Decreasing evenly

I have 5 inches left to go on the sweater before I get to spend quality time weaving in ends and soaking/blocking (which will make it smell not so great). I should finish up tonight, I'm a little excited. My first sweater. Hopefully it will fit.

The instructions are written for 5 different sizes, so it has a list of decreases based on the size you are making...and you are supposed to 'decrease evenly' around the row.

Now, I was a math major in college. I have a bachelor's degree that says I is smart in math. And I can not for the life of me figure out how to decrease evenly. Granted it was getting late and I was tired and just wanted to get one more row in and therefore did not have the patience to make an algorithm, but still. I felt frustrated that my mad math skillz were failing me. So I did a google search, and found this site:

http://www.thedietdiary.com/knittingfiend/tools/EvenlySpace.html

This site has you enter the number of stitches you start with and the number you need to decrease by and then magically tells you how to do it in two different ways. Brilliant I say. There are also links to other calculators, like increasing evenly. Very handy. It's been bookmarked.

I need to take more in progress pictures. Turns out the yarn crisis was blown a bit out of proportion, and now i have more yarn that i need (at least one full skein). But I've been told it felts well, so I'll make something out of it.

My sockratease socks are going well. I am please with them, although now that they are striping they look a little patriotic (granted they're orange instead of red, but it looks more coral when it's just a striped). Regardless, I'm liking the duet sock yarn.

Pictures tomorrow...I promise.

Burn baby burn

I'm feeling a little on fire. I finished the Casbah socks...AND I LOVE THEM. Seriously, if they weren't smelly, I'd sleep with them. The way they stripe, the pooling of the color, the softness, they are everything I could ever hope for. I'm totally sold on Handmaidens yarns. And their customer service is great. I emailed them asking if I should give the socks a vinegar bath and they got back to me the next day with some tips. I will DEFINITELY be buying from them again. I'm itching to try their Sea Silk or Great Big Sea (both with seacell).



In other news, I finished a scarf for my grandmother's birthday (and it's not even until next thursday). She really liked the scarf I made for my uncle for christmas, and so I used the same colors (but more muted), and made a lengthwise scarf with fringe. I like it better than the one I made my uncle, I think because you couldn't wave down a 747 with it. Behold...



Scarf in Falcons colors. The yarn is Cascade 220, which I also used to make the Matrix mittens and I really like them. And I have leftovers.

The sweater is progressing. I joined the sleeves to the body yesterday and now just need to finish up the yoke. Ran out of yarn (stupid gauge) and had to buy more in a different dyelot. Three more skeins. I'm hoping to finish it up this weekend and wash it up, as it will bloom and magically be the right size. My first sweater.

My next commuter project will be the Sock-ra-tease (pdf) socks from Renaissance Yarns that they handed out during last year's LYS crawl. Hurray for socks. So far I'm on target to reach my knitting goals (but it's only January, so I have plenty of time to frack that up).

What's important?

No photos today, as I will be relaying a dream i had, and I allow no photos of me while I sleep (talk about boring).

I awoke from a dream at 4am this morning realizing what, at least in my subconscious, the most important thing in my life is. In the dream, I was with 3 of my college friends, and we were at my townhouse (which I sold a little over a year ago), having just come back from event in an outdoor amphitheatre (where i sat with my high school physics and math teachers) and left due to some natural catastrophe (like a tsunami). Cut to the house, and River from Firefly (and the new Terminator series) informed us that we had 10 minutes to pack up and get out of the house before we were killed or the house was demolished or something. So what do I spend my 10 minutes getting? Chocolate and yarn. Apparently that's all I need from the house and my pile of stuff, at least in my dreams. In real life I'd grab my passport too.

So my question...what's important to you? what would you grab if you only had 10 minutes in your house?

Late...but eventually

I promised photos of the Jamieson yarn when it came in...well, it came in a week ago...and I was too lazy to photograph it. You'll remember the gloves it's going to be turned into and see if you can picture the colors:



I haven't cast on yet, or done a swatch. I'm busily trying to finish the socks, so I can have more socks to wear. Silly dryer.

My parents brought over my lurker sock yarn package on friday...the colorway is gorgeous, very interesting. Not at all colors I would pick out. And the pattern is not a sock pattern, which dismayed my mother a bit. I haven't decided if I'm going to make socks or the pattern. Thoughts?

The dryer ate it

Yesterday was a bad day for laundry. The BF left an atomic fireball in his jeans pocket (with, luckily for him, not damage done), and I shrunk one of my socks...Hedera in Socks that Rock lightweight. It fits the dog now.

There's video of him attempting to take it off (thus becoming a three legged dog) and then running away from me when he finally does. Pretty hilarious...there were tears of laughter.

The socks mate is happily drying on the clothes rack, having been washed on delicate and not dried at all. Sadly, it does not know that it's twin has left it to join the circus and become a sock monster...raaaar.

They said she had two left feet...

but they didn't mention anything about two left hands.

