Knits

Yes, I am alive. After the tummy troubles of last week I came down with a cold on Wednesday night and felt miserable all of Thursday and into Friday morning. I’m feeling better now, but wasn’t really able to do any knitting from Wednesday night until late-Thursday night (I did all of two rounds woohoo) due to my head feeling like it was actually a boulder.

Also, I think the previous week I managed to sprain my thumb… I don’t know if this was knitting-related or cycling-related. It’s better now.

I am into the gusset decreases on the second sock for my Sockapalooza pal. Hopefully I’ll get that sock pretty much done today and I can cast on for my second Saucy sock.

I am working on Ms Marigold - I did the back and forth bits of the two front bits and have started on the back so once that’s done then all the pieces will be rejoined for a bit more back and forth before commencing the knitting in the round thing. It was moving along swiftly until the cold hit. I decided to cast on for the second Sockapalooza sock because I want to be done with them ASAP so if I have to fix them in anyway, I have time, an because it’s far more portable for my knitting sessions at work.

I did order (and receive) the extra ball of yarn for Ms Marigold and Bad Penny. I realised that I will have to rip out Bad Penny and start again because I think the same problem I had with Ms Marigold holds true for Bad Penny - I’ve tried to knit too dense a fabric instead of one that has some movement to it. I’m not really sad about this because now that I’ve learned my lesson about worn garments (versus hats/scarves) - sort of including socks (see: Falling Leaves) - I hope that I’ll be able to do the work needed quickly so that I can wear it before summer is out.

I also ordered some yarn to make a felted box or two from Mason-Dixon Knitting. And some Sox Stix from Lantern Moon in Ebony. So far so good. Definitely feel tougher than the birch ones although, as with most needles, I think they could do with a slightly sharper point. I feel that if needles are being made in the 2-3mm range, the work being done with them obviously involves finer yarns, and therefore smaller stitches, so why not make a tool that picks these things up better?

I know this post is lacking links and pictures, but I must dash for a train so I can see The Boy and infect him with all my germy goodness. Hopefully I’ll be well enough that this evening we can head into London to at least catch the headlining act for an [not quite] all day gig. Ballboy is supposed to hit the stage at 2130 and I’ve got a couple friends also attending so it would be good to be able to go and see all of that, yo. So I will try to get back here to put in links where I wanted to and maybe add a couple photos to at least make this post look pretty.

This last week I’ve felt exhausted. There’s a lot going on at work, but I think I’ve also got some sort of bug. I feel fine one day, bad the next. Yesterday morning I woke up and, TMI warning, emptied the contents of my intestines. I stayed home and worked. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I ate a little bit and that left me feeling like I might be sick. I didn’t really eat again. This morning I woke and I felt like a lead balloon - a very sore lead balloon. I’d slept 8 solid hours. I am a person who normally feels refreshed after 4-6 hours of sleep. I rang into work, said I’d ring back later because maybe it would pass. I rang in and said I wouldn’t be coming in as I was exhausted and had to go back to sleep. The admin assistant said her husband has been having the same thing for a few weeks now - fine one day, sick the next and exhausted.

Anyway, I also had no internet until 630 this evening - I was very angry about this because, as usual, customer service is non-existent. I got a few things done in the absence of the interweb - backed up five months worth of photos, started writing up the Butterfly stitch sock pattern since a few people asked, started the Stitchtionary index, wrote a stroppy letter to my ISP, drank tea, ate toast, tried to nap, but exhaustion be damned, I couldn’t (and when I did the phone rang). I also took some pictures of the yarn my mom and sister brought me (that I ordered and had sent to their house, mostly). [Click for bigger.]

Malabrigo — Knit picks merino style in asparagus & storm — Knit picks essential solid in pumpkin & grass — Lily sugar n’ cream in a variety of colours — Knit picks memories in (from top to bottom) Yukon, Pansy, Fly fishing, & Spring prairie

I asked my mom to get some of the Lily Sugar n’ cream… she got A LOT of it as I already had some. And I don’t know what I was thinking w/ all the Knit Picks memories - it looked good at the time and now I feel a bit, meh over it. It’s brighter and thicker than I expected.

