Ok, this has nothing to do with knitting, but there's a new episode of Doctor Who online, and I'm in Kentucky and my internet is loading very, very slowly. I might cry.

I guess I'll have to knit something to cheer myself up. I brought a bunch of cotton yarn with me--and ALL my needles, wasn't messing around this time--so we'll see what I can make out of that. And hopefully the local Wal-Mart will have some sea green Homespun.

The internet tells me that the nearest yarn shop is in Lexington, but I have a hard time believing that a town this small and cute doesn't have one. I'll have to ask around. Not that I'm making nearly enough money to blow it on yarn. God, I love yarn. I'm contemplating doing a serious post one of these days, about Why I Like Knitting. Y'all won't know what to do with yourselves.

News Flash!

So that plain, boring-ass black yarn that I bought? Started knitting it up into a sock, because I appear to be addicted to socks, and it might be my favorite yarn I've ever worked with. Granted, I can probably count the number of nice yarns I've worked with on one hand, as I am relatively new to this game, but dude. This stuff (just some black Lanett, superwash merino) feels soooo good on the ol' hands, and is just (if you'll pardon the expression) in general like buttah to knit with. I am totally in love and want to buy it in all the colors, and knit with it for the rest of my life. I want to make sweaters with it on size 1 needles so it'll take forever to knit up and my hands can spend hours in merino heaven. It's a very good thing that I will not be near a yarn store for the next two months.

Which brings us to the next topic: what projects to take with me? I don't know how much knitting time I'll have (you never can tell with summer stock) but I'm sure there'll be some. I'll make time, dammit. I have days off. And since I have come home to re-pack, I can dig up some old yarn to take with me. This way, when I get the Buttah Socks done, I won't have to go buy stuff at Wal-Mart. (Gah, Wal-Mart, but that's another post.)

(This may be the longest News Flash ever.)

Right. Projects. I am definitely taking:

* The Buttah Socks.
* The Pain-In -My-Rear Leaf-Paneled Sweater. The only think that keeps me going on this one is that I'm pretty sure it's gonna be totally hot when finished.
* The Mitered-Square Afghan. This one may require a Wal-Mart purchase, because I'm making it out of Lion Brand Homespun (mostly donated) and I need more sea green. Michael's didn't have any when I went the other day. :(

And then I'm gonna take a plethora of random cotton yarns, with the notion to perhaps make them into a blanket. And I've got a bit of obnoxious blue-and-white sock yarn lurking around my room, so maybe it'll be baby socks.

Do we think that's enough? I guess if I don't have a lot of down time it'll be fine.

I can't wait to meet a bunch of new people who will at first look at me funny because of my knitting obsession. Hey, there are worse things to be obsessed with, right?

Two Things:

1. I might have a baby-sock problem. As in I Can't Stop.
2. The errors in the Leaf-Paneled Sweater pattern are making me NUTS. However, I think the sweater will be lovely when finished, and if we're really lucky, it'll fit. Good thing I have a long torso.

Random Knitting Roundup

With some crochet, because what could be more random? Or, as Miss Battye would say, "It's a kind of knitting."

Anyway. I went to the yarn store and look what I got! Black yarn. Plain ol' black yarn, because my mom wants plain ol' black wool socks. Don't worry, I'll put a discreet but festive pattern in them so I don't die of boredom while knitting them up. The nice yarn store ladies and I had a good laugh over the fact that I will probably go blind or mad while knitting black socks. The things we do to make our mothers happy.
Here are the tiny needles I bought to knit the Maddening Black Socks. Aren't they cuuute? Aren't they small? God, as if I'm not nearsighted enough already.
Some mitered squares. I decided they all had to be outlined in green. This blanket might actually be quite pretty. I have a horrible feeling I'll want to keep it, but no. It's gonna be a present for someone, but I haven't quite decided between three people.
And the crochet! You thought I was kidding, right? Oh no. Not this time. Meet Mr. Second Afghan. I undid the Drunken Fuckery Afghan (that's a brilliant name for a blanket, no?) and made this guy. Am trying to decide what to do with him now. (I still have to sew in an end or two, but we'll just ignore that for now.)

arrrrrgh.

Today was one of those heinous days when you sit around FOREVER and go in and sing your 16 bars and they're totally not interested in you and you just end up cranky. And the only things that got you through the day were the thought of the Heroes finale tonight, and the knitting you brought with you.

My friends, I sat in line long enough to make a whole sock. A very small sock, but a sock nonetheless. I've even got part of its brother done. The tiny rainbow sock:

Shown here with its Mama Sock for scale:

And no, you don't want to hear about the contortions required to get that picture.

And ps, the Tiny Rainbow Sock was made with the Baby Eyelet Sock pattern by Designated Knitter. Found at http://pickinandthrowin.blogspot.com/ It's way cute.

