Knitting 40 shades of green

Socks, socks, socks

Surely, I have mentioned before that my tastes run parallel to most 3 year olds? Back when Interweave Knits was pairing all of the sweaters with Crinoline and taffeta -- I had to make all of those sweaters and wished I could get away with the outfit. Pattern tights are one of my favorite things to wear (although I admit to not being that wonderfully eccentric or creative to pull off the look so I don't do it very often) and fun socks... well, I love fun socks.

I learned to knit socks because a friend of mine who was a fairly new knitter wanted to knit socks. I found a pattern and just made sure I stayed ahead of her in the knitting so that I could advise her as she got to the next section. Then another knitting friend was having trouble with a pattern for socks - it was toe up and so I took it upon myself to learn to knit that way so that I could help her learn to knit socks and for a long while we met every Sunday at the local Panera Bread and knit socks (or mostly she knit socks and I worked on whatever I was working on, she has made a lot of socks) for what we called Sock Sunday. I taught Wendy to make socks and she ended up with three socks none of which were the same and none of which fit (to her credit she has since made many successful socks pairs).

Well, I started the year with 4 pair of hand knit socks (I have made an additional two pair which were gifted). This is clearly not enough. How can a person get through the week with only 4 pairs of hand knit socks? Last year I set a goal to knit a pair a month and my first pair took more than 6 months so this year the goal is a bit more realistic -- 6 pairs for the year -- averaging a pair every two months. I am off to a good start at I finished up a pair of socks on January 3.  (I have given up on getting a good photo)

• Pattern: Pomatomus by Cookie A.
• Yarn:  Claudia Hand Painted Yarns in Walk in the Woods
• Started:  August 12, 2007
• Finished:  January 3, 2008
• Notes:  The pattern is well written but I think on more than one occasion I was thrown off by the shifting of the stitches before the next repeat and may or may not have fixed it.  I kept forgetting and it would effect the ridges so I would tear out or make it make sense for me which isn't noticeable but is likely not true to pattern.

And there is another pair that is halfway finished if I can just remember the cast on...

stripes

It is a good thing that NABLOPOMO is in November and not in December because if I had to post every day this month I could never pull it off. Between things picking up at work and meetings and hockey games and social engagements (holiday parties and the like) I hardly have a chance to knit much less post. But there has been some progress on my December goals. A round or two on the Potomatatamu (why can I never remember what they are called) on the Metro on the way to hockey games and stripes added to the Silky Wool Jacket whenever I get a chance. Here is the progress on the stripy jacket. I hope to finish it up by early next week. I just have to finish up the back and then the fiddly stuff like button bands and seaming.

For those patiently waiting for pictures of Jade -- well our regularly scheduled photo shoot was interrupteed by the union holiday party and we didn't get any pictures. But I wore it yesterday and the fit is pretty well and the striping of the yarn isn't too noticeable especially when worn under a blazer which is what I had planned for it. Maybe I will be able to recruit another photographer to get those pictures so I can get that post up soon.

Goals for the years end

As I have recently been updating my photo albums of finished objects, I realized that I had 12 finished objects last year (actually 13 one is not posted) and there were only 3 posted for this year before I added my mother's sweater and Ronnie. Well, surely I have knit more than that (and then you can look at the list of 15 or so projects on the needles and see that maybe I have but I sure wasn't finishing much. So I thought I would pick up a few more abandoned items before the end of the year.

My goals are to finish

• my current pair of socks (potamatus)
• to finish the Silky Wool striped jacket
• the Aztec Sun Vest
• the Baby Trellis which is now too small for its intended recipient.

If I get all that done maybe I will

• dig out Via Diagonal
• start the seams on the log cabin blanket which hasn't seen a tapestry needle since whenever it was that I finished knitting it.

As for my sweater looks like it will be done just in time.  I have one seam left and I need to find a button for the collar since it seems I have a big head and it wouldn't fit over if I sewed up the entire collar.

Entranced with color work

I have been drawn to buying color-work kits lately. I am knitting a simple basic sweater for my NAKNISWEMO sweater and it makes me even more eager to start some color-work. You may remember that I bought this kit at MD Sheep and Wool this year.

However, I put off knitting this until the weather got a little colder. And then I was talked into getting this kit to participate in the Autumn Rose knit along.

Well, since I haven't actually started any of these kits, I haven't slacked the thirst for color and another colorful sweater has called my name...and I have a slip from the PO but won't be able to make it there today so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I think it is the yarn for this lovely sweater:  Autumn by Ruth Sorensen. 

I better finish up the stockinette soon so I can start on the lace and finish Jade before I start casting on for color-work.