I also was inspired by Jillian to pick up my Ms Marigold again. However, also with inspiration from Jillian, I measured my, uhm, large swatch (read: Ms Marigold in progress) and tried it on again and knew it had to be ripped. It was entirely too small. I am a busty girl and even though I’d already sort of fudged the pattern, I did a poor job of it. Jillian recently wrote up how she commandeers her stash (side note: she has an amazing stash). I knew the whole thing wasn’t difficult to figure out, but I never took the time to sit down and figure it out. So a huge thank you to Jillian for doing that. I ripped out my Ms Marigold and made two mini swatches and now I’m ready to start again.

I’m not a swatching sort of person. But doing these two mini swatches and comparing it to the bit of Ms Marigold still unripped - well it’s three different size needles and while the stitch counts don’t vary drastically (27 sts on size 4 and 24 sts on size 6), I am surprised at the resulting fabric. I’ve learned from this brief exercise that I tend to go for very dense fabric which is why I drop down a needle size (or two) and end up with a very off gauge. I didn’t think I would like the looser fabric, but you know, I do because it has give and shape and what’s that? It will have drape and not look like a piece of cardboard on me? Wow, what a concept! I will now try to swatch more often. No promises though.

This post is going to be long and picture intensive so 1. Apologies in advance and 2. Go get a cup of coffee / tea or glass of wine.

I headed north to Durham on the Sunday with plenty of knitting in tow. I made sure I had a variety of things to work on so I could knit depending on my mood. I knit on my socks on the way up - I hadn’t knitted on them since I turned the heel. I didn’t get very far - just one pattern repeat - before I decided to try them on. Folks, I’ve had to put them down, again, because somethin’ ain’t right. This is the first pair of toe-up socks I’ve knit. The pattern is written top-down, but I’ve followed a combination of toe-up patterns to determine what I need to do and where.

Here’s the problem. I cast on and did the toe as described by Misocrafty. I increased to 72 stitches - the pattern is a multiple of 12 - and knit the instep and foot until it was roughly 2″ shorter than my foot. I then followed the recipe for the heel from Nautilis by Anna Bell and the Generic Toe-up sock pattern because it was written in a way that made more sense to me as a novice toe-up knitter. Now, when I stuck my foot in to try it on, the thing was very tight. It could’ve done with a bit longer in the foot as the heel turned out a bit shorter, but it’s not that bad. But around my ankle (the gusset area) it is so tight. None of the recipes said to increase (in fact, the generic pattern says to pick up a few extra stitches to close the gap, but to be sure to decrease those) and that just seems wrong. Maybe I’ve totally misread something? I’d like to see a good side-view picture of a toe-up sock to see what the gusset looks like.

Has anyone reading done a toe-up sock? Did you have this problem w/ the heel/gusset? I can see that I probably need to add in an extra repeat bringing the stitch total to 84, but how? How would I go about increasing from 72 to 84 stitches? It just seems weird to have it go from foot / heel straight into leg without the taper you get doing top-down. Any and all advice is truly appreciated! I like this toe-up sock thing for the most part, but there are things I’ll change the next time around…

Up next, I started the Marigold hat (no relation to Ms Marigold, heh) from Marnie MacLean for my sister. I was nearly done when I realised that I hadn’t remember to bring DPNs to finish the crown. I’d actually tried to knit the hat on DPNs from the start, but I only have aluminium needles in the right size and the stitches kept slipping off. Anyway, it didn’t matter because I was too tired when I was in that second-to-last round of the last pattern repeat and I messed up. I started tinking to fix the mistake, but again, too tired, and I’d dropped the stitches which quickly unravelled the lace pattern and I couldn’t salvage it. Argh. I ended up ripping it out all the way to the band and started it again last night.

