G. Knerd

It’s been rather cold here lately, which means that I’ve been reveling in my hand-knit sock collection.  When I was doing laundry the other week (and, er, it had been a while since the last time I’d done laundry…) I was struck by something.

I have a lot of hand-knit socks.  It was 18 pair in the laundry that day – there are more in the total collection, but the rest don’t get to see the light of day that much (mostly because they’re made with cotton, like Sockotta, and thus I find them wildly uncomfortable to walk on).

The other thing I noticed is that I tend to reuse patterns.  I’m not just talking about my standard sock formula (although there’s a few of those in the pile), I’m talking about things like Pomatomus.

What is the plural of Pomatomus, anyway?  Pomatomi?  Pomatomuses?  Regardless, I liked this pattern so much, I knit it three times.  I think the funniest part about that is the designer of Pomatomus, Cookie A, allegedly only knit one of them, and thus found a single mannequin leg to display it with sensationally.  (I say “allegedly” because even though I swear I read about this in both Cookie A’s blog and the Yarn Harlot‘s, I can’t seem to find either entry.  I may have dreamed it up, although I like to think I usually have more exciting dreams than that…)

It’s not just Pomatomuses, though – I’ve got two Hourglasses as well.

I don’t always follow the pattern, as you might notice if you compare the ribbing between the two socks.  The purple is more like the original pattern, while the green sports a k1tbl p1 rib – flows much better into the hourglass pattern, in my opinion.  I love the way these socks fit, though, and they seem to knit up super quick, so I expect I’ll be making a few more of these in my lifetime.

I’ve also got a couple examples of the Garden Party Socks (a.k.a. the sock I’m designing right now).

The top is a made out of a skein of Meilenweit, and frankly is about the worst choice I could have made for the project.  The bottom is Trekking XXL, and embodies everything I love about both the pattern and Trekking.  Trekking tends to make just about everything better.

In somewhat related news, I’ve let the Blanket Thief know that I want sock blockers for Christmas.  If I’m lucky, maybe my sock pictures will improve quite a bit in the new year.

Remember a long time ago when I said I wanted to start writing knitting patterns?  And how I then managed to knit an entire pair of socks without writing down a single letter about how I’d done so?  You know, like almost exactly a year ago?

At least I’m not making the same mistakes again…

So, you see, a few weeks ago I decided that I would write up the Garden Party Socks pattern (as that’s how I’ve decided to name it).  I created a knitting font in order to make the charts, I played around with the formatting in Word way more than a sane person would have (including no small amount of swearing), and I wrote down the pattern as I created the first sock.  I figured I would be my first test knitter, so I (as far as it’s possible for me to do so) followed the pattern when making the second sock.

It seemed like no time at all that I had a pair of socks!  And a pattern to go with them!  Maybe this knitting designer thing would work out after all!

Except, it was when I was thinking about how awesome it would be to be a knitting designer that I realized something…the Chinese lanterns pattern that I’m basing this sock on was written for flat knitting, not knitting in the round.  That means that all the fussy bits are on the even rows, with the odd rows being simple “knit the knits and purl the purls” – but ultimately, that leads to imbalanced lantern tops in relation to lantern bottoms.

I immediately cast on a small section of knitting so I could compare the pattern as written vs the pattern as I think it should be – the two columns on the left are “as I think it should be” and the two on the right are “as written”.

Do you see a difference?  It’s hard to see if you’re not me, and doubly so when it’s in the picture above, but if you look at the bottom of the two lanterns you can kind of see that while the one on the far left is nicely curved the one on the right is a little jerky.

Or, at least, you can tell if you’re me.  The Blanket Thief swears that he cannot see a difference even when I put it two inches from his nose (note to self: he doesn’t really like having knitting two inches from his nose…).

However, it’s my first real pattern, and I want it to be perfect, so I’m fixing up the chart and knitting them again (in different, plain yarn, so you can actually see the pattern – sometimes I do make the same mistake twice).

I think they’re lovely as is, and it’s certainly possible that no one on the planet but me would notice, but I do notice, you know?  Plus, this is an excuse to have yet another pair of socks in my drawer…

The thing about making a sweater up from scratch, as I’m doing with the cARGHdigan project, is that there’s no one to blame but yourself when things go wrong.

For example, when (finally) started on the sleeves, I measured The Blanket Thief‘s wrists.  He wanted them pretty tight, so I added an inch, looked up the gauge I’d calculated earlier, figured out how many stitches to cast on, started knitting like a fiend.  When the cuff was done, I measured his biceps, the length of his arm, did a few more calculations, and kept knitting, increasing as I went.

The whole time, I kept looking at it thinking, “Something doesn’t look right.  It seems a little bit small, right?  It’s not quite right.”  And yet, I soldiered on, not one to let a little adversity sway me from completing a project.

On the other hand, I also didn’t want to let stubbornness force me to finish two entire sleeves before admitting that they weren’t coming out right – and something about having to increase on every other row certainly seemed very wrong.  After about 8 inches of knitting, I finally put it around The Blanket Thief’s arm and asked, “Sweetie, what do you think?”

