Complete chaos and I haven't even been shopping yet

Okay. Not perfectly true, as I did go out this afternoon to pick up some yarn. Yes. Some more yarn. sigh.

So determined that what Caz wants is not fingering weight socks, but rather big thick cushy socks, like out of some light worsted weight yarn.

So, after hemming and hawing over an online order and eventually realizing that if I placed that particular order, I'd wind up buying a bunch of other stuff (some /great/ sales going on out there!) that I really don't need but am having trouble resisting, so I decided instead to "go support local businesses!"

Went to the LYS (the marvelous Lakeside Fibers) just before they closed yesterday. Wandered and wandered and wandered some more. Finally chose 100g of Dale of Norway Falk in gray, and 50 g in purple. I hope that'll be enough.

I also picked up two skeins of Filatura di Crosa Zara, in a dark blue and yellow, which will match the boys' winter coats nicely. Not sure how I'm going to do their hats - I think something with ear flaps would be fun, but so far I haven't been able to find a good pattern.

I joined the Jaywalker KAL, and even started a pair in Trekking XXL for Caz. But now knowing that he's not really after fingering-weight socks, at least not most immediately, I'm sorely tempted to pull his sock back off the needles (have only managed about two rows of the ribbing anyway) and give my own pair of Jaywalkers a start.

Have I mentioned that both the Hermione hat and Henry's Christmas stocking have been untouched since Tuesday? Got to get those moving.

Have realized that I've got six hats, two stockings plus ideally one pair of socks that I really want to get done for Christmas. Plus I've got another pair of socks that I'd like to do just for myself. For fun. sigh.

At the very least, I did knit up a nice swatch of my Kool-aid dyed KnitPicks sock merino, so once I get it measured up I'll throw it through a cold cycle in the washer to see if it felts on me or not (please don't! please!). Once that's done, I may also decide to overdye the swatch with some purple, perhaps, per Diana's mention in her blog. Just to see how it turns out.

Oh, and we got a new cat yesterday - another 2-year-old female calico named Lily. No pics yet, I'm afraid, but I'll get some up soon, honest. It's actually a little crazy-making right now. Connie, our first cat, is not taking well to the newcomer. And then when Caz got between her and Lily, because Connie was hissing something fierce, instead of shooing Lily off he shooed off Connie, so now she's hiding all the time and sulking and when she does come out, she's inclined to his at Caz, even. It's all very traumatizing for me. I had no idea Connie would react this way, and so I'm really troubled by it. She even hissed at me when I went to scratch her ears a bit ago, when she came out for a few minutes. I'd been petting her sides, then moved to her ears and she hissed a little bit. Poor little girl.

Sorry still no pics, but as you can see, things have been a bit hectic. Soon, I promise!

Contemplative Over Turkey

Total lie. The last turkey that was in our house was some deli turkey and we finished that days ago. We're going to a friend's house for our Grateful Gorging.

But I am going to be a bit introspective, here.

No pics of the socks yet - will take a shot this afternoon (perhaps even of them in action) and get it up tonight, if Vitamin T doesn't put me in a coma for too long.

I'm deciding/realizing that the period after completion of a long-term project is kind of a dangerous time. I finished my socks, leaving my pair of #1 circs free, and so I've been all anxious to get a new pair of socks started. Caz's job is apparently Freaky Cold, so I got a ball of Trekking XXL to make him up a nice pair of socks.

I thought at first I'd go toe-up, two-at-once, so I would avoid any possibility of using too much yarn on Sock #1 only to wind up short on Sock #2. But then I was looking at Cara's Jaywalker Knit-a-long and thinking about how cool the stripey Trekking would look all zig-zaggy, and how Caz is kind of a zig-zaggy kinda guy, so I asked him and he was really jazzed about it. So I thought, "Okay, I know people are having problems with the gauge coming out huge, so I'll use that to my advantage, since the pattern doesn't exactly come in a size for man-feet." At least not for my-man feet. But then I couldn't decide which size of the pattern to run with, and so now... now I think I'm swatching the Trekking. Then will frog and see where it puts me. Also, Caz said he thought it would be cool if the stripes matched, except it's, you know, a nice subtle manly colorway, so figuring out where one stripe becomes another is messing with me. And I know that I'm not going to be able to stand it if I wind up with the stripes almost matched. Once the decision is made to match the stripes, that's that. They must MATCH, dammit! Urgh.

We'll see if the stripe business doesn't make more sense to me once I see my swatch knitted up. If it doesn't... then I might just talk to Caz about making his socks fraternal twins instead of identical ones.