I kinda like green… Falling leaves socks, Ms Marigold, Marigold hat — The view from where I sat knitting until my fingers got too cold and I needed lunch

I didn’t actually touch Ms Marigold. And on the train ride home I didn’t knit a single stitch because I’d had two nights of very bad sleep and was feeling absolutely shattered so I dozed the first two- to three-hours and then I think I must’ve just stared into space the rest of the time as I listened to music.

Now Durham is absolutely beautiful. People are enamoured with Oxford and I honestly don’t know why. I guess it’s the history, but in terms of how it looks, well it really isn’t spectacular. I suppose it probably is when compared to the US, again, because of the history. However, the city centre of Oxford is ugly. It’s generic, it has all the same shops as you find anywhere, it’s dirty, it has three pedestrianised areas except that two of them actually allow traffic (one is the bus / taxi route through town and the other is a car park). The pretty bits, the colleges, are hidden behind walls and gates that only University members can enter. The rest of Oxford is total shite. Now Durham, it’s city centre is no different in terms of shops, but it’s buildings are beautiful, it has truly pedestrianised streets and a central square. It has hills and views and river that you genuinely want to walk beside and sit beside that isn’t littered with rubbish and obviously highly polluted. It was stunning. I loved it. It was a cold, wet, grey day and I just kept thinking how much I absolutely loved it and would move there in a heartbeat if I had a chance. It’s still not my preferred place to live (that’s Scotland), but it is so much better than Oxford. So much better. Nicer people, nicer buildings, nicer views, cheaper cost of living, etc.

You can see my full set of Durham photos on Flickr.

My last ball of yarn for Bad Penny arrived today. Hurray! I’m all ready to use it as I knit up the fourth ball over the weekend. I didn’t get around to working on the sleeves / neck. I might actually do that before I start up this fifth ball so that I can try it on and really get a good idea about how much more length it needs in the main colour since the waistband is quite long.

I felt that I had to get my money’s worth for the shipping of the single ball of yarn so I bought three balls of Rowan Felted tweed in Herb. I had also ordered a chunky Lana Grossa yarn, but they were out of stock and cancelled that part of my order w/o asking me if I wanted to choose something else which I found annoying. I had a feeling that their web site was not up-to-date with stock. Anyway, I specifically chose this Felted tweed for a project - three balls which equals 573y / 525m. I ordered it for Ms Marigold from Zephyr Style. And I am currently annoyed about this. Based upon the specs for the pattern, I ordered the three balls which would supply amply yardage for the project. I’ve now learned my lesson… be sure to have the WHOLE pattern in hand before buying the materials.

I don’t know if after the pattern was released a lot of people found they needed more yarn than what was initially called for so they changed the PDF and didn’t bother changing the spec page, but it is a difference of 200 yards which with the suggested yarn is two whole balls. I could probably get by with another single ball, but it’s very annoying since the whole reason I ordered the yarn was because I was going to be charged a lot of shipping for a single ball (the one I needed for Bad Penny) and I figured I’d make the most of it. And now it looks like I will again have to just bite the bullet and order a single ball because I really cannot afford to buy more yarn to compensate for the overpriced shipping and I just really don’t need anymore stash enhancement. I’ll probably get knitting this right after I finish Bad Penny so I can see if I really will need more yarn or not. I’ve written to Zephyr Style to ask them what the correct material needs are - hopefully it will prompt them to update things. I know that a lot of people have complained about their patterns have a lot of errors and right now, I’m one of them.

Twilley’s Freedom wool (for a couple of chunky hats) - Twilley’s Freedom Spirit wool

I posted the hat off to my sister along w/ some other things so she should have that w/i a week. The weather the last couple of days has been really gorgeous. It’s been bright and sunny and warm although this morning it was a bit chilly. While I waited for a train yesterday, I sat in the sun and it was so nice and warm. All I could imagine was lying in a field or next to a river with the sun on me while I took a nap! I’m working from home today and I keep getting up just to go stand outside and see my little kitties bathing in the sun.

Dakota soaking up the sun w/ my lone daffodil.