I am sitting here, ripping out at least a foot (if not two) of Homespun yarn that I had managed to knit into a ribbed prayer shawl (you may remember it from this blog post). Frogging this sucks, by the way, but I'm doing it all in the name of a cause.

A post in the Livejournal Knitting Community today let people out there in knitter-land know that an organization in Connecticut is collecting prayer shawls to be handed out to cancer patients in CT and Massachusetts. Since I used to live in Connecticut, and I have the recommended three skeins of Homespun, I am frogging the darn shawl.

Hopefully when I finish, I'll still have the desire to cast on again for the correct shawl. They're not due until October, so I should be okay. I'll miss it (the yarn was striping in a rainbow pattern that was really pretty), but I think I should start giving back.

For more information on this project (like how you don't have to use Homespun), go to The Comfort Shawl Project page and take a look around.

Sorry for no pictures today, but I thought that a shot of the rainbow monster that's currently eating my lap might not be something I want captured for all eternity.

I'm baaaaaaaaaaack!

Hey look, I'm alive! I know the two of you who stumbled on this blog accidentally probably didn't even miss me. I've been pretty busy for the past few months -- receiving both a B.A. and B.F.A. from my college, moving, the works.

Unfortunately, the week after I graduated my older brother died. I've been in a funk for the past month, but lately I've been opening the windows, finding the camera cord, and trying to get my life started again. The day my brother died, I received the most wonderful birthday package from a college friend. She had no way of knowing what was going to happen, or how much her package would mean to me, but I was so appreciative.

She sent me the most gorgeous wool yarn ever. I have no idea what to do with it. I don't want to ruin it.

It is Storm Moon Knits Celestial Worsted.

She also sent me two skeins of Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Grande. I'm thinking of making an amazing, fluffy hat. (One skein is blue and one is white.)


For no good reason, last week I dug out one of the crochet hooks I happened to have but had no idea how to use, and learned how to make a foundation chain and the chain that goes on top of that. Then I was lost. Because it had given me a challenge, I went on amazon.com and ordered Kutz's Learn to Crochet book. It arrived today. While I haven't opened the accompanying items or tried anything in the book yet, I am pleased. Maaaaaaaaybe one of the reasons I ordered it in the first place is because it came with a tapestry needle, and I can't find one of the four I know I own.

Just maybe.

Back To Basics

I have placed the sock far far away because somehow it got a hole and in the process of my tinking it back (since I did NOT drop a stitch), I managed to--you guessed it--drop a stitch.

Instead, I have picked up a prayer shawl made out of Lion Brand Homespun that I mis-followed the directions to, making it ribbed. Most shawls aren't ribbed, but this is me giving a flying hoot. (It is not fun to frog a foot of knitted Homespun.)

I don't know if the colorway I have is supposed to make rainbow stripes, but mine is. I picked an arbitrary set of needles and an arbitrary cast on and yet it's making rainbow stripes. Go figure. Of course, as soon as I add the next skein of Homespun, the rainbow stribes will fail me and everyone will laugh at my sucky joining.



I may or may not be overanalyzing this.

Um, Not Quite ...

So today I was sitting at a table for my school's Fem Fair -- I had chosen to show alternative menstrual products (sea sponge tampons, cloth pads, menstrual cups, unbleached tampons, etc) and had been getting mixed reactions.

One student who I've known for a few years came over and told me that it was "kind of scary", but then expressed some interest in the items. We chatted for a few minutes.

"Someone told me you had a knitted tampon over here."

Whoa. Stop the train. I held up the sock-in-progress and squinted at it. "This is a sock." I told him. "Or it's going to be."

"Oh, I know," he assured me. "But somebody told me you had a knitted tampon, and I don't know what I think about that."

I informed him he was mistaken, though you probably could knit a tampon, and he went on his way.



... does my sock really look like a tampon?

The Joys of Frogging Socks

Well, as per the title, I think you can guess what happened to me over the weekend. When I finally looked at the ribbing, I realized that I'd been managing to wrap the yarn over the previous needle I'd worked with, adding stitches. I'd also dropped a stitch somewhere along the line, and since I have no idea how to pick the darn things up, I began the arduous process of tinking.

Of course, in the process of tinking, I dropped another eight stitches and finally ripped the damn thing up, frustrated. The fire alarm had given me a migraine that still hasn't quite kicked the bucket.

Every time I tried to work on the socks over the weekend, I would lose the last stitch I had cast on and end up with one short when I joined and knit the first row. This happened more times that I would like to count or admit.

Finally, last night I tried the long-tail cast on again (that thing is complicated, but so much faster than knitting on) and amazingly kept all 48 of my stitches. So far, so good. I'm over an inch and a half in the ribbing, I haven't lost any stitches and I haven't gained any. I check the ribbing fanatically every row to make sure I haven't dropped one, either. Makes for more tedious knitting, but it's worth it to me.

