Knitting is better than Prozac

Well, I really don't have a valid basis for comparison, having never before taken Prozac, but I'm sure I would have seriously freaked out on the flight home from Las Vegas this afternoon without my knitting. There was so much turbulance, the flight attendents didn't even have enough time to serve peanuts since they couldn't leave their seats. Have I mentioned that I'm insanely afraid of heights? Insanely. So, I had to cope with the fact that I was in a human-made, human-operated (last I checked, humans are NOT perfect) heavy metal tube thousands of feet above the earth. I just worked intently on my Cozy Cardi sleeve, crossing cables and making bobbles like there was really no chance of my plummeting to a horrible fiery death at any moment. I was able to fool myself long enough to make it safely back to California. This was only possible thanks to knitting. And as an added bonus, I ended up with this:


That's right! Only 1 1/2 inches left till this puppy is arm-pit length. Then it's on to joining the sleeves & body together. I'm still not sure if this will be raglan or saddle-shoulder. But I've still got time to decide. The spectre of possibly running out of yarn, however, is looming larger than ever. I'm currently using the second-to-last ball, and by now it's feeling pretty squishy, if you know what I mean. I'm not at all sure if I'll make it.

Please note the little baby head in this picture. This photo is actually the only one out of the 3 I took where the sleeve was on actually on the couch long enough for me to get a reasonable photo before being snatched away by the resident yarn-thieving baby boy.

Well, before you ask, no, I'm ashamed to say (but not very surprised, given my track record) that I did not have a new pair of hand-knit socks to show the Vegas slot machines. But I do have this:

Will ya look at that? A completed, perfectly-fitting sock! Although, the cuff still seems not long enough to me. But the foot is perfection! The heel flap is just the right length, as is the foot itself. If I was smart, I'd write down these measurements and keep them forever to help calculate socks for myself from now on. But for now, I'll just settle for actually finishing the mate for this bad boy.

Already loafing

Sorry for not posting over the weekend as usual. I have no good excuse. Well, the kids are always a good excuse, but it's old and worn out, so I won't use it this time.

Anyway, looky-looky at my side bar! Yup, that's right baby, I got to join the Knitting Blogs ring. It's been closed for a while, and when it opened, I lept at the chance and got in. One of the requirements is that your blog needs to be updated every week, and I've already broken the directive. Oh well. I really just wanted it because the Yarn Harlot is a part, and I'm just in awe of her.

Speaking of which, I've been knitting my sock while reading her archives (I'm to October 2004 now).

I'm really happy with it. Yes, it looks freakishly long, but that's because I wanted them poke out of the top of my motorcycle and/or snowboarding boots. I hate socks that are shorter than my boots. I just hope I have enough yarn to finish a second sock.

Anyway, besides the rough start, I think it's pretty cool. Although I can't explain how the top looks so different and I'm sure I won't be able to duplicate it for its mate, I'm still pretty content. The yarn is sooo soft. I used navy blue Woolly Nylon in the heels and will in the toes as well, and you can barely see it up close. This is fine with me since no one will be that close.

And yes, the flap is kind of long, but that's cuz I've got a rather high instep, and other socks I've made with a shorter heel slouch down unattratively/uncomfortably into my shoes. See? I can be taught.

Here's a little taste of how crazy-weird I am with knitting...Hubby and I are going to Vegas this weekend, and I'm set on finishing these socks in time to wear them. The reason is that these will be "lucky socks" and I will show them to the slot machines before putting in my money. Don't look at me like that! Yes, I've done this before (with different lucky socks, of course), and it worked out pretty well. Of course my husband thought I was insane when I lifted my leg up, lifted my pant cuff, and then proceeded to play the machine. Actually, he thought I was showing the machine something else altogether, but we won't go there on this nice wholesome blog.

So all this sock-knitting has cut into my Comfy Cardi time. I only knit on this one night last week...

I know it's not much, but I've done all the increasing, and it's big enough around to be able to use my circs on it. So now it'll be smooth sailing from here on in. Just rounds and rounds of cabled tube. Unbroken. Nothing to break up the monotony. Did I mention this is the 2nd sleeve? That means I've already knit one of these. Yup. I'm just dying to get back to it. Dying.

But things here may get a little more interesting than I would like because I have only 2 more skeins of Top of the Lamb left, and I'm almost ready to join one of them in to finish the sleeve. Let's not forget that I still have the chest and back to finish up. And a button band of some sort. And an edging. The skeins are 4 ounces, so I'm not too worried. Yet. Stay tuned...

