whirlpool!

Behold the finished Whirlpool Socks!



I'm very pleased with them.



I'm also rather pleased that I got them finished during Socktober!

(In other news, I have been Slacking Horribly on the Pernicious Scarf. I really need to get my act together there, or it'll have to be a birthday present, and my brother isn't going to need an Epic Poetry Scarf in May.)

Pernicious bloodsucker of sleeping men!

You tell 'em, Warwick!



My scarf is definitely pernicious, though not yet a bloodsucker. If it doesn't straighten up with blocking, I'll totally weep and wail and chew the scenery in a way that would do Shakespeare proud.

some soul of goodness

I wish I could remember more than the most obvious bits of Henry V, but I don't. Alas! Anyway, I'm quite enjoying it, and I've got quite a bit of the Disco Scarf done today as a result. I'm gonna try adding purple tomorrow! I hope I like it. On the other hand, if I don't like it, then I have purple yarn that I can make into something else, so really, I win either way.

In other news, I also spent a bit of today dismantling my Favorite Sweater Ever. In case you're wondering what would possess me to do such a mad thing, let me tell you that it was a good ten years old--probably more like twelve--and had holes worn in the elbows. I was never really going to wear it again as it was, and it deserves a new incarnation, though I don't know what that'll be. I think there should be enough to make a sweater of some kind, or a medium-sized shawl, because it was an oversized cabled sweater in its first life. Oh, Favorite Sweater. We had some good, warm times together, didn't we? Now we can have some more!

I'm going to be so sad when I'm done with Henry V! I've really grown fond of David Gwillim, silly haircuts and all. His Henry tends to be a bit understated, but he can get all riled up when he needs to. It's very effective. I liked his Crispin's Day speech a lot. I hope I like Henry VI even half as much.

MIA

Great, my smallish yarn needle has run off somewhere, and my ginormous one Will Not Do for sewing in glove-finger ends. Or sock ends, for that matter. And when I get around to sewing in Richard III ends, it won't do for that, either.

Grr. The worst part is that I cleaned my crafty area only recently, and didn't see Mr Needle. It could be anywhere! I guess what I should do now is go check the ads in the paper and see if either JoAnn's or Michaels' is having a sale on notion-y type things.

And in actual knitting news, I have finished the first Charybdis sock AND the first Exploded Rainbow Glove. Omg, that yarn is so ridiculous. I think my cousin will love them.

I guess I'd better go knit some Richard now, and finish up Henry IV.

if I were as tedious as a king, I would bestow it all upon you.

In case you're wondering what I've been up to:

Here's the very tippy toe of my mama's Christmas sock.



I've actually got this one nearly finished. I just have to do the ribbing at the cuff, and ding ding ding, I will have finished my first ever toe-up sock! This is also one of the few items I've ever made in variegated yarn where the colors and the pattern really work well together. There's sort of an Asian whirlpool feel to it. Very elegant. Am hoping to get the next one done this month, and then I can have a pair of Socktoberfest socks! I love the idea of Socktoberfest, I've just never been sock-ready in October before.

And here is one of the Exploded Rainbow Gloves. This guy is almost finished, too. I'll probably put fingers on it tomorrow. I had a bit of a crisis during my show this evening when I'd knit up to where the fingers should be, and I didn't feel like doing fingers in the semi-dark where I'd be interrupted so row counting would be completely inaccurate. If I do the fingers tomorrow morning, I can cast on the next glove and do the cuff during the show. Sensible, huh?



I took today off from the Disco Scarf. I wish it wasn't such a slog, because I still love the idea, and I think it's going to look quite nice. It's just a great big pain in the tush. AND my library doesn't have the BBC Henry V, so I'm gonna have to wait for it to get to me from another library. I've grown rather attached to those actors, and the soap-opera/miniseries feel of watching everything the same, so I don't want to hop over to Olivier or Branagh for Henry V and then hop back to the BBC for Henry VI.

I need more hands!

Ok. The Disco Scarf is waddling along very slowly. I am, however, educating myself whilst I knit it, by watching the BBC 80's versions of Shakespeare's history plays. I was going to just watch Richard III, for obvious reasons, but then I was at the library and I decided to start with Richard II . . . well, it's a damn long scarf. I'll probably be able to watch most of the comedies and tragedies, too. So far I find Falstaff all kinds of tedious, and Jon Finch quite hot.

As for other stuff: I've always thought the cowl was an odd and useless concept, but now it's got cold and I don't have many decent turtlenecks to my name. So I shall probably be knitting myself a cowl, so as to have a sort of portable turtleneck. I've got plenty of yarn. It'll be very economical.

There are also several babies and toddlers I know who could use nifty hats for the winter. Aiee! More hands, please.

sucking it up.

So I went out yesterday and bought me a 16-inch size two. (I now have an epic collection of size 2 circular needles, when what I really need is a size 3. Anyway.) The purchase was a sensible one: the process is going along much better when I don't have to struggle with all the flopping needle ends, and there's much less puckering. So yay! $14.50 well spent.

Since the Disco Scarf is not particularly portable, and I'm nearly finished with the gloves I intend to barter to my brother, I've started yet another pair of gloves. I have some ridiculously bright and colorful Trekking left over from a pair of socks, so I've decided to make a Christmas present for a certain cousin of mine who tends to dress, as I do, like a rainbow exploded in her closet. Hopefully this will not cause a riot amongst my other cousins. (If I knit gifts for all of my cousins, and say, did two per Christmas, it would take me close to twenty years. Sorry, cousins.)