Finished socks!

The Rainbow Socks, no longer Rainbow Elf Socks. Being the Cut Your Teeth socks from Knitty, without the teeth part. They're comfy. I like them.
The sock on the left likes to taunt the sock on the right with the fact that it was partially knit on Ellis Island.


The right sock doesn't mind too much. After all, it had reconstructive surgery without painkillers. No cameras were allowed in the operating room, though, as it was very late at night and I looked like death and if, by some fluke, a picture had been taken of me, my camera might never have recovered.

sock surgery . . .

. . . is exhausting. But I shall persevere because it's freakin' freezing in my apartment, and my left foot would like to be as warm as my right.

And I'm almost done. Go me.

It may be time for an intervention.

Because there I was, watching the saddest episode ever of Doctor Who, all blubby and weepy as the Doctor and Rose talk to each other on the beach, and then my brain goes, "Oooh, look at the spiffy cabled fingerless gloves she's wearing. I wonder how I'd make those?"

Talk about breaking the mood.

Oh, AND I just used the notepad function on my phone for the first time ever. To jot down specs for a pair of socks I want to knit for my mom. Yikes.

it's Friday!

Which means that many other blogs are having Friday pet blogging of various kinds. As a person who doesn't have a pet, has never had a pet, and is never going to have a pet (very few things you can say never on, but my having a pet is one) I feel like I should come up with some brilliant alternative.

I'm not feeling very brilliant right now, but I'll let you know if I think of something.

(Oh, right, and I'm still knitting. Maybe I could knit myself a pet.)

no surgery yet.

So here's the sock, cuff still attached. I can't quite decide if it's cool or stupid. In my saner moments, I know I really don't have any use for a rainbow-wool elf sock, but there's part of me that likes it. I suppose it can sit around and wait for a bit . . . I still have Mr Pink Sweater and a zillion mitered squares to deal with.

Am also plotting to make my big brother a sweater for his birthday. (Hopefully he will never find this blog and therefore the surprise will not be ruined.) There is a tragic dearth of good man-sweater patterns out there, though. Do I really want to go aran? Almost everything else is dull or frightening. Come on, designers: men like nice sweaters too.

I guess I could try to find the book with the Keanu Reeves Matrix sweater in it. The knitwear was my favorite thing about the movie, and that was well before I because Psycho Knitting Lady.

It's official.

The mitered-cuff-thingie on the Cut Your Teeth sock looks like poo. At least the one I knit does. I think my squares came out too big--but don't be pointing any gauge fingers, because the rest of the sock fits perfectly.

Since the cuff part is more-or-less grafted on, I'm gonna try to surgically remove it once I get this toe finished. So instead of having a funkily-cuffed sock, I'll have a pretty, if slightly dull, pastel rainbow sock. I'm hoping to recycle the cuff as the brim of a baby hat. If Jenny has a girl, I'm all set.

Boo. Oh well. At least I learned to make mitered squares (and the fun still hasn't worn off them) even if I'm not using them on the sock.

half-finished sock.

Approximately half of the Cut Your Teeth sock. So about a quarter of the pair.
It's certainly going to be a silly sock, no matter what happens. Maybe I'll have to pass them off onto one of my cousins.

recent creations:

Let's hear it for pictures!

Here we go:

This scarf got to be a birthday present. Late, but a birthday present nonetheless. Just mailed it today. It's your v. most basic lace pattern edged with seed stitch. Just something small and brainless to knit while waiting to audition. I freakin' love seed stitch. And moss stitch.


This one is more or less the same (slightly larger needles, slightly less seed stitch) but I'm keeping it. I'd better, since I've already worn it.


And here's my first ever crocheted item! Woo! It also got to be a birthday present. Mmmm, chenille. It's ridiculous, how fast crochet goes. This is not the one I was crocheting while drunk. That one seems to be fucked, though I don't know how much of the fuckery is inebriation and how much is due to the fact that I'm never quite sure which stitch you're supposed to crochet in first after turning. Ah well. We live and we learn.

hmmm.

Am making the Cut Your Teeth socks from Knitty.

Can't tell if they will be supercool or butt ugly.

I guess we'll find out.

New Stuff.

But still no pictures. Really, I shall soon stop being lazy and upload the stupid things from my camera.

Anyway. I sent my first-ever crocheted afghan to a friend for her birthday, and it was a big hit. Woo go me!

I unraveled Mr Pink Sweater and started re-knitting him with a pattern from Berta Karapetyan's Runway Knits. Dude, there are some fine patterns in that book. Hopefully this one will go well. The eleven or so inches I've got so far looks quite nice.

Aaaand I have discovered the fun of mitered squares, God help me.

*hic*

It's hard, crocheting when you're drunk.