slightly less panicked!

Why?

Because last night I watched all three Indiana Jones movies, and knit the entire first half of a Man Sock. Awesome. Awesome even though I decided the wee cables might be a bit too girly for my dad and am just doing Basic Ribbed Man Sock. It's ok. I still love making socks, and I am actually to the point where I could make a basic sock without looking at the pattern. Go me! I'm a big kid now.

In other news, cabling without a cable needle really has changed my life.

still knitting . . .

Right. So here we have the third attempt at a Manly Sock for my dad. I think this one is ok. It's mostly plain, with some wee cables (that you can sort of see in the photo) down the sides so I don't die of boredom while knitting. I'm going to poll the three straight men I work with to see if this sock is, indeed, Manly. It damn well better be, because if not I'll have to go with boring-ass ribbing, and I might die.
Next up we have my second Unoriginal Hat. It's got six pattern repeats, and this time I was smart enough to put the extra ribbing at the bottom when I started, not picking up later. Go me! If this works, I shall make approximately two more in the same semi-Unoriginal pattern. There was a sale on Patons' Shetland Chunky, or whatever the heck it's called. It's not bad, for acrylic.

Oh, and my exciting new skill that I'm learning while knitting the Manly Sock is cabling without a cable needle, courtesy of the great Grumperina. Seriously. It's easy and awesome. If I'd bothered to learn this while making Shedir, things would have gone a lot faster, and there would have been less swearing. I think.

And best yet, in random conversation yesterday, a person I have made a purple hat for mentioned that her favorite color is purple. There is no way I could have known this, because she doesn't wear a lot of purple, though she could. Hmm, her phone case is purple, though. Maybe I should have known.

Is it too early to press the Panic Button?

I just made a list of Christmas presents. Not stuff I want, no, that would be Too Easy: stuff I'm giving. And lots of it is knitwear. And do you realize how few knitting days there are left until Christmas?

Of course you do: if you're reading this you're probably a knitter. And you might be panicking too.

On the other hand, with my mom's hat done, my most time-consuming item (besides that damn blanket) is out of the way. Socks for my dad are next, and I'm not sweating the gloves for my brothers too bad because if you really have to, you can make a glove in a day. (This is good, I'm making myself feel much better.) And some of the hats on the list are optional. Funny how a hat makes such a good default gift. Scarves seem so wimpy, even though I love scarves and wear them often.

Ok. Should no doubt stop blogging and get back to the ol' sweatshop. I could finish my second Unoriginal Hat, which is even more original than the previous one, or I could do the blanket, or I could cast on for socks . . . maybe I'll do socks. Haven't done socks in about a day and a half.

(And yes, I've started listening to the Christmas music. Love it. Benjamin Britten, you're next.)

Ow.

My hands hurt.

I knit waaaay too much yesterday. I blame this on watching Transformers, which is the longest movie since King Kong. And since I was watching it on dvd, yep, I was knitting. Through the longest movie ever made about toys. Owwwww.

Got a hell of a lot done on my pastel blanket, though. Am now reasonably optimistic that I'll finish it in time. Or at least close enough to time for it not to be embarassing. The kid will get it before she's two, and I have to keep adding borders because she's gotten bigger. Freakin' kids. That growing thing is madness.

And of course, today is Thanksgiving. If I were home, there would be no knitting, so my hands could rest up, but I am not at home, and will be having dinner with a bunch of people who will probably make me crazy after an hour, so I may have to take something with me to do. I just won't get it near the cranberry sauce. Which I made yesterday and which is delicious.

Progress, my friends!

First off, I made an Unoriginal Hat. Mostly Unoriginal. My gauge was a little tighter--gee, could that be because I don't have 7mm needles? Probably. So I added a repeat of the chart, and about an inch of ribbing on the bottom, and all is well.

It's the first of what I hope will be a pile of hats to give to my friends for Christmas. They're what I knit when I'm tired of little needles and want results now now NOW! (Oh, and the yarn is Moda Dea Tweedle Dee. It was on sale at Michaels'.) And yes, the picture is of the back of my head. I've got no makeup on, have had migraines for two days, and would scare you all away.