Steady as she goes

I've had little time for fibery stuff, and have only allowed myself to knit/spin/look up fibery stuff on the internet until 10:30 p.m. at the latest. I've been getting so carried away and staying up so late that I'm a zombie at work (I've got a new-ish job, mind you, where I still have some impressing to do), and I have very little patience when I get home from work. Not good for the kiddies when I notice that I'm yelling at my 3-year old that I don't want to read "Goodnight Sweet Butterflies" for the third freakin' time.

So, although I love my fibery stuff, I need to spend more "enjoyable" time with my kids. All this really means is that I've been working on getting them to bed about 1/2 hour earlier. It seems to be working, because I've made considerable progress on my Cozy Cardi sleeves, I've managed to complete some projects at work, and I can read "Goodnight Sweet Butterflies" 4 times before I start yelling.

Since last we spoke, I had to rip back a considerable amount (all the way back to where I had only 5 inches of knitting left) since I noticed that I had left out the vertical lines of knit stiches inside the cable. I actually don't like these lines because they don't look right where they begin and end out of the cable. The illusion of going through the cable isn't very convincing. Maybe it'll look better blocked. I also had to drop a couple of stitches (seperately) allllll the way down about 12" and then hooked them back up to improve the looks of the underarm - I had come up with the idea of increasing in 2x2 rib. This brilliant idea is the fool-hardy result of my delusion that I can design on the fly like Meg Swansen.

Anyway, I knit till this thing was to my arm-pit. And I didn't make any more increases than I had since the 5 inches of knitting, so it's a pretty shapeless tube. I think it's alright on my arm, although I probably should have increased at a more gradual rate, and even still not as much as I have. But I'm sick of knitting stuff I've already knitted, so we're moving on. I got the 2nd sleeve started, baby, and I'm not changing a thing.

But I'm being sidetracked by my sock. I know I haven't mentioned it much since the last pic I took of it quite a while ago, but that's because I was underwhelmed by the barber-pole effect I was getting with the yarn. After struggling with the pattern for a bit, I also decided that I didn't want to have to concentrate on reading and keeping track of a pattern for my socks and that mindless knitting was the order of the day. So I ripped back to the ribbing and began nice, easy, soothing stocking stitch. And an amazing thing began to happen:
The color's doing really cool things. This actually isn't one of the better sides of the sock, but I'm intrigued with the colors. It's hard to put this down because I keep wanting to see what the yarn will do next. Because there is now no pattern to concentrate on, just a few minutes ago I was knitting on this thing while at the same time reading the Yarn Harlot's blog archives (I finished her 1st book and have ordered her other 2. I'm now on August 2004 of the archives, just in case anyone is tracking my Harlot addiction, too).

All hail mindless knitting, which fixes horrendous barber-pole effects on socks and enables the time-starved knitter the ability to feed two addictions at once. Now that's multi-tasking.

As for spinning, I've got half a bobbin-ful done of that self-dyed "dragonfire" silk/wool roving. You'll have to take my word for it because I don't have a picture. Soon, though. I promise.

I ain't got Ah-nold arms

Since last we met, I've got some somewhat good news. I've made considerable progress on the Comfy (Cozy?) Cardi Sleeve #1.

Everything's going great (although I managed to forget a bobble in the beginning), and I'm dutifully increasing at the rate the pattern instructs for the smallest size: Inc 2 sts every four rounds 6 times, then every six rows 8 times.

Well, I went to try this puppy on, and it is HUGE around my arm. Now, I've got puny arms - 9 1/2 inches around my bicep. After re-evaluting the increase rate, I've determined that the pattern wants me to increase a total of 28 stitches. At 15 sts per 4", this is an increase of almost 8 inches - almost double my arm circumference.

At this point in the pattern, I've completed 11 increase rounds for a total of 22 stitches. This is waay to wide, so I'll have to frog this back. I don't know how far back...at least until the thing doesn't float around my arm. So, I'm thinking I'll increase at a slower rate and hopefully come out with something wearable. This pattern is perplexing me...first it wants the length of this sweater to be obscenely short, and then it wants you to knit Ah-nold arms. Can you imagine the Terminator in a belly-baring bobbled sweater? I don't think that's the look for me.