Madame DeFarge

I believe that I have mentioned here before that I am on the planning committee for the local Irish Festival and Saint Patrick's Day Parade. These meetings consist of sitting around a local pub (which is for sale if anyone is interested), drinking Guinness and getting harangued by the chairman about who isn't at the meeting, what didn't go right, what hasn't been done yet, how the city is screwing us over or some other perceived fault of the city employees, the volunteers or people not present (occasionally the haranguing will be directed at someone present but not usually).

Well at the last meeting, I sat there knitting on my NAKNISWEMO sweater to keep me from being too bothered by the harangue or drinking too much Guinness. Two separate people came up to me afterwords and made a comment about Madame DeFarge from the Tale of Two Cities. Is it that I am that cruel or just that it is the only literary reference to knitting these people have come across?

Vacation Knitting

I had a few days off and my uncle and aunt invited me up to their vacation house in the Poconos to get away for a spell. They have a house in Hawley, PA which is about a 5 - 6 hour drive. I knew there would be lots of sitting on the porch and looking at the leaves. I would need a project that would allow me to concentrate on the conversation and not the chart or tricky pattern.

The weather was lovely and we even got a bit of much needed rain which helped the colors come out a bit more.

While Autumn Rose was sitting there haunting me, I needed something a bit more mindless.  I came out of the gold (that is what I tell people is in there so they will understand why I won't let them see in there), stash, extra bedroom with the "Striped Silky Wool Jacket" which had been marinating in there for a couple of years.

I choose a slightly less bright colorway and the project fit my purposes perfectly.  I was able to finish one sleeve and get started on another before driving back to Virginia.  Here is a picture of the left front that I am currently working on.

Questions

What is "slightly stretched" exactly?  Knitting away on button bands.

finishing...

I am not known for my enthusiasm for finishing garments -- as can be seen by the lists and lists of things on the needles or needing finishing.  Lately I have been trying to rectify that by picking up some long abandoned projects like Polka Purl Dots.  Well, I have come to the conclusion that maybe I should take the a look at how many lines are under those evil words in the pattern (finishing).  For this sweater the directions for Finishing took up two columns and still there were a few things that weren't immediately clear. 

I finally understand a tubular castoff although I think only one of the ones on this sweater is done correctly.  They all look OK.   The other thing I learned is trust your instincts.  The pattern has you knit a belt to be tied in the back -- it seemed extremely long to me but I knit away and only took off two inches on each side...well you can imagine what happened when I tried it on.

They were miles to long and hung down and looked messy and so I had to rip out at least 12" on each one. 

I think it looks quite a bit better now -- hopefully, I can get a photo shoot done Tuesday or so...

Working on Abandoned Knitting

Wendy, who I knit with on most Tuesdays, outed me on her new blog as trying to finish up some long marinating projects.  While she mentions the sweater I was working on has been sitting around for a year, it is really closer to 3 years.  I bought the yarn as my first purchase from  Elann in  May of 2004 after getting the spring Interweave Knits.  You remember the one?  It had that pink chunky off the shoulder sweater designed by Debbie Bliss on the cover?  It sold out that same season. 

(photo shamelessly borrowed from Interweave Knits)

This was about the time I started getting back into knitting after taking a hiatus for several years. About a year before I had started cranking out baby hats for my expectant mother friends but I hadn't really discovered the new "knitting scene".  This issue began my love affair with Veronik Avery.  I immediately cast on for Salt Peanuts, and as soon as all the pieces were finished I put it away unfinished and cast on for my second Veronik Avery, Polka Purl Dots.  Well, I soon completed all the knitting on this (I am guessing it was summer of 2004) and got to the part of the pattern labeled "finishing" which instead of consisting of a few short lines talking about seaming and neck-bands was two solid columns with instructions that contained the lines (and I paraphrase here) pick up 400 bazillion stitches and by the way you are going to Kitchener all those suckers together.  I remember asking a knitting friend about some hints for picking up quad-zillion stitches and then shortly thereafter shoved the thing in the corner with my other unsewn sweaters and cast on for a third sweater from the magazine.

Well, it is documented in this here blog that I finished Salt Peanuts.  It was time to finally conquer a few of the other projects that had been thrown in the corner.  I have completed the tubular bind off on the fronts and neck and now must just pick up less than 150 stitches for each armhole's edging -- piece of cake after what I have been through.  So stay tuned for a finished object.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

With Stacey and Cara and everyone else in blog land knitting monkey, I thought maybe this pattern will drag me out of knitting doldrums (a slight breeze to push me along). So I looked at the stash and found this lovely yarn...that I won back in November in a contest that Julie was having. I balled it up and cast on with a picot edge and meant to post sooner but look --a sock

The second one is on the needles but I need to run out to late night -- so more tomorrow

Jeff, I haven't forgotten the potato salad recipe and stay tuned for my first entry for 2007 One Local Summer.