Next up: my friends, being Very Considerate People (think extreme sarcasm) have all contrived to have babies in late November/early December. Rude. Rude. Don't they know what this does to the Christmas knitters? Dammit, now I'm not accepting any more friends with May birthdays or babies in the two months before Christmas. This is not negotiable.

What you see here are the first two squares--or almost two squares--of a log cabin blanket for a kid who turns 1 on December 9. Will the Crazy Aunt get the blanket done in time? Possible, but she might also go insane. I've decided to do the damn thing in four blocks, because the thought of a four-foot edge of seven garter rows made me want to die just a little bit.

I'm not wholly sold on the pastel madness, but at this point there's no going back. I think having each block have a different main color will help. Only problem: can't find any more of the light aqua-green stuff anywhere. Shit! This means that tomorrow I have to hit one more craft store, and if they don't have it, I have to pick another color. God knows what. People, this is why planning is a good idea, even if you totally suck at estimating how much yarn you need for a blanket. Now we know we should Buy All The Green.

Oh, and I finished the Shedir hat. It's nice, but it's really big. I don't think it's too big to wear--especially since if I make a hat that fits me, it's too small for my mother, so she's getting this one. There is a chance that, if I get all the other stuff done, I'll rip out the top, take out one repeat of the pattern, and re-do the crown, but that's getting real close to the Land of Crazy, so we'll see. If there's a post in about a month that is nothing but incoherent cursing, that's me dealing with that hat.

Public Service Announcement:

Knitting with only one contact in is harder than knitting drunk.

Don't worry, I"m not doing the Shedir hat. I'm not that crazy. I can barely make that one work when I'm at my peak of sight and sobriety. However, I'm nearly done with it and it looks great. And I'm getting faster. I have four shows this weekend so I probably won't work on it much, but it'll totally be done on Monday, and then I can put two whole Christmas presents into the 'finished' pile.

Oh God do I need to hurry.

Knit, very old one! Knit like the wind!

Shedir Hat!

Behold my attempt at the Shedir hat from the Knitty fall surprise '04. It's a damn fine hat, but the twists are kicking my butt. It takes me forever to get through those rows. Like ten minutes per needle. Mostly because I am too chicken to go without my cable needle, even though I think the yarn is sticky enough that it's not going to unravel on me. (It's Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Fig, by the way. Not really the first color I'd think of for either my mom or this pattern, but I had it, so I'm using it.)
In other news, remember my cable needle drama? Turns out there's a Michael's sort of stealthily placed just past the Wal-Mart. That's right. I only need to go about 100 feet further for an actual craft store. One that does, indeed, have the j-shaped needles. It's the sort of thing that makes a girl want to poke her eye out. Oh well. At least I know it's there if I need it, and they're having a rather good sale on Patons' Classic, so I may have to go back tomorrow and stock up just in case I get all my 'must' knitting done and can then make hats and such for friends.

argh

Wasted. Wine Wednesday has kicked my butt.

Which is too bad as I wanted to knit some more stuff today. I'm getting a tad nervous about my current baby log cabin blanket. The kid's birthday is December 9. I need to haul ass. I've decided (as of today) that I'm going to knit the thing in four two-foot blocks, because the thought of doing a four-foot row of garter stitch makes me want to kill myself. So I'll fake me out by doing smaller blocks, yeah? I'll probably hate them soon. However, I think this means I get to go to the store tomorrow and pick up some more yarn, as all my estimates were off. Oh well. I'm only using Peaches n' Cream and Sugar n' Cream. Don't tell anyone. I'm not being very posh. Makes a cute blanky, though.

Ok. Time for drunken self to go to bed, so can get up in the morning and purchase the yarn.

(It took me four tries to spell 'purchase.' I need sleep. Goodnight.)

progress

I gave in and bought the other style of cable needle. Who knows, maybe it will turn out to be my favorite knitting thing since circular needles. This of course means that I could start my mom's hat, but there's a baby blanket I really need to finish by the end of the month, so that has to be my next mission. Or most of my next mission. It's another garter stitch log cabin thing, and therefore perfect to knit at the show. I'm not sold on the colors: they looked really pretty in the store, but now that I'm knitting them up they're so pastel it makes me a little sick. Oh well. I'll make the kid something more grown-up when she's about twelve, how about that?