Hmmmm. I think I've deviated so significantly from this pattern (knitting in the round, omitting the ribbing border, lenthening the body, narrowing the sleeves) that I think this is just a loose interpretation of Kathy Zimmerman's original. I'll really be taking artistic license when/if I get to the joining of the arms and body. So, please do not hold Ms. Zimmerman (one of my favorite designers) responsible for the outcome of my sweater. It will be my own fault for putting too much stock in my own designing abilities, but you gotta listen to that inner knitter. To be continued....

On the spinning side of things, I did manage to get a bobbin-full of my hand-dyed roving into finished yarn.
While spinning the singles, I was really loving the colors I was getting. The whole time I was spinning, the term "dragonfire" kept coming to me. The green/purple/turquoise areas reminded me of the iridescence of dragon scales, and the orange/gold/yellow was definitely fire. It was kinda cool.

Then I plied. I Navaho-plied to try to keep the continuity of the color changes. But there are "muddied" areas where too many colors were incorporated. My confidence has wavered again. I've got a hat pattern in mind, so we'll see how it goes.

A little help from my friends

A few weeks ago, I was digging through my fiber stash and happened upon some lovely, snow-white Corriedale fleece I had washed up last year. I pulled out a handful, and it felt rubbery, not like I remembered. Having never before worked with raw Corriedale I had washed myself, I figured it would fluff up after carding. Well, after a couple passes through my drum carder, I pulled the "batt" into "roving"...

How's that for scary? It feels as horrible as it looks. This is a sticky, neppy mess. So I wrote to the Spin List and asked for help with "sticky" wool. They all responded with lots of advice, the most common of which was to re-wash the wool in HOT water with a good dish washing liquid.

So I filled up my washing machine with boiling water and a good dose of Palmolive, and let it soak. After 2 hot rinses, I let the stuff dry in the sun.

It felt much softer this time, so I had high hopes as I sent it through the carder very slowly. After two passes, I pulled it into roving, and ended up with this...

How's that for success? This is soooo soft and fluffy. Maybe there's a nep or 2, but this stuff is wonderful!

Here's a side-by-side for comparison:
These are both 1 oz balls. Of the same wool. The one on the right is courtesy of the Spin-Listers. So, THANK YOU SPIN LIST!!!

I am bitter

Today was one of those beautiful rainy, over-cast days which always inspire me to work with all of my fibery things. Spinning wheels sat beckoning, soft fluffy rovings spilling invitingly out of nearby baskets; bags of freshly washed wool waited patiently by the drum carder; my knitting sat in progress on needles, both current projects calling to me. All I needed was a nice cup of hot coffee and a comfy spot near a window to enter fibery bliss.

But my baby is teething.

Of course, on the best of days, the most I can hope for is a few rows of uninterrupted knitting, but today, I could get through only a few stitches before having to tend to one of the kids, so I gave up. Oh well. One of these days (hopefully before I lose my sanity), they'll be old enough to undestand that Mommy is not to be disturbed when she locks herself in her fiber room.

So, here's what I accomplished this past week in the late evening hours after the kids went to sleep:

I pulled my rovings out of their post-dyed, matted state into a semblance of their former, fluffy selves. I'm thinking that I like this dye job after all. We'll see how it all spins and knits up.

I started knitting the merino sock yarn I dyed. I'm not really liking the diagonal effect the colors are doing, but I'm too lazy to break the yarn and start it at a different area to break up the effect. I'll work on figuring out how to dye to make a more random color repeat.

Oh, I actually ended up changing to size 0 needles for 7 1/2 stitches per inch. A knitting friend of mine just informed me that, with the same yarn, she's getting 10 stitches per inch with size 3 needles! So, who's the freak here, her or me?

And congrats to her for completing her first-ever sock!


I finally tracked down some Woolly Nylon for reinforcing my toes and heels. While in the check-out line, and trying to convince my 3-year old that he really didn't need 3 bags of candy, I decided I HAD to have this candy:
Isn't this just the cutest mint tin you've ever seen? I know I'm gushing, but I love this thing. I'll be offering mints to strangers on the street just so I can admire it. I still don't know why I only bought 1, but I'll be heading back pretty soon. If anyone is interested, I got this at JoAnn's for $1.99. It took the edge off having just dealt with 2 grumpy boys who were fresh from daycare, eager to get home and stuck in a craft store with their frazzled mother who had to search the entire store for just one spool of thread. Hmmmm, maybe I have already lost my sanity.

And, yes, I am still working on the Cozy Cardi. I cast one of the sleeves and have gotten about 2 inches done. I'll post a pic when it looks a little more spectacular.