The next thing I want to start is my mama's Christmas socks, because they will also be portable. I bought some variegated yarn on purpose this time, because I just want to do something simple, since the Disco Scarf is still a struggle. Of course, I can always make her something more complicated later, if the Disco Scarf really takes off. I've found two patterns I like for the sock yarn, but they're both toe-up, and I don't really have much patience with toe-up. The toe part makes me cranky, and then there's nothing to look forward to at the end except miles and miles of cuff. But I do like the patterns, so we'll see.

And eventually we will see pictures. There's not even an inch of the Disco Scarf yet, so it's not quite worth taking a picture.

holy crap.

This scarf might just be the end of me, y'all. I might be as doomed as Richard--or, for that matter, just about everyone else in that play. Omg. It's not really that hard, it's just slow, and though my throwing is showing improvement, which is nice, I'm not really improving fast enough. Oof.

Also, the edges, the bits where I switch from needle to needle, are really mangly. One of them might be bad enough that I'll have to rip out and start over--don't worry, I've only got a bare inch done--but I might be able to finagle it. I don't know. I'm starting to think I might just have to suck it up and buy a 16-inch needle, but who the hell needs a US 2 sixteen-inch needle? I mean, what good is that going to do me later in life? I guess I could make lots of very fine hats . . . and I have to say, I am kind of loving the Addi Turbo. Though even it can't make my throwing faster. :)

Ooof. That's pretty much how this scarf is making me feel right now. Also, if the phone rings one more time, I will not be held responsible for my actions. This is not the sort of project you can drop and run.

Ooof. I'm going to go find some dinner. My kingdom for some Thai food!

(Yes, you're going to have to put up with Ridiculous Shakespeare Quotes for the next three months or so. Buckle your seat belts!)

full speed ahead!

Um, nowhere in any of my readings about how to knit items on two circular needles does it mention that there's a part at the beginning where you feel like you're wrestling with a giant squid.

On the other hand, at least I cast on, right?

aiee!

Ok, I'm starting to freak out just a little bit. Seven days into October, and I still haven't started the scarf. Stupid auditions and whatnot, taking up all my extra time . . . I did check one yarn store for the yarn holder thingie, but no dice. After today's audition, I think I'm going to call some places and see if they carry them, because they're not nearly as convenient to get to.

I may also start the first end of the scarf, because I don't think there will be too much of the stranded work in it, and hell, I don't really NEED the yarn holder thingie (I really have to find out what that item is actually called) and I may not like it anyway. I hope they come in adjustable form. I have wee skinny fingers.

Right. I will get this scarf started by Friday or I will . . . I don't know, freak all the rest of the way out? Aiee!

holding pattern.

Whew. It's been a busy weekend. It was FINALLY performance time for my play--over and done with now, thank goodness, and all those words can leak right on out of my head. It went fairly well, though, and I have renewed awe for my own brain. My brain can be rather impressive, y'all. You wouldn't believe the stuff it can remember.

Anyway, since my brain was busy remembering all those lines (it was a full half-hour of snappy comic dialogue between two people, one of which had trouble remembering his lines, which really kept me on my toes, since I had to think for two of us,) my brain was not up to any complicated knitting. So I started making a pair of red fingerless gloves to swap to my brother for a t-shirt. I just have three fingers and a thumb to do on the first one! Gloves are speedy.

I'm going to try to get to the yarn store tomorrow to see if they have one of those yarn holder thingies that you wear on your finger to keep colors separate in stranded knitting. I can't seem to figure out how to just carry both colors in my left hand without tangling.

And then I have to figure out what I want the very ends of the scarf to be like, and then I really have to start knitting the damn thing, because did I mention it's really complicated? Aiee! I hope it looks nice. I can't wait to start! Hopefully the ol' brain will be in a happy place tomorrow. I do have an audition, though, which will probably end up occupying the brain. Sigh.

I am so close, y'all!

I have officially decided on the Richard III quote. Mainly because it hasn't stopped making me giggle. I've started playing around with it chart-wise. I started charting it by hand, because I tend to be old-fashioned, but I took a break after I'd got "Now is the winter of our disco" finished, and then I decided to give Excel a try, and now Excel is (almost) my best friend in the whole world.

I also want to open a Richard III-themed dance club, and call it The Winter Of Our Discotheque, but that's another story.

Today's questions to answer include such gems as "How wide should a man's tubular scarf be?" and "How do I space out these words so they look nice?"

I've been working on question #2, and am kind of stumped. I've decided (so far, still subject to change) to do the whole four-line first sentence of Richard III:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our House
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried

However, as you'll notice, the third line is enough longer than the other three--especially once you've dealt with the apostrophe--that it throws the whole thing out of whack. So my options are to space out all the other lines (this has the most impact on lines 1 and 3) to match, or to not put each line of text on its own line of knitting, but to chug straight through, but that won't give me a full fourth line. I could always tack on a "Richard III" but I'm not sure how I feel about that.

My other problem is that I can't figure out how--if it's even possible--to get Excel to shrink the document on the screen so I can see more of it at once, to see if the lines are aesthetically pleasing the way I have them laid out. This is where by hand may jump in again. We'll see. I need to start knitting this! Aiee!

Does anyone know how wide a man's scarf should be? I've been doing a lot of failing in trying to find this out.