I've also got a pair of socks going (have I mentioned them? probably.) of the rest of the white and grey yarn I used for the fingerless gloves. They were going to be anklets for me, but they're a little small, so I think I'll give them to my yoga teacher. She has tiny feet. I wanted to make her something more colorful, but I don't know a lot of people with feet smaller than mine, and I like the way the swirlies are knitting up in this size of sock, so I'm leaving it.

And, of course, there will be pictures someday.

i should really stop slacking.

Because there's that big, gift-ridden holiday coming up in two months. Which means I should stop knitting random things like just-cause-I-wanna socks and actually choose a sock pattern for my dad. Argh.

Well, my show has opened, which means I will now have more free time than you can possibly imagine, so I should be able to get this stuff done, even though the show itself contains less knitting time than I thought it would. Let's just say I wasn't expecting to have to change my costume for every entrance, and every costume has a zillion accessories--oh, so difficult playing a rich, glamorous woman--so it takes me a while to undo myself and then put things back together.

And I'm thinking I really do need a trip to a yarn store so I can find stuff to make those squirrel mittens. I must know someone who needs squirrel mittens. Or who would find squirrel mittens extremely entertaining. I'm all for entertaining people with my knitting.

grrrrrrr.

What does a girl have to do to find a cable needle these days? Does no one in Arizona do cables? (Or maybe they all do cables, and that's why the stores are out.) I just want a plain, boring ol' J-shaped cable needle. That's all.

I'm an idiot and didn't bring mine and of course the hat I want to do for my mother for Christmas has a plethora of cables. The hat I planned to do before I left, so you'd think that bringing the cable needle would have been high on the list of Stuff To Pack. But no.

Then again, I probably figured that JoAnn's would have one. They're stocking one kind of cable needle, and it's not the one I want.

Grrr. Cranky.

*gasp* more than one thing!

I've got another exciting piece of news for folks who don't knit: yes, I frequently work on more than one thing at a time. It depends on how much concentration the thing takes, or how boring the thing is, or if I'm just plain tired of blue yarn. Or big needles. Or cotton yarn. Believe me, I have lots of needles. I can do lots of things at once.

One of the things I'm making is this scarf. It's for mindless backstage knitting and will probably end up as a present. It's some Lion Brand Micro-Spun. Found two skeins of red for a dollar each. Perfect for random actor Christmas gifts.

And I finished these for a Christmas present for one of my brothers. (I'm pretty sure they haven't found this blog. They'd better not. I'd feel like a total idiot if my brothers knew I blogged about knitting.) Anyway these are the Trigger Gloves from a 1940 Knit-For-The-Troops pattern. (Am still too lazy to link. Sorry. Tech rehearsals do that to you.) These were super easy to knit, but slightly dull. I think gloves need some sort of stitch pattern to keep me interested. Still, quick. And left enough yarn over for a pair of short socks, so yay. Mostly I am hoping that the yarn is manly enough for a dude.
And the seed stitch poncho continues, but you can just look at the last picture of it, because it still pretty much looks like that.

Festival of Seed Stitch

Yesterday I knit 12 1/4 inches by 19 1/2 inches of mostly seed stitch. It's got three inches of garter stitch on each edge for a border, but that's not enough to detract from the immense quantity of seed stitch I'm doing these days.

And yes, in true Me Form, I decided that the part of the poncho I had knit was not wide enough, so there will be much Starting Again. However, given yesterday's stats, even if I only work on it at rehearsal, if I stick to it, I should have it done by Thursday.

I probably won't stick to it. I like to knit little bitty Christmas things in between. (Like yesterday I also put the thumb on the second of my Fingerless Man-Gloves. All I have to do is sew in the ends and I will have a Finished Christmas Present! I'm like a department store with the early Christmas action.)

Ok. Seed stitch today. Tomorrow the world!

And there's a chance that I'm going to JoAnn's today to look for brown yarn to go with the Autumn Mess yarn so I can make a hat to so-called match my gloves. More 'go with' than match.