Saturday, January 26, 2013

Busy Busy

This has been a very productive knitting month, which is always so exciting and satisfying.

1) I churned out the shawl for my friend Amanda in four days. Makes me feel bad for waiting 8 years to start the blasted thing. It needs to be blocked and I might need to redo the bindoff, but that's not bad at all

2) I've gotten my brown sweater up to the point where I should begin the lace pattern. However, I have decided that if I want it to fit (and I do) I am going to need a gauge swatch in lace, which I don't have. So I need to make that and block it next, then calculate how many repeats I can fit into each front and the back, allowing sufficient space on the side for sewing in the sleeves (I probably will not separate the fronts and back until I get to the sleeves). Also I need to calculate the rate of decrease to give me a v-neck piece instead of the scoop.

3) I almost finished this pumpkin hat for my friend--it just needs a stem and a leaf or two.

4) I cast on the January Deep Stash sock that I had originally planned to do this month and am just about done with the toe. From here it is a stockinette grind--perfect for relaxing and watching some knitting podcasts or the Fifth Element (can't wait!).

5) I cast on a pair of Dashing for another friend in my deliciously oatmeal-esque hearty brown local yarn from the winter Madison farmer's market. Right now the sizing might be a concern but they are great fun to knit.

6) with some luck I will be able to finish the first half of my black-shot-with-green-and-blue romney fiber from the DC farmer's market. Then I can ply it. I might chain ply it--I think that would make it nice and scrunchy and delicious, more so than a 2 ply.

7) I picked up my Shipwreck Shawl again, put the needles back on it, and have managed a round or two. As everyone else says, it's not the incessant yo-k2tog pattern that is driving me nuts--I could get used to that--nor even the need to bead on random occasion, but the pushing of the beads deeper into the yarn ball that is creating insanity. After a round and a half of some 500 stitches, I have to push them down again and I practically threw it aside in frustration. I will leave the needles on it, though--perhaps I will work up the nerve to do my tedious work again.

as for other things--my surgery cannot proceed until mid february, and I have a lecture to teach on Tuesday, as well as a paper that I'm in the midst of writing. So things are going along. Now I just need to get a car...

Friday, January 4, 2013

other new exciting plans

of course, just because I have Deep Stash 2013 plans doesn't mean I am not secretly dreaming of all the other projects I want to work on.

The first is this sweater. It's basically Hey Teach!, from Knitty Summer 2008. Unfortunately, I've made some size that falls in between but fits me great. I was planning to give it raglan style decreases but that seems to clash with the scoop neck. I still want to modify the neck so the last button point will be right where the patterning on the top begins--I don't look good with buttons marching up the mountains of my breasts like old civil war soldiers. Still, I haven't come up with a good sketch yet, so I'm just going to have to calculate numbers for a bad sketch and hope the end product is better than my ability to draw can convey. I will probably, however, not do raglan decreases, no matter what my sketch conveys--I like the fitted sleeve holes the Hey Teach! shaping leaves.

To figure out for this project:
1) how long I want it to go before I start the top
2) what adjustments I need to make to accomodate my breasts
3) what sort of adjustments I need to make for the back so it fits well at the neck, etc
4) what adjustments I need to make to get the pattern to fit on the front and the back
5) how to make sure the sides are at the sides when I split up the front and back work.

Next thing that's important to me is a couple of shawls I've wanted to make for a year: Colour Affection and Hitchhiker.

I think I'll start with Colour Affection--partly because it's more complicated, and partly because I have a new swift and ball winder from the holidays (!!!eee!) so I can wind up the yarns and that's very satisfying, and partly because it's garter stitch and I can appreciate that a great deal right now, but it's also going to make a crescent and I really like crescent shawls. I've got black, grey, and a bright-green yellow that I think will look fantastic together.

Hitchhiker was a recent gift and I want to use these Mawata I purchased in stunning dark blues and purples. I think it will show off the gorgeous colors as well as the lovely squashiness of the drafted silk

My next eagerly anticipated project is a blanket for the couch--multiple sizes and arrangements of rectangles and squares in four central colors, surrounded by a subtle gray frame. I can't wait to plot it all out and carefully plan the colors and shapes and types of squares. I picked up some stolid Ella Rae wool in pale blue, dark brown, rust orange, and a rusty red, plus some pale creamy gray. I can't wait to knit it--it's such a winter project, like oatmeal, all cozy and garter stitch (I imagine).