So, after all this fiddling and fussing and floundering went on, I really needed to make some progress. On something. Anything.

So I looked up and spied the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran I got a month or two ago to make a hat for a kid with. So after I rewound it, because the ball was all wonky and falling apart, I cast on (twice, the first time coming up about six inches short on my long-tail cast-on) and started up a kid hat. Likely for one of my kids, actually. We'll see how it turns out, though.

Regardless, though - clearly there's something weird that happens in the mind of a knitter when they've finished a project. Which is why in my need to start a new project, I somehow wound up starting two. sigh.

Soon, every available flat surface in my house ("available" meaning all those at least four feet above the ground, thanks to the Terrifying Twin Toddlers) will have a UFO on it. I better start being nicer to Caz now, huh?

First pair of socks!!!

I just finished my first pair of socks!!! I'm so jazzed! Plus, now that my pair of #1 circs are free, I'm all dithering on what socks to start next!

Pictures to come, but I just had to mark the date and time officially!

Don't even tell me....

...how many knitting days until Christmas there are. I have plenty of time. Do you hear me? Plenty. Of. Time!

So, the Hermione hat for a friend is not done. Is not anywhere near done. Maybe I can get it done by the time I see her next week. If not, looks like it'll be a Christmas gift.

Am thinking I might, one of these days, spring for a #5 circ of some nice hat-ish size. I've got my Denise set, which is generally really great, but the #5s can be a bit of a hassle, as the needle and the cable are about the same width. Which still, is not really an issue when knitting 30 rows of 2x2 ribbing (for example) or something else nice and basic like that. But when doing a bunch of cables? I spent more time fighting to get the stitches to move around the circ than I did actually knitting.

Transferred to my #5 dpns, and things are progressing much more smoothly now, though it's still an extremely fussy pattern. Like, I'd been thinking I might make another of these for someone else, but now I'm not so sure. The travelling cable is not so bad, but the rope cables are very "tight" - the crossovers happen about a row more frequently than I think I would generally do. I'm sure they'll look great in the end, but they're a serious pain in the ass now.

The first of the Christmas stockings is going pretty well. I'm past the widest part of the first set of diamonds, and things are really starting to click along for me, so that's really nice. I feel like this is going to work out. I've been pausing every so often to weave in ends as I go. Not only because it makes the whole thing less of a fiasco to work with, but also because otherwise I'm going to finish these things and the kids will be eight years old before I ever get around to weaving in all those ends. And in the meantime, we'll be losing stocking stuffers to the riotous ends inside. Like vicious woolly seaweed or something.

I'm also in the home stretch on the second of the Sockotta #1 socks. (Yeah yeah, this might have something to do with why the Hermione hat is languishing...) The socks have gotten a lot of attention lately primarily because the rest of the knitting I have on the needles is a lot more complicated than I can do with two toddlers running amok. Which means I only do the more complicated projects during naptimes and after the kids are in bed.

Also, my sister keeps calling me. I owe at least two inches of these socks to her, I swear - last night she called and yammered at me for an hour, and I got a good 8-9 rows on the socks done. And it was good I had my knitting - I was able to handily resist the temptation to get really snarky with her when she oh-so-coyly suggested that my eldest nephew would "love" a Harry Potter hat to go with the Harry Potter scarf I made him this past spring.

Now see, I'd already done this math. I have the leftover yarn, there's a chance it's enough for a hat, so... why not, yes? But I sure don't need my sister, of all people, telling me what projects I should do next. It's all I can do not to refuse to do it just to spite her. But I do think my nephew would like a Gryffindor hat, so... sigh. Damn her.

I did, however, take the opportunity to explain to her just how much time knitting takes, and so no, her friend who wants HP scarves for her kids? She can learn to knit herself. I'd be glad to teach her, in fact (if it weren't for us being 100 miles away), but I'm not going to knit scarves for somebody I don't even know. Even for pay, considering just how much it would cost to make even minimum wage by knitting a double-layered scarf. sigh.

One of us must have gotten switched at the hospital, I swear.

Oh yeah? Intarsia you, too!

Oh lordy. What on earth have I gotten myself into?

I'm knitting Christmas stockings for my kids. Basically, I've got yet another pair of socks to do in the next 46 days. Only these are on size 8 needles and are argyle, instead of a nice easy self-patterning yarn.