He grimaced.  “It’s a little tight.”

Crap.  At least I can always trust him to be honest.

As for the sleeves?  I’m going to make them walk the plank, then I’m starting over.  At least I was only halfway up the forearms before I figured it out – that’s progress, right?

After writing my last post about my, er, somewhat gross experiment with spinning cat hair, I realized something.  I wasn’t trying to spin cat hair because I had something I wanted to make out of it, I wasn’t doing it because it brought me joy, I wasn’t even doing it because I thought it was a good idea.

No, my only reason for doing it was, in fact, to see if I could.

The “Because I Can” phenomenon can be a good thing.  It can lead to crazy-amazing feats of knitting, like a gas station cozy.  Or a car cozy.  Or any number of guerilla knitting projects.

Of course, to some people, all of those projects are crazy too.  It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

The real problem with the “Because I Can” urge is that it leads to doing things you really don’t need or want to do, just because you can.  I’ll knit a sweater out of my dog’s fur…because I can!  I’ll knit a sock with super-weird construction and uncomfortable seams on the bottom…because I can!  I’ll spin a fiber out of things I find in the street…because I can!

None of these things are necessarily wrong, mind you.  They’re just…well, they don’t align with my values, let’s put it that way.

So getting back to the original point – the motivation behind spinning cat hair wasn’t “Oh, I can get something nifty out of this”, it was solidly a “Let’s see if I can” (little sibling to the “Because I Can” impulse).  And, frankly, I just don’t have time for that kind of thing these days.  I don’t need to do “Because I Can” projects – I’ve got plenty of real projects with real outcomes to finish.

In short, the cat “fiber” is going in the trash, along with the little bit I’d already spun up.  Sanity has returned.

Bear Kitty’s response?  “Does this mean you’ll stop interrupting my naps to brush me?  ‘Cause that was pretty annoying.  Can I go back to sleep now?”

I don’t spend much time talking about Bear Kitty, but he’s really a very impressive cat.  For one thing, on one body he manages to fit enough fur to cover 6 normal cats – his coat is almost as thick as a sea otter’s (and nearly as waterproof).  This means he tends to shed…a lot.

In an attempt to combat this problem, I decided to try getting a FURminator.  This is one of the most amazing grooming tools I’ve ever seen – every time I brush Bear Kitty with it, I get a literal pile of fur.  Just one stroke of the brush (even after a full brushing just a couple days ago) gets an impressive amount of hair:

For a normal person, their reaction to a big pile of used cat hair would be “Ewww, gross.”

For a fiber-obsessed person, however, the reaction might be the same as mine, which was, “Hrm, that looks an awful lot like a free source of fiber….”

So, for the last couple months, I’ve been collecting the hair I brush off in a bag with the intention of spinning it into some kind of yarn.  What I’m going to do with the yarn once I have it is unclear at best, but I seem to think this is a good idea – I’ve started spinning it:

But then I look at the big pile o’ fur I’ve saved up, and I think that maybe – just maybe – this is all kind of gross and I really shouldn’t be doing this:

I might have to give this pursuit up – it only sounds sane if I don’t tell anyone about it.

Er…

….

…here, look at this cute picture of Bear Kitty instead of thinking about the dirty secret I’ve just revealed to you:

I love knitting humor.  Like seriously, love, love knitting humor.  Sometimes, in my deepest heart of hearts, I wonder if maybe I might be able to someday produce knitting humor for a living, a la Knitting Legend the Yarn Harlot.

Of course, then reality sets in and I realize that given my life and my particular priorities, it’s unlikely that my life will follow Stephanie’s path (an, really, that’s probably a good thing – who wants to be someone else?).

But that doesn’t mean I can’t share good knitting humor whenever I find it.  The Panopticon is also a hilarious knitter, who I only recently started following.  On Monday, Franklin posted a video that made even my non-knitting husband laugh out loud when he saw it – I suggest that all of you check it out ASAP, and then subscribe to Franklin’s blog.

Four months ago, I decided to give flap heels a try.  From the get go, I knew I wasn’t going to like the resulting socks – a good part of the reason I decided to try the flap heel on this pair is because I already didn’t like the yarn, so if the heel turned out badly, I wouldn’t mind too much.  And yet, somehow, the reality is worse than I could have imagined.  I now know, without any shadow of a doubt, that I will not ever knit another flap heel.

Why?

Because the damn thing tickles!

I’ve always had super sensitive feet.  I resisted making socks for years because when I tried my first pair (on size 2US/2.75-3mm needles) the purl bumps hurt my feet when I walked on them.  It wasn’t until I tried again on size 0US/2mm needles years later that I finally figured out what all the sock fever was about in the knitting community.  Even on the small needles I’m using, though, I still avoid cotton yarns most of the time due to their stiffness and the way the stitches hold their definition against my feet.