Finally I need more socks for myself, and I've got some wonderful sock yarn to try out sock yarns to use:
Green Dragon sock yarn (Leyburns? It'd be nice, but it's such a big ball I still think--shawl)
Green LRB spark sock yarn (something handcarved and cable-y)
madelinetosh tosh sock in Nebula (maybe also handcarved and cable-y)
Plymouth yarn happy feet in purple
Plymouth yarn happy feet in green --almost definitely the Firestarter pattern in my queue--maybe the same for the purple?
Unplanned Peacock sock yarn in the perfectest of blues. Not sure what to make but sure that I really really love it
Satsuma orange socks if I can figure out a wonderfully round modern pattern

I think between this and the fiber I want to spin, I'm pretty set for fun projects for the year.

New, exciting plans! Same old stash.

I've bit the dirt financially this December. Between car problems and medical problems, it looks like I am going to be living off stash for a long time. That's fine by me. I have a beautiful, well-rounded stash and so many projects in mind for it.

What I've got on the needles right now:
a pumpkin hat for a friend that I need to finish up
a pair of mitts for my sister that I need to finish up really badly and have hardly started
a half-finished sweater for myself that I just figured out needs some raglan decreases and I hope those go well with pattern because I am sort of improvising everything

 Everything else is hibernating! I'm away from stash for the holidays, I'm staying focused. There are things that need finishing up and changing and fixing and regular work all at the bottom of the stash, and I'm ignoring those. They're not active. Instead, since it's a new year, I'm dreaming of all the possibilities again. What creative magic can I make with each of these yarns? Is that enough yardage for a Clapotis or am I going to have to buy a few more balls? Should I make a Hitchhiker first or a Colour Affection? Do I want plain beautiful blue socks or ribbed ones or some sort of intricate pattern to make them into waves?

 I love this stage of creativity. Of course it's easy--it's all focused on reward and not at all on the work it'd take to get there. But I also love to organize and plan and sort--gives me a thrill to figure it out, a bit like a puzzle. And I get to spend time with the pretties in my stash (and not worry about spending money, like when I go looking at pretties online).

 I have a goal for 2013: to use 12 of my 24 oldest yarns in projects, one per month. I love all my yarn but I forget to appreciate the deepest stuff whenever I get a new shiny one to play with. Obviously the goal is to use it all up, but I have decided I absolutely MUST cast on the project by the 5th of the month and absolutely MUST work for four solid hours on it by the end of the month.

 Deep Stash 2013

January: I actually have to cheat this month--I'm away from my stash and so I can't start much of anything, but I did bring some sock yarn with me that's amongst my oldest purchases. The cheating is, of course, that I've already got one sock done in the yarn. I made it two years ago with my sisters (really? two years ago? but that was the year I took the quals--and I didn't *know* a lot about knitting then--and I thought I'd just restarted learning right before I started studying and I knit that horrible Minty hat that was 400 sizes too large because fuck gauge--wait--oh, that must have been the first qual, three years ago. I seem to associate that hat with Steve's class, so if I was still in that it must have been my first year in grad school. never mind. carry on). That makes this an easy one to start and finish in a short time period.

pros: easy as pie to do a toe-up stockinette sock with a fleegle heel. cute sister socks we can all share if anyone else finishes theirs. I always need more socks.
cons: how shall I show my sisters how to knit heels if I finish the second sock before they get to their heels?
(conclusion: forge ahead. can always make more heels.)

February: I think my first major new project for 2013 is going to be some sort of shawl with these 430 yards of worsted cotton-merino in dusty eggplant. I've had this yarn for so long--it's designated for one of my best and oldest friends, but the project for her has just never been right. She's been waiting nearly 7 years (whether or not she knows it), so it's about time to start something. The problem is that 430 yards is, now that I *actually* know something about knitting--pretty much nothing. And I can't find this yarn in this color anywhere any more, not even online. So we will have to see what happens here. The reason I've never started is because I've always wanted to do Hex for my friend--a nice geeky pattern. But Hex is done in laceweight and I need to do some serious resizing/calculating/swatching to make it work in worsted with the amount of yarn I have. And I've just found a lovely pattern on ravelry--the Tsu Wrap, which looks amazing. It's knit from the bottom up rather than side to side, making it harder to resize, but perhaps I'll knit two pieces and find a way to graft them together to double the length. Oh, I don't have enough yarn for that--fine, I'll add some repeats. It'll still be great.