So I'm making my first attempts at intarsia, and well... eee-yah. This was perhaps a bit large of a project to start with, just out of the gate. I've got five different bobbins (actually, I just rewound smallish center-pull balls, a decision I'm beginning to rethink) going on each row for the next 70 rows. At which point I put about half the stitches on holders and continue on with three bobbins. (More particulars, and possibly a pic, later.)

I did two rows tonight and... wow. What a mess. It honestly makes me think I might have been better off to try the simple Fair Isle pattern in the book I've got from the library. Except that, well... it's argyle. How does anyone not love argyle? It'd be like if I found a pattern for a Chuck Taylor-styled Christmas stocking. I'd be morally obliged to knit it (don't any of you three DARE find one for me!).

And now, off to bed I go. Eeergh.

On the plus side, I'm about a sixth of the way through the ribbed brim for the Hermione cable-and-bobble hat I'm trying to complete by Nov. 17. It's only a week away. I can totally do this. Really.

Nancy Reagan would be so disappointed

I caved. Apparently, I am peer pressure's slave.

Yesterday, while the kids clambered about the living room like it was their own personal jungle gym (which, let's face it, it is), I got out one of my hanks of merino sock yarn, a big ceramic bowl, a big pot and the steamer basket (which I poured vinegar/water over but then never used again), four cups, two forks, one spoon, a pair of tongs, 15 packets of Kool-aid (four different flavors), three basting brushes (how did we get so many? two natural bristles, one synthetic), one mushroom-cleaning brush (synthetic bristles), and a shload of plastic wrap. Oh, and a shallow microwaveable dish.

Mixed up my dyes, soaked my yarn in hot water and vinegar, then laid it out on a couple lengths of plastic wrap, and began "painting" my yarn.

Notes for next time: synthetic-bristled brushes are useless, stick with natural bristles. Forget using grape Kool-aid for the purple, it's much too dull, even with a packet of Tropical Punch added to pink it up a bit. Lemon-Lime makes a nice green, but not as nice as when some "leaf green" Wilton gel food color is added. Orange Kool-aid is surprisingly effective at producing a good orange. Strawberry Kool-aid is more red than pink.

So, what are the results? Well, here, see for yourself:


I'm overall pretty pleased with it. The green I wish was a bit stronger. I'm wondering if I couldn't soak it in hot vinegared water again and just re-dye the green parts without screwing up the rest of the yarn. Even if I just leave it alone, I'm pretty pleased with it. I'd forgotten how much fun dyeing yarn can be.

And erm, Caz apparently had forgotten just how quickly I can destroy the kitchen with the yarn-dyeing as well. Whups.

To Dye or Not To Dye

Oh lordy. I'm soooo in over my head, and just looking to get in deeper.

I've got... I'm afraid to get an actual count... not very many days until Christmas, by which time I need to knit two stockings for the boys, probably winter hats for them (unless this "Whaddaya mean there's no such thing as global warming?" weather continues through December, in which case they'll have no need for hats by then anyway), plus I've got at least one or two hats and at least one scarf to do. That's all stuff that I haven't even cast on for yet. Some of those I don't even have /yarn/ for yet.

What I /do/ have on the needles is one mini-Clapotis scarf, three socks from three different pairs (one of which has made it all the way to the heel flap, so if I keep up current progress, I could have my first pair of handmade socks within a week, maybe ten days), and... huh. That's it. Interesting.

Okay. So that's what's currently on the plate, right?

But now, all the sudden, there are people /everywhere/ dyeing yarn and cloth and cool stuff, and it's killing me.

Meg and Carrie dyed some yarn and fabric over this past weekend, and then Alison and her (really adorable) twin boys had fun dyeing yarn with Kool-aid yesterday. All of which just makes me want to throw caution to the wind, grab up my two hanks of KnitPicks Color Your Own and the roughly 30 (that's right, thirty) packets of Kool-aid I've somehow acquired (have I mentioned I don't even drink the stuff?) and dye up some sock yarn this very afternoon.

Not, of course, that I need more sock yarn. Three pairs currently on the needles should darn well be enough for anyone, but especially for someone who has yet to finish even a single pair. Nor, for that matter, do I have any more free needles on which socks might be knit. But man, do I want to play with the colors and the yarn and the good good fun! Gyah.

Instead, will be a good little toaster... or something... and try to stay the course here. Finish the one pair of socks, get yarn for the stockings (what kind of awful mother would I be if I didn't provide my kids with Christmas stockings??), and go go go GO!! Or, you know, something.

What if I dyed just one hank of yarn???