I realized this morning as I was feeding the mutt that I was, in fact, making a second left handed mitten. Now, I was born with the normal hands, one left, one right, so I had two decisions...continue on the current path and wear a mitten palm side up on my right hand, or rip back to the start of the thumb gusset and put the thumb in the correct location. I chose the latter option and ripped out about an inch and a half of mitten directly after getting my morning coffee. There was traffic on the commute, so I'm almost back to where I was, about 2 rows short in fact. There went the pipe dream of finishing the mitten and starting on socks.

I ordered the yarn to make my feral glove. Jamieson's Spindrift in some fun colors. Hopefully they'll go together as well in real life as they did on the internet. I'll post pictures when they come in.

2008 Goals and the latest yarn

The foothills are getting snow, heavy snowfall is predicted in the mountains (30 inches+) and the roads in the morning are icy...all this leads this monkey to think that warm hands are a VERY good idea (as are heads and feets and torsos, but I only have 2 hands to knit with. my feets have yet to be that coordinated).

My cohort in knitting crime, Jen and I have decided to engage in a 2-woman knit along. The gloves come from a book titled Knitting Fair Isle Mittens & Gloves, which is sadly out of print. I'm knitting in Jamieson's Spindrift, as is Jen, in completely and totally different colors. I'm looking forward to it, although I'm totally jonesing for a pair of socks. Alas, that must wait a bit longer.

As for 2008 knitting goals, mine are such:
1) Knit one pair of socks each month (as I have tons of sock yarn lazing about)
2) Knit four sweaters (hopefully one a quarter, but we shall see. TopSecret needs to be cast back on)
3) Knit one other small project each month (mittens, gloves, hats, etc). this is in addition to the socks.
4) Finish all christmas knitting by Dec. 1 (this is for my sanity and to hopefully avoid staying up until 1:30AM on xmas eve...for knitting reasons).

I've created a handy little spreadsheet (with pretty colors) to keep track of all this. Ambiguity is my enemy.

The stop at Renaissance Yarns yesterday was successful. Instead of buying yarn for the mittens (which I did online this morning at Nestucca Bay Yarns) I bought some silk lace by Claudia's Hand Painted. It's beautiful and so soft. I will post a photo after I've taken one. I've stopped short at carrying it around with me, but it's tempting.

Saturday at the monkey house

So I've been working on the Matrix mitten from this issue of Knitty for the second time this morning (gauge is in fact, the devil, i made a complete hand condom the first time, cute, but a little constricting) and got this far.



Before I realized that my thumb didn't play well with the rest of my fingers and I should make something to separate it from it's fingermates. This was my expression upon realizing that the pattern said 7 rounds in pattern, not 7 repeats of the chart (which is what my brain read).



So here's the finished mitten minus the thumb. I must say I like it quite a lot, now that I'm getting gauge, but I had to go up three needle sizes from the patterns recommendation. THREE. That seems like an awful lot to me, although I've been assured it's normal.



In other news, before the new year, my good friend Jen and I took a trip to Bainbridge Island to go to Churchmouse Yarns as they were having a get rid of yarn for the spring stock sale. I made out pretty well. It was 40% off sale yarns and books and 50% if you bought 10 skeins of the same yarn. What you see is my loot.



On the left is the only not on sale item, a skein of HandMaiden Casbah sock yarn. I made the mistake of touching it and ogling it's colors as I walked by and I was sunk...and the BF told me to splurge. You know it's bad when you text him to define splurge. Next up is Rowan Tapestry. I bought 5 skeins, as that's all they had in this colorway, and while it's not the colorway I've been lusting after but not allowing myself to buy (as the sweater will be close to $100 worth of yarn), 40% off and in a nice go with lots of things color will make a lovely vest. I also (not pictured) purchased the Rowan Tapestry Collection book, which has said vest and calls for exactly 5 skeins. Moving along to the lovely orange colored skein. This is Manos Cotton Stria from Manos del Uruguay. I snagged 10 skeins (for 50% off) and will be making a sweater (pattern unknown) from it. Last, but certainly not least, is another impulse by...but on sale. 10 skeins of Kimona Angora from Louisa Harding. Divine to pet (and i'd be doing it now were I not typing). I've been taking it with me and making people touch it. It too will become a sweater. I have a couple pattern ideas, but nothing solid as of yet. I've been told that angora is warmer than wool, so it'll be something loosely knit.

In other news, after finishing the mitten and having the BF make sure we got the Seachickens game in the basement somehow, destruction began.




This was the start of the rest of my saturday. Most of the room's sheetrock has been torn down and we discovered just how lame and lazy the people who finished the basement were. It was, well, astounding to say the least. I've always been of the, if you're going to bother doing it, you should do it right, camp, and I realize that not everyone else is, but crimany.

Anywho, more on this year's goals and the knit-along I'll be starting on Monday later. Will be going to the yarn store (yay) tomorrow and spending the gift card (yay) on new yarn. I was hoping to save it for some laceweight to make a shawl/scarf thingie, but it might go to the new project, we shall see.