Pros: work on oldest planned gift wip. make Amanda have a happy smiling face. get to work with some worsted yarn
Cons: pattern mods. short month, and longer pattern. Might have to choose something else to go with yardage shortage.
(conclusion--might not finish it in February, but I am excited to finally start it, and I think I'd rather do the easy pattern than try and adapt Hex. I like to plunge right into things.)

 March: people are sprogging. A lot. They tend to sprog in spring. In other words, I've got baby stuff to knit so I can produce things for babies coming in April. Okay, fine, there's only one so far but I like both of its parents a great deal. I won't be going as deep as my original Deep Stash 2013 plans, but I'll be using some generic wool that has an unspecified age in my stash so I think that's good enough. I think I have enough greens to pull off a cardigan and a hat, so that'll be fun and quick.

pros: baby knits are quick. needed for a friend.
cons: not technically deep stash (conclusions: none)

April: Speaking of people whom it is time to knit for--my oldest friend likes pink. I kinda don't like pink, but it's occasionally fun to knit with something new and interesting. I got yarn-bombed two years ago and received some crazy stuff, including this light pink Grignasco Champagne. Never going to use it for myself, and it's a merino-silk, so it's terrible for baby stuff. Still, I think it'll work for Robin. And I already have a plan in mind--I always wanted to try the Clapotis that everyone loves. Of course, they call for 820 yards, and I barely have 400 remaining, so I shall have to order two more balls. Going to wait until I get home to make an attempt at doing this--not a lot of the color online as far as I can tell. Or, you know,I could give in and turn the other 400 yards into something easier without buying more yarn. Nothing jumps out at me right now except for a slouchy hat, and I'm not sure silk is good for slouchy hats since it might just slip right off.

Pros: gift for a really well deserved friend. get to use up something that's been in my stash for so damned long. easy birthday gift :)
Cons: lots of planning left to do, and April is a short month. Robin has expressed interest in A Scarf! as she currently doesn't have one--but I hate knitting scarves :P and I get the feeling if I make her a nice fat fast scarf I'll still want to make her something out of this stuff, thus not solving the problem. (conclusion: I should probably knit Robin a scarf, and I think this'd be a really cute 2T sweater for Yulan with the yardage I've got... so screw all those plans and look for something february-baby-sweaterish for her.)

 May: Part of the major problem with my deep stash is that I only own 10 lace yarns, and 6 of those are part of my earliest purchases. I want to be able to buy new and interesting stuff, but I feel like I can't buy more laceweight until I actually bloody knit with some of it! So my goal for April is a nice easy laceweight project--I have 370 yards of a gorgeous coppery linen from Habu Textiles in New York City. I was planning on making 198 Yards of Heaven with it, but I think I look better in crescent shawls and I'd like to find one that has a pattern that's easy to extend, then, since I have a strange yardage. Linen keeps its shape very well when blocked, so I'd like something intricate and lacy. Good Day Sunshine has a lot of potential, as does the Echo Flower Shawl (though needs more yards). I don't want to do something with garter stitch--I don't think linen is good in garter stitch, especially not in a solid color like this. Still, we will have to see--one of those sideways shawls might be the only way to get a shawl with this yardage, and I do like how they fit.

Pros: pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty! and all for me. Plus some practice doing delicious lace.
Cons: ugh. lace. manipulating tiny stitches with tiny needles. takes forever to get anywhere in a project, and the yardage doesn't go nearly as far as it should.
 (conclusions: I shall suck it up and do it. I love the final product of lace, even though it requires so much dedication to produce. Have messaged the designer about resizing Good Day Sunshine.)

June: I might have some vacation time, so this month might be extra fun. Certainly the number of meetings drops as we hit summer. So I have a harder goal for this month. A year and a half ago, when I was in denmark, I started a hugely complicated lace shawl out of some ridiculously frog-hair-thin and super expensive laceweight cotton boucle and it was a huge pain in the ass and had to go into time out. Now that I know more about knitting (yep, I know more every year), I think I'm ready to pick it up again--the yarn isn't that thin (oh, well, it is), nor that expensive, and the pattern isn't nearly as complicated as I imagined, especially as I have a better knowledge of ssk and k2tog. I want to pick it up again and see if I can finish up the central motif and start figuring out the border motif. If I finish it in June, that'll be great--if it doesn't get done, at least progress has been made.

Pros: a cool challenge. a beautiful product. way to get into some of my laceweight again.
Cons: two lace months in a row might be a bad plan.
(conclusions: let me be crazy!)