Priorities

When the first thing you grab after the fire alarm wakes up are your glasses, the second are real pants, the third is the sock you've just figured out to knit and finally stopped working on five and a half hours ago, and then the keys to your room -- clearly, you've got your priorities straight.

On the plus side, I used the downtime standing in the freezing cold to keep knitting and got a few rows in (and some amazed looks -- gosh, I feel special), which means the ribbing on the first leg is officially at one inch. Four to go. And then the rest of the sock.

But shh. I'm tired and want to feel like I've accomplished something, so we'll let me have my small, false victory.

That Fabled First Pair of Socks

So maybe the real reason I started this blog was because of socks. I've knit some scarves, some dishcloths, some coasters, a hat, and a stuffed heart that looked like an amoeba. Clearly, my ability at something that isn't rectangular kind of sucks.

About a month ago, I decided that I Was Going To Make Socks. I went down to my local yarn store, Stitchy Women (I'll write a post about them later), asked the lady for forgiving yarn and needle size suggestions. She steered me in the direction of Plymouth Encore Colorspun Worsted and size 5 wooden DPNs because I told her I knit loosely.

This yarn had the possibility of becoming That Yarn You Bought That You Don't Do Anything With, or That Yarn That You Finally Make Something Out Of Because It's Been Sitting In The Shopping Bag For Six Months But It Wasn't A Pair Of Socks And You're Kind Of Disappointed About It.


(The yarn in question, by the way.)

So a few weeks ago I ordered two books: the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules! and Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks. I trusted my fellow knitters when these books were suggested. I even paid real shipping on them when they came out to be under $25. (Yes, I could have bought something else knitting-related, but you start with stitch markers and end up with a $40 blocking board and you know it.)

Of course, by the time I got them, it was spring break and the only thing I'd brought with me to knit was a poncho. A poncho made out of Lion Brand Trellis on big honking needles. Garter stitch for four feet. I think my rationale was that I was going to work on my thesis over the break. Clearly I was an idiot, because I didn't. I should have brought the yarn and DPNs.

Even though I've been back at school for a few days, I haven't had the time to look for them. In some fit of organization which apparently only lasted five minutes, I'd put them away somewhere -- away from the other 18 places I keep my stash. Kind of hard to make socks if you can't find the ingredients.

Of course, they ended up being right behind me, literally. I found them in the file cabinet behind my desk chair. They were within fiber-inhaling distance all along.

So I started them last night. I even did something Very Important And Rare.

I swatched.

Since I've basically made rectangular items and items that don't mind if you don't swatch (seriously, if I can't get one tiny stuffed heart out of 158 yards of Lion Brand Wool, I shouldn't be a knitter), I have never actually swatched before. I didn't want to swatch, but both the Yarn Harlot and Ann Budd gently dissuaded me. Okay, maybe the Yarn Harlot was a little more hyper about it, but I swatched. I swatched and it was Okay.

(Just because I swatched doesn't mean I swatched four inches of stockinette like Ann Budd suggested. Ann, so far I like you, but I don't like you that much.)

I found out that I got 6 stitches to the inch, a stitch above what the yarn suggested. Apparently I don't knit as loosely in the round. But whatever, because Ann had a pattern for it. I dutifully measured my foot and promptly couldn't figure out whether I should make the child large or adult small. I went for the small, but with my luck this sock will fit on Bigfoot when I'm done with it, so oh well.

I will say that Ann's visual directions for the cast-ons (Long-tail and Old Norwegian) weren't too helpful. In fact, I went to several other websites. The one on Knitty helped, but then I couldn't replicate it. So I found the one from KnittingHelp on YouTube.

Success! I began casting on my 48 stitches and started working in K2P2 ribbing.

Which was all fine and dandy, until I realized somehow I'd managed to tangle the yarn around a needle, and it was now a closed tube. Since I'd already made a yarn ball, it wasn't going to fit through a bunch of tiny DPNs to untangle itself. I tried, though. I tore out feet of yarn from both directions. I don't know why I did it, but really I do. I didn't want to frog. It had taken me this long to get it started, and I didn't want to frog.

But I did frog, and rewound the entire darn ball of yarn. I even began to cast on again, but by then it was like, two in the morning and I knew that I would stay up until I'd done five inches of ribbing and that's a bad idea when you have school in the morning.

In the meantime, I've lost my stitch marker. Oh well. You know, I think "oh well" is going to be my motto here. I have hairbands. I don't have a lot of hair. Hairbands can be stitch markers, damnit.

While I have an hour where I'm proctoring an exam later, I'm not going to bring the sock. The sock is not conducive to making sure people don't cheat. Besides, I still need to work on that thesis.