But flap heels!  They have ridges!  On the inside of the foot!  And OH MY GOD DOES IT TICKLE.  I can’t imagine willingly wearing these socks anywhere or for any period of time.

Not, mind you, that I would have anyway – the colors are likewise atrocious.

Luckily, taste being what it is and variable between people, one of my coworkers actually likes the colorway for these socks and her feet are the same size as mine.  It’s win-win: I get the damn things out of my house, and she actually wants to have them for her very own!

As for the yarn – this was another Deborah Norville yarn, and while it didn’t have the ridiculous number of cut ends as the first pair, it still wasn’t entirely enjoyable to knit with – it’s kind of rough on my hands (surprising when the first pair were so soft) and kind of splitty, and frankly it feels cheap (no surprise, given that it was ridiculous cheap when I bought it – we’re talking $5/pair of socks cheap).

So it looks like Deborah still gets one more chance with the last colorway of hers I have in my stash (eventually – I want a break with some nice Tofutsies before I go back to Deborah) before I pass final judgment on her entire yarn line.

As for the flap heel – no more chances.  One pair of tickle-y socks is enough.

Now that things are, er, winding down somewhat on the Wedding Blanket, I find that I seem to have lost my sanity.

No, it’s not just that I think I’m “almost done” with the Wedding Blanket.  Never mind that I’ve been saying that for over a month now.  There is a finite amount of knitting and seaming left to do, and if I keep working at it eventually it will get done.

Eventually.  Sometime soon.  Maybe.

But, now that it’s – ahem – coming to a close, I find that I think I’ll miss it when I’m done.  I also find that I’ve found the solution.

When I offered to knit this Wedding Blanket in April, I did so without knowing what, exactly, I was signing up for.  This time, I really can’t use that excuse – and neither could anyone who reads this blog.  And yet, for the past couple weeks I’ve been anxiously waiting for a chance to talk to one of my friends about her upcoming nuptials and whether she and her future husband might also appreciate a blanket.  (Apparently, I wasn’t okay with the idea of either email, IM, or phone.  It seems that I believe Knitting Conversations should be in person.)

For the record, I never claimed to be sane.

To her credit, this friend of mine (who follows this blog) tried to talk me out of it.  She said it wasn’t necessary, that I shouldn’t feel like I had to, that she didn’t want to put me through that again.

What she didn’t tell me, though, was that she didn’t want one.

So I’m going to be making another Wedding Blanket.  I’ll be using an entirely different pattern this time (again of my own invention), so at least it’ll be new and different and exciting when I start.  It’s also going to be in color and much more modern and geometric, which should keep the interest as well.

On the other hand, it’s also going to be pretty much entirely garter-stitch.  At least it’ll be wool.

I am putting some rules in place, though.  Before I start on the new blanket, I have to finish the Blanket Thief‘s cARGHdigan.  I have to draw up a concrete schedule at the beginning, so I’ll be able to tell from the start whether or not I’ll make it on time.  And I’ll be more willing to let the deadline slip and embrace this concept of wedding-presents-that-happen-when-they-happen.

Now, I just have to figure out how I’m going to post pictures and progress here without giving away too much about what it looks like.  Hrm…blogging about a present is much harder when the recipient reads said blog…

Yesterday, I was trucking away at the seam while the Blanket Thief and I were watching TV.  After the last show, I looked down at my lap and proudly exclaimed, “I’m almost done!”

The Blanket Thief looked over, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Uh, honey?  Don’t you still have to make the border?”

“Not only do I have to make it, I have to sew the whole damn thing on as well.  And I have to do the other seam in the blanket.  But the point I was trying to make is that I’m almost done with this seam.”

I’m pretty sure he didn’t get it, but he decided to play along.  He just doesn’t understand that on a slog like this one, you really have to celebrate the tiny victories.

Now that the blocking is done, I have the simple task of sewing the miles of seams between the three panels.  This exercise is making me question why I didn’t just knit it all as one giant thing.  I mean, sure, it would have been nearly impossible to knit on the go, and I would have needed a much longer needle, but on the other hand?

Seaming is ridiculously boring.

Plus, the right seam for the job is not always the same seam I like to use – my go-to seam is a kind of modified mattress stitch where I use the selvage stitches as the guide for the yarn.

Turns out, when you’re seaming purling, that ends up looking a little funny.  It, er, took me a while to accept that, as the multiple inches in the seam above migt indicate.

Not to be bested, I decided to try another seam type (I’m not-so-good when it comes to the technical names for things – we’ll call this ‘seam type B’).

Seam type B is actually also the wrong type of seam for this project.  Very, very wrong.

I thus turned to seam type C, which I didn’t have very high hopes for, but thought I should try just in case.

Nope, I was right the first time.  I’ve never liked seam type C, and I’m apparently not going to start here.

So what was left?  Well, that really left only one viable option: seam type D, the fiddliest, most time consuming option of them all.

Seam type D it is.  Why does the fiddliest option always win?