July: time for a crazy crazy goal. I made some plastic yarn (plarn) out of tons of shopping bags two years ago, and haven't touched it since. Meanwhile, I (sort of) have learned to crochet. I've wanted to make myself some big re-usable shopping/grocery bags that can go over my shoulder for a while now, but have never been motivated to do so before. Now I've decided--I want a pair of huge granny squares for the front and back, connected by smaller sides and a bottom--and I want a long shoulder strap that's sturdy and comes from the sides, not from the middle. I am pretty sure if I can work on my granny square technique this won't be very hard to do--the tricky part will be trying to do cute colors or patterns using plarn.

Pros: eco friendly. way to use up some crazy stash. new craft of crochet to practice and break up any monotony. useful product. something for me (always more motivating).
Cons: not so good at crocheting yet. might turn out fucking ugly. totally improvising (it seems like), so lots of planning work before I can execute. working with plarn might seriously suck like I have not yet considered, even doing crochet instead of knit.
(conclusion: well, fuck, let's try it!)

August: August is hot. Yes, we've got air conditioning, and it's the month I wear my sweaters because at work it's about 50 degrees. But outside it is disgusting and humid and it's kind of tough to knit. There's also a lot of different things going on, including deadlines and new students coming in that I get to take care of. So I'm sticking with the simplest project I can imagine with my yarn. I have one ball of some rowan felted tweed dk (a yarn I love and wish I could stockpile in a thousand colors for every possible fair isle project I ever imagine). I don't know what to make with it yet, but I imagine a pair of fingerless mitts and a slouchy hat might be fun. Of course, I look fucking stupid in slouchy hats. This stuff is just a bit rough for something like a fine lace cowl. It does, however, appear to make a lovely pair of Chevalier mittens, which is something I've always wanted to try, so I might just have to make those for myself. Either that, or they'll end up as the base of something with colorwork from the folk mittens book--that'd be fun!

Pros: quick project, not too much yarn. I like mittens. I love tweed.
Cons: I never wear mittens. I have no alternative colors. mittens in August is insane.
(conclusions: I am insane. good enough)

September: I have a couple of options for this month. I can try a hat or a baby cardigan or blanket or something with my cotton/wool blend geilsk yarn from Denmark (which I'm a bit reluctant to ever use up but which is in a limited palette so can't be used for much), or I can make mitts or mittens or a fat hot baby cardigan out of my berroco peruvia that I've had for at least three years in lovely subtle tones of purple, blue, cream, green, and brown--but it's a single ply and fuzzes like the Second Coming of Jesuskittens. This will be decided by how I feel in September.
Pros: open options
Cons: lack of plans = bad!
(conclusions: needs more work)

 October: Finally cooling off enough (I hope) that I can try my first mohair laceweight. I want to make a lovely leafy shawlette for a beautiful woman I know up in Washington. Probably will pull something from my favorites, but I might try the Frozen Leaves that's currently in my queue pros: gift for someone I care about. get to try mohair. get to do some more lace again. cons: mohair is sort of terrifying. mohair laceweight is even more terrifying. (conclusions: we'll see how this goes) November: This month will be busy with family and holiday knitting, so I am going to once again try to turn that ball of misti baby alpaca from being yarn-stormed into something to give to my mother. I still think thrummed mittens would be cute and super warm with this, but the alpaca is going to stretch out any traditional ribbing so I need a good mitten cuff that'll still be pulled in a bit when they're put on.

Pros: warm warm mittens to make a happy mom. get to try thrumming. holiday gift would be helpful to get out of the way.
Cons: not sure if this is going to work as an idea. not sure if I will have enough yarn, either (conclusions: well, I'll just ignore all the possibilities of failure and give it a try for now)

December: The December project is special. The first laceweight I bought was a lovely squooshy surprisingly cheap baruffa cashwool in a brilliant red. I have failed at winding it for years now and will have to send it off to be untangled by a professional (ie one of those untanglers on ravelry who loves to solve problems). And once it's done, I want to start an estonian lace pattern from that book by Nancy Bush. I don't dream I can finish one in a month, and I might even need to buy more yarn--but I can't wait to try it. If I finish that, I will consider myself an expert knitter. (it'd be nice to follow a pattern for a sweater instead of reading the directions until I feel like I understand and then knitting what I think is right, but small steps, you know?)

Pros: beautiful, BEAUTIFUL lace that is why I learned how to knit in the first place. all for me. out of a squishy merino yarn that I've had forever and love
Cons: epic, hard, challenging lace. and that's the fourth lace project of the year. I might be a bit laced out by then.
(conclusion: still going to do it. EEEEEEE!)